No strict rules here, just a space to discuss unanswerable questions. If you want to name-drop famous philosophers, that great. If you just want to share your insights, that’s great, too. Even better is if you share your questions. Let’s talk about it. Oops, I lied. One strict rule: No current politics or religion. Thank you.
Here’s a hypothetical conversation (written by me!) between evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. Dawkins: “There are no big ‘why’ questions.” Socrates: “But they are my stock in trade!” Dawkins: “There are only ‘how’ questions.” Socrates: “Well, my good man, the greatest favour you can do for another human being is to refute them, so I refute you.” Dawkins: “But we can never answer those ‘why’ questions.” Socrates: “You remind me of Meno. He also said we couldn’t make progress on these questions.” Dawkins: “I don’t want to know why the dinosaurs gave way to the mammals. I want to know how. It’s my belief that if a particular dinosaur had not sneezed at a particular moment, none of us would be here. Instead of being eaten, that ancestral mammal below the dinosaur's mouth led to us.” Socrates: “But it’s worth asking ‘why are we here?’” Dawkins: “That’s just the way it is. Our whole history is just a series of accidents.” Socrates: “But don’t you want to be a better person? Have the courage to ask the ‘why’ questions?” Dawkins: “That’s not how I define my value.” Socrates: “Oh, I see, I see … you fear being vulnerable.” Dawkins: “What? No! The science says—” Socrates: “You fear the core ideas about what makes us who we are.” Dawkins: “I’ll have you know that I love poetry.” Socrates: “So, we agree. The unexamined life is not worth living.”
I would say that's a non-sequitur. This isn't a rebuttal I would expect from Dawkins, because it isn't one. Loving poetry does not, in itself, rebut fearing the core ideas. It presupposes that Socrates is making a judgement as to what those core ideas are, and that they align with the poetic.
Okay. Lol, I'm not sure if you are talking philosophy or criticizing my little vignette! Sure, I used my imagination a little, but my main points are valid. I'm sorry that is all you got from it. First - Dawkins is in fact a great lover of poetry. He uses the following poem, written by Aldous Huxley, to illustrate his belief that contingencies happen at every turn. (Which suggests the question - Fate, destiny, randomness … where lies the truth?) Fifth Philosopher’s Song A million million spermatozoa All of them alive; Out of their cataclysm but one poor Noah Dare hope to survive. And among that billion minus one Might have chanced to be Shakespeare, another Newton, a new Donne— But the One was Me. Shame to have ousted your betters thus, Taking ark while the others remained outside! Better for all of us, froward Homunculus, If you’d quietly died! Second - I think poetry does explore core ideas. Is it a discussion of the purpose of poetry you want to have?
Whether he is or not, it's not a rebuttal of the preceding statement. Socrates says “You fear the core ideas about what makes us who we are.”. That's either putting words in Dawkins' mouth, or drawing a conclusion which doesn't follow on from the preceding statements (i.e. a non-sequitur). He's still alive and active on the internet, so you could actually contact him and ask him how he would respond.
Yeah, I said it was a hypothetical. I put words into Socrates mouth, too. That's not the point. But what do you think of the conflict between asking the 'how' and the 'why' questions?
You did, but if you're simulating a conversation between philosophers, I think it's necessary to be accurate about how those particular philosophers would have answered. Otherwise, I'm afraid, I don't see the point of picking them. I'm agnostic on the subject. To the best of our verifiable knowledge, there are no "why" questions, only "how". Any speculation or opinion on our part, without external data could be wildly inaccurate. The answer to the question of "why" might well be "why not?". This applies to greater questions of why and how. On the mundane level, we can certainly come up with answers. Why do humans congregate together? Because we are social animals and rely on numbers for safety. Why are we social animals? Because we have inherited those traits from our ancestral species. Why did they have them? Because it is a survival strategy that was successful for them. How did they arrive at that survival strategy? By chance. That answers both the how and the why. And also, justification is not completely equivalent to validation. You might also ask, as an aside, whether philosophies require proof. I am of the opinion that they do, but others might disagree.
I was. I accurately portrayed each philosopher's point of view. But there are some things that elude evidence or 'external data' - by 'why' questions - we mean "Why are we here?" As far as inaccuracy is concerned, we do have logic and reason to rely on. Is logic and reason always wrong? As humans, we are the only species to ask "Why?" And that leads me to ask - "Why did we evolve this capacity?" Proof only applies to Math. The thing with "unanswerable questions" - like "Why are we here?' - evidence to support your answer is impossible. Now please re-read my little vignette not to find fault, but to see the philosophical questions raised there.
I don't think you were. Sorry, you're getting upset, so I'm not going to engage with this thread any further.
