Comments by denoir
Comment #158844 by denoir on April 11, 2008 at 5:43 am
I must say that I do admire America. No, I'm not being sarcastic and I'm not talking about this idiot woman. I'm thinking about the public response seen on non-atheist mainstream media.
We have here a country that at least in the western world has the greatest number of religious people per capita. "Atheist" is generally considered to be a smear-word. Yet, when push comes to shove, when individual freedoms are violated in the name of religion people support the individual freedoms.
Had she not said "you have no right to be here" there would have been no public uproar.
Fundamentally it is a healthy situation. If individual rights are respected then damage done by religion will be minimized. The problematic elements are of course the collective ones (like elections) that are fertile grounds for religion. However, as long as individual rights are considered inalienable and that they come before any mob instinct the situation can't get too bad.
Although the religious context would not be possible, I'm confident that the public in my country (Sweden) would not at all react as responsibly in an equivalent situation.
2. Faith healing church parents charged over toddler's death
Comment #154196 by denoir on April 2, 2008 at 9:02 pm
MPhil,
I don't think so. The Selfish Gene is thoroughly based in rigorous academic biology, written by a real scientist who has used the methods of academic biology to correctly and thoroughly to make his point in The Selfish Gene. This isn't true for Rand and philosophy (for the reasons mentioned above).
Well, I agree with you that the selfish gene is not a good example. But there exists plenty of popular science that has a less solid scientific foundation but it still serves the purpose of getting people interested in science.
I think it does - it shows sloppy thinking and the ascription of almost "mystic" attributes to the law of identity. Every serious philosopher cringes at objectivism, partly for that reason.
What I wanted to say is that what the followers do in practice doesn't say anything about the validity of the theory. In their case however their practice is unfortunately an effect of their ideology. The fundamental flaw of objectivism is that it is based on incorrect assumptions on which a layer of simple logic is applied. This inevitably results in contradictions a few levels up in the system (irony defined given their affection for the law of identity).
However, having said that, I think that philosophers lost the right to cringe a long time ago. Long before frauds like Baudrillard and nuts like Fodor were accepted as 'philosophers' the profession lost all credibility in the selection of its accepted members. Compared to the accepted nihilists, mystics and postmodernists Rand seems to me as an example of 'good' philosophy - if philosophy is a search for understanding in the enlightenment sense.
All of this (and the above mentioned) leads me to say that I cannot subscribe to
Given a few very simple axioms to rest on, her system holds pretty well.
The assumptions that Rand implicitly makes would go something like this:
1) A moral system is universal (for all humans)
2) A moral system must be stable for a reasonable length of time (i.e not self-implode)
3) Human survival is desirable.
4) Suffering is undesirable.
Reading her works makes it clear that her metric is a consequentialist variation of the categorical imperative (although she would probably deny it). If we implement a given moral system, consistently and universally, will it violate the assumptions? If so then she would say that it is a bad system. Let's take an example:
Question: Is religion moral?
Randian answer: Religion attacks reason and rationality and demands that we give it up for faith and mysticism. At the same time the religious people are dependent on food, water etc that can only be provided by a rational approach to the world. If their system was implemented consistently and we destroyed reason and rationality and substituted it for faith, we would all starve to death - them included. Hence religious ideology is self-destructive and thus immoral.
The religious system violates 2), 3) and 4).
What is the justification for the assumptions? For the universality none except perhaps the practical fact that humans act reciprocally. The next two are self evident on something like a natural selection basis (although you still don't have an 'ought' technically speaking). The suffering part is arbitrary.
Ultimately you must start with some form of assumption and I'm not convinced by the idea of just picking some arbitrary individual rights out of the blue and claiming that they are absolute. Rand's version may not be perfect or even very good but at least she tries to reduce the arbitrary initial stage.
The arguments are so fallacious that you needn't even be a first-year philosophy student, much less an expert in epistemology, logic, philosophy of mind and metaphysics to see the errors.
What exactly is an expert in metaphysics? Or epistemology or philosophy of mind for that matter?
I've had plenty of experiences with those philosophers working with 'philosophy of mind'. I work developing artificial neural networks (I'm an engineer) and in that capacity I cooperate a lot with neuroscientists. They are extremely frustrated over the invasion into their field of an endless line of philosophers whose complete ignorance is only surpassed by their arrogance. There seems to be a giant tribe of mind-mystics that don't know the most elementary things about the brain and the state of neuroscience yet have strongly held convictions about what the mind is and how it works. And these are well respected philosophers such as Searle.
I've come to conclude that the hallmark of many philosophers (there are however bright exceptions like Dan Dennett) if not most a complete ignorance of the field they plunge into and unbridled and absolute convictions about the state of things in that field. Perhaps it's different in political philosophy. Nozick was clearly a sharp thinker. I haven't gotten around reading Rawls yet, but he is next on my list.
Anyway, my point is that in my experience the sloppy thinking and unfounded assumptions that Rand makes are positively benign compared to what I've seen from reputable philosophers. So I don't really see why she would deserve to be shunned by a profession that has shall we say very liberal rules for membership acceptance.
3. Faith healing church parents charged over toddler's death
Comment #154113 by denoir on April 2, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Comment #153678 by MPhil
Just a quick comment by someone in the academic field of philosophy:
I really don't mean to insult anyone - but since the name and term come up again and again, I feel I might as well share my opinion and some facts.
Ayn Rand, and the whole "objectivism" is dreadful philosophy - in my opinion not even deserving the term. Sometimes more of a cult than a philosophical movement. Whily some serious philosophers such as Robert Nozick (whose political opinion I do not share completely, but partly) agree with the political conclusions of Rand and Objectivism - they disapprove of the reasoning behind it.
You are of course right that Nozick is way above Rand in terms of quality, but I would not discard her altogether. Her primary quality is that she has through her writing reached far more people than Locke, Mises, Hayek and Nozick together. Atlas shrugged, being a novel (perhaps not of a high literary quality, but still), made the principles of individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism to a broader audience. Saying that she isn't up to academic standards is a bit like saying that the Selfish Gene isn't up to scientific standards. It isn't - it's popular science and Rand is popular philosophy. The second good thing with Rand is that she is a provocateur - in a good way. By using standard platitudes about altruism and egoism while highlighting the logical conclusion of what they actually imply is a very powerful, as Dawkins would say, tool for consciousness raising.
As such Ayn Rand is an excellent starting point for people to start thinking about how the society is organized today.
Of course, her work has some serious deficiencies (for instance the epistemology is incredibly naive) and her followers are objectively a form of a cult. Their A is A:ing led them to form an intolerant dogmatic collective that advocates individual liberties. Yes, they have managed to twist themselves quite badly into something really weird. However, that doesn't say anything about the validity of her philosophy.
I would for instance defend her theory of ethics, or at least the foundations of it. She makes for instance a good and important case of why capitalism should be defended on moral grounds and not as is common today on just practical grounds.
Also she takes a good stab at the origins of morality. For some reason other philosophers seem to detest this part. I like it as it has that natural selection argument in the core. Basically it's an attack on Hume's Law (that you cannot derive 'ought' from 'is'). Rand says that 'is' defines 'ought'. Since there are consistent physical laws in the universe an living beings have certain existential requirements their existence depends on selecting a correct subset of all possible actions. Beings that would choose a set of actions incompatible with life would go extinct. Without the existence of a correct subset of all possible actions, there would be no living beings and hence also no living beings to define a moral system. The important point is that you can derive the fundamental individual rights that way (right to life, right to private property and the right to free speech…) - they are derived as necessary prerequisites for life of a human being in this universe.
Is it a closed argument? No, not on a theoretical philosophical level. You can always say that "Sure, we've followed some principles that allowed us to survive so far, but why shouldn't we all kill ourselves now?" . Any infinite number of such combinations are possible and in fact she hasn't solved the is-ought problem. These are however about as practical objections as solipsism is. Given a few very simple axioms to rest on, her system holds pretty well.
Anyway, I'd recommend Atlas Shrugged to those that havn't read it (tip:get as audio book). For me it formed a logical context for my passionate atheism and my loathing of pseudo-science. Proust it ain't in literary quality but the ideas in it can be a true eye-opener. If it appealed to you read "The Virtue of Selfishness" and "Capitalism, the unknown ideal" - both contain some excellent stuff and some questionable things as well. "The Fountainhead" (also a novel) isn't all that bad either. After that you would probably be done with Rand and could move on to Nozick's "Anarchy, State and Utopia" for some higher level philosophy.
4. Controversial Anti-Muslim Dutch Film Adds to Already Simmering Tensions
Comment #97604 by denoir on December 12, 2007 at 12:16 pm
How on earth can the left and the so called liberals align themselves with the extreme right?
It's called indiscriminate tolerance and is the worst form of moral corruption. If you accept everything then you go along with anything. If you think that there are no absolutes and that every moral philosophy and every opinion is equally valid then you equate the honest man and the murderer and the one that creates with the one that destroys.
