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Cogito ergo sum

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Can Atheism Account For Rationality

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  • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
    I guess I'm still struggling with "logic is a human construct." The implication of accepting that statement at face value seems to be that we can simply decide, at some point, that the Law of Identity is suspended, which seems to me to be somewhat irrational. Yes, humans (or more generally "sentient beings") are the ones who symbolically represent the principles on which the universe operates. I 100% agree with that. And our representation, if it doesn't accurately capture the reality it represents, can break down. Or it can be misapplied. If that is what you are saying, then we are in agreement.
    Yeah, Logic as a "language" of reason is man-made, but the principals it uses are not. They are discovered, like math. Algebra is a man-made "language" of mathematics, but the principals and numbers are self existing, part of the reality. We may not know all of the principals fully or correctly but that doesn't change reality.

    Little Monkey's "this statement is false" doesn't disprove the law of the excluded middle. How is it false? As a sentence it is grammatically correct. Therefore it is truly a statement. It just happens to be stating it is false. It truly states it is false, so the statement is true in that regard. It is not a false statement. It is merely a true statement that is stating a lie.
    Last edited by Sparko; 06-25-2019, 08:24 AM.

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    • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
      Your language is odd to me. We are rational beings because we are sentient and have the ability to reason using the basic principles of logic. We may or may not actually engage that reasoning correctly for a variety of psychological and even physical reasons. I don't experience "rationality" making demands on me. Indeed, it can't "make demands" at all. "Rational" is an adjective. "Rationality" is a noun, but not a thing that has its own existence - something else has to be "rational." So all of this is a bit odd to me.
      One aspect of our way of making sense of the world is reason. It is pure reason because we know that this faculty is a priori, i.e., independent of senses. We know this because, according to Kant, we can deduce it from the possibility of experience - where that faculty must already be active for us to be sentient (the unity of apperception) and have that ability to understand the world conceptually and reason. We can make mistakes in reasoning about things, when we try to make high-order sense of empirical concepts - through science. When it comes to deploying concepts, like 'chair', we are prevented from making mistakes by intersubjective agreement about what intuition, empirical phenomenon, is and is not a chair.

      By making a demand on us, I mean that to meet our own rational criteria, our background commitment to ordering the world rationally that flows from a priori ideas, we need to act in a certain way. Not doing so looks wrong in light of that standard.

      Take heed that The Critique of Pure Reason is a 700 page book judged to be one of the most difficult in philosophy - so, I am skipping around a bit.

      Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
      So what does this philosophy tell you?
      I'm not sure what you mean.

      Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
      So I guess I am officially lost. We have a rational nature - but our nature does not "impose a duty." It is simply our nature. It describes what we are like, what our characteristics are. Your philosophy sounds like the Christian notion that people have a duty to follow the purpose of the creator. I don't believe in a creator being, and don't share this sense of "duty."
      For Kant, being rational beings with a rational will, here as practical reason, means that we ought to act in a certain way - we must treat other rational beings in the same way we would treat ourselves because they are also rational. He sums this up as the categorical imperative, the third form of which basically states: "the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating will."

      That categorical imperative is simply a reflection of our rational will, which can always make a demand on us to act in accordance with its harmony with other rational wills. We are however, also human animals - which have their own interests, interests which clash with the impepative above. Humans however, are not necessarily determined according to a universal determinism in Kant. This is because determinism is epistemic not metaphsically understood. The categories force the world to appear determined to us, however, that is merely how we must think the world, it is not necessarily how the world is. Since the rational mind is part of that world, it is possible to act according to ones duty, always.

      Kant does hope for a God. However, that is merely a rational hope - which he also believes we ought to hold for some complicated argument I won't get into. Kant is very much of the opinion that as a fact of knowledge God is an empty transcendent category - and that we cannot know if God exists. With a similar determination for the soul.

      Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
      Beyond that observation, I think I have officially lost track of what this discussion is about. Do you want to start over and articulate your position from its very beginning?
      I don't know either - this is where we are.
      Last edited by Zara; 06-25-2019, 08:48 AM.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
        Well, genetics dictates how my body is constructed, so it certainly sets some constraints. But then there is the entire experience of mind, and there is experience - there is the "software" that rides on the hardware determined by genetics.
        If materialism is true the "mind" is just the brain. If there is a mind our thoughts are merely epiphenomenonal with no causal effect on the process. And all that is just as determined as any physical process.

        https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/



        It depends on whether or not determinism is the correct model. I don't experience as such, and science provides us several examples of places where determinism seems to break down, at least at the quantum level. And we have the phenomenon of emergent properties, which we are only just now beginning to explore. So, basically, you're making a lot of assumptions we don't know to be true.
        We are not really arguing whether determinism is true or not, I'm arguing that if it is, we are not rational in any classic sense of the word.

