Materialists......

[Tricky]

Do you consider you learned anything at all from your interactions with Franko? Or was it all just nonsense?

Of course I did. I learn something from everyone I talk to. Sometimes I learn to recognize and counter BS. I thank Franko for teaching me this. It has served me well.

Did Franko have any wisdom to impart? Yeah, a little. He had some interesting questions for starting a discussion. I think he was probably taking the piss out of us, but I don't begrudge him that. He was good at it.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Did Franko have any wisdom to impart?

Yes.

On a wisdom scale 1 to 10, IMO, Lifegazer is a 3, Franko was a 9.

 

[Tricky]

Yes.

On a wisdom scale 1 to 10, IMO, Lifegazer is a 3, Franko was a 9.

I agree that Franko was a LOT smarter than Lifegazer, but wiser? That would depend on whether or not Franko was a real person or just a persona he was playing. If it was the former and he was really just playing a very complex game of Devil's Advocate, then I'd agree with you. If he really meant the crapola he was saying, then he was about as wise as potato salad.

 

[Belz...]

I wouldn't advise going in that direction, no. My definition of morality is at least on the philosophical map. Belz-morality is in Kevinland.

Philosophy, Shmilosophy. I'm talking about evidence.

Yes, but this doesn't mean they are the same.

Oh, by no means. But you need bricks to make a brick wall.

It's not enough. Humans are capable of stringing together infinite strings of these symbols. Birds and monkeys have one noise for "snake". It's not enough for rational thought and not enough for morality.

I'm not sure where you're going with the snake thing. I also have one noise for snake: "snake".

I cannot believe I am having this debate. You people actually think animals are moral beings.

See, I've always been squarely in the "humans are top dog in the known universe" camp, and probably still am, but I guess that's the elitist in me. Still, I can't just ignore the fact that humans are also part of a natural progression, or evolution, that requires gradual change. Unless you claim that any and all species that led to our level of thought are extinct, you have to admit that SOME species HAVE to have SOME level of thought and of its accompanying properties.

Morality requires enough rational thought to understand

a) There are other conscious beings in the world

Strike one: I don't see how the fact that they're conscious or not changes anything. Even when I kill flies I take care not to make them suffer needlessly, though I'm pretty sure they're not conscious.

b) I can understand the complex difference between right and wrong with respect to those individuals

Strike two: Again, morality is a feel-good thing. I don't hurt other people because I'm reminded of how much _I_ suffer when they hurt me. It may be directed towards others, but it is motivated by personnal feelings or logic, and nothing else.

c) I can take a decision to act in the interests of others, and not just myself, out of a sense of moral duty.

See above: strike three.

Animals cannot really understand what it means for another being to be conscious and they certainly cannot understand a concept as complex as "moral duty". That said, neither can you or tricky, apparently.

I don't see why we're back to using insults, which led to my beign on your ignore list initially.

Again, I don't think we need to involve consciousness to understand the most basic forms of empathy and morality.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I agree that Franko was a LOT smarter than Lifegazer, but wiser?

Yes, far wiser. And I don't agree on the smart thing. Lifegazer isn't stupid, he's just got a personality disorder. Franko wasn't stupid either, and he was much wiser than many people I know who are smarter than franko.

That would depend on whether or not Franko was a real person or just a persona he was playing.

Franko was very much a real person. More grounded in reality than almost all of the people he conversed with on this board. He fully understood and accepted the reality he lived in. He accepted 100% determinism. He did not fool himself into believing he had free will. Free will was for Goddesses, not humans.

Franko made one major theoretical mistake, IMO, and it concerned his own mortality.

 

[Belz...]

All the dog knows is that bad things happen to it if it pees on the carpet.

Yes, because it's wrong.

None of this has anything to do with free will or morality. It has everything to do with survival of the individual.

Indeed. And I suggest you start thinking about how that may affect YOUR morality.

In straightforward terms the meta-ethical maxim of deciding what is right and wrong might as well be Kant's categorical imperative. I cannot think of a better way of deciding such questions.

[...]

Kant wrote it down, but what he wrote down was pretty close to what I believed anyway.

Perhaps it's time we move beyond Kant. He's a little out of date, isn't he ?

Human infants learn whatever symbolic thought-system is endemic in their native land. We call it their native language. No non-human infants are capable of doing the same thing, and it's not because humans do not try to teach them. On the contrary, every person who owns a cat talks to it. No cats speak.

On the contrary. They just don't do it with words. And dogs can understand quite a large array of words. You shouldn't use the word "cookie" too often around one, for example.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Oh, by no means. But you need bricks to make a brick wall.

