The following essay was written by Jim Madden and the views/arguments contained within do not necessarily reflect the views of Mike Gene. Mike Gene hosts such essays simply to provoke thought and promote discussion and communication.

Here's how I define "nominalism" and "realism":

The Realism Thesis (RT): There are some predications, say Px, such that 'P' refers to a property of x which is identical to all other instances of P.

The Nominalist Thesis (NT): For any predication, Px, 'P' means only that x is a member of a set of contingently associated individuals (or sense images of individuals) with nothing intrinsically in common.

[Of course NT could (should) be worked with more. It basically assumes a sort of crude set nominalism, as opposed to an exemplar or similarity view (Berkeley) or somebody who analyzes away similarity in terms of something more fundamental (Hume in the Treatise). I do, however, believe the argument can be adjusted for more sophisticated versions of nominalism.]

To get a sense of my way of thinking of RT vs. NT consider the following proposition:

(1) Pa and Pm.

One who subscribes to RT analyzes (1) as saying something (being P) is identical between a and m. The proponent of NT would analyze (1) as saying that a and m (taken either as material individuals or sense images of such) are contingently associated as members of a set, 'P'. Membership in P is accounted for not in terms of intrinsic properties of a and m, but in terms of social convention, pragmatic conditioning, prior neurological wiring, etc.

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After watching as a number of threads descended into chaos from interesting starts, an underlying oddity seems to beg attention from the fisticuffs over word usage that has become so prevalent of late. In the Post-Wedge World the perennial dueling metaphysics hasn't waned one bit, but something new has come to the fore.

We've been mixing it up with a commenter who calls himself "aiguy" to identify with the field of computer science called "Artificial Intelligence." It would appear that he has a problem with ID's use of the word "Intelligent" to describe its focus. Aiguy tells us that we have no definition of intelligence for either AI or ID, but he wants ID to drop the term anyway, perhaps so he can feel better about the use of it in his own discipline of science. Who knows?

If it were just this one critic who was bent by the terminology it would just be a single critic with a single issue about terminology. Instead, aiguy is just the latest in a string of critics who have lodged complaints in recent months about ID's use of the word "Intelligent" and insisted that it be dropped from the lexicon.

It strikes me that with such universal focus on the word - whether the complaint is that it's a metaphysical concept or an ill-defined term - the 'other' word has slipped under the radar into mainstream usage. Is it now okay to speak of biological systems in terms of "Design" so long as "Intelligent" isn't attached?

One of our recent, frequent participants here at Telicthoughts — aiguy — had what I consider to be a fascinating, intriguing comment here:

http://telicthoughts.com/are-dem-bunny-prints/#comment-193453, which I quote below:

Indeed - I can learn!

And so can my computer. Using genetic and other machine learning algorithms, it has learned to design complex machines that I didn't even understand until I saw them work. Not only that, but it decides all by itself what it is that it wants to design!

It really is so counter-intuitive to see how simple laws and a deterministic machine operating according to blind, natural processes gives rise to amazingly intelligent results without any intervention from me. I suppose it could be said to demonstrate "foresight" (it produces designs all at once without visible intermediate trial-and-error), but of course everything it does really is completely determined by its innate structure and its interactions with its environment. I have no reason to think it is aware of anything, so if it has beliefs and desires it doesn't know it. I really don't think it knows what it is doing - or why.

Yup, a completely unconscious, blind, unaware, deterministic physical mechanism operating according to nothing but fixed law and chance, incapable of doing anything but what it does, and there it is grinding out artifacts of complex form and function. Intelligence is so cool!

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The SA essentially states that, given the potential for posthumans to create a vast number of ancestor simulations, we should probabilistically conclude that we are in a simulation rather than the deepest reality.

Most people give a little chuckle when they hear this argument for the first time. I've explained it to enough people now that I've come to expect it. The chuckle doesn't come about on account of the absurdity of the suggestion, it's more a chuckle of logical acknowledgment — a reaction to the realization that it may actually be true.

But this is no laughing matter; there are disturbing implications to the SA. We appear to be damned if we're in a simulation, and damned if we're not.

Here

There are a couple of things about the Monod quote* that caught me eye. First, I was struck by the similarities to ID101. I'll let readers see if they can spot any points of convergence.

Second, and more importantly, this sentence stands out:

Hence it is through reference to our own activity, conscious and projective, intentional and purposive-it is as makers of artifacts-that we judge of a given object's "naturalness" or "artificialness."

Maybe it is simply not possible to make such judgments without accessing this subjective element. After all, recognizing design may indeed be akin to recognizing another mind. For how do we recognize other minds if not by recognizing what they design?

*BTW, the quote is from the first three paragraphs of chapter 1.

In a paper entitled, "On the Very Possibility of Intelligent Design," published in the book, The Creation Hypothesis, back in 1992, William Dembski offered the following thought experiment: Read the rest of this entry »

A New York Times article entitled Science of the Soul? "˜I Think, Therefore I Am' Is Losing Force, illustrates how science can be misused to advance a mataphysical agenda. From the article:

Although he (Pope John Paul II) noted that in the intervening years evolution had become "more than a hypothesis," he added that considering the mind as emerging merely from physical phenomena was "incompatible with the truth about man."

But as evolutionary biologists and cognitive neuroscientists peer ever deeper into the brain, they are discovering more and more genes, brain structures and other physical correlates to feelings like empathy, disgust and joy. That is, they are discovering physical bases for the feelings from which moral sense emerges "” not just in people but in other animals as well.

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The fascinating discussions from this thread deserve a new home. Enjoy.

Something one of our critics said in a post to the Sam Harris vs. Andrew Sullivan, Part II thread is worth exploring for what it tells us about believers-in scientism, and how science so easily takes the place in their minds/lives of that ever so 'irrational' God they claim so stridently doesn't exist.

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In the now very long thread Mystery of Consciousness Mesk introduces some alternative descriptions of irreducibly complex properties we associate with mind and consciousness. This allows me to go ahead and post a new blog for the continuation of discussion on that topic, along with a more in-depth examination of concepts that seem intelligently designed to cause terminal confusion in those silly enough to think about thinking and beliefs about such things.

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