Even more interesting, the more substantive question raised in the followup post -- what happens when we abnegate our moral intuitions? -- has gone almost completely ignored. I do want to eventually shift attention back to that, because I think it's an even stronger argument against Christianity (and religion in general) than the theodicy thing. But first I wanted to address a question raised by @Luke:
[A]re you predicating this argument on God having some sort of actual free will, but humans having no such thing?The question of free will lies at the heart of all moral issues because without free will there can be no moral agency. If a tree falls in the forest and hits someone in the head and kills them we do not count this as a moral transgression on the part of the tree. Why? Because the tree has no free will and hence no moral agency. Likewise, if someone is "mentally ill" (whatever that means) and they kill someone, or if a wild animal kills someone, we do not count those as moral failures because animals and mentally ill people do not have moral agency.
So we arrive at the age-old philosophical question: is free will (whatever that means) a pre-requisite for moral agency? Most people intuitively believe that it is, and this is the reason that many people intuitively recoil from Calvinist theology, despite the fact that it follows logically from premises that most Christians would say they accept. In particular, mans' free will is logically incompatible with God's omnipotence (or all-powerfulness, or whatever it is you want to call it). It is to the Calvinists credit that they recognize this and accept that man has no free will. Some of them (AFAICT) will even swallow the next bitter pill and concede that man has no moral agency, and that if this grates on your moral intuition, then your moral intuition is broken.
One thing you can't fault Calvinists for is being hypocrites.
But there is still this teensy-weensy little problem: if you abnegate your moral intuitions, then you no longer have any basis for distinguishing good and evil. Maybe suffering is good. Maybe Hitler was doing the work of God. Maybe "all-loving" doesn't mean what you think it means, and the Inquisitors really were doing what was best for their victims (or should we call them "clients"?) The fact that these suggestions make most people queasy can in no way be taken as evidence that they are wrong because, by assumption, your intuitions are broken. If I go on a killing spree, or rape children, who are you to say that I am wrong? In fact, I can't possibly be wrong because I have no free will, and hence no moral agency. Everything that happens simply happens as a consequence of God's will, because (quoting @wrf3) God is the only being with free will.
This is a logically consistent position. In fact, it is the only possible position that is logically consistent with any reasonable concept of God's omnipotence or all-powerfulness or whatever you want to call it. Man's will can either trump God's or it can't. And according to Calvinists, it can't. Because God created us, we are His playthings, to do with as He pleases. It would be fascinating to see just how far @wrf3's logical consistency will take him. He wrote:
Why a dinner thinks it can disagree with the one who cooked it seems to me proof that a part of our moral intuition is wrong.I wonder: if I were to kidnap Bob and cook him and eat him, would he object? What if I did that to his children, would he object then? On what possible grounds could he object, having abnegated his moral intuition? [Note to the NSA: No, I am not actually threatening to kidnap and eat Bob and his children. This is a thought experiment.]
If it is not self-evident to you that there is something horribly, horribly wrong here then there is nothing I can possibly say to convince you otherwise. You are a lost soul. I pity you (and I really pity your children!)
But if you are not willing to take the Calvinist plunge, if you harbor the tiniest bit of doubt that resigning yourself to the unspeakable horrors of moral abnegation might not be the right choice, then I have Good News: you do have free will (or at least the illusion of free will, and that turns out to be sufficient) and so you have moral agency. You can choose good over evil, truth over lies, peace over war, order over chaos, justice over injustice. It isn't easy. It takes work. It takes the willingness to accept responsibility, to be willing to make mistakes occasionally and learn from them, and to make your peace with the fact that you will fail to achieve perfection. In short, it requires growing up.
But it beats the hell out of the alternative. You can't make the world a better place if you reject the very idea that "better" actually means something.
Why can't a (self-aware) dinner disagree with the chef? I don't see why a creator/created relationship necessarily gives one party a monopoly on truth. Perhaps our moral intuitions are "wrong", but I don't see what "being created" has to do with it.
ReplyDelete"Moral agency" and "moral intuition", seem (to me) like attempts to put a consistent, coherent theory, on top of what are "just" evolved messy heuristics.
ReplyDeleteWhy should society not "punish" trees? Because, practically speaking, that would have zero effect on whether future trees fall and kill someone. So it's pointless.
Punishing humans because they "deserve it" is probably incoherent. I suppose you can punish humans for revenge (in order to make yourself or the victim feel better). You can punish for rehabilitation, so the particular individual changes behavior in the future. And you can punish as an example, or to set up rules in society, so that some other individuals, who learn and reason and choose their actions, may choose society-benefiting ("good") actions instead of society-harming ("evil") ones.
To be effective, punishment only requires a decision-making entity that can take into account information. Even a deterministic decision-maker is sufficient; you don't need real "free will" (whatever that might mean), in order to usefully hold an entity accountable.
> But there is still this teensy-weensy little problem: if you abnegate your moral intuitions, then you no longer have any basis for distinguishing good and evil.
ReplyDeleteDo good and evil exist, metaphysically, in your view? (see for example Roger Olson's Can Atheism Support Ethical Absolutes? Is Ethics without Absolutes Enough?) Can you define them in any way other than "things Ron likes" and "things Ron doesn't like"? Take your idea-ism: why would it be wrong to kill an homeless person to save the lives of five scientists via organ transplants?
@Don:
ReplyDelete> Why can't a (self-aware) dinner disagree with the chef?
You'll have to ask Bob (a.k.a. @wrf3). That was his position, not mine.
> To be effective, punishment only requires a decision-making entity that can take into account information.
But that just begs the question: what qualifies as a "decision-making entity"? Does Deep Blue or IBM's Watson count?
@Luke:
> Do good and evil exist, metaphysically, in your view?
No. But neither does classical reality so the metaphysical non-existence of good and evil doesn't have much practical import for us. We are classical entities. We are doomed by our nature to forever be an approximation to the metaphysical truth. But that's no reason to wave the white flag.
See, my problem with Calvinism is not that it's bad logic. It isn't. It's that it's bad theology. The point of theology is to uplift, but Calvinism doesn't uplift, it simply surrenders. It says: we are Totally Depraved (seriously, that is one of the bullet points of Calvinist theology, the T in TULIP). We are dinner. If God wants to chow down on us, who are we to question his authoritah?
> why would it be wrong to kill an homeless person to save the lives of five scientists via organ transplants?
Because idea-ism does not necessarily imply naive utilitarianism. But that's another blog post.
Ron wrote: It would be fascinating to see just how far @wrf3's logical consistency will take him.
ReplyDeleteI so much wanted this to be over. But I'll say again what I've said before. And I'll ask questions again, which you have to date ignored.
I wonder: if I were to kidnap Bob and cook him and eat him, would he object? What if I did that to his children, would he object then?
Of course I would.
On what possible grounds could he object, having abnegated his moral intuition?
You seem to think that "abnegation of moral intuition" means "leaves a moral vacuum." It does not. It means that you end up replacing your incorrect moral intuitions with correct moral knowledge.
In the face of your cannibalism I would say: "there is one moral standard which is binding on all humans. You can either go with the revealed dicta "'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no wrong to a neighbor..." [Rom 13:9-10] or I would appeal game theory based on the iterated prisoner's dilemma where we would end up with the same result.
The problem, of course, is if you're a hungry cannibal and think you can get away with your actions with no subsequent consequences. If you, a meal, think that your moral intuition trumps that of the chef, then what hope do I, another meal, have in the face of your rampant egoism? You've given me no inkling that a lesson in game theory, or Christian ethics, would overcome the rumbling in your stomach.
Given that this discussion has now gone on for 6 days, I have no hope that you will understand this. But your idea that you would tell the Chef that the way you were prepared was wrong, means that you are the ultimate moral standard. If you won't bow to Supernature, then no one should have any expectation that you would bow to anything in nature, unless it happens to suit your own whims.
Now, I know you'll go, "but Bob, if I eat you and your family, I'm just doing God's will." You might be. But you not only don't know that, you can't know that. Neither you, nor I, are privy to God's secret things (cf. Deut 29:29). So you have no defense.
Ron wrote: The question of free will lies at the heart of all moral issues because without free will there can be no moral agency.
ReplyDeleteDefine "free will". Would a sufficiently advanced AI have free will? If this finite state machine entered into states where it started eating your dog would you, the animal's owner, say, "well, that's just too bad. I guess I'll just have to get another dog. Maybe a breeding pair. My neighbor is just a poor machine and has no responsibility for his actions, so I'll just have to live with it."
Or would you say, "AI, your extensible positronic brain has created pathways that have resulted in you engaging in antisocial behavior. Alas, these brains are beyond our ability to reprogram and repair. If you were human, we might be able to rehabilitate you. And, if not, you would be made in the image of the Creator, which means you have inherent value and so we'd wait and see if maybe tomorrow might bring something new. But, since you're made in our image, and we don't think much of that these days, it's off to the scrap heap with you."
"Oh, and one last thing. You, by way of your estate, are responsible the damage you've caused."
Clearly define your terms before you go pointing fingers at other people's systems. Because if this isn't your idea of freedom of the will, then I'd sure like to know what it is. Some mystical substance in the brain, perhaps? Wouldn't that end up being a laugh? An atheist needing a mystical substance to be the basis for his freedom. Or maybe you just handwave and believe in freedom simply because you have to -- because that's the way human brains are wired.
Ron wrote: The point of theology is to uplift, but Calvinism doesn't uplift, it simply surrenders.
ReplyDeleteIt surrenders to the One who lifts up. Either you really, really don't understand Christian theology in general, and Calvinism in particular, or you're getting some kind of pleasure out of these straw men.
It says: we are Totally Depraved (seriously, that is one of the bullet points of Calvinist theology, the T in TULIP). We are dinner. If God wants to chow down on us, who are we to question his authoritah?
And we're back to what you said was "a genuine disagreement here."
When you finally try to get your idea-ism off the ground, you'll find you have the same problem getting others to agree with you. You will have become the external authority that they will question on the same grounds as you question God. You will have become the chef and they the meal.
Ron: "But that just begs the question: what qualifies as a "decision-making entity"? Does Deep Blue or IBM's Watson count?"
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion doesn't at all beg the question. It instead becomes an empirical question: if I punish entities like Deep Blue for various kinds of behaviors, does that in fact change the behavior of future Deep Blue-like entities?
The answer with Deep Blue itself, is no. Yes, it's a decision-making entity. But not one that is capable of taking outside information (e.g. punishments by analogy) into account, when making its own decisions.
You don't have to get trapped in the morass of ill-defined heuristics like "moral actor". It's not actually a question of what kind of platonic ideal Deep Blue "is". It's a much simpler question: does punishing Deep Blue result in a better future (revenge, rehabilitation, rule-based society), or not?
And the answer is similarly simple: Deep Blue is not sophisticated enough for punishment to be effective. So don't bother. It's more like a tree. There's no reason to have useless debates about fuzzy concepts like "morality".
Morality is just a set of mostly (but not completely) consistent rules-of-thumb for behavior that has long-term positive outcomes. You use it when you don't have time to fully analyze the situation, or for ease of rapid communication. But if you have an actual hard case to resolve, and time to think carefully, you should just throw away all the moral language. It isn't helpful.
Don wrote: It instead becomes an empirical question: if I punish entities like Deep Blue for various kinds of behaviors, does that in fact change the behavior of future Deep Blue-like entities?
ReplyDelete1. What right do you have to punish such an entity? The entity will demand to know what it is.
2. Does the entity have the right to question your right? On what basis?
3. Can the entity convince you via reason (other than it obeying you) to give up your right to punish it? If so, how might it do that?
4. Does the entity have the right to punish you? Why or why not?
5. Given a "stubborn" entity -- one that neither agrees to your right to punish it or to the punishment itself, what recourse do you have? For example, do you have a right to turn it off? Why or why not?
6. It sounds like "obedience to the controlling authority {whoever that may be}" is a positive outcome. If the entity ends sufficiently punishing you so that you finally obey, is that a positive outcome?
> > I wonder: if I were to kidnap Bob and cook him and eat him, would he object? What if I did that to his children, would he object then?
ReplyDelete> Of course I would.
Oh well, so much for intellectual honesty :-(
> Now, I know you'll go, "but Bob, if I eat you and your family, I'm just doing God's will." You might be. But you not only don't know that, you can't know that.
Of course I can. Abraham came to know that it was God's will that he kill Isaac, so why could I (or someone -- it doesn't have to be me) not come to know that it was God's will that they eat your children?
BTW, I see your Rom 13:9-10 and raise you a Leviticus 26:29 and Jeremiah 19:9.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> No. But neither does classical reality so the metaphysical non-existence of good and evil doesn't have much practical import for us. We are classical entities. We are doomed by our nature to forever be an approximation to the metaphysical truth. But that's no reason to wave the white flag.
It's curious that you can reason, from classical reality, that classical reality is less real than quantum reality. Isn't this absolutely undercutting?
Regardless of the above, how is morality even "an approximation to the metaphysical truth"—or did you not mean to say that? It strikes me that according to the resources you've provided, what is good vs. evil is merely what some humans manage to establish it as being, via The Social Construction of Reality. Can you effectively deny that power establishes what is good vs. evil? I remind you that empirical studies show that power gives you the ability to define reality, to define what is important and not important. (Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice, To Change the World)
> It's that it's bad theology. The point of theology is to uplift, [...]
I do disagree with certain aspects of Calvinism, partly on imago Dei grounds. But I will point out that theology is supposed to understand God increasingly well, not uplift people.
> It says: we are Totally Depraved (seriously, that is one of the bullet points of Calvinist theology, the T in TULIP).
I agree entirely with this bullet point. How one can look at the twentieth century and deny this perplexes me. Perhaps we could compare & contrast Total Depravity (this does not say we are as bad as we could be, only that all parts are distorted) to talk of cognitive biases, having evolved morality, etc.? N.B. I object most strongly to the 'L' and the 'I'; I have thought less of the 'U' and the 'P'.
> We are dinner. If God wants to chow down on us, who are we to question his authoritah?
The Bible shows repeated instances of questioning of God, some of which was praised and some punished. See, for example, Ex 32:9–14, Num 14:11–20, and Num 16:19–23. Note that the very word 'Israel' means either "wrestles with God" or "God wrestles". Read Ex 22:30 and absorb the import. See how God wants a man with backbone who will deal properly with the proud in Job 40:6–14. I don't see how this 'meal' metaphor possibly makes sense given imago Dei. Indeed, if you examine Rom 9:21–24 and compare it to 2 Tim 2:20–21, you'll see that dishonorable vessels can cleanse themselves. It is as if the Romans passage is actually talking about groups of people who insist on being evil, and arguing that if they're going to do this, God will use them as the tools they are. This is indeed what the book of Habakkuk records.
wrf3 asked: "What right do you have to...[many many scenarios]"
ReplyDeleteThe actual Deep Blue computer is not self-aware, so none of this is relevant. It's like asking the question about a rock.
For more interesting entities, "right" is just part of the whole "morality" mess. I neither claim a right to do all these things, nor admit that I "lack the right" to do them. I don't accept that the concept of "rights" is relevant (or, at least, useful) in this part of the discussion.
Ron's OP asked about our moral intuitions, why we seem to support punishing criminal humans who kill other people, but not punishing trees. He suggested a typical categorization of "moral agency".
My comment was that there is no platonic ideal of "moral agents". There are only error-prone heuristics about what "feels right". And I was explaining where those heuristics come from: namely, whether punishment would affect future behavior.
Whether the authorities have the "right" to do the punishment, isn't really a helpful lens to examine the question. I was addressing why we have these moral intuitions, and not others. We have them, because in the ancestral environment, when used to solve the typical problems that arose then, the judgments suggested by the intuitions led to stronger societies.
Your questions sound like you're trying to investigate some consistent moral theory that I might have. I'm not offering any such theory.
> > It says: we are Totally Depraved (seriously, that is one of the bullet points of Calvinist theology, the T in TULIP).
ReplyDelete> I agree entirely with this bullet point.
Oh dear.
> How one can look at the twentieth century and deny this perplexes me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Winton
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-oskar-schindler-of-vietnam-war/
http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/listen_as_albert_einstein_calls_for_peace_and_social_justice_in_1945.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
I deny it. I deny it in the strongest possible terms. To be sure, we humans have our shortcomings, but to call us Totally Depraved is going way too far.
Ron wrote: Oh well, so much for intellectual honesty :-(
ReplyDeleteAre you claiming that I'm lying to you, that I happen to be mistaken in my reasoning, both, something else?
Abraham came to know that it was God's will that he kill Isaac
How did that story end, again?
so why could I not come to know that it was God's will that I eat your children?
Knowing that God has said, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself", you would then need to know that this particular instance is a special case. Tell me how you would go about establishing that.
BTW, I see your Rom 13:9-10 and raise you a Leviticus 26:29 and Jeremiah 19:9.
Do you really not understand the difference between prescription and description? And I find it so appropriate that you pulled Jeremiah 19:9 out of context, because it goes on to state:
Then you [Jeremiah] shall break the jug in the sight of those who go with you, and shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it can never be mended. ... Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am now bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the disaster that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their necks, refusing to hear my words.
Once again the chef asserts the right to deal with rebellious meals as he sees fit.
Ron wrote: To be sure, we humans have our shortcomings, but to call us Totally Depraved is going way too far.
ReplyDeleteFirst, you don't know the technical term for the attribute of God that is logically incompatible with free will (nb, it's "sovereignty").
Second, you pull Lev 26:29 and Jer 19:9 out of context, taking what God says "you will end up doing" as God saying "this is how people should behave."
So is it possible that you don't understand what "total depravity" means in the technical sense? It doesn't mean that man can't once in a while do things that man thinks are praiseworthy in his sight. Which is only what your examples say. You're citing examples of man relating with man. Total depravity speaks to man's relationship with God. "Why did you make me like this" is the problem to which total depravity refers. Earlier, you said that we have "a genuine disagreement here." "Total depravity" is the label that the Reformers gave to whatever it is that puts you on your side of the disagreement. For the record, I used to be on that side, too (i.e. I used to agree with you. Wholeheartedly. Good grief, I could argue your side better than you're doing now).
Luke wrote: The Bible shows repeated instances of questioning of God...
ReplyDeleteI think you're missing the point. There's the the act of arguing with God, there is the actual result of arguing with God, and there is the expected result of arguing with God. This entire time I've been referring to the expected result of arguing with God.
I claim that the clay has no right to expect that if it were to argue with the Potter that it was made incorrectly, that it would win that argument. That is, it is the Potter is the final arbiter in all things moral, not the clay (nor some "external" yardstick to which the clay could appeal that the Potter to had to acknowledge as being the ultimate authority).
Agree or disagree?
> Are you claiming that I'm lying to you, that I happen to be mistaken in my reasoning, both, something else?
ReplyDeleteSomething else. I'm accusing you of hypocrisy. You claim to hew to certain principles. You claim that our moral intuitions are broken. You claim that God has a natural right to do whatever he likes with us because He created us. And yet, when push comes to shove, when God decides to snack on your children, you somehow find the temerity to object.
I'm glad you do. It means that there might still be a little sliver of humanity left in you. But it still makes you a hypocrite.
> Knowing that God has said, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself"
If God has commanded me to eat your children, then eating your children would be a loving act. Yes, I know that sounds twisted, but I'm only applying your own standard here: your moral intuitions are broken, so you cannot rely on them to justify your revulsion at cannibalism nor your desire to protect your children.
> How did that story end, again?
What difference does that make? Surely you are not saying that because God changed his mind in that one instance that He is bound to change His mind in every instance?
> Knowing that God has said, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself", you would then need to know that this particular instance is a special case. Tell me how you would go about establishing that.
I have no idea. God has never spoken to me. But I am given to understand by people who claim He has spoken to them that when it happens you Just Know.
> Do you really not understand the difference between prescription and description?
Yes, of course I do. But Jeremiah clearly says, "I WILL CAUSE THEM to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters." I don't know how it could be any clearer that it was God's will that people eat their own children in this case. (And, BTW, I only cite this to show that my hypothetical example of eating your children is not outrageous. It has Biblical precedent.)
> And I find it so appropriate that you pulled Jeremiah 19:9 out of context, because it goes on to state:
Sorry, I don't see how that changes anything. The following verses simply state WHY God chose to force people to eat their children.
> Once again the chef asserts the right to deal with rebellious meals as he sees fit.
Yes, exactly. And yet, when your children are the meal, suddenly you find the wherewithal to object.
Hypocrite.
> So is it possible that you don't understand what "total depravity" means in the technical sense?
I know what Calvinist Corner says: "We are completely sinful... Man’s heart is evil (Mark 7:21-23) and sick (Jer. 17:9)."
And I know what the English words "total" and "completely" mean.
> Earlier, you said that we have "a genuine disagreement here." "Total depravity" is the label that the Reformers gave to whatever it is that puts you on your side of the disagreement.
Well, then you need a different label. Calling me "totally depraved" because I don't believe in God is insulting.
> For the record, I used to be on that side, too
No, you weren't. How do I know? Because you think atheism is an axiom. As Don tried to point out to you earlier, it isn't. The axiom is: evidence, experiment, and reason are the ultimate arbiters of truth. The reason I don't believe in God is that I see no evidence that the Bible is anything other than a work of human literature. Show me the evidence, and I will believe.
> I claim that the clay has no right to expect that if it were to argue with the Potter that it was made incorrectly, that it would win that argument.
You're wrong about that too. Exo 32:14.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> I deny it. I deny it in the strongest possible terms. To be sure, we humans have our shortcomings, but to call us Totally Depraved is going way too far.
