I cannot remember when I first mentioned this concept (truth mills) during the course of a philosophy thread (I'm guessing about 5 years ago), yet aside from any 'proofs' I've tried to give about the existence of God, or the metaphysical impotency of science, this concept is right up there in terms of 'enlightenment'.

Computers. Input/output. Yet the output is governed by algorithms/rules which dictate that output. Likewise, machines, whereby one could say that their output was governed by their input (physical forces acting upon the system) such that their output was dictated by the nature of their interior mechanism.

The bottom-line is that we can say that for any external action/force acting upon a body, X, that its reaction/output will be contingent upon its own nature. This is certainly easier to predict wrt physical bodies and computers contingent upon algorithms, not so for 'humans'.

Humans are indeed a mystery for many reasons, but for the purposes of this thread let us focus upon their diverse potential to behave probabilistically. Shades of QM, but I don't want to discuss that here, yet. Instead, let us focus upon the diversity of human beliefs. How can we explain these in terms of input/output/etc.?

Well, you can bombard two skulls with the same bullshit, but the consequences of that might be completely different. Scam emailers make a living out of that philosophy, apparently, otherwise I'd get get no scam email, ever. Regardless, the bottom-line - regarding our skulls - is that the output is not contingent upon the input. If this were not so, we'd ALL have the same beliefs or none at all. Or, we'd all talk like Hitler, or else we'd all talk like Jesus or such.

The bottom-line is that the input into our skull does not dictate the output, thus OUR SKULL dictates the output. That is, our own personalised truth mill dictates the output to every input therein.

This is a very BIG problem for evolutionists, since - given the diversity of our truth mills and hence our output - it implies the Truth Mill is a self-governing dictatorship from the onset!

I will of course be commenting further. For now, I'll just go and prep my freezer.

jamest wrote:This is a very BIG problem for evolutionists, since - given the diversity of our truth mills and hence our output - it implies the Truth Mill is a self-governing dictatorship from the onset!

First, there's a possibility that you're equivocating over "self-governing", second, your premises and inferences haven't been clearly stated. So, as there seems to me to be no problem, for evolutionists, occasioned by the fact that individuals produce different outputs, for the same imput, it would be helpful if you were to spell out your argument in skeleton form.

ughaibu wrote:

jamest wrote:This is a very BIG problem for evolutionists, since - given the diversity of our truth mills and hence our output - it implies the Truth Mill is a self-governing dictatorship from the onset!

First, there's a possibility that you're equivocating over "self-governing", second, your premises and inferences haven't been clearly stated. So, as there seems to me to be no problem, for evolutionists, occasioned by the fact that individuals produce different outputs, for the same imput, it would be helpful if you were to spell out your argument in skeleton form.

I appreciate the fact that the OP needs more meat for intelligent guys like yourself, but from a marketing/butchering point-of-view I need to draw the crowds in first.

jamest wrote:This is a very BIG problem for evolutionists, since - given the diversity of our truth mills and hence our output - it implies the Truth Mill is a self-governing dictatorship from the onset!

Bollocks.

Brain plasticity, and the differential wiring of neurons between individuals arising therefrom, isn't a problem for evolutionary biology, or for neuroscience. It's only a "problem" for the sort of people who think that their made up shit dictates how reality behaves, regardless of how much reality pisses on their hubris.

Try learning how brains actually work.

Deepity is deep, pity.

News at eleven

Assuming evolution should produce humans that are identical machines is the first mistake. The rest can be ignored.

jamest wrote:aside from any 'proofs' I've tried to give about the existence of God, or the metaphysical impotency of science

You rely on what you call the "metaphysical impotency of science" to relieve you of the task of learning any science. Isn't that convenient? It's not just convenient, lad; by your standards alone, it's a fricking truth mill.

jamest wrote:Yet the output is governed by algorithms/rules which dictate that output.

That's not wrong, but as you usually do, you leave out most of the story:

There are computations so complex that we have to wait until the computation is finished to know what the answer's going to be. That's why weather prediction is difficult beyond a certain time frame. We're not limited by the speed of computation alone, and humans unassisted by computers cannot predict weather reliably other than by looking at the sky and taking an umbrella if it looks like it might rain.

jamest wrote:we can say that for any external action/force acting upon a body, X, that its reaction/output will be contingent upon its own nature.

You're leaving out most of the story, again, which is about the source of the inputs, or indeed the influence of the inputs on the output. You conveniently rely on your preferred approach of ignoring the source of the inputs, which is (once again) how you've relieved yourself of the task of learning any science. The comments you generate by means of that approach are stupid and banal. Everything you say relies on refusing to learn any science, which is very convenient for you if you find learning science difficult. You don't have to adopt any metaphysics from science if you don't care to, but you do have to learn something about science if you want to try to have an intelligent conversation about it.

