Difficult Questions for Atheists? Part 1

322 thoughts on “Difficult Questions for Atheists? Part 1”

1. unkleE: Thank you for the detailed response, I appreciate the exchange; I’ll try to respond carefully. Are you from Australia?

   Yes, labels are useful. In fact, I explicitly mentioned what label would fit my viewpoint better than “physicalism.” My concern was that label definitions have to be very clear and encompassing. Otherwise you might be attempting to tear down a straw man and I might be unwittingly boxed into a position that doesn’t fully capture what I’m trying to communicate. This would be a great exercise in “talking past each other,” which I don’t think should be our aim.

   To wit, your definition of what is not “physicalism” implicit in your question “Do you think there are things and processes other than those described by physics?” is already problematic for me, as I prefer definitions in terms of what the label is, rather than what it is not. You’d have to define what you mean by “things,” “processes” and “described.” For example, can the “beauty” I find in an Impressionist painting be “described” by “physics”? Is it a “thing”? A “process”? I’d say “physics” is the wrong vocabulary to “describe” it, but I don’t believe that my appreciation for a beautiful painting can be inconsistent with fundamental physics, to partly answer your question.

   Anyway, we can agree to disagree on the usefulness of “ism” labels vis a vis the problem of LFW. I won’t use them and won’t defend some concept of “physicalism,” but will try instead to be clear about definitions and stick to arguments. LFW may be completely illusory for reasons other than the truth of some version of “physicalism.”

   “The laws of conservation of momentum and energy tend to prevent a nothing state turning into a something state. There may be exceptions, but those laws are pretty universal.”

   This is not germane to your earlier assertion that “no thing (object) can initiate a new course of events (actions), only other actions can,” which is what prompted my response, but I’ll try to address it anyway to clear up misunderstandings. The first sentence is, strictly speaking, false, (and the second one contradicts the first and itself, and “pretty” universal is not very meaningful). In classical (non-quantum) physics, energy (and momentum) conservation hold (BTW, these classical conservation laws are not “fundamental” in that they can be obtained from even more fundamental principles within relativity). Needless to say, the “classical” world is an approximation of the “quantum mechanical” world. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle allows for violations of energy (and momentum) conservation at quantum scales; they happen all the time.

   But energy conservation is not relevant! The point is that an object can initiate actions without even violating classical conservation laws.

   “The difficulty here is that none of those initial states are “inert”. Atoms are composed of electrons that are orbiting and even the nuclei are vibrating. If you read about quantum theory, you find that everything is moving – particles are fluctuations in quantum fields, etc. So at the quantum level, nothing can ever sit there unchanged.

   You are correct in that no particle can just “sit there” if this means being in a specific location for periods of time shorter than the Planck time (this would violate Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which is the same reason why violations of classical conservation laws are allowed at the quantum level). I was aware of this (believe me), was trying to give a relatable example with “sit there” and clarified it with “(exist),” didn’t mean to be unclear. By “inert” I meant that it was uninfluenced by external events, wasn’t that your point? In some sense, if nothing can just “sit there unchanged” your statement that no objects can initiate a new course of events without external ‘actions” is moot, isn’t it? Please clarify this.

   “But all that is at the quantum level, not at the human level. We have discussed that already, and I don’t think anyone thinks that things that apply at the quantum level can be taken to apply at the human level. But even if they could, they would show randomness but not allow choice.”

   If by “the human level” you mean macroscopic scales, your first two sentences are incorrect. While we use classical approximations to describe macroscopic scales (the quantum corrections would be so tiny as to render the added computational complications overkill), nothing that can be said or described at macroscopic scales could ever contradict, or be inconsistent with, the fundamental (quantum) level. Macroscopic descriptions are “emergent” and we use different vocabulary for them (depending on the scale: classical physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, ecology, economics, sociology,…), but none of them could ever be inconsistent with the fundamental-level descriptions.

   As to your last sentence regarding “randomness” vs. “choice,” this is now an equivocation, or at least a large (quantum?) 🙂 leap. You are going from “objects can’t initiate actions unless they’re externally influenced” to “choice.” First, you have failed to demonstrate (at the quantum or even the macroscopic level) that an object with sufficient amounts of energy and complexity cannot initiate “actions” without another complex entity prodding it. Second, you need to define what you mean by “actions” and “choice.” If you’re assuming that “choice” is a non-random, non-causal action, that would be question-begging, as it is precisely what we’re trying to get at with the question of LFW.

   Yes, I’ve read some of the discussion son that. Some agree with you, some don’t. But causality is a useful label. If you think the problems with the concept of causality are germane to the discussion of compatibility, then I’m interested to see what you have to say.

   To clarify, I am not defending compatibilism; I am arguing against the weaker notion that there is LFW (though haven’t yet, maybe will do in other posts in response to the positive case for LFW). Compatibilism is essentially LFW with some added definitions of what “free will” is. While I do subscribe to a version of compatibilism, I’m only trying to get at LFW. LFW entails actions or decisions that are (a) non-random and (b) not describable by, or conforming to, the laws of physics, even in principle.

   Yes, causality is a useful label. But you brought up causality in your discussion of “agent causation” vs. “event causation” and how “agent causation in the brain entails dualism,” remember? not me. So the burden is on you to show how it applies to LFW. I was trying to communicate that, useful as it might be, “causality” has its limitations. We cannot extrapolate intuitions about causality to draw implications when the intuitions break down. Does that make sense? In either case, I’m still waiting for you to draw these connections.

   The fact that mathematics can calculate something doesn’t make it real.

   True, although I wasn’t arguing that. Mathematics is simply a language and a deductive inferential tool to help us describe reality by amplifying our cognitive faculties (much like instruments amplify our sensory faculties). And BTW, that our intuitions can sometimes help us apprehend something, does not make it real.

   But again, if you think time and causality have a bearing on compatibilism, I’m happy to listen.

   Thank you for listening. However, it was you who brought up causality, I was simply responding. I brought up time because causality is embedded in time. I was trying to cast doubt on intuitive notions of both time and causality to prevent us from overly ambitious extrapolations when those intuitions break down. In the rest of our discussion (if you’re patient enough to continue) 🙂 I will accept the intuitive notions of time and causality that we have, until such time as I find the intuitions problematic, in which case I’ll point it out.

   “Again, I think this is a misunderstanding. Someone had to build the thing and program the thing. Someone even had to press the on button.”

   That’s neither here nor there. You made a statement that an object cannot, without external influence, spontaneously cause an action. How the object got to the state it finds itself in is not relevant. The question is, can an object be in a state with sufficient energy and complexity to perform actions. The machine is responding to external stimuli without an external agent being there every step of the way. An amoeba can spontaneously respond to external stimuli without another complex agent prodding its response. BTW, amoebas, as well as humans are also designed and programmed (by Natural Selection).

