Freethought & Rationalism Archive

excreationist · 12-17-2001, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by madmax2976:
Well thats nice. You go from calling me a liar to saying things have taken an interesting turn. I guess I could call this progress.

I don't remember using the word "liar", but anyway, you've explained where these "hard determinist" opinions are coming from...

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The battle between Necessitarians and Regulitarians is not limited to theists and yes there people in both groups and many on the borderlines. Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett are two popular individuals that view choice in humans as very limited.

Did you read that Dennett article I linked to? Choice may be very limited in humans, but he still says that we choose between options. (Though not in a transcendent environmentally independent way)

Quote:

As for the theists who argue that the naturalistic worldview necessitates a hard deterministic position, they are of course attempting to provide arguments for making the theistic position more reasonable than the atheistic position. While they don't believe the position themselves, they argue that it is an unavoidable conclusion if naturalism is true.

No, determinists don't have to have the ridiculous definitions of decision and selection that they do.

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Since its clear to me you've never debated such issues with these types of theists, unless you have something constructive to add, I probably won't be responding to any more of your posts.

Yes, I've head about those theists before, I just thought you knew of determinists who actually thought that way.

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I don't find being called a liar constructive or worth my time to respond to.

I'm sorry that I said that (in different words), but I think you would agree that you implied that some people actually hold this "hard determinism" position - actually you were saying that some theists believe that these HD's exist.
It was just a misunderstanding. You should have been clear that these HD's are what the theists are talking about since you haven't given evidence that the HD's that you describe actually exist. Dennett and others would agree with HD a bit but I doubt he'd say that decisions and selections are impossible in a deterministic universe.
So maybe that's about all there is to say - I think those theists just made a straw man, unless you have evidence otherwise.

madmax2976 · 12-17-2001, 10:01 PM

Quote:

It was just a misunderstanding. You should have been clear that these HD's are what the theists are talking about since you haven't given evidence that the HD's that you describe actually exist. Dennett and others would agree with HD a bit but I doubt he'd say that decisions and selections are impossible in a deterministic universe.

Probably not. Most of us certainly believe we make choices. The task is to actually demonstrate that we do given the background of physical laws that we count on as being predictable all the time. We count on the universe being deterministic so we can predict what the outcomes of our decisions might be.

I know that theists aren't the only ones who say its an inevitable conclusion of naturalism, but in my experience they have been the most vocal. Of course they have an ulterior motive - to convert people.

I didn't want to give away the theistic take on it, because I'd prefer to hear arguments that refute the position logically, rather than those that just beat up on theists.

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So maybe that's about all there is to say - I think those theists just made a straw man, unless you have evidence otherwise.

I agree that they do make a "straw man". My position is that they start out with an incoherent view of what a "law" is from the get-go, which is what gets them into trouble and makes their conclusion faulty. If ask them to explain just what a scientific law is, that's when you'll have them on the ropes. With the view they have, they are unable to coherently define the word.

excreationist · 12-17-2001, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by madmax2976:
Probably not. Most of us certainly believe we make choices. The task is to actually demonstrate that we do given the background of physical laws that we count on as being predictable all the time. We count on the universe being deterministic so we can predict what the outcomes of our decisions might be.

Well I think it is easier to just look at chess computers. If people agree that obviously deterministic chess computers can make decisions then humans can too, even if the world is deterministic.

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I know that theists aren't the only ones who say its an inevitable conclusion of naturalism, but in my experience they have been the most vocal. Of course they have an ulterior motive - to convert people.

Well those who agree with them probably also believe that humans actually possess "free will" (because of some type of soul or spirit).

Quote:

I agree that they do make a "straw man". My position is that they start out with an incoherent view of what a "law" is from the get-go, which is what gets them into trouble and makes their conclusion faulty. If ask them to explain just what a scientific law is, that's when you'll have them on the ropes. With the view they have, they are unable to coherently define the word.

Ok, but next time you talk about what "hard determinists" say, you should point out that you don't know of anyone who actually is a HD, or else give examples of HD's.

BTW, here's some quotes:
<a href="http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/dawk-body.html" target="_blank">Richard Dawkins</a>:

Quote:

QUESTION: Now, if we are gene machines, presumably then our behavior is also programmed by genes -- you have made that case. But Christians would say that there is a thing called free will, and that free will gives us a genuine choice about our actions, that effectively free will allows us to override biology. What is your response to that as a scientist?

MR. DAWKINS: I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will. Indeed, I encourage people all the time to do it. Much of the message of my first book, "The Selfish Gene," was that we must understand what it means to be a gene machine, what it means to be programmed by genes, so that we are better equipped to escape, so that we are better equipped to use our big brains, use our conscience intelligence, to depart from the dictates of the selfish genes and to build for ourselves a new kind of life which as far as I am concerned the more un-Darwinian it is the better, because the Darwinian world in which our ancestors were selected is a very unpleasant world. Nature really is red in tooth and claw. And when we sit down together to argue out and discuss and decide upon how we want to run our societies, I think we should hold up Darwinism as an awful warning for how we should not organize our societies.

