Initial thoughts on philosophy of religion

I've been listening to an excellent lecture series on philosophy of religion recently by The Teaching Company. And it's got me thinking about how easy it would be to write a book entitled "bad ideas in philosophy of religion". But, here's some initial thoughts for words and phrases that shouldn't be used.

God

When I mentioned this the other day I was asked "what word would you say instead?" Which highlights exactly the point I dont want to make. The word God is as good as any other. The word itself it not a problem. The danger is when we use that one world to mean different things.

God has a fairly sensible meaning. "Something which is worthy of worship". Generally an omniscient, omni-etc being which created the universe. The problem is when people try to argue about a different meaning of God as though it were the same. Sometimes this is the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, sometimes it's just downright word-magic.

The classic example is people who argue that there is a Church of England God who wants us to go to church on a Sunday and use the book of common prayer by using the cosmological or ontological argument. Now, as it happens both of those arguments are nonsense, but for the sake of argument let us assume they work. What you have proved if so is that a being either "that which no greater can be conceived" in the ontological case or "the uncaused first cause of all". Neither of these ideas contain the slightest reference to the Book of Common Prayer. To argue as though they're the same is just plain wrong.

Metaphor

Language is complex. We often use terms non-literally or non-exactly. We talk about an electron "trying to get to the lowest energy level" knowing damn well that of course the electron hasn't got desires or anything of the kind. The important thing is that it's clear what the metaphor means. In this case that the electron will tend to occupy the lowest energy level it can consistent with the exclusion principle etc etc. If you cant unpack things in this way then there's no point saying it. It's not real communication, it's just you saying words. What's not acceptable, what's not meaningful communication is:

Careful now

"This book in my hand is the most perfect book in the world. It is a literal and perfectly true account of historical events. I base my beliefs and actions on the premise that the events contained in it are genuinely true."

"But this event mentioned here is clearly false."

"That's a metaphor."

To say that the book contains non-literal accounts is fine (so long as what those non-literal accounts mean is clear, which it isn't), but not if the literal accuracy of other parts of the book is something you rely on. Simply put, how do you know what's a metaphor and what's literal?

God is your father

Even given what I said about metaphor "God is your father" is a really bad example of the species. Because it gives a misleading idea of what the relationship between creator and created is. Same problem is implicit in the line "a smooth sea never made a skilled mariner". A loving father does need to be harsh so that his child can survive in the real world. Someone does need to expose a sailor to rough seas so they can survive in the real world.

But in no sense is this true of someone who creates the real world in question. A far better analogy, if we must use one, is to AI and programmer. The programmer can create the virtual world in which the AI is to live. There's nothing to limit what experiences this AI can have. So there's no compulsion on a loving programmer to expose the AI to harsh environments so it can survive in the "real world", there's no reason the AI ever needs to experience a scary world.

Proof

While I'm at it, see also the word certain, impossible etc. There are really really intelligent an well read theists, really really intelligent and well read atheists, really really intelligent and well read agnostics. So you can probably guess that at least someone has heard your argument, it's probably not as knock-down as you think it is. It's not a proof, it's just not.

Also while we're at it. A rather bizarre syllogism that people need to stop using. "You cant prove p" is not a proof that "not p", these are very very different statements.

Abraham

I know you live in the West. I know it's sometimes easier to just stick to what you know and have experience of. But seriously. The God of Abraham is not the only god.

(Btw, as I use it, there is a difference between God and god, a god is a type of thing, God is the name of one such example, God is another word for Yahweh).

This comes up a lot in Pascal's wager type discussions. God or not God is too simple. Which god? The question is how many gods are there and what are they like?

Ethics

Just a quick thing because this is something that offends me. Your religion and your holy book did not invent ethics. People do not need your religion to be moral. Please please dont be so arrogant as to think that you have unique access to moral truth. You just dont.

