Philosophy Now Forum

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Apr 23, 2023 12:44 am B. They are physical processes - features of reality - which natural scientists are increasingly able to describe. And what sort of grounding do you think they need

3.1 The Argument
I will take an intuition to be a kind of disposition to hold certain beliefs (following van Inwagen 1997).
Thus, I will take it that an intuition is sound if the beliefs it produces are true.
Moreover, I will take intuitions to be metaphysical if the content of the beliefs they produce is metaphysical.

My argument is as follows:

1. If, given evolutionary theory, the soundness of our innate metaphysical intuitions would not at all explain our reliance on said intuitions, then believing evolutionary theory ought to make us distrust our innate metaphysical intuitions.
2. Given evolutionary theory, the soundness of our innate metaphysical intuitions would not at all explain our reliance on said intuitions.
3. Therefore, believing evolutionary theory ought to make us distrust our innate metaphysical intuitions.

I take it that (3) follows straightforwardly from (1) and (2).
I will thus motivate (1) and (2) in turn.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 7:41 am Here is the proof:

Reference: An Evolutionary Sceptical Challenge to Scientific Realism, by Christophe de Ray.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00226-3
Discuss?? Views??

A common target of evolutionary scepticism is moral realism.

• "In most disciplines, evidence is required to prove something. Evidence is drawn from the experience of the world around us, with science obtaining its evidence from nature,[11] law obtaining its evidence from witnesses and forensic investigation,[12] and so on."

• Sharon Street’s notorious ‘Darwinian Dilemma for realist theories of value’ (2006) argues that given moral realism and barring empirically implausible views of evolution, it would have taken an epistemically problematic “happy coincidence” for the evolutionary process to have given us cognitive capacities to form mostly true moral beliefs.
  "Her argument and various others have spawned a sizeable literature on so-called ‘evolutionary debunking arguments against morality’"

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 7:41 am ...

3.1 The Argument
I will take an intuition to be a kind of disposition to hold certain beliefs (following van Inwagen 1997).
...
2. Given evolutionary theory, the soundness of our innate metaphysical intuitions would not at all explain our reliance on said intuitions.

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 2:43 pm What the fuck? What does the sentence in 2. even mean?

We probably evolved the intuition that there is an objective external world, because there probably is one. So that's probably as sound and reliable as it gets.

Evolutionary theory holds that intuitions that don't work, tend to get selected out and disappear. But the intuition that there is an objective external world, just works, doesn't get selected out.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 7:27 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 2:43 pm What the fuck? What does the sentence in 2. even mean?

We probably evolved the intuition that there is an objective external world, because there probably is one. So that's probably as sound and reliable as it gets.

I've always found it amusing that he thinks we had to believe in an external world...for our survival. But it's wrong, there isn't one. So it is utterly necessary to have a false belief to survive, but the correct belief about what is going on, if held, would have led to our deaths. And it never occurs to him that this needs some explanation. The false belief works, the correct belief would kill us. But the false belief has nothing to do with what is going on.(?).

I am not arguing that realism is correct when I point this out. I am pointing out that he does not notice these huge holes in what he would need to do to explain this. He just glides over these things.

Evolutionary theory holds that intuitions that don't work, tend to get selected out and disappear. But the intuition that there is an objective external world, just works, doesn't get selected out.

Yes, one should ask: why does a false belief not only work, but why does he consider it necessary AND that a true belief would fail. Because he has said it had to be like that.

And the attitude when this was brought up was more or less, well duh of course we need to believe in the external world so we avoid getting killed and can procreate and eat. And no point in this is there a moment of....Oh, ok, I have to explain something here.

Utterly unbelievable.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 7:27 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 2:43 pm What the fuck? What does the sentence in 2. even mean?

We probably evolved the intuition that there is an objective external world, because there probably is one. So that's probably as sound and reliable as it gets.

I've always found it amusing that he thinks we had to believe in an external world...for our survival.
But it's wrong, there isn't one.
So it is utterly necessary to have a false belief to survive, but the correct belief about what is going on, if held, would have led to our deaths.
And it never occurs to him that this needs some explanation.
The false belief works, the correct belief would kill us. But the false belief has nothing to do with what is going on.(?).

So it is utterly necessary to have a false belief to survive, but the correct belief about what is going on, if held, would have led to our deaths.

I am not arguing that realism is correct when I point this out. I am pointing out that he does not notice these huge holes in what he would need to do to explain this. He just glides over these things.

