Eyes Shining Angrily
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Stimpson J. Cat said:Win,
I agree totally (imagine that). Unfortunately Franko has made it absolutely clear that by "atoms obey the laws of physics", he literally means that the laws of physics are some "entity" or "thing" that is controlling everything else.
Of course, it is all irrelevant, since this failed attempt at a syllogism is intended to show that materialism is incompatible with Libertarian free-will, which none of the materialists here claim to believes in anyway.
Dr. Stupid
Only if all possible formulations of materialism incorporate reductionism and a closed physical world.
Tricky
Briefly immortal
Hi Sou et. al.
Getting in a little late on this, so apologies if I cover old ground.
A lot of points about syllogisms are covered in a discussion with Beleth in the "Can God make a rock..." thread. In it I defined my terms and asked if Beleth accepted the premises based on those definitions. In logic, if you accept the premisises and the syllogism is valid, then you accept the conclusion.
With Franko's "jingle" (good name for it, BTW) I can accept it (even though slightly faulty because of the fallacy of composition) IF the terms are defined to my satisfaction. This becomes quite a bit more verbose than the syllogism itself.
I have harped before on the point that by "The Laws of Physics" in the Major Premise, Franko actually means the perfect laws of physics, or what they would be if we knew everything. The "best description" laws of physics that we have are broken every time a new principle is accepted.
"Obey" has been discussed, so I won't belabor the point. On to the minor premise.
We are made of atoms, but we are made of atoms and other things. Some say a soul, some say a graviton, some say a consciouness. All of these things cannot be shown to obey the laws of physics. Some of them outright defy them. For me, this is not a problem since I think that both souls and consciousness are emergent properties of the very physical brain. Although I have pointed out that we are also composed of things which are not atoms, like interatomic bonds, ions etc, electrical impulses etc., this is also not a problem for me because I believe that these things also "obey" the perfect laws of physics.
On to the conclusion!. I can't see any way to get around the fallacy of composition, even if I substitute all of my definitions, but I still accept the conclusion. Let me (here we go again) offer yet another version.
P1: All real things are constrained by the perfect laws of physics.
P2: Humans are composed only of real things
C: All componant of humans are constrained by the perfect laws of physics.
Now it is obvious that things like "immortal souls" are unconstrained by the laws of physics. They require storage of information in ways that are hitheto undiscovered. Perhaps they are possible in the perfect laws of physics, but we have no reason to suppose so. It is still conceivable that we could assemble a bunch of physics-obeying componants in order to disobey the perfect laws of physics, but if they did, under premise 1, the resultant thing would no longer be real. In fact, if you accept premise one, Franko's "jingle" is unnecessary, provided you accept humans as real. (See the
God's rock thread for my definition of "real")
Getting in a little late on this, so apologies if I cover old ground.
A lot of points about syllogisms are covered in a discussion with Beleth in the "Can God make a rock..." thread. In it I defined my terms and asked if Beleth accepted the premises based on those definitions. In logic, if you accept the premisises and the syllogism is valid, then you accept the conclusion.
With Franko's "jingle" (good name for it, BTW) I can accept it (even though slightly faulty because of the fallacy of composition) IF the terms are defined to my satisfaction. This becomes quite a bit more verbose than the syllogism itself.
I have harped before on the point that by "The Laws of Physics" in the Major Premise, Franko actually means the perfect laws of physics, or what they would be if we knew everything. The "best description" laws of physics that we have are broken every time a new principle is accepted.
"Obey" has been discussed, so I won't belabor the point. On to the minor premise.
We are made of atoms, but we are made of atoms and other things. Some say a soul, some say a graviton, some say a consciouness. All of these things cannot be shown to obey the laws of physics. Some of them outright defy them. For me, this is not a problem since I think that both souls and consciousness are emergent properties of the very physical brain. Although I have pointed out that we are also composed of things which are not atoms, like interatomic bonds, ions etc, electrical impulses etc., this is also not a problem for me because I believe that these things also "obey" the perfect laws of physics.
On to the conclusion!. I can't see any way to get around the fallacy of composition, even if I substitute all of my definitions, but I still accept the conclusion. Let me (here we go again) offer yet another version.
P1: All real things are constrained by the perfect laws of physics.
P2: Humans are composed only of real things
C: All componant of humans are constrained by the perfect laws of physics.
