RICHARD DAWKINGS: AN ATHEIST'S CALL TO ARMS

[Dragonfly]

A faculty that allows a living organism to become aware of a part of reality evolves because it is in the nature of life to become aware of reality (in addition to randomness and survival). How's them apples?

Saying that it is "in the nature of life to become aware of reality" is a kind of non-explanation that already 335 years ago has been satirized by Molière in his Le Malade imaginaire when the candidate doctor "explains" the soporific effect of opium by saying that it has the "virtus dormitiva". In other words, it isn't an explanation at all.

[Dragonfly]

But you cannot just say mind is a process or an attribute having causal agency. This is a no-no.

Both Rand and Aristotle (and Branden and Peikoff) very hard-headedly (and stern-mindedly) insisted: it is entities that cause their actions. Entities have causal agency. Entities do things, cause things to happen.

They can insist until they're blue in the face, but that doesn't make it true. It's in fact more logical to state that events or processes cause things to happen.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

My problem is that I don't believe in magic. I don't believe non-volitional stuff creates volition out of thin air.

That is why I call the mind a holon. Since there are no hard and fast answers: my strongest leaning is toward the following (and, far from being a no-no, it is a yes-yes ): The mind is an organic system within other systems. Its nature is not yet fully known because it addresses a part of reality not available to the other senses. I suspect that just as a kidney dies when the host body dies, the mind dies when the brain dies.

I reject the view that claims as fact that the mind is a process of non-volitional elements. Volition (within a mind) causes things to happen. I see no way to ignore that. Volition is an existent, not merely a process of non-volition.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Saying that it is "in the nature of life to become aware of reality" is a kind of non-explanation that already 335 years ago has been satirized by Molière in his Le Malade imaginaire when the candidate doctor "explains" the soporific effect of opium by saying that it has the "virtus dormitiva". In other words, it isn't an explanation at all.

Roger,

This kind of argument by proclamation, pointing to wrong unrelated statements in the past and satire does not phase me.

Saying the nature of man contains volition can be satirized by pointing to former comedians and saying people once thought the earth was flat. Saying the the sun rises in the east can be equally satirized. Saying that Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged can be equally satirized.

The purpose of identification is not explanation. It is merely to identify. It is the first level of cognitive abstraction. As a matter of fact, there can be no explanations (identification of causality) without correct identification in the first place.

I was identifying the nature of life. The nature of life is to be aware of reality. Organisms evolve organs for such purpose. There are both kinds and degrees of awareness and all of them (from what I have observed so far) only get a slice of reality, never the whole thing. (Ears get sound, eyes get sight, etc., and distance plays a critical role.)

Roger exists and has a specific nature, which includes being aware of parts of reality but not all of it. For some reason, I don't find that observation good stuff for satire, despite former comdians and old wives tales. I don't get the joke.

Michael

[tjohnson]

GS,

I do not claim that survival is not part of the mix. Obviously it is. I claim that survival is not the whole story.

Michael

I agree. This is where art and culture enter the picture, IMO. What is the survival value of art? I'm not saying there isn't any but it's not obvious at this point what it is. Who knows maybe culture will be the thing that allows humans to exist on this planet for millions of years because without it we may become so bored we wouldn't care about living anymore :-)

[tjohnson]

My problem is that I don't believe in magic. I don't believe non-volitional stuff creates volition out of thin air.

when lightning strikes the ground does it demonstrate volition? Is it not choosing a path? When a person chooses to do something it is the result of a complex chain of electro-chemical reactions, albeit much more complex than when lighting selects a path to the ground. This is not magic, it is complex, but not magic.

[BaalChatzaf]

Roger,

My problem is that I don't believe in magic. I don't believe non-volitional stuff creates volition out of thin air.

What you call volition is an emergent property of complex physical causes. Volition is not a primary property of matter and energy. The alternative is to suppose that atoms or sub-atomc particles possess volition in some degree.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What you call volition is an emergent property of complex physical causes.

Bob,

This is where we disagree. I do not use your identification of volition as an emergent property. I call it an existent. I also do not believe the word "complex" correctly justifies positing the process of transforming a result into a causal agent with totally new characteristics. I can use that word, also, for my own position, i.e., volition is an existent with a complex nature.

