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I'm actually approaching the bounds of my sanity. We can't keep saying that "of course" determinism isn't correct. Why isn't it correct? Where is this outside influence that can transcend natural order?
I know I don't have unbounded free will because I can't command the sky to turn green and have it happen, or flap my arms and start flying.
I know I have some free will because I could choose whether or not to reply to this post.
To my mind you are arguing a theoretical / technical determinism that doesn't really matter to my actual existence.
It's a little like how technically as an atheist I don't make a knowledge claim about gods, but because I consider the standard interventionist invisible personal god so vanishingly unlikely, it seems to a theist like I MUST be staking out a knowledge claim. Because I behave the same either way.
Well ... maybe I'm a hamster in a wheel in some technical sense but I know that if I quit making decisions and choosing paths I will die shortly thereafter. Therefore it seems that I have consequential choices to make, and that I play a role in what's determined. [shrug]
It's a far more limited role than I once thought, I'll give you that. But it's a role just the same. If I had no role then I could just passively sit by and the same things would happen to me as if I didn't.
I know I don't have unbounded free will because I can't command the sky to turn green and have it happen, or flap my arms and start flying.
I know I have some free will because I could choose whether or not to reply to this post.
To my mind you are arguing a theoretical / technical determinism that doesn't really matter to my actual existence.
It's a little like how technically as an atheist I don't make a knowledge claim about gods, but because I consider the standard interventionist invisible personal god so vanishingly unlikely, it seems to a theist like I MUST be staking out a knowledge claim. Because I behave the same either way.
Well ... maybe I'm a hamster in a wheel in some technical sense but I know that if I quit making decisions and choosing paths I will die shortly thereafter. Therefore it seems that I have consequential choices to make, and that I play a role in what's determined. [shrug]
It's a far more limited role than I once thought, I'll give you that. But it's a role just the same. If I had no role then I could just passively sit by and the same things would happen to me as if I didn't.
Not being able to break the laws of physics is expected. That's what we observe. That's why science works. What you're claiming is that physics applies everywhere except for in the brain where you are personally able to intervene with the laws of physics to do what you want.
Choosing whether or not you reply is not evidence of free will or free choice. You replied, so could you have not replied? You'll say "yes", but why? A series of cause and effects leading up to this determined your choose without your conscious decision playing a role.
You think you have free will, it feels like you have free will, but that's not evidence of free will.
If you're gonna have a conversation on whether or not you have free will, then this is pretty relevant and what's more acknowledging it has real repercussions. I don't know exactly if you don't understand my claim or are actively ignoring it.
I don't know exactly if you don't understand my claim or are actively ignoring it.
I think I understand it, I just don't consider it a particularly useful question to ask. It is rather like the old theological debates from my prior life, about whether one is predestined / chosen to believe, or chooses to believe. In that belief-system, it doesn't much matter which is true, because the end result is the same: you believe or not, and burn or not. It always seemed to me that both were in play: some struggle with religious faith, some don't; some choose to believe, some don't. Some believe, then don't, or vice versa.
I tend to view the question of determinism the same way: some people just can't catch a break and seem doomed from the cradle to the grave and live super-constrained lives that they can't even appear to influence for the better; others are lucky for reasons they don't understand. Both kinds of people make choices, or else they would just sit in one spot until they starve to death. Since they are making choices, they have choice; since they have choice they have freedom of choice, however limited and constrained by their circumstances and their luck or lack thereof.
Yes I understand that it's possible their choices are determined by causal chains such that if you could exactly reproduce a given scenario the choice would always be the same and therefore in some technical philosophical sense not a choice. But who cares? You can't do that anyway.
All that matters in any given moment is the scenario we're in, and we still have to choose if we want to live. The very definition of living is responding to your environment and reproducing and interacting. If we decide that it's all predetermined, how is that actionable? We still have to respond to it. And the knowledge that it may all be clockwork and chemical reactions are just implementation details. Life is like a black box class library, we create instances, call methods, change properties, but the internals of the implementation are both hidden from us and not necessary to take advantage of the interface anyway.
If we could change our destiny we would not be what we are. We'd be something else. Gods perhaps, by comparison.
