What? In what way do you apply Occam's razor to the evidence that does not seek out an explanation of the evidence?
Occam's razor can be only applied to a theory, not the evidence. We are talking about theories' validity, not evidence.
Wrong. The observer genuinely influences the outcome based on what the observer chooses to measure. We cannot know for certain a particles position and momentum at the same instant. By choosing to measure the position precisely, we force more uncertainty in the momentum, and visa versa.
No. The observer _WOULD_ influence the outcome if he observed it. However in the absence of observers things still behave in a way that observable and unobservable can't be even assumed to exist at the same time. If we claim that unobservable things actually do not exist, we end up with minimalistic theory that matches the evidence. Otherwise we end up guessing what unobservable things "really" are.
I would like to challenge this statement. Please point out my emotional outburst in my comment in question.
Soviet Union-related "argument", various extensions to "what is moral" arguments, various mentioning "how can you deny"..., appeal to "authority" of scientists and politicians, etc.
It seems to me that you assume anyone who is religious bases their opinions on emotion and not logic.
Logic is a tool, and it is as good as the assumptions it's based on. Religious people's assumptions are based on their emotional attachment to religious dogmas, and on that base all logic in the world can't produce anything other than more religious text.
On the other hand, I can only interpret your arguments against religion as emotionally driven because I cannot identify more than a shred of logic in them. You spout ideas that are shallow and unfounded and discuss topics with authority of which you only have a peripheral knowledge.
My logic is consistent, my assumptions that I make simply do not agree with yours ones. I challenge your arguments not based on their internal inconsistencies but on their applicability (ex: you defining "mechanical" and "materialist" point of view as it suits you, turning them into circular argument and a strawman) and being reasonable (ex: Occam's razor).
I would not consider "not necessarily" and the "not automatically" to be strong commitments to your point of view. You are backpedaling.
Don't cry victory where there is none, and don't attribute to me a strawman's point of view. I do not claim that politicians don't know philosophy, I merely claim that they really, really suck as philosophers.
Not one in the same, but very much related. You have a way of twisting my words to squirm your way out of a pin.
Just as much related as, say, the electric conductivity of lead and the act of murder -- both may have something to do with bullets.
What are you talking about? I conceded that my belief could not be proven before you accused me of a circular argument. Stop accusing me of things I didn't do.
Then why is it there? To claim your moral superiority?
Irrelevant? According to a materialist, every outcome of the "self-awareness" is driven by the nature of those particles.
"Materialist point of view" contains nothing of the sort. This is strawman.
Otherwise you would be suggesting that our consciousness is not subject to the laws of physics.
Consciousness itself is not a subject of the laws of physics, only objects that contain it are. Big difference.
I don't believe it. What exactly are your criteria for where you live that are not at all based on the beliefs, traditions and policies of where you live?
My abilities to lead a productive life at that location for the benefit of the advancement of humanity as a whole, of course. The society's and government's flaws and advantages to not necessarily directly translate to this as flaws and advantages, history is full of examples where people who lived in deeply flawed societies made great contribution to art, science and other historically meaningful activities.
Uh huh, sure. But it doesn't have anything to do with the ideology of the people, right? After all, you seem to believe the peoples' philosophies and values do not make an impact on the success or prosperity of their society. What makes a society successful then? Blind luck?
At the extent of 30-minutes newscast -- ideology of a journalist and a person who hired him. At the scale of 50-100 years (USSR, post-WWII US) -- mostly luck. At the extent of centuries and millennia -- society's capacity of self-improvement.
Religion is not above morality; it is a study of morality. I can only interpret your statements in that you have very ignorant, hateful, and juvenile view of religion.
Acceptance of an authority is not a study.
Agreed. This is what religion is all about. Why would an atheist make a moral choice that does not in any way benefit them?
Because he wants to. Any moral person would.
You are changing your story. At first you said religious people can do what ever they want because they will always get saved in the end. Now you are claiming that they need to be moral in order to get the "carrot".
I have never said that those sticks and carrots actually work well.
Which one is your honest misconception of religion? Your arguments are contradictory. You are simply spouting any anti-religious rhetoric you can think of.
I merely talk about the basic premises of religious teaching when stripped from various decorations.
You can say that about any culture.
You have called a country virtuous, not me.
Relatively speaking, the US has been the leader in freedom and civil liberty for the past few centuries.
Only Americans think that.
Do you not believe freedom and liberty are virtuous?
As the concept and a goal -- yes. US is nowhere close to achieving them at the extent that it can claim to be virtuous.
I am curious what developments in art and science you are talking about.
In any case, the founders of this country did not introduce slavery. Slavery was prevalent in all modern cultures during that time.
If "that time" was ten centuries ago I would agree. By the time when US was formed slavery was not a part of world's accepted practices anymore.
Slavery and anti-civil liberties were not part of their revolutionary change. Instead, the revolt against slavery and anti-civil liberties was a revolt against a tradition that had been around for thousands of years.
So?.
When I was younger, I was an agnostic. Several years ago I started reading philosophy and made the following observations:
- Atheistic philosophers were generally malevolent and aggressive (such as Nietzsche and Marx)
- Theistic philosophers were generally thoughtful and rational (such as Pascal, Kant, and Descartes)
I have since came to my own conclusions that a society must be spiritual in order to be healthy.
What kind of argument is that? Appeal to authority, combined with an ad-hominem attack?
You should really become more informed on quantum theory. You are confusing the evidence (quantum mechanics) with the interpretation (copenhagen, many-worlds, pilot wave, etc.). Physical evidence is meaningless from a philosophical perspective unless you interpret it. You seem completely unaware of different interpretations of quantum mechanics and their significance.
I am talking about the application of Occam's razor to theory and evidenvce, not merely the possibility to explain the evidence.
You understand that in quantum theory, the observation influences the outcome of the experiment, right?
The influence on the outcome is used merely a concept in a thought experiment -- its significance is in causing the impossibility to observe something, not in actual influence on the experiment, that is without an attempt to observe is nonexistent.
am going to lose interest in this debate quickly if this is the best feedback you can give me.
