On 21/08/07, marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden <marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Aug 20, 9:45 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <stath....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> > On 20/08/07, marc.ged....domain.name.hidden <marc.ged....domain.name.hidden.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > Now consider sentient agent motivations (and remember the analogy with
> > > the physics argument I gave above).
> >
> > > *Consider an agent with a set of motivations A
> > > *Consider the transition of that agent to a different set of
> > > motivations B (ie the agent changes its mind about something)
> >
> > > Question: Why did agent A transition from motivation set A to
> > > motivation set B?
> >
> > > Assumption: The transition must be explicable
> >
> > > Conclusion: There must exist objective 'laws of value' which explain
> > > why there was a transition from state A to state B.
> >
> > > And that argument (greatly fleshed out of course) basically proves
> > > that that such objective principles exist, given only the assumption
> > > that reality is explicable.
> >
>
> > But surely the transition from A to B must be fully explained by the
> > laws of physics underlying physical transitions in the agent's brain,
> > or state transitions in an abstract machine.
> >
> > --
> > Stathis Papaioannou
>
> *sigh*. Only if Teleological explanations (discussions about agent
> motivations) can be completely reduced to (replaced by) physical
> explanations (discussions about physics). I don't think they can,
> since I advocate 'property dualism'. I'm saying that you have three
> different kinds of properties (Physical, Teleological, Mathematical)
> which are correlated with each other (as science requires) but that
> you cannot fully reduce mathematical and teleological explanations to
> physical explanations.
>
> IF you accept that teleological properties are not identical to
> physical properties ('Property Dualism'), THEN my sketch of the
> argument for the existence of objective laws of value holds. But
> that's a very big 'if' of course.
Well, return to a concrete example. Yesterday, I thought red was the
best colour for my new car, but today I think blue is better. My
aesthetic values would seem to have changed. There must be some reason
for this, of course. At one level, the reason may be something such as
"I now realise that blue is a better colour", or "I don't want my car
to be the same colour as half the other cars in the street". But at a
more fundamental level than this, the reason is that physical changes
in my brain have caused me to change my mind. Perhaps there is an even
more fundamental level than this, such as mathematical Idealism, which
underpins physics, but this seems to me if anything yet another step
removed from calling the aesthetic values themselves fundamental.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Tue Aug 21 2007 - 06:32:18 PDT