I am not certain where we disagree either, except the one intractable, the God issue. That one’s obvious. But the point I’ve been making is that it’s a language barrier. You and I are having trouble understanding whether or not we agree because of a language barrier or sorts.
I’ve studied Acupuncture a little bit. I know something about it. I’ve had it done to me, and I know some of the basic theory of Chinese Medicine. I am convinced it works, and feel I have undergone actual changes due to it’s application. If it’s simply a placebo effect then it violates what Dennett talks about in the first chapter of “Consciousness Explained”, when he talks about the inability to make an all-encompassing hallucination.
And even here, I’m still not sure whether you really do believe in a personal god or whether you’re just calling natural phenomena (like the ‘positive’ version of schizophrenia, for example) “God”.
Acupuncture has actually been shown to have a neurophysical effect beyond placebo (they tested it with ‘fake’ needles which just looked like they were being twiddled, in a NMR brain scanner). That does not mean the Chinese explanation is correct. Nor does it impugn Dennett in any way, since his point is actually how difficult it would be to model such kinasthetic input “artificially”.
I am working at speaking in the appropriate jargon. The Personal God, is well, personal. I am not really going to subject my relationship to God to external verification as it does not matter.
The Chinese explanation is within it’s own internal cosmology, the problem is trying to translate it within a western medical framework.
One question I’d like to ask you, related to our previous discussion. We seemed to agree that whatever one “gained” (eg. a sense of purpose) from religion was independent of the question of whether or not gods actually exist. When you say you believe in a personal god, are you saying that you ascribe a high probability to its existence? Or would you say that you gain a sense of purpose despite the fact that, when you really think about it, you don’t consider its existence all that likely? The analogy might be a fan of an underdog sports team “believing” in his team despite knowing full well that victory was unlikely.
But that internal cosmology might be wrong, yes? It can fail the tests which are consequent of that cosmology, yes?
If you don’t mind, go back and read the beginning of chapter 5. Does Dawkins say that some behaviors have a Darwinian explanation? Does he say that natural selection occasionally eliminates behaviors that don’t contribute in a Darwinian sense? Does he say that a portion of the behaviors that have no apparent explanation must be byproducts of traits that do have survival value? He says no such thing. He talks in absolutes. In his mind it is totally determined and carved in stone. He allows no exceptions.
Now you seem to be propounding the theory that evolutionary psychology might produce effects–directly or indirectly–that account for some of human behavior. That is different from Dawkins’ absolute statements. So if your theory of ‘some behaviors’ is true, then Dawkins’ theory of ‘all behaviors’ is false. In any case, my “universal theory” is merely a repetition of what Dawkins says. He says that all behavior results from natural selection, either directly or as byproducts. You cannot call it a strawman when you recommended the book yourself.
What’s wrong with that again? As long as you leave in the “or as byproducts” qualifier, I can’t imagine what might be objectionable about the statement.
I believe that sentience is a property of the cosmos, not merely of specific beings within it. All matter and energy are ‘thoughts’ of a greater being with which we participate. In terms of the mechanics of how it works, I am capable of divorcing such personalization to participate with an impersonal model, so my beliefs are not threatened by science. To me the existance of God seems self-evident as my own existance. This is not simply, “I am God.”, which is true in a sense and false in a sense. It is more like, “I am a subset of God.”, capable of perceiving the whole, only from a limited perspective.
Yes, but it tends to be more results oriented. If it doesn’t work it doesn’t work and you shrug and move on. It’s quite Daoist. However, the terms with which Chinese Medicine approaches medical issues are very different. How would you treat a wind condition with cold stagnation from western terms? In Chinese Medicine, everything is viewed in terms of the homeostasis of the whole, and not merely from the perspective of fixing a pathology. There is not fixing a singular pathology in Chinese medicine, every problem is the result of many contributing factors. So it’s a matter of fixing the flow of energy deficiencies or excesses. It has been westernized recently, so that one may treat say, ‘Cirrhosis’, or ‘A sore throat’, but Chinese Medicine itself doesn’t really approach the notion of pathology in that way. A sore throat could be caused by a combination of lung and stomach heat stagnation for instance. Generally the problem with studying it from a western point of view is that you can only really prove whether it works to treat the pathology as the western idea understands that pathology. Traditional Chinese Medicine has five pillars: Diet, Acupuncture, Massage, Herbs, and Qi Gong (Energy Flow excercises). It’s about treating a whole system, and the system is mapped in a completely different way.
Let’s establish two things right off the bat. First off, by loading up your paragraphs with “coulds” and “mights”, you’re definitely separating your argument from that of Dawkins. Second, as I understand it, no amount of further exploration along these lines could possibly give us anything other than a hypothetical scenario. Unless there’s some experiment to test whether this hypothetical scenario ever occurred in reality, it isn’t science (by the Feynman definition.)
With that said, I think the idea of a Darwinian battle of ideas is ridiculous. The entire reason why you folks like Darwinian processes so much is that they don’t involve an intelligent being choosing who survives and who reproduces. But in a supposed battle of ideas, there are intelligent human beings choosing. A human being decides (a) which ideas to keep in his or her mind and (b) which ideas to communicate to others. Hence there’s nothing Darwinian about the process by which ideas are selected.
