2101. Comment #67664 by Donald on September 4, 2007 at 8:36 am

What Donald wrote: "humans can individually, and collectively, have preferences. That is the origin of morality"

What Paul seems to have read: "any action by any individual leading to achievement of an instance of any preference, even an unusal one, gives rise to an action that is morally good".

No point in continuing if you are going to misinterpret like that.

Other Comments by Donald

2102. Comment #67666 by Donald on September 4, 2007 at 8:53 am

"The reason I reject Idealism is that it is too wide, too general, too open. Anything is possible, and it makes no predictions."

You might say the same thing about materialism, as we don't know what makes "matter" the way it is.

No, I wouldn't. There is no useful theory of ideas that says how ideas are constained to bounce off each other in certain ways only, are able to combine to form molecular ideas in certain ways only, that every instance of an idea is always identical no matter who has it, etc, etc, etc.

The whole point of materialism is that matter does have such rules, and they enables predictions of how things behave. No such theory for ideas.

The fact we don't know in any absolute sense what matter is, is not the important point, because as all good philosophers know, we don't know what anything is in any absolute sense.

Now quit the wind ups please.

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2103. Comment #67675 by Dr Benway on September 4, 2007 at 10:10 am

Donald:

The whole point of materialism is that matter does have such rules, and they enables predictions of how things behave. No such theory for ideas.

You're missing the point about the inbetweenie thing: phenomenon, which is us-as-experiencers-plus-that-which-is-experienced.

Matter is phenomenon. The phenomenon of matter and its rules remains the same whether you're an idealist or a materialist.

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2104. Comment #67676 by Donald on September 4, 2007 at 10:13 am

You're missing the point about the inbetweenie thing: phenomenon, which is us-as-experiencers-plus-that-which-is-experienced.

Matter is phenomenon. The phenomenon of matter and its rules remain the same whether you're an idealist or a materialist.

Word games. See pomo for the advanced version.

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2105. Comment #67677 by Dr Benway on September 4, 2007 at 10:25 am

Donald:

Word games.

Almost. There are constraints. Any metaphysical model must account for the phenomenological world we share. Materialism, idealism, brain-in-a-vatism do this.

It is possible to invent metaphysical models that fail. Mind-over-matterism fails pretty badly. The Church of Christian Science had a nice run, but is closing down in two nearby towns.

You can't win an argument against idealism. But this doesn't matter.

Because any metaphysical model remains constrained by the same phenomenological world which we study via the scientific method, the theist gains no points with idealism. They often think they do. You seem to think they do as well. I'm merely trying to hand you some good news. Far be it from me to wind you up.

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2106. Comment #67682 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 4, 2007 at 10:40 am

Donald (post 2092 or #67468):

So, in the case that Newtonian mechanics happened to be an exact description of all physical phenomena, one could still hypothesize that reality is physical but that each physical particle in it is moved around not by the physical laws described by Newton but by small hidden demons who just make fun of us playing along with Newton's "laws" for a while. Or, one could still hypothesize idealistic theism according to which physical reality does not exist and that God's will causes the Newtonian order present in the physical phenomena we observe.

Taking that as an example, I would rule those out as unreasonable, whereas you seem to be including them amongst those worth considering. (BTW, as this is the internet, perhaps I should just clarify that I was using "reasonable" to mean "likely enough to be a practical contender", not to mean "arrived at through reason".)

No, I did not include them amongst those worth considering but amongst those that are possible (not to mention that idealistic theism, the worldview of Plato, Leibniz, Kant, and Berkeley, is certainly worth considering). I think we can all safely agree that knowledge about reality is not easy to come by, and that one's intuitions about how reality must be can easily be wrong and that we therefore should not "rule out" anything. (See for example Einstein's wrong intuitions about entangled articles, or Kelvin's wrong intuitions about the luminiferous ether – or see Kant's argument about the noumena, or Plantinga's argument that if natural evolution is true then we should not expect to possess good cognitive abilities to discern which ontological propositions are true). So to be on the safe side I think the best methodology to use is not to ponder which ontological view appears reasonable or not at first sight, but rather to first consider the set of any possible realities that would account for the data we have, and then carefully examine which is the most reasonable of them by consistently applying the same set of criteria to each of them. Now if I am right about the implications of Bell's theorem then scientific realism, i.e. the view that the physical objects that science studies (and that we see around us) form part of reality, does not even belong in the set of possible realities.

However, we want theories to preserve causality, i.e. that the set of objects and events has the same story about which events caused other events, no matter which observer we ask.

Right.

However, the shared variable interpretation does not require the common story to specify which of A or B altered the shared variable.

Why not? If that shared property was altered I want to know what caused that change to take place. Surely it did not just magically happen.

So observer 1 sees the following 6 events regarding a shared variable:
creation of variable S, initial value = 0 { 0 means open }
particle A interacts
S becomes 1
particle B interacts
S remains 1
removal of variable S { both particles have interacted }

And observer 2 sees:
creation of variable S, initial value = 0 { 0 means open }
particle B interacts
S becomes 1
particle A interacts
S remains 1
removal of variable S { both particles have interacted }

Yes. And as observer 1 sees (or rather assumes) S become 1 just after particle A interacts this observer concludes that A's interaction caused S to become 1. Similarly observer 2 concludes that B's interaction caused S to become 1. They can't be both right, and something must have caused S to change into 1. That's the problem.

It is perfectly possible to dispense with an explicit shared variable and simply say that the entangled particles are the shared variable, and that is effectively what most physicists do, but I thought talking about it as an explicit shared variable could help.

I agree. Actually "variable" is a misnomer: Variables are parts of equations, not of reality. What in reality exist are things and their properties. So when we speak here of "variables" we actually mean "variable properties". Moreover these are necessary properties, and hence do not represent something that may or may not be there, but rather something that defines what a particle is, and therefore forms part of what a particle is. (In this context I did not quite understand why above you inserted the "removal of S", and indeed it servers no purpose I can see.)

But the existence of non-local/hidden/shared variables is just that: completely invisible and not required by any scientific theory.

The hidden shared variable is not really hidden or invisible. I described it that way as temporary conceptual scaffolding, because our mental models do not normally include that particles have links to shared variables. In fact the properties of the particles (polarization of photons in actual experiments) are the variables being discussed, so the "variables" are in fact visible and precisely measurable.

Well, yes and no. I agree that a particle's properties, including a particle's variable properties, form an integral part of it. But after one measures a photon's polarization at a particular angle the values of its polarization at all other angles before that measurement becomes fundamentally unknowable, and therefore these values are properly called "hidden". So a photon's polarization is hidden (i.e. invisible) at all angles until it is measured in one. And the thesis that nevertheless the photon's polarization has existed at all angles before being measured at one is an unnecessary assumption as far as Quantum Mechanics is concerned. So I stand by my claim that the objective existence of the variable property of polarization is both invisible and not required by science.

In other words: The assumption that the photon has objective existence (i.e. forms part of reality) entails that its properties have objective existence also, and do not come into existence only when we look. But the assumption that a photon's properties are real is falsified by Bell's test results, unless one also assumes that two entangled photons keep sharing a common variable property even though they are far apart (which is wild hypothesis but possibly true). But (I claim) that that latter assumption is falsified by the fact that two different observers will claim, with equal justification, that two different events caused that shared property to vary, which can't be the case unless one is willing to entertain the idea that reality is not only non-local but also non-coherent.