What is worse is that the indiscriminately tolerant's lives depend on people with a specific set of values while at the same time condemning them. We live in a universe governed by physical laws. As living beings we need to take specific actions to survive. If you don't eat, you die. If you fall of a cliff, you die. There is nothing relative about it and it is not a matter of opinion. The human civilization and the lives of everybody on this planet depend on people that work with facts using a rational discourse. Our survival depends on - and always has - on people that don't think that anything goes. So you can see the evil in it and the blatantly auto destructive: they are not only biting the hand that feeds them but are doing so convinced of their moral righteousness.
Modern day liberalism is unfortunately a very distorted version of the original. The inviolable rights of the individual have mutated into universal tolerance. The irony is that while the mistake is simple to make, the two concepts are actually complete opposites. Tolerance of anything is guaranteed to violate the rights of the individual.
There is an interesting ethical connection to religion as well. Religion attacks reason and rationality and demands that we give it up for faith and mysticism. At the same time the religious people are dependent on food, water etc that can only be provided by a rational approach to the world. If they had their way and we destroyed reason and rationality and substituted it for faith, we would all starve to death - they included. Hence religious ideology is self-destructive and thus immoral in the same way as the indiscriminately tolerant is.
So while they may seem like polar opposites, their moral corruption is of the same type.
Comment #91628 by denoir on November 28, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Then, this month, the Dutch government went further and stripped away her security protection, saying she should pay for it herself. The US government will not pick up the tab – the only mechanism they have for protecting private citizens full-time is the Witness Protection Program, which isn't appropriate.
That's not quite true now, is it. The Dutch government voted to strip away her security protection if she would be living in the US. They would - and they do - finance her protection as long as she is a permanent resident in the Netherlands.
Implying that she will be left protectionless is plain dishonest.
6. Frequently Asked Questions about the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust
Comment #89649 by denoir on November 21, 2007 at 11:22 am
ex-bahai:
1. Some people are saying that the Dutch government will continue to provide protection upon her return to the Netherlands. Is this true or false? Source/reference will be great.
2. What is her real reasons to relocate to the US? Is it because she dislike living in the Netherlands or is it because of her new job? Or a mix of many reasons?
Provided that the Dutch government will continue to provide her with protection in the Netherlands. I see no moral obligation for us to pay for her security in the US.
If she dislike the Netherlands then she will have to deal with it. The Dutch government certainly does not have the responsibility to protect a Dutch citizen whom decides to relocate to a foreign nation based on her own will.
If she likes the US so much or likes her new job so much then she will have to weight in the risk. Either negotiate her personal protection as part of the deal with her new employer or find other means. Asking for donation is one way of doing it and I have no problem with that. However, I do feel that things are presented with a lot of marketing twist. In a place where free thinking and reasoning are being promoted, I do find it sad that many people seemed to have missed that.
I was going to write the exactly same things - thank you for doing it so well.
To answer your first question, yes she is in the Netherlands now and yes she has full protection financed by the Dutch government. Reference (in Dutch I'm afraid):http://www.nrc.nl/binnenland/article778723.ece/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali_terug_in_Nederland
So exactly as you said, this is not about financing her safety, it's about financing her moving to the US. If people feel like paying for that - fine. It is however certainly not a moral obligation.
Sam Harris is turning out to be quite the atheist equivalent of a TV-evangelist. And it's quite embarrassing how many are not only buying into it but are expressing moral indignation over those that are not. Free thinkers my ass.
My message to them is that if you wish to spend your own money on financing her relocating to the US that's your choice. Do not however presume that you have the right to demand that other people spend their money on your misplaced cause. It doesn't matter if it is $10 or 1 cent - it's not your money and you have no right trying to decide how it will be spent.
7. URGENT APPEAL: Please Help Protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Comment #88703 by denoir on November 18, 2007 at 3:39 pm
I am puzzled by this request. My vague understanding is that the Dutch government was not prepared to pay for the protection of a citizen on foreign soil, but if she returned to Holland, they would pay.
They would and they are as she is living in the Netherlands right now. This seems to me more of a drive to finance her move to the US. And it seems to me like it is something she should finance herself.
8. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80937 by denoir on October 23, 2007 at 3:11 pm
You are the one who is confused. The simplest way to get a dynamical system is to get any injective function and iterate it indefinitely in both directions, there is no need to talk about any differential equation or difference equation.
Ok, so I was wrong. You weren't confused, you just don't know what you are talking about. Ignorance is fine as it can be remedied but you shouldn't pretend to know things that you don't - it's intellectually dishonest.
I'll give you a hint: if you have an iterative evaluation of a function that depends on previous evaluations of the function then you have a difference equation ( F_n = G(F_n-1) ). Dynamic systems are always difference equations (discrete time steps such as iterations) or differential equations (continuous time).
If you say that there is "need to talk about any differential equation or difference equation" shows that you have failed to grasp the very basics of dynamic systems.
Another tip is not to throw around expressions like "injective function" that actually have a specific technical meaning.
This is the last I'll say on the math. Feel free to write a response, but I'll make a point of not reading it as it is obviously a waste of my time. I'll stick to the topic of AI/brain.
Now is it? First you people say there is no data and then you say there is incompatibility so which way is it?
It's you who are saying that there is no data. I'm saying that the only relevant thing is the data. And we have plenty of it - enough to dismiss Penrose and to confirm other models.
No one, including Penrose himself, claims that he has a definitive model, but at least he is looking and he is putting something on the table instead of sweeping the problem under the carpet like you do here.
In the exploratory phase a prospective scientific theory often comes in conflict with data. It is a given that a lot of reworking, rethinking are necessary before a finalized version can be worked out.
So what is the big deal even if there is conflict with data?
Are you serious? Are you suggesting that we take the models we know to be incorrect and choose them over models that fit the data? Yes, in the exploratory phase theory comes in conflict with the data and then you refine the theory to fit the data better. Like removing astrological or QM influences from the model.
To say that an optical mouse is evidence that AI "works" like you do on another thread is a big joke, unless you adopt a very watered down definition of AI to be a branch of engineering that makes "smart gadgets". Well in this case it is indeed a very successful "science", just that it has little to do with what it was originally advertised to be. This is typical for many AI enthusiasts. Instead of honestly admitting that you don't know you just drop the question altogether and declare victory.
Who has declared victory? And who has dropped the question? If you are talking about higher cognitive functions, they are in there and we'll come to them in time when we have more computing power to be able to analyze things on a larger scale.
As for the optical mouse, I had completely forgotten that I've made a post on Penrose earlier. Thanks for reminding me - I looked up the post. Unsurprisingly I do agree with myself. Since you've read it, I won't repeat it here except to say that if you do not think that understanding the mammalian visual cortex or parts of it is relevant then I'm not sure what to say. If you don't think that understanding and modeling brain function is important then you are not seeking knowledge and it puts you squarely in the irrational mystic camp.
In that case however you should reject Penrose as well. The only difference between his simulations and the ones that I'm talking about is that his are demonstrably incorrect.
It would be mysticism if Penrose simply says QM is the answer and stops there. If this were the case he deserves to be ridiculed. But he is actually trying to come up with a testable theory. Do you know of any wishy washy theist proposing experiments to detect God? If you do I would like to know.
He is guilty of the same errors as the creationists are and it is the error of making a priori assumptions and then trying to stick to them data be damned. Creationists assume that the bible is true and then they do their outmost to make it scientific - which of course isn't possible as the data contradicts their initial assumptions.
Penrose and his likes make the a priori assumptions that consciousness must be something very special and that free will must exist. So they made up a model to make sure that those criteria are fulfilled. It had a fighting chance 20 years ago, but not today - not with the knowledge we do have of the brain. Penrose instead of accepting that his theory did not hold up has stubbornly stuck to it. And not because there is any rational reason to think that it is true but because he doesn't want to give up on his a priori conditions.
Now the "mind" exists. This is the only thing that we can be sure of. To declare it meaningless just because you cannot incorporate it into your research routine is completely unscientific. This is exactly what I mean by abstracting away the very phenomenon you are supposed to study.
Now whether the AI clique acknowledge its reality or not, the mind and intelligence are reality that need to be explained. Their position appears to be that if they can't incorporate these realities into their program then they are don't belong in science. So where do they belong? Who is indulging in mysticism?
You are missing the point entirely. "Mind" and "intelligence", whatever reasonable definition you pick are a function of brain operation. The serious research today is done on the operation of the brain. Once we have an understanding of it, we will also hopefully be able to explain the higher cognitive functions. And there has been some great advances in understanding of them. No, we don't have a full model or close to a full model but we do understand some elements of it both in terms of what they are and what they are not. Take language for example. Today we know the regions of the brain that are activated when using language and we know how the activation patterns look like. We know also (albeit to a smaller extent) how linguistic information is stored and how multiple languages are distributed and the activation patterns that go along with it.
