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#61
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Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not
This post was moved to the new "Free Will" thread...
Last edited by TomJrzk; February 11th, 2006 at 05:54 PM.. Reason: Move to Free Will thread |
#62
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Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not
why i don't want to say 'there is no free will'...
politics. that is why. people sacrificed their lives for such things as freedom of speech freedom of religion freedom from opression etc etc do you want to say they were merely fighting for an illusion? i guess... you wouldn't want to say that. you'd probably want to say that they were fighting for something worthwhile - but that something is not freedom. but... i'm not sure a lot of people would still be with you... you would have lost them at the 'free will is merely an illusion' point. they think you mean to say they were fighting for an illusion, you see. so i prefer to say sure they were fighting for freedom (but freedom is a little different from what they think it is). but thats okay. water is a little different from what the folk thought it was too (ie is is made of solid atoms of h2o). but should be say 'but water is a liquid by definition and something with solid parts shouldn't really be called a liquid and so really water doesn't exist?'. no... more in line with common sense to say 'well what do you know. liquids turn out to be composed of solids after all'. levels of explanation... ? not so sure what you mean here... person level / intentional level. this is the level in which we have a rational agent who performs purposive behaviour on the basis of beliefs and desires and other mental states. this is the level where freedom is supposed to appear. but... if freedom evolved (and how else did it get here - assuming it is here ;-) then we should expect to find rudimentary freedom in other things, just like we have found rudimentary morality / ethics in other things. so... weather vanes can be free or unfree (in a slightly extended sense of the term) if freedom is just acting on ones beliefs and desires then what about the cases of compulsions? the kleptomaniac is acting on his strongest desire to steal though he wishes he did not have the desire to steal. he didn't freely choose to have the desire to steal - it just occured in him. is he free? how about the person in the grip of a compulsion to wash their hands. skin and tissue wearing away... they didn't choose to worry about germs so very much. those thoughts just occur in them. they are acting from their thoughts and their desire to be germ free or whatever... but they don't choose their beliefs and desires (nor do we) and so... how does that help the case for free will? this puzzle has been around for a loooooooooong time. most people agree on a general picture. but the details... are elusive... levels of explanation... has anyone heard of Conway's life game? It is worth checking out. It is a very vivid example of different levels of explanation and how those different levels are related to one another. On the physical level you have atoms that obey strictly deterministic physical laws. On the design level you have a different ontology of objects that move through space. They can even 'eat' another object in the life world... They have even managed to make self replicating objects in the life world... It is possible in principle to make a chess playing computer in the life world... (who moves the chess piece thus because it BELIEVES that is the best way to check its opponant and it DESIRES to do so..). In "Freedom Evolves" Dennett tries to show how... Freedom can evolve in the life world. Where the physics are deterministic. If he succeeds in his enterprise... Then we can say 'well our world might be like the life world. Determinism might be true (on the physical level) yet we can have freedom from a higher level'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life That is the life game link. Wiki isn't so kind to Dennett... But I think his book is worth a look if you are interested in freedom and more in particular different levels of explanation and how that is relevant to the evolution of freedom... |
#63
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Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not
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Knowing that the universe is truly deterministic did not change my view of life in any bad way at all. I still know that I'm part of the end result; in fact, I feel much more connected. I still know that I can make the future better or worse. The future that's predetermined still relies on me and my choices. That I cut you off or let you in on the freeway ramp is still a predetermined choice but now that choice is informed by the impact that I see it having on our future. After you... BTW, you may have noticed that I moved my other posts to a new thread so others can get to this conversation without going through the Intelligent Design posts. If you move yours there, too, I'll move this one and delete it from here. Or, you can just leave yours here and I will too... |
#64
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Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not
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Of course, if they thought the future was already determined and that depressed them to the point where they did not get out of bed, that would have caused an entirely different present for us, but one that was predetermined. That is why, in the past, I kept my thoughts mostly to myself (or those I thought could handle it). But I now think attempting the final step to understanding how determinism makes one more connected to the future is worth the try, especially in the environment where religions are using free will as a tool to make a decidedly worse future. |
#65
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Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not
> I would say that they were, indeed, fighting for freedom, and thank goodness they were. My present, their future, directly depended on it. Their brains felt the oppression, dreamed of a future without it, sacrificed their present, and made a better world. That all of this was predetermined has no effect on any of that.
Ah. So I've converted you to compatibilism then? (The view that EVEN IF determinism is true... it is still possible for us to have freedom) :-) |
#66
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Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not
A thought ...
Being beyond observation or testing is not the same thing as being beyond the reach of explanations. A good case can be made for scientific realism which assumes that what exists transcends human belief or capacity for testing. The question is not whether every fact of nature can be tested, but whether an explanation is consistent with honest empirical inquiry and the required epistemic virtues or not. The origin of matter is one puzzle among many, all of which rely on the others to some degree for their solution. The logical strategy of taking one puzzle and making everything else hinge on it is a different approach than the one used in empirical inquiry in general and science in particular. kind regards, Todd |
#67
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Cognitive Evolutionary Psychology - how it views the mind
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As is often the case with relatively new research models, one of the best ways to understand what makes their model distinctive is to peruse the various critiques of the model, and their responses to them. Conceptually, a good starting place is the concept of modularity, especially Jerry Fodor's original concept of opaque, encapsulated modules that he believes are responsible for human perceptual abilities. Sterelny's "Representational Theory of Mind" discusses the concept by itself prior to Cosmides and Tooby. C & T came along and imagined that cognitive processes of other sorts worked the same way as Fodor's perceptual modules. This served their purpose of carving a new niche particularly well because it gave them a plausible nativist axe handle for attacking what they saw as the deplorable "blank slate" environmentalism they perceived in social science. Fodor and many others have argued against this extension of the modularity concept for various reasons, and the dialogs are useful for understanding how EP (or rather, CEP of the Cosmides-Tooby-Pinker sort) views the mind in terms of discrete computational modules that drive behavior. There are technical issues of all sorts, such as how opaque the modules really are, how sophiticated and flexible they can be, and how much of their function is a direct result of Pleistocene adaptation. David Buller's recent book, "Adapting Minds" has a pretty good coverage of the EP program, agreeing with its general focus and long term goals but differing on some of the specifics of the way they conceive of the functional partitioning of the mind. kind regards, Todd |
#68
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Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not
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I can accept that there 'might' be a god that created the universe, or what the universe eminated from, that's why I call myself an unconfirmed atheist; someday, whatever that is might burn a bush or two. Only because I can not yet see what started what and can not get my head around infinite time. I have a harder time accepting choice being anything beyond the brain weighing plusses and minuses, only because I can see how nature could do without it. Could still be there, but I don't see the need. There's Occam's Razor again; I guess I'm channeling Fred now. Would this something still be here if all human brains are gone? Do monkeys have it now? |
#69
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Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not
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The idea that things don't rely on a human mind or experience for their existence as such does not neccessarily give warrant for the existence of all sorts of incorporeal things. That is a matter of honest empirical inquiry, in my opinion. My feeling on intelligent design in brief: ID is theological, and theology is a rational enterprise, but it is definitely not empirical inquiry even when it draws on empirical observations. kind regards, Todd |
#70
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Re: Intelligent Design and Why Not
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It's great, though, that we agree on determinism. |
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