Why the vision argument is a very good one!

[Angrboda]

I'd like to make a couple of points.

My first point addresses the question of what it would mean for a God to have an exact value of our objective value.  The first thing to note is the meaning behind the word representation.  To represent something is to 're', meaning to do so again, and 'present', meaning to offer up or make something manifest.  So if we have imperfect re/presentations of objective value, then we are 'again' presenting the information which is originally presented to us by the reality.  So if God has a representation of our exact value, then that is in the sense of having a separate and secondary presentation of the information in the reality (unless God perceiving something creates the reality, but perception of something implies that the thing perceived is independent of the perceiver; otherwise, the God is just arbitrarily creating the value [more on that later]).

In that regard, a useful metaphor is that of a map and the territory which it represents.  If we pull up a google map of the United States, we notice that the outline of the individual states, and their relationship to each other, is preserved in the relationships in the map.  However, a great deal of detail is not represented.  Each dot in a google map may correspond to several miles, so any survey done to establish the outlines of such a map only needs to be accurate to within several miles.  We can imagine a grid of points being laid down on the actual ground, with each point being separated by several miles.  The surveyors of such a map only need to take measurements at those points as the map doesn't represent the land or territory to any greater degree of detail.  If we zoom in on our google map to show a specific state, or better yet, a city, then the detail is increased, and the separation between points needing to be surveyed is reduced, say to a hundred feet apart.  If we zoom in to a particular neighborhood, the detail of our representation of the land also needs to be increased.  At no point does the detail in our representation equal the detail in the actual landscape itself, unless we make a one for one copy of the land itself.

   “That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr, “map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?”

   “About six inches to the mile.”

   “Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!”

   “Have you used it much?” I enquired.

   “It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.”

— Sylvie and Bruno Concluded

An interesting side effect of this is, that if you were to create an actual map that has a one-to-one correspondence with the actual territory, that map would also include the map of the territory itself, as the map exists somewhere within the territory.  And that map within the map would also contain a map, which included the map of the map; and a map of the map of the map of the territory; and so on ad infinitum.

So how does this relate to the values argument?  Well it points up that any representation of an objective value or reality is going to be inexact, unless of course that representation actually includes a one for one copy of the reality.  God, unless his imagining reality actually creates value, must of necessity have an inexact representation of our value.  The representation of a perceiver necessarily abstracts certain details of the thing being represented.  Just as our eyes have a limited number of receptors, such that we only see a set or grid of points of the actual image of a thing being projected on our retina, so any God's perception is only going to represent a portion of the information contained in the reality.  Thus, unless God represents the reality in his mind with a copy of the reality, his knowledge is inexact.  If he does represent us with a copy of us, then his perception of our value is his perception of that copy, and not of us.  But then his perception of that copy must also be inexact.  In a way, this theory of "vision" wherein our actual value is communicated to us by an ideal perception of a perfect knower is similar to Plato's theory of forms, and as such, is subject to problems similar to those which plague the theory of forms (See, for example, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy || Plato's Parmenides, or the criticism section of Wikipedia || Theory of forms).  [For more on the territory-map relation, see Wikipedia || Map-territory relation or The Map Is Not the Territory.]

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Now the second point that I'd like to address is the very subject of MK's argument, which is the question of how value enters the world. Where does our sense of value come from? Why do I consider human life valuable? Why do I believe myself to be possessed of self-worth? Mystic's argument is in a sense an attempt to answer those questions, so it's not an entirely misguided enterprise. However, I think Mystic overlooks or undervalues a readily available explanation for these sensations of value within us. And that explanation is evolution. In evolution, those things which 'work', are preserved; and those that don't, are eliminated. This is because those who possess traits that work well are necessarily going to do better at the job of living, and ultimately better at the job of producing children who share those traits with their parents. So those who possess those traits will eventually outnumber those that don't, and those that don't will eventually disappear from the population. This is simply the mechanism of natural selection at work.

