Epistemology (General Discussion)

Sun, 2014-03-23 17:59

#2

Lorsa

I certainly don't mind

I certainly don't mind continuing the discussion if someone is interested. :)

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Sun, 2014-03-23 20:11

#3

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

I'm taking breather.

I'm taking breather. I thought that things would be fun, that I would learn something new about science. Instead it felt like I was arguing against a theist that kept distorting the standards of knowledge to the point where science no longer made sense and but religion did. Also, it seems that we drove everyone else away. More than 2/3rds of the thread was between us, with other people not sticking around long after getting involved. I'm tempted to say that you drove them away (but I was there too), but me thinking that that should be a sign that things were at risk of getting heated.

Mon, 2014-03-24 05:47

#4

Holy

Lectures on 'The God Delusion'

@DivineWrath&Lorsa: I did read your discussion with interest. I do not know if this will interest you or if it might just be a distraction. I am very much enjoying this set of lectures (about 6 h). Marianne Talbot, a theist, and Stephen Law, an atheist, both talk about 'The God Delusion' book by Richard Dawkins. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC32BD00D31F96FAA Me myself I am an agnostic, who does not belief in god.

Lorsa wrote:
DivineWrath wrote:
@ Lorsa [...]What does this absolute uncertainty in everything you are creating do for us?
It gives us humility. It shows that we can never be absolutely certain of anything, so coming into a discussion, any discussion, with the idea that we are RIGHT is flawed. You seemed to imply that religious beliefs are always based on poor reasoning and perhaps that [i]they[/i] use too low standards for what they consider knowledge. So I wanted to show that at even higher standards, one thinking is no more logically incorrect than the other (in the context we were discussing). Many people simply aren't aware of this and seem to believe that whatever is said by a scientist has to be True. It's good to be open minded is my main point!

Lorsa wrote:
I also believe my arguments offer us a good course of action insofar that you shouldn't "look down" on people who are religious and claim they are obviously wrong. Be open and understanding, two things I believe is always good.

I do very much agree with Lorsa's statements and quite enjoyed to read them. I am at the moment working as a scientist. While listening to the above linked lectures I came to think about science and philosophy again: To do science you have to accept certain axioms, then you can employ the scientific method to deduce the probability of your theories. I think a scientific axiom for example is that meaurements are possible and repeatable. Philosophy on the other hand only deals with logic. Philosophic arguments need to be logical in their train of thought. Many (all?) philosophic arguments can not be tested using the scientific method.

Mon, 2014-03-24 08:04

#5

MAD Crab

Holy wrote:@While listening

Holy wrote:
@While listening to the above linked lectures I came to think about science and philosophy again: To do science you have to accept certain axioms, then you can employ the scientific method to deduce the probability of your theories. I think a scientific axiom for example is that meaurements are possible and repeatable. Philosophy on the other hand only deals with logic. Philosophic arguments need to be logical in their train of thought. Many (all?) philosophic arguments can not be tested using the scientific method.

In my experience this is somewhat backwards. All logic requires us to accept Axioms - that's what they are. They're your starting point, what you accept because it's impossible to reduce things any further. We accept that 1+1=2 because we all know it is true. In science we use formal logic, we use falsifiability criteria, and we use probabilities that results could arise from chance. Philosophy as a field though is full of people giving their opinions on subjects and backing them up with words like "obviously" "any rational actor" or "I will not bother to argue about..." This is not any kind of formal logic. The reason that they don't use formal logic is because it tends to be very cumbersome when you're talking about things like ethics. The relationships tend to stop being of the "If A Then B" sort, or at least require that you pick your A and B very carefully.

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Mon, 2014-03-24 13:35

#6

consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture

The problem with a lot of

The problem with a lot of philosophy, in my view, is that we're using heuristics for problem ecologies that may or may not exist in the first place. As neuroscience reveals more and more about the inner workings of homo sapiens' brainmeats, I think we'll find the humanities are an endangered species, philosophy included. I think of the aspects of the sciences that emerged out of philosophy as heuristic equivalents of forms of life in an ecosystem. Some forms of life can survive and hang on in a particular ecosystem, and some truly thrive and take over. Of course, many more die out than either of those options, and more of those that die out come from the former group than the latter. Same goes with the problem ecologies that our cognitive heuristics are for. We've discovered some problem ecologies that we can apply certain heuristics to in order to, for example, develop all that's necessary to put a crew of homo sapiens into space. We're encountering real problem ecologies, and using increasingly more effective heuristics to deal with those problem ecologies. Some of them we discover along the way, such as the need for regiments of exercise in space to prevent our bodies from going wonky in extended zero g habitation, and what are realistic limits of missions based on the limits of our biological machinery and so on. But when it comes to the realms of the mind, you can take philosophy of science and take it apart at its most fundamental levels, attack the assumptions made that allow the whole edifice to operate in the abstract. You can find epistemic, and indeed metaepistemic, apparent paradoxes and flaws and other various stumpers (as well as ontological and metaontological questions with their own set of vexing issues) when you get into those particular problem ecologies. The questions multiply at that point, however. For example, how do we know that those problem ecologies are anything real? On what are those kinds of questions grounded, for example? At root you could use a Cartesian cogito (I think, therefore I am) to address the grounding of speculation at that level. What is the problem ecology? Well, maybe outside of just thinking about these issues, we're getting a blinkered view of reality (i.e. Descartes' famous "maybe a malicious devil/demon is setting up The Matrix in front of me but I can at least know that there is a me to be fooled" example). After all, our brains are only so powerful. This is one of the things post-Singularity theorizing might be able to shed a bit more light on, since brain hardware ten times as powerful as a homo sapiens bonecockpit skullpilot meatmachine would be able to comprehend things we literally have a hardware limitation on. But aside from just the raw power, there's how we're wired. We were wired by a DIY jury-rig of blind evolution, shaped blindly by unceasing time and dispassionate death. Would a machine that made a model of the human brain want to fix design flaws? Would an intelligently designed brain remove some of the informatic occlusion from our setup? Would we lack lack, in other words? In a brain without the problems inherent to evolution slapping together our hardware without thought, would thought do away with some philosophical paradoxes as products of inferior brains? It's like Alexander cutting the Gordian Knot...perhaps all along, we've just invented a perfect knot so that no one can untie it, thinking within limits that don't have value relative to other limits, but as soon as someone forges a sword, the paradox of the Knot becomes not so much a paradox as a discussion about different points of view on systems of limit and systems of value. The paradoxes that appear to our mental structure may only be such because of the way we are mentally set up. Lotsa questions, not many answers. Which sort of gores the Cartesian cogito, really. Because how do we know that we do think? How do we know there even is an "I" to do the thinking? As we crack the black box of the brain through neuroscience, I think noocentrism will go out the window same as geocentrism and anthropocentrism. The centrality of the mind, when nothing shows us that minds exist, is the same to me as the centrality of the Earth. Sure, it's counter-intuitive. But so is telling someone who sees the sun rise in the East and set in the West like clockwork every day that it's not that sun they see moving across the sky but in fact us who move across the sun. Science has unseated the Earth, and science will unseat the mind. There is no "I", no self, no person, no mind, no will, no soul. There is just the cognitive equivalent of flash fusion. Flash fusion, for those who aren't familiar, is when a light blinks faster and faster until, at a certain point, we see a solid light even though it's actually just blinking incredibly rapidly. The succession of moments that occur in the meatmachine fuse together for an appearance of self, but there is only discontinuity if one looks back on a life at the end of it. There was never a unified self, only the illusion of one. I think R. Scott Bakker said it best: It thinks, therefore “I” was. And that's where a lot of philosophy goes wrong. There are tons of problem ecologies in philosophy and metacognition that take the idea that there are "rational agents" or "thinking beings" or whatever, as just granted because hey, here we are talking, and "I" am talking to you and "you" are talking to me, and from there we can talk about x, y or z thing, but right away there's something to be skeptical about that, for example, the Buddha was skeptical about and the bleeding edge of modern neuroscience is skeptical about. There is no self, and as a result a lot of paradoxes in thought about "being" and "existence" are probably not paradoxes at all, but maladapted heuristics clinging to problem ecologies that, whether they exist or not, probably don't exist in the form we think of with our severe informatic occlusion. Science is the pony I bet on, it's the best bet in town as far as repeatable results and, for example, launching us into space and letting us come back and everyone's still alive nine times out of ten or more. That's better than philosophy's batting average, or really anything in the humanities, I tell ya what. It might be a heuristic only accidentally adapted to a blinkered picture of a problem ecology that we ascribe "reality" to...but hey, until better heuristics come along (likely in the form of post-Singularity hardware), it's really the [b]only[/b] game in town worth any metaepistemic consideration (unless you hold to pre-neuroscience views of mind, which unfortunately even most philosophy of science theorists of the 20th and 21st century do).

Mon, 2014-03-24 21:03

#7

Ranxerox

consumerdestroyer wrote:

consumerdestroyer wrote:
Science is the pony I bet on, it's the best bet in town as far as repeatable results and, for example, launching us into space and letting us come back and everyone's still alive nine times out of ten or more. That's better than philosophy's batting average, or really anything in the humanities, I tell ya what. ... [I]t's really the [b]only[/b] game in town worth any ... consideration

You're welcome.

