And what do tell is the definition of “functioning better”? How do a particular collection of particles function better than another?
I’ll preempt you and remind you that you cannot appeal to any human experience, subjective experience, and any state of qualia to establish “betterness”, since none of those actually exist.
And what do tell is the definition of “functioning better”? How do a particular collection of particles function better than another?
I’ll preempt you and remind you that you cannot appeal to any human experience, subjective experience, and any state of qualia to establish “betterness”, since none of those actually exist.[/quote]
In order to have any meaningful conversation that actually forwards the subject, one first has to accept that certain experiences are real. Now if you’re one of those people that likes to talk existentially about how nothing is really real, and we aren’t really here, we aren’t actually experiencing the things we think we are, and that digestion isn’t actually digestion, then fine. Have fun and enjoy the circular logic that results.
For me I like to accept that I am actually here, I am actually experiencing the world around me, and that there are some truths to be learned from that interaction. Obviously we are biological creatures and our experiences are in fact just reactions in chemistry at the level of the brain, but you’re not actually saying anything that hasn’t been talked about for hundreds of years and I personally don’t find it helpful in having a real conversation about our existence. Obviously, to each his own. But how is that helpful?
A healthy brain functions better than a smashed to bits brain, objectively.
You’re not very well versed in the philosophy of mind then.
What you describe is the scientific view that mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain. That is, subjective awareness actually exists, is not an illusion, functions, but is mainly produced by the brain alongside brain activity.
This view is not taken seriously by the larger scientific community, which say that mind is an emergent phenomenon of the brain, where subjective awareness does not actually exist, its an illusion, and all that exists is just moving particles in the brain or the neurons or in particular proteins in the neurons.
If you think mind as an emergent property consists of circular logic, you should see what amounts from asserting that subjective awareness is produced by brain. Scientists who assert mind as emergence are at least consistant, they accept that which exists is physical and everything else cannot be real ie. your experience, whereas epiphenomenalists try to assert that subjective awareness which is immaterial, formless, unfindable in space, can be produced by material form moving in space.
TG said something about building objective facts on a subjective premise. This doesn’t work, I’m afraid: any deduction built upon a subjective premise remains subjective. Building a vast swaying tower of layer upon layer of logic (as some thinkers are prone to do) so that the original premise is obfuscated, is just sleight-of-hand. More often than not it involves some subtle error of deduction.
The fact that they do it would not, by itself, harm his theory. It’s the reason they do it that’s the problem. Namely, they have moral concepts that do not accord with Harris’s, and show no tendency to align with them.
Indeed. I get that. And IMO that makes it a peculiarly useless theory. Of what practical application is it?
Let’s take a different example: slavery. You probably all know that slavery has been more the rule than the exception for most of human history. That’s not because people thought it was bad but did it regardless: few people want to think of themselves as “bad”. They genuinely thought it was morally acceptable.
Now, since he’s an awfully nice chap, I’d guess Sam Harris thinks slavery is bad. How would he debate the morality of slavery with African slave-traders, or American slave-owners? He couldn’t. He has absolutely no objective reality to refer to that makes slavery inherently bad, nor could he construct an “objective” moral precept from his subjective view.
I don’t think it’s coincidence that abolitionists were mostly religious people and mounted their assault on slavery with religious diatribes, not logic. The only moral point of reference available to them was the Christian (specifically, Protestant) view that all men are brothers and children of God. However nonsensical you might consider that to be, it worked.
Personally I don’t hold with all that “it’s all an illusion” stuff, but triceratopses is quite correct in that the universe does not view a corpse as better than a living creature. They both have their place in the grand scheme of things.
I touched on this point with the farming example. If you start from the assumption - as in Genesis - that God looked on his creation and saw that it was good, then there must logically be something good about eyeball-eating parasites. I confess I’m not sure what it is, but I’ve come across similar (although much less disturbing) problems before.
