Yes, it does work. Can humans misuse its discoveries for destructive purposes? Sure. Does that falsify science as the best method we have for uncovering the truth about how the world works? No.
This is a slam on attempts to use science to ground morality. Science works just as well killing people as it does curing them and is therefore amoral.
The same can be said of faith and religion.
What very few people “get” is, there are good people and there are bad people. Good Christians and bad ones. Good atheists and bad ones, etc.
Why are people so caught up on this “Us vs. Them” mentality?
“Why are people so caught up on this “Us vs. Them” mentality?”
My statement is about how science has nothing to say about what is right or wrong (though tons of stuff to say about how to best achieve what you have concluded is right or wrong). I am not calling scientists or atheists immoral. Many atheists and theists recognize the fact that science cannot properly ground morality. This is not an “us vs. them” situation as much as it is a dispute over the boundaries of science that both atheists and theists are discussing together.
Though there are many people out there who really are caught up in this “us vs. them” mentality. If you were simply making a general statement about them and not one specifically addressing cl’s post or my comment I totally agree with you.
“The same can be said of faith and religion.”
That’s definitely true. I have reservations about being able to logically ground morality in God’s nature (and I’m a theist). Science is amoral because you can’t empirically test whether a proposition is morally good. Discussions about the nature of morality (or metaethics) leave the epistemic limits of science while philosophy (including religious philosophy) is open to discussing things that cannot be empirically tested. In other words, science itself doesn’t care what is morally right or wrong, the terms themselves are meaningless on science alone, which is why I said, “Science works just as well killing people as it does curing them and is therefore amoral.”
When I saw this, what came to mind was something I heard on an “Unbelievable” ( a very good radio show in Britain) — a Christian David Robertson, talking about the limits of science said science shows us how to split the atom, not whether to create an atomic bomb.
Now now. Let’s all remember. When it comes to science, we’re supposed to ignore the failed promises of science and the way it’s used for evil and focus only on how it’s used for good. When it comes to religion, we’re supposed to ignore all the ways it’s used for good and only think about the ways it’s used for evil.
This post was originally meant to serve two purposes. The first, as apologianick seems to have caught onto, was to make parody of those who tout the cherrypicked maxim, “Science: It Works!” as some sort of defeater for other ways of knowing. The second was to serve as a sort of Rorschach test. I was genuinely interested in seeing how different people would react to the post.
dguller,
Does that falsify science as the best method we have for uncovering the truth about how the world works? No.
Well, I suppose this all depends on one’s definition of “best,” doesn’t it? Is it really the “best” method if it’s brought us to the verge of extinction? Is it really the “best” method if the ancient Greeks reasoned their way to the atom? By “best” do you allude only to the successes of science, or, does your definition of “best” also acknowledge the fact that science has failed miserably in many areas? Further, how do you quantify these things to arrive at your conclusion?
Matt,
This is a slam on attempts to use science to ground morality.
Actually, it wasn’t, though I do not think science should be the arbiter of morality. Makes sense, though; I could see how you came to that conclusion, especially given the recent post on doughnuts and red curbs.
I also concur with you re Pigliucci.
therealadaam,
What very few people “get” is, there are good people and there are bad people. Good Christians and bad ones. Good atheists and bad ones, etc.
Speaking only for myself, I get this.
Why are people so caught up on this “Us vs. Them” mentality?
In the event you were alluding to me because of this post, that’s not it at all. I actually disagree with those who take an “us vs. them” approach to science and religion–or most anything for that matter. Of course, exceptions exist.
Ana,
Thanks for the tip; I’ll check that out when I find myself some time.. :)
apologianick,
When it comes to science, we’re supposed to ignore the failed promises of science and the way it’s used for evil and focus only on how it’s used for good. When it comes to religion, we’re supposed to ignore all the ways it’s used for good and only think about the ways it’s used for evil.
>> Well, I suppose this all depends on one’s definition of “best,” doesn’t it? Is it really the “best” method if it’s brought us to the verge of extinction?
Yes, it is. I said it is the best method at uncovering the truth of how the world works. Does that imply that that knowledge will always be used for good? No. I mean, if I said that Boston Pizza is the best pizza in terms of flavor, then it makes no sense for you to say, “Well, is it still the best if someone chokes on it, and dies?!” It is still the best at what I said it would do, which does not mean that it has to be the best in every sense of the word and in every single situation.
>> Is it really the “best” method if the ancient Greeks reasoned their way to the atom?
Yes, because they also reasoned their way to everything being made of water and fire, as well. When all they had were arguments, the issue was inconclusive. It was when the scientific method was applied that clarity occurred and now, no-one doubts the existence of atoms (I hope).
>> By “best” do you allude only to the successes of science, or, does your definition of “best” also acknowledge the fact that science has failed miserably in many areas?
I refer to Winston Churchill: “Democracy is the worst form of government there is, except for all the others”. I would say the same for science. It is imperfect, has flaws, is often erroneous, and used for ill ends. It is still the best form of knowing the world that we have.
>> Further, how do you quantify these things to arrive at your conclusion?
By the tremendous explosion of knowledge about the natural world that occurred in the last few centuries as a result of the systematic use of the scientific method.
Seriously, describe an alternative way of knowing the world that has a greater chance of success than science. I am all ears.
I would just like to state that I am not a “hater” when it comes to science. I’m a “hater” when it comes to scientism.
dguller,
Yes, because they also reasoned their way to everything being made of water and fire, as well.
Did not scientists reason their way to all sorts of false things, from the static universe to cathode rays?
By the tremendous explosion of knowledge about the natural world that occurred in the last few centuries as a result of the systematic use of the scientific method.
How much of that is real knowledge, and how much of it is utter nonsense?
Seriously, describe an alternative way of knowing the world that has a greater chance of success than science.
If the God of the Bible is real, would you agree that revelation from such a God would trump science, hands down?
>> Did not scientists reason their way to all sorts of false things, from the static universe to cathode rays?
No, they didn’t. They collected empirical data, ran experiments, tested hypotheses, and so on. They did the hard work of science, and not armchair philosophizing. That is how you resolve a controversy, and why no-one doubts whether atoms exist or not.
>> How much of that is real knowledge, and how much of it is utter nonsense?
Pick up any textbook of biology, chemistry, physics, archeology, geology, mechanics, and so on, and compare it to any ancient or medieval textbooks, and you can compare which is more correct. I mean, are you really saying that the ancients and medievals understood the natural world better than contemporary scientists? What ancient and medieval scientific theories do you prefer to modern scientific theories?
And even if most scientific hypotheses are ultimately falsified and rejected as untrue, the point is that there is an in-built mechanism to weed them out. Prior to the modern scientific enterprise, this just did not exist. It was more about influential and charismatic thinkers developing schools of thought (e.g. Galen, Ptolemy) that held sway for centuries without much room for corrective feedback. There are no Einsteinians versus Newtonians today. There are just physicists.
>> If the God of the Bible is real, would you agree that revelation from such a God would trump science, hands down?
Not really, because even a revelation from such a God would have to be filtered through contemporary scientific knowledge to determine whether it should be interpreted literally or figuratively.
One of the great errors of thinking is to take one body of knowledge and use it on all the other bodies of knowledge.
Science is the best form of study we have….at determining scientific truth. It’s not good for moral, philosophical, or theological truth. It also won’t work with literary truth, mathematical truth, etc. Even in science there’s division. If you want to study the life of a plant, do you go to a biologist or a physicist?
>> Science is the best form of study we have….at determining scientific truth. It’s not good for moral, philosophical, or theological truth. It also won’t work with literary truth, mathematical truth, etc. Even in science there’s division. If you want to study the life of a plant, do you go to a biologist or a physicist?
If moral, philosophical or theological claims have an impact on the empirical world, then science must be involved to test whether the phenomenon in question occurred by chance, fraud, bias, or genuinely.
For example, if one issues a moral claim that doing X will lead to a better life, then science can study those who do X and those who do not do X, and compare them in terms of quality of life, happiness, longevity, senses of meaning and purpose, and so on. If we cannot do that, then how do we know if any moral claim is actually good for us?
Now, if you want to utter claims that do not impact the empirical world at all, then I would agree that science is pretty useless in that regard. So, if you want to debate whether God’s power or mercy is primary in his essence, or whatever, then science will not help at all.
And if you want to study the life of a plant, then you have to realize that there are different levels of explanation, each bringing something important to our understanding, and so I would say that you should use biology, chemistry and physics, and whatever else you think is applicable. There is no single scientific discipline that all scientific knowledge can be reduced to, because of emergent properties, for example.
If moral, philosophical or theological claims have an impact on the empirical world, then science must be involved to test whether the phenomenon in question occurred by chance, fraud, bias, or genuinely.
Reply: Insofar as it is part of the material world. Of course, that would depend on what you mean by the natural world. Triangularity is a phenomenon whereby an enclosed figure has three sides. Is that natural? Is it the role of the scientist to study a triangle?
Dguller: For example, if one issues a moral claim that doing X will lead to a better life, then science can study those who do X and those who do not do X, and compare them in terms of quality of life, happiness, longevity, senses of meaning and purpose, and so on. If we cannot do that, then how do we know if any moral claim is actually good for us?
Reply: Let’s look at a few terms in there.
Quality of life.
Happiness
Meaning.
Purpose.
Moral.
Good.
Where do you get the understanding of all of these from? That’s right. Philosophy. Science can inform philosophy but it does not discover it. After all, a lot of college students could say wanton sex, drugs, drinking, cheating on tests, etc. lead to happiness for them.
Dguller: Now, if you want to utter claims that do not impact the empirical world at all, then I would agree that science is pretty useless in that regard. So, if you want to debate whether God’s power or mercy is primary in his essence, or whatever, then science will not help at all.
Reply: Science cannot tell you that, but that does relate to the empirical world. After all, my reasons for believing in God’s existence are empirical. They start with sense experience and go from there.
Dguller: And if you want to study the life of a plant, then you have to realize that there are different levels of explanation, each bringing something important to our understanding, and so I would say that you should use biology, chemistry and physics, and whatever else you think is applicable. There is no single scientific discipline that all scientific knowledge can be reduced to, because of emergent properties, for example.
Reply: But there are primary ones. A botanist can tell you more about the plant than the physicist can. The botanist specializes in matter insofar as it relates to plants. Physicists study matter insofar as it is in motion. Biologists study it insofar as it is connected to something living.
I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been steadily plugging away on the NDE posts. I’ve not forgot. As far as our conversation here is concerned…
Don’t you find it ironic that the “armchair philosophizing” you denigrate birthed the science you praise?
Your answer to that question aside, I’d like to draw an analogy from the battlefield to hopefully illustrate my larger point here. Is the best military strategy simply the one most successful at killing the enemy soldiers? Or, is it the one that is most successful at killing enemy soldiers while minimizing collateral damage? Which would you say?
No, they didn’t.
Yes, they did. You can use empirical data, experiments and hypotheses, and still reason your way to false conclusions. Scientists do this all the time. Would you agree?
I mean, are you really saying that the ancients and medievals understood the natural world better than contemporary scientists?
No. I asked, How much of that is real knowledge, and how much of it is utter nonsense?
…even if most scientific hypotheses are ultimately falsified and rejected as untrue, the point is that there is an in-built mechanism to weed them out.
Was that ever being contested?
There are no Einsteinians versus Newtonians today. There are just physicists.
While I’m not sure what that claim was meant to demonstrate, it is certainly false. Just as there were “Einsteinians versus Newtonians” in ages past, there are “Copenhagen-ists versus Ensemble-ists” today, as just one example.
Not really, because even a revelation from such a God would have to be filtered through contemporary scientific knowledge to determine whether it should be interpreted literally or figuratively.
How could less-than-omnipotent, created human beings possibly be more reliable than an omnipotent Creator? Surely you’re not making that claim–are you?
If we cannot do that, then how do we know if any moral claim is actually good for us? [to apologianick]
Do we really need science to tell us that being a gang member leads, overall, to decrease in the quality of life for oneself and others? I mean, as much as I’m a fan of the whole “question everything” concept, can’t we take certain things as givens? Do we really need to ask the people in white robes for everything?
>> Insofar as it is part of the material world. Of course, that would depend on what you mean by the natural world. Triangularity is a phenomenon whereby an enclosed figure has three sides. Is that natural? Is it the role of the scientist to study a triangle?
A triangle is natural, because it occurs in nature. However, a mathematical perfect triangle is not natural, because it does not exist in nature due to the properties of atoms’ mobility even in a solid structure.
>> Where do you get the understanding of all of these from? That’s right. Philosophy. Science can inform philosophy but it does not discover it. After all, a lot of college students could say wanton sex, drugs, drinking, cheating on tests, etc. lead to happiness for them.
Really? I get my understanding of happiness from philosophy? I actually get my understanding of happiness by my experience of it, as well as the conditions under which it occurs. And really, it does not matter where these ideas come from. If they impact the empirical world, and they do, then they can be studied scientifically. I mean, it does not matter if a scientist comes up with a hypothesis in a dream or a vision, as long as it ultimately holds up when tested in the world.
>> Science cannot tell you that, but that does relate to the empirical world. After all, my reasons for believing in God’s existence are empirical. They start with sense experience and go from there.
I would love to hear your reasons from the empirical world.
>> But there are primary ones. A botanist can tell you more about the plant than the physicist can. The botanist specializes in matter insofar as it relates to plants. Physicists study matter insofar as it is in motion. Biologists study it insofar as it is connected to something living.
And their expertise can all inform one another. This is not a zero sum game, but a concerted effort to understand as many aspects of the world as possible from as many different perspectives. But you are correct that some scientists specialize in a particular area of the natural world, and attempt to synthesize data from other disciplines to better understand their specific subject matter. So, fair enough.
>> Don’t you find it ironic that the “armchair philosophizing” you denigrate birthed the science you praise?
Not at all. The origin of something is historically interesting, but does not validate or invalidate it, as far as I am concerned. Do you find it ironic that monotheism was born in a polytheistic ancient world?
>> Is the best military strategy simply the one most successful at killing the enemy soldiers? Or, is it the one that is most successful at killing enemy soldiers while minimizing collateral damage? Which would you say?
The latter.
>> Yes, they did. You can use empirical data, experiments and hypotheses, and still reason your way to false conclusions. Scientists do this all the time. Would you agree?
Absolutely. But they are usually weeded out by other scientists. That is what peer review, critical appraisal, and repeated studies are for. And my point still stands that corrections were made once they began to interrogate the empirical world rather than ponder its imagined characteristics in an ivory tower. This does not imply that they do not use reason, but that they marry reason with empiricism to maximize their effects.
>> No. I asked, How much of that is real knowledge, and how much of it is utter nonsense?
Are you asking me what percentage of current scientific thinking is real versus nonsense?
And are you making the claim that ancient scientific knowledge was superior to contemporary scientific knowledge? If you are not, then what are we arguing about exactly?
>> While I’m not sure what that claim was meant to demonstrate, it is certainly false. Just as there were “Einsteinians versus Newtonians” in ages past, there are “Copenhagen-ists versus Ensemble-ists” today, as just one example.
I never said that there never were Einsteinians versus Newtonians, but only that there aren’t anymore, because the empirical findings confirmed Einstein’s theories of relativity. The problem with QM is that there are no empirical findings that can confirm one interpretation over another. There is just a standstill. So, I suppose you are right that there are camps right now, but only when the empirical evidence is insufficient to decide an issue.
>> How could less-than-omnipotent, created human beings possibly be more reliable than an omnipotent Creator? Surely you’re not making that claim–are you?
No, I am making a factual claim. If a human being receives a divine message, which is corroborated as divine, then that message must be interpreted. God is speaking in words presumably, and words can have multiple meanings. They can be taken literally or figuratively, for example. How does one decide which of a number of interpretations is the correct one? Well, one way is to look for logical consistency, and another is to look for an interpretation that does not violate known scientific laws or principles. And so on. That’s all I meant. Even divine commands must be filtered through our finite linguistic and cognitive processes with all the limitations and distortions that entails.
>> Do we really need science to tell us that being a gang member leads, overall, to decrease in the quality of life for oneself and others? I mean, as much as I’m a fan of the whole “question everything” concept, can’t we take certain things as givens? Do we really need to ask the people in white robes for everything?
Let us take your gang member example. I would say that it is obvious, but that does not mean it is true. It would be better to study it, quantify the risk factors, the relative decrease in quality of life, increased mortality, increased mental illness, substance abuse, and so on, to better understand it in order to reverse it. It is easy to say that it is bad, but how bad is it for the individuals and their families and society at large, and how does it compare in terms of negative impact to other societal problems? After all, with limited resources available, it might be important to rank the most important social factors that have the worst quality of life impact, no?
It is just laziness to say that because something makes sense to me, then it must be true, and scientists are wasting their time studying it. Your beliefs may be biased, based on a limited sample, anecdotal, based on stereotypes, and so on. Until it is studied objectively, we really do not know, and it is not a matter of radical skepticism. There are a number of popular beliefs that are actually completely false once studied scientifically. For example, there is a popular belief that in basketball, you give the ball to the player with the hot hand. Statistical analysis has showed that the hot hand phenomenon is actually not real, but only a lucky streak of chance.
So, it is about getting as accurate a representation of the world as possible, which requires study, and not just going by personal intuition.
Dguller: A triangle is natural, because it occurs in nature. However, a mathematical perfect triangle is not natural, because it does not exist in nature due to the properties of atoms’ mobility even in a solid structure.
Reply: A triangle does, but does triangularity depend on matter for its existence or not?
Dguller: Really? I get my understanding of happiness from philosophy? I actually get my understanding of happiness by my experience of it, as well as the conditions under which it occurs.
Reply: Correct. Your experience tells you that something is good, but that concept of goodness does not come from science. If it does, can you tell me the material properties of goodness? What scientific experiments have been done on goodness?
Can you give me the scientific definition of happiness? What experiments were done to determine what happiness is?
Dguller: And really, it does not matter where these ideas come from. If they impact the empirical world, and they do, then they can be studied scientifically. I mean, it does not matter if a scientist comes up with a hypothesis in a dream or a vision, as long as it ultimately holds up when tested in the world.
Reply: Correct in that the origin of the idea does not affect the truth of the idea. We’re not talking about truth however. We’re talking about if science is the deciding ground here and it isn’t because what is under discussion is not a scientific matter.
Dguller: I would love to hear your reasons from the empirical world.
Reply: They’re the five ways of Aquinas. As a Thomist, I affirm all of them.
Dguller: And their expertise can all inform one another. This is not a zero sum game, but a concerted effort to understand as many aspects of the world as possible from as many different perspectives. But you are correct that some scientists specialize in a particular area of the natural world, and attempt to synthesize data from other disciplines to better understand their specific subject matter. So, fair enough.
Reply: No problem there. Science can inform philosophy some on morality, but it is not the final determining grounds because something like goodness is the study of ethics and the study of philosophy.
I think that science is the best way to determine what things are made of and how they move. It is also a great resource for philosophers to discuss the implications of what things are made of and how they move. I don’t necessarily see science as distinct from philosophy though because science itself is an epistemology, probably the most reliable epistemology when it comes to studying what I mentioned earlier.
That being said I think one of the reasons science is so successful is because it limits itself. There really are issues that are purely philosophical -even in the realm of metaphysics!- and science avoids those to stick with things that are testable. Science does work because it only takes on challenges that fit it.
As far as what science doesn’t do, here’s a quote from physicist Robert Piccioni (son of Oreste Piccioni): “Look to science to learn the distance to the Sun, the age of the Earth, and the age of the universe. But science cannot measure or compute the purpose of life or the moral principles that should guide our lives.” http://www.guidetothecosmos.com/acclife.html
I’d like to comment on a few of the things you said to apologianick…
A triangle is natural, because it occurs in nature.
So then, is a spirit natural, if it occurs in nature? Or, is there more to your definition than “occurs in nature?” The whole, “natural vs. supernatural” trope has always intriuged me.
I actually get my understanding of happiness by my experience of it, as well as the conditions under which it occurs.
This brings up an interesting issue. It seems to me that you’re willing to trust your own experience for phenomenon X, yet, not so much the experiences of others for phenomenon Y. Why is that? Can you articulate the deciding principle? Moreover, if you get your understanding of happiness via experience, then, haven’t you just identified something else we don’t really need science for?
As for your replies to me:
Not at all.
Really? You don’t see even a lick of irony in denigrating “armchair philosophizing,” when in fact it gave birth to science? I find that hard to believe.
Do you find it ironic that monotheism was born in a polytheistic ancient world?
No, because I don’t denigrate polytheism.
The latter.
There, we agree. Would you also agree that science has entailed more collateral damage in a mere hundred years than all the “armchair philosophizing” of the previous thousands of years combined?
Absolutely. But they are usually weeded out by other scientists.
Again, though, that was never a point of contention. I simply meant to point out that science suffers from many if not all of the same flaws as philosophy, precisely because science is an extension of philosophy. At the end of the day, we still have fallible human beings drawing conclusions. Philosophy has a system of checks and balances, too.
And are you making the claim that ancient scientific knowledge was superior to contemporary scientific knowledge? If you are not, then what are we arguing about exactly?
You sustained your claim that science was the “best” method on account of, the tremendous explosion of knowledge about the natural world that occurred in the last few centuries as a result of the systematic use of the scientific method. I’ve challenged that by questioning how much is really “knowledge,” since so much of it–perhaps even the majority–has turned out to be false.
It would be better to study it, quantify the risk factors, the relative decrease in quality of life, increased mortality, increased mental illness, substance abuse, and so on, to better understand it in order to reverse it. It is easy to say that it is bad, but how bad is it for the individuals and their families and society at large, and how does it compare in terms of negative impact to other societal problems? After all, with limited resources available, it might be important to rank the most important social factors that have the worst quality of life impact, no?
I disagree. With limited resources available, we should not be wasting money on the obvious, or those things that don’t directly improve the quality of life. I think science wastes tons of money in this regard. As far as improving the quality of people’s lives in the real world, knowing the number of exoplanets or the gaseous composition of Jupiter just doesn’t seem that important. All that money could have been used to directly feed the starving, study cancer, or help fight crime. Satisfying the curiosities of the intellectual elite should not come at the expense of the common man and woman.
It is just laziness to say that because something makes sense to me, then it must be true, and scientists are wasting their time studying it.
I disagree. Like I said, certain things aren’t worth wasting tons of money studying. You seem to imply that we need science to know that being a criminal entails collateral damage to society. I disagree.
Although, this brings up an interesting dilemma: let’s say that repeated scientific experiments validated the claim that being a criminal was actually beneficial to society. Would you side with them? Or, would you go by your own intuition and experience in that regard?
>> A triangle does, but does triangularity depend on matter for its existence or not?
I am not sure, but my intuition would say, no, it does not.
>> Correct. Your experience tells you that something is good, but that concept of goodness does not come from science. If it does, can you tell me the material properties of goodness? What scientific experiments have been done on goodness?
Okay, here is a better way of looking at it. We all have visual experiences, right? And because of our vision, we are capable of seeing things. Science can extend our vision with telescopes and microscopes, for example. It can also explain how we can have visual experiences at all. So, it starts with something that we all experience, and then can deepen our understanding of it, and even extend its scope.
I see no reason why morality should be different. We all have our conceptions of what goodness and morality is, and our conceptions are complicated messes of contradictory values that we have picked up intuitively, by osmosis of our culture, and by our personal reasoning. So, we have this tangled web of values that we believe are good.
What should we do about this? I say to let science study these values to see if we actually do value them on the basis of our actions, and maybe even determine which values are the most important to our well-being, and so on. I do not see this as inherently impossible.
>> No problem there. Science can inform philosophy some on morality, but it is not the final determining grounds because something like goodness is the study of ethics and the study of philosophy.
Science can study how behaving according to different conceptions of goodness actually plays out in the world. Some conceptions of goodness and morality may actually end up increasing the amount of suffering in a group of people. I think that this would be important to know in terms of deciding how to live.
And how does ethics and philosophy help us to decide how to live? Can you give me an example of an ethical dilemma that philosophy can help resolve, and how does it do so?
Dguller:I am not sure, but my intuition would say, no, it does not.
Reply: You are absolutely correct. To demonstrate this, imagine if all of the triangles in the world disappeared. Could you tell me what a triangle is still? You can answer that by asking me if you can tell me what a unicorn is also.
However, does that mean triangularity is natural or not? (I also have a problem with the natural/supernatural distinction) Is a triangle a natural instantiation of that which is not natural? If it is not natural, what is it and how is it explained?