I think I understand it, I just don't consider it a particularly useful question to ask. It is rather like the old theological debates from my prior life, about whether one is predestined / chosen to believe, or chooses to believe. In that belief-system, it doesn't much matter which is true, because the end result is the same: you believe or not, and burn or not. It always seemed to me that both were in play: some struggle with religious faith, some don't; some choose to believe, some don't. Some believe, then don't, or vice versa.
I tend to view the question of determinism the same way: some people just can't catch a break and seem doomed from the cradle to the grave and live super-constrained lives that they can't even appear to influence for the better; others are lucky for reasons they don't understand. Both kinds of people make choices, or else they would just sit in one spot until they starve to death. Since they are making choices, they have choice; since they have choice they have freedom of choice, however limited and constrained by their circumstances and their luck or lack thereof.
Yes I understand that it's possible their choices are determined by causal chains such that if you could exactly reproduce a given scenario the choice would always be the same and therefore in some technical philosophical sense not a choice. But who cares? You can't do that anyway.
All that matters in any given moment is the scenario we're in, and we still have to choose if we want to live. The very definition of living is responding to your environment and reproducing and interacting. If we decide that it's all predetermined, how is that actionable? We still have to respond to it. And the knowledge that it may all be clockwork and chemical reactions are just implementation details. Life is like a black box class library, we create instances, call methods, change properties, but the internals of the implementation are both hidden from us and not necessary to take advantage of the interface anyway.
If we could change our destiny we would not be what we are. We'd be something else. Gods perhaps, by comparison.
Okay, I think you're overlooking the big picture. As I understand it, you're thinking "okay, I might be predetermined to do this or I choose to do this, either way it's the same outcome, so who cares?"
That misses the point. The point is as soon as you realize you're not a moral agent, you're a victim of your brain, then a paradigm shift in morality occurs. I tried to explain this before. So, yes, I think it does matter. Are murderers sick and in need of treatment or evil and in need of jail time?
The only way you can believe they're evil is if you believe there's something more to them than their physical existence.
Perhaps if we think of it like computer programs, it could be a little more clear. If you wrote a program that accidentally truncates a database of sensitive data, are you gonna say the program is evil and needs jail time or are you going to say the program is broken and needs repaired?
Depending on whether or not you accept free will determines the outcome of that question.
In the same way being predestined to believe or chosen to believe is also very important. By asking the question, you're presupposing the existence of God. Now, is this a God who created you damned to hell, or is this a God who created you with an equal opportunity to be saved?
If you're a Christian, this question does matter. It's the difference between a mad scientist sort of God and a God willing to give you a chance.
Thank you for your comments - I did read them, however it seems very reduntant and annoying to respond since, I've already answered those and your responses had various forms of logical fallacy
Firstly no, you did not answer my concerns. Anywhere. Ever. Much less on this thread. I have corrected your distortions and misrepresentations and outright falsehoods on many threads before. Your response EVERY time so far has been to run away, wait awhile, then pop up in a new thread somewhere else on the forum spouting the same stuff again.
Secondly no, there was no logical fallacies in my post. Your MO alas is to declare there to be logical fallacies, then run away without actually saying where or what they are. Simply asserting there are fallacies there is not going to make it so. If you think you have spotted an error or fallacy then do not simply limply declare it to be there then retreat. POINT to it, show it, explain it, discuss it.
But we know why you do not do that. Because the fallacies you claim are there.... quite simply.... aren't.
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Originally Posted by SuperSoul
I realize it is a bit of a logical fallacy to not point out which ones where and why - but frankly I simply don't feel like it. Time is limited and going in circles is not a wise use of time. No offense.
You could not offend me if you tried. And that is a comment about me, not about you. Your cop out narrative of "I do not feel like it" is likely to fool no one, except possibly yourself. The users of this forum see your MO of assert, retreat, repeat too often to fall for any narrative except the true one..... which is that you can not back up ANYTHING of what you say. Be it your lies about homosexuality or abortion, or be it your unsubstantiated assertion about spotting logical fallacies in others.
You do not "point out which ones" not because of time or motivation constraints. You do not do it simply because you CANT. Because what you assert is there.... quite simply..... isn't.
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Originally Posted by SuperSoul
I came to discover that of all of them, the only one that works independent of the placebo effect, is acupuncture/acupressure.
If you have any evidence for the efficacy of acupuncture above and beyond the effect of placebo, then by all means present it.