Philosophy - states and power

I've given a definition of should, now a definition is all well and good, but if it doesn't fit some useful purpose then there's no point having it. So I'm going to test this idea with a few questions, first, the most important and grandest of questions, the nature, extent and existence of the state. If you dont like my answer to these questions then there are 3 possible responses, you must disagree with my facts by showing that a belief I have about the world is false, you must disagree with my analysis by saying that I draw unfair conclusions or you can say that good reasoning lead to a bad result, in which case you must reject my definition of should. So then, the issue:

Morality part 2

Ok, after delaying for far too long I feel I need to respond to these questions with something more substantial than a comment, so here we go.

Philosophy - Morality

And now finally, the point. The entire purpose of philosophy, of thought in general, is to determine what we should do. The key problem is the famous is-ought gap. Thus far I have talked about what is, firstly my perceptions, then theories about them. And then the world reviled by these theories. So now we have to find a way to talk about “ought”. No amount of statements about what is can tell us what we should do. This is because the word “should” is not yet defined. So we need some way to jump the is-ought gap. I'm going to try this by defining the word “should”. This is a definition so cannot be wrong in a logical sense. The only question is if other people agree with me. Other people choose different definitions for should, others will choose to define ought statements in other ways. Many choose not to define ought statements at all, saying the is-ought gap exists so we cannot jump it at all and must live in a haze of intuitive notions when talking about moral ideas.

So far I have talked about the world in almost exclusively physical terms. I've talked about humans and people in terms of objects. But it's important to recognise an aspect of my perceptions. Happiness. For me perceiving the taste of a ham sandwich is fundamentally different from the taste of porridge, far more different than the foods themselves. I enjoy ham sandwiches far more than porridge, this is a definite observed perception, it's not something I'm just saying to myself. How do I know it's not just a thought with no real significance? My actions. ⁶

I have never actively sought out porridge. I dont put effort into going to find it, I do however put effort into making a nice ham sandwich. We act to achieve those perceptions that bring us most happiness, this is the definition of happiness. Endless tomes can and have been written on happiness so I'll just point out a few obvious features.

• More than one kind of happiness exists. Different things make us happy at one and the same time. So being happy that I am at a fine university doesn't stop me being happy that I am eating a cheese sandwich.
• Happiness is not the same as physical pleasure. It is said that rats can be wired to electrodes that stimulate the orgasm section of the brain, it is also said that if given a button to activate this they will stave themselves to death pushing it. If this is true human happiness and rat happiness is different. There are many examples of so-called sex addicted people, but I have yet to encounter a story of people starving themselves to death from sex-induced neglect. So people at some point stop having sex (or masturbating), the do this to gain some other kind of happiness. This cannot be physical pleasure, no higher or stronger form of physical pleasure exists than orgasm. So we can conclude that non-pleasure forms of happiness, (self preservation, loyalty, friendship, knowledge, art, appreciation, the happiness of others, accomplishment etc etc etc) can overpower physical pleasure, so happiness and pleasure are not the same.
• We benefit others and this makes us happy. I dont give money to Africa to help them. Well, I do, but if I'm a little more honest with myself, the reason that I do this is that I like to think of myself as a charitable person, and donating whatever nominal sum I give will have a much greater effect on boosting my own self image (or my image in the eyes of others) than it will actually helping people. This is not to say that donating money to Africa is bad or that we should stop doing it, or that we should change ourselves so we dont act on these selfish motives. I simply note that the concept of acting on our desires only is not always the same as the idea of selfishness as normally understood.
• We often do things that make us unhappy in the short term but happy in the long term, or vice versa. We balance the strength of our desires to conclude which of the two happinesses is more important to us.
• You can be happy in awful situations, the history of martyrs tells of countless people who have voluntarily withstood unimaginable physical and emotional suffering. People exist who have actively chosen torture. These people choose their principle or friends or religion or whatever else over relief from pain. The principles that drive them obviously make them more happy than would freedom from pain.
• We can, with a lot of effort, change what makes us happy. Ask any ex-addict, the drug used to make them happy, no longer. It's a hard process but it can be done. Of course there are a number of short cuts, sudden road-to-demascus type conversion from one thing making you happy to a fundamentally different form of happiness exists, often it's religious in nature, but similar things can happen in the context of animal welfare or their world aid say.

