Life After Death

Off Topic
349

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

There’s a lot in here, but one thing I am not sure about is that empathy either needs to exist or that it actually exists based on a “design” or that empathy needs to serve a “purpose” at all, let alone that the sole purpose of empathy is to benefit the group.

[/quote]

Okay, but that’s a different argument. I was arguing against Severiano’s position that empathy is a purely biological function and that its purpose is to benefit the group. If you want to take a specific position position of what empathy is then I can address that position. My position is that empathy is related to man’s intuitive ability to comprehend lex divina - divine law.

Okay, but that was just a hypothetical example. The point is that self interest and morality are not always aligned. I could sit here all day and come up with scenarios to demonstrate this. Perhaps the simplest example might be to give your life to save someone you love. It would be difficult to argue from an atheistic perspective that dying could ever been in your interests.

See above. From an atheistic perspective it’s impossible to argue that morality and self interest are always aligned - except of course if your ethical system is “rational egoism” which is not a moral system at all.

See above. As I said, I could sit here all day and come up with scenarios in which self interest and morality are not aligned. The only way they could be always aligned is if you believe “rational egoism” is the basis of morality:

Of course rational egoism is not a moral system. It’s how the mind of psychopath works. And there would be no need for empathy in such a system - in fact, empathy would be a hindrance to such a system.

The two things are unrelated. There is no causal relationship between you saving someone’s life and someone else possibly saving your life in some future, hypothetical unrelated incident. Either something is in your interest or it is not. If you are acting out of self interest then you need to understand what that interest is and how you are serving it by doing what you are doing.

Besides, as I said the drowning child is just a hypothetical example to demonstrate the fact that self interest and morality are not always aligned - and that it is not possible for self interest and morality to be always aligned unless your concept of morality is “rational egoism”.

Now if you are arguing that self interest and morality are always aligned then you are arguing for “rational egoism” as your moral philosophy. Now if that is your argument then I agree that you are correct. However, as I stated I do not consider “rational egoism” to be a moral system. It is in fact the very definition of immoral. It’s the mindset of the psychopath.

The arguments I’m making are:

  • That there are objective, moral laws that extrinsic of man

  • That these moral laws can be perceived and understood by man - eg, that we all know that murder and stealing is immoral. Even though many people don’t abide by these laws they are still aware that these laws exist.

  • That empathy is related in some way to the faculties we have to perceive and understand these moral laws.

  • That the existence of these laws implies - but does not prove - the existence of a law giver.

And I’ve also put forward my argument that authentic morality = obeying these moral laws. And further, that obeying these moral laws is often irrational in the sense that there is no earthly reason for us to do so. This is because the real reason for doing so is because it is God’s will that we do so and God’s purpose is unknown to us.

“For my thoughts are not
your thoughts,
neither are your ways my
ways,”
declares the Lord

“As the heavens are higher
than the earth,
so are my ways higher
than your ways
and my thoughts than
your thoughts”

Isaiah 55:8-9

Of course I’m not claiming that anything I’ve proffered here is proof of the existence of God let alone the Abrahamic God. I’m merely explaining what I believe and why which is what the OP was asking about.

350

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
The motivation for behaving ethically is to do God’s will - to obey God. That is the only authentic ethical position.

[/quote]

Ok, so where do I find the correct set of ethical rules handed down by God? The Christian Bible? The Noble Qur’an? The Book of Mormon? It seems like if there’s only one right set of ethics, that are handed down by God, it would be pretty important to pick the right one. How do I choose and how do I know that I’ve chosen correctly?
[/quote]

I’m afraid I can’t answer that for you. But what I can do is advise you to follow that intuitive feeling you have to not murder; not steal etc. As I said, I believe that these fundamental, objective moral laws can be perceived by everyone. Friedrich Jacobi referred to it as one’s “spiritual eye.”

Whether or not that is “enough” and whether you also need scripture is something I cannot answer because I do not know the answer myself.

351

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I’d put it this way: If you base your ethical system on pure rationality it leads to outcomes that we instinctively know are “not right” for want of a better word. You can see this in practice everywhere. I gave an example earlier in the thread of where Stefan Molyneux’s ethical system leads. Another example is Immanuel Kant’s ethical system and the absurd outcomes he gets. Kant’s deontological ethics are well known for their absurdity. Example:
[/quote]

I’d also offer that one of the reasons that its hard to come up with a set of universal moral rules that cover all circumstances is that its hard to come up with a set of universal rules that cover all circumstances. What are the exact set of universal moral rules that you are pointing to that you think give us an objectively correct result under all circumstances? [/quote]

I haven’t made the claim that these intuitive moral laws can come up with the right “answer” in every situation. But they can form a guide; a framework through which you can attempt to deal with difficult ethical decisions. And it’s a guide that I believe “works” to an extent that secular and purely rational ethical systems do not work. Secular, rational ethical systems will always lead to absurd outcomes.