Now in addition to having traits such as the number of toes on each foot, how tall we are, how long our arms are in relation to our body, and so on, we have also evolved traits of mind which either 'work', or they don't. One of these traits is the possession of emotions, and our emotional reaction to stimuli. A primate that registered pleasure at finding the right sort of berry to eat is going to seek out such berries for the sake of feeling that sense of pleasure. A child that is afraid of the dark is going to avoid wandering off into the bush at night where he might get eaten or fall prey to some other mishap. In the same way we have emotional responses to abstract things, like the idea of us dying, or the recognition that someone we loved is no longer with us. We evolved to value being alive because valuing our life caused us to behave in ways which preserved our lives and ultimately led to us having more children. MK brings up the emotion laden response of finding something beautiful. Originally, perhaps, this emotion was applied to potential sexual partners and others because the traits of physical beauty, clear skin, good musculature, and so on, signaled that a person was more fit than a person without these traits. Those who selected those partners with the right traits of beauty produced healthier offspring, and were more successful at staying alive to provide for those offspring. Those that didn't tended to disappear from the gene pool. However, a feeling, once evolved, need not confine itself to physical beauty. Our minds can apply the same emotional prod to more abstract things. So, my example of finding the American system of government to be beautiful may ultimately represent nothing more than my mind's ability to perceive traits of inherent fitness for use of things like our institution of government. MK asks whether I consider personhood to have a kind of beauty. Again, there doesn't appear to be any barrier to our attaching this emotional response to beauty to an abstract such as personhood if doing so in some sense is a fitness producing value.

So to make a long story short (or shorter), the question of how value arises at all is a perfectly valid one. However, in concluding that a God is necessary for us to possess feelings of value (significance, meaning, beauty, positive and negative emotions), I think he has overlooked a much more mundane source of such values in our evolved psychology. This is not to say that he is necessarily wrong -- it could be the case that certain values cannot have evolved and only can be explained by recourse to a God or external knower. But so far, he's not given us any reason to believe that evolution is insufficient, and that a God is necessary. Until he does, Occam's razor suggest we prefer the simpler explanation to the one requiring either extra special causes, or those involving additional parts. The behavior of matter and organisms under evolution appears sufficient to explain our sensations of value, and a God appears unnecessary. As long as that's true, the problem of value itself doesn't require us to entertain the notion of such a perfect knower, and so the question itself does not provide evidence or proof of the existence of such a God.

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ps. I meant to slip in something about our perception of beauty in music. I don't have much to add other than it opens up a whole different range of traits we might attach to the feeling, and different senses in which that feeling is evoked. It possibly evolved as a response to the notion that people who are better speakers and/or singers having better fitness of some sort, both in relation to our subconscious apprehension of meaning in language, as well as the possibility that those with more poetic speech and better stories were better fit for passing along their culture to their children, and to those children of those closely related to them (who share many of the same genes). Going back even further, it's possible that an appreciation of vocal qualities in primates that were just beginning the process of developing language also signaled a set of traits that were desirable, perhaps even the trait of possessing a brain fit for language in and of itself!

[Edwardo Piet]

So how does this relate to the values argument?  Well it points up that any representation of an objective value or reality is going to be inexact, unless of course that representation actually includes a one for one copy of the reality.  

Right. If true values exist we cannot possibly perceive those values as they actually are unless Naive Realism is true... which it almost certainly isn't... as science shows.

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 However, I think Mystic overlooks or undervalues a readily available explanation for these sensations of value within us.  And that explanation is evolution.

I agree. And I take it further and say that those sensations of value within us are just as real as any values outside of us... but then I believe in ontological subjectivity, which you say John Searle 'made up'... but the point is that just because there wasn't a name for such a thing before, doesn't mean it doesn't point to something accurate. Our subjectivity is very real, unless you insist that nothing real can be imaginary and that that is a contradiciton in terms. There is no 'real seeming' as Dennett suggests. I disagree with him though. There's nothing outright wrong with having an ontology like that but I certainly prefer to say that there are two kinds of real: Real as opposed to imaginary and real as opposed to absent. Everything present is real, or exists, whether it is imaginary or non-imaginary. The imagination is present within our brain, in biochemical form. It would be silly to say that we didn't have an imagination, that our imagination doesn't exist because it 'isn't real' because it's 'imaginary', and therein lies the rub. I believe that people like Dennett or people who say ontological subjectivity is a contradiction in terms are at worst 1) Equivocating on two different definitions of 'real' or at best 2) Using an ontology that is more imprecise than mine and Searle's.

[Mystic]

Jo, I am really busy these days. I apologize from not responding sooner. You're post of evolutions deals with the origin of value, that is another argument in the other thread, but not really to do with the vision argument.

I will try to explain why we need vision for value which your previous post did address.  When you say "amount of love" is there a certain amount of physical hard-wired cells that love? Or does it mean something else? 