There is one big observation though. Theory of mind, I said above, is a scientific theory that suggests that others have a mind (ie all those perceptions that aren't sense data, thinking, feeling etc), and this includes desire. So we conclude others have desires, the question is what are they? This we have to work out by a slightly more complex route than simply asking them. I say this because people have an astonishingly strong tendency to deceive themselves and others. But it can be done.

We can notice a number of things in common with people's desires. Almost all people have basic desires, the act to preserve their own life, their family, they desire sex, a fulfilled life, the praise of their peers, full Maslow's hierarchy of needs stuff. We can then have a fairly good guess at what a random stranger would be like. For instance, they would be happy if you complimented their dress, unhappy if you stabbed them, happy if you gave them money, unhappy if you suggested their momma was so fat that something improbable resulted.

Of course, there are going to be exceptions to this because what we are asking here is scientific in nature. The question is “what kinds of things will this organism seek to bring about using its knowledge of cause and effect?”. And please note I said organism, but that isn't the most general thing. Humans have desires clearly, they act in a purposeful way, but so do all animals, they act in a way that their knowledge of cause and effect leads them to suspect will make them happy. But plants also can be said to act in some very very limited sense, turning to face the sun, growing roots towards better soil etc. This idea of desire is so general we can talk of robots or computer programs having desires. The problem with these last two examples is that their determinism is far more clear to us, our best scientific theory of how animals act is not neurological, it's behavioural, we understand animals best as minds with bodies rather than just as bodies with brains. This is either fundamentally correct or will eventually be overturned by far better neurology. Either way the question is of our best theory.⁷

So I would like to suggest a definition of the word should. “An individual should perform an action to the extant that it fulfils all desires that exist”. Things to note are:

• This is continuous. Should and should not are spectral, it's not the case that you can put things that should be done in one self contained set.
• This is consequentialist, virtue, duty, commands, intents etc matter in this theory, but only as tools. You should (as I have defined it) desire the happiness of others, but this is only a tool to making them happy, simply desiring it is not enough. Likewise rules can be (and will be) proposed that aim to make people do what they should, and these should be obeyed if and only if they achieve that. Just laws should be obeyed because they are just, not because they are laws.
• I've not said how we compare desires. This is something (like the problem of time) that is key to my philosophy that needs vastly more care and good thinking than I have the ability to give it. For now as a patch to allow this to continue I will use the idea of the veil of ignorance. In this theory an action that prevents one desire while allowing another should be done to the extent that one would prefer one desire over another if one didn't know which of the effected people one was going to be. I'm not convinced this is satisfactory, if anyone has suggestions please offer them.

Notes

6)My body acts, for the sake of not having to do linguistic acrobatics I'm going to say it's because I choose to do something using free will, but this is a metaphysical idea nothing more.


7)See my point about speaking in terms of free will? You can say all that in deterministic terms, but it's clumsy and unclear.

Philosophy - philosophy of science

Heuristics

Science works by testing theories. But I (and philosophy of science as written by scientists generally) have been tight lipped on the subject of where these theories come from. Some say that theories are essentially random, some that they are artistic and require genius to understand. All say that it doesn't matter where they come from. The problem with this kind of philosophy of science is that it's totally false. Scientific theories are not random, they dont require genius, and it does matter where they come from. For easy example I'll take Newtonian gravity.

The distinction between scientific theories and metaphysics is important here. If you generated theories at random (whatever that would mean) you would almost defiantly never generate even a simple understanding of the world. Perceptions are just too complex, you cant hope to get a good approximation of them randomly, there's just too much going on. So we need a way of testing theories that are likely to work better than by chance. The way you do this is to imagine an “ultimate reality”, some version of the world that is metaphysical, but tied to perceptions.

So, Newton is sat at his desk working out the force of attraction between two point masses. He is now 90% of the way to solving the problem. Because asking that question needs a conceptual framework, you need to imagine that there are such things as point masses, you need to imagine that these accelerate due to force, you need to imagine that forces can happen in the gaps between them. This framework cannot be directly tested, because there's nothing in it that makes predictions. You cannot deduce from this how large objects act, what the relationship between acceleration and force is, and what forces act in the gap. But just because it cannot be tested itself doesn't mean it's as good as any other metaphysic.