I post the following paragraph for the benefit of any readers who may not know what the property of "polarization" exactly means and what its place is in our discussion.

The following explanation of the concept of polarization is given under the assumption that photons and their properties are real things. Polarization is a binary property of a photon which is defined for all angles between 0 and 180 degrees (between 180 and 360 degrees the values are symmetrical, i.e. the polarization at angle 180+x is identical to the polarization at x). By "binary" we mean that at each angle that property can only have two values (say "1" or "0"), and hence we say that a photon is either polarized or not polarized at a particular angle. We can measure whether a photon is polarized at a particular angle (or in other words whether its polarization property at that angle has a "1" value) by placing a polarization filter at the same angle in front of it. If the photon passes the filter it shows that it was polarized in that angle, if not that it wasn't. The problem is that the measuring the photon's polarization at that angle causes its polarization at other angles to change, so it's not possible to make a series of measurements and map the values of the polarization of the photon at different angles (and hence these values are unknowable or "hidden"). Here is how we know that to measure a photon's polarization at one angle changes its polarization values at other angles: Let's say a photon passes a polarization filter at angle alpha (and hence was polarized at angle alpha before hitting that filter) and then passes a polarization filter at angle beta (and hence was polarized at angle beta before hitting that second filter). Now let's suppose that the second filter did not change the photon's polarization at angle alpha, i.e. that the photon is still polarized at angle alpha when it leaves the second filter. If we now put a third filter at angle alpha in front of it we'd expect it to always pass it because it's still polarized at that angle. But in fact – as Quantum Mechanics predicts and experiment confirms – it only passes that third filter with probability cos^2(beta-alpha), so the second filter that measured the photon's polarization at angle beta sometimes removes the polarization of the photon at angle alpha (and does so with a probability of 1-cos^2(beta-alpha) ). Now so far there isn't any problem with the idea that photons and their properties are real. The problem that Donald and I are discussing is this: There are processes that produce two photons with the same initial polarization at all angles, and which then proceed to behave exactly as if they were one photon. So if the left photon's polarization is measured at angle alpha and then the right photon's polarization is measured at angle beta we observe exactly the same kind of behavior as if one photon where first measured at angle alpha (a measurement that changes its polarization) and then is measured at angle beta (which evidences that change). It's difficult to understand how two photons could produce such coordinated observations, except by assuming that they instantly act on each other at a distance (either by sending each other instantaneous signals, or by sharing their variable polarization property even though they are far apart). This ontological assumption is called "non-local" because it posits a reality in which the concept of distance disappears, as it posits that these two particles keep in touch even when they are far apart. (By the way, the problem is much more general than the case of that pair of entangled photons. According to Quantum Mechanics all material particles get quickly entangled with each other, so the hypothesis of a non-local physical universe implies that physical space as we normally mean the term does not exist: all physical objects are in touch with each other. That's why the idea of a non-local universe reminds some people of the mystical view that all reality is one and undivided.)

That's not what physicists are looking for. They are looking for a reality with simple rules (they love Occam's razor), so a vast computer simulation wouldn't really suit.

Well, I find that the standard of Occam's razor is not applied consistently. For example the many worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (which is arguably the most popular description of reality among physicists today) is much more complex than any vast computer capable of producing our experience of physical phenomena.

And, of course, if you do like the idea that our universe is simulated in a (big) computer, you don't need to wait for more theory.

I don't like that idea; in fact I think it's wrong. I only point out that naturalism implies that material systems can become conscious and that therefore the hypothesis that a big computer produces all our experiences of physical phenomena is a) possible, b) less complex than the various interpretations of Quantum Mechanics that physicists put forward, and c) free of several of the paradoxes related to Quantum Mechanics that plague its interpretation, including the paradoxes related to Bell's theorem. So, it seems to me, that if one is a naturalist then reason requires that one abandons scientific realism in favor of the computer simulation hypothesis. Which hypothesis, by the way, has much going for it when compared to scientific realism. For example it explains why the universe is so quiet instead of swarming with signs of intelligent life, it explains the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants, it explains why all physical quantities appear to be quantized, it explains why the problem of consciousness is so hard (after all our brain does not really produce our consciousness so we are looking in the wrong place, not to mention the physical reality we experience may well lack consciousness producing properties), and others.

That's the ontological understanding of the vast majority of naturalists, including of Dawkins.

I agree - why not join us? Membership is free, and you'd be very welcome.

I don't wish to belong to any tribe, my friend. I would rather stand alone as I think any freethinker must. This allows me to freely cherry pick any tribe's best ideas without owing allegiance to any one tribe's core ideas. For example Dawkins's "The Selfish Gene" has been a seminal book early in my life, so I carry part of his mind in mine. On the other hand I find his idea that all religious worldviews are dangerous (never mind the greatest threat to civilization and to the very survival of humankind) to be - hmm - stupid. By not belonging in any tribe that Dawkins belongs to I keep myself completely free to pick his good ideas and reject his bad ones (as I see them). Incidentally, Dawkins's own meme theory nicely explains why tribalizing memeplexes are good for their member memes reproduction success; which is one more reason for keeping one's own mind free of such memeplexes.

The reason I reject Idealism is that it is too wide, too general, too open.

Yes, and maybe too powerful to boot. Corylus's observation in post 1951 (or #65143) that my way with reality reminds him (or her) of how Alexander the Great dealt with the Gordian Knot still reverberates in my mind and puts me at some unease. On the other hand, if reality does consist of a perfect person then one should expect the existence of such a perfectly smooth way that cuts through all difficulties and paradoxes like a hot knife through butter.

Anything is possible, and it makes no predictions.

No, that's not true. The hypothesis that reality follows personal will is more flexible than the hypothesis that reality follows mechanical laws, but does not imply that everything goes. We know what a person (or conscious subject) means and we have a pretty good idea of what perfect person means. This knowledge has implications which must not only be compatible but must also explain the data we have (i.e. our experience of life). So idealistic theism is falsifiable by experiences that are incompatible with it, and can be weakened by its failure to explain our experiences. In fact the best argument against God's existence, the so-called argument from evil, tries to do exactly that: argue from our experience of moral and natural evils that God does not exist, or probably does not exist.

Thinking about this, I wonder if my concession above that idealistic theism is a more flexible hypothesis than naturalism is actually warranted. You see, any person, and particularly a perfectly good person, has a psychological make-up that is coherent and also limiting in many ways. What's more we, being persons ourselves, have kind of a privileged insight of what claims do or do not make sense in the context of personhood. In comparison naturalism is fairly unfettered as long as it posits a mechanical reality. I mean just see with what freedom the various ontological interpretations of Quantum Mechanics are conceived, not to mention the freedom entailed in the computer simulation hypothesis. So the hypothesis of a personal reality may be more restrictive than the hypothesis of a mechanical reality after all.

The whole point of current science is that the theories it keeps are restrictive.

