Re: Epistemology 102

From: Wolf Kirchmeir (wwolfkir_at_sympatico.ca)
Date: 01/04/05 

Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2005 20:29:51 -0500

Lester Zick wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 12:15:31 -0500, Wolf Kirchmeir
> <wwolfkir@sympatico.ca> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>
>
>>Lester Zick wrote:
>>[...]
>>
>>>This means in turn that empiricism places the burden of proof on the
>>>defense rather than the prosecution. Those who deny any empirical
>>>observation are effectively reduced to disproving the observation as
>>>opposed to the empirical observer's having to prove the observation.
>>>They are also required to explain what they would deny because
>>>empirical observations in general could mean anything.
>>
>>[...]
>>
>>You can't "deny an empirical observation."
>
>
> Sure you can. I empirically observe that human behavior is the result
> of mental effects.

Well, it's nice to know something can be the result of an effect. :-)
I'll assume you merely misspoke, and meant something like "mental events."

That's your interpretation of the empirical observations. All you can
observe of other people is their behaviour. You can observe some of your
own behaviour, including some of what you call "mental effects". Since
we don't know what those are, any claim you make about their causal
relationship to your behaviour has to be taken on faith. There is no way
of checking - not even you can check it, since all you have is your
experience, which is incomplete - ie, there are certainly mental events
of which you are unaware. (BTW, those are the ones which are somewhat
easier to discover as having occurred than the ones you claim have
occurred. Why should this be so?)

Several studies attempting to find the temporal relationship between
neural potentiation and human reports of having decided to do something,
or of human actions that are supposedly evidence of having decided, show
that potentiation occurs before the deciding or the action that is
purportedly evidence of deciding. If these studies are valid, ie, if
they are replicated in other contexts and with variations, then it would
seem that the mental events of which we are aware occur after the ones
that cause our behaviour.

Your definition of "empirical" is unlike any Ive ever encountered
before, and tautological, too, so of course it's never wrong. Which has
deluded you into believing you have discoverd a Great Truth.

BTW, the more you use "mechanical", the less I can make sense of what
you mean by it.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Epistemology 102
    ... I empirically observe that human behavior is the result ... and meant something like "mental events." ... including some of what you call "mental effects". ... or of human actions that are supposedly evidence of having decided, ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Epistemology 102
    ... I empirically observe that human behavior is the result ... and meant something like "mental events." ... including some of what you call "mental effects". ... or of human actions that are supposedly evidence of having decided, ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Epistemology 102
    ... I empirically observe that human behavior is the result ... that mentation, the mind, or mental effects, M, mediate contingencies ... Thus M is definable in the sense of finite reduction whereas ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Epistemology 102
    ... I empirically observe that human behavior is the result ... that mentation, the mind, or mental effects, M, mediate contingencies ... Thus M is definable in the sense of finite reduction whereas ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Epistemology 102
    ... I empirically observe that human behavior is the result ... that mentation, the mind, or mental effects, M, mediate contingencies ... Thus M is definable in the sense of finite reduction whereas ...
    (sci.physics)