The mind-body problem divides into several connected subproblems. One concerns the relation of consciousness to its material substratum in the brain and central nervous system. A second concerns the aboutness or intentionality of (some) conscious states. A third problem is how a physical organism can be subject to the norms of rationality: How does an abstract argument-pattern such as Modus Tollens 'find purchase in' and 'govern' the transitions from one brain state to another? A fourth subproblem has to do with mental causation. Obviously, mental states are causally efficacious in bringing about physical states and other mental states. My desire for another cup of java is part of the causal chain that eventuates in the physical process of ingesting caffeine. Note also that knowledge of the physical world would presumably not be possible unless physical states could enter into the etiology of mental states. (I say 'presumably' because my formulation begs the question against idealism. And don't let anyone tell you that idealism is not a live option! The fact that it is not much discussed these days doesn't mean 'jack.' I hate to have to say it, but philosophers can be as fashion-conscious as teenage girls, and as worried about how they appear; idealism is currently out of fashion.)
Divide and conquer is one approach to any complex problem: separate out the sub-problems and try to solve them separately. For example, separate the 'qualia' problem — which is part of the first subproblem mentioned — from the intentionality problem.
It might be that there is nothing specifically mental about intentionality at all. Perhaps intentionality is to be found in nature and in artifacts below the level of mind. If so, it may be possible to understanding intentionality at the level of mind by working up to it 'from below.' It may be possible to build a 'gradualist bridge' from mindless intentionality to minded intentionality. One might then come to understand how intentionality in us has 'evolved.'
Now one very serious question is whether intentionality can be prised apart from consciousness and treated separately. This is a question Colin McGinn raises with great skill. I hope to talk about it in a separate post. In this post, however, I will examine a passage from Dennett in which our man, having separated the qualia and intentionality problems, tries to get from mindless intentionality to the minded variety. The passage is from Kinds of Mind, p. 35:
Intentionality in the philosophical sense is just aboutness. [. . .] A lock and key exhibit the crudest form of intentionality; so do the opioid receptors in brain cells — receptors that are designed to accept the endorphin molecules that nature has been providing in brains for millions of years. [. . .] This lock-and-key variety of crude aboutness is the basic design element out of which nature has fashioned the fancier sorts of subsystems that may more deservedly be called representation systems, so we will have to to analyze the aboutness of these representations in terms of the (quasi?) aboutness of locks-and-keys in any case.
If I am thinking about Jude Acers, my thought is about him: he is not about my thinking. Generalizing, we can say that intentionality is an asymmetrical relation: if X stands in the intentional relation to Y, then Y does not stand in the intentional relation to X. (Brentano rightly pointed out long ago that intentionality is not a relation, strictly speaking, but ein Relativliches, something relation-like; but this nuance does not harm my point.)
Now in Dennett's example, is the lock about the key or the key about the lock? Well, there is a sense in which each is about the other. By studying the key, I can infer something about the lock, and by studying the lock I can infer something about the key. Each provides information about the other, and to a locksmith, a great deal of information.
There are many cases like this. Animal droppings on the trail provide information about what manner of critter has been by recently. Bear scat 'means' bears have been around. One sort of footprint 'indicates' that a coyote has passed by, another sort a mountain lion. The paw of a coyote provides information about the type of print it would leave if it were to leave a print, and a footprint provides information about the design of the paw. (Here 'design' just means pattern.)
So in the coyote case as in the lock and key case we have symmetrical aboutness: lock is about key, and key about lock; paw is about footprint, print is about paw. Or consider a compass needle. It is about magnetic North in the sense that one can infer where magnetic North is from the direction in which the the needle is pointing. But equally, one can infer from the location of magnetic North where a properly functioning compass needle will point.
The symmetry of this sort of aboutness — call it aboutness1 — gives us excellent reason to distinguish it from intentionality, or aboutness2, which is asymmetrical.
From this one can see that Dennett is completely mistaken in his claim that lock-and-key aboutness is a "form of intentionality." It is not a form of intentionality, and to think that it is is to confuse the the two senses of 'aboutness' lately distinguished. Dennett himself seems to be aware of this since at the end of the passage quoted he shifts his ground and speaks of "quasi-aboutness." This fudge is very telling. No doubt there is some likeness as between lock-and-key aboutness and intentional aboutness, but that proves nothing since everything is like everything else in some respect.