Dguller: Okay, here is a better way of looking at it. We all have visual experiences, right? And because of our vision, we are capable of seeing things. Science can extend our vision with telescopes and microscopes, for example. It can also explain how we can have visual experiences at all. So, it starts with something that we all experience, and then can deepen our understanding of it, and even extend its scope.
Reply: Agree entirely thus far.
Dguller: I see no reason why morality should be different. We all have our conceptions of what goodness and morality is, and our conceptions are complicated messes of contradictory values that we have picked up intuitively, by osmosis of our culture, and by our personal reasoning. So, we have this tangled web of values that we believe are good.
Reply: Disagree here. I do not believe in values. Values are subjective. You value X. I value Y. I’m wanting to know about the thing itself. Science cannot tell me if X is good because good is not a material property. It cannot tell me the same about actions depending on what those are.
Now you say there are contradictory ideas of what is good. Okay. What follows? Can two contradictory propositions be true? I’m a theist. I believe God exists. It seems to me thus far you’re an atheist. You would then believe God doesn’t exist. Can we both be right?
Now I believe we can have different ideas of morality, but those ideas are informed by our senses but not determined by our senses since there’s something else going on.
Let’s suppose I go to a pound and I see several dogs. I see large dogs, small dogs, and medium sized dogs. I see brown dogs, white dogs, black dogs, etc. I see all different breeds. Somehow, I deduce from what my senses inform me that there is a class of beings called dogs and even though every being I saw was different, all was a dog, whereas if I saw a four-legged animal that said “Meow” that would not be a dog because it would not possess some quality that all dogs possess.
The form of dogness I would argue is not material but is instantiated in matter and the idea I have of it in my mind is not material or else my mind would become a dog everytime.
Dguller:What should we do about this? I say to let science study these values to see if we actually do value them on the basis of our actions, and maybe even determine which values are the most important to our well-being, and so on. I do not see this as inherently impossible.
Reply: But that’s presupposing the meaning of the values which science cannot do. Science cannot tell you what goodness is since good is not a material property any more than it can tell you what triangularity is.
Dguller: Science can study how behaving according to different conceptions of goodness actually plays out in the world. Some conceptions of goodness and morality may actually end up increasing the amount of suffering in a group of people. I think that this would be important to know in terms of deciding how to live.
Reply: Which assumes suffering is not good. Is this always the case? I had a lot of suffering when I was fifteen with several people using a knife on me while I was under the influence of a chemical substance.
You say “That’s terrible!”
Well it is until I tell you that I was having back surgery while under anesthesia. The people with knives were surgeons. Was such suffering evil?
Meanwhile, the college students have wanton sex, boozing, cheating on tests, sponging off of their parents, and they think they’re having a good time. Is that good?
But now you’re going to say some pleasure isn’t good and some suffering isn’t evil. By what criteria?
Dguller:And how does ethics and philosophy help us to decide how to live? Can you give me an example of an ethical dilemma that philosophy can help resolve, and how does it do so?
Reply: I would point to something like abortion as an example. When I know what human life is and know that it is good by what it is rather than by what role it plays, in other words, intrinsically good rather than instrumentally good, I know that it ought to be preserved. When science informs us by stating that human life begins at conception, then by knowing what a human is and that life is good, then I know that I ought not to abort a child.
>> So then, is a spirit natural, if it occurs in nature? Or, is there more to your definition than “occurs in nature?” The whole, “natural vs. supernatural” trope has always intriuged me.
Yes, it is natural if it occurs in nature. Now, tell me what a “spirit” is, and how it manifests itself in the natural world.
>> It seems to me that you’re willing to trust your own experience for phenomenon X, yet, not so much the experiences of others for phenomenon Y. Why is that? Can you articulate the deciding principle?
It depends on what X and Y are. If X is just a subjective experience, then I will generally trust in it. If Y is an experience of an external entity, then there is the possibility of falsely experiencing it.
>> Moreover, if you get your understanding of happiness via experience, then, haven’t you just identified something else we don’t really need science for?
I also experience vision. Does science have no role in either extending its reach or understanding how it occurs, how it becomes diseased and malfunctions, and how to correct for those circumstances?
>> Really? You don’t see even a lick of irony in denigrating “armchair philosophizing,” when in fact it gave birth to science? I find that hard to believe
Believe it. I also am not bothered by the fact that medicine was born from utter quackery.
>> Would you also agree that science has entailed more collateral damage in a mere hundred years than all the “armchair philosophizing” of the previous thousands of years combined?
I’m not too sure how to do this calculation. On the one hand, science has provided mankind with technology of destructive capacity. On the other hand, it has also increased the lifespan of human beings, increased the capacity for food production, and generally improved the quality of most people’s lives. Honestly, I do not know how to do the math here.
And would you prefer ignorance to knowledge as a general principle? Would you prefer that mankind go back to the Middle Ages?
>> I simply meant to point out that science suffers from many if not all of the same flaws as philosophy, precisely because science is an extension of philosophy. At the end of the day, we still have fallible human beings drawing conclusions. Philosophy has a system of checks and balances, too.
What is the self-correcting mechanism of philosophy? How do two philosophers agree upon a way to test their theories, and abide by the results, whether favorable or unfavorable? And what philosophical debates have been resolved with the achievement of a consensus?
And I do not think that science is an extension of philosophy. It is an extension of human inquiry in general, of which philosophy is one form.
>> You sustained your claim that science was the “best” method on account of, the tremendous explosion of knowledge about the natural world that occurred in the last few centuries as a result of the systematic use of the scientific method. I’ve challenged that by questioning how much is really “knowledge,” since so much of it–perhaps even the majority–has turned out to be false.
Even if the majority of scientific hypotheses have turned out to be false, the remaining correct ones still surpass the knowledge in the ancient and medieval worlds about how the world works.
Do I really have to list what science has gotten right? Evolution by natural selection, plate tectonics, DNA, germ theory of disease, theory of the cell, the periodic table, quantum mechanics, relativity, Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics, the Big Bang, the expansion of the universe, and on and on. And remember this isn’t a list of what some isolated individuals believed, but about scientific consensus.
Feel free to provide ancient and medieval examples of scientific truths that were accepted by consensus of specialists.
>> I disagree. With limited resources available, we should not be wasting money on the obvious, or those things that don’t directly improve the quality of life.
Then we should close philosophy departments around the world, no? What do they actually contribute to the quality of life of mankind?
>> I think science wastes tons of money in this regard. As far as improving the quality of people’s lives in the real world, knowing the number of exoplanets or the gaseous composition of Jupiter just doesn’t seem that important. All that money could have been used to directly feed the starving, study cancer, or help fight crime. Satisfying the curiosities of the intellectual elite should not come at the expense of the common man and woman.
First, the problem is that it is impossible to predict what scientific discovery today will lead to technological innovation tomorrow.
Second, the scientific budgets are actually quite small compared to, say, military budgets. If you want to target something that actually does routinely kill people and cause destruction at enormous financial cost, then argue against military spending. Why pick on science when there are bigger fish to fry?
>> I disagree. Like I said, certain things aren’t worth wasting tons of money studying. You seem to imply that we need science to know that being a criminal entails collateral damage to society. I disagree.
You don’t think it is important to know to what degree a criminal damages society? What about in terms of cost of incarceration? In terms of medical expenses for victims? In terms of disruption in school activities? And what about the contributing factors to why someone becomes a criminal? Genetics, family, society, social circle, drug use, exposure to violence? I mean, there are so many important questions to be studied about this matter rather than just saying “being a criminal, bad”.
>> Although, this brings up an interesting dilemma: let’s say that repeated scientific experiments validated the claim that being a criminal was actually beneficial to society. Would you side with them? Or, would you go by your own intuition and experience in that regard?
If the evidence were methodologically sound and credible then I would go with the science, of course. My intuition contains far more biases and confounding factors than a controlled study, for example.
Again, practitioners of homeopathy swear that their products heal people, but controlled studies show little or no benefit at all. What homeopathy practitioners see as their products helping is actually a combination of the Hawthorne effect, regression to the mean, natural course of an illness, placebo effect, and so on, rather than the actual treatment.
And what about those parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, because their experience says that vaccines cause autism? Should we endorse this stupidity, even though well-conducted studies have found no correlation between vaccines and autism?
This just plays into one of our inherent biases for anecdotes and narratives over statistics. If I have a friend who recently bought a car with excellent ratings, but it turned out to be a lemon, then I will likely not buy that car, because I rate my friend’s experience over the statistics, which is a stupid move, because my friend may have had one of the rare lemons while the majority are high quality.
>> Is a triangle a natural instantiation of that which is not natural? If it is not natural, what is it and how is it explained?
I have not fully thought this out, but why can’t a triangle be an abstraction from the triangles that we see around us? That way, they would still be natural entities in the form of thoughts and concepts in our mind. I will confess, logic and mathematics are puzzling to me, because they seem to have an independent existence, almost a Platonic reality, but I do not know if that is real or just a shadow cast by our thoughts.
>> Disagree here. I do not believe in values. Values are subjective. You value X. I value Y. I’m wanting to know about the thing itself. Science cannot tell me if X is good because good is not a material property. It cannot tell me the same about actions depending on what those are.
I disagree. The vast majority of human beings share the same values, but differ in terms of how they prioritize them. That is where most ethical conflicts occur, because this list actually contradicts itself. We value personal autonomy AND social connectedness; life AND self-sacrifice; happiness AND suffering; personal privacy AND public knowledge; and so on. They are subjective only in the sense that they exist only as long as we exist as subjects who have them. Once we wink out of existence, then these values will also be gone.
And something is good if we are inclined to move toward it. It is rooted in our biology in the same way that a bacteria will move towards glucose, because the glucose is “good”. We just have a much more sophisticated value system than less complex organisms.
>> Now you say there are contradictory ideas of what is good. Okay. What follows? Can two contradictory propositions be true? I’m a theist. I believe God exists. It seems to me thus far you’re an atheist. You would then believe God doesn’t exist. Can we both be right?
Not at the same time. However, it is no contradiction to say that I was a believer, and am now an atheist. And that is what happens with our values. Sometimes we value autonomy, and other times we value social cohesion, for example. Our values shift depending on the circumstances that we find ourselves.
>> The form of dogness I would argue is not material but is instantiated in matter and the idea I have of it in my mind is not material or else my mind would become a dog everytime.
An idea of X is not X. An idea of a dog is not a dog. Even Plato knew that.
>> But that’s presupposing the meaning of the values which science cannot do. Science cannot tell you what goodness is since good is not a material property any more than it can tell you what triangularity is.
What science CAN do is to start with where we are, teeming with different values and conceptions of what is right and good, and THEN study those values to see how many actually increase human happiness and satisfaction. And it has done this for some values. For example, we value wealth, but it turns out that wealth increases happiness, but only up to a point, and then it makes no further impact. I think that is important to know when I plan my work life.
>> Which assumes suffering is not good. Is this always the case? I had a lot of suffering when I was fifteen with several people using a knife on me while I was under the influence of a chemical substance.
I never said to ELIMINATE suffering, but to MINIMIZE it. I do not think it is good to eliminate suffering, because there are occasions when it can be useful, especially when suffering for the sake of a greater good. For example, exercise is painful, but it is worth it to achieve physical health.
And were you suffering while unconscious?
>> Meanwhile, the college students have wanton sex, boozing, cheating on tests, sponging off of their parents, and they think they’re having a good time. Is that good?
We can study the long-term outcome on their lives of living such lives to see if it is ultimately good for them. But that is a scientific question.
>> I would point to something like abortion as an example. When I know what human life is and know that it is good by what it is rather than by what role it plays, in other words, intrinsically good rather than instrumentally good, I know that it ought to be preserved. When science informs us by stating that human life begins at conception, then by knowing what a human is and that life is good, then I know that I ought not to abort a child.
First, what is “human life”? How do you know when it starts?
Second, if you had a choice to save ten embryos or a 6 year old boy from a burning building, then who would you save?
Third, what about when the mother’s life is threatened?
Dguller: I have not fully thought this out, but why can’t a triangle be an abstraction from the triangles that we see around us?
Reply: Triangles aren’t. Triangularity is.
Dguller: That way, they would still be natural entities in the form of thoughts and concepts in our mind.
Reply: It depends on what you mean by natural which is still confusing to me. Triangularity exists in our mind, but does it exist materially? Does our mind become triangular?
Dguller: I will confess, logic and mathematics are puzzling to me, because they seem to have an independent existence, almost a Platonic reality, but I do not know if that is real or just a shadow cast by our thoughts.
Reply: Good. That’s where it starts. This stuff should puzzle you. However, something can exist independently of us in a sense, but it does not have to be a Platonic sense. For Plato, the forms exist independent of all else. For myself, I think ideas only exist in minds.
Dguller: I disagree. The vast majority of human beings share the same values, but differ in terms of how they prioritize them.
Reply: Correct, but they all share them subjectively. That a human values X does not tell me much about X in itself.
Dguller: That is where most ethical conflicts occur, because this list actually contradicts itself. We value personal autonomy AND social connectedness; life AND self-sacrifice; happiness AND suffering; personal privacy AND public knowledge; and so on. They are subjective only in the sense that they exist only as long as we exist as subjects who have them. Once we wink out of existence, then these values will also be gone.
Reply: Then you have a problem I think as you cannot tell me if some things are good in themselves. Is nature good? Well does it cease to be good when we go out of existence? If so, then there is no good in itself. We are just throwing our idea of goodness onto it.
How about life? Is life good?
Dguller: And something is good if we are inclined to move toward it.
Reply: Why should I think that?
Dguller: It is rooted in our biology in the same way that a bacteria will move towards glucose, because the glucose is “good”. We just have a much more sophisticated value system than less complex organisms.
Reply: Why should I believe a bacteria even has a value system? Are you saying that there is a one-to-one similarity between the activity of the bacteria and that of the human? If not, what is the difference?
Dguller: Not at the same time. However, it is no contradiction to say that I was a believer, and am now an atheist. And that is what happens with our values. Sometimes we value autonomy, and other times we value social cohesion, for example. Our values shift depending on the circumstances that we find ourselves.
Reply: That’s fine.
Dguller: An idea of X is not X. An idea of a dog is not a dog. Even Plato knew that.
Reply: That would make a difference if that was what I said. It’s not. I said a dog is the instantiation of dogness. A dog is not dogness.
Dguller: What science CAN do is to start with where we are, teeming with different values and conceptions of what is right and good, and THEN study those values to see how many actually increase human happiness and satisfaction. And it has done this for some values. For example, we value wealth, but it turns out that wealth increases happiness, but only up to a point, and then it makes no further impact. I think that is important to know when I plan my work life.
Reply: And what is happiness? Is it a good feeling? Is it making a difference in the world? What is it?
Dguller: I never said to ELIMINATE suffering, but to MINIMIZE it. I do not think it is good to eliminate suffering, because there are occasions when it can be useful, especially when suffering for the sake of a greater good. For example, exercise is painful, but it is worth it to achieve physical health.
Reply: So you say some suffering is good. Why is that? Because of a greater good. How do you determine that is good and that that suffering is worthwhile? You need a criteria outside of the suffering for that.
Dguller: And were you suffering while unconscious?
Reply: No. I was however for about a year afterwards.
Dguller: We can study the long-term outcome on their lives of living such lives to see if it is ultimately good for them. But that is a scientific question.
Reply: No. That’s a philosophical question. Science can tell you the effect on their bodies. It cannot tell you if that effect is good or not.
Dguller: First, what is “human life”? How do you know when it starts?
Reply: Human life is an instantiation of human nature. I know it has happened when all the DNA is there.
Dguller: Second, if you had a choice to save ten embryos or a 6 year old boy from a burning building, then who would you save?
Reply: Don’t know right now. Both are valuable. That’s another dilemma worth thinking about.
Dguller: Third, what about when the mother’s life is threatened?
Reply: Your goal is to save a life then and not to kill. My case is assuming all things being equal. We can think of contingencies in many cases.
Then why do you suppose NAS disagrees with you? They write that, “Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science.” Who should I believe, and why?
Does science have no role in either extending its reach or understanding how it occurs, how it becomes diseased and malfunctions, and how to correct for those circumstances?
Of course science has a role in those things. That wasn’t the point of my question. You were saying that we need science for this and that, yet, at the same time telling me you understand happiness via experience. I was wondering where you draw the line, and why. I did find a little bit of clarification in your statement about X and Y, but not too much. For example, you write to apologianick the scientific study on wealth is helpful, yet, happiness related to wealth in a subjective experience. So, I still don’t see your deciding principle as far as what we need science for, as opposed to what we don’t.
I’m not too sure how to do this calculation.
Hey now wait just a minute! When you claimed that science was “the best,” doing calculations wasn’t even an issue. It didn’t even enter the picture. Yet, now I challenge the claim, and it’s an issue? That doesn’t make sense to me at all. If you don’t know how to do the math, then, on what empirical grounds do you claim science is “the best?” As you yourself said, aren’t humans susceptible to all sorts of confirmation bias? Since that’s true, how would I know whether your statement is motivated by confirmation bias vs. truth?
On the other hand, it has also increased the lifespan of human beings, increased the capacity for food production, and generally improved the quality of most people’s lives.
Of course, with the increase in life span comes overpopulation. Science has also perverted our food supply and introduced all sorts of new food-related diseases into the species.
What is the self-correcting mechanism of philosophy?
The law of non-contradiction.
Feel free to provide ancient and medieval examples of scientific truths that were accepted by consensus of specialists.
I already have: the Greeks reasoned their way to the atom, and that without creating an atomic bomb. It also appears the ancient Hebrews either reasoned their way to the beginning of the universe, the decay of the universe, and the non-physical causality of the universe–or these things were all revealed to them.
Then we should close philosophy departments around the world, no?
Maybe, maybe not. I can testify that philosophy has directly contributed to the quality of my life, whereas, knowing the chemical composition of Jupiter’s moons, not as much so. The point was, you were claiming that we need science to reliably conclude that being a gang member negatively impacts society. I disagree, and counter that funding such a study would be a waste of money.
Why pick on science when there are bigger fish to fry?
I’m not “picking on science,” I’m questioning your claims because a few of them hint of scientism. There’s a huge difference.
You don’t think it is important to know to what degree a criminal damages society?
That wasn’t what we were debating. Again, I claimed–and still claim–that we do not need a funded, scientific study to conclude that being a gang member has a negative impact on society. We do not need science for everything.
If the evidence were methodologically sound and credible then I would go with the science, of course.
Really? So, if a “methodologically sound” and “credible” study determines that mass murder is beneficial to society, would you become a mass murderer?
My intuition contains far more biases and confounding factors than a controlled study, for example.
I agree. So, why are you telling me that science is “the best” without a methodologically sound and credible study? Isn’t it at least possible that bias is influencing you? These seem like pretty serious inconsistencies to me.
>> One problem is you end up implying that, because it is beyond direct empirical detection, we should treat (for example) ‘it is subject to the rules of logic’ and ‘it is not subject to the rules of logic’ as having equal probability. But you give no argument for this other than an appeal to bare possibility (I’m not sure it’s even ‘logical possibility’ in this particular case).
No, I do not. I have no idea how to assign the probability of the two propositions that you cited. I have no idea whether logic applies or does not apply “out there”, whatever “out there” means.
>> Here’s a second problem. The entire reason you seem to think that unbounded, unjustified possibility is worth considering in the case of ‘beyond the natural world’ is the lack of direct empirical observation. But that’s not limited to something beyond nature – it applies to nature itself. We have an observable universe: Anything beyond it is unobservable. Are we therefore justified in thinking we can say utterly nothing about it – not even regard it as likely that logic holds out there?
You can say whatever you want about it, but what you say may not make sense or even be true.
You can correct me by describing the methodology that you would use to achieve knowledge about this realm outside the universe. Go for it. Let me know. I really am interested.
>> There are other, more typical examples. I can’t observe another person’s mind. Do I therefore treat it as likely as not that all their words and thoughts come divorced from subjective experience and thought?
Really? Radical skeptical arguments? You should read up on mirror neurons in the premotor cortex as neurobiological correlates that contribute to our visceral and emotional connection to others. Yes, I cannot literally experience another person’s mind, but I can come close by the way by neurobiology processes sensory signals from another person. Mirror neurons are why emotions are contagious, why I wince when I see another person in pain, and why I am capable of empathy and compassion at all.
Furthermore, most human beings share a similar path of neurological development resulting in similar brains. Since the brain generates the mind, it would stand to reason that another person who has a brain similar to mine also has a mind similar to mine, i.e. consisting of thoughts, feelings, sensations, images, motives, desires, and so on.
This is actually interesting and useful. Radical skeptical arguments are just philosophical parlor tricks that trade on the sheer possibility of being true as evidence that they should be taken seriously.
Apologianick:
>> It depends on what you mean by natural which is still confusing to me. Triangularity exists in our mind, but does it exist materially? Does our mind become triangular?
I do not think it does exist materially. I think it is an idealized abstraction from something that we find in nature, i.e. triangles. So, I guess it is an idea, and no, our mind does not being triangular. If I have the thought X, my mind does not become X.
>> Correct, but they all share them subjectively. That a human values X does not tell me much about X in itself.
It tells you that we value it, and that means that ultimately we find some positive emotional salience in acting out that value. I really do not know what you mean by “X in itself”. Perhaps if you elaborated?
>> Then you have a problem I think as you cannot tell me if some things are good in themselves. Is nature good? Well does it cease to be good when we go out of existence? If so, then there is no good in itself. We are just throwing our idea of goodness onto it.
I do not believe in “good in itself”. Some things are good FOR some things. So, nature is not good in itself. Nature just is. There are aspects of it that are good for us (e.g. oxygen and food), and there are aspects of it that are bad for us (e.g. bacteria and viruses). Value is intrinsically related to organisms, because organisms value things. Values do not exist in and of themselves.
>> How about life? Is life good?
For most people, it is. For someone who has a terminal illness and is intensely suffering as a result of it, it is not so good.
>> Why should I think that?
Do you pull away from what you believe is good? Do you run screaming away from something you have a positive inclination to do? I am just describing what happens in the world. If you value X, i.e. X is good for you, then you will approach it; if you devalue X, i.e. X is bad for you, then you will avoid it. That is just how we roll. If you have some counter-examples, then I would love to hear them.
>> Why should I believe a bacteria even has a value system? Are you saying that there is a one-to-one similarity between the activity of the bacteria and that of the human? If not, what is the difference?
Yes, it has a value system by virtue of how it behaves in the world. Does it have a conscious awareness that glucose is good for it? No, it does not. However, the point is that value and goodness is rooted in a natural system of approach and avoidance behavior, which is present in even the lowliest of organisms. The fact that we have a much more sophisticated and complex system of values, largely due to our conscious awareness, does not nullify that there is a continuum here from the least complex to the most complex organisms, which can go some way to naturalizing ethics.
>> And what is happiness? Is it a good feeling? Is it making a difference in the world? What is it?
Happiness is a good feeling. Making a difference in the world can result in happiness.
>> So you say some suffering is good. Why is that? Because of a greater good. How do you determine that is good and that that suffering is worthwhile? You need a criteria outside of the suffering for that.
Because when we are deciding between multiple courses of action, we ideally should choose the one that has the best chance of maximizing our happiness and minimizing our suffering. Sometimes we make an intertemporal bargain to suffer today in order to have a bigger payoff in the future. For example, working out involves suffering today, but a bigger payoff in the form of better physical health and activity in the future. So, not only do we have to tradeoff between our values in the present, we also have to bargain with ourselves in the future, too. That is one reason why morality and ethics is so complicated.
>> No. That’s a philosophical question. Science can tell you the effect on their bodies. It cannot tell you if that effect is good or not.
Science can tell us the degree to which a particular course of action activates the dopaminergic mesolimbic system in the brain, which is apparently the core pathway for our valuing mechanism. The option that generates the most dopamine is ultimately chosen by the brain and performed by the body. I think that is important to know.
>> Human life is an instantiation of human nature. I know it has happened when all the DNA is there.
So, human nature consists of the presence of DNA? What about the dead skin cells that I slough off on a daily basis? Do they have human nature? Should I spend the day trying to save them?
>> Don’t know right now. Both are valuable. That’s another dilemma worth thinking about.
No, you shouldn’t have to think. Your whole point is that if DNA is present, then it is a fully human being. You should save the ten embryos and let the 6 year old boy die, if you are being consistent. If not, then you do endorse the notion that DNA just isn’t enough, and that a certain degree of complexity and development must also be factored into the equation. And once you go there, then a human mother is more complex and developed than a fetus, and your whole argument falls apart.
