DRFseven

This sentence makes no sense, since, if you have a concept of elves, elves are a part of your worldview. You think they exist; you're undecided, or you don't think they exist.

According to my own worldview, elves are not real, but the idea of them can be employed for enjoyment in fairy-tales, movies (LOTR!), philosophical discussions, etc. To my mind, they have pointy ears, curly-toed shoes, they're little, and they sometimes sneak into shoe-maker's shops at night, cut out leather shoes, and sew them together. They're generally conceived as being mischievous. Does any of this ring a bell with you? If so, they're part of your worldview, as is everything else of which you have a concept.

Setting aside the objection that you could, of course, lie (which I doubt you would do), it WOULD prove that you could arbitrarily direct your beliefs. If you could, then maybe I could choose to believe in God. It makes no difference what the belief is - how about the Loch Ness Monster; do you believe in that? Do you believe in God, angels, Satan, Yettis, alien abductions, the city of Atlantis, taxation without representation, school vouchers, free enterprise, continental drift, evolution, spontaneous combustion? Whatever your beliefs regarding any of these concepts, you can't just arbitrarily change that belief because you didn't just arbitrarily choose it in the first place. Your beliefs are a result of a long and complicated set-up that resulted from your having lived your life so far.

Well, I'm talking about elves, dammit, and I started this discussion! Seriously, elves, like anything else, fit into the discussion nicely. I understand that you don't want the elves to shoot God out of the sky, but they are going to. At least they shoot down the idea of a just God. You can still have a God who condemns people to eternal torment for being bound to a psychophysiology he set them up with, but that kind of a god is pretty useless.

You've made up a whole fantasy about value. Value is a function of positive and negative feelings attached to memories and is accomplished through chemical transmitters that jolt the brain with a signal that is translated as rewarding or not. There is no such thing as reasoning without this emotional phenomena, which supplies motivation to choice. While we don't know exactly how the brain interprets a certain chemical arrangement as "good", we know that it does and that when this function goes wrong, people are unable to make decisions. For instance, when I contemplate whether I want orange juice or grapefruit juice for breakfast, I conjure up the memory of the taste I want and compare it with the memory of the taste of each. If the taste I am craving is orange juice, I don't get that little "yes" jolt from thinking about grapefruit juice, as I do from thinking about the o.j., so I choose the o.j. It's the same with elves. When I think of them as being real, my brain goes "Bzzzt; wrong! No biscuit for you!"

DRFseven

Don't you see that we learn the frameworks, too? Experience is the vehicle for that as well; you don't just arbitrarily erect a framework; it is built through life experiences, which includes those of which we aren't even conscious. Sure, an individual can grow up and learn about naturalism, etc., but it will be incorporated into existing structures that began in infancy and which continue to evolve over the lifetime.

DRFseven

double post.

[ August 01, 2002: Message edited by: DRFseven ]</p>

WJ

Excrea/Manm!

If I might be so bold, I think one of many things M is referring to might relate to the will to believe and consciousness. Excreationist, you spoke about the cosmological argument for the [choice to] belief in the existence of God, Deity, Designer etc.. and some other causal agent.

In that regard, I agree with M that the choice to believe is based upon evidence that suggests that likelihood. Regardless, it is neither 'arbitrary' nor from pure reason. What it is from is what i believe [ha] to be an innate desire of some sort. Why do I even conclude this? One word: consciousness.

Regardless of what *caused* consciousness, the fact remains that we have this desire to 'know' things. I don't agree that in order to say 'every event has a cause' it must first be derived purely from experience. ManM might be able to share some thoughts from James', but I think there is a Kantian innate need at work here which is 'hard wired' in consciousness that wills us to wonder the way in which we do.

Do I have proof? It depends on what kind of proof one *believes* is appropriate to make a connection (and ultimately a choice)about a particular thing (concept, thought, idea, phemonena, so on and so forth). To that end, the cosmological argument is a matter of choice because you have all the evidence that suggests causation, but you choose to stop all the regress based upon such inference from the evidence. (Logical necessity being another topic of course.)

Right?

Beyond that, the question returns to why do most humans care at all? I propose it is hard-wired apriori in human consciousness. Thus the synthetic apriori opens the door for the natural sciences to move these thoughts forward into the aposterior of experience and subsequent discoveries. And that is so because those discoveries always involve propositions that can be tested. Either way you slice the unknown, one *chooses* to take a position.

Right? But (again), why do we care? I think most of us wonder about our existence out of 'childish curiousity' with very little knowledge about the world. The primacy here, is in the apriori. And as M said, a bit of intuition along the way. There must exist an innate need to know.

(?)

EDIT: Maybe a more inriguing question is: Why do we even agree that the cosmological argument is necessary and should exist? I think that is an important question as it relates to the innate, no?

Walrus

[ August 01, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

DRFseven

WJ, of course we have innate capacities for learning, but nothing can come of them without experience. Without experience, there is nothing for people to form concepts of. You should do some research on social and sensory deprivation studies and see what you think. There is no such thing as an innate opinion; they are all constructs.