Because the possible answers to these questions are quantitatively very few, and are suggested by the metaphysic. Once you have this conceptual framework to act as a heuristic the answers (like a point mass at their centre of mass, Newton's Second, and Newtonian Gravity respectively) are reasonably obvious, (that is, if you're the greatest mind to have existed). Without this kind of a framework minds as as good as Newton in the Classical age would never have thought of Newtonian gravity, because guessing it randomly is next to impossible.

Comparing models

So, given that it is possible for a heuristic to exist that will give you very good theories far better than chance. (Why this is so is a metaphysical question, “because that's what the universe is really like” is one answer, “because such conceptions tap into a subconscious understanding of our perceptions we already have” is another). The question is which do we go for. Do we keep dogmatically with a static eternal idea of the universe and expand and refine Newtonian Mechanics. Or do we shift to a new paradigm, an Einsteinian paradigm. Now this is not a question of one theory verses another. You can formulate General Relativity in Newtonian terms, (you just say that point forces exert a force on each other given by a hideous formula that looks very similar to one you use for dealing with curved space). The reason nobody does this is that it makes no sense. The theory does not follow from the paradigm.

The real question is not which theory is right, the question is which paradigm generates it. Newton's Law follows from his paradigm just as obviously (if you're a genius) as Einstein's does from his. The way you test what paradigm you use is to see which generates the best theories. We can even refine this idea. Sometimes theories are very general and take a lot of work to particularise. Consider the moon landings. At the time computing power was a scarce resource. So when the question arose, do we calculate using Newton or Einstein Newton won. Now General Relativity is the better theory, is makes predictions that are closer to reality. The problem is that these predictions are hard to compute, Newton is easy to compute with and well understood. Because of resources Newton's calculations could be done to far more decimal places, so whilst Einstein would have eventually beaten him, Newton won the race to the moon.

So I'd like to suggest that we think about predictions a different way. I'd like to suggest that it isn't the case that if one theory beats another it does so everywhere. If one theory makes one kind of prediction well (eg prediction the bending of light by gravity) that doesn't mean it will make another sort (eg low resolution predictions) just as well. So, we must always pick the right theory for the job, bearing in mind the situation. And we must always keep the right paradigm in mind, considering its results.

Philosophy - Science part 2

Metaphysics

This seems a natural point to consider a few odd topic together. Firstly, equivalent theories. Consider the two theories “in front of me is a laptop made of plastic made of atoms” and “in front of me is an infinite number of infinitely small holographic projectors that act like a laptop no matter what I do to them or how I change them”. These make exactly the same predictions. I have no way of determining then which theory I should accept. I dont believe this to be a problem, I think that I'm not here talking about two theories. To my mind this is one theory expressed in two sets of words. We could just as easily say “en face de moi est un ordinateur portable”.

To a natural interpretation this is quite strange. Surely it makes all the difference in the world if the laptop is real or an illusion, but I would ask, what difference. Science tells us about perceptions, if there is a “way things really are” and it is not a perception, we can never know about it. Not in the sense that it's a hard problem or that we'll never be 100% sure. I mean we have exactly no clue, we cant even have an informed guess, because we have no information to base any ideas on.

We can know nothing that is beyond our sense data (I'll get onto metal constructions like logic later). It might be helpful to point out that my idea of what is metaphysical is a lot wider than normal. Normally it is said that the existence of gods is metaphysical, but that of chairs is not. I dont accept that we can have knowledge of chairs. Take my laptop, I can see patches of white and black that are explained almost perfectly by the scientific theory “in front of me is my laptop”, but also by the theory “I am a brain in a vat being fed sense data identical to those I would experience according to the laptop theory.” I dont claim that I can prove, or indeed that I have even the ability to think it probable, that my laptop is real.

