Which logic system is “independent of human existence”? Aristotelean? Boolean? Intuitionist? Propositional?
How do you know that it’s independent of human existence? Have you consulted with non-humans to verify this?
And if any or all of these logic systems are intrinsic to human intelligence, why did they take so long to appear in human history, and why did they only appear in western civilization?
However, love is independent of particle physics’ existence; there could be all kinds of microscopic substructures that support the same macroscopic phenomenology. That’s due to a nearly miraculous property of our universe: that it allows us to formulate effective theories that ignore its microscopic particulars which are nevertheless meaningful within their domain of validity. They possess unanalysed primitives, and all of their assertions are contingent on these primitives, and it’s true that typically, a more fundamental theory exists which can analyse these primitives further – but that’s not a guarantee, and currently, all our theories contain such unanalysed primitives.
In fact, a naive reductionism runs into severe problems trying to find ever more fundamental levels of description: either there always is a more sophisticated microscopic theory analysing the primitives of the previous one, or at some point, there’s a most fundamental level, whose primitives must be taken unanalysable. Both would then contain contingent truths, and, if I understand you right, hence not be fundamental to you, and in principle on par with the description of a world in terms of human-derived concepts.
Actually, in physics, the strategy to overcome this has sometimes been to look back to the macroscopic in order to justify the particulars of the microscopic. Anthropic reasoning provides one example: we find us in a universe that is this particular way because in a universe that was greatly different, we couldn’t exist. This has been sharpened by John Wheeler to the participatory anthropic principle: that the universe is the way it is and we are the way we are is not merely incidental, but one requires the other; humans – observers – are necessary to bring the universe into being.
In a somewhat similar vein, Stephen Hawking has recently made a bit of a splash arguing essentially that the cosmos, to be able to come into existence, must contain gravity, and that, since M-theory is the most general (supersymmetric) theory of gravity, it thus must be the correct microscopic description of the universe; yet gravity is not fundamental in M-theory.
That’s all without going deeply into the ephemera of quantum mechanics, in which (according to, for instance, the relational interpretation) for instance to an observer A, a system might be in some definite state, whereas according to another observer B, that same system S might be in a superposed state, and indeed inextricably entangled with observer A, such that interaction between B and A on a macroscopic level may change B’s microscopic description of S. In other words, the same system may have distinct, but equally correct, microscopic descriptions, dependent on the observer (which may or may not be a macroscopic system), and interaction between the two observers on the macroscopic level (for instance, A telling B the outcome of his experiment), may change the correct microscopic description of S.
Perhaps somewhat less esoteric, falsifiable microscopic predictions have been made, conditioned on features of the human level: Fred Hoyle predicted the existence of the 7.6 MeV energy level of carbon-12 from considerations based on the existence of life on Earth; thus, considerations on a ‘derived’ level can have a direct impact on the ‘more fundamental’ one, and can’t be simply thrown out.
That’s all just to say that it’s hard (if not downright impossible) to formulate a complete theory on the basis of ‘universal truths’. Indeed, for any supposed universal truth, say x = A, one can always ask: why?, and if the theory does not give an answer, then it is hardly complete; but if it does, we weren’t talking about a universal truth in the first place.
Naxos, can you clarify something for me? I’ve done my best to follow along here, but this thread has gotten a bit technical for me. It seems that you are arguing that there is an external “truth” or "reality " to the universe that is independent to human perception. I would agree that is true. However, since we have no choice to but to view the universe through the limitations of our biological limits I’m failing to understand the significance of your point. At this point in our development, we only know of one sapient/ sentient species : Humans. Until we advance enough to confirm the existence of others and communicate with them to exchange viewpoints; is it not then logical to place the highest worth upon those philosophies that advance the human condition? Logic and reason are human constructs, just like mathematics. They are ways of interacting with the abstract, and subject to the limits of our biology. Logic and reason do not exist independently somewhere in a perfect state that we just glimpse fleetingly. They are hard won concepts of a diligent and trained mind. They are inextricably linked with perception.
That’s two mutually contradictory statements you have there.
Anyway, logic and reason are human constructs. They *have *no independent existence outside human minds.