WJ

DRF!

Well, lets take a look. What do you mean by "opinion"? Opinions may be different than *wondering* about the world and my existence in it. Would you not agree?

It seems, for example, that the obvious fact both theists and atheists postulate God must be because it further means there is an innate need to understand the natural wonderment we in fact posess. If that is true, then the old question rears its head; at what age does this curiousity about existence occur and is it without experience?

I don't see any difference in the will not to desire to commit suicide than I do in the will to wonder about my existence.

I don't know, what do you think? Asking the deepest question of our being like: Why do you exist? cannot be derived from experience. How can it? Wouldn't that be like speculating dog's will one day evolve into sentient beings with full human consciousness?

Walrus

Jamie_L

I can agree with this in principle. However, I don't think many here would agree that we are talking about two equally consistent theories. Even if we were, I'm not sure there would be much agreement as to which one is simpler.

But even then, do you choose to believe the simpler theory, or do you just believe it?

Jamie

DRFseven

An opinion is a subjective judgement regarding circumstantial facts. I see a dark, cloudy sky, note the wind blowing, and hear thunder beginning to rumble. In my opinion, a storm is likely. I cannot choose to think otherwise for I am bound to draw my conclusions based on what I have learned through experience, which is that whenever I see certain signs, a thunderstorm usually ensues.

Sure; we arrive at these opinions because of our propensity toward problem-solving behavior (i.e., curiosity, wonderment, questioning, pattern-searching, etc.). But none of these behaviors are opinions. Opinions are formed as a result of experience gained by use of these behaviors, and they are "stored" as memories (the neural groups involved in the conception of that opinion generate a chemical potential for reactivation following an associated firing (i.e., those groups involved in detections of lightning, in the question, "Will it rain?", etc.). We don't have the option of not considering the effects of certain memories because they are physically tied to perceptual triggers.

We do have innate capacities for curiosity, but they must be "turned on" by experience. Infants reared under <a href="http://www.violence.de/tv/rockabye.html" target="_blank">conditions of somatosensory deprivation</a> develop severe cogitive as well as social/emotional problems.

What is suicide? What is existence? We wouldn't even know of such concepts without experience.

Certainly it is. When we are children, we begin to realize, through seeing it, that some things die and we learn what death is. This causes us to speculate on life and on whether we will die. People tell us about it, we observe dead insects, dead pets, hear of dead people. We worry about loved ones dying after finding out what it really means. Most children go through an almost obsessive phase after learning about death. None of this experience ever "unhappens"; we carry it with us always.

No. I've never known of anyone having an experience of seeing a dog develop a human-like consciousness (although I read a news article yesterday that says they can count!). On the other hand, every person I know has learned about different aspects of existence.

excreationist

ManM:
I also wrote quite a lot in my post about elves... that is what this thread is about - being able to choose to believe something.

I do not understand how you [DRF7] can continue to confuse elves with a worldview. I am exploring the foundations of how we interpret reality...Naturalism, theism, and solipsism are examples of what I'm talking about.
I agree that naturalism, theism, and solipsism are much more foundational but I wouldn't say that they are a complete world-view in themselves... I think a world-view includes all other beliefs as well, such as moral beliefs.
I'm saying that the belief in elves existing can be *part* of a world-view, and naturalism, theism, and solipsism are foundations of world-views.
Do you agree? Also, could you comment on everything I wrote in my last post to you about elves?

Furthermore I do not believe our choices are completely arbitrary. They are arbitrary with respect to reason, but not to value....I am claiming that the framework we use to interpret the world is free from logical necessity.
Do you mean that you think that we can have illogical beliefs, but we are forced to believe what we determine to be most emotionally useful/helpful to us?

Either our actions are the necessary result of a set of external causes or they are not.
Well I'd usually say that the contents of the brain are internal, and the outside environment (that the senses detect) is external... even though I think the internal things ultimately are physical matter.

It boils down to the question, "Could I have chosen other than I did?"
Based on the same memories and identical configuration of the universe, what would be the reason to act any differently? It is kind of like in the Back to the Future movies where the person behaves exactly the same way when history repeats - until an external influence intervenes.

In response I think that we are not free from self-determination [free-will?].
I guess you mean you believe in free-will then.

However this implies that there is a real self-determination.
Unless you're wrong that is...

But if we are nothing more than the result of scientific processes then our self-determination [free-will?] is the result of external causes. And so it must be said that our actions are the necessary result of a set of external causes. This is hard determinism. How can naturalism be reconciled with anything but hard determinism?
I'm saying our sensation of free-will is due to our lack of knowledge about our future decisions. When we begin to make a decision, we have know way of knowing what it will eventually be (since we don't have a time machine) - we have to actually go through the process of making the decision. If there was an omniscient observer, they'd see that we are completely predictable (assuming quantum physics is predictable)... but from our own point of view, we wouldn't appear to be very predictable - so we'd have "free will". On the other hand, things like insects and plants are fairly predictable because their behaviour is based on a lot less variables, so from our point of view they have no or hardly any free will.