Now it is obvious that things like "immortal souls" are unconstrained by the laws of physics. They require storage of information in ways that are hitheto undiscovered. Perhaps they are possible in the perfect laws of physics, but we have no reason to suppose so. It is still conceivable that we could assemble a bunch of physics-obeying componants in order to disobey the perfect laws of physics, but if they did, under premise 1, the resultant thing would no longer be real. In fact, if you accept premise one, Franko's "jingle" is unnecessary, provided you accept humans as real. (See the
God's rock thread for my definition of "real")
Eyes Shining Angrily
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Win said:
Only if you can demonstrate that it is inconceivable that our actions can be anything other than determined, or a consequence of innate randomness, or some mixture of those two.
Eyes Shining Angrily
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gentlehorse said:
If it is impossible you should be able to demonstrate this.
Tricky
Briefly immortal
Please, Win. Sou likes her threads free of personal attacks. However, I will attempt to refrain from sesquipedalian rants.Win said:
I see I have covered old ground. My "perfect laws of physics" is equivalent to Win's "ultimate laws of physics". I would argue that both of these concepts are not "real". Using the definition in Dictionary.com:
By this definition, the ultimate or perfect laws of physics are ideal. They are unattainable, and therefore not real.
Eyes Shining Angrily
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Win said:
Possibly the train of mental events leading to me choosing A rather than B is neither determined by physical laws nor is a consequence of incorrigible "mental laws". Rather the sequence of events may be influenced by the Will. By the Will I mean an intrinsic facet of the self which has the capacity to choose. Such an action inniated by the Will would neither be entailed by physical laws, "mental laws" nor be random.
Obviously very difficult to define. But I would say that anyone who maintains that we can only act as a consequence of physical laws, mental laws, or randomness has the onus of demonstrating why this is so.
edited to add: btw it is perfectly possible for the Will to make an arbitrary decision and yet not at all be random.
Tricky
Briefly immortal
Not a world of difference, but some. A working definition of "unknowable" would be "knowledge that is unattainable".Soubrette said:
But you got me. Unknowable would have been a better word in my previous post.
Eyes Shining Angrily
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Win said:
god maybe?
Eyes Shining Angrily
Unregistered
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Win said:
By introducing the concept of identity you make things confusing. Much rather talk about physical laws, mental laws, and randomness
But anyway, if you mean I will act in a given way according to everything I am at any particular specific moment in time, and within a particular environment, then this cannot be denied unless you introduce the idea of acting randomly. Maybe more on this later. I know you don't like reading long posts
(Off topic to annoy Sou )
Great new avatar Sou - very stylish and p....
)Great new avatar Sou - very stylish and p....
Soubrette said:
Yes. That's why I'm not a materialist, I'm a pragmatist -- I try to keep assumptions to an absolute minimum. Materialism and idealism are both unsupportable positions -- and meaningless, to boot.
What if there aren't any ultimate laws of physics? Seriously, why are people so sure there are? That's a leap of faith no different from any variety of theism.
Sure, mathematics can describe reality to a certain degree...but can it describe reality completely? Do we have a guarantee that the laws of physics are static and immutable? They seem to be, but a window of a few hundred years in one tiny corner of the universe isn't even a valid statistical sample, let alone a universal decree.
A century ago, it was assumed that the universe was a great clockwork machine, and many people still intuitively feel that it must be. But quantum mechanics threw determinists for a loop then, and I don't see why people are so quick to make the same mistake again today.
But think about what that means: the players in the game always act within the rules (or are punished in a deterministic way for breaking the rules
), but that still doesn't mean that the rules of basketball determine the way a game of basketball will be played -- the rules don't specify how players will act and react. Even under your "hard basketballism," the rules are descriptive rather than prescriptive. 
Jeremy
Stimpson J. Cat
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Sou,
It doesn't succeed or fail. It is simply not a valid syllogism. Even if we accept the two premises as valid, the conclusion does not logically follow from those premises.
That said, based on the way Franko uses the term "obey", his premises are false, and so is the conclusion. If we take "x obeys the laws of physics" to simply mean that x's behavior can be described in terms of some set of natural laws, then (at least according to materialism) his premises are true, and so are the conclusions. But either way, the conclusion does not follow from the premises. It is simply a flawed argument.
Win,
He believes that the laws of physics are God. That they are a conscious, intelligent, immortal entity. Unfortunately, he also insists on projecting this irrational belief onto materialists, insisting that if we believe in natural laws at all, that we must logically accept that those laws are a conscious being that controls everything. Hence all of his ridiculous "is your car more conscious than you?", and Dungeons and Dragons analogies.