Acid Lamp: That’s part of what I’m trying to say, but your phrasing is much better than mine. In addition, there’s the obvious difficulty that on some questions if you gather together 500 different people and ask them for a response based on logic and reason, you’ll get 500 different answers. The idea that “logic and reason” provide a viewpoint based on absolute truths while bypassing human prejudices is one that most people probably flirt with at some point, but which simply doesn’t hold together. It’s kind of like Santa Claus. When you’re young they tell you it’s true and you’re supposed to figure out for yourself that it’s not as you grow older.
Logic has no independent existence outside my human mind. This statement is false (assuming one is not a solpsist).
I agree “systems” is the key word…that’s why I underlined it. “All philosophy” clearly does not fit into a single system, since various, well-reasoned philosophical systems are inconsistent with each other.
I also disagree with the implication that philosophical systems are not necessary to work on philosophical problems. In fact, this entire thread shows that, by default, people bring a philosophical system with them every time they discuss even isolated philosophical questions.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying one has to master centuries of philosophical work in order to discuss philosophical questions, and no one has (or needs) a perfect system in order to “work fruitfully on particular problems”. But when I read statements like “Logic has no independent existence outside my human mind” or “All theistic claims are false by definition” thrown out as fiats, they read like the results of some line of philosophical reasoning developed by the posters who wrote them. I suggest that a deeper examination of the presumed systems that support their arguments would be a more fruitful starting point that just insisting on the conclusions.
I have difficulty parsing this response, but I’m going to proceed as though you were disagreeing with me.
*How *does logic (well, systemic logic, which is what I *assume *we’re all referring to here) exist other than as a field of human study? *Humans *choose the premises and axioms of *every *logic system, based on very *human *ideas like the immutability of causality and the superiority of symmetry over asymmetry. Even such unorthodox logic systems as modal and intuitionist logics are human constructs for when formal/classic logics can’t handle ambiguity.
When computers program themselves from first principles, there might then be a logic system we could point to as independent of human existence. None of the existing systems is it.
ETA: If the statement that people *think *they are making is that there is an underlying system to the universe, ordered or chaotic doesn’t matter, independent of human existence, embodied/described by physical laws, I’d agree with this, no problem.
But that is not Logic. Not even Mathematical Logic. That would be the classic category error of mistaking the Map for the Territory.
I am not necessarily disagreeing with you.
Logic has no independent existence outside human minds. Yes.
Logic has no independent existence outside my human mind. No, unless one were a solpsist.
I find it interesting that philosophy, the mother of all sciences, has been reduced to a discussion of why women get so pissed off when men leave the toilet seat up. But it was inevitable: you can figure out only so much with the naked eye and and some educated guesses. Van Leeuwenhoek upset a lotta apple carts when he discovered bacteria and spermatozoa.
The strong anthropic principle observes that the universe *needed *intelligent life in order to exist. So far, we fill the bill due to the fact that the universe is the way it is because that’s the way *we *see it. By our very existence (and our existence alone) we define the universe. Humanity alone is the arbiter of reality and that’s how it’s going to stay until we stumble upon a differing point of view—and even that is doubtful.
So are human perspectives irrelevant? Hardly. To paraphrase Vince Lombardi, human perspectives aren’t everything, they’re the only thing.
Oh, and it’s 17 angels dancing on the head of a pin and turtles all the way down.
Not at all. Gravitational effects could be observed, understood, examined and analyzed by any advanced intelligence in the universe, not only humans. They could even be affecting a primitive awareness quality of mass that we’ve yet to discover.
Our capacity for logic allows us to understand things that don’t depend on us to exist, which is what I call universal truths.
You’re saying that theistic claims depend on the existence of other lifeforms. If other beings do exist then it would be all too obvious that the human religions and philosophies would not apply to them. So your comment becomes an indirect claim that humans are the only beings with consciousness and their theistic beliefs are the ultimate answer to questions about the world.
The universe has countless galaxies. Will you repeat your claim for each one of them?
Since we’re on an online forum and are not making an academic treatise on the subject, it’s enough to say for now that your claim is absurd.
Bananas have no color. It’s the human brain that has assigned a specific neuro-chemical based cognitive response we call “yellow” to the skin of the balana, which would be exactly the same for a human being under Earth conditions in any other galaxy in the universe.
“We” refers to the scientific knowledge we’ve acquired using reason and having reasonable success in excluding much of human bias, religion, superstitions, etc.
It’s not a matter of mind reading. We know why people believe in supernatural beings, we know the psychological reasons they do so, we know the sociological reasons they make groups and keep on propagating their unsubstantiated claims.