   ‘Everything it does is in response to those actions.”

   Yes, and it does so on its own without an external agent prodding it at every single instance where it responds. Stimuli can occur without agency. An Amoeba can respond to the presence of a chemical substance (be it food or an irritant). In fact, Watson will react to questions (stimuli) in ways that its programmers could never have anticipated (it would beat the pants off any of its programmers at a game of Jeopardy!), so you cannot say that each and every one of its actions has to be preceded (caused) by some prodding by another active agent.

   “It would be very freaky if it was able to plug itself in, switch itself on and then program itself!”

   Yes, it would be. Unless it is programmed to do so! 🙂

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2. unkleE: Sorry, what I meant to say was that “Compatibilism is essentially lack of LFW with some added definitions of what “free will” is.”

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3. Hi Travis. My concern about compatibilism is that I think it uses terms like “free will” when a more accurate time might be “internal choice”, with the result that the emotional implications of determinism are made more acceptable. But I agree with you it is time to move on to my main points. But I am going away in an hour or two for two days, so I’ll have to wait until then. Thanks for your (and Nate’s) patience.

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4. unkleE: I read your past comments (again) and I’m a bit unclear as to what you’re attempting to argue (and I mean “argue” in a good way). Are you attempting to argue that naturalism cannot be true on the assumption that LFW is true? Or are you arguing that LFW must be true?There’s also a bit of a switching back and forth between LFW and Compatibilism. Which aspect of Compatibilism are you arguing against?

   If I understand the term correctly, Compatibilism attempts to reconcile Determinism with our intuitions about “choice” and moral responsibility. In other words, it rejects LFW and at the same time attempts to rescue our intuitions about “choice” and our sense of moral responsibility tied to FW by redefining FW as something different than LFW. For example, you could redefine FW as an emergent process that, for all intents and purposes, we perceive as LFW without actually being LFW and without violating natural law (like LFW), and yet safeguarding our intuitions about “choice” and our sense of moral responsibility. To argue against Compatibilism you would have to either argue against LFW, or against the redefinition of FW, or both.

   It seems to me that the more interesting and less confusing approach would be to argue for or against LFW. After all, compatibilist redefinitions of FW can be, well, redefined and made slippery enough to avoid objections on “intuitive” grounds. On the other hand, a positive case for LFW would destroy Compatibilism, and possibly even Naturalism. A positive case against a rehabilitated definition of FW would not accomplish much, other than forcing a change in the definition.

   “2. Libertarian free will has two requirements – (1) the choice occurs within our own brains (i.e. it isn’t made externally to us), and (2) even given all the causal and physical process realities, we could have made a different choice than the one we made – we have some physically uncaused component of the self which can direct our decisions, at least sometimes. But compatibilism requires only (1), and it denies (2). Under compatibilism, there is no uncaused component, ever.”

   I’m not sure I agree that LFW requires (1), as I don’t think it specifically requires the locus of “libertarian choice” to be limited to the brain. But, more importantly, (1) and the denial of (2) define Determinism; Compatibilism, in addition, tacks on a more liberal definition of FW (more encompassing than LFW).

   “3. Therefore, if compatibilism is true, the decisions we make are not forced on us from the outside, but we still could have made no other in the given circumstances. The choice may feel the same but the reality in our brains is very different.

   Yes, that last sentence is part of what’s needed for Compatibilism besides (1) and not-(2) above (Determinism).

   As an aside, I personally don’t much like the term “Determinism,” because it seems to imply that randomness plays no role in the decision outcomes that we might call “choice.” I understand that you’re skeptical that randomness plays a role in human (macroscopic) scales. I disagree and I could make a strong argument to the contrary, but I also agree with you that randomness cannot be called “choice,” in the libertarian sense that you mean. Of course, I don’t believe that we have “choice” in the sense that you do, so it’s not a problem for me to accept that decision outcomes are in fact influenced by a combination of natural causes and randomness. But we’ll leave the randomness question aside for now. Also, I’ll use “Determinism” as simply “lack of LFW,” without committing to a world in which randomness plays no role, nor committing to any redefinition of FW other than LFW.

   You seem to be asking Nate, Travis and others to agree with you that “if Naturalism is true then we don’t have LFW.” I would say this is a tautology. Given your definition of LFW as having a non-random “uncaused component,” then this “uncaused component” leaves no room for a naturalistic explanation, so of course, if there are no causes outside of random or natural ones, then LFW cannot be true (on Naturalism).

   As I see it, the defense of LFW carries a huge burden. The problem is that presenting a positive case for LFW is a non-starter from an evidential standpoint. It is highly unlikely, if not impossible, to observe whether the decision outcome of a given agent in a given world with given circumstances and given internal states could have been different if we could replay it. Notice that I used the term “decision outcome” as I’m trying to avoid the loaded (and I suspect question-begging) term “free choice.”

   Unless you have some great arguments that I have yet to hear (I’d be more than happy to listen to them, of course), you’d be reduced to presenting a negative case for Determinism, which has massive amounts of science behind it (which I’d be happy to discuss as well in the context of LFW, consciousness, the “afterlife,” etc.).

   As to the 3 “problems” that you presented to Nate, I’m a bit unclear here also because you preface them with:

   “Hi Nate, now that I feel we are on the same page, that naturalism almost certainly entail[s] no libertarian free will, I want to talk about why I think this present problems for you.”

   I don’t think there’s any argument that “naturalism entails no LFW,” (as I said, I view this as a tautology given your own definition of LFW), so I’m not clear on whether your 3 points aim to demonstrate that the statement itself is not true (although you agree with it from previous posts), or whether Naturalism has to go because LFW is true (this would have to be demonstrated), or whether it’s some aspect of Compatibilism (excluding LFW) that must go. I assume you’re attempting to show that Naturalism is false because LFW has to be true. Anyway, as to the 3 points themselves:

   Your First Point is an ad consequentiam. Whether our criminal system depends on LFW or not, and whether people would behave unethically if they didn’t believe in LFW doesn’t matter one whit to determine whether LFW is real. The world could descend into a chaotic, desperate nihilism tomorrow morning if we found out that LFW was false, and it would still be false. Many people may have been extremely unsettled several hundred years ago when they found out that the Earth went around the sun and wasn’t the center of the Universe, and it mattered not one iota as to the truth of that statement. The Earth went on its merry business regardless of its inhabitant’s despondency at their new-found knowledge.

   If by a “problem” you mean that this would be troubling to some, OK, although I don’t agree that knowing that LFW doesn’t exist (if it didn’t) would have the disastrous impact on morality and legal systems that you allude to. But I think that’s a different discussion from whether LFW is real or not. Arguing that if LFW were false and people knew that it was false would have consequences is interesting, but how people would react to this knowledge says nothing about whether LFW is true or whether Naturalism is true etc.