        Yes, a calculator is a simple device that operates on Boolean logic gates. Barring a malfunction, it follows the laws of mathematics. I'm not sure what point you think you've made.
        Is a calculator that is badly programmed and gets consistently wrong answers rational? Of course not.


        Yes - finite beings can be wrong, and can not know they are wrong. You have the same problem, Seer. As soon as knowledge and thought and rationality can be imperfect, certainty becomes impossible - both in your worldview and mine.
        No Carp, we are speaking of free will or determinism. If we are free to rationally judge and make choices we can self-correct. I don't see how self-correction is possible in determinism. What would that even look like, how does the bad calculator self-correct? How could it possibly know it was in error?


        So you are making an assumption - that determinism is true and is true because causality is an unbroken chain. Good luck showing that to be true.
        That is the argument Carp, determinism vs free will. And determinism is where science is going. But if you know how that causal chain could be broken feel free to tell us.

        And, BTW, the theistic worldview falls apart under Plantinga's argument as well.
        How so?
        Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

        Comment


        • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
          You did notice the "might be" in that article, right? And its speculative nature?
          It is more than speculative if you follow up on the studies. They have actual evidence.
          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

          Comment


          • Originally posted by seer View Post
            It is more than speculative if you follow up on the studies. They have actual evidence.
            Actual evidence does not necessarily conclude anything as absolutely true.

            If this was even marginally true you would accept the science of evolution.
            Last edited by shunyadragon; 06-25-2019, 09:09 AM.
            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

            go with the flow the river knows . . .

            Frank

            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Zara View Post
              Kant does hope for a God. However, that is merely a rational hope - which he also believes we ought to hold for some complicated argument I won't get into. Kant is very much of the opinion that as a fact of knowledge God is an empty transcendent category - and that we cannot know if God exists. With a similar determination for the soul.
              If I remember correctly, didn't he make a moral argument for the existence of God and that if God did not exist, morality (our morality), would be irrational?
              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

              Comment


              • Originally posted by seer View Post
                If I remember correctly, didn't he make a moral argument for the existence of God and that if God did not exist, morality (our morality), would be irrational?
                Immanual Kant is more than a little old.
                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                Frank

                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                  Actual evidence does not necessarily conclude anything as absolutely true.

                  If this was even marginally true you would accept the science of evolution.
                  Where did I ever deny evolution Shuny? And as far as I know there are no studies showing the possibility of free will.
                  Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                    Immanual Kant is more than a little old.
                    So is Euclid, so what? I mean you take Moses as a prophet of God...
                    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by seer View Post
                      Where did I ever deny evolution Shuny? And as far as I know there are no studies showing the possibility of free will.
                      There are no studies show that free will exists or not.
                      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                      go with the flow the river knows . . .

                      Frank

                      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                        There are no studies show that free will exists or not.
                        No Shuny there are studies showing the we make decisions before we are ever aware of them. NO conscious choice.

                        https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs...56797616641943
                        Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Zara View Post
                          One aspect of our way of making sense of the world is reason. It is pure reason because we know that this faculty is a priori, i.e., independent of senses. We know this because, according to Kant, we can deduce it from the possibility of experience - where that faculty must already be active for us to be sentient (the unity of apperception) and have that ability to understand the world conceptually and reason. We can make mistakes in reasoning about things, when we try to make high-order sense of empirical concepts - through science. When it comes to deploying concepts, like 'chair', we are prevented from making mistakes by intersubjective agreement about what intuition, empirical phenomenon, is and is not a chair.

                          By making a demand on us, I mean that to meet our own rational criteria, our background commitment to ordering the world rationally that flows from a priori ideas, we need to act in a certain way. Not doing so looks wrong in light of that standard.

                          Take heed that The Critique of Pure Reason is a 700 page book judged to be one of the most difficult in philosophy - so, I am skipping around a bit.
                          It doesn't help that my "Kant brain cells" are ancient and dusty. I remember not being particularly fond of his philosophy, but I am not sure I could articulate why 30+ years later. The description you provide of "pure reason" rings a few bells, and I find it very simplistic, so maybe that was my original objection. I don't think reason "precedes" experience. I think they are more inter-related and the relationship is more complex than that model would allow.

                          Originally posted by Zara View Post
                          I'm not sure what you mean.
                          You quoted, "concepts without intuitions are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." I'm trying to figure out why this particular quote is relevant in this discussion - how it informs you.

                          Originally posted by Zara View Post
                          For Kant, being rational beings with a rational will, here as practical reason, means that we ought to act in a certain way - we must treat other rational beings in the same way we would treat ourselves because they are also rational. He sums this up as the categorical imperative, the third form of which basically states: "the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating will."