I already have very little interest in this debate as long as it is littered with your emotional outbursts.
Are you suggesting that politics and philosophy are unrelated? That ideas do not influence political motivations?
I claim that politicians are not necessarily good philosophers, and that politicians' desisions do not automatically validate all philosophical doctrines and beliefs that those politicians supported.
This is an absurd stance you are taking. It lacks common sense.
Only if "common sense" is to consider philosophy and politics to be one and the same.
If this is a commonly accepted definition, you should be able to provide me with a reference. The motion of material bodies is just part of it. It is really concerned with the forces and interactions between those bodies.
Interactions between bodies are not specific to mechanics, and force is a concept that is defined in mechanics. Of course, it still has nothing to do with this argument.
What am I trying to prove that would be a circular argument? You are correct in stating by belief that there exists some aspect of reality that is not mechanical and cannot be explained by science. If you recall, I stated my beliefs could not be proven, so I would not try. Please try to keep up.
You have made your own definition of "mechanical" based on your belief, and then used it to "prove" this belief. This is why your argument is circular -- your definitions already contain your desired outcome.
In a materialist view, self-awareness is simply experiencing particles bouncing around in your head. However, the dynamics of those particles would be controlled by laws of physics. How can someone be held accountable for the laws of physics?
The self-awareness is a property of the structure that those particles reflect -- the nature of the particles is irrelevant, just like "text" may be the property of the arrangement of ink on paper, that has nothing to do with actual ink or paper.
Where do you live now? If you live in the US, why not go back to the former USSR? Wouldn't you prefer a secular society to a religious one?
I do not choose my location to express the approval or disapproval of various beliefs and tradition of societies and policies of governments.
Oh right. It is all propaganda.
Of course, it was. What do you think, was the whole Cold War about?
The Soviet Union was really a paradise.
It sucked approximately as much as US at the time.
Like I said, if it is not that bad over there, why not return?
Because it sucks more now, and because I am a programmer, so I have nothing to do in a country with infrastructure destroyed by misguided "free market" proponents.
This is a ridiculous perception of religion. You seem to think that if a person is religious, they have lost all interest in a moral, prosperous society.
No, I just think, a religious person has religion placed above any other possible source of ethical norms or morals. And I have no idea how is all that related to prosperity -- prosperity is neither religious nor moral concept.
You seem to have missed my point. You are claiming that a religious person can act immoral without worrying about an eternal consequence--either way they are going to heaven. How is this different from an atheist? They can act immoral without worrying about an eternal consequence--either way they are maggot food. Your argument is illogical. According to your premise, neither the theist nor the atheist has a reason to act moral or immoral--the eternal consequence is the same either way
Consequence to the person is not the only consequence of the person's actions. Indeed I do not expect the fear/expectation of consequences to himself to be a base of a moral decision -- one can not make a moral choice unless he is considering the consequences of his action beyond his person. I also have no idea where "eternal" part came from -- atheists do not believe that any part of them is eternal, but they are quite sure that the universe will likely to exist even after they will be dead. A person that only considers what will help or hurt him is not moral even if he can be coerced into doing something positive by a fear of divine retribution and expectation of rewards from god, and even that does not work if the religion gives an easy cop-out through a simple mental self-conditioning procedure. A truly moral person may need guidance, but certainly has no use for sticks and carrots held by a supernatural being.
No, I wouldn't expect that you do. You do not seem to have any appreciation for the revolutionary ideas they had, and for the virtuous country they created.
I merely recognize the limitations of both. Their ideas were revolutionary compared to British Empire's idea of having the whole continents as colonies, however it was nothing outstanding in the context of the millennia of human history before them and centuries after. And the country that they have created is mostly filled with things other than virtue -- in fact everything even remotely good that happened here (from abolition of slavery to various developments in art and science) was the result of long and painful struggle of various groups of people against the establishment, same establishment that seen itself as the rightful heir of everything the founders of this country did, and same establishment that accepted the fruits of that struggle as great parts of american history later. True secularization of the political life and the society as a whole will be one of those things.
I agree. Mathematics is a language used to describe nature. However, this begs the question, how is it that mathematics can consistently describe nature?
Any sufficiently developed language has this property.
This goes back to my original point that nature is mechanical. Because it is mechanical, we can use math to describe it. I find it ironic that you used quantum mechanics as an illustration of the narrowness of my notion that nature is "mechanical".
This is pointless -- you are arguing about terminology, and not just any terminology but one that you are defining by yourself to suit your argument.
Once again you are talking about a specific interpretation of quantum. You are apparently not even aware of any hidden variable interpretations. The most well known is David Bohm's pilot wave interpretation (also known as Bohmian Mechanics).
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/
Many theoretical physicists do not take the interpretation seriously, but it is a well-known theory. Ironically, John Bell (of Bells Theorem) was actually an enthusiastic supporter.
Occam's razor. There is an infinite number of possible theories that describe same things as quantum mechanics does, but only one has minimal amount of assumptions -- what happens to be quantum mechanics. So unless there is something that contradicts quantum mechanics and complies with "alternative" theory, there is no point in even considering it.
The rest of your message seems geared around the Copenhagen interpretation, although that is not even the most commonly accepted interpretation among theoretical physicists and cosmologists (the most commonly accepted interpretation among this group is the "many worlds" interpretation).
Completely unrelated things.
am well aware of the double-slit experiment. You do not need to waste time describing well known quantum experiments.
I am explaining a theory using experiment as an example. You seem to be under some delusion that all explanations are created equal, so you simply give whatever is convenient for you. This does not change the fact that almost all possible explanations are complete bullshit, and the goal of science is to find one that isn't, not to produce more bullshit and claim that it might be true.
I am curious of how you can not be religious and still believe in the Copenhagen interpretation? The implication is that there is something about our consciousness as an observer that affects the outcome of a quantum event. It seems to imply that consciousness is not derived from matter and energy, but rather matter and energy is derived from consciousness. In this sense, the material world is born of, or derived from the mind (or spiritual world).