QUESTION: So you are not saying then that our genetic programming is fully deterministic?

MR. DAWKINS: It's an important point to realize that the genetic programming of our lives is not fully deterministic. It is statistical -- it is in any animal merely statistical -- not deterministic. Even if you are in some sense a determinist -- and philosophically speaking many of us may be -- that doesn't mean we have to behave as if we are determinists, because the world is so complicated, and especially human brains are so complicated, that we behave as if we are not deterministic, and we feel as if we are not deterministic -- and that's all that matters. In any case, adding the word "genetic" to deterministic doesn't make it any more deterministic. If you are a philosophical determinist, then adding the word "gene" doesn't increase the effect.

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8870/philosophicus/Elbows.html" target="_blank">Daniel Dennett</a>:

Quote:

The type of Free Will that Dennett thinks we have is finally stated clearly in the last chapter of the book: the power to be active agents, biological devices that respond to our environment with rational, desirable courses of action. Dennett has slowly, through the course of the book, stripped the idea of behavioral choice from the idea of Free Will. How can we have Free Will if we do not have real behavioral choice? Dennett tries to substitute control for choice. If our mechanical brains are in control of our behavior and our brains produce good behaviors for us, then do we really need choice? Is an illusion of behavioral choices just as good as actual choices? Is our sensation of having the freedom to execute more than one behavior at a given time really just an illusion? Dennett tries not to beat his readers over the head with this issue, but I think he should have.

If all people have is an illusion of behavioral choice, if people are just machines behaving in the only way they can, then what about personal responsibility? How can we hold people responsible for and punish them for their behaviors if they have no choice in how they behave? Dennett gives a two part answer to this question. First, we hold people responsible for their actions because we know from historical experience that this is an effective means to make people behave in a socially acceptable way. Second, holding people responsible only works when combined with the fact that people can be informed of the fact that they are being held responsible and respond to this state of affairs by controlling their behavior so as to avoid punishment. People who break the rules set by society and get punished may be behaving in the only way they can, but if we did not hold them accountable for their actions, people would behave even worse than they do with the threat of punishment. This is a totally utilitarian approach to the issue of responsibility, there is no need for moral indignation when people break the rules of proper behavior. Is it, then, moral to punish people who are unable to do other than break a rule? Yes, people have the right to come together and improve their condition by creating rules and enforcing them. We would be worse off if we did not do so. Again, an argument for utility.

One final issue, if people do not have real behavioral choices, why not collapse into fatalism? Again, Dennett's argument is that we may not have behavioral choice, but we do have control of our behavior. Dennett asks us to look around at the universe and ask, can I even conceive of beings whose wills are freer than our own? For Dennett, the answer to this question is, no, not really. In Elbow Room he tries to explain why all the attempts that people have tried to make to prove that people have behavioral choice have failed and are, in the final analysis, not really important anyhow. As humans, we are as much in control of our behavior as anything in the universe. As humans, we have the best chance to produce good behavior. We should be satisfied with what we have and not fret over our lack of behavioral choice.

They don't seem to be hard determinists to me...

crocodile deathroll · 12-18-2001, 03:05 AM

It is true to take a hard determinist line on each world in accordance to the MWI as each world in isolation would be strictly determinist. But the human brain emulated in many subtle variants in other worlds may confuse us and lead into concluding that at the QM level at least the world is indeterminate.

I feel that if free will is an illusion as the findings of Patrick Haggard suggest, then one has to ask the question. What causes that illusion? I still feel the MWI is a good explanation for this illusion.

Like if someone without the technical knowledge on how to make a movie was informed that all those moving images were just illusions. Then just the raw information of being told that they were illusions is simply not good enough. They have to know "why" they are illusion and that can simply be done by showing them a strip of film.

I do not think theists have a very good argument to offer with determinism or the MWI. With the MWI the universe is full of every possible preference, accident and therefore any creative plan for the universe is therefore not necessary.

crocodile deathroll

Quote:

Originally posted by madmax2976:
[qb]

As for the theists who argue that the naturalistic worldview necessitates a hard deterministic position, they are of course attempting to provide arguments for making the theistic position more reasonable than the atheistic position. While they don't believe the position themselves, they argue that it is an unavoidable conclusion if naturalism is true.

crocodile deathroll · 12-20-2001, 12:28 PM

Quote:

QUESTION: Now, if we are gene machines, presumably then our behavior is also programmed by genes -- you have made that case. But Christians would say that there is a thing called free will, and that free will gives us a genuine choice about our actions, that effectively free will allows us to override biology. What is your response to that as a scientist?
MR. DAWKINS: I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will. Indeed, I encourage people all the time to do it. Much of the message of my first book, "The Selfish Gene," was that we must understand what it means to be a gene machine, what it means to be programmed by genes, so that we are better equipped to escape, so that we are better equipped to use our big brains, use our conscience intelligence, to depart from the dictates of the selfish genes and to build for ourselves a new kind of life which as far as I am concerned the more un-Darwinian it is the better, because the Darwinian world in which our ancestors were selected is a very unpleasant world. Nature really is red in tooth and claw. And when we sit down together to argue out and discuss and decide upon how we want to run our societies, I think we should hold up Darwinism as an awful warning for how we should not organize our societies.

