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Alun
Joined: 11 Jul 2009
Posts: 883
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Post: #46  Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:22 am Post subject: |
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| Meleagar wrote: |
| Alun wrote: |
| Hmmm. No, I don't think that makes sense. |
...Well, it doesn't if you're programmed so that it doesn't - but that's the only way it "doesn't make sense"...
| Alun wrote: |
| Second, wouldn't you, if you were free, be able to do something that makes no sense to my program, thus proving that you are not a program? |
I refer you to what you just said above: "Hmmm. No, I don't think that makes sense." |
Let me be more specific: You've made a logical error 
| Meleagar wrote: |
| Alun wrote: |
| Likewise, a color-blind person could simply find objects that the color-seeing person claimed to be distinguishable... testing whether you are really seeing a difference, or are just making it up. |
That doesn't prove color exists, it only proves that I have a means by which to differentiate the circles that you are unaware of, which might not have anything to do with so-called "color". What is interesting is that something analogous to your rebuttal is actually going on in our debate; you keep hiding your reference to objective or transcendent commodities, and I keep pointing it out. |
Erm. That's what I said I was testing, right? I haven't once disputed any particular sort of ontological distinctions; none of them are knowable. That is my position. Hence I am like the color-blind man disputing the existence of any way to distinguish objects of the same shape, composition, and brightness. I do not believe any other means of differentiation exist. So if you can show me another means, then I'll start listening to you about what exactly this means is proposed to be derived from.
| Meleagar wrote: |
| Your color-sight test requires such transcendent or objective values; you would be relying on your experience and my experience being objectively similar |
Hence if you have some capacity which is entirely divorced from reason as I know it, then I am indeed helpless to know what you know. Yes, I think we've been through this already.
| Meleagar wrote: |
| You see, you have been conducting that very test, and every time you hide your mark I tell you where it is hidden |
I do not know what it is you believe you can distinguish that I cannot distinguish, so I have not been doing this test. I am still like the color-blind person who believes you cannot see colors; everything you have distinguished between, I can distinguish between. Unless you're now saying that I'm really able to see color, just denying it (which is what I had originally thought your were saying).
| Meleagar wrote: |
| Alun wrote: |
| I'm not sure how to translate this test into what you're talking about, however, since you'd have to formulate your thesis explicitly using reason in order for my program to process it. |
You'd have to actualy know what reason is in order to make that claim. For all you know, what your program calls "reason" is pure gobbledegook to anyone else. Also, how on Earth do you expect me to formulate a rational argument suited to your particular, subjective iteration of logic? |
As far as I can tell, you and everyone else perfectly understand my sort of reasoning. I guess you think maybe that's just my program's wishful thinking? Seems unlikely, but if it is true, I don't see what I could do about it; hence I assume you understand when it seems like you do.
| Meleagar wrote: |
| See? I just showed you where your objective transcendental is hidden. |
What, the way I happen to reason? Why do you think that's transcendental?
| Meleagar wrote: |
| Alun wrote: |
| If your thesis is simply that you are operating in a faculty that is entirely separate from reason, then I believe you're correct; I cannot approach it. |
How would you know if it is reasonable? All you know is whether or not your personal program labels something as reason. |
rofl. Ok, if your thesis is simply that you are operating in a faculty that is entirely separate from this method which I call reason, then I believe you're correct; I cannot approach it.
| Meleagar wrote: |
| The argument I'm making here isn't about trying to prove that idealistic free will actually exists, but that it is a necessary axiomatic premise in order to engage in a meaningful argument. Without it, one can't be engaged in an actual argument, all they can be doing is making self-referential statements as if it was an argument. |
Why cannot the free will objectively be the responsibility which ultimately results from protons, neutrons, and electrons interacting in a certain way? I.e. why does this necessary axiom have to be idealistic?
