351. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179310 by MPhil on May 13, 2008 at 5:27 am

Bonzai,

I won't get into that again - you are hellbent on misreading and misrepresenting my position, and are yourself, I have to say, quite dogmatic. I have no desire whatsover to point out the mistakes and rectify the misrepresentations and the dogmatic implications.

352. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179274 by MPhil on May 13, 2008 at 2:32 am

Artful,

As I said, it may often be the case that parents teach their kid their religious dogmas without employing such mental torture directly - BUT, if they succeed in making the child sincerely believe the dogmas, then the dogmas have that same effect... the kid then is convinced that all people are inherently stained with original sin and must accept Jesus as their saviour in order not to suffer the worst fate possible,.. and when you have a child believing this, it will also have to want others to be saved, too. If you genuinely believe that those who don't embrace Jesus as their saviour will suffer eternal separation from their loved ones and from god's love (at minimum) and eternal "physical" torture, then you cannot let others live in piece - and that is the virus of religion. Rousseau recognized this, so did Bentham and others.

The dogma itself is incompatible with political liberalism. The first principle of justice can only be realized in a society where the people recognize the equal claim of others to the same maximal set of freedoms, rights, liberties.
"No marriage for homosexuals" does negate this equal claim. And of course the doctrines of sin and hell negate all freedom - as they installs god as a celestial dictator worse than 1984's Big Brother who is allknowing and allpowerful, and can convict you of thoughtcrime and have you tortured for all eternity - then calling this just and merciful and praiseworthy. That negates all civilisation, all freedom - freedom is autonomous use of one's faculties guided by one's reason. This is impossible if one truly believes in God, Sin, Heaven and Hell - for then to affirm the equal rights of everyone to embrace or reject any belief is impossible, because it is morally wrong, even wicked not to praise and worship the right god (ever read Deuteronomy?. And they will suffer the worst fate possible so they have to be saved or killed or expelled.

That's the natural consequence of belief in God, Sin, Heaven and Hell... and it's incompatible with Rawlsian political liberalism.


I would also question whether Christian parents indoctrinating into their children the belief that homosexuality is something morally bad is no different from indoctrinating into their children the belief that having dark skin is something morally bad. A participant in a just society, in order for there even to be the possibility of an overlapping consensus must affirm that everyone has an equal claim to the maximal scheme of liberties compatible with the same maximal scheme for others.

So, I think parents may educate their children about their religion, but not indoctrinate them to affirm the dogma - that is somethng that should be affirmed freely and responisbly.

Having outlined the general incompatibility of religious dogma with a modern, liberal society - I think it is correct to say that we would not tolerate it when parents brought their kids to institutions where the kid is indoctrinated with the belief that one political party has the eternal truth and that the party has to win over all voters because the leader loves all these people, and that we all have the sacred duty to get others, especially those we love to accept the leader - because only with the leader can there be peace, prosperity and security.

We would never allow such indoctrination camps - for a good reason - it's cultive, it's brainwashing, its deprivation of liberties.

I don't claim that all religious upbringing is that bad, I am able to differenciate - but I was talking both about the questionable methods of getting the child to believe AND the content of the belief.

I say let everyone affirm any religion he or she wants to - but we will not allow the expression of a belief that has the effect of infringing the rights, freedoms and liberties of others. Making religion something freely adopted between informed and consenting adults - ie comparative religious studies till the age we consider them to be generally able to be a reasonable and rational person with an adult view of the world - and also about atheism, agnosticism etc - and the philosophical perspectives of the various positions. Then, if they want - they can join any religion they want and do whatever they want among themselves as long as it doesn't negate the first principle of justice - and their kids will get to know the religion of its parents by witnessing its parents express their belief and educate them about their religion - but the child mustn't be indoctrinated into that belief-system. Then in school the child learns about the facts about various belief-systems, positions and their relations - and can only then (and even then only in the best possibble case) freely chose to embrace or reject any religion - ie really have the factulty to make use of his freedom of religion.

_______________

Hungarianelephant,

I hope you won't mind if I only say that I think the "algorithm" Rawls gave for determining, based on only very few, very common premises (idea of person as capable of conception of the good, with an interest in cooperation and beyond a veil of ignorance) is a rational, working process - it may not provide a unique set of values, but still the variation in the values you could get from different models is a very narrow range, and as such the procedure is a valid, rational means of determining a rationally grounded set of rules for a society. It may not be complete, but I think it's simply the best theory of justice there is.

The paper is a term-paper, so it won't be published. I am, as I said, a student of philosophy, logic and philosophy of science at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich and am 1 year away from my MPhil degree.

I did, however, plan on expanding and refining that paper - and who knows, I might get a final version some day.

353. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179029 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 12:13 pm

Oh, I should also note - indoctrinating into a child the belief that homosexuals/homosexuality are/is sinful and evil is also incompatible with the demand of the first principle of justice that there is a duty to educate the children in a way so they can recognize the equal right of everyone else to all liberties and rights that are granted. This is negated by the religious claim that homosexuality is a sin and a social evil, and that heresy/(blasphemy) is also immoral, intolerable behaviour.

354. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179026 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 12:09 pm

What I remember from Baby Bible Bashers is that kid in New York telling us that if you don't get saved, you will burn forever, and worms will eat your flesh. The child took all of this literal, and just wanted to save others from that horrible fate by converting them, and thereby(!) please his parents. The kid definitely suffered a severe mental trauma, I mean actually, literally believing what is parents told him: That everyone who isn't saved get burned and tortured forever - that is mental torture what was done to him. And the doctrine itself negates freedom and rationality.

Seeing that boy telling us about hell made me physically sick.

355. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179016 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 11:55 am

The Child-labelling that Prof. Dawkins so rightly criticizes is another instance of religious/social practice that limits the freedom of the child - since it is told to be and considered as a Christian/Muslim/Hindu/...

356. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179014 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 11:53 am

Have you seen Jesus Camp and Baby Bible Bashers. That's what I was referring to. It mustn't be only mental torture, it can be the dogma that is indoctrinated without torture that restricts the rights of the child in the way outlined above, or it can be the means of indoctrination, not the dogma itself that is contradictory to the first principle of justice, or it can be both. All three are incompatible with the first principle of justice in the way outlined above. But mostly I think the dogma itself is the problem, since it is self-referring, exclusive and does deny itself deny the liberties, rights and freedoms. There is no liberty of conscience, no freedom of religion, because this one is right and all who think differently deserve the fate of hell, or to be killed or converted. This, taught to a child as unquestionable dogma negates the freedoms, rights and liberties mentioned above and is itself psychological coercion, ie deprivation of freedom.

357. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179003 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 11:26 am

There have been some robust defences of it recently.

No there haven't. The arguments for any materialist conception are still much stronger.

The general problems with substance dualism won't go away, and are more than conclusive.

And look what you're doing - you're pulling a Ben Stein... "BIG PHILOSOPHY" is terrorizing (expelling) poor dualism.

The arguments by Lewis (and their refinements) are all undermined by the detailed account of what I laid out here. There is no conception of substance dualism that is not vastly less rationally tenable than monism.

That's what's reflected in the percentage of expert academic philosophers of mind who accept substance dualism - not bias.

358. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178996 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 11:15 am

Artful,

any expression of religious conviction that deprives others of liberty or the faculty to make use of it.

An example would be children that are indoctrinated through mental torture (You will suffer a painful and excruciating fate of eternal, infinite torture if you do not believe the right things and do the right things. If you care about anyone, you have to see to it that they believe the right things and do the right things, too - or they will suffer eternal, infinite torture.)

Actually teaching this, literally (remember that small children cannot grasp the concept of metaphor) is an act of mental cruelty. Just like locking children up in a house and saying that the vicious dog will rip them apart and feast on their guts if they ever try to escape or do not do as their master requires.

Basically, some of what we have seen in Jesus Camp and a lot of what we have seen in "Baby Bible Bashers", especially the kid visiting New York with his parents.

When kids are indoctrinated into a specific position that does not specifically include having them develop the ability to fully recognize and make us of their liberty of thought, freedom of conscience and expression as well as freedom to embrace or reject any religion, then the kids are deprived of developing a full understanding of and the faculty to make rational use of their basic rights and liberties.

That is to say - parents may live out their religion together in front of their children, but the limits are the above. Also this means that parents may not enroll their children into institutions indoctrinating the children without their free and informed consent, which can only be given by responsible adults - so I think religion should be something for consenting adults, adopting it freely and informed - which also means I think comparative religious studies should be mandatory.

Any expression-of-a-world-view that serves to limit the child's development of the faculties to recognize and make full autonomous use of their basic liberties rights and freedoms is incompatible with the principle of justice.

Comprehensive doctrines that stress rationality, freedom of thought, liberty of conscience, freedom of expression, and freedom to embrace or reject any religion (which no religious indoctrination can teach, because it makes claims to having eternal, metaphysical truth), are unproblematic for the first principle of justice. Religion is not.

That's the gist of it - but for the details of this view and the details of the arguments, you would have to read my paper.

359. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178985 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 10:50 am

What Rawls never properly demonstrated was why his thinking should lead to his particular model. For example, if you had a good chance of a very high standard of living, but a small chance of a short, miserable life, you might actually prefer this to an "everyone is only ok" model.

As a practical matter, it seems to me that all Rawls achieved was a shifting of the debate into particular terms. Furthermore, the Rawlsian model cares nothing for notions such as a priori individual liberty: it assumes a general social right to determine the general social order, based presumably on the consent of the majority.

I have to disagree here.

Of course some specifics he postulates are not uniquely determined by the method of the original position beyond a veil of ignorance with the conception of the person as in principle social and capable of having a conception of the good. But the process is rationally grounded and does lead to specifics, and I think a quite (though not completely) specific codex can be derived from the method Rawls outlined. In fact, I just recently wrote a paper on how in a society conforming to the standards rationally derivable from the original position, beyond the veil of ignorance with the conception-of-a-politica-person that Rawls endorses, certain religious practices are incompatible with the priority of right and the first principle of justice. The latter is, I think very much a proper inference from the method outlined above.

And it's not based on consent of the majority, the general structure, the constitutional structure if you will is determined not by consent of the actual majority, but consent of hypothetical, perfectly capable but entirely equal persons. With this, the fairness (understood in the egalitarian way) is actually guaranteed to be maximized.

I don't subscribe to every specific detail of Rawls conception, but to the underlying liberal contractualism (from the hypothetical original position) I do subscribe. It is the most determinate rationally grounded way of solving the task at hand we know - and I think it's a very tenable position. Not a hard sell at all.

360. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178982 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 10:40 am

Thoughtsoncommontoad,

Platonism is metaphysically compeltely untenable. It postulates non-physical entities with some connection to the real world. I think naturalism is a justified postition, so I think any Platonism is unwarranted. (I've given the arguments elsewhere - there too much ontological obscurity, too much metaphysical queerness, a huge epistemic problem and a host of other problems).

Mathematics is work with a formal system. Deterministic production and testing (proof-theory) of statements which are logically true. The entities are abstractions, which in turn are mental objects, which in turn are specific processes in the brain - and those are linked to the world via perception and via being a biological system that does information-processing, ie processing of information about the "outside" world as well as about itself (meta-level information processing). This accounts for the applicability of mathematics, since the brain and its structure follow the same "rules" of biology and physics as everything else, it's - I think - no wonder that a system that can process information that well can model quantity and properties of quantities, set theory, arithmetic and the whole of mathematics. It's the capacity to construct a formal system (a narrowly defined language-game with highly specific axioms, inference rules and statements) and that the structure of the information processing in the brain as a physical system reflects the laws that determine the behaviour of physical/biological systems.

The fact that we can go above applicable mathematics means only that the system is capable of modelling much more than what might be actually instantiated.

I am not sure the problem of universals is a real problem, but if it is, I think either a non-realist contructivism or trope nominalism are the best answers we have.

361. The Stupidity of Dignity

Comment #178978 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 10:31 am

Well, death may not be necessarily regarded as an affront to human dignity. In fact, in some cases I think letting the person chose their death can be the most dignity-preserving. Because there can only be dignity in life - and we have just one. So the "how" of dying is of importance. Alone, in a home for the retired, just waiting to be turned around twice a day so that one doesn't develop sores - never visited by anyone, being left alone, wasting and then dying - that's an affront to human dignity, of the worst kind. So I say we need a lot more end-of-life care, a lot more hospices.

Doesn't mean death is an affront, just affirms living - not letting people waste away.

362. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178969 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 10:25 am

scooternyc,

morals may be shared but are still subjective.

