Comments by MPhil

1601. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #150617 by MPhil on March 27, 2008 at 7:22 am

I find it quite insulting to put philosophy on one level with theology... truths can be learned in philosophy - do not underestimate that. Also, do not assume that philosophers are not scientists. Read a few papers by Paul Churchland, "Consciousness Explained" by Dennett, or something by Sneed, Suppes or Stegmüller - and then tell me that that's not science, that there are no truths uncovered here.

What science does -among other things- is construct working interpretation-models for the available data. That is also what good philosophy does.

The free will issue is one of definition. If and only if you have a working definition, you can investigate scientifically whethere if something actual corresponds to it. And with compatibilist free will, it does. So if you want to claim that the burden proof is on "us" - there is proof.

But you don't seem to accept that it is a valid definition, which is dogmatic on your part. It is I fear immature to proclaim "you have failed to prove that x exists" when you dogmatically do not accept the working defenition that is known to refering to something real.

Anyway - I am really somewhat offended by your comments on philsophy.

1602. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149621 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 2:20 am

Same here. And now I have to relax my mind a little :)

1603. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149614 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 2:15 am

Can we now let white smoke rise up through the chimney?
(sorry for using a religious analogy :)

1604. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149612 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 2:11 am

That is a good compromise!

Indeed!

A deterministic process "unfolds", so there is something there which makes it possible to generate deterministically... that which makes it possible to extract (generate a description of) the state at any time of the system by having a complete description of the system in one state (for example at time t₀) and the "inference" rules... and that would be what I would call the information that is already there...

Yes, I think that is quite concise. And I don't think it's useless to identify that property that does this (by whatever name, I use 'information' - but I'm open for any other name)

EDIT: Comment substantially edited.

1605. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149609 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 2:05 am

Your "generating it deterministically" is actually very helpful to me. That would be what I would call "unpacking" of information that is already there (by virtue of the generation being deterministic)

I guess in this sense, I am using "information" entirely independent of epistemology.

1606. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149608 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 2:01 am

I still think math is a construct - but one which explores that actual, factual, uniform structure of constructs themselves - which itself is something universal. It is thus "there for all to discover" while still being a construct, an abstraction.

At least that's how see it.

EDIT: As for your last post (#149606), I entirely agree.

Information is surely supposed to provide a short-hand to understanding. It should allow prediction.

Being aware of that specific part of the information you have and being able to use it allows for prediction. The fact that there are a few cases (a small class of types of cases) where it is inaccessible before unpacking does not invalidate my point - "doing the math" was meant as refering to the same thing as "constructing the proof" in the case of the socrates example, where beforehand you already have "Socrates is human", "All humans are mortal" and "(If P then Q)(Now P)(Therefore Q) is an admissible operation".

That would be equivalent to knowing "2", "2", "4" having a definition of "=", of "PLUS " and knowing that it is admissible, - AND considering ONLY the this.
That from my use of information also already contains the information that 2PLUS2=4

But as I said, my point was reducibility (meaning that there is nothing more to a specific tornado than the specific strucure and behaviour of the system on the lower level). And I really do think the halting problem and cellular automaton examples do detract from that specific point.

1607. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149604 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 1:47 am

The insight I have gained is that reducibility as being fully 'implemented' (I'm not sure if that word is correct - with all its connotations) does not mean predictability in all cases. A valued one... I might have to write a paper for philosophy of science about that.

1608. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149603 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 1:44 am

Anyway - my main point remains. The lower level (and this has nothing to do with "doing the math"/"constructing" the proof", ie "unpacking" or accesibility of information in general) has the higher level phenomena implemented in them - ie they are reducible - such as that the higher level object "tornado" is reducible to the specific nature, structure and behaviour of the lower level particles.

1609. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149598 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 1:38 am

Damn, I just can't let it be.

For one thing - I abhorr platonism. It is the "essence of redness" thing... universals again. Abstract entities as "really existing entirely objectively, completely independent from the construct and abstraction".. nah, that just doens't work for me. As you know, I'm a materialist. But I get your point and I don't think it necessitates platonism.

Anyway, I think the analogy is incorrect:

I would suggest it (may) make no more sense to say that the information the behaviour of the automata or programs is present in the starting states than to say that the information you will find when you explore a fixed landscape is somehow present in your starting point and direction. What information you find is determined by those, and is entirely reproducible, but it isn't really useful to say that the starting point and direction contain what you will find.

Not starting point and direction. That would not be analoguous to the Socrates example I used to give the definition of how I use "information", as from information about starting point and direction alone, you cannot "unpack" the information of what you will find.

My point was made in the analogy, that the information "Socrates is mortal" is contained in what I have listed above.
These elements by themselves already contain the information that is contained in "doing the math", in "constructing the proof", ie in

" 'P1:All humans are mortal; P2:Socrates is a human; C:Socrates is mortal' is sound."

1610. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149592 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 1:29 am

Bullshit. It is you two who mark precisely what this site is about.

Having off-topic discussions? :)

Nah, I get what you mean - thanks. But it's not just Steve and myself... I feel the same way about so many people and contributions on here.

