[lit-ideas] Re: Hands Across The Bay
- From: "Donal McEvoy" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "donalmcevoyuk" for DMARC)
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 18:00:41 +0000 (UTC)
McEvoy notes:“The case of Robertsv Gill Solicitors was not introduced to
finetune [our] legalknowledge, but as a way to bring out the reality of World
3.”Interesting use of ‘knowledge,’since, in general, some philosophers would
prefer assumptions, here. As to W3,I was reading some definitions (or
conceptual analyses) of it, and it seems allagree that Popper meant W3 to be a
Homo sapiens’s product. Which I think goesagainst Grunebaum’s idea of
continuity of ‘soul’ in “Method in philosophicalpsychology”: i.e. it might be
argued that a squirrel perceives nuts, and thesquirrel assumes things. So, ‘at
the end of the day,’ as journalese goes, thesquirrel has his own W3. Why
Popper seems to narrow down ‘W3’ to Homo sapiensis somewhat mystical. I guess
he’d agree that there are versions or correlatesof W3 for each species.>
There are number of distinct issues here. Some relate to Popper's views, others
relate to other possible views of W3.
For example, in Popper's version, World 3 is 'restricted in access' only to
humans, and W3 contains human products. Other animals may have sophisticated
analogues of W3-based knowledge, but they only have "knowledge" either by way
of W1 or W2 - for example, a W1-driven programme of action or W2 processing.
It is, of course, open to others to suggest, against this exclusively human
version of W3, that there is a W3 for other animals. But let us work a little
with Popper's views and his reasons for restricting World 3 to being a product
only of human mental activity (and to be uniquely accessed by human mental
activity).
[Personally, I think this view is most open to challenge at the level of the
higher animals but Popper is on solid ground with lower animals.]
Take the bee: it navigates between flowers and hive using the position of the
sun as a reference point. More incredibly, it can communicate positional
information to other bees: the bees have evolved a complex language to tell
each other where the best nectar is, using the sun as a reference point. Even
more amazingly, the bee can do this at night, by referencing the sun's position
on the other side of the world. A bee's brain has less than a million neurons,
whereas a human brain has between 100 and 200 billion neurons. How does the bee
do it? Does it have a 'bee World 3'?
In Popper's view, the bee's system of communication is devoid of any W3
element. It might look like it might have some W3 elements - especially given
the W3-based sophistication that we, as humans, would need to achieve in order
to simulate the bee's achievements in communicating at night by referencing the
sun's position on the other side of the world. But this appearance is illusory,
and it would be a huge mistake to think the bee has any 'bee World 3': it would
be like thinking a dog's sense of smell is W3-based because we would need to
make very advanced W3-based achievements before we could build a machine that
could detect chemicals in the air to the same degree as the dog's nose.
In both the case of bee communication and the dog's nose, what has happened is
very largely (if not entirely) W1-based, with no W3:- the bee's and dog's
sensory system has evolved to detect and respond and act on signals from the
environment, but this evolution is a product of 'natural selection' that can be
largely (if not entirely) explained within W1.
Another example: we might need a highly developed W3-based knowledge to build a
telescope that could see at distances akin to a bird of prey, but that does not
mean the bird of prey sees at those distances using any mechanism that is
W3-based.
So we should not mistake the sophistication and ingenuity by which evolved W1
sensory mechanisms can reflect or embody a form of animal "knowledge", and the
fact we could only simulate those mechanisms using W3-based knowledge, as
showing that those W1 sensory mechanisms involve some animal W3.
The main factor that marks, for Popper, a process as lacking any W3 basis is
that 'error-correction' is always only what is corrected as part of (the
operations of) the W1 or W2 system itself - there is no 'error-correction' by
way of conscious critical reflection on objective W3 content.
If we may allow that animal W1 processes can embody "knowledge" of great
sophistication, we may allow that animal W2 processing may also reflect
underlying "knowledge" of great apparent sophistication - but without making
the mistake of thinking any W3 is involved, or that there is any animal
deploying W2 conscious reflection on 'W3 content' and making 'error-correction'
by way such conscious critical reflection.
Of course, some of this is potentially open to test, though there will be
dispute as to what constitutes an adequate test here: say, an ape could be
taught to master the sequence of natural numbers to the following extent, by
correlating each symbolised number with a number of bananas, so that from a
pile of bananas the ape when presented with the symbol '2' could retrieve 2
bananas from the pile, and when presented with the symbol '3' could retrieve 3
bananas etc. Would this show the ape had grasped the numbers in W3 terms - or
merely that the ape has grasped certain physical correlations?
Obviously we would have to seriously rethink Popper's version of World 3 if an
ape so trained one day grabbed a card marked '10' from their handler, and then
a card marked '4', and, having made a strange hand gesture, then retrieved 40
bananas from the pile; and then grabbed a '10', then '5', then the gesture and
then retrieved 50 bananas etc. - so it appeared the ape had advanced to
multiplication by its own understanding of how numbers may relate in W3 terms.
DL
From: "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, 10 December 2017, 16:02
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Hands Across The Bay
McEvoy is right that hisintroduction of the Roberts case was meant as an
illustration of the workingsof Popper’s W3. I took it as an illustration of H.
