A little while back, my friend UnkleE suggested that I should consider some questions that he believes are problematic for atheism as a worldview. He listed 5 questions, and I want to take them one at a time, so they can each get the focus they deserve.
That said, my initial responses to each of these questions may not be very long. Instead, I’d like to use each of these posts as a launchpad for discussion. I know these are issues that UnkleE (and probably many of you) have thought about at length, and I’d like to consider those arguments as fully as possible without subjecting everyone to my own rambling preamble. So, here’s question 1:
Do we have free will? If so, how? If not how can any choice be based on evidence rather than brain processes?
I don’t know.
I’m aware that a number of physicists and other scientists sometimes argue that free will is an illusion. That was shocking to me when I first heard it, but I now realize what they’re saying.
Imagine you could go back in time to a point where a decision was made on something seemingly insignificant. In 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash. It’s said that another musician, Tommy Allsup, was going to be on the plane instead of Ritchie Valens, but they flipped a coin for it, and Valens “won.” If you could go back in time and witness that coin flip without interfering, would anything happen differently? Whoever came up with the idea of flipping for it thought of that for very specific reasons that would still be the same if it happened over again. Allsup flipped the coin at a specific level of force, and it flipped through specific atmospheric conditions. Those things would still be the same if you were watching it happen. Valens called “heads,” which he did for specific reasons, even if they were subconscious. In other words, every single thing that happened, even though they were seemingly random, happened in particular ways for particular reasons. If you could replay it over, there’s no reason to think anything would play out differently.
And every decision you’ve ever made, you made for specific reasons, even if the decision was close. If you went back in time and made the decision over again, but only knew the same things you knew at that moment, could you have made any other decision?
There’s no real way to test this, but the thought experiment leads many to conclude that true “free will” is not really possible.
I’m not sure how I feel about that. I do think that if you could replay decisions, it’s unlikely they would ever change. But that’s not really what I think of when I think of free will. Just because I made all my decisions for specific reasons and was “powerless,” in a way, to do anything different, that doesn’t mean that I had no control over the decisions. Thought processes were still firing in my brain as I calculated a number of factors, considered past experiences, estimated probabilities, and tried to predict possible outcomes. I might always come to the same conclusion in the same circumstances, but my mind is still very active in the process.
[H]ow can any choice be based on evidence rather than brain processes?
I think any choice — any good choice — should be using both. Brain processes deal with information, and that’s all that evidence is, so I see them as being very closely related.
Ultimately, I don’t see how this question causes a problem for atheism. I may have more to say about it in the comment thread, but I’ll need to see the case against atheism filled out a bit more before I can really weigh in on it.
Finding Truth 
UnkleE on “argument from authority”:
I’m afraid that you misunderstand the use of references in science. They are used to connect the reader to other parts of the literature. They are not used to “build a basis”.
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Hi Travis,
I find it intriguing. You and Nate are both thoughtful and astute people, yet you both seem to be struggling to come to grips with what I am saying (and not saying). Doubtless someone more expert than I could say it better, but I really think part of the problem is that it really is difficult to live as if determinism was true.
I haven’t yet got to an argument on “the need for LFW to support rationality” – I am currently trying to focus on why I think determinism (whether compatibilism or incompatibilism) is difficult, and may therefore be wrong. My reasons for this were set out a few posts back, and in brief summary are:
1. Determinism means our brains work by physical “cause and effect” laws.
2. Logic uses ground-consequence processes.
3. Thus it seems the only way our brains can think logically is if cause and effect processes can ape ground-consequence reasoning via natural selection, which selects for survival to reproduce.
4. It’s easy to say this, but harder to show how it would work. And it’s easier to see how it would work in simple fight or flight scenarios than for complex rationality.
5. And if we do think natural selection can deliver on that, then we have a situation where it has given you different brain processes leading to different outcomes to me. In which case, why try to persuade each other, because persuasion is only using cause and effect processes? Perhaps you should instead think “Eric’s cause and effect processes have given him different ground-consequence thinking than mine have!”
6. But notice the word “should” implying the possibility of a different choice, which on our assumption of determinism we don’t have. So even outlining this approach seems impossible without breaking away from determinism.