Ironically enough, Franko agrees with that fact. But he will not acknowledge that the materialists here who have said they believe in free-will, aren't talking about that conception of free-will. Instead, he insists that the incoherent Libertarian definition of free-will is the only thing that can reasonably be called free-will, and thereby claims that we believe in it, no matter how many times various materialists tell him that we do not.
What is really bizarre, though, is that he has somehow decided that the belief in Libertarian free-will is an atheistic concept, and that all atheists believe in it, and that no theists do. Especially ironic, since the only people I have seen even attempt to defend Libertarian free-will on this board are theists. Go figure.
Eyes Shining Angrily,
Perhaps I should clarify. When I say "materialism", I am referring to modern scientific materialism, which is both reductionist, and assumes a closed physical world. I cannot speak for any other forms of materialism, because I do not know of any other forms of materialism that are not incoherent.
That is a tautology. The definition of "random" is "non-deterministic". If you mean something else by the word "random", you need to define what you mean by it.
So all you have done is add another set of laws. The "will laws". This is nothing more than word games. All of these laws fall into the category of "natural laws". Dividing them up into little arbitrary groups just confuses the issue.
Libertarian free-will is incoherent because it asserts that the will is not constrained by any natural laws. It literally asserts that the will is neither deterministic nor random. It must be one or the other.
No, it isn't. If it is not random, then it is determined by something, which means it is not random.
Dr. Stupid
It doesn't succeed or fail. It is simply not a valid syllogism. Even if we accept the two premises as valid, the conclusion does not logically follow from those premises.
That said, based on the way Franko uses the term "obey", his premises are false, and so is the conclusion. If we take "x obeys the laws of physics" to simply mean that x's behavior can be described in terms of some set of natural laws, then (at least according to materialism) his premises are true, and so are the conclusions. But either way, the conclusion does not follow from the premises. It is simply a flawed argument.
Win,
He believes that the laws of physics are God. That they are a conscious, intelligent, immortal entity. Unfortunately, he also insists on projecting this irrational belief onto materialists, insisting that if we believe in natural laws at all, that we must logically accept that those laws are a conscious being that controls everything. Hence all of his ridiculous "is your car more conscious than you?", and Dungeons and Dragons analogies.
Ironically enough, Franko agrees with that fact. But he will not acknowledge that the materialists here who have said they believe in free-will, aren't talking about that conception of free-will. Instead, he insists that the incoherent Libertarian definition of free-will is the only thing that can reasonably be called free-will, and thereby claims that we believe in it, no matter how many times various materialists tell him that we do not.
What is really bizarre, though, is that he has somehow decided that the belief in Libertarian free-will is an atheistic concept, and that all atheists believe in it, and that no theists do. Especially ironic, since the only people I have seen even attempt to defend Libertarian free-will on this board are theists. Go figure.
Eyes Shining Angrily,
Perhaps I should clarify. When I say "materialism", I am referring to modern scientific materialism, which is both reductionist, and assumes a closed physical world. I cannot speak for any other forms of materialism, because I do not know of any other forms of materialism that are not incoherent.
That is a tautology. The definition of "random" is "non-deterministic". If you mean something else by the word "random", you need to define what you mean by it.
So all you have done is add another set of laws. The "will laws". This is nothing more than word games. All of these laws fall into the category of "natural laws". Dividing them up into little arbitrary groups just confuses the issue.
Libertarian free-will is incoherent because it asserts that the will is not constrained by any natural laws. It literally asserts that the will is neither deterministic nor random. It must be one or the other.
No, it isn't. If it is not random, then it is determined by something, which means it is not random.
Dr. Stupid
neutrino_cannon
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Atoms obey the laws of physics
I thought the laws of physics were in part defined by the actions that have been observed in the particles that the laws pertian to. Isn't his statement then pointless?
People are made out of atoms
I happen to be made out of tau-leptons! I have never once seen them form atoms.
People obey the laws of physics
If we consider that people are made of the same atoms that define the laws of physics, I don't see why this statement has nay meaning. It's like saying that nothing can be outside the universe if the universe is everything
I thought the laws of physics were in part defined by the actions that have been observed in the particles that the laws pertian to. Isn't his statement then pointless?
People are made out of atoms
I happen to be made out of tau-leptons! I have never once seen them form atoms.
People obey the laws of physics
If we consider that people are made of the same atoms that define the laws of physics, I don't see why this statement has nay meaning. It's like saying that nothing can be outside the universe if the universe is everything