No, that's not quite right - the distinction is not just between subjective and objective, but between subjective, intersubjective and objective. Morals are intersubjective - and only in a metaphysical sense not objective. I think there may some underlying, general biological mechanisms which we share, and which thus accounts for the similarities between many moral codes in societies. But no, not in a metaphysical sense objective. We cannot even conceive what something like a metaphysically objective moral value would be. We cannot coherently and in sufficient detail conceive of such a supposed entity, not to mention that even if such things existed, we would not be able to know of them.

Civil liberties are merely the freedoms to live your life as you choose without imposing anyone's personal subjective morals upon you in that pursuit of happiness.

"Pursuit of happiness is a particularly American formulation and concept. I think a more universal one can be given. Also, I think it should be amended. Morality and the closely related issue of "just society" can be coherently conceived of rationally - by means of deliberating the situation of people in a hypothetical original position behind a veil of ignorance and extrapolating what the consensus would be - which is maximally fair, because of the veil of ignorance.

What we can extrapolate from this it is rationally justified to demand that every person is to be given the largest possible scheme liberties, rights and freedoms compatible with the same scheme for everyone else.

This also means that we can impose on the subjective morals of someone whose subjective morals lead that person to infringe the right to the above mentioned liberties of others. We cannot mandate thought or regulate it in an absolutist way. But we can suppress expression of subjective morality that deprives others of their freedoms etc.

What I'm saying is that the issues of political philosophy and jurisprudence (philosophy of law) are closely related to the issues of morality. "Justice" and "Fairness" for example. These need to be grounded in rationality itself. John Rawls has shown how to do this.


The proposed values are still only intersubjecive, not metaphysically objective, but they are rationally grounded. Scanlon wrote a wonderful tentative construction of contractualism in ethics. ("What we owe each other", based upon Rawls' theory as laid out in "A Theory of Justice", "Political Liberalism" and "Justice as Fairness - A Restatement")

363. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178942 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 9:22 am

hungarianelephant,

I'd say that some very basic "modes of thought", ie the general "laws" of information processing in the brain are "innate" in a way, and reflected in various actual grammars, but I don't think Chomsky got it entirely right either, it's mostly convention and some underlying laws as the innate, evolutionary determined structural function of the brain's information-processing.

364. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178934 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 8:51 am

Well, in a way that's what I mean. I think meaning can be analysed on the level of synaptic activity as the processing of information - for example light coded by nerves into electrochemical signals. A certain pattern of neural stimulation is linked to a certain visual information, and is thereby representative of this. Add to that arbitrary symbols and a catalogue of rules how to use them (language and grammar, which your cat doesn't have) and you have what we call "meaning". The symbols are agreed upon (by convention) to refer to certain things and relations, which are there at the neural level as representation of information about the outside world and the neural structure that determines the way this information is processed.

Meaning thus is based on neural representation and usage and perception of arbitrary symbols to refer to the things we have concepts of (as groupings of neural-activation patterns).

365. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178930 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 8:41 am

Exactly, even if the existence of something non-physical was established as a necessary conclusion of what we know about the world, that wouldn't be enough. He would first have to show why all the other infinite non-physical "explanations" are false and his is true - this is impossible because there can per definition be nothing to distinguish the coherent concepts of non-physical explanations in terms of truths, since there can be no evidence of which of them is correct.

But as I said - no postulation of irreducible non-physical entities has any explanatory value, therefore even the position that says "I don't how this works, but I see that it works as a physical process" is more rational. Thankfully, we're far beyond that - we haver very detailed knowledge, and naturalistic theories that fit and explain this. See neural network research. See brain/computer interfaces.

Meaning, as I have shown, can be reduced to behavioural convention about the rules of usage of arbitrary symbols for informational content. And that assimilation, information-processing is something physical - that we know with absolute certainty. Our logical thinking and language-use is just vastly more complex and implemented in a very versatile physical system (our brain) that is connected to the world in various ways and has incredibly many internal connections.

There is no a priori problem for the naturalist.

But the theist has no explanations at all, since he postulates magic.

366. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178926 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 8:26 am

Irate, Rian, Quetz

To be fair, his argument was that

1. We know there is the phenomenon of meaning
2. This meaning is not the the physical string of ink-dots or pixels
3. Therefore the meaning is something no-physical
4. We grasp meaning
5. Therefore: We grasp something non-physical with out minds
6. Therefore, the mind is something non-physical

This is a little different from what you outlined, and at least slightly more reasonable (of course you couldn't infer god from that even if it was true)

Problem is that the inference from 5 to 6 is inconclusive, that 1 and 2 provide a false dichotomy, which makes the inference of 3 unwarranted and thereby renders the entire argument false.

367. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178908 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 8:10 am

By the way, typos seem to me to put paid to the brain/mind identification. A thought is not one and the same thing as the physical / material represetation of it. Hence, when we make spelling mistakes or typos the "word" or "thought" that we intended may be different from its actual, black and white (or whatever) representation of it. The message is independent of the medium. Do you see my point?

The mind/brain question has a lot to do with language and "what is meaning", what is "intentionality" - but you're presenting a false dichotomy - completely fallacious reasoning.
The message is not completely independent of the medium, for it is the medium's functional complexity that transport the information that is interpreted by the subject. No one ever said the thought is identical to the ink-dots, or pixels, but that the thought is identical to activity in the neural network.

Your argument fails miserably. Information is an objective term, used in physics. It has something to do with order, with complexity.

Computers process information - pocket calculators really calculate - they perform logical operations on signals - ie information processing. You might as well say that calculators do not calculate, or that they must have a non-physical mind.

I have dealt with this so many times that it is really becoming tiring.

All we need is the fact of sociality, arbitrary symbols and information/representation - and that is all there in the natural world. Just like the states of a neural network processing a certain picture are about that certain picture because they process information ABOUT IT, certain brain-states are about other things because they are the processing of information about that thing.

368. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178893 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 7:53 am

Artful,

no, substance dualism has an extremely low prevalence in contemporary philosophy... almost no philosopher subscribes to it.

Don't make such bold claims - I am in the field of academic philosophy - I know for a fact almost no one subscribes to substance dualism. Most subscribe either to a kind of property dualism without making ontological commitments or to strong or weak reductionism - or to non-reductive materialism.

Your claim is simply wrong.

369. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178888 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 7:45 am

Neuroimaging can tell neuroscientists what is going on in a person's brain when they are engaged in any "soulish" activity

See, that's the mistake. First you postulate a completely non-physical mind, then we find correlations between reported and expressed mental activity and brain-states - and our evidence gets larger and stronger... you claim "Well, there is just some sort of mirroring - influence downwards from the mind to the brain."