So that’s it. I added #6 on a whim, it wasn’t in my original statement. My conclusion is that there is a practical problem being a determinist that is difficult to get over without some inconsistencies. Hope that helps.
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Neil, if the references didn’t support the discussion, why would they be included? They would be irrelevant.
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AR, I just wanted to make one clarification or correction. The James Rachels quote was not describing what he himself necessarily thought, but what others thought. It nevertheless illustrates how people grapple with the idea of genetically controlled choice, which was my point. You can read (if you download chapter 2) that he outlines the struggle (= dissonance) to combine evolution, determinism, choice and morality (e.g. pages 84-88, 97-98).
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Eric,
Why do you think logic is not readily reconciled with physical processes? When I write software I am implementing complex logic with physics. Do you find it difficult to see that process occurring naturally, how our “physics” (i.e. brain) could have evolved to accomplish complex logical reasoning?
With #5, you seem to say that even if that possibility is viable (and I think it is quite viable) then we should think it will yield different types of logic for different people (really think I misunderstood you here) but if we share ancestors then our faculties will be similar, so I’m not going to suspect that you possess a wholly different faculty, only that your initial conditions and perceptional framework differs from mine to the extent that we reach different conclusions from the same inputs. If I suspect that our differences result in an errant conclusion on your (or my) part, then I’ll try to provide (or seek) additional inputs that will correct the output.
I still doubt that I’ve understood the difficulty you’re presenting and I don’t see how the rejection of LFW has anything to do with that.
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Fair questions, Travis.
“Why do you think logic is not readily reconciled with physical processes? When I write software I am implementing complex logic with physics. Do you find it difficult to see that process occurring naturally, how our “physics” (i.e. brain) could have evolved to accomplish complex logical reasoning?”
It happens in software because you are the designer. I am quite happy to suppose that if a supernatural designer created us, this would work! 🙂 The problem is that natural selection is based on survival to reproduce, not truth of logic. Now like I said, I can readily believe that in the case of simple fight and flight logic, but the ability to solve Fermat’s last theorem is of a much higher order.
The animal that flees as soon as it hears a suspicious noise in the long grass will survive to reproduce longer than the animal that waits to work out whether it is true that the noise was a lion. So an inquiring mind that uses conscious logic may often be a liability. I can see that a semblance of basic logic might be developed, but I can’t see that we can be confident that human rationality would result. Remember, the processes that natural selection works on are cause-effect, but the ground-consequence logic is a product of the cause and effect.
Now note I don’t say it couldn’t happen, I say it is a big jump, not entirely certain.
“we should think it will yield different types of logic for different people (really think I misunderstood you here) but if we share ancestors then our faculties will be similar, so I’m not going to suspect that you possess a wholly different faculty, only that your initial conditions and perceptional framework differs from mine to the extent that we reach different conclusions from the same inputs.”
But we (humans generally) do reach markedly different conclusions. I have said to Nate many times that he and I are both reasonably intelligent and educated, we seem to think alike on many things, we have similar evidence in front of us, yet we conclude totally opposite about God, yet we both think we are logical and the other one is missing something. So much so that many atheists think christians are delusional, dishonest, faith-heads, irrational, etc, and doubtless many christians say similar things in reverse.
The real killer for me is this. For us to argue about different conclusions, we have to think our brains are working on ground-consequence logic. But if determinism is true, they are not, they are working on physical (determined) cause and effect logic. So they same determined evolutionary processes that produced Richard Dawkins’ brain also produced William Lane Craig’s brain, and there is no inherent right or wrong about those processes, so neither can say they are right (if determinism is true) – well they can say it, because their brain processes determined they would say it, but it would have no truth value.
In the long run, all our language, our law and ethics and customs, our experience, etc, all scream out that we have free will, and we couldn’t easily (if at all) live without that feeling, yet determinists say it is an illusion.
Does that make any more sense?
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Indoctrination easily over-rides this mechanism. And you repeatedly demonstrate this when you use the comparison between how an atheist like Nate and a theist like you interpret the same evidence for god and Jesus, creator-driven evolution etc etc.
Also, you continually choose to forget/ignore that Nate has been on your side of the fence and once defended this position just as vehemently as you do at this moment.