Example: I get some kind of nocturnal digging animal that roots around on my land, digging up new transplants. The “scientific” response is to put poison everywhere and wipe the bastards out. The more thoughtful response is to recognise that whatever-it-is (I’m told it’s a skunk-like animal) likes digging, and can’t be expected to know that this bit of land belongs to me. A bit of observation reveals that it will only dig in uncovered earth and is reluctant to dig through mulch. Solution: bring the mulch around the transplant stems, and if I want something dug over - such as a freshly-manured bed - leave it uncovered. Skunk turns the manure into the ground, for free, and is happy to be paid in worms. Transplants are largely left alone.
Moral of the story: if something is fucked-up, it could well be because humans are doing something wrong.
My answer to that is that life would not work properly without evolution. It’s an excellent design feature. Thermodynamics dictates that its a slow process.
True enough, but the alternative postulates from atheists boil down to the same thing. Example: you clearly value your own life, you believe that the lives of others have value, and since you indulge in various forms of self-improvement, you believe that your own life has meaning. Why? Because. 
Of course the universe doesn’t know or care about anything, but what do you think you’ve said? How does that change the fact that we as people do know and care, and can perhaps know and care objectively?
A smashed brain doesn’t matter to the universe, but it matters to the smashed brain.
Huh? Why would my life have “meaning?” What meaning does my life have? Please tell me because I’m not aware of it, maybe I’m wasting it 
Here’s what I think. There is no purpose to life, there is nothing more than our brains, we won’t ever see our dead loved ones again, religious answers are as unsatisfactory as could possibly be, and there’s no reason on earth to think our lives are dictated by a divine overlord that pimp slaps us when we take his name in vain.
But I asked you and you never answered. If morality doesn’t come from evolution, and Sam is wrong and science has nothing to say about it, where did it come from? Is your answer God done it? Or is there something else you’d like to put forward instead of Sam’s and others non divine origins of morality?
And this is where the religious people utterly fail. Scientific materialism fails because it negates qualia and therefore cannot introduce any evidence outside of moving particles, and religious people fail because they don’t understand that subjective premises are non-relativistic and produce future results.
The actual qualia of morality will produce a result of similar type in the future, things such as intelligence and empathy and all related states of mind.
So for the slavery argument, the simple action of locking up a person is experienced subjectively when it is carried out, and this will itself produce a corresponding destructive mental state in the future. Why is it destructive? Because it is unrealistic. It fails to realize equality between self and others and places one’s own self at the forefront. It is also motivated by greed, hostility, etc. Such states of mind lead to stupidity, small scopes of mind, and future instances of greed and anger as well as a propensity for them. They are contradictory to large scopes of mind, being a patient person, being chill about possessions, etc.
And is therefore subjectively bad. I know. It’s pretending that this is “scientific” (or even novel - I mean ffs, it’s not exactly earth-shattering stuff) that bugs me.
ehhh, it really pains you to admit that living might involve unfounded beliefs, doesn’t it? 
I can deduce from your behaviour that you believe your life has meaning. If you didn’t, you’d sit in a corner and wait for death. You wouldn’t be out there working, forming relationships, going to the gym, debating with idiots on the internet, and suchlike.
It comes from our heads, by exactly the mechanism TG described earlier. Morality per se does not have “divine origins”. My point was merely that religious people have this set of premises from which they start their moral deductions - a highly constrained set derived from their conception of God. Atheists have this other set. The difference with atheists is that there is no constraint on their selection of premises. None. Harris, for example, has unwittingly chosen his from the Christian canon. Other atheists pick and choose all sorts of different things; for example, if you genuinely start from the premise that life has no meaning, your moral view must be nihilist (unless you are dishonest or irrational). As TG said, atheists are not a homogeneous group.
[quote=“finley”]ehhh, it really pains you to admit that living might involve unfounded beliefs, doesn’t it? 