I think it's quality amount, it's not a quantity that has no assessment. We assess, I call this "vision judgment", and I believe this is a true nature of love. It values through assessment. 

I asked about beauty, because I believe every person has a different type of personality that has a shape in perception.  The shape is no physical, the form is not physical, the hue of it is not physical, but it's perceived.  Metaphorically, we even have a scent, a taste... 

When we perceive others or ourselves, we do so in abstract way, not knowing all the details.  The same is true of our minds.  Are subconscious can't asses ourselves totally with all the details nor can we do so of others, nor can others do so, nor is there a personality way of measuring things scientifically that will awaken to us who we are.

You were saying well the amount will exist, the value will exist, whether something perceives it or not. I disagree, like you can't take a quantity type ruler, and measure someone personality or love.

There is evidence true in the world, in how people compliment you, your reputation, if it's you being true and not deceiving people,  there is more then yourself that asses true.

But I'm saying that objective value that you are trying to asses, it's self not a physical thing, and hence requires perception. Your actions also are not totally physical, they have physical aspect to it but also a concrete love/valuing or it's opposite, it has goodness or evil to them, and that value is not a physical thing. Since we don't know the details of that perception, we aren't the source. Something else is given us that reality we try to estimate with our vision.

Of course, you can say, well our judgement is a good enough estimate, to what would be an accurate value if there was one. But that is saying itself there is no accurate value, and I would argue further, without an accurate value, we are shooting darts with no target, while, at least our estimate of who we are is shooting at darts knowing there is a target if we perceive God perceives us as we are and nothing else but perfect judgment can properly give us that value, which we try to know over time.

For the sake of argument, the non-physical personality, let's call it a program. I believe the program is produced by God's command, but you can believe the physical mind generates it for the sake of argument, and that will be the common ground for non-physical.

[Edwardo Piet]

But I'm saying that objective value that you are trying to asses, it's self not a physical thing, and hence requires perception.

But perception is physical... as is the self....

Not saying it isn't mental as well, by the way. It's both.

[The Grand Nudger]

But I'm saying that objective value that you are trying to asses, it's self not a physical thing, and hence requires perception. Your actions also are not totally physical, they have physical aspect to it but also a concrete love/valuing or it's opposite, it has goodness or evil to them, and that value is not a physical thing. Since we don't know the details of that perception, we aren't the source. Something else is given us that reality we try to estimate with our vision.

I bet you don't know the details of your arm moving, either.  Does that mean that someone else is moving your arm?

[Pat Mustard]

I got an A+ in it.

Then explain this drivel.

Logic is a lot different in the madrassa than in the real world. There, what mo says = logic and what mo disagrees with = illogic.

Unfortunately for MK the world doesn't work according to an uneducated 7th century paedophilem

[Angrboda]

Jo, I am really busy these days. I apologize from not responding sooner. You're post of evolutions deals with the origin of value, that is another argument in the other thread, but not really to do with the vision argument.

I will try to explain why we need vision for value which your previous post did address.  When you say "amount of love" is there a certain amount of physical hard-wired cells that love? Or does it mean something else? 

I think it's quality amount, it's not a quantity that has no assessment. We assess, I call this "vision judgment", and I believe this is a true nature of love. It values through assessment. 

I asked about beauty, because I believe every person has a different type of personality that has a shape in perception.  The shape is no physical, the form is not physical, the hue of it is not physical, but it's perceived.  Metaphorically, we even have a scent, a taste... 

When we perceive others or ourselves, we do so in abstract way, not knowing all the details.  The same is true of our minds.  Are subconscious can't asses ourselves totally with all the details nor can we do so of others, nor can others do so, nor is there a personality way of measuring things scientifically that will awaken to us who we are.

You were saying well the amount will exist, the value will exist, whether something perceives it or not. I disagree, like you can't take a quantity type ruler, and measure someone personality or love.

There is evidence true in the world, in how people compliment you, your reputation, if it's you being true and not deceiving people,  there is more then yourself that asses true.

But I'm saying that objective value that you are trying to asses, it's self not a physical thing, and hence requires perception. Your actions also are not totally physical, they have physical aspect to it but also a concrete love/valuing or it's opposite, it has goodness or evil to them, and that value is not a physical thing. Since we don't know the details of that perception, we aren't the source. Something else is given us that reality we try to estimate with our vision.