That's almost the same as saying nothing. Gotta do better than "complex" for brand spanking new stuff not seen anywhere else in the universe to be valid as "emergent."

To be clear, I understand man evolved a complex brain. But I believe the brain evolved to process reality, like eyes evolved to process already existing light. I do not believe the brain evolved to create an entirely new reality. So in this sense, I agree that man's brain emerged by evolution. But I do not believe consciousness qua existent sprang into being from one minute to the next (relatively speaking) through emergence from human brains like some kind of miracle.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Roger,

My problem is that I don't believe in magic. I don't believe non-volitional stuff creates volition out of thin air.

What you call volition is an emergent property of complex physical causes. Volition is not a primary property of matter and energy. The alternative is to suppose that atoms or sub-atomc particles possess volition in some degree.

Volition is, regardless, isn't it? Volition is the primary attribute of a distinctly human life lived.

--Brant

[Dragonfly]

Bob is right, volition is just an emergent property of complex information processing systems, it is the capacity of making a choice based on an estimate of the effect of choosing a particular option. A chess program has a certain volition, animals do have more or less volition, and humans have the most wide-ranging type of volition, while we can use abstract reasoning to explore the different possibilities and their effects much deeper and more accurately. This capacity of abstract reasoning evolved in a few hundred thousand years because it gave the early hominids in their environment an advantage at survival and procreation, there is nothing miraculous about it.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

If you define volition as purely reactive, there is logic to what you say. If you define volition as a cause in itself (self-generated source of action), your explanation fails. That would claim that a fundamental cause is actually a result.

Obviously I consider volition to be part of the mind, so when I say "cause," I am considering the limitations of this within a fuller context of the mind, which is within an even fuller context of being part of a human being. Sort of like shining a flashlight on one part of a larger whole.

To try to be clearer, volition needs to be part of a human being to be a causal agent. But within a human being, volition self-generates causes not found anywhere else in the universe, not even in the other parts of the human being.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Dragonfly,

If you define volition as purely reactive, there is logic to what you say. If you define volition as a cause in itself (self-generated source of action), your explanation fails. That would claim that a fundamental cause is actually a result.

Obviously I consider volition to be part of the mind, so when I say "cause," I am considering the limitations of this within a fuller context of the mind, which is within an even fuller context of being part of a human being. Sort of like shining a flashlight on one part of a larger whole.

To try to be clearer, volition needs to be part of a human being to be a causal agent. But within a human being, volition self-generates causes not found anywhere else in the universe, not even in the other parts of the human being.

It's both a result and a cause. Therefore he is correct. There is no such thing as a cause without a cause--"a cause in itself." That doesn't mean one can't make choices--that one is determined to make a particular choice.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There is no such thing as a cause without a cause--"a cause in itself."

Brant,

Do you mean like existence?

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

There is no such thing as a cause without a cause--"a cause in itself."

Brant,

Do you mean like existence?

Existence is the broadest category. It doesn't cause anything in itself. Causality needs concrete particularization.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

Existence is a category?

I thought we were discussing metaphysics. That statement is epistemology.

Metaphysics-wise, all causes are within existence. If a cause does not exist, it cannot produce a result. Yet nothing caused existence (presumably).

But even taking you at your word, you wrote, "It [existence] doesn't cause anything in itself. Causality needs concrete particularization."

How can a concrete particularization engender causality if it does not exist in the first place?

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Brant,

Existence is a category?

I thought we were discussing metaphysics. That statement is epistemology.

Metaphysics-wise, all causes are within existence. If a cause does not exist, it cannot produce a result. Yet nothing caused existence (presumably).

But even taking you at your word, you wrote, "It [existence] doesn't cause anything in itself. Causality needs concrete particularization."

How can a concrete particularization engender causality if it does not exist in the first place?