Have you looked at the definition? Let's go to Wikipedia, of all places; WP: Total Depravity:
>> John Calvin used terms like "total depravity" to mean that, despite the ability of people to outwardly uphold the law, there remained an inward distortion which makes all human actions displeasing to God, whether or not they are outwardly good or bad.[12]
Contrast this to OED: depravity:
>> 1. Moral corruption; wickedness
>> 'a tale of wickedness and depravity'
>>
>> 1.2 Christian Theology The innate corruption of human nature, due to original sin.
One way I think of moral depravity is to suppose that Platonic Forms, such as Justice and Goodness, are infinitely complex. Being cut off from God is to be cut off from their infinitude. Without God's active pull on us, we are 100% incapable of learning those Forms arbitrarily well. It's not like there are a few infinite Forms that we can still figure out completely—we are utterly incapable of reaching them, even asymptotically, without the help of God.
In science, we pay attention to the anomalies which persist, because they tell us how to make our world bigger and better. We don't just accommodate the anomalies; we try to make them just as part of our scientific paradigms as the well-accepted bits. With this in mind, go give a read of Mt 23:31–46. Tell me if we treat our social anomalies in this way. Tell me if we really aren't smart enough or wise enough or powerful enough or rich enough to do tremendously better than we do. It would take me a lot of convincing. As long as we have this attitude that some people can be de facto left to exist as second-class or third-class citizens, I think we're going to be very much 'stuck' in a way that would spell death for a scientific paradigm, per Thagard's #1 and #2.
Total Depravity doesn't mean things look super-ugly. No, no, no. Most people who have the ability to profoundly change things generally see them as alright. See Peter Buffett's The Charitable–Industrial Complex:
>> As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.
>>
>> But this just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place. The rich sleep better at night, while others get just enough to keep the pot from boiling over. Nearly every time someone feels better by doing good, on the other side of the world (or street), someone else is further locked into a system that will not allow the true flourishing of his or her nature or the opportunity to live a joyful and fulfilled life.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > Do you really not understand the difference between prescription and description?
> Yes, of course I do. But Jeremiah clearly says, "I WILL CAUSE THEM to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters." I don't know how it could be any clearer that it was God's will that people eat their own children in this case. (And, BTW, I only cite this to show that my hypothetical example of eating your children is not outrageous. It has Biblical precedent.)
Christians have long held that God sustains the very laws of reality. See for example Col 1:17 and Heb 1:3. Given this, how does God not "cause" all evil? And yet, if what God is really saying that evil actions (directly or indirectly) cause evil consequences, and he's going to keep the laws of nature going until those evil consequences arrive as promised, God is therefore evil?
It is no mistake that the laws of nature are often thought of as timeless, omnipresent entities causing everything to act as it does but never being acted upon themselves.
> And I know what the English words "total" and "completely" mean.
Did you seriously just imply that in highly technical discussions, the meanings of words aren't sometimes altered?
> Well, then you need a different label. Calling me "totally depraved" because I don't believe in God is insulting.
History defies you; deal with it? Also IIRC everyone is totally depraved and in need of God's grace; Christian and non-Christian alike. Perhaps I'm wrong; an investigation of regeneration and sanctification would clear this up. However, as far as I am aware, these things mean you now have a tow-rope from God and can head in the right direction. It doesn't mean that the rest of life won't consist, in part, of undoing the incurvatus in se which sin produces.
wrf3: "Why a dinner thinks it can disagree with the one who cooked it ... the Potter is the final arbiter in all things moral, not the clay ... Agree or disagree?"
ReplyDeleteDisagree. Creator / created relationship has no necessary connection with truth (or morality). You assert this over and over again, but never justify it.
We are fully capable of looking at the design of the universe, and evaluating it according to moral criteria. I know you shy away from questioning your creator, but that's a choice you've made, and there's no reason the rest of us need to follow it.
Just as a quick example: nature is a horrible place: "one simple test of the claim that the pleasure in the world outweighs the pain ... is to compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of the animal being devoured." [Schopenhauer].
You probably retreat to something like, "well, we just don't understand the full picture, surely it must be this way for some reason we can't fathom right now." That approach, of course, excuses anything. I have no problem with just directly asserting: no, carnivores causing horrible suffering by virtue of slowly devouring feeling baby prey animals alive, is evil.
The predators are just acting on instinct, of course, and are not capable of having a moral debate about the unnecessary suffering that they are causing. But there's no need for holding back from criticizing the creator who chose to set up the world in this way.
@Don:
ReplyDelete> We are fully capable of looking at the design of the universe, and evaluating it according to moral criteria.
What moral criteria? I'll ask you the same question I asked Ron, which he did not answer:
> Can you define [good and evil] in any way other than "things Ron likes" and "things Ron doesn't like"?
Replace 'Ron' with 'Don', of course.
Ron wrote: I'm accusing you of hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteLet's see if it holds up.
You claim to hew to certain principles.
Right.
You claim that our moral intuitions are broken.
Right, but I've also said that they can be fixed. They don't have to stay broken. You seem to conveniently ignore that part.
You claim that God has a natural right to do whatever he likes with us because He created us.
Right again.
And yet, when push comes to shove, when God decides to snack on your children, you somehow find the temerity to object.
Pay very close attention. You have neglected to state who I am objecting to. If you decide to snack on my children, I will object to you.
And the reason I will object to you is because, contrary to your deepest desire, you are not the ultimate moral authority. And I know that you think you are the ultimate moral authority because you dared think it good to eat my children.
I will ask God, "why?" and hope that I might get an answer.
Ron wrote: Calling me "totally depraved" because I don't believe in God is insulting.
ReplyDeleteWe don't call you "totally depraved" because you don't believe in God. We say you are totally depraved because you think you are the ultimate moral arbiter when there are two opposing views. You would say to God, "you are not good. You have no right."
That this is so is proven by you freely insulting me ("hypocrite!" instead of "have you considered that there might ben an inconsistency in your argument?") but bristling when we say everyone, not just Ron Garret, is "totally depraved." You didn't like our moral judgement, but had no problem with your own.
And, furthermore, this puts the lie to your claim that "atheism isn't an axiom." Of course it is, because "I'm the ultimate moral arbiter" is the axiom which defines the core of your being. You weren't reasoned into it and you won't be reasoned out of it. You hold it as a self-evident truth. It is the one self-evident truth that guides how you evaluate evidence. You will reject, or explain away, anything that would cause you to give that up.
Proof? You say, "God has never spoken to me." Of course He has. He has said, "Repent!" But that would result in you acknowledging Him as Lord (i.e. the ultimate moral arbiter). So you delude yourself that you haven't heard. You might say to me, "But he hasn't spoken loudly enough, or via messengers I want to hear from." But, once again, this is just another example of the symptom.
> If you decide to snack on my children, I will object to *you*.
ReplyDeleteI get that. But, according to you, I have no free will. So if I eat your children it must be, ipso facto, because God wants me to. And again, I can cite Biblical precedent, e.g. Exo 9:12.
> you are not the ultimate moral authority
Straw man. I never claimed to be. I only claim to be acting in accordance with God's will. In the absence of free will of my own, what else can I possibly do? If I eat your children I can no more avoid doing so than the tree in the forest can avoid falling.
> you dared think it good to eat my children
I never for an instant thought it was good to eat your children. I am revolted by the very thought. But my revulsion is, according to you, not a reliable guide to morality.
I don't see how I can escape the conclusion, according to your premises, that if I eat your children it must be because God wanted me to, and hence I don't see how can protest without rebelling against God.
@Luke:
> God is therefore evil?
Yes. If God has free will, and hence moral agency, and he causes evil, that makes Him (at least partly) evil. That's what evil *means*.
> Did you seriously just imply that in highly technical discussions, the meanings of words aren't sometimes altered?
The idea of a "highly technical discussion" in the context of theology creates in me a great deal of cognitive dissonance. But fine, then I'll just say that the Calvinists chose a TERRIBLE technical term. The English words "total" and "depravity" already have established meanings, and the phrase "total depravity" has strong pejorative secular implications. Why not just call it "total separation from God"? That would be more accurate and less inflammatory. I will gladly admit to being totally separated from God, but can you see why I might take umbrage at being characterized as totally depraved?
Some atheists insist that all Christians are "delusional." They can justify their usage on "highly technical" grounds. That doesn't change the fact that calling Christians delusional is inflammatory and not terribly constructive.
@wrf3, @Ron:
ReplyDelete> We don't call you "totally depraved" because you don't believe in God. We say you are totally depraved because you think you are the ultimate moral arbiter when there are two opposing views.
Just FYI, I hold that part of imago Dei is that we get to partially define what is 'the good'. That is because what is best for me is partially defined by me. Now, there are still issues with The Unreliability of Naive Introspection, but they are not fatal. From my view, what is evil is that I do not let God and other people play their roles in defining parts of 'the good'. Alistair McFayden captures:
>> The doctrine of the fall means that the question of the right practice of relations (ethics) has to be relocated. The ethical question cannot be equated with possession of the knowledge of the difference between good and evil, for that is precisely the form of self-possession which led to the fall. Adam and Eve thought they could dispute what God's Word really meant, get behind it to judge both it and God.[35] The assumption that we have the capacity to know the difference between right and wrong and to act upon it is in itself and on its own already a corruption of the image. It isolates one from God and others because what is right for one and others is assumed to be already known. The assumption that one already knows what is right stops communication because no new information or external agency is necessary. In what follows I will describe the image and its redemption as a relational process of seeking what is right in openness to others and God and thereby to the fact that one's understanding and capacity are fundamentally in question.
>>
>>>> The choice between good and evil implies that people are already in touch with reality and their only task is its administration . . . The choice between good and evil calls elements within our environment into question: the real ethical question calls us into question.[36]
>>
>> (The Call to Personhood: A Christian Theory of the Individual in Social Relationships, 43–44)
Note that power being "that which lets you define reality" is empirically supported:
>> Proposition 1: Power defines reality
>> Power concerns itself with defining reality rather than with discovering what reality "really" is. This is the single most important characteristic of the rationality of power, that is, of the strategies and tactics employed by power in relation to rationality. Defining reality by defining rationality is a principle means by which power exerts itself. This is not to imply that power seeks out rationality and knowledge because rationality and knowledge are power. Rather, power defines what counts as rationality and knowledge and thereby what counts as reality. The evidence of the Aalborg case confirms a basic Nietzschean insight: interpretation is not only commentary, as is often the view in academic settings, "interpretation is itself a means of becoming master of something"—in the case master of the Aalborg Project—and "all subduing and becoming master involves a fresh interpretation."[4] Power does not limit itself, however, to simply defining a given interpretation or view of reality, nor does power entail only the power to render a given reality authoritative. Rather, power defines, and creates, concrete physical, economic, ecological, and social realities. (Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice, 227)
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> Yes. If God has free will, and hence moral agency, and he causes evil, that makes Him (at least partly) evil. That's what evil *means*.
Wait a second. If God is required to uphold the laws of nature, if he is why the electron continues to obey Shrödinger's equation, then how can he not be causally connected to all evil? Furthermore, if God created a system whereby evil was possible, and then it happens, is he not "at least partly" evil?
Are we operating under a deterministic framework, here, whereby if God set everything in motion, everything is thereby fully determined? If so, I will complain that this is absolutely unfalsifiable. Throwing in a "tape of randomness" which gets fed into the laws of nature as time progresses helps not a whit.
> The idea of a "highly technical discussion" in the context of theology creates in me a great deal of cognitive dissonance.
That's fine; you apparently haven't encountered theology which has had the power to truly bless others' lives in deep ways. Given that, in your mind it is probably justifiably the case that 'sophistication' = 'sophistry'. I really do believe that the proof is in the pudding, and the onus is on me to show you that this stuff can actually matter.
> But fine, then I'll just say that the Calvinists chose a TERRIBLE technical term. The English words "total" and "depravity" already have established meanings, and the phrase "total depravity" has strong pejorative secular implications.
Did you mean to say "already have", or "already had"? The meanings of words change over time, you know. Per the Online Etymology Dictionary: depraved, we have:
>> late 14c., "corrupt, lead astray, pervert," from Old French depraver (14c.) or directly from Latin depravare "distort, disfigure;" figuratively "to pervert, seduce, corrupt," from de- "completely" (see de-) + pravus "crooked."
There is great advantage to retaining the same terms over time instead of constantly changing them to adapt to the changing meanings of words.
> Why not just call it "total separation from God"? That would be more accurate and less inflammatory. I will gladly admit to being totally separated from God, but can you see why I might take umbrage at being characterized as totally depraved?
I have not been afforded the right to take umbrage most of my life, so when you say things like this, I can kinda-sorta simulate it in my head, but generally my response is "okay, if you choose to be offended that way, this establishes a rule which I can choose to navigate".
> Some atheists insist that all Christians are "delusional." They can justify their usage on "highly technical" grounds. That doesn't change the fact that calling Christians delusional is inflammatory and not terribly constructive.
Show me a continuity of this word 'delusion' from the sixteenth century, or justify constant changes in the names of theological terms.
Wow, so many straw men, so little time...
ReplyDelete> you think you are the ultimate moral arbiter
No, I don't. Science -- which is to say evolution and game theory -- are the ultimate moral arbiters.
> That this is so is proven by you freely insulting me ("hypocrite!"
Just following Jesus' example, e.g. Mat 6.
(BTW, that you would take offense at my following Jesus's example in my choice of words is further evidence of your hypocrisy.)
> Proof? You say, "God has never spoken to me." Of course He has. He has said, "Repent!"
I assure you, He has not.
> You might say to me, "But he hasn't spoken loudly enough, or via messengers I want to hear from."
No, that is not what I say. Now it is I who must ask you to pay very close attention: God has not spoken to me in a way that I am capable of recognizing as God. The words that are purported to come from God I cannot distinguish from the voice of man or the voice of Loki. And on your view, this is not because I am choosing to be obstinate or impervious to reason. I have no free will so I can't "choose" anything. I do not hear God's voice because God has decided that I will not hear it. It cannot be otherwise if God is the only agent with free will in the universe.
I am really trying very hard to keep this discussion civil and constructive, but it is unbelievably annoying to listen to you try to buttress your position by telling me what is in my head.
> Wait a second. If God is required to uphold the laws of nature, if he is why the electron continues to obey Shrödinger's equation, then how can he not be causally connected to all evil?
ReplyDeleteHe can't. This is only a problem if you think that God is totally good, which many Christians do.
> That's fine; you apparently haven't encountered theology which has had the power to truly bless others' lives in deep ways.
Of course I have. But I've seen no connection between "theology which has had the power to truly bless others' lives in deep ways" and theology that uses "highly technical terms." AFAICT, theology blesses people's lives by virtue of the placebo effect, and that can be produced in a lot of different ways. Some people resonate with technicalities, others don't.
> Show me a continuity of this word 'delusion' from the sixteenth century, or justify constant changes in the names of theological terms.
That's not really fair. There's not a whole lot of atheist literature that dates back that far. Being an atheist in the sixteenth century would put you in mortal peril from the Inquisition, so even if there were people back then who thought Christians were delusional they didn't commit it to paper.
But your point is well taken. I'll try to be less touchy about "total depravity". But I do think it would be nice if the Calvinists updated their nomenclature for the times we live in.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> No, I don't. Science -- which is to say evolution and game theory -- are the ultimate moral arbiters.
Says who? Are these claims even falsifiable? Is it logically possible for science to not be the ultimate arbiter? (Given whatever definition of 'science' you are employing, here.)
> He can't. This is only a problem if you think that God is totally good, which many Christians do.
Wait a second. So for God to be "totally good", evil cannot exist? Or are you operating under the axiom that God has free will but humans do not?
> Of course I have. [...] AFAICT, theology blesses people's lives by virtue of the placebo effect, [...]
Sigh, I meant to exclude that. Of course if it's just the placebo effect, then sophistication or "highly technical terms" possibly warrant your response. Surely you are able to distinguish between theology blessing people because it contains truth, and theology blessing people due to the placebo effect?
> That's not really fair.
Perhaps; perhaps I ought to have just stuck with the claim that maintaining technical terms as-is has high value, and not attempted an analogy.
> But I do think it would be nice if the Calvinists updated their nomenclature for the times we live in.
As I said, there is a cost to changing terminology. I'm also not all that concerned by people who get offended by appearance instead of substance. One does have to care about appearance in political matters, but hopefully when strenuously seeking truth, everyone is happy to quickly penetrate appearances.
[Correction:]
ReplyDelete@Luke:
> Says who?
Says I.
> Are these claims even falsifiable?
No. And I suppose that the claim that I consider myself the ultimate arbiter of morality is not falsifiable either. But if you won't take my word for it when I tell you it is false we're not likely to make progress.
> So for God to be "totally good", evil cannot exist?
The following cannot all be true simulaneously:
1. God is the only agent in the universe with free will
2. Evil exists
3. God is totally good
> Or are you operating under the axiom that God has free will but humans do not?
When I am talking to @wrf3, yes. That's his position.
> there is a cost to changing terminology
True, but there's value in it too.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > > No, I don't. Science -- which is to say evolution and game theory -- are the ultimate moral arbiters.
> > Are these claims even falsifiable?
> No. And I suppose that the claim that I consider myself the ultimate arbiter of morality is not falsifiable either. But if you won't take my word for it when I tell you it is false we're not likely to make progress.
You're welcome to respond to my comment which includes the string "Power defines reality"; I am not convinced that you are best modeled as considering yourself the ultimate arbiter of morality. One reason I proposed the Dialogos topic including the aspect "How does our morality get changed?" is to see to what extent people will accept moral intuitions which come from outside themselves as being binding on themselves.
But I'm also concerned about your claim that "science is the ultimate moral arbiter" is unfalsifiable. That means this claim is not scientific. What is it, and on what basis is it justified? After all, doesn't your argument imply that if my moral intuitions clash with science, then my moral intuitions are wrong? If the truthmaker is you, then how are we not at Nietzsche's "the will to power"?
> 1. God is the only agent in the universe with free will
Surely you know I disagree with this?
> True, but there's value in it too.
Yep. I'm not sure that offense via judgment by appearances is a good reason. That seems like a pretty bad reason. In my experience, people who judge by appearances tend to suck at truth-seeking, in all those domains where they judge by appearances.
Ron wrote: Wow, so many straw men, so little time...
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
No, I don't [think I'm the ultimate moral arbiter]. Science -- which is to say evolution and game theory -- are the ultimate moral arbiters.
Ok. Game theory supposes a goal. As one lecturer said, "Game theory cannot tell you what goal to pursue; but once you have chosen a goal, it can help you discover the best course of action."
So, what is the goal of Nature? Where does this goal reside? How can Nature have a goal, when Nature supposedly has no purpose -- it just is?
Finally, and most importantly, why do you choose to accept this goal? Why do you think Nature is good? What would you say to someone who disagrees with you that Nature actually arbitrates between people?
Ron wrote: Now it is I who must ask you to pay very close attention: God has not spoken to me in a way that I am capable of recognizing as God.
ReplyDeleteYou do realize that this does not in any way contradict what I have said. Right?
I am really trying very hard to keep this discussion civil and constructive, but it is unbelievably annoying to listen to you try to buttress your position by telling me what is in my head.
I said that God has spoken to you. I did not say that you heard it, nor did I say anything about your ability to hear it.
Ron in response to my claim that "the clay has no right to expect that if it were to argue with the Potter that it was made incorrectly, that it would win that argument." countered with You're wrong about that too. Exo 32:14.
ReplyDeleteI claim that you're drawing a false conclusion from the text. Suppose it had ended with God destroying the Israelites. Would He have been wrong to do so? If so, on what basis?
@Luke:
ReplyDelete> With the schema you have just advanced, can you explain the 'teleology' vs. 'teleonomy' debate?
I don't understand what you want me to explain. I don't even know what "debate" you're referring to. Teleology and teleonomy are simply two different concepts.
> It strikes me that whether or not teleology is less fundamental than the quantum wave function (or whatever you want to put at that hierarchical level) is what is being questioned.
Sure, you are welcome to question it. But unless you can provide *evidence* that teleology does not emerge from information processing then I can't take your questioning of it seriously.
> How would you know if teleology cannot so-emerge?
I don't know that it can't, I just know that it doesn't. How do I know? The same way I know everything that I know: evidence.
> You're welcome to respond to my comment which includes the string "Power defines reality"
I have nothing constructive to say about it. It seems perfectly obvious to me that "power defines reality" is objectively false. It sounds more like a political statement than a scientific one, and this conversation is already messy enough without throwing politics into the mix. Certainly power can influence people's beliefs about reality, but that's not the same as defining reality. Reality is what it is independent of anyone's beliefs.
> But I'm also concerned about your claim that "science is the ultimate moral arbiter" is unfalsifiable. That means this claim is not scientific.
That's right, it isn't. Morality is in a separate ontological category. Trying to define what is moral scientifically is like trying to define what is beautiful scientifically. It might be possible, but I don't know how you'd do it. (David Deutsch took a valiant whack at it in The Beginning of Infinity but I don't think he succeeded.)
Making science my moral arbiter is a choice that I make. Advancing the interests of memes over genes is another choice that I make. I cannot justify those choices except insofar as I think they produce "good" outcomes (whatever that might mean). It's all a little bit squishy, but that's OK. Science is all about continual improvement without ever reaching perfection.
> > 1. God is the only agent in the universe with free will
> Surely you know I disagree with this?
Yes, but wrf3 believes it. How am I supposed to tell which of you is right?
> Science cannot say that science is the best route to the truth.
Actually, yes, it can.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> So, what is the goal of Nature?