>> Your goal is to save a life then and not to kill. My case is assuming all things being equal. We can think of contingencies in many cases.
Dguller: I do not think it does exist materially. I think it is an idealized abstraction from something that we find in nature, i.e. triangles. So, I guess it is an idea, and no, our mind does not being triangular. If I have the thought X, my mind does not become X.
Reply: It is an idea, yes, but triangles are an instantiation of it. Now you can say all triangles have nothing in common, at which point I would ask “Why call them all triangles then?” or you can accept that triangularity exists in minds and would exist even if there were no human minds.
Dguller: It tells you that we value it, and that means that ultimately we find some positive emotional salience in acting out that value. I really do not know what you mean by “X in itself”. Perhaps if you elaborated?
Reply: That tells me about us. It doesn’t tell me about the thing as it is, which is what I mean by “X in itself.” I want to know the properties of X, not just how it relates to us. If we weren’t around, what properties would it have?
Dguller: I do not believe in “good in itself”. Some things are good FOR some things. So, nature is not good in itself. Nature just is. There are aspects of it that are good for us (e.g. oxygen and food), and there are aspects of it that are bad for us (e.g. bacteria and viruses). Value is intrinsically related to organisms, because organisms value things. Values do not exist in and of themselves.
Reply: Okay. So you can only say things are good for an end, but then you want to turn and say some ends are good. Good for what? Another end? Is that end good? We can go on ad infinitum. Is there anything that as it is is good?
Dguller: For most people, it is. For someone who has a terminal illness and is intensely suffering as a result of it, it is not so good.
Reply: And yet, I’ve known of people in such conditions who have been full of joy. If life is good, what is it good for?
Dguller: Do you pull away from what you believe is good? Do you run screaming away from something you have a positive inclination to do? I am just describing what happens in the world. If you value X, i.e. X is good for you, then you will approach it; if you devalue X, i.e. X is bad for you, then you will avoid it. That is just how we roll. If you have some counter-examples, then I would love to hear them.
Reply: Not disagreeing with that. Just asking why I should think that’s the role of science.
Dguller: Yes, it has a value system by virtue of how it behaves in the world. Does it have a conscious awareness that glucose is good for it? No, it does not. However, the point is that value and goodness is rooted in a natural system of approach and avoidance behavior, which is present in even the lowliest of organisms. The fact that we have a much more sophisticated and complex system of values, largely due to our conscious awareness, does not nullify that there is a continuum here from the least complex to the most complex organisms, which can go some way to naturalizing ethics.
Reply: But value is a judgment call. If a bacteria has no mind as we do, then it is not capable of judgment. It is acting merely on instinct. Do you really think we act that way?
Dguller: Happiness is a good feeling. Making a difference in the world can result in happiness.
Reply: Then it would seem the way to happiness would be to give everyone in the world really strong drugs. Would you be in favor of this since it would increase happiness?
I say this because I disagree with your idea of happiness. In fact, Mortimer Adler would label it as one of the ten philosophical mistakes.
Dguller: Because when we are deciding between multiple courses of action, we ideally should choose the one that has the best chance of maximizing our happiness and minimizing our suffering. Sometimes we make an intertemporal bargain to suffer today in order to have a bigger payoff in the future. For example, working out involves suffering today, but a bigger payoff in the form of better physical health and activity in the future. So, not only do we have to tradeoff between our values in the present, we also have to bargain with ourselves in the future, too. That is one reason why morality and ethics is so complicated.
Reply: But again, this does not give me the criteria.
Dguller: Science can tell us the degree to which a particular course of action activates the dopaminergic mesolimbic system in the brain, which is apparently the core pathway for our valuing mechanism. The option that generates the most dopamine is ultimately chosen by the brain and performed by the body. I think that is important to know.
Reply: Not really. Are you saying I need to know dopamine content before I can make good decisions? Sorry, but when I make an ethical decision, the last thing I’m thinking about is “I wonder how much dopamine I’m producing.”
Dguller: So, human nature consists of the presence of DNA? What about the dead skin cells that I slough off on a daily basis? Do they have human nature? Should I spend the day trying to save them?
Reply: Note I’m speaking about human life and how it begins. Living things are things that have the principle of their movement in themselves.
Dguller: No, you shouldn’t have to think. Your whole point is that if DNA is present, then it is a fully human being. You should save the ten embryos and let the 6 year old boy die, if you are being consistent. If not, then you do endorse the notion that DNA just isn’t enough, and that a certain degree of complexity and development must also be factored into the equation. And once you go there, then a human mother is more complex and developed than a fetus, and your whole argument falls apart.
Reply: Not a bit. For the embryos I’d also have to have 10 willing mothers who would suddenly decide to care for the children there.
>> Then why do you suppose NAS disagrees with you? They write that, “Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science.” Who should I believe, and why?
I said IF they exist in nature, then they are natural. I never said THAT they exist in nature.
>> You were saying that we need science for this and that, yet, at the same time telling me you understand happiness via experience. I was wondering where you draw the line, and why. I did find a little bit of clarification in your statement about X and Y, but not too much. For example, you write to apologianick the scientific study on wealth is helpful, yet, happiness related to wealth in a subjective experience. So, I still don’t see your deciding principle as far as what we need science for, as opposed to what we don’t.
Science starts with the assumption it is possible that our perception and intuition may be incorrect, and so it is warranted to investigate to see which are correct and which are incorrect.
For example, if a group of people were passing a basketball around, and you were counting how many times the basketball was passed, then do you think you would notice someone in a gorilla suit walking slowly through the group, pound his chest a few times, and then walk off? Most, if not all, people would say, “Of course!” But when this experiment is run, most people actually do not see the gorilla at all! And this tells us something about how we perceive the world via selective attention. If you had your way, this experiment would never have been done, because OBVIOUSLY we would see the gorilla. And there are many more like it.
I do not draw the line, except where ethics are violated or there just isn’t sufficient funding. Science is full of surprises, and has contradicted our intuitions on a number of occasions. The only way to know whether our intuitions are valid is to test them. Otherwise, we run the risk of having a false certainty, no?
>> When you claimed that science was “the best,” doing calculations wasn’t even an issue. It didn’t even enter the picture. Yet, now I challenge the claim, and it’s an issue? That doesn’t make sense to me at all. If you don’t know how to do the math, then, on what empirical grounds do you claim science is “the best?”
I never said it was the bestest thing in the whole wide world, better than everything combined. I said it is the best method we have to uncover how the world works. That’s all. You were asking me a separate question. You were asking me whether science has a net positive or negative impact upon our lives. I cannot do the calculation of that question, because there are too many variables, and I am unsure how to weigh each one. In a sense, your question comes down to, “Is it always better to have knowledge?” The answer to that question is open, as far as I am concerned, but the question of whether science is the best method we have to acquire knowledge about the world is closed. These are two different questions with two different answers.
>> Of course, with the increase in life span comes overpopulation. Science has also perverted our food supply and introduced all sorts of new food-related diseases into the species.
Well, science hasn’t perverted our food supply, and so on. Human beings’ use of scientific technology has done that. And you are correct that our actions always have both positive and negative effects. Even if I choose to do something good, then I am not choose to do many other good things, which would possibly lead to a greater good in the world. That is the complexity of human decision-making in general, and not specific to decisions regarding how to use scientific knowledge.
>> The law of non-contradiction.
That’s it? So, as long as someone comes up with something that does not contradict itself, then it is considered valid?
>> I already have: the Greeks reasoned their way to the atom, and that without creating an atomic bomb. It also appears the ancient Hebrews either reasoned their way to the beginning of the universe, the decay of the universe, and the non-physical causality of the universe–or these things were all revealed to them.
Was there a consensus amongst the Greeks that atoms existed? Or was it just the Epicureans? If there was not a consensus, then why not, if the evidence for atoms was so compelling? How would the Greeks achieve consensus on this issue through their powerful reasoning?
The fact that some ancients reasoned their way to conclusions that have been confirmed by scientific inquiry does not mean that the ancients were superior to the moderns. They had no way to achieve consensus, because they lacked an agreed upon method of inquiry.
>> Maybe, maybe not. I can testify that philosophy has directly contributed to the quality of my life, whereas, knowing the chemical composition of Jupiter’s moons, not as much so. The point was, you were claiming that we need science to reliably conclude that being a gang member negatively impacts society. I disagree, and counter that funding such a study would be a waste of money.
I suppose that knowing the chemical composition of Jupiter’s moons has contributed to the quality of life of many an astrophysicist and astronomer. Does that thereby validate its acquisition?
As I said above, it is easy to look at some scientific studies that confirm our intuitions and say that it was a waste of time. The problem is that we do not know, in advance, which ones will confirm or falsify our intuitions, and so we have to first investigate to know. When our intuitions are violated, then the study is celebrated. It is kind of like studying a treatment intervention that turns out not to work. It is unlikely to be published, because of publication bias, but that does not mean that it wasn’t important. At least, we know that that particular treatment does not work. Not all negative studies are useless, after all.
>> Really? So, if a “methodologically sound” and “credible” study determines that mass murder is beneficial to society, would you become a mass murderer?
Not necessarily. If a scientific study showed that having garbage men in society improves overall quality of life, then I would not become one, because I am currently a physician and contribute to improving the lives of my patients in that fashion. I would assume that being a mass murderer is not the ONLY way of being beneficial to society, and would choose others that better meet my taste and qualifications.
Now, let me ask you something: If God told you to exterminate a group of people, or cut the foreskin without anaesthesia from those in your circle, or murder your only son, would you do it?
>> I agree. So, why are you telling me that science is “the best” without a methodologically sound and credible study? Isn’t it at least possible that bias is influencing you? These seem like pretty serious inconsistencies to me.
You still have not provided a viable alternative to understand how the world works. Yes, science is imperfect and flawed and often wrong, but it is still the best method we have. If you disagree, then provide me with an alternative. Don’t just be a Monday morning quarterback, but get in the game!
>> It is an idea, yes, but triangles are an instantiation of it. Now you can say all triangles have nothing in common, at which point I would ask “Why call them all triangles then?” or you can accept that triangularity exists in minds and would exist even if there were no human minds.
I never said that all triangles have nothing in common. We have abstracted triangleness from individual triangles as a concept, but this is an inference from imperfect individual material triangles to perfect abstract triangles.
>> That tells me about us. It doesn’t tell me about the thing as it is, which is what I mean by “X in itself.” I want to know the properties of X, not just how it relates to us. If we weren’t around, what properties would it have?
First, why is goodness a “thing in itself”?
Second, what if X has no existence apart from us? Let us say that we are talking about human vision, and you want to know about vision in itself. I then reply that there is no vision in itself, but only vision as generated by the human brain and experienced by a human being. No brain, no human being, no human vision. Would you persist in wanting to know human vision’s properties in itself? What does that even mean here?
>> Okay. So you can only say things are good for an end, but then you want to turn and say some ends are good. Good for what? Another end? Is that end good? We can go on ad infinitum. Is there anything that as it is is good?
I would agree with Harris that human well-being is the elusive ultimate goal that we try to achieve by living out different values, which change depending on the circumstances. Now, is human well-being a good-in-itself? No, it is still a good-for-us that will likely cease to exist when we are extinct. So, you can look at it as a differential equation with various constants whose weights change depending on the circumstance, but whose ultimate outcome is to maximize human well-being and minimize human suffering.
>> And yet, I’ve known of people in such conditions who have been full of joy. If life is good, what is it good for?
Would you say the majority of people in such conditions are “full of joy”? And does their joy manifest itself while they are in physical agony, or once the pain subsides? And those who are full of joy, could it be because although their present is full of suffering, their current suffering is framed by future benefits, such as an afterlife, modeling coping skills for their loved ones, ending their life with dignity, and so on? And if so, then that actually fits with everything that I am saying. We can endure suffering in the present if it is for the sake of something more valuable in the future.
>> Not disagreeing with that. Just asking why I should think that’s the role of science.
Science can investigate whether what we claim to value, we actually do. For example, we say that we would help a man lying prostrate on the floor in pain, but studies have shown that when people are in a crowd, and the members of the crowd ignores the suffering individual, then most people would follow the crowd and ignore the suffering individual. This is because we find ourselves in an ambiguous situation, and we seek clarity from the behavior of others. It is called “social proof”. Now, this is actually counter-intuitive, but it does happen, and investigating what would happen is what led to this surprising conclusion.
>> But value is a judgment call. If a bacteria has no mind as we do, then it is not capable of judgment. It is acting merely on instinct. Do you really think we act that way?
No, it isn’t. If I rush into a burning building without thinking and save some kids, then can you say that I made a judgment? It was an instinctive and immediate response to a situation. And if that can demonstrate what my values are, then why can’t a bacteria’s movement towards glucose do the same? The only difference is that we are capable of consciously becoming aware of our behavior and modifying it through reflecting upon it, and communicate via language with those around us to seek new information, and so on. Like I said, what we do is more complex, but it ultimately comes down to the same thing: X is good if I will approach it, and X is bad if I avoid it.
>> Then it would seem the way to happiness would be to give everyone in the world really strong drugs. Would you be in favor of this since it would increase happiness?
It depends on the side effects of the drugs, and the social consequences of having people stoned all the time. Would society still be able to function? Would people stop going to work, producing food, generating electricity, and so on? Maybe the net effect of that program would be worse overall for individual happiness than the drugs themselves’ positive impact?
>> Not really. Are you saying I need to know dopamine content before I can make good decisions? Sorry, but when I make an ethical decision, the last thing I’m thinking about is “I wonder how much dopamine I’m producing.”
No, but the fact is that this is what is going on in your brain while you are making a judgment or decision. You do not need to be aware of it to make a choice, but it helps to know this. Suppose we eventually find a way to measure dopamine accurately in the mesolimbic pathway, and you claim to value X over Y. Then science would be able to measure the level of dopamine when you do X and Y, and if Y’s dopamine level was higher than X’s, then we know that you are lying.
>> Note I’m speaking about human life and how it begins. Living things are things that have the principle of their movement in themselves.
“Principle of their movement”? I suppose that you mean the potential for self-generated movement. What about plants? They do not move, but remain rooted to where they are. Perhaps you mean the process of metabolism. Then an individual cell would be alive, but then again, so would an individual mitochondria. Should we then not damage mitochondria?
Perhaps if you clarified when you meant by this?
>> Not a bit. For the embryos I’d also have to have 10 willing mothers who would suddenly decide to care for the children there.
And if they were present, then you would save the embryos and not the child? The 10 willing mothers would never have another opportunity to find other embryos to care for? And what about there being DNA? You initially said THAT is what determined “human nature” being present, and once human nature is present, then it is a full human life with all the rights involved in this. NOW, you are saying that it is not enough, but there must be someone willing to love and care for them? So, what if a woman wants to have an abortion, has looked for adoptive parents, but there were none available, then is it then okay for her to terminate the pregnancy?
Dguller: I never said that all triangles have nothing in common. We have abstracted triangleness from individual triangles as a concept, but this is an inference from imperfect individual material triangles to perfect abstract triangles.
Reply: I know you never said that. I was just making it a clear fact. Yes. We do abstract to triangularity from seeing multiple triangles. You can show me several triangles, but you can never show me triangularity. Yet how does this idea of triangularity exist? Would there be triangles if there were no human minds?
Dguller: First, why is goodness a “thing in itself”?
Reply: While I believe it is, I’m not saying that yet. I’m just asking if some things are good in themselves not just for what they do but for what they are.
Dguller: Second, what if X has no existence apart from us? Let us say that we are talking about human vision, and you want to know about vision in itself. I then reply that there is no vision in itself, but only vision as generated by the human brain and experienced by a human being. No brain, no human being, no human vision. Would you persist in wanting to know human vision’s properties in itself? What does that even mean here?
Reply: If it does not exist apart from a mind, no. Of course, I see vision as good in itself in that it is good to be able to see, and we also see for a reason. The two don’t contradict.
Dguller: I would agree with Harris that human well-being is the elusive ultimate goal that we try to achieve by living out different values, which change depending on the circumstances.
Reply: I started reading that book tonight and I plan on blogging on it soon after I finish going through the Jehovah’s Witnesses “Should You Believe In The Trinity?”
I will say what little I’ve read of it is that if anyone believes what Harris says in this book, the future will be frightening. It will be scientists who determine what is well-being and who can have that well-being and which lives are worthy of living.
Dguller: Now, is human well-being a good-in-itself? No, it is still a good-for-us that will likely cease to exist when we are extinct.
Reply: Can you give me any basis then for considering human life good? If it is only as an instrumental means, then that will mean you are treating humanity as means to an end. I really hope you’ll think about where that leads.
CL. I hope you’re reading this also.
Dguller: So, you can look at it as a differential equation with various constants whose weights change depending on the circumstance, but whose ultimate outcome is to maximize human well-being and minimize human suffering.
Reply: Nothing new. That’s just utilitarianism. However, if there is no good end ultimately, then what’s the purpose?
Dguller: Would you say the majority of people in such conditions are “full of joy”?
Reply: I’d say it doesn’t matter. What message can be given is that people are victim to their circumstances. For people interested in modern ideas, I’d think most would read some modern psychology, like “Feeling Good.”
Dguller: And does their joy manifest itself while they are in physical agony, or once the pain subsides? And those who are full of joy, could it be because although their present is full of suffering, their current suffering is framed by future benefits, such as an afterlife, modeling coping skills for their loved ones, ending their life with dignity, and so on? And if so, then that actually fits with everything that I am saying. We can endure suffering in the present if it is for the sake of something more valuable in the future.
Reply: Correct. It is because of believing that some things are good that suffering is worthwhile. I do not deny that principle. I just don’t think you can hold it consistently if nothing is truly good.
Dguller: Science can investigate whether what we claim to value, we actually do. For example, we say that we would help a man lying prostrate on the floor in pain, but studies have shown that when people are in a crowd, and the members of the crowd ignores the suffering individual, then most people would follow the crowd and ignore the suffering individual. This is because we find ourselves in an ambiguous situation, and we seek clarity from the behavior of others. It is called “social proof”. Now, this is actually counter-intuitive, but it does happen, and investigating what would happen is what led to this surprising conclusion.
Reply: True and also nothing that tells us about the good. This is what happens when you have a culture dependent on individualism instead. I don’t need science to tell me to help someone in need. Do you think I do?
Dguller: No, it isn’t. If I rush into a burning building without thinking and save some kids, then can you say that I made a judgment?
Reply: Yep. You’ve trained your mind in such a way to know to help those in need. The judgment is made immediately.
Dguller: It was an instinctive and immediate response to a situation. And if that can demonstrate what my values are, then why can’t a bacteria’s movement towards glucose do the same? The only difference is that we are capable of consciously becoming aware of our behavior and modifying it through reflecting upon it, and communicate via language with those around us to seek new information, and so on. Like I said, what we do is more complex, but it ultimately comes down to the same thing: X is good if I will approach it, and X is bad if I avoid it.
Dguller: Which is saying the goodness does not lie in the object but in our putting it on the object. Thus, you’re not living in reality. You say X is good when you don’t mean that it is good. You mean you see it as good.
Also, the differences are what matter. Bacteria are unconscious agents. We are conscious. We can change our desires.
Dguller: It depends on the side effects of the drugs, and the social consequences of having people stoned all the time.
Reply: So there’s something more important than human happiness?
Dguller: Would society still be able to function? Would people stop going to work, producing food, generating electricity, and so on? Maybe the net effect of that program would be worse overall for individual happiness than the drugs themselves’ positive impact?
Reply: Maybe you should just read “Brave New World” sometime and find out.
Dguller: No, but the fact is that this is what is going on in your brain while you are making a judgment or decision. You do not need to be aware of it to make a choice, but it helps to know this. Suppose we eventually find a way to measure dopamine accurately in the mesolimbic pathway, and you claim to value X over Y. Then science would be able to measure the level of dopamine when you do X and Y, and if Y’s dopamine level was higher than X’s, then we know that you are lying.
Reply: Which would be irrelevant entirely to me. I want to ask the question first of “Ought I see X as good?” I won’t determine that by studying dopamine.
Dguller: “Principle of their movement”? I suppose that you mean the potential for self-generated movement. What about plants? They do not move, but remain rooted to where they are. Perhaps you mean the process of metabolism. Then an individual cell would be alive, but then again, so would an individual mitochondria. Should we then not damage mitochondria?
Reply: Yep. Those have life. The value of plant life and bacteria life is not the same as that of human life however due to the quality.
Dguller: And if they were present, then you would save the embryos and not the child? The 10 willing mothers would never have another opportunity to find other embryos to care for? And what about there being DNA? You initially said THAT is what determined “human nature” being present, and once human nature is present, then it is a full human life with all the rights involved in this. NOW, you are saying that it is not enough, but there must be someone willing to love and care for them? So, what if a woman wants to have an abortion, has looked for adoptive parents, but there were none available, then is it then okay for her to terminate the pregnancy?
Reply: If there were willing mothers, sure. Why not? Of course, this still doesn’t deal with the issue. Is the embryo a human life? Finding an inconsistency in me won’t address that.
>> I know you never said that. I was just making it a clear fact. Yes. We do abstract to triangularity from seeing multiple triangles. You can show me several triangles, but you can never show me triangularity. Yet how does this idea of triangularity exist? Would there be triangles if there were no human minds?
I actually do not know. I suspect that there would be triangles, but since triangularity is a concept that resides in the human mind, then I would suspect that this concept will die with mankind, unless an alien species somewhere has the same concept.
>> While I believe it is, I’m not saying that yet. I’m just asking if some things are good in themselves not just for what they do but for what they are.
Can you give me an example of something that is good for what it is and not for what it does?
>> If it does not exist apart from a mind, no. Of course, I see vision as good in itself in that it is good to be able to see, and we also see for a reason. The two don’t contradict.
First, is it good to see your mother and sister being raped before your eyes? If there are some situations in which vision is bad, then it cannot be good-in-itself, right? Otherwise, it would be good in all situations?
Second, if our values only exist by virtue of human beings having them, then you would not want to know about values in themselves? I read you as saying just that.
>> I will say what little I’ve read of it is that if anyone believes what Harris says in this book, the future will be frightening. It will be scientists who determine what is well-being and who can have that well-being and which lives are worthy of living.
As he says to do, replace “well-being” with “physical health” and pity the horrible world we live in with modern medicine.
>> Can you give me any basis then for considering human life good? If it is only as an instrumental means, then that will mean you are treating humanity as means to an end. I really hope you’ll think about where that leads.
We consider human life to be good by virtue of our neurobiological processes and cultural environments. We are hardwired to subjectively experience the distress of others via mirror neurons, for example, and these innate tendencies of empathy and compassion are then reinforced by our social upbringing and cultural osmosis.
Furthermore, we are able to reflect upon the fact that all human beings are fundamentally similar and have identical feelings and emotions, such as pain and suffering. In addition, we are all interconnected, and the pain and suffering of some will eventually affect us, especially in this age of globalization.
So, in order to maximize my well-being, it is best to maximize the well-being of others. That is what Buddhism has taught me.
>> Nothing new. That’s just utilitarianism. However, if there is no good end ultimately, then what’s the purpose?
Ultimately, the good end is to maximize well-being and minimize suffering. That is my candidate. What is yours?
>> Correct. It is because of believing that some things are good that suffering is worthwhile. I do not deny that principle. I just don’t think you can hold it consistently if nothing is truly good.
It does not have to be truly good, but only relatively more good than other options. You forget that human beings assess value on a relative basis, and not absolutely. So, if I am purchasing something for $1,000, then I will not leave the store to save $5 at another store with a sale, but if I am purchasing something for $20, then I will leave the store to buy it for $15 at another store. Why? It is the same $5, but its value relative to the original price is different.
>> True and also nothing that tells us about the good. This is what happens when you have a culture dependent on individualism instead. I don’t need science to tell me to help someone in need. Do you think I do?
First, it actually had nothing to do with individualism. It even happened in those who were found to have high scores on valuing community.
Second, you do not need science to tell you to help someone in need. You do not need science for anything. However, it does not follow that science cannot be helpful in understanding how best to help someone in need, for example. It can study different forms of assistance, and see which ones happen to have the more positive results. That is just one example. There are others.
>> Which is saying the goodness does not lie in the object but in our putting it on the object. Thus, you’re not living in reality. You say X is good when you don’t mean that it is good. You mean you see it as good.
Right. Goodness does not reside in objects, but in the value that we ascribe to an object. A rock is just a rock, but if I need something to throw to defend myself, then a rock is good, or if I need something to sit on, then a rock is good. The goodness does not reside in the rock, but in my appraisal of its value.