Higher cognitive functions are not a mystery in the sense that we do know that they operate on the same wetware as the rest of the functions. And we know how to interact with them on a cellular level by chemical end electric means. For instance there are substances that knock out the higher level perception of "self" among other things. And we know what they do to in the brain - like blocking the action potential activity in a specific region. We can even simulate it in our computer models. And we do know that it affects higher cognitive functions. So there is no reason in trying to invent a fancy 'alternative' explanation.
And imagine, all that without a definition of "intelligence" or "mind". The point is that having philosophical discussions of what those terms mean and incorporate is not science. It's philosophy and unfortunately a lot of it has an irrational agenda. Fortunately science deals with reality and not with semantics. It doesn't matter what you mean by "intelligence", the brain is still the brain and there is no obstacle to understanding it without even once invoking the i-word.
Your posts would be a good place to start. You sound as though AI and neuroscience already have the basic pinned down and all it is required is too work out some boring details. That cannot be further from the truth. In fact Penrose was motivated to write his books because of such claims. I don't have them in front of me but I am sure you can look them up.
AI and neuroscience has the methodology pinned down and it's the scientific method. You observe, you form a hypothesis, you test it with data and refine it. It's really straightforward.
There is a *lot* of work left - as I said, I don't think we can even begin to properly model complex brain phenomena (that involve large regions) in the next 20 years. We don't have the computer power to do it.
It does not mean however that it is a binary proposition - that we either know nothing or know everything. We do know a great deal of things. Among them is that we can probably exclude astrological influences as well as quantum mechanics.
Mainstream neuroscience makes far less claims than Penrose does. No serious scientist will mention things like free will at this point. Consciousness is a term used conservatively and most often just as a conscious/unconscious (i.e knocked out) dichotomy. It's Penrose that claims that he understands how consciousness works and incidentally his models don't agree with data. So tell me, who is the arrogant one?
I don't see how you can "understand" the engine by looking at just a pile of nuts and bolts. It seems like the second cave man is the kind who would declare any talk of general thermodynamical principles and combustion theory as "mysticism".
The same way we can understand how a dinosaur moved by looking at its bones. And the second caveman would examine the gasoline, light it and deduce what its function is. The first caveman would talk about warmness being a part of the "enginess" quality but would never get close to any general thermodynamic principles. Observation and experiment comes first. A general theory that includes all the results comes last.
Just to make it clear, I am not arguing for Penrose's theory. I am only saying that he has a right to be heard and we are not in a position to rule out any role QM may play in cognition. It is not as if AI and neuroscience have already had everything worked out. In fact very far from it and they are not in a position to declare their approach an orthodoxy yet. Not even close.
Penrose has the right to be heard and he has been heard and demonstrated to be wrong. Just wishing that QM should play a part is as irrelevant as wishing that astrology should play a part. The experimental data says that it doesn't. If it in fact at a later stage turns out that we do need to take astrological data into consideration (highly unlikely given what we know) then we will. The same goes for QM and any other parameter that we have ruled out so far.
The approach is an orthodoxy as it is simply the scientific method applied. Observation, model building and model validation.
9. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80836 by denoir on October 23, 2007 at 7:05 am
I find it astonishing that with your rudimentary command of math you think you are qualified to decide what is and what is not possible with Quantum mechanics and that Roger Penrose is a crackpot. Nice going.
Hehe, that's funny. Well as I said I'll drop the math discussion as there is no point to it. I suggest you read through your comments once again. From your statements it would appear that you don't know the difference between a non-linear function and a difference equation. I do get a feeling that you are not quite as confused about basic topics as you appear, but hey, I may be wrong. Either way, I'm not going to be bother with the math discussion all of those things have an obvious answer that you can just google.
Now about Penrose: It's quite easy to see that he is a crackpot as his theories are completely incompatible with the data. You may have to know a tiny bit about quantum mechanics to realize that a warm, wet and noisy environment isn't exactly a good one for coherence. You don't have to know any of that though to know that the broad consensus is that Penrose 1) has no data of any sort to back up his microtubules theory 2) contradicts known effects of drug interaction that any anesthesiologist could tell you about.
As for the QM part altogether it seems to me much like a theists plea that I can't disprove the existence of God. Sure, we can't prove that QM is not involved in any way in brain function but the odds against it are pretty good.
Without a theoretical model of cognitive functions or what you called "semantics" what makes you think that the signal input output actually represent "thinking" or any cognitive function rather than just muscle spasm?
The approach you describe, even when it is most successful, only addresses perceptions, motor coordination, reflex and the like. It doesn't even begin to touch on higher cognitive activities such as planning, language, reflection etc.
It is fine, we can't do everything at once and understanding perception is a worthwhile activity in and of itself, but please be honest and admit that there is much we don't know and don't try to make the claim that the current paradigm is the be all and end all.
From all we know about the brain today, there is no reason to think that the higher level functions should be any different in terms of wetware than the lower ones. On the contrary, you can by the same chemicals knock out a person so it neither can move nor think. More refined interventions that modify neuron behaviour at cell level can have both low-level or high-level effects. And this can today to some extent be simulated on computer models.
So of course it goes beyond reflexes and motor coordination and sure it is equally relevant for the 'higher' cognitive activities. Of course we don't know yet how it all works but that is the point of the research - to find out.
Who ever claimed that we know everything there is to know?
Yes, that is fine, but studying input output may not shed much light on higher cognitive behaviour.
In other words AI is still in an exploratory phase,--still fishing,-- and it is very far from even having a coherent model on how the "mind" works, let alone testing on it. That being the case definitive statements such as QM has nothing to do with brain functions is uncalled for and unjustified.
There you go again with "mind". I really don't understand what makes people like you tick. Seriously - I'm not trying to insult you - I'm just curious. First you declare that "mind" or "intelligence" is a thing to be revered and absolutely not defined and then you criticize people for daring to research the brain without declaring their undeclarable concepts. What are you getting at? Why are you so determined to declare it an unsolvable mystery?
It isn't. And while the people doing the modelling are not talking about intelligence or mind they are talking about brain function. And their assumption is the standard naturalistic one that it can be poked and prodded, measured and modeled. They have done it and they have very good experimental results. If you are upset that they haven't included some pet parameter of yours such as QM or the influence of the planets argue with the experimental results. Those that are mapping the brain functions have no agenda apart from their research. They make no comments on determinism or free will and go where the data will take them. The people who push their pet theory (such as QM consciousness) do have an agenda that has to do with how they would like to see issues like free will resolved. They have made their conclusion based on their wishful thinking and are pushing an agenda. You tell me which is the scientific approach.
Incidentally, you'll see that the whole hate AI movement is driven by philosophers and not by scientists. You'll find few biologists that object to the computer modelling of brain function.
This is indeed what surprises me. In reality what they achieve is very far from what they advertise. If they don't realize it they are deluded, if they do they are consciously lying for PR sake. Take your pick.
Again, what are they suppose to advertise that isn't substantiated? Your accusations are very vague - could you be more specific?
If you are talking about QM, it's all well-published and documented. And in perfect agreement with what neurobiologists are saying.
This is indeed astonishing. We all know human beings act differently from robots. This is our first piece of "data", intelligence is *reality*.
I think that this statement reveals your overall agenda pretty clearly - and puts you firmly in the same team as the philosophers who so enjoy talking about zombies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie). That's not science, that's mysticism and no better than the religious folks that are so terrified of materialism. It's people that balk at the idea that the brain is not something unique and magical and that its functions could be replicated in non-human inanimate matter.
Perhaps I'm wrong, so let me put it bluntly: Do you think that there is any reason why a brain could not be simulated on a computer?
If we don't have a good definition of intelligence that captures this difference, it only indicates we don't know enough and more research in different directions are needed. It is not scientific to ignore the reality that is staring at our face and conclude that "intelligence" doesn't exist or it is meaningless simply because you don't have a theory. It would be like Newton denying gravity existed and resigned to just fitting data and drawing ellipses because he didn't have a good, non mystical account for "action at a distance". Now this is the "Nevile Chamberlin's approach to brain science": dismiss and abstract away the very problem that motivated AI in the first place and declare problem solved.
I don't think anybody is saying that the problem is solved. It is research in progress and it is being solved. When will it be solved? I don't know - probably not sooner than 20 years from now as only then (assuming Moore´s law) will we have sufficient computer power to run large enough simulation. The question is a bit misleading though. It's not a binary proposition - to fully understand or not to understand anything. For instance we have excellent models for the visual system up to the V1 region. We also know for instance about the auditory system to allow us to interface the brain with electronics (i.e cochlear implant).
Now let me end this already too long post with a crude but hopefully useful analogy.
Imagine two cave men confronted with a running modern-day engine. The first one comments on the sound and the vibration and says that this special "enginess" quality has to be understood in order to understand the engine. The second cave man, to the horror of the first one, picks it apart and starts looking at the nuts and the bolts. The first cave man objects saying that you can't possibly understand "enginess" by looking at nuts and bolts. And he is even more shocked when the other man declares that the shape of the bolts is irrelevant to its function. How could he possibly know that when he doesn't even understand the "enginess" concept?