Observer does not have to have consciousness, and does not have to be present -- theory deals with possibility of observation of things that do or don't exist. Of course, religious person will see god everywhere, but this is not my problem.
If you expect religion to provide you with scientific knowledge, it is no wonder you are not religious. There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Religion is a study in wisdom, just as biology is a study in knowledge. The notion that science and religion are incompatible is bogus. Asking for material proof of something immaterial is asking for the impossible.
This is a lot of emotionally-charged words with no content except a claim that religious people have some kind of wisdom that no one else can see. As good as any other bullshit.
I could overwhelm you with religious quotes from the founders if you like. Their religious notions of freewill were very much part of their ideal for this country.
I have already explained why it's completely irrelevant, however Jefferson's quote can be at most seen as a metaphor considering how much effort Jefferson himself had spent to keep rekigion out of politics. Again, those people were not philosophers, weren't qualified to place those ideas into laws, and didn't even feel that they can do such a thing, so it's even more foolish to see them as authorities on the subject now.
First of all, I believe that self-awareness (which is different from self-reference) is not possible in a completely mechanical system. This is not provable, however, so I will leave it at that.
By commonly accepted definitons everything that moves is described by mechanics, however you use "mechanical" for some kind of description of determinism that even modern science sees as primitive simplification. Your definitions of "mechanical" and "not mechanical" seem to exist just to distinguish between things that you believe, can be described by science and things that you believe, can't be described by science, so you have made a circular argument that means nothing.
Secondly, what difference does it make if something is self-aware if it is always caused by external events?
Because it may be more complex or less complex, keep more state, less state or none. Self-awareness requires complex organization that most of things don't have, and humans do, and humans' behavior is drastiically different when they deal with self-aware persons and non-self-aware objects. Certainly the procedure of trial that you have mentioned is applicable only to a self-aware person.
In the materialist view of the Universe, everything is part of a massive chain of cause and effect.
This is irrelevant, the fact that human collects various kinds of state (memory, thoughts, traits of character) derived as a higher degree of "structuredness" than raw imputs makes him a unique individual that is impossible to trivially duplicate, or purposefully manipulate. If humans were possible to purposefully manipulate into thinking any pre-defined thoughts and to perform any pre-defined actions, I would worry about the value of self-awareness and individuality, however this is not the case -- a way that a human thinks is protected by the nature of his brain in the same manner as encrypted data is protected by hard to reverse nature of the encryption algorithm.
Everything bad would be the fault of natural laws, not an individual entity.
It does not matter what influenced the formation of individual entity -- if entity is self-aware, it should be responsible. Kinda sucks for people that were brought to be assholes, but works just fine considering that humans have a lot of capacity and context for self-improvement.
Let us use a computer program analogy. If the laws of nature could be captured in a computable algorithm, there would be no piece of that algorithm that is specific to an individual. All laws of physics are invoked universally across all matter (data).
The possibility of duplication does not negate anything -- universe is not self-aware, yet it contains self-aware people, same may apply to a computer that simulates a piece of the universe.
Just out of curiosity, which secular societies are you basing this on? (Hopefully not Stalin's Soviet Union).
I read it as "Just out of a desperate attempt of ad-hominen attack based on ideology...", however I really don't care. I have lived in a post-Stalin Soviet Union, and it was a good example of a society where religion was neither co-operating with a government's ideology, nor was an important part of people's lives. Contrary to some propaganda chicles, people were not dragged out of churches by NKVD agents, and did not behave any less ethical than anywhere else in the world -- for most of them religion was something to ridicule, ideology was some annoying and remote politicians' game, while ethical norms were relevant and therefore present in the everyday life. Of course, your propaganda most likely made you think that after 50's Russia magically jumped into mid-80's with no social progress in between, however if that was the case, a lot of stuff wouldn't happen. From observing that society I have found that people have no internal need to have a religion, and when removed (voluntarily or not) from religion-laced environment they can perfectly continue living without clinging to religion, turning into monsters or adopting something immoral as the source of guidance. Again, I don't think, you can believe this, local propaganda engraved into people's minds horrible but fictional images of forced labor everywhere, continuous ideological indoctrination, priests being executed by millions per year (wouldn't be any people left soon), corruption worse than in US Senate, and quite possibly bears walking into building and eating people, but for me it only means that propaganda in US was more successful than in USSR -- probably because religion makes people more gullible.
At this point, outside various political-religious alliances (ironically, those are usually deeply corrupt organizations) people in former USSR still don't care much for religion, and still they don't lose ethhical norms, even though political stuff bothers them much more now.
Are you suggesting that religious people don't judge themselves and others by their deeds?
Absolutely! If the outcome of their actions may be excused by devotion to religion, religion trumps deeds, and not the other way around -- a person that does not believe in religion, or disrespects it is considered to be less moral than a believer no matter what, good samaritans nonwithstanding.
Why would an atheist be compelled to judge someone more so than a theist?
Not judge more, just use the criteria that does not allow excuses.
would assert that the opposite is true. Atheists tend to believe in relative morality, while religious people believe in absolute morality.
This is simply not true. Atheists don't believe in absolutely predefined _actions_ (***NEVER*** kill anyone, ***ALWAYS*** give youe money to the poor, etc.) that define moral behavior for religious people, and they do not all share exactly the same principles, however their ethical principles are just as strong. This allows for less hypocrisy -- a person is responsible for applying moral principles to the situation, not for performing actions that the religion dictates, or looking for excuses when those actions cause harm (say, at war, dealing with unusually distorted society and in other situations when direct following religiously mandated behavior is detrimental to others). This is not moral relativism, it's usually more active and responsible behavior.
Atheists believe that people are victims to their personal circumstance or condition. For example, the popular secular thought now days is that criminals are either genetically less fortunate, or were not given the beneficial environment that successful people have had, and should therefore, not be judged for their actions.