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Originally Posted by SuperSoul
It is painfully obvious that the best approach is to use the placebo (which has no negative side effects).
It has the negative side effect that many people using it die when they may otherwise have been treated. Side effects exist sure, but they are minority occurrences, and they come with the other side effect of the patient actually being CURED of what ailed them.
We have to balance side effects with positive effects, and that is what the art and science of epidemiology is for. But that balance is key. Any approach of "Oh side effects exist so lets throw the whole lot out" is simply egregiously extremist nonsense.
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Originally Posted by SuperSoul
We all believe things all of the time with absolutely no proof.
Speak for yourself. I am currently not aware of anything I subscribe to without substantiation. If you think you have identified something I believe without substantiation, then by all means point it out. Though as per your usual MO I expect you not to be able to do that, but to fall into some cop out narrative to explain away why you are not doing it.
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Originally Posted by SuperSoul
IE: A guy who sees a few posts by me which he disagrees with, may think I'm a witch, a loser - and all kinds of other ad hominem attacks - however he doesn't even know me. So he's labeling me as 100% a certain way - that's faith - just misguided faith.
Alas I have seen most of your posts and you MO is fairly consistent across them all. Your MO is to assert outright falsehoods about topics like abortion and homosexuality. When confronted on those falsehoods you simply retreat, wait awhile, then pop up in another thread elsewhere spouting and spewing the EXACT same falsehoods unaltered in any way.
No faith required there. That summation of your MO is entirely and wholly substantiated by the evidence.
Okay, I think you're overlooking the big picture. As I understand it, you're thinking "okay, I might be predetermined to do this or I choose to do this, either way it's the same outcome, so who cares?"
That misses the point. The point is as soon as you realize you're not a moral agent, you're a victim of your brain, then a paradigm shift in morality occurs.
Many theists would claim that morality in fact goes out the window because if you're not a moral agent then no one has personal responsibility and it's a free-for-all. But that's not an argument that holds up in court, does it? If you do something sanctionable, you'll be sanctioned. If you do something harmful, society in general will not tolerate it.
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Originally Posted by Skyl3r
Are murderers sick and in need of treatment or evil and in need of jail time?
It is another one of those things that's not a binary choice. I think they need both, because honestly, jail time can be part of the "treatment" and in any case is necessary until any "treatment" "succeeds" because society needs to be protected from actively practicing miscreants.
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Originally Posted by Skyl3r
The only way you can believe they're evil is if you believe there's something more to them than their physical existence.
Evil is a theological concept. Evil doesn't exist outside of some contrived system of hamartiology. So I don't believe they're evil regardless of my beliefs about determinism. What they are, is doing harmful things or beneficial things. If they do harmful things, then to the extent we know how to convince them to do otherwise and help them to do otherwise, it makes pragmatic sense to do so. All penal systems should have rehabilitation, restitution and reconciliation as their touchstones. Punishment is incidental, because by itself, it's expensive and beside the point, and diminishes the captors, to boot.
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Originally Posted by Skyl3r
Perhaps if we think of it like computer programs, it could be a little more clear. If you wrote a program that accidentally truncates a database of sensitive data, are you gonna say the program is evil and needs jail time or are you going to say the program is broken and needs repaired?
The latter.
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Originally Posted by Skyl3r
Depending on whether or not you accept free will determines the outcome of that question.
No, my answer to that question is determined by the fact that fixing the program and repairing the damage it did is the only option that makes the slightest bit of sense.
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Originally Posted by Skyl3r
In the same way being predestined to believe or chosen to believe is also very important. By asking the question, you're presupposing the existence of God. Now, is this a God who created you damned to hell, or is this a God who created you with an equal opportunity to be saved?
If you're a Christian, this question does matter. It's the difference between a mad scientist sort of God and a God willing to give you a chance.
When I was a Christian the question didn't matter. If god was benevolent, I would of course prefer that. But god was what he was to me. If he was an evil, vindictive bastard, then that is what I would have to deal with. Lots and lots of Christians think god is a thin-skinned maniac and revel in it (although they tend not to honestly think in those terms because it highlights the moral untenability and silliness of their beliefs).
