Materialism, idealism, free will and god.

Great Debates
1

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
First off, I’m not interested in defending the specifics of Judeo-Christian belief to anyone. I’m interested in the philosophical notion of God (all-perfect, necessary being), and the partly philosophical and partly aesthetic notion of a sacred (i.e. perfect) book. I believe that when we reject the possibility of these, we lose whole vistas of thought, and impoverish the world for ourselves.
[/quote]

Why do you think we lose things? I don’t believe in the Olympic god’s but I don’t feel at any particular loss or disadvantage when I read the Iliad and the Odyssey. With regards to morals and values, I actually think Homer was deeper than the vast majority of the biblical authors. I see less supernatural contradictions with reality as well.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Thus, I am interested in (and study) idealism, and I am not interested in (and do not study) the free will/determinism problem. I talk about it when I have to, but it always seems to become a bad tennis match. I will always come down on the claim that if we have no free will then it is not worth talking about, and nothing’s worth doing at all, because no one’s actually doing anything, we’re all just being done to. No one I’ve said that to has ever responded directly to the claim, except to say something like ‘that’s the breaks, kid.’
[/quote]

I don’t think accepting determinism means nothing is worth talking about. We talk because we want to. That some previous cause makes us want, does not obstruct the joy we can have in doing. I don’t think determinism means “nothing’s worth doing” either. My particular biology/environment has led me to the conclusion that I enjoy gaining knowledge, skills, material wealth, possessions, adventure, women and song. None of those things can be had nor enjoyed if I sit at home. If you were to accept determinism I really doubt that you would change the way you live much for the worse. Friends of mine, who have adopted determinism say it didn’t make them any less happy.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Note that I do not claim to know whether or not we are free.
[/quote]

How about this; can you think of any good reason to think that you are free? A good reason, meaning some evidence, not just an appeals to personal vanity or wishing the world in a better place.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Hume was not an idealist. He didn’t deny the “thing in itself,” because the term hadn’t been coined yet. (It’s Kant’s terminology, and he was in part responding to Hume.)
[/quote]

Taken from Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature:

”A like reasoning will account for the idea of external existence. We may observe, that ‘tis universally allow’d by philosophers, and is besides pretty obvious of itself, that nothing is ever really present with the mind but its perceptions and or impressions and ideas, and that external objects become know to us only by those perceptions they occasion.”

Hume may not directly use the phrase the “thing in itself” but his “external existence” seems rather similar, if not identical. While were at it I don’t recall Hume or Kant (I could be wrong about Kant as I found him largely unintelligible) even denying the “thing in itself” but rather just stated we could not perceive it directly. As an aside I recall this idea going at least as far back as Plato.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
So we cannot know whether or not there’s a God, and we cannot know whether or not the world as we experience it is the way the world actually is, independently of our ability to experience it.
[/quote]

Again, this is fairly straw man regarding god. I don’t know a single atheist that says we can know there isn’t some form of god. Most just say that evidence in favor of gods in general is wholly lacking, and therefore can not be reasonably appealed to. For particular gods, for whom proposed qualities thereof are logically impossible, atheist will sometimes be so bold as to say this kind of god can not exist and is extremely unreasonable to appeal to. The Christian god, being but one example.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
But this does not end up with the wall/door problem you bring up, because it’s not an ‘anything might happen’ kind of line.
[/quote]

I think the door/wall problem remains if you are a strong idealist. To say something has not happened in the past does not prove that it will never happen. As the saying goes; the farmer that feeds the chicken eventually wrings its neck. Either you think experience, past associations, and observances of causal roles are enough to go by, or you don’t. To me it seems that some who call themselves idealists think practical materialism more than enough to go by in their every day activities, but appeal to the unknown nature of idealism only when they want to believe in something for which experience does not support. This seems less than genuine to me or at least not intellectually sound.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Ok, all of this gives ONE argument for the rationality of religious belief. A negative one. Belief in something demonstrably false is irrational. But neither theism nor atheism is demonstrably true or false. Therefore the atheist doesn’t have the ‘you believe things that are demonstrably false’ tool to kick the leg out from under the theist, and vice versa.
[/quote]

First I don’t see at all where get an argument for the rationality of religious belief. All you are doing is claiming ignorance and saying one can’t falsify some generic version of an unnamed god. You didn’t have to go to near the effort you did in explaining how you think this all relates to idealism. You could have just asked, and I would have admitted as much, from the get go. However, the thread we started on was not about a generic god, it was about a Christian god, a god for whom there have been made, claims and attributed qualities, which are easily falsifiable. I may not be able to kick the leg out of a deist, but I can say that the deist has no real leg in which to stand. The Christian, however, I can kick the legs out from beneath him, and his theology does topple. It is unfortunate that the Christian is generally not clever enough to notice.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
The concept of God, unlike the ad hoc logical puzzle counterexamples you’ve been bringing up, isn’t an imaginary but conceptually mundane creature like a Pegasus (take horse, add wings, there aren’t any around as far as we know, but it’s easy to think what one would be like) and it isn’t a logical contradiction (like a square circle). The concept of God is unique, as seen for example in Anselm’s definition “that than which nothing greater can be thought.” That doesn’t mean “the greatest thing” or “big daddy in the sky.”
[/quote]

