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Author Topic:   the intellectual enemies of freedom
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 1 of 53 (356454)
10-14-2006 7:55 AM


This is just the same argument I always make, with some new rhetoric.
Day in day out, our knowledge about free behaviour is being destroyed by Darwinists.
How come that although we are much concerned about choices we make ourselves for the way we turn out, that science has no interest in the choices that occur in the universe at large?
Ask yourself why don't you have *any* knowledge about *any* turningpoint in the history of the universe, while on the other hand you cherish knowledge about turningpoints in your own life.
The reason for the destruction of knowledge about free behaviour is Darwin's theory of natural selection. What this ill-conceived theory does is to distort our knowledge about free behaviour, by using the language of free behaviour for things that are forced.
What this means is that for instance a Darwinist will say that a rabbit *chooses* to run away when it meets up with a fox. So choosing is explained by Darwinists in terms of doing that which gives the optimal survival benefit of genes. But notice one thing here, it isn't actually held to be possible by Darwinists that the rabbit would not run away from the fox. So choosing to run away, is equated with the rabbit being forced to run away by genetic programming. So in the Darwinist conception of choosing, there isn't the possibility of an alternative thing happening.
So then the Darwinist conception of the human mind is computational(Pinker, Dawkins, Cosmides, Tooby etc. etc.). The mind is explained to be the operation of the brain-organ which was fashioned by natural selection to computate genesurvival-problems. They're basic precept is simple, but for the rest of their argument about how the mind works specifically, they often appeal to complexity to fit the gaps in their argument. So they will give some basic selectionist explanation to some mindfunction, and then they will assert that the rest of the mind works in similar ways, but that the mind is far too complex for them to explain it all at once.
But complexity is not the point about mind, freedom is, and so Darwinist knowledge about mind is *all* false, and not just incomplete. We understand to make choices with our minds, we understand choices to have a possible alternative. What Darwinists are talking about has nothing to do with minds, since there are no possible alternatives in their conception of it.
A right way to understanding minds is to explain minds as randomness generators. For when on the inside an animal experiences emotional turmoil going on deciding between fighting or fleeing, objectively from the outside the decision whether the animal fights or flees looks like randomness. Objectively *all* choices look like randomness, without any single exception. It does not matter if one makes the choice after thinking hard doing deep soulsearching, or if one chooses flippantly, from the outside it all looks like randomness. From the outside a choice always looks like it could have gone either way, which is why objectively it always looks random. To understand choices we do a little trick by imagining what it would be like to be the thing that is making the choices. But such imaginings are subjective. We can't actually objectively observe soulsearching or flippancy of choices we see, we can't measure it, but only experience it by proxy through our imagination.
And so the Darwinists are every day destroying more knowledge about choice, religious knowledge about it, but just as well common knowledge. I can say with certainty that a learned Darwinist is much more likely to be what is called a nerd, then is a learned creationist. That is to say a learned Darwinist has likely destroyed their knowledge about choice, making them choose by computation in their personal life, in stead of choosing by emotion.
regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by nwr, posted 10-14-2006 9:23 AM Syamsu has replied
 Message 4 by Omnivorous, posted 10-14-2006 11:20 PM Syamsu has replied
 Message 13 by JavaMan, posted 10-16-2006 11:35 AM Syamsu has not replied

nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 2 of 53 (356462)
10-14-2006 9:23 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Syamsu
10-14-2006 7:55 AM


Day in day out, our knowledge about free behaviour is being destroyed by Darwinists.
That seems like a sweeping generalization.
So then the Darwinist conception of the human mind is computational(Pinker, Dawkins, Cosmides, Tooby etc. etc.). The mind is explained to be the operation of the brain-organ which was fashioned by natural selection to computate genesurvival-problems.
You paint with too broad a brush. Gould, Lewontin, Eldredge and many of their supporters strongly disagreed with the determinism of Dawkins, Maynard Smith et al. Disagreement over genetic determinism is a strong undercurrent in the arguments over punctuated equilibria.
Some suggested reading:
R. C. Lewontin and Steven Rose and Leon J. Kamin, "Not in our Genes", Pantheon Books 1984.
Niles Eldredge, "Reinventing Darwin: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory", John Wiley & Sons 1995.
Steven Rose, "Lifelines: Biology Beyond Determinism", Oxford University Press 1998.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Syamsu, posted 10-14-2006 7:55 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Syamsu, posted 10-14-2006 9:44 AM nwr has seen this message but not replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 3 of 53 (356464)
10-14-2006 9:44 AM
Reply to: Message 2 by nwr
10-14-2006 9:23 AM