L. A. Hart’s Jurisprudenceas he taught it at Oxford, but that’s another
thing.As Toulmin, who taughtphilosophy of science at Oxford, for _years_,
‘legal’ utterances serve manypurposes, hence my narrowing it down to Hart’s
conception of ‘jurisprudence,’in view, especially, that Hart thought he was a
philosopher, as he was!McEvoy notes:“The case of Robertsv Gill Solicitors was
not introduced to finetune [our] legalknowledge, but as a way to bring out the
reality of World 3.”Interesting use of ‘knowledge,’since, in general, some
philosophers would prefer assumptions, here. As to W3,I was reading some
definitions (or conceptual analyses) of it, and it seems allagree that Popper
meant W3 to be a Homo sapiens’s product. Which I think goesagainst Grunebaum’s
idea of continuity of ‘soul’ in “Method in philosophicalpsychology”: i.e. it
might be argued that a squirrel perceives nuts, and thesquirrel assumes things.
So, ‘at the end of the day,’ as journalese goes, thesquirrel has his own W3.
Why Popper seems to narrow down ‘W3’ to Homo sapiensis somewhat mystical. I
guess he’d agree that there are versions or correlatesof W3 for each
species.McEvoy:“That reality [of Popper’sHomo sapiens’s W3] is brought out
somewhat 'indirectly' - as W3 cannot bedirectly observed.”Point taken. As
neithercan W2. In the case of the squirrel’s W3, it is the philosopher (qua
‘idealobserver,’ to use philosphicalese) who comes up with a sort of ‘black
box’ allaFunctionalism, that would incorporate what we ASSUME to be the
squirrel’s setof assumptions as he gathers nuts to eat them – in his version of
his W3. (Iuse ‘squirrel’ because it is Grunebaum’s example in “Method,” even if
he spells‘squirrel,’ to be different, ‘squarrel’, and names him “Toby’.McEvoy:
“Yet W3 is notproposed as a useful phantom or metaphor - we 'experience' its
realityeveryday, e.g. when we use language to convey W3 'content' or
haveW3-based mental processes.”I recently postedsomething about Fodor
(“Fodoriana”) and of course Fodor is fighting against theempiricist paradigm by
Locke, Darwin, and Skinner, for whom the use of ‘verbalbehaviour’ hardly
relates to “W3.” Alas, Fodor’s own ideas (of ‘module,’ etc.)are very
complicated, and it is not a good sign that when he publishedsomething in
“Science” about his views, a reviewer wrote, “Philosopher WithoutA Clue.”
(Fodor is defending a Cartesian and more properly Kantian paradigm of
‘faculty’philosophical psychology. (The material is in the first “Fodoriana,”
whichadmittedly, came out with the wrong format).McEvoy:“However, as
alreadyindicated, the character of that 'experience' can only be shown
by(philosophical) argument and not by scientific test.”Grunebaum was brought
upan ‘empiricist.’ But it took Chomsky to call Grunebaum an empiricist in
Chomsky’s“John Locke Lectures” to have the sympathiser of Grunebaum’s theories,
P.Suppes, across the bays, offering his hand, and redefining Grunebaum’s
‘behaviourism’and ‘empiricism’ as a type of ‘INTENTIONALISM,’ rather – where
the distinctionin terms may be more than merely formal.“How can we best
bring[our ‘experience’ of W3] out? My suggestion is that it may be brought out
byexamining World 2 mental processes in relation to (somewhat
difficult)technical or scientific matters - as opposed to mental processes
involved inputting the kettle on, or asking someone to pass the salt (where the
role of W3may be very submerged).”Well, i. Pass me the
salt. is Grunebaum sympathiserSearle’s example of an ‘indirect’ speech act,
which Searle thought J. L. Austinshould have given more thought to. The
understanding of “Pass me the salt”becomes a VERY CONVOLUTED process –
involving, of course, ‘implicature’: it isthe CONTAINER of the salt that
utterer U is requesting to be passed, e.g. Itmay be different with ii.
Polly, put the kettleon. since, if I were Polly,and we are in the
library, I would not know where to put it on.McEvoy:“We might bring [the
‘experience’of W3] out, indirectly, by examining a form of knowledge (e.g.
legalknowledge) where the W3-theory offers a more plausible account of how we
arriveat understanding than does a theory that our knowledge is built up
fromsense-experience (e.g. sense data) or intuitionism or a-priorism -for how
could sense data, mere intuition, or a priori valid knowledgeanswer the kinds
of questions thrown up by the case of Roberts?”Well, empiricismexplains social
procedures – as empiricism explains ‘verbal behaviour’. And itmight be argued
that among social procedures, there are moral procedures (‘maxims,’say) and
‘legal’ rules, alla Hart, which are ‘primary’ and ‘meta-rules,’ and soon. D. K.
Lewis wrote his PhD dissertation under Quine at Harvard on_conventions_ --
where he analyses ‘convention’ in terms of ‘arbitrariness’. Somelegal
procedures may be ‘arbitrary’ in Lewis’s ‘usage’ of this expression. Andit may
all be brought back to some sort of ‘first-hand’ grasp, alla Oakeshott,with
‘experience,’ as Locke knew it. McEvoy:“Take, for example, thequestion whether
differences in ‘capacity’ are so fundamental that amendment of‘capacity’
amounts to bringing a new case? What sense data, pure intuitionor a priori
category could provide a rational answer?”While there is arationale for this,
some form of ‘arbitrariness’ in the ‘conventionality’involved may be in
order.McEvoy: “Yet in Roberts wefind a rational answer, or attempts at one, by
a form of criticalreasoning based on the relevant W3 'content' or
'material'.”Even if this ‘material’is based, sometimes, on previous individual
cases, which are grounded on ‘legal’experience. And the ‘rationality’ is aimed
at assuring JUSTICE for furtherfuture individual cases, rather than as a matter
of absolute Kantian moralprinciple. (And note Hart’s emphasis on the
distinction between the mistake ofbasing ‘legal’ argument on ‘moral’ argument –
his ‘positivism’ of sorts).Cheers,Speranza
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