You still haven’t answered whether you believe, disbelieve, or remain agnostic about werewolves. The same can be asked about your Pegasus. By your reasoning here, it seems that if I come up with some more interesting details to make, what looks like, imaginary beings seem them less mundane you would be more likely to entertain the idea and perhaps even believe in the idea.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
I do have to say that Christianity involves a massive twist on the Hard Thought that I don’t think any other religion shares: the belief that God became fully human at a definite and localizable moment in human history while remaining fully divine for eternity. If you like crazy metaphysics (and I obviously do) Christianity’s got the goods.
[/quote]

Do you think crazy metaphysics makes the story more likely to be true or less?

2

badchad, some of this is hard to follow. Can you supply a link? Thanks.

3

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Thus, I am interested in (and study) idealism,…
[/QUOTE]

What aspect(s) of idealism are you referring to?I’m a little confused by the content of this post. Is it the existence of an ideal being (non-religious), the perfection of the Christian God, the non-material aspect of the ideal, the subjective nature of idealism, or something else?

4

[QUOTE=magellan01]
badchad, some of this is hard to follow. Can you supply a link? Thanks.
[/QUOTE]

Continued discussion from page 5 of Errors in the Torah and Septuagint - Fact or Fiction?

5

(To everyone maybe reading this) – This all migrated over from the long thread about ‘errors in the septuagint’. The discussion stopped being about errors in scripture and became about the rationality or irrationality of religious belief, so we moved it.

Here’s the last post in that board, which is what badchad is responding to.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7705019&postcount=211

[QUOTE=badchad]
Why do you think we lose things? I don’t believe in the Olympic god’s but I don’t feel at any particular loss or disadvantage when I read the Iliad and the Odyssey. With regards to morals and values, I actually think Homer was deeper than the vast majority of the biblical authors. I see less supernatural contradictions with reality as well.
[/QUOTE]

This requires a distinction that I’d really like to nail down: I remain agnostic about the existence of God. The issue is whether its rational or irrational to entertain belief in God. And all my going on about idealism should have made it clear that we’re not talking about ‘reality’ in the sense of the perceptible world. If we’re talking about God we’re talking about something that lies beyond possible experience, and thus is not part of the perceptible world. (Nor can it affect the perceptible world in perceptible ways. In other words, as far as science is concerned, God is a non-issue, and anyone who tries to make it an issue is missing something. Except of course for the idea of preestablished harmony, which rules, because it’s just so wondrously crazy.)

This is a misinterpretation of determinism. It has not ‘led you to the conclusion’ if its deterministic. An argument leads you to a conclusion, a deliberation leads you to a conclusion, gaining new information can lead you to a conclusion, and then you decide to act on it (or fail to).

According to determinism, every single one of your acts are antecedently determined by some physical (or metaphysical) cause, that you have no choice in the matter at all. Therefore the appearance of choosing, and deciding, and etc. is illusory. If you believe in determinism you ought to stop talking like someone could possibly change the way he or she lives – but of course you couldn’t do that, because you’re antecedently determined to keep using those terms.

Of course hundreds of factors every day make us want different things, and conclude that different things are good or bad. The difference between determinism and voluntarism is that in the one case those factors simply make us do whatever we do, and in the other they are factors that enter into our decision to do what we do.

The way you talk here illustrates the point I’ve been stressing, that the only way to accept determinism is to not really think it through, but still blithely think and talk like you have some choice about how you want to live. The only one’s who don’t do this either become strangely religious (Spinoza, with his quasi-religious contemplation of a geometrical system) or utterly pessimistic (Schopenhauer).

How about this: how could it possibly be better to disbelieve freedom? What new vista of thought and action does it open up? What change in one’s life for the better? If anything it leads me to believe that I’m not responsible for my actions any more than a tree falling is responsible for crushing something underneath it. A bunch of people running around believing this? Doesn’t seem like a good idea. (Please note the distinction between moral and causal responsibility. The tree is the proximal cause of something being crushed beneath it, a murderer is both the proximal cause of the victims death, and morally responsible for it.)

Again, with determinism as with God. We don’t have convincing evidence either way, therefore our decision to believe or disbelieve has to be for reasons other than demonstrable truth or falsity, and thus it falls to ethical (in the broad ‘living a good and happy life’ sense) considerations and moral (in the ‘moral responsibility’ sense, not the ‘god hates —s’ sense) considerations. When I look at that balance, it falls towards free will.

