JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF? — Daniel Cox

Not such a smart person after all. Belief doesn't imply certainty. Knowledge, which is a more limited, qualified type of belief, doesn't even imply certainty.

I would be interested to hear how you explain consciousness using the physicalist model. — Noah Te Stroete

As I've said a number of times, I'd not get involved in arguments based on whether something is explained or not if we don't first establish a general set of criteria for explanations. The criteria should work so that it passes through things that you'd say are explained, but so that it doesn't pass through things that you'd say are not explained. We'd need a few examples of each in addition to the criteria.

But you have a preference for physicalism. Perhaps I’m not using “likelihood” in abductive inference the same way I would use “likelihood” in statistics. — Noah Te Stroete

It's not a preference, it's knowledge--a justified, true belief, based on evidence.

If I were doing ontology based on preferences, the world would have things like ghosts in it.

I don't have any likelihood beliefs about anything that I don't have frequency data for, unless I think either it's 1 ("100%" or certain) or 0--impossible/incoherent.

Perhaps it’s nonsense. Perhaps not. One cannot have certain beliefs about certain things without abductive inference, which may just be a matter of preferences. — Noah Te Stroete

Because likelihood makes no sense if we don't have data re frequency of occurrence. Even then there are problems with it, but we definitely can't reach a conclusion about it without data re frequency.

Could an artificial brain be conscious? — Noah Te Stroete

Yes. The question is how different from our own brains it can be, in terms of the specific materials, and in terms of its structure and function, while still being conscious. But definitely an artificial brain made out of the same materials, with just the same structure and processes of a human brain, would be conscious.

I am not claiming I know the nature of this “divine” consciousness of which I speak. Could it also be somehow instantiated in something physical? — Noah Te Stroete

Remember that I'm a physicalist, so my view is that if something exists, it's going to be physically instantiated whether we like it or not. ;-)

My point was that it is more likely that the physical world exists, and that a conscious mind that is working properly is more likely to perceive it usually accurately. This is an abductive inference. — Noah Te Stroete

I think the whole idea of likelihood for such things is nonsense. That has to do with what likelihood is.

True. I have a preference for a “divine” consciousness, just as others have a preference for no “divine” consciousness. I gave my reasons for my belief. What are your reasons for yours? — Noah Te Stroete

I was more interested in talking about epistemology in general, and the idea of likelihood more specifically (although we never ended up getting into that).

Re my beliefs about the ontology of consciousness, all evidence points to it being a brain function, and there's zero evidence that consciousness occurs anywhere outside of brain functions.

I would argue that even if such a model were given, it still couldn’t rule out some kind of guidance. I would still infer abductively that there is a “divine” consciousness. — Noah Te Stroete

The other issue is how we'd support that there would be some sort of mechanistic explanatory model by now.

Would you say then that you're also essentially arguing that "If matter could spontaneously collect and organize itself into conscious beings all on its own without some kind of guidance, then it seems likely that there would be a mechanistic explanatory model for that by now"?

It seems that there is no mechanistic explanatory model for how conscious life formed. — Noah Te Stroete

Okay, so that's what you're basing it on? (If so, that's all I was asking.)

Let's not bypass this part, it's what I want to know (also because there's a more fundamental issue here I'm tackling):

Someone says, " It seems highly likely to me that inanimate matter could spontaneously collect and organize itself into conscious beings all on its own without some kind of guidance."

What makes the supportive/justificational difference between the sentence above and the alternate sentence that you typed? We ask the person above what they're basing their sentence on and they say: "It’s an abductive inference. Abduction necessarily deals with likelihood. " Is that good enough? If so, why don't you believe their sentence over your alternate sentence?

What do you mean? — Noah Te Stroete

Someone says, " It seems highly likely to me that inanimate matter could spontaneously collect and organize itself into conscious beings all on its own without some kind of guidance."

What makes the supportive/justificational difference between the sentence above and the alternate sentence that you typed? We ask the person above what they're basing their sentence on and they say: "It’s an abductive inference. Abduction necessarily deals with likelihood. " Is that good enough? If so, why don't you believe their sentence over your alternate sentence?

how do you infer that other people are conscious other than that it is a better explanation than that solipsism is true?

Behavior in conjunction with one's first-person knowledge of how one's similar behavior is correlated with mental activity.

It’s an abductive inference. — Noah Te Stroete

An abductive inference based on what?

This is the part that I, not necessarily object to, but which I mean muddies the waters for those who aren't knowledgable in philosophy. They use "knowledge isn't different than belief" as proof that belief has the same position of truth as claims rooted in rational reasoning, evidence and so on. Maybe a new terminology of knowledge based on supporting information with high scrutiny of skepticism should be named in order not to be confused with "belief", as just by looking at this forum, many get confused by. — Christoffer

Atheists who aren't philosophically-educated are just as troublesome in this regard, though, because they wind up saying silly things like "I don't have beliefs," "I don't believe that there is a refrigerator in my kitchen; I know there is," etc.

All you need to do with theists is to explain that knowledge isn't belief simpliciter. It's a qualified species of belief.