Mabye not all is right with the world - but at least something is still right in all the corners where the valued contributers on this site reside :)

1611. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149588 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 1:17 am

Aaaargh! 2-dimensional space!!!
Aaargh!

With just a touch of sarcasm, I wonder if he would make sure that they be forced to stay there until they've worked it all out?

Now we've done it, Steve... we've become a menace to the RD-society :P

1612. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149587 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 1:16 am

So...

With some systems, the only way to acquire the information is to sit back and wait.

... granted and integrated :)

1613. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149585 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 1:07 am

This may, in some sense, be correct, but I am not sure it is at all useful. It is hard to think of a sense in which information is "there" if it is not accessible, and can't be used to describe the system in a simpler way.

EDIT: This is sort of related to the question of Turing Machines. The termination or otherwise of a program is undecidable, even though entirely deterministic.

Yes, this has crossed my mind as well. And especially the edit has provided me with hours and hours of interesting thoughts about information, causation and such.

I think that the way in which I use information to describe this is useful for the debates about "levels" and "being entirely implemented in the lower level".

And I happen to think that the first part of your comment is a useful insight that "follows" from my view - "The informational content is there by virtue of being deterministic - but inextractable"
We need other notions as well (whatever name we have for them or for mine) - I completely agree.

Well - I am satisfied. I suggest we leave it at that - you have answered my questions to my complete satisfaction and I think I have gained some insight.

It's been a pleasure - as always.

EDIT:

I still think I was correct when talking about tornadoes. Especially the point about the higher-level information (my usage) being the structure/systematicity/order of the system or behaviour of its parts in the lower level, meaning there is nothing added. The highly interesting Turing-example and cellular automaton-example can be integrated into my position by adapting the latter to include the provision that for specific deterministic processes, the information cannot be accessed in advance.

1614. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149583 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 12:58 am

But some systems are too complex to be able to replicate in practise

[my emphasis]

No argument from me here. And as for the entire universe - predicting to the last detail the entirety of that is of course even a logical impossiblity, since one would have to predict oneself - which would have to including the effects of "doing the predicting", which in turn would have to take account of the effects of doing the predicting - infinite regress.

The information about any point at a given moment in time

Well, I wasn't taking time into account - and meant to talk about a system in which only discrete states are allowed - ie in my example 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 on every axis - nothing in between. So the Mandelbrot-set would be impossible within that system.

Consider the Mandelbrot set. Is the complexity contained within present. In the simple recipe that produces it? Could you look at the recipe and say "I know what that will produce - and it will get printed on a lot of T-shirts!"?

I think addition temporal progression distracts from what I talking about - or the point I was trying to make.

Let me put it this way. If I have a completely deterministic system, a complete description of the system at time t₁ (for a physical system - including the impulse of all parts), and know all the "laws" that completely determine how the system progresses from one state to another, I would be able to extract from this the exact state of the system at any time t_i. Since the system is completely deterministic, all states before and after t₀ follow necessary from the complete description at that time and the "inference rules". Thus I already have all the information - I only need to "unpack" it by doing the calculations.

That -again- describes how I use the term "information".

1615. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149580 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 12:35 am

On second thought, maybe it shouldn't be "the axioms and the complete list of allowed operations", but "the axioms, the complete list of allowed operations, and the complete list of allowed sentences or a - ie formally admissible sentences)
But if all sentences that can be called mathematical "allowed sentences" can be gotten solely from the axioms and inference rules, that would be redundant.

My point: If you need no additional information or "change of states" of the components (in which case the nature of the change or its sufficient causes and the "laws of causality" for the change would have to be known) at all to produce something - then the information is already there. - As with the socrates example. That would describe a property of what I mean by information.

1616. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149577 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 12:25 am

In principle, as the behaviour of the system is the simplest way to describe the behaviour of the system.

I'm afraid that doesn't answer the question that puzzles me... I'm not saying I don't believe you. But it seems to me to be trivially, logically true that only randomness is genuinely unpredictable.
If it isn't at all random, it is completely causally determined - so if you have the causes and the "laws of causality", it is predictable.

Maybe there's something I really don't get here...
I must say I'm puzzled.

Is the information for all mathematical proofs present in the axioms?

If you had said "the axioms and the complete list of allowed operations" I would be tempted to say yes. Just as the information "Socrates is mortal" is contained in the combined information of:

-"All humans are mortal"
-"Socrates is a human"
and
- If P, then Q.
P.
Therefore, Q
(Modus ponendo ponens as allowed operation)

Think of a 2-dimensional space of a cartesian coordinate system. Let's say it's finite and only positive, and we have a space that extends from 0-10 on the x-axis and 0-10 on the y-axis.
The information about any location of any point or collection of points in that system is already there in the description of the system - since it describes all possibilities for the way things can be in that system.

1617. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149572 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 12:09 am

again Steve :)

but there is no way to predict that higher level behaviour other than to set the system going and wait.

In principle, independend of the constraints of any logically possible methods of observation? Other than genuine randomness, I don't see what could possible make something genuininely unpredictable in principle.? In practice - sure. But in principle?

If the behaviour is entirely determined by interactions on the lower level, then all the information is there, at least this is a logical truth from my usage of the terms "information" and "determined".