The point is that one gains no insight at all into how intentionality emerges — if it does emerge — by having it compared with locks and keys. Note also that to infer something about the lock from the key presupposes genuine intentionality on the part of the locksmith.
To sum up. To build his gradualist bridge, Dennett looks for a form of primitive intentionality below the level of mind or consciousness. He thinks he has found it in his lock and key example. But what I have just shown is that the symmetrical aboutness in the lock and key case is not, and cannot be, a form or type or species of intentionality — which is asymmetrical. The former merely resembles the genuine article. But if A resembles B, it does not follow that A is a form of B. A decoy duck resembles a duck but is not type of duck.
Obviously, mental states are causally efficacious in bringing about physical states and other mental states.
I actually think this is false. What is obvious is that mental states and physical states are correlated (my touching the flame coincides with my pain). But it isn't obvious that mental states are causally efficacious in bringing about physical states, or vice versa. It is perfectly consistent with all of our empirical evidence that the two kinds of states are merely coordinated, without any real causal connection between them.
This quasi-intentionallity of Denett's seems to be a species of a fallacy that I've seen often in the field of artifical intelligence. It is the process of taking an analogy such as "thought is to subject as lock is to key" and assuming that the analogous relationship is somehow like the original relationship just because they are homomorphic in some sense. For example, when the data in a program is updated, some AI researchers think this is a form of learning. Not just analogous to learning in some weak sense, but actually a form of learning. (you might enjoy this farce about researchers in artificial gravity who make the same mistakes).
For a more serious criticism, I'd add that all of those examples of primitive aboutness are dependent on the presence of a conscious mind to appreciate the aboutness. Without that, they are just a random collection of random causal relationships. They have no connection except that the nature of the causality is such that a conscious mind is able to infer from one thing to another.
This is great stuff, from both of you. I'm going to have to archive this entire series...
It might be interesting to explore the prime candidate(s) for intentionality, given physicalism. For example, is it a causal relation?
One thing, I think, can be salvaged in Spur's remarks:
Yes, it is implausible, but to make that move grants that there is more than mere empirical knowledge being exercised. Put differently, what we know is not limited to the deliverances of our senses, and that is an important point.
Steve
Thanks for the kind words, both in your last comment comment and in others. Don't take it amiss if I don't find the time or energy to respond to everything; but I do read all comments.
An ordinary relation -- or perhaps I should say a relation in the strict sense of the term -- is such that its obtaining entails the existence of its relata. Thus the relation of ownership that obtains between me and my car entails the existence of both me and my car. If I own X, it follows that X exists. But if I am thinking about X, it does not follow that X exists. Suppose Jones is thinking about a certain building in New Orleans just before it is destroyed by Katrina. His thought is about that building both before and after it's destruction, and the content/intentional object of the act of thinking remains the same.
Causality, if a relation, entails the existence of its relata. This will make trouble for anyone trying to construe intentionality as a causal relation.
Your quibble is well-taken. What I should have said is that some mental states are standardly interpreted as being causally efficacious with respect to physical states. Thus almost everyone assumes that the desire to do physical action X (e.g. go for a walk) is part of the etiology of X'ing. It is quite natural to assume this, but if we do then we face the problem of explaining how mental-physical interaction is possible.
If the mental were reducible to the physical, then there would be no problem in principle. I take it you were alluding to parallelism and occasionalism as logical possibilities. Another possibility is to adopt a regularity theory of causation and say that causation just is the instantation of a regularity. Then perhaps the correlation you mention -- assuming it is law-like -- would be sufficient for causation.
You see how complicated this all is. To really get clear about a special problem like mind-body one needs to get clear about a general issue like the nature of causation.
This is exactly the area I want to focus on going forward; in fact I was about to communicate with you about this "off-line", because it relates directly to our previous discussion of qualia (and of mental states generally). If mental phenomena are simply correlated with the physical state of the brain, but cannot act directly to control the physical body, then they are reduced to being epiphenomena in the strictest sense (I'll be posting a blog entry explaining the different interpretations of the word). I think this is potentially a very serious problem for anti-physicalists; you may have noticed that I have begun to bang on it in my recent comments. I had not yet focused on it, though, as being the central issue, but in brooding on some of the recent points in the discussion, and going back over some of the relevant literature, it has become clear to me that this is an extremely important point, and I have been drafting a new post examining, in light of this objection, the dualist assertion that a complete physical description of the state of the nervous system still leaves behind some "residue" in the form of qualia (I agree with Dennett et al. that it doesn't).
