Analytical philosophy is a fucking can of worms. You read the label on the can, you assume the label's information without question & place it back on the shelf for emergency items or wherever you rationalize from the label to put it, but then you get bored & decide to open the can.
Then *BLAM* you have a mess of slimy worms all over you, the floor, the ceiling. There's NO WAY in your mind to see how you can get ALL THOSE WORMS back into the can again.
But this thread was requested & so here it is.
For me the whole matter was settled by attribution to the Chinese polymath Zou Yan's concept of yin and yang. But Gödel has much to say in a contemporary way to get us thinking about the meaning & value of modern life in a "modern" way if similarly and so I tip my hat to him.
Ok now an intro for Gödel. I do so by dropping you into a seemingly random location in a "web" spun by the brilliant yet cogent Cory Chang:
Well, the intro is really all I have to say, myself. I mean, if I put a warning label on that can of worms would it really make any difference for you? We all take our chances regardless...
Plus, the Chang videos I offered really are EXCELLENT and should peak even AI enthusiast interest. For me, I've already imagined most popular video games especially player-networked games & other internet-based forms of escapism being created to solicit more humans to interact with the paradoxes & problems now appropriated by analytical philosophy -- not just to improve technological efficiency or even information & problem solving efficiency but more importantly to better apprehend the nature of reality and ultimately render thought & reality as one & the same.
I mean, it's the 21st century's gold rush for sure including quantum computing & VR which have founded a number of still existing ponzi scams to devastate economies at the expense of personal greed. Maybe future historians will laugh at our folly or maybe not...or both...or neither..?
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somehow the next post got duplicated. so I spent time editing & refining (let's just call it that) two different ones at different times without realizing it. oh well. not gonna spend any more time on it. I don't speak for Gödel, Russell, Turing, Sartre, Liu, Chang, the universe, or Hell anyway
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Cixin Liu wraps up a lot of the problems embraced by analytical psychology to improve computer technology quite succinctly in his 3 Body Problem science fiction book -- which I also highly recommend.
Without trying to spoil too much, some point in Liu's book it's revealed that the antagonists actually bothered to read Sartre's play "No Exit" and from there became content that some problems are simply brute force solution problems at best, offering only temporary relief especially with respect to a species' survival.
Gödel's, Russell's, Turing's, et al 20th century European philosopher's life is very interesting to consider on the stage of European survival from horrific wars & horrific desperation between the wars having (ironically?) inspired both great, deeply pondered optimism & skepticism over ideas we all certainly exploit today. Things like computers & networks & reboots & failures are as common as inhaling & exhaling for many of us now but it's hard to imagine their existence and public adoption without those guys, their incredible devotion to thinking & doing their absolute if anxious, fretful best at it.
Yet there's NO WAY a computer having solved Gödel's complaints or any other paradoxes wouldn't be weaponized & restricted like a nuclear weapon today is. I imagine that if anything ever does solve Gödel's complaints, or PvNP, or yin and yang, or any other paradoxes definitively & w/o brute force (which is again shorthand for having required time to solve hence is only a temporary solution) then it really would be tantamount to building a time travel machine or some similar kind of genie bottle. It would change not just the game but the universe as we perceive & understand it, a collosal & undeniable human evolutionary step.
Exciting, but I also shudder at the thought as I'd miss this universe as I currently perceive & understand it.
Well, the intro is really all I have to say, myself. I mean, if I put a warning label on that can of worms would it really make any difference for you? We all take our chances regardless...
When I returned to the forum a couple months back, I made a thread about this, about how philosophy is dangerous, but there is no point in warning people about it. It's like the grim warning from Dante's Inferno, "all hope abandon ye who enter here", with the difference that it is visible only from the inside, that we realize that there is "no exit" only after we have entered the cul de sac. Of course, I think that there is an exit, but "narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it" (Matthew 7:14). This warning from the mouth of Him who is Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life is primarily about seeking salvation and avoiding destruction, but in philosophy no less than life itself, "wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction", nor is there any shortage of "false prophets" (7:13, 15) who offer apparent solutions to the problems of philosophy in their idiosyncratic systems or, as is increasingly common in our 'postmodern' milieu, their dismissal of the very desire to know and systematically transmit truth as vain or hubristic.