I have no idea where have you found such a thing -- I have never heard anyone proposing to ignore crimes. Responsibility is usually valued very high by people who don't expect a supernatural being to be responsible for them. What you have may heard was that people who commit crimes should be not merely punished but somehow encouraged to imprve themselves if it's possible, however I have heard this point of view from people with all kins of religious beliefs, too.
What a bogus argument. First of all, most religious people do not think they have a free ticket to perform whatever immoral acts they want. Secondly, even if they did, how would it make them less moral than an atheist? You are suggesting that there is no eternal incentive for religious people to act morally--they can always just ask for forgiveness later.
Or sometimes to have forgiveness already given -- history is full of examples when large number of people commited unspeakable atrocities after being blessed by religious leaders, and of horrible political figures getting forgiveness from priests literally in last minutes of their lives.
So what is the atheist's eternal incentive to act morally? There isn't one either.
The only incentive is person's own judgment -- and for an atheist there is no possibility to amend it becsuse there is no god behind his back that can forgive the sins if the person prayed hard enough.
In otherwords, they would both have an "either or...it doesn't matter" proposition.
Huh?
I would suggest that you decouple religious ideals and religious establishments.
I use this as a merely an example of religious people. While those priests hardly can be described as moral from any imaginable point of view, they certainly believe in god, and that belief didn't make them any better.
This is precisely what the founders of our country did. They showed considerable hostility for the current institutions of religion, but cherished the ideals and virtue of religion itself. If my daughter goes to a crappy school, it does not mean that education is not valuable as an idea.
They were concerned with political institutions, and cared about religious ones only regarding their political power. The ides that they based their woork on were not specific to religion, and those people didn't even share a common religion at the time. The whole thing is completely irrelevant by now -- they could've believed in a tooth fairy being a cousin of Zeus, and they would do more or less the same thing because they had enough common sense to follow the ideas common to people regardless of their beliefs.
I don't even understand all this fascination with details of life of founders of this country -- what they wanted to keep for future generations they already wrote into laws and done in their actions, other than that they were merely humans, fallible, with their private lives, thoughts and actions. They shouldn't be worshipped like idols or be mindlessly imitated, it's insulting to them and to modern people alike.
Will it be still sold at loss?
on
Microsoft Freon
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I mean, one thing is selling a game console at loss -- you can license games, and another thing is to sell at loss a device that is perfectly capable of independent operation. And if they expect that they can tie PVR to a mandatory subscription, their worst enemy would be a... PC.
I don't understand your point. It seems to me you just contradicted yourself. You are correct in stating that mathematics is used to describe nature (from counting sheep to predicting comet trajectories), but I do not follow the purpose or meaning of the statement "Nature has nothing to do with mathematics". If there is no relationship between the two, how can mathematics be a tool in understanding nature?
Mathematics is a tool used by humans -- just like a language is not "contained" in things that it describes, mathematics is not "contained" in nature, it merely provides a tool useful for understanding of nature by humans. And, as opposed to science, mathematics does not deal with actual objects or processes, but concepts that may (or may not) be useful for science when it describes those objects or processes. Say, in the Second Newton's law "F=m*a" is a mathematical formula that describes a law of nature (as known by humans, and limited in its precisions by more general laws). However there is nothing in nature that actually determines values of mass and acceleration and performs multiplication of mass and acceleration to produce the value of force, the operation only exist in human mind to describe one of the aspects of interaction between objects -- application of force.
Is modern science's view of nature primitive? People of the year 3100 might think so. Your statement is irrelevant. Religion is used to describe the metaphysical; that which is outside the scope of material observation.
I merely claim that your view of science is outdated already.
First of all, your statement assumes a specific interpretation of quantum. The empirical realm of quantum science is simply data. It is the interpretation of that data that carries us over into philosophy. You need to explain to me an interpretation of "uncertainty" that does not either:
A. Involve phenomenon that cannot be described with mathematics (i.e. supernatural)
B. Involve phenomenon that is purely random
C. Involve determinism that is unknown to us because of "hidden variables"
I would categorize those that interpret uncertainty under category (A) to be religious in a spiritual or mystic sense. I would classify those that interpret uncertainty under category (B) or (C) as materialists who are also, generally, atheists. Do you disagree? Is there any other possible interpretation that does not follow one of these categories?
You certainly don't understand what quantum mechanics is talking about. Not only things are random, but the theory was created by dealing with a problem that came down to the following: not only "hidden variables", "pure randomness" or even "divine intervention" can't describe things, but mere possibility of any observer (even if the observer is god himself), being able to collect knowledge and predict exact parameters for a particle (position and speed, energy and time, location after passing through something) means that process will not happen as it is observed. For science that is based on the idea that everything that exist, can be observed somehow, it means that those things actually don't exist, and we can merely have choice which of things see as more or less precise. When something can be known precisely (say, particles passed through two small holes at some short distance from each other, and we have registered some particle at some point behind them, so we know, or at lease we _can_ know it at some precision), something else about particles should be known less precisely (in some cases we CAN'T find out, which hole the particle passed, and, reversing that, the resulted position is unpredictable for any particular particle that we have sent through the holes no matter how much we originally know about it, particles produce a diffraction pattern as if they were waves -- with no possibility to determine, which particle passed through which hole).
Once again you are moving away from empirical data and into what your personal philosophical beliefs are. What experiment has shown there is not any agent involved?
Experiments show the results that match with a theory made with an assumption that prediction is impossible (experiment with particles and holes produces diffraction -- even if particles can't interact, one can send a single electron per second, and after all electrons are collected on a photograph, it will still show a pattern!), and not the results made with any "deterministic" assumption, so scientists have to accept a theory even though it does not allow to predict a trajectory of individual particle but denies an existence of such a thing! The process will be still described in terms and mathematical formulas, but those will now describe probabilities and uncertainties, not precise values of everything, as a person familiar with classical mechanics would expect. Of course, there is always another explanation -- instead of all that, someone/something supernatural actually messes with each particle to produce an effect that matches the theory, but considering the number of particles in the universe, this gives the word "micromanagement" the whole new meaning.