This is a very tricky area. I suspect that the idea of irreducible mentality, and qualia as somehow concrete, is at its root not entirely coherent.
Malcolm
I read your dialog and it is excellent! You have managed to capture very well the sorts of misunderstanding and talking-past-one-another that goes on in these debates. I also liked the part where you ridicule the notion that piling on more complexity is somehow going to do the trick. Reminds me of Kurzweil's massively parallel processing.
I hope MALCOLM and KEVIN read your dialog.
Thanks for jumping into the discussion.
One very minor quibble. You speak of the 'Chinese Box.' The going phrase is 'Chinese Room.' Sorry to be so pedantic.
Still down on the Cape, vacationing perhaps? I picture you with a laptop and wireless connection sitting in a coffee house or maybe even on the beach. . .
Epiphenomenalism is a form of dualism I want to avoid. Other concepts that need to be clarified are emergence and supervenience.
I will be interested to see what you have to say about epiphenomenalism.
Not vacationing, sad to say - we were in Wellfleet for all of nine hours or so. Got up there at about midnight, hit the sack, then went off to look at colleges in the Boston area all day Saturday with my son, and drove back to NY Saturday night.
I'm back at the office today, somewhat the worse for wear.
I'll take a look at Dave's page.
M
Thanks for the "box" vs. "room" correction. It's a mistake I make frequently because I picture the guy crouched down in a little box.
Malcolm, I hope you enjoy the dialog.
Yes, I was indeed. Incidentally, I was also assuming that regularity accounts of causation are inadequate.
I did enjoy the dialog - I thought is was a great piece of writing. Somewhat predictably, I have to take issue with the point you made, though:
I absolutely agree with you that the scientists in the story are not making any gravity with their computers. They might be able to work out some previously unknown behaviors of gravitating bodies, or determine how a group of mutually interacting bodies will move - a problem that defies ordinary methods of calculation - but all they are doing is simulating gravity, not creating real gravity, because real gravity is not created by information processing, but by accelerated or massive objects. Of course the computer itself, by virtue of being a physical object with mass, creates a teensy gravitational field, but that isn't what we are talking about.
The analogy loses its satiric effectiveness, though, when extended to brains and minds, because in the modern physicalist view, it is indeed information-processing - namely the continuous interactive behavior of the neural modules of the brain - that is what gives rise to mental phenomena. And while you can't create gravity on a computer, information-processing is right up its alley.
Malcolm
It may be implausible to say that the mass and position of the sun is merely correlated with the orbits of the planets, without any real causal relation between them. But why would it be equally implausible to say that mental and physical states are merely correlated, without any real causal relation between them? Could it not be that the latter claim is more plausible than the former because, though the notion of physical-physical interaction is intelligible, the notion of mental-physical interaction is not?
Let's assume that intelligence is a purely physical process. If simulated gravity is not anything like real gravity, why would you think that simulated intelligence is anything like real intelligence?
Or take magnetism. We want to figure out how magnetism works so we look at what it can do. Hmm. It can pull iron. Well an elastic band can pull iron too. Will experimenting with elastic bands give us insights into the nature of magnetism? Are elastic bands "like" magnetism? Can we create magnetism with the judicious placement of elastic bands?
Science doesn't work that way. Science doesn't think that two things are the same just because they have similar effects. Science looks at causes. And if science doesn't understand the causes, it doesn't just assume by faith that two entirely different systems have similar causes just because they have analogous behaviors.
There is a field that does act that way though: witchcraft. I don't say this to be insulting, it is my genuine analysis. Modern AI research is much more like witchcraft than it is like science. They rely on exotic principles similar to "like seeks like" or "the name is the thing" rather than on empirical research.
In fact, the concept that intelligence is an algorithm is very similar to the magical notion that the name is the thing. Both notions confuse representation with reality. An algorithm, like a number, is a human creation. It doesn't exist without an intelligent observer. How could it possibly be the cause of intelligence?
Depending on the kind of analysis that you want to use, I don't think there is much difference. At one level, both kinds of interaction are perfectly unremarkable. When I see the cue ball hit another ball, I fully expect to see some causal interaction take place. Just as when I willed my arm forward, I fully expected my arm to push the stick forward in response to my will.