(Maybe it's semantics again)

1618. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149569 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 12:04 am

Steve,
this was about free will? ;P

you can see retrospectively that it was entirely determined by interactions at the lower level

That was my point. But exactly this statement means that the information is there on the lower level.

So maybe I should rephrase the statemt to say that whether or not we can predict it - the information is there, as it is if the higher level behaviour is completely determined by interactions on the lower level?

1619. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149568 by MPhil on March 26, 2008 at 12:01 am

Addendum:

I think I just had a little epiphany.
What you say cam be - I think - interpreted as being true if it is something like this:

Having a theory of how quarks or atoms behave generally - what their attributes are, how they can interact - that does not give us a description of what genes do. Of course not. The information that is in the the theories of genetics is not contained in the information of the theories of particle physics, quantum physics or indeed any physics.

That is true - trivially. But also absolutely consistent with what I said - the information about the behaviour of genes is still present in the level of the system that physics investigate. You don't get the information of the structure of specific interactions of particles if you only have a theory about how particles can behave. But if that theory is correct and complete and used to get a complete account of what the particles in that specific system actually do - you can pick out the higher level information.

1620. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149563 by MPhil on March 25, 2008 at 11:41 pm

I disagree with that, obviously - and especially the edit. But I do get your point.

This is the issue of reduction again.

Would you say genes are not objective and only a description at the level of quarks is "objective"?

The whole is more than the sum total of its parts

Indeed, the whole is the ordered structure of its parts. Genes are real - as functional elements, but they do reduce to atoms and thus quarks behaving in a certain way
The "encapsulation" of oxygen in hemoglobin can be described as movements of atoms. The decoding of mRNA into proteins can be also be described as specific processes of atomic and molecular behaviour - since that is what it is. The important part here is of course that it isn't just some behaviour of quarks, atoms, molecules - it is a specific kind of behaviour.

If we had only looked at the atomic level, we would have noticed that there is a systematicity, a uniformity in the grouping and behaviour of the atoms. And if we had the power to observed all the relevant consequent behaviour of atoms- we would have picked up the higher level phenomena, because they present in the lower level as systematic and uniform behaviour that we can make out.

Because the programmer does realize there is a higher level of description, and you, the person who read the output, do realize they are not just random splashes of dots!

I don't think that's the point. The point is that they aren't random. And we do nothing else than the program, but we're programmed by evolution and interaction with the environment to call a specific order, a specific systematicity of paint-molecules on a canvas (or rather a specific order and quality of visual information) a pointilist or cubist painting, or a "good" or "bad " painting.

There is something in the painting that elicits this behaviour in us, and there is something in us which determines our response. But that doesn't mean that the painting is "intrinsically good", unless you redefine that to mean just that its attributes (which does reduce to - i.e. is the order and structure of the paint-molecules) are so that they elicit these responses in people dispositioned to respond that way.

In this way - I do not deny that the higher levels make sense. But there is a difference between "The level of the quark vs the level of the gene" and "the level of the paint-molecules vs the level of the 'artistic quality' of the painting", since the latter part of the latter example is something which can only be intersubjective (because it is determined by how the mind ie the function of the brain is dispositioned/conditioned to react to inputs)- while the level of the gene is objective meaning that it is entirely independent of what people think and feel about it. A gene would still behave how it does dependant on the context in which it is implemented, no matter if threehundred years ago it was impossible that anybodys mind had a representation of it which can be accurate or not to different degrees.

That is what I meant by distinguishing objective, subjective and intersubjective.

Returning to a point made above - you cannot lose information when you move one or more levels down provided you have sufficient information about that level - this is also true ex hypothesi because after all the higher levels are completely 'implemented' in the lower levels. The "additional" information is only additional if and because the observation and knowledge of the lower level is not complete enough - ie if and because we haven't picked up the systematicity/uniformity/order/structure in the lower level that corresponds to the objects of the higher level.

A specific tornado is not just any "can of hot gas", it is a specific structure and order of molecular movement of specific particles at specific coordinates. And if we had just a print (a veeeerrrry long print) of the movement of all particles during a tornado and also the data of how the system usually looks (without the tornado) and what these particles "do" when they aren't part of the tornado - then we would theoretically be able to pick out not only that there was something different, but that there was some specific event with such and such structure - ie the tornado.

Thus the higher levels are valid, but they have no information that cannot possibly be gotten from the lower level, because they are completely 'implemented' there.

I think you may be confusing the practical impossibility (or extremely high but finite improbability) of picking the higher level information out because we don't have enough and detailed enough information about the entirety of the lower level to pick out the systematicity/structure/uniformity/order that corresponds to the higher-level phenomena (or even 'objects' such as tornados) with a genuine difference of information content.

As for the edit - I don't see that I'm avoiding or trying to explain away any problem? Especially from your point of view, -to use your analogy- that would be like accusing the particle physicists of avoiding the problem of mRNA transcription.
From my point of view - the higher level phenoma, correctly understood - are part of what the theory explains.