Of course, you can say, well our judgement is a good enough estimate, to what would be an accurate value if there was one. But that is saying itself there is no accurate value, and I would argue further, without an accurate value, we are shooting darts with no target, while, at least our estimate of who we are is shooting at darts knowing there is a target if we perceive God perceives us as we are and nothing else but perfect judgment can properly give us that value, which we try to know over time.

For the sake of argument, the non-physical personality, let's call it a program. I believe the program is produced by God's command, but you can believe the physical mind generates it for the sake of argument, and that will be the common ground for non-physical.

It's not an issue of whether objective value is a physical thing or not, we both acknowledge that perceptions of value are conceptual and represent abstract things. That is not the same thing as saying that conceptual truths cannot be represented by physical processes, and indeed the evidence would seem to be against you on that score.

What you have is an intuition. An intuition that the type of thoughts which form the basis of our value judgements is in some way special and unlike any ordinary mental contents. An intuition by itself is not an argument. Intuitions by their nature are not transparent, as are the processes of reason, so it is impossible to say, solely on the basis of an intuition whether you have the truth of the matter or not. For my part, I have an equally forceful intuition that our value judgements lie well within the range of mental concepts we are capable of, are readily explained by the tools at our disposal, and are fully explained by imperfect representations obtained exclusively through mundane channels. In that, neither intuition is clearly correct, yet since you are making an affirmative case here, that is the ultimate failure of your argument. If you had more than an intuition supporting your claim, you would be able to explicate it as you have done the other parts of your argument, but so far you have not done so.

An additional point is your use of the analogy of vision in your argument. Such an analogy is what is known as an intuition pump (see below), and while useful for pedagogical purposes, they are less useful as methods of demonstration. As Dennett notes, they can be productively used, but they can also be abused. Given the great extent upon which your argument is being carried on the back of your analogy, your use of it tends more toward an abuse of such tools than a useful supplement to an otherwise sound argument. It's also worth noting that cultural concepts and the very values you are discussing can influence our intuitions, so intuitions and intuition pumps may, in a sense, be best avoided when trying to make a positive demonstration such as you have attempted here.

Khemikal has already responded to your argument concerning our not knowing, definitively, the source of specific values and value mentation. Not knowing, however, leads us to a conclusion of agnosticism, not the positive assertion you seem to imply. Doing so renders your argument little more than an appeal to ignorance, and your conclusion therewith does not follow.

A popular strategy in philosophy is to construct a certain sort of thought experiment I call an intuition pump. ... Intuition pumps are cunningly designed to focus the reader's attention on "the important" features, and to deflect the reader from bogging down in hard-to-follow details. There is nothing wrong with this in principle. Indeed one of philosophy's highest callings is finding ways of helping people see the forest and not just the trees. But intuition pumps are often abused, though seldom deliberately.

Wikipedia || Intuition pump

Searle's form of argument is a familiar one to philosophers: he has constructed what one might call an intuition pump, a device for provoking a family of intuitions by producing variations on a basic thought experiment. An intuition pump is not, typically, an engine of discovery, but a persuader or pedagogical tool - a way of getting people to see things ' your way once you've seen the truth, as Searle thinks he has. I would be the last to disparage the use of intuition pumps - I love to use them myself - but they can be abused. In this instance I think Searle relies almost entirely on ill-gotton gains: favorable intuitions generated by misleadingly presented thought experiments.

"The Milk of Human Intentionality," Daniel Dennett.

[Mystic]

If I respond, I will probably try to re-explain what I explained Jo (which I feel you haven't really addressed) and would try to explain how your post doesn't address it (from my perspective). So maybe it's best to leave it at this stage instead of having an endless conversation.

[Angrboda]

But I'm saying that objective value that you are trying to asses, it's self not a physical thing, and hence requires perception.

I just noted this. I don't think self is a physical thing either. However, that doesn't imply that self is supernatural. Self can be nothing more than an object of mind, which I believe, so appraisals of self need not appeal to anything outside the mind.

[Mystic]

But I'm saying that objective value that you are trying to asses, it's self not a physical thing, and hence requires perception.

I just noted this.  I don't think self is a physical thing either.  However, that doesn't imply that self is supernatural.  Self can be nothing more than an object of mind, which I believe, so appraisals of self need not appeal to anything outside the mind.

*smiles*