Right, and I think that a meaningful proposition in any context, including in the contexts of science and of ontology, must share that quality. On the other hand, notwithstanding our intuitions to the contrary, science could (or should) not care less about what kind of objective reality gives rise to the phenomena it studies. Science is in the business of investigating phenomena - not reality - and however reality turns out to be does not make any difference to science as it produces all the right phenomena. The distinction between appearance and reality is known to philosophers since ancient times, and now quantum phenomena simply forces us all to deal with this fact; after all Quantum Mechanics is doing just splendidly well while no scientist can really say what kind of reality gives rise to quantum phenomena. On the other hand science can and does sometimes tell us how reality is not, because reality cannot contradict the phenomena that science finds out about. And some of the phenomena that Quantum Mechanics predicted and which realist Einstein found so unreasonable have now been experimentally confirmed, and they appear to falsify scientific realism – even, it seems to me, if one posits that physical reality is non-local. It seems the only escape route for scientific realism is to posit a non-causal reality where the very objectivity of our objective observations is lost. I think that's close to the definition of a maximally magical reality, not to mention the very antithesis of the scientific mindset, and therefore I think that any reasonable person who checks the evidence will have to conclude that scientific realism (i.e. the worldview of almost all naturalists) is untenable.

But I may be wrong, and non-locality is possible. But I still don't see how.

Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis

2107. Comment #67683 by Lauregon on September 4, 2007 at 10:41 am

What Donald wrote: "humans can individually, and collectively, have preferences. That is the origin of morality"

What Paul seems to have read: "any action by any individual leading to achievement of an instance of any preference, even an unusal one, gives rise to an action that is morally good".

No point in continuing if you are going to misinterpret like that. - Donald

Paul persistently refuses to accurately acknowledge the concept that a person treating others as he or she would choose to be treated may be or is the basis of human morality. He persists in leaping to hypotheticals about perverse actions performed gratuitously in order to avoid what's being said here.


Paul, about the "designer God:" what do you suppose would be the loving, caring divine purpose of the the water-borne schistosome parasite which burrows into the feet of humans, grows to amazing lengths, then exits, for example, from the eyeballs or nipples of their human hosts? What do you suppose could possibly be the loving divine reason for such a design?

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2108. Comment #67688 by Lauregon on September 4, 2007 at 11:07 am

Dianelos, did you not say some time back that you don't accept the idea of an impersonal Ultimate Reality in the mode of the Hindu concept of Brahman? Did I understand you correctly about that? If so, what you appear to be positing as "God" is so conspicuously and flagrantly rarified and "ivory-tower" that in practical terms it seems useful primarily as simply another way for uber elites to control the masses by means of their "superior knowledge" of the "personal God" who monitors and directs the lives of every human. It seems like just another super-tool of oppression, insisting that what people experience isn't really what they experience. You appear to be developing a vastly more diabolic form of the pie-in-the-sky orthodoxy that's preached, "suck it up here, peasants, your reward is in heaven." The greater mass of religious believers today can't even deal with modern Biblical scholarship. To what good purpose can your convoluted, tortured, quantum-based theories about "God" be put other than as yet another elitist means of imposing authority over human lives?


Other Comments by Lauregon

2109. Comment #67690 by Lauregon on September 4, 2007 at 11:18 am

Mind-over-matterism fails pretty badly. The Church of Christian Science had a nice run, but is closing down in two nearby towns. - Dr Benway

When visiting recently, I was surprised to see the Christiann Science Church in the town I used to live
had closed down---and had been replaced by another fundamentalist Christian sect congregation.

Other Comments by Lauregon

2110. Comment #67700 by Corylus on September 4, 2007 at 12:20 pm

Woo-hoo - everyone noticed the 'swap comment' feature that now stops all that tedious scrolling to the end? Well done Josh! (Anyone wanting to scroll down quickly - just press 'ctrl' and 'End' at the same time)

Paul
Sorry for the slight delay in replying - I try to think more about my posts on this thread. Seems disrespectful not to.

I asked you whether:

Have you considered the possibility that the analytic/synthetic distinction is not a clear cut as you think? As you state "Analytic means true by definition". Simply by using the word 'rape' aren't you defining the act as wrong??

You reply.

Not at all. Rape is basically forced sexual intercourse. There is of course huge emotional baggage with the term, as there would be with incest, necrophilia etc. However, there is no assumption in the definition that it is wrong.

Really? No assumption in the definition that something is wrong? "Murder" is the killing of another human being. Why then do we call it "murder" in some circumstances and "manslaugher" in others? I think we do make huge assumptions and assign moral culpability by way of the terms we use to describe actions. You can dismiss this as 'emotional baggage' if you wish, but I think that you are actually missing out on a very interesting level of analysis by doing so. (Huge field of meta-ethics out there for the discovery).

I think the term implies [morality] that there is a good, right, proper, decent way of behaving. There are things one should do, and things one should not do.

We are back to prescriptive statements again. I notice you are avoiding the word "ought"... ( Incidently, I have to say that I prefer the term 'ethics' to 'morality'. The former has less 'emotional baggage'. Humour me :)

Ok. Then you hit me with the killer...

I dislike the term 'objective morality' simply because there are thoroughly decent, relativist moralities that still hold that some actions are wrong and others right.

You dislike the term 'objective morality'! Then what the (pauses) Sam Hill have we been arguing about?? (BTW - just because a moral system is not deontological it does not, by definintion, become 'relativist'.)

There is a subjective element to Situation Ethics, and I'm not sure that it would be helpful to talk about it as 'objective morality'.

There is a subjective element to all ethics, that's why it is not helpful to talk about 'objective morality'. This has been understood from Hume way back to Bishop Holloway at the present time. Incidentally, have you read his book Godless Morality? You could probably get away with reading this at work ;)

You seem to have this deep seated need to be able to make broad 'ought' statements, but (unusally) you realise that this is based on shaky philosophical grounds. The world is a complex place, full of hideous moral dilemmas, competing needs and possible consequences that must be considered. This is why the vast majority of religious people stick their fingers in their ears and ignore the part of their holy books that talk about blanket rules.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with this. The world would be a vile place indeed if they decided to follow rules without question (look at sharia law). However, what I am not fine with is when they turn round and accuse atheists of having no morals: they always say 'morals' not 'ethics' - have you noticed that?

There is a crass version of this:-

"Atheists have no reason to be moral. Why, if I were an all atheist I would go around doing hideous things like killing people I don't like and buggering the cat!"

There is a more subtle (but ultimately quite patronising) version of this:

"How do atheists make prescriptive judgements, how do they ensure that their moral statement have universability? Morality must be objective and God-given. Moral relativism cannot be right - every moral intuition we have appears to say that somethings are just plain wrong!!" (Not realising, of course, that a 'moral intuition' is a $%^&ing subjective thing!.. growls...) "Maybe these poor deluded atheists are really tapping into God's love without realising it."

Paul, you haven't come up with the first one - to your credit :)

However, you steer very, very close to number two :(

I am not denying that atheists may have codes of conduct. They may think that they are behaving morally. ...Just because an atheist says s/he is behaving morally, this doesn't mean that the atheistic world view allows for there to be moral principles that one ought to follow.

That's why you get accused of using 'morality' as a proof of God. At best it's a priori as opposed to a posterori (in which case you need more that just that!), at worst it is merely wishful thinking.

You can counter with saying that you aren't arguing that morality is a proof of God - you are arguing that Kantian ethics based on reason is the best way to go. Fine. However, you don't need God for that. There are some atheist Kantians out there you know. Needless to say I don't agree with them, but I don't deny their existence.

I had some other things to say about the difference between types of knowlege (moral/scientific) but I have already wittered on enough. Will save for another time.

I was going to apologise for the long post, but I have just spotted the tome that Dianelos has just posted - so I won't!

Other Comments by Corylus

2111. Comment #67702 by PaulEmecz on September 4, 2007 at 12:27 pm

Goldy

If God is the source of morals and he says stone gays, then stoning gays is moral and you have to agree with it if you believe in him. Otherwise, why believe if you are not going to follow what he commands?