Once we recognize that there is no "intrinsic moral goodness" of an act - independent of every judgement thereof past present or future, there is no problem, because moral quality of an act consists entirely of how people judge it and what elements of the act elicit these judgements in what context. And everything that is ascribed to the supposed "intrinsic moral goodness" of an act, every information that is in this point of view can be dervied from the perspective I advocat - only that the information is not 'centered' on the supposed 'object' of a moral value or the supposedly existing objective, intrinsic moral quality of the act is distributed to the agents who judge the act, and explained as the judgement that agents make. There is no information lost.

1621. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149552 by MPhil on March 25, 2008 at 10:54 pm

... and now you'll have to excuse me, I need something to eat and a round of Battlefield 2142 to provide my mind with some R&R :)

1622. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149551 by MPhil on March 25, 2008 at 10:49 pm

I corrected myself later, stating "uncaused, spontaneous causation of a macroscopic system within spacetim".

The problem about non-deterministic elements is that they ex hypothesi - per definition - cannot be forseen. Take radioactive decay - as far as I understand a genuinely random event. We cannot state that a decay-process and the emission of alpha, beta or gamma-radiation will occur at a precisely specifiable time, although we can give a statistical half-life for a mass of radioactive particles.

Now if we would have the need a specifically timed event, we cannot use radioactive decay as the trigger - because we don't and cannot know when it will happen. In this sense, the exact characteristics (including time of occurance) of a genuinely indeterministic processes cannot be part of a larger functional process.

The point I am trying to make is that for everything you say free will is necessary - the will must be causally connected to reasons and grounds.
Spontaneous, uncaused causation would be something like me totally uncharacteristically stripping bare on the street and praising god - and then answering the question "why did you do it" truthfully with "No reason. There were no causes - it was the exercise of spontaneous, uncaused free will".

You would think me mad (rightfully).
I don't have any big problem with a system being not completely determinstic. But every function - every planning, every exercise of free will that serves a purpous has to be deterministic in the important aspects - namely in being causally connected to reasons and grounds. Otherwise no planning, no aboutness and thus no intentionality, and no meaning.

Here is an idea you may find interesting.[...]

Very interesting indeed - thank you for that information, which I am sadly not equipped to judge for veracity, but I'll take your word for it - and it seems that it is coherent with what I know of the subject.

Also, it is coherent with my position as stated above and in my previous comments. The systemticity, the uniformity that is required for intenionality, meaning, reason and free will as responsiveness to reason(s) may well in the end be so because of the nature of the quantum level. What matters is that there are systematicity, uniformity and underlying causal connections.

1623. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149547 by MPhil on March 25, 2008 at 10:19 pm

The picture only "exists" at a higher level of description,

I don't think my theories cannot handle this data. First, as you correctly state (at least implicitly in what I quoted), whatever pattern or phenomenon only appears at higher levels is thus interest relative - like value-judgements of art or meaning. Which means it is not intrinsic, not objective - there is no "objective matter of fact" about it. In the end it has to be implemented at the lowest level - in the end a painting must consist of molecules with specific attributes in specific order. This is trivially true.

But interestingly - it wouldn't be that hard to program software that can identify a pointilist painting as a pointilist painting by analyzing a digital picture of it - or a cubist painting etc.
So once we identify attributes as attributes of objects, they can be picked out at the object-level.

You cannot derive an appreciation of the quality - since that is interest relative, not objective.

Because of that, "my" theory need not be concerned with how "good" the painting "is", because "good" in this case doesn't refer to functional adequacy, but to subjective or intersubjective judgement. But in the end - there is (even if we never find it) a neurological explanation of why we make certain judgements about a painting and what is the corresponding neural activity of uttering or thinking that judgement. So in that sense, it can handle that data.

The rest is interest-relative, and not - again as you correctly state - a matter of "truth".

1624. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149545 by MPhil on March 25, 2008 at 10:11 pm

Bonzai,

it seems we're talking at cross purposes.
I don't think subjective experience is a delusion - I think we cannot infer from that anything beyond "we have THIS", we cannot describe what this is, only its content.
Many people, especially some qualophiles and phenomenologists have inferred that the experiences are not identical to the activity of the brain, not identical to firing patterns of neurons in context to the state of the whole neural net. They argued that from the fact of experience we can infer dualism.

This is what I meant by underdetermined and delusional.

I do deny some concepts of folk-psychology. Some will have to be abandoned when one wants to be coherent with the advancing neurosciences - most will have to be extremely modified.

Just recently, I had a theist argue that because when I see a person, there is nothing shaped like a person in my brain - the perception and the thought cannot be physical, cannot be a brain-process. Aside from the fact that it is factually incorrect that there is no direct, observable representation of the geometrical shape of what you see in your brain (as I have mentioned two comments ago), it is irrelevant. The inference is unwarranted.

That is all I meant.

We are however data-processing machines. But you're right we do not "only work on logic". But even our emotions, our emotional responses, our reminiscences, our moods are caused by input, partly from outside, partly from within one's own system (self-monitoring). And they are "mechanical" in the sense that they are caused and work though deterministic system of hormone excretion, neural firing patterns.
Thus, what I mean by "we are information processing machines" is that it all comes down to firing patterns of neurons, to neural activity - and what they do is signal-processing.
But yes, some of it is the logical thinking we do, some of it is our feelings, our moods and other non-rational aspects of ourselves.