Suppose I believe an idea: grass is green. In my worldview, I believe this idea because I see the grass and know it to be green. In the Dawkins worldview, as I understand it, I believe this idea only because the ‘green grass’ idea outcompeted rival ideas. To take the concept to it’s extreme, the grass could be orange or umber or blue with pink polka dots. All we know is that the ‘green grass’ idea has good survival value.
Of course one might retreat to a halfway position. Simple ideas are determined by what humans see and logically figure out, while the ‘Darwinian battle’ only involves complex ideas. But that would raise obvious questions: what is the mechanism that divides simple and complex ideas? Why are does competition occur only with complex ideas? And so forth.
(As a side note, I use “idea” rather than “hypothesis” or “meme” because I like to follow Orwell’s rule of using the simplest word that will do the job.)
This is rather strange. At your request, I’ve just read Chapter 5 again in its entirety and I simply cannot find the quotes you ascribe to him. He argues, persuasively IMO, that religious behaviour must have some Darwinian element since it can be so bizarre with regards to the time and resources (including, in some religions, sacrificed children’s lives) which it takes up. But the quotes I’ve found which relate most closely to our point of contention over whether he thinks all behaviours are the result of Darwinism are these, to which I’ve added some bolding:
[ul][li]p.193 : “Dan Dennett reminds us that the common cold is universal to all human peoples in much the same way as religion is, yet we would not want to suggest that colds benefit us.” [/li][li]p.194: “Religious behaviour can be called a human universal in the same way heterosexual behaviour can. Both generalisations allow individual exceptions”[/li][li]p.207: “We should also expect that superstitions and other non-factual beliefs will evolve locally –change over generations – either by random drift or by some analogue of Darwinian selection ”[/li][li]p.219:There doesn’t have to be natural selection. Biologists acknowledge that a gene may spread through a population not because it is a good gene but because it is a lucky one. We call this genetic drift … The cultural equivalent of genetic drift is a persuasive option, one that we cannot neglect when thinking about the evolution of religion.”[/ul]Indeed, the very premise that all human behaviour must be the result of natural selection is refuted by the very fact that behaviours differ in mutually exclusive ways, such that they can’t all be the result of a process which only left the fittest competitors. Someone who has written so many best-selling, well-respected books on evolution would surely not be blind to this.[/li]So I still think you’re mischaracterising Dawkins somewhat, but that’s a minor issue really and I’m happy to agree to differ.
I don’t think I am but, again, I don’t think that’s important here anyway.
What?? What element of that sequence is hypothetical? That there was a first individual which hypothesised gods? How could there not have been?
Forgive me, but that sounds like a completely Darwinian process! The only difference is the environment which selects which variations continue and which don’t.
“Battle of hypotheses” refers simply to the ideas which are popular (eg. gods and afterlives), compared to the ideas which are not (eg. that there are no gods and no more of an Afterlife than there was a Beforelife), statistically speaking.
Then you don’t understand Dawkins’s worldview. Really, this is just a bizarre misapprehension – why do you say this? mswas, if I may, I’ll rephrase the question: Do you consider it probable that a personal god exists, or do you define “god” such that it can’t not exist given that there is a universe?
(The acupuncture issue is just bifurcating all over the place so I’ll drop it now. Suffice it to say, I believe that if this Qi stuff existed, it would have measurable consequences which have simply not been measured despite careful tests.)
For a pretty simple reason. Dawkins discusses the idea of God’s existence, and according to him the fact that billions of people have observed God has no relationship to physical reality, but only results because the idea of God was good at surviving in the “environment” of their mind. I assume that he’d apply the same reasoning to green grass, and conclude that the fact that billions of people believe that the grass is green has no relationship to physical reality, but only results because the idea of green grass was good at surviving in the “environment” of their head. If that’s not what he’d conclude, and if he’d treat the idea of God one way and the idea of green grass the opposite way, you’re welcome to explain why.
Me: “I believe in God because the idea of God was selected by the environment.”
Pretty unsatisfying, isn’t it? All I’d have done is repeated the fact that I believe in God. Likewise when Dawkins says that many people believe in God because the idea of God has survived in their environments, all he’s doing is repeating the fact that people believe in God (and being pompous and wordy.) He’s not explaining anything.
No no no, nowhere does he say that god-belief arises because the idea is good at surviving in minds. That is merely a circular description. Chapter 5 is an exploration of alternative natural explanations for why gods might be high-survival ideas in the mental environment. Please, stop your assumptions and let’s start discussing what he actually does say, using direct quotations where possible.
But yet again, it is your habit of selectively addressing only the very least on-topic parts of my posts which is beginning to trouble me here.
Have your read any of what he has written on memes?
Question: Why do fewer people believe in god (as a percentage of the population) than did 400 years ago? Might it be because saying you were an atheist back then would get you killed? And because the meme for atheism, no longer a reproductive disadvantage in several ways, is more likely to spread today - through families, books, etc.