I see now the source of the confusion. Please allow me to explain how "vulnerability" does indeed follow from what came before. Dawkins does not ask the 'why' questions. Socrates believed some avoided the 'why' questions because they make us feel vulnerable - even more vulnerable than sex. So it's the refusal to ask the 'why' questions Socrates is commenting on. Dawkins defines the purpose of life in different terms than Socrates. The questions that interested Socrates do not interest Dawkins. To him, the only explanations that count are the non-moral ones. In the first paragraph of The Selfish Gene (1976), Dawkins writes: I think, too, in my little vignette, I wanted to contrast the scientific and philosophical viewpoints. Is philosophy obsolete in the face of scientific discovery? Where do we find life's meaning?
This premise is a bit awkward. I don't know how religion can possibly stay out of it given the prompt, but I will try. Science and religion are philosophy. Your question is, literally speaking, like "Is fruit obsolete since humans have discovered apples?" But I think I know what you mean. You seem to be querying the 'ought' with the concept of spirituality removed. Art in situ. I was surprised to learn that prominent, uh, non-beekeepers and beekeepers actually agree that without beekeeping, there is no free will. Someone wanting to maintain the fact that humans, while smart, are just another animal, might employ emotivism to describe our morality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism. On the whole, if someone's behaviour is aligned enough with your values, it doesn't matter where he found meaning. I suspect that's why Dawkins sees it as an irrelevant question. There are infinite answers to 'why' that will still have the same or similar outcome, which means they serve the same purpose.
I suppose we need just stay away from arguments that pit one religion against another? I just don't want this to descend into something that belongs in the Debate Room. I like your use of the word "ought" - I believe the difference in many ways comes down to this. Philosophy, for example, would ask "Ought we be good?" A question pure science would not ask. I'll have to guess at your meaning here, please correct me if I am wrong, but you are using "Is there free will?" as an example of an unanswerable question, and saying that beekeeping is just as good as any other explanation or response, since all answers will be subjective.... But a philosopher may ask, "Is there such a thing as an objective good?" From the Wiki article: So, basically, humans are ruled by their emotions? And a big part of that is how our expressions are received by others? Hence, the hurrah or the boo response. I think there is some truth to this, in that, the basis of morality is "What keeps us in the group?" We are a very social animal, after all, and how our behavior is judged determines our status in the group. So, this circles back to two alternatives: "Ought we be good for goodness' sake?" OR "Ought we be good to remain a member of the group in good standing?" Anyway, I like Jonathan Haidt's analogy of a rider on an elephant. The rider is our rational side, and the elephant is our emotional side. I imagine there are some poor riders who cannot control the elephant, but others may be masterful at it. And that is a big "if" - "if their behavior is aligned with your values." I think, too, that Dawkins might answer any "Why?" question related to human behavior with the response: "Because that is what your genes are doing."
Hopefully so. Sorry that was very unclear of me. I was trying to avoid mentioning god at 3am, lol. Basically I was surprised to find that popular atheists, agnostics, and theists all seem to agree that without divinity, humans do not have free will. The dichotomy seems arrogant, because there aren't any living things we can be compared to, and predeterminism seems like forcing the square peg of physics into the round hole that is behaviour. I'm agnostic, but I believe in free will. That's interesting. I quite like it too. However, if I'm being critical (and perhaps he mentions this somewhere) it ignores the fact that the emotional/subconscious side may have sometimes already arrived at the better or correct answer which it cannot articulate, and so it fails in the face of the better articulated yet deeply wrong 'rational' answer. Rationale is only as good as the evidence and arguments used, and that's assuming nothing's been omitted. I suspect an emotivist would argue that lots of rationale is simply justification for the hurrah/boo feelings already present. Pure science? Do you mean any science with proofs? If you want to look for any moral philosophical attempt at ___-given rights without invoking the god man, I think liberal philosophy is basically an example? It depends on if you think political science is a real science or just a misnomer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
Dawkins adheres to a "materialistic view of the the world" - one subject to cause and effect - and in this view there is no place for free will. In the video below, he says: "When I think that I have free will, when I think that I am exercising free choice, I am deluding myself ... my brain states are determined by physical events ... and yet ... that contradicts, it goes against the very powerful impression that we all have - that we do have free will." My position is that if we feel like we have free will, it must exist. If we behave as if we have free will, it must exist. What I feel and how I behave exist. But I do wonder how much of that is programmed by my genes! Interesting, comparing the "correctness" of the emotional response vs. the rational response. The emotional response is certainly faster, the rational response more considered, and takes into account more information. I would think the more informed response is closer to the reality of the situation? We do tend to justify our positions, whether they are a true reflection of reality or not. No, I wasn't thinking of political science. I was looking at the science that explains who and what humans are. So, that would be several branches of biology, I guess. It's interesting you bring up Liberalism, which is definitely a philosophy, defined by certain doctrines, but of course it can be studied scientifically.