At another level, I can ask how it can be that something like will, with no mass, or energy, or even location, can interact causally with the physical world. But I can come up with arguments that make physical interaction seem suspect also.
I really don't see that one form of skepticism is superior to the other. And although the skeptical arguments might be interesting, they are clearly wrong. There clearly are causal interactions between physical objects. And just as clearly, my mental states can effect and be effected by physical events.
As to your mental states, I can't say :-).
Indeed. How can the substance dualist create an argument on behalf of immaterial consciousness when he has no clear idea what consciousness is?
(Sorry... couldn't resist.)
If the basic idea is that consciousness lies outside the domain of science... well, how do we know this? A lot of physical phenomena used to be shrouded in holy mystery, only to be revealed as not so mysterious after all.
A question: if it's possible to build a limb that is, functionally speaking, a perfectly decent replacement for a human arm, and if it's possible to go further and build functional equivalents to things like the human heart, why draw an arbitrary boundary around the cranium? Here be dragons? There's more than a whiff of primitivism in such a stance.
There's an implied "geography of the soul" in the substance dualist's outlook: the soul (or consciousness, or whatever you want to call it) resides firmly inside the skull. How do I know? Because most of us moderns have no problem with replacing other body parts, but we're greatly disturbed by the idea that the brain itself-- or important chunks of it-- might be amenable to replacement.
The disturbed feeling is completely unwarranted: we play havoc with our brains all the time via alcohol, engaging in boxing matches and other head-conking sports, performing brain operations, etc. Why should we be disturbed to see some dude who's had half his brain replaced by ultramodern "wet circuitry"? Sounds like crazy talk now, I'm sure, but I'm curious what the next few decades have in store.
Kevin
You're welcome...and no problem at all. I'd love to participate more myself, but have little time to do so. Still, I'll try to jump in now and then.
Take care,
Steve
I would like to see such arguments. I suspect they are considerably weaker than than the arguments suggesting that mind-body interaction is unintelligible.
What exactly is it that makes it clear to you that mental states can effect and be effected by physical events? Is it that you somehow experience the influence that the one has on the other?
Steve: Please jump in as time permits.
Spur, Dave: Dave is right that there are arguments that seem to undermine physical-physical causation. It's a tangent worth exploring.
SPur: The actual is possible whether or not we can explain how it is possible. So if it is actually the case that there are mental-physical interactions, then they are possible, even if we don't understand the mechanism, the HOW of it. Or will you argue that incapacity to explain how it is possible shows that the putative fact is not actual?
Now we are going to try to undermine physical-physical causation?? Such causation has to stand, at the very least, on firmer ground than any alleged mental-physical causation, because we know with certainty that physical things actually exist (I do hope THAT isn't about to be called into question), whereas the same cannot be said with certainty about the non-physical mental entities you are arguing for. I'm not denying that we have subjective mental experiences, of course, just that they exist in any way other than as states of our physical selves.
Certainly, the actual is possible. It is far from shown, though, that there actually exist mental events independent of a physical instantiation. In fairness I could turn your comment around and say that if it is actually the case that mental phenomena, qualia, etc., are entirely the result of physical processes, then it must be possible that that is the case, even if we haven't worked out the details yet. Or will you argue that incapacity to explain the connection between the objective physical and the subjective mental shows that the putative relationship is not actual?
I'm not sure that this line of reasoning is going to get us anywhere, other than just to push us off into our respective corners.
Malcolm
My criticism of AI research is similar. I think that science could do a great deal about studying consciousness if it was only willing to actually study consciousness instead of concentrating on peripheral phenomena (behaviorism) or unrelated phenomena (AI).
As to your other question: what makes it clear to me that mental and physical interact is that I am an empiricist and I have empirically confirmed the interaction countless times.
Not undermine, but understand. Causation is an intrinsically interesting topic. I mean, what is it exactly? Transfer of energy or momentum or some other physical maginitude? Think of Hume's billiard balls. Or Humean constant conjunction? Do causes necessitate their effects, and if so why isn't this necessatation empirically detectable?
Suppose you adopt a transfer theory of causation. Wouldn't that just beg the question against mental-physical causation? I am just scratching the surface of the questions that arise here. Just to get clear about functional (telic) explanation one must get clear about caysal explanation which requires getting clear about causation.
But I do tend to agree that physical-physical causation stands on firmer ground that mental-physical.
You are right that my point about actuality and possibility can be 'turned around.'
