Ways of Defining Music

The "is-ought" problem is common to meta-ethics and linguistics. In meta-ethics: are we describing how people act, or how they ought to act? In linguistics, some people describe grammar while other prescribe grammar. I imagine the same approaches to understanding music:

1. Descriptive definitions of music, which take into account various musical traditions and extrapolate common themes within and between them.
2. Prescriptive definitions of music, which involve reflection and thought-experiments — philosophy, really — sometimes accompanied by experimental compositions.

To explore the first without the second is superficial, and to philosophize without context is unrealistic.

1/26/08: "Noise" has the same issue, describing how the word "noise" is used is very different from prescribing definitions. Describing things can be difficult, but prescriptions can get really messy. It's probably best to set out a goal for a prescriptive definition before seeking/giving one. Prescriptions might be about: unifying themes of descriptions, offering a new definition that illuminates others, expanding or restricting the dominant contemporary definition...

Purism

Sometimes it's easiest to understand a perspective when you hear it from someone who believes it. But no one is a purist. That is, almost no one is solely Platonist, Cartesian, Marxist, etc. To be a purist, you would have to accept one approach in favor of everything else, rejecting even unknown philosophies.

The only possible non-naive purist would be one who can account for new philosophies and make an informed evaluation of them rather than simply rejecting the unfamiliar.

Justified Subjective Belief

I met this guy recently, Eric, who prefers to make the distinction between being a Christian and a Paulian. As a Christian, he doesn't try and defend Paul's writings (or scripture in general), but stands by Christ's central teachings. It's questionable what Christ's central teachings are (and how original they are), but Eric says it's just about love. He sees this as objectively defensible, but it seems like the teaching is dependent on the character of Christ: if Jesus was just a person, believing in "Love" is not being "Christian", it's also being Buddhist, Confucianist, and a host of other things. On the other hand, if Jesus is God incarnate, He has a privileged understanding of the nature of humanity and the ethics that follow. Arguing for the latter requires a shareable (objectively defensible) argument for Christ's God-nature, which would have to be founded in scripture.

A more general question that arises from this regards the nature of personal belief. Eric believes more than he can share (again, objectively defend), but isn't worried about not being able to share it. This concerns me: when, if ever, are we justified in believing something about the nature of reality we can't defend to someone else?

Unfalsifiability

I remember Bram covering the Gambler's fallacy once: "A real gambler will lose ten times and think, 'I'll bet again, I'm due for a win!', then win ten times and think 'I'll bet again, I'm on a streak!'" This is vaguely reminiscent of a statistic from Sam Harris, "a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80% of Katrina's survivors claim that the event has only strengthened their faith in God." I'm curious how many of these survivors are part of the 87% of Americans "who claim to never doubt the existence of God"?

Argument from Tap Water

Homeopathy has two primary tenets:

• The Law of Similars, or Likes Cure Likes: use remedies based on substances that cause similar symptoms in large doses.
• The Theory of Infitesimals: the further a remedy is diluted, the more it is enhanced.

A straighforward reductio against these principles came to me yesterday. Chances are you consume tap water on a regular basis; yet tap water is full of pretty much everything, nearly infinitely diluted. For example, I'm sure there are trace amounts of mercury in tap water — mercury, in large amounts, can cause dementia. By the claims of homeopathy, then, no one who drinks tap water should ever go insane. Yet there are plenty of people who go insane — and believe things like homepathy. Maybe they're all drinking bottled water? Or would that have even stronger curative powers?

The Essentialist Argument and Nature

One of the standard arguments against homosexuality goes: "It's contrary to our nature, considering there's no way to reproduce, so of course it's wrong." While one of the arguments in support of homosexuality goes "It's genetically determined, so it's part of our nature and it's right." (the essentialist argument).

What I find interesting is that they both use the same premise, "If something is natural, it is good." Whether homosexuality is genetically determined or not, the rebuttal against the pro-homosexual will normally include mention of the evils of other natural tendencies (like kleptomania). What the anti-homosexual doesn't realize is that they are undermining their own argument as well!