That is ridiculous. It is an unnecessary hypothesis, not needed for the explanation, the least parsimonious hypothesis. And it has no explanatory value - in fact it just gets you even deeper in trouble with what we know about the world, namely the causal closure of spacetime.

See my posts above - we are developing theories (scientific and philosophical) that fit the data, while you have a ridiculous hypothesis that you attempt (in vain) to make compatible with our growing knowledge of the world (and the brain, specifically), by means of ad hoc hypothesis and unwarranted definitions of the phenomena that already presuppose your position.

We can see through this. It is shot down - no explanatory value.

370. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178878 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 7:29 am

Artful,

the argument from rationality is complete bogus... Philosophy has worked on this for a long time - theism is no explanation anyway. Nor is dualism, since it cannot describe mechanisms of how the mind is to direct the brain, and how that would not contradict the conservation of energy and momentum etc.

You simply define justification and rationality in a way that it couldn't be physical - but that means it also couldn't be implemented in the physical world via our brains. But we know for certain that the brain is inexctricably linked with all mentality.

Substance dualism is know to be a completely indefensible position for more than 100 years.
The Philosophical theories and the scientific knowledge has advanced so far that we have found a way in which all the phenomena we observe (rational or moral behaviour for example) are explainable as functions of physical, biological systems of a certain neurofunctional complexity.

But even if -contrafactually- this wasn't the case, any position postulating magic is worthless from the beginning, because postulating magic has no explanatory value at all.

Theistic philosophy is still on the level of pre-philosophical ideas - their myths... and they try to defend it with the tools of 21st century philosophy - It's quite hilarious what Lewis, Plantinga, Swinburne etc dream up - and how they contradict each other. How blatantly ridiculous some ad hoc hypothesis are (Natural evils are cause by the free will of fallen angels - Plantinga), and what beautiful and elaborate constructions some arguments are which are still ultimately just wrong (Plantinga Ontological argument, Swinburne's Bayesian argument).

Really - you have not a leg to stand on here.
Reality has outgrown your position about 2600 years ago, when mankind first used reason to provide an explanation of phenomena, not myth - simply making up stories about it.

Time you grew up as well.

371. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178834 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 6:01 am

(Sorry, this post is a little late)

Artful,

No one has come up with anything like a credible account of how reason and morality can be shown to have a natualistic origin

You've got it exactly backwards. There is no supernatural "explanation". You are simply postulating magic, which has no explanatory value, since it can describe no mechanism by which that which is to be explained was brought about, only that "there is something which is responsible for this - and I identify 'that-x-which-is-responsible-for-this" as "God".

That is no argument, that is just a postulation without any evidence, an untestable hypothesis, because it describes no mechanism.

Once you get it into your head that morality is a social phenomenon, and is not to be considered as linked to some metaphysical entities (metaphysical values) unless there is no naturalistic hypothesis at all available. The naturalistic hypothesis always has the better epistemic stability because it is more parsimonious than any supernaturalistic "explanation".

We know that brains exist, we know that interaction between organisms exists, we know that when the brain gets damaged in specific ways, the personality, body control and and mental faculty of the person cab be severely damaged, in very specific ways relating to the specific location of the damaged brain-area. We also know that neural networks are a reasonable model of the information processing in neural tissue, we can even simulate neural networks that can perform face-recognition, gender allocation and do various, sometimes quite astounding things.
We know a lot about the brain and the mind, it's still the youngest new hard science there is, but the cognitive neurosciences have made astounding discoveries over the years. We can even form a coherent account of the mind in purely naturalistic terms - See the work of Paul and Patricia Churchland, or Daniel Dennett.
Morality is first and foremost a phenomenon of behaviour and judgement - a social phenomenon. We know that behaviour and judgement can be trained, affected, modelled through conditioning. Since the invention of the Digital Computer, (even since the invention of the pocket calculator) we know that purely physical machines, purely physical processes can perform complex operations on information - which is exactly what rationality is. This leads to questions about meaning, and intentionality and qualia etc - and these are all given a naturalistic explanation (however tentative) in turn.
The theistic position can do no such explanatory work - it simply postulates the same thing for everything "god did it (somehow)". No description of the exact "how", no reproducible experiments, no possible falsification... sorry, that means no explanatory value.

We know that there are multiple different moral codes. One might even say there are as many as there are conscious human beings. We know that morality is both a matter of social convention and social cohesion/survival. We know that behaviour is something which is inextricably linked to the working of the brain... if we change the brain in significant ways (frontal lobotomy, inducing psychoactive drugs), then the behaviour, perception, consciousness and faculty for certain judgements can be seriously affected. We are already beginning to 'read' people's minds from observing our brains:

People can control mouse-movements through a brain-computer interface (and even an extremely crude one, an EEG), we can do much more, we can see a perfect corroboration between certain kinds of thoughts, feelings, language, imagination and very spe4cific brain-activity.

We know all these things - about the supernatural, we can per definition know nothing since there is no rational way to decide between the actually infinite set of possible supernaturalistic hypotheses that could be said to be the causal origin of the phenomenon we are trying to eplain.

It has no value and is in no way parsimonious.
The neural-network theory is a very powerful one indeed. Indeed (modern) functionalism is a very powerful theory, especially as A.I. advances, as computers can do rational tasks better and better.

And not only that, but even in a completely materialistic world, morality is still possible. Utilitarianism or Contractualism for example. You may not like these theories, but they are certainly first order moral theories, including their accounts of moral justification etc. So there is a naturalistic account of morality both in the descriptive and normative sense and there are very good theories with a normative account of rationality - and evidence in Computers that can solve rational tasks, like logical deduction and calculation, even playing strategy-games and learn.

Theism on the other hand has no answers at all, no explanatory value - just a "god did it (somehow)".

If you are gonna be infantile, Artful, be my guest. But don't expect me to just let your bold declarations and miserable deductions stand.

-Michael

372. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #178303 by MPhil on May 11, 2008 at 5:58 am

Just listening to the Stenger debate...

... you know what always makes me sick to my stomach?
William Lane Craig made his doctor of philosophy at The Ludwig Maximilians Universitaet Muenchen - the one where I study philosophy. *shudder*

Just wanted to note that quite some knowledge of modal logic (possible worlds semantics) to understand and critique the modal ontological argument by Plantinga.