To be sure, there is something of the Tower of Babel in the grand systems of Western philosophy, from the soaring metaphysical scope of Leibniz's monadology to the exquisite ratiocinative machinery of Principia Mathematica, but to respond to the manifest inadequacy of 'closed systems' in light of developments like Gödel's theorems by refusing to frame any conjecture at all is pure pusillanimity, false humility redolent of that baseless prejudice, ubiquitous since the 'Enlightenment' (which was really the great Obscuration of the right relation between intellect and reason, the habitus principiorum and the habitus conclusionum, in the human person), according to which skepticism is a more reasonable and more commendable attitude than dogmatism, as if the former were not, in itself, quite sterile. In philosophy no more than theology is any progress to be made along the lines of that timid sort of apophaticism which fears being wrong so much that it does not even attempt to be right. The way out of the cul de sac is affirmation, which like the lance of St. Michael pierces the dragon of doubt and diffidence.
But Grey Man it goes deeper than that while at the same time not. It's instead only epidermal, superficial, where so many nerve cluster endings terminate...yet at the same time goes to the brain & mind where human imagination & instincts lie.
I mean, Peter Cushing's just a man, a professional actor playing the role of savior against some apocalypse -- armed with a Christian cross, stakes & a hammer, a book revealing a vampire's shame-filled weaknesses, a script, a stage, proper lighting, cameras, support staff, a director, rehearsals, lunch breaks, etc. While his encounters & eventual triumph occur & maybe even satisfied paying audiences for all the effort, skepticism for it's real efficacy in keeping apocalypse from the human race is easy to find & create.
Alan Turing however very likely thought he WAS confronting apocalypse & even possibly thought of himself as Jesus returned -- working philosphical & technological miracles so impressive as to render philosophy & technology indistingishable sans prejudice. And then after WWII, after the intensity of that experience and the adrenalin coursing through him, he couldn't let go of it. He had to keep chasing that intensity & with the hope that he had more miracles left to offer though he didn't know what only that he had to keep facing apocalypse to find it.
And then he died. And for what? Jesus is dead. Turing is dead. The world keeps spinning. Christianity is losing its human networking capability as a much larger, more interesting human networking system takes hold.
Yes, one may (to me perhaps somewhat interestingly) argue that without Jews, Jesus, Christianity and eventually Turing this new human networking system might not exist or exist as it does. But still, it evidences that brute force solutions for solvable problems remains the only way.
Will Turing be regarded as the herald of a new religion, having sacrificed his life to "save" humanity having fallen from "God's" grace after having turned Christianity into a laughingstock at best, a murderous cult at worst some who sought the extinction of the very people who bore & made its Christian herald who was also rejected by his own people?
No. Sorry. That distinction goes to Albert Einstein & and an equation the vast majority of us don't understand and couldn't really do anything with even if one did. Probably safer that way anyway.
The gist of it is that we cannot know what rules created the rules which we are using to prove ourselves.
if a = b then what is a?
we cannot prove what b is because we do not know what a is or where it came from or how a got to b. a could be an infinite number of things yet so too could b because of this.
Godel used a matrix to prove that a computer could not hold all the rules needed to generate all rules. some rules would always be missing when you need to start the machine over. And Von Neumann proved this before Godel (or they discovered it at the same time ?)
In order to know what I am I must infer from the outside, I cannot have a complete answer to what I am. I cannot hold all the rules that led to my existence in particular in that I cannot go to the beginning and trace my path from the inside. Only an outside observer can tell which path was the one that gave me my path. If I were to find my path I could not hold all of it inside me at the same time. I can only reference the outside observer for points in my path but not the entire thing.
Yes, Animekitty, to my own (limited, assuredly flawed) understanding Gödel's own ideas & considerations appear to have been inspired by Cantor's work including his diagonalization method for sure -- a method made possible by way of a matrix.
But I'm not clear that Gödel was trying to root human knowledge into infinite loops of frustration as you may be wondering. Instead, he (as would anyone who sees value in discovery of limiting factors) was simply seeking stronger assuredness for claims being offered by he & other analytical philosophers of his time.
For me as a child having been taught r*r*r*pi as a sphere's volume then calculating some value that equalled the value of the money in my mother's purse, I struggled with the problem of the money in my mother's purse then being wholly interchangeable with that calculated sphere.
That "childlike" confusion is the sort of thing I think analytical philosophers also entertain as they devise & test ways to advance computers & computer applications. The goal isn't, as one might infer from Grey Man's last post on this thread & even mine, to frustrate but instead propel the advancement of automatable logic systems -- e.g., reducing motorcycle rider "highside" injuries & vehicular damage by superceding human action through computerized traction control systems.