352

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:
… others, we know in our hardwiring and the way we process that it is wrong…
[/quote]
No, absolutely not. There isn’t even a scientific method to define right or wrong, much less prove it. At best you are saying our hard wiring could cause you to feel some semblance of neural activation we give the label “pain” when we see others experiencing similar neural activation. There is no scientific physical quantification of wrong, when you use it, you violate your own principals. There is no scientific reason to call the neural activation we label as “pain” bad or wrong. There is no reason to scientifically ascribe it as wrong and the absence or the activations of other neurons we might label “pleasure” as good or right. And even if you were to rely on your own revelation (which is exactly what religion does) and assert that as true, there are a million counter examples. My legs hurt after a good squat session, but I consider that both good and right. All value judgments are outside the scope of science.

[quote]
Empathy is responsible for, or at least contributed to just about everything worthwhile we have ever done as a species. Society, artwork, music/various entertainment, our sociability as animals, even much of our intelligence is a result of our empathy/ how we are wired, and how we recognize and learn from other people. [/quote]

But without anything but rationality and science, there is no empathy, there is just a chemical reaction that generally explains a mode of behavior. There is also no such thing as “worthwhile” scientifically speaking. There is no reason to value any one state of matter of any other because there is no such thing as value in science. The mona lisa and unprocessed pigments in the plants they come from are equally scientifically “valuable” because scientifically, there is no value.

What this really gets down to is not that you are against god, it’s that you think of yourself as your own God. You claim to create and evaluate what you consider are real property of the universe. The only real difference between you and most main stream religions is that you think your revelations about truth come from yourself.

Go ahead and try. Pick any value judgment. It could be beauty, right, wrong, evil, good, whatever. Explain and define it using ONLY scientific quantization (it would be testable and measurable) and then apply exclusively that definition to your beliefs. It cannot be done rationally. It is necessary by definition both of science and of value that the 2 things are incompatible.[/quote]

Have you read any articles or watched any of the various video’s I’ve posted about the Mirror neuron and Ramachandran’s research or hypothesis?

Science doesn’t make the sort of value judgements we are capable of making on our own. But what it can do is inform us of what normal is.

What science has done is inform us that it is normal for people to feel what other people feel in our own context by seeing what others are experiencing, and this is what is related and in a lot of ways responsible or contributing to the many things we appreciate and enjoy as species as I have already said.

If we know that empathy is normal via hardwiring as a result of us being social, and is directly or indirectly responsible for most things that make us distinctly human, then why not use it to inform us of how we ought to treat one another.

If science can inform us of normality, then what we can do with rationality is figure out what sort of world we want to live in, and want future generations to live in, and that can inform us of how to utilize our environment.

Science itself doesn’t assign value, we do. The thing is we can use science to better understand our nature to ensure we don’t end up using sticks and stones during ww4, and hopefully start creating a future that excludes a potential ww3.

Once people really understand empathy as a matter of fact and hardwiring we realize there are no excuses to be indifferent towards one another.

353

[quote]Severiano wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:
… others, we know in our hardwiring and the way we process that it is wrong…
[/quote]
No, absolutely not. There isn’t even a scientific method to define right or wrong, much less prove it. At best you are saying our hard wiring could cause you to feel some semblance of neural activation we give the label “pain” when we see others experiencing similar neural activation. There is no scientific physical quantification of wrong, when you use it, you violate your own principals. There is no scientific reason to call the neural activation we label as “pain” bad or wrong. There is no reason to scientifically ascribe it as wrong and the absence or the activations of other neurons we might label “pleasure” as good or right. And even if you were to rely on your own revelation (which is exactly what religion does) and assert that as true, there are a million counter examples. My legs hurt after a good squat session, but I consider that both good and right. All value judgments are outside the scope of science.

[quote]
Empathy is responsible for, or at least contributed to just about everything worthwhile we have ever done as a species. Society, artwork, music/various entertainment, our sociability as animals, even much of our intelligence is a result of our empathy/ how we are wired, and how we recognize and learn from other people. [/quote]

But without anything but rationality and science, there is no empathy, there is just a chemical reaction that generally explains a mode of behavior. There is also no such thing as “worthwhile” scientifically speaking. There is no reason to value any one state of matter of any other because there is no such thing as value in science. The mona lisa and unprocessed pigments in the plants they come from are equally scientifically “valuable” because scientifically, there is no value.

What this really gets down to is not that you are against god, it’s that you think of yourself as your own God. You claim to create and evaluate what you consider are real property of the universe. The only real difference between you and most main stream religions is that you think your revelations about truth come from yourself.