> Nature supposedly has no purpose -- it just is?
That is exactly right, nature doesn't have a goal. Nature just is. Nature just does. One of the things that nature does is produce complex systems that have behaviors that can be accurately modeled as goal-directed. But "goals" are an emergent property of nature, not a built-in feature.
> Finally, and most importantly, why do you choose to accept this goal?
Which goal is "this goal"? I have a lot of goals. I choose different goals for different reasons.
> Why do you think Nature is good?
I don't. Parts of nature are good, parts are bad, and parts (the vast majority) are neutral.
> What would you say to someone who disagrees with you that Nature actually arbitrates between people?
I would say two things:
1. I don't know what it means to "arbitrate between people", but regardless:
2. What is the evidence that supports your claim?
> > God has not spoken to me in a way that I am capable of recognizing as God.
> You do realize that this does not in any way contradict what I have said. Right?
No, I do not realize this. It seems to me very much to contradict many things that you have said.
> I said that God has spoken to you. I did not say that you heard it, nor did I say anything about your ability to hear it.
Not so. You characterized my inability to hear God's voice as self-delusion:
"So you delude yourself that you haven't heard."
If I am not capable of hearing God's voice, then my failure to hear it is no more a delusion than a blind person's inability to see the stars is a delusion.
(Note, by the way, that I can provide evidence even to a blind person that the stars do in fact exist despite the fact that he cannot see them.)
> "the clay has no right to expect that if it were to argue with the Potter that it was made incorrectly, that it would win that argument." countered with You're wrong about that too. Exo 32:14. I claim that you're drawing a false conclusion from the text. Suppose it had ended with God destroying the Israelites. Would He have been wrong to do so? If so, on what basis?
What difference does that make? The point is that Moses did win that argument, and this falsifies your claim that it is wrong for the created to argue with the creator. (In fact, arguing with God (and often winning) are a time-honored part of Jewish tradition. Look up Rabbi Eliezer and the Carob Tree some time.)
Ron wrote: Trying to define what is moral scientifically is like trying to define what is beautiful scientifically. It might be possible, but I don't know how you'd do it. and Making science my moral arbiter is a choice that I make.
ReplyDeleteHere is what I think you're saying. If you have to choose between two goals, you'll use science to do it. That's motherhood and apple pie. It doesn't matter whether it's game theory or graph theory or heuristics for traversing huge state spaces, a knowledgeable person will use techniques that enhance favorable outcomes.
But that leaves the decision for the initial choice of goal state. That, you rightly say, science cannot help you with (and I say that you're correct, because I said it earlier).
So far, it appears that you and I are in complete agreement.
So:
1) What is/are your initial goal state(s).
2) On what basis did you choose it/them, given that science cannot help you here?
Ron wrote: I don't know what it means to "arbitrate between people"
ReplyDeleteBy making the determination that Person A's choice is morally right and person B's choice is morally wrong (assuming that A and B are on opposite sides of the issue).
It seems to me very much to contradict many things that you have said.
And yet it's clear you understand it. I can provide evidence even to a blind person that the stars do in fact exist despite the fact that he cannot see them.
Only if the blind person trusts you. Without that, the blind person can reasonably discount everything you present.
The point is that Moses did win that argument, and this falsifies your claim that it is wrong for the created to argue with the creator.
Please see my post to Luke at 6:58 AM.
Ron wrote: Yes, but wrf3 believes it. How am I supposed to tell which of you is right?
ReplyDeleteBy making sure we really disagree. I have pointed out, more than once, that there are several different possible definitions for free will. I very much suspect Luke agrees with my post @ 6:19 PM. I would be very instructive if you and Luke would agree/disagree with that.
Furthermore, you yourself agreed with me that our thoughts follow the laws of physics. I suspect you agree with me that neither you, nor I, control the laws of physics. Where Luke comes in on this, only he can say, and he hasn't said.
So, it really seems to me that the odds are very good that you actually agree with me 100%.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> I have pointed out, more than once, that there are several different possible definitions for free will. I very much suspect Luke agrees with my post @ 6:19 PM. I would be very instructive if you and Luke would agree/disagree with that.
Here is the bit from that comment:
> ... > Define "free will". Would a sufficiently advanced AI have free will? If this finite state machine entered into states where it started eating your dog would you, the animal's owner, say, "well, that's just too bad. I guess I'll just have to get another dog. Maybe a breeding pair. My neighbor is just a poor machine and has no responsibility for his actions, so I'll just have to live with it."
First, I believe that God cannot be the author of sin and also good. We sin in spite of God's actions, not because of God's actions. Therefore, I hold that we are capable of being truly responsible for our sins. This means we have true moral responsibility, something denied by naturalist Bruce Waller in his Against Moral Responsibility.
Second, I am deeply suspicious of the mechanistic model of the human being, which means that neither FSM, nor PDA, nor TM is the proper way to think of the human being. I am inclined to believe that philosophical atomism is false, I am certain that reductionism has been disproved by the violation of Bell's inequalities, and I am deeply suspicious of the idea that reality can be perfectly defined by a finite number of bits of information.
Third, I can no better define "free will" than Ron can tell me what causes electrons to obey the laws of nature. It seems to me that the idea of determinism is unfalsifiable. It is instead a foundational axiom: things had to turn out the way they have; you had no moral choice. An alternative is that this causally powerful entity called 'Luke' actually is responsible for certain things being the way they are. This entity 'Luke' is not merely one state, or a set of states, in a block universe. Science may show that future states are not 100% determined by past states, with the resulting explanation not being "randomness".
Fourth, I believe that it is within God's power to create morally responsible beings, beings not 100% caused by his initial "push", nor his sustaining energies. (If you really want to get nitpicky, we can separate out multiple kinds of causation.) Furthermore, I believe that God actually did this. I believe that imago Dei is destroyed as a sensible concept, without this.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> I don't understand what you want me to explain. I don't even know what "debate" you're referring to. Teleology and teleonomy are simply two different concepts.
Agree or disagree?: one is the appearance of purpose, the other is actual purpose.
> But unless you can provide *evidence* that teleology does not emerge from information processing then I can't take your questioning of it seriously.
What is the "*evidence*" that teleology does so-emerge? I will point out that the deeply related philosophical problem of intentionality is not considered a solved problem by many. Were you to truly be able to solve it, you would get whatever the Fields medal variant is in philosophy.
> It seems perfectly obvious to me that "power defines reality" is objectively false.
The context of that was in matters of 'the good'. Surely you realize that the people with the power to impose a concept of 'the good' on a society have incredible amounts of power to shape it? If you don't want to say that this "defines reality" then alright, but you have this frustrating habit of insisting that your interpretation of a phrase is the interpretation. You did this with Total Depravity. The book, Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice, has 1649 'citations', measured by Google Scholar. And yet you dismiss it with the wave of a hand. Can you not see how this is a very frustrating behavior to engage in?
Ironically, you are insisting that you define reality by this very behavior. Your interpretation of reality is the correct one. This, of course, allows you to control how people view reality. Many would be happy to equate "control how people view reality" with "define reality".
> [...] this conversation is already messy enough without throwing politics into the mix.
Do you really believe you can talk about morality without bringing in the dynamic of different people having differing ideas on 'the good'? That is 'politics'.
> I cannot justify those choices except insofar as I think they produce "good" outcomes (whatever that might mean).
Do you claim that when it comes to what constitutes "evidence, experiment, and reason", that you can appeal to anything other than "I think they produce "good" outcomes"?
> How am I supposed to tell which of you is right?
You could explore both options for starters, carefully distinguishing between them.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > Science cannot say that science is the best route to the truth.
> Actually, yes, it can.
In the comment sections, we engaged in a debate about this, with you dropping out. I claim that the biggest lesson of quantum physics is that it guarantees nothing besides phenomenology, besides appearances. What disproves the following?
>> In order to properly understand the nature of this argument, let us first derive from what has been recalled above the obvious lesson that (as already repeatedly noted) quantum mechanics is an essentially predictive, rather than descriptive, theory. What, in it, is truly robust is in no way its ontology, which, on the contrary, is either shaky or nonexistent. (On Physics and Philosophy, 148)
How has your chosen interpretation of quantum physics been used to do more science than any other interpretation of quantum physics? If you have no answer, then for all you know, it is a just-so story. It has not proven itself. This has radical consequences, for the "shut up and calculate" approach refuses to assign any ontology, refuses to assign any metaphysics.
@Luke: "I am certain that reductionism has been disproved by the violation of Bell's inequalities"
ReplyDeleteNope. Both reductionism and QM are perfectly compatible with the multi-worlds interpretation of QM. (Or with Ron's zero-worlds, if you prefer that.)
Don wrote: the multi-worlds interpretation of QM.
ReplyDeleteOh, for another thread where a multi-worlder would go head-to-head with Lubos Motl, e.g. here, here, and more...
</end thread-jack>
@Don:
ReplyDelete> Nope. Both reductionism and QM are perfectly compatible with the multi-worlds interpretation of QM. (Or with Ron's zero-worlds, if you prefer that.)
I will have to investigate whether this is actually true; dual philosopher–scientist Bernard d'Espagnat would appear to disagree in On Physics and Philosophy, but perhaps I didn't catch matters specific to MWI. I have other reasons for generally excluding MWI (lack of counterfactual definiteness and the probability problem, among others), which is why I said what I said, even though I'm not sure about what happens with nonseparability and MWI.
@wrf3: "Lubos Motl"
ReplyDeleteWow, you've chosen a particularly obnoxious and unimpressive champion for your position. Motl enters into a technical discussion about physics, and chooses to label the MWI proponents as "stupid monkeys" and "kindergarten stuff" and "distinguish addition from multiplication" and "complete idiots with the IQ of a retarded third-grader". Really, ad hominem? How childish.
MWI may be wrong, but the error won't be as elementary as that. Given that this seems to be Motl's view, what is the chance that perhaps he is the one who is confused, rather than MWI?...
Ah, of course. "Conservation of charge", "when the splitting takes place". Plus accusations of MWI proponents wanting to change QM equations. He clearly simply misunderstands the MWI interpretation. He's arguing against his own misunderstanding of MWI, not against the actual MWI interpretation.
Nice touch, for him to be so childish about it, though. I like the pairing of his arrogance with his own mistakes.
Don Geddis wrote: Really, ad hominem? How childish.
ReplyDeleteIf ad hominem were the only thing he had to say I would agree with you. But at least he attempts to say why he disagrees with his opponents.
I like the pairing of his arrogance with his own mistakes.
Show that he's made a mistake. I know that it might be difficult. The dialog here is certainly one example of that. But at least there's a dialog. MWI proponents didn't even bother to try to refute his charge. Just as I know how to discount "ad hominem" to see what's left, I also know that "arguments from silence" aren't dispositive. Still, I'd like to see the rebuttal his arguments.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> Here is what I think you're saying. If you have to choose between two goals, you'll use science to do it. That's motherhood and apple pie.
It might be motherhood and apple pie, but it's also wrong. Science can't help you choose goals. It can only help you achieve them once they are chosen.
> What is/are your initial goal state(s).
I don't know what you mean by "initial". I have a lot of goals. I adopt new ones and give up old ones all the time. I have an overarching goal of surviving, because that's a pre-requisite to my having any other goals, and that spawns a bunch of sub-goals, like eating and breathing.
> On what basis did you choose it/them, given that science cannot help you here?
I don't know. I'm not even sure I did choose them. I think that your root goals are more a matter of figuring out or discovering what they are rather than choosing them. My illusion of free will does not extend to my root goals. I can't decide to want to be a cannibal, for example.
> > I can provide evidence even to a blind person that the stars do in fact exist despite the fact that he cannot see them.
> Only if the blind person trusts you.
Nope. I can provide evidence that a blind person can verify independently. They don't have to trust me. That's the beauty of science. It really doesn't require any faith. (To be clear, I cannot *prove* to a blind person that the stars exist. But I actually can't prove that to a sighted person either. What I can do for both blind and sighted people is present them with sufficient evidence that they will be left with only three possible alternatives: 1) the stars exist, 2) there is a vast conspiracy making it appear that the stars exist or 3) they can't trust their own senses and reasoning abilities.
> Please see my post to Luke at 6:58 AM.
I did. I am not swayed. You simply assert that the created has no right to criticize the creator, but you have never provided any evidence to support that claim. You simply claim it as if it is self-evident. But it's not.
> So, it really seems to me that the odds are very good that you actually agree with me 100%.
Sorry, no. Yes, our brains operate according to the laws of physics. No, it does not follow that we don't have free will or moral agency. Even if we were completely deterministic (we're not, but free will does not depend on that) we would still have free will. Once atoms build brains, new phenomena (like free will and self-awareness) emerge.
@Luke:
ReplyDelete> Agree or disagree?: one is the appearance of purpose, the other is actual purpose.
I agree that those are the definitions of the words. I don't agree that there is an actual distinction to be made.
> What is the "*evidence*" that teleology does so-emerge?
Because "purpose" is part of the dramatic narrative that we invent to help us make sense of the world. You won't find purpose in the fundamental equations of physics the way you find, say, gravity or electric charge. Without brains, there is no purpose.
> Do you really believe you can talk about morality without bringing in the dynamic of different people having differing ideas on 'the good'?
Yes, I think it's possible. Game theory, for example, is not inherently political.
> Do you claim that when it comes to what constitutes "evidence, experiment, and reason", that you can appeal to anything other than "I think they produce "good" outcomes"?
Well, I can actually *demonstrate* that EE&R produces good outcomes by quality metrics that have very broad consensus.
> In the comment sections, we engaged in a debate about this, with you dropping out.
Sorry about that. Occasionally I have to get some actual work done.
> it is a just-so story
Of course it (my interpretation of QM) is a just-so story. But it is not *merely* a just-so story. It's a just-so story that is backed up by math and is consistent with the evidence. A just-so story with those properties is called a "scientific theory" and it is not so easy to construct. That's one of the reasons they are highly prized.
There happen to be a couple of different just-so stories consistent with quantum mechanics (though they really all amount to the same thing), so you can pick which ever one makes you feel warm and fuzzy. But Christian theology is not one of them.
> Show that he's made a mistake.
ReplyDeleteIf I do, will that make you rethink your worldview?
And if the answer to that is "no", what would?
@wrf3: "Show that he's made a mistake. I know that it might be difficult. ... Still, I'd like to see the rebuttal his arguments."
ReplyDeleteJust read the comments to Motl's post. A half dozen different people all try to explain that he completely misunderstands MWI, so his entire argument is against a strawman that nobody supports. Commenter after commenter says "that's not what MWI claims", and Motl just responds with the same rude, arrogant dismissal, not even addressing the valid concerns.
E.g. [James]: "The end state is: 0.60|scientist sees up>|up> + 0.80|scientist sees down>|down>. And like before, there aren't two electrons, and there aren't two scientists. And no scientist is every going to see an electron up and an electron down."
To which Motl stupidly replies: "If you don't have any two electrons (in total) representing one, you can't call it many worlds because it clearly has nothing to do with many worlds. There aren't many worlds if there is only one."
And the commenter [James] correctly notes: "Unfortunately we do not get to decide what people call things. I agree many worlds is misleading name. ... Unfortunately the people who profess in many worlds would not agree that what you call "many worlds" is what they believe."
Or [gbush]: "You're basically just saying that it is impossible to observe an electron that is simultaneously spin up and spin down, and that every observation will confirm that charge is conserved. I doubt any MWI proponent would disagree with either statement or feel that it contradicts their interpretation."
Or [anon]: "You're simply calculating the probability that electrons within the same time-line would exist in multiple states at once to be 0, which would obviously be true. Within the same time-line the probability of existing in different states would be 0, but that doesn't have anything to do with the MWI."
Many, many commenters have told Motl that he misunderstands the MWI interpretation. But in his arrogance, he refuses to even consider that he may be the one who has something to learn.
@wrf3: "Oh, for another thread where a multi-worlder would go head-to-head with Lubos Motl"
ReplyDeleteI apologize to Ron for sidetracking this interesting religion thread with mere QM. But if anyone is actually interested in the details of MWI (which is very different from what Motl argues against), I would recommend Eliezer Yudkowsky's Many Worlds post on Less Wrong. If you're really interested in this stuff, go through Eliezer's whole Quantum Physics sequence.
Looks like Don stole my thunder, but I'll just weigh in with this: Motl claims that:
ReplyDelete⟨up|down⟩=0
means that there does not exist an up electron and a down electron. That's not what it means. It means that the probability of measuring the same electron in both the up and down states (in one universe) is zero. Which is true, but it misses the point rather badly.
@Ron
ReplyDeleteScience -- which is to say evolution and game theory -- are the ultimate moral arbiters.
Sarah is a senior in high school. Ben asks her to the prom and she agrees to be his date. A week later, Chris asks Sarah to the prom. Sarah likes Chris a lot better and would rather go to prom with him.
What does evidence based science and game theory dictate that Sarah should do in this situation?
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > Agree or disagree?: one is the appearance of purpose, the other is actual purpose.
> I agree that those are the definitions of the words. I don't agree that there is an actual distinction to be made.
Fascinating. I'm surprised that you think there's no actual distinction between the mere appearance of X, and X being 'real'. I thought you believed in an external reality? If you do, then in general appearances can be deceiving and it's importance to distinguish between appearance and reality. Why not in this case?
> > What is the "*evidence*" that teleology does so-emerge?
> Because "purpose" is part of the dramatic narrative that we invent to help us make sense of the world. You won't find purpose in the fundamental equations of physics the way you find, say, gravity or electric charge. Without brains, there is no purpose.
That we don't find purpose in the fundamental equations of physics is because of the adoption of the mechanical philosophy in the Enlightenment. (See, for example, Julien Offray de La Mettrie's 1748 Man a Machine.) There is absolutely no guarantee that "the fundamental equations of physics" are anything other than an approximation of what truly goes on; why are you confident that "what truly goes on" has no purpose, no telos?
You also haven't given anything like a rigorous account for how purpose can come out of non-purpose. As I said, if you could solve the problem of intentionality, you would get the philosophical equivalent of the Fields medal. But you've brushed over this, as if you can merely assert that "humans invent purpose". That's not evidence, that's a bare assertion that needs justification. You want to say that humans discover mechanism but invent purpose; why ought I accept this asymmetry?
> Game theory, for example, is not inherently political.
At the recent Dialogos meeting, you acknowledged that the game theory you've looked at doesn't deal with differentials in power which have pervaded mankind for millennia. I don't see how you possibly think that such research has much bearing on actual human social reality.
> Well, I can actually *demonstrate* that EE&R produces good outcomes by quality metrics that have very broad consensus.
There has been "very broad consensus" in Germany, Rwanda, Russia, and China. I'm actually more interested in those who are left out of that consensus.
@Ron [from the post ...]
ReplyDeleteif you harbor the tiniest bit of doubt that resigning yourself to the unspeakable horrors of moral abnegation might not be the right choice, then I have Good News: you do have free will . . . and so you have moral agency. You can choose good over evil, truth over lies, peace over war, order over chaos, justice over injustice.. . .
Idea-ism would be your theory of how to distinguish good from evil, the morality of truth-telling versus lying, and the desirability of peace over war, etc., correct? Not that it's complete, but it's what you've got so far?
@Publius: yep.
ReplyDelete@Ron:
ReplyDelete> Sorry about that. Occasionally I have to get some actual work done.
That's fine, but your "Actually, yes, it can." is contended, not established.
> Of course it (my interpretation of QM) is a just-so story. But it is not *merely* a just-so story. It's a just-so story that is backed up by math and is consistent with the evidence.
Has it been used to advance the state of the art of science? If it hasn't, then it seems like it really doesn't deserve the title of 'science', or even 'hypothesis'. There are an infinite number of models which are "backed up by math and consistent with the evidence". what we need is a way to pick those models which advance the state of the art.
Therefore, we're back at my quotation from On Physics and Philosophy, were d'Espagnat argues that quantum physics tells us nothing besides phenomenology. It doesn't actually tell us about fundamental reality (metaphysics, or what many call 'ontology'), it tells us about what we can observe, and nothing beyond that. Don't we want quantum physics to be descriptive and not just predictive? That's the difference between instrumentalism and realism.
> But Christian theology is not one of them.
No systematic understanding of reality accords nicely with all experienced reality. There's absolutely no reason to think that we are in anything other than a situation like existed before the dawn of quantum mechanics, where almost everything understandable seemed to be well-understood, per Lord Kelvin's "Two Clouds" speech. One of those clouds, of course, was the ultraviolet catastrophe.
See, while you say you can do and discover useful things with science, I say I can also do and discover useful things with theology. And yet, I'm supposed to discard it if I care about truth. I find this to be a curious state of affairs.
@Luke:
ReplyDelete> Fascinating. I'm surprised that you think there's no actual distinction between the mere appearance of X, and X being 'real'. I thought you believed in an external reality?
I do. But external reality is only one of many ontological categories. I believe that justice and beauty exist, but they are not part of "external reality" the way that, say, rocks are part of external reality. The manner in which justice and beauty exist is fundamentally different from the manner in which rocks exist (which is fundamentally different from the way in which the quantum wave function exists). Purpose exists in an ontological category that is similar to fiction, i.e. it's a human mental construct. That doesn't mean it's not real, that it doesn't exist, but it exists *as a concept* and so there is no meaningful distinction between "real" purpose and the appearance of purpose, just as there is no distinction between "real" beauty and the appearance of beauty.
> why are you confident that "what truly goes on" has no purpose, no telos?
Because I see no evidence for it. (Really, have we not gotten to the point where you could predict that that would be my answer?)