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I've read about some people who suffer from synesthesia, a brain ailment where two of their senses combine such that they sense both when only experiencing one of the two -- e.g., being compelled to imagine specific colors when hearing corresponding pitches. I think Gödel's goal through his incompleteness theorems tries to identify & discriminate similarly, to avoid "synesthetic" logic compositions.
So Grey Man to sum up, fear can be a gateway drug as much as a compulsion to avoid "mounting Bucephalus". Gödel & even Gettier are simply pointing this kind of thing out, that not only can a logical argument be bug rather than a feature but also that one man's bug may actually be another man's feature -- e.g., that guy Jesus making such a mess of Judaism that all Jews are questioning EVERY Judaic belief, rite of passage, ceremony, and general way of life is at the same time the son of the god Judaism has been honoring.
It ultimately renders itself paradoxical not really a rationally assured step up towards God's grace & mercy to embrace Jesus' complaints & alternatives. We take our chances & brute force solutions are the only way to find them if only temporary.
In that view, which way is the courageous way? Which one is the cowardly way? How does one derive not assume them? Was using brute force ever really a legit option even as the only option? Why say encript secrets at all when simply not objectifying them is the obvious solution?
That's where the real secrets are, you know -- a place inaccessible to us all.
Alan Turing however very likely thought he WAS confronting apocalypse & even possibly thought of himself as Jesus returned -- working philosphical & technological miracles so impressive as to render philosophy & technology indistingishable sans prejudice.
We know who's going to appear before the end of the world and dazzle it with 'miracles' and we know that it's not going to be the Christ because the Christ has said so Himself.
For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say to you: Lo here is Christ, or there, do not believe him. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. Behold I have told it to you, beforehand.
Beforehand! It is as if He were saying to us, I told you so! He goes on:
If therefore they shall say to you: Behold he is in the desert, go ye not out: Behold he is in the closets, believe it not. For as lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west: so shall the coming of the Son of man be. Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together. And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all tribes of the earth mourn: and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty.
When the Messiah comes again, we won't have to wonder whether it's really Him. Rather will "all the tribes of the earth" see Him coming with "with much power and majesty." He will not come furtively from the desert or, perhaps, from England. Nor will he have to strain to impress us with glamorous "signs and wonders", for "Heaven and earth shall pass" (Matthew 24:35), transformed by His very coming and judgement. He "Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders" (2 Thessalonians 2:9) is rather "Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, and he is now already in the world" (1 John 4:3), "For the mystery of iniquity already worketh" (2 Thessalonians 2:7).
I don't like speculation as to the identity of the Antichrist (because one who thinks he knows who it is is more likely to be deceived by the actual Antichrist), and such is, at any rate, far from the topic of this thread. It is enough that we realize that "the mystery of iniquity already worketh" and that Scripture and Tradition furnish us with sufficient keys to recognize anyone who is, if not the Antichrist himself, at least a forerunner thereof, a perverse John the Baptist, "For many seducers are gone out into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: this is a seducer and an antichrist" (2 John 7) "And every spirit that dissolveth Jesus, is not of God: and this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, and he is now already in the world" (1 John 4:3). I don't know much about Alan Turing as a man, but lately I've come to suspect that the progress of modern technology is intimately connected to the unfolding of the mystery of iniquity. In this sense, my admiration for the great "toolmakers" you identified in the other thread—Pythagoras, Descartes, Newton, and Boole—is more reserved than it used to be, though I don't think they are to blame for the more diabolical aspects of technology.
Bishop Sheen's words on the topic of Antichrist are worth quoting at length:
The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as ‘I am Who am,’ and the Devil as ‘I am who am not.’
Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first ‘red.’ Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as ‘the Prince of this world,’ whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect–and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?
The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves...The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion–one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God’s.
In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counter church which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.
It is interesting that he connects Antichrist to the three temptations of Christ. I can't find the full quotation, in which, probably, the bishop discusses the first two temptations and, in particular, connects the Great Humanitarian's talk of "peace, prosperity and plenty...as ends in themselves" to the first temptation, wherein Satan urged our Lord to turn the desert rocks into bread. Bishop Sheen may have seemed like he was talking about events in the distant future when he wrote this in 1951, but today even many (ostensibly) Christian pastors evidently want us to forget that "It is written, Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4; cf. Deuteronomy 8:3). "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them" (Matthew 7:15-16), and the fruits of such false humanitarianism are, initially, a perfidious, watered-down theology that "dissolveth Jesus" with equivocations and half-truths and, ultimately, toleration of moral corruption.