I've not read any fancy philosophical texts, so take everything I'm about to say as that of a campfire philosophy. I believe in free will. We may be genetically programmed to suffer certain diseases, but how we behave and react to those debilitations are very much based on character. And character is not only based on history, but on will. If you want something bad enough, you go out and change things until you get them. That is how I got my girlfriend, that is how I started writing, it is how I'm dealing with my sickness, and many other things, I decided over my own life when life tried to decide over me. I can decide tomorrow to find out who hurt me in the past, and ruin my own life if I so choose, but I won't because I want something else out of my life, hence free will. It may or may not be that simple, but for me it is.
Me, too. I might say that my present-day personality and inclinations have been determined by my genes and my past, and will influence the choices I make in the future, but to say "there is no free will" implies that there is one only possible future. But that's not true. There are multiple possible futures in my life, and which way I go depends to some extent on my exercise of free will.
Objective vs. Subjective Truth. There are exactly (insert number) stars in the universe. This is an objective truth. My mother loves me. This is a subjective truth. Which truth do you care more about? It’s subjective truth that makes up anyone’s reality. I had a lively discussion on WF.com once about subjective vs. objective truth. My opponent insisted that there is no such thing as the subjective truth. But I say that is the only truth that matters. It’s through subjective truth that we understand existence, language, and meaning. Existence exists only in the mind of the subject.
The problem is right there. I put it in bold. Relying on subjective truth is fine if you're the only human alive. Without objective truth, multiple parties can't agree on reality. If they can't agree on even the most basic parts of reality, then there's no cooperation at all, no society. It's why Terrance Howard's suggestion that "1 x 1 = 2" is completely useless. Well, that implies illusions are impossible. Either that or you welcome them. I'm not sure. What would be a subjective lie? Some form of denial? That depends on how much faith you have in the subconscious, which is usually credited as being disagreeable and also a major driving force of emotion. See: Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment for a great fictional (but believable) example.
What a fantastic point to make. Yes, we have to agree on some objective truths. A day has approximately 24 hours. A year has approximately 365 days. We have to lay down some parameters for our existence. But what truth drives human behavior? What truth drives the decisions we make every day? The depends on our take on reality. Our subjective truth. That's why we do not see 100% agreement and cooperation either at the personal or the larger group level. Interesting. It seems that is "preposterous pseudo-science." And of course, very few take Howard seriously. An article that rips apart his "theories" begins this way: What happens when an egotistical, narcissistic actor whose career is on the ropes tries to dismantle science and mathematics to replace them with his versions? But does this mean that accepted theories in science that enjoy a wide consensus be regarded as objective truth? It's always been my understanding that scientists don't use the word "truth" when describing their conclusions. I'm only referring to the exercise of free will. At the grocery store, I have a wide selection of coffees to chose from. I decide I like McDonald's McCafe and pick up a can of that. My free will has been manifested. And in decisions with bigger consequences, too, like who to vote for, or whether to exist at all (suicide) - if I feel it is my decision, it is my decision. If I feel like I have free will, if I think that I have free will, then I do have free will, because feelings and thoughts exist for their own sake. Well, lol, politics and religion come to mind, but I'll stay clear of that - and instead share a story about a young woman I know. She's been with an emotionally abusive narcissist for about six years now. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, she believes he can still change. I realize there are a lot of factors impinging on this subjective truth of hers, like how he has manipulated her thoughts. It's kind of complicated. Her subjective truth is a lie. But it's a truth to her. So is it a lie or a truth?