I can deduce from your behaviour that you believe your life has meaning. If you didn’t, you’d sit in a corner and wait for death. You wouldn’t be out there working, forming relationships, going to the gym, debating with idiots on the internet, and suchlike.[/quote]
I have unfounded beliefs. I happen to believe there is life outside our solar system. Do I have any scientific evidence at all other than a desperate plea to probability? No, but I believe it none the less. Call it faith 
As far as whether my life has meaning, no it most certainly does not. There is no higher purpose to life, we just are. But experiences are real, at least within my brain and my own feelings, so of course I choose to live my life to the fullest and try to get all I can out of it. The universe doesn’t care about smashed brains and wasted lives, but that doesn’t mean I don’t use the ethics my brain deems correct to respect people and be a functional member of society.
Honestly, I think we’re again having a definition disparity. We are using the word “meaning” in two different ways it seems. But we’ve hashed over definitions enough so let’s not go there.
My life, for better or worse, has no meaning. In my opinion, neither does yours, but do your thing my friend
I believe we can make objective judgments about the reality which we perceive through our subjective lens. For example, I feel comfortable asserting that being hit in the head with a bat is bad based on simple objectively defined criteria concerning harm.
I find it funny the hoops that people feel they have to jump through to deny simple truths like that being bashed in the head is bad, or that not having your skull smashed open is good, or that we really are thinking about things, or that our suffering is real.
In my view, simple criteria about good and bad, as well as our capacity for reason and empathy, are all that are needed to develop a sense of morality. As I’ve said, I’ll go further and say that’s where it comes from–any religious ideas about the topic, we’ve dreamed up ourselves. If you say there’s a God behind it, well I haven’t seen any proof of that. If he does exist, he’s clearly spectacularly incompetent about advancing his moral ideas, based on the amount of immoral behavior that does exist in the world and his methods of doing so. Or he doesn’t care too much.
To me, under the scheme advanced by Harris and others, that immorality exists isn’t surprising. We’re evolved animals and our animal impulses are still strong. In our hunter gatherer past, we didn’t have the moral concepts that we have now, based on our knowledge of modern hunter gatherer societies. Food production gave us the time and proclivity to think about moral and other philosophical ideas more, including religion. Our views have changed over time (with views about slavery being a good example), and our history means that the spread of ideas has not been even. Things will continue to change, and may regress if our conditions worsen. And always, the unevolved ape lies within us, not needing much to break through.
I find your ideas about farming totally scientific Finley. You’re taking rational steps to maximize the things that are important to you.
I don’t know. Don’t you think I could do a good job? On the other hand, the history of moral progress under religion has been pretty spotty.
There are no “universal moral truths”. Yet man is capable of making objective determinations, which is all that is required.
By saying “nobody would like it if it happened” you’ve proved his simple point–we can make objective determinations about what is “bad” and what is “good”. It’s not a scenario–it’s a thought exercise intended to demonstrate this fact.
[quote=“BrentGolf”]A smashed brain doesn’t matter to the universe, but it matters to the smashed brain.
I wouldn’t really call it “scientific.” I doubt it could be tested in any real way. But it doesn’t conflict with science in any meaningful way that I can see.
That’s interesting. I don’t see the difference though. If people have this set of premises, where did they come from? They either thought it up based on some other criteria–what? Or it has divine origins, which you’re saying it doesn’t. What was the constraint on their selection of premises?
My life may not have a higher meaning, but it has plenty of meaning to me. If that meaning didn’t exist, I might be totally immoral, who knows. But it does, and even if you believe in a higher meaning, yours does for you too, and for enough people to make morality possible.
Sorry Tempo harm to a particular collection of particles is meaningless. It only becomes non-meaningless when you accept actual subjective awareness.
Scientific materialism does not accept subjective awareness. Period. This is not even slightly controversial, this is standard scientific materialism accepted by 99% of scientists.
You’re either not a materialist, which is doubtful since you say mind is just the brain, or you haven’t thought about the topic enough.
No need to apologize, really.