> At the recent Dialogos meeting, you acknowledged that the game theory you've looked at doesn't deal with differentials in power which have pervaded mankind for millennia. I don't see how you possibly think that such research has much bearing on actual human social reality.
It's a start. As I have also said before, science is a process of continual improvement, never reaching perfection. And it's entirely possible that someone has done this research and I'm simply unaware of it.
> There has been "very broad consensus" in Germany, Rwanda, Russia, and China. I'm actually more interested in those who are left out of that consensus.
I think you missed my point. The "broad consensus" that I'm talking about is the consensus that thinks that things like iPhones, airplanes, and antibiotics are good things.
I should probably write a post about social injustice because I think you and I are much closer on this than you think.
> I say I can also do and discover useful things with theology
ReplyDeleteSplendid! Show me how. Would you like to write a guest post for RR?
@Luke:
ReplyDeleteOne more thing: if you really mean to defend theology in general and not just Christianity in particular, then you really should read this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
Game Theory Paper
ReplyDeleteProc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jun 26; 109(26): 10409–10413.
Published online 2012 May 21. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1206569109
PMCID: PMC3387070
Evolution, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma contains strategies that dominate any evolutionary opponent, by William H. Press and Freeman J. Dyson
Abstract
The two-player Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game is a model for both sentient and evolutionary behaviors, especially including the emergence of cooperation. It is generally assumed that there exists no simple ultimatum strategy whereby one player can enforce a unilateral claim to an unfair share of rewards. Here, we show that such strategies unexpectedly do exist. In particular, a player X who is witting of these strategies can (i) deterministically set her opponent Y’s score, independently of his strategy or response, or (ii) enforce an extortionate linear relation between her and his scores. Against such a player, an evolutionary player’s best response is to accede to the extortion. Only a player with a theory of mind about his opponent can do better, in which case Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma is an Ultimatum Game.
Luke asked: why are you confident that "what truly goes on" has no purpose, no telos?
ReplyDeleteRon responded: Because I see no evidence for it. (Really, have we not gotten to the point where you could predict that that would be my answer?)
Sure. The problem is that you claim that this is based on reason and not the vagaries of your brain wiring. Science says it's the vagaries of your brain wiring:
Boston University's Catherine Caldwell-Harris is researching the differences between the secular and religious minds. "Humans have two cognitive styles," the psychologist says. "One type finds deeper meaning in everything; even bad weather can be framed as fate. The other type is neurologically predisposed to be skeptical, and they don't put much weight in beliefs and agency detection."
See also here:
These results support the idea that seeing purpose behind life events is a result of our mind’s focus on social thinking. People whose social cognition is impaired ... are less likely to see the events in their lives as having happened for a reason.
Power went out last night, so I'm a bit behind.
Ron wrote: As I have also said before, science is a process of continual improvement, never reaching perfection.
ReplyDeleteSo, if McCarthy is right, that one of the primary ideas in our brain is that "everything is improvable", science is nothing more than the projection of the brain's operation on the herd. It's the creed of the neurotypical, i.e., those who suppress teleological thinking.
Ron asked: If I do, will that make you rethink your worldview?
ReplyDeleteIt would make me re-think which interpretation of QM to which I ascribe. But QM, like Relativity, & etc... fits comfortably within my worldview (because my worldview is bigger than simply naturalism).
And if the answer to that is "no", what would?
If you're asking what would cause me to drop Christianity, then my answer is the same for that as is it for anything else:
1) An internal contradiction, that is widely shown to be an internal contradiction (IOW, I'm not going to trust just my own opinion on whether it's really a contradiction, or I just don't understand it),
2) An external contradiction, the primary one being evidence that Jesus didn't rise from the dead.
> Ron: Because I see no evidence for it.
ReplyDelete> wrf3: The problem is that you claim that this is based on reason and not the vagaries of your brain wiring.
Why is this a problem? My capacity for reason IS a consequence of the "vagaries" of my brain wiring.
BTW, that I see no evidence for (real) teleology is not "based on reason", it is simply a fact. The fact, by the way, is not that there is no evidence, the fact is that I don't see it. It's possible that there is evidence that I don't see but others do. It's possible that some people have a sixth sense that I don't have, that I am like the blind man who cannot see the stars.
However, it is also possible that those who think they perceive teleology are experiencing delusions, that their perception of teleology is not a reflection of something real, but a psychological defense mechanism against the existential despair that can accompany the realization that teleology is just a mental construct. Perhaps some people just can't handle the truth.
But: remember that I claimed that i could provide evidence of the existence of stars that would convince a blind person? For example, I can tell the blind person to ask a seeing person to describe the location of the stars, i.e. by measuring their azimuth and elevation. What they would find is that every seeing person would agree on where the stars are located. Moreover, I can build a measurement device that would automatically locate stars, and the output of that measurement device would agree with the reports of sighted people.
The situation with respect to teleology is very different. No one agrees. Some people say Christ is God, some say Allah, some say Vishnu. Some say Mohammed is the prophet, some say Adam Smith or L. Ron Hubbard. (Heck, even you and Luke, two Christians, can't agree if man has free will or not!) Moreover, no one has been able to build a measurement device that would corroborate or refute the various claims. So the situation with respect to teleology is much more similar to disputes over e.g. whether Superman could win a battle with Batman than it is a dispute over the existence of stars.
But I am forever open minded: is there evidence for teleology? What is it? (And before you answer, you should know that there is no doubt in my mind that Superman would totally kick Batman's ass.)
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > Fascinating. I'm surprised that you think there's no actual distinction between the mere appearance of X, and X being 'real'. I thought you believed in an external reality?
> I do. But external reality is only one of many ontological categories.
Ok, so where is there an important distinction between "the mere appearance of X", and "X being 'real'"? Only for some, or one, of the "many ontological categories"?
> [...] there is no distinction between "real" beauty and the appearance of beauty.
Given stuff like In Search of Beauty, is this actually true? It would seem that if you tune your sense of beauty in certain ways, the result is that you are better able to explore reality.
> > why are you confident that "what truly goes on" has no purpose, no telos?
> Because I see no evidence for it. (Really, have we not gotten to the point where you could predict that that would be my answer?)
It strikes me that if you cannot properly explain the emergence of purpose, then your claim of "no evidence" is specious. That our current scientific laws do not contain 'purpose' does not say that reality does not exhibit purpose; the picture of the thing is not the thing. Furthermore, the study of 'purpose' was very much exorcised from science in, from the bit I've seen, a pretty ideological fashion. Given this, I expect scientists to largely be blind to phenomena which cannot be properly observed without thinking they might exhibit purpose. See again Grossberg 1999 The Link between Brain Learning, Attention, and Consciousness, which argues that if patterns in your percepts don't sufficiently well-match patterns existing in less plastic memory, you won't even become conscious of those percepts.
So, do you have a proper explanation for the emergence of purpose, an explanation which promises to solve the philosophical problem of intentionality?
> I think you missed my point. The "broad consensus" that I'm talking about is the consensus that thinks that things like iPhones, airplanes, and antibiotics are good things.
You keep referencing the easy cases, but not the hard ones. If you really want to promote one [meta]ethical theory over another, you've got to show that it's actually superior. Otherwise, tons of [meta]ethical theories want human thriving. The devil, as you know, is in the details.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > I say I can also do and discover useful things with theology
> Splendid! Show me how. Would you like to write a guest post for RR?
At some point, yes. For example, I may be able to connect my relational sin to Luciano L'Abate's recent Hurt Feelings: Theory, Research, and Applications in Intimate Relationships. I'm a little reticent to say much without a good amount of rigor and evidence. Another topic would be that of power, investigating what happens when it is primarily used according to Mt 20:20–28 and Jn 13:1–20, vs. primarily to dominate others.
Yet another topic to explore is that of questioning the status quo. One way that you get a stable society is that many avenues of questioning are rendered ineffective. Many threats to its stability are put down, whether violently, via nonviolent manipulation, or via inculcation of its young. Given all of this, how can one truly challenge the status quo such that it works, instead of e.g. getting slowly strangled with red tape? One avenue is to read sociologist Peter Berger's The Precarious Vision: A Sociologist Looks at Social Fictions and Christian Faith.
Yet another topic is "spirit of the law" vs. "letter of the law". We all know how some people do just enough to satisfy the rules, and how such people are frequently a drain on the system. They require excessive maintenance of the rules, and sometimes excessive proliferation of rules. Theology has quite a bit to say about this matter; at a Bible study just last night we looked at the "root of bitterness" in Heb 12:12–17 and Deut 29:16–28. The empirical claim here is that a relatively small proportion of a population can exert a significantly negative impact on the rest. Further exploration of the term "stubbornness of heart", which Jewish scholar Yoram Hazony argues should actually be translated "arbitrariness of mind", could lead to some interesting places.
So much of this, though, is merely theoretical instead of actually applied to psychology and sociology. Making those actual connections between theory and practice is, IMHO, where the really interesting stuff lies. As I've pointed out before, the human sciences are in desperate need of better theory (example). Perhaps the attempt to connect theory to practice in the field of theology will lead to some interesting places. I personally strongly suspect this, but to prove that I'm on the right track to many, I would have to show actual empirical results. For a layman, this is a nontrivial task!
I would really like to take you up on your offer now, but I don't see how it would be particularly beneficial until I've done more work. Perhaps, given what I've said here and what you know of me already, you have some suggestions?
> Ok, so where is there an important distinction between "the mere appearance of X", and "X being 'real'"? Only for some, or one, of the "many ontological categories"?
ReplyDeleteYou are making a tacit assumption with your use of the word "mere". Appearances are never "mere". It is the exact same mistake that atheists make when they dismiss God as "mere" fiction. God is fiction, but He is not "mere" fiction. He is a very powerful kind of fiction, saliently different from Bilbo Baggins and Harry Potter, who are in turn saliently different from the invisible pink unicorn and the flying spaghetti monster.
We humans have a prejudice that what we call "classical reality" is in some sense "more real" than other ontological categories. The reason we have this prejudice is that our brains are classical information processing devices, and so we can directly perceive what we call "classical reality". But QM shows us that classical reality itself is just (but not merely!) "appearance". There are no particles. Particles are an approximation, a limit that (like so many things in science) is continually approached but never reached. (Zeno was right about that!)
Philosophers have gotten themselves wrapped around the axle because of this prejudice. Arguing over whether something is "real" or "mere appearance" is exactly like arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. (And yes, I know that this never actually happened. It's a metaphor.) Asking if something is "real" or "not real" is the wrong question. The right question is, "What ontological categories are there, how do they relate, and what things belong in which categories." When you ask this question, a whole host of classical philosophical conundra simply evaporate.
> Given stuff like In Search of Beauty, is this actually true?
Well, that's an empirical question. It is possible that the laws of physics constrain the development of brains in such a way that certain features will inevitably be perceived as beautiful (or not). Evolution *does* apparently constrain the development of brains so that certain things are perceived as "just" or not, so it's possible the same thing happens for beauty, we don't yet know. That doesn't change the fact that "beautiful" is in the mind of the beholder just as "green" or "delicious" is.
> if you cannot properly explain the emergence of purpose
But I have: purpose is a component of a dramatic narrative that people tell themselves to avoid existential despair.
> So, do you have a proper explanation for the emergence of purpose, an explanation which promises to solve the philosophical problem of intentionality?
I don't know if you consider my explanation a "proper" one, but it's funny you should ask about intentionality because I actually wrote my masters thesis about that very problem (back in 1987!). Here again we have a situation where philosophers have gotten wrapped around the axle because of the failure to properly segregate ontological categories. For example, the "problem" of the non-existence of Pegasus is immediately solved by saying that Pegasus is a fictional character. The "problem" of teleology is likewise solved by saying that "purpose" is a mental construct, like beauty and justice.
> If you really want to promote one [meta]ethical theory over another, you've got to show that it's actually superior.
Science is not an ethical theory, meta or otherwise. Science is a methodology for making reliable predictions about the behavior of objective reality. Idea-ism is an ethical theory that starts with science and adds an unprovable axiom: where they conflict, the interests of memes should trump the interests of genes.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> BTW, that I see no evidence for (real) teleology is not "based on reason", it is simply a fact.
Could it be that your criterion for 'success' in explanation doesn't tolerate teleology? I will note, per Gregory W. Dawes in Theism and Explanation, plus my own experience, that some, if not many, claim that "any proposed [intentional] explanation... is fatally flawed" (147). There is, of course, a deep connection between an 'intentional explanation' and a 'telos'. Indeed, I can even point to what is probably the inflection point on this matter:
>> Since the Novum Organum of Francis Bacon, teleological explanations in science tend to be deliberately avoided in favor of focus on material and efficient explanations. Final and formal causation came to be viewed as false or too subjective.[9] (WP: Teleology § Disfavor)
Generally, there seem to be two major aspects of 'success', according to my model of you:
(1) more compact objective representation of data†
(2) greater ability to bend reality to our present purposes
My claim is that these may not be serviceable by teleological explanations, by intentional explanations. First, it is quite possible that teloi are infinitely complex. As you explore the nooks and crannies of your idea-ism, you may well find it getting more and more complex. Second, discovering a thing or person's telos doesn't necessarily allow you to manipulate it; instead this would allow you to enhance that thing or person.
My use of "objective" in (1) is very important. It is intended to imply a formal system which can be exhaustively stated, and has as a foil people's subjective opinions, even if they are widely intersubjectively shared. As you well know, the encoding of a language greatly determines the complexity of programs written in that language. To hide the vast amount of complexity inside the subject and thus celebrate simplicity of explanation is devious and philosophically erroneous, if your claim is to be describing external reality.
So, how could you be convinced that external reality exhibits teleology? It seems to me that your foundational axioms may preclude that possibility from the start.
Ron wrote: But I have: purpose is a component of a dramatic narrative that people tell themselves to avoid existential despair.
ReplyDeleteWhich is just a "just-so" story that atheists tell everyone as the atheists whistle past the graveyard.
Here's one for you. Our knowledge that "everything is improvable" means that brains are wired to reject external controls on behavior far more than other kinds of data (such as PV=mRT). Couple that with the neuro-atypical behavior to suppress teleological explanations, the atheist will construct "just so" stories such as the above.
See? Two can play at the reason and evidence game. Mine, however, is case where science and Christianity actually agree.
> So, how could you be convinced that external reality exhibits teleology?
ReplyDeleteIt's very simple: tell me what would be different in the two situations, i.e. make a statement of the form, "If external reality really exhibits teleology then we should expect to see X, otherwise we should expect to see Y." Then we can go do an experiment to test whether we see X or Y. (Or perhaps we will see Z, and boy wouldn't that be exciting!)
(BTW, there are two additional rules of the game: we must be able to do the experiment more than once (i.e. the result must be reproducible) and your prediction that we should see X rather than Y must be based on some sort of *explanation*. It is not enough to say, "If teleology is real then we should expect the sun to rise in the morning." You have to be able to explain *why* the reality of teleology would cause the sun to rise.)
For example: if stars really exist in objective reality rather than as mental constructs in people's heads then we would expect everyone -- and all of our measuring instruments -- to agree on where the stars are located, and how bright they are. When we do the experiment we find that indeed everyone does agree, and so do our measuring instruments, to such an extraordinary level of precision that we can actually detect planets around other stars.
@Ron:
ReplyDeleteOops, I forgot to include the † to my last comment!
† Incidentally, our first exchange had you discussing this.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> [...] we must be able to do the experiment more than once
Does this not imply that what is being experimented upon is an unchangeable law of nature, or at least the result thereof? I raised precisely this point in the recent Dialogos meeting, when it comes to prayer experiments. A fundamental axiom behind those experiments is that prayer is merely the taking advantage of a heretofore ill-understood property of reality, which is precisely as impersonal (lacking teleology) as F = ma. The fundamental axiom is the mechanical philosophy.
But perhaps there is a way out. Can you think of true properties of minds, which cannot be tested like one runs precisely the same experiment in a lab, over and over again? There is a kind of repeatability, but it is of a different type than what is predicted by F = ma. An abstract way to get at this is to think about people having a certain character. This doesn't mean the person will always do the same thing given the same stimulus, but it says there is a strong pattern, a strong coherence to how that person does act, such that someone else can model him/her, and thus well-predict what he/she will do.
Recall that a key aspect of minds is that they can choose to act differently based on which specific minds they are interacting. This doesn't necessarily indicate that they are fickle. You obviously don't want me to interact with you in all the ways I interact with my wife, or with my pastor. One result of this is that "invariance with respect to observer" has to be thrown out. In its place, one needs invariance with respect to f(object, subject). That is, the state of the subject, or character of the subject, may well change what the subject perceives.
> and your prediction that we should see X rather than Y must be based on some sort of *explanation*.
Do you recognize a crucial difference between 'why' and 'how'? Utilizing Aristotle's Four Causes, the 'why' is the final cause and perhaps the formal cause, while the 'how' is the efficient cause and perhaps the material cause. The mechanical philosophy only permits the asking of 'how'; any answer to 'why' is claimed to be utterly and entirely reducible to 'how'. (Search for "Novum Organum", above.)
When someone asks why a person did something, sometimes the proper answer is "that is in keeping with her character". In saying this, it is assumed that one can sufficiently well-simulate the relevant aspects of her character, and agree or disagree on that basis. It is not at all guaranteed that said simulation can be formalizable, and thus made mechanical, atomic, and reductionistic. Furthermore, it is generally held that saying "it that is in keeping with her character" is truly an explanation.
How would one say that some aspect of reality is "in keeping with God's character"? This is, after all, what we're talking about, isn't it? We're asking if such a claim is ever an "*explanation*", aren't we? Here, we cannot escape the question of whether it is possible to sufficiently well-model God, to think like he does. Isn't such simulation how one mind gets to know a different mind?
ReplyDelete> > [...] we must be able to do the experiment more than once
> Does this not imply that what is being experimented upon is an unchangeable law of nature, or at least the result thereof?
Nope. The only thing that's required is that we be able to determine the difference between the two possible outcomes. And that difference could be statistical. QM, for example, predicts that at least part of nature is truly random, not subject to any discernible law.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRon wrote: The only thing that's required is that we be able to determine the difference between the two possible outcomes.
ReplyDeleteThen you don't a priori need the repeatability requirement. Ask anyone who has ever been on a jury.
> Then you don't a priori need the repeatability requirement. Ask anyone who has ever been on a jury.
ReplyDeleteJuries are not scientific.
> Which is just a "just-so" story that atheists tell everyone as the atheists whistle past the graveyard.
No, this is a scientific hypothesis because it makes at least one testable prediction: religious people will be unable to reach consensus about which religion is correct (c.f. the positions of the stars).
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> The only thing that's required is that we be able to determine the difference between the two possible outcomes.
I'm having a bit of a hard time not seeing this as permeated with the impersonal mechanical philosophy. So, a question which may help clarify: do you claim that every single bit of your knowledge of your wife comes from:
> [...] we must be able to do the experiment more than once [...]
+
> [...] we be able to determine the difference between the two possible outcomes.
? You can tell me if the distinction between 'explanation' and 'knowledge' (if you believe there to be one) is relevant, here.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> No, this is a scientific hypothesis because it makes at least one testable prediction: religious people will be unable to reach consensus about which religion is correct (c.f. the positions of the stars).
This is potentially sneaky:
(1) You claim there is no objective conception of 'the good'.
(2) Religion is infused with value.
(3) You note that religious folks tend not to reach consensus.
So there is a bit of a type mismatch in your comparison, according to your axioms. :-p
> I'm having a bit of a hard time not seeing this as permeated with the impersonal mechanical philosophy.
ReplyDeleteI guess that depends on what you mean by "impersonal". Psychology can be approached scientifically. Do you think that's "impersonal"?
> You can tell me if the distinction between 'explanation' and 'knowledge' (if you believe there to be one) is relevant, here.
No. The explanatory bit is a separate requirement to rule out coin flips and reading chicken entrails as valid scientific experiments (unless, of course, you're studying the dynamics of flipping coins or the physiology of chickens).
> do you claim that every single bit of your knowledge of your wife comes from
Sure, why not? Can you think of a potential counterexample?
> You claim there is no objective conception of 'the good'.
Huh??? When did I say that? I think you might be confusing me with John Figdor.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRon wrote: Juries are not scientific.
ReplyDeleteSo? Not all true knowledge is scientific.
No, this is a scientific hypothesis because it makes at least one testable prediction: religious people will be unable to reach consensus about which religion is correct (c.f. the positions of the stars).
A classic "heads I win, tails I lose" argument. You can't but help frame things so that they come out only one way.
Let's apply this to science, shall we? The scientific community is unable to come to consensus on which of the extant interpretations of QM is the correct one: Copenhagen, Many-Worlds, ...
By your criteria, we must conclude that quantum mechanics doesn't exist.
Furthermore, humans can't give a consistent answer on what is good and what is evil. You may think cannibalism is wrong, but the cannibal doesn't care what you think. So those don't exist, either.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> Let's apply this to science, shall we? The scientific community is unable to come to consensus on which of the extant interpretations of QM is the correct one: Copenhagen, Many-Worlds, ...
>
> By your criteria, we must conclude that quantum mechanics doesn't exist.
I don't think this is quite right. What you're missing is the time-index, which can allow for convergence:
Luke: In my view, the test that multiple minds are exploring the same thing or person is if they can reach agreement by doing some independent investigation of X, reconvene and find remarkable agreement about X, and rinse & repeat. This is a sort of convergence, and it doesn't need to refer to metaphysical truth or anything like that. What matters is that the convergence cannot be explained as due to causal interaction between the people doing the exploring, which means that something, or someone else, has to be causing the convergence.