But I assume you weren't contradicting that, so - see what I mean by talking cross-purposes? :)

1625. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149538 by MPhil on March 25, 2008 at 9:49 pm

if there is no free will, there will be no agency, no sense of talking about intension, hence no meanings because meanings is only meaningful to intentional agents that can ascribe it and grasp it.

If you mean classical "uncaused, spontaneous causation" free will - I don't agree... but I have stated so in another post ... I think.

I have also stated that I think there is no inherent, intrinsic "meaning". Btw, I suppose you meant "intention" or "intentionality", not "intension"?
That can be gotten in a deterministic universe as well - as representation and thus aboutness of states, and as actions and events dependent on representation, and thus themselves about what is being represented. Representation needs a certain uniformity, but no "inherent" "meaning", whatever that is supposed to be. A lock has a representation of the functional aspects of a key, or things that imitate keys. The pattern of neural activity in your visual cortex is representative of what you see (even geometrically - the pattern of neural activity on the back of your brain where optical input is processed has a geometrical shape that is similar to that of what you see).

Thus I think there is no "intrinsic" meaning, because it is interest-relative, there is no "objective fact of the matter" about it.

Also, I think you've got it somehow backwards. I think intentionality is more basic than "meaning", since the latter depends on the former. But maybe I have misread you and you did state this.

So, intentionality is aboutness is representation is dependent on causal link between what is being represented and the system that represents, and thus only possible in a largely deterministic universe.

Anyway - my point: incompatibilistic "uncaused spontaneous causation"-free will is not required for intentionality, in fact it would make it impossible, since a system of whose states none is caused by the "outside world" cannot have representations, since they have to have a causal connection to what is being represented.

The meaning of "agency" obviously depends on the concept of free will and of "origination". If I am to read "free will" and "agency" in the quote at the beginning of this comment in a way that corresponds in the relevant parts to what I have layed out as compatibilistic free will, origination and agency - then I agree with that quote.

1626. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149536 by MPhil on March 25, 2008 at 9:39 pm

...sorry I'm a bit behind, guys... writing this took some time :)

Bonzai,

the phenomenological data is compelling and even more

I'd say that depends what you mean by it. Our phenomenological experience is evident - but evidence for nothing beyond that. The (pre)theoretical notions, "explanations" and inferences many many people draw from this are at best extremely underdetermined by the fact that we have phenomenological experience, at worst they are deluded.

jac,

I'm positive Dennett is aware that pathological repeatings of futile behaviour occurr - but that is no objection to his point, for the fact there is endless repitition of futile or damaging behaviour makes that very behaviour pathological. And we're not talking about pathology.
Also, I'm sure Dennett is very ware that there are degrees of determination.

ad "egocentrical bias":
I don't think so. Dennett postulates no absolute. It's a matter of degrees of freedom, aka non-sphexishness. Compared to the wasp, we have hugely more freedom, compared to a super-intelligent being whose brain comes with hugely more complicated meta level monitoring and behaviour-modification functions, we might look like sphex do to us, but the distance between sphex and us would remain.

As evident from "we have ADMITTED that we REALLY have no free will" - you still argue from a classical understanding of "free will" - and you will get no argument from me that this is impossible, nor from Dennett. Once you have understood (or 'admitted' or have been convinced or are open to that) that freedom can coherently be seen as responsiveness to reason and reasons, and thus control (the unique system that is you has a lot of control over things - not in spite of being a deterministic system, but because of it), the problems disappear.

What Dennett (and other compatibilists) do is only "word-twisting" under one reading of "free will"... one that makes no sense, because - as I do not tire to state - the concept it describes is impossible.

But this also means that clinging to this interpretation of "free will" and from that position stating that those who say we do have free will, but who give a different definition, one that can actually refer to something real, is somehow a bit tiresome and meaningless - IMO.

What is possible and real is responsiveness to reason(s) and control.

The analogy to "God" and definitions thereof fails, partly because of what Bonzai said, partly because the issue of God is also an issue of religion, politics and oppression, of violence and misinformation. Clinging to the term "God" when one means nature is thus dishonest because one implicitly sides with religions, with churches, policies etc - simply because one openly uses the term. One also implies reverence.
If one takes care to deny all these implication everytime one openly uses "God" in the pantheistic or Spinozistic sense, then there is less of a problem.

You don't have that with the free-will issue.

And I do think it's somewhat insulting both to Dennett and to those who agree with him to state that Dennett calls what he identifies free will so as to console, to soothe, -because it feels good. a) he doesn't use this as an argument for his position and b) he simply states that what is really worth wanting is not classical free will, because that's impossible and solves nothing. What we want is reasonableness and control, and that is possible and actual.

Also in some sense, there is being the originator of one's actions. The system that is you is determined - but it is a functional system. The actions you perform are dependent on that system. The causal origins and determinations of you as a functional system alone are not sufficient. The system itself is the direct causal origin of your actions. Its composition, its structure and its mechanisms are necessary for them.

If you do want to argue - "No. Being the originator of one's actions must mean that that the causal chain of one's actions end (seen temporally backwards) in oneself, that there are no antecedent causes", be my guest. But that is the impossible notion of uncaused causation by a macroscopic system within spacetime.