Also, it seems to me that all of your complaints stem from the nature of axioms in general; why is an idealistic axiom better than a materialistic axiom?
| Meleagar wrote: |
| HOT - you're projecting "what is to be understood" as some objective value others can converge upon instead of simply the invention of your own program. |
Are you saying that I should not assume that I can treat my reasoning faculties as if they are objective? If so, why not?
| Meleagar wrote: |
| Well, that's all you can do, because all you are is the program. I, however, am a god with access to infinite knowledge. |
I don't think I have any reasons to believe you. Do you?
| Meleagar wrote: |
| Alun wrote: |
| It is important to me that people not mistakenly believe in their ontological free will, as the very idea is incoherent with reasoning faculties. |
Also, if a person is nothing more than the ongoing product of causal forces, how can what they exist as ever be a "mistake"? That would be like thinking that where a leaf landed after falling from a tree would be a "mistake", or that the color of the sky is a "mistake". |
I explain that in the sentence after next:
| Alun wrote: |
| Both of these things are important to me because they would seem to make people behave more strictly according to rational faculties, which in turn means they can pursue their interests (and mine) more effectively. |
It is a mistaken way of pursuing their interests. I.e. it is not reasonably optimum. Just because I use the word, 'mistake' does not mean I'm implying that God must hate them for it; the word has no metaphysical implications. It seems likely that there are perfectly rational causes behind the mistake, it's just that these causes do not in the end pursue the mistaken person's interests.
| Meleagar wrote: |
| Only, there is no "actual" responsibility in your world, because one can hardly hold a material effect to be responsible for itself as the current manifestation of billions of years of deterministic sequences of cause. If a rock that rolls down a hill kills a rabbit, is the rock responsible? |
No; yelling at the rock about the value of the rabbit's life will not invoke any response from the rock. However, yelling at a human about killing a rabbit will almost always invoke a response from the human--a response that the human can link to the killing of the rabbit. Or are you now contesting this?
| Meleagar wrote: |
| You're attempting to objectify your program's particular concept of responsibility onto others while admitting that it can only be the purely subjective output of your program. |
Responsibility is not just a concept; it's something people act with. Therefore I can witness it happening.
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Belinda
Contributor
Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Posts: 3807
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| Post: #47 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 5:13 am Post subject: |
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James S Saint#41 points out that arguments for materialism are not the same arguments as arguments for Free Will.
All the monist positions, including idealism(immaterialism) make the existence of Free Will redundant. This is because to argue for Free Will it's necesaary to argue for a 'substance ' that is not bound to either the mental matter or to extended matter, either by causal connections or by any other necessity.
Idealism does not imply Free Will.Idealism is the belief that mental substance is the only substance that exists, and physical substance is a creation of mental substance. If it is true that mental substance is the only substance that exists it cannot also be true that the Free Will substance exists, since Free Will, unlike mental substance makes causation redundant.Free Willmakes causation redundant because Free Will needs no preceding causes for its effects to take place.
Meleagar wrote:
| Quote: |
| The argument I'm making here isn't about trying to prove that idealistic free will actually exists, but that it is a necessary axiomatic premise in order to engage in a meaningful argument. Without it, one can't be engaged in an actual argument, all they can be doing is making self-referential statements as if it was an argument. |
Many people agree that it's impossible to be absolutely objective when arguing for a matter of fact or for a matter of reason. I say 'for a matter of reason' because I understand that even mathematicians may disagree on some abstruse matters.Many people would also say that it's impossible to reason unless one is reasoning from a perspective.
If arguing machines had perspectives that were as comprehensive as arguing humans' perspectives they would be humans.
Therefore Meleagar is also making what he calls 'self referential statements as if it was an argument ' no less than Alun or me or anyone else.
The arguments for Free Will fail for the reason that Descartes's argument for two substances fail. The failure is due to the impossibility that a substance that is not bound to causality will meld with a substance that is bound to causality.
True, Descartes did posit mental substance as the substance that is separate from extended substance, and I wonder if this is what makes Meleagar combine idealism and Free Will-ism. There is no doubt though that Cartesian dualism(or 'substance dualism') is the theory of existence that supports the existence of Free Will. Each of the three monisms cannot support the existence of a substance as other-worldly as Free Will.
Meleagar quoted in #32
| Quote: |
| Morality and truth and free will from a determinist/materialist position is just a series of equivocations, IMO, so that the individual can hide both from themselves and others the necessarily nihilistic, amoral consequences of that philosophy. |
But from Free Willists' point of view, the moral decisions are uncaused and therefore random decisions. How moral is that?
