I attempted to post this and the next post as a single post, but it did not
appear, twice, so I assume it was because it was so horrendously long. So I
broke it into two smaller posts. This is part 1.
The two posts are based on the "Natural and Supernatural (was Chance and
Selection)" thread, but, since it deals largely with epistemological issues
and social issues, I decided to spin it off from that thread.
I have not been gentle in what follows. The main points made need to be
made as explicitly and as definitely as possible. There is little room for
tip-toeing. Bertvan, of course, is merely a nearly perfect representative
of her type, and therefore her views get the brunt of my criticisms of
irrationality. I could, of course, have cleaned out all references to her
views, or to issues of general rationality as they pertain to her, because
my remarks are *essentially* impersonal; they apply to much of the
irrationality of the world; she just happens to represent it in a kind of
distilled and "crystallized" form.
In the post I'm responding to, Bertvan's systematic and two-year-long
period of misrepresenting evolutionary theory has broadened, as it
frequently has in the past, into misrepresenting naturalism, materialism,
determinism, reason, logic, science, free will, and the present state of
knowledge of the brain and the mind -- all, apparently, for the purpose of
making her own ignorance and thoughtlessness about these topics seem like
an aspect of the metaphysics of human existence, and therefore not a
weakness on her part.
But, *honest* ignorance is not shameful anyway. What is shameful is the
attempt to make it into a claim about the fundamental limits of human
knowledge, and to do so without bothering to substantiate one's claims. She
is like a person who does not understand mechanical things and who claims
that *no one* understands mechanical things, in order to make her lack of
understanding seem to be inherent in human nature rather than merely a
(correctable) weakness in her own knowledge. The stream of Phil. 101
cliches that she habitually regales us with is *way* too much for my
stomach, so I've left quite a number of them untouched. Perhaps others will
want to have a swing at them.
That a person who emphatically *claims* to believe in causally
indeterministic free will can be so nearly *perfectly* mechanical, so
robotically deterministic, in her thinking habits, and almost absolutely
unwilling to learn or to think a single new thought (in over two years that
I know of) is an amazing thing to me, and such a wonderful case of
unwitting irony that I shall probably be using it as an example (without
the name, of course) of perfect unconscious hypocrisy for years to come.
--Chris
Bertvan
Materialists fear we'll sink into to a dark age if people stop believing in
materialism - and especially "chance and selection".
Chris
No. Materialism is a supernaturalist red herring; materialism is incidental
to naturalism. What naturalists are mostly concerned about is the rejection
of the fundamental epistemological premises of science generally: Namely,
that the world of the senses is a real world, that it is causally coherent,
and that the human mind is capable of understanding it (if only within
bounds set by available data and mental or other information processing
capacity) and discovering how it works.
Indeed, in large measure, we already *have* sunk into just such a dark age,
as reason (and therefore science as a method of reason) are progressively
rejected. This is why most children do not get an education that includes
teaching general rational thinking, or general *critical* thinking, or even
the basics of logic. Your own ignorance of the law of identity does not
demonstrate this, but it is illustrative of it. In an educated, civilized
society, no child who had the capacity to understand these topics would
ever reach adulthood *without* understanding them. There would be *no*
adults in normal intellectual discussion who did not understand these
issues. That you not only do not understand these issues but are not even
sufficiently motivated to *learn* to understand them is a consequence of
the supernaturalistic, irrationalist heritage of the West (transmitted to
us mostly by the Church and many of its spin-offs).
Rejection of determinism, is not, *as such,* rejection of reason or proof
of rejection of reason; it may be no more than a conclusion based on
mistaken prior premises, such as the premise that whatever seems "obvious"
should be accepted as true, without bothering to consider whether it *is*
true or not, and without bothering to consider whether there is evidence
against it (after all, if it's obviously true, there cannot be any *need*
to seek out and consider evidence against it, or even to learn how that
might be *done*). The blind acceptance of the "obvious" is just another
form of unthinking faith, and, like other forms, it is *guaranteed* to
produce errors, and *nearly* guaranteed to produce *major* and uncorrected
errors, errors that, if they become dominant, *do* produce a dark age. The
world today is in a kind of twilight zone, between basic rationality and
the depths of a true dark age, and the many forms of faith are driving us
deeper into the darkness. It is not likely that a dark age will come,
because the advent of computers, the Internet, a large world population
(allowing for the production of more *thinking* people and therefore more
intellectual progress), and high technology generally (which frees up much
of the intellectual labor that would otherwise be used almost exclusively
for mere day-to-day making a living) all portend a good future for the
human race generally.
True, some will take advantage of the Internet (as Bertvan and Jones do) to
spread irrational ideas to the unwary and the abnormally naive or unclear
of mind. But, for the same reasons that they do not understand science or
rational philosophical views, they will also not ultimately be as effective
in promoting their views. Ultimately, people like Bertvan will no longer be
able to impose their views on the rest of us, because, while they may, by
political means, technically hold the high offices, they will not be able
to *generally* impose their will on the rest of us. The state-run school
system is already collapsing because it is almost inherently unable to keep
up with educational requirements of modern human living, so it will no
longer matter a great deal, after a certain point, whether the Bertvan-like
people of the world officially hold the reigns of political power (as they
almost exclusively already do, even now).
Bertvan
Professional Darwin
defenders, such as Eugene Scott, travel around the country warning that any
skepticism of "chance and selection" is motivated by religious bigotry.
Chris
In nearly all cases, this is provably true.
Bertvan
On
the other hand, non-materialists sometimes claim society will deteriorate
into immoral barbarism if belief in materialism continues. Neither are
likely to happen.
Belief in materialism was stronger than during the twentieth century than
any time in history. Yet society was more compassionate than ever before.
Slavery, colonialism and racism all lessened dramatically the most
materialistic societies.