Once the cognitive dissonance began to creep in, Nate (and I will presume every other deconvert) accepted his condition/belief was based primarily on indoctrination those ”logic circuits” will look at the evidence in a completely different light.
Because of indoctrination you are able to accept the reasoning behind the god-belief you cling to, and also because of indoctrination you can and do , reject other similar claims from other religions on the same grounds – as they will about your religious claims.
There will never be a point where you can argue on a level playing field because, whether you are honest enough to admit it or not, you worldview begins from an untenable supernatural perspective that has no mechanisms to check it.
In other words for you, and every other indoctrinated religious person, ultimately everything boils down to ”goddidit”.
And let me assure you, pretty much no one on this blog is buying that any more.
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UnkleE:
This still seems to be missing the point.
If I see a reference, I don’t then say to myself “Aha, such and such important person said this, so it must be true”. Rather, I read the referenced material myself and make my own evaluation of its worth.
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Eric,
I suppose we will have to agree to disagree with regard to the viability of an evolutionary origin for complex logical reasoning, but I do want to offer an expansion on a point that AR previously made. It seems clear to me that the brain evolved to be a general purpose system, capable of adapting to the wide variety of situations we face. We cannot disregard the way that cultural evolution has built upon this and, to some extent, directed specializations of this feature. Nobody from 10,000 years ago would have possibly understood most of the complex ideas we take for granted today despite having a genetically capable brain. This general purpose faculty is plastic and amenable to learning things it was never evolved to handle.
This feeds into the second point nicely, and I would like to start by pointing to modern computational techniques that are inspired by the brain. Neural networks and machine learning adopt this general purpose mechanism to tackle problems. They are not truth directed but rather are systems which follow rules (cause and effect) to determine “what works” from a wide set of inputs. As a pragmatist, I say that the recognition of ontological truth and “what works” are epistemically indistinguishable. As the information set increases, a formal system which follows the “what works” rules will converge on truth. This is the mechanism employed by our brains.
Lastly, I find it interesting that I haven’t touched the concept of free will in this response and your comment only tacked it on at the end without really tying it in. As I said originally, I struggle to see how LFW is relevant to the question of rationality.
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Neil:
1. Please point me to where I said that “brain states” are “things.”
2. What do you mean by “thingness”? Are you saying that only defined “things” can exist? Would that mean that digestion and the color blue are not real because they’re not “things”?
3. What does “not being things to people” have to do with existence? Did asteroids form soon after the beginning of the solar system, or did they wait 5 billion years until they were discovered to “pop into existence”? Did they exist right after they were discovered, or did they have to wait until people “defined” them? If they didn’t exist until after they were defined, how could they be discovered? 🙂
4. Well, at least we agree that brains exist. 🙂
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unkleE: Thank you for your response. I find it odd that you didn’t respond to the more important comments I made and chose to focus on the less important one instead (namely, my criticism about Argument from Authority). So before I respond to your responses, and before your attention span drifts and your eyes “glaze over” (metaphorically), 🙂 please address the more important points below, because, if I’m right, either one of them completely nullifies your author quotes which you use to support the claim that their “cognitive dissonance” renders Determinism untenable. (If you only have time or patience to address one, please address the first one as it’s the more important one).
Do you disagree with either of these:
1) An author’s psychological state of “cognitive dissonance” has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of the belief that brought him to experience that “cognitive dissonance” in the first place.
2) If someone has a belief that causes them “cognitive dissonance” and they subsequently realize that the belief is an illusion, their “cognitive dissonance” disappears.
Thanks again.
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unkleE: Referring to your points:
1. I appreciate your advice about blog etiquette and how this is not an academic journal, and I need to keep it short. I’ll try to be more brief and borrow a page from your book and break my comments into different posts. I do find it a tad ironic, though, as it was you who liberally used author quotes, and are now trying to substantiate them through how they’re used in academic circles, but OK. Point well taken.
In my defense, though, please note the title of Nate’s article above where it says “Difficult Questions.” These are difficult questions and you can’t really expect to do them justice with “bumper-sticker” comments. If I had to choose between a long but well-argued, well-supported comment, vs. a short unsubstantiated one, I’d choose the former.