Don’t try to tell that to this collection of particles. I’m a simple man, tri. I’ll stick to my simple, crazy world view where reality is real, my mind is not an illusion, and things have meaning. It works for me, what can I say.
You sound like a young person. You’ll give a shit later on. With utter great fortunate i’ve had a compulsion since the age of 10-11yo to understand what is ‘me’ which i immediately surmised to mean ‘what is my own mind’.
You’d be surprised how many people dismiss this sort of approach as inefficient or mawkish mumbo-jumbo. The level of hostility from some commentators is quite astounding, despite the fact that people make a good living doing this. It all depends where you start from: some people take it as axiomatic that if chemicals or machines are involved, it must be “good”, and if they’re not, then it’s backward, unscientific, or “bad”.
Well, I did say a benevolent God. Belief in malevolent deities (as in, for example, the Philippines, and Haiti I believe) is likely to produce equally predictable results, but not good ones.
I think we have different definitions of “objective”. Try working this thought exercise with the slavery example, bearing in mind that there still are people today who argue that slavery is good - say, on the basis that a slave’s life is “objectively” worth less than a slaveholder’s. What I mean is, consider convincing another person. Convincing yourself is easy.
Science doesn’t come into it at all. Harris thinks what he thinks. Philosophically, it’s fine (as Brian Earp says in the link I gave earlier).
I see what you mean. That is indeed an interesting question, and I don’t know. They say man creates God in his own image. Given the variety of gods around, this might be true. It’s testable: for example, you would expect failed societies to create gods which perpetuate failure, because that’s what they know. It may be that religiosity is designed into us: we do, apparently, have a bit of our brains that’s dedicated to “religious experience”, which is pretty bizarre. And of course if you follow a mainstream religion, you select your premises from what’s written in a dusty old book.
The Old Testament scares the crap out of me - it’s enough to put anyone off religion - but I’ve always found the decalogue interesting because it did apparently come from nowhere. I’ve mentioned this before: it resembles no contemporary moral code. Not even remotely. The ‘rules’ are utterly alien to the culture of that time and place - you can easily figure this out from the other stories in the O.T! Furthermore they’re not really a set of laws (they’re incomplete). Even the basic concept is off, because they don’t prescribe punishments. They are, if you like, God’s personality in outline: they are axioms, not the totality of The Law. Was this the one and only time the Jews actually listened to what God was saying - bearing in mind that a lot of the O.T. is God berating them for being incorrigible heathens? Was L Ron Hubbard right and the Thetans dropped in for a conference? I don’t know; I’m just thinking out loud here. The fact is, it’s hard to imagine those rules springing from a human head given the immediate context. BG will say: well, that doesn’t automatically mean God done it. Correct; but if we ever did find out the truth, I bet it would be a big surprise because all the plausible explanations are highly improbable.
Christianity works in a similar way. Jesus didn’t really hand out any hard-and-fast rules. He just lived. If asked, he boiled down his philosophy into simple phrases that could be taken axiomatically, to derive all sorts of moral principles. He actually instructed us to do what you’re suggesting: build a conscience. The implication is that God gave us the facility to do so and expected us to use it, instead of waiting for commands from on high.
Well, that’s good enough 
I was really just needling BG, who was insisting that atheists don’t replace theocratic beliefs with alternative beliefs. The atheist necessarily replaces belief in God with belief in humanity; or at minimum, belief in himself. To do otherwise would be terrifying, or at least deeply demotivating. Pure rationality would suggest that, if the universe at large has no purpose or meaning, then neither do its components, including you. The meaning that you see in your own life is therefore irrational, or perhaps an illusion (as triceratopses would have it). Whatever: I can’t argue that your belief is not good, positive, useful.
You sound like a young person. You’ll give a shit later on. With utter great fortunate I’ve had a compulsion since the age of 10-11yo to understand what is ‘me’ which i immediately surmised to mean ‘what is my own mind’.[/quote]
just FYI, that impresses nobody.