And you need transistors to make a computer.

I'm not sure where you're going with the snake thing. I also have one noise for snake: "snake".

Serpent at the gates of wisdom (Robyn Hitchcock)

Serpent at the gates of wisdom
Curling round a tree
With your eyes so dark and empty
Looking straight through me

How did you get so unwinding?
Do you know my sins?
When you're so close to the answer
Why don't you go in?

Serpent at the gates of wisdom
Who did you deceive?
She was weak, but that's no reason
For what you did to Eve

You're a fool-you broke the stillness
She gave birth to desire
Rolling down the frozen highway
Like a burning tyre

Serpent at the gates of wisdom
Where do you belong?
Wisdom cannot be transmitted
It keeps you hanging on

Do you really serve the Devil
If it's all God's plan?
Good and evil need each other
Honey I'm your man

Serpent at the gates of wisdom
Like a purple scar
Leering at me round the dashboard
As I reach my car
I close the door, I start the engine
And I will take control
God above, and all his angels, have mercy on your soul

See, I've always been squarely in the "humans are top dog in the known universe" camp, and probably still am, but I guess that's the elitist in me. Still, I can't just ignore the fact that humans are also part of a natural progression, or evolution, that requires gradual change.
Unless you claim that any and all species that led to our level of thought are extinct, you have to admit that SOME species HAVE to have SOME level of thought and of its accompanying properties.

No species has ever existed on this planet that has our level of thought.
The first species to achieve it was doomed to destroy itself.

Strike one: I don't see how the fact that they're conscious or not changes anything. Even when I kill flies I take care not to make them suffer needlessly, though I'm pretty sure they're not conscious.

Anti-strike-one: Let's not take the risk.

Strike two: Again, morality is a feel-good thing. I don't hurt other people because I'm reminded of how much _I_ suffer when they hurt me. It may be directed towards others, but it is motivated by , and nothing else.

Anti-strike-two: "personal feelings or logic": Which? Or both?

See above: strike three.

...is a magic number....

Again, I don't think we need to involve consciousness to understand the most basic forms of empathy and morality.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Perhaps it's time we move beyond Kant. He's a little out of date, isn't he ?

In the context of the history of philosophy, Kant is out of date.

In the context of the R&P board at the JREF, Kant is the future.

 

[Belz...]

And you need transistors to make a computer.

Good luck building a computer with nothing but transistors...

Serpent at the gates of wisdom (Robyn Hitchcock)

O...kay... point ?

No species has ever existed on this planet that has our level of thought.
The first species to achieve it was doomed to destroy itself.

I'll just assume you're talking about humans and pose my next question: "doomed" ?

Anti-strike-one: Let's not take the risk.

The risk of what ?

Anti-strike-two: "personal feelings or logic": Which? Or both?

Both. And please don't edit my quotes. It makes following the conversation that much more difficult.

I'm sorry you feel that way. We're just at different wavelengths right now, and I think, barring some breakthrough in arguing for what we mean by "consciousness" or whatnot, we're at a dead-end as far as that part of the argument goes.

 

[Belz...]

In the context of the R&P board at the JREF, Kant is the future.

Damn, I hate it when people think their philosophy is superior to all others.

And while we're on the subject of out-of-date philosophers, I do believe Socrates hated that as well.

 

[Robin]

No, the question is whether there is a "you" which is capable of choosing what "you" do.

What do you mean by "you"? Your brain or your "I"/soul?

No, that is not the question at all, unless my brain could cause me to do one thing and my soul simultaneously cause me to do the opposite. There was clearly only one thing I did.

Or unless my brain could believe one thing and my soul could believe the opposite. When I say "I believe" I am clearly referring to the "me" that believes. When I say "I do" I am clearly referring to some empirically verifiable action.

So the question still stands:

"Say I believe x is the right thing to do, but y is the thing that benefits me the most. Say that I believe that I ought to always do the right thing.

I might do x or y. But the question is, would there be a reason why I did one and not the other? "

If yes, then the will is deterministic.

If no, then the will is arbitrary.

If the belief is different then the moral framework is different.

It is still the same as what I said. If the moral framework is different then the action will be different.

What causes a wave? The wind, the water, the shape of the shore or the laws of physics?

In fact all together are the causes.

So the moral framework is a partial cause, as is the will.

The voluntary act is an act of will, the rational mind determines whether or not it was moral.

Rational minds do more than just determine morality. If an act is not what I have chosen to do using a rational process then it can hardly be called voluntary - can it?