To give you a sense of what our exchange appears like from my end, imagine if you had painstakingly looked through my comments, tried to do them justice, and expressed a variety of objections to every single one. Then imagine that I responded to your objections with “your posts are too long,” “my eyes (metaphorically) glaze over,” “there are just too many words coming at me,” “that’s why I miss the important parts,” “oh, I wasn’t really making arguments, so you can’t say my points were fallacious,” etc. and I went on merrily re-stating the same points which you claimed you’d completely disarmed. You would probably think I’m being evasive, right? Well, I wouldn’t blame you.
(cont.)
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unkleE:
2. Your quip about atheists/agnostics enthusiastically pointing out fallacies is a Tu Quoque fallacy… Oops, sorry, I just caught myself doing that again, never mind. Kidding. 🙂 Well, it could be that they’re right in pointing out those fallacies.
I concur that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is great and I don’t mind you quoting from it at all, I read it all the time. Wikipedia is generally very good for uncontroversial topics (math, stats, science etc.), but hit-or-miss to pretty unreliable on controversial subjects (religion, politics…) because, by its very nature, it relies too heavily on the number and/or tenacity of advocates for a particular position, so it ends up being more of a “zeal-weighted vote” when it comes to controversial topics. But for this topic of fallacies, I agree with you that Wikipedia is fine.
Unfortunately, I still disagree with you that you have used references properly (your approach certainly wouldn’t pass muster in academic circles, and it’s not because of sourcing). Unlike your claim that I “shouted Argument from Authority = Fallacy” without substantiation, I beg to differ, I did explain what I meant. But anyway, let me start with an example so that perhaps you can see how some of us perceive your arguments from quotations:
Imagine that I’m attempting to make a persuasive argument against LFW and I say something like this:
(Wow, that made me feel that I sounded a lot like William Lane Craig.) 🙂 How does that strike you? Convincing? Did I demonstrate and substantiate my case? Should we all call it a done deal, close shop, and ask Nate for his next topic? I don’t think so, right? Not many skeptic-minded people would even consider this as passing for any sort of an argument.
The problem, unkleE, is when you cite quotes that re-state your conclusions. This doesn’t make your case, it simply boldly asserts it without substantiation. If you were to cite quotations from experts on relatively uncontroversial propositions or intermediary stages in your argument that lead to your conclusion, while exploring contradicting authors as well, that would be a different matter. But this is not what you’ve done.
(cont.)
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unkleE:
2. With your example of “Fine Tuning,” it would be perfectly fine to quote the science of physical constants and, for example, how, if some of the constants were slightly different, the universe would be different. This is OK because this is a non-controversial premise. It would not be OK to quote,exclusively, the conclusions of religious scientists like Frank Tipler or Francis Collins that “Fine Tuning” is real, while ignoring the conclusions of an overwhelming majority of scientists who disagree. That, if left unsubstantiated or un-argued, would be an Argument from Authority, and from a tiny minority of experts, at that.
Looking in your Wikipedia quote, one can see reasons why your presentation of quotations doesn’t work:
(a) You quoted from non-authorities. Einstein, for example, is a physicist from the first half of the 20th Century and is not even close to being a current authority on the philosophy, neuroscience, or even physics of LFW. In fact, look in your Wikipedia link, right underneath the subheading “Appeal to non-authorities” where Albert Einstein is named as an example of a non-authority often cited on religion. (Being a physicist myself, and an admirer of Old Al, this irks me every time I see it.)
(b) Your conclusion is, at best, controversial (you yourself admitted earlier that most scientists etc. didn’t share your own views on Determinism), and to make your quotations work, you needed to also explore contradicting ones, and explain why they might not work as well as the ones that agreed with your thesis. Essentially, you selectively quoted.
(c) You did not only say that these authors were experiencing “dissonance” (this is a much softer claim). You claimed that they were expressing “cognitive dissonance,” and that, as a result, they were forced to “embrace a comforting delusion!” The quotes, by themselves, simply do not support that conclusion! I’ve already claimed that their recognition of an illusion means that they don’t have “cognitive dissonance,” nor “delusions” at all, but you have not addressed my claim.
I could go on, but I’ll stop at this point.
As to your comment about people grappling with the idea of genetically controlled choice, I’m sorry to bring up fallacies again, but this is a Straw Man. “Genetic control” is far too simplistic an idea, and is not what anyone is defending here, to my knowledge.
