Free Thought and Hugo

[I have moved this conversation here because this is getting rather long at the original comment page, which is HERE]

With Hugo around, teleological inevitability seems to take over: I can’t resist responding. It’s because the things Hugo says are voiced in the calm assurance of their universal truth yet are based in demonstrably anti-rational principles.

Hugo says,

” In my opinion, you cannot be both a God believer and a free thinking who think independently. You have to concede that God either does not care or cannot listen to your thoughts to be a free thinker.”

He proclaims this to be an opinion, but contrary to earlier proclamations of openness, it is perfectly predictable that this will not change for Hugo despite any input. Regardless, here is some input:

The discipline of logic (hence rational thought and empirical science) was consolidated and preserved by legions of theists. One must be historically ignorant not to know that. There is no known logical deduction which violates any theist proposition (if there were, Atheists, including Dawkins, would use it daily). Yet every Atheist pretends that every theist proposition has already been invalidated, purely on the basis of the caricature of theism being presupposed a priori false, a presupposition which Hugo has accepted as valid. Thus the common Atheist position of not requiring a rebuttal from themselves to support their reasons for rejecting theist arguments: blind rejection is sufficient.

Free Thinking is an absurdity for the following reason: free thinking works outside of the discipline and parameters of logical boundaries. If it did not, it would not be “free”, it would be subservient and beholden to outside principles – an abomination to free thinking. Thus “free thinkers” who believe their own conclusions based on stacks of ungrounded and false premises are actually both self-elevating beyond the tethers of logic and subjectively subservient to their own self-revelations of ungrounded (and thus false) “truths”.

Theism is not bound by a fear of thought as Hugo would have it; it is rather tethered to a discipline: logic as the path to rationality and the only valid path to comprehending the universe and our place in it. Science is a subset of that mindset, and is valid only for the restricted intellectual spaces of physical, deterministic processes which submit to empirical analysis. That science is limited is not accepted by free thinkers whose axioms do not include valid definitions of determinism (the boundaries of determinism are vastly plastic or rigidly held depending on application, or otherwise free thinkers would not be free).

The human mind is both non-deterministic and an agent. The agency inherent in the human mind must be rejected irrationally (using personal agency to reject the concept of agency) if the free thinking non-theist is to maintain determinism - Scientism – physicalism as the correct path to understanding absolutely everything. After all, if a mental activity is predetermined under determinism, then it cannot be a “free thought”, can it?

Thus the free thinker constrains himself to the most false aspect of thought: accepting the non-coherence of the Scientism – physicalism ideology over the acceptance of the validity of disciplined logic as a constraint on rational thought. The two, Scientism and logic, are totally incompatible. So the rejection of logic in favor of Scientism - physicalism cannot be a product of logic. It is purely an emotional decision.

Because Scientism – physicalism and Atheism all support the individual’s self-image of personal control over intellect (as opposed to the control of logic over a submissive intellect), the overwhelming trend of those types of individuals is toward the self-image of personal superiority. After all, if a person thinks up “truths” which reject the concepts of those others who are intellectually subservient to logic, then the totally open “truth thinker” is superior to the subservient individual, right?

Again, it is an emotional, personally elevating conclusion, borne of the rejection of subservience to any rational control including disciplined logic. And it is emotionally serviced with out-of-hand rejection of theist positions, but with no counter argument or refutation even being necessary.

For Hugo and free thought, one cannot think clearly if one is subservient; one must reject subservience and be free of the hindrances that constrain thought to specific processes.

Hugo says,

” Determinism is complicated because we don't have all the answers to how we can be thinking human beings based on solely natural processes. Adding a God to the equation does not explain anything however... It does not say how God would have built us to be like that, it does not explain how a non-natural soul would work in synch with the natural body without leaving any trace.”

Here Hugo demonstrates his own subservience to determinism, to Scientism – physicalism. Determinism is complicated? No. Determinism is merely this: every physical effect has a physical cause which can be measured using other physical techniques. It’s not complicated. The complication comes from the actions of humans which are outside of the boundaries of determinism, yet must crammed forcefully into those boundaries due to free thinking. That's where adopting plastic boundaries to the definition of determinism become necessary: purely to defend determinism as still being valid where it clearly is not.

The assertion of a non-physical agent being involved does not involve requiring those explanations which Hugo demands of it. Atheists love to use the analogy of accepting gravity despite the undefined source for gravity to explain their inability to provide any evidence for evolution. Or first life. Or huge semantic information load in first DNA. But they demand all these non-essential “explanatory” issues regarding lack of any obvious material evidence for an outside agent. This sort of Special Pleading to conceal Category Errors permeates free thinking. But it is not an issue to the free thinker, who is not subservient to the rules of logic and rational thinking: they operate in a space where Special Pleading and Category Error are without consequence. Thus that operating space is anti-rational and anti-intellectual.