Hmm...I'm not sure what to make of this. If quantum mechanics does not have anything to do with actual events, how do we conduct experiments that deal with quantum mechanics?
We can observe whatever we can, and compare whatever can be predicted -- if some theory predicts that half-life of certain atom is a certain amount of time we can take a lot of atoms and check if after that amount of time approximately half of atoms left. When each particular atom changes into something else remains just as unpredictable as without a theory, but we know that atoms change into something else, we know that the process is random, and we may know how fast it should go taken over a large amount of atoms. Good enough -- knowledge that something can't be predicted is still a knowledge.
I would not classify the second one as "scientific" as, once again, science only gives us empirical data. I would prefer to refer to it as the "materialist" view. You have taken the typical position that atheists assume the intellectual high ground because you believe science agrees with their position. This is simply not the case. It is not scientifically evident that supernaturalism and mysticism do not exist. Atheists have a belief system, just like everyone else.
It's impossible to scientifically prove nonexistence of anything -- one can claim that a tooth fairy exists, and there will be no scientific proof of her nonexistence. But this is why it's an accepted scientific practice to treat all theories that have nothing to support themselves but lack of ptoof of nonexstence, as a complete and utter bullshit. On the other hand, if theory offers an explanation for something, that other theories either don't, or give more complex one (any explanation that involves god is as complex as god himself, so religion usually comes really far from "simple"), the theory is accepted. This does not guarantee that all theories are "the truth", but so far most of what is produced looks like a very good approximation of "the truth", approaching it closer over the time -- this process worked quite well while the religion for all its history just kept their "default explanation" through god's actions, and then weaseled out, accepting scientific explanations when there was no alternatives left. Not once in millennia of their history all religions in the world actually produced a single valid explanation for some natural phenomenon that could be used in any human activity, however examples of religion taking a side of some absolutely idiotic theory, and declaring people "immoral" for questioning it, are quite abundant. Granted, it's not a proof that the opposite can't happen, but it's still a very good reason to not expect religion to explain nature in the future.
Which view of freewill do you believe the founders of this country had? Do you think it influenced their ideology in forming the foundations of our country?
The founders of this country weren't philosophers concerned with this question, and certainly this was the last thing on their agenda. And even if they were, it would be quite irrelevant -- personal belief that politicians have is not something that everyone in the country should follow, especially if those politicians specifically put it into the laws that government should not mandate religious beliefs.
The materialist's view of freewill is destructive to our way of life.
Oh, puh-leeze, no political slogans in the middle of something that tries to resemble a serious discussion.
How can we have more freewill than the weather does? Do we ever put the weather on trial for its behavior?
Weather has no self-awareness, so it neither can have free will, nor will be able to understand that it actually is on trial if someone will be foolish enough to bring it there. There were cases when people tried to sue god for bad weather -- only to discover that apparently defendant ignores the whole thing.
The secular movement in this country is moving us away from judgment and towards rehabilitation. It is undermining the moral fiber from which this country was made great and destroying the sense of duty and accountability.
More claims of nonexistent things and political posturing. Religious people believe that only religion (and only their religion) can be the source of ethical norms morals. Non-religious people believe that same ethical norms and morals are a part of tradition that all societies -- religious or secular, are based on. Neither claim that those things are unimportant, all people judge their actions by ethical scale, however non-religious people have no choice but to judge themselves and others by their deeds, while religious people allow themselves to "negate" their immoral actions by demonstrations of support to god and religion -- having religious thoughts, praying, indoctrinating other people with religion, supporting religious institutions, etc. Therefore, given all other things equal, non-religious people feel more obligation to follow their ethical norms than religious people, they have no morally acceptable alternative while religion offers it. People that ignore moral principles, of course, can ignore them regardless of religious belief, non-religious people will merely ignore them, relgious ones will ignore them with a hope to "compensate" it by praying and feeling sorry eventually, the result is the same (ex: child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, people that certainly knew a lot about religion).
Please explain. Laws of nature are reducible to mathematical relationships of cause and effect,
yes?
Nature has nothing to do with mathematics -- mathematics is a tool that is used to represent the laws of nature.
Here is the definition of mechanical that I am using (pulled from Dictionary.com):
Interpreting and explaining the phenomena of the universe by referring to causally determined material forces; mechanistic. For example, in quantum mechanics you can't even get a deterministic answer about the position and speed of an object.
Heisenburg's Uncertainty doesn't help a materialist explain freewill.
It merely demonstrates that religious people's arguments are based on extremely primitive view of science. Uncertainty definitely demonstrates that even with infinitely correct knowledge it's impossible to predict the outcome of any process, therefore claiming that nature without god is too "deterministic" for their tastes is wrong and pointless.
Pure randomness cannot lead to freewill. If my decisions are based on dice rolls, how am I exercising freewill?
This entirely depends on definitions. Whatever your decisions are based on, you are exercising your will as long as the system that makes decision (has will) has self-awareness as you (is actually you). What is the internals is pretty much irrelevant, but the more complex they are, the more complex (and therefore less trivially derived from the inputs) the decisions are (and therefore they are more "free", as dependent more on your own thoughts than on immediate inputs). The degree of "free" is always different -- in some cases there is none (knee jerking), in some cases there is a lot (writing a book).
In order for quantum mechanics to account for freewill, there would have to be an uncaused agent realizing the outcome.
Even though quantum mechanics has little to do with free will, in quantum mechanics the whole point of the theory is that outcome is unpredictable without any agent involved.
That agent would be supernatural because it would be outside the scope of mathematical determination.
Mathematics has nothing to do with it -- again, as an example, there is shitload of mathematical formulas describing various things in quantum mechanics even though quantum mechanics itself deals with probabilities and not actual events.