I'm not making a claim about what God 'says'. I've never heard God speak, and am not sure how I would know it was God if I did! I am making a claim about the world around us. I am saying it was designed by God. Steve99 said:

It might have been at least vaguely possible to imagine a non-interventionist designer when we believed the Universe was simply deterministic and mechanical, centuries ago. But not now. The idea is ludicrous.

Yes. I think the idea that there could be a universe, of this sort or any other, is ludicrous. I think any explanation of how there could be a universe like this will be ludicrous. So, do you think by just saying 'I don't know how the universe came to be' that you are somehow saying anything less ludicrous? 'Claim ignorance – no one can attack you, and you can attack anything they claim to know'.

Lauregon said

Okay, here again, you seem to be reserving the term "moral" for absolute rules that transcend human reason.

Not at all. In fact, if you remember, I have been a staunch defender of reason. I think reason allows us to go beyond science. I think it needs to. I think reason is the tool with which we can pick science itself up, dust it off, and look at it. I do reserve the term moral for statements about what ought to be done, not merely descriptions of what is or isn't done.

Donald

What Donald wrote: "humans can individually, and collectively, have preferences. That is the origin of morality"

What Paul seems to have read: "any action by any individual leading to achievement of an instance of any preference, even an unusal one, gives rise to an action that is morally good".

No point in continuing if you are going to misinterpret like that.

Not fair. If you want to make a point, make it. My point is simple – we have many preferences, some good, some bad. If that is the case, then morality cannot be about maximising preferences. I didn't so much 'read' all that into your comments as extrapolate from them. Your argument was based on the idea that fulfilling preferences is intrinsically good. It clearly is not. If anything IS good or right or proper, it must be something other than the mere fulfilment of preferences.

So, what is it that is intrinsically good or right?

Lauregon

Paul persistently refuses to accurately acknowledge the concept that a person treating others as he or she would choose to be treated may be or is the basis of human morality.

There's nothing wrong with the Golden Rule. However, the question is how you move from describing how people behave to saying how they SHOULD behave. Some people follow the Golden Rule and they are happy. They live in stable societies. Some people think it's every person for themselves. They may or may not be happy. They may or may not live in the same societies as the Golden Rule people. Some people follow the Golden Rule and are terribly unhappy and live in awful societies. No amount of describing what people actually do will amount to any statement about what people SHOULD do.

If by 'morality' you merely mean how people behave in society, I can concede that this doesn't need God. This would include the Golden Rule people as well as the fascists, those who are greedy, selfish or violent etc.

If by morality you mean something more, if you want to say that it is right to follow the Golden Rule or that a society that follows it is a good society, then you need to show how you arrive at these value statements, and it's not by merely describing how people behave.

It's ironic that you say I 'persist in leaping to hypotheticals'. All you have ever come up with is hypotheticals:
"If you want a stable society, then you should…"
"If you want to be happy, be fulfilled, have integrity, then…"

The real question is, is it right to want to be happy – is happiness intrinsically good? Is it right to want society to be stable, for people to have their interests met etc? You haven't given any satisfactory explanation of how you reach these value judgements. Why do you value the Golden Rule?

Other Comments by PaulEmecz

2112. Comment #67710 by PaulEmecz on September 4, 2007 at 1:13 pm

Corylus

"Murder" is the killing of another human being. Why then do we call it "murder" in some circumstances and "manslaugher" in others?

I have nothing but awe and respect for dictionary writers. Wow. They somehow manage to accurately define words that seem to defy definition - how would you define 'how' or 'would' or 'or' - I find words tricky. But they do have meanings. Murder means unlawful killing. The value judgment only comes if you assume that the law is inherently good. Few do. Particularly my parents who were brought up in communist Hungary. The police were hated more than the armies of Russians.

It's very easy to misunderstand my arguments. Goldy seemed to think he scored points by saying that religious societies stone gays and atheist societies don't. I have never suggested that atheists are in any way less moral than theists (I may have suggested different reasons why some atheists may behave one way and some theists another way, but on balance I know of so many theists who behave in such terrible ways that I have never claimed that theists are more moral people). My real question is, is there any basis for believing in morality (not 'People behaving in this or that way' but the notion that one way of behaving is better than another)? Clearly some atheists behave one way, some another, some theists one way and others another, and you or I may have nice warm feelings about some behaviours and fear and loathing about others, but are some beahviours WRONG, and is there anything we SHOULD do?

So, the 'atheists are nice people really' argument is not relevant. The question is 'How can we say what is 'nice' and what is not?' I recognise two consistent answers - we can't; there is a designer outside this universe who has made a world allowing for intelligent life with a specific purpose.

Other Comments by PaulEmecz

2113. Comment #67717 by BMMcArdle on September 4, 2007 at 1:51 pm

"How can we say what is 'nice' and what is not?"
Two consistent? answers:
1. We can't.
2. My imaginary sky daddy made this entire universe for me so I can worship him.

Society defines morality.

Other Comments by BMMcArdle

2114. Comment #67722 by steve99 on September 4, 2007 at 2:07 pm

Well, I find that the standard of Occam's razor is not applied consistently. For example the many worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (which is arguably the most popular description of reality among physicists today) is much more complex than any vast computer capable of producing our experience of physical phenomena.

This is nonsense. The Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is favoured by some because it is actually simpler than other interpretations of QM.

You are confusing complexity of outcomes with complexity of causes.

Imagine you find a single dice, landing in a certain orientation. Given that discovery you might thing that a dice has some sort of lack of symmetry, as a specific side is down. Without touching it you would suspect perhaps that one side was weighted, and add a new parameter to your idea of a dice (the weight). However, stand back and you see hundreds of dice, showing all possible sides. Now you can see that the situation is simpler. The dice is actually symmetrical, and no side is weighted, and the one you saw was a result of chance. You have removed the need for a parameter.

This is precisely analogous to ideas of multiverses: they are simpler.

Other Comments by steve99

2115. Comment #67726 by steve99 on September 4, 2007 at 2:23 pm

It seems the only escape route for scientific realism is to posit a non-causal reality where the very objectivity of our objective observations is lost. I think that's close to the definition of a maximally magical reality, not to mention the very antithesis of the scientific mindset, and therefore I think that any reasonable person who checks the evidence will have to conclude that scientific realism (i.e. the worldview of almost all naturalists) is untenable.

I disagree with your statement about 'the only escape route', but assuming it is true, your conclusion is more far reaching that you realise.

This is what we have been trying to tell you, again and again:

If you assume QM is correct, then it possibly threatens a wide range of ideas of realism. If you decide that it threatens objective reality, it threatens objective reality. You can't simply pick and choose. You can't say 'I accept the observations of QM! Therefore *your* objective world based on atoms and particles is an illusion, but by objective world based on the mind-substance of God is not'. That is inconsistent.

If you aren't a solipsist, then you accept the observations of others along with your own. Those observations include the weirdnesses of QM. They are probing the nature of reality, no matter what kind of reality you care to postulate, be it idealistic or materialism. QM, at least as you interpret it, is as much a thread to idealistic objectivity as it is to materialistic objectivity.

Other Comments by steve99

2116. Comment #67730 by Goldy on September 4, 2007 at 2:33 pm

Points? I was merely asking for a wee clarification on

Let's pretend there is no God (not an impossible feat for most of you!).

There is no morality.