In all honesty if you're an evangelical you really don't give a fig about that anyway if you're on the winning side because you're going to go to heaven and the losers are going to hell. If your god is lowly and meek of spirit and kindly and gentle and entreating, that's just frosting on the cake. It might impact what you think you're emulating but it doesn't impact what you fancy is the positive outcome.
Many theists would claim that morality in fact goes out the window because if you're not a moral agent then no one has personal responsibility and it's a free-for-all. But that's not an argument that holds up in court, does it? If you do something sanctionable, you'll be sanctioned. If you do something harmful, society in general will not tolerate it.
Yes, I believe that would be correct. No one has personal responsibility. You are a victim of your brain, not a moral agent. You don't get to choose to be born with the brain of a serial killer, you just are. Then when you become a serial killer because of the defects in your brain, you get punished for it.
You're correct that it's not an argument that holds up in court. I could think of a few reasons for this.
1. The court system in America is over 200 years old. There was not very much convincing evidence at the time to think that someone may not have had a choice in committing a crime. In fact, even though the evidence is there, most people still do not accept it.
2. Religious doctrines tend to require some amount of free will by which God can condemn you. There is the idea that everyone has a spirit or a soul. You don't have to go far to find someone who believes this. If you have a spirit, then free will makes a lot more sense.
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Originally Posted by mordant
It is another one of those things that's not a binary choice. I think they need both, because honestly, jail time can be part of the "treatment" and in any case is necessary until any "treatment" "succeeds" because society needs to be protected from actively practicing miscreants.
Okay, the question should be read as "are murderers sick or evil?". I was not trying to get at what's the proper way to treat a murderer.
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Originally Posted by mordant
Evil is a theological concept. Evil doesn't exist outside of some contrived system of hamartiology. So I don't believe they're evil regardless of my beliefs about determinism. What they are, is doing harmful things or beneficial things. If they do harmful things, then to the extent we know how to convince them to do otherwise and help them to do otherwise, it makes pragmatic sense to do so. All penal systems should have rehabilitation, restitution and reconciliation as their touchstones. Punishment is incidental, because by itself, it's expensive and beside the point, and diminishes the captors, to boot
It is a theological concept, I agree. But if you believe we have free choice, then you are condoning this concept. You are accepting that if someone shoots you, they could have chose to not shoot you. This, to some degree, makes them evil, or malicious or bad or whatever word you wanna use. They are CHOOSING to inflict pain onto you.
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Originally Posted by mordant
No, my answer to that question is determined by the fact that fixing the program and repairing the damage it did is the only option that makes the slightest bit of sense.
Yes, I agree. So when someone shoots someone, the only thing that makes a bit of sense is repairing their brain. Not punishing them.
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Originally Posted by mordant
When I was a Christian the question didn't matter. If god was benevolent, I would of course prefer that. But god was what he was to me. If he was an evil, vindictive bastard, then that is what I would have to deal with. Lots and lots of Christians think god is a thin-skinned maniac and revel in it (although they tend not to honestly think in those terms because it highlights the moral untenability and silliness of their beliefs).
In all honesty if you're an evangelical you really don't give a fig about that anyway if you're on the winning side because you're going to go to heaven and the losers are going to hell. If your god is lowly and meek of spirit and kindly and gentle and entreating, that's just frosting on the cake. It might impact what you think you're emulating but it doesn't impact what you fancy is the positive outcome.
That doesn't make sense. The goal is to save everyone because you believe they are going to hell. You can't save them if God already predetermined them to go to hell. Being an evangelical makes the least sense in the absence of free will.
Yes, I believe that would be correct. No one has personal responsibility. You are a victim of your brain, not a moral agent. You don't get to choose to be born with the brain of a serial killer, you just are. Then when you become a serial killer because of the defects in your brain, you get punished for it.
If we actually had any useful idea how to reliably "repair defects" in brains I would be more comfortable with this line of thinking. Unfortunately we aren't, and bad actors have to be kept from creeping into our bedrooms at night and bashing our heads in.
This is where religious faith muddies the waters by claiming to have a way to "repair defects" (the technical term is sanctification). You repent of your sins, submit to god and he makes a "new creation" out of you. The perfidy and mayhem that believers get up to in the name of god gives the lie to this, of course. They are no more reliably good moral actors than members of other faiths or of no faith.