No, I'm not. I'm saying that JTB is often overused as a counter argument every time someone talks about the search for knowledge. The use of JTB in arguments is often using a simplification of it and pointing out the "belief"-part in JTB as a defense against unsupported irrational belief. JTB is not about unsupported belief, which is the kind of belief that has nothing else proving it than the will of the believer for it to be true — Christoffer

It's not an argument, just the standard characterization of knowledge. And yeah, it's not "unsupported" because justification and truth are two of the components. Nevertheless, knowledge isn't different than belief. It's a qualified species of belief. So someone trying to characterize knowledge as not belief will be surprised when they encounter that it's common in epistemology to consider knowledge a type of belief.

What in "knowledge is information that you know", is unclear? — Christoffer

Knowledge is jtb. If you're trying to provide an alternate definition, "Knowledge is knowledge (information) that you know" isn't a very good one.

Your initial post? I thought it was an ongoing conversation. You had defined knowledge as "information that you know." I pointed out that "know" is simply a grammatical permutation of "knowledge" (or vice versa--just depends on which one you want to focus on), so you were defining a term with itself. (And additionally, "information" is often defined as "knowledge"--for example: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/information)

Knowledge is not truth. — Christoffer

What does that have to do with what I wrote, that you quoted just above this, and that this is apparently a response to?

It's like saying that it's highly likely that a random stranger will come up to today and give me a free slice of chocolate cheesecake. — S

haha

I'm just asking for the evidence of a claim. If you don't know, that's okay, but I would just say that.

Knowledge isn't a type of belief. Knowledge is the information you know — Christoffer

"Know" is what we're defining. "Knowledge" is a grammatical permutation of "know" (or vice versa)

Okay, so what was the evidence, just a similar claim in another article or book? (Since you mentioned the bibliography)

What in the world are you talking about? I'm asking you a question.

That some people--not everyone--thinks it needs further qualification doesn't make any propositional knowledge not belief in widespread consensus. So that's irrelevant to the atheists in question discovering that knowledge is a type of belief.

Yes, it was claimed in a peer reviewed publication regarding a study on the relation of neuro biology to ethics. — Merkwurdichliebe

And the evidence of it? Was the evidence given in the article?

Justified true belief is not in consensus due to the Gettier problem. — Christoffer

This is incorrect. The Gettier problem suggests to many that jtb needs further qualification. It doesn't suggest to anyone that either j, t or b should be discarded.

The scientific community is not some accidental product of the universe, it is an institution governed by strict regulations, which through it's very own agency establishes criteria of standards and practices that could, at any time, be overthrown, if it were scientifically applicable. — Merkwurdichliebe

I haven't the faintest idea what any of that has to do with my comment above it.

Its only evidence if your criteria for explaining morality is in terms of biology, and not, say, in terms of philosophy. — Merkwurdichliebe

Say what? I was asking you what the evidence was for something that was claimed.

For example, in the world of architecture it was used for eclecticism, in which case you could say it began under the Victorians — Ricardoc

Postmodernism indeed has its roots in the later 1800s. Two of the bigger influences on it were the realization that Euclidean geometry wasn't akin to God-given law and the weirdness of black-body radiation physics and quantum phenomena. There were parallels in the arts with the rise of impressionism, Fauvism, expressionism, etc. and the move away from traditional diatonicism in music, leading to serialism and atonalism shortly after the turn of the 20th Century.

Anything else is a belief, and belief can lead to a corruption of knowledge. — Christoffer

What do those folks do when they learn something about epistemology, where propositional knowledge is--as one of philosophy's most widespread consensuses--characterized as justified true belief?

In my opinion, it would be something that is generally agreed upon within the scientific community. — Merkwurdichliebe

So we could say that there's a generally agreed-upon definition in the community. So first, what's the evidence that that's the case for "free will" but not for "morality"?

(5) It seems highly unlikely to me that inanimate matter could spontaneously collect and organize itself into conscious beings all on its own without some kind of guidance.
(6) Thus, it is highly likely that matter was guided by some conscious being to form into conscious animals. — Noah Te Stroete

I really don't understand when people use "likely" that way. Likely based on what? It seems like it's just shorthand for "based on my intuitive preconceptions . . . "

Asking for evidence is basically asking for the justification for belief, where it's hoped that theists have some justification for belief. Evidence can be logical, heuristic, etc.

I use "phenomena" to refer to any occurrences, especially as they appear or would appear experientially.

What would you say that it amounts to for a concept to be "unified" "at a physical level"?

Caprice: a sudden and unaccountable change of mood or behavior. — Merkwurdichliebe

You're seeing it as contra free will--and you made a comparison to aesthetic judgments? Do you think that aesthetic judgments are deterministic?

Are you suggesting that the comparison is invalid because there’s something *special* about human morality? — praxis

"Special" just in the sense of being different. I can't really think of an angle from which I'd say the computer example is similar to morality.

I don't understand, what do you see as the relevance of free will (and the responsibility issue with respect to it) to whether moral stances are essentially a matter of "caprice"?

I tend to be skeptical of claims of oppression in lieu of pretty solid empirical sociological research, and then I'd only buy the idea insofar as the data goes, as long as I think the research was methodologically sound.

Likewise I tend to be skeptical of claims about the feminist movement doing this or that without pretty solid empirical research.

My suspicion is that people tend to create narratives in these arenas that don't necessarily have much to do with reality.

My concern with it is primarily the claim that someone can have the normal meanings in mind by the terms. I don't think that really follows from anything.

Doesn't it seem like a pretty obvious straw man to say that reductionists have to be talking about parts without relations/processes, though? I mean, who would say something like that?