Environmental determinism and genetic determinism is determinism all the same, and not freedom. Gould et al do not support freedom intellectually, that is to say possible alternatives, they support chaotic environmental determinism.
regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by nwr, posted 10-14-2006 9:23 AM nwr has seen this message but not replied

Omnivorous
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Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 4 of 53 (356577)
10-14-2006 11:20 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Syamsu
10-14-2006 7:55 AM


Determinism and indeterminacy
What this means is that for instance a Darwinist will say that a rabbit *chooses* to run away when it meets up with a fox. So choosing is explained by Darwinists in terms of doing that which gives the optimal survival benefit of genes. But notice one thing here, it isn't actually held to be possible by Darwinists that the rabbit would not run away from the fox. So choosing to run away, is equated with the rabbit being forced to run away by genetic programming. So in the Darwinist conception of choosing, there isn't the possibility of an alternative thing happening.
A right way to understanding minds is to explain minds as randomness generators. For when on the inside an animal experiences emotional turmoil going on deciding between fighting or fleeing, objectively from the outside the decision whether the animal fights or flees looks like randomness. Objectively *all* choices look like randomness, without any single exception. It does not matter if one makes the choice after thinking hard doing deep soulsearching, or if one chooses flippantly, from the outside it all looks like randomness. From the outside a choice always looks like it could have gone either way, which is why objectively it always looks random. To understand choices we do a little trick by imagining what it would be like to be the thing that is making the choices. But such imaginings are subjective. We can't actually objectively observe soulsearching or flippancy of choices we see, we can't measure it, but only experience it by proxy through our imagination.
This seems contrary to observation. Let's use your rabbit analogy.
Far from appearing random, the response of a prey animal is exquisitely tuned to the predator stimulus. An unidentified noise will give the rabbit pause--he may then stand perfectly still to make his precise location more difficult for the predator to discern.
This initial alert state makes the rabbit more sensitive to a second stimulus: a second noise, especially a noise closer in origin than the first, will likely provoke flight. The immediate sight or scent of a predator will prompt the rabbit to flee immediately.
There is nothing random about this; nor, in fact, is it computational in the manner you suggest that Darwinists' claim. It is, however, computational in the sense that the odds of survival have been assessed over the millennia of rabbit and fox encounters by the shifting probabilities of rabbit genes.
The rabbit who flees too soon reveals himself unnecessarily to the fox; the rabbit who flees too late has lost his opportunity to escape. The instinctive responses of the rabbit were computed not by the rabbit mind, but by the sifting of rabbit genes, and the results are inscribed not in a real-time computational model but in the genes that create nearly instantaneous, instinctive responses.
Most crucially, the rabbit's set of possible responses are limited to an instinctive repertoire: he may run or hide; it will not occur to the rabbit to spring from hiding at the fox, thump him soundly with his powerful legs, and then flee while the fox is reeling in astonishment.
So where is the random element in the rabbit's response? The possibilities are few and can be completely described in advance. Do you claim to have observed rabbits who do not flee or hide from the fox? Surely not. Nor, I suspect, can you claim to predict the response of a prey animal to the presence of a predator by flipping a coin.
Let us then suppose that the above argument binds you unfairly tightly to your analogy: the rabbit, you may say, does not possess a mind, or at least not a mind capable of the freedom you ascribe to humans. Very well, let us consider the man and the bear.
A man's genes, too, have been beads on a great abacus over the eons, their living products, men, discovering the odds of surviving the great predators in direct encounters and recording the results via the presence or absence of the genes that produced, respectively, successful or failed strategies. These calculations, like the rabbit's, are also codified into instinctive responses: the hiker who rounds a bend in the trail and comes to face to face with a grizzly bear will experience a powerful urge to flee.