Of course this doesn’t mean that behavior modification therapies and the such should be junked and that we should only rely on ‘moral counsel’ to appeal to free and rational humans. Belief in free will is not belief that we don’t have impulses, and aren’t often driven by them, it is simply belief that those impulses aren’t necessarily the last word in how we act and why.

Please. I was just making a terminological point about ‘thing in itself’. Of course Hume’s a skeptic, as the rest of my discussion of him as anti-metaphysical shows.

But ‘external existence’ is not the same as ‘thing in itself’. External existence is the objective world, but it’s still the world that we experience and perceive. It’s what the old skeptical ‘problem of the external world’ is about (i.e. how can we know whether there really is an external world and it’s not just an illusion.) Hume’s not all that interested in this question. His skepticism isn’t about the existence of real objects, but about causal claims concerning the connections between events in time.

Kant on the other hand draws a distinction between the world of experience (which includes the ‘external world’, as well as subjective thoughts, feelings, etc.) and the ‘thing in itself’, which is the world considered independently of our ability to perceive it. The skeptical question is about the reality of what we think we perceive and/or the reality of apparent natural laws. Kant’s transcendental arguments attack both doubt in an external world, and Hume’s doubts about inductive generalizations. Thus he’s anti-skeptical. Beyond that, however, Kant’s question concerns what can be said about anything beyond what we can perceive. His answer: no knowledge claims are possible, but rational belief is, as long as we don’t allow that belief to encroach on the strong line and start making or licensing claims to knowledge.

I really hope this puts the wall/door thing to rest.

(BTW, Skepticism in the ancient world has its heydey with the later Academy (well after Plato’s death) with people like Sextus Empiricus. Plato didn’t exactly doubt the external world. He called it the ‘world of sight and sound’ and claimed that it isn’t the ‘real world’, which for him is the eternal world of “forms.”)

Remember, our discussion is not about whether or not God exists, but whether or not its rational or irrational to believe in a god at all.

An atheist is perfectly right to argue against belief that God ‘intervenes in the affairs of man’ in any perceptible way. I readily agree that we shouldn’t appeal to God as an explanation of anything in the perceptible world. (I assume this is what you mean by ‘appeal to’.) The line between what can be known and what can’t is a hard and fast one. God lives on the ‘can’t’ side of that line.

If they’re using it to believe in the biblical “historical” record, over against the archaeological record. Silly. If they’re using it to believe that the sun revolves around the earth and the universe was created in six days. Silly. In other words, if they’re using it to believe something that is contradicted by the best science available, then silly. However, if they’re using it to entertain belief in something about which science must remain silent, because it lies beyond the bounds of possible experience, you must evaluate the silliness or non-silliness of the belief on other grounds.

[QUOTE/]
First I don’t see at all where get an argument for the rationality of religious belief. All you are doing is claiming ignorance and saying one can’t falsify some generic version of an unnamed god. You didn’t have to go to near the effort you did in explaining how you think this all relates to idealism. You could have just asked, and I would have admitted as much, from the get go. However, the thread we started on was not about a generic god, it was about a Christian god, a god for whom there have been made, claims and attributed qualities, which are easily falsifiable. I may not be able to kick the leg out of a deist, but I can say that the deist has no real leg in which to stand. The Christian, however, I can kick the legs out from beneath him, and his theology does topple. It is unfortunate that the Christian is generally not clever enough to notice.

Belief in werewolves and in one pegasus or more than one pegasus (I’ll save the debate about -uses vs -i for that unending greek pluralization thread) would be belief in the physical existence of animals that defy everything we know about the biology of vertebrates. Thus I do not believe that they exist. And, barring some radical change in biological theory or a confirmed find, I don’t think that belief in them is rational.

[QUOTE/]
Do you think crazy metaphysics makes the story more likely to be true or less?
[/QUOTE]

Neither. I just like it.

6

Oops. Dang. Screwed up the tags again. (Preview, Tichy, preview!)

Here’s that last bit done right:

I thought that’s why we started this new thread. And I thought you had an interest in the arguments of idealism. That’s why I went to the effort.

Once we got into the mix here – and off the ‘does perfect mean true’ scripture argument – I think I’ve been pretty up front about what I’m arguing for, note “I’m not interested in defending the JC faith against anyone”…and etc… I’m concerned with a very constrained question at this point, the irrationality or rationality of belief in the God that corresponds to the philosophical concept all monotheistic faiths share. (Necessary, perfect, being).

I love reading Christian philosophers’ attempts to make the trinity metaphysically respectable. They fail, but the whirlwind of thinking they produce in the process is breathtaking. But the trinity (and other specific doctrines, like the historical birth of God as man) are not part of the question we’re focused on now. Unless I’m mistaken about where this conversation is going.