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Wed, 2014-03-26 12:18

#8

Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture

ConsumerDestroyer:

ConsumerDestroyer: Interestingly, I suspect that if science achieves what you describe, the discovery will lead to its self destruction. The recording of our scientific knowledge requires resources. The more knowledge we have, the more resources required to store and preserve it. This means, for a body of knowledge to survive, the infrastructure supporting it must also survive. Examples of this failing exist in the various lost technologies. Damascus steel, heather mead, pyramid construction, etc etc. The infrastructure supporting these technologies fell, the techniques were lost, and IIRC only the steel has been rediscovered of those 3. That rediscovery was very recent too. The kinds of discovery you describe are knowledges that go directly counter to the assumptions that underlie all civilisations. If there is no mind, then it will almost certainly follow that hard determinism is correct. This will undermine every foundation we have for criminal law, contract law, and ethics. Criminal law is based on some core foundations, choice, consent, and reasonableness. Choice: Something can only be a crime if the accused chose to perform the act. If there is no free will, no choice, then the act was not a crime. Consent: Many things are not a crime if consented to, but a crime if no consent is given. Sex, for example. If there is no free will, then by definition, consent cannot be freely given. Consent not freely given is not consent at all. Reasonableness: This one almost has arguments keeping it alive, but beings with no mind cannot be considered to be reasoning. This means calling things they do reasonable, or unreasonable, becomes impossible. Contract law is based on the idea that those involved chose to enter into a contract. No choices = no valid contracts. Ethics are based on working out which choices are more, or less, correct than alternative choices. Again, no choices, no ethics. The societies that will survive this are the ones that reject the knowledge as impossible and treat any results supporting it as nothing more than a measurement error, The ones that try to integrate these ideas will fall apart as so many of the societal foundations become untenable... thus letting the infrastructure to record their scientific knowledge collapse.

Wed, 2014-03-26 12:51

#9

consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture

I think you're making some

I think you're making some pretty broad assumptions about what integrating neuroscience with philosophy of mind mean for the practical day to day lives of regular people. In a sci-fi register, when (and if) the technologies become available for safe, easy, affordable complex neurosurgeries, the ballpark is wide open enough that it's hard to know what kind of alien mindsets will flourish. Neurodiversity might become a lot less grokkable to current "minds" than the Eclipse Phase version of it. But even before you get to that point, people don't make hyper-rational choices or privilege science and/or logic and/or rationality and/or efficacy over beliefs. People make leaps of faith every day just to engage in communication with other members of their own species, much less the more complicated decision making processes, and I can't imagine most people abandoning their leaps of faith for a hard science that denies them the reality of their personhood. If legal systems made the change with a populace largely in opposition to those changes, it's hard to say which way things'd go, but I don't think it's super likely that the legal systems would change with the hard science before the hard science gets to a place where the neurosurgeries to alter fundamental (and [i]exponentially[/i] better understood) aspects of what we label "consciousness" are more accessible (at least to the rich, depending on social changes between now and then maybe everyone) and then the legal systems would have to take into account a dizzying explosion of neurodiversity (this all to say nothing of advances in computer science or biotechnology/genetics that might give rise to hardware expansions on the baseline homo sapiens brain that could be utilized to do things we can't comprehend by several more orders of magnitude than just futzing around inside the factory default meatmachines, which is already pretty far out of our capacity to predict). Just sayin', it's going to be hard to know what advances in these areas are going to bring. Especially with DARPA overseeing and/or funding the BRAIN Initiative and SyNAPSE and other scary shit like that. If military applications are the first applications, I imagine keeping people largely unaware of how well they can affect the subpersonal without the personal's knowledge (because the personal ain't real) would be a large part of why laws wouldn't change.

Wed, 2014-03-26 22:54

#10

Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture

You missed where the impact

You missed where the impact will come from. Consider that introducing the idea that someone was programmed introduces reasonable doubt, on everything. How many acquittals will that cause? When the foundational axioms of our legal system are proven false, many people will lose faith in it. Many others will deny the proof to cling to their faith. These two opposing forces is what will cause societal damage.

Thu, 2014-03-27 06:13

#11

Lorsa

Consumerdestroyer, sometimes

Consumerdestroyer, sometimes it is difficult to follow what you are talking about. Large walls of text without more paragraphs can be difficult to read through and some of your sentences sprawls on quite long. It would be easier for me to discuss if I could better understand your point. From what I understand, you believe that science is the only thing that can bring any form of knowledge. Furthermore, you seem to think that science will eventually prove that, as far as our minds go, we are completely deterministic beings. That there is no free will, and our ego is only an illusion. Did I understand you correctly? To start with the first point; you fail to take into account that Science came out of Philosophy in the first place. Removing the entire field of philosophy also removes science. It doesn't have a "life of its own" existing outside of all other thinking. Science comes with its own core assumptions and philosophical views. The reason why science is so successfull on an epistemological level is that it never makes any claims of proof. You never prove anything with science. The only thing that it does is disproving, falsifying ideas. It's a process of eliminiation basically, and until we have eliminated absolutely everything else we won't know we have the Right answer. Believing that science has shown you what is true is of course possible, but it's a delusion. It merely shows you what is impossible. Sometimes theories are discarded based on assumptions that haven't been disproven as well. Take geocentrism for example. The only reason why it can be discarded is conservation laws. They aren't disproven obviously, and it's quite reasonable to assume they exist, but their opposite hasn't been disproven either. For all we know, conservation laws [i]aren't[/i] true and the Sun really could rotate around Earth. It's unlikely perhaps and Science has simply assumed we have these conservation laws or else it wouldn't be able to do anything. Now to move over to your second point. If, as you claim, neuroscience will prove hard determinism within our minds, then the implications on society are quite drastic. Our existence as moral beings hinges on us having free will. If we do not, then we can not make moral choice, or in fact no choices at all. This implies that it is wrong to punish people for commiting crimes. We certainly [i]could[/i] still do it, but it would be illogical. Our whole society is based on the fact that *we* exist and can make decisions. If I am not responsible for my actions I'm certainly not going to let someone cause me pain for something "I" did. Also, I can do whatever to other people without taking any blame for it, for there's really no I to do anything, nor am I responsible for what I (or this physical shell) do. Adapting the world to that form of hard determinism means total anarwhy and most likely a destruction of civilization. So, even if it [i]were[/i] true, is it deserirable knowledge to have? Maybe even if we could disprove free will, we really shouldn't.

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Thu, 2014-03-27 08:27

#12

MAD Crab

Lorsa, the vast majority of

Lorsa, the vast majority of scientists already accept that there is no such thing as free will. Yet they remain civilized. There's more to it than you're saying. Science cannot prove, you are correct. But there are accepted measures for when to believe things as well. At the most simple level, we try and find the probability that our results can be explained by chance. Many fields use 5% chance of error, some use quite insane 0.0001% chance of error. Even a deterministic system is capable of learning (obviously). And since we still feel like 'real' beings, not just automatons, I suspect we're not going to all go crazy and kill each other. Justice still has meaning in a deterministic world - re-educate that mind so it no longer damages other minds, stop these minds from defrauding those minds. Maybe it's all clockwork, but it doesn't feel like it. And saying "I'm not responsible" is a cheat, and maybe even a bad input. Being responsible is yet another input into the deterministic system, after all.

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Thu, 2014-03-27 08:55

#13

Lorsa

MAD Crab wrote:Lorsa, the

MAD Crab wrote:
Lorsa, the vast majority of scientists already accept that there is no such thing as free will. Yet they remain civilized. There's more to it than you're saying.

I would like to request a fact check on that statement. What is your source for this claim?

MAD Crab wrote:
Science cannot prove, you are correct. But there are accepted measures for when to believe things as well. At the most simple level, we try and find the probability that our results can be explained by chance. Many fields use 5% chance of error, some use quite insane 0.0001% chance of error.

I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here. I know how statistics and error estimation work. What is that you believe according to the accepted measures?

MAD Crab wrote:
Even a deterministic system is capable of learning (obviously). And since we still feel like 'real' beings, not just automatons, I suspect we're not going to all go crazy and kill each other. Justice still has meaning in a deterministic world - re-educate that mind so it no longer damages other minds, stop these minds from defrauding those minds. Maybe it's all clockwork, but it doesn't feel like it. And saying "I'm not responsible" is a cheat, and maybe even a bad input. Being responsible is yet another input into the deterministic system, after all.

Hard determinism on a universal level has been disproven already. So we don't need to worry about that. We are talking solely on determinism within the mind. Anyway, I think you don't really understand what a deterministic system really is and the implications that it has. It can't learn in the normal sense of the word, nor does it matter how we "feel", as our feelings of free will is just an illusion. Knowing this, beyond any doubt, would most certainly change how people feel. In a deterministc system, you can't be responsible. All your actions have been predicted, you are not making any choice and thus it isn't a cheat. It's a logical consequence of accepting the 'determinism of the mind' premise. If it is true as you say, that justice has meaning in a deterministc system, and that we are still morally responsible for our actions, I would like to hear the arguments for that. Because to me, it quite logically follows from the removal of free will.

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Thu, 2014-03-27 16:58

#14

consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture

Lorsa wrote:Consumerdestroyer

Lorsa wrote:
Consumerdestroyer, sometimes it is difficult to follow what you are talking about. Large walls of text without more paragraphs can be difficult to read through and some of your sentences sprawls on quite long. It would be easier for me to discuss if I could better understand your point.

Yeah, my mind doesn't condense itself well. I mean, it's not [i]real[/i], but, ya know.

Quote:
From what I understand, you believe that science is the only thing that can bring any form of knowledge. Furthermore, you seem to think that science will eventually prove that, as far as our minds go, we are completely deterministic beings. That there is no free will, and our ego is only an illusion. Did I understand you correctly?