That's the cold, hard truth. Some people accept it, some people fight against it, but there it is - moral rules just don't exist.

and

So, do you agree that morality is at least possible with God? Do you see why it is impossible without God?

The implication I am reading is that there is no morality without some external supernatural force to define it. The code of conduct which we follow and term morality is just that, a code, without a god. Am I correct is my interpretation?

I feel that this has been misunderstood on this site - it has been suggested that I have been using it as a proof of God (there is morality; there can be no morality without God, therefore there is God) - not so. I could believe in God and morality, or in atheism with no morality. I cannot see any argument for being an atheist who believes in morality

I read this and I think it says that there is no morality without a god, or a belief in a god. You cannot see any argument for a belief in athiesm with morality, yet we tell you it is how we function as a society. Examples have, I believe, been given of animals showing "moral" behaviour, indicating maybe a suggestion that maybe there is a pre-H. sapiens, therefore pre-God or gods (my view) origin for morality.
Now you are not making claims on God's words, but you are following a belief based on what others (prophets and the like) tell us what he said. To me, that suggests that you are following God's words, just not following them directly.

Goldy seemed to think he scored points by saying that religious societies stone gays and atheist societies don't

I am not making any claims for athiest societies - they are the same as religious ones, just the label is different. Athiest societies probably imprison gays, or shoot them. Point is, one society follows a god's laws and the other man's. One should be moral and the other not. Yet I can't see the difference and in many cases, following said god's laws results in a more brutal and, dare I say, immoral society than one following man's laws.
No points, just seeking clarification in my interpretation of what I think you are trying to say :-)

So, the 'atheists are nice people really' argument is not relevant. The question is 'How can we say what is 'nice' and what is not?' I recognise two consistent answers - we can't; there is a designer outside this universe who has made a world allowing for intelligent life with a specific purpose.

Yes to the first part, no to the second. Why is there a designer? Maye the inconsistencies we come across (the ever shifting field of morality according to time and society) suggest to me there is NO designer - it is just how we are at the time. We can't say what is moral because it is a nebulous concept. We know what it is in our society and we follow it. There are those who don't follow the morals as set down by, for want of a better phrase, our gut feeling on "nice" and we have laws, man made, to define morality according to our society. Many ascribe these laws to a god, but all I can see is that we have given it a supernatural origin in order to justify the inconsistencies and the "immorality".
I hope I am clear - like morality, I know what i want to say, but can't think how exactly :-)

Other Comments by Goldy

2117. Comment #67732 by Dr Benway on September 4, 2007 at 2:37 pm

Paul,

I see above that you now reject the notion of objective morality.

Do you concede that God's purpose in creating the universe does not provide us with the "oughts" that we chose for ourselves?

I cannot engage in a discussion regarding how we develop our rules, while someone remains under the mistaken impression that God makes the process easier somehow.

Other Comments by Dr Benway

2118. Comment #67737 by steve99 on September 4, 2007 at 3:02 pm

Yes. I think the idea that there could be a universe, of this sort or any other, is ludicrous. I think any explanation of how there could be a universe like this will be ludicrous.

Apart from the fact this this does not follow, you are completely missing my point. You are confusing origination with design. There are two completely different issues: (1) Was the Universe created and (2) was the Universe designed?

The problem with (2) is that, as I explained, the universe is not deterministic, so any 'designer' would have to be highly interventionist to keep things on track. I don't know about you, but I see no evidence of such intervention, and the idea of intervention is now rejected by serious theologians.

So, you see, it is absurd to think that anyone could just 'press the button' at the start of the Universe and sit back to wait for us to turn up. Reality is not like that.

It is far less absurd (although still wrong in my view) to talk about a creator who started up a universe that may have been vaguely likely to produce some kind of complexity, but that is about it. You were designed for sure, but by Natural Selection.

Other Comments by steve99

2119. Comment #67748 by PaulEmecz on September 4, 2007 at 3:48 pm

Steve99

Clearly you think any theist explanation of the existence and origin of the universe is absurd. So, give me an explanation (I know you won't have any evidence, but I can live with that), in a way that doesn't sound absurd.

Dr B

I see above that you now reject the notion of objective morality.

Not at all. I think the term is unhelpful and that the word 'morality' implies a code, guidelines or set of rules that people SHOULD keep to.

Goldy

The code of conduct which we follow and term morality is just that, a code

As I said before, if we simply refer to the rules people live by as morality, we end up with a word that's meaningless. Some people go around in gangs stealing, vandalising etc. but they would never grass up a mate - it's part of the code. If we really think that any code for behaviour is moral, that soldiers who rape as a weapon of war are acting morally, then I want to use a different word.

If, however, we are saying that rape is wrong, we are saying something else. We are no longer just describing a code that some people keep to (after all, what would make our code better than the rapist soldiers?), we are saying that this principle of not raping is actually right.

So, some people follow a code, some don't. That's true. The question is, SHOULD people follow this code? SHOULD soldiers reject the code that requires them to rape? Morality is more than just saying what people do, it's saying whether people should do it.

The point is, Goldy, that if you think the code is right, you have to be able to say why.

Incidentally, what gave the impression that I'm following the words of prophets?

Other Comments by PaulEmecz

2120. Comment #67751 by Dr Benway on September 4, 2007 at 4:00 pm

Paul,

You believe in "objective morality" but you think the term is not helpful. This looks like a contradiction to me, but I'm willing to ignore it for now.

The primary point: God (whom I like to call "the Great Beetle") may have some purpose in creating the universe. But we cannot derive an "ought" for ourselves from the fact of the Great Beetle's purpose, unless we have some reason for accepting Its purpose as our own.

Why ought we do that?

As I've said previously, any reason we might give will reference our own interests. Therefore, we serve our interests, not The Beetle.

Beetle unnecessary for ethics. QED.

Other Comments by Dr Benway

2121. Comment #67752 by PaulEmecz on September 4, 2007 at 4:01 pm

Goldy

Examples have, I believe, been given of animals showing "moral" behaviour

Well, humans are animals. It depends what you mean by 'moral behaviour'. Reciprocity is definitely there with many species.

There is such a huge difference between saying 'That chimp shared his food with the other chimp' and saying 'Sharing that food was the right thing for that chimp to do'. It is slightly confused by the fact that we see survival as a goal, so sharing the food may actually be the right thing to do if the chimp wanted to survive, but this is hypothetical. There is an if. It requires an assumption "It is good for your genes to survive". Again, on what basis can we make such an assumption.

Dr B
I'm not saying it's easier to explain morality with God. I'm saying that I haven't yet heard a convincing reason to believe in the possibility of a moral imperative, something I ought to do, without belief in God. Nothing I am hearing on this site has convinced me otherwise. I just don't hear an answer - why should I follow any codes of conduct?

Other Comments by PaulEmecz

2122. Comment #67754 by Dr Benway on September 4, 2007 at 4:08 pm

Paul,

Perhaps you've not heard any convincing discussions regarding ethics, because you've been insisting that your pal, God, join the debate. You apparently missed the memo from the Union of Reasonable Ethicists clearly stating that no guns and no gods allowed into the room during negotiations.

It's in the bylaws. Gotta wait outside if you're armed.

Other Comments by Dr Benway

2123. Comment #67755 by Goldy on September 4, 2007 at 4:08 pm

The point is, Goldy, that if you think the code is right, you have to be able to say why.