There is a theorethical possibility to duplicate human's action by collecting all information about the situation around the human and state of all cells in human body, making a precise calculations of every process involved, and getting precisely the same result from a mathematical model of a human as from a real human. This however does nothing to negate free will because the complexity of system that duplicates a human will be higher than a human itself, and we can only conclude that it also has a free will identical to the human. The only thing that all this may contradict with, is religious view of human free will, as opposed to scientific one, and your emotional attachment to the former, as opposed to the second.
"Mechanical" is a very narrow idea about laws of nature. For example, in quantum mechanics you can't even get a deterministic answer about the position and speed of an object. More relevant to this, there is nothing in the laws of nature that prevent a system as complex as human to be able to make decisions -- to have a free will it's not necessary to be able to make all possible decisions. For example, the fact that after reading your comment I can not decide to perform a ritualistic suicide does not mean that my free will is not sufficiently free for it.
The belief in God reflects the belief in free will and self-determination. The rejection of religion and the acceptance that all of reality is based on natural mechanics implies a deterministic view of the world and the denial of free will. Free will and self-determination are at the heart of our political and judicial systems.
What a load of crap! Free will can be described as a phenomenon caused by laws of nature -- at least this theory is less tautological than describing it as an expression of another will.
It's very common for a proponents of some idea to put a lot of effort to associate it with something desirable, such as democracy, and vilify the opponents as being opposed to those desirable things.
...is protected so well because people in power had found easy ways to make any speech that they don't approve of, inefficient. Speech can be drowned in loads of bullshit (what function in american society does National Enquirer perform? Certainly not entertainment -- it's incredibly dumb for that). In other countries this is not the case, or at least government believes population to be intelligent enough so it is not the case.
Now you, and others, keep claiming this, but the fact remains that every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one. And every single one has said, as you say, that `what went before was not really communism. We are the true communism.
Actually the party was Communist, the government and social/economic system was Socialist. US didn't cease to be a Republic when Clinton was a President, did it?
It's like asking, where would you prefer to die, in a car crash, or in a terrorists' attack.
The probability of the first is so much higher for any of us, second possibility is negligible, and if government really wants to save lives, it should fight unsafe cars, drunk drivers and stupid speed limits that no sane person would ever obey, and therefore no one knows what the real safe limits are.
Microsoft has a long history of using confusing names from similar but not exactly the same areas, so their names sound familiar to people -- just some most "famous" examples:
1. Windows (operating system, conflict with user interface element that was already in wide use when it was developed).
2. Digital Nervous System (used as a pointless phrase in ads, conflicts with Domain Name System).
3..NET (conglomerate of protocols, tools and libraries based on XML and RPC, conflicts with ".net" top-level domain).
4. Windows XP (operating system, conflixts with Extreme Programming).
5. X-box (game console, conflicts with X terminals from X Window System).
And that doesn't include the use of terms that describe existing classes of products such as "SQL Server", "Internet Explorer", etc.
Slashdot Mirror
What? In what way do you apply Occam's razor to the evidence that does not seek out an explanation of the evidence?
Occam's razor can be only applied to a theory, not the evidence. We are talking about theories' validity, not evidence.
Wrong. The observer genuinely influences the outcome based on what the observer chooses to measure. We cannot know for certain a particles position and momentum at the same instant. By choosing to measure the position precisely, we force more uncertainty in the momentum, and visa versa.
No. The observer _WOULD_ influence the outcome if he observed it. However in the absence of observers things still behave in a way that observable and unobservable can't be even assumed to exist at the same time. If we claim that unobservable things actually do not exist, we end up with minimalistic theory that matches the evidence. Otherwise we end up guessing what unobservable things "really" are.
I would like to challenge this statement. Please point out my emotional outburst in my comment in question.
Soviet Union-related "argument", various extensions to "what is moral" arguments, various mentioning "how can you deny"..., appeal to "authority" of scientists and politicians, etc.
It seems to me that you assume anyone who is religious bases their opinions on emotion and not logic.
Logic is a tool, and it is as good as the assumptions it's based on. Religious people's assumptions are based on their emotional attachment to religious dogmas, and on that base all logic in the world can't produce anything other than more religious text.
On the other hand, I can only interpret your arguments against religion as emotionally driven because I cannot identify more than a shred of logic in them. You spout ideas that are shallow and unfounded and discuss topics with authority of which you only have a peripheral knowledge.
My logic is consistent, my assumptions that I make simply do not agree with yours ones. I challenge your arguments not based on their internal inconsistencies but on their applicability (ex: you defining "mechanical" and "materialist" point of view as it suits you, turning them into circular argument and a strawman) and being reasonable (ex: Occam's razor).
I would not consider "not necessarily" and the "not automatically" to be strong commitments to your point of view. You are backpedaling.
Don't cry victory where there is none, and don't attribute to me a strawman's point of view. I do not claim that politicians don't know philosophy, I merely claim that they really, really suck as philosophers.
Not one in the same, but very much related. You have a way of twisting my words to squirm your way out of a pin.
Just as much related as, say, the electric conductivity of lead and the act of murder -- both may have something to do with bullets.
What are you talking about? I conceded that my belief could not be proven before you accused me of a circular argument. Stop accusing me of things I didn't do.
Then why is it there? To claim your moral superiority?
Irrelevant? According to a materialist, every outcome of the "self-awareness" is driven by the nature of those particles.
"Materialist point of view" contains nothing of the sort. This is strawman.
Otherwise you would be suggesting that our consciousness is not subject to the laws of physics.
Consciousness itself is not a subject of the laws of physics, only objects that contain it are. Big difference.
I don't believe it. What exactly are your criteria for where you live that are not at all based on the beliefs, traditions and policies of where you live?
My abilities to lead a productive life at that location for the benefit of the advancement of humanity as a whole, of course. The society's and government's flaws and advantages to not necessarily directly translate to this as flaws and advantages, history is full of examples where people who lived in deeply flawed societies made great contribution to art, science and other historically meaningful activities.