But he can. By studying the construction of the engine he can derive its function. When he knows his function he knows what parts are relevant and which are not and he can without much difficulty understand the emergent properties of noise and vibration (i.e the "enginess").
The same goes for the brain. First we analyze its construction. Then we simulate its functions and then we derive the emergent properties and understand it.
10. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80750 by denoir on October 23, 2007 at 1:00 am
You are confusing the logistic map with the logistic difference equation, which is the discretized version of the logistic ODE, you find that in for example some population growth models.
No, I am not:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LogisticMap.html
You may want to consult a standard text book on dynamical systems if this is a bit rusty.
Actually, I think you should consult a standard calculus text on what constitutes a function.
10 X=X0
20 Y=F(X)
30 X=Y;
40 GOTO 20
..is not a function. That is a difference equation that is mathematically written like X_n+1=F(X) where X(0)=X0.
Functions do not have any dynamics.
No, you can't get chaotic dynamics from linear ODEs.
Actually you can with piecewise linear ODEs and of course with a system of linear ODEs.
Anyway, I'm going to drop the math discussion from now on as it is neither relevant nor interesting.
I disagree that the hype was/is external. I thought they already have the problem solved by reading people like Minsky, Shank and Danette.
Really? Minsky was the one who torpedoed the first naive attempts at artificial neural nets in the late 60's. I'm not aware of any claims of "solving the problem" by Minsky. Schank was part of the 70's expert system craze (case based reasoning), but I'm not too familiar with his work. Dennett is a philosopher and not a scientist but I'm not really aware of any very unrealistic ideas about AI that he has had. His "Consciousness explained" turned out to hold up pretty good over time.
Oh, really? If you don't even know what is it that you are trying to model what are you doing? How do you gauge your progress?
Of course I know what I want to model: input/output signals in the brain. I want to know how the brain works on an operational level. Gauging progress is trivial - you give a real brain and a simulation the same inputs and see how the signal is processed at different levels. If you get a good match between the real brain and the simulation then you are on to something.
find it shocking that you simply dismiss conceptual understanding as "semantics" so the whole problem reduces to engineering, you "model" something without even knowing what you are modeling and abstract away the very phenomenon you are supposed to study, thereby "solving" the problem by erasing the question. That is cheating, really.
No, it's standard science actually. When Newton used his least-square method to fit elliptical orbits to planetary movement data he wasn't thinking about what it meant for the orbital stability of the solar system. That came later. When Compton observed electron scattering he wasn't guided by a vision of particle-wave duality - he was following the data. The interpretation and putting into context came later - after he had a model.
There is a phenomenon you wish to study, you collect the data and fit a model to it. If the model is good then you can use it to gain a deeper understanding of the system.
Simulating neural wetware on a computer has obviously many advantages. Dealing with biological systems directly is messy, costly and in many cases nearly impossible To use Adams way of putting it - when you dismantle a cat the first thing you get is a non-working cat. When we have accurate models we can use them for further experiments. But it's not just that. In the progress of making the model we'll get an understanding of which parameters are important to it and which are not.
Well with such drastic lowering of expectation and dismissing the question out of hand as "semantics" no wonder the AI people can claim victory even in the face of defeat.
Which way do you want it? First you say that AI people make outrageous claims and now you say that they have too low expectations.
Studying "intelligence" is quite difficult as there is no agreement on what intelligence might be. So instead of studying a ambiguous term you study the brain which is a real physical thing that is not up to semantic debate. If you understand how the brain works you'll understand intelligence - whatever that is - as well. (I don't think any suggested definitions of intelligence would dispute that it is a product of brain function).
Let the philosophers speculate all they want - this is science that deals with a physical reality. You know - a rose by any other name.. and all that.
11. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80733 by denoir on October 22, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Not true. You don't need a huge number of parameters for chaos. Chaos occurs at specific values of the parameters. Take the logistic family f(x)=cx(1-x), chaos occurs for each and every single c >=4....
Not quite so. The logistic map isn't f(x) = cx(1-x). It's x_n+1 = cx_n(1-x_n). It's a difference equation and for that of course it doesn't have to use many variables. You can get similar type of behaviour of many difference/differential equations. IIRC, you can even get chaotic dynamics with linear ODEs.
A non-linear function however is not a differential equation. f(x) = 4x(1-x) is not chaotic - it's a lovely simple quadratic curve.
We were talking about the brain here where the emergent properties (probably not even formally chaotic) come from the non-linear interaction of a large number of variables.
I for one don't believe that a different, less rigorous standard should be applied in the case of AI in comparison to other scientific theories.
Who says that less rigorous standards are applied? The biological neural network simulations are compared with actual measurements. It's really one of the more clean applications of the scientific method with very few ambiguities.
Yes, there are interesting works done in pattern recognition, expert systems and so on but they are very far from the original ambitious goals of AI.
There were unrealistic goals set in the 50's and abandoned in the 60's. Since then the hype has been external.
As I said, I don't know one way or the other, but I do think the AI crowd is vastly overstating its achievements and they make proclamations concerning the brain (or the "mind") with authority that they don't posses.
Would you mind giving me an example unsubstantiated claims made by AI researchers within say the last 20 years?
In fact we don't even have a good definition of "intelligence". It is therefore IMO quite presumptuous to say that QM has no relevance to brain functions, there is too much about the brain that we don't know to be able to say something that definitive.
No, one has nothing to do with the other. "Intelligence" is just a word and its definition is irrelevant. Semantics is not science. What is relevant is that we can model and simulate parts of biological neural networks with an increasing accuracy. And there is nothing odd about the approach - it's the standard scientific approach. You take measurements of a system, create a model and see if the model can predict the behaviour of the system. When you get good accuracy then you know which parameters are relevant for the model. Today it is quite clear that QM can be ruled out.
Neural network and adaptive systems are very promising and interesting areas of research but they are properly subfields of statistical mechanics and dynamical systems, there is really nothing specifically tying them to AI or the brain (for all we know the brain may be "unique" in that it is not like other complex systems you model with classical mechanics)
The type of adaptive systems that I work with could be placed under non-linear multivariate statistics (for static systems) and under non-linear distributed dynamic systems (the ones that have temporal dependencies). They have today little to do with biological neural networks. They used oversimplified neural models as an inspiration early on but the field has developed into its own direction. Today people like me essentially do function approximation and optimization algorithms. Of course from that I can't say anything about the nature of the brain.
But I'm not talking about people like me - I'm talking about the people whose work has the goal of understanding the biological wetware. For some strange historical reason we are often lumped together under the banner of "neural networks" and we have conferences together that cover both fields. You should however not confuse the two. We're engineers and they are hardcore natural scientists and are a mix of neuroscientists, computer scientists, molecular biologists and physicists.
For an example of a successful simulation project that is in development you can check out the Blue Brain Project website: http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/
They simulate neurons and neural networks from the cellular level and above. If you look at the results they have published so far you'll see that their models are very accurate. If QM effects (which they don't include in the simulations) were relevant, the real world data and the model would not match. It's that simple.
The work is of course far from done and it would be silly to claim that we now understand how the brain works. It would however be far more absurd to claim that we don't know anything and that we can't draw any conclusions at this point.
12. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80676 by denoir on October 22, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Bonzai:
If I may just butt in. I think you mean to say that non-linear systems typically exhibit chaotic behaviour for a wide range of values of the relevant parameters that control the systems.
Non-linearity is not enough. f(x)=x^2 or f(x)=sin(x) are examples of non-linear functions. It's complexity that is relevant. Only when you have a huge number of free parameters that are treated in a non-linear fashion do you get chaotic behaviour.
I don't know if QM is relevant in describing the brain, but there is a possibility that the brain may actually have features of a quantum computer. In that case computer simulation of functions will break down at some point. I think the jury is still out. AI people know a lot less about the brain than their hot air and extravagant statements indicate. Their program actually has very little to show for in terms of understanding higher cognitive functions, let alone modeling them. There is a tendency for AI to get a free pass on this site.
Well, I'm one of the full of 'hot air' crowd. ;) I work with complex adaptive systems, on the engineering side and not with biological simulations but I attend the same conferences on occasion with people that do. I'd be happy to point you to a number of peer-reviewed articles on how good neural computer simulations are today. Sure we don't know today what the patterns and signals mean but we can reproduce the activation patterns. The neuroscientists/AI (bad name for them as they are actually researching the brain) people have given us the best results that we have to date.
I'm not quite sure why AI people are so often met with what could be almost described as religious hatred. I guess some people just can't let go of the idea that the human mind must be something mystic and are insulted by the idea that it is a normal physical entity that can be analyzed, understood and reproduced.
If the criticism is that the computer modelling approach does not explain consciousness or any higher brain processes, you are quite right - except that nobody is claiming that it does. These are low-level simulations that explore the basic mechanisms of the brain and the results have been remarkable. We can today through computer simulations predict activation patterns in the brain (mostly monkey brains but it's a start) given external stimuli. The main current problem is not in the theory behind the simulations but simply that it requires massive computing power.