Not exactly. I suspend belief about knowledge, and look at the results. Science gives best results. I don't think that necessarily makes it knowledge or even true, but it's adaptive. Maladaptive heuristics aren't knowledge, but they might be (we have no way of knowing) and adaptive heuristics aren't knowledge, but they might be (we have no way of knowing). I have a fairly nihilist set of metaepistemic standards. Deterministic implies quite a lot of philosophical baggage that I don't subscribe to, but the long and short of it is that quite a big cross-section of homo sapiens beliefs/theories/assumptions about concepts like will/ego/soul/mind/self have about as much validity as the notion that because the sun moves across the sky, it must be orbiting the Earth. Maybe that means they are illusions, but that may only be because they depend on ideas that are on shaky epistemological grounds in the first place. What we intuit may be a real phenomenon, but like a geocentrist child before a heliocentrist adult explains why the counter-intuitive notion is the correct one, perhaps our culture of noocentric children just hasn't had enough adults around just yet for it to become common intellectual currency.

Quote:
To start with the first point; you fail to take into account that Science came out of Philosophy in the first place.

Whose philosophy of science? Hume? Kant? Polanyi? Popper? Feyerabend? Kuhn? Sellars (my personal favourite)? Maybe Paul and Patricia Churchland, if you want to keep it contemporary (and they are both absolute geniuses)? I don't lack consideration for philosophy of science, it was part of my post-secondary education. If what you're trying to say is that my argument didn't make room for this fact, I treat all heuristics with a broad stroke in my post. So, whether that heuristic is a particular philosophical school of thought within (or outside of) philosophy of science as we know it today, or whether it's the heuristics you use vs. the heuristics your neighbour uses to determine the order to do things in the morning, some things have greater or lesser efficacy in different problem ecologies. I know I didn't narrow my focus to philosophy as a primordial ooze from whence emerged science, but that's in large part because it's not entirely certain that anything [i]has[/i] emerged, aside from what [i]appears to us[/i] to be adaptive heuristics for a dizzying array of problem ecologies. It may not even be the case, and I'm willing to suspend both my belief and my disbelief and just look at the practical results. Philosophy of science is not as monolithic as you make it out to be in the following paragraph.

Quote:
Removing the entire field of philosophy also removes science. It doesn't have a "life of its own" existing outside of all other thinking. Science comes with its own core assumptions and philosophical views. The reason why science is so successfull on an epistemological level is that it never makes any claims of proof. You never prove anything with science. The only thing that it does is disproving, falsifying ideas. It's a process of eliminiation basically, and until we have eliminated absolutely everything else we won't know we have the Right answer. Believing that science has shown you what is true is of course possible, but it's a delusion. It merely shows you what is impossible.

To avoid walls of text and unwieldy sentences, I'll just reiterate: philosophy of science is not as monolithic as you present here. Some debates that rage on [i]include[/i] whether or not repeatable scientific theorems have a life outside of anthropocentric thought, as just one example (again, don't want to go sentence by sentence here). I think Sellars' refinements and the Churchlands' current writing on philosophy of science and philosophy of mind are pretty bang-on in a lot of ways, but even they are missing a dash of Dennett with some Metzinger to patch over Dennett's shoddy "intentional stance" business that stands out like a sore thumb. And all that? [i]Just my opinion[/i] about the history of philosophy as it pertains to philosophy of science. Some people think Popper is and was the be-all and end-all of philosophy of science, and I'm not just talking about old farts with tenure. I've met young scientists who think all the nitty-gritty of philosophy of science is irrelevant after Popper. But all that said, I don't feel like there's any incompatibility between what I laid out and what you've laid out (i.e. I'm not 100% sure why you felt you needed to give me a high school textbook scientific method breakdown).

Quote:
Sometimes theories are discarded based on assumptions that haven't been disproven as well. Take geocentrism for example. The only reason why it can be discarded is conservation laws. They aren't disproven obviously, and it's quite reasonable to assume they exist, but their opposite hasn't been disproven either. For all we know, conservation laws [i]aren't[/i] true and the Sun really could rotate around Earth. It's unlikely perhaps and Science has simply assumed we have these conservation laws or else it wouldn't be able to do anything.

Sure, I mean we now "know" it's not quite as simple as some heliocentric theories of ancient days put it. We "know", for example, that the sun is also hurtling through the void just as the Earth is (or we're pretty sure anyway, as you say). There are still mysterious forces. Don't see how it has anything to do with my point? Well, I mean, again, you didn't quite grokk my points, so you're sort of responding to a straw man (not that you're doing so intentionally, you legitimately seemed to think you had a handle on what I was saying).

Quote:
Now to move over to your second point. If, as you claim, neuroscience will prove hard determinism within our minds, then the implications on society are quite drastic. Our existence as moral beings hinges on us having free will. If we do not, then we can not make moral choice, or in fact no choices at all. This implies that it is wrong to punish people for commiting crimes. We certainly [i]could[/i] still do it, but it would be illogical. Our whole society is based on the fact that *we* exist and can make decisions. If I am not responsible for my actions I'm certainly not going to let someone cause me pain for something "I" did. Also, I can do whatever to other people without taking any blame for it, for there's really no I to do anything, nor am I responsible for what I (or this physical shell) do. Adapting the world to that form of hard determinism means total anarwhy and most likely a destruction of civilization. So, even if it [i]were[/i] true, is it deserirable knowledge to have? Maybe even if we could disprove free will, we really shouldn't.

I think you have a utopian view of how responsive criminology and politics are to new advances in science that is contributing to your future dystopic vision here.

Thu, 2014-03-27 17:02

#15

consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture

Also, on an epistemological

Also, on an epistemological note: how do you [b]know[/b] that free will is what makes us moral agents? Are you aware there are schools of thought on morality and ethics in philosophy that argue that free will would make us [b]incapable[/b] of being moral agents?

Thu, 2014-03-27 18:08

#16

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

Holy wrote:@DivineWrath&Lorsa

Holy wrote:
@DivineWrath&Lorsa: I did read your discussion with interest. I do not know if this will interest you or if it might just be a distraction. I am very much enjoying this set of lectures (about 6 h). Marianne Talbot, a theist, and Stephen Law, an atheist, both talk about 'The God Delusion' book by Richard Dawkins. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC32BD00D31F96FAA Me myself I am an agnostic, who does not belief in god.

Thanks for the links. I have already watched the first video, I'll watch the rest over time. I'm familiar with the works of Rickard Dawkins and many other atheists. I've been meaning to check out more works by theists, but from what I've seen, there isn't good evidence or arguments out there for God. I'm expecting more head aches from watching and reading such stuff, hence why I've been probably been putting it off.

Thu, 2014-03-27 18:18

#17

MAD Crab

Lorsa wrote:

Lorsa wrote:
I would like to request a fact check on that statement. What is your source for this claim?

Well, I'm basing it on the fact that the big bang and evolution are generally accepted in the scientific community (neither of supports free will), as well as numerous neurological studies showing everything from personality change due to brain damage to the ability to [url=http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_decision] predict choices in advance using MRI [/url]. Basically, nothing we know supports free will, and I am taking for granted that scientists generally agree with that.

Lorsa wrote:
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here. I know how statistics and error estimation work. What is that you believe according to the accepted measures?

I'm saying that science gives us a way to 'know' things to a reasonable degree of certainty.

Lorsa wrote:
Hard determinism on a universal level has been disproven already. So we don't need to worry about that. We are talking solely on determinism within the mind. Anyway, I think you don't really understand what a deterministic system really is and the implications that it has. It can't learn in the normal sense of the word, nor does it matter how we "feel", as our feelings of free will is just an illusion. Knowing this, beyond any doubt, would most certainly change how people feel. In a deterministc system, you can't be responsible. All your actions have been predicted, you are not making any choice and thus it isn't a cheat. It's a logical consequence of accepting the 'determinism of the mind' premise. If it is true as you say, that justice has meaning in a deterministc system, and that we are still morally responsible for our actions, I would like to hear the arguments for that. Because to me, it quite logically follows from the removal of free will.

Frankly I've got no idea what you're talking about with 'Hard determinism,' so I guess we're even there. Free will is an illusion. The self is an illusion. But it's an illusion I like! It's a paradox. Just because the universe is more or less deterministic (technically quantum mechanics says it isn't, but that doesn't add free will back in either) doesn't mean that I want to suffer, or want others to suffer. That springs from the deterministic, evolutionary underpinnings of my brain. Nothing in the universe matters intrinsically, because out of the context of a thinking mind 'matters' is meaningless. I do know what a deterministic system is. State of the system at any point can be used to predict past and future states. Determinism implies that we cannot have free will. To be quite frank, my argument follows from this: The evidence seems to say that we do not have free will. Yet I also believe justice is still important. Why? Because it's programmed into my brain that it is. Morals are not external to us, but that doesn't stop them from being important. So the illusion of morality helps keep our illusory selves on track to build the illusion we call society. Isn't that meta as fuck?

—

Thu, 2014-03-27 18:37

#18

consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture

Yeah, I think modern

Yeah, I think modern scientific advances have left us with an aesthetics of epistemology (and an aesthetics of ontology), where truth values aren't necessarily so important but more "How cool is this to me, personally?" I also like things that go hella meta, but I'm more or less horrified by my blindness in the face of layered illusions, however efficacious those illusions may be for society as a whole.

Thu, 2014-03-27 22:02

#19

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

Lorsa wrote:Now to move over

Lorsa wrote:
Now to move over to your second point. If, as you claim, neuroscience will prove hard determinism within our minds, then the implications on society are quite drastic. Our existence as moral beings hinges on us having free will. If we do not, then we can not make moral choice, or in fact no choices at all. This implies that it is wrong to punish people for commiting crimes. We certainly [i]could[/i] still do it, but it would be illogical. Our whole society is based on the fact that *we* exist and can make decisions.

