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Article 3908 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Determinism precludes truth?
Message-ID: <1992Feb20.231024.5959@norton.com>
Date: 20 Feb 92 23:10:24 GMT
References: <1992Feb17.224820.7895@spss.com>
Organization: Symantec / Peter Norton
Lines: 44

markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
 
> 1. Human beliefs are so various, not to say rococo, that it would seem hard
> to maintain that the most useful beliefs also tend to be true.

If the truth is so useless, why bother studying philosophy?  Or science?  Or 
anything else?  Go study you Bible or your Koran and you'll do no worse under 
your conclusions.  Would you not say that yours is an anti-intellectual
attitude?
 
> Most ideological systems, for example, manifestly help the believer,
> by providing a meaning to life, a framework for thought, a community of
> fellow believers; whether the ideology is true or not may be the least of
> the factors which contribute to its usefulness.

I would attribute this to the fact that many false ideological systems DO 
contain some true doctrines.  The ones that are false will ultimately lead to
actions among believers that are inconsistent with reality and lead to negative
consequences.
 
> 2. Your theory should address more than mere reproductive success, since
> it's hard to see this applying to beliefs at all except in the very long
> term.  If Chomsky's innatism superseded behaviorist theories of language,
> this was not because Chomsky's followers reproduced more efficiently.

But the IDEAS would have reproduced.  Furthermore, if one set or the other
happened to promote totalitarianism or something of that kind, eventually,
the theory could kill millions, just as Marx's false ideologies did.

> 3. Experience is awfully careless about the details of belief.  A belief
> that a certain swamp fosters malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and a belief that
> the swamp is inhabited by demons, might be equally useful to the believer.

Such a belief is part true part false.  The true part is that "Going into the
swamp is unhealthy." the false part is that the reason for this is "demons".
As a consequence of this false part of the belief, the believers are helpless
to actually solve the problem (with insecticide or better drainage) and 
thereby improve their lives, and make better use of the local real-estate.

-- 
-- Brian K. Yoder (brian@norton.com) - Q: What do you get when you cross     --
-- Peter Norton Computing Group      -    Apple & IBM?                       --
-- Symantec Corporation              - A: IBM.                               --
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