Anyway - Mackie debunks it in "The Miracle of Theism"

373. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #178264 by MPhil on May 11, 2008 at 3:57 am

rian is right, WLC (and Plantinga) have mastered the art of sophistry, - they know all the tricks, and all the obscure and misleading arguments, the addition of ad hoc hypotheses to one's basic thesis when a flaw is pointed out etc.
They are schooled in philosophy - they know how to construct arguments. But they are also intellectually dishonest in using this to defend an indefensible position. There are flaws in the arguments that make them useless, but they are partially obscure and hard to make out. The ontological argument with modal logic for example, which was shot down not long after it was made - among others by John Leslie Mackie, or Craig's defense of the kalam, which was shot down by Oppy and Martin.

WLC knows all the devious "professional" debating strategy like Loading- in the end being "fractally wrong".

It takes only a good debater to take Craig down - if you were to refute all his arguments from a defensive position, you would need far too much time to make clear the relations between all the single flaws and how they make his position untenable.

This was done brilliantly by Eddie Tabash. Just search google-video for Craig Tabash... Craig doesn't stand a chance.

Tell you what, why not Michael Martin instead of Dawkins, why not Oppy or Sobel? Why not Richard Gale? Hell, I would take on Plantinga - his arguments are actually quite disgraceful... that is except his ontological argument, which is quite beautiful - but useless since it doesn't manage to demonstrate what it sets out to demonstrate.

374. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #177967 by MPhil on May 10, 2008 at 4:43 am

He's a pseudo-intellectual because there is no intellectual honesty, the claim to have perfectly logical arguments and all the epistemic justification in the world when the arguments have so many fallacies in them, so many petitio principii, equivocation fallacies, even contradictions and many non sequiturs - pseudo-intellectual.

375. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #177954 by MPhil on May 10, 2008 at 3:52 am

Thanks, Enlightenme... I was thinking about a debate I'm following in which the Christian side is represented by a very deluded, pseudo-intellectual person named David Bnonn Tennant :)

376. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #177949 by MPhil on May 10, 2008 at 3:41 am

Obviously, it would be nice to be able to just say that their book is irrelevant.

If that is your opinion on what the only thing philosophers of religion contribute is, then (fortunately) you're wrong.

An atheist philosopher of religion usually knows the bible, the dogma, the theological/apologetic arguments very well. We can show how the conception of a deity as in the Catholic/Protestant/etc dogma is an impossible concept. They can reach the common man by arguing convincingly that "Meaning" and "Morality" and the value of certain things can be gotten from a worldview without god. That not all is allowed when there is no god, they can shoot down all the arguments for the religious position.

I myself (being a philosopher) have seen that happen (and occasionally made it happen) myself - I've "deconverted" at least 2 people, and eradicated some underlying misconceptions and remains of religiosity in the form of deism.

Wihout actual philosophically sound arguments against the claims of theism and theology, without arguments for the improbability of god, the logical impossibility of god, the lack of proper epistemic justification, the refutation of the arguments that belief is necessary to be moral and for life to have meaning - without these, we couldn't get anywhere... and these arguments we have are the brainchildren of people from Hume to Kant to Mill, Mackie, Martin, Oppy, Gale and Sobel. (and others)

377. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #177936 by MPhil on May 10, 2008 at 2:34 am

Dune010,

you're right - but still theology is dogmatically bound. It's not rational investigation.

A theologian might be an ally, but he is still confessionally bound. A philosopher of religion still makes the most formidable ally and opponent in a debate.

378. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #177928 by MPhil on May 10, 2008 at 1:14 am

Whoa, Spinoza

-Did you just write that? Philosophy of Religion and Theology are totally different things. Mainly for one reason: Theology is as far from philosophy as possible, because it is dogmatically bound. Finding out the truth, loving wisdom - philosophy wouldn't be possible if dogmatically bound.

It's not even "Metaphysics of the Catholic/Protestant Worldview", because that - if it were to be philosophy would imply completely critical assessment even of the basic tennants, and not with the explicit goal of affirming it in the end.

They have a position they are required to hold, philosophy hasn't.

Michael Martin, Graham Oppy, Richard M. Gale, John Leslie Mackie - all these work(ed) in philosophy of religion, so do Swinburne, Plantinga and Craig. But not every theologian does that, and none of the four people I mentioned first were theologians.

Theology - you might as well say "Finding the metaphysical attributes of the FSM" was a subject.

379. Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor

Comment #177619 by MPhil on May 9, 2008 at 11:21 am

Aside from the fact that the cardinal's comment on reason is incredibly ignorant and hypocritical - utter lunacy to be precise, the following makes it almost amusing:

A great many theologians and theistic philosophers of religion (I'd say way over 90% of them) spent and spend a lot of time and energy arguing that faith is rational and reasonable, that god gave us reason and that it is a major factor in coming to know god and leading a good life.

This comment by the cardinal is going to elicit some *facepalm*s - maybe even some anger maybe.

One of the people who wouldn't like this at all is the pope - in fact it is catholic dogma that the existence of god and reasonableness of faith are demonstrable by unaided reason...

:)

380. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177326 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 11:19 pm

Yuz blasfeema, youz no gets cheezburger, youz sole iz going to basement cat!

381. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177321 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 11:11 pm

Ceeling Cat, not Sky Kitteh

382. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #177320 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 11:10 pm

Etiquette is also thought to be something moral - it's thought to be the right thing to do to observe etiquette.

Proper-Function is excluded yes - but I believe you are competent enough to know that I meant every statement that says something is morally good/bad/necessary/permissible is about morality.

Since I am an anti-realist and a consequentialist, yes I think moral statement are hypothetical imperatives, but I never meant to say that all hypothetical imperatives, like "If you want this door to open, you will have to unlock it" are about morality.

I took these qualifications to be self-evident and therefore didn't include them.

To your last post,

Why didn't you say so from the beginning that you meant it's not "properly basic".

I was merely saying not only the "axioms" of morality are part of the individual's/group's morality, but also the derived statements about moral ought/shall etc.

383. Churchgoing on its knees as Christianity falls out of favour

Comment #177309 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 10:50 pm

If ever the Kaaba should be physically destroyed, I bet their theology will just shift to say that what the angels are protecting is still there... it's in fact the non-physical, spiritual Kaaba.

:)

384. Churchgoing on its knees as Christianity falls out of favour

Comment #177300 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 10:16 pm

fontor,

I hope you're not saying we need to employ means to make them die out.