   BTW, whether Dawkins or any other well-known atheist admits this or that, is completely irrelevant to the arguments here. Dawkins can believe that the moon is made of green cheese for all I care; your argument still must stand or fall on its own merits. Singer’s quote is his opinion, and is also quite irrelevant to the validity of your First Point, unless you substantiate it with arguments and evidence, not just with the quote itself.

   Your Second Point starts out by painting all (many? some?) naturalists as adherents to Clifford’s Principle which is, I hasten to say, a calumny against all those naturalists, and quite different from the much more modest and more reasonable statement that you wrongly compare with it: “for every conclusion there should be an evidential ground.” Even this statement could be made even more concordant with Naturalism and more reasonable as in: “For every conclusion about the nature of reality there should be evidential grounds, since cogitation alone has repeatedly been found to be insufficient.”

   The rest of your Second Point seems rather confused to me (or maybe I’m the one who’s confused?). Here you’re attempting to conclude that, without “[Libertarian?] Free Will” we cannot have rationality. Can you clarify what your premises are and what reasoning you’re using that leads to this conclusion? After all, this is the crux of the matter. Here is your Second Point:

   2. Rational thought requires us to be able to assess truth by a process of logic, which is reasoning based on ground and consequence thinking – for every conclusion, there should be an evidential ground, a view much loved by naturalists (think of Clifford’s Principle). Philosopher Thomas Nagel: ”If we can reason, it is because our thoughts can obey the order of logical relations among propositions.”

   But naturalism says our conclusions are reached by a quite different process of physical cause and effect. These processes follow well known laws, and if naturalism is true, then there is nothing outside them that can interfere with them. Philosopher John Searle: ”In order to engage in rational decision making we have to presuppose free will.” So it is difficult to explain rationality if we have no free will.

   Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be saying:

   (1) Reason requires our thoughts to “obey” (follow?) logical relations among propositions;
   (2) On naturalism, logical conclusions are reached by a process different from logical relations because this process would have to be comprised of physical cause and effect;
   (3) There’s nothing outside of natural laws that can interfere with them;
   (4) A quote from John Searle which states your conclusion;
   (5) Therefore it is difficult to explain the opposite of your conclusion????

   John Searle’s quote in and of itself, without any demonstration or reasoning behind it, demonstrates: John Searle’s conclusion or opinion, but it doesn’t demonstrate your case, so (5) is unwarranted.

   It seems that (2) and (3) are the most important elements of your case. On (2), note that there is nothing incoherent in expecting physical processes to mimic logic. The computer that I’m typing this on uses physical processes that mimic logic. Transistors arranged in a certain way can produce NAND gates, which are logic-spanning gates (meaning they can be arranged to produce any logic “truth table” that you may possibly want; other logic spanning functions are NOR, XOR, etc.). Arithmetic calculations? Sure. Logic processors? Sure. Automatic theorem proving? Sure. These transistors are made up of p-n junctions of silicon doped with boron and phosphorus (among many other possibilities), and their emulation of logic is simply mapped from the physics of the electrons whizzing around in them–a strictly physical cause and effect that produces logic as a by-product. While using a very different process, the brain can also emulate logic through a completely physical process. A better analogy of the brain is ANNs (Artificial Neural Networks), which use massive parallelism and statistical learning rules (with a dollop of random noise added in for good measure, BTW), and can produce very complex inferential logic behaviors that can outsmart human experts.

   As for (3), I fail to see any relevance, perhaps you can explain?

   Your Third Point is an appeal to universal intuitive experience. “We intuit LFW therefore we must have LFW.” (???) I’m afraid this is insufficient, just as “We intuit that the Earth is stationary, therefore the Earth is not moving around the Sun.” “We intuit that time dilation is impossible, therefore Relativity cannot possibly be true.” “We intuit that QM is wrong, therefore it’s wrong.” I could go on and on. The point is that our intuitions are not always reliable and in fact can fail us miserably and do so often. There is no reason why our intuition could not be failing us when it comes to LFW, or at least, you have not presented any reasons that I can see.

   Then you say that most people you’ve read on the subject “agree that we cannot actually live without that sense [of LFW]” Well, what can I say to that unsubstantiated quote? Maybe they should try harder to live without LFW? I don’t mean to be dismissive, but this really demonstrates nothing. Quotes from Minsky and Searle again, demonstrate nothing by themselves.

   “So not only is free will contrary to our experience, but if we don’t have free will, we are all forced to live an illusion – you might even say naturalists have to consciously embrace being “delusional”!”

   Ah, those naturalists consciously embracing delusion, hey? How could they possibly be correct, right? Hmmm, let me see how this would look in a syllogism:

   (1) A naturalist concludes that human beings can fall victims to certain cognitive illusions;
   (2) A cognitive illusion is, well, a form of delusion;
   (3) The naturalist is a human being that can fall victim to those cognitive illusions;
   (4) Therefore, the naturalist is being “delusional”!!!

   Of course, this is a non-sequitur. Let me play a bit more with that:

   (1b) A naturalist concludes that human beings can fall victims to certain cognitive illusions;
   (2b) An UNRECOGNIZED cognitive illusion is a form of delusion;
   (3b) The naturalist is a human being that can fall victim to those cognitive illusions;
   (4b) The naturalist recognizes that he/she can fall victim to those cognitive illusions;
   (5b) Therefore, the naturalist is NOT being “delusional”!!!

   That’s a bit more like it, right? OK, some more, just for fun:

   (1b) A supernaturalist fails to recognize that humans can fall victim to certain cognitive illusions;
   (2b) An UNRECOGNIZED cognitive illusion is a form of delusion;
   (3b) The supernaturalist is a human being that can fall victim to those cognitive illusions;
   (4b) The supernaturalist FAILS to recognize that he/she can fall victim to those cognitive illusions;
   (5b) Therefore, the supernaturalist is being “delusional”!!!

   All fun aside, we all live with illusions with respect to many aspects of reality because our intuitions fail us. There is far too much evidence to pretend that this is not (or could not be) the case, and therein would lie the delusion. Our intuitions evolved in a bubble that is infinitesimal compared to the entirety of the external reality that we find ourselves in. Even within this tiny “doxastic bubble” our intuitions can fail us, and we have even less right to expect that they will be reliable outside this bubble.

   “So, ethics (including law and psychiatry), rationality and truth are all placed at risk if we don’t have libertarian free will. I think that justifies saying that naturalism has a significant reality problem.”

