Is this a logical argument?

Newbie Joined: Jan 10, 2008 Posts: 12

This argument was presented to me elsewhere:

Quote:

People's choices are limited by reality. I can't choose to fly to Mars. I can choose to TRY to go to Mars, but I cannot go to Mars. How do I try to go to Mars when I do not have any knowledge how? I am limited by my lack of knowledge and by reality.

How exactly does anyone know they can or cannot do something if they don't try? Going to Mars is a bit hyperbolic, but the argument could be made for other things - such as playing baseball - and it very obviously would not make any sense.

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 6:28 am

Well, it seems to be a false premise- he knows humanity hasn't yet figured out how to get one of us safely to mars, so he knows he can try, but can't go. If he honestly didn't know, he could choose to go to mars, only to be disappointed when he found out that we can't.
Where does he draw the line between making a choice and taking an action?
I think, with people like Sylvia Browne running around, it's fairly obvious that such pesky things as reality don't affect people's choices, at least not to any appreciable degree. It's all about perception.

People's choices are limited not by reality so much as by their perception of it. I can't choose to fly without any technology, and can't even figure out how to really try (to me, it's obvious that flapping my arms won't work- I probably have tried when I was younger- though when I was younger, it probably wasn't so obvious). I think it's equally obvious, and happens to be backed up by a decent amount of evidence based on neural cognitive behavior techniques and premises, that how we perceive reality affects how we think about reality.

It seems to me that what this guy says boils down to a statement of the obvious at best, or a meaningless statement otherwise.

To answer your question, it seems to me to stem from what we learned about reality and our capabilities throughout our lives, as well as our understanding of what is involved in what we want to do.
For instance, if I'm a quadriplegic, it would be difficult to play baseball as anything other than a base. I would know that based only on my perception of what is involved in playing baseball and what I am capable of. At least, that's what I can say about how I go about figuring out what I can and cannot do.
On the other hand, if I have never heard of baseball, and have no experience with it, I'd never even think of trying it. Regardless of how well I might do playing it, it simply wouldn't be on my menu of choices, so to speak.

Does this answer your question?

Master of Logic Joined: Oct 04, 2003 Posts: 9384

(the original post)It really seems to presupose, and unfortunatly play into the gap argument made by theists, "How do you know it doesnt exist".

It is not a matter of not trying to gain knowlege. It is the ability to discard debunked trash.

Newton, certainly contributed to modern science, but he also tinkered with alchemy which is clearly bullshit.

I can "try to be a super model" that part is true. But being a 41 year old balding male with missing teeth, it is highly unlikely and might as well be at absolute zero.

So while there is alot we can learn, the key is to not cling to bad data merely because there is some fancy we like about it.

In layman's terms, uttering something does not by proxy make it a possibility. It merely means we utterted it.

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:45 am

Quote:

Religan:
People's choices are limited not by reality so much as by their perception of it.

Not meaning to nitpick but if there is an objective reality (and without that as working premise, everything becomes meaningless) then it would necessarily be a limiting factor on what choices we can make, regardless of our perception of reality. My girlfriend cannot choose to give birth to SUV, even if she believes she can. You can’t change reality by changing your thinking about it or how you perceive it personally.

We may be saying the same thing, so please forgive me if I was confused by the sentence I quoted.

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 3:01 am

Kil wrote:

Quote:

Religan:
People's choices are limited not by reality so much as by their perception of it.

Not meaning to nitpick but if there is an objective reality (and without that as working premise, everything becomes meaningless) then it would necessarily be a limiting factor on what choices we can make, regardless of our perception of reality. My girlfriend cannot choose to give birth to SUV, even if she believes she can. You can’t change reality by changing your thinking about it or how you perceive it personally.

We may be saying the same thing, so please forgive me if I was confused by the sentence I quoted.

I think we agree that there is an objective reality- however, from my viewpoint (at least in this thread, I think splitting hairs over this is bordering on silly), your girlfriend could "choose" to give birth to an SUV- but then reality kicks in and makes it impossible. I think reality limits our actions, but not our choices, if that makes sense.

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 3:47 am

Raligan wrote:

Kil wrote:

Quote:

Religan:
People's choices are limited not by reality so much as by their perception of it.

Not meaning to nitpick but if there is an objective reality (and without that as working premise, everything becomes meaningless) then it would necessarily be a limiting factor on what choices we can make, regardless of our perception of reality. My girlfriend cannot choose to give birth to SUV, even if she believes she can. You can’t change reality by changing your thinking about it or how you perceive it personally.

We may be saying the same thing, so please forgive me if I was confused by the sentence I quoted.

I think we agree that there is an objective reality- however, from my viewpoint (at least in this thread, I think splitting hairs over this is bordering on silly), your girlfriend could "choose" to give birth to an SUV- but then reality kicks in and makes it impossible. I think reality limits our actions, but not our choices, if that makes sense.

Okay, yeah... I see what you are getting at.

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:16 am

Raligan wrote:

I think reality limits our actions, but not our choices, if that makes sense.