If you want to identify a holistically viewed system as the originator of action, and thus as "agent" - you'll find it in each individual. And there is IMO nothing wrong with that.

Dennett - as explained above - does not say that having the illusion of something is the same as having that something, he identifies what we have - and he calls out illusions wherever he finds them, such as the "self" as a contained subject.

ad Morality:
Good that that makes sense to you. Yes, the laws and customs, the "holding people responsible" is part of the environment. But it's part of our collectively self-imposed environment. For the most part - it is the effect of reason and rationality.

ad "This is a weak argument on a few grounds":
I think you misunderstood Dennett here. He does not argue that we are the best that the universe can produce in these terms.
He argues that the human mind in general has some limitations - beyond witch it is impossible to even imagine what might be (because the limitations referred to are the limits of our conceptual abilities).
This invalidates especially your third point, because since these are limits of conceivability, even if something beyond that existed, we could not have evidence of it, or recognize it (ex hypothesi true, since it is per defintion beyond what can even imagine). Thus, we cannot possibly have reason to positively assume that there is something beyond that. We can only say "Well, there might be, but we cannot say it is because we could not know of it"

Ad '... no sufficient explanation of why it seems to us that we have free will.':

It might be that Dennett doesn't cover this enough, I don't remember to be honest. But I think we do have a good idea of why this is so, as I explained above. If I may freely quote myself:

"I agree that we are hard-wired that it seems to us as though we have free will because we cannot compute future states of ourselves, our brain, us as a system. I don't think that we "feel" that we have free will... I think we have this as an underlying assumption because of the practical impossibility of producing a detailed prediction of our own future states and behaviour - and that we cannot forsee to a high degree of detail the input we are going to be subject to... and thus what our future will be. Thus it seems to us that that our choices are undetermined, because the monitoring and production of our response to stimuli is not conscious - and I would venture a guess that it would detract from our abilities that rely on our conscience if it were. So there might be an evolutionary reason for this.

Of course we can predcit systems including oursef to to some degree. I can predict what my alarm clock will do, and how the character of others will determine their actions... to some degree. I can also know that I usually or always respond to certain situations in a certain way, since I know my own character. And to that degree that we can forsee our own responses to stimuli we anticipate - we do not think we are free."

1627. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149498 by MPhil on March 25, 2008 at 6:31 pm

Oh, I forgot - the corresponding wikipedia-entry (also worth reading, and far more informative than the one on "Freedom Evolves") for "Elbow Room" is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbow_Room

1628. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #149496 by MPhil on March 25, 2008 at 6:23 pm

Actually, the book by Dennett really worth reading here is not (IMO) Freedom evolves, but "Elbow Room - Varieties of Free Will worth wanting".

It really all depends on what you mean by "Free Will". If you keep sticking too "free will only deserves to be called thus if it is uncaused, spontaneous causation" - then the answer is that not only do we not have it, but it is an impossibility.

However, Dennett analyzes the notion very differently. I suggest you read this:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

It presents (briefly) Dennettian Free Will in point 5.2, but the entire article is very informative.

1629. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148998 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 10:05 pm

Intenionality can be seen as real from a position that denies that there are qualia under the classic description and denies that there is 'intrinsic' meaning.

I do think that our brains are syntactic engines that mimic and approximate the power of what we would think semantic engines to be. This has no real bearing on "truth", because there can be representation and thus intentionality (about which there may be no fact of the matter - it may be interest-relative) without intrinsic "meaning".

Furthermore, I have yet to see any theory of meaning that is entirely unproblematic.

Just thought I'd mention this.

1630. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148963 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 7:04 pm

Ah, that's okay of course...hmm, maybe philosophizing "before" would be a new tactic... "Boring the pants off of her" :D

1631. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148959 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 6:57 pm

You mean I'll be a waiter? Might very well happen, seeing as there are extremely few jobs for philosophers ;)

1632. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148956 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 6:39 pm

Spinoza,

it's much the same for me - but I'm still interested in Nietzsche, since that is what I started philosophy with when I was 16 :)

But as I stated elsewhere, I'm actually mostly interested and active in the analytical tradition, especially neurophilosophy, philosophy of mind, of religion, of science and metaethics.

1633. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148949 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 6:08 pm

Spinoza,

I think the topic of Nietzsche is extremely complicated. (After all, Colli and Montinari said that Nietzsche said everything - and the opposite of everything)

But we can be fairly certain that he was an atheist. He was the philosopher of "the dangerous 'maybe'" - he abandoned all values, used nihilism to go beyond Nihilism - an inversion of all values. He transgressed nihilism... and for that he had to be an atheist.

Actually, when Nietzsche first wrote "God is dead", it was in Aphorism 125 in The Gay Science. And there is nothing said of what you wrote of atheists. The passage is about cutting the ties to old idols, traditions - erasing the metaphorical horizon and losing the anchorage in a fixed world-view. And, the 'Madman' is a madman because he seeks God in broad daylight with a lantern and doesn't realize that the time for telling people about this truth has not yet come. Here it is:

The madman.�" Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"�" As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?�" Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried. "I will tell you. We have killed him�"you and I! All of us are his murderers! But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? And backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition?�"Gods, too, decompose! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives,�"who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed,�"and whoever is born after us, for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto!"�" Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners: they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering�"it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars�"and yet they have done it themselves!"�" It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?" �"

As for the Übermensch, that is even a more complicated topic. But I think this is closely linked to the concept of decadence (in form of the Last Man), of sacrifice for the earth itself and its telos, the Übermensch, to which man is merely a transitional form. So it's about mankind transgressing the (partially self-imposed) confines of humanity:

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman--a rope over an
abyss.