If a quale is identical to a physical state, then this is possibly the case. But it is not possibly the case. (Because subjectivity is essential to the quale, but not to essnential the physical state, see Nagel) Therefore, a quale is not identical to a physical state.
I would say that you are ignoring the subjectivity of the mental.
Where were you on 9/11?
Yes, I would argue that if mental-physical interaction is unintelligible, then that tends to show that the putative fact of mind-body causation is not a fact.
Bill and Dave,
Perhaps there are arguments against the possibility of physical-physical causation, but they aren't arguments against the intelligibility of such causation. There's nothing unintelligible about such causation. (For example, there's nothing unintelligible about the idea of one material object pushing another.) That's why denying mental-physical causation is more plausible than denying physical-physical causation. I think you agree with me at least on this conclusion, Bill, since you "tend to agree that physical-physical causation stands on firmer ground than mental-physical" causation. That's all I was claiming. (Incidentally, Dave, aren't Zeno's paradoxes supposed to show the unreality of motion, rather than the impossibility of physical-physical causation?)
Dave writes:
This isn't right. How can you empirically confirm mental-physical interaction when all our empirical evidence is equally consistent with mere mental-physical correlation? If God had set things up so that mind and body were merely correlated, with no real interaction, then things would seem to us exactly as they do. So how can we say that our empirical evidence establishes interaction? That was my original point.
Right. Our subjective awareness of mental phenomena in no way guarantees that they are not created by purely physical processes, nor can one assume that it is somehow the ineffable "subjectivity" itself that is actually making the decisions, pushing the body around, etc.
Bill,
I quite agree that the general question of causation is an interesting philosophical topic, and I would like very much to know your take on it. I think we can assume for now, though (and you seem to agree, I'm relieved to see) that we can trust in the existence of physical-physical causality in the world for the purposes of this discussion. There are only so many plates that I, at least, can spin at once.
Where was I on 9/11? I was just about to leave my home in Brooklyn (I live in Park Slope, a high patch of ground right at the edge of Prospect Park), when I heard the first news reports coming in. I switched on the TV and saw the north tower in flames, then went up on my roof for a direct view (we could see the towers easily from my three-story townhouse). I didn't go to work that day after all...
My daughter Chloe was then a student at Stuyvesant High School; she watched the catastrophe from an eighth-story classroom window, at a distance of four blocks. After the second plane hit, the school was evacuated in near-panic. She fled safely uptown, ending up at her grandmother's house on East 72nd Street, but for eight hours or so my wife and I had no idea where she was, or if she was dead or alive. Our younger son was at school near home, quite safe throughout.
My neighborhood was directly under the ghastly and reeking plume of smoke and debris. A lot of people, some of them my neighbors, died that day. We haven't forgotten, around these parts.
Malcolm
You wrote:
How do you know this? In the physicalist view, the subjective experience is indeed created by the brain's being in a particular physical state. I would argue that whenever a brain gets into this state, it necessarily entails that a subjective experience is being had.
This is not an outlandish idea; to offer another example of observing a physical system in a particular state, when I see one of my martial-arts students apply a foot to another's groin, I have learned that I can be quite confident that certain rather unpleasant "qualia" are being experienced.
Malcolm
Actually, I think this is related to the other point you have been trying to pin me down on. I have been a bit cavalier up to now, but you persist, so let me be more direct.
Basically, I don't take most skeptical arguments seriously. Skeptical arguments such as Zeno's paradoxes, Hume's argument about induction, and the arguments against mind-body interaction are all fascinating, not because they persuade, but because they seem like strong arguments for a position that is manifestly false.
So that is the reason I have been a bit unserious about answering you. I don't think there is any serious doubt that mind-body interaction exists (nor is there any serious doubt that mental events exist). And as far as skeptical arguments go, I've never seen an argument about mind-body interaction that was nearly as strong as Hume's argument and I've never seen an argument against the existence of mental events that was remotely plausible at all.
So, is it logically possible that the mental and physical don't actually interact? Yes. But it is also logically possible that the sun and planets don't actually interact. It is logically possible that I'm a brain in a jar and all of my experiences are illusions. In none of these cases do I take the mere logical possibility as a serious consideration.
As to intelligibility, I can assure you that when I try to conceive of the ultimate nature of physical causality, I find it quite unintelligible. But that doesn't lead me to reject physical causality when I can see it clearly happening around me. Similarly, when I will my arm to move and it does, this empirical observation is sufficient to overcome an ocean of intelligibility. In order to persuade me that my clear and persistent observations are wrong, you have to convincingly demonstrate that my experience is actually due to something else.
