saully and i had a delightful conversation earlier. we were discussing some of the basis for VO and logic, and i felt compelled to reference these following quotes. the line of conversation went something like this: VO’s self-valuing logic as an expression of WTP > WTP as an expression of the survival instinct (in humans)> survival instinct as a substantiation of logic > substantiation of logic through application of law of identity and excluded middle in human reasoning. it was here that i referenced nietzsche… because ‘nobody does it better’, as carly simon says…
“Origin of the logical.-- How did logic come into existence in man’s head? Certainly out of illogic, whose realm originally must have been immense. Innumerable beings who made inferences in a way different from ours perished; for all that, their ways might have been truer. Those, for example, who did not know how to find often enough what is “equal” as regards both nourishment and hostile animals–those, in other words, who subsumed things too slowly and cautiously–were favored with a lesser probability of survival than those who guessed immediately upon encountering similar instances that they must be equal.”- nietzsche
this is a brilliant insight. what he means is that those humans who generalized or stereotyped their experiences, were too cautious, responded too slowly, and were therefore put in greater danger than those for whom the principle of the law of identity was an unconscious instinct; while this tiger is different from the last tiger by whatever degree (so A does not equal A), a consideration of these differences would cost him precious time and put him in danger. his instinct of self-preservation forces him to posit an identical case immediately (A does equal A; particular tigers are instances of general tigers), and he reacts to the tiger as he reacts to any tiger. he gets the fuck outta there and pays no attention to the fact that this tiger might be a little different than the last one he encountered.
now the point here is not that the law of identity isn’t true- A certainly IS A, whatever A is, because it can’t both be A and not A (law of excluded middle)- but that the origins of logic began with identifying individual cases as general cases on a conscious level.
“The dominant tendency, however, to treat as equal what is merely similar–an illogical tendency, for nothing is really equal–is what first created any basis for logic.”- nietzsche
what he means is that logic cannot exist without such error in reasoning existing FIRST… the assumption of identical cases. he is mistaken, here. now look:
“In order that the concept of substance could originate–which is indispensible for logic although in the strictest sense nothing real corresponds to it–it was likewise necessary that for a long time one did not see or perceive the changes in things.”- nietzsche
replace ‘substance’ with ‘property’, but first consider hume’s thoughts: we have no impression or idea of ‘substance’ (something that can be conceived apart from everything else, as spinoza put it):
“what possibility then of answering the question, whether perceptions inhere in a material or immaterial substance, when we do not so much as understand the meaning of the question?”- hume
now then, the concept of the tiger is not a concept of a substance, so nietzsche is mistaken in asserting that the idea of the A, which would be the tiger, assumes a substance ‘tiger’ in order to then assume an identical case. the idea of substance is not at all required for logic. indeed, it’s a nonsensical concept to begin with and does not detract from the law of identity as nietzsche believes it does, BECAUSE it’s nonsensical. nietzsche’s correct, but for the wrong reasons.
a tiger is a set of properties, and while individual tigers may possess different properties, the properties themselves cannot both be what they are and not be what they are (regardless of whether they’re perceived or not). despite failing to conceive of a ‘general’ tiger-type, which is what nietzsche claims was the problem of those pre-logical reasoners, the law of identity still persists in, or for, rather, the properties of the individual tigers.
the fact that an infinite regress would be involved in the properties of the properties, etc., makes no difference.
so the law of identity and excluded middle certainly apply, and while it is a mistake to posit identical cases as experiences of an A-tiger, the properties of the unidentical tigers MUST BE what they are, and can’t also be what they aren’t at the same time.
nietzsche is right, but not because ‘the concept of substance… which is indispensible for logic’ is true. this assertion isn’t true or false, but nonsensical.
“The beings that did not see so precisely had an advantage over those who saw everything “in flux.” At bottom, every high degree of caution in making inferences and every skeptical tendency constitute a great danger for life. No living beings would have survived if the opposite tendency–to affirm rather than suspend judgement, to err and make up things rather than wait, to assent rather than negate, to pass judgement rather than be just-- had not been bred to the point where it became extraordinarily strong.”- nietzsche
excellent point, again. however, NOT that logic did not exist until this tendency had been bred (a naturally selected behavior), but because logic hadn’t yet come into the foreground of reasoning, had not yet been recognized AS logic, hadn’t yet emerged out of unconscious instinct.
the fact that pre-logical man might have had a better fitness level is a remarkable irony. spontaneous man at one point was more successful than the calculating man. what has changed, then? the speed with which the mind now works; modern man’s frontal cortex has evolved, enabling him to process information faster and with logical consistency- he now can make a logical snap-judgment and waste fractions of a second doing so.
the last time i encountered a tiger, i was able to instinctively assume an identical case, critique that assumption, recognize the law of identity and excluded middle still remained in spite of that, AND get away from him… all in the blink of an eye.
…
VO advocates such self-valuing logic in human behavior, and is correct in doing so. really, this idea is nothing revolutionary and goes without saying. what is problematic is the notion that all things express the same self-valuing logic, like urgod’s rock, for example. i won’t get into that again right now.
what i might suggest here is that the self-valuing of the human being is an emergent property that makes of the human a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts; the atomic, chemical and molecular parts of the human do not possess self-valuing, but when combined, self-valuing emerges from the system.
saully seems to go another way with this idea, as he explained yesterday. for him, self-valuing might be an emergent property of even these smaller parts… but this implies that idea of panpsychism or proto-consciousness. he does seem to admit that ‘valuing’ is not just action, but involves a complex of action AND reasoning- this consisting of phenomenological structures requiring the necessary attribute ‘intentionality’ (consciousness is consciousness OF something [brentano, husserl, sartre]). without being conscious, a being isn’t able to differentiate between values and non-values. without being able to do this, any action is arbitrary and can’t be described as either. saully would have to surmise that each of these parts possess such structural capacities in order to ‘value’ anything. i don’t think they do, personally, for many reasons.
[/tab]