385. Churchgoing on its knees as Christianity falls out of favour

Comment #177299 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 10:15 pm

I wasn't trying to explain why Christianity is losing popularity, just why the percentage of Muslims is rising.

But if I was to try and give an answer to that - I would say it's because, just like in Sweden and Denmark (and Germany, but less so) - and in direct, stark contrast to the US, religion isn't free enterprise. It's a fixed social institution, linked with the government, it's in some way official.

Where religion is free market enterprise, there will be advertising, doing everything to get people to "buy" your "product" - including brainwashing etc (which is what advertising does, but in a slightly different way).

That's just one factor, but I think it's an important one. The prevalence of religious faith as a crutch, as a major pillar of personal life is also one. And I think it has to do with the above. Since in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, (Netherlands in general) it was and is somehow official, it was taken as a given, and something you have to keep sacred, to fight for and do destroy everything that threatens your personal faith, including indoctrinating your children as strongly as possible.

Of course I could be entirely wrong, but it seems to be a valid explanation to me.

386. Churchgoing on its knees as Christianity falls out of favour

Comment #177286 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 9:23 pm

The prevalence of Islam in western civilisation is increasing mainly because of the fact that Muslims have far more children than non-muslims... and yes, because of immigration, which in itself isn't a bad thing.

387. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177284 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 9:17 pm

Someone else take this one, I'm tired, and don't want to get my hands dirty now...

388. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177279 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 9:12 pm

It's because from P and the premises it follows that R is true, and because a conditional can't be false when the consequent is true - yes.

If everyone deleted posts that are not adding to the discussion, but only their personal understanding (or less), then there would be a few hundred, if not thousand comments less on this site :)

389. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177276 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 9:02 pm

So the statement to prove is

((P->Q)AND(Q->R)AND(~(S->R))->~P

S->R
is true iff
- S and R are true
- S is false and R is true
- S and R are false
and false iff
S is true and R is false

But R is true, (From P, (P->Q) and (Q-R))

Since R is true, (S->R) must be true, therefore ~(S->R) must be false.

But ~(S->R) is a premise. Assuming P leads to (S->R), so P must be false.

390. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177259 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 8:37 pm

markg,

I apologize if what I wrote came across as a bit harsh... no offense intended.

391. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177255 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 8:32 pm

On second thought, maybe a more precise definition of fact would be "An state-of-affairs that obtains in a spacetime or a logical truth"
(by including "a" before spacetime, I am accounting also for facts in possible worlds)

392. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177249 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 8:26 pm

Brian, your reductio wasn't bad - but not a conclusive argument, because the conditionals, the premises weren't elaborated on enough. At least that's how I see it.

And I was trying to give a coherent definition of the term "fact" before - not an etymological one :)

I defined fact as "an event or series of events in spacetime, or a logical truth". So facts do not change, since they already include temporal qualification.

393. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177248 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 8:24 pm

markg,

you evidently didn't read my post very well.

Statements arent't facts, they can be factual though.

I said for a statement to express a contingent fact, it has to specify the temporal point or interval.

So that would be "On May 9th 2008, Barack Obama is not the president of the United States of America".

If I say "On May 9th, 2009, Barack Obama is the president [...]", that will still be either true or false, it will express a fact or not no matter at what time it is made.


I specifically stated that in my analysis, you have to include the temporal qualification in the description.

A statement is not a fact - it can describe one. But this description has to include the temporal qualification.

Please read carefully what you criticize.

394. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177237 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 7:59 pm

The bible just said you shouldn't beat up your slaves so badly that they are of no use anymore.

But the metaethics-part is the important one.

395. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177221 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 7:25 pm

righton,

Well, the maja played something like soccer for the honor to be sacrificed, the headhunters thought killing another in certain ways was quite alright.

As for the Bible, take a look at the right side column of this site:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

Anyway - the argument they bring is bullshit, absolute bullshit:

they say
1. we always know that certain things are right
2. evil influences have convinced people otherwise

This postulates that everyone who ever did something morally wrong knew that it was wrong. This is ludicrous... so Hitler really knew that harming people was wrong. So in 1 Samuel, what does this tell us about the following?

15:2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
(15:2-3) "Thus saith the LORD of hosts ... slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."
God orders Saul to kill all of the Amalekites: men, women, infants, sucklings, ox, sheep, camels, and asses. Why? Because God remembers what Amalek did hundreds of years ago.
To kill or not to kill
Is God merciful?
What the Bible says about genocide, family values, and God
15:3 >Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

So the people knew that god was wrong? And it then seems that God was that evil influence... ?


But that's all beside the point. It's just a postulate, untestable, and even unfalsifiable to say that everyone always knew that something was good or bad - when all the evidence tells us otherwise. This is just a vain attempt to reconcile history with this person's ideals - and it's not working.

But even if - contrafactually - it were the case that some moral judgements were and are always shared, that does not mean that there are metapyhsical, objective moral values. It only means that people have accepted the same standards. It wouldn't prove at all that there are objective values, just that people share moral judgements - they can still be entirely subjective.

Throughout the entire history of philosophy, many have tried, but no one has ever managed to produce a detailed and coherent concept what "objective, intrinsic moral values" would be like.
Plato's "Form of the Good" is just an obscure notion, irreconcilable with what we really know about the world.

What would objective moral values be? Some strange metaphysical entities (what is that supposed to be btw?) that are YET connected to certain actions, states-of-affairs, intentions etc in a way that they "cause" them to be morally right or wrong or entail that they are right or wrong....

We cannot conceive of such a thing, how would that work? What would that be?

And the biggest problem: Even if they existed, how would we know of them? If it was knowledge, it would be demonstrable - but it isn't. You can never prove that something is intrinsically good.
It couldn't be through scripture, because that presupposes that what the scripture commands is morally good, but that is circular. You would have to prove that without recurring to the bible.
It cannot be internal revelation from god, because you could not know that you didn't just suffer a hallucination - and you would again already have to presuppose the goodness of what god commands - that is circular.

What it comes down to:

1. We have no justification whatsoever for believing in metaphysically objective, intrinsic moral values because we cannot form a coherent concept of that.

2. We have no justification whatsoever for believing in metaphysically objective, intrinsic moral values because even if they existed, we could not know that this was the case, much less what those values are.

It is perfectly conceivable that if there were objective values, it would still be possible for everyone to just get it wrong. - So we cannot prove that they exist. And since the concept of metaphysically objective values is obscure, untestable and incoherent - we can conclude they don't exist.

Also, righton...