   I’m afraid the “ethics (law, psychiatry) being at risk” objection is an emotive argument to consequences. The rationality objection on the grounds that physical processes could never emulate or reproduce the tool we call “logic” is simply false. The “truth” objection is an emotive appeal to intuition. All of this was peppered with healthy sprinkles of quote mining as well.

   It seems that, on the grounds you’ve presented so far at least, Naturalism is on very safe ground, and LFW has not been established.

   “The irony for those who argue against [C]hristians on these sorts of grounds should be obvious.

   Perhaps, though not in the way that you would like. I would argue that, in fact, the irony cuts in the other direction. 🙂

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5. @ AR
   In case you haven’t realised to yet … though I suspect you probably have, you are now pushing the envelope here with Unklee.
   You are soon going to find that there is not a single argument you can present that will get him to acknowledge just how untenable his faith position truly is, simply because it is Jesus first, second, and last. And everything in between as well.
   He will argue like an intellectual, trying to outwit all-comers in the somewhat pedantic game of mental masturbation while desperately trying to maintain credibility for believing in the Virgin Birth and steadfastly holding on to the belief that the pseudo-necromancy he engages in with the make-beleive Lake Tiberius Pedestrian is the key to good mental-health in this life and a life of eternal bliss fawning over the reincarnation of said Wave-Walker in the next.
   You should ask him to explain why, if maths are ”not real”, why the Divine ‘Telephone Call’ is

   Also Look out for something along these lines:
   ”I think we may have reached a point in our conversation where an understanding will never be reached.”
   This may well include a final passing shot alluding to your inability to comprehend the true meaning of Divine Communication and the nature of his god,God,why naturalism is a crock … naturally, and something about your heart being closed to the Holy Spirit(sic)

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6. Ark: That’s funny, “Lake Tiberias Pedestrian,” I never heard that one before.

   I don’t have any intention of convincing unkleE, or anyone, of my viewpoint; most people are immovable in that respect. On the other hand I try to think that I’m not and that I would change my mind (actually would have no choice but to change it) when presented with good arguments and evidence. I’m sure confirmation bias makes me fail at this often, but at least I try to make a conscious effort not to. I’m also interested in finding out why intelligent and articulate people reach beliefs that I don’t share. Finally, this exchange may be useful to others who happen to run across it. So I don’t think it’s all a waste of time.

   unkleE has some interesting things to say. So far he has presented 3 objections to Determinism (or to Compatibilism, I’m not entirely sure, although objecting to Compatibilism alone wouldn’t necessarily rescue LFW). I believe these objections are meant as a negative case against Determinism and, by definition, against Naturalism. All 3 objections, as far as I can see, fail.

   Unless there’s something I’m missing, the first objection (people would behave badly and morality and the legal system would have no basis without LFW) is an Argument to Consequences Fallacy. The second one (physical processes could never emulate nor produce logical reasoning) is simply false. The third one (we all “intuit” LFW therefore it must be true) is an Appeal to Intuition Fallacy. Much of what’s in the other comments rely heavily on the question-begging term “free choice,” whose existence (or definition) is precisely what’s being debated.

   All of this was “bolstered” with big dollops of Quote Mining (the apologist’s eternal gremlin, so obvious to outsiders) and even with a non sequitur by way of a snide remark about “naturalists embracing delusion!” because they have the fortitude to recognize the possibility of cognitive illusions and try to identify specific cases (which, you would think, should be the first step towards actually avoiding delusions!)

   So far, it’s not been a promising start, but unkleE has mentioned that he’s about to present his case, so maybe we’ll finally get to hear a well-argued positive case for LFW.

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7. … so maybe we’ll finally get to hear a well-argued positive case for LFW.

   See my previous reply.
   Based on past history, I am pretty sure I could still get even odds after telling you unk’s Modus opperandi
   Maybe I’m just a cynical bastard?

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8. “Maybe I’m just a cynical bastard?”
   Ark for those of us who know you and love you this goes without saying. LOL This does not preclude you from being “spot on” (more times than not) 🙂

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9. maybe?

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10. Probably more of Sin – ical bastard I should think, William.
    🙂

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11. The debate with UnkleE seems to never end. Sometimes while reading his interactions with other posters I feel like Archie Bunker during one of Edith’s long, rambling stories. (Archie gets out the imaginary rope…)

    And I believe that the reason why the debate with UnkleE will never end is because some skeptics allow UnkleE to draw them into complicated philosophical debates about a generic “God” instead of making UnkleE prove the existence of his ancient Canaanite god, Yahweh and his alleged human incarnation, the resurrected Jesus the Christ. If we could force UnkleE to limit is arguments to that subject, I believe that UnkleE and traditional Christianity could be proven false in less than five minutes by knocking out the three pillars of the Christian Faith (belief system):

    1. The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus
    2. The Accuracy of Old Testament Prophecy
    3. The Witness of the Holy Spirit

    And here is the evidence that destroys these three superstitious claims:

    1. Based on cumulative human experience, it is much more probable that the early Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus was due to one disciple’s bereavement hallucination (probably Simon Peter’s) than a once in history reanimation of a three-day-brain-dead corpse. Persons who experience hallucinations believe them to be real life experiences. If Paul was able to convince first century Jews in Asia Minor that he had seen a resurrected Jesus based on a “heavenly vision”, then Simon Peter was surely capable of convincing first century Jews (including the other disciples) in Palestine that he had seen the resurrected Jesus, even though his experience had really been an hallucination. The remainder of the “appearances” of Jesus listed in the Early Creed of First Corinthians 15 could simply have been static images (illusions) something we see today with alleged group sightings of the Virgin Mary. The Early Creed gives no details whatsoever of these appearances. The detailed appearances in the four Gospels may well be literary embellishments, very common in Greco-Roman biographies, the genre of literature in which most New Testament scholars, including many conservative Christian scholars, believe the authors of the Gospels were written.

    2. The Book of Daniel is a blatant fraud. The book very accurately portrays the events in the Greek Empire down to abstract minutia but makes major errors regarding the Babylonian and Persian empires, the empires during which the book’s author infers the book was written. Jesus quotes from this fraudulent book. Jesus, who was not a scholar, was fooled by the author. Modern scholars are not fooled.

    3. The “witness of the Holy Spirit” is a joke. Christians can no more prove that the voice that allegedly speaks to them is their god than can the Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, Jews, and others prove that the voice that speaks to them is their god. Watch this powerful video for proof:

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12. Exactly, Gary, but these long, winding roads allow people like unklee to hedge their bets as it were and argue their beliefs from a philosophical and scientific POV, and there are one or two areas that a cotton cherry pickin’ Christian such as unklee is just about able to touch sides if he is careful about his wording. And is he ever!

    But I don’t think Nate has it in him to go for the jugular on this score.
    Maybe he should always listen to the theme music to Jaws when he types a post or writes a comment to dear unk? Would help put him in the right frame of mind.