...Either I accept naturalism and take on the philosophical baggage of determinism or I accept another theory which can better explain the element of self-determination in human experience. Since I reject hard determinism I must also reject naturalism.
I just explained about free-will in human experience being compatible with actual determinism.

Did it take you reading 'cogito ergo sum' before you realized that you existed? Those things I listed as pre-rational are just the standard common sense inferences I think we all live by. They come before philosophy but can be reinterpreted by philosophy. Don't worry, I am not trying to propose innate ideas.
Good. I was worried that you were saying that the belief that we exist is inate. You said that it is a "common sense inference"... so that means it is a conclusion, as I said... though not necessarily stated in the form 'cogito ergo sum'. Probably we learn we exist when we start saying "I want to do this... I want that..." and we develop a "theory of mind" (and understand that others have different points of view)

Finally, I forgot to tell you where to find a solipsist. The one I talked to was in IRC on the enterthegame network, #fat. He went by name LoserMan.
You said you have tried debating solipsists (plural)... that one sounds like a troll... I mean why call yourself "LoserMan" if you believe the world revolves around you and you're the only one who exists? I think he probably was aware of solipsism and wanted to annoy people. Unfortunately it might be too much trouble for me to download irc software... (I get too distracted)

[ August 01, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>

ManM

DRFseven,
Let me try to explain this better. If I choose to believe in elves as a foundational belief, I will interpret all cases of mischief to be the work of those clever little creatures. My experience is interpreted through my belief in elves, is it not? As such there would be no rational way for you to falsify that belief. How do I break out of the circularity? I begin with another assumption and re-interpret the cases of mischief (my experiences). At this point I am presented with two consistent explanations. What criteria do you propose I use to judge between them? Reason has been exhausted and my experience is explained by both systems. What do I have left? Since you have determined that we cannot call it value, what do you propose is a better name?

Of course, I have a feeling this is not what you meant by believing in elves. Given my existing worldview, I cannot choose to add a belief in elves. In that respect I am not free to choose. In this sense your claim is correct, we cannot arbitrarily choose to believe in something. But how would you address the scenario in my first paragraph?

I see your argument against God now, and it is quite a good one. Our beliefs are determined by our experiences, God demands belief in himself, therefore our experiences (created by God and determined by him) should lead us to believe in God. If we are determined, we are not responsible for our beliefs, hence it would be unjust to punish us for that which was out of our control. I completely agree with the logic. That means that we cannot conceive of a God who is just, determines what we will believe, and punishes us for the belief he determined. I personally do not believe that God is just (gives people what they deserve). Nor do I believe he determines our beliefs. I also do not believe God punishes us for not believing in Him. I guess your army of elves does not apply to me.

And so I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. Firstly, you seem to believe in a strict determinism of belief. Determinism kills all hope of a resolution in any debate. Second, I will have falsified myself if I were to provide an argument that makes it necessary for you to agree with me. All that is left is an appeal to your intuition. Determinism denies our experience of choosing. While experience limits our choices, it does not revoke our power to choose. Determinism also denies our convictions. When I say something is irrational I mean it in an objective manner. Under determinism my declaration has the same meaning as an apple declaring an orange to be wrong. It is nonsensical. Mine is an intuitive claims and can not be imposed by reason. You are free to interpret it away. Do as you choose.

And regarding sensory deprivation, do you know if there have been any tests done on contemplative and/or mystic types? For some reason I suspect sensory deprivation would not bother a meditating monk in the least.

WJ,
I'm no expert on William James (or any other specific philosopher for that matter). It is just that if I hear something that makes sense I tend to remember who said it.

Jamie_L,
It is indeed a choice when I believe the simpler theory. I do not have to place the highest value in simplicity. I may have another value that trumps simplicity altogether. Naturalism is very simple, but I find myself drawn away from it because I find it inhuman and repulsive.

excreationist,
I agree with you. What I wrote to DRFseven above addresses this and several of your other elfish comments. In your previous post you indicated that pride and/or happiness were values that could support one's belief in elves. Sure they could. Why would I need to comment on this? I'm sure we could list many values that support various beliefs. I'm just saying that there comes a point where value, not reason, supports belief. As far as reason goes, all we can honestly say is that we are undecided about elves. As far as value goes we can say we have no need for a belief in elves. Hence we choose not to believe in them.

I'll say it again. Our deepest beliefs are beyond logic. It is nonsense to call them illogical or logical. As such they are not externally imposed on us. Our value motivates choice, not reason.

Moving on, I find your reconciliation between naturalism and freedom to be unconvincing. We experience freedom because we do not know the future? But we really aren't free… It seems to me you are simply claiming that our freedom is an illusion. Have you thought about the philosophical repercussions of tossing out real freedom? While this is a perfectly rational explanation, I find it counter-intuitive. I do not choose naturalism for the same reason I do not choose solipsism.