We all have metaphysical beliefs. For instance, I believe my laptop exists. This is not true, nor is it false. It is better thought of as a statement about my emotions than about things in a “world out there”. If someone says that my laptop does not exists I dont think we really have any means of arguing about the fact, because there is no question of being right or wrong in the matter.⁴

Gods

Gods are tricky ideas. Many gods are purely metaphysical ideas with no scientific component at all. A god who starts the universe or who sits outside of it to judge or just to observe is totally metaphysical, a universe with him would look exactly the same as one without him. So we must be agnostic about such gods, we cannot have proof of them, but far more than that, we cannot even have an educated guess, there are no arguments for or against. So when I say “I dont believe in such a god” I am not right or wrong any more than I would be if I said “colourless green ideas sleep furiously”. There is no right and wrong because there is no truth in the matter.

Some gods however stray beyond this. A god that acts in the world is, by that fact, a part of the world. So we can distinguish a god that creates the world but has no more influence on it from a god who creates the world and then sets about populating it over a period of 6 days. This kind of intervening god is far more simple from a philosophical perspective. We can simply get a scientist to do an experiment and tell us with high levels of certainty if such gods exist. And, to my knowledge, none of them do, all stories of interventions by gods have been shown to be without evidence. The important problem for philosophy is how to combine rejection of aspects of supposed divine action which are false from ones which are metaphysical. Almost all religions combine both aspects.

The internal world

When I defined science I said we make theories about perceptions. Thoughts and emotions are perceptions. So in this sense we can expand the domain of science to include “subjective” ideas. The key idea is theory of mind. Normally the term theory of mind is used in the context of autistic people or children and used to discuss the idea that they cannot understand the behaviour of others. But I think we can interpret it far more literally.

Considering the object near our centre of perception (I.e. ourself), we consider as a scientific theory the idea that we can control our actions. The first theory is that motions of our bodies are exactly the things we think of doing. Then we observe ourselves breathing or our heart beating or some other automatic action. We also observe an imagined action that feels much like our feeling before acting which doesn't actually result in anything. So we have to slightly elaborate our theory, and this elaboration is going on right now in every neuroscience department and I'm not going to try and pre-empt this.

Looking at other people we see they act in similar ways to us. We observe that there are perceptions that look like . We also observe that these objects do things that are similar to how we act in a similar situation. Then we can propose that they, like us, have minds, memories etc which can be predicted based on their past. This theory works quite well and is the basis of almost all our knowledge of others. We simply ask “if I were standing where they are, and knew what they knew, and had their history and characteristics what would I do?”, this is normally a good prediction.

Other people and science

One problem that a lot of people have with a sceptical⁵ approach to the world is that we cannot possibly examine everything in the world. So suppose I am deciding if I should accept Newton's law of Gravity or General Relativity it's just not reasonable to expect me to wait for a solar eclipse, probably travel thousands of miles, and do the experiment myself. So we must postulate the theory of the reliable scientist. This states that we can, under some situations, expect that others are telling the truth about their own experiences, and that we can deduce from this things about our own perceptions. We can test this theory and compare it to the opposing theory that we should ignore other people in discussing scientific theories by doing experiments and comparing our results with those of others. This gives us a list of people who can, in general, be relied upon. We can go further, it is perfectly scientific to believe someone we know nothing about if they are recommended as reliable by someone whose past recommendations have been reliable. In this we we can build up and produce such concepts as peer review and repeated reproducible experiments.

Free will

The question of the existence of free will is an ancient one. And one that I believe will never be resolved. The question is, given how the universe is now and everything that has happened in the past. Is it possible that some of our actions are freely determined so that we could in theory do more than one different thing? Or are future events totally pre-determined? This I believe is metaphysical. Because there is only one direction of time, we only experience one version of events. If events are pre-determined then we experience just this one set of events, if other things could in theory have happened then there is some means by which exactly one outcome is selected and that happens. Either way our perceptions are exactly the same. There is literally no difference between a deterministic universe and a universe in which free will exists but which just happens to do the same thing.