Hugo says,

”I believe there is always a morally acceptable choice in all situations, just like there is always something true and objective, but we, humans, need to work together to figure out what it is. No one has special access to what's true or moral.”

the assertion that there “is always something true and objective”, yet no one knows what it is, is absurd on the face of it. To combine that with the assertion of no one having “access to what's true or moral”, special or common, contradicts the first assertion, a spectacular non-coherence. What Hugo appears to want us to believe by making these assertions is that all humans need to get together to come up with a human-derivation for morality. The consequence is obvious: that set of moral principles would be relative to the opinions of those most powerful and able to influence the outcome. This produces the following: (a) relative principles, (b) advantageous to the powerful (read some Nietzsche, Hugo), (c) declared to be “true and objective”. So this obviously is a validation of the Leftward flow of Atheist mentalities (see also amygdala differences in Leftists).

Further, the use of the term, “no one”, is a dead give-away that the reference is to a belief that is being projected as a truth. Can Hugo prove his assertion about what applies to absolutely no individual in the history of the universe? This statement is based on the rejectionism which is inherent in free thought, a rejectionism based in the practice of radical skepticism and the premise of personal dominance of all thought regarding all existence.

Hugo says,

” What I was trying to tell Stan is that we are all people who hold values, who have core principles we are fighting for. This has nothing to do with emotions. And you are correct, it has nothing to do with metaphysical naturalism because it does NOT dicatate anything. Again, you clearly did not know that but to me it's a consequence of my worldview; not a source nor a base.”

Of course Hugo holds values; he creates his own. That's necessary for those who live in a world where all other morality is rejected. No one that Hugo knows is privy to universal moral values. So it is necessary to create one's own. His values clearly are of the nature of determinism, physicalism, and Scientism, and he cannot separate the cause from the effect, because they are interdependent in a circular fashion. Physical universe > determinism > Atheism > physical universe. In a circular argument, which is premise and which is conclusion? It's a slippery, slidey worldview, which is convenient to unconstrained free thought. Free Thought always results in free creation of values, for those who actually want values.

Time constraints: I must stop here.

Superdeterminism

"’t Hooft thinks the notorious randomness of quantum mechanics is just a front. Underneath, the world obeys perfectly sensible rules. In the models he has toyed with, those rules govern building blocks even more fundamental than particles. You’d see them only if you could zoom into the so-called Planck scale, which, according to many modern theories, is the smallest meaningful distance in nature.

One point in favor of such an approach is that far-flung particles can act in a coordinated way, which you wouldn’t expect if they were purely random. Yet the idea of a deeper level is deeply troubled. In the 1960s, Irish physicist John Bell showed that the degree of coordination among particles is too exacting for any deeper level of physics to explain. Bell argued that particles actively need to communicate with one another, which ’t Hooft’s models don’t allow for.

When I first chatted with ’t Hooft for an article eight years ago, he told me he wasn’t sure how to evade Bell’s reasoning. Since then, he has sought to jump through a loophole known as superdeterminism. It’s a weird and downright disturbing idea. Only three other people I know support it, notably Sabine Hossenfelder of the Nordic Institute of Theoretical Physics, who blogged her views last week.

The sober way to put it is that physicists are never able to conduct a fully controlled experiment, since the experimental setup they choose is not strictly independent of the processes that created the particles. Even if the experimentalists (conventionally named Alice and Bob) live on Earth and the particles come from quasars billions of light-years away, they share a common past in the very early universe. Their subtle interdependence creates a selection bias, misleading physicists into thinking that no deeper level of physics could explain the particle coordination, when in fact it could.

The dramatic version is that free will is an illusion. Worse, actually. Even regular determinism—without the “super”—subverts our sense of free will. Through the laws of physics, you can trace every choice you make to the arrangement of matter at the dawn of time. Superdeterminism adds a twist of the knife. Not only is everything you do preordained, the universe reaches into your brain and stops you from doing an experiment that would reveal its true nature. The universe is not just set up in advance. It is set up in advance to fool you. As a conspiracy theory, this leaves Roswell and the Priory of Sion in the dust.

That said, one person’s conspiracy is another’s law of physics. Lots of things in the world seem conspiratorial at first glance, but are the result of well-established principles. The fact the moon spins on its axis at exactly the same rate it orbits Earth (thereby keeping the same face to us, or nearly so) is not the work of a cabal, but of laws such as the conservation of angular momentum. In the opening panel discussion of the conference, ’t Hooft speculated that some new law of physics might harmonize particles’ properties with humans’ measurement choices: “What looks like a conspiracy today may be due to a conservation law we don’t know about today.… It’s incredible until you find it’s mathematical necessity.”