Go ahead and try. Pick any value judgment. It could be beauty, right, wrong, evil, good, whatever. Explain and define it using ONLY scientific quantization (it would be testable and measurable) and then apply exclusively that definition to your beliefs. It cannot be done rationally. It is necessary by definition both of science and of value that the 2 things are incompatible.[/quote]

Have you read any articles or watched any of the various video’s I’ve posted about the Mirror neuron and Ramachandran’s research or hypothesis?

Science doesn’t make the sort of value judgements we are capable of making on our own. But what it can do is inform us of what normal is.

What science has done is inform us that it is normal for people to feel what other people feel in our own context by seeing what others are experiencing, and this is what is related and in a lot of ways responsible or contributing to the many things we appreciate and enjoy as species as I have already said.

If we know that empathy is normal via hardwiring as a result of us being social, and is directly or indirectly responsible for most things that make us distinctly human, then why not use it to inform us of how we ought to treat one another.

If science can inform us of normality, then what we can do with rationality is figure out what sort of world we want to live in, and want future generations to live in, and that can inform us of how to utilize our environment.

Science itself doesn’t assign value, we do. The thing is we can use science to better understand our nature to ensure we don’t end up using sticks and stones during ww4, and hopefully start creating a future that excludes a potential ww3.

Once people really understand empathy as a matter of fact and hardwiring we realize there are no excuses to be indifferent towards one another. [/quote]

That is fine, but that isn’t relying only on rationality and throwing out everything but what we KNOW. You are still supernaturally assigning value then using science as a means to achieve those ends. You just want people to be their own gods.

355

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I only know that if there is no divine power, there is no reason to put effort into anything, because all your thoughts are pre-determined chemical reactions devoid of meaning. [/quote]

This is the fallacy of the “consequences of the alternative are too hideous to imagine.” Merely because you believe that the consequences of a lack of a divine power is hideous, that doesn’t make the it any more or less likely that there is, in fact, a divine power.

I am also not sure why you assert that without a divine power all the “chemical reactions” that occur in a human are more “pre-determined” than if an all-powerful divine creator designed all of our attributes and then set things in motion, especially if you take the next step and posit that we are are living out a life that is part of a grand divine plan that is subject to ongoing, divine intervention.
[/quote]

Yes and no. It is true that no sane human could act by the belief, but that isn’t exactly why I disbelieve it. If I believe the there is nothing other than the physical, then that “belief” by its’ own necessity is invalid. It’s like an iron bar rusting in a way that the iron bar reveals some truth about the universe. It is a self-defeating belief. It’s a belief that beliefs don’t really exist. In my opinion, it’s not that it makes it too bad to accept regardless of truth, it’s that the whole thing is at its’ core is a non-answer. It doesn’t answer the question and it doesn’t make coherent sense. I believe in the supernatural not because the other answer is hard to accept, but because it’s the only actual answer I’ve ever heard.

As for the last, there is a difference between the supernatural and the physical. Causation and determination are constraints only of the physical (scientific) universe. If there is a supernatural, the constraints of the physical cannot be said to apply. It’s like the question can god make a rock so big that he can’t lift it. It’s fun to think about, but it’s not a serious obstacle for theology because it’s ultimately a non-sense question. It’s a contradiction only at the semantic level by mistaken assumptions in logic. You cannot talk predestination about a concept believed to be outside of time, the 2 things are incompatible.

357

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Yes and no. It is true that no sane human could act by the belief, but that isn’t exactly why I disbelieve it. If I believe the there is nothing other than the physical, then that “belief” by its’ own necessity is invalid. It’s like an iron bar rusting in a way that the iron bar reveals some truth about the universe. It is a self-defeating belief. It’s a belief that beliefs don’t really exist. In my opinion, it’s not that it makes it too bad to accept regardless of truth, it’s that the whole thing is at its’ core is a non-answer. It doesn’t answer the question and it doesn’t make coherent sense. I believe in the supernatural not because the other answer is hard to accept, but because it’s the only actual answer I’ve ever heard.

As for the last, there is a difference between the supernatural and the physical. Causation and determination are constraints only of the physical (scientific) universe. If there is a supernatural, the constraints of the physical cannot be said to apply. It’s like the question can god make a rock so big that he can’t lift it. It’s fun to think about, but it’s not a serious obstacle for theology because it’s ultimately a non-sense question. It’s a contradiction only at the semantic level by mistaken assumptions in logic. You cannot talk predestination about a concept believed to be outside of time, the 2 things are incompatible.
[/quote]

I do believe that you’re right about that, and it circles back to the part where I wrote about science being the right tool for explaining the “how” but not for explaining the “why.”

And if the supernatural or spirit realm is real - well, that’s obviously going to be outside of what we can conceive of.