All this is fine with me, but you're not engaging in an intelligent conversation about science, yet. Your idle chatter is the product of prodigious ignorance, and its stupidity is purposeful -- ignoring the inputs -- but that's how you generate the products of your ignorance. Because of all that ignorance, you hope nobody can figure out how dumb or smart you are. Convenient!

jamest wrote:The bottom-line is that the input into our skull does not dictate the output, thus OUR SKULL dictates the output. That is, our own personalised truth mill dictates the output to every input therein.

This is a very BIG problem for evolutionists, since - given the diversity of our truth mills and hence our output - it implies the Truth Mill is a self-governing dictatorship from the onset!

You seem to be suggesting that different responses to the same input (wrt brain function) cannot be explained in evolutionary terms.
Could you please elaborate?

Blackadder wrote:Assuming evolution should produce humans that are identical machines is the first mistake. The rest can be ignored.

What is it about humans that is not identical to machines? It depends on a restrictive definition of 'machine' or clinging to special sauce, or some other excuse. You mean: identical to machines we can imagine designing. Philosophy is only about what we can imagine, after all; we can easily imagine situations that violate the laws of physics, and we can imagine laws of physics exist that we haven't yet discovered, but so what? A little scientific training might restrict a certain sort of imagining in certain ways, and that means you don't waste time on certain kinds of imagining when you really ought to be doing your chores.

Psst...

Cito...

Blackadder did not write "...are identical to machines..." but "...are identical machines...".

Rather changes the entire context of the post.

Thommo wrote:
And also the OP refers to a term "truth mill" which isn't defined, but has previously been used to mean "a way of assigning a value of true or false to a statement", but carried a connotation of Jamest not liking that way.

As stated, it's been several years since I first coined the term. I've just tried searching for the original post in which I mention it but the search engine seems limited to a 5 year period and didn't find it? If someone else can find it, that would be useful.

Anyway, for me the term was meant as a reference for the approach/method in which we address and process any input or idea. This is usually dictated by previously accepted dogma residing within the skull, such that the incoming idea is processed in that light. This is even true for input about physical events where the dogma of scientific beliefs dictates what we think is happening or shall happen. Each belief we accept adds to the machinery within our skull and thus contributes to the manner in which an incoming idea will be processed. The output is thus dictated by the 'machinery' and not the input. This explains the diversity and spectrum of opinion one can readily witness in any arena of life.

Fenrir wrote:Psst...

Cito...

Blackadder did not write "...are identical to machines..." but "...are identical machines...".

Rather changes the entire context of the post.

Indeed. Thank you.

Blackadder wrote:

Fenrir wrote:Psst...

Cito...

Blackadder did not write "...are identical to machines..." but "...are identical machines...".

Rather changes the entire context of the post.

Indeed. Thank you.

Yeah, sorry. I just assumed an elided preposition. Is jamest actually proposing that individuality is what differentiates us from machines? After reflection, I guess that's as far as ol' jamest has gotten, but that just boggles my mind.

Cito di Pense wrote:

Blackadder wrote:

Fenrir wrote:Psst...

Cito...

Blackadder did not write "...are identical to machines..." but "...are identical machines...".

Rather changes the entire context of the post.

Indeed. Thank you.

Yeah, sorry. I just assumed an elided preposition. Is jamest actually proposing that individuality is what differentiates us from machines? After reflection, I guess that's as far as ol' jamest has gotten, but that just boggles my mind.

I think it’s worse than that. What James seems to be arguing is

1. Evolution should produce identical machine like behaviour in humans.
2. Humans do not exhibit identical “machine like” behaviour.
3. Therefore humans are not machines and the theory of evolution is flawed.

As often with James, his premise is fundamentally weak or manifestly wrong. Statement 1 above is as absurd as saying evolution should produce identical hair colouring among humans.

No doubt the Great Sage will be along shortly with a witty riposte, involving frozen badgers, explaining our unworthiness to debate his ideas.

I think if we hooked up an intuition pump to jamest's truth mill, a lot of sewage would be sucked up out of that OP.

All I get from the OP is that he's in love with himself for coming up with a term he can't even apply correctly.

jamest wrote:
The bottom-line is that the input into our skull does not dictate the output, thus OUR SKULL dictates the output. That is, our own personalised truth mill dictates the output to every input therein.

I don't know, James. If you've ever been anywhere outside an internet forum (where you can afford to embarrass yourself because you can't see the faces of your audience), you might understand something more about the indecorous practice of issuing bullshit pronouncements at the frequency you do. I'd point and laugh, but like most of your audience, I'm just sitting in front of a computer monitor admiring the limitations of that medium for proving a point.

Am I the only one here amused by seeing James post Derrida-esque word-salad drivel such as "metaphysical impotency of science", whilst noting that metaphysicians were apparently too intellectually impotent to even fantasise about entities and phenomena that science has placed within precise, usefully predictive quantitative frameworks of knowledge?