With good simulations we can really begin to understand how the higher functions work. We are in the mapping stage today trying to build a good model. Once we have adequate models we can gain deeper understanding of how it all works and what the signals mean.
steve99:
Apart from the non-linearity comment that I covered anyway in the first paragraph, I think we have run out of things to disagree on ;-)
13. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80639 by denoir on October 22, 2007 at 1:08 pm
I am not saying quantum effects inevitably trickle up. I am saying that quantum effects can trickle up in non-linear systems. Personally, I don't know if the brain is a non-linear system.
You mean that you don't know if it chaotic or not. It is non-linear without a shadow of a doubt. Non-linear means simply not linear i.e can't be described by a linear equation (y=ax+b) or a sum of linear equations. Most things in the world are non-linear but not chaotic.
Chaotic is also a problematic expression as it implies a certain mathematical structure. Sensitivity to initial conditions is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
What can be said is that neural network wetware is complex and exhibits emergent properties. In short the interaction of a huge number of non-linear processing elements create effects that are difficult to derive or predict from studying an individual unit.
It's not really dependent on the quantum level or the atomic level as the system operates on a signal transmission basis with more general properties than the actual hardware it is implemented on. We know this because we can simulate it remarkably good today using computer models that pay little attention to the chemistry and none to the physics.
Some of the results are quite astonishing. Did you know for instance that we can reproduce the activation patterns in higher brain regions that occurs when a macaque monkey is shown a specific image? Yes, a computer model that takes a binary digital image as input can reproduce the patterns all the way from the retinal nerve cells via the visual cortex all the way to neocortex and thus actually simulate relevant parts of macaque monkey vision and visual cognition. We don't yet know what the signals mean, but we can reproduce them in software.
Current research strongly indicates that you can simulate brain function quite well without going into the physics. The evidence for it is strong so an agnostic position isn't really warranted with the data we have today.
14. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80587 by denoir on October 22, 2007 at 8:57 am
steve99:
I really don't know how often I need to say this, but I am not talking specifically about brains.
I know you are trying to avoid the issue, but I'm saying now for the third time that you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you claim that quantum effects affect molecular machinery then it has automatically implications for the brain. You can't declare that quantum effects inevitable trickle up and then claim not to have any opinion on the effects on the brain.
Sure there is. Have you ever studied the force vs. distance potential curve of an ionic interaction? It is not binary.
The bond is quite binary - it's the essence of quantum mechanics - electrons at fixed energy levels. A level or a band is either occupied or not with no in-between. The force on a charged particle in an electric field is relevant (and incidentally order of magnitudes larger than any quantum uncertainety) before the ionic bond is in place. It's what attracts the atoms to snap together in the first place. However before the electron is in its place there is no bond. Na+ and Cl- are free floating ions before the electron of Cl- jumps to the energy level (atomic orbital) available in Na+. The electrical forces between them do not change the end product NaCl in any way. It's a discrete qualitative jump and no amount of noise can change it. An electron can't partially occupy an atomic orbital.
windweaver:
Forgive me if I've misunderstood you but this seems to be a contradiction. Are you saying that the brain is subject to quantum effects or not? I note that the scientific consesus is that the brain is not subject to such effects
Sorry, I should have been clearer. When I spoke of the neuron firings being 'quantized' I did not mean quantum mechanical but simply that they can fire in discrete levels. They're not continuous all the way - for instance if the action potential is below a certain threshold they won't fire at all.
As for the question if there are quantum effects influencing in a relevant way the way the brain works, my answer is no. It would go against most of our knowledge of both brain function, chemistry and physics.
15. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80410 by denoir on October 21, 2007 at 5:17 pm
My only objection to what has been posted earlier is that we have no free will because things are deterministic. My objection was with the declaration of determinism. That is all.
But I have said this before, but apparently to no effect. However, feel free to continue to argue about quantum mechanics and the brain. I present you with this straw man to debate with.
Again, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either
1)In wetware such as the nervous system quantum effects are not relevant as they are too small to pass the threshold to the complex interactions of the systems.
2) Quantum effects influence the wetware and hence due to the complexity of the systems involved are an important factor in the brain and other systems.
There is no in-between as you agree that a brain is a complex system where chaos theory applies (small changes can have massive effects). Take your pick.
(Meanwhile, I think your understanding of non-linear systems and quantum mechanics needs to be updated, otherwise you would not use the phrase "too small to influence anything")
No, I think that you have misunderstood both, and I'll tell you why. Let me give you an example that you might understand - an analog digital converter. It's a small electronic component that converts an analog signal to a digital one:
A => B
0.9=>1
1.3=>1
0.4=>0
0.1=>0
Should you now build a complex system after the A/D converter, you could build a a very complex non-linear system that did something with the ones and zeroes from stage B. Would such a system be sensitive to small changes in stage A? No, it would certainly not. A->B could never be a chaotic system as one of the basic criteria could never be met (mixing of the pdfs). It's a threshold and you should be very happy that it is that way. In a molecular machine we can take the example of an ionic bond. It's binary as well. You have a bond or you don't - there is no in-between. No matter how much quantum fluctuations you have, you'll never have half a bond or 1.001 bond. That's a very good thing - if quantum effects always propagated upwards we would have a completely unpredictable universe.
Do you understand now what "too small to influence anything" means?
16. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80356 by denoir on October 21, 2007 at 12:25 pm
I disagree. As I have worked on statistical mechanics models of molecular interactions, I can confirm that all kinds of quantum effects occur above the level of molecules. Just to take one example everyone would have heard about, superconductors would not work if this were not the case. Another case is vibrations in macroscopic systems like crystals, which are described in quantised states called phonons. In that case quantum effects can influence macroscopic properties.
You should read again what I said. If quantum effects could not propagate to the macroscopic level, I wouldn't be typing this on a computer. Semiconductors are a trivial example.
But that's not what I said. I said that interactions on the molecular level are extremely unlikely to be affected by quantum effects. A crystal lattice is susceptible to normal modes (i.e phonons) because of its fixed rigid structure and lack of interaction at the molecular level. Exactly because there isn't anything happening on the higher levels, standing waves are possible and a transmission and small energy changes can propagate upwards. With the same molecules in a fluid state or gas state you won't get the same effects as then you'll actually have dynamic interaction between atoms and the quantum effects will be too small to influence anything.
The interactions in the brain are at a molecular level and we don't have any static atomic or molecular structures through which a quantum effect could pass. On the contrary, the brain is typically a wet and warm place making it ideal for dynamic interactions on the molecular level and terrible for any quantum effects.
Just to give a single dramatic example: a single cosmic ray can cause sufficient biological damage to be detected, and that damage can be sufficient to cause a tumour. Yet, the production of each cosmic ray is entirely a matter of quantum mechanics.
Ah, but that's a completely different thing due to the energy of the cosmic ray. If I radiate you with high-energy gamma rays then of course it is going to have effects on a higher level. But that's because the gamma ray has a higher energy than the molecular bonds. The elementary particles inside our brains tend to be quite well behaved and have many orders of magnitude smaller energy than what is required to break a molecular bond.
Sorry, but you are wrong. In general physical systems that are chaotic, effects on any scale are quickly amplified.
I am not saying that quantum effects directly effect general mental events. That is clearly nonsense. However there are plenty of physical systems where the non-linearity is such that even differences in quantum effects can cause differences at the macroscopic level. There is no barrier isolating these levels.
There is indeed a barrier because it is not a question of continuous interactions. The molecules involved are discrete units. An ionic bond is going to snap together in just one way regardless of how much low energy quantum noise you add. The neurons are semi-discrete. There is a threshold level below which they will output a zero signal. Although still a very active field of research it seems like the firing levels of a neuron also seem to be quantized.
Finally, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If quantum effects can influence the firing of the neurons then the quantum level would be relevant to brain function. In chaotic systems small changes can indeed produce massive effects. It's one or the other. Either there is no quantum influence on the molecular mechanics of the brain or it is a relevant influence.
17. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80291 by denoir on October 21, 2007 at 6:46 am
steve99:
And we know from chaos theory that even the smallest differences in possibility can have significant macroscopic consequences. If a molecule bounced off another *that* way instead of *this* way, it can have effects.
Well, first of all, quantum effects on a molecular level are extremely unlikely. You get relevant quantum effects on an elementary particle level. Already at the atom level the probability density functions average out. Hence the stability of most elements. There are exceptions of course such as radioactive elements but they are not used as functional blocks in the brain. On the molecular level you can for all practical purposes forget about quantum effects. The name of the game there are the chemical bonds which have effects many orders of magnitude larger than the quantum ones.
The second issue is that even if by some incredible coincidence a set of quantum fluctuations would affect the movement of a molecule in say a neurotransmitter it would make zero difference. If and how much a neuron fires depends on the concentrations of neurotransmitters - again a question of averages. A few tray molecules will make no difference. And at this point the system is quite linear.