    And he still has not answered how he is able to discern between Revelation and Delusion?
    I wonder why?
    Remember Fleetwood Mac?

    ”Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies…”

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13. @ Gary.
    Here you go, Gary. A free ebook you will love, I guarantee. And no shedding out your Shekels either.

    The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence by John Eleazer Remsburg

    No mythecist, but a first rank biblical scholar

    He does a brilliant number on miracles, exposes all the usual suspects but better and more in depth than many I have read, and also includes things I had not previously heard of or considered. It is crammed with excellent references. No mucking about, and he’s no faux scholar either that the likes of unklee could hand-wave and offer some snide, derisive remarks that he loves to do about people such as Price or Carrier.

    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46986

    And the biggest surprise for me… it was written at the turn of the 20th century!

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14. @ Gary
    Just to clarify., This was Remsburg’s view ….

    “It is not against the man Jesus that I write, but against the Christ Jesus of theology” explaining that “Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of humanity, the pathetic story of whose humble life and tragic death has awakened the sympathies of millions, is a possible character and may have existed; but the Jesus of Bethlehem, the Christ of Christianity, is an impossible character and does not exist.”

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15. Hi Nate, Travis,

    Assuming we are more or less on the same page on what compatibilism is, and what LFW includes in addition, then I’d like to move on one at a time to the apparent difficulties, starting with rationality.

    1. We see two different processes. (1) Physical “cause & effect” where every event is the result of previous events following definable physical processes. (I have put “cause & effect” in inverted commas to indicate I am using this as a shorthand for however we see physical processes.) These are what control every event if compatibilism is true. (2) Ground & consequence, where every consequence follows logically from the grounds. These follow the laws of logic and determine what is true and false. Arch compatibilist Daniel Dennett uses the words “syntactic” and “semantic” for (1) and (2) respectively, and says our brains cannot be semantic engines – i.e. under compatibilism brains work on physical cause and effect, not ground & consequence.

    2. So we need to find an explanation of how we can do ground and consequence logic at all, and the likely answer isn’t too hard to see. Dennett says of our brains: “syntactic engines can be designed to track truth, and this is just what evolution has done.” So natural selection can lead to physically-determined brain processes producing logical outcomes just like a computer can do – a computer is programmed so that its physically determined electrical processes can produce logical outcomes. Of course the human brain is more complex than a computer, and (for the atheist compatibilist at least) the brain isn’t designed by a designer, but the analogy is reasonable.

    3. We need to be clear what we are saying here. Brain state B1 leads by physical laws at work in the brain to state B2. At the same time, each state has an associated mental state, M1 and M2. These are either epiphenomena or aspects of the associated brain states, but M1 does not produce M2, because M2 is produced via the physical cause and effect processes between B1 and B2. But, we are saying, if natural selection has done its work, the brain will evolve so that M1 logically implies M2 even though M2 isn’t the result of logic. I’m sorry to be so complicated, but this is an important concept.

    4. It’s easy to see that a truthful or accurate fight or flight response in an animal might develop though natural selection. But most people I have read on the subject agree that developing more sophisticated cognitive faculties is much more of a challenge. Natural selection is based on ability to survive to reproduce, and it is difficult to see how an ability to solve Fermat’s last theorem has survival value. Some may argue that maths nerds are less attractive to the opposite sex, but I wouldn’t say that! Others say that the cognitive ability to do advanced logic is an energy and attention load that natural selection would tend to weed out. Whatever, it is clear that the further we move “up” and away from the simple survival responses, the less likely it is that natural selection will lead to such a cognitive process. So there is a decent “leap of faith” to say that advanced rationality can be produced in this way. But let’s assume that it can, for the moment, and see where that leads.

    5. All this is no problem for things we can all agree on like 1+1=2 and “Society works best if we don’t all fight each other.” But when we face more complex logical, ethical or personal decisions, we are each relying on the fact that even though our brain states are determined by previous brain states and physical laws, nevertheless, the results of our thinking are generally reasonably reliable. So if someone disagrees with us, their way of thinking is as much a product of natural selection as ours, so we can’t easily say who is more “right”. Let’s look at a couple of more complex examples.

    5.1 A person suffering from schizophrenia visits a psychiatrist to talk about voices in their head. The psych says they are not real and not normal, the client says of course they are real. How do we know who is right? We can of course do brain scans to show what circuits are being activated, but that doesn’t prove the source of the voices. But one way is that most people don’t experience such voices, so we regard that as normal. Another indication might be that the consequences of following the voices may not be healthy. That gives us 2 criteria.

    5.2 Take the vexed question of abortion. One group’s logic (produced by natural selection) says that it is the woman’s body, she has the right to do what she chooses. Another group’s logic (also produced by natural selection) says the fetus is a human being and should be protected. How can the matter be resolved? It is no use arguing about it as if our brains worked on ground-consequence logic, because they don’t – that is only a correlation via natural selection, and we obviously don’t all think the same. So in the end we vote – in a referendum or a legislature or a court, and the majority “wins”.

    So we see that the logic of compatibilism (and even saying that phrase is debatable!) leads to the requirement that (i) we make a leap of faith that natural selection can produce higher forms of rationality by correlation, and (ii) we can’t prove or demonstrate complex things to people who think differently because there is nothing to say that the product of their brain processes is “worse” than ours. And if we do convince someone, it is because their brain processes have evolved similarly to ours, not necessarily because the outcome is true.

    Yet of course, we cannot live that way. Even discussing here, we try to argue logically so that we’ll convince the other person by our logic, when in fact (if compatibilism is true) it won’t be logic it will be physical brain processes that may or may not be correlated with logic, that will determine whether the other person agrees.

    I’d say that is a dilemma, and a problem for compatibilism.

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16. Hi AR, there are a lot of points there, and if I responded to them all we would be here all night, so I will try to cut to the chase.

    ”Are you attempting to argue that naturalism cannot be true on the assumption that LFW is true?”

    I’m glad you asked, because it would be silly for us to be arguing on quite different matters, as seems to have been the case! No, all I am saying at the moment is that compatibilism (or incompatibilism for that matter) has some serious issues if one believes it and tries to live by it.

    I agree with your summary of compatibilism. And we seem to agree that “if Naturalism is true then we don’t have LFW.”

    Most philosophers and neuroscientists (if they discuss free will) I have read agree that dualism (the obvious alternative to naturalism and determinism) can be neither proved nor disproved, for the obvious reason that it involves something other than the physical and our science either assumes naturalism, or methodological naturalism, and has no clear way to address dualism. So a reasonable initial approach is to consider whether determinism (of either variety) fits with human experience and the way we live as individuals and as societies. For good or for ill, that is what I am doing.