Why? Believers don't have to justify their religion. There are no hard and fast rules on morality, it is not dogmatic. There is no should or ought or anything because morality changes according to time and situation, though it appears to have the good of society as a whole as its aim. There is, however, a difference between a code and morality. You may know of the term "The law is an ass". Same thing. What might be right as a code is not necessarily right as morality. Hence people being convicted after, say, wartime rape or gang murders. My use of the word code is that as I read what you say, morality is just that without God. It is God that makes the code morality. Correct?
I personally see morality as a code for the good conduct of ALL members of society, not parts of society. The parts follow codes that might conflict with the whole, hence it not being moral. Follow me? The codes of a soldier are more a bonding thing, likewise with gangs. They act to bond the members of the clique together, to differentiate them from society as a whole. Having immoral acts is quite good for this as it is such an extreme transgression of the codes of society that really make the bonding effective. Am I making sense? I worry that I might use the wrong words at times...

Incidentally, what gave the impression that I'm following the words of prophets?

You believe in God. Yet you do not hear him.

I've never heard God speak, and am not sure how I would know it was God if I did!

From this I can only assume you know of God through others who know him more intimately. Otherwise I would see this god not as God but a god of your own making.The God we hear about comes to us via the prophets. I believe this idea is all written in the Bible. I am open to other suggestions :-)

Other Comments by Goldy

2124. Comment #67757 by Goldy on September 4, 2007 at 4:16 pm

Well, humans are animals. It depends what you mean by 'moral behaviour'. Reciprocity is definitely there with many species.

As with animals, so with humans. You're getting there :-)

It requires an assumption "It is good for your genes to survive". Again, on what basis can we make such an assumption.

Why else live? Because God says so? Then I am sure he'd have made us immortal. But we ain't we are a vessel the information for the next generation, whether or not we are active in the formation of that next generation. Selfish gene, I believe...

I just don't hear an answer - why should I follow any codes of conduct?

Try it. See how your life goes without following what we term morality :-)

Other Comments by Goldy

2125. Comment #67765 by steve99 on September 4, 2007 at 4:59 pm

Clearly you think any theist explanation of the existence and origin of the universe is absurd. So, give me an explanation (I know you won't have any evidence, but I can live with that), in a way that doesn't sound absurd.

Just to make it clear. I find the idea of a theist explanation of the existence and origin of the universe absurd, but orders of magnitude less absurd that the idea that a creator somehow designed the universe so that humans would end up in it. That completely contradicts our understanding of the nature of how the universe works.

OK, so having got that out of the way... I think the best idea I have heard of how why the Universe is that of Max Tegmark - the "Ultimate Ensemble" theory. There is a multiverse (not the Many Worlds one, I hasten to add) which consists of every universe that follows consistent mathematical and logical rules. He thinks that universes have a very deep link with mathematics: universes exist because mathematics exists.

However, I also think that it is highly suspect for us to claim any final knowledge of how and why our universe came into being. We have poor brains. We are just another species of Chimanzee basically. In a billion years our descendents may have intellects so far advanced we can't possibly imagine, and they may laugh at our feeble attempts to understand existence. This is why I find the continued attempts to hang onto a God as creator as the gaps for Him get smaller and smaller so absurd. I believe it is a form of arrogance - that God made this Universe for us.

Other Comments by steve99

2126. Comment #67782 by Lauregon on September 4, 2007 at 6:42 pm

In fact, if you remember, I have been a staunch defender of reason. I think reason allows us to go beyond science. I think it needs to. I think reason is the tool with which we can pick science itself up, dust it off, and look at it. I do reserve the term moral for statements about what ought to be done, not merely descriptions of what is or isn't done. - PaulEmecz

Your concept of reason and morality both appear to neccessitate an unnamed agent with the power to impart concepts of morality from outside this realm.

There's nothing wrong with the Golden Rule. However, the question is how you move from describing how people behave to saying how they SHOULD behave. - Paul

I don't recall saying anyone "should" do anything.

Some people follow the Golden Rule and they are happy. They live in stable societies. Some people think it's every person for themselves. They may or may not be happy. They may or may not live in the same societies as the Golden Rule people. Some people follow the Golden Rule and are terribly unhappy and live in awful societies. No amount of describing what people actually do will amount to any statement about what people SHOULD do. - PaulEmecz

You're the one who's obsessed with "SHOULD," not me. Yes, people behave differently, but what we're trying to say here (at least I am) is that I think people evolve to understanding that following the Golden Rule makes societies more suitable for optimum human life.

If by 'morality' you merely mean how people behave in society, I can concede that this doesn't need God. This would include the Golden Rule people as well as the fascists, those who are greedy, selfish or violent etc. - PaulEmecz

That's what you choose to see in what we've been saying. It's not what we've been saying.

If by morality you mean something more, if you want to say that it is right to follow the Golden Rule or that a society that follows it is a good society, then you need to show how you arrive at these value statements, and it's not by merely describing how people behave. - PaulEmecz

You're blinded by your definition of "morality" and your fixation on cosmic "SHOULDs." You assume that morality must be sourced somewhere beyond human societies in an absolute decider. You won't accept that morality is a human construct.

It's ironic that you say I 'persist in leaping to hypotheticals'. All you have ever come up with is hypotheticals: "If you want a stable society, then you should…""If you want to be happy, be fulfilled, have integrity, then…" - PaulEmecz

Your insertion of "fascists, the greedy, the selfish, and violent" into discussion of the Golden Rule is a tool you use to avoid seeing the value and function of the Golden Rule. Of course it's true that not all people follow the Golden Rule, but neither do all people follow the ten commandments which allegedly came from Yaweh/Jehovah. The point is that many of us here believe morality is created by humans, and by not a divine agent of "SHOULD."

The real question is, is it right to want to be happy – is happiness intrinsically good? Is it right to want society to be stable, for people to have their interests met etc? - PaulEmecz

Who do you suppose should decide that these human yearnings are "right"---apart from the people themselves? You seem to assume that unless these yearnings are imposed by something beyond humanity, they can't be "right."

You haven't given any satisfactory explanation of how you reach these value judgements. Why do you value the Golden Rule? - PaulEmecz

How many times must it be said? It appears that he Golden Rule is called the Golden Rule because it has practical social value to those follow it to the extent that following it considered more beneficial to the society than not following it BECAUSE humans have found it to be so.

The question is 'How can we say what is 'nice' and what is not?' I recognise two consistent answers - we can't; there is a designer outside this universe who has made a world allowing for intelligent life with a specific purpose. - PaulEmecz -

You seem to be absolutely convinced that there must be an agent of "SHOULD." Apparently, there's nothing else that can satisfy your need for a transcendent decider-of-all-things which is evidently why little we here say on the subject
of morality gets through to you. It's been explained and explained and explained, but we may as well have been speaking Martian for all the good it's done.

As for your question asking why you should follow any codes of conduct,it seems to me that if you have to ask, it's probably an excellent thing that you continue believing in an "SHOULD" enforcer, since apparently you secretly fear you're a closet sociopath on a divine leash. I know that may sound harsh, but really, your argumentation seems willfully perverse.

Other Comments by Lauregon

2127. Comment #67793 by Veronique on September 4, 2007 at 8:29 pm

2098. Comment #67658 by Dr Benway

He is indeed enormously fond of beetles. However I think he is much more interested in viruses, myself:-). Sneaky, pesky, unseen little thingies that keep mutating because they get found out. Slippery little buggers, all of them. Try as we might to contain them, hold them up to scrutiny, develop ways and means calculated to destroy them, they slip through the net and we have to start all over again.