Evolutionary theory holds that intuitions that don't work, tend to get selected out and disappear. But the intuition that there is an objective external world, just works, doesn't get selected out.

Yes, one should ask: why does a false belief not only work, but why does he consider it necessary AND that a true belief would fail. Because he has said it had to be like that.

And the attitude when this was brought up was more or less, well duh of course we need to believe in the external world so we avoid getting killed and can procreate and eat. And no point in this is there a moment of....Oh, ok, I have to explain something here.

Utterly unbelievable.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 5:24 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 7:27 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 2:43 pm What the fuck? What does the sentence in 2. even mean?

We probably evolved the intuition that there is an objective external world, because there probably is one. So that's probably as sound and reliable as it gets.

I've always found it amusing that he thinks we had to believe in an external world...for our survival.
But it's wrong, there isn't one.
So it is utterly necessary to have a false belief to survive, but the correct belief about what is going on, if held, would have led to our deaths.
And it never occurs to him that this needs some explanation.
The false belief works, the correct belief would kill us. But the false belief has nothing to do with what is going on.(?).

The above is a strawman.

It is a fact [FSK-ed], ALL humans are 'programmed' as an evolutionary default to believe in an external world to facilitate survival.
There is no question of an obligatory 'had to believe .." it is just something that is necessary and spontaneous.

The author defined scientific realism;
"‘Scientific Realism’ to be the view that our best scientific theories accurately represent real, mind-independent states of affairs."
Why is this point ignored?

1. What the OP argued against is when realists [philosophical] i.e. scientific realists insist there is an absolutely mind-independent external world regardless of the human conditions; that is to the extreme that the external world pre-existed humans and will continue to exists as "real" if humans are extinct.

However, if scientific realists believe in 1 above and at the same time believe in evolutionary theory - the best theory available - they are holding contradictory views.

Because scientific evolutionary theory is more realistic, then scientific realism is false.

In this case, scientific realists are grasping to illusions and are being delusional that "there is an an absolutely mind-independent external world regardless of the human conditions; that is to the extreme that the external world pre-existed humans and will continue to exists as "real" if humans are extinct."

So it is utterly necessary to have a false belief to survive, but the correct belief about what is going on, if held, would have led to our deaths.

I have never claimed nor implied the "correct belief" that would have led to our death.
Scientific truths are at best 'polished conjectures' i.e. not absolute truths, thus the well polished ones are retained and the subsequent 'tarnished' or very dull ones get rejected.

I am not arguing that realism is correct when I point this out. I am pointing out that he does not notice these huge holes in what he would need to do to explain this. He just glides over these things.

What is there to explain when the above point is a strawman.

Evolutionary theory holds that intuitions that don't work, tend to get selected out and disappear. But the intuition that there is an objective external world, just works, doesn't get selected out.

Yes, one should ask: why does a false belief not only work, but why does he consider it necessary AND that a true belief would fail. Because he has said it had to be like that.

And the attitude when this was brought up was more or less, well duh of course we need to believe in the external world so we avoid getting killed and can procreate and eat. And no point in this is there a moment of....Oh, ok, I have to explain something here.

Utterly unbelievable.

Strawman again.

Yes, "of course we need to believe in the external world so we avoid getting killed and can procreate and eat"
the problem is scientific realists [scientific realism] convert the above belief into a dogmatic fundamentalistic ideology without compromise i.e.

"‘Scientific Realism’ to be the view that our best scientific theories accurately represent real, mind-independent states of affairs."

In contrast, what is more realistic with the above is the scientific realists' view that the reality external world is merely conditioned upon a specific human-based FSK.

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 2:01 pm There's no good reason to think that human-based FSKs have any bearing on objective reality, fundamentally. The end.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 2:04 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 2:01 pm There's no good reason to think that human-based FSKs have any bearing on objective reality, fundamentally. The end.

Then why do we have tunels under Geneva for reproducing the conditions similar to The Big Bang?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 2:07 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 2:04 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 2:01 pm There's no good reason to think that human-based FSKs have any bearing on objective reality, fundamentally. The end.

Then why do we have tunels under Geneva for reproducing the conditions similar to The Big Bang?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

I suppose your question made some sense to you, even though it doesn't.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 2:08 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 2:07 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 2:04 pm
Then why do we have tunels under Geneva for reproducing the conditions similar to The Big Bang?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

I suppose your question made some sense to you, even though it doesn't.

Well, I can go on explaining to you how a very fundamental FSK caused mini-repeats of The Big Bang to happen under Geneva, but I'd probably be wasting my time.