    So I have now begun to present where I see the “problems”. I have presented one argument (on rationality) in a little more detail, though obviously not as a full philosophical paper (even assuming I was capable of that).

    So perhaps you can read that and see if it answers any of your questions. Thanks.

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17. @unkleE
    The voices in the head example is perfect!

    Take someone like Christian evangelist David Wood – I am sure you are aware who this charming fellow is, right?
    He once tried to stove his father’s head in with a hammer. Although the term antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy) seems to be preferred some may consider him a psychopath.
    Then … after a bit of jail-time ….Holy Fuck.!! he found Jesus – probably in his toilet, and became reborn, and now he is another poster boy for Jesus conversions and how wonderful life with your god is.
    Sounds a bit like Saul of Tarsus doesn’t he?

    Your convoluted creator god-of-the gaps argument simply won’t wash.
    Your archaeological arguments don’t work and never have. .
    Your consensus arguments are getting thinner on the ground all the time and even now, like your faith arguments and your prayer arguments and your miracle arguments, are simply cherry-picked to suit a sick, death-cult agenda and will not /em> stand up to any serious scrutiny.

    In all honesty, unklee, have they truly ever stood up? No, not if you’re honest.

    You are never going to be able to demonstrate the veracity of the point you are desperately trying to make because your premise is so utterly ridiculous.

    Hell, you cannot even prove it to yourself unless you have a massive brain-fart and truly without blinking can look your fellow man in the eye and state unequivocally that you believe your smelly little 1st century Jewish Rabbi made the universe and then came down to earth, raped and knocked up a 14 year old virgin, and tried to convince a bunch of illiterate fishermen from a predominantly illiterate piss poor backwater at the arse end of the Roman Empire he was the messiah. And to top it all, he apparently allows himself to be executed in the most brutal fashion imaginable only to supposedly come back to life three days later, resurrected by himself then goes to heaven to be with himself.

    And here you are trying to have a discussion on compatibilism!

    I’m being perfectly serious, don’t you think this is more than a tad silly?

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18. unkleE: Thank you for clarifying. Yes, there are a lot of points; I’ll try to be more concise. We agree on the definition of Compatibilism, and that if Supernaturalism is false, then we can’t have LFW. And I look forward to reading your next posts where you’ll be going into your “serious issues” with Compatibilism.

    I have another question. Earlier, I raised my own objections against your 3 objections to Compatibilism above. I claimed that your objections were all fallacious: Your First Objection was an Argument to Consequences, your Second Objection was false, (probably stemming from an Argument from Incredulity), and your Third Objection was an Appeal to Intuition, peppered with Quote Mining, and a Non-Sequitur by way of a snide remark going something like this: “Naturalists who conclude that there can be illusions are embracing delusion!” My question is: By ignoring my claims, are you conceding that your 3 objections are in fact fallacious,or will you be addressing them in your list of “issues”?

    I disagree that science could not “address” Dualism. It can constrain it, in the same way that it has constrained Thor’s alleged production of thunder by explaining thunder through natural means. While this does not definitively disprove that Thor is actually producing thunder–since, like Dualism, Thor’s thunder-making might be unfalsifiable–it nevertheless makes it doxastically untenable, and there’s no reason to presuppose that Dualism won’t suffer the same fate at the hands of science. I believe it already has.

    I also disagree that “human experience” should be the arbiter, or even a “reasonable initial approach” when attempting to ascertain whether LFW or Dualism are true, precisely because they are an area where “human experience” can lead us completely astray.

    On a point of argument, I personally think that you would help your statements tremendously if you departed from comments like “most people I have read on the subject agree that…” This assertion can be easily dismissed with another one: “Most people that I have read disagree,” or “You haven’t read the right people yet.” These statements don’t bolster your case anymore than quoting conclusions from others that agree with you would support anything. It’s the arguments and evidence which led to those conclusions that matter.

    I’ll respond to your additional 5 or 6 “problems” above, time permitting.

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19. Hi unkleE,

    So far, I’ve just read your comment to me and Travis — wanted to get a comment in before I lost my train of thought by reading the others.

    I haven’t studied the definitions of all these terms as much as you and others have, but I suspect that your depiction of compatibilism may not be correct. And if it is, then I can’t sign on completely with the term.

    Your description of how we try to convince one another in difficult discussions (let’s stick with the abortion example) certainly could go down such a path, but I don’t think it has to. I disagree that evolution can’t explain higher forms of thinking, because such thinking always leads to greater technology and management, even if the highest tech is of the Stone Age variety, and if the management skills are being applied to responsibilities within a very primitive society. The arms race between cheetahs and gazelles is speed — for humans, it’s always been intelligence.

    When we disagree over something like abortion, it doesn’t always have to come down to who gets the most votes. People can be persuaded through rational arguments, even if that’s not how most people form or change opinions.

    Again, I just don’t see the problem that you’re trying to point toward (and I know you’re not finished making your argument, so maybe my opinion there will change). I feel like the options you’re giving for how choice works are incomplete. It’s like when I would talk to my father about issues with the Bible, and he would say that the Bible is either completely accurate, or its existence is the result of some kind of conspiracy. Well those aren’t the only possibilities! They’re just the only ones he would “consider.”

    I feel like your descriptions of choice, brain states, and things like compatibilism are similarly thin when it comes to all the possibilities.

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20. Dualism, Schmalism.

    Let’s cut the philosophical psychobabble and just get to the point: If four unknown, first century Jewish historical fiction writers say that three-day brain-dead corpses can be reanimated to later levitate into outer space, then God-dammit to hell, we should believe it!

    (from Debunking Christianity Blog, kind of)

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21. @ Gary.
    Exactly.
    Dissecting a pile of steaming bullshit to analyze it won’t actually change the fact it is still bullshit.,
    As unklee cannot offer a single plausible argument for the Virgin Birth,let alone the supernatural rape of the child involved in the story, and no plausible argument for the other spurious claims in the bible, and knowing that every argument he puts forward is with the ultimate aim of getting you to accept there is plausibility in such spurious nonsense, why on earth would he think anyone here would for a moment consider the validity of anything else he had to say related to the nonsense of Christianity?
    After all, almost everyone here was once a full-blown Christian with as much, if not more knowledge and understanding of the bible and related matters than he does.

    It really is time for him to be called out by everyone here once and for all and politely but firmly asked to demonstrate the veracity of the primary tenets of his faith.
    Or be mature enough to acknowledge that it is all based on faith and we can leave it at that.

    After all, It is not as if he has ever presented a single argument about anything biblical to do with Christianity that has for one second made anyone here pause and wonder if they had erred, and maybe they should reconsider becoming Christian once again.

    Well, has he?