Say I intend to drink my coffee and instead tip it over my head - would that be an act of free will? Not unless my hair just caught fire.

The empirical/deterministic one.

So just a hypothetical world then?

Depends what you mean by deterministic. I never lose. I am the duracell bunny.

Well then you have a problem because I am not Eveready Heavy Duty. I am the Energiser battery - I always win.

I mean by deterministic that there is potentially some mathematical expression (or process) that could always predict the result of the process, given sufficient variables with sufficient accuracy. Note that the mathematics might be beyond anything a human was capable of defining.

You see? When I use a word I know what it means.

I cannot establish a consistent meaning of it because the physicalists themselves use it in more than one way.

So you can use a word as part of your argument, but you don't have to define it because there is somebody somewhere in the world that uses it in more than one way. Right?

You don't need to establish a consistent meaning of it, you only need to tell me what meaning it has when you use it.

I have my own understanding of what "physical" means - it is the world of the objects of perception.

And is this the sense in which you are using it in your replies to me? Is this the sense in which you are using it in the OP?

OK, "materialism" refers to the objects of perception. "physical" means whatever the physicalist means by "physical".

I have given you chapter on verse. You are always setting us homework - I have set you some. You are not telling me that your University does not have Ayer's "Philosophy in the Twentieth Century" in it's library?

But as I always point out it would make no sense for a materialist to pre-define what "physical" means. A materialist would presumably regard science as the best method of describing reality and science is constantly redefining what physical means - that is essentially what science does.

Rather it is you - who are suggesting that there is some sort of definable border for what science can and can't do, who should provide a definition of physical.


Again, you are suggesting that the mind/body problem is in a whole different category to problems like, for example, gravity. You cast this in terms of experience being something other than physical. So it is in your court to define what you mean by physical.

If physical has no meaning then there is no mind/body problem.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Good luck building a computer with nothing but transistors...

Good luck building a wall with nothing but bricks.....

O...kay... point ?

There hasn't been one for some time now.

I'll just assume you're talking about humans and pose my next question: "doomed" ?

Doomed, yes.

http://www.well.com/~jct/ntbook3.htm

U.G. and J.K. have similar messages, only U.G.'s is more radical, more controversial, more hopeless. Categorizing U.G. is not easy. He has been called a guru, as well as the "un-guru". Some see him as a philosopher, while "anti-philosopher" may be more to the point. Words such as cynic, nihilist, and iconoclast could also be used to describe this disarming, charming, alarming little man. U.G. Krishnamurti is the Don Rickles of religion. He makes Madalyn Murray O'Hare, the infamous atheist, look pious. What we call religion, U.G. said, began somewhere along the evolutionary process when humans -- unlike the rest of the animals -- began feeling self-conscious and separate from nature. Humanity, he says, long ago started down the path of total annihilation and absolutely nothing can be done to save it. Have a nice day.

The risk of what ?

Them being concious.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Damn, I hate it when people think their philosophy is superior to all others.

And while we're on the subject of out-of-date philosophers, I do believe Socrates hated that as well.

Kant isn't superior to all others. He is just superior to large numbers of people at the JREF who don't know anything about philosophy and would benefit from reading about Kant.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

If physical has no meaning then there is no mind/body problem.

Neither is there any such thing as physicalism.

I'm going back to bed (lazy student.....). I will answer the rest of your post when my hangover has worn off.

 

[articulett]

Because rationality of this sort requires abstract/symbolic thought. Human capacity to do this only comes because of the human capability to use languages. There was a debate for many years about whether human language ability was learned or inate. That debate has now been resolved because of the large number of completely failed attempts to teach animals languages. They are not capable of learning to think in this manner.

That's not true. We have no examples of animals using complex languages. All we have are animals that make noises we aren't capable of understanding. Whales have long, complicated songs. Every morning I am woken up by a thrush which will quite happily sing it's little heart out for 30 minutes non-stop without obviously repeating itself. But is it talking? No.



Because morality requires knowledge of good/evil/right/wrong and you need language before you can formulate the sorts of questions which lead to this sort of knowledge. Without language, you lack the cognitive tools to find yourself faced with a moral choice.



Correct. A deaf-mute who has no sign language is not capable of rational thought as I am describing it. Neither does a child raised by wolves. I don't see how either of them could be capable of understanding morality.