Why would proving hard determinism to be true cause drastic implications on society? Why would it become immoral to punish crimes? Punishing crimes and immoral actions will still help prevent further crimes and immoral actions. Having no free will does not remove our ability to make choices. It only means that a hypothetical observer with the means to see the whole system and calculate it would be able to predict the outcome with 100% accuracy. That includes our choices. Choices and decisions do not cease to be because they become predictable. I think the problem you have (and probably many others would have) is your own beliefs and values. If you assume you need free will to have morality, then of course you will conclude that a hard deterministic system is not going to have morality. I think that thinking like that is like sticking your fingers in your ears and go "I can't hear you, la la la...". What you need a shift of attitudes (something better than needing to lie about free will to have morality). Instead, I suggest you should base you attitudes on a society composed of machines. If the machines aren't working well (like committing crimes), then you should fix it. I think that computers are capable of making decisions. Statements like "if" statements take a logical argument, evaluate it, and then take action on the conclusion. If things like that are decisions, then humanity would continue to have the ability to make decisions (per-determined decisions, but decisions none the less).

Fri, 2014-03-28 00:50

#20

Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture

DivineWrath wrote:Why would

DivineWrath wrote:
Why would proving hard determinism to be true cause drastic implications on society? Why would it become immoral to punish crimes?

This part is relatively easy to explain. Our current criminal justice systems rest on sets of foundational axioms. Free will, Consent, and choice are three of the largest axioms in the system. These are load bearing columns. Without these large parts of the system fall down. After all, what is a crime under this new knowledge? For some specific examples. [b]Warning: First example squicky...[/b] We really need spoiler code to help hide such things. In a Hard Determinism setting, all sex really is rape. Yes really. Because consent is defined as freely given or not real. Which means, with the universe's physical laws controlling your apparent choices, you cannot meaningfully give consent to anything. So when 2 adults find each other attractive, and get down & dirty, both are now legally rape victims. However neither can be convicted because neither willingly engaged in the rape in question. Many sports become illegal. This is due to the nature of assault laws. Currently, in most jurisdictions, assault requites the element* of "lack of consent." Contact sports are thus protected by the legal principle of "implied consent." That is, where your actions show that you have consented, in this case, joining in a contact sport is consenting to being tackled, etc. Then there is the problems it causes in the "chain of events" doctrine. Under "chain of events," any event that can be shown to have been caused by a prior event is the legal responsibility of that prior event. In a Hard Determinism model, all events are this chained back to the big bang. This means that whatever is responsible for the big bang is the only entity legally responsible for any criminal event.

Quote:
Punishing crimes and immoral actions will still help prevent further crimes and immoral actions. Having no free will does not remove our ability to make choices. It only means that a hypothetical observer with the means to see the whole system and calculate it would be able to predict the outcome with 100% accuracy. That includes our choices. Choices and decisions do not cease to be because they become predictable.

In a legal sense, choice requires free will. "Choices" that are not the result of free will are not choices in a legal context. Altering this will have massive and profound changes on many laws due to the way that laws are built on the definitions provided in other laws. *Elements of a crime are the required ingredients for an action to be that crime.

Fri, 2014-03-28 02:29

#21

consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture

A semantic apocalypse would

A semantic apocalypse would necessitate a semantic post-apocalypse, and in that aftermath I imagine we'd have to retool concepts like consent in a post-intentional way. No idea what that looks like, just saying that it doesn't by necessity look like what you've presented. Having to throw out old concepts with new science doesn't mean some void where no new concepts come into play. I don't see many European literati or poets these days recycling imagery related to vision that references us seeing by lights from our eyes illuminating things around us, even though that used to saturate references to vision before Europeans translated enough Arabic science on the subject to get a more accurate picture. I'd be surprised, honestly, if we don't have a neural map down to the atomic level within the next 50 years, but I'd be equally surprised if such a map sparks the changes you're talking about in the next 50 after that. It's not like all of a sudden everyone has given up religious doctrines they know to contradict science, and Western law is nothing if not based on secularized religious doctrines (sometimes not even all that secularized). Things may move fast in certain domains...but law, politics and economics are not among 'em.

Fri, 2014-03-28 02:31

#22

consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture

And again, homo sapiens are a

And again, homo sapiens are a diverse bunch...I can't see people just bowing down to some intellectual elite's view of whether or not they're a person (something [b]sure[/b] to be distorted by not just the religious, but the non-religious who cling as fiercely or fiercer to their notion of their will/self/ego/mind/whatever noocentric fiction they don't want unseated).

Fri, 2014-03-28 06:11

#23

Lorsa

I will see if I can answer

I will see if I can answer your reply to me later, consumerdestroyer. I think it made things a bit more clear.

MAD Crab wrote:
Well, I'm basing it on the fact that the big bang and evolution are generally accepted in the scientific community (neither of supports free will), as well as numerous neurological studies showing everything from personality change due to brain damage to the ability to [url=http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_decision] predict choices in advance using MRI [/url]. Basically, nothing we know supports free will, and I am taking for granted that scientists generally agree with that.

Evolution and Big Bang don't disprove the possibility of free will. Neurology could do that, in principle, but to my knowledge the studies that Wired references haven't been able to make those claims yet. There is still a way to go, so to speak. Nevertheless, your statement is based on something you take for granted. It may well be true, but it might not. Best would probably be asking a couple of million scientists?

MAD Crab wrote:
I'm saying that science gives us a way to 'know' things to a reasonable degree of certainty.

Ah. Reasonableness. Yes, science might make claims on reasonableness, but it is a thing that is still highly subjective.

MAD Crab wrote:
Frankly I've got no idea what you're talking about with 'Hard determinism,' so I guess we're even there.

I was talking about the type of deterministic belief that was popular before quantm mechanics. The kind that spanned the entire universe. I was simply trying to make a distinction between the two and considering your next paragraph you are well aware of it.

MAD Crab wrote:
Free will is an illusion. The self is an illusion. But it's an illusion I like! It's a paradox. Just because the universe is more or less deterministic (technically quantum mechanics says it isn't, but that doesn't add free will back in either) doesn't mean that I want to suffer, or want others to suffer. That springs from the deterministic, evolutionary underpinnings of my brain. Nothing in the universe matters intrinsically, because out of the context of a thinking mind 'matters' is meaningless.

And personally I feel that beliefs that make no logical sense whatsoever needs to be discarded, and prefer to live without illusion. So if there is no self or free will, we (sorry), the language used needs to be altered. It can no longer function as many of the things said has no meaning. There can still be a minimising of suffering taking place, but the nature of how that is done should best be alterered to fit with the new premise.

MAD Crab wrote:
I do know what a deterministic system is. State of the system at any point can be used to predict past and future states. Determinism implies that we cannot have free will.

Great! So determinism -> no free will. Good that we (using my language again) are in agreement there.

MAD Crab wrote:
To be quite frank, my argument follows from this: The evidence seems to say that we do not have free will. Yet I also believe justice is still important. Why? Because it's programmed into my brain that it is. Morals are not external to us, but that doesn't stop them from being important. So the illusion of morality helps keep our illusory selves on track to build the illusion we call society. Isn't that meta as fuck?

Yes it is a bit meta. It also strikes me as a bit logically inconsistent to want to cling to a justice system that is based on assumptions that have been proven false (if that's indeed what they have). Read further for example.

DivineWrath wrote:
Why would proving hard determinism to be true cause drastic implications on society? Why would it become immoral to punish crimes? Punishing crimes and immoral actions will still help prevent further crimes and immoral actions. Having no free will does not remove our ability to make choices. It only means that a hypothetical observer with the means to see the whole system and calculate it would be able to predict the outcome with 100% accuracy. That includes our choices. Choices and decisions do not cease to be because they become predictable.

I am sorry, but determinism of the mind DOES remove choice as it is defined today. There may be a new definition, one that you seem to be trying to push, that makes choice something else than it is today. If you can't decide or choose between two outcomes, then it isn't a choice anymore. Not in the semantic sense used today.

DivineWrath wrote:
I think the problem you have (and probably many others would have) is your own beliefs and values. If you assume you need free will to have morality, then of course you will conclude that a hard deterministic system is not going to have morality. I think that thinking like that is like sticking your fingers in your ears and go "I can't hear you, la la la...". What you need a shift of attitudes (something better than needing to lie about free will to have morality). Instead, I suggest you should base you attitudes on a society composed of machines. If the machines aren't working well (like committing crimes), then you should fix it.

The difference lies in [i]what you should fix[/i]. For example, if I shoot a person with a gun and kills him, then why am I the one going to trial? Wasn't it in fact the bullet that killed the person? Shouldn't the bullet be what we hold accountable in court? Since we've concluded that there isn't any intrinsic difference between it and me? But the bullet didn't h ave a "choice" to hit the person killed, it merely followed a trajectory given from gaseous expansion in the gun. So maybe it's the gun's fault? Perhaps we should but the gun to trial? But it didn't have a "choice" either, it merely acted on input given, a trigger was pulled and out came a bullet. So then we put the person firing the gun to trial. But why? I didn't have a "choice" any more than the gun had. I simply acted according to my machinery given certain input. It is actually the inputs fault, not mine, just as its not seen as the bullets fault that the victim died. We should trial whatever gave me the input that lead to this action. But then whatever gave me that input probably didn't have a "choice" either. And so on and so forth. There is no logical reason, using the premise of a deterministic mind, to say that a bullet, or a gun shouldn't be punished but a human should. We're all equal entities. A bullet holds moral responsibility equal to that of a human. If you want to keep offending me by saying I am covering my ears and going "la la la" then that is fine. But I'd rather you gave me logical reasons as to why this premise [i]doesn't[/i] have drastic implications on our current system and why a bullet isn't held responsible for a murder.

DivineWrath wrote:
I think that computers are capable of making decisions. Statements like "if" statements take a logical argument, evaluate it, and then take action on the conclusion. If things like that are decisions, then humanity would continue to have the ability to make decisions (per-determined decisions, but decisions none the less).