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22. I really wanted to avoid debating unkleE again. But I have to point out where I disagree.

    1. We see two different processes. (1) Physical “cause & effect” where every event is the result of previous events following definable physical processes. (I have put “cause & effect” in inverted commas to indicate I am using this as a shorthand for however we see physical processes.) These are what control every event if compatibilism is true.

    In my book, “compatibilism” is an attempt give an account of what we mean by “free will”. It is not a theory of physics. At least, on my understanding, compatibilism claims to be compatible with determinism. It does not assert that determinism is true.

    It sure looks to me as if unkleE is asserting a theory of physics, and very likely a false theory at that, and saying that it is a consequence of compatibilism.

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23. unkleE (and Nate, Travis): So far I’ve found no “dilemmas” or “problems” for Determinism in unkleE’s 5-point exposition of “apparent difficulties.” Sorry if I go on for a longer than I intended to, but, as the father of a teenage son with his own bedroom, I can attest that it is a lot easier to make a mess than it is to pick up after it. Don’t mean to be dismissive, just saying. 🙂

    From a high level, there are a couple of problems. First, an equivocation between whether a physical system can give rise to logical reasoning and where the system came from (how it was designed, how it arose, etc.). Second, unsubstantiated incredulity that Natural Selection can give rise to anything more complex than the simplest cognitive abilities (like “fight-or-flight” responses). I’ll dive into more detail below.

    Point 1 pertains to definitions, and it’s fine as far as those go, with the caveat that definitions are not arguments nor evidence.

    Point 2 affirms that brains can be designed (by Natural Selection) to emulate logic and “truth” finding, and is OK. But the example of the computer is more than just a “reasonable analogy;” it actually provides evidence that physical systems, however designed, can give rise to “logic.”

    Point 3. Here it’s important to clarify that, while physical “brain states” may be real, “mental states” are labels that we assign to the experiences associated with brain states, and may not have an independent reality. To say that a “mental state” exists without a physical “brain state” presupposes a non-physical, non-causal driver and would be question-begging when it comes to the question of Dualism or LFW.

    Also, that “a mental state M2 must always logically follow from a prior mental state M1″ is neither required of Natural Selection, nor is it necessary to explain that “ground-and-consequence” logic can arise from “cause-and-effect” physical processes. All that’s needed is that some sequence of mental states can emulate or map onto logical reasoning sometimes–a much weaker requirement. Mistakes are not only allowed, but expected on Natural Selection (Type I errors such as apophenia, agenticity, religion, other cognitive biases, etc. are common, and expected on Natural Selection).

    Point 4. “…it is difficult to see how an ability to solve Fermat’s last theorem has survival value.” No, not at all. This is, at best, an incorrectly premature conclusion, and at worst a fallacious Argument from Incredulity.

    Even old Darwin himself proposed how evolutionary by-products can arise which don’t necessarily confer reproductive fitness by piggy-backing on other traits that do. In the case of human cognition, Natural Selection has selected for malleability and adaptability instead of for solving every conceivable simple classification problem that we might face (fight-or-flight, food-or-poison, friend-or-foe, healthy-mate-or-not, etc.). For reproductive fitness, Natural Selection must balance the tradeoff between beneficial brain capacity and deleterious brain size (20% of our calories are consumed by our large brains, women used to die frequently of childbirth due to newborn’s large heads, children have a long cycle of learning and parental dependency, etc.). The end result is a “general purpose” information processor that has capabilities that are immediately useful for reproductive fitness, but which could also include by-product capabilities that aren’t immediately or obviously attributable to reproductive fitness, like math, arts, music, philosophy, entertainment, sense of humor, using birth control, etc.

    To bring up the IBM Watson example again, it wasn’t until Machine Learning techniques were implemented into its programming that it was able to make any progress at all at playing Jeopardy! Before, when the IBM scientists were only using a bloated code base of hard-coded logic (if-then inferential rules and logical operations) the result was a failure. The more flexible and adaptable self-learning techniques opened up a whole new possibility and Watson became the Jeopardy! champion, and in many instances surprised even its creators. This mirrors the development of AI from the 1940s through a current resurgence of Machine Learning since the 1980s until now.

    Your stereotype about “nerds” being unattractive simply does not work and doesn’t belong in any serious argument (this prejudice, like most, is not necessarily true; Google “young Amy Mainzer,” “young Lisa Randall,” and also note the charm and charisma of Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan; I don’t think any of them fail to get laid on a regular basis). 🙂 For it to actually work, you would have to demonstrate that math/science ability somehow impedes or disadvantages reproduction. But the evidence contradicts that, as there are many mathematicians and scientists who are brilliant and who have stable families, children, etc. Speaking of your example, Sir Andrew Wiles, Ph.D., who proved Fermat’s Last Theorem, is married, has 3 children, and got promotions, awards, and was even knighted for proving FLT. Did Wiles’ awesome mathematical ability diminish his own and his children’s chance of successful reproduction? If anything, it probably improved it.

    And in fact, this could work in the other direction. If people are physically unattractive, they can more than compensate by being highly intelligent and crafty enough to secure mates despite their physical unattractiveness. There may be something to that old saying that “the brain is the mot important sex organ.”

    It is also possible that–my above example excluded–there could be reasons that mathematical ability confers reproductive fitness that we haven’t thought of, in true “Spandrel Fallacy” form.

    It just simply does not follow that “the cognitive ability to do advanced logic is an energy and attention load that natural selection would tend to weed out,” nor that “the further we move “up” and away from the simple survival responses, the less likely it is that natural selection will lead to such a cognitive process.” I’m afraid not. This very simplistic assessment does not do justice to the complexity that can actually arise from Natural Selection, and ignores many other aspects like Cultural Evolution. No “leap of faith” is required at all.

    I’ll respond to Point 5 and beyond in the next post, time permitting…

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24. Neil: You are right that, in part, Compatibilism is an attempt to define what we mean by the experience of “free will.” Besides defining the “sensation” of “free will” in a way that’s palatable to our intuitions, Compatibilism also rejects LFW. However, the whole point about LFW is that it requires “spooky” non-physical forces that must be at play while the rejection of LFW (be it from only Determinism or as part of Compatibilism) says that all such forces are accountable by natural forces only. That’s why physics is relevant here.

    Bottom line is: Determinism is the lack of LFW, and Compatibilism is Determinism plus a re-definition of “free will” to something other than LFW.

    Later on, after unkleE has presented his objections to Determinism (or Compatibilism), I may present–if I remain unconvinced–my case for why LFW makes no sense, and will rely on physics.