Wow, your ignorance is really astounding. Human's do have a capacity for language--including deaf kids--if you want them to speak or read any language well, you better teach them sign language in toddlerhood or get them a cochlear implant--the more languages one learns earlier--the better the brain is at learning languages and nuances. But you don't need to have language to feel. Other female mammals seem as attached to their infants as humans and will protect them--no language is needed. Language is sort of like the story you tell yourself--or explain your world. It is subjective, but it allows others to peek into your thoughts--but animals make choices and have thoughts too--they may not think "gee that female bear is a hottie,", but the have the same reaction as a guy whose thinking "I'd like to bang her". There are many disorders that affect the language areas of the brain--and the language you are raised with will always shade your thinking--words like "good" and "evil" and all the associations your culture gives you about those words--they are still just words--it is the listener--whether it's yourself or another who imbues those words with meaning. You won't be offended by swearing in a foreign language.

Morality does evolve when and where it aids survival of one group of people over another or group of primates...the bonobos have a far less violent society than all other primates (the male human is by far the most violent)--they just have wild and rampant sex. It turns out that orgasms are a key in happiness in primates--or at least it lessens aggression. Sure, it's not your mom's morality--but it works for them. They are not a warmongering species--and they are our nearest kin. In fact, it is humans, particularly human men, who commit more cruetly and suffering upon others of their species than any other animal--despite their supposed morality and all the spirtitual leaders, prophets, gods, gurus guides and "wise men". Language turns out to be a great tool for feeling morally superior to others--

Oh, and animals have been taught some degree of human language--but they also have their own ways of communicating--bees can tell another bee exactly where a flower is...and elelphants communicate in rumbles too low for us to hear. Your moral superiority like your "soul" is only in your mind.

 

[articulett]

I can't affirm that my dog is more moral than justgeoff...but she is less arrogant. As far as I know, she's never hurt anyone (though I think she ate my MP3 player)--she aims to please and thinks I'm god, and would love to lead the blind or chase away criminals or anything just to prove what a good dog she is. She never spreads ignorance (though, on occasion she spreads debris from the garbage can)--I think I'll get today's lesson in morality from her rather than justgeoff or hammegk. I think I can relate to her and understand her better--and she gives a pretty good impression of someone who really understands. Perhaps justgeoff can learn from her or (GASP!) others if he quit trying to preach his woo on a skeptic forum.

To me, he seems to comprehend just enough to try and build an argument around utilizing blustery words, false analogies, sound bites, pieces of knowledge and oblique insults.

But rest assured, my fellow skeptics, I am on your side in this battle over ignorance and arrogance even if I'm not speaking up--and I'm learning new things even if justgeoff is not--your words are not for naught. Besides, facts don't change no matter how blustery someone is in denying them.

 

[articulett]

As I have pointed out three times.

Did you mean that some of them lead to speciation? If so, that is not the same thing. Tricky claimed there was something called "species preservation instinct". This is a total fantasy. It is not supported by group selection theory (which is itself very borderline and controversial). Neither is it supported by group selection leading to speciation. How can behaviour leading to speciation be claimed as "species preservation instinct"? It appears to be the opposite.

Your misunderstanding of evolution is bizarre. It is not borderline--but genes that promote the survival of said genes get passed on--who shares more of your genes than your closest kin--and then to your species...Empathy branches out from love of ones kin--"blood is thicker than water" is a human meme that codifies the feeling we have for protecting our own--but we are not the only animal that does so...If it is evolutionarily successful to protect or care for one's own (then the genes shared amongst oneself and "one's" own will evolve--because that is what works best...it is not borderline or controversial--you just don't seem to grasp it...it has been affirmed in many species...) You are so so wrong because you have a desparate need to believe something that just isn't true. And it's not horrible or nihilistic to understand the truth--it's fascinating--find out about it, instead of fighting so hard against it.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

No, that is not the question at all, unless my brain could cause me to do one thing and my soul simultaneously cause me to do the opposite.

But this is exactly what is necessary - or at least there must be some sort of struggle going on where your will/soul is try to cause yiu to do one thing and your brain is trying to cause you to do the other.

There was clearly only one thing I did.

Yes, only one of them can win the struggle. It's usually the brain.

Or unless my brain could believe one thing and my soul could believe the opposite.

Only brains can believe things.

When I say "I believe" I am clearly referring to the "me" that believes. When I say "I do" I am clearly referring to some empirically verifiable action.

Most of the time when you say "I" you are referrring to both your ego (brain) and your "soul".

So the question still stands:

"Say I believe x is the right thing to do, but y is the thing that benefits me the most. Say that I believe that I ought to always do the right thing.

I might do x or y. But the question is, would there be a reason why I did one and not the other? "

If yes, then the will is deterministic.