The abyss obviously signifies that the being-on-the-way is extremely dangerous - a balancing act, also the depth of decadence which has to be transgressed.

Listing all the quotes from this entirely magnificent and hugely important passage would be too much, but it's the 4th section of Zarathustra's prologue, and can be found here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/spzar10.txt

1634. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148869 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 11:41 am

Furthermore, Norman - I don't think anyone doubts these quotes or that they have significance. But as I said, there are also many to the contrary where he - in spilling propaganda for the paganistic Nazi-mythology - argued fervently against Christianity.

Dawkins got it right in TGD - there are just too many contradicting quotes and actions to think the issue is clear cut. I think the only reasonable conclusion is that Hitler and the Nazis were opportunists when it came to science and religion... using or condemning parts of it as they saw fit to serve their purposes. If I should make an educated guess, I'd speculate that Hitler really believed in the paganistic myths, but we can't say for sure. However, we can say that he was neither an Atheist nor a Christian (except on paper).

1635. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148865 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 11:27 am

I agree with Christian and Steve, but would like to add that during the time of Hitler's life, the Weimar Republic leading up to the Nazi Regime and even then, it was Darwinism (and Lamarckism) that were - in the minds of people - intrinsically linked to these ideas. That's how I meant it. The connection between the Nazi's eugenics, social Darwinisim and Rassenlehre in general and Darwinism is no stronger (even weaker I would say) than that of astrology to astronomy.

1636. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148835 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 3:06 am

Of course the Rassenlehre wasn't Darwinism.

It just used some of its concepts, like inheritance and change of traits - and "original creative race" is a testimony to that.

As I said, the Nazis did argue both for and against Christianity, with equal force - depending on whom they seeked to please or console and whom they opposed specifically at the time. The Christian Oberammergau Passion plays and the pagan istic Wagner Festspiele were always prime concerns so as to console and 'motivate' the people.

It really isn't clear cut with Hitler and the Nazis. Many were pagans, some atheists, many Christians, many were mystics... and Hitler, well - he was a pragmatist, an opportunist when it comes to science, Christianity and anti-Christian rethoric. The Nazis made use of all of them when they saw it.

1637. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148830 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 2:53 am

The Nazis banned books on what they called 'primitive' Darwinism.

Indeed they did, where the real darwinian biology either explicitly or implicitly stated that the Rassenlehre was wrong. Doesn't contradict my point that the Nazis argued both for and against Christianity, and used parts of Darwinian concepts where they could completely non-scientifically twist and abuse them so as to give an air of 'scientific' support to the Rassenlehre.

1638. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148821 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 2:19 am

To amend my last post:

The main inventor of national socialist "Rassenlehre" which was taught in every school, at every grade in Germany during the Nazi-reign, was Hans Friedrich Karl Günther, whose major 'works' included "Inheritance or Upbringing". The Rassenlehre stressed inheritance and descendence. The Arians were (according to Günther) descendents of the people of Atlantis. And yes they did believe that change occurred over time. So there is a connection to Darwinism as I said.

But, as I also said - Hitler did vehemently argue both for the religious nature of his views when he was trying to convince religious people, and also vehemently against Christianity in general when he was opposing the religious moderates who didn't like his ideas and when he (and others) abused Nietzsche (who at the time had a substantial 'fanbase', which Hitler was also trying to get to support him).

1639. Two More Fleas

Comment #148817 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 2:09 am

Add

5. Humans domesticated wolves, so that the result of breeding for more loyalty and less agression resulted in dogs. True or False?

Honestly, if wooter answers "False" to this, the whole world must look like a big conspiracy to him. EVERYONE knows that.

1640. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148815 by MPhil on March 24, 2008 at 2:05 am

esuther,

put what you want to quote in blockquotes, ie

"<", then "blockquote", then ">" (without the quotation marks obviously, and no space between the symbols) before the passage you want to quote, and "<", then "/blockquote", then ">" after the passage.

And in regard to Hitler, I'm afraid, Stevencarrwork, it isn't that clear cut. Hitler and the Nazis used whatever rhethoric suited them best based on who they were trying to impress. Hitler has said what you quoted, but the "Rassenlehre" which was taught at school during the Nazi-reign did incorporate pseudo-darwinian notions. Also, it is undeniable that the specific tennants of Hitler's social-darwinism are unthinkable without Darwinism... but of course Darwinism is not to blame, just as the astronomy is not to blame for Astrology. Hitler's social darwinism was based on i)a misunderstanding of Darwinism and on ii) a basic naturalistic fallacy.

1641. Two More Fleas

Comment #148767 by MPhil on March 23, 2008 at 9:42 pm

Isn't that part of the plot of Wrath of Kahn?