Frm the determinists's point of view moral choices are made with the view to the causes and the effects of the choices, with no added random component inserted as an originating causal component.
Either Free Will is within the universe of causation ,or it's outside the universe of causation. There is no middle position for Free Will.The only thing I can think of that is outside the universe of causation is God.
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James S Saint
Joined: 14 Oct 2009
Posts: 668
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| Post: #48 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 5:28 am Post subject: |
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| Belinda wrote: |
| But from Free Willists' point of view, the moral decisions are uncaused and therefore random decisions. How moral is that? |
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Meleagar
Joined: 16 Nov 2009
Posts: 1302
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| Post: #49 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 7:52 am Post subject: |
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Belinda: Idealistic free will is neither random nor caused; it is deliberate. Your declaration that it must be either wholly caused or wholly incapable of causing effects is unsupported and, in any event, creates the problem of infinite regress, if all events must have been caused or else they can generate no effects.
Alun: I appreciate your time, but your latest post is still full of objective "other" and transcendent "I" implications and necessary implications; in fact, virtually every sentence you write contains them. I don't see the value in pointing them out ad infinitum.
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Alun
Joined: 11 Jul 2009
Posts: 883
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| Post: #50 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 12:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Meleagar wrote: |
| Alun: I appreciate your time, but your latest post is still full of objective "other" and transcendent "I" implications and necessary implications; in fact, virtually every sentence you write contains them. I don't see the value in pointing them out ad infinitum. |
You're the one who insists that they have such necessary implications, but you have yet to show it. Until you show it, I will insist upon the terms "I" for the interpreting biological program that corresponds to me, "other" for the things I interpret to be comparable programs, and "reason" for the method of interpretation which I interpret to be shared by myself and all known others.
Also I'd like for you to explain how we can deliberate without being influenced by anything--i.e. without being related to a causal chain--or how influence can occur without a cause.
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Meleagar
Joined: 16 Nov 2009
Posts: 1302
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| Post: #51 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 1:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Alun wrote: |
| You're the one who insists that they have such necessary implications, but you have yet to show it. |
You have no meaningful basis by which to claim that I haven't shown it; all you have the basis to claim is that your program hasn't seen it, whether I've shown it or not.
| Quote: |
| Also I'd like for you to explain how we can deliberate without being influenced by anything--i.e. without being related to a causal chain--or how influence can occur without a cause. |
Influence and relation is not cause, so your question is a non-sequiter.
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Alun
Joined: 11 Jul 2009
Posts: 883
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| Post: #52 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 1:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Meleagar wrote: |
| You have no meaningful basis by which to claim that I haven't shown it; all you have the basis to claim is that your program hasn't seen it, whether I've shown it or not. |
How can it be a meaningless basis when you just described, understood, and judged it? What does it mean to say that what has meaning to my program at a minimum, is meaningless?
It seems to me that now you're assuming that "meaningfulness" is always transcendental, which is obviously a matter of dispute here. So to clarify, I think "meaning" can just be a value assignment made by a biological interpreting program.
| Meleagar wrote: |
| Influence and relation is not cause, so your question is a non-sequiter. |
What does the word 'influence' mean to you if it doesn't describe a causal relationship? Does it ever make sense to say: "I influenced his decision, but he would have decided the same thing in exactly the same way without me" ?
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Scott
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Joined: 20 Jan 2007
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| Post: #53 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Alun wrote: |
| Also, it seems to me that all of your complaints stem from the nature of axioms in general; why is an idealistic axiom better than a materialistic axiom? |
I think Alun has made many good points in his posts, but I think the above sentence that I've quoted cuts to the core of Meleagar's arguments.
As I pointed out in post #2 and #5, Meleagar is making an epistemological argument. He's arguing that we cannot know anything; that empirical evidence is meaningless. He is refusing to debate other points unless we first assume that materialism and causal determinism are false as an axiomatic premise. Meleagar is not arguing against materialism or causal determinism. Rather, Meleagar is refusing to have anything but an epistemological argument unless we first accept his premises that reality is not materialistic and not causally deterministic. Even if one makes an argument against those premises, Meleagar uses epistemological skepticism--a red herring IMO--saying discussion is meaningless unless we accept those premises.