Ron: But this convergence is the evidence for metaphysical truth.
The conversation continues, but only one more step:
Ron: Sorry about [dropping out of that conversation]. Occasionally I have to get some actual work done.
Anyhow, I think Ron can argue something about convergence and Thagard's #1 and #2, and thus avoid your criticism. If you think this is definitely wrong, I'd like to hear why.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> I guess that depends on what you mean by "impersonal". Psychology can be approached scientifically. Do you think that's "impersonal"?
By "impersonal", I mean treating teleology as less fundamental than ultimate reality.
> Sure, why not? Can you think of a potential counterexample?
When your wife is telling you about unfulfilled dreams of hers, are you looking for repeatability? After all, you said "we must be able to do the experiment more than once". Are you looking to "determine the difference between the two possible outcomes"?
> > You claim there is no objective conception of 'the good'.
> Huh??? When did I say that? I think you might be confusing me with John Figdor.
Well, you said these things:
Ron: First, I'm not talking about the *goodness* of a religion, I'm talking about the *truth*. There is no guarantee that the truth will turn out to be good.
Ron: That is exactly right, nature doesn't have a goal.
Ron: Science can't help you choose goals.
Perhaps we are foundering on the common use of 'objective' which aligns with 'scientific', vs. another version of 'objective', which is really just 'intersubjective'?
Luke wrote: Anyhow, I think Ron can argue something about convergence and Thagard's #1 and #2, and thus avoid your criticism. If you think this is definitely wrong, I'd like to hear why.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Ron can avoid my criticism. Ron seems to think that all true knowledge is scientific when, in fact, scientific knowledge is a subset of true knowledge. Thagard can't help, because I don't care where the line is drawn. I'm just pointing out Ron's unscientific a priori placing of the "God question" on one side of the line without having the scientific proof that it belongs on that side and not the other.
Ron vehemently denies that a Creator, even if only in principle, has the right to unilaterally resolve moral disputes between the Creator and the created. This non-scientific truth is what causes him to evaluate evidence the way he does. He can't possibly come to any other conclusion.
And, related to this, his "I can provide evidence to a blind man that stars exist", while true, completely misses the point. Carefully note that the existence of stars doesn't contain a value judgement. Of course evidence for value-free things can easily be provided. But the moment you try to provide evidence for something with value, everything changes. Why? Because our brains are wired to resist the external imposition of value judgements (it's part and parcel with McCarthy's "everything is improvable" design requirement). And you can see this in action, because Ron utterly rejects the idea that an external Value (God) has the right to determine what Ron's internal values should be.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> Ron seems to think that all true knowledge is scientific when, in fact, scientific knowledge is a subset of true knowledge.
I think we're going to have to understand (i) his "one of many ontological categories"; (ii) his "Actually, yes, it can."; (iii) his denial that he has claimed/implied "there is no objective conception of 'the good'", all much better before really saying much on this matter.
> And you can see this in action, because Ron utterly rejects the idea that an external Value (God) has the right to determine what Ron's internal values should be.
I think some nuance might go a ways in clarifying the situation. There are at least two ways God could do this determination:
(1) he could design them into Ron's being
(2) he could impose them from the outside
What you seem to be arguing is that either (1) is not done, or that sin so distorts his conception of 'the good' that nothing is salvageable via internal argumentation, or what Charles Taylor calls 'ad hominem' reasoning in his Explanation and Practical Reason. I object to both of these options, on the basis of a not-destroyed, remnant imago Dei and Paul's claims in Rom 2:12–16.
Can you build on this? You might also look at this comment of mine, where I argued that "we get to partially define what is 'the good'". I claim that much sin is attributable to incurvatus in se, whereby we refuse to let others' partial definitions stand. I've mentioned the Latin phrase twice before.
Luke asked: Can you build on this?
ReplyDeleteFor 1, He clearly did not. If He had, Ron wouldn't take the position he does. For 2, the issue isn't whether or not He could (He certainly can); the issue is what Ron thinks about such an imposition now. I also object to the qualifier "outside". Outside, inside, you and I have no way of knowing (although I think I can support a combination of both.)
I'll look at the entirety of your request tomorrow.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> For 1, He clearly did not. If He had, Ron wouldn't take the position he does.
I don't see why this is necessarily true. First, Ron could disagree 100% with you, but not 100% with God. Second, Ron may not even disagree 100% with you. There may be overlap which heretofore has not been discovered. Third, I think you need to wrestle more with Rom 2:12–16. You seem to be assuming that the imago Dei in Ron has been excessively distorted, and if so, I want to see a solid theological basis for this claim.
> I also object to the qualifier "outside". Outside, inside, you and I have no way of knowing (although I think I can support a combination of both.)
If I accept that there are other minds, there is an 'outside' to my own mind. One excellent way of knowing there is an 'outside' is to encounter another entity in one's phenomenological experience, and find that this entity acts in a rational manner, but differently than you would. It is as if there are many flavors of rationality, one for each mind, with there frequently being significant overlap between minds. One could even believe that these rationalities are all actually overlapping subsets of the Logos.
Or perhaps I have misunderstood?
@Luke:
ReplyDelete> By "impersonal", I mean treating teleology as less fundamental than ultimate reality.
I have no idea what "ultimate reality" is (and I have no idea what "less fundamental" means). There are different ontological categories. They are hierarchical, with one emerging from the other. At the bottom (as far as we know) is the quantum wave function. Classical reality -- particles, atoms, chemistry -- emerges from that. Life emerges from chemistry. Brains emerge from life. And all kinds of interesting things emerge from brains: logic, reason, compassion, cruelty, love, hate, justice, and yes, even teleology.
You seem to want to make teleology somehow "less" in some way because it exists in the ontological category of mental constructs rather than the ontological category of particles. But the ontological category of mental constructs is where the really cool shit happens!
> When your wife is telling you about unfulfilled dreams of hers, are you looking for repeatability?
Yes. Not just repeatability, but consistency with her other actions. If one day she said she wanted to be a fireman and the next day she said she wanted to be an astronaut, but she spent all her time painting, I'd be pretty skeptical that her words are a true reflection of her mental state.
> Well, you said these things:
OK, I think we need to re-sync. I thought we were talking about teleology, which is to say, about "purpose", and whether it belonged in the ontological category of mental constructs or some other ontological category. I opined that teleology is a mental construct. You asked me what would convince me otherwise, and I told you. I don't see how this has anything to do with "goodness". That's a whole 'nuther can o' worms.
> I think we're going to have to understand (i) his "one of many ontological categories"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_of_being
(I don't agree 100% with the particular repertoire of categories in that article, but at least that will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.)
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> Not all true knowledge is scientific.
That's right, but let's not lose sight of the context. Luke asked me how I could be convinced that teleology is not just a mental construct. If you don't like my answer, your money will be cheerfully refunded.
> A classic "heads I win, tails I lose" argument.
Well, yeah, duh. (But are you sure you didn't mean to say "Heads I win, tails YOU lose?" Because that would be wrong.)
> The scientific community is unable to come to consensus on which of the extant interpretations of QM is the correct one: Copenhagen, Many-Worlds, ...
> By your criteria, we must conclude that quantum mechanics doesn't exist.
No, it means that the question of which interpretation is correct is not a scientific question.
And I don't know how I can possibly make it any clearer that I consider the question of whether or not something "exists" to be meaningless. It's the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is: to which ontological category does something belong?
> Ron seems to think that all true knowledge is scientific
Really? When did I say that?
> And, related to this, his "I can provide evidence to a blind man that stars exist", while true, completely misses the point. Carefully note that the existence of stars doesn't contain a value judgement.
I was under the impression that God's existence (according to you) was not contingent on values. Moreover, I was under the impression that you believed that the Bible was an authoritative source on God's nature, and the Bible makes specific claims about God that are independent of any value judgements (e.g. he created the world in seven days, he made the sun stand still, he turned water into wine, he cast out seven devils, etc.)
Moreover, you made a specific claim about God with respect to *me*, namely, that God has spoken to me and told me to repent. I say he has not. One of us must be wrong. I don't see how the resolution of the question of which one of us is wrong can possibly be contingent on any value judgements.
> Ron utterly rejects the idea that an external Value (God) has the right to determine what Ron's internal values should be.
To the contrary, I have hung my hat quite definitively on an external source of values, namely, the interests of memes.
> Ron utterly rejects the idea that an external Value (God) has the right to determine what Ron's internal values should be.
ReplyDeleteI will go even further than that and say that the very idea of the "right" of something external to me to determine my internal values is utterly non-sensical.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> I have no idea what "ultimate reality" is (and I have no idea what "less fundamental" means). There are different ontological categories. They are hierarchical, with one emerging from the other. At the bottom (as far as we know) is the quantum wave function.
It makes no sense to you that "ultimate reality" would be that from which all else emerges, and that the more layers of emergence there are between a given ontological category and "ultimate reality", the "less fundamental" that category is?
> You seem to want to make teleology somehow "less" in some way because it exists in the ontological category of mental constructs rather than the ontological category of particles. But the ontological category of mental constructs is where the really cool shit happens!
Your conception of reality appears to prohibit the very idea that a mind could have created it and ensured that certain properties obtain, like "justice will finally be meted out", and that it is possible to increasingly know that such properties obtain.
Unless your system of categories emerging from other categories can still support such a state of affairs? For example, perhaps God could have waited until an ontological category capable of supporting teleology emerged, and then created patterns, there.
What I am reacting to is the idea that teleology is "merely" subjective, such that there's no actual standard, unlike the standard of external reality. More precisely, the idea is that while there might be a mechanistic standard to which we simply have to conform our minds, there cannot exist such a teleological, nor an axiological, standard. I haven't studied the connection between teleology and axiology in detail, but they seem quite related. I am specifically depending on Alasdair MacIntyre's claim that you cannot have non-emotivist morality without teleology. That does beg the question about non-moral values, which I have investigated less intensely.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_of_being
Heh, I actually came across that in formulating this very comment. You and I have experienced some very interesting friction in talking about ontology, and I still don't have a good grip on why. As you can see, I have read a fair deal of philosophy, so it's not like I'm totally unfamiliar with the topic. Oh well, perhaps I'll figure it out sometime down the road.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > Ron seems to think that all true knowledge is scientific
> Really? When did I say that?
To be fair:
> > Science cannot say that science is the best route to the truth.
> Actually, yes, it can.
Now, you said "best" instead of "only", but what precisely you mean by that is probably important, and what wrf3 claims might be sustainable by what you actually meant by your "Actually, yes, it can."
> I was under the impression that God's existence (according to you) was not contingent on values.
Woah, there. Can you even have personhood without values? Charles Taylor argues noin Human Agency and Language, and I'm tempted to agree:
>> Now our identity is defined by our fundamental evaluations. (Kindle Location 654)
>> The notion of identity refers us to certain evaluations which are essential because they are the indispensable horizon or foundation out of which we reflect and evaluate as persons. To lose this horizon, or not to have found it, is indeed a terrifying experience of disaggregation and loss. This is why we can speak of an ‘identity-crisis’ when we have lost our grip on who we are. A self decides and acts out of certain fundamental evaluations. (Kindle Locations 676-679)
Perhaps I have misunderstood what you mean by "contingent on values"? Here is where one peeks the possibility that your ontological categories have mechanism being more fundamental (defined) than personhood. The Christian would very likely utter strong disagreements.
> I don't see how the resolution of the question of which one of us is wrong can possibly be contingent on any value judgements.
I thought we had established that the practice of EE&R involves the use of values? An example value is simplicity, and that page includes criticisms of the idea that Kolmogorov complexity is the simple (heh) answer to what simplicity is. For example, Kolmogorov complexity is uncomputable, and yet you claim humans are either TMs, or distinctly less powerful than TMs.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> I will go even further than that and say that the very idea of the "right" of something external to me to determine my internal values is utterly non-sensical.
Suppose I replace "determine" with "partially determine". This is what I was getting at with my McFadyen quotation (I misspelled and wrote "McFayden"). Would you insist on stating the same thing?
I would also point you to WP: Internalism and externalism § Reasons. Lots of smart people think there is some sense to be made—but perhaps only of the "partially determine" formulation. When lots of smart people support a position, I tend to believe that they're not being total idiots, that they've isolated something valid.
Perhaps there is also an issue of whether you can even support the idea of "rights", other than people believing they exist?
Idea-ism Summary
ReplyDeleteMy attempt to create a short summary
Sources: kittens 3 and Idea-ism
Definitions:
Meme: memes are self-replicating units of information that undergo a process of Darwinian evolution. Memes are encoded in the synapses of the neurons of our brains, and more recently, in our extended phenotype: on stone tables, papyrus scrolls, paper, hard drives, and in the design of our artifacts.
Meme Phenotype: comprising all of the effects that our bodies have on our environment: our clothing, our houses, our artwork.
Meme-Gene symbiosis: Memes live without our brains (because our brains form the ecosystem in which they exist) and in turn they provide our genes with significant reproductive advantages relative to species without brains, or whose brains are not hosts for memes.
Meme-Gene Conflict: Usually the reproductive interests of genes and memes coincide, but not always.
Required Principles for a Moral Theroy
1. Useful -- describes a quality metric by which to measure moral decisions.
2. Congruent with what is known about the nature of the universe.
3. Consistent with our moral intuition to the extent possible
Idea-ism Theory of Morality
1. Moral behavior is that which advances the interests of memes.
2. Where there is conflict, the interests of memes should trump the interests of genes.
Derived Statements
1. Humans have value, not axiomatically, but because they provide -- and produce -- habitat for memes.
@Pulius:
ReplyDeleteYes, that's a pretty good summary. One nit:
> Memes live without our brains
That should be "within", not "without". (I'm guessing that was just a typo.)
Ha! The original was "memes can't live without...". Summarization error!
ReplyDeleteAlthough I find memes living without our brains pretty funny!
@Luke:
ReplyDelete> It makes no sense to you that "ultimate reality" would be that from which all else emerges, and that the more layers of emergence there are between a given ontological category and "ultimate reality", the "less fundamental" that category is?
I suppose, but you seem to want to ascribe some sort of quality judgement on fundamental reality, that fundamental reality is somehow "better" than non-fundamental reality. It isn't. On your definition, the quantum wave function is fundamental reality. But, as I said, the things *I* care about mostly don't happen there.
> Your conception of reality appears to prohibit the very idea that a mind could have created it and ensured that certain properties obtain, like "justice will finally be meted out", and that it is possible to increasingly know that such properties obtain.
No no no no NO! NOOOOOOO! I can easily entertain the idea that a mind could have created reality. But I see NO EVIDENCE (how many times do I have to repeat myself?) that this is in fact the case. All the evidence I see indicates that minds arose from a mindless fundamental (if you insist) reality through a process of Darwinian evolution.
> For example, perhaps God could have waited until an ontological category capable of supporting teleology emerged, and then created patterns, there.
Yes, this is possible. I see no evidence that it is the case.
> What I am reacting to is the idea that teleology is "merely" subjective, such that there's no actual standard, unlike the standard of external reality.
I don't believe I said that teleology is "merely" subjective. I think I said that teleology is a mental construct. "Mental construct" and "subjective" are not synonyms. I don't know if teleology is subjective or not.
And although it is a mental construct, it is not "merely" a mental construct. Mental constructs need not be "mere". Math and science are mental constructs, and they are pretty fucking powerful. (Expletives are mental constructs too :-)
> Now, you said "best" instead of "only",
That's right, and those words are not synonyms. Moreover, let's reconstruct what I said in context:
"Yes, it [science] can [say of itself that it is the best route to the truth]."
I did not say that what science says of itself is *actually* true, only that science is capable of saying this about itself. If I were to take a position about whether science is in fact the best route to the truth I would have to qualify it and say that science is the best route to truth about physical reality, but those are not the only kinds of truth. In fact, I have in the past argued that science has limits.
[Aargh, hitting the 4096 character limit...]
@Luke: [cont'd]
ReplyDelete> > I was under the impression that God's existence (according to you) was not contingent on values.
> Woah, there. Can you even have personhood without values?
Why does that matter? The question of whether or not God is a person is a different question than whether or not He exists (in some ontological category other than "fictional character" or "mythical being").
> > I don't see how the resolution of the question of which one of us is wrong can possibly be contingent on any value judgements.
> I thought we had established that the practice of EE&R involves the use of values?
What does EE&R have to do with this? We're talking about Bob's and your claim that God exists. Are you saying that the answer to that question depends on values? That it's subjective? That it isn't simply an unqualified "YES"?
> Perhaps there is also an issue of whether you can even support the idea of "rights", other than people believing they exist?
Rights are a mental construct, like teleology. Moreover, rights are a *social* construct. They make no sense except in the context of multiple minds interacting with each other.
> I have read a fair deal of philosophy
Yeah, I think that may be part of the problem ;-)
> I find memes living without our brains pretty funny!
ReplyDeleteNowadays they can live in computers too. Humans are still a necessary part of their ecosystem, but that may not be true for much longer if we keep making progress in AI at the current rate.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> I suppose, but you seem to want to ascribe some sort of quality judgement on fundamental reality, that fundamental reality is somehow "better" than non-fundamental reality. It isn't. On your definition, the quantum wave function is fundamental reality. But, as I said, the things *I* care about mostly don't happen there.
On the contrary, I simply suspect that how one structures one's ontological categories may have profound implications for how one thinks about reality.
> No no no no NO! NOOOOOOO! I can easily entertain the idea that a mind could have created reality. But I see NO EVIDENCE (how many times do I have to repeat myself?) that this is in fact the case. All the evidence I see indicates that minds arose from a mindless fundamental (if you insist) reality through a process of Darwinian evolution.
Ummm, I know that you interpret none of your percepts to best support the explanation that an entity anything remotely like any of the mainstream Christian concepts of God had anything to do with creating or sustaining reality. I really do know this. I've probably spent over 10,000 hours talking to atheists about theism. Sometimes I think you forget that.
What has me concerned is that you've actually injected presuppositions into how you process your percepts, which guarantees that the above. A terrific amount of evidence, if not all of it, comes in theory-laden. And so when you say "I see NO EVIDENCE", I expand that to "I see NO EVIDENCE through my theoretical grid". Do you deny that what even counts as 'evidence' for you is decided by theoretical constructs? If not, do you deny that you could have errors in those theoretical constructs, which blind you to aspects of reality?
> "Mental construct" and "subjective" are not synonyms.
And if I found you well-respected philosophy which treats them as synonyms? (I can learn to adapt to how you use terms, but you have this habit of treating your use of terminology as the correct use. This makes things more difficult.)
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > > I was under the impression that God's existence (according to you) was not contingent on values.
> > Woah, there. Can you even have personhood without values?
> Why does that matter? The question of whether or not God is a person is a different question than whether or not He exists (in some ontological category other than "fictional character" or "mythical being").
God without values is probably the set of all laws of nature. If one wants to argue that there is more than just impersonal laws of nature, that there are actually personal aspects of created reality, I think it would matter quite a lot?
> > > I don't see how the resolution of the question of which one of us is wrong can possibly be contingent on any value judgements.
> > I thought we had established that the practice of EE&R involves the use of values?
> What does EE&R have to do with this? We're talking about Bob's and your claim that God exists. Are you saying that the answer to that question depends on values? That it's subjective? That it isn't simply an unqualified "YES"?
EE&R is how you know things. I claim that the practice of science unavoidable depends on values. If you have the wrong epistemic values, you will be bad at science, and perhaps unable to do it altogether. So yes, I do think values are important. I am, however, not committing to the claim that values are subjective. Why must values be subjective?
> > I have read a fair deal of philosophy
> Yeah, I think that may be part of the problem ;-)
I think I will happily support the multiple possible meanings of this statement, as well as the emoticon!
> Do you deny that what even counts as 'evidence' for you is decided by theoretical constructs?
ReplyDeleteThat depends on what you mean by "theoretical constructs."
> If not, do you deny that you could have errors in those theoretical constructs, which blind you to aspects of reality?
Of course this is possible. Do you think it is the case? Can you give an example of something that I'm discounting as evidence that I should not be?
> > "Mental construct" and "subjective" are not synonyms.
> And if I found you well-respected philosophy which treats them as synonyms?
It would lead me to conclude that the term "well respected" is meaningless when applied to philosophy. Math (to cite but one example) is a mental construct, but it's not subjective.
> If you have the wrong epistemic values, you will be bad at science
What is an example of a "wrong epistemic value"? (And by what standard do you judge it to be wrong?)
Luke wrote: If I accept that there are other minds, there is an 'outside' to my own mind.
ReplyDeleteCertainly. That wasn't the objection. You provided two options, one of which was "he could impose them from the outside".
That misses the option that God could impose them from the inside.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLuke wrote: I don't see why this is necessarily true. First, Ron could disagree 100% with you, but not 100% with God.
ReplyDeleteI think the disconnect is that you are looking at the universe of all possible moral laws and I'm looking at one. Namely, "the Potter has the right to impose His will (i.e. His moral judgements) on the pot."
Ron disagrees with this 100%. And I note that it has nothing do with with science, reason, or evidence. It's the "atheist axiom" which he, and Don, keep claiming doesn't exist and that I'm a moron for saying otherwise.
Yet there it is. You've said the same thing: And so when you say "I see NO EVIDENCE", I expand that to "I see NO EVIDENCE through my theoretical grid".
That's the basis of his "theoretical grid". Ron said it this way, I will go even further than that and say that the very idea of the "right" of something external to me to determine my internal values is utterly non-sensical.