When you say "no one has personal responsibility" I realize you're probably saying it in some technical philosophical sense, the same mind games we play when we talk about a lot of philosophical concepts. But in practice, just try not to own your personal responsibility to drive the speed limit, pay taxes, and not molest children, and see what happens. What happens of course is society holds us responsible for violating explicitly and implicitly agreed-upon social contracts. Therefore in practice we DO have personal responsibility.
Theists have huge, ginormous problems with societal morality not being "grounded" in some way they think necessary for it to be "valid". Absent an externally given morality enforced by their invisible strong man, morality supposedly means nothing. And yet ... think about (1) how often you've seen lightning bolts come down from a clear sky and vaporize some miscreant and (2) how often you've seen the police come and arrest some miscreant. Yup. Never seen (1), but have seen (2) a great deal. So ... we have a working system of morality, an actually existing and sufficiently potent moral enforcement mechanism, and hence we have personal responsibility.
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Originally Posted by Skyl3r
You're correct that it's not an argument that holds up in court. I could think of a few reasons for this.
So can I. As discussed above, those who violate societal morality must be "fixed" as you put it and unless and until they can be "fixed" they must be controlled in some fashion to prevent them from harming others. This can range from incarceration to some form of surveillance (e.g., parole, ankle bracelet, work release etc).
I also think one needs to separate the concept of sanctions (including incarceration) from the concept of condemnation. Sanctions should only be incidentally putative and should be mainly designed to keep bad actors out of circulation until they can be "fixed" as you put it. Norway has done an excellent job of teasing these concepts apart and treating their prisoners with dignity and respect and kindness. Read up on their penal system sometime, it's an eye-opener.
Alas and alack ... while there is a lot of room for improvement (more intelligent (de)criminalization of certain crimes, treatment of addiction as illness rather than crime, emphasis on education, rehabilitation and re-entry programs for offenders, etc) we really don't know how to "fix" broken brains. In my experience for most people, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, anti-anxiety drugs only help a few percentage points in the long run, and therapy is of debatable value for serious mental health issues at least.
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Originally Posted by Skyl3r
It is a theological concept, I agree. But if you believe we have free choice, then you are condoning this concept. You are accepting that if someone shoots you, they could have chose to not shoot you. This, to some degree, makes them evil, or malicious or bad or whatever word you wanna use. They are CHOOSING to inflict pain onto you.
No, it makes them harmful. Just because we have as a culture had trouble, thanks to religion, separating harms from guilt and mental illness or maladaptivity from theological constructs like evil and sin, doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater. People still do things that infringe on other's rights, and that still has to be managed, and people have to be accountable to society for breaking social contracts.
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Originally Posted by Skyl3r
... when someone shoots someone, the only thing that makes a bit of sense is repairing their brain. Not punishing them.
Unless and until we can do this "fixing", we are stuck with restraints of various kinds though. Often that is the only working tool we actually have.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skyl3r
That doesn't make sense. The goal is to save everyone because you believe they are going to hell. You can't save them if God already predetermined them to go to hell. Being an evangelical makes the least sense in the absence of free will.
A lot of the pseudo-discipline of theology doesn't make sense. The fact remains that believers routinely subscribe to dogma without fully thinking through its implications and ramifications or making any serious attempt to reconcile any conflicts. Theology, more than most ideologies, is adhered to for less than rational reasons.
The whole debate between Calvinism and Arminianism ends up being less the binary choice that these conflicting concepts demand than a continuum that people move around one trying to elude the cognitive dissonance produced by the Bible teaching both.
If we actually had any useful idea how to reliably "repair defects" in brains I would be more comfortable with this line of thinking. Unfortunately we aren't, and bad actors have to be kept from creeping into our bedrooms at night and bashing our heads in.
This is where religious faith muddies the waters by claiming to have a way to "repair defects" (the technical term is sanctification). You repent of your sins, submit to god and he makes a "new creation" out of you. The perfidy and mayhem that believers get up to in the name of god gives the lie to this, of course. They are no more reliably good moral actors than members of other faiths or of no faith.
In a number of cases we actually DO know how to repair these defects. The problem often comes down to people thinking it's unconscionable or that it violates their religion.