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25. unkleE (and Nate & Travis):

    In his Point 5 unkleE has hit on a subtle and interesting point, that speaks to the ontology of cognition (which is the first question that should be asked instead of where cognition comes from–Natural Selection, God? etc.). Since unkleE made a general comment about all math & science nerds (and I happen to be one of them) I framed unkleE’s subtle point as unkleE’s Theorem, below, in true nerd fashion. 🙂

    Point 5 starts with an admission that the simplest cognitive abilities can in fact arise from existing physical systems (like a computer?), but that more complex cognitive faculties cannot.

    If I understand the explanation for this (unkleE please correct me if I misrepresent your view), the thinking goes something like this:

    Our thought processes are “generally reliable,” yet, two different people can and usually do arrive at mental states (conclusions) that “disagree.” On Determinism these mental images are derived and mapped from brain states which in turn are derived exclusively from cause-and-effect physical processes. But physical processes are deterministic, so how could two different mental images (conclusions) be arrived at by different people through the exact same physical processes?

    Now, the assumption here is that brain states and mental states (or mental images) are matched to one another in only one way. In other words, mental and brain states stand in a one-to-one and and onto correspondence. This means that for every brain state there is a unique mental state, and for every mental state there is a unique brain state. For all those sexy math geeks out there this is called a bijective (one-to-one and onto) mapping. This means that if Determinism is true, and if the mapping between brain states and mental states is necessarily one-to-one and onto, then people would always arrive at the exact same conclusions (ignoring misunderstandings and random noise).

    These last two paragraphs constituted the proof of:

    unkleE’s Theorem: If Determinism is true, and if brain states and mental states stand in a bijective (one-to-one and onto) correspondence, then all cognitive agents would reach exactly the same conclusions.

    unkleE argues that the “problem of disagreement,” along with his theorem, constitute a devastating problem for Determinism (and for Naturalism), and at first glance, this may seem appealing. This is because it is empirically observable that people often disagree in their conclusions. But on closer scrutiny this is not necessarily so. In other words, empirical observation of disagreements entails that either Determinism has to go or the bijective correspondence between mental and brain states has to go (or both, but only one is sufficient).

    Of course, the problem completely disappears when we realize that no two people start out with the same brain states, even if they start out from identical mental states. Even if we ignore the effects of randomness and noise (which I would argue are important at human scales), and even if we could represent mental states exactly (without miscommunications as to the meaning of the initial mental states, without perceptual random noise etc.) no two people would start out from identical initial brain states, so there’s no reason to expect them to always arrive at exactly the same final brain states by physical processes, and thus to reach the same mental states (conclusions).

    The problem here is that, while the same mental state can be represented in multiple brain states (many-to-one), a given brain state can only yield one mental state (one-to-one). There are many ways to represent a single mental state through different brain states (as anyone familiar with distributed memory storage in highly parallel systems can attest). Yet a mental state, by its very definition, is an “image” of the world that is unique (ignoring misunderstandings and random noise).

    This bears repeating. More than one brain state can “store” or “represent” the same mental state. But a specific brain state can only give rise to one and only one mental state. For all those sexy math & science nerds out there, the mapping from brain states to mental states is strictly surjective (with an “r”).

    This leads to:

    AR’s Proposition: The mapping from brain states to mental states is strictly surjective (many-to-one), and this renders unkleE’s Theorem impotent against Determinism.

    What’s my evidence for this Proposition? The evidence comes from neuroscience and from Machine Learning (AI). Neuroscience has all but established that the biological brain is a highly-parallel associative distributed system, meaning that memories and concepts are not stored and processed in specific loci (as they might be in our usual digital computers), but are spread throughout highly parallel networks.

    Analogously, in artificial associative/distributed storage systems, if we store, for example, the same picture in two systems, the internal states of those systems (brain states) will be entirely different, yet they would represent the same picture (mental image).

    Now, in storage-retrieval systems, no “cognition” happens; the retrieved image is essentially identical (except for small errors of compression/decompression and random noise). But if we were to somehow “process” the image (initial mental state), this would mean having to process different physical states (brain states) and there’s no guarantee that the final brain states will be exactly the same, and hence the final mental images (conclusions) are also not guaranteed to be the same.

    More to the point would be, for example, classifiers of handwritten character recognition. These are usually artificial neural networks (ANNs) which are highly parallel and distributed. Two such classifiers trained on the same data set, are never guaranteed to produce exactly the same outputs (although their outputs hopefully agree a good percentage of the time) when it comes to matching handwritten characters to letters. In fact, a good way to improve performance is to average the output among several of these classifiers (voting) to improve results. In this case, the information that a scribble is a letter “h” is distributed throughout the networks and no two networks have identical physical representations. The presentation of a stimulus (a scribble, which would be like an initial “mental image”) is mapped to a physical internal network state (the “brain state”), which then leads to the final output, represented by a classification of the character “h” (via deterministic processes yielding the final internal state or “brain state” which gives the final “mental state” or conclusion).

    The point is that two similarly trained networks, while agreeing a lot of the time, can sometimes disagree because they will have slightly different internal states. Yet all of this is perfectly deterministic

    Suppose Bob and Alice are discussing their position on unkleE’s “vexing question of abortion.” Let’s ignore randomness and noise, and assume that the totality of the premises that go into the argument can be perfectly encapsulated in the concept of an initial mental state M1 so that Bob has his initial mental state: Bob-M1, and Alice has her initial mental state: Alice-M1, which are represented in their brains as Bob and Alice’s initial brain states Bob-B1 and Alice-B1, respectively.

    Here, their mental states (ignoring random noise) are equal: Alice-M1 = Bob-M1.

    But their initial brain states are not necessarily equal: Alice-B1 NOT= Bob-B1.

    Since physical cause-and-effect mechanisms only operate on the initial brain states (not on the mind states, by definition), we have:

    After some cogitation (physical processing of brain states): Alice-B2 NOT= Bob-B2.

    This implies that the final mental images (conclusions) are not necessarily the same in general:

    Alice-M2 NOT= Bob-M2, in general.

    Now, as in the case with the handwriting classifiers, there are many instances where there will be agreement as well due to the learning process. In biological brains this will be true particularly when “agreement” would map to instinctive survival, or culturally learned outcomes. “Correlation with logic” can definitely occur when brains evolve to become general purpose information processors, because, despite some errors, logic “emulation” confers reproductive advantage, and, in the case of math, music, formal logic, doing science, etc. because of evolutionary by-products.

    Phew! OK, probably nobody read this far, 🙂 but that basically demonstrates that the “disagreement problem” disappears, and says nothing about physical processes’ ability to map or emulate cognition, leaving Determinism unscathed and no negative case for LFW having been offered yet.

    unkleE’s last paragraph switches back from cognition ontology to origins (Natural Selection requires a “leap of faith” that rationality can be produced by “correlation” yet we can’t convince others who think differently), but this is neither true, nor required.

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