Existence is an idea with innumerable concrete referents. Ideas do not cause anything. Existence has always existed (the referents) because non-existence cannot exist (no referents). Referents cause existence (epistemology), existence did not cause the referents (metaphysics). The referents are in constant flux. Matter is not created or destroyed, it is only transformed. Consciousness creates God but God, like existence, is only an idea. The difference is God has no referents except that of the creative consciousness. A real God could actually destroy matter--or create it--but there is no such being. Other than that, man is God. That's too ego-centric for a society of men so men imagine God as ~out there~ which is genius, but Rand and Nietzsche went too far contra with man as superman, which doesn't work so you get Hickman or Hitler as reductio ad absurdums. The God in me is really the imagined concrete God out there, but I know God is only an idea while hoi polloi goes to church and coughs up 10% of his income. My God, in society (me) is not inherently morally superior or supreme to anybody else's ("all men are created equal") and all worshippers of God as a supreme being are equal to each other in His Light. Rand should have rejected Neitzsche, not lightly stepped to the side while continuing to hold on. And "man worship" is woman worshipping man. Logically, all the heroic men in Atlas Shrugged should have had a homosexual fixation on John Galt. The real love affair in The Fountainhead was between Wynand and Roark. You can actually take Dominque out of the novel and have the two men sleeping with each other with much more credibility. Roark all but raped Dominique and then all but forgot about her, but in Wynand it was all but love at first sight. Reread their first meeting in Wynand's office. The sex between Roark and Dominique was literally forced. If Roark and Wynand had had sex it would have been perfectly natual and expressive of love. Ayn Rand as a heterosexual woman never could properly create a truly heterosexual man who wasn't dominant over all other men or women who weren't inferior to men overall. The one problem with my hypothetical Roark-Wynand homosexual relationship is that neither could play the female role, for homosexuality is imitative of heterosexuality so someone has to take it while the other gets it. Maybe if Dominique had been the architect ... [edit: someone has to give it while the other receives it.]

--Brant

Edited August 11, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[kiaer.ts]

Yet nothing caused existence (presumably).

Well, no. In truth, nothing actually prevented existence.

[tjohnson]

A cause, in one frame of reference, can be regarded as an effect in another. For example, mainstream medicine views high cholesterol as one of the causes of atherosclerosis but there are a group of scientists that believe, or at least hypothesize, that when blood vessels weaken the body signals for the production of cholesterol which is used to patch the weak area and prevent it from rupturing. In this scenario, the high cholesterol is an effect and the cause becomes the weak blood vessel (theoretically from low vitamin C). Anyway, the point is that causes and effects are dependent on the model we are using to represent some event and do not have some sort of absolute existence.

[Brant Gaede]

Yet nothing caused existence (presumably).

Well, no. In truth, nothing actually prevented existence.

Existence isn't for the creating or stopping the creation of. Existence is. That's all. God is in existence. God is existence. God is everything and everywhere. An idea. That's all. God can't do anything; he never did. Therefore, it's up to us. Do it!

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Yet nothing caused existence (presumably).

Well, no. In truth, nothing actually prevented existence.

Ted,

The "presumably" in my statement means "to the extent of our present knowledge, we have not found anything."

Metaphysically speaking, I really like your observation that nothing prevented existence, so long as this does not presume a starting point as fact. (Projected starting point as speculation is another matter.)

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Existence is an idea with innumerable concrete referents. Ideas do not cause anything. Existence has always existed (the referents) because non-existence cannot exist (no referents). Referents cause existence (epistemology), existence did not cause the referents (metaphysics). The referents are in constant flux. Matter is not created or destroyed, it is only transformed. Consciousness creates God but God, like existence, is only an idea. The difference is God has no referents except that of the creative consciousness. A real God could actually destroy matter--or create it--but there is no such being. Other than that, man is God. That's too ego-centric for a society of men so men imagine God as ~out there~ which is genius, but Rand and Nietzsche went too far contra with man as superman, which doesn't work so you get Hickman or Hitler as reductio ad absurdums. The God in me is really the imagined concrete God out there, but I know God is only an idea while hoi polloi goes to church and coughs up 10% of his income. My God, in society (me) is not inherently morally superior or supreme to anybody else's ("all men are created equal") and all worshippers of God as a supreme being are equal to each other in His Light. Rand should have rejected Neitzsche, not lightly stepped to the side while continuing to hold on. And "man worship" is woman worshipping man. Logically, all the heroic men in Atlas Shrugged should have had a homosexual fixation on John Galt. The real love affair in The Fountainhead was between Wynand and Roark. You can actually take Dominque out of the novel and have the two men sleeping with each other with much more credibility. Roark all but raped Dominique and then all but forgot about her, but in Wynand it was all but love at first sight. Reread their first meeting in Wynand's office. The sex between Roark and Dominique was literally forced. If Roark and Wynand had had sex it would have been perfectly natual and expressive of love. Ayn Rand as a heterosexual woman never could properly create a truly heterosexual man who wasn't dominant over all other men or women who weren't inferior to men overall. The one problem with my hypothetical Roark-Wynand homosexual relationship is that neither could play the female role, for homosexuality is imitative of heterosexuality so someone has to take it while the other gets it. Maybe if Dominique had been the architect ...