Yet this is a man, and we will assume this is a man with a culture. This man has a mind that can accept or reject the promptings of instinct: in this sense, he is indeed free, because his actions are not constrained by the limits of instinctual possibility. Just as the flow of his ancestors' genes calculated and transmitted the instinctive response to bears, his culture has recorded and preserved the knowledge that to flee a bear is sometimes unwise; his culture may have forearmed him with weaponry that offers the possibility of killing or repelling the bear; he may even have heard of other men successfully startling a bear into flight by opening an umbrella in its face.
Here, then, we have what appears to be freedom. The man can experience his instinctive response, but decline to obey it, instead possessing a set of options offered by his culture and experience. In this sense he can be said to be free, since his possible behaviors are less constrained.
But how does he come by this mind? Was its acquisition random? No, the mind, too, was sorted and sifted out by the grand DNA computation of the ages. The great advantage of individual and social responses that exceed the constraints of instinctive behavior moved the survival arms race out of the pure arena of tooth and claw, speed and strength: a mind that could record and reflect upon past outcomes, that could synthesize novel responses, fueled the evolution of both more powerful minds and their hugely increased power when linked with other minds, past and present: culture.
But consider the man and the bear again. Will the man's responses be random? If he is what we might call a "purely primitive" man, or man the animal, his responses will be instinctive. He will freeze or flee: probably he will flee, because while flight from a bear may sometimes be unwise, freezing in the plain sight of a great predator almost always is foolish, and the DNA-calculations of many generations of primitive men have already recorded those results in his genome.
If he is a man with appropriate culture, then his set of responses is larger, and may even include the creation of novel responses. But will the man's actual response be random? Certainly not: if he is armed with knowledge, weaponry and experience, he will almost certainly fight. If he is armed only with knowledge, he may gauge the bear's affect (Is it in a posture of predation or fear? Is it accompanied by cubs? Is it as startled as he?) and then respond in light of his cultural store, his personal experience, and the present scenario. None of this would appear to be random.
Indeed, if we can specify the man's culture in great detail, if we know about what weapons and training he carries, if we know the affect of the bear--why, then, we can predict with fair certainty both the man's response and its likely success. The accuracy of that prediction hinges on the depth of our knowledge; to increase our accuracy, we need to increase our knowledge; to make our predictions certain, we require more knowledge than we are ever likely to possess.
This, I suppose, is your chaotic Darwinist determinism, though chaotic indeterminacy may be more accurate, if less rhetorical. The rabbit can do no more than respond instinctively, and the responses will be virtually dictated by the stimuli. The mind removes the limiting constraints of instinct--limiting because the great DNA computer is glacially slow--and allows the individual organism and its societies to generate more complex and sometimes novel responses.
Yet the mind, too, is subject to the gene-impacting consequences of failures and successes, the same sifting and sorting that removes rabbits too slow to run from the data set; minds that make too many poor choices are the products of genes that are thus less likely to reproduce.
The behaviors of mind are more complex than the purely instinctive, yet the parameters that make one behavior more probable than another can, often in practice and always in theory, be determined. If we knew all parameters, we could accurately predict all behaviors. But that level of complexity is beyond us: in that vastness you, Syamsu, may see freedom rather than chaotic indeterminacy, but even the knowledge of a few salient factors shows them to be nonrandom.
No sane man's actions appear random to his fellows: we understand them in the light of his past and his present circumstances. The mind does not float in limbo, insulated from the world of cause and effect, but is, rather, its most exquisite creation.
The limits of prediction are the limits of knowledge, and freedom--whatever you imagine that to be--surely should be grounded in something finer than ignorance, and surely cannot be extinguished by knowledge, or else it was never freedom at all.
It is odd that a religious person who believes an omniscient God always knows what a man will do next can insist that a Darwinist who says we cannot predict what a man will do next is an enemy of freedom.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Syamsu, posted 10-14-2006 7:55 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by Syamsu, posted 10-15-2006 6:56 AM Omnivorous has replied
 Message 9 by Trump won, posted 10-15-2006 3:59 PM Omnivorous has replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 5 of 53 (356623)
10-15-2006 6:56 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Omnivorous
10-14-2006 11:20 PM