>> Also, the differences are what matter. Bacteria are unconscious agents. We are conscious. We can change our desires.
Well, we can change some of them, but the point is that there is nothing mysterious about what is going on with our morality. I think it is plausible that it is rooted in our biology, which we share with other living organisms. Since we all share a common ancestry, it is likely that we share certain fundamental qualities, and I think one of them is the approach-avoid paradigm of value, which other organisms follow unconsciously, but we can consciously appraise and evaluate to revise.
>> So there’s something more important than human happiness?
You are assuming that maximizing human happiness in this moment would not affect our capacity to maximize human happiness at a future date. In your example, if everyone was happy and stoned in this moment, then it would lead to future misery, because no-one is growing food, generating electricity, caring for the sick, and so on. It is not just about feeling good right now, but also about the future, too.
>> Maybe you should just read “Brave New World” sometime and find out.
I did read it, and soma was used during down times and breaks. It was not used constantly, and at all moments. That would have led to increased misery secondary to the breakdown of society.
>> Which would be irrelevant entirely to me. I want to ask the question first of “Ought I see X as good?” I won’t determine that by studying dopamine.
You can check to see if X is good by studying the consequences on those who perform X. Isn’t that what you do anyway? I mean, you have certain heroes or models that you admire, and you live their values by virtue of the positive impact they have had on the world. I know I do that. Why not just systematically study those qualities, and not just in those rare and spectacular individuals?
>> Yep. Those have life. The value of plant life and bacteria life is not the same as that of human life however due to the quality.
“The quality”? I thought that it was just about life, and not about quality. If you want to introduce quality, then how can an embryo have the same quality as a fully developed human being?
>> If there were willing mothers, sure. Why not? Of course, this still doesn’t deal with the issue. Is the embryo a human life? Finding an inconsistency in me won’t address that.
First, finding an inconsistency in your does matter, because it shows that your beliefs are contradictory on this matter, and thus are unreliable.
Second, I do not believe that an embryo is a human life. It is just a pack of cells that has the potential to become a human life. As you know, potential is not actuality, though.
Now, you may ask me precisely WHEN in embryological and fetal development does it count as a “human life”, and I will honestly answer, “I do not know”. It happens sometime, but I cannot precisely say when. Before you start saying that this is a huge problem, just remember when children become held responsible for their actions by society, which also lacks a clear-cut starting point.
And for an even more mundane example, look at baldness. There is a full head of hair, and there is baldness. Imagine a full head of hair, and start pulling out one hair at a time. Can you honestly determine the exact point where once you pull one more hair that the person is bald?
The fact is that our language lacks the precision to capture a variety of grey areas in life, whether with baldness, personal responsibility, or human life in utero. It is best to just be honest about this rather than pretend to have a degree of precision that just isn’t there.
And is it just me, or are our responses getting ridiculously long?
Dguller: >>
I actually do not know. I suspect that there would be triangles, but since triangularity is a concept that resides in the human mind, then I would suspect that this concept will die with mankind, unless an alien species somewhere has the same concept.
Reply: I respect hearing you don’t know so I invite you to think about it. Is it not triangularity that makes something a triangle? How can an object be a triangle and not part of triangularity? If so, triangularity would exist outside of human minds.
Dguller: Can you give me an example of something that is good for what it is and not for what it does?
Reply: Existence.
Dguller: First, is it good to see your mother and sister being raped before your eyes? If there are some situations in which vision is bad, then it cannot be good-in-itself, right? Otherwise, it would be good in all situations?
Reply: Sure would be good if I could ID the rapists. Things that are good in themselves can be used for bad purposes.
Dguller: Second, if our values only exist by virtue of human beings having them, then you would not want to know about values in themselves? I read you as saying just that.
Reply: If they did. However, if they told us nothing about reality outside of us, why should I care?
Dguller: As he says to do, replace “well-being” with “physical health” and pity the horrible world we live in with modern medicine.
Reply: Paging the Eugenics movement….
Dguller: We consider human life to be good by virtue of our neurobiological processes and cultural environments. We are hardwired to subjectively experience the distress of others via mirror neurons, for example, and these innate tendencies of empathy and compassion are then reinforced by our social upbringing and cultural osmosis.
Reply: Don’t include me in this “We.” This “We” is an extreme minority. Most of us on this planet I think value human life because it is human life.
Dguller: Furthermore, we are able to reflect upon the fact that all human beings are fundamentally similar and have identical feelings and emotions, such as pain and suffering. In addition, we are all interconnected, and the pain and suffering of some will eventually affect us, especially in this age of globalization.
So, in order to maximize my well-being, it is best to maximize the well-being of others. That is what Buddhism has taught me.
Reply: Wow. And the New atheists accuse Christians of being selfish and not doing good for the sake of the good and here I hear “I do good because it maximizes my well-being.” I do good because it’s the right thing to do.
Dguller: Ultimately, the good end is to maximize well-being and minimize suffering. That is my candidate. What is yours?
Reply: And you maximize well-being and minimize suffering because? For instance, it seems you’re valuing the human society. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement disagrees and says for the good of the planet, you need to die. Why are they wrong?
Dguller: It does not have to be truly good, but only relatively more good than other options.
Reply: So you have something that isn’t good, but you say it’s good only on instrumental means.
Dguller: You forget that human beings assess value on a relative basis, and not absolutely. So, if I am purchasing something for $1,000, then I will not leave the store to save $5 at another store with a sale, but if I am purchasing something for $20, then I will leave the store to buy it for $15 at another store. Why? It is the same $5, but its value relative to the original price is different.
Reply: And you forget I don’t care so much about values. Values are subjective. I care about studying reality as it is and the qualities of reality do not lie in my brain.
Dguller: First, it actually had nothing to do with individualism. It even happened in those who were found to have high scores on valuing community.
Reply: The process has nothing to do with individualism. The idea that we need to study what we value by doing neuroscience to determine what is good is individualism through and through.
Dguller: Second, you do not need science to tell you to help someone in need. You do not need science for anything. However, it does not follow that science cannot be helpful in understanding how best to help someone in need, for example. It can study different forms of assistance, and see which ones happen to have the more positive results. That is just one example. There are others.
Reply: I have no problem with science informing us on moral matters. I have a problem with what Harris says. “How Science Can Determine Human Values.” This is science overstepping its bounds and it will not be science but scientists who are determining.
Dguller: Right. Goodness does not reside in objects, but in the value that we ascribe to an object. A rock is just a rock, but if I need something to throw to defend myself, then a rock is good, or if I need something to sit on, then a rock is good. The goodness does not reside in the rock, but in my appraisal of its value.
Reply: Why do you not apply the same to the rest of science? Why do you not believe you live in Berkeley’s universe then? Not only does this destroy morality, in the end, Harris’s view will destroy science.
Dguller: Well, we can change some of them, but the point is that there is nothing mysterious about what is going on with our morality. I think it is plausible that it is rooted in our biology, which we share with other living organisms. Since we all share a common ancestry, it is likely that we share certain fundamental qualities, and I think one of them is the approach-avoid paradigm of value, which other organisms follow unconsciously, but we can consciously appraise and evaluate to revise.
Reply: Who said anything about something mysterious? Difficult to understand is not the same as mysterious. I’m not denying the principle entirely. I’m denying how you reach the principle as valid because it tells me nothing about reality outside of my mind but only the reality inside of my mind.
Dguller: You are assuming that maximizing human happiness in this moment would not affect our capacity to maximize human happiness at a future date. In your example, if everyone was happy and stoned in this moment, then it would lead to future misery, because no-one is growing food, generating electricity, caring for the sick, and so on. It is not just about feeling good right now, but also about the future, too.
Reply: So a future generation’s happiness is more important than mine? Why should I go for the future when I can have the present today?
Dguller: I did read it, and soma was used during down times and breaks. It was not used constantly, and at all moments. That would have led to increased misery secondary to the breakdown of society.
Reply: And you would have read about a society addicted to pleasure and would have had the same results as Mill’s world would. As if most people will seek pleasure in Greek poetry, classical music, and fine wine.
Dguller: I won’t determine that by studying dopamine.
You can check to see if X is good by studying the consequences on those who perform X. Isn’t that what you do anyway?
Reply: Only partially. The Natural Law tradition has three aspects to a moral act. (It’s also a study Harris is absolutely clueless on. Note that in my research, Harris is the WORST researcher of the new atheists in studying his opposition.)
Dguller: I mean, you have certain heroes or models that you admire, and you live their values by virtue of the positive impact they have had on the world. I know I do that. Why not just systematically study those qualities, and not just in those rare and spectacular individuals?
Reply: Partially but not entirely. It’s not just the impact but how they are today. There are three aspects to any moral act and consequences are only one.
Dguller: “The quality”? I thought that it was just about life, and not about quality. If you want to introduce quality, then how can an embryo have the same quality as a fully developed human being?
Reply: Because of the kind of life a human being can have. A human being is the only creature with a rational soul. I view other creatures as here to bring us pleasure. They are here for us. We are not here for them.
Dguller: First, finding an inconsistency in your does matter, because it shows that your beliefs are contradictory on this matter, and thus are unreliable.
Reply: No. It shows I’m inconsistent if anything. How does that refute the idea that life begins at conception? Not a bit.
Dguller: Second, I do not believe that an embryo is a human life. It is just a pack of cells that has the potential to become a human life. As you know, potential is not actuality, though.
Now, you may ask me precisely WHEN in embryological and fetal development does it count as a “human life”, and I will honestly answer, “I do not know”. It happens sometime, but I cannot precisely say when. Before you start saying that this is a huge problem, just remember when children become held responsible for their actions by society, which also lacks a clear-cut starting point.
Reply: Still a huge problem. If someone has an abortion, they could be killing a human being. You want to risk that?
Dguller: And for an even more mundane example, look at baldness. There is a full head of hair, and there is baldness. Imagine a full head of hair, and start pulling out one hair at a time. Can you honestly determine the exact point where once you pull one more hair that the person is bald?
Reply: Bald is a vague term. Life is not. One either has human life or one does not.
Dguller: The fact is that our language lacks the precision to capture a variety of grey areas in life, whether with baldness, personal responsibility, or human life in utero. It is best to just be honest about this rather than pretend to have a degree of precision that just isn’t there.
Reply: No. We have precision. The DNA is all there. What DNA do you think it is?
Dguller: And is it just me, or are our responses getting ridiculously long?
Reply: They are. Perhaps we should start on the main issue. The God question. For me, I defend the five ways of Aquinas.
>> I respect hearing you don’t know so I invite you to think about it. Is it not triangularity that makes something a triangle? How can an object be a triangle and not part of triangularity? If so, triangularity would exist outside of human minds.
Triangularity is a concept that we abstract from empirical triangles. When we are extinct, our concepts will be gone, but the empirical entities that they attempted to capture would remain.
>> Existence.
In all cases? What about existing in order to do horrific evil? What about Hitler’s existence? What about the existence of pedophiles and rapists? Would you consider them good, because they contain the inherent goodness of existence? And what about existing to suffer pointlessly? Is that a good?
>> Sure would be good if I could ID the rapists. Things that are good in themselves can be used for bad purposes.
So, good-in-itself can also be evil? What does good-in-itself even mean? I thought it was something that was unconditionally good in all circumstances.
>> If they did. However, if they told us nothing about reality outside of us, why should I care?
Why do our values have to tell us something about external reality? Why can’t they just tell us what is important to us? I mean, seriously, if your love for your parents could not be grounded in some metaphysical principle, then you would stop loving them?
>> Paging the Eugenics movement….
Really? How long should you keep someone on life support? I suppose forever? Oh wait, you make the choice to pull the plug before their natural death? I thought life was important to preserve in all circumstances, and if it isn’t, then you can make decisions about who lies and dies? Paging the Eugenics movement …
>> Don’t include me in this “We.” This “We” is an extreme minority. Most of us on this planet I think value human life because it is human life.
Maybe this may help. When you perceive the world, you see it as a unified whole and without any gaps in your vision. But, you also have a blind spot that your brain automatically fills in without you knowing it. What if valuing human life was similar to the brain filling in our visual blind spot? What if it was something that we were hardwired to do by virtue of our innate tendency towards empathy and compassion? Would that really take away from our valuing human life?
>> Wow. And the New atheists accuse Christians of being selfish and not doing good for the sake of the good and here I hear “I do good because it maximizes my well-being.” I do good because it’s the right thing to do.
And you have no emotional feeling associated with doing the right thing? You do not get any sense of satisfaction or pride when you do the right thing? You do not do the right thing, because you would feel like shit afterwards if you didn’t? That has never occurred to you? Or are you a robotic automaton without feeling who just automatically behaves morally, because you are programmed to do so?
>> And you maximize well-being and minimize suffering because? For instance, it seems you’re valuing the human society. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement disagrees and says for the good of the planet, you need to die. Why are they wrong?
Do you believe that morality and goodness must be independent of human conscious states?
>> And you forget I don’t care so much about values. Values are subjective. I care about studying reality as it is and the qualities of reality do not lie in my brain.
Where do you find morality in reality, completely independent of human beings? Say, there were no human beings, then where does right and wrong exist?
>> The process has nothing to do with individualism. The idea that we need to study what we value by doing neuroscience to determine what is good is individualism through and through.
Why?
>> I have no problem with science informing us on moral matters. I have a problem with what Harris says. “How Science Can Determine Human Values.” This is science overstepping its bounds and it will not be science but scientists who are determining.
Suppose that after a number of surveys, science finds that human beings value a number of things: A, B, C, D. And let us suppose that science can study what happens to people who live according to A, B, C or D. And let us suppose that science discovers that those who perform C have more contentment, satisfaction, peace of mind, less stress, and so on, compared to A, B or D. Would you disregard this conclusion, because it came from science?
>> Why do you not apply the same to the rest of science? Why do you not believe you live in Berkeley’s universe then? Not only does this destroy morality, in the end, Harris’s view will destroy science.
Because I cannot touch or taste a value or moral.
>> So a future generation’s happiness is more important than mine? Why should I go for the future when I can have the present today?
Because it is not just about today’s happiness. Those who focus on today’s happiness to the exclusion of tomorrow’s ultimately lead lives of less quality and satisfaction than those do take into account the future. Those who are unable to delay their gratification become unable to function in society and become ostracized, and often imprisoned. Are you finished with your straw man yet?
>> And you would have read about a society addicted to pleasure and would have had the same results as Mill’s world would. As if most people will seek pleasure in Greek poetry, classical music, and fine wine.
I don’t know what your point is here. Care to clarify?
>> No. We have precision. The DNA is all there. What DNA do you think it is?
Okay, then let’s get back to my previous example of where you have the choice to save 10 embryos (with all their DNA) or a 6 year old boy. You said that you would choose to save the embryos, because there might be 10 parents who would be able to raise them. It doesn’t matter that the parents of the 6 year old have 6 years of memories and emotional connections, or that the 6 year old boy will experience pain and the terror of dying. None of that matters to you. Even though the embryos will not experience any pain or suffering. Even though the 10 parents have very little emotional connection, and whatever connection they do is more based on fantasy than reality.
Am I the only one who is bothered by this morality that does not appear to care about the conscious states of human beings, but only about metaphysical doctrines about an immaterial soul?
While I’m sure I’ll eventually respond to more, I need a little clarity on one specific thing here. Earlier, I’d asked:
Then why do you suppose NAS disagrees with you? They write that, “Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science.” Who should I believe, and why?
…to which you replied,
I said IF they exist in nature, then they are natural. I never said THAT they exist in nature.
First, YOU brought in that NAS quote that cited “natural” and “supernatural”. What do you think THEY meant since you quoted them approvingly?
Second, there are a number of definitions that I have read. One is the totality of what exists as perceivable directly or indirectly by our senses. Another intriguing one is anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities. That one means that there are mental events that are derived from non-mental events (= natural), there are non-mental events (= natural), and there are mental events that are not derived from non-mental events (= supernatural). Naturally – ha! – these non-mental events should be perceivable by mental events.
First, YOU brought in that NAS quote that cited “natural” and “supernatural”.
I did.
What do you think THEY meant since you quoted them approvingly?
What makes you think I quoted them approvingly? If I recall correctly, NAS failed to define “natural” and “supernatural” in that link. I simply pointed out that it seems science’s most prestigious body disagrees with you, and I was asking for an explanation of the apparent discrepancy, as well as advice on who to believe and why. Why do you hold what appears to be a different position than the National Academy of Sciences?
One is the totality of what exists as perceivable directly or indirectly by our senses.
As perceivable, or as perceived? What counts as perception? If perceived, then, could an observer living in the 1,400s standing in a crater justifiedly conclude that huge, flying rocks in space were natural?
Another intriguing one is anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities.
I suspect that most–if not all–atheists, naturalists and materialists smuggle that definition into the word. Of course, we have no direct evidence any such “natural” phenomena–unless we’re willing to proffer assumption as evidence.
That one means that there are mental events that are derived from non-mental events (= natural), there are non-mental events (= natural), and there are mental events that are not derived from non-mental events (= supernatural). Naturally – ha! – these non-mental events should be perceivable by mental events.
What does it mean to say that a “mental event” can “derive” from a “non-mental” event? Could you cite some examples?
>> As perceivable, or as perceived? What counts as perception? If perceived, then, could an observer living in the 1,400s standing in a crater justifiedly conclude that huge, flying rocks in space were natural?
First, I think that if X is perceived, then it counts as natural, but if it cannot be perceived, then it must at least be perceivable in order to equally count as natural. And perception is sensory experience. In other words, something must be directly or indirectly perceivable by our senses to count as natural. After all, our senses are how we receive information from the world around us.
Second, I suppose that someone in the 1400’s could argue that space rocks are natural. I do not know, however, what they would conclude or what their conception of “natural” would be. Perhaps if you added some details, then I could give a better answer.
>> I suspect that most–if not all–atheists, naturalists and materialists smuggle that definition into the word. Of course, we have no direct evidence any such “natural” phenomena–unless we’re willing to proffer assumption as evidence.
You have no experience of an external world populated by entities that lack a mind? Your experience is not an assumption. It is actually the root of all your assumptions about the world.
>> What does it mean to say that a “mental event” can “derive” from a “non-mental” event? Could you cite some examples?
Sure. Filling in the blind spot in our vision, which is done by the brain. Taking a hallucinogen, like LSD, which alters the serotonin levels in the brain, and results in a hallucination. Seeing stars after a head trauma. Intense religious experiences when the temporal lobe is activated during a seizure. Need I go on?
First, I think that if X is perceived, then it counts as natural, but if it cannot be perceived, then it must at least be perceivable in order to equally count as natural.
So, “natural” is anything perceived, or theoretically perceivable?
Second, I suppose that someone in the 1400’s could argue that space rocks are natural.
I didn’t ask what they “could argue” though, because snybody can argue anything. I asked if *you* believed a person in the 1,400s could justifiedly conclude that flying space rocks are natural, and your answer remains a little unclear. If yes, then why would their conclusion be justified? If no, why not? Assume they have the same definition of “natural” as yourself.
You have no experience of an external world populated by entities that lack a mind?
Hey, hold on now, that ain’t fair: that’s not how you just defined the “natural” I replied to. You said, “anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities.” If that’s the definition or at least part of it, then no: we do not have any direct evidence of such things, unless you want to proffer the assumption of metaphysical naturalism as evidence. If that’s not your definition or at least part of it, then… let’s get that square.
Filling in the blind spot in our vision, which is done by the brain.
How is this a “mental event” that “derives” from a “non-mental” event? Can you identify both components? Where is the non-mental event here?
>> So, “natural” is anything perceived, or theoretically perceivable?
Sure.
>> I didn’t ask what they “could argue” though, because snybody can argue anything. I asked if *you* believed a person in the 1,400s could justifiedly conclude that flying space rocks are natural, and your answer remains a little unclear. If yes, then why would their conclusion be justified? If no, why not? Assume they have the same definition of “natural” as yourself.
It depends on what they know about “flying space rocks”. Do they know about meteorites? Do they know that meteorites are made of rock and ice? Do they understand where meteorites come from? I mean, someone in the 1400’s may share my definition of “natural”, but without having some background information about meteorites and how they occur in the natural world, then they could just as easily conclude that the big hole was caused by an angel who got pissed. After all, belief in supernatural entities was plentiful at that time.
>> Hey, hold on now, that ain’t fair: that’s not how you just defined the “natural” I replied to. You said, “anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities.” If that’s the definition or at least part of it, then no: we do not have any direct evidence of such things, unless you want to proffer the assumption of metaphysical naturalism as evidence. If that’s not your definition or at least part of it, then… let’s get that square.
First, you claimed that there is no evidence – zero! – of (1) non-mental entities, and (2) mental entities caused by non-mental entities. As an example of (1), I cited the multiple non-mental entities that you experience all around you right now, e.g. keyboard, monitor, desk, phone, and so on. None of those entities has a mind, and so they are non-mental. And they clearly exist.
Second, I do not have to assume metaphysical naturalism. I experience an external world populated with entities that have minds and those that do not. I do not assume it.
>> How is this a “mental event” that “derives” from a “non-mental” event? Can you identify both components? Where is the non-mental event here?
Sure.
When you examine the eye, the cone and rod cells that actually respond to light occur on the retina at the back of the eye. You also see that the vasculature that supplies the eye, and the optic nerve, both enter the back of the eye in the same location, and at that location, there are no photoreceptors to receive light from the environment. That means that there is no visual information being provided from where that light is coming from in the world. However, when you look out into the world, you do not see a dark spot in your vision, but a seamless whole. The reason why is that your brain fills in the missing details by looking at the parts of your vision immediately surrounding the blind spot, and just assumes that what is in that spot is similar to the surrounding area. So, here is an example of a mental event (i.e. vision of what is in the blind spot) occurring secondary to a non-mental process (i.e. neurobiological pathways adding information to the visual image).
It depends on what they know about “flying space rocks”. Do they know about meteorites? Do they know that meteorites are made of rock and ice? Do they understand where meteorites come from?
Of course they don’t: this is the 1,400s. Even so, why would they need to know any of those details? Rocks–whether in space or on Earth–are perceivable. If they are claiming simply that a huge, flying rock produced the crater the two of you are standing in–also undeniably perceivable–then don’t they believe enough about these strange, flying rocks to justifiedly define them as natural by your definition of “that which is perceived or perceivable?”
First, you claimed that there is no evidence – zero! – of (1) non-mental entities… None of those entities has a mind, and so they are non-mental.
I didn’t. I suspect that you’ve simply lost track of your original delineation, because you don’t strike me as the type to equivocate to prove a point. I never denied the existence of entities without minds. I claimed–and still claim–that there is no evidence of anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities, which is what you said, word-for-word. If you have evidence of such things, by all means, show it. As far as my claim goes, ultimately is the key word in your statement.
Second, I do not have to assume metaphysical naturalism. I experience an external world populated with entities that have minds and those that do not. I do not assume it.
See above: “entities without mind” do not reflect your original delineation, and are not what I deny, but anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities. As regards the latter, it can only be assumed.
So, here is an example of a mental event (i.e. vision of what is in the blind spot) occurring secondary to a non-mental process (i.e. neurobiological pathways adding information to the visual image).
Can we say that the activity of “neurobiological pathways” constitutes a non-mental event? I don’t think we can, and I’m not sure how this example ties into our larger discussion of whether or not metaphysical naturalism must be assumed. Are you simply differentiating between a brain event and a mental event, i.e., the activity of “neurobiological pathways” constitutes a brain event, and brain events are not mental?
>> Of course they don’t: this is the 1,400s. Even so, why would they need to know any of those details? Rocks–whether in space or on Earth–are perceivable. If they are claiming simply that a huge, flying rock produced the crater the two of you are standing in–also undeniably perceivable–then don’t they believe enough about these strange, flying rocks to justifiedly define them as natural by your definition of “that which is perceived or perceivable?”
Sure. I guess they do.
>> I didn’t. I suspect that you’ve simply lost track of your original delineation, because you don’t strike me as the type to equivocate to prove a point. I never denied the existence of entities without minds.
Good.
>> I claimed–and still claim–that there is no evidence of anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities, which is what you said, word-for-word. If you have evidence of such things, by all means, show it. As far as my claim goes, ultimately is the key word in your statement.
Okay.
First, what I meant by non-mental is “not a mind”. Unless you want to say that all physical processes involve a mind, then you have to admit that there are physical processes that are non-mental. I would say that the brain is a physical entity that is composed of non-mental processes. For example, the components that make up the brain are not mental, but are neurobiological pathways that are made of neuronal connections.