Belief in werewolves and in one pegasus or more than one pegasus (I’ll save the debate about -uses vs -i for that unending greek pluralization thread) would be belief in the physical existence of animals that defy everything we know about the biology of vertebrates. Thus I do not believe that they exist. And, barring some radical change in biological theory or a confirmed find, I don’t think that belief in them is rational.

Neither. I just like it

7

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
In other words, as far as science is concerned, God is a non-issue, and anyone who tries to make it an issue is missing something. Except of course for the idea of preestablished harmony, which rules, because it’s just so wondrously crazy.)
[/quote]

Of course, there will always be those claiming that it’s those who are trying to make something a non-issue who’s missing something.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
This is a misinterpretation of determinism. It has not ‘led you to the conclusion’ if its deterministic. An argument leads you to a conclusion, a deliberation leads you to a conclusion, gaining new information can lead you to a conclusion, and then you decide to act on it (or fail to).
[/quote]

It most certainly has. We determinists are not mentally deaf, you know. We do recognize what we might consider the illusion of choice. There’s nothing undeterministic about conscious choices, it’s just that we don’t have a “real” choice. Like old Schopie said, we can do what we want, but not want what we want.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
According to determinism, every single one of your acts are antecedently determined by some physical (or metaphysical) cause, that you have no choice in the matter at all. Therefore the appearance of choosing, and deciding, and etc. is illusory. If you believe in determinism you ought to stop talking like someone could possibly change the way he or she lives – but of course you couldn’t do that, because you’re antecedently determined to keep using those terms.
[/quote]

If you believe in reasoning, you ought to stop talking utter nonsense. The fact that we have to do what we want and not something else doesn’t mean we can’t do what we want. It’s THAT simple, you can’t do something you don’t want to (of course, you could do something you don’t like, but in those cases you’d like not doing it even less), and since we’re partial to our own happiness, we want to pursue it, determined or not.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Of course hundreds of factors every day make us want different things, and conclude that different things are good or bad. The difference between determinism and voluntarism is that in the one case those factors simply make us do whatever we do, and in the other they are factors that enter into our decision to do what we do.
[/quote]

Read my favorite Hobbes quote, it should be a sufficient cause for your changing your mind.

[Quote=Thomas Hobbes]
Seventhly, I hold that to be a sufficient cause, to which nothing is wanting that is needful to the producing of the effect. The same also is a necessary cause. For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect, then there wanteth somewhat which was needful to the producing of it, and so the cause was not sufficient. But if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect, then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause, for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but produce it. Hence it is manifest, that whatsoever is produced, is produced necessarily; for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it, or else it had not been; and therefore also voluntary actions are necessitated.
[/quote]

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
The way you talk here illustrates the point I’ve been stressing, that the only way to accept determinism is to not really think it through, but still blithely think and talk like you have some choice about how you want to live. The only one’s who don’t do this either become strangely religious (Spinoza, with his quasi-religious contemplation of a geometrical system) or utterly pessimistic (Schopenhauer).

[/QUOTE]

Or Hobbes. Or Einstein. Actually, I think Einstein’s perspective on determinism is just what you need. I don’t have my book here, so can’t really remember where he wrote it (some letter), but it was a really optimistic view on determinism.

8

In Voltaire’s letters on the quakers, the quaker he interviews presents an interesting (if nonsensical) view: he says we cannot chose our actions, but based on “our hearts content”, (whatever that may be,) god chooses the actions we deserve for us. I don’t know if this is a common view for quakers, or anyone else, but you’ve got to give it credit for being poetic.

And lest you think determinism equals pessimism: do you really think a sunset looks worse if you realize you didn’t choose freely to watch it? Your preferances are your preferances, whether free or not, and satisfying them is… satisfying.

9

Wait a second here. badchad is not a compatibilist. He’s arguing a hard determinist line, or rather, asserting it again and again. I’m sorry if I slipped into using “determinism” sloppily. Hobbes argues for soft determinism, the compatibility of free will and determinism. For Hobbes we are rational actors, and not determined in our acts by laws of physics and chemistry (to borrow badchad’s way of putting it). The difference between Hobbes and the position I prefer (as I am defending a Kantian line) is that it is possible for us to act from motives other than the pleasure principle. (Hobbes is a ‘biggest desire wins’ thinker, a line Kant called ‘the spontaneity of a turnspit’.) But that’s not the issue here…at least it hasn’t been so far.

[crankypussface/]And heck’n’all, why are the determinists and atheists on this board the quickest to take offense, talk like high-handed oracles without care for the context of a discussion, and insult instead of argue. I haven’t felt this proselytized to since the last time I got chased by those guys on bikes in shirts and ties.[/crankypussface]

10

You are basing your complaint on too small a sample size. Note the number of actual atheists compared to the number of your debating opponents. (I have no idea how many determinists we have; it has not been a frequently debated issue.)