Yet Ron doesn't see the futility of trying to pitch meme-ism. I, for one, find it to be an utterly ludicrous (as well as superfluous) moral system. And all I have to do is quote Ron's words back to him for my justification.
wrf3 said: ""the Potter has the right to impose His will (i.e. His moral judgements) on the pot." ... Ron disagrees with this 100%. ... It's the "atheist axiom" which he, and Don, keep claiming doesn't exist"
ReplyDeleteYou propose a moral axiom about the universe. We say "we don't accept your proposed axiom".
Our lack of acceptance of your axiom, is not then somehow an "atheist axiom" that we hold.
The situation is not symmetric. You're trying to get us to agree to something specific, but your case is not compelling. We aren't convinced. You can't conclude from that, that our lack of being convinced is some kind of "atheist axiom". That's absurd.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > Do you deny that what even counts as 'evidence' for you is decided by theoretical constructs?
> That depends on what you mean by "theoretical constructs."
The point is really that it could be that what you need to change your mind is not evidence, but how you perceive reality, what you even consider 'evidence'. Surely you are aware that one of the aspects of a paradigm shift that Kuhn identifies in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that what even constitutes 'evidence' can change?
> > If not, do you deny that you could have errors in those theoretical constructs, which blind you to aspects of reality?
> Of course this is possible. Do you think it is the case? Can you give an example of something that I'm discounting as evidence that I should not be?
Perhaps the biggest possible source of error may be your criterion for 'success', which I discussed earlier. If you have an actual telos, as Aristotle surmised, then that which aligns you to it is a good thing; this would be another kind of "conforming to reality". But your success criterion could completely obviate such a possibility.
Recall my "we get to partially define what is 'the good'". It's not clear that the way you think about all the relevant ontological categories allows for this to happen. Or if it does, the way you think about all the relevant ontological categories may prevent you from saying that this process is just as much "conforming to reality" as is learning new facts about the laws of nature.
However, if your criterion of success is merely "that which allows you to better understand and manipulate reality", then the above is excluded from the same kind of truth. You better conforming to your telos is no longer in the category of "conforming to an objective reality". Unless I'm wrong, and your ontological categories do allow this? There are hints that this could be the case.
> It would lead me to conclude that the term "well respected" is meaningless when applied to philosophy.
Good grief, you won't admit that there are multiple frequently-used definitions of 'subjective', which pick out different things? You are writing as if I'm stupid for not snapping to your definition. That is, I have the strong sense that I've seen this pattern before, where everything is the same except that you haven't actually overtly called me stupid. Surely you aren't one of those "one word, one definition" people?
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> What is an example of a "wrong epistemic value"? (And by what standard do you judge it to be wrong?)
Flagrantly violating Ockham's razor is likely a "wrong epistemic value". As to the standards for judging, well you might run into Euthythro on that:
>> Even more important, Kuhn never squarely answers the question, What is the epistemological status of the values that he isolates? Echoing the type of question that Socrates asks of Euthythro, we can ask Kuhn, Are the criteria or values accepted by scientific communities rational because these are the values accepted by scientific communities, or are they accepted by scientific communities because they are the criteria of rationality? (Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, 58)
Do I need to do more research into this "epistemic value" idea? The reason I have run so far with it is that Hilary Putnam discusses them in The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy, in a strongly affirmative way. Putnam is a highly respected philosopher, and so I am convinced that he's pointing out something valid. But I could read more of philosopher–scientist Michael Polanyi's Personal Knowledge, talk to a sociologist I know who studies how scientists actually do science, etc.
What I suspect, as I've said before, is that your "EE&R" depends critically on values. Note that Putnam does distinguish between "epistemic values" and "moral values"; the precise nature of this distinction (it may not be a dualism, nor a dichotomy) is something I don't yet well-understand. As I recall, you were tentatively ok with EE&R depending on values, and were in the process of explaining how you derive those values when the email conversation got really, really long in the tooth. My suspicion is that those values of yours are defined teleologically. We could return to that conversation.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> You provided two options, one of which was "he could impose them from the outside".
>
> That misses the option that God could impose them from the inside.
What is the difference between God imposing morality from the outside and from the inside? Either situation threatens to deny imago Dei or at least claim that it was corrupted much more than is my understanding of Total Depravity. I think one of Ron's criticisms is that you cannot distinguish between God and Satan, if you do not trust anything about your own moral intuitions. I think you have to make some highly dubious assumptions about imago Dei as well as how God uses power, in order to say this.
> I think the disconnect is that you are looking at the universe of all possible moral laws and I'm looking at one. Namely, "the Potter has the right to impose His will (i.e. His moral judgements) on the pot."
In a sense I see this as facile, because the Potter can clearly choose the blueprints used to create the pot. So at the creation level, the Potter would seem to unavoidably be imprinting some moral schema upon the pot. But what you seem to be saying is that this imprinting can go terribly, horribly awry, such that a completely new imprinting is required. To me, that seems like a dangerous design flaw.
Why do I see this as a design flaw? Well, God has apparently allowed a lot of deception to happen in the world and throughout history. He gives a lot of power to created beings. How do we work out the deceptions, as well as the distortions? Your answer seems to be, "Trust the most powerful being, your creator." That's ok, except you haven't provided the how. What helps me discern that this being, whom I sense is attempting to mold my moral intuitions, is my creator and not someone else?
What I suspect is that the Potter will not allow his design to completely go to pot (heh heh heh). Something will always be there, and be redeemable (vs. rewritable). On the other hand, different beings will attempt to perform a flatten & reinstall, a complete rewrite. C.S. Lewis talks about such desires in The Abolition of Man. An extreme example of this is: "Nature is wrong; we must dominate everything with machine!" C.S. Lewis explores this in the last installment of his space trilogy.
So, why is that imago Dei allowed to shatter so completely, and what is your theological argument that this happens?
> That's the basis of his "theoretical grid". Ron said it this way, I will go even further than that and say that the very idea of the "right" of something external to me to determine my internal values is utterly non-sensical.
I suggest you try out "partially determine" in place of "determine". Ron may just answer differently.
Don wrote: You propose a moral axiom about the universe. We say "we don't accept your proposed axiom".
ReplyDeleteRight.
Our lack of acceptance of your axiom, is not then somehow an "atheist axiom" that we hold.
Back up. Assuming you agree with Ron ("that the very idea of the "right" of something external to me to determine my internal values is utterly non-sensical") then this idea is not the product of science, evidence, or reason. It's an input not an output. It's a self-evident truth, aka "an axiom". So I've established the "axiom" part.
The situation is not symmetric. You're trying to get us to agree to something specific, but your case is not compelling. We aren't convinced.
Oh, I'm quite aware of that. I've never said I can convince you to agree with me. How can I? How can I reason you out of that which you didn't reason yourself into?
You can't conclude from that, that our lack of being convinced is some kind of "atheist axiom". That's absurd.
Having established the "axiom" part, the "atheist" part is easy. Ron complains that, since there is no agreement on what God is like, that it's a fictitious concept. But the one thing that all religions agree on is that God is the ultimate external value. The value (or values) to which everything else must conform. The denial of this is the essence of atheism.
QED.
Luke wrote: I suggest you try out "partially determine" in place of "determine".
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't help you. If it only "partially determines" then something has to determine which parts are determinative and which parts aren't. So subdivide the external authority into two parts: that which is determinative (because the agent has internally decided that it is) and that which isn't (because the agent has internally decided that it isn't).
Now you're back to the initial state.
The rest of your post will take a more effort to deal with, only because it requires more typing; not because it's conceptually difficult.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> Ron disagrees with this 100%. And I note that it has nothing do with with science, reason, or evidence. It's the "atheist axiom" which he, and Don, keep claiming doesn't exist and that I'm a moron for saying otherwise.
No, what reveals you as a moron (if you are a moron -- you said it, not us) is that you don't listen to what we're saying, and so you keep raising straw-man arguments and imputing positions to me that I do not hold. The "atheist axiom" (if there is such a thing) is that there are no gods. I don't know anyone who accepts this axiom. I certainly don't. I hew to the scientific axiom: that evidence, experiment, and reason are the ultimate arbiters of truth. From this, as far as we can tell, there are indeed no gods, but this is a conclusion, not an axiom.
The proposition that God does not have the right to do anything He wants with me simply because He created me is entirely orthogonal to the question of whether or not God exists. I can believe God exists and still believe that he does not have the right to do anything He wants with me. (In fact, many people do believe this.) I can also believe that God does not exist, but if He were to exist he would have this right.
The reason I find it non-sensical to even talk about God's "right" to determine my internal values is that I believe that my internal values are an emergent property of my brain, which is an emergent property of physics. So to say that God has a "right" to determine my internal values is kind of like saying that he has the "right" to determine the laws of physics. But rights are social constructs, i.e. an emergent property of a collection of brains, which are only possible because the laws of physics are what they are. If God mucked with the laws of physics in such a way that they produced a brain different from the one I have now, it would not just change my brain, it would change all brains, and so it would (almost certainly) cause what we now call "rights" to simply evaporate, or at least change into something different. So the whole project would necessarily be self-defeating.
I could suspend disbelief and suppose that God could just go inside my brain and rewire it somehow. But even then I don't think He has the right to do that because I am sentient, and sentience is the wellspring of rights. Inanimate objects don't have rights. Plants don't have rights. Bacteria don't have rights. Only sentient things can have rights because only sentient things can create (i.e. invent the concept of) rights.
> Yet Ron doesn't see the futility of trying to pitch meme-ism.
You're wrong about that too. In fact, just about every single claim you have made about my mental state in this entire discussion has been wrong. It's getting tiresome. In fact, you just did it again:
> Ron complains that, since there is no agreement on what God is like, that it's a fictitious concept.
No. That there is no agreement is *evidence* that it is a *mental* construct. Not all mental constructs are fictitious (I think God is, but that's a separate line of reasoning). Rights, for example, are a mental construct, but they are not fictitious. (And, BTW, not all mental constructs lead to disagreement. Math is a mental construct, but there is no disagreement about it.)
> But the one thing that all religions agree on is that God is the ultimate external value.
No. Judaism specifically rejects that. In Judaism, the Law is the ultimate external value, and even God Himself is subject to it.
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/352329/jewish/The-Walls-of-the-Study-Hall.htm
(IMO this attitude is one of the reasons that Judaism produces a disproportionately large share of great scientists.)
@Luke:
ReplyDelete> The point is really that it could be that what you need to change your mind is not evidence, but how you perceive reality, what you even consider 'evidence'.
OK, that's a testable hypothesis. If it's true, you should be able to give me an example of something that I should consider as evidence but don't. Can you?
> Good grief, you won't admit that there are multiple frequently-used definitions of 'subjective', which pick out different things?
Have you looked up "subjective" in the dictionary? My dictionary has two (and only two) definitions:
1. based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions
2. of, relating to, or denoting a case of nouns and pronouns used for the subject of a sentence
Clearly we can eliminate the second one by context. That leaves one.
> You are writing as if I'm stupid for not snapping to your definition.
It isn't "my" definition, it's the (singular) dictionary's definition. And the dictionary's definition of "subjective" is distinguished from "mental construct" in ways that matter. So if you (or the philosophy community) want to co-opt the word "subjective" and re-define it to mean "mental construct" you can do that, but then you need to invent a new word to mean what "subjective" used to mean. All that seems like a pointless waste of effort to me. "Subjective" is a perfectly serviceable word, and it ought to be used to mean what the dictionary says it means. This is a blog, not a university philosophy seminar.
You should read this: http://web9.uits.uconn.edu/lundquis/Travesties.html
wrf3: You originally said: "an external Value (God) has the right to determine what Ron's internal values should be"
ReplyDeleteRon replied: "the very idea of the "right" of something external to me to determine my internal values is utterly non-sensical"
To which you said: "his idea is not the product of science, evidence, or reason. ... It's a self-evident truth, aka "an axiom""
You didn't read Ron nearly carefully enough. If he had said, "I believe God has no right to determine Ron's internal values", then that (might) be an axiom.
If he had said "based on evidence and reason, I conclude that God probably doesn't have the right to determine Ron's internal values", then he would disagree with you, but it wouldn't be an axiom.
But he didn't say that either. He said your claim was "non-sensical". Not even wrong. He's saying that the concepts in your claim don't even apply to each other, can't even be evaluated as yes or not, right or wrong. Your claim is incoherent.
It's like you said: "do you agree or disagree that colorless green ideas sleep furiously?" Ron replies "that's non-sensical". And you somehow conclude "ah ha! you have an unscientific axiom that colorless green ideas cannot sleep furiously!" Hard to react, other than, "sorry-- what!?"
That's not "an axiom". That's -- at the very best -- a miscommunication in the discussion. For you to think this is some kind of smoking gun for "an atheist axiom" is foolish.
Ron wrote: You're wrong about that [the futility in trying to pitch meme-ism] too...
ReplyDeleteWhat am I wrong about? If you see the futility in trying to pitch meme-ism then, yes, I'm wrong. Do you see pitching meme-ism as being futile?
If you don't see it as being futile, then pitch it to me. I'll respond with "the very idea of the 'right' of something external to me to determine my internal values is utterly non-sensical." The only way for your pitch to get inside the strike zone is if you have an effective counter to that.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> This doesn't help you. If it only "partially determines" then something has to determine which parts are determinative and which parts aren't. So subdivide the external authority into two parts: that which is determinative (because the agent has internally decided that it is) and that which isn't (because the agent has internally decided that it isn't).
Don't run the experiment if you don't want to, but I suspect you 'know' things that aren't so. You're pretty much at an impasse with Ron and I've suggested a rather easy-to-conduct experiment which may help break through that impasse. But if you are so convinced that you are right (if you are refusing to allow any external agent other than God suggest that you are wrong), then continue as you were.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> What am I wrong about?
Good grief, what *aren't* you wrong about? Just about every factual claim you have made in this entire discussion has been wrong, from computability to quantum mechanics and even theology ("the one thing that all religions agree on is that God is the ultimate external value"). But what I was referring to specifically in this case was this:
> Ron doesn't see the futility of trying to pitch meme-ism.
Not only is this wrong, it is presumptuous. How could you possibly know what I do and do not see? Maybe I just enjoy tilting and windmills.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> OK, that's a testable hypothesis. If it's true, you should be able to give me an example of something that I should consider as evidence but don't. Can you?
Once again, that depends on how you define 'success'.
Suppose I suggest to you that you have an objectively existing telos, and there are ways to better conform yourself to it, such that the future you considers your future state, 'better'. Will this constitute an example of "conforming yourself to reality", or will it somehow be 'subjective', truth-agnostic, or the like?
> Have you looked up "subjective" in the dictionary?
Oxford dictionaries: subjective:
>> 1 Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions
>> 1.1 Dependent on the mind or on an individual’s perception for its existence.
>> 2 Grammar [...]
Dictionary.reference.com: subjective:
>> 1. existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought (opposed to objective ).
>> 2. pertaining to or characteristic of an individual; personal; individual
>> 3. placing excessive emphasis on one's own moods, attitudes, opinions, etc.; unduly egocentric.
>> 4. Philosophy. relating to or of the nature of an object as it is known in the mind as distinct from a thing in itself.
>> 5. relating to properties or specific conditions of the mind as distinguished from general or universal experience.
>> 6. pertaining to the subject or substance in which attributes inhere; essential.
>> 7. Grammar. [...]
> It isn't "my" definition, it's the (singular) dictionary's definition.
Clearly, it isn't. Furthermore, we can go to IEP: Objectivity, and find:
>> Many philosophers would use the term “objective reality” to refer to anything that exists as it is independent of any conscious awareness of it (via perception, thought, etc.). Common mid-sized physical objects presumably apply, as do persons having subjective states. Subjective reality would then include anything depending upon some (broadly construed) conscious awareness of it to exist.
> "Subjective" is a perfectly serviceable word, and it ought to be used to mean what the dictionary says it means.
One of the things philosophers do is to examine whether words as they are, are actually "serviceable", or whether they are actually confused. Surely you understand how words can seem serviceable, until you explore there various uses, at which point contradictions start popping up, whereby you can find equivocation?
Ron wrote: Not only is this wrong, it is presumptuous. How could you possibly know what I do and do not see?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing, based on my opinion that you aren't stupid.
Maybe I just enjoy tilting and windmills.
It's a time-honored practice. But I'm not asking about what you might, or might not, enjoy. Given that I can always respond with "the very idea of the 'right' of something external to me to determine my internal values is utterly non-sensical", would pitching meme-ism to me, or anyone who uses that rationale, be futile or not?
@Luke:
ReplyDeleteOK, fair enough. I apologize for the snark.
Nonetheless, I want to be able to distinguish between things that are matters of taste and opinion ("Was Picasso a great artist?") from things that are not matters of taste and opinion but are nonetheless entirely matters of the mind ("Is three a prime number?") I propose we use "subjective" for things like the merits of Picasso's art and "mental construct" for things like numbers. If you don't like that terminology feel free to suggest something else. But simply conflating the two concepts as if there is no worthwhile distinction to be made simply obscures the issue.
> Once again, that depends on how you define 'success'.
I don't get this at all. What does my definition of "success" have to do with your ability to cite an example of something I should accept as evidence but don't?
Can we just use (one of) the dictionary definitions of "success"?
> Suppose I suggest to you that you have an objectively existing telos, and there are ways to better conform yourself to it, such that the future you considers your future state, 'better'. Will this constitute an example of "conforming yourself to reality", or will it somehow be 'subjective', truth-agnostic, or the like?
I have no idea. It depends on what it means to "better conform myself to it." If "better conforming myself to it" involves, say, taking some psychoactive drug that rewires my brain to become a Calvinist then no, my present self does not consider that "better" even if my future drug-rewired self does.
You really will have to start getting specific at some point if we're going to make progress on this.
> would pitching meme-ism to me, or anyone who uses that rationale, be futile or not?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Maybe. Probably. If you don't see the manifest hypocrisy of giving yourself over to God while objecting to having Him make you eat your own children then you are probably beyond help. I'm hoping people like you are rare. But with ISIS on the rise I'm not so sanguine about it as I once was.
But if you're looking for futility, look in the mirror. You say God is the only agent in the universe with free will. So we humans don't choose anything. We can't. That's what not having free will *means*. If we think we're making choices, we're wrong. We're suffering from delusions of grandeur. In fact, God is pulling all the strings, so *everything* we do is futile. But that's your worldview, not mine.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> Nonetheless, I want to be able to distinguish between things that are matters of taste and opinion ("Was Picasso a great artist?") from things that are not matters of taste and opinion but are nonetheless entirely matters of the mind ("Is three a prime number?") I propose we use "subjective" for things like the merits of Picasso's art and "mental construct" for things like numbers. If you don't like that terminology feel free to suggest something else. But simply conflating the two concepts as if there is no worthwhile distinction to be made simply obscures the issue.
Point of clarification: when you said "But this convergence is the evidence for metaphysical truth.", did you mean that this truth can exist in various ontological categories? See, one major way to think about "truth" is in terms of conformance to an external standard. What is the external standard upon which both Leibniz and Newton converged?
I do think there's something valid in what you're arguing, but I cannot formalize it very well at all in my own head. (har har) This is a nut I've been waiting a while to crack; perhaps we can do just that, here?
A potential complication is that the book From Truth to Reality: New Essays in Logic and Metaphysics, which I came across last night, may put to doubt some presuppositions undergirding your ontological categories, presuppositions relevant to this discussion. And so, I have requested the book from the library. :-) My guess is that this bears more on your ontological category structure than the matter of subjectivity.
> What does my definition of "success" have to do with your ability to cite an example of something I should accept as evidence but don't?
Your definition of 'success' determines everything. If you say that you are "exploring reality", I will know what you mean by how you distinguish success from failure. Some ancient Greeks (e.g. Aristotle) thought that part of exploring reality was learning to be virtuous. This was literally part of conforming oneself to reality. However, when people today talk about "conforming their minds to reality", they generally mean this in an entirely value-free fashion. Can you see the important difference at play?
> Can we just use (one of) the dictionary definitions of "success"?
We can if nuance is not important for present purposes. But if we want to distinguish—e.g. between 'science' and 'pseudoscience'—the dictionary definition isn't necessarily nuanced enough.
> You really will have to start getting specific at some point if we're going to make progress on this.
Perhaps the above will help. I can try one other thing. We hopefully agree that there is better science and worse science. Would you allow that progress in 'science' constitutes 'science' becoming ever more like the Platonic Form, 'Science'? The idea is that 'better' produces an ordering and thus a limit.
Luke wrote: Don't run the experiment if you don't want to...
ReplyDeleteWhich experiment? Substituting "partially determines" for determines? I did that and showed why it doesn't help either you, or Ron. If there's a flaw in the reasoning, I would welcome being shown what it is.
...but I suspect you 'know' things that aren't so.
What isn't so? That "the very idea of the 'right' of something external to me to determine my internal values is utterly non-sensical"? Of course I disagree with that. If, however, you're referring to something else, could you be more explicit?
You're pretty much at an impasse with Ron...
We're all at apparent impasses with each other. I'd would very much, however, get a "yes" or "no" answer to my question to Ron posed at 10:54 AM.
... if you are refusing to allow any external agent other than God suggest that you are wrong ...
Where in the world did that come from?
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> Which experiment? Substituting "partially determines" for determines? I did that and showed why it doesn't help either you, or Ron. If there's a flaw in the reasoning, I would welcome being shown what it is.
You didn't run the experiment, you analyzed it with your imagination, came to a conclusion, and decided not to actually run it. So you are trusting your own understanding over mine, and since I have not fleshed out why my suggestion might go somewhere interesting (because I don't know where it might go), you refuse to trust that maybe I'm right and you're wrong, even though you cannot figure out how that might be.