That's where the real secrets are, you know -- a place inaccessible to us all.
Then Grey Man please consider me having landed my saucer on the very top of the Tower of Babel, akin to the image of a zeppelin having docked at the NYC Empire State Building spire.
Maybe for you there's something important to say to me from your perceived safe place on the ground to avoid any toppling from my location, but even if I could hear you God simply dispermits me to understand you in obeyance to His indecipherable whim -- maybe for a wager or perhaps failing to "mind the store" or "waking up on the wrong side of the bed" or who knows?
As this thread's turned into a 21st Century magical mystery tour & we seem to have enough fairly established protagonists on the bus to make a TV sitcom now, I hope you don't mind my inviting Søren Kierkegaard for a ride..? He had a wicked sense of humor & despised Christians who couldn't handle actually being Christian without complete assurance that they lived in God's total favor, taking no risk to be Christian if there was ANY chance of them discovering they were being played for fools the whole time. He'd be a load of laughs & an asset to any party for sure.
Just don't let him get drunk as he despised himself the most for having the very same fault...so of course that's an episode plot or subplot...will write itself...
Kierkegaard is welcome to join us, though, I must confess, I'm having a hard time imagining what he and Gödel might say to each other. One is analytic, the other supposedly continental-existential. On the other hand, the most surprising connections often appear between different philosophers' works.
Ah then I'm to take it you didn't catch Sartre's appearance after all or perhaps considered him only an aside?
No both their existential musings at least help me shape my own attitude especially towards brute force solutions, e.g., for contemporary information security technologies. I would argue that a similar existential attitude (if perhaps obscured by the related attitude called pragmatism) operated even to Turing's own benefit.
I would cite Kierkegaard, Sartre & even Nietsche nevermind Zou Yan et al as influential to analytical philosophy not just say Wittgenstein & other Russell contemporaries.
I would even cite Immanuel Kant but we have a certified monster genius on the bus in Yan already & I'm not confident my weary mind has enough strength to entertain both even if only to reveal I'm the easily distracted driver here not really a philosopher & I need you to sign your waver before we journey further please...
I'm having trouble perceiving the connection you're drawing between Gödel's 'paradoxes' and computational 'brute force' problems. In what way are Gödel's results paradoxical? Do they not rather show that it is paradoxical to suppose what is contrary to them, that every true mathematical statement is provable? And assuming they are paradoxical, doesn't this mean that no amount of brute force can 'solve' them? One can resolve apparent or equivocal paradoxes by re-interpreting the terms in which they are expressed, but this doesn't seem to be a computational task.
That would require inviting Zeno, Socrates & Plato to join the ride then.
Suffice to say that I agree with Yan's yin & yang as I can't brute force an alternative or even opposing solution: we and all our creations exhibit, paradoxically, both eternal & mortal features not eternal OR mortal features.
Zeno argues this in his paradox of motion, Socrates argues this in Meno, Sartre argues this in his No Exit play, Kant's ethical dilemmas rely on it, many religions assume it to enable Descartes to solicit it from French Christianity, and Gödel's skepticism exploits mathematics & logic's need for it in practical use...wadda ya know right back to Zeno.
Hence the systems today permitting dialogue between you and I with both reliable assurance & plenty of doubt.
But Jesus & Christianity has it wrong as Yan contests and for which I agree wholeheartedly. Eternal & mortal don't exist as master & slave. They coexist in equal measure & with equal importance. Jesus & Turing should have at least tried to live & have children. Kant's own ethical dilemmas are resolvable similarly -- what is most ethical is the advancement of the human race so that our infinity & mortality may continue to coexist until at minimum a better brute force solution can be discovered & implemented.
It's not about deserving. I'm just in awe of it & can't help wanting to keep seeing it with my eyes while I yet live not just intellectually conceive it.
Or perhaps more succinctly & specifically, Gödel restricts his skepticism to sufficiently expressive -- i.e., interesting to a sufficient number of human beings to imply requiring that humans exist & continue to exist despite their mortal frailty -- math systems not just any math system.
It's an important distinction that it be sufficiently expressive math systems, according to Gödel, to be either incomplete or inconsistent. It's an analytical philosphy contribution that importantly links analytical philosophy's arguments to many arguments throughout the history of philosophy -- or perhaps better put, the history of man.