Re: Determinism and indeterminacy
It is just a perversion of language to say that choices aren't essentially free. If there is no alternative possible result, there is no actual choice, and not a choice which is forced.
Notice again you talk about success or failure, as Darwinists do, for things which you consider to be forced. Again, success and failure properly belongs to the language about choosing, trying, wanting etc. yet you use it in a force context.
In any case it's not the point to argue about freedom whether or not there is, the point is to show that Darwinists are intellectual enemies of freedom. Enemies of it by perverting the language by equating free behaviour with forced behaviour, denying it, neglecting it etc. etc.
This is a real issue which you can see in daily life talking to people. Is somebody going to say I shouldn't have done that I made a bad decision, or is somebody going to say this or that made me do it. The Darwinists bend language so much that even saying to decide something becomes to mean the same as being forced to do it by some cause, genetic, environmental, cultural or whatnot. I bet everyone knows these kinds of people, the people that *always* seek a preceding cause for anything anyone does, in stead of saying it's decided, chosen.
We can have knowledge about probabilities, knowledge does not equate to predictability. If something is more likely to occur it doesn't mean we have more knowledge about it, that is ridiculous. We can have full 100 percent knowledge of a probability, and our knowledge would then be perfect. There is more to know about a 6 sided die then there is to know about a 2 sided coin, more possibilities to know. Yet you would have it that we have less knowledge of the die then the coin, because we can only predict 1/6 what face it ends up compared to 1/2. That is what you said, that predictability is a limit on our knowledge, rather then saying it's a part of our knowledge.
regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Omnivorous, posted 10-14-2006 11:20 PM Omnivorous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by Omnivorous, posted 10-15-2006 11:55 AM Syamsu has replied

Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 6 of 53 (356671)
10-15-2006 11:55 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Syamsu
10-15-2006 6:56 AM