Second, take the example of temporal lobe epilepsy. When the temporal lobe is activated by spontaneous electrical activity in a seizure, individuals have vivid subjective experiences. The causal only goes one way in that case, from non-mental neurobiological pathways to mental phenomena.
>> Can we say that the activity of “neurobiological pathways” constitutes a non-mental event? I don’t think we can, and I’m not sure how this example ties into our larger discussion of whether or not metaphysical naturalism must be assumed. Are you simply differentiating between a brain event and a mental event, i.e., the activity of “neurobiological pathways” constitutes a brain event, and brain events are not mental?
I am differentiating between a brain event as an objective third-person physical process that involves the activation of electrical activity along a neuron, and a mental event as a subjective first-person experience. My point is that the mind (i.e. a mental event) is caused by neurobiological processes, which are non-mental. I don’t think that this is particularly controversial.
And yes, not all brain events are mental. Say my occipital lobe is activated by incoming neural signals from the retina. This is not a mental event at all, because there is no experience occurring. It is just the activation of electrical and neurochemical activity along several interconnected neurons. It is only when the occipital lobe is combined with the other components of the brain that a visual experience can occur, which is a mental event. So, there are brain events, which are non-mental, and there are mental events, which are caused by the parallel processing of multiple neurological pathways.
Science: It Works!
dguller
says...Yes, it does work. Can humans misuse its discoveries for destructive purposes? Sure. Does that falsify science as the best method we have for uncovering the truth about how the world works? No.
Matt
says...I’m going to take a crack at what your point is:
This is a slam on attempts to use science to ground morality. Science works just as well killing people as it does curing them and is therefore amoral.
therealadaam
says...The same can be said of faith and religion.
What very few people “get” is, there are good people and there are bad people. Good Christians and bad ones. Good atheists and bad ones, etc.
Why are people so caught up on this “Us vs. Them” mentality?
Matt
says...“Why are people so caught up on this “Us vs. Them” mentality?”
My statement is about how science has nothing to say about what is right or wrong (though tons of stuff to say about how to best achieve what you have concluded is right or wrong). I am not calling scientists or atheists immoral. Many atheists and theists recognize the fact that science cannot properly ground morality. This is not an “us vs. them” situation as much as it is a dispute over the boundaries of science that both atheists and theists are discussing together.
For example, check out Massimo Pigliucci’s (atheist, scientist and philosopher) take on Harris:
http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2010/04/about-sam-harris-claim-that-science-can.html
Though there are many people out there who really are caught up in this “us vs. them” mentality. If you were simply making a general statement about them and not one specifically addressing cl’s post or my comment I totally agree with you.
“The same can be said of faith and religion.”
That’s definitely true. I have reservations about being able to logically ground morality in God’s nature (and I’m a theist). Science is amoral because you can’t empirically test whether a proposition is morally good. Discussions about the nature of morality (or metaethics) leave the epistemic limits of science while philosophy (including religious philosophy) is open to discussing things that cannot be empirically tested. In other words, science itself doesn’t care what is morally right or wrong, the terms themselves are meaningless on science alone, which is why I said, “Science works just as well killing people as it does curing them and is therefore amoral.”
Ana
says...When I saw this, what came to mind was something I heard on an “Unbelievable” ( a very good radio show in Britain) — a Christian David Robertson, talking about the limits of science said science shows us how to split the atom, not whether to create an atomic bomb.
apologianick
says...Now now. Let’s all remember. When it comes to science, we’re supposed to ignore the failed promises of science and the way it’s used for evil and focus only on how it’s used for good. When it comes to religion, we’re supposed to ignore all the ways it’s used for good and only think about the ways it’s used for evil.
cl
says...This post was originally meant to serve two purposes. The first, as apologianick seems to have caught onto, was to make parody of those who tout the cherrypicked maxim, “Science: It Works!” as some sort of defeater for other ways of knowing. The second was to serve as a sort of Rorschach test. I was genuinely interested in seeing how different people would react to the post.
dguller,
Well, I suppose this all depends on one’s definition of “best,” doesn’t it? Is it really the “best” method if it’s brought us to the verge of extinction? Is it really the “best” method if the ancient Greeks reasoned their way to the atom? By “best” do you allude only to the successes of science, or, does your definition of “best” also acknowledge the fact that science has failed miserably in many areas? Further, how do you quantify these things to arrive at your conclusion?
Matt,
Actually, it wasn’t, though I do not think science should be the arbiter of morality. Makes sense, though; I could see how you came to that conclusion, especially given the recent post on doughnuts and red curbs.
I also concur with you re Pigliucci.
therealadaam,
Speaking only for myself, I get this.
In the event you were alluding to me because of this post, that’s not it at all. I actually disagree with those who take an “us vs. them” approach to science and religion–or most anything for that matter. Of course, exceptions exist.
Ana,
Thanks for the tip; I’ll check that out when I find myself some time.. :)
apologianick,
Nailed it.
dguller
says...Cl:
>> Well, I suppose this all depends on one’s definition of “best,” doesn’t it? Is it really the “best” method if it’s brought us to the verge of extinction?
Yes, it is. I said it is the best method at uncovering the truth of how the world works. Does that imply that that knowledge will always be used for good? No. I mean, if I said that Boston Pizza is the best pizza in terms of flavor, then it makes no sense for you to say, “Well, is it still the best if someone chokes on it, and dies?!” It is still the best at what I said it would do, which does not mean that it has to be the best in every sense of the word and in every single situation.
>> Is it really the “best” method if the ancient Greeks reasoned their way to the atom?
Yes, because they also reasoned their way to everything being made of water and fire, as well. When all they had were arguments, the issue was inconclusive. It was when the scientific method was applied that clarity occurred and now, no-one doubts the existence of atoms (I hope).
>> By “best” do you allude only to the successes of science, or, does your definition of “best” also acknowledge the fact that science has failed miserably in many areas?
I refer to Winston Churchill: “Democracy is the worst form of government there is, except for all the others”. I would say the same for science. It is imperfect, has flaws, is often erroneous, and used for ill ends. It is still the best form of knowing the world that we have.
>> Further, how do you quantify these things to arrive at your conclusion?
By the tremendous explosion of knowledge about the natural world that occurred in the last few centuries as a result of the systematic use of the scientific method.
Seriously, describe an alternative way of knowing the world that has a greater chance of success than science. I am all ears.
cl
says...I would just like to state that I am not a “hater” when it comes to science. I’m a “hater” when it comes to scientism.
dguller,
Did not scientists reason their way to all sorts of false things, from the static universe to cathode rays?
How much of that is real knowledge, and how much of it is utter nonsense?
If the God of the Bible is real, would you agree that revelation from such a God would trump science, hands down?
dguller
says...cl:
>> Did not scientists reason their way to all sorts of false things, from the static universe to cathode rays?
No, they didn’t. They collected empirical data, ran experiments, tested hypotheses, and so on. They did the hard work of science, and not armchair philosophizing. That is how you resolve a controversy, and why no-one doubts whether atoms exist or not.
>> How much of that is real knowledge, and how much of it is utter nonsense?
Pick up any textbook of biology, chemistry, physics, archeology, geology, mechanics, and so on, and compare it to any ancient or medieval textbooks, and you can compare which is more correct. I mean, are you really saying that the ancients and medievals understood the natural world better than contemporary scientists? What ancient and medieval scientific theories do you prefer to modern scientific theories?
And even if most scientific hypotheses are ultimately falsified and rejected as untrue, the point is that there is an in-built mechanism to weed them out. Prior to the modern scientific enterprise, this just did not exist. It was more about influential and charismatic thinkers developing schools of thought (e.g. Galen, Ptolemy) that held sway for centuries without much room for corrective feedback. There are no Einsteinians versus Newtonians today. There are just physicists.
>> If the God of the Bible is real, would you agree that revelation from such a God would trump science, hands down?
Not really, because even a revelation from such a God would have to be filtered through contemporary scientific knowledge to determine whether it should be interpreted literally or figuratively.
apologianick
says...One of the great errors of thinking is to take one body of knowledge and use it on all the other bodies of knowledge.
Science is the best form of study we have….at determining scientific truth. It’s not good for moral, philosophical, or theological truth. It also won’t work with literary truth, mathematical truth, etc. Even in science there’s division. If you want to study the life of a plant, do you go to a biologist or a physicist?
dguller
says...Apologianick:
>> Science is the best form of study we have….at determining scientific truth. It’s not good for moral, philosophical, or theological truth. It also won’t work with literary truth, mathematical truth, etc. Even in science there’s division. If you want to study the life of a plant, do you go to a biologist or a physicist?
If moral, philosophical or theological claims have an impact on the empirical world, then science must be involved to test whether the phenomenon in question occurred by chance, fraud, bias, or genuinely.
For example, if one issues a moral claim that doing X will lead to a better life, then science can study those who do X and those who do not do X, and compare them in terms of quality of life, happiness, longevity, senses of meaning and purpose, and so on. If we cannot do that, then how do we know if any moral claim is actually good for us?
Now, if you want to utter claims that do not impact the empirical world at all, then I would agree that science is pretty useless in that regard. So, if you want to debate whether God’s power or mercy is primary in his essence, or whatever, then science will not help at all.
And if you want to study the life of a plant, then you have to realize that there are different levels of explanation, each bringing something important to our understanding, and so I would say that you should use biology, chemistry and physics, and whatever else you think is applicable. There is no single scientific discipline that all scientific knowledge can be reduced to, because of emergent properties, for example.
apologianick
says...@Dguller:
If moral, philosophical or theological claims have an impact on the empirical world, then science must be involved to test whether the phenomenon in question occurred by chance, fraud, bias, or genuinely.
Reply: Insofar as it is part of the material world. Of course, that would depend on what you mean by the natural world. Triangularity is a phenomenon whereby an enclosed figure has three sides. Is that natural? Is it the role of the scientist to study a triangle?
Dguller: For example, if one issues a moral claim that doing X will lead to a better life, then science can study those who do X and those who do not do X, and compare them in terms of quality of life, happiness, longevity, senses of meaning and purpose, and so on. If we cannot do that, then how do we know if any moral claim is actually good for us?
Reply: Let’s look at a few terms in there.
Quality of life.
Happiness
Meaning.
Purpose.
Moral.
Good.
Where do you get the understanding of all of these from? That’s right. Philosophy. Science can inform philosophy but it does not discover it. After all, a lot of college students could say wanton sex, drugs, drinking, cheating on tests, etc. lead to happiness for them.
Dguller: Now, if you want to utter claims that do not impact the empirical world at all, then I would agree that science is pretty useless in that regard. So, if you want to debate whether God’s power or mercy is primary in his essence, or whatever, then science will not help at all.
Reply: Science cannot tell you that, but that does relate to the empirical world. After all, my reasons for believing in God’s existence are empirical. They start with sense experience and go from there.
Dguller: And if you want to study the life of a plant, then you have to realize that there are different levels of explanation, each bringing something important to our understanding, and so I would say that you should use biology, chemistry and physics, and whatever else you think is applicable. There is no single scientific discipline that all scientific knowledge can be reduced to, because of emergent properties, for example.
Reply: But there are primary ones. A botanist can tell you more about the plant than the physicist can. The botanist specializes in matter insofar as it relates to plants. Physicists study matter insofar as it is in motion. Biologists study it insofar as it is connected to something living.
cl
says...dguller,
I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been steadily plugging away on the NDE posts. I’ve not forgot. As far as our conversation here is concerned…
Don’t you find it ironic that the “armchair philosophizing” you denigrate birthed the science you praise?
Your answer to that question aside, I’d like to draw an analogy from the battlefield to hopefully illustrate my larger point here. Is the best military strategy simply the one most successful at killing the enemy soldiers? Or, is it the one that is most successful at killing enemy soldiers while minimizing collateral damage? Which would you say?
Yes, they did. You can use empirical data, experiments and hypotheses, and still reason your way to false conclusions. Scientists do this all the time. Would you agree?
No. I asked, How much of that is real knowledge, and how much of it is utter nonsense?
Was that ever being contested?
While I’m not sure what that claim was meant to demonstrate, it is certainly false. Just as there were “Einsteinians versus Newtonians” in ages past, there are “Copenhagen-ists versus Ensemble-ists” today, as just one example.
How could less-than-omnipotent, created human beings possibly be more reliable than an omnipotent Creator? Surely you’re not making that claim–are you?
Do we really need science to tell us that being a gang member leads, overall, to decrease in the quality of life for oneself and others? I mean, as much as I’m a fan of the whole “question everything” concept, can’t we take certain things as givens? Do we really need to ask the people in white robes for everything?
dguller
says...Apologianick:
>> Insofar as it is part of the material world. Of course, that would depend on what you mean by the natural world. Triangularity is a phenomenon whereby an enclosed figure has three sides. Is that natural? Is it the role of the scientist to study a triangle?
A triangle is natural, because it occurs in nature. However, a mathematical perfect triangle is not natural, because it does not exist in nature due to the properties of atoms’ mobility even in a solid structure.
>> Where do you get the understanding of all of these from? That’s right. Philosophy. Science can inform philosophy but it does not discover it. After all, a lot of college students could say wanton sex, drugs, drinking, cheating on tests, etc. lead to happiness for them.
Really? I get my understanding of happiness from philosophy? I actually get my understanding of happiness by my experience of it, as well as the conditions under which it occurs. And really, it does not matter where these ideas come from. If they impact the empirical world, and they do, then they can be studied scientifically. I mean, it does not matter if a scientist comes up with a hypothesis in a dream or a vision, as long as it ultimately holds up when tested in the world.
>> Science cannot tell you that, but that does relate to the empirical world. After all, my reasons for believing in God’s existence are empirical. They start with sense experience and go from there.
I would love to hear your reasons from the empirical world.
>> But there are primary ones. A botanist can tell you more about the plant than the physicist can. The botanist specializes in matter insofar as it relates to plants. Physicists study matter insofar as it is in motion. Biologists study it insofar as it is connected to something living.
And their expertise can all inform one another. This is not a zero sum game, but a concerted effort to understand as many aspects of the world as possible from as many different perspectives. But you are correct that some scientists specialize in a particular area of the natural world, and attempt to synthesize data from other disciplines to better understand their specific subject matter. So, fair enough.
dguller
says...Cl:
>> Don’t you find it ironic that the “armchair philosophizing” you denigrate birthed the science you praise?
Not at all. The origin of something is historically interesting, but does not validate or invalidate it, as far as I am concerned. Do you find it ironic that monotheism was born in a polytheistic ancient world?
>> Is the best military strategy simply the one most successful at killing the enemy soldiers? Or, is it the one that is most successful at killing enemy soldiers while minimizing collateral damage? Which would you say?
The latter.
>> Yes, they did. You can use empirical data, experiments and hypotheses, and still reason your way to false conclusions. Scientists do this all the time. Would you agree?
Absolutely. But they are usually weeded out by other scientists. That is what peer review, critical appraisal, and repeated studies are for. And my point still stands that corrections were made once they began to interrogate the empirical world rather than ponder its imagined characteristics in an ivory tower. This does not imply that they do not use reason, but that they marry reason with empiricism to maximize their effects.
>> No. I asked, How much of that is real knowledge, and how much of it is utter nonsense?
Are you asking me what percentage of current scientific thinking is real versus nonsense?
And are you making the claim that ancient scientific knowledge was superior to contemporary scientific knowledge? If you are not, then what are we arguing about exactly?
>> While I’m not sure what that claim was meant to demonstrate, it is certainly false. Just as there were “Einsteinians versus Newtonians” in ages past, there are “Copenhagen-ists versus Ensemble-ists” today, as just one example.
I never said that there never were Einsteinians versus Newtonians, but only that there aren’t anymore, because the empirical findings confirmed Einstein’s theories of relativity. The problem with QM is that there are no empirical findings that can confirm one interpretation over another. There is just a standstill. So, I suppose you are right that there are camps right now, but only when the empirical evidence is insufficient to decide an issue.
>> How could less-than-omnipotent, created human beings possibly be more reliable than an omnipotent Creator? Surely you’re not making that claim–are you?
No, I am making a factual claim. If a human being receives a divine message, which is corroborated as divine, then that message must be interpreted. God is speaking in words presumably, and words can have multiple meanings. They can be taken literally or figuratively, for example. How does one decide which of a number of interpretations is the correct one? Well, one way is to look for logical consistency, and another is to look for an interpretation that does not violate known scientific laws or principles. And so on. That’s all I meant. Even divine commands must be filtered through our finite linguistic and cognitive processes with all the limitations and distortions that entails.
>> Do we really need science to tell us that being a gang member leads, overall, to decrease in the quality of life for oneself and others? I mean, as much as I’m a fan of the whole “question everything” concept, can’t we take certain things as givens? Do we really need to ask the people in white robes for everything?
Let us take your gang member example. I would say that it is obvious, but that does not mean it is true. It would be better to study it, quantify the risk factors, the relative decrease in quality of life, increased mortality, increased mental illness, substance abuse, and so on, to better understand it in order to reverse it. It is easy to say that it is bad, but how bad is it for the individuals and their families and society at large, and how does it compare in terms of negative impact to other societal problems? After all, with limited resources available, it might be important to rank the most important social factors that have the worst quality of life impact, no?
It is just laziness to say that because something makes sense to me, then it must be true, and scientists are wasting their time studying it. Your beliefs may be biased, based on a limited sample, anecdotal, based on stereotypes, and so on. Until it is studied objectively, we really do not know, and it is not a matter of radical skepticism. There are a number of popular beliefs that are actually completely false once studied scientifically. For example, there is a popular belief that in basketball, you give the ball to the player with the hot hand. Statistical analysis has showed that the hot hand phenomenon is actually not real, but only a lucky streak of chance.
So, it is about getting as accurate a representation of the world as possible, which requires study, and not just going by personal intuition.
apologianick
says...Dguller: A triangle is natural, because it occurs in nature. However, a mathematical perfect triangle is not natural, because it does not exist in nature due to the properties of atoms’ mobility even in a solid structure.
Reply: A triangle does, but does triangularity depend on matter for its existence or not?
Dguller: Really? I get my understanding of happiness from philosophy? I actually get my understanding of happiness by my experience of it, as well as the conditions under which it occurs.
Reply: Correct. Your experience tells you that something is good, but that concept of goodness does not come from science. If it does, can you tell me the material properties of goodness? What scientific experiments have been done on goodness?
Can you give me the scientific definition of happiness? What experiments were done to determine what happiness is?
Dguller: And really, it does not matter where these ideas come from. If they impact the empirical world, and they do, then they can be studied scientifically. I mean, it does not matter if a scientist comes up with a hypothesis in a dream or a vision, as long as it ultimately holds up when tested in the world.
Reply: Correct in that the origin of the idea does not affect the truth of the idea. We’re not talking about truth however. We’re talking about if science is the deciding ground here and it isn’t because what is under discussion is not a scientific matter.
Dguller: I would love to hear your reasons from the empirical world.
Reply: They’re the five ways of Aquinas. As a Thomist, I affirm all of them.
Dguller: And their expertise can all inform one another. This is not a zero sum game, but a concerted effort to understand as many aspects of the world as possible from as many different perspectives. But you are correct that some scientists specialize in a particular area of the natural world, and attempt to synthesize data from other disciplines to better understand their specific subject matter. So, fair enough.
Reply: No problem there. Science can inform philosophy some on morality, but it is not the final determining grounds because something like goodness is the study of ethics and the study of philosophy.
Matt
says...I think that science is the best way to determine what things are made of and how they move. It is also a great resource for philosophers to discuss the implications of what things are made of and how they move. I don’t necessarily see science as distinct from philosophy though because science itself is an epistemology, probably the most reliable epistemology when it comes to studying what I mentioned earlier.
That being said I think one of the reasons science is so successful is because it limits itself. There really are issues that are purely philosophical -even in the realm of metaphysics!- and science avoids those to stick with things that are testable. Science does work because it only takes on challenges that fit it.
As far as what science doesn’t do, here’s a quote from physicist Robert Piccioni (son of Oreste Piccioni): “Look to science to learn the distance to the Sun, the age of the Earth, and the age of the universe. But science cannot measure or compute the purpose of life or the moral principles that should guide our lives.”
http://www.guidetothecosmos.com/acclife.html
cl
says...dguller,
I’d like to comment on a few of the things you said to apologianick…
So then, is a spirit natural, if it occurs in nature? Or, is there more to your definition than “occurs in nature?” The whole, “natural vs. supernatural” trope has always intriuged me.
This brings up an interesting issue. It seems to me that you’re willing to trust your own experience for phenomenon X, yet, not so much the experiences of others for phenomenon Y. Why is that? Can you articulate the deciding principle? Moreover, if you get your understanding of happiness via experience, then, haven’t you just identified something else we don’t really need science for?
As for your replies to me:
Really? You don’t see even a lick of irony in denigrating “armchair philosophizing,” when in fact it gave birth to science? I find that hard to believe.
No, because I don’t denigrate polytheism.
There, we agree. Would you also agree that science has entailed more collateral damage in a mere hundred years than all the “armchair philosophizing” of the previous thousands of years combined?
Again, though, that was never a point of contention. I simply meant to point out that science suffers from many if not all of the same flaws as philosophy, precisely because science is an extension of philosophy. At the end of the day, we still have fallible human beings drawing conclusions. Philosophy has a system of checks and balances, too.
You sustained your claim that science was the “best” method on account of, the tremendous explosion of knowledge about the natural world that occurred in the last few centuries as a result of the systematic use of the scientific method. I’ve challenged that by questioning how much is really “knowledge,” since so much of it–perhaps even the majority–has turned out to be false.
I disagree. With limited resources available, we should not be wasting money on the obvious, or those things that don’t directly improve the quality of life. I think science wastes tons of money in this regard. As far as improving the quality of people’s lives in the real world, knowing the number of exoplanets or the gaseous composition of Jupiter just doesn’t seem that important. All that money could have been used to directly feed the starving, study cancer, or help fight crime. Satisfying the curiosities of the intellectual elite should not come at the expense of the common man and woman.
I disagree. Like I said, certain things aren’t worth wasting tons of money studying. You seem to imply that we need science to know that being a criminal entails collateral damage to society. I disagree.
Although, this brings up an interesting dilemma: let’s say that repeated scientific experiments validated the claim that being a criminal was actually beneficial to society. Would you side with them? Or, would you go by your own intuition and experience in that regard?
dguller
says...Apologianick:
>> A triangle does, but does triangularity depend on matter for its existence or not?
I am not sure, but my intuition would say, no, it does not.
>> Correct. Your experience tells you that something is good, but that concept of goodness does not come from science. If it does, can you tell me the material properties of goodness? What scientific experiments have been done on goodness?
Okay, here is a better way of looking at it. We all have visual experiences, right? And because of our vision, we are capable of seeing things. Science can extend our vision with telescopes and microscopes, for example. It can also explain how we can have visual experiences at all. So, it starts with something that we all experience, and then can deepen our understanding of it, and even extend its scope.
I see no reason why morality should be different. We all have our conceptions of what goodness and morality is, and our conceptions are complicated messes of contradictory values that we have picked up intuitively, by osmosis of our culture, and by our personal reasoning. So, we have this tangled web of values that we believe are good.
What should we do about this? I say to let science study these values to see if we actually do value them on the basis of our actions, and maybe even determine which values are the most important to our well-being, and so on. I do not see this as inherently impossible.
>> No problem there. Science can inform philosophy some on morality, but it is not the final determining grounds because something like goodness is the study of ethics and the study of philosophy.
Science can study how behaving according to different conceptions of goodness actually plays out in the world. Some conceptions of goodness and morality may actually end up increasing the amount of suffering in a group of people. I think that this would be important to know in terms of deciding how to live.
And how does ethics and philosophy help us to decide how to live? Can you give me an example of an ethical dilemma that philosophy can help resolve, and how does it do so?
apologianick
says...Dguller:I am not sure, but my intuition would say, no, it does not.
Reply: You are absolutely correct. To demonstrate this, imagine if all of the triangles in the world disappeared. Could you tell me what a triangle is still? You can answer that by asking me if you can tell me what a unicorn is also.
However, does that mean triangularity is natural or not? (I also have a problem with the natural/supernatural distinction) Is a triangle a natural instantiation of that which is not natural? If it is not natural, what is it and how is it explained?