What do you mean?
The significance is that theories about how humans behave, what they do, and what would be best for them to do, have to bee seen in their correct context and avoid the trap that human beings are the ultimate intelligent being that everything else depends on.
This is what social sciences are all about. My point is that ideas about humans are forever trapped within human bias and although the improvement of the human condition is both useful and necessary, it cannot hope to address universal truths that are independent of us.
They are but they are the tools that allow us to glimpse into a world that not only is much bigger than us, but it is there independently of us.
This is just absurd and very similar to a creationist claim.
I realize “truth” is a loaded term, but do we need to know “why” gravity exists to know that the same laws govern the Milky Way and Andromeda and that their spiral arms are not the creation of a spirit learning how to draw?
Naxos: “Bananas have no color. It’s the human brain that has assigned a specific neuro-chemical based cognitive response we call “yellow” to the skin of the balana (sic), which would be exactly the same for a human being under Earth conditions in any other galaxy in the universe.”
No, the banana is not colorless; it absorbs all the light that falls on it and reflects a color, a sliver of the narrow spectrum of light that humans can perceive. In English, for example, all things that similarly reflect this little wavelength we assign the abstract value “yellow” and spell it as I have (an additional abstraction).
But notice that this all depends on human perception. Were there no human to see the banana, then you might be right. In fact, there might be no banana at all. We will never know because we *are *here and we *do *see the banana and it is, in fact yellow. (Okay, they also come in green or brown at some point too.)
The question is whether human perspective is relevant to philosophy. The answer is yes, and not only to philosophy but to the universe as a whole.
Just don’t make me pull the cat out of the box to see if it’s alive or dead, okay?
The human perspective is unavoidable. My point is that any theories or claims we come up with regarding how the world works have to be free from human bias if they have any hope of being true and not circumstantial and false.
The object, in the banana example, may be reflecting a particular wavelength, but another living being, even other animals on Earth, may not have a sensitivity to that wave length so they won’t see it as yellow. They will see it as their brain has evolved to respond to that wavelength, either with a specific or a generalized response.
Many of our intellectual endeavors we call philosophy are often immersed in self-centered and ego-centric bias and they have to be treated as such because they don’t have any hope of addressing universal laws, truths, conditions, contexts or methods.
I misspoke.
I meant to say that logic and reason are our capability to deduce truths that are independent of the human existence.
The answer to your first question from the choices you offer would more likely be Propositional. Mathematical Logic is also fitting but it’s not fully defined yet.
Your last question about taking so long for logic to appear in human history is meaningless. From an evolutionary perspective, the time of humans on this planet is trivial compared to other life forms, not to mention the life span of the solar system itself. From a sociological perspective, impressively worthwhile ideas about the universe and its qualities (examples: Heraclitus and Parmenides) are available to us for 2,500 years but due to the unrelenting personal desire for humans to be subservient to others, either living beings or supernatural entities, such philosophies have been buried and discarded until the eventual arrival of secular philosophies a very long time later.
It’s the same type of ego-centric delusions that persecuted Galileo that is resisting the obvious universal truth that humans and their fantasies, like gods, are not the cause of the universe, and that we have to exclude human bias in philosophical ideas, if the term still stands for the drive we have to know the world around us.
You appear to believe that because we have quantified the behavior of, say, gravity (if not how it actually operates), that it and the other laws of physics that we see are invariably the same throughout the universe. Such may not be the case—we have no way of knowing for certain. In fact the possibility does exist that due to some small aberration the laws of physics may have broken down in some obscure backroom in the universe and a tidal wave of destruction to the universe we perceive is bearing down on us as we speak. But what appears to us as a cosmic tragedy is leaving behind a new set of circumstances that may have given rise to another form of intelligent “life” that sees a completely different universe remarkably different from ours. And yet, it is the same universe. But the “universal truths” that you like to point to (vaguely, I might add) have all changed into something we cannot hope to perceive or appreciate.
I know, sounds like a bad science fiction novel. But my point is that we don’t care if animals can actually see yellow. They’re not human (even if they are delicious) so they can’t form complex philosophies of existence. Only we can. Their extent of concern for the universe ends with food, procreation, and avoidance of predators. (Pretty much like a frat boy, no?)
We can’t avoid human bias because we’re crucial to the conversation. Without it, the universe is nothing. Literally.