11

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
You are basing your complaint on too small a sample size. Note the number of actual atheists compared to the number of your debating opponents. (I have no idea how many determinists we have; it has not been a frequently debated issue.)
[/QUOTE]

Point taken. I’ll try to put a lid on the crankypussface. Assuming, of course, the principle of sufficient reason will let me. (It’s been sent to committee…)

12

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
This requires a distinction that I’d really like to nail down: I remain agnostic about the existence of God. The issue is whether its rational or irrational to entertain belief in God.
[/quote]

Now I’m not even sure what you mean by god. We started off with Judeo-Christian now it sounds deist with JC qualities. I’m not even sure what you mean by entertain. I think it is somewhat rational to think about beliefs in gods but not to believe in them. It seems you are still appealing to faith that is less than certain. You don’t believe in werewolves and “barring some radical change in biological theory or a confirmed find” where thoughts and actions can take place without physical neurons I don’t see why it would be rational to believe in gods.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
If we’re talking about God we’re talking about something that lies beyond possible experience, and thus is not part of the perceptible world. (Nor can it affect the perceptible world in perceptible ways.
[/quote]

Your god before had JC qualities, why is he now so impotent that he can’t even affect the perceptible world? According to all the legends that you find so interesting, god used to interact with the world all the time. Walking in the Garden of Eden, showing is back parts to Moses, becoming man, performing miracles, authoring a book or a few.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
This is a misinterpretation of determinism. It has not ‘led you to the conclusion’ if its deterministic. An argument leads you to a conclusion, a deliberation leads you to a conclusion, gaining new information can lead you to a conclusion, and then you decide to act on it (or fail to).
[/quote]

My biology and my environment led me to many things, which include arguments, deliberations and conclusions.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
According to determinism, every single one of your acts are antecedently determined by some physical (or metaphysical) cause, that you have no choice in the matter at all. Therefore the appearance of choosing, and deciding, and etc. is illusory.
[/quote]

Yes.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
If you believe in determinism you ought to stop talking like someone could possibly change the way he or she lives…
[/quote]

This gets down to arguing semantics. I still make choices. It’s me making them, not you. However my choices are still resultant of cause and effect. I change the way I live from time to time, again resulting from cause and effect.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Of course hundreds of factors every day make us want different things, and conclude that different things are good or bad. The difference between determinism and voluntarism is that in the one case those factors simply make us do whatever we do, and in the other they are factors that enter into our decision to do what we do.
[/quote]

How could you possibly, knowingly, make a bad decision, if not influenced by some internal (biological) or external factor (environment) outside your control? Where could your free will possibly come from?

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
The way you talk here illustrates the point I’ve been stressing, that the only way to accept determinism is to not really think it through, but still blithely think and talk like you have some choice about how you want to live.
[/quote]

You are not hitting me with any information regarding fee will/determinism that I have not thought through, but as Voltaire said, we must still tend our garden.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
How about this: how could it possibly be better to disbelieve freedom? What new vista of thought and action does it open up? What change in one’s life for the better?
[/quote]

I choose my beliefs, as much as possible, based on what I think more likely true. I do not base them on what I think will make me feel better about something. I think that optimally aligning my beliefs with reality, or at least the habit of doing so, will make my life better. And when I say choice I do mean that it is determined by physical chemical reactions.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
If anything it leads me to believe that I’m not responsible for my actions any more than a tree falling is responsible for crushing something underneath it. A bunch of people running around believing this? Doesn’t seem like a good idea. (Please note the distinction between moral and causal responsibility. The tree is the proximal cause of something being crushed beneath it, a murderer is both the proximal cause of the victims death, and morally responsible for it.)
[/quote]

Anyone smart enough to figure out cause and effect roles well enough to believe in determinism, is also smart enough to foresee consequences, or at least risk thereof, and thereby is likely to avoid them. I have my doubts that atheist determinists are overrepresented in prisons.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Again, with determinism as with God. We don’t have convincing evidence either way, therefore our decision to believe or disbelieve has to be for reasons other than demonstrable truth or falsity…
[/quote]

With free will and with particular gods I think we have very convincing arguments and a lot of scientific findings pointing against. Your beliefs or agnosticisms, seems directly tied to what you want true, not what evidence suggests is true. Do we have absolute positive evidence either way, no, nor do we have absolute positive evidence that we are not just brains in a vat.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
But ‘external existence’ is not the same as ‘thing in itself’. External existence is the objective world, but it’s still the world that we experience and perceive. It’s what the old skeptical ‘problem of the external world’ is about (i.e. how can we know whether there really is an external world and it’s not just an illusion.)
[/quote]

Well, if Kant’s thing in itself is wholly separate from Hume’s external existence then I will take back anything positive I might have said about Kant’s idealism. It sounds like just more wishful thinking.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Beyond that, however, Kant’s question concerns what can be said about anything beyond what we can perceive. His answer: no knowledge claims are possible, but rational belief is, as long as we don’t allow that belief to encroach on the strong line and start making or licensing claims to knowledge.
[/quote]

I do believe Kant is apologizing here for his own irrational belief.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
I really hope this puts the wall/door thing to rest.
[/quote]

Maybe, having read Kant I don’t trust that others fully understand what he meant nor that he himself did.