The über-nonlinear complex part comes at a level above that and it's the interactions between the connected components. There you may apply chaos theory. And sure a small number of activations can produce large effects. It has however nothing to do with quantum uncertainty.
18. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80194 by denoir on October 20, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Riley, you are both right and wrong. One claim presented by Christians is indeed that god has instilled moral values into all human beings. Had that been the end of the story then you would have been right that Hitchens' challenge was bogus.
In reality however it is quite common that religious people claim that moral values come from religion and not as an a priori given for all human beings. It is not uncommon for theists to call atheists amoral or immoral - it's one of the more common accusations. Indeed if you look at the Hitchens vs McGrath debate, the first question that Hitchens got from the audience was exactly to that effect. Trying to look for consistency is theist beliefs is futile and Hitchens attacks a common claim. It may be contradicted by other claims that they make, but it is still a common one.
What I think that Hitchens (and Dawkins, Harris etc) misses is the broader implications of an ethical system based on irrational beliefs. If we threw away our reason and did it their way we would not survive for very long. A rational system of values is needed for survival as we live in a universe with consistent natural laws. Life is conditioned an taking rational actions in response to the environment. Behave irrationally and you die. The theists have survived thanks to people of reason while at the same time attacking them when they could. If we actually implemented fully what they urge us to implement we would go extinct. Life is the most fundamental value which all morality must build on (self evident as no life=no values to have). What they have is a cult of death because death is what their desired policies would lead us all into. And that is why their system is as immoral as it can get. By adopting an irrational system of values they have thrown out morality altogether.
For the reasons above atheists can be both moral and immoral but theists and other mystics can just be immoral - and not in a trivial sense but on a very fundamental level.
19. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80150 by denoir on October 20, 2007 at 8:21 am
steve99:
I know what qualia are. I have been researching this for decades.
Now there's a contradiction in term. How exactly do you go about researching qualia?
Qualia are a matter of serious debate. They are certainly not 'religion quality nonsense'.
Qualia are a substitute to and equal in validity to the christian concept of the 'holy spirit'. The philosophers that advocate it are the ones that are equally terrified of a naturalistic explanation of the human mind as the religious people are. Given that qualia can't be measured or described in empirical terms it is really not in any way better than various supernatural claims.
The philosophers today who advocate the existence of qualia do it primarily in opposition to AI. They are terrified of the idea that the brain is simply a complex computational device and that there are no mystic qualities to it. So they invent a mystic quality. In fact they are no better than the people who tried to invent a wide array of metaphysical reasons to why the earth is supposed to be the center of the universe.
20. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80085 by denoir on October 19, 2007 at 10:29 pm
steve99:
The "subjective nature" of qualia, such that it would be, is irrelevant in observation. It is what it is - the experience is the experience. To which an intellectual should say, "so what?".
My personal view is that as the only contact we have with reality is qualia, anyone who says "so what" is attempting to delude themselves... reality is nothing but experience.
And, I am afraid, I need to read a lot more of Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers and Roger Penrose before I can reply in detail...
Qualia are not experiences, but the alleged essence of sensory experiences. They are supposed to be qualities independent of both their cause and effect.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
It's religion quality nonsense, completely unscientific and very bad philosophy. For a good, albeit rather obvious critique of qualia, see Dennett's "Consciousness explained" or the more recent "Sweet dreams".
21. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07
Comment #80040 by denoir on October 19, 2007 at 3:27 pm
That is because Christian theology is inconsistent. Free will is not consistent with an omnipotent and omniscient God.
That's my personal favourite: omniscience. If Bob up in the sky knows for certain what you will be doing in the future then all is predetermined i.e no free will. It's really über-determinism.
What the Christians usually claim is that you do have free will, but that you need to be a christian to be really moral. Ignoring the omniscience problem that would perhaps be fine if they claimed that the moral value would lie in being christian. They do not however - they claim that being a christian makes them more moral in other respects.
This is really a preposterous thing to claim. It is in fact exactly the opposite - atheists, or at least those that subscribe to a rational set of moral values are morally superior to the mystics.
Morality is not arbitrary because life is not arbitrary. For an organism to survive it has to perform a number of interactions with its environment and in some cases with other organisms. The fundamental moral value is life. It is a fairly easy to understand axiom - if it wasn't, we wouldn't be around talking about it. Any biological system that did not consider life as its primary value would be soon extinct.
Life is dependent on a real world that follows natural laws. Rational actions are conditions for survival. In raw nature irrationality equals suicide. Celebrating irrational behaviour in a world directed by natural laws is celebrating death. It is fundamentally immoral.
Human societies have as far back as we know been arranged in such a way that irrational people have lived on the products of the rational ones. The mystics have always lived on the products of the ones that actually applied rational methods to create something. And at the same time they condemn rationality. They need it to survive while at the same time preaching that the rational and the material are evils. If they had their way, if everybody accepted their position, first the rational people would die out to be followed by everybody else. People of whatever religion are in fact part of a death cult. If we fulfilled their wishes and followed their irrational values we'd all be dead soon.
And they have the stomach to call themselves more moral?
Comment #79977 by denoir on October 19, 2007 at 11:48 am
I would prefer to see how this law actually is worded and some of the debate in Sweden before I comment, but that seems unlikely, as I don't read Swedish
As a Swede I can tell you that there was really no debate about it here. And there was no really reaction after the fact. Some 90-95% of all children attend public schools where the subject of religion is treated objectively. Private schools are to a large degree religious ones belonging to a few small christian religious sects and a larger number of muslim schools. So for obvious reasons few people care. And while they private schools may not like it, they are used to being under constant scrutiny and subject to new rules on a regular basis.
Did they go too far? No. Children have some rights independent of what their parents think. One of these rights is to a proper education. The same way you can't have teachers telling children that 2+2=5 or that the earth is 6000 years old, you can't have them claiming that religious texts are true.
23. Ayaan Hirsi Ali: abandoned to fanatics
Comment #77529 by denoir on October 9, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Bah. If she was a resident of the Netherlands then sure, she should have protection. But she isn't and that responsibility should fall on the US.
It's a police matter and as far as I know generally if you have a problem you go to the local police and not to the police in another country.
24. Sam Harris seems like a nice fellow, but very confused
Comment #77222 by denoir on October 8, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Sam's main point, as I see it, is that defining ourselves as an outraged minority is a losing strategy. Opposition against religion is a special case of a much more universal principle: reason. We should concern ourselves with advocating a general methodology rather than defining ourselves as opponents to a specific kind of irrationality. It should be done through rational discourse and not by slapping a label on ourselves and demanding minority rights.
I do think that there is a worrying trend in the community today with it becoming a self-righteous closed club whose primary purpose is asserting how intelligent the members are and how stupid the rest of the world is. Instead of being a nexus for the advocacy of reason, the community is getting centered around the standard us vs them idea. That trend needs to be fought so that the atheist community doesn't become just yet another cult.
25. Yes, it's a Hobbit. The debate that has divided science is solved at last (sort of)
Comment #72565 by denoir on September 21, 2007 at 5:29 pm
The evidence is still far from conclusive. They would have to find at least another set of bones to confirm that it wasn't just a question of a deformed sapiens.
That's generally a problem with fossils - you get one specimen and have no idea if it is representative of a larger group. Sure, the odds are in favour of it being nearer the center of a normal distribution than the edges of it. Still, it is far from anything certain.
Generally scientists try to be on statistically solid ground before jumping to conclusions but that is a luxury that paleontologists usually don't have. Instead they extrapolate and speculate and are therefor bound to get things wrong on occasion.
Comment #71623 by denoir on September 19, 2007 at 11:21 am
Did you catch the Genesis remark? She said that it said that God and his son created the earth..
Now I haven't read Genesis recently - if ever, but I'm pretty sure that there is no mention of a son being involved as the son is a New Testament invention. So she was not only clueless about scientific basics but also about her own religion. And I think the whole flat earth thing highlighted her main position: a complete lack of interest. That woman is not a fundamentalist - she doesn't have a clue about the fundamentals of her own religion. The 'I don't believe in evolution' routine was just her qualifying herself as someone that takes her faith seriously as in her view it makes her a better person. In fact she doesn't care at all either way.
I strongly suspect that most people fall into that category. If you picked a person at random from an irreligious European country, you'd get the evolution over faith answer - but they would be just as uninterested. The only difference would be that they grew up in a society where the religious component was week. And the answer would be just as pointless as hers. People in general are ignorant and quite happy with it.
27. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?
Comment #70861 by denoir on September 17, 2007 at 5:22 am
Does an atheist need to know theology? No, of course not. It's the default position.
Does an anti-theist need to know theology? Yes, at least to some extent.
Dawkins writes:
...writes that the recent books by Christopher Hitchens and me "deserve a decent response. But how to fashion it?" A decent start would be to read them.
I think that this is essentially what the other side is saying to Dawkins: learn the stuff before you comment on it.
Are they right? Well, yes, but they are mistaken by thinking that he doesn't know enough of it - that, he does. He also knows enough leprechology to get a good enough definition of a leprechaun to stack up against existing knowledge of the world.