Must watch that movie again... I liked it, but the part about the 'worm' (though I think these creatures had some sort of scales or exoskeleton) creeped me out when I was young :)

Maybe it should be:

Planet destroyed, other planet shifted orbit got barren worms came out, Then people found worm and worm ended up in human beings - especially Chekov!

It's probably because the power of your mind (understandably) intimidates him.

Oh most definitely ;)

1642. Two More Fleas

Comment #148760 by MPhil on March 23, 2008 at 9:16 pm

Please, do yourself a favour and seek out someone who has taken university courses in logic. Real, formal logic. Someone who has studied it - surely such a person would be an expert on it, no?

Print your posts here and show them to him. Then ask him what he thinks of the logical soundness of your "arguments". Be prepared to receive ridicule, belittlement, insult or incredulity... or a combination thereof.

How do I know this? I have studied it. Everyone of the people from this site you mention has demonstrated to my complete satisfaction that they are absolutely capable of analysing and constructing arguments... you on the other hand... well, see above.

Which brings me to another point:
I'm deeply offended by your series of posts... I wasn't even mentioned.

1643. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #148737 by MPhil on March 23, 2008 at 6:11 pm

Why does it feel like something to experience a colour? Why does it feel like we have free will?

Hmm... I don't think the latter is the "question of free will". Also, I think we have a pretty good answer to that latter question. Let me quote a passage from wikipedia which I find rather good:

In generative philosophy of cognitive sciences and evolutionary psychology, free will is assumed not to exist.[81][82] However, an illusion of free will is created, within this theoretical context, due to the generation of infinite or computationally complex behaviour from the interaction of a finite set of rules and parameters. Thus, the unpredictability of the emerging behaviour from deterministic processes leads to a perception of free will, even though free will as an ontological entity is assumed not to exist. In this picture, even if the behavior could be computed ahead of time, no way of doing so will be simpler than just observing the outcome of the brain's own computations.

EDIT:
Now I don't agree with the general, absolute unpredictability given all the data, a sufficiently powerful computation-method and a sufficient causal independence between the system doing the computing and the system whose states are being computed - but I agree that we are hard-wired that it seems to us as though we have free will because we cannot compute future states of ourselves, our brain, us as a system. I don't think that we "feel" that we have free will... I think we have this as an underlying assumption because of the practical impossibility of predicting our own future states and behaviour to a highe degree - and that we cannot forsee to a high degree the input we are going to be subject to.

Of course we can do this to a degree. I can predict what my alarm clock will do, and how the character of others will determine their actions... to some degree.

1644. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148718 by MPhil on March 23, 2008 at 4:30 pm

I think he intended simply to point up the irony of PZ's treatment given the attempt by the film to tar Darwinism with naziism.

If that is the case, I agree it is appropriate... and in that case I take back my suggestion of reformulating it. I'm simply not certain it was meant that way - but I do hope it was.

1645. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148715 by MPhil on March 23, 2008 at 4:25 pm

A "gauleiter" is not necessarily a reference to nazism. A gau is a region, or division, and a leiter is a leader.

While the analysis is correct, the first part isn't.
"Gau" comes from Old High German "Gouwe" and was already severely antiquated in the early 20th century. The Nazis invoked it (and other antiquated terminology) to giva off an air of upholding old, honourable traditions and returning to the 'glory' of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.

The term "Leiter" is absolutely common, even today - but the term "Gauleiter" was solely used by the Nazis in the German language.

1646. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148705 by MPhil on March 23, 2008 at 4:09 pm

When's TGD: The Movie out then?

You mean something like this:

The Root of All Evil?

1647. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148701 by MPhil on March 23, 2008 at 4:02 pm

The word Gauleiter as defined by the Oxford English dictionary also means 'an overbearing official', which is how most people use it today

Ah, see - I didn't know that. That explains it - but it doesn't change anything. Using such a term as an ordinary word to describe simply an overbearing official seems to me to be belittling the suffering of the victims of the Nazi-regime.

Maybe I'm a bit oversensitive - but I think taking care not to belittle the Nazi-regime, its crimes and the suffering of its victims is an honorable thing.

He surely is justified in pointing out the irony.

As I see it, the irony (sadly) is that he uses a Nazi-comparison in an article that criticises a film for making comparisons and allegations of allegiance with Naziism.

1648. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148699 by MPhil on March 23, 2008 at 3:58 pm

If this doesn't justify the fascist analogy, what ever would?

..being a functionary in a regime that strives to take over the world and kill, torture and enslave entire peoples as they see fit?

1649. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148695 by MPhil on March 23, 2008 at 3:54 pm

I'm confident you're right, The Soilworker...

...still, it's a Nazi-comparison nevertheless. Comparing someone to a Nazi-functionary in order to make a point that he was unpleasent, commanding and arrogant is very inadequate and morally questionable. The implications of such terminology go far beyond that...

I am completely calm - I just think it's highly inapropriate - especially in context with that article.

1650. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148688 by MPhil on March 23, 2008 at 3:41 pm

Addendum to my last post:

I do think a rewording would be appropriate. The more I think about it, the more I feel that Professor Dawkins should not let this stand.