Re: Determinism and indeterminacy
Good morning, Syamsu.
It is just a perversion of language to say that choices aren't essentially free. If there is no alternative possible result, there is no actual choice, and not a choice which is forced.
If your complaint is merely about word choice, then there seems little left to discuss. Nearly all writers who expound on evolutionary theory use the language of choice and decision as shorthand for the behavioral consequences of a particular genome expressed in a specific environment; rarely is this teleological language used without a cautionary note about its use as terms of convenience.
Notice again you talk about success or failure, as Darwinists do, for things which you consider to be forced. Again, success and failure properly belongs to the language about choosing, trying, wanting etc. yet you use it in a force context.
So I should say that an animal is compelled by its hunger, but if it does not eat and therefore starves, I should not call that a failure? So only those activities which are freely willed and chosen can be described in the terms of want, try, fail, succeed? But earlier you described our witnessing of another's actions as revealing, necessarily, only apparent randomness.
Do you then assert that we cannot use the language of choice to describe the actions of another, no matter what our philosophical viewpoint? That does not seem to be the case, since you wish to deny that vocabulary to Darwinists purely on the grounds of their beliefs. In short, your objections seem to be hair-splitting concerns that are internally inconsistent and that trivialize the real debate.
In any case it's not the point to argue about freedom whether or not there is, the point is to show that Darwinists are intellectual enemies of freedom. Enemies of it by perverting the language by equating free behaviour with forced behaviour, denying it, neglecting it etc. etc.
You wish to accuse Darwinists of being enemies of freedom, but you also wish to deny me the opportunity to examine whether or not this freedom exists. Very well, let's assume the freedom you speak of does exist: it must be a very powerful thing, to stand apart from the chains of causality that connect all other events in this world. How can this powerful, almost magical thing, freedom, be threatened or perverted by the word choices of scientists?
As I understand your view, a man is free whether he knows it or not: even if Darwinist indoctrination persuaded a man that all his actions could be accounted for by his genes, his developmental context, and the present environment, he would remain free by your lights, would he not? If the freedom of mind can otherwise elude all the fetters of this world, the language of convenience used by a Darwinist should pose no threat at all.
This is a real issue which you can see in daily life talking to people. Is somebody going to say I shouldn't have done that I made a bad decision, or is somebody going to say this or that made me do it. The Darwinists bend language so much that even saying to decide something becomes to mean the same as being forced to do it by some cause, genetic, environmental, cultural or whatnot. I bet everyone knows these kinds of people, the people that *always* seek a preceding cause for anything anyone does, in stead of saying it's decided, chosen.
Are you claiming that human actions have no cause? That seems a bit odd. "I wonder what made him do that?" we ask, when considering the unexpected behavior of another. In all our arts and sciences we look to the full life, the rich context, to understand the creations and actions of those who came before us. In contemporary politics, we poll a limited number of people with known characteristics in order to gauge the likely disposition of the populace as a whole: this works because human behavior is broadly predictable.
We can have knowledge about probabilities, knowledge does not equate to predictability. If something is more likely to occur it doesn't mean we have more knowledge about it, that is ridiculous.
If we are able accurately to assert that something is more likely to occur, we most definitely have more knowledge about it than if we cannot.
We can have full 100 percent knowledge of a probability, and our knowledge would then be perfect. There is more to know about a 6 sided die then there is to know about a 2 sided coin, more possibilities to know. Yet you would have it that we have less knowledge of the die then the coin, because we can only predict 1/6 what face it ends up compared to 1/2. That is what you said, that predictability is a limit on our knowledge, rather then saying it's a part of our knowledge.
My point was not about the static attributes of an object, but the complex dynamic determinants of an event.
In either case, coin or die, we can increase our ability to predict the outcome by increasing our knowledge of those event factors. If the same coin is flipped by a mechanical lever that always flips the coin from exactly the same position with exactly the same amount of force, into air of exactly the same temperature and humidity, and the coin is seized in exactly the same way at exactly the same point in its trajectory, etc., etc., we can determine the outcome with a high degree of likelihood: the greater our knowledge of those conditions, the greater our precision in predicting the outcome. That this is true can be demonstrated by the excellent performance of modern artillery.
Given complete knowledge of all starting conditions of every coin toss, we could predict with near certainty the results of every toss. The limit of our knowledge is a limit on our ability to predict; our inability to predict the actions of another person has sufficient explanation in that person's complexity and our ignorance. One can posit a magical property by which a person occupies a fantastical realm insulated from the laws of cause and effect that govern all the rest of the universe, but it is not necessary to do so in order to account for that person's actions.
The real linguistic bias is the tendency of language to assert free will and choice in the absence of any evidentiary grounds. We do certainly experience what feels like freedom of choice, but that experiential quality eludes proof as surely as the attempt to prove that the blue I see is the blue you see.
You cannot demonstrate your free will--does your use of the language of choice, then, make you an enemy of truth? I would not say so, but I could make the assertion with the same foundation on which you accuse Darwinists of being enemies of freedom.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Syamsu, posted 10-15-2006 6:56 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by Syamsu, posted 10-15-2006 1:50 PM Omnivorous has replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 7 of 53 (356691)
10-15-2006 1:50 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Omnivorous
10-15-2006 11:55 AM


Re: Determinism and indeterminacy
Well you are just providing more evidence that Darwinists are indeed destroying our knowledge about choice. I'm not really interested in addressing arguments why that might be a good thing to do, I'm only interested in addressing whether they do it or not.
It is not because of lack of knowledge that there is a 1/6 probability, it is because of the equal sides to the die. Startingconditions change nothing about that, over the whole event it still equates to a probability being decided. That you found a way to flip a coin without 1/2 probability is irrellevant. In normal cointosses the result is 1/2 time on average for each side.
regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Omnivorous, posted 10-15-2006 11:55 AM Omnivorous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Omnivorous, posted 10-15-2006 2:37 PM Syamsu has replied

Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 8 of 53 (356694)
10-15-2006 2:37 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Syamsu
10-15-2006 1:50 PM