Notes

4) I'm going to end up being loose with language. I'll probably say something stupid like “my laptop exists” is true when I mean to say that it is an accurate theory. You'll have to forgive me, and agree in advance to interpret that kind of thing in the context of the entire theory.

5) I mean philosophical scepticism. One of the most uninteresting and damaging things a first year philosophy student can be taught. There are different realms of epistemology and if you dont respect this you're just going to end up standing around like a nutter not knowing anything. "I know that I know nothing" is not indicative of wisdom, it means that your concept of knowledge is useless.

Philosophy - Science.

Predicting future sense data

It seems that there is a past, present and future. Unlike the obvious irresistible truth of there being perceptions this sense is not sure. It is perfectly consistent to believe that there is only the present instant, that all perceptions of the past in the form of memories are simply perceptions without any past for them to reflect. I can find no argument quite strong enough to cover the purpose I'm about to put it to, this will need more thought.

We have the present, we can be certain of these perceptions, (they are all we can be certain of). We have the past, we have some memories of these (the memories are present perceptions so are certain, their relation if any to past perceptions is a question for science). There is also the future, and predicting that is the task of science.

Science

Science is the only way to get beyond perceptions. This allows us to synthesize ideas, perceptions, memories etc and predict new things.

The scientific method is simple. First, generate several theories, a theory is a model or set of ideas that allow us to make as many future predictions as we like about perceptions of a particular kind. Then observe some perceptions. The theory with the predictions that best fit the perceptions is the best theory. This is the best approximation we have to the perceptions of the future. This does not give us knowledge in the sure and certain sense of the last post. We have to extend our epistemology (study or discussion of knowledge) and add a realm for scientific theories.

We can see clearly that this domain of scientific knowledge must be some kind of continuum. Predictions of future perceptions can be fulfilled more or less well, for example, if my best theory predicts the reading from some dial will be 1.5 and the true (observed) reading is 1.4 then my knowledge of the future movement of the dial is clearly good, but not nearly as good as it would be were my best theory to predict 1.37. Note also I've picked a numerical example for convenience, we might just as well predict seeing something blue or round. All that matters is that it should be possible to tell how well our prediction has come true. But we see that the notion of “correct” in science cannot be binary. If it were then we would consider the 1.5 theory to be just as wrong as the 1.37 theory, we cannot have improved theories, only the binary right and wrong.

Time

The fact that this is a prediction and not a postdiction is important. We can gain nothing from knowing that a postdiction has come right. For instance, we can simply come up with the theory that all our prior observations will happen, with any prediction for the future, this will always be perfectly right. So, we require at least that the prediction not be influenced by the thing it is trying to predict.

Science as I have described it rests on the assumption that there is an arrow of time, I need a solution to this problem. I have not yet proved (at least, not to my satisfaction) that we are entitled to believe that there is a past and a future. There are two solutions to this.

Can I separate the idea of a prediction from the idea of time? In order to have science we must be able to test predictions, so we must have a notion of prediction, but can I rigorously construct an idea of predicting without having a safe idea of time? Or secondly: Can I defend the idea of time? I've no idea. If anyone can help me here please comment.


The past

It's not a big point, but a clarification. History is part of science, we can have predictions of the past as opposed to postdictions. A postdiction is a statement about past sense data, a statement about the past is a statement about future sense data that are best interpreted by talking about objects that existed in the past. For instance, I may put forward the theory that there was a Roman burial site in some location. This can make predictions, say that we could in future observe documents that refer to this site, or we could observe remains when digging there. Predictions are always about future sense data, but the best explanation for these may well be the past universe.

The world

Science gives us the world. All we can know for certain is our own perceptions, we need to construct the world “out there” based on this. The most fundamental kind of theory in science is the idea of an object. I see in front of me a black oblong shape with a large irregular patch of light in the middle. I construct the theory that this perception is caused by me seeing an object. In this case, my laptop. Please note, this is a theory, we can have sure and certain knowledge of no objects. (Brain in vat, illusion, hologram etc). But we can (and almost always do find) that this is the best explanation. The idea of an object is a theory as I described it above, because it makes predictions. For instance, an object continues to exist until something dramatic happens, and the perceptions I have “of” my laptop are reasonably constant. There is also the fact that objects continue to exist in much the same way if I move, so I predict that moving to the left will produce a different but related set of perceptions in a predictable way. And this works. The theory that objects exists is an extremely good one.