Dguller: Okay, here is a better way of looking at it. We all have visual experiences, right? And because of our vision, we are capable of seeing things. Science can extend our vision with telescopes and microscopes, for example. It can also explain how we can have visual experiences at all. So, it starts with something that we all experience, and then can deepen our understanding of it, and even extend its scope.
Reply: Agree entirely thus far.
Dguller: I see no reason why morality should be different. We all have our conceptions of what goodness and morality is, and our conceptions are complicated messes of contradictory values that we have picked up intuitively, by osmosis of our culture, and by our personal reasoning. So, we have this tangled web of values that we believe are good.
Reply: Disagree here. I do not believe in values. Values are subjective. You value X. I value Y. I’m wanting to know about the thing itself. Science cannot tell me if X is good because good is not a material property. It cannot tell me the same about actions depending on what those are.
Now you say there are contradictory ideas of what is good. Okay. What follows? Can two contradictory propositions be true? I’m a theist. I believe God exists. It seems to me thus far you’re an atheist. You would then believe God doesn’t exist. Can we both be right?
Now I believe we can have different ideas of morality, but those ideas are informed by our senses but not determined by our senses since there’s something else going on.
Let’s suppose I go to a pound and I see several dogs. I see large dogs, small dogs, and medium sized dogs. I see brown dogs, white dogs, black dogs, etc. I see all different breeds. Somehow, I deduce from what my senses inform me that there is a class of beings called dogs and even though every being I saw was different, all was a dog, whereas if I saw a four-legged animal that said “Meow” that would not be a dog because it would not possess some quality that all dogs possess.
The form of dogness I would argue is not material but is instantiated in matter and the idea I have of it in my mind is not material or else my mind would become a dog everytime.
Dguller:What should we do about this? I say to let science study these values to see if we actually do value them on the basis of our actions, and maybe even determine which values are the most important to our well-being, and so on. I do not see this as inherently impossible.
Reply: But that’s presupposing the meaning of the values which science cannot do. Science cannot tell you what goodness is since good is not a material property any more than it can tell you what triangularity is.
Dguller: Science can study how behaving according to different conceptions of goodness actually plays out in the world. Some conceptions of goodness and morality may actually end up increasing the amount of suffering in a group of people. I think that this would be important to know in terms of deciding how to live.
Reply: Which assumes suffering is not good. Is this always the case? I had a lot of suffering when I was fifteen with several people using a knife on me while I was under the influence of a chemical substance.
You say “That’s terrible!”
Well it is until I tell you that I was having back surgery while under anesthesia. The people with knives were surgeons. Was such suffering evil?
Meanwhile, the college students have wanton sex, boozing, cheating on tests, sponging off of their parents, and they think they’re having a good time. Is that good?
But now you’re going to say some pleasure isn’t good and some suffering isn’t evil. By what criteria?
Dguller:And how does ethics and philosophy help us to decide how to live? Can you give me an example of an ethical dilemma that philosophy can help resolve, and how does it do so?
Reply: I would point to something like abortion as an example. When I know what human life is and know that it is good by what it is rather than by what role it plays, in other words, intrinsically good rather than instrumentally good, I know that it ought to be preserved. When science informs us by stating that human life begins at conception, then by knowing what a human is and that life is good, then I know that I ought not to abort a child.
dguller
says...Cl:
>> So then, is a spirit natural, if it occurs in nature? Or, is there more to your definition than “occurs in nature?” The whole, “natural vs. supernatural” trope has always intriuged me.
Yes, it is natural if it occurs in nature. Now, tell me what a “spirit” is, and how it manifests itself in the natural world.
>> It seems to me that you’re willing to trust your own experience for phenomenon X, yet, not so much the experiences of others for phenomenon Y. Why is that? Can you articulate the deciding principle?
It depends on what X and Y are. If X is just a subjective experience, then I will generally trust in it. If Y is an experience of an external entity, then there is the possibility of falsely experiencing it.
>> Moreover, if you get your understanding of happiness via experience, then, haven’t you just identified something else we don’t really need science for?
I also experience vision. Does science have no role in either extending its reach or understanding how it occurs, how it becomes diseased and malfunctions, and how to correct for those circumstances?
>> Really? You don’t see even a lick of irony in denigrating “armchair philosophizing,” when in fact it gave birth to science? I find that hard to believe
Believe it. I also am not bothered by the fact that medicine was born from utter quackery.
>> Would you also agree that science has entailed more collateral damage in a mere hundred years than all the “armchair philosophizing” of the previous thousands of years combined?
I’m not too sure how to do this calculation. On the one hand, science has provided mankind with technology of destructive capacity. On the other hand, it has also increased the lifespan of human beings, increased the capacity for food production, and generally improved the quality of most people’s lives. Honestly, I do not know how to do the math here.
And would you prefer ignorance to knowledge as a general principle? Would you prefer that mankind go back to the Middle Ages?
>> I simply meant to point out that science suffers from many if not all of the same flaws as philosophy, precisely because science is an extension of philosophy. At the end of the day, we still have fallible human beings drawing conclusions. Philosophy has a system of checks and balances, too.
What is the self-correcting mechanism of philosophy? How do two philosophers agree upon a way to test their theories, and abide by the results, whether favorable or unfavorable? And what philosophical debates have been resolved with the achievement of a consensus?
And I do not think that science is an extension of philosophy. It is an extension of human inquiry in general, of which philosophy is one form.
>> You sustained your claim that science was the “best” method on account of, the tremendous explosion of knowledge about the natural world that occurred in the last few centuries as a result of the systematic use of the scientific method. I’ve challenged that by questioning how much is really “knowledge,” since so much of it–perhaps even the majority–has turned out to be false.
Even if the majority of scientific hypotheses have turned out to be false, the remaining correct ones still surpass the knowledge in the ancient and medieval worlds about how the world works.
Do I really have to list what science has gotten right? Evolution by natural selection, plate tectonics, DNA, germ theory of disease, theory of the cell, the periodic table, quantum mechanics, relativity, Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics, the Big Bang, the expansion of the universe, and on and on. And remember this isn’t a list of what some isolated individuals believed, but about scientific consensus.
Feel free to provide ancient and medieval examples of scientific truths that were accepted by consensus of specialists.
>> I disagree. With limited resources available, we should not be wasting money on the obvious, or those things that don’t directly improve the quality of life.
Then we should close philosophy departments around the world, no? What do they actually contribute to the quality of life of mankind?
>> I think science wastes tons of money in this regard. As far as improving the quality of people’s lives in the real world, knowing the number of exoplanets or the gaseous composition of Jupiter just doesn’t seem that important. All that money could have been used to directly feed the starving, study cancer, or help fight crime. Satisfying the curiosities of the intellectual elite should not come at the expense of the common man and woman.
First, the problem is that it is impossible to predict what scientific discovery today will lead to technological innovation tomorrow.
Second, the scientific budgets are actually quite small compared to, say, military budgets. If you want to target something that actually does routinely kill people and cause destruction at enormous financial cost, then argue against military spending. Why pick on science when there are bigger fish to fry?
>> I disagree. Like I said, certain things aren’t worth wasting tons of money studying. You seem to imply that we need science to know that being a criminal entails collateral damage to society. I disagree.
You don’t think it is important to know to what degree a criminal damages society? What about in terms of cost of incarceration? In terms of medical expenses for victims? In terms of disruption in school activities? And what about the contributing factors to why someone becomes a criminal? Genetics, family, society, social circle, drug use, exposure to violence? I mean, there are so many important questions to be studied about this matter rather than just saying “being a criminal, bad”.
>> Although, this brings up an interesting dilemma: let’s say that repeated scientific experiments validated the claim that being a criminal was actually beneficial to society. Would you side with them? Or, would you go by your own intuition and experience in that regard?
If the evidence were methodologically sound and credible then I would go with the science, of course. My intuition contains far more biases and confounding factors than a controlled study, for example.
Again, practitioners of homeopathy swear that their products heal people, but controlled studies show little or no benefit at all. What homeopathy practitioners see as their products helping is actually a combination of the Hawthorne effect, regression to the mean, natural course of an illness, placebo effect, and so on, rather than the actual treatment.
And what about those parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, because their experience says that vaccines cause autism? Should we endorse this stupidity, even though well-conducted studies have found no correlation between vaccines and autism?
This just plays into one of our inherent biases for anecdotes and narratives over statistics. If I have a friend who recently bought a car with excellent ratings, but it turned out to be a lemon, then I will likely not buy that car, because I rate my friend’s experience over the statistics, which is a stupid move, because my friend may have had one of the rare lemons while the majority are high quality.
dguller
says...>> Is a triangle a natural instantiation of that which is not natural? If it is not natural, what is it and how is it explained?
I have not fully thought this out, but why can’t a triangle be an abstraction from the triangles that we see around us? That way, they would still be natural entities in the form of thoughts and concepts in our mind. I will confess, logic and mathematics are puzzling to me, because they seem to have an independent existence, almost a Platonic reality, but I do not know if that is real or just a shadow cast by our thoughts.
>> Disagree here. I do not believe in values. Values are subjective. You value X. I value Y. I’m wanting to know about the thing itself. Science cannot tell me if X is good because good is not a material property. It cannot tell me the same about actions depending on what those are.
I disagree. The vast majority of human beings share the same values, but differ in terms of how they prioritize them. That is where most ethical conflicts occur, because this list actually contradicts itself. We value personal autonomy AND social connectedness; life AND self-sacrifice; happiness AND suffering; personal privacy AND public knowledge; and so on. They are subjective only in the sense that they exist only as long as we exist as subjects who have them. Once we wink out of existence, then these values will also be gone.
And something is good if we are inclined to move toward it. It is rooted in our biology in the same way that a bacteria will move towards glucose, because the glucose is “good”. We just have a much more sophisticated value system than less complex organisms.
>> Now you say there are contradictory ideas of what is good. Okay. What follows? Can two contradictory propositions be true? I’m a theist. I believe God exists. It seems to me thus far you’re an atheist. You would then believe God doesn’t exist. Can we both be right?
Not at the same time. However, it is no contradiction to say that I was a believer, and am now an atheist. And that is what happens with our values. Sometimes we value autonomy, and other times we value social cohesion, for example. Our values shift depending on the circumstances that we find ourselves.
>> The form of dogness I would argue is not material but is instantiated in matter and the idea I have of it in my mind is not material or else my mind would become a dog everytime.
An idea of X is not X. An idea of a dog is not a dog. Even Plato knew that.
>> But that’s presupposing the meaning of the values which science cannot do. Science cannot tell you what goodness is since good is not a material property any more than it can tell you what triangularity is.
What science CAN do is to start with where we are, teeming with different values and conceptions of what is right and good, and THEN study those values to see how many actually increase human happiness and satisfaction. And it has done this for some values. For example, we value wealth, but it turns out that wealth increases happiness, but only up to a point, and then it makes no further impact. I think that is important to know when I plan my work life.
>> Which assumes suffering is not good. Is this always the case? I had a lot of suffering when I was fifteen with several people using a knife on me while I was under the influence of a chemical substance.
I never said to ELIMINATE suffering, but to MINIMIZE it. I do not think it is good to eliminate suffering, because there are occasions when it can be useful, especially when suffering for the sake of a greater good. For example, exercise is painful, but it is worth it to achieve physical health.
And were you suffering while unconscious?
>> Meanwhile, the college students have wanton sex, boozing, cheating on tests, sponging off of their parents, and they think they’re having a good time. Is that good?
We can study the long-term outcome on their lives of living such lives to see if it is ultimately good for them. But that is a scientific question.
>> I would point to something like abortion as an example. When I know what human life is and know that it is good by what it is rather than by what role it plays, in other words, intrinsically good rather than instrumentally good, I know that it ought to be preserved. When science informs us by stating that human life begins at conception, then by knowing what a human is and that life is good, then I know that I ought not to abort a child.
First, what is “human life”? How do you know when it starts?
Second, if you had a choice to save ten embryos or a 6 year old boy from a burning building, then who would you save?
Third, what about when the mother’s life is threatened?
apologianick
says...Dguller: I have not fully thought this out, but why can’t a triangle be an abstraction from the triangles that we see around us?
Reply: Triangles aren’t. Triangularity is.
Dguller: That way, they would still be natural entities in the form of thoughts and concepts in our mind.
Reply: It depends on what you mean by natural which is still confusing to me. Triangularity exists in our mind, but does it exist materially? Does our mind become triangular?
Dguller: I will confess, logic and mathematics are puzzling to me, because they seem to have an independent existence, almost a Platonic reality, but I do not know if that is real or just a shadow cast by our thoughts.
Reply: Good. That’s where it starts. This stuff should puzzle you. However, something can exist independently of us in a sense, but it does not have to be a Platonic sense. For Plato, the forms exist independent of all else. For myself, I think ideas only exist in minds.
Dguller: I disagree. The vast majority of human beings share the same values, but differ in terms of how they prioritize them.
Reply: Correct, but they all share them subjectively. That a human values X does not tell me much about X in itself.
Dguller: That is where most ethical conflicts occur, because this list actually contradicts itself. We value personal autonomy AND social connectedness; life AND self-sacrifice; happiness AND suffering; personal privacy AND public knowledge; and so on. They are subjective only in the sense that they exist only as long as we exist as subjects who have them. Once we wink out of existence, then these values will also be gone.
Reply: Then you have a problem I think as you cannot tell me if some things are good in themselves. Is nature good? Well does it cease to be good when we go out of existence? If so, then there is no good in itself. We are just throwing our idea of goodness onto it.
How about life? Is life good?
Dguller: And something is good if we are inclined to move toward it.
Reply: Why should I think that?
Dguller: It is rooted in our biology in the same way that a bacteria will move towards glucose, because the glucose is “good”. We just have a much more sophisticated value system than less complex organisms.
Reply: Why should I believe a bacteria even has a value system? Are you saying that there is a one-to-one similarity between the activity of the bacteria and that of the human? If not, what is the difference?
Dguller: Not at the same time. However, it is no contradiction to say that I was a believer, and am now an atheist. And that is what happens with our values. Sometimes we value autonomy, and other times we value social cohesion, for example. Our values shift depending on the circumstances that we find ourselves.
Reply: That’s fine.
Dguller: An idea of X is not X. An idea of a dog is not a dog. Even Plato knew that.
Reply: That would make a difference if that was what I said. It’s not. I said a dog is the instantiation of dogness. A dog is not dogness.
Dguller: What science CAN do is to start with where we are, teeming with different values and conceptions of what is right and good, and THEN study those values to see how many actually increase human happiness and satisfaction. And it has done this for some values. For example, we value wealth, but it turns out that wealth increases happiness, but only up to a point, and then it makes no further impact. I think that is important to know when I plan my work life.
Reply: And what is happiness? Is it a good feeling? Is it making a difference in the world? What is it?
Dguller: I never said to ELIMINATE suffering, but to MINIMIZE it. I do not think it is good to eliminate suffering, because there are occasions when it can be useful, especially when suffering for the sake of a greater good. For example, exercise is painful, but it is worth it to achieve physical health.
Reply: So you say some suffering is good. Why is that? Because of a greater good. How do you determine that is good and that that suffering is worthwhile? You need a criteria outside of the suffering for that.
Dguller: And were you suffering while unconscious?
Reply: No. I was however for about a year afterwards.
Dguller: We can study the long-term outcome on their lives of living such lives to see if it is ultimately good for them. But that is a scientific question.
Reply: No. That’s a philosophical question. Science can tell you the effect on their bodies. It cannot tell you if that effect is good or not.
Dguller: First, what is “human life”? How do you know when it starts?
Reply: Human life is an instantiation of human nature. I know it has happened when all the DNA is there.
Dguller: Second, if you had a choice to save ten embryos or a 6 year old boy from a burning building, then who would you save?
Reply: Don’t know right now. Both are valuable. That’s another dilemma worth thinking about.
Dguller: Third, what about when the mother’s life is threatened?
Reply: Your goal is to save a life then and not to kill. My case is assuming all things being equal. We can think of contingencies in many cases.
cl
says...dguller,
Then why do you suppose NAS disagrees with you? They write that, “Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science.” Who should I believe, and why?
Of course science has a role in those things. That wasn’t the point of my question. You were saying that we need science for this and that, yet, at the same time telling me you understand happiness via experience. I was wondering where you draw the line, and why. I did find a little bit of clarification in your statement about X and Y, but not too much. For example, you write to apologianick the scientific study on wealth is helpful, yet, happiness related to wealth in a subjective experience. So, I still don’t see your deciding principle as far as what we need science for, as opposed to what we don’t.
Hey now wait just a minute! When you claimed that science was “the best,” doing calculations wasn’t even an issue. It didn’t even enter the picture. Yet, now I challenge the claim, and it’s an issue? That doesn’t make sense to me at all. If you don’t know how to do the math, then, on what empirical grounds do you claim science is “the best?” As you yourself said, aren’t humans susceptible to all sorts of confirmation bias? Since that’s true, how would I know whether your statement is motivated by confirmation bias vs. truth?
Of course, with the increase in life span comes overpopulation. Science has also perverted our food supply and introduced all sorts of new food-related diseases into the species.
The law of non-contradiction.
I already have: the Greeks reasoned their way to the atom, and that without creating an atomic bomb. It also appears the ancient Hebrews either reasoned their way to the beginning of the universe, the decay of the universe, and the non-physical causality of the universe–or these things were all revealed to them.
Maybe, maybe not. I can testify that philosophy has directly contributed to the quality of my life, whereas, knowing the chemical composition of Jupiter’s moons, not as much so. The point was, you were claiming that we need science to reliably conclude that being a gang member negatively impacts society. I disagree, and counter that funding such a study would be a waste of money.
I’m not “picking on science,” I’m questioning your claims because a few of them hint of scientism. There’s a huge difference.
That wasn’t what we were debating. Again, I claimed–and still claim–that we do not need a funded, scientific study to conclude that being a gang member has a negative impact on society. We do not need science for everything.
Really? So, if a “methodologically sound” and “credible” study determines that mass murder is beneficial to society, would you become a mass murderer?
I agree. So, why are you telling me that science is “the best” without a methodologically sound and credible study? Isn’t it at least possible that bias is influencing you? These seem like pretty serious inconsistencies to me.
dguller
says...Crude:
>> One problem is you end up implying that, because it is beyond direct empirical detection, we should treat (for example) ‘it is subject to the rules of logic’ and ‘it is not subject to the rules of logic’ as having equal probability. But you give no argument for this other than an appeal to bare possibility (I’m not sure it’s even ‘logical possibility’ in this particular case).
No, I do not. I have no idea how to assign the probability of the two propositions that you cited. I have no idea whether logic applies or does not apply “out there”, whatever “out there” means.
>> Here’s a second problem. The entire reason you seem to think that unbounded, unjustified possibility is worth considering in the case of ‘beyond the natural world’ is the lack of direct empirical observation. But that’s not limited to something beyond nature – it applies to nature itself. We have an observable universe: Anything beyond it is unobservable. Are we therefore justified in thinking we can say utterly nothing about it – not even regard it as likely that logic holds out there?
You can say whatever you want about it, but what you say may not make sense or even be true.
You can correct me by describing the methodology that you would use to achieve knowledge about this realm outside the universe. Go for it. Let me know. I really am interested.
>> There are other, more typical examples. I can’t observe another person’s mind. Do I therefore treat it as likely as not that all their words and thoughts come divorced from subjective experience and thought?
Really? Radical skeptical arguments? You should read up on mirror neurons in the premotor cortex as neurobiological correlates that contribute to our visceral and emotional connection to others. Yes, I cannot literally experience another person’s mind, but I can come close by the way by neurobiology processes sensory signals from another person. Mirror neurons are why emotions are contagious, why I wince when I see another person in pain, and why I am capable of empathy and compassion at all.
Furthermore, most human beings share a similar path of neurological development resulting in similar brains. Since the brain generates the mind, it would stand to reason that another person who has a brain similar to mine also has a mind similar to mine, i.e. consisting of thoughts, feelings, sensations, images, motives, desires, and so on.
This is actually interesting and useful. Radical skeptical arguments are just philosophical parlor tricks that trade on the sheer possibility of being true as evidence that they should be taken seriously.
Apologianick:
>> It depends on what you mean by natural which is still confusing to me. Triangularity exists in our mind, but does it exist materially? Does our mind become triangular?
I do not think it does exist materially. I think it is an idealized abstraction from something that we find in nature, i.e. triangles. So, I guess it is an idea, and no, our mind does not being triangular. If I have the thought X, my mind does not become X.
>> Correct, but they all share them subjectively. That a human values X does not tell me much about X in itself.
It tells you that we value it, and that means that ultimately we find some positive emotional salience in acting out that value. I really do not know what you mean by “X in itself”. Perhaps if you elaborated?
>> Then you have a problem I think as you cannot tell me if some things are good in themselves. Is nature good? Well does it cease to be good when we go out of existence? If so, then there is no good in itself. We are just throwing our idea of goodness onto it.
I do not believe in “good in itself”. Some things are good FOR some things. So, nature is not good in itself. Nature just is. There are aspects of it that are good for us (e.g. oxygen and food), and there are aspects of it that are bad for us (e.g. bacteria and viruses). Value is intrinsically related to organisms, because organisms value things. Values do not exist in and of themselves.
>> How about life? Is life good?
For most people, it is. For someone who has a terminal illness and is intensely suffering as a result of it, it is not so good.
>> Why should I think that?
Do you pull away from what you believe is good? Do you run screaming away from something you have a positive inclination to do? I am just describing what happens in the world. If you value X, i.e. X is good for you, then you will approach it; if you devalue X, i.e. X is bad for you, then you will avoid it. That is just how we roll. If you have some counter-examples, then I would love to hear them.
>> Why should I believe a bacteria even has a value system? Are you saying that there is a one-to-one similarity between the activity of the bacteria and that of the human? If not, what is the difference?
Yes, it has a value system by virtue of how it behaves in the world. Does it have a conscious awareness that glucose is good for it? No, it does not. However, the point is that value and goodness is rooted in a natural system of approach and avoidance behavior, which is present in even the lowliest of organisms. The fact that we have a much more sophisticated and complex system of values, largely due to our conscious awareness, does not nullify that there is a continuum here from the least complex to the most complex organisms, which can go some way to naturalizing ethics.
>> And what is happiness? Is it a good feeling? Is it making a difference in the world? What is it?
Happiness is a good feeling. Making a difference in the world can result in happiness.
>> So you say some suffering is good. Why is that? Because of a greater good. How do you determine that is good and that that suffering is worthwhile? You need a criteria outside of the suffering for that.
Because when we are deciding between multiple courses of action, we ideally should choose the one that has the best chance of maximizing our happiness and minimizing our suffering. Sometimes we make an intertemporal bargain to suffer today in order to have a bigger payoff in the future. For example, working out involves suffering today, but a bigger payoff in the form of better physical health and activity in the future. So, not only do we have to tradeoff between our values in the present, we also have to bargain with ourselves in the future, too. That is one reason why morality and ethics is so complicated.
>> No. That’s a philosophical question. Science can tell you the effect on their bodies. It cannot tell you if that effect is good or not.
Science can tell us the degree to which a particular course of action activates the dopaminergic mesolimbic system in the brain, which is apparently the core pathway for our valuing mechanism. The option that generates the most dopamine is ultimately chosen by the brain and performed by the body. I think that is important to know.
>> Human life is an instantiation of human nature. I know it has happened when all the DNA is there.
So, human nature consists of the presence of DNA? What about the dead skin cells that I slough off on a daily basis? Do they have human nature? Should I spend the day trying to save them?
>> Don’t know right now. Both are valuable. That’s another dilemma worth thinking about.
No, you shouldn’t have to think. Your whole point is that if DNA is present, then it is a fully human being. You should save the ten embryos and let the 6 year old boy die, if you are being consistent. If not, then you do endorse the notion that DNA just isn’t enough, and that a certain degree of complexity and development must also be factored into the equation. And once you go there, then a human mother is more complex and developed than a fetus, and your whole argument falls apart.
>> Your goal is to save a life then and not to kill. My case is assuming all things being equal. We can think of contingencies in many cases.
True.
dguller
says...Apologianick:
Ignore the first part of the above post. I forgot to delete something I wrote about another matter.
Thanks.
apologianick
says...Dguller: I do not think it does exist materially. I think it is an idealized abstraction from something that we find in nature, i.e. triangles. So, I guess it is an idea, and no, our mind does not being triangular. If I have the thought X, my mind does not become X.
Reply: It is an idea, yes, but triangles are an instantiation of it. Now you can say all triangles have nothing in common, at which point I would ask “Why call them all triangles then?” or you can accept that triangularity exists in minds and would exist even if there were no human minds.