What follows is an abridged transcript of our lunchtime chat.

The rest is here.

The Non-Intentional Life

There are some constants in the Atheist / Naturalist [1] worldview, some givens that resemble absolute truths at least within the limits of their worldview. One of these is that the only valid path to knowledge, at least reliable knowledge of any value, is through the empirical scientific process. For them, knowledge from any other source is suspect or worse. This position leads directly to another level, which is the reverence for the principle of Cause and Effect as a universal truth, and as the basis for science, which, in turn, somehow leads them to Atheism. If there exists no supernatural ontology, then everything that exists is just as we see it in the universe – that is the basis of Naturalism and Atheism. It is a big “if”.

As a consequence of the dependence of Naturalism and Atheism on the universal validity of principle of Cause and Effect, certain corollaries become necessarily true, in order to support that conclusion. That these corollaries are true cannot be in doubt under this thought process, because the conclusion which they support has been declared true, an exercise in rationalization. Some of these corollaries follow.

First, life is not a definable substance, and is not different in any way from the individual components that comprise the thing that is said to live. “There is no essence of life, unless it is [the existence of ] DNA”: Massimo Pigliucci. Life is not exceptional to purely material existence, and is fully defined by material causality.

Next, in humans as in all material substance based constructs there is no exceptionality from other material substances. Cause and effect applies to all substances, including humans. This means that every aspect of human functioning is a material effect which has a material cause.

This in turn means that the human does not exhibit any action that is not pre-determined by a chain of causes that go back to the Big Bang. So there is no human ability to decide anything, because every action is determinate beyond the ability of any self-agency to modify. And self does not exist either, because for one thing, there is no reason for a non-agent to be an independent entity, a self. A rock is not a self any more than the boulder from which it split was a self. Self is not a material substance; it cannot exist under the materialist decree.

So humans are without self, without agency, and without intentionality in their actions. If humans think that they have – or are – these things, then they are harboring an illusion or delusion. (Delusion occurs if one believes an illusion). If you doubt that this is a consequence of Atheism / Naturalism, then read the sources at the end of this article.

The typical Atheist response to this state of non-Agency is that the delusion of self and agency works just fine, and is a fine way to live, believing that we have agency in the face of being saddled with Fully Causal Determinism. Some Atheists and Naturalists even claim that there is a small bubble of non-determinism which is available to us, even though Causal Determinism is a universal principle; this allows us a small degree of agency within the constraints of our environmental and genetic histories.

If these ideas are valid, what would be the consequences? Are our actions fully predetermined and without recourse for modification? Or conversely, do the laws of Cause and Effect stop at some short-field locus that actually allows us to have some very limited agency?

Living Fully Causal and Without Self, Except for Self-Delusion.

How can we be self-deluded if there is no self to delude? To self-delude a self, requires a self, and the idea is therefore non-coherent. So that can’t be.

But maybe we are deluded, not by ourselves which do not exist, but by circumstances. What is it that gets deluded? There is no self; the conscious mind merely gets informed of the predetermined, fully caused actions of the neural electrochemical discharges. If the conscious mind is only a register of what has already happened deterministically, yet the conscious mind thinks that it performed those actions, then the conscious mind is, in fact, delusional. And that is necessarily true of all conscious minds. Every mind is delusional regarding its self and agency. And by necessary extension, all the products of the self and agency.

But then the question of self arises again. Something has happened that causes non-entopic activities to occur in the wake of the activities of human mental faculties. If there is no core being that causes those non-entropic activities for which living things are known, then how are they caused (or are they delusions too)? And can I not think, consciously, in a manner to design, to create, to cause things to happen that could not otherwise happen without an agent’s causal force? And things which would not have happened without intentionality? Is the existence of these agent-caused intentional products not real (because there is no agency)? Exactly how delusional are we? And why would we be expected to share the same delusions with countless others, say when we board a plane or ride an escalator, or engage with communication devices? How are universally common delusions implemented - what is their cause? Is it more parsimonious to consider that we share a common, universal delusion, or that we share a common, universal reality?

Consider the other claims of Atheists and Naturalists, specifically the claim to be rational. If they claim universal delusion on the one hand, how can they claim rationality on the other? If they have no self, if they have no intentionality or agency, if their actions are fully causal with their conscious minds merely informed post hoc, how can they be rational? Even if the neural electrochemical discharge is declared the source of rationality, that also is fully caused, deterministic, and without any agency or intentionality, and moreover, why should a material mass of molecules have any non-deterministic capability, much less rationality and self-hood? The Atheist / Naturalist argument must apply to the neurons as well as to consciousness.