This is the trivial case (which I personally subscribe to), but there is an argument that could be made for a sophisticated model. The Courtier Reply is a binary proposition - the emperor is nude or he is not. Religion is true or it is not. It is that model that most moderate religious people and even liberal atheists have a problem with.
Suppose instead that there is a gradient - that some of the ideas are true while others are not. Then a binary model is inadequate.
To illustrate, let's take the bible as an example. Suppose we edited it and removed all supernatural references. Apart from a much thinner book, what would be get? Well, as Sam Harris would say, a lot of bronze age philosophy and morality and a little bit of other stuff. Suppose we removed the relay idiotic bronze age stuff, would there be something left? Possibly. And to discuss that remaining part, wouldn't it be advisable to read up on what influential thinkers throughout the ages have said about it? We don't entirely dismiss the ancient Greek philosophers today do we? In that context theology can be useful as a philosophical guide through the body of human religious works.
It is within that frame that you find legitimate disagreement with Dawkins' et al approach. That's how the moderates think: that although they don't believe all of it that there is still value to be found in religion.
Personally I do think that with all the supernatural nonsense removed and the bronze age philosophy cut what remains is so banal that it doesn't deserve much attention. But what do I know? - I'm not a theologian ;-) No but seriously, it stands to reason that the little that remains has already been handled by real philosophers without supernatural contamination.
Comment #66585 by denoir on August 30, 2007 at 2:23 pm
No, no no. O ye, of little faith how wrong you got this one.
Have you never met a Christian in your life? For them this is a tale of redemption. It is in fact difficult to find a Christian that won't willingly state that they at one point or another in their lives were doubting but found their way again. What do you think the whole "born again" rubbish is about?
By reading that Mother Teresa had doubts will reinforce their belief. Their views: She had doubts, found her faith and became Mother 'effing Teresa the modern über-saint. Come on! You can't get a better tale of redemption. That is how the Christian read it and it reinforces their own faith.
29. Atheists and believers have got religion wrong
Comment #63669 by denoir on August 15, 2007 at 9:23 am
Although I would disagree on his impressions of 'militant' atheism, I do think that he does have a point about social context. And I would argue for it from a Darwinian point of view with this hypothesis: religion can only be as bad as the society it is in.
I'm not saying that religion has evolutionary benefits for humans, but I would like to argue that it should at least be neutral in terms of natural selection. Religion may propagate for its own sake but if it starts interfering with the survival and reproduction capabilities of humans, our genes will be pruned to counteract it. Dan Dennett says that asking "What is religion good for?" is the equivalent of asking "What is the common cold good for? All humans have it at some point." I fully agree with that but I think he fails to point out that our immune system actively fights the common cold and all other unwanted replicators that can be detrimental to our health. If religion exceeded the noise threshold of the environment we would evolve defenses against it.
So I do think there is a good case to be made for religion being neutral in terms of natural selection.
I admit that in the social context, it is questionable to talk about natural selection as we are looking at extremely short time spans.
We do however have the idea-space (culture, memes or whatever you wish to call it) where selection is very fast indeed. If your culture is violent, other violent ideas can in much an easier way share the space. While people can and do hold very contradictory ideas, there is at some level at least a small amount of consistency checking. Those kinds of checks are bound to put a negative selection pressure - even if just a slight one - on incompatible ideas.
The process of changing from a superstitious, violent and dogmatic idea space to a more rational, peaceful and liberal one must be a gradual and parallel process. If you just rapidly switched one set of ideas into more rational set, the majority of the other superstitious ideas would destroy the new kid on the block. If you somehow managed to kill off religion in the Mid East, it would soon come back with a vengeance.
To transform the society gradual changes are needed on all fronts: educational, cultural, social and religious.
30. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist
Comment #62957 by denoir on August 12, 2007 at 2:16 pm
magetoo:
I am not sure I believe you on that 80% figure. The article on atheism in the Swedish Wikipedia links to a couple of surveys, one of which mentions a figure of 80%. Other figures mentioned are 28%, 31% - and even 85%. I tried looking for official statistics, but scb.se wasn't too forthcoming.
I personally only know of two people who actually identify as atheist, apart from myself. If you ask some random person, chances are you will get the standard noncomittal answer of "I don't believe in God, but I believe there is something...". Hardly a striking endorsement of disbelief in the supernatural.
Well, that was sort of my point: the majority of atheists (non-religious people) in Europe simply haven't been indoctrinated to the typical religious dogma - but are open to a lot of other metaphysical nonsense. As for Sweden, the best, most recent poll would be the Eurobarometer:
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf
See page 9 and 10 for a breakdown . You have 23% theists (believe in god), 23% strong atheists (don't believe in god or any other spirit or life force) and 53% of vague "I believe there is some sort of spirit or life force". Those 53% are not deists or pantheists - they are a brand of atheists but a weaker kind. Their atheism is not an explicit rejection of deities - it is just a lack of acceptance. The good thing is that it is what is to be expected in a post-religious society - people that simply don't care either way. So you have 23+53 = 76% people who don't believe there is a God.
The bad thing is that it leaves the 53% open to other supernatural nonsense.
It is however still 76% against 23% in the god question and those prone in believing in some vague spirits and life forces are never going to get organized and make trouble. And due to their own vagueness, they generally resent the theists' absolute beliefs at least as much, if not more, than principled atheists do.
As for personal experience, don't put too much stock in that. With the exception of a very few, all the people that I know personally here in Sweden are atheists. On the other hand almost everybody I know voted for the introducing the euro currencly - something that wasn't supported by the majority of the population. To say anything you need a good sample of the population - something that you can only get through proper surveys. Even then it is complicated as the answer depends on how you frame the question. For instance, if you asked two questions instead of the three as in the Eurobarometer, you would get that 23% were theists and 76% atheists - without getting the additional information that 53% had an affinity for other, vaguer supernatural crap.
31. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist
Comment #62865 by denoir on August 12, 2007 at 4:02 am
The numbers of people identifying themselves as atheists in surveys have been a small fraction of the population
Not in Europe. Although there is great variation (Sweden 80%, Poland 10%), the pan-European average is 50%. If you consider that the other 50% include all other possible religious denominations and also includes agnostics, deists and pantheists you can easy see that lack of a belief far outnumbers any one specific belief.
I would be interested though to see a comparative study of the US and Europe when it comes to the new age and alternative 'medicine' beliefs, especially among atheists. I would not be surprised if that stuff is more popular in Europe.
An atheist that has taken to a lack of belief after thinking through the situation is very unlikely to go for any pseudo-scientific nonsense as the core argument for their atheism is the complete lack of evidence for what the theists claim. An atheist on the other hand whose position of disbelief is simply because he or she has not been indoctrinated as a child is in a completely different situation. There has been no rejection of religion, just never an acceptance.
My guess would be that people in this 'atheist by default' category (which includes the majority of European non-believers) are far more likely to be impressed by other forms of superstition. It would be also interesting to see if the 'atheist by default' group is more or less likely to embrace pseudo-scientific claims than theists are.
32. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason
Comment #61900 by denoir on August 7, 2007 at 10:25 am
Ugh. This article was increasingly bad by the line. This is quite an achievement on the part of the author as the article was already intolerably bad early on.
As for the question if a lack of religious belief is correlated to a belief in a bunch of other nonsense - that's easy enough to test. I doubt it though - in Europe UK is the by far largest alternative 'medicine' center and is certainly not the most irreligious place in the region.
Comment #61684 by denoir on August 6, 2007 at 10:51 am
As a student at UT getting a History degree, I love that Dr. Weinberg took on the popular theory that christianity spurred the anti-slavery movement. I can't begin to count the number of times I've heard this argument and it drives me bananas.
It's also a very American-centric argument. Although Europe did not since ancient times really have slavery locally, it was knee deep in the slave trade business. The church never objected to this - it was secular leaders that with the rise of the humanism movement ended it. Religion was not involved in any way. And it happened in most European countries decades (centuries in a few cases) before the US.
34. The Gullible Age: Review of 'The Enemies of Reason'
Comment #61407 by denoir on August 5, 2007 at 4:04 am
Really looking forward to this series as all this new age nonsense - especially alternative 'medicine' need to be fought.
All my relatives are atheists but unfortunately a few of them subscribe to a number of pseudo-scientific beliefs (homeopathy mostly). I've argued with them about it on a number of occasions and it was interesting to see that they use the same fallacies to defend their position as the religious crowd does. It seems to be exactly the same mental processes involved.
It might seem like benign nonsense, but it really isn't - especially the alternative 'medicine' which does active harm. While you may say that they deserve it as it's their own stupid choice, there is often a nasty twist to the story. Children are often involved and are the victims of their parents' idiocy.
And don't think for a second that these people don't take their beliefs seriously: a couple that I know got forged vaccination documents for their kid. Instead of the mandatory vaccination their daughter got a homeopathic one (i.e nothing). When people do stuff like that it stops being funny.