Dguller: It tells you that we value it, and that means that ultimately we find some positive emotional salience in acting out that value. I really do not know what you mean by “X in itself”. Perhaps if you elaborated?
Reply: That tells me about us. It doesn’t tell me about the thing as it is, which is what I mean by “X in itself.” I want to know the properties of X, not just how it relates to us. If we weren’t around, what properties would it have?
Dguller: I do not believe in “good in itself”. Some things are good FOR some things. So, nature is not good in itself. Nature just is. There are aspects of it that are good for us (e.g. oxygen and food), and there are aspects of it that are bad for us (e.g. bacteria and viruses). Value is intrinsically related to organisms, because organisms value things. Values do not exist in and of themselves.
Reply: Okay. So you can only say things are good for an end, but then you want to turn and say some ends are good. Good for what? Another end? Is that end good? We can go on ad infinitum. Is there anything that as it is is good?
Dguller: For most people, it is. For someone who has a terminal illness and is intensely suffering as a result of it, it is not so good.
Reply: And yet, I’ve known of people in such conditions who have been full of joy. If life is good, what is it good for?
Dguller: Do you pull away from what you believe is good? Do you run screaming away from something you have a positive inclination to do? I am just describing what happens in the world. If you value X, i.e. X is good for you, then you will approach it; if you devalue X, i.e. X is bad for you, then you will avoid it. That is just how we roll. If you have some counter-examples, then I would love to hear them.
Reply: Not disagreeing with that. Just asking why I should think that’s the role of science.
Dguller: Yes, it has a value system by virtue of how it behaves in the world. Does it have a conscious awareness that glucose is good for it? No, it does not. However, the point is that value and goodness is rooted in a natural system of approach and avoidance behavior, which is present in even the lowliest of organisms. The fact that we have a much more sophisticated and complex system of values, largely due to our conscious awareness, does not nullify that there is a continuum here from the least complex to the most complex organisms, which can go some way to naturalizing ethics.
Reply: But value is a judgment call. If a bacteria has no mind as we do, then it is not capable of judgment. It is acting merely on instinct. Do you really think we act that way?
Dguller: Happiness is a good feeling. Making a difference in the world can result in happiness.
Reply: Then it would seem the way to happiness would be to give everyone in the world really strong drugs. Would you be in favor of this since it would increase happiness?
I say this because I disagree with your idea of happiness. In fact, Mortimer Adler would label it as one of the ten philosophical mistakes.
Dguller: Because when we are deciding between multiple courses of action, we ideally should choose the one that has the best chance of maximizing our happiness and minimizing our suffering. Sometimes we make an intertemporal bargain to suffer today in order to have a bigger payoff in the future. For example, working out involves suffering today, but a bigger payoff in the form of better physical health and activity in the future. So, not only do we have to tradeoff between our values in the present, we also have to bargain with ourselves in the future, too. That is one reason why morality and ethics is so complicated.
Reply: But again, this does not give me the criteria.
Dguller: Science can tell us the degree to which a particular course of action activates the dopaminergic mesolimbic system in the brain, which is apparently the core pathway for our valuing mechanism. The option that generates the most dopamine is ultimately chosen by the brain and performed by the body. I think that is important to know.
Reply: Not really. Are you saying I need to know dopamine content before I can make good decisions? Sorry, but when I make an ethical decision, the last thing I’m thinking about is “I wonder how much dopamine I’m producing.”
Dguller: So, human nature consists of the presence of DNA? What about the dead skin cells that I slough off on a daily basis? Do they have human nature? Should I spend the day trying to save them?
Reply: Note I’m speaking about human life and how it begins. Living things are things that have the principle of their movement in themselves.
Dguller: No, you shouldn’t have to think. Your whole point is that if DNA is present, then it is a fully human being. You should save the ten embryos and let the 6 year old boy die, if you are being consistent. If not, then you do endorse the notion that DNA just isn’t enough, and that a certain degree of complexity and development must also be factored into the equation. And once you go there, then a human mother is more complex and developed than a fetus, and your whole argument falls apart.
Reply: Not a bit. For the embryos I’d also have to have 10 willing mothers who would suddenly decide to care for the children there.
dguller
says...cl:
>> Then why do you suppose NAS disagrees with you? They write that, “Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science.” Who should I believe, and why?
I said IF they exist in nature, then they are natural. I never said THAT they exist in nature.
>> You were saying that we need science for this and that, yet, at the same time telling me you understand happiness via experience. I was wondering where you draw the line, and why. I did find a little bit of clarification in your statement about X and Y, but not too much. For example, you write to apologianick the scientific study on wealth is helpful, yet, happiness related to wealth in a subjective experience. So, I still don’t see your deciding principle as far as what we need science for, as opposed to what we don’t.
Science starts with the assumption it is possible that our perception and intuition may be incorrect, and so it is warranted to investigate to see which are correct and which are incorrect.
For example, if a group of people were passing a basketball around, and you were counting how many times the basketball was passed, then do you think you would notice someone in a gorilla suit walking slowly through the group, pound his chest a few times, and then walk off? Most, if not all, people would say, “Of course!” But when this experiment is run, most people actually do not see the gorilla at all! And this tells us something about how we perceive the world via selective attention. If you had your way, this experiment would never have been done, because OBVIOUSLY we would see the gorilla. And there are many more like it.
I do not draw the line, except where ethics are violated or there just isn’t sufficient funding. Science is full of surprises, and has contradicted our intuitions on a number of occasions. The only way to know whether our intuitions are valid is to test them. Otherwise, we run the risk of having a false certainty, no?
>> When you claimed that science was “the best,” doing calculations wasn’t even an issue. It didn’t even enter the picture. Yet, now I challenge the claim, and it’s an issue? That doesn’t make sense to me at all. If you don’t know how to do the math, then, on what empirical grounds do you claim science is “the best?”
I never said it was the bestest thing in the whole wide world, better than everything combined. I said it is the best method we have to uncover how the world works. That’s all. You were asking me a separate question. You were asking me whether science has a net positive or negative impact upon our lives. I cannot do the calculation of that question, because there are too many variables, and I am unsure how to weigh each one. In a sense, your question comes down to, “Is it always better to have knowledge?” The answer to that question is open, as far as I am concerned, but the question of whether science is the best method we have to acquire knowledge about the world is closed. These are two different questions with two different answers.
>> Of course, with the increase in life span comes overpopulation. Science has also perverted our food supply and introduced all sorts of new food-related diseases into the species.
Well, science hasn’t perverted our food supply, and so on. Human beings’ use of scientific technology has done that. And you are correct that our actions always have both positive and negative effects. Even if I choose to do something good, then I am not choose to do many other good things, which would possibly lead to a greater good in the world. That is the complexity of human decision-making in general, and not specific to decisions regarding how to use scientific knowledge.
>> The law of non-contradiction.
That’s it? So, as long as someone comes up with something that does not contradict itself, then it is considered valid?
>> I already have: the Greeks reasoned their way to the atom, and that without creating an atomic bomb. It also appears the ancient Hebrews either reasoned their way to the beginning of the universe, the decay of the universe, and the non-physical causality of the universe–or these things were all revealed to them.
Was there a consensus amongst the Greeks that atoms existed? Or was it just the Epicureans? If there was not a consensus, then why not, if the evidence for atoms was so compelling? How would the Greeks achieve consensus on this issue through their powerful reasoning?
The fact that some ancients reasoned their way to conclusions that have been confirmed by scientific inquiry does not mean that the ancients were superior to the moderns. They had no way to achieve consensus, because they lacked an agreed upon method of inquiry.
>> Maybe, maybe not. I can testify that philosophy has directly contributed to the quality of my life, whereas, knowing the chemical composition of Jupiter’s moons, not as much so. The point was, you were claiming that we need science to reliably conclude that being a gang member negatively impacts society. I disagree, and counter that funding such a study would be a waste of money.
I suppose that knowing the chemical composition of Jupiter’s moons has contributed to the quality of life of many an astrophysicist and astronomer. Does that thereby validate its acquisition?
As I said above, it is easy to look at some scientific studies that confirm our intuitions and say that it was a waste of time. The problem is that we do not know, in advance, which ones will confirm or falsify our intuitions, and so we have to first investigate to know. When our intuitions are violated, then the study is celebrated. It is kind of like studying a treatment intervention that turns out not to work. It is unlikely to be published, because of publication bias, but that does not mean that it wasn’t important. At least, we know that that particular treatment does not work. Not all negative studies are useless, after all.
>> Really? So, if a “methodologically sound” and “credible” study determines that mass murder is beneficial to society, would you become a mass murderer?
Not necessarily. If a scientific study showed that having garbage men in society improves overall quality of life, then I would not become one, because I am currently a physician and contribute to improving the lives of my patients in that fashion. I would assume that being a mass murderer is not the ONLY way of being beneficial to society, and would choose others that better meet my taste and qualifications.
Now, let me ask you something: If God told you to exterminate a group of people, or cut the foreskin without anaesthesia from those in your circle, or murder your only son, would you do it?
>> I agree. So, why are you telling me that science is “the best” without a methodologically sound and credible study? Isn’t it at least possible that bias is influencing you? These seem like pretty serious inconsistencies to me.
You still have not provided a viable alternative to understand how the world works. Yes, science is imperfect and flawed and often wrong, but it is still the best method we have. If you disagree, then provide me with an alternative. Don’t just be a Monday morning quarterback, but get in the game!
dguller
says...Apologianick:
>> It is an idea, yes, but triangles are an instantiation of it. Now you can say all triangles have nothing in common, at which point I would ask “Why call them all triangles then?” or you can accept that triangularity exists in minds and would exist even if there were no human minds.
I never said that all triangles have nothing in common. We have abstracted triangleness from individual triangles as a concept, but this is an inference from imperfect individual material triangles to perfect abstract triangles.
>> That tells me about us. It doesn’t tell me about the thing as it is, which is what I mean by “X in itself.” I want to know the properties of X, not just how it relates to us. If we weren’t around, what properties would it have?
First, why is goodness a “thing in itself”?
Second, what if X has no existence apart from us? Let us say that we are talking about human vision, and you want to know about vision in itself. I then reply that there is no vision in itself, but only vision as generated by the human brain and experienced by a human being. No brain, no human being, no human vision. Would you persist in wanting to know human vision’s properties in itself? What does that even mean here?
>> Okay. So you can only say things are good for an end, but then you want to turn and say some ends are good. Good for what? Another end? Is that end good? We can go on ad infinitum. Is there anything that as it is is good?
I would agree with Harris that human well-being is the elusive ultimate goal that we try to achieve by living out different values, which change depending on the circumstances. Now, is human well-being a good-in-itself? No, it is still a good-for-us that will likely cease to exist when we are extinct. So, you can look at it as a differential equation with various constants whose weights change depending on the circumstance, but whose ultimate outcome is to maximize human well-being and minimize human suffering.
>> And yet, I’ve known of people in such conditions who have been full of joy. If life is good, what is it good for?
Would you say the majority of people in such conditions are “full of joy”? And does their joy manifest itself while they are in physical agony, or once the pain subsides? And those who are full of joy, could it be because although their present is full of suffering, their current suffering is framed by future benefits, such as an afterlife, modeling coping skills for their loved ones, ending their life with dignity, and so on? And if so, then that actually fits with everything that I am saying. We can endure suffering in the present if it is for the sake of something more valuable in the future.
>> Not disagreeing with that. Just asking why I should think that’s the role of science.
Science can investigate whether what we claim to value, we actually do. For example, we say that we would help a man lying prostrate on the floor in pain, but studies have shown that when people are in a crowd, and the members of the crowd ignores the suffering individual, then most people would follow the crowd and ignore the suffering individual. This is because we find ourselves in an ambiguous situation, and we seek clarity from the behavior of others. It is called “social proof”. Now, this is actually counter-intuitive, but it does happen, and investigating what would happen is what led to this surprising conclusion.
>> But value is a judgment call. If a bacteria has no mind as we do, then it is not capable of judgment. It is acting merely on instinct. Do you really think we act that way?
No, it isn’t. If I rush into a burning building without thinking and save some kids, then can you say that I made a judgment? It was an instinctive and immediate response to a situation. And if that can demonstrate what my values are, then why can’t a bacteria’s movement towards glucose do the same? The only difference is that we are capable of consciously becoming aware of our behavior and modifying it through reflecting upon it, and communicate via language with those around us to seek new information, and so on. Like I said, what we do is more complex, but it ultimately comes down to the same thing: X is good if I will approach it, and X is bad if I avoid it.
>> Then it would seem the way to happiness would be to give everyone in the world really strong drugs. Would you be in favor of this since it would increase happiness?
It depends on the side effects of the drugs, and the social consequences of having people stoned all the time. Would society still be able to function? Would people stop going to work, producing food, generating electricity, and so on? Maybe the net effect of that program would be worse overall for individual happiness than the drugs themselves’ positive impact?
>> Not really. Are you saying I need to know dopamine content before I can make good decisions? Sorry, but when I make an ethical decision, the last thing I’m thinking about is “I wonder how much dopamine I’m producing.”
No, but the fact is that this is what is going on in your brain while you are making a judgment or decision. You do not need to be aware of it to make a choice, but it helps to know this. Suppose we eventually find a way to measure dopamine accurately in the mesolimbic pathway, and you claim to value X over Y. Then science would be able to measure the level of dopamine when you do X and Y, and if Y’s dopamine level was higher than X’s, then we know that you are lying.
>> Note I’m speaking about human life and how it begins. Living things are things that have the principle of their movement in themselves.
“Principle of their movement”? I suppose that you mean the potential for self-generated movement. What about plants? They do not move, but remain rooted to where they are. Perhaps you mean the process of metabolism. Then an individual cell would be alive, but then again, so would an individual mitochondria. Should we then not damage mitochondria?
Perhaps if you clarified when you meant by this?
>> Not a bit. For the embryos I’d also have to have 10 willing mothers who would suddenly decide to care for the children there.
And if they were present, then you would save the embryos and not the child? The 10 willing mothers would never have another opportunity to find other embryos to care for? And what about there being DNA? You initially said THAT is what determined “human nature” being present, and once human nature is present, then it is a full human life with all the rights involved in this. NOW, you are saying that it is not enough, but there must be someone willing to love and care for them? So, what if a woman wants to have an abortion, has looked for adoptive parents, but there were none available, then is it then okay for her to terminate the pregnancy?
apologianick
says...Dguller: I never said that all triangles have nothing in common. We have abstracted triangleness from individual triangles as a concept, but this is an inference from imperfect individual material triangles to perfect abstract triangles.
Reply: I know you never said that. I was just making it a clear fact. Yes. We do abstract to triangularity from seeing multiple triangles. You can show me several triangles, but you can never show me triangularity. Yet how does this idea of triangularity exist? Would there be triangles if there were no human minds?
Dguller: First, why is goodness a “thing in itself”?
Reply: While I believe it is, I’m not saying that yet. I’m just asking if some things are good in themselves not just for what they do but for what they are.
Dguller: Second, what if X has no existence apart from us? Let us say that we are talking about human vision, and you want to know about vision in itself. I then reply that there is no vision in itself, but only vision as generated by the human brain and experienced by a human being. No brain, no human being, no human vision. Would you persist in wanting to know human vision’s properties in itself? What does that even mean here?
Reply: If it does not exist apart from a mind, no. Of course, I see vision as good in itself in that it is good to be able to see, and we also see for a reason. The two don’t contradict.
Dguller: I would agree with Harris that human well-being is the elusive ultimate goal that we try to achieve by living out different values, which change depending on the circumstances.
Reply: I started reading that book tonight and I plan on blogging on it soon after I finish going through the Jehovah’s Witnesses “Should You Believe In The Trinity?”
I will say what little I’ve read of it is that if anyone believes what Harris says in this book, the future will be frightening. It will be scientists who determine what is well-being and who can have that well-being and which lives are worthy of living.
Dguller: Now, is human well-being a good-in-itself? No, it is still a good-for-us that will likely cease to exist when we are extinct.
Reply: Can you give me any basis then for considering human life good? If it is only as an instrumental means, then that will mean you are treating humanity as means to an end. I really hope you’ll think about where that leads.
CL. I hope you’re reading this also.
Dguller: So, you can look at it as a differential equation with various constants whose weights change depending on the circumstance, but whose ultimate outcome is to maximize human well-being and minimize human suffering.
Reply: Nothing new. That’s just utilitarianism. However, if there is no good end ultimately, then what’s the purpose?
Dguller: Would you say the majority of people in such conditions are “full of joy”?
Reply: I’d say it doesn’t matter. What message can be given is that people are victim to their circumstances. For people interested in modern ideas, I’d think most would read some modern psychology, like “Feeling Good.”
Dguller: And does their joy manifest itself while they are in physical agony, or once the pain subsides? And those who are full of joy, could it be because although their present is full of suffering, their current suffering is framed by future benefits, such as an afterlife, modeling coping skills for their loved ones, ending their life with dignity, and so on? And if so, then that actually fits with everything that I am saying. We can endure suffering in the present if it is for the sake of something more valuable in the future.
Reply: Correct. It is because of believing that some things are good that suffering is worthwhile. I do not deny that principle. I just don’t think you can hold it consistently if nothing is truly good.
Dguller: Science can investigate whether what we claim to value, we actually do. For example, we say that we would help a man lying prostrate on the floor in pain, but studies have shown that when people are in a crowd, and the members of the crowd ignores the suffering individual, then most people would follow the crowd and ignore the suffering individual. This is because we find ourselves in an ambiguous situation, and we seek clarity from the behavior of others. It is called “social proof”. Now, this is actually counter-intuitive, but it does happen, and investigating what would happen is what led to this surprising conclusion.
Reply: True and also nothing that tells us about the good. This is what happens when you have a culture dependent on individualism instead. I don’t need science to tell me to help someone in need. Do you think I do?
Dguller: No, it isn’t. If I rush into a burning building without thinking and save some kids, then can you say that I made a judgment?
Reply: Yep. You’ve trained your mind in such a way to know to help those in need. The judgment is made immediately.
Dguller: It was an instinctive and immediate response to a situation. And if that can demonstrate what my values are, then why can’t a bacteria’s movement towards glucose do the same? The only difference is that we are capable of consciously becoming aware of our behavior and modifying it through reflecting upon it, and communicate via language with those around us to seek new information, and so on. Like I said, what we do is more complex, but it ultimately comes down to the same thing: X is good if I will approach it, and X is bad if I avoid it.
Dguller: Which is saying the goodness does not lie in the object but in our putting it on the object. Thus, you’re not living in reality. You say X is good when you don’t mean that it is good. You mean you see it as good.
Also, the differences are what matter. Bacteria are unconscious agents. We are conscious. We can change our desires.
Dguller: It depends on the side effects of the drugs, and the social consequences of having people stoned all the time.
Reply: So there’s something more important than human happiness?
Dguller: Would society still be able to function? Would people stop going to work, producing food, generating electricity, and so on? Maybe the net effect of that program would be worse overall for individual happiness than the drugs themselves’ positive impact?
Reply: Maybe you should just read “Brave New World” sometime and find out.
Dguller: No, but the fact is that this is what is going on in your brain while you are making a judgment or decision. You do not need to be aware of it to make a choice, but it helps to know this. Suppose we eventually find a way to measure dopamine accurately in the mesolimbic pathway, and you claim to value X over Y. Then science would be able to measure the level of dopamine when you do X and Y, and if Y’s dopamine level was higher than X’s, then we know that you are lying.
Reply: Which would be irrelevant entirely to me. I want to ask the question first of “Ought I see X as good?” I won’t determine that by studying dopamine.
Dguller: “Principle of their movement”? I suppose that you mean the potential for self-generated movement. What about plants? They do not move, but remain rooted to where they are. Perhaps you mean the process of metabolism. Then an individual cell would be alive, but then again, so would an individual mitochondria. Should we then not damage mitochondria?
Reply: Yep. Those have life. The value of plant life and bacteria life is not the same as that of human life however due to the quality.
Dguller: And if they were present, then you would save the embryos and not the child? The 10 willing mothers would never have another opportunity to find other embryos to care for? And what about there being DNA? You initially said THAT is what determined “human nature” being present, and once human nature is present, then it is a full human life with all the rights involved in this. NOW, you are saying that it is not enough, but there must be someone willing to love and care for them? So, what if a woman wants to have an abortion, has looked for adoptive parents, but there were none available, then is it then okay for her to terminate the pregnancy?
Reply: If there were willing mothers, sure. Why not? Of course, this still doesn’t deal with the issue. Is the embryo a human life? Finding an inconsistency in me won’t address that.
dguller
says...Apologianick:
>> I know you never said that. I was just making it a clear fact. Yes. We do abstract to triangularity from seeing multiple triangles. You can show me several triangles, but you can never show me triangularity. Yet how does this idea of triangularity exist? Would there be triangles if there were no human minds?
I actually do not know. I suspect that there would be triangles, but since triangularity is a concept that resides in the human mind, then I would suspect that this concept will die with mankind, unless an alien species somewhere has the same concept.
>> While I believe it is, I’m not saying that yet. I’m just asking if some things are good in themselves not just for what they do but for what they are.
Can you give me an example of something that is good for what it is and not for what it does?
>> If it does not exist apart from a mind, no. Of course, I see vision as good in itself in that it is good to be able to see, and we also see for a reason. The two don’t contradict.
First, is it good to see your mother and sister being raped before your eyes? If there are some situations in which vision is bad, then it cannot be good-in-itself, right? Otherwise, it would be good in all situations?
Second, if our values only exist by virtue of human beings having them, then you would not want to know about values in themselves? I read you as saying just that.
>> I will say what little I’ve read of it is that if anyone believes what Harris says in this book, the future will be frightening. It will be scientists who determine what is well-being and who can have that well-being and which lives are worthy of living.
As he says to do, replace “well-being” with “physical health” and pity the horrible world we live in with modern medicine.
>> Can you give me any basis then for considering human life good? If it is only as an instrumental means, then that will mean you are treating humanity as means to an end. I really hope you’ll think about where that leads.
We consider human life to be good by virtue of our neurobiological processes and cultural environments. We are hardwired to subjectively experience the distress of others via mirror neurons, for example, and these innate tendencies of empathy and compassion are then reinforced by our social upbringing and cultural osmosis.
Furthermore, we are able to reflect upon the fact that all human beings are fundamentally similar and have identical feelings and emotions, such as pain and suffering. In addition, we are all interconnected, and the pain and suffering of some will eventually affect us, especially in this age of globalization.
So, in order to maximize my well-being, it is best to maximize the well-being of others. That is what Buddhism has taught me.
>> Nothing new. That’s just utilitarianism. However, if there is no good end ultimately, then what’s the purpose?
Ultimately, the good end is to maximize well-being and minimize suffering. That is my candidate. What is yours?
>> Correct. It is because of believing that some things are good that suffering is worthwhile. I do not deny that principle. I just don’t think you can hold it consistently if nothing is truly good.
It does not have to be truly good, but only relatively more good than other options. You forget that human beings assess value on a relative basis, and not absolutely. So, if I am purchasing something for $1,000, then I will not leave the store to save $5 at another store with a sale, but if I am purchasing something for $20, then I will leave the store to buy it for $15 at another store. Why? It is the same $5, but its value relative to the original price is different.
>> True and also nothing that tells us about the good. This is what happens when you have a culture dependent on individualism instead. I don’t need science to tell me to help someone in need. Do you think I do?
First, it actually had nothing to do with individualism. It even happened in those who were found to have high scores on valuing community.
Second, you do not need science to tell you to help someone in need. You do not need science for anything. However, it does not follow that science cannot be helpful in understanding how best to help someone in need, for example. It can study different forms of assistance, and see which ones happen to have the more positive results. That is just one example. There are others.
>> Which is saying the goodness does not lie in the object but in our putting it on the object. Thus, you’re not living in reality. You say X is good when you don’t mean that it is good. You mean you see it as good.
Right. Goodness does not reside in objects, but in the value that we ascribe to an object. A rock is just a rock, but if I need something to throw to defend myself, then a rock is good, or if I need something to sit on, then a rock is good. The goodness does not reside in the rock, but in my appraisal of its value.
>> Also, the differences are what matter. Bacteria are unconscious agents. We are conscious. We can change our desires.
Well, we can change some of them, but the point is that there is nothing mysterious about what is going on with our morality. I think it is plausible that it is rooted in our biology, which we share with other living organisms. Since we all share a common ancestry, it is likely that we share certain fundamental qualities, and I think one of them is the approach-avoid paradigm of value, which other organisms follow unconsciously, but we can consciously appraise and evaluate to revise.