Hey Sev, a question for you - even though I hate going back to ghosts and all that, i do feel that if you’re going to be able to find “evidence” for something else going on, there it is… how do you explain

  1. Humanity’s long history of believing in ghosts (pretty much since we could form sentences)

  2. The events themselves, which are many times utterly unexplainable (and again, not boring anyone with stories, but I’ve had that happen, and because they weren’t “Sightings” or senses-related, they can’t be explained away as some… malfunction.)

[/quote]

There is another interesting wrinkle here too. Science assumes the universe is analytical, rational, and consistent. BUT, that isn’t necessarily true. In more modern science there seems to be a lot of discoveries and theories that make more sense if that isn’t explicitly true. There is certainly wiggle room in the laws of the physical universe that allow outside interference without the laws being directly violated. That physical law and observation CANNOT by nature ever truly rule out interference.

It may be possible that the supernatural can impact the natural world and the natural world can remain “consistent” because laws aren’t are bounded, but not explicit. It would also make it so that things like general relativity and quantum can both be true because the universe need not be consistent and unified.

Could you have a supernatural ghost that leaves some print on the natural world without violating what we know about the universe?

358

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I only know that if there is no divine power, there is no reason to put effort into anything, because all your thoughts are pre-determined chemical reactions devoid of meaning. [/quote]

This is the fallacy of the “consequences of the alternative are too hideous to imagine.” Merely because you believe that the consequences of a lack of a divine power is hideous, that doesn’t make the it any more or less likely that there is, in fact, a divine power.

I am also not sure why you assert that without a divine power all the “chemical reactions” that occur in a human are more “pre-determined” than if an all-powerful divine creator designed all of our attributes and then set things in motion, especially if you take the next step and posit that we are are living out a life that is part of a grand divine plan that is subject to ongoing, divine intervention.
[/quote]

Yes and no. It is true that no sane human could act by the belief, but that isn’t exactly why I disbelieve it. If I believe the there is nothing other than the physical, then that “belief” by its’ own necessity is invalid. It’s like an iron bar rusting in a way that the iron bar reveals some truth about the universe. It is a self-defeating belief. It’s a belief that beliefs don’t really exist. In my opinion, it’s not that it makes it too bad to accept regardless of truth, it’s that the whole thing is at its’ core is a non-answer. It doesn’t answer the question and it doesn’t make coherent sense. I believe in the supernatural not because the other answer is hard to accept, but because it’s the only actual answer I’ve ever heard.

As for the last, there is a difference between the supernatural and the physical. Causation and determination are constraints only of the physical (scientific) universe. If there is a supernatural, the constraints of the physical cannot be said to apply. It’s like the question can god make a rock so big that he can’t lift it. It’s fun to think about, but it’s not a serious obstacle for theology because it’s ultimately a non-sense question. It’s a contradiction only at the semantic level by mistaken assumptions in logic. You cannot talk predestination about a concept believed to be outside of time, the 2 things are incompatible.
[/quote]

I appreciate the thoughtful response.

As for the second paragraph, it makes little sense to me to say there is a physical world that follows physical rules, and then dump everything that we can’t currently explain into a “supernatural” relm that has no rules that explains everything else with reference to a divine, all powerful being who just does what he wants for reasons we can’t explain. That doesn’t seem more helpful to me that just admitting we can’t explain things. It just has the cheap feel to it, like when a show brings back a dead character by calling a whole season a dream sequence.

As far as causation and free will goes, if we are all subject to a grand design made by an all powerful grand designer akin to the God of the Christian bible, the concept of “free will” makes little sense to me. He purportedly gave me every attribute I have as well as designed every attribute that there is in the world, pursuant to a grand design, and then he also tossed in “free will” so that I could make choices, based solely on the attributes and characteristics he gave me pursuant to his plan. That feels like a cheap explanation to me as well. If true, I’m a little pissed he didn’t give me better attributes and faculties so that I would be in a position to make better choices.

359

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I’d put it this way: If you base your ethical system on pure rationality it leads to outcomes that we instinctively know are “not right” for want of a better word. You can see this in practice everywhere. I gave an example earlier in the thread of where Stefan Molyneux’s ethical system leads. Another example is Immanuel Kant’s ethical system and the absurd outcomes he gets. Kant’s deontological ethics are well known for their absurdity. Example:
[/quote]

I’d also offer that one of the reasons that its hard to come up with a set of universal moral rules that cover all circumstances is that its hard to come up with a set of universal rules that cover all circumstances. What are the exact set of universal moral rules that you are pointing to that you think give us an objectively correct result under all circumstances? [/quote]

I haven’t made the claim that these intuitive moral laws can come up with the right “answer” in every situation. But they can form a guide; a framework through which you can attempt to deal with difficult ethical decisions. And it’s a guide that I believe “works” to an extent that secular and purely rational ethical systems do not work. Secular, rational ethical systems will always lead to absurd outcomes. [/quote]

It seems a little unfair to claim someone else’s rules don’t work, and then, when asked for the correct set of rules, to not be able to point to them.