If no, then the will is arbitrary.

I've already explained that will has both a deterministic (result) and non-deterministic (source) component.

It is still the same as what I said. If the moral framework is different then the action will be different.

What causes a wave? The wind, the water, the shape of the shore or the laws of physics?

In fact all together are the causes.

Yes, in a counterfactual sense.

So the moral framework is a partial cause, as is the will.

I already accepted this. I have been arguing for several pages that without a moral framework there can be no meangingful free will.

Rational minds do more than just determine morality. If an act is not what I have chosen to do using a rational process then it can hardly be called voluntary - can it?

The reverse is true. If the act was purely the result of a rational, deductive, deterministic process then it can hardly be called voluntary. What you have described is compatibilist free will.

And is this the sense in which you are using it in your replies to me? Is this the sense in which you are using it in the OP?

No.

I have already explained this over and over. Materialists use the word "material" to refer to two things : (1) the objects of perception and (2) the perception-independent world. There is only one way this can be valid, and that is if direct realism is true. However, not one of the people who conflates these two usages on this board knows how to coherently defend direct realism, they just assume it is true without thinking about it.

I have given you chapter on verse. You are always setting us homework - I have set you some. You are not telling me that your University does not have Ayer's "Philosophy in the Twentieth Century" in it's library?

It may have, but I'm not going to be anywhere near that library till October.....

But as I always point out it would make no sense for a materialist to pre-define what "physical" means. A materialist would presumably regard science as the best method of describing reality and science is constantly redefining what physical means - that is essentially what science does.

Maybe, then, we should shift the discussion to a discussion about direct realism instead. It's easier and clearer to define.

Rather it is you - who are suggesting that there is some sort of definable border for what science can and can't do, who should provide a definition of physical.

I absolutely do not defend the claim that science has absolute borders. That's why I started a thread which defended the opposite position. Science is just a set of ideals/principles aimed at maximising objectivity.

Again, you are suggesting that the mind/body problem is in a whole different category to problems like, for example, gravity.

Very much so. The MBP concerns the relationship between subjective and objective. Science can't solve it because science cannot stand outside the subjective/objective divide and analyse it - precisely because science only works by attempting to eliminate subjectivity.

You cast this in terms of experience being something other than physical. So it is in your court to define what you mean by physical.

I cannot do this. I cannot fix the physicalist's double definition. All I can do is point out that they are using the word to refer to two different things, or that they are assuming direct realism is true without knowing how hard it is to defend that position. If I actually try to define "physical" as one of these things and not the other then the physicalist will object to my definition. If I define "Physical" as the objects of perception, the physicalist will claim my definition doesn't refer to the perception-external "real world". If I define "Physical" as the perception-external world then we will have to introduce a new term, such as "qualia" to refer to the objects of perception.

So here is the problem. Physicalists want to use "physical" to refer to both things, but this is only valid if they can defend direct realism, and this they cannot do. Instead, when faced with the strength of the arguments against direct realism (especially the argument from hallucination) they will try to defend indirect realism instead. What then for their overloaded term "physical"?

ARTICULETT: You are on my ignore list. I do not read your posts. Do not expect any responses.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

OK, I give up. What is the mathematical symbol for equality?

Oh, it's an equal sign (=). You just shouldn't be using one in your "equation."

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So here is the problem. Physicalists want to use "physical" to refer to both things, but this is only valid if they can defend direct realism, and this they cannot do. Instead, when faced with the strength of the arguments against direct realism (especially the argument from hallucination) they will try to defend indirect realism instead. What then for their overloaded term "physical"?

Geoff, you have a tendency to bring up complex ideas that we have discussed before as if the discussion never occurred. Do you care to define direct and indirect realism? In your definitions, please deal with this issue mentioned at Wikipedia:

Direct realists sometimes claim that indirect realists are confused about conventional idioms of perceptions. Perception is an exemplar of direct contact with something. Examples of indirect perception might be seeing something in a photograph, or hearing a recording of a voice. Direct realists often argue, contra representationalists, that the fact that one becomes aware of a tree in perception through a complex neurophysical process does not argue in favour of indirect perception. It merely establishes the method, undoubtedly complex, by which direct awareness of the world is secured. Arguing that perceiving a tree directly requires a magical, acausal mirroring of the tree in the mind is akin to arguing that traveling directly to grandmother's requires that one magically appear at her doorstep. The inference from the fact of a complex route to indirectness may be an instance of the genetic fallacy.

Also, please specify the nature of the internal representations that indirect dualism posits.

~~ Paul