So unless the Atheists / Naturalists can produce an argument that provides an exception to their primary argument which universalizes determinism, an argument for a non-deterministic haven which endows themselves with agency even while surrounded with a fully caused and deterministic universe, then their argument fails. And paradoxically, if they do provide an argument for excepting themselves from determinism in order to allow their own rationality, then universal determinism cannot be a valid principle. Either way, full causal determinism fails.

Moreover, if we are merely deluded into the belief that any non-deterministic agency exists, then the reality that we think we have created is also a delusion. Therefore, if the principle of delusion of agency is valid, then delusion becomes a constant and consistent necessity, a state which we cannot differentiate from actual reality if there is any actual reality. Once again the Atheist / Naturalist claim of rationality cannot be valid if we all are deluded. The argument from delusion prohibits rationality.

Empiricism and the Question of Self, Agency and Delusion
Empiricism is an intentional activity; it is the sole source of valid knowledge according to the proponents of universal determinism, the Atheists and Naturalists. Yet that pairing of concepts self-contradicts. Again, without agency to design and perform the experimental analysis which characterizes empirical activity, there could be no meaningful knowledge product issuing from empirical activity. Once again there must be an exception to the principle of universal determinism in order for meaningful information or knowledge to come out of empirical activity. And once again, the principle of universal determinism cannot be valid if knowledge or meaning exists due to the exceptionalism of agent driven empirical activity. Unless of course, empiricism and its products are delusions. So either determinism does not apply to empiricism, or empiricism and knowledge are delusions. Either way, Atheism and Naturalism fail as rational worldviews, since they require both fully causal determinism AND empirical knowledge both to be valid simultaneously.

Why is delusion a part of the Atheist / Naturalist worldview? What are the rational (or non-rational) logic steps that produce the necessity of delusion?

The conclusion comes first by decree: There can be no non-material existence. The support for this conclusion is winnowed and selected for those items which do not contradict the conclusion.

For example the basic conclusion, full materiality of existence is decreed, not observed. Under the decree, certain things cannot exist, things which would invalidate the decree. So when those certain things are seen to exist after having been denied, they must be declared to be delusions.

This process is both non-rational and non-empirical. It is the product of a belief system, one that specifically denies parts of reality that conflict with the basic tenet of the belief. Any invalidating observations are thus delusions, especially if they cannot be defeated empirically.

So in this sense, both Atheism and Naturalism are religious-types of non-empirical belief systems, which actually deny certain aspects of observable reality as delusions, and which are based on faith in concepts derived by rationalization rather than valid logical processes. The fundamental concept – all existence is material only - is decreed rather than observed and it is not even observable, yet it is declared both true and the basis for what is called a rational worldview.

The belief in Atheism / Naturalism is not based in empiricism or rational analysis, it is based in something else: a desire for it to be true.

[Note 1] I use the term "naturalism" here, despite its confusing meanings. While I prefer "philosophical materialism", naturalism is commonly used in some of the "mind" literature, so I will use it here, too.

Sources For Further Reading:

Pinker, Steven; “How the Mind Works”; 1997, WW Norton & Co.

Schwartz, Jeffrey and Sharon Begley; “The Mind and The Brain”; 2002, Harper.

Clark, Thos; “Encountering Naturalism”; Center For Naturalism, 2007.

Huemer, Michael; “Skepticism and the Veil of Perception”; Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.

Martin, Michael; Atheism, A Philosophical Justification; Temple University Press, 1990.

“The Cambridge Companion to Atheism”; Michael Martin Ed.; Cambridge University Press, 2007.

“British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment”; Stuart Brown, Ed.; Routledge History of Philosophy Volume 5; Routledge, 1996.

Reason & Analysis; Bland Blanshard; Paul Carus Lectures Series 12; 1962; Open Court Publishing.

Massimo Expands

Although a triple PhD, Massimo Pigliucci has always seemed to entrench himself in scientism, a regrettable effect of his relentless materialism and his intellectual burial in evolution. Now, however, he has transferred (professionally) from academic evolutionary science into the academic counter world of philosophy, a move that has seemed to influence a shift in his conclusions. No, he has not changed his worldview axiom of monism, nor his disdain for dualism. But he has opened the door of his mind for non-empirical entities to exist.

His recent post, On the Difference Between Science and Philosophy, shows the degree of emerging openness of that door. In fact, much of his discussion can almost be taken as dualist in the sense that he maintains, now, that science has its basis in philosophical underpinnings that are not empirically testable. To which I must say: (!)

