Is free-will an illusion?

I disagree, and again I distinguish the message from the messenger.



Yeah, as to inkspots. Naw, as to the information carried by symbols. Contrary to Berkeley (who you appear to agree with), I don' t think a tree ceases to exist as soon as I turn my head away from it. "To be" is not simply "to be perceived."



How so?

It appeared from your remarks that you accepted models of physiology, chemistry and physics advocated as "scientific" models by "scientists". That's all I meant by "an adherent of scientism".

https://www.google.co.kr/#newwindow=1&safe=off&q=scientism

Nope. That's not me. But if someone makes a grand claim but lacks evidence, then someone makes an opposing claim and is able to present supporting evidence, well...

There are plenty of symbols in a car, on the dashboard, the direction lights, etc. The car itself IS a symbol of status and class. A picture of a book page can be unreadable, just like the picture of a car cannot be driven... There's no essential difference there in my opinion.

Does it matter anyway, and if yes why? I am not against endless hair-splitting but there needs to be a reason for it.

I'm going to elaborate on this with a hypothetical example of what I'm saying which illustrates where I think you're going astray, PP. And this applies to your solipsism in general, not just to "information."

Suppose I take a piece of paper and write today's date on it. I then write words which ask for help and explain that I'm stranded on a small island located at x latitude and z longitude. Assume it's true.

Now I put the paper in a bottle and cast it to sea. That "information" is there, and is accurate (as of that date, anyway) even if nobody ever reads it. If the bottle sinks, and the paper disintegrates, the information is no longer conveyed by it. That goes without saying.

But the information itself still exists, and is still true. The fact that no one ever read the piece of paper changes nothing, in that regard. It just defeats my goal when attempting to "transmit" the information to another.

Now assume I try to do the same thing, but am delirious and only make incoherent scribbles on the paper before throwing the bottle into the ocean. Suppose somebody finds it and looks at it. Won't help much. It contains no coherent information and hence can convey none, at least none beyond the obvious fact that someone, somewhere, must have made those scribbles.

My attempt to convey the information I wanted to convey was worthless. All the same, that information still exists.

I am not the information. The paper is not the information. The reader, if any, is not the information. Information is not "in" any physical container. But it still "exists," whether known or correctly interpreted by any particular person or not.

So what?... Little monkeys can always close their eyes.

If you distinguish the message from the messenger, then you ought to agree, not disagree.

Lots of radio transmissions from natural sources and as the byproducts of artificial processes contain elements of complexity, regularity, and repetition or redundancy. They aren't messages, though. An objectively indistinguishable signal could be a message, but only if an isomorphism such as I described is created.

One doesn't have to insist that the ink spots disappear if they aren't observed; but one does have to insist that ink spots are no longer text if they are incapable of being read or if nobody recognizes them as such.

Let's use the example of a one-time pad, which is a theoretically unbreakable cipher system (that is, it is unbreakable in theory, not just in practice) which was once used by Cold War spies. (Sometimes it was misused, which allows it to be broken, hence the Venona Project.)

The system consists of a polyalphabetic substitution cipher married to a pad of pages each of which contains a random key which is as long as the plaintext message to be sent; and (very important) each key is used only once, with a single message, then torn off and physically destroyed.

If I encipher a message this way, it will be indistinguishable not only from random noise, but also from every other possible message of the same length. In fact, using the wrong random keys, it is possible to generate every possible pseudo-message from that ciphertext. Consider the result of writing out every possible permutation of letters having the same length as the ciphertext, and you'll have a good model for the number and variety of plaintext messages that can be extracted. Some of them are wholly gibberish, some only partly, and some are wholly intelligible. But only one out of countless possibilities is true.

Only I know the key. If I cease to exist, is the ciphertext a message? It's true that, using the correct key with the correct polyalphabetic substitution cipher allows a message to be extracted. But so does using the wrong key. It just extracts the wrong message. And there are a potentially unlimited number of extractable messages, since there are not only a very large number of potential keys and ciphers, but also a very large number of coding systems which can be used to make plaintext number groups represent letters, syllables, words, sentences, or general ideas; and also a very large number of languages they might be expressed in, including entirely arbitrary (but coherent) fictional languages each with its own grammar, syntax and vocabulary.

By now it should be clear that the "message" is a set of abstract relations, not something intrinsic to the ink on paper. And it exists only for me, and only as long as I do.

Exactly, Ollie. Being the disciple of scientism that he is, he is unlikely to ever understand that "evidence" has to be interpreted (correctly if it is to be useful). And any one piece of evidence is still only one piece. If I am unaware of, or (as is often the case) simply choose to ignore, other relevant evidence I'm not convincing anyone other than myself, based on partial (and/or idiosyncratically selected) "evidence."

Big whoop.

The fact that there are symbols in the car (but only for those who recognize them as such) doesn't refute my analysis.

And these distinctions aren't hairsplitting, they are fundamental. You don't realize this because you fail to grasp the distinctions. (That's not an insult or an expression of pique, by the way, just an accurate description.)

Not sure what you mean by "text" but if you mean what I think you do, I disagree for reasons already stated.



Sure, why not? A message doesn't have to be received to still be a message.

It seems to me that you are confusing epistemology with ontology.

The message in a bottle is only a message to someone who recognizes it as such. See my counterillustration using one-time pads.

Incidentally, I'm typing all this on a balky cellphone and it's two in the morning. I'm going to have to take a break soon.

Your incoherent scribbles in the variational example you gave are not a message simply because nobody (including yourself) recognizes them as such.

So you say. You must have a completely different concept of (or definition of) "message" than I do.



I saw it, and have responded to it. As I said, it seems to me that you are confusing epistemology (what is known, or knowable) with ontology (what "is"). This is precisely what scientism does.

Yeah, that's what I said. It conveys no information because it contains no intelligible information to convey. Even so, the (intended) information still exists.

These distinctions are fundamental to WHAT exactly? I hope you don't mind me asking...

To FBM:



Berkeley showed that strict empiricism leads to solipsism. And you're right, that's where scientism (or at least the metaphysical assumption which generate it) take you, ultimately (if understood, anyway).

But adherence to "strict" empiricism does not render empiricism itself as futile. By the very same token, it does not make strict solipsism the only tenable position. Remember it was (dubious) strict empiricism that brought you to solipsism in the first place.

Like Johnson, you only need kick a rock to "know" that solipsism alone aint gunna make it.

layman: " It seems to me that you are confusing epistemology with ontology."

Not at all. You're using intentionality as your criterion of a message, which simply shifts recognition by someone of the message into the past-tense. You're saying that my one-time pad cipher is a message because it was once recognized as a message by someone.

But you're mixing tenses: after I'm gone, not only IS there nobody who does (or even can) recognize the message, but there IS nobody who even knows that somebody in the past once did recognize it as a message, much less a particular message.

The question isn't WAS it a message, but IS IT NOW a message.

If your answer is still yes, because it once was to someone, that only demonstrates anew that text exists only insofar as someone recognizes (recognized) it as such. There is (was) nothing intrinsic to the ink on paper to make it a message.

In any case, what you really mean is that it WAS a message. You're just erroneously employing the wrong tense.

Before reading any further, let me note this. I have consistently been talking about "information." You claimed a "category error" in connection with this term. You keep introducing new terms (such as "message" and "text") which may or may not be what I'm even talking about.

That's mere epistemology.



With "recognized" you're still stuck at epistemology. I'm not going to bother with the rest of this, although I probably disagree. I aint been, and aint now, talkin about messages or text. I'm talkin about information.