As I said, Alun's question cuts to the core of this. Generally, in all non-epistemological discussions we have to already assume the reliability of empirical evidence, logic and so forth--or else the discussion would be meaningless as Meleagar points out. But aren't there plenty of possible axioms that one could accept that would provide the epistemological confidence to have meaningful discussion about non-epistemological topics? Can't we just as easily assume that--regardless of the existence or non-existence of dualistic immaterial substances and phenomenon--our brains accurately interpret stimuli, and thus that empirical evidence and logic are at least relatively reliable, as opposed to assuming that we have some sort of soul or that there's some other sort of divine intervention assuring the accuracy of our brain's material observations? If so, Occam's razor would instruct us to only make the first assumption since it provides the same rationalization but without also assuming anything about the existence or nature of some proposed immaterial, unobservable substance like an immaterial soul or divine intervention.
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James S Saint
Joined: 14 Oct 2009
Posts: 668
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| Post: #54 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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But you cannot get away from;
"What something is, cannot also be what it isn't."
From that one most fundamental Logic, all else can be answered. |
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Richw9090
Joined: 27 Dec 2009
Posts: 9
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| Post: #55 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 9:57 pm Post subject: |
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Starting from the first post: Meleagar's post is riddled with so many logical fallacies that it is hard to know where to begin. More than any other fallacy, he commits the error of assuming as a premise that which he wishes to prove as a conclusion.
Here is a perfect example: "We know that cause and effect sequences can, and often do, produce false experiences, thoughts, and beliefs." He then uses this to go on to conclude that cause and effect sequences yield false experiences!
Meleagar also claims that materialism (determinism, to him; he can't tell the difference between the two)has now way of distinguishing false from true "experience" a vague term he never really defines, and for a good reqson - he can't.
In fact, his entire screed is little more than a series of unfounded assertions. And as we all know, any assertion gratuitously made can be equally as gratuitously denied.
Q.E.D.
Rich |
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ape
Joined: 06 Apr 2009
Posts: 3324
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| Post: #56 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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| James S Saint wrote: |
But you cannot get away from;
"What something is, cannot also be what it isn't."
From that one most fundamental Logic, all else can be answered. |
Hi Jss!
Most assuredly what is is and can be and must be what it is not! :yes:
Example: Giving which is giving is also and can be also and must be also taking: what giving is not!
Details:
To give is to take from oneself.
To take is to give to oneself.
Thus giving is giving AND is also taking.
Thus, taking is taking AND is also giving.
qed!
Therefore, Acts 20:35 means that it is more blessed to give than to receive when giving, AND it is also more blessed to receive than to give when receiving! 
It works for all opposites and makes them also composites.
That in mind will clear things up both for Meleager and for those he opposes, and for those who oppose what he is trying to say. |
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James S Saint
Joined: 14 Oct 2009
Posts: 668
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| Post: #57 Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Richw9090 wrote: |
Starting from the first post: Meleagar's post is riddled with so many logical fallacies that it is hard to know where to begin. More than any other fallacy, he commits the error of assuming as a premise that which he wishes to prove as a conclusion.
Here is a perfect example: "We know that cause and effect sequences can, and often do, produce false experiences, thoughts, and beliefs." He then uses this to go on to conclude that cause and effect sequences yield false experiences!
Meleagar also claims that materialism (determinism, to him; he can't tell the difference between the two) has now way of distinguishing false from true "experience" a vague term he never really defines, and for a good reason - he can't.
In fact, his entire screed is little more than a series of unfounded assertions. And as we all know, any assertion gratuitously made can be equally as gratuitously denied.
Q.E.D.
Rich |
Ahyup. 
| ape wrote: |
Example: Giving which is giving is also and can be also and must be also taking: what giving is not!
Details:
To give is to take from oneself.
To take is to give to oneself.
Thus giving is giving AND is also taking.
Thus, taking is taking AND is also giving.
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Emm.. nope, sorry, ape.. no cigar. 