Computability, Ad Hominem, Faith and Reason

Consider the function:

Π(n) = { the position of the first occurrence of n consecutive zeros in the decimal expansion of π if it exists, 0 otherwise }

For example, "0" first occurs at position 32, so Π(1) = 32; the first few values are: 32, 307, 601, 13,390, 17,534... (according to the Pi-Searcher). This function is "computable" in a sense, for a trivial reason: for any given n, it is possible to output the correct integer (because it's possible to output any integer). But this function doesn't really teach us anything — it doesn't demonstrate a necessary relationship between the input and output values.

Now consider ad hominem, one of the most popular logical fallacies. In essence, it works by citing the origin of a belief as evidence against the belief. Sometimes it's just delicate slander, but other times the attack is on the argument itself. If I say "I'm alive because Andy Warhol walks among us.", you might respond "That's ridiculous, there is no relation between those two claims — and furthermore, Andy Warhol has most certainly kicked the can..." It's fine to argue with the soundness of my argument, but the problem lies in the conclusion of ad hominem: "...therefore, you are not alive." (a negation of my conclusion). This might sound silly, but it happens constantly. This would be as ludicrous as claiming that 32, 307, 601... could not possibly be the first three values for Π(n) simply because I haven't provided an algorithm associating those values with the function definition.

This all comes back to the question of where faith is justified. Imagine I've just given you 100 arguments for the existence of God. If you go through each one and explain why the argument is unsound, you haven't disproven God's existence (that would be a case of denying the antecedent — which Popper brings up when discussing falsifiability). Unfortunately, too many atheistic arguments are based on this fallacy. For example, Bertrand Russell employs one of the most subtle forms of ad hominem:

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly... the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death...

For another example, see this previous post.

In short, there's some interesting symmetries between computability, ad hominem, denying the antecedent, falsifiability and questions about the justification of beliefs... maybe it's just me, but I think symmetries help me see more clearly.

Asymptotic Behavior

Rational arguments are generally considered a worthwhile method for discerning truth. In reality, we have a poor grasp on the evidence at hand and are plagued by our imperfect reasoning abilities. Like a child playing with a puzzle, putting some small shape into a hole meant for the larger piece, we'll rejoice: "It fits!" until someone points out our error. It's not just the arguments themselves, but this dialectic that leads to truth. In some ways, it's similar to a damped oscillation: back and forth, but eventually converging on a single value. With an oscillation, we can predict the end state from some initial measurements — can we do that with the dialectic as well? It's wise to understand different sides of an issue, but what if we go a step further and try to understand the interplay between those sides? Does it change things if we think about the entire continuous process instead of the discrete present state?

Consider the argument from first cause, also called the cosmological argument, as allegedly "misunderstood" by critics):

1. Everything has a cause
2. ∴ The universe has a cause
3. ∴ God (the cause of the universe) exists

Some critics will argue with the first premise, citing quantum theory. Others will respond by questioning the nature of "God" (rather than attatcking the argument itself): "Wouldn't God require a creator as well?". Because that idea is unsatisfactory, the argument is restated by the theists:

1. Everything with a beginning has a cause
2. The universe has a beginning
3. ∴ The universe therefore has a cause
4. ∴ God (the cause of the universe) exists

If we accept 1 by appealing to everyday experience, and 2 based on big bang theory, 3 follows and 4 is trivially true. This would prove the existence of something transcendent (i.e.: separate from this space-time called "the universe"). However, this "God" could be anything from a personal, loving entity to Linde's quantum foam.

This specific argument (which is obviously ridiculously oversimplified and ignorant of any continued debate) I'm not so concerned about — it's the process. Starting with a single argument from the theist, we're left with another argument both theists and naturalists would accept. In general, this seems to be the "process" which a dialectic will follow over time (the behavior of the oscillation): controversial premises are argued away (or clarified), leaving some unintended and impotent conclusion. Perhaps you can only prove trivial things when you have a valid argument and premises both sides agree on? All the interesting claims seem to be reserved for assumption.

Reasons to (dis)Believe

Standpoint.com offers a collection of people's beliefs and justifications. Not surprisingly, there are more atheists citing their rationale than theists. But there's "nothing new under the sun" — the arguments are all pretty standard. I do find it interesting that the top atheistic argument (by frequency, as of this posting) is "All beliefs in the 'supernatural' are human-created mythologies" — a very subtle ad hominem (or, more properly, a genetic fallacy). Attacking the origin of a belief does not prove its negation; a belief may be true in spite of an unsound argument. We should be careful to keep untangled the support for and truthfulness of a claim.