The Warfare Is Mental

Your Opinions Requested: On Is/Ought

June 19, 2010

A buddy of mine often reminds me of how much he likes short posts, so here's a quick one on a philosophical classic: the Is/Ought distinction.

In my experience, the person who says, "You ought to do X" in response to some desire Y is saying something that reduces to, "I believe that if you do X, you shall fulfill desire Y." Example: your desire is to go surfing, and your neighbor offers you a ride to the beach. If you take the ride (X), you'll likely fulfill the desire to go surfing (Y). One might say you ought to take the ride. This is ought in the pragmatic sense.

What would make "you ought to take the ride" true? In my opinion, it is the juxtaposition of 1) the fact of a desire to go surfing, and 2) the means of fulfilling that desire.

However, in my experience, the person who says, "You ought not X" in response to some desire Y is saying something that reduces to, "Even though it would fulfill your desire Y, X is not the right thing to do." Example: you desire your neighbor's goat, and when your mother discovers your intentions, she uses the tool of condemnation to plant within you an aversion to stealing. IOW, she says some variant of, "you ought not X." This is ought in the moral sense.

In your opinion, what would make "you ought not steal your neighbor's goat" true?

An Interesting Snippet That Caught My Attention

April 30, 2010

Today's post is just a quickie. A friend of mine said that he would read more often if I posted shorter posts. I used to post shorter posts more frequently. There is a "Quickies" category on the sidebar, but if you notice it's been spared attention for about 4 months now.

I was reading a paper titled Atheist Foundation of Ethics written by John B. Hodges:

If there WERE any Cosmic Parent, it would not need human messengers; it could speak directly to whomever it wished. If a divine being wants me to do something, they should tell me, not you. If they have a message for all humankind, they could write it on the face of the Moon, in letters five miles wide. Any alleged "revelation" DELIVERED BY HUMAN BEINGS is presumptively fraudulent.

It's ironic that the Bible describes a God much like the one Hodges proffers as plausible, that is, a God that can and does share divine Will with individuals (cf. John 14:16). However, I thought that the really interesting part was that last bit about "any alleged 'revelation.'"

Let's say hypothetically that God did reveal something to one of us, perhaps even Hodges. It would certainly be within reason to expect the person experiencing this revelation to share it with others. So I object to any sort of categorical disqualification of a revelation from other human beings. It could very well be that somebody else saw or experienced something far beyond that which my limited mind can comprehend. To judge them as "presumptively fraudulent" beforehand seems to me, well.. presumptive.

The Secret Life Of Chaos

January 20, 2010

Just a short one today: you heard of The Secret Life of Chaos yet?

If we say that "simple things give rise to biology and intelligence" then the premise that any designer God capable of designing MEST must be at least as complex as MEST seems fatally undermined. It is not required that explanations be at least as complex as the things they cause and reality contradicts that premise as well (TENS, Grand Canyon, etc.). If we deny the believer the luxury of defining God as "simple" we must either provide sufficient warrant for doing so, or stand rightly accused of special pleading.

What do you think?

*MEST = matter, energy, space, time

“In Defense Of Free Speech” = Banned From Daylight Atheism!

November 23, 2009

Cost of a Typepad Pro account? $149.50 per year.

Cost of freedom of speech? Hundreds of thousands of American lives.

Cost of banning me in the thread from In Defense of Free Speech, and then closing comments so those who really value free speech couldn't criticize Ebonmuse like they did last time? Priceless!

Reader Poll: The Optics Of Rainbows

October 23, 2009

Today's post is just a quick one for the physics and optics students out there, who are welcomed to freely speculate. Actually, everyone is freely welcomed to speculate! Also, I'd really appreciate any links to people, websites or books that can provide useful information, so if anything comes to mind, by all means share!

I'm trying to get some kind of consensus on a recurring question I've got. We perceive rainbows because of a neat little process called chromatic dispersion by which white light refracts through water droplets in the atmosphere. The white light actually refracts twice: once upon entrance which separates the light into its constituent colors, and again upon exit which amplifies this separation. When a terrestrial observer sees a rainbow in Earth's atmosphere, what they're really seeing is the separation of incoming white sunlight into the familiar colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

My question is: if Earth were enveloped by a "shell" of solid water, would this affect the rainbow-creating process? Would terrestrial observers on Earth still be able to see rainbows?

An Illusory But Incredibly Well-Timed Forethought?

October 14, 2009

On the observation that changes in brain matter affect changes in thought, particularly reductionist atheists often claim that thought is a mere by-product of matter, but I find it interesting that proceeding by pure thought alone, I can willfully move my arm right now.

Doesn't it follow, then, that thought — i.e. consciousness — also causes matter to move? Or is the decision to move one's arm merely an illusory but incredibly well-timed forethought that somehow preceded the act? Provided we're not too shameless to deny accept the latter absurdity, doesn't the former observation suggest that perhaps thought is more than the mere by-product of matter?

The Argument From Computer Programming

October 7, 2009

P1 Conscious entities are currently the only entities we know of that can write a series of intelligent statements in a specific language;

P2 Human DNA contains a series of intelligent statements written in a specific language;

P3 A conscious entity is currently the only entity we know of that could have possibly created humans.

The Tao Of Scuffy The Tugboat

August 16, 2009

It had been a while since I last picked up the Little Golden Books classic, Scuffy the Tugboat. As soon as I saw the artwork, I instantly remembered that I'd studied this book intensely when I was just a wee lad with less years under my belt than most humans can count on one hand. I'm grown up now, and grown-ups don't read kid books, right? They're just not suitable for adults to read, so they say.

A Question For Any Lawyers Out There

June 10, 2009

Hi all, sorry for the decline in posts, but I’m effectively nauseated by (a)theism discussions right now, and I still want to debate computers, if nothing else, simply because they don’t get butthurt and ~~call~~ imply that people are losers prematurely.

So, a quick question: In some (all?) states, when two people commit a violent felony and one of them gets killed, by what logic is it fair to charge one criminal for the murder of another?

This has never made a lick of sense to me. The way I see it, if Drake and Tubbs decide to rob a store, and that store owner kills Drake – how is it ethical to prosecute Tubbs for murder? Am I missing something here? It sure feels like it.

A Chat With Lifeguard

May 30, 2009

Over at Evo's blog, you said:

I've regularly commented over at cl's blog and, from what I've observed, I think his position essentially boils down to this:

"Given the present state of the evidence, neither theism nor (positive) atheism are logically compulsory positions. Therefore, atheist arguments that characterize theist positions as irrational, illogical, or not supported by evidence are often false."

I suspect he feels that this makes theism as warranted as atheism, and I have disagreed with him on that. He has meticulously avoided making a positive statement about his beliefs, religious or otherwise, but my guess is he's an open-minded liberal theist of some sort.

Bottom line? Sometimes I think he's right about certain arguments, and I don't have a problem admitting that. Other times, however, I think he's wrong, and I've called him on that. But I have found he can be pretty reasonable if you (1) don't overstate your case, (2) make concessions when you have, and (3) insist he do the same.

To date, neither of us has convinced the other, but, if that's the point, then… what's the point? Methinks challenging someone and being challenged is a lot more satisfying (and productive) than chasing after the illusion that somehow someone's going to convince a theist blogger to openly admit defeat in an argument about whether god exists.

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