Re: Determinism and indeterminacy
I'm not really interested in addressing arguments why that might be a good thing to do, I'm only interested in addressing whether they do it or not.
Syamsu, I share your interest in that discussion. In order for that discussion to proceed, I would like to know the specifics of your knowledge of choice--i.e., its source and its particulars--and by what mechanism Darwinists are destroying it.
I am especially interested in how the knowledge of choice is gained and how that knowledge can be destroyed by the verbal behaviors of others. If I must grant all your assumptions about knowledge and choice, then debating your conclusions would be like kissing one's sister--the mechanics would be identical, but the result not very interesting.
Perhaps you could elaborate your conclusions on those points?
It is not because of lack of knowledge that there is a 1/6 probability, it is because of the equal sides to the die. Startingconditions change nothing about that, over the whole event it still equates to a probability being decided. That you found a way to flip a coin without 1/2 probability is irrellevant. In normal cointosses the result is 1/2 time on average for each side.
Yes, we commonly say that all other things being equal, each coin toss has a 50-50 probability of heads or tails. But, in fact, all things are rarely equal. A gifted magician, for example, or a sly gambler, can through practice obtain the heads or tails they desire at will. Practice will yield this facility, as will a weighted or two-headed coin. If we do not know that we are dealing with an adept or a fraud, our predictions will be wildly inaccurate. Indeed, even poorly made dice can yield results strikingly different from the ideal average.
Therefore, we must be quite cautious about proclaiming that all things are, indeed, equal.
For example, you say above, "It is not because of lack of knowledge that there is a 1/6 probability, it is because of the equal sides to the die." Yet in practice we are extremely unlikely, even over thousands of tosses, to find the six faces of the die perfectly represented in the results. That is because the die faces are not precisely equal and the toss is not exactly replicated each time. Also, the die, like the coin, is subject to the machinations of skill and deception. So it is precisely our ignorance that compels us to say that, all other things being equal, the probabilities are such and such. Greater knowledge would allow us greater precision.
Only in thought experiments do we find the perfect results you claim, and our discussion, I think, is about the world of real phenomena. If I know the condition of the die (shaved for advantage or unshaved, weighted off-center or not), and I know the nature of the tosser (skilled or unskilled, honest or crooked, desirous of one outcome rather than another), then my predictions of the outcome will more likely be correct. The greater my knowledge of both initial conditions and the process, the greater my accuracy in predicting the outcome.
I will grant you that in an ideal world where the die are perfect and all men honest and naive, the probabilities are as you claim. Ignorance of the initial conditions and the process of any event, however, surely cannot make us more confident of our predictions about it, else we would be sages at birth and gradually lose all sense.
The young believe that all their future paths hinge on their choices. An older, wiser man has learned that the constraints of this world, both known and unknown, anticipated and unexpected, have as much or more to say about our destinations. Just so, greater knowledge can improve our predictions in both positive and negative ways. The knowledge of complexity and contingency teaches us that in some circumstances outcomes are all but certain, while in others they are so complex and mutivariate as to be unknowable in advance.
So, again, I am acutely interested in your knowledge of choice. How came you by this knowledge?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by Syamsu, posted 10-15-2006 1:50 PM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by Syamsu, posted 10-16-2006 5:16 PM Omnivorous has replied

Trump won 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1240 days)
Posts: 1928
Joined: 01-12-2004


Message 9 of 53 (356716)
10-15-2006 3:59 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Omnivorous
10-14-2006 11:20 PM