If you want to re-define the language, that's fine. That is what we need to do. However, for the sake of discussion, can we please use current-day semantics?

—

Lorsa is a Forum moderator [color=red]Red text is for moderator stuff[/color]

Fri, 2014-03-28 09:55

#24

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

Lorsa wrote:If you want to

Lorsa wrote:
If you want to keep offending me by saying I am covering my ears and going "la la la" then that is fine. But I'd rather you gave me logical reasons as to why this premise [i]doesn't[/i] have drastic implications on our current system and why a bullet isn't held responsible for a murder.

(Reply is short because I have to rush off to class) Charging a bullet with murder does not have an outcome on future bullet trajectories. Charging humans with murder alters the deterministic series of events such that it may prevent future murders. Also because we were predestined to charge people and not bullets with murder. Prosecutors don't have any more choice than anyone else, do they?

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Fri, 2014-03-28 12:11

#25

Lorsa

Erulastant wrote:Lorsa wrote

Erulastant wrote:
Lorsa wrote:
If you want to keep offending me by saying I am covering my ears and going "la la la" then that is fine. But I'd rather you gave me logical reasons as to why this premise [i]doesn't[/i] have drastic implications on our current system and why a bullet isn't held responsible for a murder.
(Reply is short because I have to rush off to class) Charging a bullet with murder does not have an outcome on future bullet trajectories. Charging humans with murder alters the deterministic series of events such that it may prevent future murders. Also because we were predestined to charge people and not bullets with murder. Prosecutors don't have any more choice than anyone else, do they?

If all bullets were locked up in prison I find it unlikely that they will commit any more murders. Wouldn't a better way to alter the deterministic outcome of events be to alter the events? If we look at a person like a gun, make sure that noone pulls the trigger? The fault really isn't on the human in question, it is on whoever/whatever that pulled his/hers trigger. Failure to be aware of the trigger only works as defense in so far that you accept that someone may point a gun at someone, pull the trigger and be surprised that a bullet comes out of it. Whichever way you look at it, you can alter the outcome in many ways. You can choose to remove the bullet, the gun, the human or the event. Why, in this model, is the right course of action to remove the human? They're all identical objects in this deterministic approach.

—

Lorsa is a Forum moderator [color=red]Red text is for moderator stuff[/color]

Fri, 2014-03-28 22:35

#26

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

Lorsa wrote:DivineWrath wrote

Lorsa wrote:
DivineWrath wrote:
I think the problem you have (and probably many others would have) is your own beliefs and values. If you assume you need free will to have morality, then of course you will conclude that a hard deterministic system is not going to have morality. I think that thinking like that is like sticking your fingers in your ears and go "I can't hear you, la la la...". What you need a shift of attitudes (something better than needing to lie about free will to have morality). Instead, I suggest you should base you attitudes on a society composed of machines. If the machines aren't working well (like committing crimes), then you should fix it.
The difference lies in [i]what you should fix[/i]. For example, if I shoot a person with a gun and kills him, then why am I the one going to trial? Wasn't it in fact the bullet that killed the person? Shouldn't the bullet be what we hold accountable in court? Since we've concluded that there isn't any intrinsic difference between it and me? But the bullet didn't h ave a "choice" to hit the person killed, it merely followed a trajectory given from gaseous expansion in the gun. So maybe it's the gun's fault? Perhaps we should but the gun to trial? But it didn't have a "choice" either, it merely acted on input given, a trigger was pulled and out came a bullet. So then we put the person firing the gun to trial. But why? I didn't have a "choice" any more than the gun had. I simply acted according to my machinery given certain input. It is actually the inputs fault, not mine, just as its not seen as the bullets fault that the victim died. We should trial whatever gave me the input that lead to this action. But then whatever gave me that input probably didn't have a "choice" either. And so on and so forth.

Are you trying to pull a strawman argument on me? Of course you deal with the person, silly. Lets see here. The bullet has 1 input and it is difficult (for safety reasons) to cause the explosive propellent to explode. You almost, I dare say, need a gun to cause a bullet to be fired. A gun has several conditions that need to be meet in order for it to fire a bullet. It needs to be loaded with a bullet, it needs its safety to be turned off (there are safeties for safety reasons), and then someone needs to pull the trigger. Further more, the gun lacks any innate means of choosing where it is pointed at when it is triggered (whether or not it is even aimed in a direction to cause harm is beyond its control). A human being has the means to acquire bullets, guns, find targets, load a gun, point a gun, pull the trigger, etc. In addition, unlike bullets or guns, humans are aware of their environment, aware enough to find weapons, to find a target, and to use weapons. In contrast, a bullet or gun by itself is very unlikely to kill a human by themselves, lacking the means to be aware of what they can do and how to use themselves, lacking the means to meet the conditions to trigger their activation, and lacking the means to be triggered under circumstances in which harm could take place (like when people are around). Human beings are so many magnitudes more capable of causing harm than a gun or bullet. It would be crazy to lump them together into the same category, as though they might have equal odds of being responsible for causing harm. A gun has no means to commit an act of murder from start to finish (including doing stuff before and after the deed is done), while a human can complete the whole act (including gathering weapons).

Erulastant wrote:
Lorsa wrote:
If you want to keep offending me by saying I am covering my ears and going "la la la" then that is fine. But I'd rather you gave me logical reasons as to why this premise [i]doesn't[/i] have drastic implications on our current system and why a bullet isn't held responsible for a murder.
(Reply is short because I have to rush off to class) Charging a bullet with murder does not have an outcome on future bullet trajectories. Charging humans with murder alters the deterministic series of events such that it may prevent future murders. Also because we were predestined to charge people and not bullets with murder. Prosecutors don't have any more choice than anyone else, do they?

Oh, good one.

Lorsa wrote:
If all bullets were locked up in prison I find it unlikely that they will commit any more murders.

I find it likely that there will be people who make more bullets. People make weapons; just look at the history of weapons from prisons. Dangerous people can improvise a great many things. The list includes functioning crossbows and firearms. Humans are quite capable of improvising... and even killing with their bare hands.

Fri, 2014-03-28 22:56

#27

Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture

consumerdestroyer wrote:A

consumerdestroyer wrote:
A semantic apocalypse would necessitate a semantic post-apocalypse, and in that aftermath I imagine we'd have to retool concepts like consent in a post-intentional way. No idea what that looks like, just saying that it doesn't by necessity look like what you've presented. Having to throw out old concepts with new science doesn't mean some void where no new concepts come into play. I don't see many European literati or poets these days recycling imagery related to vision that references us seeing by lights from our eyes illuminating things around us, even though that used to saturate references to vision before Europeans translated enough Arabic science on the subject to get a more accurate picture. I'd be surprised, honestly, if we don't have a neural map down to the atomic level within the next 50 years, but I'd be equally surprised if such a map sparks the changes you're talking about in the next 50 after that. It's not like all of a sudden everyone has given up religious doctrines they know to contradict science, and Western law is nothing if not based on secularized religious doctrines (sometimes not even all that secularized). Things may move fast in certain domains...but law, politics and economics are not among 'em.

Thing is, I can see a way within 1 year of the neural map you speak of for it to cause serious damage to criminal justice systems. Expert witnesses. Specifically a neurologist. Defense lawyer: "You are a recognized expert in the field of neurology?" Neurologist: "Yes." Defense Lawyer: "Have you performed scans of the defendant's brain?" Neurologist: "Yes, I have." Defense Lawyer: "The defendant has been accused of X, Y, and Z. In your expert opinion, is it possible that the defendant could have chosen to perform those acts." Neurologist: "No, that is completely impossible." Hello, reasonable doubt.

Sat, 2014-03-29 08:25

#28

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

Let me ask you guys this, if

Let me ask you guys this, if you can't make choices under hard determinism, then how can you make choices using free will? The problem as I see it is, no matter how good of decision making system you design, inserting "free will" into the system will cause the system to stop working well and possibly break down. The utility of good decision making ability drops as the system gains the ability to ignore the good decisions and opt to do anything else.

Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
Thing is, I can see a way within 1 year of the neural map you speak of for it to cause serious damage to criminal justice systems. Expert witnesses. Specifically a neurologist. Defense lawyer: "You are a recognized expert in the field of neurology?" Neurologist: "Yes." Defense Lawyer: "Have you performed scans of the defendant's brain?" Neurologist: "Yes, I have." Defense Lawyer: "The defendant has been accused of X, Y, and Z. In your expert opinion, is it possible that the defendant could have chosen to perform those acts." Neurologist: "No, that is completely impossible." Hello, reasonable doubt.

I could turn around and make a similar court case about free will. All the responses made the by expert could consist of random spasms, randomly picking words to form sentences, or performing random actions. Why wouldn't things be like that under free will?

Sun, 2014-03-30 02:14

#29

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

DivineWrath wrote:Let me ask

DivineWrath wrote:
Let me ask you guys this, if you can't make choices under hard determinism, then how can you make choices using free will? The problem as I see it is, no matter how good of decision making system you design, inserting "free will" into the system will cause the system to stop working well and possibly break down. The utility of good decision making ability drops as the system gains the ability to ignore the good decisions and opt to do anything else.
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
Thing is, I can see a way within 1 year of the neural map you speak of for it to cause serious damage to criminal justice systems. Expert witnesses. Specifically a neurologist. Defense lawyer: "You are a recognized expert in the field of neurology?" Neurologist: "Yes." Defense Lawyer: "Have you performed scans of the defendant's brain?" Neurologist: "Yes, I have." Defense Lawyer: "The defendant has been accused of X, Y, and Z. In your expert opinion, is it possible that the defendant could have chosen to perform those acts." Neurologist: "No, that is completely impossible." Hello, reasonable doubt.
I could turn around and make a similar court case about free will. All the responses made the by expert could consist of random spasms, randomly picking words to form sentences, or performing random actions. Why wouldn't things be like that under free will?