360

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

Yes and no. It is true that no sane human could act by the belief, but that isn’t exactly why I disbelieve it. If I believe the there is nothing other than the physical, then that “belief” by its’ own necessity is invalid. It’s like an iron bar rusting in a way that the iron bar reveals some truth about the universe. It is a self-defeating belief. It’s a belief that beliefs don’t really exist.
[/quote]

This is wrong, if you mean it the way you seem to mean it.

Physicalism is not the belief that beliefs do not exist. It is the belief that beliefs–along with everything else–are physical.

That a worldview has logical consequences which, taken to their extremes, could vacate the human motivation to propose and defend it does not logically entail that the worldview is not so (or not not so [yes, that is a triple negative]).

In other words, if physicalism obtains, there is no objective reason for me to say so. But that doesn’t entail that it doesn’t obtain. It simply entails that it, and its obtainment, and my belief in its obtainment, and entailment itself, are physical.*

This is a nightmare for the moral human, and it has its problems–but, then, as I believe you know, the very same can be said of interactive dualism, which is as entangled and incomprehensible as any ontology ever dreamt up.

  • Edited that line to add that entailment is physical under physicalism.
361

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:
… others, we know in our hardwiring and the way we process that it is wrong…
[/quote]
No, absolutely not. There isn’t even a scientific method to define right or wrong, much less prove it. At best you are saying our hard wiring could cause you to feel some semblance of neural activation we give the label “pain” when we see others experiencing similar neural activation. There is no scientific physical quantification of wrong, when you use it, you violate your own principals. There is no scientific reason to call the neural activation we label as “pain” bad or wrong. There is no reason to scientifically ascribe it as wrong and the absence or the activations of other neurons we might label “pleasure” as good or right. And even if you were to rely on your own revelation (which is exactly what religion does) and assert that as true, there are a million counter examples. My legs hurt after a good squat session, but I consider that both good and right. All value judgments are outside the scope of science.

[quote]
Empathy is responsible for, or at least contributed to just about everything worthwhile we have ever done as a species. Society, artwork, music/various entertainment, our sociability as animals, even much of our intelligence is a result of our empathy/ how we are wired, and how we recognize and learn from other people. [/quote]

But without anything but rationality and science, there is no empathy, there is just a chemical reaction that generally explains a mode of behavior. There is also no such thing as “worthwhile” scientifically speaking. There is no reason to value any one state of matter of any other because there is no such thing as value in science. The mona lisa and unprocessed pigments in the plants they come from are equally scientifically “valuable” because scientifically, there is no value.

What this really gets down to is not that you are against god, it’s that you think of yourself as your own God. You claim to create and evaluate what you consider are real property of the universe. The only real difference between you and most main stream religions is that you think your revelations about truth come from yourself.

Go ahead and try. Pick any value judgment. It could be beauty, right, wrong, evil, good, whatever. Explain and define it using ONLY scientific quantization (it would be testable and measurable) and then apply exclusively that definition to your beliefs. It cannot be done rationally. It is necessary by definition both of science and of value that the 2 things are incompatible.[/quote]

Have you read any articles or watched any of the various video’s I’ve posted about the Mirror neuron and Ramachandran’s research or hypothesis?

Science doesn’t make the sort of value judgements we are capable of making on our own. But what it can do is inform us of what normal is.

What science has done is inform us that it is normal for people to feel what other people feel in our own context by seeing what others are experiencing, and this is what is related and in a lot of ways responsible or contributing to the many things we appreciate and enjoy as species as I have already said.

If we know that empathy is normal via hardwiring as a result of us being social, and is directly or indirectly responsible for most things that make us distinctly human, then why not use it to inform us of how we ought to treat one another.

If science can inform us of normality, then what we can do with rationality is figure out what sort of world we want to live in, and want future generations to live in, and that can inform us of how to utilize our environment.

Science itself doesn’t assign value, we do. The thing is we can use science to better understand our nature to ensure we don’t end up using sticks and stones during ww4, and hopefully start creating a future that excludes a potential ww3.

Once people really understand empathy as a matter of fact and hardwiring we realize there are no excuses to be indifferent towards one another. [/quote]

That is fine, but that isn’t relying only on rationality and throwing out everything but what we KNOW. You are still supernaturally assigning value then using science as a means to achieve those ends. You just want people to be their own gods.[/quote]

I don’t actually believe in anything supernatural. I understand supernatural things as things that are not rooted in any reason at all.

If you break your leg, rely on God to fix it. Pray that your flat tire gets fixed.