>> So there’s something more important than human happiness?
You are assuming that maximizing human happiness in this moment would not affect our capacity to maximize human happiness at a future date. In your example, if everyone was happy and stoned in this moment, then it would lead to future misery, because no-one is growing food, generating electricity, caring for the sick, and so on. It is not just about feeling good right now, but also about the future, too.
>> Maybe you should just read “Brave New World” sometime and find out.
I did read it, and soma was used during down times and breaks. It was not used constantly, and at all moments. That would have led to increased misery secondary to the breakdown of society.
>> Which would be irrelevant entirely to me. I want to ask the question first of “Ought I see X as good?” I won’t determine that by studying dopamine.
You can check to see if X is good by studying the consequences on those who perform X. Isn’t that what you do anyway? I mean, you have certain heroes or models that you admire, and you live their values by virtue of the positive impact they have had on the world. I know I do that. Why not just systematically study those qualities, and not just in those rare and spectacular individuals?
>> Yep. Those have life. The value of plant life and bacteria life is not the same as that of human life however due to the quality.
“The quality”? I thought that it was just about life, and not about quality. If you want to introduce quality, then how can an embryo have the same quality as a fully developed human being?
>> If there were willing mothers, sure. Why not? Of course, this still doesn’t deal with the issue. Is the embryo a human life? Finding an inconsistency in me won’t address that.
First, finding an inconsistency in your does matter, because it shows that your beliefs are contradictory on this matter, and thus are unreliable.
Second, I do not believe that an embryo is a human life. It is just a pack of cells that has the potential to become a human life. As you know, potential is not actuality, though.
Now, you may ask me precisely WHEN in embryological and fetal development does it count as a “human life”, and I will honestly answer, “I do not know”. It happens sometime, but I cannot precisely say when. Before you start saying that this is a huge problem, just remember when children become held responsible for their actions by society, which also lacks a clear-cut starting point.
And for an even more mundane example, look at baldness. There is a full head of hair, and there is baldness. Imagine a full head of hair, and start pulling out one hair at a time. Can you honestly determine the exact point where once you pull one more hair that the person is bald?
The fact is that our language lacks the precision to capture a variety of grey areas in life, whether with baldness, personal responsibility, or human life in utero. It is best to just be honest about this rather than pretend to have a degree of precision that just isn’t there.
And is it just me, or are our responses getting ridiculously long?
therealadaam
says...The point I was trying to make was this:
Science is a tool, to be used by people.
And the “Us vs them” statement was a blanket. It’s just that the more I age the more I see that everywhere. In everyone. It’s tragic.
apologianick
says...Dguller: >>
I actually do not know. I suspect that there would be triangles, but since triangularity is a concept that resides in the human mind, then I would suspect that this concept will die with mankind, unless an alien species somewhere has the same concept.
Reply: I respect hearing you don’t know so I invite you to think about it. Is it not triangularity that makes something a triangle? How can an object be a triangle and not part of triangularity? If so, triangularity would exist outside of human minds.
Dguller: Can you give me an example of something that is good for what it is and not for what it does?
Reply: Existence.
Dguller: First, is it good to see your mother and sister being raped before your eyes? If there are some situations in which vision is bad, then it cannot be good-in-itself, right? Otherwise, it would be good in all situations?
Reply: Sure would be good if I could ID the rapists. Things that are good in themselves can be used for bad purposes.
Dguller: Second, if our values only exist by virtue of human beings having them, then you would not want to know about values in themselves? I read you as saying just that.
Reply: If they did. However, if they told us nothing about reality outside of us, why should I care?
Dguller: As he says to do, replace “well-being” with “physical health” and pity the horrible world we live in with modern medicine.
Reply: Paging the Eugenics movement….
Dguller: We consider human life to be good by virtue of our neurobiological processes and cultural environments. We are hardwired to subjectively experience the distress of others via mirror neurons, for example, and these innate tendencies of empathy and compassion are then reinforced by our social upbringing and cultural osmosis.
Reply: Don’t include me in this “We.” This “We” is an extreme minority. Most of us on this planet I think value human life because it is human life.
Dguller: Furthermore, we are able to reflect upon the fact that all human beings are fundamentally similar and have identical feelings and emotions, such as pain and suffering. In addition, we are all interconnected, and the pain and suffering of some will eventually affect us, especially in this age of globalization.
So, in order to maximize my well-being, it is best to maximize the well-being of others. That is what Buddhism has taught me.
Reply: Wow. And the New atheists accuse Christians of being selfish and not doing good for the sake of the good and here I hear “I do good because it maximizes my well-being.” I do good because it’s the right thing to do.
Dguller: Ultimately, the good end is to maximize well-being and minimize suffering. That is my candidate. What is yours?
Reply: And you maximize well-being and minimize suffering because? For instance, it seems you’re valuing the human society. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement disagrees and says for the good of the planet, you need to die. Why are they wrong?
Dguller: It does not have to be truly good, but only relatively more good than other options.
Reply: So you have something that isn’t good, but you say it’s good only on instrumental means.
Dguller: You forget that human beings assess value on a relative basis, and not absolutely. So, if I am purchasing something for $1,000, then I will not leave the store to save $5 at another store with a sale, but if I am purchasing something for $20, then I will leave the store to buy it for $15 at another store. Why? It is the same $5, but its value relative to the original price is different.
Reply: And you forget I don’t care so much about values. Values are subjective. I care about studying reality as it is and the qualities of reality do not lie in my brain.
Dguller: First, it actually had nothing to do with individualism. It even happened in those who were found to have high scores on valuing community.
Reply: The process has nothing to do with individualism. The idea that we need to study what we value by doing neuroscience to determine what is good is individualism through and through.
Dguller: Second, you do not need science to tell you to help someone in need. You do not need science for anything. However, it does not follow that science cannot be helpful in understanding how best to help someone in need, for example. It can study different forms of assistance, and see which ones happen to have the more positive results. That is just one example. There are others.
Reply: I have no problem with science informing us on moral matters. I have a problem with what Harris says. “How Science Can Determine Human Values.” This is science overstepping its bounds and it will not be science but scientists who are determining.
Dguller: Right. Goodness does not reside in objects, but in the value that we ascribe to an object. A rock is just a rock, but if I need something to throw to defend myself, then a rock is good, or if I need something to sit on, then a rock is good. The goodness does not reside in the rock, but in my appraisal of its value.
Reply: Why do you not apply the same to the rest of science? Why do you not believe you live in Berkeley’s universe then? Not only does this destroy morality, in the end, Harris’s view will destroy science.
Dguller: Well, we can change some of them, but the point is that there is nothing mysterious about what is going on with our morality. I think it is plausible that it is rooted in our biology, which we share with other living organisms. Since we all share a common ancestry, it is likely that we share certain fundamental qualities, and I think one of them is the approach-avoid paradigm of value, which other organisms follow unconsciously, but we can consciously appraise and evaluate to revise.
Reply: Who said anything about something mysterious? Difficult to understand is not the same as mysterious. I’m not denying the principle entirely. I’m denying how you reach the principle as valid because it tells me nothing about reality outside of my mind but only the reality inside of my mind.
Dguller: You are assuming that maximizing human happiness in this moment would not affect our capacity to maximize human happiness at a future date. In your example, if everyone was happy and stoned in this moment, then it would lead to future misery, because no-one is growing food, generating electricity, caring for the sick, and so on. It is not just about feeling good right now, but also about the future, too.
Reply: So a future generation’s happiness is more important than mine? Why should I go for the future when I can have the present today?
Dguller: I did read it, and soma was used during down times and breaks. It was not used constantly, and at all moments. That would have led to increased misery secondary to the breakdown of society.
Reply: And you would have read about a society addicted to pleasure and would have had the same results as Mill’s world would. As if most people will seek pleasure in Greek poetry, classical music, and fine wine.
Dguller: I won’t determine that by studying dopamine.
You can check to see if X is good by studying the consequences on those who perform X. Isn’t that what you do anyway?
Reply: Only partially. The Natural Law tradition has three aspects to a moral act. (It’s also a study Harris is absolutely clueless on. Note that in my research, Harris is the WORST researcher of the new atheists in studying his opposition.)
Dguller: I mean, you have certain heroes or models that you admire, and you live their values by virtue of the positive impact they have had on the world. I know I do that. Why not just systematically study those qualities, and not just in those rare and spectacular individuals?
Reply: Partially but not entirely. It’s not just the impact but how they are today. There are three aspects to any moral act and consequences are only one.
Dguller: “The quality”? I thought that it was just about life, and not about quality. If you want to introduce quality, then how can an embryo have the same quality as a fully developed human being?
Reply: Because of the kind of life a human being can have. A human being is the only creature with a rational soul. I view other creatures as here to bring us pleasure. They are here for us. We are not here for them.
Dguller: First, finding an inconsistency in your does matter, because it shows that your beliefs are contradictory on this matter, and thus are unreliable.
Reply: No. It shows I’m inconsistent if anything. How does that refute the idea that life begins at conception? Not a bit.
Dguller: Second, I do not believe that an embryo is a human life. It is just a pack of cells that has the potential to become a human life. As you know, potential is not actuality, though.
Now, you may ask me precisely WHEN in embryological and fetal development does it count as a “human life”, and I will honestly answer, “I do not know”. It happens sometime, but I cannot precisely say when. Before you start saying that this is a huge problem, just remember when children become held responsible for their actions by society, which also lacks a clear-cut starting point.
Reply: Still a huge problem. If someone has an abortion, they could be killing a human being. You want to risk that?
Dguller: And for an even more mundane example, look at baldness. There is a full head of hair, and there is baldness. Imagine a full head of hair, and start pulling out one hair at a time. Can you honestly determine the exact point where once you pull one more hair that the person is bald?
Reply: Bald is a vague term. Life is not. One either has human life or one does not.
Dguller: The fact is that our language lacks the precision to capture a variety of grey areas in life, whether with baldness, personal responsibility, or human life in utero. It is best to just be honest about this rather than pretend to have a degree of precision that just isn’t there.
Reply: No. We have precision. The DNA is all there. What DNA do you think it is?
Dguller: And is it just me, or are our responses getting ridiculously long?
Reply: They are. Perhaps we should start on the main issue. The God question. For me, I defend the five ways of Aquinas.
dguller
says...Apologianick:
>> I respect hearing you don’t know so I invite you to think about it. Is it not triangularity that makes something a triangle? How can an object be a triangle and not part of triangularity? If so, triangularity would exist outside of human minds.
Triangularity is a concept that we abstract from empirical triangles. When we are extinct, our concepts will be gone, but the empirical entities that they attempted to capture would remain.
>> Existence.
In all cases? What about existing in order to do horrific evil? What about Hitler’s existence? What about the existence of pedophiles and rapists? Would you consider them good, because they contain the inherent goodness of existence? And what about existing to suffer pointlessly? Is that a good?
>> Sure would be good if I could ID the rapists. Things that are good in themselves can be used for bad purposes.
So, good-in-itself can also be evil? What does good-in-itself even mean? I thought it was something that was unconditionally good in all circumstances.
>> If they did. However, if they told us nothing about reality outside of us, why should I care?
Why do our values have to tell us something about external reality? Why can’t they just tell us what is important to us? I mean, seriously, if your love for your parents could not be grounded in some metaphysical principle, then you would stop loving them?
>> Paging the Eugenics movement….
Really? How long should you keep someone on life support? I suppose forever? Oh wait, you make the choice to pull the plug before their natural death? I thought life was important to preserve in all circumstances, and if it isn’t, then you can make decisions about who lies and dies? Paging the Eugenics movement …
>> Don’t include me in this “We.” This “We” is an extreme minority. Most of us on this planet I think value human life because it is human life.
Maybe this may help. When you perceive the world, you see it as a unified whole and without any gaps in your vision. But, you also have a blind spot that your brain automatically fills in without you knowing it. What if valuing human life was similar to the brain filling in our visual blind spot? What if it was something that we were hardwired to do by virtue of our innate tendency towards empathy and compassion? Would that really take away from our valuing human life?
>> Wow. And the New atheists accuse Christians of being selfish and not doing good for the sake of the good and here I hear “I do good because it maximizes my well-being.” I do good because it’s the right thing to do.
And you have no emotional feeling associated with doing the right thing? You do not get any sense of satisfaction or pride when you do the right thing? You do not do the right thing, because you would feel like shit afterwards if you didn’t? That has never occurred to you? Or are you a robotic automaton without feeling who just automatically behaves morally, because you are programmed to do so?
>> And you maximize well-being and minimize suffering because? For instance, it seems you’re valuing the human society. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement disagrees and says for the good of the planet, you need to die. Why are they wrong?
Do you believe that morality and goodness must be independent of human conscious states?
>> And you forget I don’t care so much about values. Values are subjective. I care about studying reality as it is and the qualities of reality do not lie in my brain.
Where do you find morality in reality, completely independent of human beings? Say, there were no human beings, then where does right and wrong exist?
>> The process has nothing to do with individualism. The idea that we need to study what we value by doing neuroscience to determine what is good is individualism through and through.
Why?
>> I have no problem with science informing us on moral matters. I have a problem with what Harris says. “How Science Can Determine Human Values.” This is science overstepping its bounds and it will not be science but scientists who are determining.
Suppose that after a number of surveys, science finds that human beings value a number of things: A, B, C, D. And let us suppose that science can study what happens to people who live according to A, B, C or D. And let us suppose that science discovers that those who perform C have more contentment, satisfaction, peace of mind, less stress, and so on, compared to A, B or D. Would you disregard this conclusion, because it came from science?
>> Why do you not apply the same to the rest of science? Why do you not believe you live in Berkeley’s universe then? Not only does this destroy morality, in the end, Harris’s view will destroy science.
Because I cannot touch or taste a value or moral.
>> So a future generation’s happiness is more important than mine? Why should I go for the future when I can have the present today?
Because it is not just about today’s happiness. Those who focus on today’s happiness to the exclusion of tomorrow’s ultimately lead lives of less quality and satisfaction than those do take into account the future. Those who are unable to delay their gratification become unable to function in society and become ostracized, and often imprisoned. Are you finished with your straw man yet?
>> And you would have read about a society addicted to pleasure and would have had the same results as Mill’s world would. As if most people will seek pleasure in Greek poetry, classical music, and fine wine.
I don’t know what your point is here. Care to clarify?
>> No. We have precision. The DNA is all there. What DNA do you think it is?
Okay, then let’s get back to my previous example of where you have the choice to save 10 embryos (with all their DNA) or a 6 year old boy. You said that you would choose to save the embryos, because there might be 10 parents who would be able to raise them. It doesn’t matter that the parents of the 6 year old have 6 years of memories and emotional connections, or that the 6 year old boy will experience pain and the terror of dying. None of that matters to you. Even though the embryos will not experience any pain or suffering. Even though the 10 parents have very little emotional connection, and whatever connection they do is more based on fantasy than reality.
Am I the only one who is bothered by this morality that does not appear to care about the conscious states of human beings, but only about metaphysical doctrines about an immaterial soul?
cl
says...dguller,
While I’m sure I’ll eventually respond to more, I need a little clarity on one specific thing here. Earlier, I’d asked:
…to which you replied,
Can you clarify what you mean by “nature?”
dguller
says...cl:
First, YOU brought in that NAS quote that cited “natural” and “supernatural”. What do you think THEY meant since you quoted them approvingly?
Second, there are a number of definitions that I have read. One is the totality of what exists as perceivable directly or indirectly by our senses. Another intriguing one is anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities. That one means that there are mental events that are derived from non-mental events (= natural), there are non-mental events (= natural), and there are mental events that are not derived from non-mental events (= supernatural). Naturally – ha! – these non-mental events should be perceivable by mental events.
cl
says...dguller,
I did.
What makes you think I quoted them approvingly? If I recall correctly, NAS failed to define “natural” and “supernatural” in that link. I simply pointed out that it seems science’s most prestigious body disagrees with you, and I was asking for an explanation of the apparent discrepancy, as well as advice on who to believe and why. Why do you hold what appears to be a different position than the National Academy of Sciences?
As perceivable, or as perceived? What counts as perception? If perceived, then, could an observer living in the 1,400s standing in a crater justifiedly conclude that huge, flying rocks in space were natural?
I suspect that most–if not all–atheists, naturalists and materialists smuggle that definition into the word. Of course, we have no direct evidence any such “natural” phenomena–unless we’re willing to proffer assumption as evidence.
What does it mean to say that a “mental event” can “derive” from a “non-mental” event? Could you cite some examples?
dguller
says...cl:
>> As perceivable, or as perceived? What counts as perception? If perceived, then, could an observer living in the 1,400s standing in a crater justifiedly conclude that huge, flying rocks in space were natural?
First, I think that if X is perceived, then it counts as natural, but if it cannot be perceived, then it must at least be perceivable in order to equally count as natural. And perception is sensory experience. In other words, something must be directly or indirectly perceivable by our senses to count as natural. After all, our senses are how we receive information from the world around us.
Second, I suppose that someone in the 1400’s could argue that space rocks are natural. I do not know, however, what they would conclude or what their conception of “natural” would be. Perhaps if you added some details, then I could give a better answer.
>> I suspect that most–if not all–atheists, naturalists and materialists smuggle that definition into the word. Of course, we have no direct evidence any such “natural” phenomena–unless we’re willing to proffer assumption as evidence.
You have no experience of an external world populated by entities that lack a mind? Your experience is not an assumption. It is actually the root of all your assumptions about the world.
>> What does it mean to say that a “mental event” can “derive” from a “non-mental” event? Could you cite some examples?
Sure. Filling in the blind spot in our vision, which is done by the brain. Taking a hallucinogen, like LSD, which alters the serotonin levels in the brain, and results in a hallucination. Seeing stars after a head trauma. Intense religious experiences when the temporal lobe is activated during a seizure. Need I go on?
cl
says...So, “natural” is anything perceived, or theoretically perceivable?
I didn’t ask what they “could argue” though, because snybody can argue anything. I asked if *you* believed a person in the 1,400s could justifiedly conclude that flying space rocks are natural, and your answer remains a little unclear. If yes, then why would their conclusion be justified? If no, why not? Assume they have the same definition of “natural” as yourself.
Hey, hold on now, that ain’t fair: that’s not how you just defined the “natural” I replied to. You said, “anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities.” If that’s the definition or at least part of it, then no: we do not have any direct evidence of such things, unless you want to proffer the assumption of metaphysical naturalism as evidence. If that’s not your definition or at least part of it, then… let’s get that square.
How is this a “mental event” that “derives” from a “non-mental” event? Can you identify both components? Where is the non-mental event here?
dguller
says...cl:
>> So, “natural” is anything perceived, or theoretically perceivable?
Sure.
>> I didn’t ask what they “could argue” though, because snybody can argue anything. I asked if *you* believed a person in the 1,400s could justifiedly conclude that flying space rocks are natural, and your answer remains a little unclear. If yes, then why would their conclusion be justified? If no, why not? Assume they have the same definition of “natural” as yourself.
It depends on what they know about “flying space rocks”. Do they know about meteorites? Do they know that meteorites are made of rock and ice? Do they understand where meteorites come from? I mean, someone in the 1400’s may share my definition of “natural”, but without having some background information about meteorites and how they occur in the natural world, then they could just as easily conclude that the big hole was caused by an angel who got pissed. After all, belief in supernatural entities was plentiful at that time.
>> Hey, hold on now, that ain’t fair: that’s not how you just defined the “natural” I replied to. You said, “anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities.” If that’s the definition or at least part of it, then no: we do not have any direct evidence of such things, unless you want to proffer the assumption of metaphysical naturalism as evidence. If that’s not your definition or at least part of it, then… let’s get that square.
First, you claimed that there is no evidence – zero! – of (1) non-mental entities, and (2) mental entities caused by non-mental entities. As an example of (1), I cited the multiple non-mental entities that you experience all around you right now, e.g. keyboard, monitor, desk, phone, and so on. None of those entities has a mind, and so they are non-mental. And they clearly exist.
Second, I do not have to assume metaphysical naturalism. I experience an external world populated with entities that have minds and those that do not. I do not assume it.
>> How is this a “mental event” that “derives” from a “non-mental” event? Can you identify both components? Where is the non-mental event here?
Sure.
When you examine the eye, the cone and rod cells that actually respond to light occur on the retina at the back of the eye. You also see that the vasculature that supplies the eye, and the optic nerve, both enter the back of the eye in the same location, and at that location, there are no photoreceptors to receive light from the environment. That means that there is no visual information being provided from where that light is coming from in the world. However, when you look out into the world, you do not see a dark spot in your vision, but a seamless whole. The reason why is that your brain fills in the missing details by looking at the parts of your vision immediately surrounding the blind spot, and just assumes that what is in that spot is similar to the surrounding area. So, here is an example of a mental event (i.e. vision of what is in the blind spot) occurring secondary to a non-mental process (i.e. neurobiological pathways adding information to the visual image).
cl
says...dguller,
Of course they don’t: this is the 1,400s. Even so, why would they need to know any of those details? Rocks–whether in space or on Earth–are perceivable. If they are claiming simply that a huge, flying rock produced the crater the two of you are standing in–also undeniably perceivable–then don’t they believe enough about these strange, flying rocks to justifiedly define them as natural by your definition of “that which is perceived or perceivable?”
I didn’t. I suspect that you’ve simply lost track of your original delineation, because you don’t strike me as the type to equivocate to prove a point. I never denied the existence of entities without minds. I claimed–and still claim–that there is no evidence of anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities, which is what you said, word-for-word. If you have evidence of such things, by all means, show it. As far as my claim goes, ultimately is the key word in your statement.
See above: “entities without mind” do not reflect your original delineation, and are not what I deny, but anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities. As regards the latter, it can only be assumed.
Can we say that the activity of “neurobiological pathways” constitutes a non-mental event? I don’t think we can, and I’m not sure how this example ties into our larger discussion of whether or not metaphysical naturalism must be assumed. Are you simply differentiating between a brain event and a mental event, i.e., the activity of “neurobiological pathways” constitutes a brain event, and brain events are not mental?
dguller
says...cl:
>> Of course they don’t: this is the 1,400s. Even so, why would they need to know any of those details? Rocks–whether in space or on Earth–are perceivable. If they are claiming simply that a huge, flying rock produced the crater the two of you are standing in–also undeniably perceivable–then don’t they believe enough about these strange, flying rocks to justifiedly define them as natural by your definition of “that which is perceived or perceivable?”
Sure. I guess they do.
>> I didn’t. I suspect that you’ve simply lost track of your original delineation, because you don’t strike me as the type to equivocate to prove a point. I never denied the existence of entities without minds.
Good.
>> I claimed–and still claim–that there is no evidence of anything that ultimately is derived from non-mental events or activities, which is what you said, word-for-word. If you have evidence of such things, by all means, show it. As far as my claim goes, ultimately is the key word in your statement.
Okay.
First, what I meant by non-mental is “not a mind”. Unless you want to say that all physical processes involve a mind, then you have to admit that there are physical processes that are non-mental. I would say that the brain is a physical entity that is composed of non-mental processes. For example, the components that make up the brain are not mental, but are neurobiological pathways that are made of neuronal connections.
Second, take the example of temporal lobe epilepsy. When the temporal lobe is activated by spontaneous electrical activity in a seizure, individuals have vivid subjective experiences. The causal only goes one way in that case, from non-mental neurobiological pathways to mental phenomena.
>> Can we say that the activity of “neurobiological pathways” constitutes a non-mental event? I don’t think we can, and I’m not sure how this example ties into our larger discussion of whether or not metaphysical naturalism must be assumed. Are you simply differentiating between a brain event and a mental event, i.e., the activity of “neurobiological pathways” constitutes a brain event, and brain events are not mental?
I am differentiating between a brain event as an objective third-person physical process that involves the activation of electrical activity along a neuron, and a mental event as a subjective first-person experience. My point is that the mind (i.e. a mental event) is caused by neurobiological processes, which are non-mental. I don’t think that this is particularly controversial.
And yes, not all brain events are mental. Say my occipital lobe is activated by incoming neural signals from the retina. This is not a mental event at all, because there is no experience occurring. It is just the activation of electrical and neurochemical activity along several interconnected neurons. It is only when the occipital lobe is combined with the other components of the brain that a visual experience can occur, which is a mental event. So, there are brain events, which are non-mental, and there are mental events, which are caused by the parallel processing of multiple neurological pathways.
I hope this helps.