I'm afraid I didn't understand this post at all. Could you try explaining these points again? Sorry. Unrelated to that particular point, the entire concept of morality falls apart in the absence of free will. The point of morals and moral philosophy is to know what the 'right' decision to make is in a particular situation. In a deterministic system, there is no decision. So you can't really claim that imprisoning people for actions that they had no choice in taking because of determinism would be immoral, since there is nothing that can choose to imprison them or not. It is just a giant deterministic machine doing deterministic machine things. That said, in a very real sense the world is not deterministic. I can say this because: First, the system of the universe is exceedingly complex. Second, the system is prone to occasional mathematical chaos (Where small changes in initial conditions lead to vast* and difficult to predict differences some t later.) Third, quantum effects. That said, if QM is [i]wrong[/i], then we could have a deterministic universe. But even when the tenets of quantum theory are found to be not-strictly-true, they will still be true in a particular limit. And I do not believe that a deterministic system could create the nondeterministic effects we have observed. *relatively

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Sun, 2014-03-30 05:17

#30

Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture

DivineWrath wrote:Let me ask

DivineWrath wrote:
Let me ask you guys this, if you can't make choices under hard determinism, then how can you make choices using free will? The problem as I see it is, no matter how good of decision making system you design, inserting "free will" into the system will cause the system to stop working well and possibly break down. The utility of good decision making ability drops as the system gains the ability to ignore the good decisions and opt to do anything else.

What decision making system? In a deterministic system, all is predestined. All is locked fate, and there are no decisions to make, merely the delusions that our past actions were the result of decisions. Note in a Hard Determinism universe, the belief that you have ever made a decision in your life is a disprovable delusion.

DivineWrath wrote:
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
Thing is, I can see a way within 1 year of the neural map you speak of for it to cause serious damage to criminal justice systems. Expert witnesses. Specifically a neurologist. Defense lawyer: "You are a recognized expert in the field of neurology?" Neurologist: "Yes." Defense Lawyer: "Have you performed scans of the defendant's brain?" Neurologist: "Yes, I have." Defense Lawyer: "The defendant has been accused of X, Y, and Z. In your expert opinion, is it possible that the defendant could have chosen to perform those acts." Neurologist: "No, that is completely impossible." Hello, reasonable doubt.
I could turn around and make a similar court case about free will. All the responses made the by expert could consist of random spasms, randomly picking words to form sentences, or performing random actions. Why wouldn't things be like that under free will?

Firstly, [Morbo]Free Will doesn't work like that.[/Morbo] Free will is not tumblr randomness. It is the ability to make decisions at all. Secondly, your example would not be in any way relevant to the case. Whether or not the accused decided to perform an action is entirely relevant as to whether said defendant is guilty of a crime. If no choice, then no crime.

Sun, 2014-03-30 15:23

#31

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

Erulastant wrote:I'm afraid I

Erulastant wrote:
I'm afraid I didn't understand this post at all. Could you try explaining these points again? Sorry.

Let me rephrase my main question. I was asking, if the universe was *not* hard deterministic, then how does free will work? To me, it does not make sense. Hard determinism makes sense, computer logic makes sense, free will however does not make sense. If hard determinism is not true, then it strongly suggests that if all of the universe (including all the neurons in your head) dictates that you should take action A, then an iota of free might cause you to take action B. Whether or not you make a good decision or choice depends on not making a bad dice roll. It implies that if you rewound time, then getting a different outcome when events are replayed is a reasonable expectation.

Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
What decision making system? In a deterministic system, all is predestined. All is locked fate, and there are no decisions to make, merely the delusions that our past actions were the result of decisions. Note in a Hard Determinism universe, the belief that you have ever made a decision in your life is a disprovable delusion.

Free will feels too much like wishful thinking. It is the belief that if I completely scanned your brain, I still couldn't possibly know the real you because I'm still missing something. It is the wishful thinking that you can't be controlled by outside forces. It is the wishful thinking that you could have infinite willpower to do whatever you like, and not be forced to do stuff that you don't want to be forced to do. A computer system on the other hand, is understandable. If I were to look at some computer code, I could trace my way through the code and determine how the program generated the current output. If it is not creating the desired output, I could go through and find the part(s) that is causing problems. A computer system is not wishful thinking, it is a system that can be understood in a way that makes sense.

Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
Firstly, [Morbo]Free Will doesn't work like that.[/Morbo] Free will is not tumblr randomness. It is the ability to make decisions at all. Secondly, your example would not be in any way relevant to the case. Whether or not the accused decided to perform an action is entirely relevant as to whether said defendant is guilty of a crime. If no choice, then no crime.

Wasn't my point. My point (I implied) was that any one could make a strawman argument out of free will or determinism, and your argument was a strawman. You were saying that a deterministic system couldn't work or fix itself, because it had no free will. I think that is nonsense.

Sun, 2014-03-30 16:00

#32

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

I've been doing some more

I've been doing some more reading on the subject, and it seems that people are confusing hard determinism with fatalism. Both ideas accept that only one outcome is possible, but have different reasons for that. Fatalism accepts that no action on your part will change predicable outcomes, while determinism accepts that actions can change predictable outcomes. For instance, a fatalist would think that seeing a doctor to treat a problem wouldn't matter because whether not one gets better is already predetermined. A determinist would however, would see that choosing whether or not to see a doctor would have different outcomes, so it is wise to make the best choice. A way to look at it is, fatalism thinks that you are a play thing of the universe, while determinism thinks that you are a force of the universe.

Sun, 2014-03-30 16:04

#33

Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture

DivineWrath wrote:Kremlin K.O

DivineWrath wrote:
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
What decision making system? In a deterministic system, all is predestined. All is locked fate, and there are no decisions to make, merely the delusions that our past actions were the result of decisions. Note in a Hard Determinism universe, the belief that you have ever made a decision in your life is a disprovable delusion.
Free will feels too much like wishful thinking. It is the belief that if I completely scanned your brain, I still couldn't possibly know the real you because I'm still missing something. It is the wishful thinking that you can't be controlled by outside forces. It is the wishful thinking that you could have infinite willpower to do whatever you like, and not be forced to do stuff that you don't want to be forced to do. A computer system on the other hand, is understandable. If I were to look at some computer code, I could trace my way through the code and determine how the program generated the current output. If it is not creating the desired output, I could go through and find the part(s) that is causing problems. A computer system is not wishful thinking, it is a system that can be understood in a way that makes sense.

Free will may be wishful thinking, Hel's ovaries I worry that it might be in the dark of night. However that was never my point. My point was that so much of our societal systems rely on it being perceived as true, that if we ever disprove it, the disproof will likely cause a societal meltdown.

DivineWrath wrote:
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
Firstly, [Morbo]Free Will doesn't work like that.[/Morbo] Free will is not tumblr randomness. It is the ability to make decisions at all. Secondly, your example would not be in any way relevant to the case. Whether or not the accused decided to perform an action is entirely relevant as to whether said defendant is guilty of a crime. If no choice, then no crime.
Wasn't my point. My point (I implied) was that any one could make a strawman argument out of free will or determinism, and your argument was a strawman. You were saying that a deterministic system couldn't work or fix itself, because it had no free will. I think that is nonsense.

Then you completely misread my point. I was demonstrating how easily a disproof of free will can be used to destroy the criminal law system. My point, from when I first entered in this discussion, was that the idea of free will is a load bearing pillar of our laws. We knock down that pillar, and the whole house falls down. So please refrain from putting words in my mouth.

Sun, 2014-03-30 17:06

#34

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

@ Kremlin K.O.A.

@ Kremlin K.O.A. Maybe I did misread what you said. I thought you were arguing that free will was correct, not on the difficulty on changing the system. I'll make a point to re-read your posts.

Mon, 2014-03-31 02:24

#35

Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture

It happens in forum

It happens in forum discussions. No biggie.

Mon, 2014-03-31 07:10

#36

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

Sure, sure. Anyways, maybe we

Sure, sure. Anyways, maybe we should let this thread get back on topic (its Epistemology, not Free Will), or let this thread die. We seem to be getting no where.

Mon, 2014-03-31 08:28

#37

Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture

Good idea.

Fri, 2014-04-04 17:42

#38

Megatron

Radical Notion

I'm new to the site but I love this thread and I have to contribute. My thought derives from a discussion I watched with Richard Dawkins; he voiced an idea I've always harbored but only tentatively voiced until recently. That is basically this: philosophy as a discipline has done very little to contribute to human development or understanding. I believe philosophy has actually retarded human intellectual growth in many areas and eras. Philosophers have produced little--if any--knowledge of value. Philosophy was a bootstrap discipline until we developed science, and now it is obsolete.

—

"We are all literally made of stardust." -Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Fri, 2014-04-04 18:07

#39

Cerebrate

Megatron wrote:I'm new to the

Megatron wrote:
I'm new to the site but I love this thread and I have to contribute. My thought derives from a discussion I watched with Richard Dawkins; he voiced an idea I've always harbored but only tentatively voiced until recently. That is basically this: philosophy as a discipline has done very little to contribute to human development or understanding. I believe philosophy has actually retarded human intellectual growth in many areas and eras. Philosophers have produced little--if any--knowledge of value. Philosophy was a bootstrap discipline until we developed science, and now it is obsolete.