                          That categorical imperative is simply a reflection of our rational will, which can always make a demand on us to act in accordance with its harmony with other rational wills. We are however, also human animals - which have their own interests, interests which clash with the impepative above. Humans however, are not necessarily determined according to a universal determinism in Kant. This is because determinism is epistemic not metaphsically understood. The categories force the world to appear determined to us, however, that is merely how we must think the world, it is not necessarily how the world is. Since the rational mind is part of that world, it is possible to act according to ones duty, always.
                          I has never fond of Kant's "categorical imperative" or philosophy of "duty." At the time, it was largely because I felt it conflicted with my god-centered view of duty, morality, and imperatives. Now, it's largely because I don't think duty arises from what Kant seems to think it arises from. I think duty is about a social contract. For the individual, I don't think the notion of "duty" applies. I have a particular nature. That nature informs me about what I can and cannot do. It does not impose a duty on me to do any particular thing.

                          Originally posted by Zara View Post
                          Kant does hope for a God. However, that is merely a rational hope - which he also believes we ought to hold for some complicated argument I won't get into. Kant is very much of the opinion that as a fact of knowledge God is an empty transcendent category - and that we cannot know if God exists. With a similar determination for the soul.
                          On that I would generally agree.

                          Originally posted by Zara View Post
                          I don't know either - this is where we are.
                          OK
                          The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                          I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by seer View Post
                            If materialism is true the "mind" is just the brain. If there is a mind our thoughts are merely epiphenomenonal with no causal effect on the process. And all that is just as determined as any physical process.

                            https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/
                            Again - brain is the hardware. Mind is more akin to software. And a very sophisticated software that can essentially write itself AND create changes in the hardware. The relationship between the two is still something of a mystery. We know that "mind" appears to emerge as a function of complexity. We know "mind" can be significantly impacted by changes in "brain." We don't know much beyond that. The rest is still a wide open frontier of study - with many ideas and opinions in play.

                            Originally posted by seer View Post
                            We are not really arguing whether determinism is true or not, I'm arguing that if it is, we are not rational in any classic sense of the word.
                            And I find you adding meaning to "rational" that is not found in the conventional definition. Again - why you feel to redefine (or add to the definition of the) term is not clear. But you are clearly adjusting the meaning to the term to suit your purposes.

                            Originally posted by seer View Post
                            Is a calculator that is badly programmed and gets consistently wrong answers rational? Of course not.
                            I would agree - no.

                            Originally posted by seer View Post
                            No Carp, we are speaking of free will or determinism. If we are free to rationally judge and make choices we can self-correct. I don't see how self-correction is possible in determinism. What would that even look like, how does the bad calculator self-correct? How could it possibly know it was in error?
                            And you would still require an external standard against which to self-correct, and you would still have the possibility of error that you cannot eliminate with no way to "self-correct" if your very nature is badly wired. You have no more assurance of "accuracy" than anything or anyone else. The ability to change the course freely or not is irrelevant to the assessment of reliability.

                            Originally posted by seer View Post
                            That is the argument Carp, determinism vs free will. And determinism is where science is going. But if you know how that causal chain could be broken feel free to tell us.
                            "Where the science is going" is a leap. You've quoted one speculative article, and somehow turned it into an entire scientific trend. I look at the literature and find a great deal of variation and a lot of "we don't know." IF the entire universe is strictly determined, and the experience of "free will" is an illusion, then you are correct that nothing can deviate from the causal chain and everything that will happened has already been determined based on pre-existing actions. In which case, we are simply experiencing an illusion of free will. IF that is reality - then that is reality. Wishing it to be different won't make it different.

                            But you have no basis for claiming that naturalism inevitably leads to determinism. You are simply leaping to that assumption, for reasons known only to you.

                            Originally posted by seer View Post
                            How so?
                            Already outlined. PLantinga's argument is rooted in the "low reliability" implied by Naturalism + Evolution: P ( R | N+E) = low is his starting point. The basic argument is that naturalism and evolution lead to selection for "survival" not "truth" - so there is little/no way to know that what we believe to be true is actually true - only that it helps us survive. We could believe 2+2=4 not because it actually does, but because it improves survivability if we believe that. But, as I noted, the theist cannot escape this trap either. After all, if you are a created being by an all-power supreme force, yo could have been created specifically to believe this being is "good" and "2+2=4" for whatever reason this being might have. There is no guaranty of truth - just a guaranty that you will operate/act/believe as this supreme being believes you should.

                            I find both arguments specious, BTW.
                            The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                            I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by seer View Post
                              It is more than speculative if you follow up on the studies. They have actual evidence.
                              Yes - they have done tests and provided evidence - and provided one interpretation of that evidence. All of this is in its earliest days. You seem to be investing this article and study with an enormous amount of weight. Is there any possibility you have latched on to his so strongly because it is affirming your pre-existing worldview?

                              The fact is, very little is truly understood about the relationship between mind and brain. We know there is a relationship - but we are very early in our understanding of what it is and how it works.
                              The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                              I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                                Immanual Kant is more than a little old.
                                Was....

                                As with Frederick Douglass - he is no longer with us.
                                The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                                I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                                Comment

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