Uninteresting math systems of little to no value for humanity are as uninteresting as other models & philosophies that exhibit the same. It's obviously NOT just a matter for Gödel that the system be interesting for him but also for others to have motivation to hear out his argument & its implications.
Sure, lack of interest has its own drawbacks but we're only human. I'm only human. I get distracted easily while trying to drive this party bus.
Now how about that waver? I can't misinterpret & misunderstand everything for you & I'm certainly taking NO RESPONSIBILITY for your own safety
The consequences here are quite interesting for Baruch Spinoza as well who conceived God as an effectively expressive math system hence for Gödel must either be inconsistent or incomplete -- because even a god of THIS world, like you and I, must offer something effectively expressive for testing & use, something potentially worthwhile for human beings in the world or instead it's just another purely imaginary item to fill a purely imaginary shitcan that apparently is never at risk of being overfilled.
Who woulda ever thought that Spinoza's creation was in the end for analytical philosophy an isolated, lonely, flawed god? It's sorta tragic when you consider that the ancient Greeks at least populated their own world with more than one god to stave off their own loneliness. But it's starkly obvious nonetheless.
Why doesn't everyone recognize the lede at least intuitively, not surmise philosophy is trying to bury the lede to perhaps imply (sinisterly, as you accuse) human thought & debate was ever something to fear, something forbidden..?
I mean, analytical philosophy is something we all practice daily even Helen Keller from the purported moment she recognized the eternal word for "water" was to represent EVERYONE'S momentary sensation of water, that she could also touch other human beings by way of shared (if necessarily flawed) imagination not just momentarily by way of tactile sensation.
She "took the risk". We call her "courageous". Results may vary. Gödel does not guarantee you will encounter another's imagination if not incomplete or inconsistent. Imaginary custodians empty all imaginary shitcans before the next scheduled party bus departure. Principles of explosion are forbidden & carriers will be prosecuted.
Ok I'm being compelled by my inner voice that it's time to leave this steaming pile of whatever behind & move onto the next shiny thing. Really, analytical philosophy today is used as an effort to expose more students to languages that comprise modern control systems & computer programming anyway. I absolutely agree that, e.g., Gödel isn't concerned with Spinoza's god or that analytical philosophy has any concern whatsoever with gossiping over how many men Socrates & Turing sinfully shared orgasms or whatever silliness, provocation or joke I throw out.
But I take away a (to me) interesting museum gift from this ride, and that's the wonder that the concept of synesthesia can comprise not just a blending of senses -- e.g., the bitter taste yet sweet smell of cinnamon to render it consistently, holostically pleasing -- but a blending of imagination & sensation also.
Maybe that should be a different word? Maybe that word already exists? Maybe I conflate yin & yang as this? Not really interested in reinventing wheels or failing to pay respects to the OGs if any so looks like I have "a hole to dig".
Definitely getting dizzy just driving this bus around in a circle over and over so probably best for all passengers as well that I take the foot of the gas and give up the wheel here.
Segmenting is when we take something apart to reverse engineer it.
We find the dependencies in all the variables.
Philosophy contains all the things we know, that is: wisdom is all that understand.
By breaking apart what we understand we find out if what we understand can be put back together.
This is very dangerous in the hands of retards though. Because to them this creates a perspective that all things cannot be put back together. That if one flaw is found, a single flaw that is not a flaw at all then all things are flawed. ideologically analytic philosophy has been used to interpret things in the way the ideolog wants them to be interpreted. This is different from philosophical analysis where everything comes to a place where we can find that some things do go together. The ideolog of analytic philosophy says nothing can go together.
This one person I know no matter how many times I repeat the question (why do bat embryos become bats and not cats) keeps saying I am a reductionist. I told him that cat genomes exist and bat genomes exist. You cannot have a bat develop from a cat genome. Yet he said genes play no privileged role in organisms.
He also says that IQ tests are not measurements. All IQ test results are based on what we are exposed to when growing up. This may be true maybe halfway (and prior to the year 2001) I said but the brain is involved in what we are able to deal with by means of its different parts. He said that all IQ tests should be banned and that neuroscience should be banned because we cannot connect the mental to the physical therefore all research on the brain is futile.
And on, and on, and on.
The one takeaway I have is that he does not understand what a feedback loop is. I tried again and again to no avail to explain what cybernetics was to him but all he said was that I have too much white privilege.
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