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Hey unkleE,
I’m finally catching up on comments from the last few days. I found this one of AR’s to be really useful. I don’t think I’m struggling with any kind of contradiction. In fact, I have a hard time seeing how our choices could possibly exist outside of cause-and-effect. We are still thinking agents that make decisions, but those thoughts arise from a long and complex chain of past events and physical constraints. In a way, each choice is the only choice we could possibly make in that instant, but I don’t believe that relieves us of all responsibility for those choices.
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Hey UnkleE,
I your last comment to Travis, I thought this was key:
I just don’t find this to be such a problem. As Travis talked about, our brains have the ability to receive inputs. When a gazelle spots a cheetah, it takes in the cheetah’s speed, direction, distance, etc, and all those parameters influence what the gazelle does. It’s no different when we discuss a topic like this one. We are coming at it from different perspectives, but we’re passing inputs back and forth in an effort to bring our views more into alignment.
As to who’s right, I also think this comes down to the pragmatism that Travis talked about. Seeing what works is what helps us refine our thought processes.
When a cheetah is coming after a gazelle, should the gazelle run or stand still? I think the “correct” choice is very obvious, but your comment makes it sound like we can never know when an idea is right or wrong. That simply isn’t true.
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“If I see a reference, I don’t then say to myself “Aha, such and such important person said this, so it must be true”. Rather, I read the referenced material myself and make my own evaluation of its worth.
“
Hi Neil, do you really read every reference in a paper and evaluate it’s worth? Do you not at least sometimes accept what the author says without looking up the reference?
Let me take as an example a paper I have already referenced in this discussion – Edward Slingerland’s Mind-Body Dualism and the Two Cultures. This paper has 45 references at the end. The author didn’t just put these there for no reason, he used them to build his thesis in several ways. One is to reference a quote that he finds illuminating (e.g. the quote of Ryle on the first page).
Another reason is to reference material he wants to build on without presenting in detail. An example of this is footnote 2, which comes after this sentence: “The intuitive appeal of mind-body dualism is clear, and, in fact, such dualism appears not only to be a universal feature of human folk cognition, but also to play a foundational role in subserving religious and moral cognition.” The footnote says: “For a readable survey of the evidence concerning folk dualism as a human universal, see Bloom 2004. ….”
It is quite clear that Slingerland has made a statement that is helping him build his thesis, then given us the reference if we want to check whether his statement is accurate.
You say I have missed the point, but the point we are discussing is your original statement (my emphasis): “I’m afraid that you misunderstand the use of references in science. They are used to connect the reader to other parts of the literature. They are not used to “build a basis”.”
I would say Slingerland has done <i<exactly what you said references don’t do – he has used the reference as a shorthand way to build his thesis (and, yes, he has done this by connecting to other parts of the literature). I am still quite surprised that you would assert otherwise.
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Nate: I think unkleE is making a very subtle point here that’s worth closer consideration. I addressed it here. I know that my comment was lengthy and dense, and it went completely ignored, but here is unkleE again restating his same point, seemingly unaware of my claim that I refuted it. My comment was partly tongue-in-cheek (I named a theorem after unkleE 🙂 after he made thinly-veiled disparaging remarks about math geeks), but it was actually a serious point.
unkleE is, I believe, saying this. Suppose you and I are discussing the same topic. Since it’s the same topic, you and I start out from the same premises, from which we will subsequently draw our conclusions. Since, on Determinism, we arrive at our conclusions through deterministic physical processes, how is it that we can arrive at different conclusions? After all, shouldn’t initial brain state [B1] always and necessarily result in final brain state [B2] on Determinism? (I agree that the answer should be “yes.”) But if you and I wind up with the same final brain state [B2], then we have arrived at the same final mental state (conclusion), and that means we should always reach the same conclusion on every argument. Yet, that’s not what we observe because people disagree often even when starting from the same premises. Does that mean that Determinism can’t be true?
What’s missing here is that, even if yours and my initial mental states (the premises of our argument) are the same, there are many different ways in which the same mental state can be represented in physical brains. This means that your initial brain state and my initial brain state don’t have to be anywhere near the same, even if our initial mental states (the premises of our argument) are the same. Physical processes act only on brain states, not on mental states, so you and I can still wind up with different final brain states, because we started out with different initial brain states, so our final mental states (our conclusions) can be different, and there’s no problem here at all.