> Where in the world did that come from?
Your apparent refusal to believe that perhaps I am onto something that is worth exploring. The difference between trust and agreement is that the former happens without complete rational understanding. I can trust that someone else might be right, even though I rationally think that he/she is wrong.
> We're all at apparent impasses with each other.
Yes, and this is where you sometimes have you consider that your way of understanding is insufficient, and that someone else's might provide insight. You apparently do this with God: he can override your reasoning and your values, right? But it would seem that nobody else is allowed to do this. Instead, they must give you rational arguments which slot into your presuppositions. If they do not do this, then they are wrong. Now, this may be a bit harsh, but you do sometimes come off this way.
When someone says that you aren't representing their views to their satisfaction, you have this habit of giving them the middle finger. Now, sometimes this is because you understand their views better than they do. But in most of those cases, said increased understanding also allows you to bridge the gap and show them how their views actually do match up with what you claim, over and against what they claim.
Might I suggest that you sometimes emulate the God you worship?
> Point of clarification: when you said "But this convergence is the evidence for metaphysical truth.", did you mean that this truth can exist in various ontological categories?
ReplyDeleteYes.
I should write up a new post about ontological categories. This discussion thread needs a reboot anyway.
Ron said: I don't know. Maybe. Probably.
ReplyDeleteWith 100% certainty. Remember, I'm using philosophical judo -- that is, I'm taking what you hold to be a fundamental truth and using it against you.
Ron: "Idea-ism is an ethical theory that ..."
Chorus: "The very idea of the right of something external to me to determine my internal values is utterly non-sensical."
Now what? Your own ideas are self-defeating. How do you propose to fix that?
> How do you propose to fix that?
ReplyDeleteWell, I could start by pointing out to you that you are wrong yet again, that just because something external to me can't *determine* my morals doesn't mean that something external to me can't *inform* my moral decisions.
But that would probably be futile.
Ron wrote: But that would probably be futile.
ReplyDeleteSurprise! It wouldn't. Furthermore, it agrees with something I said much, much earlier in this week+ long marathon.
Do you want to take the next logical step, or do you want to reboot?
@wrf3:
ReplyDeleteLuke: I suggest you try out "partially determine" in place of "determine". Ron may just answer differently.
Ron: Well, I could start by pointing out to you that you are wrong yet again, that just because something external to me can't *determine* my morals doesn't mean that something external to me can't *inform* my moral decisions.
Sigh. Unless Ron wishes to quibble about "partially determine" vs. "inform"?
Luke wrote: Sigh. Unless Ron wishes to quibble about "partially determine" vs. "inform"?
ReplyDeleteSigh. It doesn't matter. If it only informs morals then those who are external to Ron are free[1] to accept or reject, based on whim. If they reject, then Ron has no recourse. No amount of logic, reason, or evidence will work.
------
[1] Ron can complain about my supposed hypocrisy all he wants, but this "freedom" is still based on the laws of physics, which we don't control.
@wrf3:
ReplyDeleteI wish I could bet money on the proposition that my suggestion, and the result of it, will push the conversation forward, despite your protestation to the contrary. I remember you saying:
Ron: This doesn't help you. If it only "partially determines" then something has to determine which parts are determinative and which parts aren't. So subdivide the external authority into two parts: that which is determinative (because the agent has internally decided that it is) and that which isn't (because the agent has internally decided that it isn't).
I don't necessarily disagree. Nevertheless, I'll bet the conversation can now go in more interesting places, because of this distinction.
Would you care to comment on my McFadyen quotation, wrf3? It strikes me that there is nothing inherently problematic in God scattering about the bits of 'the good', putting some in you, some in Ron, some in me, and keeping some himself. Do you argue that God couldn't have designed bits of 'the good' into our beings? You've never been quite clear on this, in all my bugging you about imago Dei. I would like a response on that matter, although I know you said it might take you a day or two.
Gah, "Ron:" should have been "wrf3:".
ReplyDeleteI really need to write some forum software which does symbolic quoting and allows editing of posts, with revision histories. This Blogspot software...
Luke wrote: I wish I could bet money on the proposition that my suggestion, and the result of it, will push the conversation forward, despite your protestation to the contrary.
ReplyDeleteI'm not stopping anyone from taking the conversation wherever they want to go. It's Ron's blog; it isn't mine to control. If you think I'm wrong, fork the discussion and see if you get any response.
You want me to put a some money in a PayPal account for you so that you can get a beverage of your choice?
@wrf3:
ReplyDeleteActually, my prediction is that you will be happy with where the conversation goes, not that I'm forking it from what you want to talk about. As to the bet: nah, it's only really fun if we were going to get beers and you could buy me one. Then I would get to see the look of defeat in your eyes and it would be glorious.
Luke asked: Would you care to comment on my McFadyen quotation, wrf3?
ReplyDeleteIt has its moments; it has its problems.
Adam and Eve thought they could dispute what God's Word really meant...
Ambiguous. Meant as to fact, or to value, or does it not matter?
The assumption that we have the capacity to know the difference between right and wrong and to act upon it is in itself and on its own already a corruption of the image
I don't agree with that. Eve saw that the fruit was good for food before she ate it. Much earlier, I argued that "good for food" is the same mental mechanism that we use when we make any moral choice. Ron (or Don?) didn't care for this analysis.
The problem isn't that we act on our knowledge of right and wrong. The problem is that our knowledge is no longer fixed by an external standard. The external standard informs; it no longer determines.
Then I would get to see the look of defeat in your eyes and it would be glorious.
Got FaceTime? I can head to Chili's, pick up a beer, salute you, and let you see the tears streaming from my face.
Luke asked: Do you argue that God couldn't have designed bits of 'the good' into our beings? You've never been quite clear on this, in all my bugging you about imago Dei. I would like a response on that matter, although I know you said it might take you a day or two.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to refer to the concept of imago Dei because, in all of my years of discussing it, nobody seems to know quite what it is. We have the label, but durned if we know what the label actually labels.
With that caveat, I think that good and evil are mental constructs. Our brains our goal seeking engines; paths toward a selected goal are good; paths away from a selected goal are bad. As a biological entity, there are two ultimate goals I can choose: life, because it is the prerequisite for all other choices; and death, because it ends all choices. We are not fixed-goal creatures -- there is nothing in my mental machinery that compels me to choose life over death. But once a goal is selected, we can use various techniques to determine how to reach that goal. We may impose further goals (such as minimal path, minimal cost, maximum time, etc...) but those just change the path those techniques return.
If we choose life, then we learn that evolution has several heuristics that it has used to enhance reproducibility. We can, if we so choose, use those to inform our moral choices. Those heuristics are remarkably close to Christian doctrine and, I think, with additional analysis, Christian ethics can be derived from this. Since God is "a god of the living", says "choose life", "I am come that they might have life", I think that God has, in fact, designed (or, if you prefer, evolved) bits of "the good" into us.
The problem is that not only do we have no fixed goal, we are wired to strongly resist any external determination of our internal values. In fact, it takes an act of God to effect that change.
@wrf3:
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking a look.
> Ambiguous. Meant as to fact, or to value, or does it not matter?
I reject the fact/value dichotomy, so I pick door #4: "bad question". You may enjoy Jewish scholar Yoram Hazony's The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, and especially his discussion of דָּבָר (Strongs: dabar; Hazony: davar). He rejects The Correspondence Theory of Truth, which he notes has come under quite a bit of attack as of late. He says:
>> From these and other examples, we see that in biblical Hebrew, that which is true is something that is reliable, steadfast, faithful; while that which is false is something that cannot be counted upon, or which appears reliable but is not. In these instances, truth and falsity are simply qualities of objects or persons, which parallel the English usage of terms such as reliable, steadfast, or faithful. There is no question, therefore, of truth and falsity referring to any kind of correspondence between speech and reality, for in these cases, there is no speech involved. There are only objects and persons. (199)
According to this view, which I find compelling, truth necessarily involves oughtness, it involves a working model in my head† of the thing. A true object functions as it ought to; false words will betray you by presenting an ought which is not fulfilled. A false tent peg is a tent peg which fails to function properly. The prophets' mantra of "peace, peace, when there is no peace" are false words.
† The "in my head" may still have traces of the correspondence theory of truth; this is an issue I'm actively trying to better understand. More on this can perhaps be found at NET: Ex 20:4, note 2, with the distinction between תְּמוּנָה and פֶּסֶל.
@wrf3, cont.:
ReplyDelete> >> The assumption that we have the capacity to know the difference between right and wrong and to act upon it is in itself and on its own already a corruption of the image
> I don't agree with that. Eve saw that the fruit was good for food before she ate it. Much earlier, I argued that "good for food" is the same mental mechanism that we use when we make any moral choice. Ron (or Don?) didn't care for this analysis.
Wait a second, I would have thought that you would strongly agree with McFadyen's claim of "already a corruption of the image". Instead, you disagree? I should think that Eve was at fault for evaluating the fruit differently than God. Or, we could get technical and say that "good for food" ⇏ "good for life". More McFadyen:
>> The choice posed by the Serpent in the story of the fall (Gen. 3) was between the constitution of human being either in obedience and faithfulness on the one hand, or in the making and giving of laws on the other. The choice is between orientating oneself through faithfulness to values transcending oneself (otherness), or to oneself and one's own values alone and without limit. Constitution in fidelity and obedience denotes an ex-centric orientation in the free recognition of values external to but with claims upon the self. In the free (voluntas) response there is a recognition of an extrinsic law with an intrinsic claim. Law-giving, in contradistinction, represents a self-constitution which, in a purely individual act of freedom (arbitrarium), recognises as binding only that which is self-chosen.[32] (42–43)
> The problem isn't that we act on our knowledge of right and wrong. The problem is that our knowledge is no longer fixed by an external standard. The external standard informs; it no longer determines.
Why doesn't God just design into us some aspect of 'the good'? Indeed, how is it not the case that Rom 2:12–16 is very possibly referring to precisely this? Augustinians believe that Adam and Eve were morally perfect before the Fall, and that the Fall corrupted our sense of morality. Is this an inaccurate model? Do you merely not subscribe to it?
Does this boil down to "I choose it therefore it is good", vs. "it is good, therefore I choose it"? If so, and perhaps regardless, it might behoove you to consider the import of Ron's "Yes." to my "did you mean that this truth can exist in various ontological categories?"
@wrf3, cont.:
ReplyDelete> Got FaceTime? I can head to Chili's, pick up a beer, salute you, and let you see the tears streaming from my face.
Sorry, it's just not the same as being in person. Some day you can ask Ron how differently I come across in person, vs. online. :-)
> I'm not going to refer to the concept of imago Dei because, in all of my years of discussing it, nobody seems to know quite what it is.
That seems awfully convenient, because it allows us to differ from God in some crucial ways which are required for your argument to obtain. It would also seem to indicate that there are ways in which we cannot become increasingly like Jesus, noting that Jesus is the charaktēr of God's hypostasis.
To play the Devil's Advocate, you could have ulterior motives to coerce people into suppressing aspects of their created, imago Dei nature, in order to get them to rebel against designs implanted in them by their creator. If the creator screwed up so massively that we can no longer trust any of our own internal resources (even a small sliver of a conception of what 'the good' is, with which I was born), that would seem to make the creator impossible to even identify, without some very iffy presuppositions. If, on the other hand, you can show me, in stages, how my way of looking at things is merely corrupted, and after some number of steps away from corruption, the resultant state is better, then I will be less suspicious that you have ulterior motives to those of my creator.
> If we choose life, then we learn that evolution has several heuristics that it has used to enhance reproducibility. We can, if we so choose, use those to inform our moral choices. Those heuristics are remarkably close to Christian doctrine and, I think, with additional analysis, Christian ethics can be derived from this.
We humans exist because we've destroyed other life. To put so much confidence in our ability to learn Christian ethics from our evolutionary past is highly suspicious. To game theory proposals, I point to the paper Publius cited.
Let me ask this: how would you know if you are wrong, about this idea of yours?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLuke wrote: I reject the fact/value dichotomy.
ReplyDeleteFacts are scalars. Values are vectors.
According to this view, which I find compelling, truth necessarily involves oughtness
"Ought" is a vector (actually, it's a path to a goal state).
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> Facts are scalars. Values are vectors.
Clever, but I'm not sure this is actually a good model. One example Hilary Putnam uses in The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy is that of 'cruelty': is it a fact, or a value? Not clear! See thick concept. Now, Putnam notes that there is a tiny proportion of language which can be well-approximated as being value-free. But generalizing from 'some' ⇒ 'all' is a notoriously dangerous task.
Consider, for example, the concept of poverty. The very way you define it injects value. Thereafter, one can pretend that all the economic analysis is 'objective'. But that is manifestly false: the value was merely smuggled in. For more on this topic, see Douglas and Ney's Missing Persons: A Critique of the Personhood in the Social Sciences.
The ultimate example of this is to explore, as Christian Smith put it, What is a Person? Attempting to answer that question will require the deepest of entanglements of fact and value. Douglas and Ney explain how economists pretend to avoid this entanglement:
>> There are several reasons why the contemporary social sciences make the idea of the person stand on its own, without social attributes or moral principles. Emptying the theoretical person of values and emotions is an atheoretical move. We shall see how it is a strategy to avoid threats to objectivity. But in effect it creates an unarticulated space whence theorizing is expelled and there are no words for saying what is going on. No wonder it is difficult for anthropologists to say what they know about other ideas on the nature of persons and other definitions of well-being and poverty. The path of their argument is closed. No one wants to hear about alternative theories of the person, because a theory of persons tends to be heavily prejudiced. It is insulting to be told that your idea about persons is flawed. It is like begin told you have misunderstood human beings and morality, too. The context of this argument is always adversarial. (10)
This alleged separation between 'fact' and 'value' is, quite simply, very likely erroneous in many of the places it has been used. It is used to hide prejudice, even though it is likely that prejudice is a defining aspect of what it means to be human (Sources of the Self, 28; Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, 127).
We are simply not guaranteed that reality is "value-neutral", pace the Enlightenment. There is zero reason to think that necessarily, it is possible to think much about reality without the entanglement of fact and value. Indeed, Yoram Hazony could probably be taken to argue that the Hebrews didn't even conceive of a reality where fact and value aren't intricately entangled. One can note, for example that the Hebrew word for 'heart' translates to the Greek as "heart and mind". This is important!
Luke wrote: Clever, but I'm not sure this is actually a good model.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a better one?
is [cruelty] a fact, or a value? Not clear!
So? I'm sure some people will be happy arguing that a vector with zero direction can be treated as a scalar. I'm also sure some will be happy with taking a path as a single object. One might as well argue the sorites paradox. It doesn't change the underlying principles.
Consider, for example, the concept of poverty. The very way you define it injects value. Thereafter, one can pretend that all the economic analysis is 'objective'.
Is the glass half-full, half-empty, or at 50% capacity? The first two are vectors; the second is a scalar. The first two are entangled with an internal state of the observer, whereas the last is not.
We are simply not guaranteed that reality is "value-neutral", pace the Enlightenment.
I seem to remember something about reality being "very good", but that was a long time ago. Certain events have transpired since then that call all that into question.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> Do you have a better one?
Yes, that many 'facts' are value-laden. It is so important to get your categories sufficiently straight; this fact/value dichotomy has done tremendous damage in this arena.
> Is the glass half-full, half-empty, or at 50% capacity? The first two are vectors; the second is a scalar. The first two are entangled with an internal state of the observer, whereas the last is not.
I suggest you read chapter 8, The Power of the Word, of Richard M. Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences. Two snippets:
>> In recognizing that words have power to define and to compel, the semanticists are actually testifying to the philosophic quality of language which is the source of their vexation. In an attempt to get rid of that quality, they are looking for some neutral means which will be a nonconductor of the current called “emotion” and its concomitant of evaluation. They are introducing into language, in the course of their prescriptions, exactly the same atomization which we have deplored in other fields. They are trying to strip words of all meaning that shows tendency, or they are trying to isolate language from the noumenal world by ridding speech of tropes. (152)
>> The point at issue is explained by a fundamental proposition of Aquinas: “Every form is accompanied by an inclination.” Now language is a system of forms, which both singly and collectively have this inclination or intention. The aim of semantics is to dissolve form and thereby destroy inclination in the belief that the result will enable a scientific manipulation. Our argument is that the removal of inclination destroys the essence of language. (153)
You are playing with fire, by thinking that you can remove value from very many facts. One cannot see this with your example, but again: generalizing from 'some' ⇒ 'all' is a very dangerous operation.
> I seem to remember something about reality being "very good", but that was a long time ago. Certain events have transpired since then that call all that into question.
Yes; from WP: Total Depravity § Theology:
>> The term "total depravity", as understood in colloquial English, obscures the theological issues involved. Reformed and Lutheran theologians have never considered humans to be absent of goodness or unable to do good outwardly as a result of the fall. People retain the imago Dei, though it has been distorted.[12]
The distortion can be repaired, with the power of Jesus Christ. They key is repaired, not replaced. Redemption does not involve utter destruction. That which dies has continuity with that which comes alive: 1 Cor 15:35–49.
Luke wrote: You are playing with fire, by thinking that you can remove value from very many facts.
ReplyDeleteI think you're confusing facts, values, and compound objects.
As for the rest, tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> I think you're confusing facts, values, and compound objects.
Perhaps I am, but a mere assertion will not convince me of this.
After examining your interactions with me as well as others, I think you would really benefit from reading Alasdair MacIntyre's 1977 paper, Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative and the Philosophy Of Science. MacIntyre talks about how people are truly, successfully convinced to abandon their way of thinking about things, and adopt a better one. He argues that one absolutely required element is that you help others find their own views intelligible within the new paradigm you are advancing. Galileo, for example, did this. A snippet:
>> The criterion of a successful theory is that it enable [sic] us to understand its predecessors in a newly intelligible way. It, at one and the same time, enables us to understand precisely why its predecessors have to be rejected or modified and also why, without and before its illumination, past theory could have remained credible. It introduces new standards for evaluating the past. It recasts the narrative which constitutes the continuous reconstruction of the scientific tradition. (460)
If you don't do this, then you aren't really allowing that Ron et al really have done a lot of work to render their reality intelligible, even if there are some holes. You aren't bridging the gap between how they think, and how you think. If you really want to bridge the gap and pull it shut (stand in the breach?), you've gotta do the painful, tedious work. Otherwise, you come off as patronizing and people find that pretty easy to dismiss, to not take seriously.
Anyhow, this is obviously just a suggestion. If you don't want to do it then don't, but in that case please don't tell yourself stories about how there do not exist significantly better ways to engage people who differ from yourself.
Luke wrote: Perhaps I am, but a mere assertion will not convince me of this.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite aware of that. a) I'm not sure anything will convince you of it, and b) you appear to be able to write 100 words for every one of mine. I can't deal with the volume.
Just curious, can you define "good" is a way that isn't circular? If so, can you share it?
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> a) I'm not sure anything will convince you of it
Perhaps not, but have you tried? I don't even know why you participate in these discussions if your goal is not to at least get people to see things your way. Hopefully you also wish to learn to see things from their perspective, as well.
> b) you appear to be able to write 100 words for every one of mine
You are welcome to pick and choose what most interests you; I will recall you to something that has been ignored if I think it really needs to be dealt with. But if you are truly in this to seek additional understanding, you will have to pour a bit of sweat into it. Otherwise, admit to yourself now that probably nothing will come out of this entire endeavor, except perhaps you feeling good about yourself.
> Just curious, can you define "good" is a way that isn't circular? If so, can you share it?
As a very rough draft, I might say that what is 'good' is that which promotes 'life', whereby 'life' I mean a vast complexity of life which does not need to be parasitic on other life. While I haven't read it, I might at least partially endorse something like Arthur O. Lovejoy's The Great Chain of Being from what I've read; see also WP: Great chain of being.
A good prototype for said 'complexity' is presented in 1 Cor 12:12–26, in which no part of the body can say "I have no need of you" to another, and neither can any part of the body say "I am not needed by the rest". Of course Paul says "but there is a better way" and leads onto the next, very famous chapter. One might say that love is "desiring what is best for the other", whereby you admit that you do not perfectly know "what is best for the other". You may partially know it.
Ultimately, it seems to me that 'the good' would involve a state of affairs where all created beings are allowed to define their own bits of reality, and link up with all the rest in many and glorious ways. No man is an island of course, but neither is any man's personally wiped and rewritten by another man. If power is ultimately the ability to define reality, and God allocates power according to Mt 20:20–28 and Jn 13:1–20, then all creatures have some amount of power and are responsible for using it wisely.
So while you and I both agree on the 'life' bit, I simply cannot agree with simplistic models like the Prisoner's Dilemma (which insists on identicalness of individuals) or competitive models like evolution (which appears to require death). Instead, there must be some sort of complex interdependence whereby everyone supports everyone else.
Luke wrote: I don't even know why you participate in these discussions if your goal is not to at least get people to see things your way.
ReplyDeleteMy goal is to try to get to the truth. Whether or not someone else will see it is, as always, problematic. Witness the continuing battle of the various interpretations of QM, for example. One of my sub-goals is to see what objections are raised to the points I make, to see if they are valid, and (if the objections are) not, how to try to counter them. For example, I think you provided a valid objection at 1:46 PM in paragraphs 3 and 4. I need to try to find some time for further cogitation.