Uh huh, sure. But it doesn't have anything to do with the ideology of the people, right? After all, you seem to believe the peoples' philosophies and values do not make an impact on the success or prosperity of their society. What makes a society successful then? Blind luck?
At the extent of 30-minutes newscast -- ideology of a journalist and a person who hired him. At the scale of 50-100 years (USSR, post-WWII US) -- mostly luck. At the extent of centuries and millennia -- society's capacity of self-improvement.
Religion is not above morality; it is a study of morality. I can only interpret your statements in that you have very ignorant, hateful, and juvenile view of religion.
Acceptance of an authority is not a study.
Agreed. This is what religion is all about. Why would an atheist make a moral choice that does not in any way benefit them?
Because he wants to. Any moral person would.
You are changing your story. At first you said religious people can do what ever they want because they will always get saved in the end. Now you are claiming that they need to be moral in order to get the "carrot".
I have never said that those sticks and carrots actually work well.
Which one is your honest misconception of religion? Your arguments are contradictory. You are simply spouting any anti-religious rhetoric you can think of.
I merely talk about the basic premises of religious teaching when stripped from various decorations.
You can say that about any culture.
You have called a country virtuous, not me.
Relatively speaking, the US has been the leader in freedom and civil liberty for the past few centuries.
Only Americans think that.
Do you not believe freedom and liberty are virtuous?
As the concept and a goal -- yes. US is nowhere close to achieving them at the extent that it can claim to be virtuous.
I am curious what developments in art and science you are talking about. In any case, the founders of this country did not introduce slavery. Slavery was prevalent in all modern cultures during that time.
If "that time" was ten centuries ago I would agree. By the time when US was formed slavery was not a part of world's accepted practices anymore.Slavery and anti-civil liberties were not part of their revolutionary change. Instead, the revolt against slavery and anti-civil liberties was a revolt against a tradition that had been around for thousands of years.
So?.
When I was younger, I was an agnostic. Several years ago I started reading philosophy and made the following observations: - Atheistic philosophers were generally malevolent and aggressive (such as Nietzsche and Marx) - Theistic philosophers were generally thoughtful and rational (such as Pascal, Kant, and Descartes) I have since came to my own conclusions that a society must be spiritual in order to be healthy.
What kind of argument is that? Appeal to authority, combined with an ad-hominem attack?
You should really become more informed on quantum theory. You are confusing the evidence (quantum mechanics) with the interpretation (copenhagen, many-worlds, pilot wave, etc.). Physical evidence is meaningless from a philosophical perspective unless you interpret it. You seem completely unaware of different interpretations of quantum mechanics and their significance.
I am talking about the application of Occam's razor to theory and evidenvce, not merely the possibility to explain the evidence.
You understand that in quantum theory, the observation influences the outcome of the experiment, right?
The influence on the outcome is used merely a concept in a thought experiment -- its significance is in causing the impossibility to observe something, not in actual influence on the experiment, that is without an attempt to observe is nonexistent.
am going to lose interest in this debate quickly if this is the best feedback you can give me.
I already have very little interest in this debate as long as it is littered with your emotional outbursts.
Are you suggesting that politics and philosophy are unrelated? That ideas do not influence political motivations?
I claim that politicians are not necessarily good philosophers, and that politicians' desisions do not automatically validate all philosophical doctrines and beliefs that those politicians supported.
This is an absurd stance you are taking. It lacks common sense.
Only if "common sense" is to consider philosophy and politics to be one and the same.
If this is a commonly accepted definition, you should be able to provide me with a reference. The motion of material bodies is just part of it. It is really concerned with the forces and interactions between those bodies.
Interactions between bodies are not specific to mechanics, and force is a concept that is defined in mechanics. Of course, it still has nothing to do with this argument.
What am I trying to prove that would be a circular argument? You are correct in stating by belief that there exists some aspect of reality that is not mechanical and cannot be explained by science. If you recall, I stated my beliefs could not be proven, so I would not try. Please try to keep up.
You have made your own definition of "mechanical" based on your belief, and then used it to "prove" this belief. This is why your argument is circular -- your definitions already contain your desired outcome.
In a materialist view, self-awareness is simply experiencing particles bouncing around in your head. However, the dynamics of those particles would be controlled by laws of physics. How can someone be held accountable for the laws of physics?
The self-awareness is a property of the structure that those particles reflect -- the nature of the particles is irrelevant, just like "text" may be the property of the arrangement of ink on paper, that has nothing to do with actual ink or paper.
Where do you live now? If you live in the US, why not go back to the former USSR? Wouldn't you prefer a secular society to a religious one?
I do not choose my location to express the approval or disapproval of various beliefs and tradition of societies and policies of governments.
Oh right. It is all propaganda.
Of course, it was. What do you think, was the whole Cold War about?
The Soviet Union was really a paradise.
It sucked approximately as much as US at the time.
Like I said, if it is not that bad over there, why not return?
Because it sucks more now, and because I am a programmer, so I have nothing to do in a country with infrastructure destroyed by misguided "free market" proponents.
This is a ridiculous perception of religion. You seem to think that if a person is religious, they have lost all interest in a moral, prosperous society.
No, I just think, a religious person has religion placed above any other possible source of ethical norms or morals. And I have no idea how is all that related to prosperity -- prosperity is neither religious nor moral concept.
You seem to have missed my point. You are claiming that a religious person can act immoral without worrying about an eternal consequence--either way they are going to heaven. How is this different from an atheist? They can act immoral without worrying about an eternal consequence--either way they are maggot food. Your argument is illogical. According to your premise, neither the theist nor the atheist has a reason to act moral or immoral--the eternal consequence is the same either way
Consequence to the person is not the only consequence of the person's actions. Indeed I do not expect the fear/expectation of consequences to himself to be a base of a moral decision -- one can not make a moral choice unless he is considering the consequences of his action beyond his person. I also have no idea where "eternal" part came from -- atheists do not believe that any part of them is eternal, but they are quite sure that the universe will likely to exist even after they will be dead. A person that only considers what will help or hurt him is not moral even if he can be coerced into doing something positive by a fear of divine retribution and expectation of rewards from god, and even that does not work if the religion gives an easy cop-out through a simple mental self-conditioning procedure. A truly moral person may need guidance, but certainly has no use for sticks and carrots held by a supernatural being.