No my friend, don’t mischaracterize what was said please. You said the word atheist implies other things and I simply said it doesn’t. Nowhere did I say that atheists don’t have other beliefs. Of course we have just as many as anybody else I reckon, perhaps minus that one
Many Chinese people like to eat white rice right? So would you define a Chinese person as someone from Chinese decent AND someone who usually enjoys white rice? No you wouldn’t.
So why would you define an atheist as someone who rejects God claims and _______ (fill in the blank) We wouldn’t, or at least, we shouldn’t. It implies no such thing.
Of course I have many beliefs, and yes some of them are completely unfounded. I just don’t have THAT belief, which defines me simply as an atheist.
Not a dig here, I’m genuinely asking. How much of the Bible have you read? Personally when I read it, I see it as a perfect representation of the contemporary moral code. I see nothing in it that leads me to believe it was written or inspired by anybody other than pre-science iron age rather barbaric people.
What exactly is in there that you feel couldn’t have sprung up directly from an iron age peasants brain?
That was really my only point on the issue of “meaning.” I believe my life has no higher purpose in the universe, so by extension it has no meaning at all. But that doesn’t mean my experiences aren’t real and my interactions with other people don’t matter to them and to me, so of course I give my life plenty of meaning. But it’s just meaning to me that I add through my experiences.
Again it seems to get down to definitions of the word meaning, but as I understand that word I can comfortably say my life has no meaning. But it does to me and I enjoy life.
I’m not a nihilist. Hopefully that much is obvious to people who have met or spoken to me. If it’s not, I need to seriously rethink my communication methods.
You sound like a young person. You’ll give a shit later on. With utter great fortunate I’ve had a compulsion since the age of 10-11yo to understand what is ‘me’ which i immediately surmised to mean ‘what is my own mind’.[/quote]
just FYI, that impresses nobody.[/quote]
I would be astonished if it did. It generally takes a high caliber person to recognize the necessity for controlling one’s senses in this day and age.
Also it’s a cliche to me to constantly watch the vapidity rise to the surface as the fire of youth fades in people. It becomes too apparent to themselves that they wasted most of their lives in nothingness.
[quote=“finley”]
You’d be surprised how many people dismiss this sort of approach as inefficient or mawkish mumbo-jumbo. The level of hostility from some commentators is quite astounding, despite the fact that people make a good living doing this. It all depends where you start from: some people take it as axiomatic that if chemicals or machines are involved, it must be “good”, and if they’re not, then it’s backward, unscientific, or “bad”.[/quote]
Clearly you’re proving them wrong, on your scale and with your priorities at least.
Even if we’re talking about the “benevolent” god of the New Testament, I would argue the record has been spotty.
Perhaps. To me, it seems that I can only view reality and life subjectively. I can’t literally measure good and bad, but I can work from simple principles to make objective determinations about moral questions. I would say that based on such criteria, they–and slavery–are wrong. I’m starting from the principle that all people should be treated equally. My experience in life shows that fairness is important. Unwilling loss of freedom represents definite harm to a person. Clearly I don’t want to have my freedom taken away from me. I can only apply such criteria to reach moral ideals. I apply them objectively to make moral judgments, such as that slavery is wrong because it violates these simple rules. I don’t expect that everyone necessarily will agree, but if you don’t, perhaps you can come be my slave
IMO, these are things that have to be worked out by consensus in a moral system. Certainly people may disagree with my criteria. They might even think my criteria are morally wrong. I can only make my argument, and preferably live in a society where people agree with me. The history of human morality has never been static which squares neatly with this view.
I don’t know. I do remember you mentioning this. I don’t see it–the Ten Commandments seem to me to range from mundane to unnecessary to silly. I’m not feeling the spark of divine inspiration there. You shall not kill/steal/lie are light years ahead of most of Exodus, is about as far as I’d go. But is that really saying much?
Maybe. I wouldn’t argue with that, if you recognize that we have to make use of those facilities to do so, and may come to different conclusions. Things just come down to the question of if God actually exists or not then, and we’re standing on much the same moral ground.