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Remember, our discussion is not about whether or not God exists, but whether or not its rational or irrational to believe in a god at all.
[/quote]

Well it seems to me that believing in your god, that lives 100% outside of the perceptible world, is about as rational as believing in a magic werewolf, that lives 100% outside of the perceptible world. Do you disagree?

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
The line between what can be known and what can’t is a hard and fast one. God lives on the ‘can’t’ side of that line.
[/quote]

So you say. Cite?

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
If they’re using it to believe in the biblical “historical” record, over against the archaeological record. Silly. If they’re using it to believe that the sun revolves around the earth and the universe was created in six days. Silly. In other words, if they’re using it to believe something that is contradicted by the best science available, then silly.
[/quote]

That a man could reanimate himself after being drained of blood and dead a couple of days. Silly, right?

13

It doesn’t matter what the motives are. Something still has to cause them. They’re still determined. You can’t want anything without something making you want it. That’s what makes the concept of libertarian free will so logically contradictory. It’s a claim that we’re free to want whatever we want. At some point you need a determinant. Will cannot determine itself (unless it’s random).

14

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
Wait a second here. badchad is not a compatibilist. He’s arguing a hard determinist line, or rather, asserting it again and again. I’m sorry if I slipped into using “determinism” sloppily.
[/QUOTE]

So am I. Seconding what Dio said, except things can’t happen at random.
That doesn’t keep you from chosing what you want, it only keeps you from being morally responsible for your actions. You still have to “make” sound choices, lest you wind up facing all the bad consequences. Even if we can’t choose freely, we can choose what we know is “right”. And unless we don’t want to do so, we must.

15

Badchad: You are the one concerned with attacking the particulars of the JC faith. As I’ve said before I’m not interested in defending them. I started this whole thing out by asking a question about what the assumption of perfection in biblical authorship constrains one who holds that assumption to believe. You started attacking the assumption. I tried to explain several times that I wasn’t interested in that question. You persisted. I gave up and changed the subject to something that seemed interesting enough to both of us to talk about, the rationality or irrationality of belief in the divine being of philosophically informed monotheism. (Which is not the interventionist god of the scriptures.) Yet you persist in making this about Jesus. It’s not. I consider the thread dead, because we’re just going to keep butting heads and talking past each other. I’m not on a crusade here, you are. (And the idea that this is about how ‘powerful’ ‘my god’ is…are we in kindergarten? “My science can beat up your god.” Please. And the “werewolf” thing: there is a distinction between a necessary, perfect being, and any old ad-hoc concept you can come up with. For example, the existence of the one is relevant to the way I think about myself, and think in general. The other is not. How about this: There’s no air outside of the perceptual world, so the werewolf suffocates. But there’s no air, so he doesn’t decompose. Ok, then, I believe in a non-decomposing werewolf corpse existing entirely outside the perceptible world. Much like this discussion.)

As for determinism. I have tried to explain the difference between belief in the truth of things on the basis of determinable evidence, and beliefs about things for which there is no conclusive evidence for or against. Yet you persist in pushing the no-evidence-for = irrational-to-believe-in line which runs roughshod over this distinction. (My claim: if there’s no convincing evidence for or against a belief you must evaluate belief or disbelief on different grounds than the presence or absence of evidence — because there won’t be any. And the evidence for hard determinism is an interpretation of the results of scientific experimentation. As you said yourself, scientists don’t actually operate according to the classical notion of causality, but with statistically significant probabilities. The hard determinism thesis involves a dubious interpretive leap from the concepts actually used in the present day theory and practice of scientific research.) At the end of the day it just seems that you prefer to believe all your acts are determined by causal forces, and I prefer to believe otherwise. I acknowledge that your choice is a rational one, though I disagree with it, while you persist in claiming mine isn’t just false, but irrational.

I’m not saying I’m right and you’re wrong. I’m saying that you refuse to engage me on common terms, so we can’t converse. I’m not in this to score points against your position, but to have a discussion. You’re not willing. So goodbye.

-=-

Diogenes, yelimS: You guys bring up good points. I haven’t thought about soft determinism in a long time. (Usually I’m confronted by crudely expressed hard determinism, hence my tendency to slip into just saying ‘determinist’ that yelimS caught me on.) The Kantian line on this is subtle, because from the perspective of the empirical world he is a soft determinist. We have inclinations, and seek the satisfaction of those inclinations. It’s the soft determinism of rational self-interest, which if I’m not mistaken is basically the position held by all the English empiricists from Hobbes to Locke to Hume.