Still, it has not occurred to Massimo that non-empirical testability implies non-physical existence, which in turn implies dualism at the most fundamental level. Or if it has occurred to him, he has suppressed the thought for whatever reason.

In fact in his subsequent post on Free Will, he takes the position that free will seems to exist, but in fact doesn’t. This is due, in part, to the testing of decisions vs. awareness of decisions using electrical testing of the operation of the brain, which claims that decisions are made prior to our awareness of them. Of course this argument is circular: how can we legitimately conclude (decide) that certain effects are attached to certain causes, if we have only the appearance of free will, but are not really free to make rational decisions? And wouldn’t Massimo’s tract merely appear to him to be freely written, and not based on rationally determined decisions forced by consciously chosen intellectual precursor thoughts? Why is the decision being made in the first place? And based on what inputs? And the conclusion is forced by what process? The forcing function for the original decision is clearly not understood - so why use that incomplete finding as an axiom, other than a knee-jerk sort of scientism?

But other than a couple of unwarranted conclusions (e.g. both science and philosophy prove Atheism), Massimo’s “sci-phi” post is a step in the right direction. I do wish that he would have placed the First Principles in the post, along with the axiomatic progression to the scientific method. Because without that intellectual evidence, his assertions are unsupported.

Maybe he will get to that sometime in the future. Perhaps his audience is not ready for such a leap this early in Massimo's new intellectual life.

Evolution Defeats Religion?

Colin Blakemore of the Guardian.co.uk has written the obligatory Darwin article in which he concludes, as the title says "Science is just one gene away from defeating religion". He even disputes that the "why" questions even have any meaning. The "why" questions are the ones that cannot be addressed by science, which works only with "how" questions. What he does not address are the "ought" questions, or a great many other aspects of his Materialist Atheism. His blatant scientism is not in anyway concealed:

"Human beings are supremely social animals. We recognise people and judge their feelings and intentions from their expressions and actions. Our thoughts about ourselves, and the words we use to describe those thoughts, are infused with wishes and wants. We feel that we are the helmsmen of our actions, free to choose, even to sin.

But increasingly, those who study the human brain see our experiences, even of our own intentions, as being an illusory commentary on what our brains have already decided to do.

Perhaps we humans come with a false model of ourselves, which works well as a means of predicting the behaviour of other people - a belief that actions are the result of conscious intentions. Then could the pervasive human belief in supernatural forces and spiritual agents, controlling the physical world, and influencing our moral judgments, be an extension of that false logic, a misconception no more significant than a visual illusion?

I'm dubious about those "why" questions: why are we here? Why do we have a sense of right and wrong? Either they make no sense or they can be recast as the kind of "how" questions that science answers so well.

When we understand how our brains generate religious ideas, and what the Darwinian adaptive value of such brain processes is, what will be left for religion?"

Well, Blake there is more to this than you apparently have conceived. For example, in the recent posting at philosophy news the writer was prescient enough to lay out the fatal issues for materialism:

"Naturalism seems to face some insurmountable problems like the identity problem. If the properties of a first-person experience are metaphysically distinct from the properties of the physical material in which the experience seems to take place, how can they be identical? Do you think naturalism can overcome such challenges?"

For reasons of logic that I post regularly, Philosophical Materialism is a rational dead-end. It is an agenda, not a fact in any sense. For example, the statement above which reads, "When we understand how our brains generate religious ideas..." preassumes that finding neural activity is the same as finding an experience; and if this is the case, then only the neural activity need be identified. The incompleteness of this thought is staggering. If the firing of neurons is identical to an experience, then the experience would be that of neurons firing.

And the self-defeating concept that our own perception of intent is merely illusion practiced upon us by a brain operating independently of our control, reduces immediately to the absurdity: If that is true, then Blake's article is meaningless drivel, produced in an illusion of intent, yet beyond his control or direction. It is this type of contradictory, paradoxical anti-logic that goes into the Philosophical Materialist's war on dualism.

The lack of depth of thought inherent in the recent Darwinasms and journalistic gushings is not too surprising, given that the agenda for these folks is the driving factor, not objective, humble, search for truth regardless of what the truth might be. The agenda is to demolish the "God idea" and to release oneself from the absolutes which attend that concept. The resulting relativist release is refreshing and exhilarating, titillating even... and false. It is rationalization in the pursuit of self-indugence. And scientism ranks high on the scale of self-indulgent thought. It presumes that "why" questions and "ought" questions are just as devoid of meaning as the "how" questions. And that is absolutely necessary for self-indulgent, relativist materialism.