Notice that all of this is highly idealized. We’ve ignored randomness, misunderstandings in the premises, gradual arrival at final conclusions from arguing back and forth, etc. The only assumption is that you and I have different initial brain states representing the same initial mental states (premises), which is perfectly normal, and even expected, since we have different genetic and developmental histories, experiences, predispositions, etc.
So even if both of us start out with the same initial mental state [M1], this can be represented in different initial brain states, [Nate-B1] and [AR-B1], which then will deterministically result in different final brain states, [Nate-B2] and [AR-B2], which can subsequently result in different final mental states (conclusions), [Nate-M2] and [AR-M2], which don’t have to agree.
The flaw in unkleE’s reasoning is in the assumption that there is a one-to-one correspondence between mental states and brain states. If there were a one-to-one correspondence between mental and brain states, and if Determinism were true, unkleE would be correct that all cognitive agents would necessarily always reach the same conclusions (the unkleE theorem). This, of course, is not what we observe. Does this mean that Determinism can’t be true? No, because the assumption of one-to-one correspondence between mental and brain states is incorrect, so the problem for Determinism disappears.
Does that make sense?
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That depends on why I am reading the paper. If I am only reading out of curiosity, and am not much concerned with whether the claims are true, then I might not bother reading the references. If it is important to me, then I’ll read the references, unless I am already familiar them.
No, I never do that.
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“I suppose we will have to agree to disagree with regard to the viability of an evolutionary origin for complex logical reasoning”
HI Travis, yes I was coming to the same conclusion. There’s no point all of us beating our heads against brick walls! I think I will try to finish off quickly, stating again my other two points and reading the responses, so at least we can understand each other, but not defending them much unless we all think it is likely to led somewhere.
“This general purpose faculty is plastic and amenable to learning things it was never evolved to handle.”
I think this is a statement of faith, or an extrapolation, but it’s not my main point.
“Neural networks and machine learning adopt this general purpose mechanism to tackle problems.”
Sure, a computer uses cause-effect processes to produce ground-consequence outcomes, and it can “self learn” – but it has to be programmed, and the programming has to be very sophisticated, and the programmer has a definite end in mind. The analogy isn’t very good because we are talking about a process that isn’t designed (you believe) except by natural selection which has no end in mind and selects for survival rather than truth. It is an enormous difference. But again, that isn’t my main point. My main point is that this view of rationality makes it impossible, I think, to argue that someone else is “wrong”.
“I struggle to see how LFW is relevant to the question of rationality.”
I’m not at present arguing that. I am confining myself to the logic of determinism, and attempting to show that it makes logical discussion very doubtful.
But I’m happy to call this part of the discussion a day, and move on to my last two points briefly.
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Eric,
I would like to stick with what you feel is your main point and set aside disagreements regarding my characterization of the evolution of the brain and the suitability of the machine learning analogy. You say that your main point is that we can’t argue that somebody else is wrong if our reasoning is deterministic – correct? If I then go back and review your prior comments I gather that you are claiming that this is the case because the cause-and-effect operation of natural systems, even if those systems can perform ground-consequence logic, does not ultimately operate in pursuit of truth. Is that also correct?
If this is a correct understanding of the difficulty you’re presenting then I think I did address this in the prior comment when I said that
To clarify the link between natural selection and truth: selection would favor a system which can properly interact with its environment (“what works” in the previous quote) because a system which can properly interact with its environment is more likely to survive and reproduce.
Have I properly summarized the difficulty you’re trying to present? If so, how is my response deficient?
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Hi AR, I think both of us are getting frustrated, so I’m going to suggest we give this up. Here’s why (taken from your last five comments):
”You would probably think I’m being evasive, right? “
Well, that’s one possible hypothesis. But if you notice my discussion with Travis and Nate, and if you check back over my 6 years here, I am quite happy to discuss any issue and answer any question, provided people listen, which unfortunately you seem not to have done.