Vs. Fix the flat tire yourself or take it to a mechanic, or go to the damned ER to get your shit set and casted.

Take your pick. One is rational, the other is… Well you pick a word.

It could very well be that prayer is better than setting a bone and putting it in a cast, it could be that praying will fix your flat tire more efficiently than your own elbow grease or a mechanic.

I’m not rooting that in any reason at all, it’s all supernatural like you say.

It’s also supernatural to even say that having a perfectly functioning leg is better than a broken one, since science cant posit value. Sounds like you are more of a skeptic than I am.

362

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I only know that if there is no divine power, there is no reason to put effort into anything, because all your thoughts are pre-determined chemical reactions devoid of meaning. [/quote]

This is the fallacy of the “consequences of the alternative are too hideous to imagine.” Merely because you believe that the consequences of a lack of a divine power is hideous, that doesn’t make the it any more or less likely that there is, in fact, a divine power.

I am also not sure why you assert that without a divine power all the “chemical reactions” that occur in a human are more “pre-determined” than if an all-powerful divine creator designed all of our attributes and then set things in motion, especially if you take the next step and posit that we are are living out a life that is part of a grand divine plan that is subject to ongoing, divine intervention.
[/quote]

Yes and no. It is true that no sane human could act by the belief, but that isn’t exactly why I disbelieve it. If I believe the there is nothing other than the physical, then that “belief” by its’ own necessity is invalid. It’s like an iron bar rusting in a way that the iron bar reveals some truth about the universe. It is a self-defeating belief. It’s a belief that beliefs don’t really exist. In my opinion, it’s not that it makes it too bad to accept regardless of truth, it’s that the whole thing is at its’ core is a non-answer. It doesn’t answer the question and it doesn’t make coherent sense. I believe in the supernatural not because the other answer is hard to accept, but because it’s the only actual answer I’ve ever heard.

As for the last, there is a difference between the supernatural and the physical. Causation and determination are constraints only of the physical (scientific) universe. If there is a supernatural, the constraints of the physical cannot be said to apply. It’s like the question can god make a rock so big that he can’t lift it. It’s fun to think about, but it’s not a serious obstacle for theology because it’s ultimately a non-sense question. It’s a contradiction only at the semantic level by mistaken assumptions in logic. You cannot talk predestination about a concept believed to be outside of time, the 2 things are incompatible.
[/quote]

I appreciate the thoughtful response.

As for the second paragraph, it makes little sense to me to say there is a physical world that follows physical rules, and then dump everything that we can’t currently explain into a “supernatural” relm that has no rules that explains everything else with reference to a divine, all powerful being who just does what he wants for reasons we can’t explain. That doesn’t seem more helpful to me that just admitting we can’t explain things. It just has the cheap feel to it, like when a show brings back a dead character by calling a whole season a dream sequence.

As far as causation and free will goes, if we are all subject to a grand design made by an all powerful grand designer akin to the God of the Christian bible, the concept of “free will” makes little sense to me. He purportedly gave me every attribute I have as well as designed every attribute that there is in the world, pursuant to a grand design, and then he also tossed in “free will” so that I could make choices, based solely on the attributes and characteristics he gave me pursuant to his plan. That feels like a cheap explanation to me as well. If true, I’m a little pissed he didn’t give me better attributes and faculties so that I would be in a position to make better choices.

[/quote]

Lol. I agree to an extent. But I’m not dumping anything into anything. I’m just following what logically must occur by acknowledging the supernatural. I’m not dumping anything into that realm. And I’m not attempting to quantify what the supernatural is or how it would function, I’m actually the one pointing out that we don’t know. Nor did I ever say it doesn’t have rules, only that something outside the universe isn’t necessarily bound by the rules of the universe and to assume so is invalid logic.

And i agree, its tough to make sense of any of it. Can an all powerful creator make something outside his will?

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[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I only know that if there is no divine power, there is no reason to put effort into anything, because all your thoughts are pre-determined chemical reactions devoid of meaning. [/quote]

This is the fallacy of the “consequences of the alternative are too hideous to imagine.” Merely because you believe that the consequences of a lack of a divine power is hideous, that doesn’t make the it any more or less likely that there is, in fact, a divine power.

I am also not sure why you assert that without a divine power all the “chemical reactions” that occur in a human are more “pre-determined” than if an all-powerful divine creator designed all of our attributes and then set things in motion, especially if you take the next step and posit that we are are living out a life that is part of a grand divine plan that is subject to ongoing, divine intervention.
[/quote]

Yes and no. It is true that no sane human could act by the belief, but that isn’t exactly why I disbelieve it. If I believe the there is nothing other than the physical, then that “belief” by its’ own necessity is invalid. It’s like an iron bar rusting in a way that the iron bar reveals some truth about the universe. It is a self-defeating belief. It’s a belief that beliefs don’t really exist. In my opinion, it’s not that it makes it too bad to accept regardless of truth, it’s that the whole thing is at its’ core is a non-answer. It doesn’t answer the question and it doesn’t make coherent sense. I believe in the supernatural not because the other answer is hard to accept, but because it’s the only actual answer I’ve ever heard.