This gives an outline idea of what science gives us as good and accurate theories. I'll try and hash out in a bit more detail things like the limits of science, metaphysics, heuristics behind generating good scientific theories etc next time. But for now I'd like to suggest something that I'll try and develop later. The idea we have of science commonly is that it deals with objective things, where objective means what I identified before as perceptions of sense data or of the external world. I've deliberately defined this idea of science in a more general way, I have not mentioned other people or peer review, but I have included in "things we can have scientific theories about" such perceptions as our thoughts, imaginations, memories, emotions etc. I'm going to try and suggest later that the normal processes of science, peer review, arbitration by independent experimenters etc can be shown to be fitting with my definition. But I'm going to say from the outset that this is true for physical sciences, for a more broad idea of this second rank of knowledge we must allow for psychology, logic and other ways of predicting future mental perceptions a real place in the tent of science.

This gives the best theory

Just one last thought because I like it a lot. To the objection that science may not be the only way to gain knowledge about the world. Let us first say that we can never directly experience any object or have any form of knowledge of them except by means of perceptions. Now, suppose that some other means of discovering truth exists (be it tea leaves, holy texts, marxism or whatever), and claims that it does a better job of generating knowledge than science. Now to tell us anything that we dont already know this must make predictions about future perceptions. But, the understanding we get from science is the best prediction we have out of all the theories we have tried. Why cant we then just have as a theory "the predictions of marxism (or whatever) are correct". This is a scientific theory, if the other means really can give us knowledge then it must predict perceptions, because that is all we can ever experience that we dont already know. So then the best scientific theory must logically be at least as good as (if not better than) the tea leaves. So we can conclude (unless I've messed up this "proof") that science *must* generate the most accurate predictions that it is possible to make and that the correct way to gain knowledge is through science.

Philosophy - starting out

Before you start philosophy, or indeed any chain of deductions¹ you need a firm place to start. For some this is obvious, it's God, or pure reason, or the spirit or some other such thing. I'm not so sure we can assume a starting point so easily without thinking about it. Others have tried to methodically produce such a starting point. Descartes starts out by trying to doubt everything, not because he wants to destroy knowledge but because he wants to find some indisputable fact, some indestructible nugget of truth from which he can base a chain of reasoning. Descartes takes his own existence, not as a body but as a collection of thoughts. He says that thinking implies the existence of the person doing the thinking.

I would like to borrow his idea of imagining there is a daemon trying to confuse and deceive us. Can we then allow ourselves to be certain about things like the existence of atoms? No, clearly not. What about the laptop in front of me? No, that is just as unsure. However, there seems to be a laptop in front of me. More accurately I can say that I experience a pattern of white and black patches of light. I dont see any way I can doubt that I experience this. For sure there may be no laptop, the demon may make me see white and black patches where I “should” see orange and purple, or the shapes may be changed. But stubbornly no matter how much I doubt the experience I am having the raw fact of its appearance cannot be doubted. Perceptions themselves, my experiences cannot be doubted.² So I'd like to take as the raw atoms of truth not thoughts but perceptions, the totality of all I experience right this instant. ³ Descartes argues that the demon cannot deceive me unless there is a me to deceive, to me this rests too much on language to be quite convincing, I would prefer to argue that the demon cannot convince us that we are experiencing something that we are not, because in order to trick us, he would have to make us experience the thing.

This nugget of sure and certain existence is quite large, so I'd like to take a while talking about all the things I perceive. There are certain intuitions I have about my perceptions. The first an most important is the internal/external distinction. I perceive some shapes that I think of as being external objects and some that I think of as imagined objects. I perceive some sounds as being external things, some of being songs stuck in my head, and some (in the form of sounds identical to my spoken voice) that I regard as being my thoughts. For everything I think of as a sense there are imagined forms of them. However, there are other internal perceptions. Some imagined shapes that I “see” are identified as being “memories”, some imaginations of the future, some are imaginations of fantastic things.