Which leads to a second hypothesis – that I’m not answering some of your questions and comment because you keep misunderstanding and “explaining” things I’m not saying. (I have had to point that out quite a few times before – once you even mounted a long argument and then checked at the end whether you had my views right – but unfortunately you hadn’t. It seems to me that in your eagerness to argue back, you assume things you expect me to say.) The rest of this response will illustrate that (on top of several occasions I’ve pointed that out already).
”I think unkleE is making a very subtle point here that’s worth closer consideration. I addressed it here.”
No. No. No. I said already you had got me wrong – when you first said this I replied “I was quite clear that I was not saying this.” But you still think I’m saying that. I DON’T think “all cognitive agents would reach exactly the same conclusions”.
”Do you disagree with either of these:
1) An author’s psychological state of “cognitive dissonance” has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of the belief that brought him to experience that “cognitive dissonance” in the first place.
2) If someone has a belief that causes them “cognitive dissonance” and they subsequently realize that the belief is an illusion, their “cognitive dissonance” disappears.”
I only half agree with each. (1) I think a person can have cognitive dissonance whether their beliefs are actually true or not, but the person has to believe they are true – and I’m guessing that more of our beliefs are true than not, so I think the truth of a belief will have an impact on the level of dissonance. For this reason, I don’t fully accept (2) either. Their dissonance may well decrease, but their “realisation” may also be wrong, and real life may still hit them over the head at times.
So finally we come to my use of references. It seems to me that references can be used in at least three ways. (1) To express an argument in well-chosen words. (2) To support an argument because the person is expert. (3) To provide evidence.
Now often I use references for (1) and (2), and then it is true that the references are only useful if they are by someone who is expert and representative of the consensus – and hence the appeal to authority may or may not be problematic.
But you still don’t seem to realise that in the case we are discussing (my use of Einstein and others), we are NOT dealing with (1) or (2), but with (3).
Please read the following carefully.
Limey challenged my view that determinism can often lead to cognitive dissonance. I quoted a bunch of people who were expressing dissonance related to determinism. I didn’t quote them as experts (1 & 2) but as evidence (3). Here were people doing what I said people do – that’s evidence. It didn’t matter if Einstein was not an expert in neuroscience or psychology, he was a person expressing dissonance, which was evidence. It was NOT an appeal to authority, it was an example of what I said and was asked to justify.
It was interesting that I asked both you and Limey how I could support my statement without offering people’s responses as evidence, and neither of you told me.
So hopefully you can see that you have time and time again misunderstood and not understood my expressed views, and assumed things that I didn’t think. And then you have used the idea of fallacies enthusiastically but in some cases (I would say most) quite erroneously. And still not understood the different uses of references after I have explained it 2 or 3 times.
I don’t want to get into a “You’re wrong!” “No you are!” discussion. So let’s stop shall we? I think you are getting frustrated, and I am too. It is better to stop than to keep on feeling the other person is misunderstanding. I’m sorry it has worked out this way. Best wishes to you.
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Hi Nate,
I don’t think we have really connected here at all. You say ”I have a hard time seeing how our choices could possibly exist outside of cause-and-effect. We are still thinking agents that make decisions, but those thoughts arise from a long and complex chain of past events and physical constraints.” but I am not arguing against that, I am starting with that assumption and testing where it leads.
” your comment makes it sound like we can never know when an idea is right or wrong. That simply isn’t true.”
No, I am not saying that. I am saying that proving something is true requires ground-consequent logic, but if determinism is true, we don’t have that in our brains, we have cause-effect processes. The challenges are to show (1) how physical cause & effect processes can do logic and (2) how we can argue truth with someone whose brain processes lead them to different ground-consequence answers.
But I think we have all probably had enough, so I propose (for the sake of completeness) to outline the other dilemmas I see, then read what you have to say, but not try to argue it any more. I think further discussion on this matter is probably going to be pointless for both of us. I hope that’s OK. Thanks.
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” I really think part of the problem is that it really is difficult to live as if determinism was true.”
I think you are wrong when you make this claim. Many people, including me, manage it just fine thank you!
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To anyone who can offer and answer ….
I found this explanation.
Determinism is a belief in the inevitability of causation. Everything that happens is the only possible thing that could happen.
Out of curiosity, as I am not one for such in-depth, heavy philosophy, but wouldn’t an omnipotent/omniscient being/deity be a Determinist?
Just asking …
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