But I don't believe your observations are wrong. As you say, what you observe is that you will your arm to move and then it moves. That much is obvious. What you don't observe is that your arm moves because it is caused to move by your willing. We don't observe that sort of thing, so it's not obvious that it happens.
Your position seems to be that we should not take the argument against mind-body interaction seriously because its conclusion is manifestly false. This just begs the question, however. What I have been trying to establish is that the reality of mind-body interaction is not manifest. Your response is to insist that it is, and to conclude that you are therefore justified in not taking my argument seriously. This is a kind of irrationality.
I do agree with you, though, that the existence of mental states is beyond doubt. I never suggested otherwise.
And yet Hume's argument is far, far more persuasive than anything I've ever seen against mind-body interaction. If I don't accept Hume's very strong argument against induction, why should I accept relatively weak arguements against something even more obviously true?
And one more thing. If you have been arguing that the reality of mind-body interaction is not manifest, then I missed it. Maybe that's why we have been talking past each other. All I've seen are comments that it is unintelligible and not logically necessary.
Well, it is quite possible that the actual decision-making, such as willing your arm to move, is happening entirely at the physical level, and your conscious awareness of it is purely incidental, in the same way that we make all sorts of other movements (blinking, fidgeting, walking, etc.) without their having to be consciously initiated. Perhaps when there is insufficient inner consensus about whether an action should be taken or not to get it to happen in a fully automatic way, it is promoted to some degree of conscious awareness. Maybe our level of consciousness (and I can give lots of examples of doing things more or less consciously) simply represents the level of integration of brain modules - as more of the parts have to be called into conference, as it were, to arrive at a plan of action, we subjectively experience more awareness of the process.
In other words, the sense that it is your consciousness that wills the arm to move might in fact be "the tail wagging the dog". The decision might well have already been made by the time you are aware of it; in fact observations of excitation of the supplementary motor area suggest exactly that.
Malcolm
If Hume's argument were as iron-clad and irrefutable as you think, Dave, then I would say that those people who know this but still believe in induction (e.g., you) are irrational. I haven't yet been convinced that it is as strong as you suggest, but if I did become so convinced, I would accept the conclusion. I certainly wouldn't take the irrational position you favor.
Re-read my first post, at the top of this thread, and you'll see that my original claim was that it isn't obvious that mind and body causally interact. That's a fairly weak claim, and one that Bill conceded, but you seemed to resist it.
I have seen some of those psychological experiments you refer to, Malcolm. Again, not persuasive.
OK, I can't resist. One more thing: every argument has premises. Hume's argument is very strong, but the premises of the argument are not stonger than the premise that scientific induction is rational. What his argument leads to is not a certain conclusion, but an inconsistency in my belief system. It isn't clear what I should throw out to retain consistency: my belief in scientific induction or one of his premises.
No, I'm just keeping the focus on substance dualism. As my comment made clear (I wrote "I couldn't resist"-- i.e., it was a joshing gibe), I was deliberately quoting from the dialogue out of context.
Arg, so much for attempts at humor in a room full of Mr. Spocks. Heh.
Kevin
2. Disallowing comments from a particular person, or deleting an offensive, off-topic, or otherwise substandard comment, has nothing to do with censorship. People who think otherwise confuse censorship with lack of sponsorship. I am under an obligation not to interfere with anyone's exercise of legitimate free speech rights. But I am not under any obligation to aid and abet anyone's exercise of free speech rights, legitimate or illegitimate.
3. The Comments area is not an open forum for anyone to say anything about any topic. As the name implies, it is primarily for commenting on the author(s)' posts. But to comment on them, one must have read them. And if I have spent three hours on a post, a reader will not understand it in thirty seconds. Secondarily, the Comments area is to facilitate civil discussion between and among commenters as long as the discussion remains on-topic.
4. Some undesirables: The skimmers, those who cannot read but only read-in. The sophists who, abusing argument, argue for the sake of argument. The ideologues, those who are out for power, not truth. The uncivil. The illogical. The politically correct. Worst of all, perhaps, are those who exemplify the anti-Socratic property: those who think they know what they don't know. If Socrates was famous for his learned ignorance, these types are marked by their ignorant unlearnededness.