On the subject of free will, one of the early philosophers recognized as a materialist, Epicurus, broke with his forebear Democritus on this question. Like Democritus, Epicurus proposed that all things are composed of atoms (atoms in the literal sense of "uncuttables", utterly irreducible particles, so not the same as what we call atoms today) and the empty space they occupy. However Epicurus (at least as Lucretius explains him) also introduced a strange concept of the atomic "swerve" which meant that, at any given time, atoms can make a sudden change from their predetermined course. The Epicureans argued that without this swerve all matter would be static and the complex, dynamic world we see around us would not form. In living beings this swerve is the explanation for free will. Exactly what, if anything, causes this swerve is unclear- if it's interpreted as a random, acausal event then I'm not sure if it brings us any closer to what we might conceive of as freedom. Of course, that's the trouble- how does one actually define free will? Simply being able to make a choice doesn't seem to work, IMO, because any choice we make will still be informed by whatever preferences, reasonings, prejudices, etc we bring to that decision. If we equate free will with the ability to exercise our superior reasoning over the impulses of our lower faculties, then this is approaching a Platonic concept of freedom which consists in conforming to an immutable ideal or mind. This carried over to the Christian idea of free will where, for instance, Saint Maximus the Confessor equates free will with conformity to the will of God- any deviation from that is not freedom but a descent into enslavement to the passions (and to the noetic adversaries). But again conforming oneself to an immutable and universal pattern doesn't seem like what most of us mean by "freedom". The closest I could come to a conclusion to this problem is to take determinism to its full conclusion. If we do this, then it doesn't make sense to distinguish "mental" and "physical" events, or the "interior" of a being from the "outer" causes that determine its actions, just like it doesn't make sense to see a wooden marionette as a hapless being controlled by a puppeteer- rather the puppeteer is acting through the marionette, to some degree is the marionette, and apart from the puppeteer the marionette is just inanimate wood. Likewise without the marionette the puppeteer is not a puppeteer, is absent from the stage and abstracted from that sphere of life, and so cannot be fully herself. So we can regard a mind as a coalescing of causes and influences, going back to beginningless time, and not simply as one link in a chain or one ball on the billiards table. We can also question the barriers we assume between a mind and the world around it, between a mind and other minds, and fixed notions of identity. Some useful tools for exploring the anarchic, hidden, and far-reaching characters of our minds might be found in Buddhism, Freud, and surrealist games.
That might be the best way to approach free will, since there's no hint of absolving accountability. When people claim we don't have free will, they present it as being the ultimate illusion, so it would be a given that you feel you are making choices. Dawkins or Alex O'Connor would say that even your brand of coffee was not a free choice, however much it seems that it was. I'm not sure how one would refer to the exercise of free will as opposed to the idea of free will itself. To me, those are the same thing. That's a great follow through to my prompt. I didn't really know where I was going with it. All I had was "So presence of truth implies the possibility of untruth, or a lie, but I never hear people use the term subjective lie." That's the strong argument that free will is an illusion. Nature + environment are products of physics physics is predictable* with enough information ∴ physics is fully predetermined We are products of nature + environment ∴ we are products of physics ∴ we are fully predetermined It's strange to me that divinity is commonly seen as the only counterpoint, but I certainly understand why it takes the role as foremost contradiction to determinism. *Chaos theory, I think, is founded on the idea that the same variables will always lead to the same outcome, but it's an unknowably complex one. That archaic atomic swerve is interesting, though. Never heard of it. It sounds sort of quantum physics related.
@Le Panda Du Mal - thank you so much for your thought-provoking response. I will do the best I can to reply. I love this! Connecting free will to the quantum level. Brilliant. And it introduces the concept of randomness. Just how connected is our behavior to the actions of atoms? And we all know that unpredictable guy or girl who doesn't do what is expected. In fact, we applaud unpredictability. We applaud spontaneity. We like novelty. I'll follow the atom's swerve where it goes! Oh wait, does that put a cause on my effect? But our preferences, reasonings, prejudices do not always lead to just one choice? We weigh pros and cons. We have options. "Free will with the conformity of God" - this seems a contradiction in terms. "A descent into enslavement to the passions" - Very few humans have ever escaped this enslavement. Anyway, an interesting character - Saint Maximus (c. 580 – 13 August 662) - who ended up being persecuted, and convicted for "heresy" - for his belief that Jesus possessed both a human and a divine will. (But politics reared its ugly head as he was accused of aiding the Muslim conquests.) Good point. But, of course, there is sense in distinguishing the "mental interior" from the "physical outer." How is a mind separate from reality? Goes to the very heart of what a mind is. All those mental processes, conscious and unconscious, formed by experience, and given the gift of interpretation. Where does the notion of creativity fit into it? Hmm ... identity. Without identity, we don't feel we exist.
Accountability to whom? Does truth require an accountability? It is just what is. To me, that is a very narrow understanding. We labour over decisions everyday! Our minds are not automatons, but capable of weighing options and then deciding nay or yeah. We make decisions outside of natural instinct everyday. The exercise of free will is what the exerciser believes. Actual free will is what constitutes the objective truth. Because it is true to them. I feel in control of my mind. I control its thoughts. No illusion. I am in control. Persons with psychosis will tell you different and make the difference plain. But what did nature create? A mind, which we still don't understand, capable of choosing contrary to deterministic trends. F*ck the past. My free will operates in the present. Is there room for uncaused acts?
It seems to me that free will in its self is a misnomer. We are bound by innate traits to make life decisions. There is a warbler that flies out in the Atlantic to catch the trade winds to South American. No one directs them, but they do it every year. It is a common feature among humans and most animals to protect their young. We have free will of choices but are programed to operate within parameters. Some learned, like not putting your hand in a fire and some intrinsic that makes us sociable. Maybe we are the first AI, that's gone awry.