[quote]
Well, that’s good enough I was really just needling BG, who was insisting that atheists don’t replace theocratic beliefs with alternative beliefs. The atheist necessarily replaces belief in God with belief in humanity; or at minimum, belief in himself. To do otherwise would be terrifying, or at least deeply demotivating. Pure rationality would suggest that, if the universe at large has no purpose or meaning, then neither do its components, including you. The meaning that you see in your own life is therefore irrational, or perhaps an illusion (as triceratopses would have it). Whatever: I can’t argue that your belief is not good, positive, useful.[/quote]
I wouldn’t call it belief. I’m here–I care about me and making the most of the short time that I have in this life. My family and friends have meaning to me. That’s real. I believe in various humanist values, but I don’t see that as any kind of substitute for religion. I don’t worship them for example, or ascribe any higher power to them. I hope that’s positive enough
I have no way of knowing for certain if everything is an illusion or not, but I wouldn’t waste precious time of this life worrying about it. Objectively speaking, it seems as if everything, including my thoughts, is really here. That is quite easy to test.
I wouldn’t hold my breath If breathing is real, that is
btw it’s your school of thought which makes the assertion that you find so unpalatable. Do you think it’s me you’re mocking? I’m giving you the argument that the grandfather of your school of thought relies on primarily. lol.
You have quite the dilemma. Mind is the brain, and yet there is nothing about moving particles which exhibits subjectivity.
Indeed it seems most people are not interested in it. I find it the most fascinating thing, what it is and how to use it properly. What could be more thrilling… everything else is utterly boring by comparison even the vastness of space.
The idea that the Bible is a great and moral book for it’s time to me just doesn’t hold up. Do those who claim that really believe that a better book couldn’t have been written based on the teachings and writings of already existing philosophy and ethics?
Thales, Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagorus, Zeno, Democritus, Plato, and ten or twenty others couldn’t have had their teachings brought together in a similar fashion and had it be as good or better than anything on offer in the bible?
The only difference is the claim of divinity and stories of God, but as far as morality goes I think the Bible is inferior, even for its time. And if people think a claim of divinity turns an average book into the greatest book ever written, then it’s no wonder the first 4 of the 10 commandments are ridiculous and entirely about the vanity of God and pandering to his proclaimed divinity. Only one of the commandments is even worthy of praise. Not bearing false witness does at least suggest an understanding of ethics, but nothing that didn’t exist for hundreds of years before it appeared in the Bible.
I’m not sure there’s a thing unique in the bible that wasn’t written about and taught before. And that even extends to the actual divinity stories as well. The 12 disciples, the virgin birth, the crucifixion and resurrection, the healing the sick, raising the dead. Not original at all. The golden rule, love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek. Not original.
Who do you mean? I’m not even sure what assertion you refer to. It’s all very confusing.
I don’t have any dilemma that I’m aware of. Which is fine with me lol. If I do have one, I’d like to know, but I’d have to understand what you’re talking about first. If I have to spend the rest of my life not knowing about a dilemma I have because I can’t understand it, I’ll live I guess.
That’s cool. I have no problem with your belief as far as I can tell. If I mock you, I believe it’s because you come on a bit strong about it. There’s nothing wrong with that, but can you blame me? I have a worldview as well, which I’ve given considerable consideration to.
telegraph.co.uk/culture/book … brain.html
This? Pretty interesting.
I wasn’t aware there’s still research activity on the subject, but it was originally discovered a long time ago when US researchers had a lot more leeway to do horrible experiments on mental patients (60s-70s). Some patient had electrodes implanted in his brain for some unrelated reason (possibly epilepsy research) and the medics were poking around in there. Stimulating one particular area produced “intense religious experiences”, IIRC.
I don’t remember the precise details - I did my degree 25 years ago.
It’s definitely tough being a scientist, and I’m not being facetious.