Except that science doesn't say anything whatsoever about the field of ethics. Or aesthetics. Or logic. Which in fact it rather depends on. Or very much about epistemology or metaphysics, which it also depends on. -c

Fri, 2014-04-04 19:23

#40

bibliophile20 bibliophile20's picture

Philosophy will be obsolete

Philosophy will be obsolete on the day when science can do the following: Take the universe, grind it down to the finest powder, sieve it through the finest sieve and show us one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy, one iota of duty, one measure of mercy. (with apologies to Sir Pratchett) So long as we have the social constructs of truth, justice, mercy, joy, art, music, love, morality and the rest of the lot, science will never make philosophy obsolete. Individual branches of philosophy and old philosophical theories? Sure, those can be made obsolete. But saying that philosophy has done little to advance or contribute to the sum of human knowledge is a statement that is so wrong that I don't even know where to begin to refute it. It denies the contributions of every philosopher who has sat and wondered about the human condition, and their valuable conclusions. If not for philosophy, we would not have the scientific method, and in the centuries since that was developed, which, according to your thesis, is when philosophy became "obsolete" (definition: out of date, no longer produced or used, outmoded). So, let's see... that means that everything from Roger Bacon (1200s) onwards is obsolete, including the Enlightenment and Renaissance. If we only date "science" from Rene Descartes' and Francis Bacon's formalization of the scientific method in the 1630s, that means that every philosophical concept from the last 380 years is somehow "obsolete", when, in many ways, the discipline has come into its true flowering in that time. Atheism, Deism, Democratic thought, Critical Thinking, Humanism, Liberalism... apparently these are all obsolete and are not valuable knowledge to have. Richard Dawkins is many things--including a philosopher of science--but an absolute authority, he is not. Certainly, philosophy is not driving the questions about the natural world that it used to back in the time before Newton, but philosophical thought is what we used to determine how to apply and use the things that science discovers, both technologically and socially.

—

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

Fri, 2014-04-04 19:30

#41

Megatron

Cerebrate wrote:Except that

Cerebrate wrote:
Except that science doesn't say anything whatsoever about the field of ethics. Or aesthetics. Or logic. Which in fact it rather depends on. Or very much about epistemology or metaphysics, which it also depends on. -c

Ethics and morality are value-based system of codifying behaviors. Science is irrelevant to such a pursuit, or rather ethics is outside the realm of scientific understanding. However, I would argue that philosophy/ers are only useful for elucidating an ethical topic, but the rightness of wrongness of any behavior is decided by the consensus of the society debating said behavior. Philosophers debate mostly amongst themselves. Aesthetics is a different story entirely. Science has done a great deal of study on human aesthetics and tastes, often regarding sexuality but not always. Turns out that what turns you on is pretty universal to all of us: pheremones and symmetrical forms, mostly. And logic? Logic is close to irrelevant in scientific pursuit, if done correctly. And dangerous if done incorrectly. Logic can be used to "disprove" something that is factually true. You can win a logic argument on points while your opponent is more"correct", and in science your logic loses to your opponent's correct statement, no matter how poorly articulated. To further my point just a little: What has philosophy discovered, what universal truths has it provided us, to justify its (IMHO) overblown relevance in human history? 2,500 years of philosophers since the old Greeks and not one of them came up with the theory of evolution, or gravitation. Or heliocentric theory. So while these are fun semantic/debate exercises we should keep a healthy perspective on it. The "study of thinking" is probably best left to the history books, because all the real innovations in thought are happening in neuroscience. And just what the fuck is "metaphysics" but "thought doodling." Fun distraction, yes, but not a serious discipline.

—

"We are all literally made of stardust." -Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Sat, 2014-04-05 17:40

#42

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

Megatron wrote:I'm new to the

Megatron wrote:
I'm new to the site but I love this thread and I have to contribute. My thought derives from a discussion I watched with Richard Dawkins; he voiced an idea I've always harbored but only tentatively voiced until recently. That is basically this: philosophy as a discipline has done very little to contribute to human development or understanding. I believe philosophy has actually retarded human intellectual growth in many areas and eras. Philosophers have produced little--if any--knowledge of value. Philosophy was a bootstrap discipline until we developed science, and now it is obsolete.

I would argue that philosophy is a toolbox for ideas. If used well, it can create works of art, useful tools, and other wonders of the mind... but it is also real easy to go around breaking things by smacking them with a philosophical equivalent of a hammer. Smashing ideas for the sake of smashing or for personal gain. With philosophy, you could create good things like sciences and ethics, but you could also try to convince people that the good things in this world are bad and that bad things are good. Philosophy is something that needs to be used with care, lest you create people with distorted world views.

Cerebrate wrote:
Except that science doesn't say anything whatsoever about the field of ethics. Or aesthetics. Or logic. Which in fact it rather depends on. Or very much about epistemology or metaphysics, which it also depends on. -c

Sam Harris would argue against that. He argues that you could use science to develop a morality system in the same way you could use science to make a system of medicine. Defining good health is difficult, but you can assert that dying or excessive puking is a bad for your health. Using things like that as a base, you could then use science to determine things you should or should not be doing to avoid those problems. He argues the same is true about morality. If you assert that suffering is bad, then science can determine what you should or should not be doing to avoid suffering, and measure the results. He argues that once you do that, you can look at the world and see that some systems of morality are better than others. It then becomes a navigation problem of sorts to get to a good morality system, and avoid bad ones. Here is a video of him talking about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm2Jrr0tRXk

Sun, 2014-04-06 01:31

#43

Cerebrate

DivineWrath wrote:Cerebrate

DivineWrath wrote:
Cerebrate wrote:
Except that science doesn't say anything whatsoever about the field of ethics.
Sam Harris would argue against that. He argues that you could use science to develop a morality system in the same way you could use science to make a system of medicine. Defining good health is difficult, but you can assert that dying or excessive puking is a bad for your health. Using things like that as a base, you could then use science to determine things you should or should not be doing to avoid those problems. He argues the same is true about morality. If you assert that suffering is bad, then science can determine what you should or should not be doing to avoid suffering, and measure the results. He argues that once you do that, you can look at the world and see that some systems of morality are better than others. It then becomes a navigation problem of sorts to get to a good morality system, and avoid bad ones.

The problem there is that it isn't saying what it thinks its saying. Once you assert "suffering is bad", you've got an ethical system. (It's pretty much a reductio ad absurdum of an ethical system, but it is an ethical system.) What you're doing with science after that is solving the practical problems of how to implement said ethical system. What ethics teaches you is how to get from square one to why suffering is bad in a rational manner, rather than as a mere assertion. It also covers important edge cases, like Is suffering always bad? Or is it, say, sometimes of net utility when it teaches us things like not to stick our hands in the fire? And if so, would not removing it be problematic? And, for that matter, to spare you my deconstruction and instead refer you via Google to Eliezer Yudkowsky's work on Friendly AI et. al., it teaches us why it's a good idea to think about our ethical systems before we get to the science-informed implementing the practical parts, lest we start out by saying "suffering is bad" to our seed AI and it intepret that as a command to kill everyone [1], rip out our pleasure centers and connect them up to nutrients and electrical stimulation, or repurpose the solar system as a giant field of smiling emoticons. -c [1] After all, dead people will never suffer again. The living, on the other hand, possess a non-zero probability of future suffering. Therefore, if your ethical standard is the elimination of suffering from the universe...

Sun, 2014-04-06 01:58

#44

Cerebrate

Megatron wrote:Cerebrate

Megatron wrote:
Cerebrate wrote:
Except that science doesn't say anything whatsoever about the field of ethics. Or aesthetics. Or logic. Which in fact it rather depends on. Or very much about epistemology or metaphysics, which it also depends on.
Ethics and morality are value-based system of codifying behaviors. Science is irrelevant to such a pursuit, or rather ethics is outside the realm of scientific understanding. However, I would argue that philosophy/ers are only useful for elucidating an ethical topic, but the rightness of wrongness of any behavior is decided by the consensus of the society debating said behavior. Philosophers debate mostly amongst themselves.

...seriously? Apart from that in itself being an ethical theory, which makes the whole thing rather circular, by the consensuses of the societies debating them at the time, the transatlantic slave trade, Jim Crow, and the Holocaust were absolutely peachy keen, no problem there at all. It would be roughly 2,500 years of ethical thought that gave people, instead, a standpoint to say that, no, fuck your consensus, that's very much not okay, and knock that shit off right now. (As for debating among themselves, I merely note that the opening of the Declaration of Independence, for one, is pretty much taken directly from John Locke. Finding further influences of philosophy leaking out into the world at large is left as an exercise for the reader.)

Quote:
And logic? Logic is close to irrelevant in scientific pursuit, if done correctly.

I suspect most scientists would find it rather difficult to practice science without deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, Bayesian probability, computational logic, and - oh, yes - the whole of mathematics. Which are all strict subsets of the philosophical discipline of, as it happens, logic. (You also wouldn't even have science without, y'know, empiricism. That would be epistemology.)

Quote:
And dangerous if done incorrectly. Logic can be used to "disprove" something that is factually true. You can win a logic argument on points while your opponent is more"correct", and in science your logic loses to your opponent's correct statement, no matter how poorly articulated.

Except that without both epistemology and logic, it's impossible to actually demonstrate whether or not a statement is correct. That's what they're for.

Quote:
To further my point just a little: What has philosophy discovered, what universal truths has it provided us, to justify its (IMHO) overblown relevance in human history? 2,500 years of philosophers since the old Greeks and not one of them came up with the theory of evolution, or gravitation. Or heliocentric theory.

Well, science, for one obvious thing. First steps of the scientific method, laid by a chap named Parmenides, philosopher, sometime around the 5th century BCE. Oh, yeah, and before science was called "science", it was called "natural philosophy". Practiced by philosophers, many of whom we now call "early scientists". Granted, in the early years, they were pretty bad at it, but then, the scientific method took a while to refine.

Quote:
And just what the fuck is "metaphysics" but "thought doodling." Fun distraction, yes, but not a serious discipline.