Re: Determinism and indeterminacy
quote:
But how does he come by this mind? Was its acquisition random? No, the mind, too, was sorted and sifted out by the grand DNA computation of the ages. The great advantage of individual and social responses that exceed the constraints of instinctive behavior moved the survival arms race out of the pure arena of tooth and claw, speed and strength: a mind that could record and reflect upon past outcomes, that could synthesize novel responses, fueled the evolution of both more powerful minds and their hugely increased power when linked with other minds, past and present: culture.
and
quote:
Yet the mind, too, is subject to the gene-impacting consequences of failures and successes, the same sifting and sorting that removes rabbits too slow to run from the data set; minds that make too many poor choices are the products of genes that are thus less likely to reproduce.
These statements degrade the quality of man for man is but a product. Our actions in a cycle of natural selection become nearly predestined. Our choices are limited as our minds are.
quote:
This, I suppose, is your chaotic Darwinist determinism, though chaotic indeterminacy may be more accurate, if less rhetorical. The rabbit can do no more than respond instinctively, and the responses will be virtually dictated by the stimuli. The mind removes the limiting constraints of instinct--limiting because the great DNA computer is glacially slow--and allows the individual organism and its societies to generate more complex and sometimes novel responses.
Our minds are man's saving grace but...
quote:
Yet the mind, too, is subject to the gene-impacting consequences of failures and successes, the same sifting and sorting that removes rabbits too slow to run from the data set; minds that make too many poor choices are the products of genes that are thus less likely to reproduce
the mind's choices are limited, man's nature is predisposed, we are free in a limited fashion. It is as a prisoner that is free within a prison cell. Sartre says that freedom is man and that there is nothing man cannot do but what is the sense of this if our minds are limited, our choices are limited. We do not have a blank canvas with any possibility but the form of art has already been decided, the way we make our strokes is not an action we are to choose.
Depression sets in as one sees how determined our actions truly are according to Natural selection and according to Hard determinists.
This is why it may be necessary to reject this entirely. I am a libertarian because it is the only philosophy that does not dishearten me, it gives me hope that free will exists.
In this mindset how can you possibly validate or justify your own existence? How can one find purpose in an existence such as the one described?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Omnivorous, posted 10-14-2006 11:20 PM Omnivorous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Omnivorous, posted 10-15-2006 6:21 PM Trump won has replied

Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 10 of 53 (356735)
10-15-2006 6:21 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Trump won
10-15-2006 3:59 PM


Re: Determinism and indeterminacy
Hullo, messenjah of one.
In this mindset how can you possibly validate or justify your own existence? How can one find purpose in an existence such as the one described?
Your comments seem only tangentially on-topic--whether Darwinists are enemies of intellectual freedom--but to reply simply, let me ask: Why should I feel any need to validate or justify my existence? My existence seems as valid and justified as any other, and I want to see things as they are, not as I might wish them to be.
By the way, choosing your philosophy by appeals to consequence seems an ill-considered path.
In this particular case, I especially want Syamsu to elucidate and support his ideas about freedom and knowledge. As things stand, Syamsu asserts that Darwinists are the enemies of intellectual freedom, by which he seems to mean that Darwinists use language subversively, couching a philosophy of determinism in the diction of choice.
Syamsu seems reluctant to examine the grounds for belief in that freedom or the source of his knowledge of it. Thus, I press him with a strong case for determinism in order to elicit the deeper grounds of his assertions. What I believe about my freedom or lack of it is peripheral to his responsibility in the debate to respond to my arguments.

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 Message 9 by Trump won, posted 10-15-2006 3:59 PM Trump won has replied

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 Message 11 by Trump won, posted 10-15-2006 7:05 PM Omnivorous has replied

Trump won 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1240 days)
Posts: 1928
Joined: 01-12-2004


Message 11 of 53 (356747)
10-15-2006 7:05 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Omnivorous
10-15-2006 6:21 PM


Re: Determinism and indeterminacy
Your post that I replied to was one of the best posts I've read.
quote:
whether Darwinists are enemies of intellectual freedom
I believe this is true, but I don't believe this is necessarily wrong (morally). It may be unnatural for a worshipper of reason to be anything other than a hard determinist.
quote:
My existence seems as valid and justified as any other, and I want to see things as they are, not as I might wish them to be.
I am assuming that when you say sight or "to see things" you are referring to truth. You personally find truth within the physical world. Your existence is as valid as any other because one's purpose in life is entirely subjective. Although one can form an argument for utilizing some aspect of their physical traits.
For example: since man has a cognitive ability, man must put this to use. For a man that does not utilize his legs will not walk. This is where one can form an argument for being and a greater purpose of recognizing one's existence.
I am not saying any of this condescendingly. I hope you don't find my terms derogatory whatsoever.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by Omnivorous, posted 10-15-2006 6:21 PM Omnivorous has replied

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 Message 12 by Omnivorous, posted 10-15-2006 8:01 PM Trump won has not replied

Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 12 of 53 (356763)
10-15-2006 8:01 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Trump won
10-15-2006 7:05 PM