Comment #61244 by denoir on August 4, 2007 at 10:29 am
The best demonstration by Derren Brown I've seen is from his live show "Something Wicked This Way Comes".
At the end of the show he gets a few persons to make a series of choices which lead up to them selecting a word from a newspaper. Derren of course had predicted which word it was. Then begins the really fun part: he shows how it was done by showing video clips from the performance highlighting where he was manipulating everybody in the audience. It is quite amazing to see how he does it and even more impressive is that you didn't notice anything during the show.
Anyway, see the whole show if you can, it is very much worth it. Here is a video clip of the ending where he shows how he has done it, but if you haven't seen the whole thing I would advise against watching it as it is a spoiler:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Vr4BjP0tI
36. God-Fearing People: Why are we so scared of offending Muslims?
Comment #60177 by denoir on August 1, 2007 at 8:35 am
While there are certainly a lot of religious nut cases in the Middle East it is quite interesting how the extreme islamist movement is flourishing in the west (especially in Europe).
My take on this is that there is a problem with our secular liberal systems that provide a fertile ground for islamic extremists. We can note that the situation in Europe is not mirrored in the US - and draw some conclusions from it.
First of all, there is the social situation. With the very strong social protection, in Europe, you can choose not to work and still have a fairly good quality of life. You can choose not to integrate - and that is what is happening - closed cultural communities are created that are de facto not part of the rest of society. In the US, you have to work to survive and thus have to integrate in one way or another. Americans, all being immigrants at one point or another in recent history are also far less xenophobic than Europeans are - which facilitates integration.
The second reason for the success of Islam in Europe would be because of the nature of the liberalism practiced. It is an 'anything goes' type of view based on cultural relativism. Tolerance includes the tolerance to intolerance. Such a system can always be exploited by the intolerant. In the US you have a far more conservative system, with the Christians taking up a lot of space. While the US is über-liberal in economic questions, it is ultra-conservative in social ones.
While I don't have a good idea of how the first problem (integration of immigrants) should be solved, the second issue is relatively straight forward. Secular liberalism is a value system and does not include the tolerance to intolerance. That value system has to be defended or it will be destroyed. That much is a mathematical certainty. If your tolerance extends to the intolerant, they will break the system from within.
It is also important to recognize that all value systems stand on an equal footing. You can never derive 'ought' from 'is'. You can't in any way prove that minimizing suffering is a better value to say not using electricity on Saturdays. Some form of weak anthropic argument could perhaps be made (that value systems that lead to our doom would go extinct pretty fast), but hardly a convincing one. This is the root of the flawed multiculturalism ideology. What it misses is that there are serious problems when different value systems clash - which they inevitably do. There is no way of reasoning around it - which value system you chose is a question of preference and belief. No science or reason can help - 'ought' cannot follow from 'is'. Therefor it is a battle of arbitrary and mutually incompatible value systems and if you want yours to survive, you have to defend it at least as vigorously as the other value systems are being defended by their adherents.
37. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!
Comment #59495 by denoir on July 29, 2007 at 8:47 am
I was going to say how extraordinarily silly this t-shirt idea was, but it has been expressed more eloquently than I could by others in this thread.
I would however like contribute with one thought and that is that the whole business strikes me as very context sensitive. I live in Sweden (80% atheists) and if I wore a shirt like that people - atheists and theists alike would think that I was an idiot or would take it as some form of not very funny joke. It would be like wearing a T-shirt that seriously declares that I don't believe in Santa Claus. This would go for most of Europe - it would be utterly pointless and just bad press for this site.
In a society where you have 90% theists the situation is a bit different. Being an atheist there is something noteworthy. If many 'normal' people 'come out' as atheists i such places it will help combat the entrenched idea that atheists are amoral people. On the other hand - as has been pointed out by others - it does further the "atheism is a religion" fallacy. Again, you don't see communities of people who have non-belief in Santa Claus in common.
38. New Research Proves Single Origin Of Humans In Africa
Comment #57483 by denoir on July 19, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Skulls? I thought that Y-DNA and mtDNA evidence had demonstrated the single-origin theory conclusively.
39. Is there an Artificial God?
Comment #57240 by denoir on July 18, 2007 at 4:17 pm
This is an brilliant speech - one of my absolute favourite pieces by Adams. I can't express in words how impressed I was the first time I heard it. And although I've heard and read it many times now, it still puts a smile on my face.
What a loss his very premature death was :(
40. Islamic Creationist and a Book Sent Round the World
Comment #57130 by denoir on July 18, 2007 at 10:44 am
Dr. Padian said he spoke to someone there who told him SDS had received a cargo-container-size shipment of books, "with everything prepaid and labeled. It just went all over the country."
Doesn't exactly instill too much confidence in homeland security. They just send a cargo container from a country generally hostile to the US and the stuff gets distributed, no questions asked?
41. Using the 'Beauties of Physics' to Conquer Science Illiteracy
Comment #56938 by denoir on July 17, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Undergrads are hardly the big problem - it's the completely scientifically illiterate masses. It's the large percentage that isn't even aware of that that Earth revolves around the sun and/or that our planet is < 10k years old.
42. Kenya: The Death of Religion And Rise of Atheism in the West
Comment #56642 by denoir on July 16, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Is this decadence or modernity? I have seen jealous men fighting in bars over other men and women killing one another over love for other women. Where will the children come from? Will the idea of natural fathers and natural mothers ever exist again in the West?
Yes, obviously the western societies have it all wrong. Africa should be the role-model for the rest of the world. Right.
On a more serious note, to answer his question - yes, scientific knowledge leads to atheism. It is however peripheral. The great masses couldn't care less if the Earth revolves around the Sun or not. What is really relevant is a stable society that provides social protection for the citizens. The less you need God, the less you'll believe in him.
There are many other variables that influence the percentage of atheists, but there is a strong correlation between social stability and non-belief.
Finally: I know that there is an ambition on this site to be objective and neutral by publishing articles both by believers and non-believers. I do however think that there should be some form of basic quality cut-off level. This article was abysmal from a quality point of view and IMO should not have been posted here.
Comment #56316 by denoir on July 15, 2007 at 1:14 am
There is a good quote relevant for this subject, but I can't seem to find a reference. I think RD used it once in an interview. It was attributed to a greek philosopher - Plato if I recall correctly:
He was accused of corrupting the morals of the people and replied something loke: "Do you take me for an idiot? I have to live with these people!"
Does anybody know the actual quote and who it is attributed to?
Comment #55803 by denoir on July 12, 2007 at 11:22 am
For those asking for an equivalent map for Europe, here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Europe_belief_in_god_upd.png
Comment #50204 by denoir on June 15, 2007 at 4:54 pm
It's largely a shibboleth, a means of declaring one's political loyalties.
Could be, but that doesn't quite explain why they are pushing it so hard in the public arena. If it was only a show of loyalty, then a declaration that they personally are creationists would be enough. Instead we see them investing huge resources in subverting the educational system in the US.
Comment #50060 by denoir on June 14, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I must say that I'm a bit puzzled about the whole intelligent design movement. What exactly is it that they are trying to do?
Suppose that I advocate a cube earth model. I manage to convince the politicians to ban teaching of the round model and after a while a majority of the people think that the earth is a cube. What have I accomplished? The earth is still certainly not a cube. All I have is a bunch of misinformed people - and that won't in any way affect the actual shape of the planet.
So what's the point with the political pressure and the attempts to ban the teaching of evolution in schools? If they themselves were convinced that ID is a correct scientific explanation, it seems to me that they wouldn't have to do the whole political thing. There are far better ways of convincing the scientific community.
No, I don't think they care a bit about a real model of the development of life on earth. What they do think is that the teaching of evolution is immoral as it doesn't sit well with their religious beliefs. The irony is that if they instead of fighting in the field of science (which they of course keep losing) they would have stood a much better chance if they argued that teaching evolution is immoral and bad for society. Although it is not a convincing argument, it is at least a legitimate one. They're fighting the is while they should be fighting the ought.
47. The Future Forum Presents: Christopher Hitchens and Marvin Olasky
Comment #49983 by denoir on June 14, 2007 at 11:22 am
Logicel:
Regarding Hitchens not verbally responding to the applause of his becoming an American citizen, he was born and raised in Britain, after all, and can be a bit reserved in the regard of accepting compliments, or maybe I am just talking out of my hat. However, his facial expression showed clear pleasure at the applause.
If it had been somebody else but Hitchens, I would have guessed he was embarrassed. Getting an applause for becoming the citizen of a country?
How tastelessly chauvinistic: "Yeah! He's an American now, so we can take him seriously. Never mind his literary work or say his Oxford degree; that we won't applaud."
I was so disgusted at the audience and the moderator at that point that I almost stopped watching the debate.
Also: I really wish Hitchens would stop repeating the falsehood that there is only one constitution in the world that separates church and state. That's complete nonsense. Almost all European countries have it (UK, Greece and Malta being the only real exceptions). And in the case of the exceptions, the church is a traditional institution and not a political one.