As for the last, there is a difference between the supernatural and the physical. Causation and determination are constraints only of the physical (scientific) universe. If there is a supernatural, the constraints of the physical cannot be said to apply. It’s like the question can god make a rock so big that he can’t lift it. It’s fun to think about, but it’s not a serious obstacle for theology because it’s ultimately a non-sense question. It’s a contradiction only at the semantic level by mistaken assumptions in logic. You cannot talk predestination about a concept believed to be outside of time, the 2 things are incompatible.
[/quote]

I appreciate the thoughtful response.

As for the second paragraph, it makes little sense to me to say there is a physical world that follows physical rules, and then dump everything that we can’t currently explain into a “supernatural” relm that has no rules that explains everything else with reference to a divine, all powerful being who just does what he wants for reasons we can’t explain. That doesn’t seem more helpful to me that just admitting we can’t explain things. It just has the cheap feel to it, like when a show brings back a dead character by calling a whole season a dream sequence.

As far as causation and free will goes, if we are all subject to a grand design made by an all powerful grand designer akin to the God of the Christian bible, the concept of “free will” makes little sense to me. He purportedly gave me every attribute I have as well as designed every attribute that there is in the world, pursuant to a grand design, and then he also tossed in “free will” so that I could make choices, based solely on the attributes and characteristics he gave me pursuant to his plan. That feels like a cheap explanation to me as well. If true, I’m a little pissed he didn’t give me better attributes and faculties so that I would be in a position to make better choices.

[/quote]

Lol. I agree to an extent. But I’m not dumping anything into anything. I’m just following what logically must occur by acknowledging the supernatural. I’m not dumping anything into that realm. And I’m not attempting to quantify what the supernatural is or how it would function, I’m actually the one pointing out that we don’t know. Nor did I ever say it doesn’t have rules, only that something outside the universe isn’t necessarily bound by the rules of the universe and to assume so is invalid logic.

And i agree, its tough to make sense of any of it. Can an all powerful creator make something outside his will?[/quote]

I didn’t mean to straw man you. I was more making an observation than attacking a claim you were making.

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[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

Yes and no. It is true that no sane human could act by the belief, but that isn’t exactly why I disbelieve it. If I believe the there is nothing other than the physical, then that “belief” by its’ own necessity is invalid. It’s like an iron bar rusting in a way that the iron bar reveals some truth about the universe. It is a self-defeating belief. It’s a belief that beliefs don’t really exist.
[/quote]

This is wrong, if you mean it the way you seem to mean it.

Physicalism is not the belief that beliefs do not exist. It is the belief that beliefs–along with everything else–are physical.

That a worldview has logical consequences which, taken to their extremes, could vacate the human motivation to propose and defend it does not logically entail that the worldview is not so (or not not so [yes, that is a triple negative]).

In other words, if physicalism obtains, there is no objective reason for me to say so. But that doesn’t entail that it doesn’t obtain. It simply entails that it, and its obtainment, and my belief in its obtainment, and entailment itself, are physical.*

This is a nightmare for the moral human, and it has its problems–but, then, as I believe you know, the very same can be said of interactive dualism, which is as entangled and incomprehensible as any ontology ever dreamt up.

  • Edited that line to add that entailment is physical under physicalism.[/quote]

If it is physical, the distinction between neural activity we might call a belief vs. other neural activity is arbitrary. If it is physical it is either completely not a belief, or you must entirely re-write the definition of the word, meaning it’s still not a belief as common usage indicates. A belief or thought is by definition abstract. You are denying the abstract then continue to use words defined as abstract by re-writing the definition. If there is no abstract, there is no belief, there is a physical phenomenon that explains what we arbitrarily label a belief.

I don’t go home to my wife and tell her “you cause a specific chemical reaction in my brain that makes me feel good and explains my general behavior of how I act around you versus others”. I tell her “I love you”, because I mean something entirely different than what is laid out in the first sentence. According to you, love and the consumption of large amounts of chocolate are the same thing. Or even electrodes stimulating certain areas of the brain could be the same thing. Which illustrates the loss of meaning when defined as physical phenomenons.

But even aside from losing any real meaning, you still lose the ability to assert value. So, if the theory is true, truth has no real meaning, AND truth cannot be asserted as better or worse than un-truth or worth pursuing or knowing(Which by the way also has no real definition). So, if true, true has no meaning and it wouldn’t matter if it did. Like I said, it’s a good thought experiment, but it’s a non-answer to the question.