But Kant goes on to argue that the perspective of the empirical world is not the only perspective we can take up, nor is it the only one we ought to take up. He distinguishes between how we think about perceptible objects (our bodies included) and how we subjectively think of ourselves as agents. He concludes that these perspectives are at odds with one another. From the objective perspective it clearly seems like determinism runs the show. (Though this is in part because Kant’s notion of causality is stronger than Hume’s…Hume’s theory of science is probabilistic in accord with his skeptical doubts about causality as a metaphysical claim.) From the subjective perspective, however, we have great difficulty seeing ourselves this way in the midst of making decisions and acting.

I think the counterexample both of you bring up is a bit of a strawman – this isn’t about a kind of Sartrean radical freedom in which I get up tomorrow and decide to leave behind everything that’s shaped my life so far and become a different person entirely. It’s the claim that we often choose between several different objects or acts to engage in or pursue. All of these, and our desire/lack of desire for them are of course to some degree shaped by our physiology, psychology and environment, but we are not bound to choose one or the other by some sort of computer-like calculation. “Want” in the way you’ve been using it is a blunt instrument.

“You can’t want anything without something making you want it.”

Yes, but we often choose between a bevy of different wants, and sometimes deny ourselves things we want for a greater good. “Something” made us want each one of those, but that just means that we act for reasons, and not randomly. But in any moment we are confronted with several possible courses of action, each of which have reasons for and against.

Of course you can then say I wanted to deny myself something because the ‘greater good’ is something I want more than the thing I’m denying myself in order to get it. But this just assumes that “want” is a quasi mathematical concept. For what reason ought we to assume that ‘want’ is a single, quantifiable, quality, that simply determines our acts on the basis of internal calculations. Buridan’s ass is neighing disconsolately.

BTW this isn’t exactly Kant’s argument – his interest is in preserving a space for moral/ethical considerations that go beyond our inclinations, and therefore argues that there is a motive other than ‘want’ that can enter into our determinations, which he calls the thought of duty, or ‘respect for the moral law’. But he uses the distinction between the objective (‘theoretical’) and subjective (‘practical’) standpoint to motivate that argument.

16

[QUOTE=I Tichy]
“You can’t want anything without something making you want it.”

Yes, but we often choose between a bevy of different wants, and sometimes deny ourselves things we want for a greater good. “Something” made us want each one of those, but that just means that we act for reasons, and not randomly. But in any moment we are confronted with several possible courses of action, each of which have reasons for and against.

Of course you can then say I wanted to deny myself something because the ‘greater good’ is something I want more than the thing I’m denying myself in order to get it. But this just assumes that “want” is a quasi mathematical concept. For what reason ought we to assume that ‘want’ is a single, quantifiable, quality, that simply determines our acts on the basis of internal calculations. Buridan’s ass is neighing disconsolately.
[/quote]

No, I don’t think you’re getting my point. I’m not measuring “wants” against each other or saying there can’t be more than one, I’m saying that whatever final decision is made still has to come from a desire to make that decision and that this desire still requires a determinant. Choosing between “wants” still requires it’s OWN “want” and that want has to be caused.

This is what I’m saying is impossible. A desire to “respect moral law” is still a desire, and it still has to be caused. You can’t be good without “wanting” to be good and that “want” can’t be freely chosen.

17

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
No, I don’t think you’re getting my point. I’m not measuring “wants” against each other or saying there can’t be more than one, I’m saying that whatever final decision is made still has to come from a desire to make that decision and that this desire still requires a determinant. Choosing between “wants” still requires it’s OWN “want” and that want has to be caused.
[/QUOTE]

I understand the point, but it just seems like an assertion. I claim that the term “want” can’t do the work you want it to do. (Another way of putting this: you claim that reasons are causal, I disagree. Reasons are reasons, causes are causes. We make judgments on the basis of our reasons, if anything, the judgment about what we ought to do or want to do is the cause of our acting, but that’s just the same as saying that I am the cause of my act.)

Your position leads to a regress of wants: Why did you want that? because I wanted that(1)…why did you want that(n-1)? because I wanted that(n)…

To which you may respond: yes but your position leads to an unexplained explainer. To which I will respond: guilty, yerronner! But an unexplained explainer (in this case, judgment and/or decision) is better than a regress. An unexplained explainer just tells us that there may be things that can’t be further theorized, but that are axiomatic. Regresses arise when one demands an explanation where an explanation can’t be given, and isn’t appropriate.