May be it's more helpful to call him The Great Virus. Seems more apt somehow:-).

I really do think everyone needs to get out more. Way back in Comment 1917, I thought this thread was going nowhere fast. It's getting faster but still going nowhere:-).

I'll check back sometime in the next 100 or so comments. A bit of living never goes astray:-).

Cheers
V

Other Comments by Veronique

2128. Comment #67808 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 4, 2007 at 10:58 pm

Downunder (post 2094, or #67579):

Dr Benways' 2084. I know what you mean but can't resist to note that IMHO, objectively, 3 legs on the ground provide perfect stability. In our imperfect world, 4 legged tables are likely to have one leg shorter than the gradient set by the other 3. Subsequently, wobbly 4 legged tables are less perfect and could spill your amber liquid.

LOL. Good point. I think I shall use it when arguing about the Trinitarian nature of reality.

Incidentally, Downunder, I have always wondered if by LIFE you mean what I call consciousness. Do you see any cases where LIFE is present but consciousness isn't, or consciousness is present but LIFE isn't? Because if you don't then the two concepts are pretty much equivalent.

Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis

2129. Comment #67825 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 5, 2007 at 12:41 am

Lauregon (post 2093, or #67477):

"God" can't be both not interventionist and at the same time "directly affecting" the qualitative parts of our life.

Why not? Let's think about this from the most fundamental point of view there is, namely from the point of view of our condition. Our experience of life is such that it is both objective and subjective: we objectively see the moon but our experience of seeing the moon has also the qualitative part of how it is like to see the moon. The objective/quantitative aspect of our experience is public, but the subjective/qualitative aspect is strictly private. So, for example, if you were speaking with an intelligent computer you could both easily discuss the objective experience of seeing the moon and what that implies, but one would have to wonder how the intelligent computer experiences seeing the moon. I think reality is such that we all basically share the same objective experience of life, but I think how we experience life, the subjective part of it, can and often is quite different. How could I know that if each person's qualitative experience of life is so private? Well, I know that from observing how my own qualitative experience of life is so changeable. I think that the fact that one's qualitative (or subjective) experience of life is so changeable and the rules that govern that change is one of the most important facts of our condition that have not been studied by philosophers. Some of these rules are quite clear. Just to mention one example, learning strongly affects the quality of our experiencing something. One very notable case is how the quality of one's listening to a foreign language changes if one learns that foreign language.

So far so good, but what does all that have to do with our relationship to God (as I see it)? Well, by now we see rather clearly (thanks to science) that the objective part of our conscious experience is structured mechanically: Mechanisms explain the movement of the planets and the falling of apples and the complexity of the species and the fact that we can't walk through walls. There is no reason to suspect that there are exceptions to this rule, so I think it's by now unreasonable to believe that God interferes (or at least systematically interferes) with the mechanisms that structure our objective experiences. My own view is that for all practical purposes God never interferes, so I understand God as non-interventionist. To make this clear, I believe that if we were about to destroy life on Earth God would not interfere to stop us. On the other hand I think the qualitative part of our life is one where we are directly in touch with God in a free and dynamic way. Our intuitions about goodness are rooted here. Our experience of beauty is a direct experience of God (my own religious experiences feel exactly like my experience of music – but at the absence of sounds). How it is like to do the right thing and all that it entails is our coming closer to God, of building a more intimate relationship with Him/Her – and significantly that experience is equally open and equally satisfying to all persons no matter their ontological views. (That's how I explain the fact that non-theists can be as good people as theists.) In short all of the qualitative part of our condition is directly contingent on God and represents our dynamic and interactive relationship to God. And I think it's indisputable that the qualitative part of our experience is far more valuable and relevant to us than the objective part of our experience.

It is in this sense then that I claim that God is both non-interventionist and non-absent.

Further I object to you calling the reality of human beings "material". I think it's indisputable that the reality of human beings is experiential rather than material. Matter, material objects, and their properties are all things we find out about based on our experience. - Dianelos

Is that merely a semantic disagreement? It seems to me that our experience is derived from observation and perception of and interaction with the material world. In that sense, IMO, human reality is a material one.

Well, I think that's an issue easily settled: Just take a few seconds to look around you, and you'll realize that you exist in a space of conscious experience. The material world is something you infer from your conscious experience. That's a basic fact of our condition.

Experience based upon unverifiable subjective perception of the non-verifiable and non-material is, as I see it, fantasy.

I am not sure how you mean that :-) but let's take an example. You experience the color blue, yes? That's a completely subjective as well as atomic experience, something that philosophers of the mind call "a quale". In what sense is that experience "a fantasy"? On the contrary it seems to me that direct experiences are the only knowledge that is absolutely certain and cannot possibly be a fantasy. Experience is all the data we have (and I mean experience as it is, namely comprising both the objective and the subjective aspects of it - both the object of our experience and how it is to experience it.) Where we can err is in what we infer from that data. So, for example, I claim that it is an error to infer from the data we have (the objective data in this case) that the physical universe is real.

Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis

2130. Comment #67844 by steve99 on September 5, 2007 at 1:49 am

LOL. Good point. I think I shall use it when arguing about the Trinitarian nature of reality.

This is what I don't get... and why I find your debating so frustrating.

You have experienced here a debate about the supposed Trinitarian nature of reality. You put forward reasons for it, in terms of both 'mind structure' and 'information processing'. I put forward what I believed was a clear argument that your reasoning was wrong. For example, you believed that humans could exist without instinct (which is clearly nonsense), that processing could proceed without software.

I think the whole matter is nonsense - to me it is like arguing about the fine structure of fairy wings - but I obviously showed that even if one assumes (as you do) that this is not nonsens, you are wrong even on your own terms, or at the very least your views are highly questionable.

So how do you get away with still arguing in favour of a Trinitarian viewpoint?

This kind of ignoring of counter-arguments and proceeding on blissfully as if no-one had said anything is no way to behave. One might expect it of, say, politicians, but not from someone of supposed ability to debate and think rationally.

If someone throws up a serious challenge to a belief the appropriate response is to put the stick a label on the belief as 'questionable' and put it away for a while until this doubts have been cleared up. To do otherwise is, in my view, to insult the intellect of those you are debating with, and the general readers.

Other Comments by steve99

2131. Comment #67846 by BMMcArdle on September 5, 2007 at 1:50 am

From nowhere to nothing.

Other Comments by BMMcArdle

2132. Comment #67866 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 5, 2007 at 3:31 am

PaulEmecz (post 2111, or #67702):

I am making a claim about the world around us. I am saying it was designed by God.

I agree, but would like to point out that "design" is not only a loaded concept (see the nonsense of the so-called "intelligent design"), but also, more importantly, a confusing concept. Take for example the very relevant issue of natural evolution. It's undoubtedly true: natural evolution does explain the complexity of species beyond any reasonable doubt. And natural evolution is a strictly mechanical process based on random mutations and natural selection for which absolutely no designer is required. On the other hand you and I believe that God designed the world around us, including the species in it, which incidentally includes our bodies and our intelligence. How can such a state of affairs be possible? How can something be both the result of a strictly mechanical process and of personal design?