Meanwhile, Blake asks what is left? What is left is personal introspection which is required in order to apprehend and comprehend the universal truths, starting with the First Principles of logic and rational thought. And perhaps the intuition of whether our brains operate beyond the bounds of our own control, or whether we can and do control our own brains. Because if we do not, then the entire universe and the science that describes it is just a huge, commonly experienced delusion.

Bound to happen...

The concept of genetic predispositions is not new. It was highly favored in the early 20th century as eugenists sought to eliminate poverty, crime, and feeblemindedness, by sterilizing those thought to carry the genes that caused those problems. So the problems of man were "in his genes". The race could be improved or at least preserved by not allowing those who carried defective genes to breed. Originally a prophylactic type of birth control, eugenics became a bloody killing field of abortions on demand, and now has advocates of post-natal killing of defectives.

Now the genetic sciences are invading the field of law. According to Rick Weiss in the Washington Post, April 20, '08, genetic predispositions are being used as a defense for aberrent behaviors, with proof of defective genes being the evidence. The defective genes are found using DNA analysis. In a smattering of cases this defense has worked... and in others failed. But it will likely be a feature in court battles to come.

In some lawsuits, large corporations are demanding the DNA testing of individuals who sue claiming health damage. The corporations hope to show that long term health damage incurred due DNA, not due to actions of the company. If DNA shows certain defects, the corporation skates.

In criminal cases, some actions such as agression have been labeled as genetically predisposed, and there are DNA readable genes, such as MAO-A to prove it. The genes become the culprit, and the criminal becomes the victim. Opponents claim that "free will" and justice, as concepts, have both been sacrificed to the concept of genetic determinism.

It had to come. And it has to be addressed. The irresponsibility of "scientific" claims that we humans are here merely to service the evolutionary demands of our genes needs to be brought to rational conclusion.

For example, if it is true that we are slaves to our genes, then the individuals who say such things are merely mindlessly parroting the words of their own genes, words placed in their mouths for the sole advantage of the genes - which would not be a dispassionate source of such information. Such concepts are flawed. For example, the gene for ruthlessness, AVPR1a, would definitely not wish to be locked up for a free will crime committed by the human-slave. AVPR1a would wish to have the human-slave available for future missions. Thus AVPR1a would strongly advocate that the human-slave be exonorated of responsibility for his criminal actions. Ridiculous you say? Well, that's the result of the genetic determinism thought process, not a comic scenario.

Free will will continue to be attacked by the proponents of materialist philosophy, who wish to deflate any and all entities that might threaten their philosophical position. This is done by diminishing the value of the threatening entities in order to make them appear material. So free will becomes genetic determinism: reduced from a metaphysical existence to a purely physical existence.

This will only work within an irrational mental frame, and will ultimately fail to produce empirical results.

But these Philosophical Materialist assaults on rationality should be expected to continue. They should be discounted when they are seen, and fought as necessary.

Science Explains Religion: the Economist.

The current attack on religion by the sciences of economics and anthropology is explored by the Economist in an on-line version, 3-19-08, of an article published in its Economist magazine. As is admitted at the very end of the article, the science is conducted by admitted atheists, and is expected to support their worldviews.

Interestingly, however, the article outlines the recording of many features of "religiosity" that are beneficial rather than harmful. Accordingly, these are attributed by the atheist scientists who interpret the results to aiding in the evolutionary process.

But there is no skepticism of the chosen experts. What is not highlighted is the question of what exactly is science? While science is the aggressor here, it is not questioned as to its empirical validity or intellectual integrity. Anthropology, for example, might never truly recover any semblance of intellectual integrity after the abuses of Margaret Mead, and other "interpreters" of primal societies, who actually inject their own social proclivities into the analysis. Moreover there is no practice of any empirical rigor involved in such studies; they are at best anecdotal. And at worst, blatantly false.

Economics as a science? Check your 401k.

And the use of brain probes to "comprehend" religiosity in the brain? There is no mention of brain plasticity here, as if probing a spot of activity proves everything. Such science writing is 20 years behind real science.

But even so, the actual finding of the probing is that religiosity spans the (rational) frontal cortex and many areas of the brain, but not the limbic (emotional) portion:

"Dr Azari was expecting to see activity in the limbic systems of the Christians when they recited the psalm. Previous research had suggested that this part of the brain (which regulates emotion) is an important centre of religious activity. In fact what happened was increased activity in three areas of the frontal and parietal cortex, some of which are better known for their involvement in rational thought. The control group did not show activity in these parts of their brains when listening to the psalm. And, intriguingly, the only thing that triggered limbic activity in either group was reading the happy story. "

From this it could well be interpreted that religious activity is rational, while secular activity is not!

But there are always the disclaimers:

"Dr Azari, however, is sceptical that such work will say much about religion's evolution and function. For this, other methods are needed."