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
This is what I’m saying is impossible. A desire to “respect moral law” is still a desire, and it still has to be caused. You can’t be good without “wanting” to be good and that “want” can’t be freely chosen.
[/QUOTE]

Let’s leave this out of it for now – I haven’t offered Kant’s arguments for this claim and it’d take some time to do so. (He doesn’t take it to be a “desire”, but a purely rational motive. The debate about what that means has raged for 200+ years.) I think the discussion is clearer if we confine ourselves to talking about prudential judgments – i.e. judgments about what we want, and how to go about achieving it. We needn’t leave the land of wants and postulate an entirely different motive in order to have this discussion.

(To this degree I disagree with Kant, who is a soft determinist regarding prudential judgments…however he can be such a determinist in the empirical realm but remain a voluntarist, because he removes free will to the ‘pure practical’ sphere. In this regard the line I defend is closer to Aristotle’s in his Ethics.)

So: I take reasons (even assuming that all reasons are in some way or other based on desires) to require judgment and decision to motivate action. They are not mere causes. To treat them as mere causes leads to regress.

18

Gah! Should I resubmit that clean?..or will a kindly moderator fix a tag for a penitent dumbass?

Thanks!

19

I Tichy, The infinite regression you’re talking about is exactly the point I’m trying to make. That’s what makes libertarian free will a logical impossibility. The ultimate “want” behind any choice is not something which ITSELF can ever be chosen. You always get back to “I want it because I want it” but you can’t choose what you want. You talk about judgement, but judgement is a method for serving the will, not for deciding it. You can’t make a judgement about what is best without first wanting what is best. Yes, this leads to regression. That’s what makes the free will concept such nonsense. It can’t be free. It has to be either random or caused. The will can never determine itself. I’m talking especially about classical concepts of moral free will – that we can “choose” to be either “good” or “bad.” I’m saying you can’t choose “bad” without being willing to choose bad and you can’t be willing without already being bad. Sooner or later there has to be a non-volitional determinant because the volition, in itself has a moral value. Something has to get you off of Go. Something has to make you willing in the firts place (and when I talk about volition, I’m not talking about mere desires or impulses which can be resisted, I’m talking about the determined choice that "this is what I WILL do).

Now if you’re not really talking about libertarian free will in the classical (and especially religious) sense, but just about ad hoc judgements which are informed by programming and input then I agree with you, but that’s not really free will.

20

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I Tichy, The infinite regression you’re talking about is exactly the point I’m trying to make. That’s what makes libertarian free will a logical impossibility. The ultimate “want” behind any choice is not something which ITSELF can ever be chosen. You always get back to “I want it because I want it” but you can’t choose what you want. You talk about judgement, but judgement is a method for serving the will, not for deciding it. You can’t make a judgement about what is best without first wanting what is best. Yes, this leads to regression. That’s what makes the free will concept such nonsense. It can’t be free. It has to be either random or caused. The will can never determine itself. I’m talking especially about classical concepts of moral free will – that we can “choose” to be either “good” or “bad.” I’m saying you can’t choose “bad” without being willing to choose bad and you can’t be willing without already being bad. Sooner or later there has to be a non-volitional determinant because the volition, in itself has a moral value. Something has to get you off of Go. Something has to make you willing in the firts place (and when I talk about volition, I’m not talking about mere desires or impulses which can be resisted, I’m talking about the determined choice that "this is what I WILL do).

Now if you’re not really talking about libertarian free will in the classical (and especially religious) sense, but just about ad hoc judgements which are informed by programming and input then I agree with you, but that’s not really free will.
[/QUOTE]

At this point, you’re right, I’m not sure if we’re talking the same line as long as we stay within the prudential sphere. It sounds like you’re saying something like the Platonic “everybody wants the good, therefore if you do the bad it just means you’re confused about what the good is.” That would put you very very close to the Aristotelian line I’m arguing for…the determinism is the “everybody wants x” part.

At that point, you may be right that we need to delve into the harder stuff, ‘pure practical reason’ in the Kantian sense and the categorical imperative, in order to locate our disagreement.

But let me press it a little: Let’s follow Aristotle and say everyone wants happiness. This is an ingrained desire we all share and it drives all human activity. In that sense it accords with what I think you mean by determined. But we can have better or worse ideas what it means to pursue happiness, in a sense of better/worse that’s not morally-loaded, i.e. whether or not the idea of happiness one adheres to actually guides one towards a state of life that anyone would call happy. An Ethics is a work that tries to convince you that one definition of happiness – like Aristotle’s “life of virtuous activity” (virtue here understood both in a moral sense of honesty/justice/courage, but also in the sense preserved in the word “virtuoso”, i.e. good at something you care about) – is better than others – like the definition of happiness as a life lived for the purpose of satisfying bodily appetites.

In this case, something “determined” gets you off of go – the ingrained desire towards ‘happiness’ or a good life – but once off of go something other than the sheer desire ought to be steering the skiff. That something I call judgment, which cant be simply a calculus of competing desires.