From a deterministic perspective, "reality" would limit both or actions and choices. Our actions are limited by feasibility (such as we can’t fly without mechanical aid), while choices would be limited by our experiences(such as if we had never experienced an SUV we wouldn’t have the required knowledge of it to want to give birth to it). Biology is also another real, limiting factor.

Just Arrived Joined: Apr 10, 2008 Posts: 3

Quote:

People's choices are limited by reality.

Not very precise. Notice it's contradictory to the next sentence where <he> claims one can choose to TRY, and it's apparently now not limited by reality. If choices are limited by reality, then he should not claim the statement following.

Quote:

I can choose to TRY to go to Mars, but I cannot go to Mars.

So no, it's not as written in that context, logical.
See in the first sentence he makes a claim about "choice", then in the next he supports it with "cannot go to Mars". Choosing a course of action, and the result of the action, are necessarily two distinct realities by definition...he cannot swap them and remain consistent.

A solution?:
I think we accept the common convention in human communication that we can: "choose to attempt anything".
And that anything is our perception of it.

I believe once the statemet has been made, if we accept their choice, and that they had some mental construct as the object of their attempt, then it's true (and will always be true). Even if they die of a stroke the next second, they still tried, the stroke just happened to halt their success.

If he was attempting to argue then that one cannot choose a specific future state of reality, well yes, that should be obvious. We'd be superheroes if that were the case...

-Mach

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 515

Quote:

How exactly does anyone know they can or cannot do something if they don't try? Going to Mars is a bit hyperbolic, but the argument could be made for other things - such as playing baseball - and it very obviously would not make any sense.

Some things are clearly impossible until the technology comes along. Other things like baseball are matters of perception. However, it is hard to draw the line. I could say that I would not be good at baseball if I had no hand-eye coordination.

If I said I wasn't good at something that I knew nothing about, and nothing about my abilities wrt the activity, then that is a matter of perception.

We are limited by perception first, and reality finally. Perception can change, but reality is an unsurpassible ceiling.

Quote:

I think we accept the common convention in human communication that we can: "choose to attempt anything".

Right, we can choose to attempt, but not necessarily to actually accomplish.

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:14 am

Quote:

I think we accept the common convention in human communication that we can: "choose to attempt anything".

We can not choose to attempt something beyond our experience, so in a very real sense we can’t choose to attempt anything. It would be akin to asking man 5-thousand-years hence to light a match. What we choose is directly related to what we experience, and our experiences determine what we choose.

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 515

According to mach, all he has to do is create his perception of what lighting a match is, and then attempt to do the action:

Quote:

I think we accept the common convention in human communication that we can: "choose to attempt anything".
And that anything is our perception of it.

At least that's what I got out of it. This is a little absurd and abstract. Otherwise, we can't attempt to do anything since there are nearly infinite amounts of specific actions one can attempt. That's not to say we can't attempt them iff we know about them.

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:06 am

Cygnus wrote:

According to mach, all he has to do is create his perception of what lighting a match is, and then attempt to do the action:

There must be some causal experience to build a perception on. Without that, he could not desire to make the attempt.

More simply put, if you take a person without the commom perception of what a match is and what it does, she can have no desires concerning it. Only once exposed to the concept, either directly or indirectly, can she gain a desire pertaining to it.

Our actions are limited by our experiences.

Just Arrived Joined: Apr 10, 2008 Posts: 3

MockingGods wrote:

We can not choose to attempt something beyond our experience, so in a very real sense we can’t choose to attempt anything. It would be akin to asking man 5-thousand-years hence to light a match. What we choose is directly related to what we experience, and our experiences determine what we choose.

How in practice would a human choose X, when they have no knowledge of X. If they cannot (logically) choose it, you cannot introduce it as a possible choice, then proceed to claim they cannot attempt it. It was never a choice to begin with (by definition).

If you asked that man to light a match, he would not have knowledge of lighting a match, your communication would hold no meaning to him. If he told you he was trying to light a match, the fact is that he is not trying to light a match because his symbols of this concept are not the same as yours. If you described it to him the defintions/symbols you are using, he could then reason that first he would need to construct what you described as a "match", then proceed to attempt to "strike it so that it ignites". I believe this is reasonable, and consistent with reality.

I believe the distinction with the OP was that one cannot through choice, create a specific future state of reality (I cannot choose to go to mars, reality may prevent it), to which we clarified to note that we can certainly choose to attempt to reach mars. That is the distinction I make.

I think your distinction is a tautological assumption, namely:
We can choose what can be chosen.
We can do what can be done.
We can attempt what can be attempted.

Yes, I agree on that higher level, these are logical premises implicit in their definitions. But then I don't think they were the original question. Maybe the OP was ambiguous and we're tackling two seperate points.

-Mach

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 515

Will this topic ever die?

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:36 pm

I see this all as a hideous product of deconstuctionism. The idea, the symbol IS reality.

All I can think of is "In the beginning was the word."


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