So the last scientific resort here is to ethnology and psychology. These are expected to find the underlying cause of religiosity. But the question not asked: Are these considered science? In the same fashion as Physics and Chemistry? The empirical study of humans is not in the same category as the empirical study of particles. Reactions of humans to a given stimulus are not consistent, even within the same individual at different times. There are general types of behavior that can be categorized, but the human never behaves in a deterministic fashion. Not every human action meets with an equal and opposite reaction. If science requires determinism and verifiable repeatability, then psychology, ethnology and anthropology do not qualify.

Then why are these fields awarded such respect in articles such as this? Is it because the magazine itself is antireligious? This article tends to defend the value of religion while lionizing the science that attacks it. Is it looking toward the conclusion that religion is here because it is valuable as a tool for social evolution?

I think this is the only possible explanation for an article of this weakened logic. Science does not "Explain Religion" as the title projects. And the weak-kneed pursuits that are documented are not even empirically valid sciences. The article is a thinly veiled exposition of a desired worldview: evolution as the explanation of everything, and religion as a human construct to benefit the weak. As with all atheist materialist worldviews, it doesn't wash.

Cheating?

Busted. Scott nabbed me when I was acting against my own principles. The apparent humor in the idea of male ants cheating seduced me, and I failed to check out the actual evidence.

The idea of cheating ants came from the scientists themselves, who call out cheating as a mechanism or at least its effect at least five times in the abstract alone. Now cheating is not determinate function, it is a moral discrepancy. It requires a decision being made to enhance one's own existence by purposely declining to follow a set of rules or expectations, at the expense of someone else. Now if ants are deterministic, they do not make such decisions, and in fact cannot.

If ants are behaving per the genetic instructions, they are not cheating. They do not have the independent agency to decide against following their genetic instuctions and instead decide to follow a different path in order to enhance their genetic pass-through. There is no such thing as cheating in a deterministic world.

So why did the abstract emphasize cheating? Could it be that they don't understand the difference? Could it be that the use of the (unexpected and inappropriate) term might bring attention to them that the otherwise dull work would not command? It succeeded with MSNBC, who was suckered into misinterpreting the cheating involved.

So who is actually cheating here? Apparently it is NOT the ants.

Some say you can't be cheated unless you allow yourself to be. I let down my guard here. I'll try not to in the future.

Oh Man, Not the Ants, too!

Long thought to be among the most deterministic of animals, Ants have now been found to display infidelity...cheating. According to researchers Hughes and Boomsa, some male ant's genes are more dominant and are found in neighboring populations of ants as well as at home with momma. Hughes claims that if that were found out amongst the general male ant population, the equivalent of an ant revolt would break out against the philandering ants. So the cheaters do it on the QT, sneaking out the back way as it were. Sounds like non-determinism to me.

So what we always knew, is now wrong.

Full story is at the 3/10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Why Ethics?

First cousin to the question of determinism is the question of free will, followed by ethics. We have already established that nondeterminism exists. This means that the ability to exercise discernment in the making of decisions, exists. And of course that is also the definition of free will.

But does it follow that ethics, presumably a man-made concept, actually exists? What is it?

"The field of ethics, also called moral philosophy, involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/ethics.htm

Now "recommending" concepts of right and wrong behavior presumes that there exists no absolute moral law. This demands an Atheistic mindset. So from the outset there will be non-objectivity to deal with. This very issue renders the pursuit of ethics useless but not harmless. "Ethics" will always and forever be defined by moral skeptics and religious rejectionists; it cannot therefore ever be considered unbiased or objective or taken outside of a worldview with both social and political overtones.

Because of these obvious necessary biases, ethics is a flawed concept. It cannot be considered anything less than socio-political commentary from religious apostates with agendas toward utopianism. A sure test of this is the concept of "good". Objectively "good" is not a benchmark of behavior; "good" is a measurement of fit, as in a "good fit" for a particular function. This is not moral essence. However, a typical ethical "good" is the "good for mankind" concept, which usually boils down to "happiness".

Now happiness is not a guaranteed outcome of any human pursuit, yet it is ethically demanded as a "moral" essential. In fact happiness, if it is ever achieved is transitory and quickly evaporates. Why? Because dissatisfaction inevitably replaces happiness. It is part of the human condition. Why should happiness be a moral value?