I would like to illustrate how by giving an example out of my own personal experience as a designer. It turns out I design software systems. Once, as part of such an application, I had to design a large number of hash functions (I think it was 16). What a hash function exactly is, is irrelevant here; suffice to say that a hash function is a mathematical function that inputs a number, processes it, and outputs another number trying to optimize a particular relationship between those two numbers. Now there are good and bad hash functions, and it's not easy to design a good one. In fact to design a really good hash function is extremely difficult and a very specialized kind of work. In my application I only needed fairly good hash functions, but also a large number of them. How to proceed? Well, I thought, instead of breaking my own head trying to design so many different hash functions, why not use the brute force of the computer to produce them? So I wrote an automatic process that randomly produced hash functions (to the tune of billions) and then simply checked to see how good they were, and continued to search until it found the 16 fairly good ones I needed. After maybe of few days of a single PC sweating away I got the 16 functions I needed.

Now the question is: "Were these 16 functions designed by me, or were they the result of a mechanical process?" It's hardly reasonable to say that they were not designed by me, after all I set up the whole thing. On the other hand they were indisputably the result of a purely mechanical process, indeed one not dissimilar to natural evolution, as it was also based on random production and selection. So we see that it is entirely possible for complexity to be the result of both a purely mechanical process and of personal design.

Now a possible question in this context is this: "In the case of a human software designer it makes sense to put a mechanical computer to work hard instead of breaking one's own personal head. But God is supposed to be a person of (at least practically) infinite powers, so why would God use such a round-about way instead of directly designing the required species to His/Her specifications?" I think that's a fair question which admits of a good answer once we realize that in order to understand a person's actions we must first understand that person's motivation. According to Irenaean theodicy God's motivation for creation is to give us an experiential environment optimized for the personal attainment of virtue. As John Hick put it, the world is a place for soul-making. But if that is God's motivation then God does not need design a world including its species to any particular specification of individual perfection; quite the contrary. Which brings us to kind of a paradox: If God had directly designed the species then each would have to be perfect in itself. But a world perfectly designed in each particular, including it containing perfect species and perfect humans, would actually contradict God's motivation for creating the world, as such a world would be far from optimal for the personal attainment of virtue (in fact I think would make it impossible).

But, still one may ask: "Why hasn't then God directly and on purpose design the imperfect species we see around us? Why use the roundabout way of a mechanism (namely natural selection) that produces the complex but imperfect species required by God's prime motivation for creation? After all if God were a software designer needing 16 hash functions it's true that S/He would naturally and easily design the 16 maximally best hash functions there are, but also could, if S/He so wanted, also produce 16 only fairly good hash functions." Well, suppose God had directly designed imperfect species (and in general an imperfect world) without using the round-about way of mechanisms, and imagine we were experiencing such a world. How would we think about God in such a world? At first it might seem that such a world would be advantageous as it would make it easier for us to find out that God exists. After all the so-called argument from design (or teleological argument) would be watertight. No Darwin would have come along destroying the argument that the complexity of the species evidences the existence of designer. But in fact such a state of affairs would not be advantageous from God's point of view. "But why not? Doesn't God want us to believe in Him/Her?" Well, the short answer to this question is "no". God's primary motivation for creation, what God really wishes, is for us to attain personal virtue (according to Ireneaus's, John Hick's and my worldview, but also according to Jesus's new commandment as recorded in the gospel of John), and a world where God is in our face as it were, is not the best world for that. But there is a second reason for God to avoid direct design: The world that is best for us to attain personal virtue is not one where God is not trivially easy to discern, but on the other hand is also not a world were we are mislead about how God is, once we do the effort to discern Him/Her. I think that a world full of obviously imperfect direct designs by God would powerfully mislead us into believing in an imperfect God, some kind of evil Demiurge as Gnostics had it. Imagine a state of affairs where it were obviously true that the Bible, with all its imperfections, were the direct and literal word of God; surely such a state of affairs would greatly confuse and mislead us about how God really is. There is a third reason I could mention here, and which I have analyzed some time back (including in post 1764 or #61594): In order to grow in personal virtue we need a physical environment, i.e. an environment that follows mechanical laws and is therefore basically predictable, otherwise we wouldn't be able to perform the simulations that, as Donald argues in post 2090, are necessary for ethical thinking. That's a complex issue, but I think it's clear that if we lived in a non-mechanical medium then doing good would hardly be meaningful.

So in conclusion I think there are sufficient grounds to justify the claim that the premise of the perfectly good God not only fails to contradict but actually implies or explains the fact that the origin of the species is a mechanical process. Which means that those theists who struggle against the theory of natural evolution are doing exactly the wrong thing. After all if God exists then everything, including natural evolution, evidences God. As I hope to have shown here :-)

Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis

2133. Comment #67905 by irate_atheist on September 5, 2007 at 5:28 am

#67866 by Dianelos Georgoudis -

DG - How can you possibly claim to know what God wants and how he does anything, if neither you or anybody else can even prove he exists in the first place? Your so-called evidence is nothing more than a big 'because it is!' shouted in the face of all the counter evidence.

From this flawed initial position, your resulting arguments are completely unfounded and not even worthy of being ignored. All you are doing is spouting the results of your overactive imagination without any justification in reason or evidence. Just because you can imagine what a God may be or do, doesn't make the existence of it any more real. The harder you try, the more convoluted your arguments become.

(Walks away, shaking his head, wondering if the faithheads will ever wake up and face reality.)

Other Comments by irate_atheist

2134. Comment #67932 by steve99 on September 5, 2007 at 7:57 am

But, still one may ask: "Why hasn't then God directly and on purpose design the imperfect species we see around us? Why use the roundabout way of a mechanism (namely natural selection) that produces the complex but imperfect species required by God's prime motivation for creation?

I fail to see why you are misunderstanding such a simple point, but I'll try one last time.

The species we see around us are not designed, because the universe is not deterministic. The only way God could have ensured that the species around us arose is to continually intervene to push things in the right direction. No serious thinker or theologist really believes that anymore.

After all if God exists then everything, including natural evolution, evidences God. As I hope to have shown here :-)

All you have shown is your continued refusal to understand simple arguments i.e. when something shows no evidence of needing a designer, and no evidence of a designer exists, then it is nothing but bloody-minded stubborness and a refusal to accept reality to insist that

However, I would imagine you will simply ignore what I have said, and carry on as if I had never posted this.

Good luck to you. I have run out of energy and motivation to deal this any longer.

Other Comments by steve99

2135. Comment #67968 by Lauregon on September 5, 2007 at 12:27 pm

In short all of the qualitative part of our condition is directly contingent on God and represents our dynamic and interactive relationship to God. And I think it's indisputable that the qualitative part of our experience is far more valuable and relevant to us than the objective part of our experience.

It is in this sense then that I claim that God is both non-interventionist and non-absent. Dianelos

It sounds to me that you're talking about "God" as the sum of all that is, perhaps a Ground of Being, or something like the Hindu concept of Brahman, but you've said before that's not how you see "God."

Our experience of beauty is a direct experience of God (my own religious experiences feel exactly like my experience of music - Dianelos

I've had many experiences of a sort of raptured, filled-to-overflowingness when viewing certain art works. I attribute them to chemicals in my brain; another way of saying that, taking the position that All That Is is "God," would be to say that my response to the art was "a direct experience of God," but that "God" would be "God" in a deist sense rather than in the theist sense, but I don't think that's what you've been talking about all this time. Am I wrong in my perceptions?

On the contrary it seems to me that direct experiences are the only knowledge that is absolutely certain and cannot possibly be a fantasy. Experience is all the data we have (and I mean experience as it is, namely comprising both the objective and the subjective aspec