.... you should read (and recommend to your debate-partner) the book

"Ethics - Inventing Right and Wrong" by John Leslie Mackie.

396. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176828 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 6:10 am

Incredulous,

I am assuming that we have a calling or even a right to do this

I'm not sure what would be meant by "calling" in a non-superstitious way... don't see that this is an applicable concept. I'd say our "right" derives from the pragmatic necessity of reason for the survival of us, civiliation, human life and life in general. Sam Harris makes the point quite well that unreason is dangerous to others, not just to those unreasonable. Imagine a large society stuck with the concepts of illnesses as demonic possesions - and rejecting medicine. When a dangerous virus spreads through that population, they become a danger to others - we would have to completely contain them or force medicine upon them.

Secondly, we recognize certain political liberties as properly basic - and I think these are rationally derivable with taking only two things for granted: 1. A willingness to be social at all and 2.having the capacity for reason and for developing a concept of the good. (for more on this, see John Rawls "A Theory of Justice", "Justice as Fairness - A restatement" and "Political Liberalism")
The only rational conception of justice would be granting to all people the most extensive scheme of liberties rights, and freedoms that is compatible with same scheme for all others in society.

Among these are liberty of conscience, freedom of thought and expression and thus also the freedom to embrace or reject any religion. Also, it would include the requirement that everyone be made aware of these rights and that no exercise of them (where the exercise does not conflict with other granted rights) is in any way an offense.

Thus, certain religious practices, certain ways and contents of religious indoctrination cannot be rationally allowed, and are also morally deplorable.

Parents have the right to fuck up their own life as they want - but not that of their child. They must not cripple the child's ability to recognize and make rational use of the basic liberties, rights and freedoms - or the ability to interact socially.
They must not commit mental torture on their child (seen "Baby Bible Bashers" for example?).

Of all the people I have met who have religious experience very few really, really believe.

I wasn't making the "pathlogical"-"responsive to reason" distinction in that way.
1. I thinks ist problematic to talk about a difference between believing and "really, really, really believing" - what would the demarcation be. There can be feigning belief( for example out of belief in belief) and believing, but that is beside the point.

I also don't think we can apply the criterion of "having a full understanding of the logical and evidential status of the proposition believed to be true" - since that is largely unconnected to the question of belief - which is consistent, tacit or open and tacit affirmation of that proposition.

I think many many people (perhaps most) REALLY believe this stuff, but have a compartmentalised mind and/or very unsophisticated, unreflective concepts of what they belief. Thus they are responsive to reason, they are just i) not trained enough in it or ii) not consistent enough in its application, - or both.

The psychopathological then are those who are compeltely irresponsive to reason - ie having seen people die because they handled snakes, having suffered from snakebites, but still firmly believing that they are - in virtue of being true christians - immune to that.
That which in psychology is properly defined as the pathology (or pathological symptom of) delusion.

Fundamentalists are closer to this than moderates, but they are all still in some part of their minds and to some extent even in the religious part responsive to reason... I was distinguishing these people, for which it is not impossible to give this up for reasons of rationality from those for which it completely is.

Don't get me wrong the wooter's and DR's of this world should get short shrift, and they do. The important thing is that it becomes evident that evidence is what should drive beliefs and hence actions.

And not just over time. With support, understanding and patience. But mostly by being prepared to accept that all habits are hard to break and that relapses are common.

I can only subscribe to that in full.

The next sentence however needs, I think, a minor alteration - it is not wrong beliefs per se that do harm (many wrong beliefs are neutral, some very beneficial, some - or many - may, but not in virtue of being wrong, as the fact shows that there are neutral wrong beliefs and beneficial wrong beliefs). Also not every irrational belief (arrived at and held not because of logical arguments and evidence but because of something else) is harmful...

It is - as I stated above - non-rationalism itself that is dangerous, because once you abandon the requirement for rationality (not in all actions have to be rational though - there's nothing inherently, generally wrong with falling irrationally in love with someone)... once you model your beliefs about states-of-affairs in the world, about the truth-value of propositions not in a reasonable and rational way, there is no formal barrier against the many, many, many false propositions to become believed and potentially cause harm. (Like the one mentioned above with the virus) Also for other reasons, but I'm far too tired now to go into this specifically in more detail.

Better education - especially science and maths, better economic circumstances and leaders who show moral fortitude as a human drive and not as an illusion from an illusion.

Yes, absolutely - education is a major element, perhaps the most important one. But not only in science and maths, not even primarily, but primarily in thinking rationally. In its purest form, this is logic and philosophy - mathematics and empirical science also employ this method solely - but it can also be taught in itself - teaching critical, rational thinking skills, in other words philosophy. By learning philosophy, you learn to think critically about everything (which is why there is a "philosophy of" nearly everything :)

But also communication, papreciation, analysis and proper usage of language, as well as the appreciation for value and beauty (i.e. languages, ethics, music, art) are of importance.

So we have logic/philosophy (critica, logical thinking in general), mathematics, empirical sciences, ethics, languages, music, art....

See, we've almost got a classical curriculum there - proper education in these would certainly make the world a far better place.
______________________________________

phatbat,

isolate them, and then take em out one by one? Sounds like guerrilla-tactics to me... :)

...anyway - gotta sleep now. Good night people!

397. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176798 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 3:37 am

Incredulous,

I think you misread my post... or read over a "not".

Most people have a strong emotional tie with religion. Indeed this indoctrination appears to work by adopting emotionally effective techniques.

I never doubted that, in fact that is part of what I meant by "not by being taken through the arguments and being shown the evidence".

Are you saying that people are either duped, seduced or browbeaten whilst vulnerable into believing?

Yes, among other things but this is in no way contradictory to the "emotional reason for belief"... because these emotions are conditioned as well in the indoctrination, because of the content of the indoctrination.

AS for your statements about reason being unable to "beat" emotion... partly true.

I was emotionally invested in the belief that objective moral values exist, as most people are, as all (pious) theists are. I feared what would be the case if these didn't exist.

When I studied the matter, I found out that morality is still possible without them, that we can still get what we need from morality without them - and the fear disappeared.

This requires some responsiveness to reason - but except for pathological, extreme cases, this is a given, it has to be there in order to live. Especially in a society.

My current girlfriend was brought up in an extremely religious home, and was religious when I met her - and very emotionally invested in the religious beliefs. I talked to her about all these things, and she had thought about them herself before that (she studies biology, btw)... and now she is an atheist. Even an anti-theist.