The ontology that makes it possible for us to formulate the questions for our sciences to ask? And which reveals the consequences of the changing relationship between objective reality and our inherently subjective conception of reality? Y'know, the thing that serves as a bridge between mathematical idealism and direct observation. But even if you don't believe in metaphysics, metaphysics believes in you. -c

Mon, 2014-04-07 07:08

#45

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

Cerebrate wrote:The problem

Cerebrate wrote:
The problem there is that it isn't saying what it thinks its saying. Once you assert "suffering is bad", you've got an ethical system. (It's pretty much a reductio ad absurdum of an ethical system, but it is an ethical system.) What you're doing with science after that is solving the practical problems of how to implement said ethical system. What ethics teaches you is how to get from square one to why suffering is bad in a rational manner, rather than as a mere assertion. It also covers important edge cases, like Is suffering always bad? Or is it, say, sometimes of net utility when it teaches us things like not to stick our hands in the fire? And if so, would not removing it be problematic? And, for that matter, to spare you my deconstruction and instead refer you via Google to Eliezer Yudkowsky's work on Friendly AI et. al., it teaches us why it's a good idea to think about our ethical systems before we get to the science-informed implementing the practical parts, lest we start out by saying "suffering is bad" to our seed AI and it intepret that as a command to kill everyone [1], rip out our pleasure centers and connect them up to nutrients and electrical stimulation, or repurpose the solar system as a giant field of smiling emoticons. -c [1] After all, dead people will never suffer again. The living, on the other hand, possess a non-zero probability of future suffering. Therefore, if your ethical standard is the elimination of suffering from the universe...

I think you missed the point. You don't stop at "suffering is bad", and call that an ethical system. You use that as the basis of a science of morality. You look at the world to determine what is good ways to avoid suffering and bad ways to avoid suffering. You can look at 1st world countries and 3rd world countries. Are they doing well? Can you figure out things that they might be doing right, and things they are doing wrong? Are there things they can do better? Etc... You don't start out assuming that you have a perfect ethical system because you declare that "suffering is bad". You investigate how you could create a system that minimizes suffering. You acknowledge that any system you can create is likely to require tweaking or replacement in the future as you are able to build better and better models as the science advances. You also consider hypothetical systems that might be obviously or subtly, good or bad. A way of looking at it, you consider a model that maximizes suffering, and declare that the worst possible outcome. You then must accept that any other model must therefore be better than that. You use science to investigate, measure, and evaluate how make models that avoid the worst possible outcome. To use an example that Sam Harris used; he used Afghanistan. That country has a GDP of less than the world average was in 1820. It is a good place to watch women and infants suffer and die. Looking at what the Taliban try to do there, you can learn stuff that you shouldn't do if you want to avoid suffering. ---- Basically, Sam Harris is arguing that the old saying "Science can't tell you anything about morality" is a myth. He is arguing that you can create a system of science that can tell you that one system of morality is better than another one. You can't do that using philosophy, which is why he is trying it with science. You can use evidence to show that people living under one morality system suffer less than under a different one which, under the system of science he is defining, would mean that one system *is* more moral than another.

Mon, 2014-04-07 09:44

#46

Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture

First, define 'better.'

Tue, 2014-04-08 01:27

#47

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

DivineWrath wrote:

DivineWrath wrote:
I think you missed the point. You don't stop at "suffering is bad", and call that an ethical system. You use that as the basis of a science of morality. You look at the world to determine what is good ways to avoid suffering and bad ways to avoid suffering. You can look at 1st world countries and 3rd world countries. Are they doing well? Can you figure out things that they might be doing right, and things they are doing wrong? Are there things they can do better? Etc... You don't start out assuming that you have a perfect ethical system because you declare that "suffering is bad". You investigate how you could create a system that minimizes suffering. You acknowledge that any system you can create is likely to require tweaking or replacement in the future as you are able to build better and better models as the science advances. You also consider hypothetical systems that might be obviously or subtly, good or bad.

Pretty sure you missed the point here, actually. Your very assertion-"Suffering is bad"-requires a basis. Prove it. Show that suffering is morally or ethically wrong, using science. Sure, you can say that IF suffering is bad, the scientific method tells us that x,y,z system is the best one we've come up with. But that's not ethics, that's implementation. Science can only tell us how to aim. Philosophy (of ethics, specifically) tells us where. On top of that, any single axiom is going to produce a pretty terrible ethical system. To expand on Cerebrate's footnoted example, the single axiom that suffering is bad leads to the simple conclusion that all life should be exterminated as soon as possible. Because without life there is no suffering, and with life there is necessarily suffering. Ergo, no life. Problem solved.

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Wed, 2014-04-09 01:00

#48

Cerebrate

In several words, that. -c

Wed, 2014-04-09 03:22

#49

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:First,

Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
First, define 'better.'

Why? I don't see why that is necessary. Are you suggesting that my definition is somehow different than other people's definition, or different from what you would find in a dictionary? If morality were to become a science, then any scientist can do the work and they might bring in different values and beliefs. This might include different definitions of better (if such a thing is possible). Their works, and definitions, would be subject to peer review and other stuff.

Erulastant wrote:
Pretty sure you missed the point here, actually. Your very assertion-"Suffering is bad"-requires a basis. Prove it. Show that suffering is morally or ethically wrong, using science. Sure, you can say that IF suffering is bad, the scientific method tells us that x,y,z system is the best one we've come up with. But that's not ethics, that's implementation. Science can only tell us how to aim. Philosophy (of ethics, specifically) tells us where. On top of that, any single axiom is going to produce a pretty terrible ethical system. To expand on Cerebrate's footnoted example, the single axiom that suffering is bad leads to the simple conclusion that all life should be exterminated as soon as possible. Because without life there is no suffering, and with life there is necessarily suffering. Ergo, no life. Problem solved.

Sam Harris's assertion is that if we are to care about anything regarding morality, anything at all, it should be about suffering. He doesn't say that there aren't different ways to deal with suffering, he outright says that there going to be better systems than others, only that if you miss suffering then you are on the wrong path. He goes so far as to claim that if you think that there is something more important than suffering, that he says that he doesn't know what you are talking about, and that you probably don't know what you are talking about either. I suppose the focus point(s) of the science of morality doesn't really matter, so long as you can do science on it (and show how one variation is better than another). He is also a neural biologist, so he probably thinks that he can measure and analyze mental states (I need to check that to make sure), thereby measure suffering. In regards to killing all people to eliminate all suffering. Personally, if I feel the need to explain to someone that it is a bad thing, then I should probably stop talking to that person and recommend them to a specialist. However, I think that you are merely being difficult, not crazy, so I'll keep talking. Since scientists would be doing the work, if they can't tell that killing all people (even on a subconscious level) to eliminate suffering is a bad thing, then they should talk to a specialist too. Basically, the way *I* understand it is, this science is not a complete ethical system, its a way to get there. If you feel that a single axiom is going to cause problems, then suggest additional ones that fix the problem. If feel that there are aughts that an ethical system should have, then suggest them. The point isn't to create an ethical system backed by good arguments, but by evidence. Its all nice and all to have a nice sounding ethical system, but does it work? Does it work well?

Wed, 2014-04-09 05:58

#50

Lorsa

Under my definition of better

Under my definition of better, then this system that I have proposed IS actually proven to be better by science (well, not disproven, as it were). It's very different to your system that has another definition of better. Interestingly enough we can't decide between them in any scientific way. So now what? Also, why would the one that point out the problem with simply following "suffering is bad" as the one and only rule to ethics have to find additional axioms to help it? Since killing all life IS the best way to minimise suffering, then if that's not a solution you want then your premise that "suffering is bad" is proven false. So now, with science, I've proven that ethical system wrong. No other method is ever going to minimise suffering as much as the one that completely removes all possibility for it happening. Obviously if you're concluding that killing everyone to eliminite suffering is bad then you're following another premise that supersedes "suffering is bad" which would be "killing is bad". Now if you follow "killing is bad" over "suffering is bad" it means it's wrong to mercy-kill animals that have been hit by cars or other form of pain-relief kills. So then perhaps we move into "killing someone against their wishes to end their suffering is bad" and "suffering is bad" and "animals give their permission per default" or maybe evven "fuck animals, they have no rights except when they have emotional ties to a human" (which is basically what our current-day way of living states). But yeah, if your conclusion is that "suffering is bad" supersedes everything then quite obviously the most efficient solution would be to kill everyone. That's what the supercomputer you enter this equation into is going to figure out and that's why it's important to think about ethics.

—

Lorsa is a Forum moderator [color=red]Red text is for moderator stuff[/color]

Wed, 2014-04-09 14:16

#51

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

I will try to get in a more

I will try to get in a more thorough response later, I have to rush off to class soon. -You say suffering is bad, and from that we can use the scientific method to find an optimal moral system. -I say, you are being unscientific and going off of baseless principles. Use science to show that suffering is bad. -You say, Sam Harris asserts that suffering is bad, because if we are to care about anything in morality, it is suffering. Again, you have simply asserted that suffering is bad. You have not demonstrated it in a scientific way. Now, I agree that suffering is bad, but my understanding of that and other moral axioms comes from the philosophical study of ethics, NOT from the scientific method, because the scientific method cannot find ethical or moral truths. When you say "Suffering is bad, let us use science to find the best way to minimize suffering", you are saying "My ethical system is that *Suffering is Bad*, and I am using the scientific method to find the best implementation of that system". That is not finding an ethical system, that is implementing it. If you are so convinced that science can determine an ethical system, please, go ahead and demonstrate that suffering is bad, scientifically, instead of asserting that it must be true with no rationale behind that statement. You could perform an experiment if you wish, but I'd be much more satisfied by a derivation from first principles.

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Epistemology (General Discussion)

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