The senses give us a lot of data to work with about this instant in "external" terms. But there a far greater depth in the "internal". I experience thoughts, emotions etc in a spectrum, going from the very concrete digital information of exactly reproducible "wordy" thoughts, to clear and sharp images, to fuzzy images, to fleeting impressions, to things just at the edge of awareness. There are many layers of internal thoughts and impressions just as there are many forms represented in many senses in the external.

We can "know" in the classical sense of sure and certain knowledge everything up to here. Beyond this point there can be no certainty about anything, we should not expect any, for if we do, we will be disappointed. Note, I cant even have totally sure knowledge of this kind about logic and maths. The statement "the square on the hypotenuse of a Euclidean right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides" requires some steps of deduction to be accepted, it is at least conceivable that I could have made an error every time I have proved it. This is not a very serious concern and one I will deal with later in its proper place, but it is enough for me to banish logic from the foundation and restrict it to the next few levels of deduction.

Questions

• Can anyone think of a way that this foundation can be doubted?
• Is it possible for me to doubt some of my perceptions?
• Are there any things that I can also believe in with total certainty.

Notes

¹I'm a mathematician, I think philosophy should be as deductive as possible, so sue me.

²This “argument from brute force of experience” is hardly stated here in a logically rigorous way, but I dont see any way to doubt it short of total insanity, so I'm going to accept it.

³Note I cant quite argue that “I“ exist. Descartes and many since regard it as obvious that because we say “I think” or “I perceive” that there must be an "I" to do it. This doesn't automatically follow, at least, it does not logically imply that the perceiver and the perception are real distinct entities. I will however talk about I, because it's grammatically much less cumbersome, however this "I" is a rather ill-defined idea, so I'll try not to argue about it.

Philosophy - Introduction

I'm going to try and take a bit of advice from the essays of Paul Graham (a brilliant essayist, do look him up). I'm trying here to produce a substantial work of philosophy, and I'm going to do that by the method of “Launch fast and iterate”. This is a first draft of a complete body of philosophy as written by someone who is very young and as such almost everything I propose will eventually be changed for something more rigorous. So please bear with the more foolish elements and help me make this better if you would by suggesting where exactly the error lies. I've read a lot of philosophic ideas, but by no means systematically or thoroughly. If you happen to know that a thesis of mine if refuted an obscure chapter of Hegel please dont assume I'm aware of this fact but bring it to my attention.

Before I start, my biases: I have lots. Anything in this that is anti-clerical, liberal, scientific, atheistic, opposed to strict rules, mathematical, philosophically linguistic or elitist should be treated with extreme suspicion and generally regarded as proving merely that I am a British mathematician at Cambridge.

A quick note on interpretation, all my ideas are to be understood as broadly as possible. When I say perception I dont just mean things like sight and sound, I mean mental perceptions too, imagination, intuitions, emotions, everything that can be described as being experienced. Also, I almost never have absolute or discreet ideas in mind, almost all the concepts I employ are fuzzy around the edges, for example, to say something is good doesn't mean it belongs to a firm category of things that are good, it simply means that it is towards the good end of a continuous good-bad spectrum.

I'm going to try and post one blog a week, each one on a new topic, hopefully every Friday but bear with me. I would really appreciate comments, even if it's just to say "I dont understand" because it's important to me that this is understandable, the aim of this document is that it should be a way to think about morality. It's important (if I'm right of course) that as many people read and understand it as possible. So if something is unclear please tell me.

Sections I cant guarantee I'll have exactly one post for each heading but here's a rough outline.

• Starting out - sure and certain knowledge
• Expanding to the future - science, the problem of time, the world, other people
• Limits and extent of science - metaphysics, the past, religion
• Morality - basic ideas, action desire, should
• Morality in the real world - some moral debates as an example
• Moral progress - conventional morality, expanding spheres of moral interest

Would anyone be interested in this? I'll try and put the first chapter up today.