P1) "To give == to take from oneself" - okay
P2) "To take == to give to oneself." = okay
A1) Per P1 and P2, Therefore, to give == to take
But now let's see. You said;
"To take from oneself" [give] = "To give to oneself" [take].
Is that true? To take from oneself is to give to oneself? I don't think so.
The act of giving MIGHT require of you that you take from yourself. But then again, it might not. Thus the act of giving is NOT the act of taking from oneself. If you give advice, did you take it away from yourself?
The act of taking MIGHT be giving to oneself. But then again, it might not. Thus the act of taking is NOT the act of giving. If you take someone's life, did you give it to yourself?
There is distinction in both cases between the act of giving and the act of taking. Because there is distinction, one IS NOT identical to the other (else we wouldn't have such different words for them).
When 2 things are identical, there is no distinction between them. That is why they are 2 things, not one. Would you say, "Here, let me take this Christmas gift from you"? The person might get a little worried.
If you said, "Here, let me take this Christmas gift from me", the person would probably help you correct your English.
The fact that the 2 distinct actions often take place at the same time, does not make them identical. |
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Meleagar
Joined: 16 Nov 2009
Posts: 1302
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| Post: #58 Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Scott wrote: |
| He is refusing to debate other points unless we first assume that materialism and causal determinism are false as an axiomatic premise. |
Actually, I'm just pointing out that you could be wrong, because that's all that is required for determinism to fail. If we postulate determinism, it can produce not only untrue statements (it does), but also faulty systems of thought, false beliefs and untrue ideas (it does), and it can produce untrue physical sensations (it does) and faulty physical interpretations (it does), then any system of analysis or evaluation of those systems, ideas, beliefs and statements can also be false.
In causal determinism, there is no recourse outside of the faulty process of cause and effect. It's like error checking a textbook from Smith Publishing because one knows Smith Publishing to produce a large number of errors; but the only thing one has to check the textbook against is another book published by Smith Publishing.
Your assumption that you can discern true statements is not just one assumption; it is a shorthand version of including countless assumptions. You are assuming, in each case of truth discernment, a favorable chain of causal events that includs hundreds of trillions of favorable sequences of physical materials going back billions of years and resulting in what is effectively a happenstance coincidence of an entity with illusionary deliberacy producing a statement, that entity believing that statement to be true; that statement actually being true, and the entity receiving the information happens to interpret it very close to the way it was meant, and that receiving entity also believing that statement to be true.
Or, actual acausal, transcendent free will agents deliberately discern true statements as they are made.
You see, your premise of causality requires that you include far more necessary, unseen agents and events than my premise of free will deliberacy.
To sum up, causal determinists must assume that countless convenient, unseen, chance, material, causal sequences can generate a faux free-will entity that coincidentally produces actual discernments of truth as if by some independent deliberate agency (but not really) because if they do not assume this then they are left with incohorent epistemological skepticism or nihilistic material solipsism....
... and you think all of that is more efficient, under Occam's Razor, than just adopting the existential premise of true free will agency?
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Last edited by Meleagar on Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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James S Saint
Joined: 14 Oct 2009
Posts: 668
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| Post: #59 Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Meleagar wrote: |
| Actually, I'm just pointing out that you could be wrong, because that's all that is required for determinism to fail. If determinism can produce not only untrue statements (it does),.. |
To an idiot, ANYTHING "could be wrong".
The only way you can determine that determinism is wrong is to use determinism to do it.
And determinism has never "produced untrue statements". Where did you pick that one up? |
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Meleagar
Joined: 16 Nov 2009
Posts: 1302
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| Post: #60 Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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| James S Saint wrote: |
| Meleagar wrote: |
| Actually, I'm just pointing out that you could be wrong, because that's all that is required for determinism to fail. If determinism can produce not only untrue statements (it does),.. |
To an idiot, ANYTHING "could be wrong".
The only way you can determine that determinism is wrong is to use determinism to do it.
And determinism has never "produced untrue statements". Where did you pick that one up? |
The sky is green.
The sky is purple.
There is no sky.
If I exist in a deterministic framework, determinism just produced an untrue statement.
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