I don’t know the details of your religious beliefs, but you almost certainly got them from the environment, not made them up. So your hypothetical response is actually pretty good.
Imagine I want to get a pet. But alas! Out in the world there are dangerous predators, and they eat all the good pet animals - except rabbits. Now, if you were to ask me “Why do you have a pet rabbit?” and I answered “I have a pet rabbit because the avaliability of rabbits was selected by the environment”, i’m certainly explaining myself; why do I have a rabbit? Because the environment is set up in such a way that owning a rabbit has a very good likelihood.
That’s just a simple choice, of course. But let’s add in more factors; let’s say that there are other pet animals around, but some of them are hard to domesticate. And my parents are allergic to cats. And we have a long history in our culture of eating dogs. And likewise rabbits have a long history in our religious background. And keeping cows in the house is a taboo in our culture. And I like them!
So when you ask me “Why do you have a pet rabbit”, and I answer “Because the having of a pet rabbit was selected by the environment”, i’m not just saying “Because I do”, i’m saying “Add up all those factors which affect pet ownership, positive and negative, add in those factors which directly affect me, positive and negative, and the result you’ll come to is that rabbits were the most positive option”. In other words, that me owning a pet was selected by my environment. It’s not just saying “Yes”, it’s saying why - it’s reducing those whys into one, simple package, certainly, but the why is there.
Likewise, you’re not just saying “Because I do”. You’re saying “Because of all the effects of my environment, believing in God was the overall outcome”. You’re not naming all those effects (it might just take a while ;)), but you’re certainly getting across a picture other than “Because I do”.
I believe he would. After all, the experiencing of grass as green is subjective. Not all creatures experience grass as green, do they? “Green” isn’t a quality of the physical universe; it’s a social construct. You could make a case that in fact experiencing various things as wildly different colours to other people is actually a pretty negative trait, and not exactly a helpful one in social terms, so humanity has tended towards people who do observe in one way.
I’m confused by your overall argument, however; it seems to me that you’re claiming that billions of people believing in God is itself excellent evidence for God.
Actually, Revenant, I don’t believe a diversion into qualia (inverted or otherwise) would be at all useful here - I’m trying to address ITR’s previous posts in which he said that he finds scientific explanations irrelevant in important areas of his experience, giving the example of the origin of religious behaviour. I’m keen to avoid these distractions which arise solely from his misreading of Dawkins and concentrate on arguing my OP with him.
In any case, I don’t think the grass analogy holds since there are not competing colours for grass to be seen as in the same way as there being competing beliefs regarding gods and their nature.
As a psychology researcher, I’m keen to follow up on the assertion that psychology is a pseudo-science. I hope that this is not too much of a tangent. I don’t believe that it is, because I think it very much gets to the ability to enter into empirical study of phenomena that are akin to those of religious experience. However, I’m certainly biased, and if SentientMeat disagrees, I’ll happily drop it.
First, if you think that your anecdote here represents research or practice in psychology, you are terribly ignorant of the matter. I would recommend in that case that you shouldn’t make pronouncements as regards the state of a science (if indeed you lack fundamental knowledge about it). Psychoanalysis, a tried and untrue endeavor, was the province of psychiatrists back before the advent of the pharmacotherapy that most occupy their times with these days. It was never part of psychological research (except perhaps to debunk it or contrast it with other modes of therapy), but I would very much like to assure everyone that the National Institute of Mental Health is not spending billions of your tax dollars on psychoanalysis.
What I also find amusing about your ancedote is that, after witnessing two people make equally specious claims, you somehow apparently decided that one was nevertheless better than the other. It would seem that you did so on the basis of which one felt better to you.
So, would you please explain further how it is that psychology is a pseudo-science?
Let me try again to make myself clear. I believe that trying to understand the prevalence of ideas by how they survive in the mental environment is not a good approach.
The human mind is the highest thing which exists in the universe (or at least the highest thing that we all agree exists.) The human mind is capable of thoughts and self-awareness and many others things that inanimate objects are not capable of.
An “environment” is by definition inanimate, being merely the space or set of conditions where something exists, as a lake might be the environment for some fish. An environment does not and cannot act.
Therefore describing a human mind as an environment is reductionist because it leaves out the very thing that makes the mind into a mind. Ideas do not swim around the human mind like fish in a lake. Rather, the mind thinks a stream of consciousness consisting of ideas and sentiments at varying degrees of clarity.
Let’s consider the difference between a smart and dumb person. A smart person carefully considers all the ideas that his mind encounters and chooses them with the best mental tools available. That’s the farthest away from being an “environment” as a mind can be. A dumb person comes close to simply letting ideas drift around, and thus his or her mind is closest to merely being an environment. Thus, the Dawkins approach to understanding human minds is concealing a rather important assumption about intelligence.
But in any case I see no reason to describe the most powerful thinking thing we have as a non-thinking thing.
That one’s obvious. But the point I’ve been making is that it’s a language barrier. You and I are having trouble understanding whether or not we agree because of a language barrier or sorts.