Re: Determinism and indeterminacy
Your post that I replied to was one of the best posts I've read.
Thank you. That is a very kind thing to say to an old fogey.
It may be unnatural for a worshipper of reason to be anything other than a hard determinist.
Perhaps, but I am not a worshipper of reason. Reason is a close friend who walks with me where paths of evidence lead. When I go to other places, I go with other friends.
I am not saying any of this condescendingly. I hope you don't find my terms derogatory whatsoever.
Not at all.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Trump won, posted 10-15-2006 7:05 PM Trump won has not replied

JavaMan
Member (Idle past 2319 days)
Posts: 475
From: York, England
Joined: 08-05-2005


Message 13 of 53 (356849)
10-16-2006 11:35 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Syamsu
10-14-2006 7:55 AM


Evolutionary Friends of Freedom
Mohammed, I have a number of questions about your opening post:
1. Freedom, as far as I am aware, means freedom to do what I want. Anything that restricts that, like someone holding a gun to my head, is a restriction of my freedom. Similarly, to me, 'intellectual freedom' means freedom to think and say what I like. Does it mean something else to you? Can you explain to me how a scientific theory restricts my freedom?
2. There is nothing about a deterministic world-view that necessarily precludes free will. All determinism means is that events are linked by an unbroken chain of physical causes. So my free choices, like anything else in this world, have causes. Is there necessarily anything problematic about that? In fact, would you still consider your choices to be your choices if they didn't have causes grounded in your desires and emotions?
3. What gives human beings greater freedom than other animals is a complex brain that allows us to override immediate stimulus-response mechanisms. And ironically it is natural selection that has provided us with that complex brain, selecting for greater 'freedom'. If 'freedom' confers a selective advantage, then doesn't the evolutionary account of human development provide quite an inspiring vision, not at all the clanking, mechanical vision that you seem to observe?

'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

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 Message 1 by Syamsu, posted 10-14-2006 7:55 AM Syamsu has not replied

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 Message 14 by Trump won, posted 10-16-2006 12:44 PM JavaMan has replied

Trump won 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1240 days)
Posts: 1928
Joined: 01-12-2004


Message 14 of 53 (356859)
10-16-2006 12:44 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by JavaMan
10-16-2006 11:35 AM


Re: Evolutionary Friends of Freedom
quote:
There is nothing about a deterministic world-view that necessarily precludes free will.
To the contrary, hard determinism means there are no free actions. By definition, since everything is causally determined; noone acts freely.
quote:
If 'freedom' confers a selective advantage, then doesn't the evolutionary account of human development provide quite an inspiring vision, not at all the clanking, mechanical vision that you seem to observe?
With choices that are endowed only through natural selection, limited through one's environment?
Edited by -messenjah of one, : grammar

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by JavaMan, posted 10-16-2006 11:35 AM JavaMan has replied

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 Message 16 by JavaMan, posted 10-16-2006 5:55 PM Trump won has not replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 15 of 53 (356903)
10-16-2006 5:16 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Omnivorous
10-15-2006 2:37 PM


Re: Determinism and indeterminacy
I suggest you read post 1 again to find out how Darwinists are destroying knowledge about freedom. Go ahead and address that argument, like as if you care about knowledge.
I'm giving you a warning, because you asked a question that I already addressed. I'm sort of moderator in this thread, meaning I can ask for you to be removed from the thread, and they've done it before. I know from experience that if I don't moderate you will ask this question 10 times more, ignoring the argument about it.
As before, throwing the coin another way then normal doesn't prove anything. One can hardly disprove gravity by pogo-sticks jumping up either.
You argue the decision is very close to the startingpoint of the throw, but a decision on a chance it is nevertheless, no matter if it is mainly decided closer to the start, in the middle of the throw, or at the end of it.
That we find the 6 faces not perfectly represented equally in a thousand throws is mainly due to the decisions turning out one way in stead of another. The variation in the results of a normal throw of a normal die proves this explanation in terms of chances getting decided there and then is consistent with the results. That is to say the outcome is decided per event, in stead of that if 6 would turn up a lot of times, that it would be less likely for 6 to turn up again, which is what would be expected if all outcomes were predetermined.
regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Omnivorous, posted 10-15-2006 2:37 PM Omnivorous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by Omnivorous, posted 10-16-2006 8:30 PM Syamsu has replied

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