Brant,

The ability to do that is a state of grace. I am in awe.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Well, I have to edit the post. The next to last sentence is worded wrong.

I hasten to add that Roark and Wynand were purely heterosexual men and I have made no literary criticism of The Fountainhead or think the novel could be improved. If you take Neitzsche out of Rand we never would have heard of her or her novels. I do think, however, that Nietzsche should be rent from Objectivism. I don't believe in "man worship" for men or women. I don't believe in inherent psychological inferiority for either sex, either one sex to the other or expressed in man to man relationships as in Atlas Shrugged with Galt on top of the mountain. Simple admiration is another thing entirely. Even intense admiration.

--Brant

Edited August 11, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[BaalChatzaf]

My problem is that I don't believe in magic. I don't believe non-volitional stuff creates volition out of thin air.

when lightning strikes the ground does it demonstrate volition? Is it not choosing a path? When a person chooses to do something it is the result of a complex chain of electro-chemical reactions, albeit much more complex than when lighting selects a path to the ground. This is not magic, it is complex, but not magic.

You bring up an interesting point. It turns out the the physical processes described by current theories exhibit a characteristic. It often takes the form of least action and always is a stationary point of an action functional (such as the Lagrangian). Leibniz proposed that God causes his world to operate in the most frugal or economic manner. I don't buy this explanation, but the principle of least (or stationary) action has the -appearance- of purpose or rational direction.

When I learned that most field theories could be cranked out by finding the right Lagrangian (or like functional) and solving the associated variational problem I was both flabbergasted/amazed and a bit let down. It was like finding out how a magician does his tricks. You have to admire the cleverness but it takes "the magic" out of things. The Lagrangian-Hamiltonian approach to physics is one of the happier inventions in the science and cures some of the "clunkier" aspects of Newton's original approach. The Hamilton-Lagrance mode is used not only in classical physics, but in relativity and in quantum field theory. It is a beautiful, productive and amazing thing. If I were mystically inclined I would call it a miracle.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Roger Bissell]

Saying that it is "in the nature of life to become aware of reality" is a kind of non-explanation that already 335 years ago has been satirized by Molière in his Le Malade imaginaire when the candidate doctor "explains" the soporific effect of opium by saying that it has the "virtus dormitiva". In other words, it isn't an explanation at all.

Roger, [???? Don't you mean "Dragonfly"???]

This kind of argument by proclamation, pointing to wrong unrelated statements in the past and satire does not phase me.

Saying the nature of man contains volition can be satirized by pointing to former comedians and saying people once thought the earth was flat. Saying the the sun rises in the east can be equally satirized. Saying that Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged can be equally satirized.

The purpose of identification is not explanation. It is merely to identify. It is the first level of cognitive abstraction. As a matter of fact, there can be no explanations (identification of causality) without correct identification in the first place.

I was identifying the nature of life. The nature of life is to be aware of reality. Organisms evolve organs for such purpose. There are both kinds and degrees of awareness and all of them (from what I have observed so far) only get a slice of reality, never the whole thing. (Ears get sound, eyes get sight, etc., and distance plays a critical role.)

Roger exists and has a specific nature, which includes being aware of parts of reality but not all of it. For some reason, I don't find that observation good stuff for satire, despite former comdians and old wives tales. I don't get the joke.

Michael

Michael, why are you taking my name in vain in this post? Aren't you addressing Dragonfly, whom you quoted above???

REB

[Dragonfly]

If you define volition as purely reactive, there is logic to what you say. If you define volition as a cause in itself (self-generated source of action), your explanation fails. That would claim that a fundamental cause is actually a result.

Volition is a result, not a cause in itself, that's only an illusion while we can't track all those microscopic processes in the brain.