So all that is needed is some responsiveness to reason, which is there in almost all cases.

Of course there are the pathological cases, the seriously fucked up minds, and it will be necessary to just keep them from doing harm to others, but these are by far a small minority.

Many cases are very hard to crack... but the responsiveness is there. The psychological barriers are just extremely strong... and they can be torn down over time.

Also, if this was not possible, we wouldn't have made it past believing that lightning is god's anger, that starlight is the light from heaven shining through holes in the canopy over earth that god poked in there to illuminate us.

But that happened... so it is possible.

I'm not saying religion will vanish completely - that reason "will win"... but it can get more foothold, and -as it does over and over again- get more people in its side.

398. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176787 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 3:12 am

Well, it is not necessarily true that intelligence helps you survive in a niche, which is all the article shows... but human evolution and culture show that substantial intelligence can free one of a lot (most) of the environmental pressure. We increase resources, make the environment fit our needs, medicine, technology... we are above "niche" in some sense - through intelligence.

399. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176786 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 3:09 am

I propose that we should introduce a distinction between what in German is called "Ueberzeugen" versus "Ueberreden", and in latin between "persuadere ac" versus "persuadere ut"...

...namely being talked into believing something (not by going through the arguments and evidence) and being convinced of the truth of a proposition through logical arguments and evidence.

Most people are indoctrinated into theism, not being taken through the arguments and evidence which show that it is (supposedly) true.

You can get away from that belief through reason if you're lucky (if the indoctrination and fixation, the psychological barriers etc haven't achieved a certain strength/level).

But you can get away from a belief through reason far easier if that proposition is believed (mainly) because it was come by through reason (faulty).

Agreed?
____________________


riandouglas,

in "Baby Bible Bashers", when the little kid talked about hell, that "you will burn forever", "worms will eat your flesh" - that's when I cried.

You could see that this child takes this literally, children have a very literal mind - even if the parents mean it as a metaphor, a small child cannot grasp the concept of metaphors. But these parents meant it as they said.

The child is certainly tortured by the thoughts that all these people around him will literlly be burning forever, will scream and wail, will suffer eternal torture, that worms will eat their flesh. He is definitely tortured by this, but he is a kid, a human - he doesn't want people to suffer like this, so he has to save them. And anyone finding what he and his parents do offensive, or not agreeing etc is totally incomprehensible to him.

This kid was mentally tortured - the worst kind of torture. And you could hear it in his voice, see it on his face and in his behaviour.

That was so sad, so infuriating, so sickening that I cried and almost vomited. It really made me feel physically ill. No horror-movie could even get close to making me feel that way.

This kind of torture, of crippling the child's mind has to be forbidden - it's mental cruelty, it's torture.

Fuck, I'm already feeling ill and infuriated again just thinking of that kid and that film.

400. Two More Fleas

Comment #176782 by MPhil on May 8, 2008 at 2:54 am

Well, I disagree, King of NH,...

Science can per definition only study the natural.

If god is defined as supernatural, then science cannot prove or disprove the existence of that entity. Science can disprove supposed effects that this supposed deity is sad to have caused in the natural world, but that doesn't disprove god as a supernatural being.

The Definitionsraum of science, the class of things which are so that empirical science can make statements about it, is - per definition - pairwise disjoint from the supernatural. It can make no statements about that - nor can any statements about that be inferred from this. (There is more to this, but I won't get into it now)

I have studied philosophy of religion, logical arguments for and against for about 8 years now, I have also formally studied philosophy of science, logic and philosophy. That is to say I have substantial knowledge of what I'm talking about (I don't want to be arrogant at all - just establish that I know what I'm talking about :)

Logic has not proved incompetent at all (it is at the basis of all rational endeavors, thinking, observing, doing science, communicating. If you accept it there, you have to accept it everywhere, otherwise you are inconsistent)... you could only claim this if you do what the creationists do, namely say "Well, if it doesn't manage to do x, then it fails"... in the creationists case it's proving god or proving that belief in god is rational, in your case it would be the opposite - but have to follow logic and evidence wherever they lead.

Science can (in principle, not necessarily in practice) disprove all those and only those claims about states-of-affairs in the natural world - per definition.

You might want to look up "methodological naturalism".

Also, by the accepted demarcation criteria, all accepted theories and sentences of empirical science are provisional, which means accepted as the best explanation, not as known to be true with 100% probability.
You might want to look up falsification and the problem of induction. No amount of data and science can tell us that the next test of a theory won't tell us that there's something wrong with it.

Logic is still the gold-standard when it comes to proofs and disproofs, because they are not thus limited.

But that is only marginally interesting, because - per definition of science as investiagtion of the natural world and God as being supernatural, science cannot make statements about that, nor can such statements be inferred solely from statements of empirical science.

Suppose a religion states that "God has put the moon exactly 500 million kilometres away from earth". Science can show that it is not the case that the earth has that distance to the moon, but that would not disprove god, only the claim that that a god had done that - and not even in virtue of being done by god, but in virtue of the state-of-affairs not obtaining.

Btw, I have read Victor Stenger's book on how "science" disproves god. He fails to establish his premise. All those things in the book which actually approach that are philosophical statements, and all the statements about physics and the incompatibility between what it shows and what people think god has done do not establish that god does not exist, but at most that god has not done these things.

It is logic that has proved extremely competentin this matter: Every supposed ontological proof of god has been logically refuted, and philosophy has produced a substantial amount of actual, logical disproofs of the existence of anything that conforms to various specific concepts of god because of the logical contradictions in the concepts.

New arguments for theism are developed, and they in turn are refuted. It is not a failure of logic or philosophy - it is simply the nature of arguments properly pertaining to non-empirical matters.

That is to say, philosophy has produced logical arguments that disprove the existence of entities conforming to various specific concepts of deities to the same degree of certainty that logic disproves "There exists an entity which is at the same time entirely cubical and entirely spherical".

Furthermore - any argument for epistemic improbability of god's existence is itself philosophy, not empirical science.

For further reference, I strongly recommend these books:

-"The Miracle of Theism" by the late, eminent John Leslie Mackie (general discussion of arguments for and against theism...far more depth and rigor than The God Delusion or similar books)

-"The impossibility of God" by Michael Martin (Ed.) and Sobel's "Logic and Theism" on the logical arguments against theism.

and
-"The improbability of God" by Michael Martin (Ed.) for the a posteriori arguments against god's existence.


Very good books!

-Michael