1. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175562 by phiwilli on May 5, 2008 at 3:43 pm

Over and over the article, and apparently those it cites, refer to what "most people do," or what "most people think." What is the relevance of majority opinion, even huge majority opinion, to what is right? Or to anything else? Maybe most people (in the US, and maybe lots of other places outside western Europe, think evolution is false. So what? If surveys like those had been done in medieval times, or in tribal societies today, etc., I suspect the results would be rather different. So what? What if the investigators asked about witchcraft, or whether the sun orbits the earth, or . . .

And how do they explain the minority who don't think like "most people"?

2. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165922 by phiwilli on April 22, 2008 at 3:29 pm

This article paints atheists - correctly I suspect - as analogous in one interesting way to Christianity especially (and maybe other religions): they can't agree on much! So, as there are over 2000 Protestant denominations - because they can't agree on details - so there are many varieties of atheism (although perhaps a good bit less than 2000). And there are also great differences among Catholics although they are better than Protestants at disguising their differences.

3. 'Expelled' ripped off Harvard's 'Inner Life of the Cell' animation

Comment #159039 by phiwilli on April 11, 2008 at 11:14 am

Those expelled guys are examples of what I like to call the Torquemada syndrome, doing evil that good may come (strongly opposed by St. Paul, Rom. 3:7-8), an obnoxious version of: the end (if it's good enough, such convincing the gullible of ID, or better, of creationism, or better, of the literal infallibility of the Bible) justifies the use of any means, no matter how dishonest or despicable.

4. Faith healing church parents charged over toddler's death

Comment #153600 by phiwilli on April 1, 2008 at 4:26 pm

Some of you may find Lynne Rudder Baker's "Persons and Bodies" of interest. Her view, well-defended, is , basically, that self-consciousness (awareness that I am a self) is essential for personhood, and that that awareness is not present until a good bit after birth. So she says (as I recall), "I was never a fetus." There was (she would say) a fetus that became me - but not a fetus that was me.

Worth some reflection (which only selves can do),

Phiwilli

5. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143828 by phiwilli on March 14, 2008 at 1:29 pm

al-Rawandi

I brought it up because I agree it's profound, and I have a high regard for Aristotle, and didn't know how else to ask you about it! If it's yours rather than Ari's that fine with me.

phiwilli@ipro.net

6. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143688 by phiwilli on March 14, 2008 at 9:56 am

Al-rawandi said, in other comments:

"Aristotle: truth fears no debate"

Is that a quote (if so, from where), or an implication of other comments by Aristotle?

7. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115511 by phiwilli on January 24, 2008 at 9:18 am

Many participants on the RD lists complain - rightly - about the merely ad hominem criticisms made against Darwin, Dawkins, et al.

But then they often respond with ad hominem criticisms of the ad hominem criticisers.

:-(

8. Mother Nature is Not Our Friend

Comment #106287 by phiwilli on January 2, 2008 at 3:52 pm

Harris has given a 21st century update of this - with which you Brits should be familiar:

The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear.

'So careful of the type?' but no!
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, 'A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.

'Thou makest thine appeal to me:
I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more.' And he, shall he,

Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law–
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed–

Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal'd within the iron hills?

No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match'd with him.

Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, 1850

9. Don't write off religion - it can be the key to a stable family

Comment #82994 by phiwilli on October 28, 2007 at 1:22 pm

Most of the above criticisms of Karpf are on target, but she indirectly raises an issue worth further consideration in saying:
"The total distinction often made between religion and other belief systems also strikes me as deeply disingenuous. All parents believe in something or other (often just as passionately as religious ones do), whether it's human rights or whether they worship in the temple of rising house prices, and most want to transmit their values to their kids."

If indoctrinating kids with religious views is bad, then why isn't indoctrinating them with respect for human rights, or with openness toward a fair consideration of an opposing viewpoint, or with respect for testing claims on the basis of empirical evidence equally bad?

10. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63732 by phiwilli on August 15, 2007 at 3:07 pm

I'd be interested in the assessment of Darwin2 & others to this oldish "parable":

Wisdom, John. "Gods," from Philosophy and Psycho-analysis, 1953. Also in Hick, John (ed.) Classical and Contemporary Readings in Philosophy of Religion. Here's a summary (not a quote) of Wisdom's acclaimed invisible gardener story (or parable), and of some things he says about it:

Two people return to a long neglected garden and find among the weeds a few surprisingly vigorous old plants. The first says, "A gardener must have been coming and doing something about these plants." But they find that no neighbor has ever seen anyone working in the garden; the first then says, "He must have worked while people were asleep." The second says, "No, someone would have heard or seen him, and besides, anyone who cared about the plants would have kept down the weeds." The first responds, "Look at the way these are arranged; there is purpose and beauty here. Someone must come, someone invisible to mortal eyes. The more carefully we look, the more we will find confirmation of this." They carefully examine the garden and sometimes they find things suggesting that a gardener comes, and also things suggesting the contrary, or even that a malicious gardener has been at work. Each of them learns everything about the garden that the other learns; yet still they differ about an invisible gardener. Their different conclusions now reflect no differences whatever about what they have found in the garden, no differences about what they would find if they looked further. At this point the gardener hypothesis has ceased to be empirical; neither expects to observe anything that the other does not.

Does it any more make sense to ask, "Which is right?" or "Which is reasonable?" Wisdom, the author, insists that it does. There are disputes that cannot be settled by experimental or empirical means, yet one party may be right and the other wrong, and the issue can be and is rationally argued. Wisdom elaborates several kinds of examples, from mathematics, engineering, aesthetics, and the law. Relevant examples are especially plentiful in legal issues. Many, perhaps most, cases that wind up in U.S.federal courts involve no disagreement whatever about any facts, about anything empirical. Yet there are hardly any better examples of rational argument than in, eg., U.S.Supreme Court decisions.

Comments? Insights?

11. Christopher Hitchens on Religion

Comment #39748 by phiwilli on May 11, 2007 at 8:54 pm

RE #39734 Bonzai. The motives of the "framers" who designed the U.S. Constitution no doubt varied, and are subject to endless debate. My take (as a native US citizen) is that on the whole they were fed up with the machinations of established religions (mainly but not only in England) as they affected civil government. So our Constitution says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;[1st Amendment]" and "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.[Article VI]"

12. Lou Dobbs Interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #37489 by phiwilli on May 4, 2007 at 3:39 pm

For those outside the U.S., Lou Dobbs is (as above posts have made pretty clear) hard to locate on the liberal/conservative spectrum. But he regularly treats interviewees courteously and with respect even when he disagrees with them (which is rather often), plus he usually asks some pretty good and relevant questions.

He's a refreshing exception to the typical bombast of U.S. TV pundits - but he does overdo his obsession with immigration issues.

13. Why the Gods Are Not Winning

Comment #36549 by phiwilli on May 1, 2007 at 1:55 pm

Paul and Zuckerman inadvertently echo Aristotle, who said (more or less)that leisure is a requirement for developing reliable knowledge. This was seconded by Bertrand Russell (see "In Praise of Idleness"). P & Z, when connecting comfortable middle-class social conditions with disbelief, leave out an intermediate step: comfortable middle-classers have more time for thinking somewhat clearly about issues raised by Dawkins et al, instead of worrying incessantly about where the next credit card payment - or next meal - will come from; so they are likely to figure out that religion is delusional.

14. Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech

Comment #33531 by phiwilli on April 20, 2007 at 1:53 pm

Go to: http://www.humaniststudies.org/

and search for: grief

And find relevant comments about how humanists, atheists, skeptics respond to death, loss, and grief.

Other humanist/secularist sites probably have similar comments.

15. The God Debate

Comment #29102 by phiwilli on April 1, 2007 at 4:01 pm

Stephen J: ". . .these moral intutions are shaped by biological forces, and thus are inappropriate as statements of what ought to be."

What would you say about this revised version of your statement: "These ideas (of science, mathematics, morality, . . . whatever) has been shaped by biological forces, and thus are inappropriate as statements about what is true."

Seems to me that whether intuitions, ideas, etc. are shaped (influenced?) by biological forces is irrelevant to the issue of whether they are correct.

16. Is this another Sokal Hoax?

Comment #29049 by phiwilli on April 1, 2007 at 11:37 am

Jared sez: "As this sort of material becomes the intellectual 'norm' in liberal arts academia, I find myself begrudgingly turning more and more anti-intellectual."

But, happily, it isn't becoming the norm. There's less of it now than 10 or so years ago because it's been so widely riduculed. It just tends to get undue attention because it's so bizarre.

17. Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior

Comment #26768 by phiwilli on March 21, 2007 at 2:58 pm

Things that morality seems to involve besides altruism (OK, that's an important part) include not only punishment (that comes in two varieties, retributive and corrective) but also appropriate concern for yourself ("duties to oneself"), which should be distinguished from pure selfishness.

18. Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior

Comment #26627 by phiwilli on March 20, 2007 at 6:14 pm

The author of this should give some consideration to the "genetic" fallacy - the mistake of appraising the worth of ideas based on where they came from or originated, instead of on the merits or demerits of the ideas themselves. How morality developed has little or nothing to do with issues of what is moral or immoral behavior.

19. Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior

Comment #26626 by phiwilli on March 20, 2007 at 6:11 pm

Please give some consideration to the "genetic" fallacy - the mistake of appraising the worth of ideas based on where they came from or originated, instead of on the merits or demerits of the ideas themselves. How morality developed has little or nothing to do with issues of what is moral or immoral behavior.

20. Lonely Atheists of the Global Village

Comment #26479 by phiwilli on March 19, 2007 at 3:20 pm

KKant: Do you think religious moderates do not support fundamentalism?
Me: I think they do not - but, as I said, they are reluctant to say so. I think it would be verrry interesting to see the the response of the moderates to questions like: was jesus really virgin-born, did he really walk on water, did the sun really stop in it tracks at Ajalon, etc.
But I am especially interested in your response to the onus probandi issue I raised - could you comment on that?

21. Lonely Atheists of the Global Village

Comment #26458 by phiwilli on March 19, 2007 at 12:42 pm

Novak is a moderate, or even a liberal, Christian, and I, tho' not such myself, and tho' his article has many or maybe most of the flaws the rest of you have pointed out, wish there were more like him. But his version of religion would be rejected as too un-Biblical by most folks who call themselves Christian nowadays. He's "too rational" for them!

I think the fundamental difference between him and other rational Christians somewhat similar to him (eg. Andrew Sullivan, maybe (?) Alvin Plantinga, William Craig, et al) and skeptics Dawkins/Dennett/Harris (et al) is basically a matter of onus probandi (the burden of proof). For the rational Christians, their religion is presumed (probably) true until proven (with at least very high probablility) false. For the rational skeptics, any type of religion is presumed (probably) false until proven (with at least high probability) to be true. That onus probandi difference is quite an impasse, and I at least don't know how to resolve it.

Both sides have their flaws. The rational Christians should be (but aren't) willing to say that the more conservative/fundamentalist Christians are head-in-the-sand ignoramuses. The rational skeptics should be (but aren't) willing to say that moderate/liberal religious folk do not support religious fanaticism.

22. Why Children Love Their Security Blankets

Comment #25168 by phiwilli on March 10, 2007 at 3:57 pm

Hood and Bloom (and no doubt lots of other people nowadays) have a very untraditional notion of "essence." In a history of ideas tradition going back to Plato, a thing's essence consists of the properties it shares with all other things of its kind. There is only one teddy bear essence, shared by all teddy bears. It is the NON-essential properties that a given teddy bear has that give it uniqueness and distinguish it from all the other teddy bears. So the essence of a given teddy bear is not some invisible property of that particular bear, it is the (invisible) total of all the properties that bear shares with all other teddy bears. So the children (and lots of us adults) are attached not to the essence of our favorite things, but to the non-essential properties that make a given favorite thing unique. That's why an apparent "exact" duplicate just won't do. There aren't any absolutely exact or identical duplicates. No individual thing is absolutely identical with anything other than itself.

23. The Mystery of Consciousness

Comment #19084 by phiwilli on January 24, 2007 at 6:00 pm

Blaine,

I agree, as you seem to think, that this is not the place to further pursue those issues. Except for these brief comments (!!!). As I understand them, I agree with your three premises. I'm not so certain that I can assemble the argument as you see it. My conjecture is that its conclusion would be something like: pursuing the issue of whether all our conscious thoughts are illusions is pointless, because we could never know. So much for that.

Then there's the matter of complete determinism (you say, "all thought is deterministic down to the subatomic level"). I'm far from convinced of that. I was surprised by Pinker's claim that "They [neuroscientists] can tell, for instance, whether a person is thinking about a face or a place or whether a picture the person is looking at is of a bottle or a shoe." But since he, and lots of others (probably including you) know a hell of a lot more about neuroscience than I do, I accept it. But that's a long, long way from ALL thought is deterministic . . . etc. An example:

Euclid long ago elegantly proved that there is no greatest prime number - the prime numbers are "infinite." But there are some prime numbers (eg. 17 & 19) that differ by only 2 - they are called twin primes. Last I checked, no mathematician has proved whether the twin primes are finite or infinite, although the matter has been pursued in some detail. When neuroscience can, by examining brain patterns or whatnot, say whether X's brain has produced a mathematically correct (or incorrect) proof that there are infinite (or finite) twin primes, I will fold my tent and slink away. Until then (or until some convincing new aspect I haven't thought of is pointed out), I agree with Popper, who maintains, in essence, that complete determinism is incompatible with rationality. He elaborates it nicely in "Of Clouds and Clocks." That leaves it open as to which of the two is correct. I choose rationality, and conclude that complete determinism is wrong (disjunctive syllogism). I gather that you want both complete determinism and rationality, which I think is inconsistent.