There is a clue in the history of humanism. A stated goal of humanism is to achieve happiness for the human race, for the masses; this requires that the individual relinquish his moral right to happiness in order to serve the happiness of the masses. This is utopia, and humanists are utopians. Moreover their vision of utopia is indiscernable from totalitarianism, as practiced by the infamous humanists from the 1789 French Revolution to the 20th century furnaces and gulags, both fascist/socialist and communist/socialist. Under these utopias, the stated goal of mass happiness degraded into mass servility to the state, aka totalitarianism, ultimately unencumbered by either ethics or morals. And so it goes with human derived ethics: it is designed by elitists to utopianize totalitarianism. It can be no other way, because there are no absolutes to run up against, no external checks and balances. Ethics is just the tool to get it past the starting blocks.

Ethics proves to be the competitor for the governing of bodies as well as behavior. And it is amoral, by definition. It is immoral in practice.

Nondeterminism Determined: Automaton or Autonomous?

I've been spending an inordinate amount of time over at Scott's blog lately, because that is where most of the conversation is taking place. The "conversation" is an attempt to find a mutually agreeable rational path between materialism and suernaturalism. We are currently in the grip of determinism, and whether it can be considered a lock-down on reality. So here are some challenges that determinism must face, if it is the only truth and materialism is the only reality.

A contributor, "beelzebub" as he self-appellates, has joined the fray and makes the claim that there are nondeterministic state machines. His point is that nondeterminism can always be reduced to determinism. My response to him follows his comment:

[Beelz] said,
"In fact regular expressions are usually conceived nondeterministically and then converted to deterministic machines."

[My response]:
How would regular expressions be determined deterministically?

Conversion to determinism is not a particularly convincing argument. Conversion from determinism to nondeterminism, coupled with empirical verification, repeatability, and falsifiability coupled with empirical non-falsification would be compelling.

Do you have examples of this?

February 28, 2008 7:01 AM

The conversion from nondeterminism to determinism is a no-brainer. Every human-designed object is an example of this, and especially so in the realm of computing electronics. It might even be considered an entropic event. Machines commonly make other machines these days. But machines do not, in and of themselves, invent machines.

But is there a case, even one, where a deterministic device converted itself to a nondeterministic device? Or has any deterministic "thing" (i.e. an instruction processor) converted itself into a nondeterministic, discerning, decision-maker; automaton to autonomous?

The promise of nondeterministic machines fails the test of "becoming". It is not possible for a deterministic being to confer nondeterminism on another entity. Call it entropy, call it law of sufficient cause, call it Fred; it does not happen any where in nature.(*)

Let's get one thing straight. Determinism means that the entity which is deterministic can do only what it is made to do, through instructions from somewhere else. It cannot, by definition, create its own instruction set. It has no volition. It has no free will. It is locked onto behaviors that it does not and cannot control. Totally locked; completely locked. If any proponent of determinism tries to deny this, then the discussion devolves into deceptive word-play, and is not worth pursuing from that point forward.

Since the deterministic entity is merely an instruction processor, processing instructions not derived by itself, then is it likely to produce a nondeterministic output? Or invent a nondeterministic entity? If there is thought to be a likelihood, then the empirical data must be presented to prove it. And can it be falsified? No, it cannot because it is not possible to prove the negative of this proposition. So the proposition is not empirical, it is metaphysical, and since it is claimed as a proposition of materialism, then it is FALSE.

Now if partial nondeterminism is ruled out, and it is, and if the conversion upward from determinism to nondeterminism is ruled out, and it is, then where does nondeterminism come from?

Exactly. This is the point where it becomes necessary for the materialist to deny that nondeterminism exists at all... and that becomes the final downfall.

Because if an automaton declares that autonomy does not exist, where is the credibility for such a statement. After all, an automaton cannot be expected to make its own discerning decisions; it is programmed to respond only in a pre-established manner, without reflection, without any hint of meaning, just an intellectually blind response. This is the complete disconnect for the theory that nondeterminism doesn't exist. The proponent of determinism makes the proposition using the hidden presupposition that he, himself, is nondeterministic, and is quite able to use discernment to make nondeterministic decisions... one of which is that nondeterminism doesn't exist. This is a classical self-referential self-denying paradox. For the determinist amongst us, a paradox is logical death to the proposition that exhibits it. The denial of nondeterminism is FALSE; moreover, nondeterminism is shown to exist by virtue of the denial itself, which could not have occured if the proponent were actually deterministic.

By now we have ascertained that nondeterminism cannot derive from determinism, and that nondeterminism does, in fact, exist. So on to the final question:

What is the source of nondeterminism?

Now it is your turn.

(*)The claim that nondeterminism "evolved" as the need for autonomy demanded its existence, is so hollow that it rings. There is no proof, empirical or otherwise that this occured. The claim cannot falsified for the same reason that it cannot be empirically proven: it is a Just So Story Fallacy; therefore, the claim is metaphysical by definition, and fictional by inspection. It is FALSE.