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[quote]Severiano wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:
… others, we know in our hardwiring and the way we process that it is wrong…
[/quote]
No, absolutely not. There isn’t even a scientific method to define right or wrong, much less prove it. At best you are saying our hard wiring could cause you to feel some semblance of neural activation we give the label “pain” when we see others experiencing similar neural activation. There is no scientific physical quantification of wrong, when you use it, you violate your own principals. There is no scientific reason to call the neural activation we label as “pain” bad or wrong. There is no reason to scientifically ascribe it as wrong and the absence or the activations of other neurons we might label “pleasure” as good or right. And even if you were to rely on your own revelation (which is exactly what religion does) and assert that as true, there are a million counter examples. My legs hurt after a good squat session, but I consider that both good and right. All value judgments are outside the scope of science.

lol. not sure where you got any of this. Sounds like you’ve had some bad experience and you’re projecting.

The last part about science I did say, but that is the logical conclusion of your belief in science. I never claimed any such reliance on it. I claim that one is better than the other because I believe in the abstract. You are the one that denies the abstract, you deny yourself the ability to claim any state of matter is better. That is your problem to wrestle with, not mine.

366

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

But even aside from losing any real meaning, you still lose the ability to assert value. So, if the theory is true, truth has no real meaning, AND truth cannot be asserted as better or worse than un-truth or worth pursuing or knowing(Which by the way also has no real definition).[/quote]

Indeed*, and I believe that I communicated exactly this notion in my post.

My point–and perhaps I am arguing against a proposition you’re not offering–is that none of this has got anything whatsoever to do with whether or not all things supervene on the physical. That is, it does not make physicalism wrong. Note that the word “wrong” here is a languistic shortcut to a binary proposition that is perfectly capable of physical supervenience.

*Sort of indeed. It gets much more complicated, and we could probably talk about it for weeks, but I’m accepting that narrative as is for the purposes of this post.

367

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
A belief or thought is by definition abstract. You are denying the abstract…[/quote]

I don’t know what this means, but if by “abstract” you mean “not supervienient on the physical,” you have just overstepped the boundaries of your argument by a leap and a bound

Either that, or you can prove that thought does not supervene in its entirety on the physical brain–in which case you have proved the obtainment of a duality of ontological classes, in which case you are going to be very, very famous.

368

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

But even aside from losing any real meaning, you still lose the ability to assert value. So, if the theory is true, truth has no real meaning, AND truth cannot be asserted as better or worse than un-truth or worth pursuing or knowing(Which by the way also has no real definition).[/quote]

Indeed*, and I believe that I communicated exactly this notion in my post.

My point–and perhaps I am arguing against a proposition you’re not offering–is that none of this has got anything whatsoever to do with whether or not all things supervene on the physical. That is, it does not make physicalism wrong. Note that the word “wrong” here is a languistic shortcut to a binary proposition that is perfectly capable of physical supervenience.

*Sort of indeed. It gets much more complicated, and we could probably talk about it for weeks, but I’m accepting that narrative as is for the purposes of this post.[/quote]

Right. There is or there isn’t a supernatural; the consequences that flow whether there is or isn’t a supernatural are what they are. Bad consequences don’t make the answer to the question “is there a supernatural” any more or less likely.

369

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

But even aside from losing any real meaning, you still lose the ability to assert value. So, if the theory is true, truth has no real meaning, AND truth cannot be asserted as better or worse than un-truth or worth pursuing or knowing(Which by the way also has no real definition).[/quote]

Indeed*, and I believe that I communicated exactly this notion in my post.

My point–and perhaps I am arguing against a proposition you’re not offering–is that none of this has got anything whatsoever to do with whether or not all things supervene on the physical. That is, it does not make physicalism wrong. Note that the word “wrong” here is a languistic shortcut to a binary proposition that is perfectly capable of physical supervenience.

*Sort of indeed. It gets much more complicated, and we could probably talk about it for weeks, but I’m accepting that narrative as is for the purposes of this post.[/quote]

It depends on what you mean by wrong. If I ask “what is truth?”, physicalism tells me the question doesn’t exist. I don’t know if I call that wrong but it can’t be truth since it denies truth as a concept.

370

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
A belief or thought is by definition abstract. You are denying the abstract…[/quote]

I don’t know what this means, but if by “abstract” you mean “not supervienient on the physical,” you have just overstepped the boundaries of your argument by a leap and a bound

Either that, or you can prove that thought does not supervene in its entirety on the physical brain–in which case you have proved the obtainment of a duality of ontological classes, in which case you are going to be very, very famous.[/quote]

I’m talking definitions and usage in language, not proving anything. I’m talking about what the word means, not that any causation is true or false. Convention, not a proof.