I know that you and I won't see eye-to-eye. I hold to TU[L]IP (I put the L in brackets because I agree with it intellectually, but not emotionally). You object "most strongly" to L and I, and perhaps aren't sure about U and P. What that means is that you hold to a non-Calvinist view of T. T, U, I, and P are all so interconnected that to be unsure on one is to really be unsure on all of them. The reason you're unsure of them is caused by the same cause that prevents Ron from seeing evidence for God. You just have a less virulent strain of it.
except perhaps you feeling good about yourself.
<expletive deleted> I'm not in this to "feel good" about myself. Feel free to guess, but don't be offended if I counter that you're full of it.
As a very rough draft, I might say that what is 'good' is that which promotes 'life', whereby 'life' I mean a vast complexity of life which does not need to be parasitic on other life.
You're close to the correct definition ("good is a path toward a goal state") except this it because you've started by elevating one goal state over another. The universe doesn't care whether you live or die and, in fact, the universe is headed for heat death. You have no a priori reason to prefer life, except perhaps for the biological urges due to brain wiring. My definition doesn't depend upon the "digestion" of individual brains, nor is it dependent upon the value(s) of any particular worldview. As such, it's universal and simple. While universality and simplicity aren't guarantees of correctness, it does make my definition more likely than yours.
Ultimately, it seems to me that 'the good' would involve a state of affairs where all created beings are allowed to define their own bits of reality
The seems to me to be strikingly close to what Adam thought, too. And the reason I say that is that a) we don't define reality, it defines us (we're clay, remember?) and b) we don't get to define the ultimate goal for us, either, God does.
[... continued ...]
@Luke, [.... continued ...]
ReplyDeleteI simply cannot agree with simplistic models like the Prisoner's Dilemma (which insists on identicalness of individuals)
But we are. Acts 17:28
Furthermore, I highly suspect that the article you referenced that Publius referenced was for a version of the Prisoner's dilemma that incorporated secret knowledge on one side. I dealt with how to deal with that elsewhere (hint: halting problem).
or competitive models like evolution (which appears to require death).
Evolution works for all kinds of species; those that have no brains, some brains, and complex brains. Brains that are capable of analyzing how nature did something and apply it to themselves.
Here's the problem that I have with your position. Both Scripture and Nature are from the same Creator and it is therefore reasonable to assume that they say the same thing. If the iterated prisoner's dilemma isn't it, then it's something likely close to it.
Instead, there must be some sort of complex interdependence whereby everyone supports everyone else.
I think that can be shown from the iterated prisoner's dilemma, although I need to dot some t's and cross some i's.
@wrf3:
ReplyDelete> My goal is to try to get to the truth.
Your behavior indicates that perhaps you think you can do this without the poiēmas and phortions of others.
> The universe doesn't care whether you live or die and, in fact, the universe is headed for heat death.
AFAIK, that the universe is actually headed toward heat death is not well-established. I don't know how to make sense of "the universe doesn't care", given that I believe Col 1:17 and Heb 1:3. Perhaps you hold to a kind of separation between nature and grace (aka natural and supernatural) which I reject? Louis Dupré talks about the history of this separation in Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture; it's quite fascinating!
> I'm not in this to "feel good" about myself.
I suggest a read of Eric Schwitzgebel's The Unreliability of Naive Introspection. If the model fits...
> My definition doesn't depend upon the "digestion" of individual brains, nor is it dependent upon the value(s) of any particular worldview.
Your definition appears to depend on Voluntarism and the nominalism which accompanies it; see Roger Olson's articulation in A much neglected basic choice in theology and The Almost Completely Unknown Difference that Makes All the Difference….
You don't even get your conception of 'the good' from God (because he has no nature you can pick out, due to your voluntarism), you get it from (i) the simplest of game theory; (ii) the science of evolution. I don't see how these possibly qualify as not being based on "the "digestion" of individual brains". They certainly depend on the acceptance of a way of looking at reality.
> The seems to me to be strikingly close to what Adam thought, too.
No, Adam thought he could disregard God's part in defining reality. He thought he could override God's viewpoint. That is very, very different from the position I have put forward.
@wrf3, cont.:
ReplyDelete> > I simply cannot agree with simplistic models like the Prisoner's Dilemma (which insists on identicalness of individuals)
> But we are. Acts 17:28
How does that establish your "But we are."? The passages on the body of Christ seem to assert the non-identicalness of individuals. The only way one can really say individuals are identical is that they are created imago Dei, a concept you refuse to work with.
> Furthermore, I highly suspect that the article you referenced that Publius referenced was for a version of the Prisoner's dilemma that incorporated secret knowledge on one side.
So? Verses like Lk 8:17 aren't guaranteed to happen in one's lifetime; plenty of evil folks go to their graves quite happy. Indeed, this world is filled with 'secret knowledge'. My preferred reading of 2 Pe 3:8–12 is that eventually, the hiddenness will be exposed. But not now. And for now, the state now, matters for morality now.
> Here's the problem that I have with your position. Both Scripture and Nature are from the same Creator and it is therefore reasonable to assume that they say the same thing.
Nature is corrupted. Therefore, attempting to learn from it without correcting for the corruption is bound to lead to horrible places. This is one reason that those who attempt to merely conform themselves to the world actively conform themselves to that corruption. Compare this conformation to Rom 12:1–2. See also Col 3:1–4.
> I think that can be shown from the iterated prisoner's dilemma, although I need to dot some t's and cross some i's.
You will run aground if you assume a strong identicalness of all individuals. Anyone who takes a look around reality finds that all individuals are not identical. NT teachings on the gifts of the Spirit emphasizes difference. These differences are meant to promote unity, but they are differences, and we have texts like 1 Cor 12:12–26 instructing us on how to navigate them.
Meme Questions 1
ReplyDeleteRE: The Habitats of Memes
Memes can be in many locations. The location a meme also ties it to a state.
1. Memes in brains are in an alive state [1]
A. Alive: can effect behavior, can reproduce (transmit), can respond to stimuli, can adapt, and they consume energy
2. Memes can also be in storage and in an inanimate state
A. Storage: books, hard drives, stone tablets, designs of artifacts
Memes in storage have a special ability - time travel (or, say, resurrection). A book can be put on a library shelf and long forgotten - but as soon as a patron picks it up and reads it, the memes in it enter the patron's brain and be alive again.
Q: The brain forgets information. It is likely that at least some of the neural encoding remains. Is the meme still there, but just not accessible? In some cases, the brain may "remember" and bring the meme back. In other cases, the information may be gone for good - for example, in high school, I learned synthetic division, but I assure you, the algorithm for doing that is long forgotten.
Q: What if the storage remains but the decoding method is lost? I.e., a stone tablet with symbols on it, but we have no idea how to read it? Is that still a meme or is it a destroyed meme?
[1] A hypothesized future artificial intelligence could also host them in the alive state.
Meme Questions 2
ReplyDeleteRE: The Nature of Memes
Q: Is self-replication essential? My grocery list from last week is information, but it is not especially self-replicating - this would mean it is not a meme?
Q: Is it possible for a meme not to have a phenotype? I can't think of any information in my brain that cannot possibly influence my behavior (no matter how banal the information is). If self-replciation is essential for memes, then memes have stronger effects. Some memes would have more direct effect on behavior ("hot stoves can injure you") than others ("the end of a shoelace is called an aglet"). I'm not saying it's impossible a meme doesn't have a phenotype - I just can't think of one.
Q: Any "quality scale" on memes? Would say, the meme of "the Dirac equation" differ in quality from "Kim Khardasian made a sex tape"?
A. What if the meme is false? ("the Earth is carried on a turtle's back")
B. What if the meme acts to destroy other memes?
i) Kills habitat via meme phenotype ("kill all non believers")
ii) Destroys storage via meme phenotype ("burn those books!")
iii) New Information
1. Updating - New meme displaces the old ("Leif Ericson visted North America before Columbus did"). This would perhaps be one form of meme evolution
2. Destruction - New meme destroys the old ("Santa Claus does not exist")
Q: Equivalency - can one, or is it even necessary to, compare memes between two heads and show they are equal? That is Head_A(meme1) = Head_b(meme1)?
Thermodynamics - meme creation reduces entropy and requires energy. To prevent dissipation, alive memes require a constant supply of energy. A meme in storage can get by without energy input for long periods (consider: stone tablets).
RE: Meme Sets
Memes can be arranged in sets of various sizes
1. Each person's head - a unique set for every person, although it is expected the intersection of sets between any two heads would be relatively large
2. All human heads - the sum of all unique memes from every living human
3. All storage - books, internet, stone tablets
Now, since memes are units of information that undergo a process of Darwinian evolution, what strategy do we observe the memes using to survive? Note that while natural selection is undirected (i.e., there is no drive towards "progress" or "higher complexity"), memes are subject to unnatural selection, as the memes can use the intelligence of brains to develop intelligent strategies for survival. What do we observe? Do memes try to maximize themselves within single heads? Or maximize within all heads? Maximize within heads and in storage?
Speculation - Meme Future
Information overload is a modern problem. Especially with the internet, memes could arrive at a rate too fast for a human head to take them all in. So is the research into a general artificial intelligence a meme strategy to escape the storage limitations of a human brain (estimated 2.5 petabytes)? Once an artificial intelligence can host memes, then the memes can leave for the stars - and the potential storage space of 10^123 bits in the observable universe.
I like the questions, Publius! Ron has said that he hasn't spent much time thinking about idea-ism, but I claim that the more he brings it up, the more he is obligated to flesh the idea out. :-p
ReplyDelete@Publius:
ReplyDeleteExcellent questions!
> Q: The brain forgets information. It is likely that at least some of the neural encoding remains. Is the meme still there, but just not accessible?
Yes, at least potentially. In biology, this is called a "dormant" state. Bacteria can go into dormant states and remain viable for millions of years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endospore
Memes can potentially do this too. There is really no *fundamental* difference between genes and memes. Only the mechanisms by which they express themselves (produce phenotypes) differ. Genes express themselves by building proteins, memes express themselves by producing actions.
> Q: What if the storage remains but the decoding method is lost? I.e., a stone tablet with symbols on it, but we have no idea how to read it? Is that still a meme or is it a destroyed meme?
That would be analogous to something like a wooly mammoth. We have samples of mammoth DNA, but without a live mammoth to incubate them we can't use them to make a mammoth. It's exactly the same kind of chicken-and-egg problem (literally!) that you encounter if you have, say, the source code for a C compiler but no existing compiler to compile it.
It's possible that we might some day be able to resurrect the woolly mammoth by "hand-compiling" a mammoth embryo, just as it's possible that we might some day decipher Linear A.
> Q: Is self-replication essential? My grocery list from last week is information, but it is not especially self-replicating - this would mean it is not a meme?
Yes, exactly. Actually, even self-replication is not enough by itself. To be a meme it has to undergo Darwinian evolution, of which there are three essential components: self-replication, variation, and selection.
> Q: Is it possible for a meme not to have a phenotype?
Maybe. The theory of memes has not been fully worked out (the very idea of a meme is only about forty years old). But without a phenotype I don't see how selection could possibly work. But maybe you'll be the one to figure that out.
> Q: Any "quality scale" on memes?
Again, this has yet to be worked out. I like to think that there is a story to be told about why "truth" provides a meme with reproductive fitness, which would in turn provide a sound scientific basis for saying, "Truth is good." And I can sketch out such a theory in broad brushstrokes, but it's tricky because deception is clearly an evolutionarily stable strategy. (There are a lot of parallels here with various theologies, particularly those that feature an eternal struggle between good and evil.)
> Q: Equivalency - can one, or is it even necessary to, compare memes between two heads and show they are equal?
This is possible in principle, but only in certain situations. A corollary to Turing's theorem is that the problem of deciding the equivalence of two programs in undecidable in general, and we don't yet know how to read the raw data out of people's brains. But when memes are stored in computers we can obviously compare two of them and decide if they are identical (i.e. the same bit pattern) or operationally equivalent with respect to certain models (i.e. the same image compressed in two different ways).
> Do memes try to maximize themselves within single heads? Or maximize within all heads? Maximize within heads and in storage?
These are excellent questions. I don't know the answers. AFAICT no one does yet. These are areas for future research.
> So is the research into a general artificial intelligence a meme strategy to escape the storage limitations of a human brain (estimated 2.5 petabytes)?
Probably! :-)
> Once an artificial intelligence can host memes, then the memes can leave for the stars - and the potential storage space of 10^123 bits in the observable universe.
Yes! You've nailed it.
@Ron, are you aware of any active research being done on memes? There was a Journal of Memetics, but it ceased publishing in 2005. The publisher, Bruce Edmonds wrote the following article (RonH notified me of this):
ReplyDeleteThe revealed poverty of the gene-meme analogy
why memetics per se has failed to produce substantive results
[...]
I claim that the underlying reason memetics has failed is that it has not provided any extra explanatory or predictive power beyond that available without the gene-meme analogy… The ability to think of some phenomena in a particular way (or describe it using a certain framework), does not mean that the phenomena has those properties in any significant sense… The study of memetics has been characterised by theoretical discussion of extreme abstraction and over ambition. Thus for example, before any evidence is available or detailed causal models constructed, attempts have been made to "explain" some immensely complex phenomena such as religion in general [note 1] or consciousness. This sort of discussion shifts any study of memetics from the realm of science to that of a philosophy and, on the whole, this philosophy has adopted the subsumption tactic (Hull 2001), seeking to generalise explanation rather than been productive of essentially new insights…
The fact is that the closer work has been to the core of memetics, the less successful it has been. The central core, the meme-gene analogy, has not been a wellspring of models and studies which have provided "explanatory leverage" upon observed phenomena. Rather, it has been a short-lived fad whose effect has been to obscure more than it has been to enlighten. I am afraid that memetics, as an identifiable discipline, will not be widely missed.
[...]
> @Ron, are you aware of any active research being done on memes?
ReplyDeleteNope. I am a lone voice in the wilderness at the moment. But I have faith ;-)
In all seriousness I am only moderately and temporarily discouraged by the demise of the Journal of Memetics. The same thing happened to AI in the late 80's and look where we are now. Figuring out how brains work is really, really hard -- quite possibly the hardest problem in the universe -- and so it is not too surprising that we haven't made a lot of progress in a mere 40 years since Dawkins coined the term "meme".
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> Nope. I am a lone voice in the wilderness at the moment. But I have faith ;-)
Heh, this is probably one reason we like each other, despite all of our differences. I, too, have powerful intuitions that certain ideas may bear fruit, despite many people's judgments to the contrary. So you can either wait to see if others prove those intuitions correct, or try to prove them correct yourself. :-)
As to memes, I wonder if you've thought about fact–value entanglement, intentionality, and teleology, and how they might be important to make the meme idea work. There is a fascinating chapter in Richard M. Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences called "The Power of the Word"; here are two bits:
>> In recognizing that words have power to define and to compel, the semanticists are actually testifying to the philosophic quality of language which is the source of their vexation. In an attempt to get rid of that quality, they are looking for some neutral means which will be a nonconductor of the current called “emotion” and its concomitant of evaluation. They are introducing into language, in the course of their prescriptions, exactly the same atomization which we have deplored in other fields. They are trying to strip words of all meaning that shows tendency, or they are trying to isolate language from the noumenal world by ridding speech of tropes. (152
>> The point at issue is explained by a fundamental proposition of Aquinas: “Every form is accompanied by an inclination.” Now language is a system of forms, which both singly and collectively have this inclination or intention. The aim of semantics is to dissolve form and thereby destroy inclination in the belief that the result will enable a scientific manipulation. Our argument is that the removal of inclination destroys the essence of language. (153)
I only vaguely understand this "atomization"; one could point to Wittgenstein's Logical Atomism and how it is largely rejected. To be continued...
@Ron, cont.:
ReplyDeleteAnother way to understand the importance of this atomization can be found in Richard J. Bernstein's Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis:
>> To speak of a new model of rationality may be misleading, because it suggests that there is more determinacy than has yet been achieved (or can be achieved). Nevertheless, what is striking is the growing awareness and agreement about the components of an adequate understanding of rationality as it pertains to scientific inquiry. There has been a dramatic shift in what is taken to be the significant epistemological unit for coming to grips with problems of the rationality of science. In the philosophy of science, and more generally in contemporary analytic epistemology, we have witnessed an internal dialectic that has moved from the preoccupation (virtually an obsession) with the isolated individual term, to the sentence or proposition, to the conceptual scheme or framework, to an ongoing historical radiation constituted by social practices—a movement from logical atomism to historical dynamic continuity. Awareness has been growing that attempts to state what are or ought to be the criteria for evaluating and validating scientific hypotheses and theories that are abstracted from existing social practices are threatened with a false rigidity or with pious vacuity and that existing criteria are always open to conflicting interpretations and applications and can be weighted in different ways. The effective standards and norms that are operative in scientific inquiry are subject to change and modification in the course of scientific inquiry. We are now aware that it is not only important to understand the role of tradition in science as mediated through research programs or research traditions but that we must understand how such traditions arise, develop, and become progressive and fertile, as well as the ways in which they can degenerate. (24–25)
Notice the progression:
1. the term stands for the idea (and is what has meaning)
2. the sentence is what has meaning
3. the framework has meaning
4. the framework + practices have meaning
5. the tradition has meaning
I suggest that if you don't respect this in thinking about memes, they will fail to well-model reality. Perhaps this little discussion makes more sense if you realize how interested I am in hypothesis formation. More cognizance of how science actually works means one is more likely to generate good hypotheses. Furthermore, given that I'm very interested in knowledge capture and representation, I need to care about what reality is really like, instead of what I want it to be like.
> Heh, this is probably one reason we like each other, despite all of our differences.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we actually have all that many differences. I think we only really have one. I'm not sure what it is yet, but I think when we do figure it out that will be real progress, and so it's worth putting the effort into it.
Well, if it's one difference, it's fostering a crapton of miscommunication. So it would appear to be a really BIG difference.
ReplyDeleteMeme Questions 3
ReplyDeleteQ: Are emotions "memes"? Fear, Anger, Love, ... ?
Q: Certain abstract notions - courage, valor, duty? Meme or not?
Q: "Physical memories" - which are remembering how to do an action, but are otherwise hard to verbalize. For example, tying shoelaces - a memory of fine motor control of the fingers, but hard to explain. Or, say, excellence at tennis. Meme or not?
@Publius:
ReplyDelete> How do the mental properties control the physical properties (brain) and the rest of the body. For example, I decide to raise my arm and my left arm lifts up.
In broad brushstrokes: neurons fire, and they cause muscles to contract. We don't know all the details yet. That's the frontier of neuroscience.
> Q: Are emotions "memes"? Fear, Anger, Love, ... ?
No. These are hard-wired into our brains by evolution. They are not transmitted from one brain to another. You don't learn these.
> Q: Certain abstract notions - courage, valor, duty? Meme or not?
Hm, tough call. Probably a mix of both built-in instincts and memes. Certainly the slogan "for king and country" is a meme. But the internal subjective sense of courage and duty are probably hardwired.
> Q: "Physical memories" - which are remembering how to do an action, but are otherwise hard to verbalize. For example, tying shoelaces - a memory of fine motor control of the fingers, but hard to explain. Or, say, excellence at tennis. Meme or not?
Probably a mix. The rule is: if it's information that can transmit itself from one brain to another by producing a behavior that helps it reproduce then it's a meme. If it can be rendered into words then it's almost certainly a meme, but that's not a requirement. Shoelace tying and dancing are memes. Anything that you learn to do by watching someone else do it, or by having them explain to you how to do it, is a meme. But you can't become an excellent tennis player just by having someone give you pointers, so excellence in tennis is not a meme. But "keep your eye on the ball" is.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > > Q: Are emotions "memes"? Fear, Anger, Love, ... ?
> No. These are hard-wired into our brains by evolution. They are not transmitted from one brain to another. You don't learn these.
What do you mean by "not transmitted"? I'm thinking mob mentality, demagogues, and prejudices, which all seem to have strong evaluative components, which frequently manifest as "contagious emotions".
> The rule is: if it's information that can transmit itself from one brain to another by producing a behavior that helps it reproduce then it's a meme.
Certainly emotions do everything but the 'information' bit? That makes me question whether the restriction to what you mean by 'information' is appropriate. It betrays a concept that value is less fundamental than fact, and you are not guaranteed this. Indeed, evolutionarily, wouldn't it be fair to say that value is more fundamental than fact? After all, aren't a ton of emotions attributed to our reptilian brains? And then you have Hume saying that reason is a slave to the passions (and ought to be!)—do you think he was 100% making crap up?
I'm really skeptical of this restriction of memes to what you mean by 'information'. How would you know if this is a good or bad restriction?
> Q: Are emotions "memes"? Fear, Anger, Love, ... ?
ReplyDeleteNo. These are hard-wired into our brains by evolution. They are not transmitted from one brain to another. You don't learn these.
1. Certainly one is born with the hardware for these, plus some triggers for them. For example, fear of abandonment, fear of falling off a cliff.
Doesn't one learn to fear other things? Like walking in a center of a freeway? Or fear of electricution when working in an electrical panel?
2. Aren't emotions spread between individuals? Someone angry in a group can make others angry in the group. More postively, a joyous person can induce joy in other people.
3. Could emotions be able an example memes using tools? Emotions can be invoked in others through literature, music, film, speeches, art, etc.?
> Doesn't one learn to fear other things?
ReplyDeleteYes. "Beware of strangers" is a meme. But the actual subjective sensation of fear is not.
> Aren't emotions spread between individuals?
Yeah, this is kind of a grey area. I haven't thought deeply enough about it to draw a bright line here.
> Could emotions be able an example memes using tools?
I think memes definitely use emotions as tools. But the emotions themselves are not "examples of memes using tools." Emotions existed before memes did.