Oh, BTW, I do not think there is some mind/ego/soul/spirit/life that is separable (a "separate substance," as philosophers would say) from our physical body/brain. Rather, I think (and of course I might be 'way wrong) that there are "emergent properties" that are not "predetermined" by "lower-level" physical conditions. Again see Popper. You'll no doubt be dubious of lots of what he says, but he sure is provocative!

Phiwilli

24. The Mystery of Consciousness

Comment #18879 by phiwilli on January 23, 2007 at 11:59 am

Blaine,

You induce me to elaborate and clarify! I agree with all your comments except this: "You [phiwilli] seem to think that this devaluates conclusions of the scientific method." No, my comments were hypothetical; I said, "If [supposition] our consciousness . . . etc.," not that [all] our consciousness actually does thus derive. My no doubt unclear point was that IF [all] our consciousness derives from unsuspected goings-on in our neurophysiology, THEN . . . we are in quite a pickle. Namely, the pickle that all of our supposedly objective assessments are illusions, and thus untrustworthy. I guess I should add that I think an illusion, or even a hallucination, is not necessarily wrong (or false) in all respects; rather, it cannot be reasonably trusted. An illusion could include green-appearing grass and blue-appearing sky, and those parts of it would be correct, but to conclude that grass really looks green and the sky really looks blue because that's how it was in an illusion would be an untrustworthy (but true) conclusion.

I note that you assert, but do not present an argument for, the idea that "beliefs based on science should be trusted more." I agree, but I (perhaps ?? like you) have no argument to offer for that assertion. I just accept it and begin with it. Well, I could say, I accept it because it seems to be eminently sensible. But in the context of the issue I see in Pinker's article, "eminently sensible" carries no weight at all, because IF ALL our consciousness (which would include our judgments about what is eminently sensible) derives from goings-on in our neurophysiology of which we are unaware, THEN we have no rational basis for trusting ANY of our supposedly rational judgments. (See Popper!) From all of this I conclude that NOT ALL of our consciousness derives from goings-on in our neurophysiology of which we are unaware. I grant, as I take it you do, that much more of our consciousness-content than we not long ago suspected is "predetermined" by physical conditions over which we have no control - but NOT all of it! I could, theoretically, be wrong about that - maybe everything we consciously think IS thus predetermined - but IF so, we have no way of knowing that it is, and we are trapped in illusions. (Again, see Popper!) Should one ask: if NOT all our conscious thoughts are "predetermined" by our brain physiology, then how, exactly, do we manage to (sometimes) think reasonably and rationally? I'm sure that I don't know, and I suspect that neither does anyone else. That's what I mean by the problem that is harder than Pinker's "Hard Problem".

I should I suppose add that Pinker's article, all things considered, is pretty noncommital about what he himself actually believes about how much of our consciousness is "predetermined" by brain physiology and how much isn't.

Phiwilli

25. The Mystery of Consciousness

Comment #18696 by phiwilli on January 22, 2007 at 1:49 pm

I suspect there might be a yet harder problem.
If our consciousness derives from unsuspected goings-on in our neurophysiology, then so does our reasoning, judgment, assessment of evidence and the like. Then, it would seem, not only is the sense that we have an executive "I" an illusion, but also so is the sense that we can rationally assess the implications of neuroscience's findings, or that evolution is well-supported by evidence, etc. As Pinker says, "it also seems to undermine the notion that we are free agents responsible for our choices," which would include our choices about what is a reasonable conclusion and what isn't. ALL our thoughts would be irrational, unsupported illusions, including the illusion that we sometimes think rationally. That leaves us in quite a pickle!

Karl Popper elaborated all this pretty well in "Of Clouds and Clocks" in his Objective Knowledge collection years ago, long before the recent explosion of neuroscience - or should I say, neuro-illusions?

Phiwilli