Chris
And, I might add, in the most nearly capitalistic countries. Slavery is
based on the anti-capitalistic idea that people do not have the right to
their own bodies and lives -- a belief compatible with socialism,
communism, Nazism, and Fascism, but utterly contrary to the belief in
*individual* rights, which is the premise of true capitalism (as
distinguished from, and opposed to, the mixed economies that have always
been criticized as "capitalistic" when in fact they were, at best, only
semi-capitalistic). Free enterprise requires freedom. Slavery is not
freedom, and is therefore *absolutely* incompatible with free enterprise
capitalism.
Bertvan
A few people have looked to their genes or
traumatic childhood as an excuse for failure, but most people continued to
believe in free will and feel responsible for their own choices. In spite of
their professed belief in determinism, most materialists are probably pretty
moral people, generally behaving as if their actions are the result of their
own free will.
Chris
Possibly because free will is merely one expression of determinism, and
their actions *are* the result of their free will. That their free will,
and the precise nature of how it's used is determined by past events
(including their own past actions), does not obviate it, despite your
attempts to simply *define* the relevant concepts so as to falsify
determinism.
Bertvan
They merely regard their altruistic impulses as the result of
"random mutation and natural selection", rather part of the innate
intelligence of nature, but most materialists behave as though their choices
and actions make a difference in the grand scheme of things.
Chris
You seem, by implication, to be attempting to suggest that *deterministic*
choices, and therefore actions based on them, would *not* make a difference
in the grand scheme of things. Is this a correct understanding of your view?
If it is, I don't see it. Whether our government chose to drop an atomic
bomb on Hiroshima via a deterministic process or an *indeterministic* one
made no difference whatever to the result; it changed the "grand scheme of
things" in human life totally without regard for whether that choice and
action was brought about via deterministic means. Similarly, if I kill
someone, that person is just as dead, *absolutely* without regard for
whether I chose to kill him deterministically or because of an uncaused and
acausal "bolt from the nothing" that would be required by indeterministic
free will.
If you think that performing an action deterministically (i.e., because it
seems like the best thing to do) or choosing it *indeterministically*
(i.e., ultimately, for *no* adequate reason at all) somehow makes a big
difference in the consequences of the action *itself*, (that is, the action
considered aside from *other* behavior that might result from the different
kinds of motivation involved), then, *please*, by all means, tell us what
that difference might be, and how we can *identify* and *confirm* it by
rational means.
If we had dropped the bomb via free will rather than because it seemed
needed, would fewer people have been killed in the initial blast? Would
others have *felt* better for some reason as they died from radiation
damage in the ensuing days and weeks? Just *what* would be the difference
in the consequences of the action of dropping the bomb that would arise
specifically because of choosing to drop it for no (adequate) reason rather
than from reasons that *did* seem adequate to the people involved?
[. . . sound of fingers drumming on a table-top as we all wait while
Bertvan tries to find a way to evade the question . . .]
. . .
*Well*?
Bertvan
Some materialists have mentioned "promising research" into detecting
mechanisms in the brain. Neurologists, biochemists and microbiologists are
doing verifiable research, and that will continue whether or not materialism
is the dominant philosophy.
Chris
No it won't. If modern-day supernaturalism and its concomitant
epistemological subjectivism and intrinsicism become sufficiently dominant,
such science will be banned as illegitimate snooping into "God's business,"
as it has been in the past.
Bertvan
Anything which might result in technology will
continue, regardless of whether materialism remains dominant.
Chris
Again, *no*, not if supernaturalism and its epistemological premises become
sufficiently dominant.
Bertvan
Research into
evolution, sociobiology and psychology is sometimes interesting, if not taken
too seriously. It is often questionable, and rarely verifiable.
Chris
At one time, this was true, especially in sociology, which, even now, lags
behind psychology. But, though large areas of unverified theory still exist
and permeate both fields, psychology (at least) is a genuine science.
Sociology suffers from the tendency to take the behavior of people in a
given culture and at a given time as if it were basic to human nature,
which it often is not. This is one of the major mistakes of sociobiology,
as well, though some elements of it can be salvaged in any case (for one
thing, while *genes* may not dictate human behavior in the way that it
dictates the behavior of other animals, even other primates, the same
global evolutionary mechanisms apply to *culturally* established behavior
as do to *genetically* established behavior, so some of the same results
should be expected -- with the major difference that *learned* behaviors
can, in principle, be changed in a matter of days to decades, whereas
*genetically* based behavior will tend to be more rigid and harder to
correct or improve beyond a rather small amount in such short times).
But, these sciences will not be allowed to become full-fledged sciences if
the epistemology and metaphysics of supernaturalism are able to become
sufficiently dominant.
Bertvan
At
universities such research usually undertaken to teach students science, and
also because professors yearn for something more interesting and important to
do than teach. It is great fun to sit around and speculate about how
evolution might have happened, or why people behave and think as they do.
Chris
Are we to understand that that is what you think mostly goes on in
university psychological and social research? I have no doubt that most
university science departments are not nearly as consistently scientific as
their public image and published papers would make them appear to be, but
the idea that they mostly just sit around and have fun speculating
indicates that you are out of touch with at least most universities.
Bertvan
Especially when a bunch of degrees to your credit occasionally persuade
people to take your speculations seriously. At the NIMH, research is probably
done merely because they have been given the money, and have to spend it
somehow. If evolutionists continue to announce that everyone skeptical of
their precious "chance and selection" is a religion bigot,
Chris
Again, as your own bigotry suggests (but, of course, does not prove), this
is very nearly absolutely true. The bigotry of Behe and Dembski and Johnson
is also illustrative of this unfortunate fact.
[Continued in next post]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Dec 26 2000 - 19:09:15 EST