This would have to one of the most unlikely people that I know resorting to some form of mysticism. The very idea that we can override with this thing called "free will". If free will can override biology, then would it be an entirely new kind of force that physicists should investigate. Something that can physically alter and resist the electromagnetic force. A new fifth force in other words. What is Richard Dawkings trying to get at here?
Patrick Haggard had already established that there were chemical processes underway about a half a second before time we designated as the time we made the choice.
What more evidence do you want to prove that "free will" is just an illusion.

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Originally posted by excreationist -on road-trip-:


They don't seem to be hard determinists to me...

DRFseven · 12-21-2001, 07:41 AM

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crocodile: This would have to one of the most unlikely people that I know resorting to some form of mysticism.

He's not resorting to mysticism; he's resorting to politics. He (and other popular theorists) know how people HATE to think they don't have "free will." It's a feel-good PR thing. Instead of activating peoples' fear-of-mechanism, and, thus, alienating them, they hope they can slip determinism in by the back door. All they are doing is focusing the attention on something that sounds good to people - that we have a method of survival and control that is unavailable to other animals to a significant extent - and then changing the commonly accepted meaning of "free will." "We're free because we do not find our instructions for specific behavior coded in our genes; we depend upon experience." I do find Dawkins pretty shameless and almost smarmy in the way he panders to the notion of libertarian independence, because people DO think he means that thinking can be free of mechanism, so he's kind of tricking them into actually thinking about it, but he's smart about it. I see him as a soft determinist because he emphasizes mental constructions as determinants of behavior (nevermind how they, themselves, were caused).

DRFseven · 12-21-2001, 07:43 AM

Double post.

[ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: DRFseven ]

crocodile deathroll · 12-21-2001, 01:30 PM

You are probably right, but it could also be legal reasons.
You may well be familiar the old situation where a drunk gotten into his car and proceded to drive home drunk" and the indeterminist may argue the fact that he was pulled over by a cop and was tested to be well over the legal limit was entirely the drunk's fault. He chose to get drunk, He chose to get in the car stick the keys in the ignition and start it. This would be pretty well the party line in the legal system.

So I do not think it would stand up very well in court it the drunk said "your Honor, it was biochemical processes in my brain that were entirely beyond my control that made me do it".
Although I believe he would be right, I do not feel that theory will stand up very well in a court room. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Maybe we should really put "free will" on trial <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

crocodile deathroll

Quote:

Originally posted by DRFseven:


He's not resorting to mysticism; he's resorting to politics. He (and other popular theorists) know how people HATE to think they don't have "free will." It's a feel-good PR thing. Instead of activating peoples' fear-of-mechanism, and, thus, alienating them, they hope they can slip determinism in by the back door. All they are doing is focusing the attention on something that sounds good to people - that we have a method of survival and control that is unavailable to other animals to a significant extent - and then changing the commonly accepted meaning of "free will." "We're free because we do not find our instructions for specific behavior coded in our genes; we depend upon experience." I do find Dawkins pretty shameless and almost smarmy in the way he panders to the notion of libertarian independence, because people DO think he means that thinking can be free of mechanism, so he's kind of tricking them into actually thinking about it, but he's smart about it. I see him as a soft determinist because he emphasizes mental constructions as determinants of behavior (nevermind how they, themselves, were caused).

DRFseven · 12-21-2001, 07:35 PM

Quote:

crocodile: So I do not think it would stand up very well in court it the drunk said "your Honor, it was biochemical processes in my brain that were entirely beyond my control that made me do it".
Although I believe he would be right, I do not feel that theory will stand up very well in a court room.

I don't think it would stand up well, either, and I don't think it should stand up to absolve the perpetrator of responsibility. We'd be in a fine mess, then.

crocodile deathroll · 12-22-2001, 04:46 AM

It sure would be, as it would completely eliminate personal responsibility from anything.

crocodile deathroll

QUOTE]Originally posted by DRFseven:


I don't think it would stand up well, either, and I don't think it should stand up to absolve the perpetrator of responsibility. We'd be in a fine mess, then.[/QUOTE]

12-21-2001, 07:43 AM	#137
DRFseven Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Posts: 2,322	Double post. [ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: DRFseven ]</p>

12-22-2001, 04:46 AM	#140
crocodile deathroll Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Darwin Posts: 1,466	It sure would be, as it would completely eliminate personal responsibility from anything. crocodile deathroll QUOTE]Originally posted by DRFseven: <strong> I don't think it would stand up well, either, and I don't think it should stand up to absolve the perpetrator of responsibility. We'd be in a fine mess, then.</strong>[/QUOTE]

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