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Originally Posted by mordant
When you say "no one has personal responsibility" I realize you're probably saying it in some technical philosophical sense, the same mind games we play when we talk about a lot of philosophical concepts. But in practice, just try not to own your personal responsibility to drive the speed limit, pay taxes, and not molest children, and see what happens. What happens of course is society holds us responsible for violating explicitly and implicitly agreed-upon social contracts. Therefore in practice we DO have personal responsibility.
Yes, I do mean it in some technical philosophical sense. I don't think it's a mind game though. If you don't have free will then whether or not you follow those laws is a consequence of the structure of your brain and not because your a moral or immoral being.
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Originally Posted by mordant
I also think one needs to separate the concept of sanctions (including incarceration) from the concept of condemnation.
I think in large we're on the same page, just not agreeing on the usefulness/implications of this information.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
The fact remains that believers routinely subscribe to dogma without fully thinking through its implications and ramifications or making any serious attempt to reconcile any conflicts. Theology, more than most ideologies, is adhered to for less than rational reasons.
Ask any evangelical Christian if they believe they have free will and let me know what they say. Of course I agree that they don't always think through the implications of what they believe, but I went to an evangelical megachurch for a while and they definitely, absolutely believe that people have free will. They say things like "foreknowledge doesn't imply causality" (to which I normally reply, "Yes, it does")
Mordant,
I admire your ability to discuss things logically and reasonably - even if we see things differently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
You are conflating the two senses in which the word "faith" is used. Everyone has a level of trust or confidence which allows them to take various semantic and conceptual shortcuts and make assumptions without a full on deep-dive investigation. Which is entirely appropriate when the matter is of little consequence or you have some decent level of experience with the matter. The canonical example, which many believers use, is chairs. I trust a chair to hold me up despite never having sat in that particular chair before because I have a lot of experience with chairs, am pretty good at spotting rickety ones, and don't remember the last time, if any, that a chair failed to hold me up.
That is very different from religious faith (affording belief without a requirement of substantiation). Almost the exact opposite actually because trust / confidence is based on actual experience in most cases. Also trust / confidence relates to actual things and entities that you can access with your five senses and actually have experience of. Religious faith on the other hand is generally about non-falsifiable asserted hypotheses that aren't scientifically valid, and nearly always about things that are invisible and intangible.
So I don't believe there is such a thing as "healthy" religious faith. What you cite as healthy is simply reasonable confidence or trust in experienced reality and observation.
I wasn't referring to probable exercise of faith - like that of trusting a chair to hold you up. I was referring to every day cognitive distortions or logical fallacies that most of us believe.
Some hypothetical examples: You may believe that someone looking at you with a frown, means that they are a jerk, even if they just happened to have had a bad experience - so you ignore him when he tries to say hi. Or, a woman may come up to you, smile and give you a hug and you may think she wants to have sex, but really, she's just that way with everyone. It could be you're tired, been eating junk food & not exercising & feel really crappy - and assume that life sucks because you feel so sucky. Or it could be that you assume that because you do not go to any religious service, you must disagree with everything - because it's "all or nothing." I don't know if these are thoughts and emotions that you've had. What matters is that you do think and feel about things - and you do jump to conclusions at times - in those interpretations - like all of us do. It has nothing to do with religion or a deity. It's about your specific psych-ology - your belief system that you've accumulated since being born.
And this is not different from religious beliefs, really. In fact, religious beliefs also have many cognitive distortions - especially polarized thinking and emotional reasoning. Consider these points:
1) It is estimated that up to 80% of mental illness is rooted in misunderstandings of Judaic/Christian interpretations (ie shame, anxiety).
2) A study sought to find what, if any influence, religious involvement had on physical healing. Of 3 groups, those who were excessively involved and those not involved religious at all - did poorest. The group that did best were those who were moderately religiously involved.
Religion, especially when taken to the extreme can be harmful. But it's also been shown in studies to be healthy, ie, as a contributing factor in helping teenagers avoid drugs and drinking STDs, etc.. A similar research finding discovered that pastors (extremely religiously involved) suffered more depression than those in other careers. As Aristotle taught, moderation in good things. Take the best, leave the rest - take what makes sense and is helpful and leave what is potentially harmful - in philosophy, science, religion etc.
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I agree, as usual the truth lies somewhere in between. We both over and underestimate how deterministic our choices are in different contexts, but we are neither entirely without choice or possessed of consequence-less free will.
I'm glad we agree here.
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