No, I wouldn't expect that you do. You do not seem to have any appreciation for the revolutionary ideas they had, and for the virtuous country they created.
I merely recognize the limitations of both. Their ideas were revolutionary compared to British Empire's idea of having the whole continents as colonies, however it was nothing outstanding in the context of the millennia of human history before them and centuries after. And the country that they have created is mostly filled with things other than virtue -- in fact everything even remotely good that happened here (from abolition of slavery to various developments in art and science) was the result of long and painful struggle of various groups of people against the establishment, same establishment that seen itself as the rightful heir of everything the founders of this country did, and same establishment that accepted the fruits of that struggle as great parts of american history later. True secularization of the political life and the society as a whole will be one of those things.
I agree. Mathematics is a language used to describe nature. However, this begs the question, how is it that mathematics can consistently describe nature?
Any sufficiently developed language has this property.
This goes back to my original point that nature is mechanical. Because it is mechanical, we can use math to describe it. I find it ironic that you used quantum mechanics as an illustration of the narrowness of my notion that nature is "mechanical".
This is pointless -- you are arguing about terminology, and not just any terminology but one that you are defining by yourself to suit your argument.
Once again you are talking about a specific interpretation of quantum. You are apparently not even aware of any hidden variable interpretations. The most well known is David Bohm's pilot wave interpretation (also known as Bohmian Mechanics). http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/ Many theoretical physicists do not take the interpretation seriously, but it is a well-known theory. Ironically, John Bell (of Bells Theorem) was actually an enthusiastic supporter.
Occam's razor. There is an infinite number of possible theories that describe same things as quantum mechanics does, but only one has minimal amount of assumptions -- what happens to be quantum mechanics. So unless there is something that contradicts quantum mechanics and complies with "alternative" theory, there is no point in even considering it.
The rest of your message seems geared around the Copenhagen interpretation, although that is not even the most commonly accepted interpretation among theoretical physicists and cosmologists (the most commonly accepted interpretation among this group is the "many worlds" interpretation).
Completely unrelated things.
am well aware of the double-slit experiment. You do not need to waste time describing well known quantum experiments.
I am explaining a theory using experiment as an example. You seem to be under some delusion that all explanations are created equal, so you simply give whatever is convenient for you. This does not change the fact that almost all possible explanations are complete bullshit, and the goal of science is to find one that isn't, not to produce more bullshit and claim that it might be true.
I am curious of how you can not be religious and still believe in the Copenhagen interpretation? The implication is that there is something about our consciousness as an observer that affects the outcome of a quantum event. It seems to imply that consciousness is not derived from matter and energy, but rather matter and energy is derived from consciousness. In this sense, the material world is born of, or derived from the mind (or spiritual world).
Observer does not have to have consciousness, and does not have to be present -- theory deals with possibility of observation of things that do or don't exist. Of course, religious person will see god everywhere, but this is not my problem.
If you expect religion to provide you with scientific knowledge, it is no wonder you are not religious. There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Religion is a study in wisdom, just as biology is a study in knowledge. The notion that science and religion are incompatible is bogus. Asking for material proof of something immaterial is asking for the impossible.
This is a lot of emotionally-charged words with no content except a claim that religious people have some kind of wisdom that no one else can see. As good as any other bullshit.
I could overwhelm you with religious quotes from the founders if you like. Their religious notions of freewill were very much part of their ideal for this country.
I have already explained why it's completely irrelevant, however Jefferson's quote can be at most seen as a metaphor considering how much effort Jefferson himself had spent to keep rekigion out of politics. Again, those people were not philosophers, weren't qualified to place those ideas into laws, and didn't even feel that they can do such a thing, so it's even more foolish to see them as authorities on the subject now.
First of all, I believe that self-awareness (which is different from self-reference) is not possible in a completely mechanical system. This is not provable, however, so I will leave it at that.
By commonly accepted definitons everything that moves is described by mechanics, however you use "mechanical" for some kind of description of determinism that even modern science sees as primitive simplification. Your definitions of "mechanical" and "not mechanical" seem to exist just to distinguish between things that you believe, can be described by science and things that you believe, can't be described by science, so you have made a circular argument that means nothing.
Secondly, what difference does it make if something is self-aware if it is always caused by external events?
Because it may be more complex or less complex, keep more state, less state or none. Self-awareness requires complex organization that most of things don't have, and humans do, and humans' behavior is drastiically different when they deal with self-aware persons and non-self-aware objects. Certainly the procedure of trial that you have mentioned is applicable only to a self-aware person.
In the materialist view of the Universe, everything is part of a massive chain of cause and effect.
This is irrelevant, the fact that human collects various kinds of state (memory, thoughts, traits of character) derived as a higher degree of "structuredness" than raw imputs makes him a unique individual that is impossible to trivially duplicate, or purposefully manipulate. If humans were possible to purposefully manipulate into thinking any pre-defined thoughts and to perform any pre-defined actions, I would worry about the value of self-awareness and individuality, however this is not the case -- a way that a human thinks is protected by the nature of his brain in the same manner as encrypted data is protected by hard to reverse nature of the encryption algorithm.
Everything bad would be the fault of natural laws, not an individual entity.
It does not matter what influenced the formation of individual entity -- if entity is self-aware, it should be responsible. Kinda sucks for people that were brought to be assholes, but works just fine considering that humans have a lot of capacity and context for self-improvement.
Let us use a computer program analogy. If the laws of nature could be captured in a computable algorithm, there would be no piece of that algorithm that is specific to an individual. All laws of physics are invoked universally across all matter (data).
The possibility of duplication does not negate anything -- universe is not self-aware, yet it contains self-aware people, same may apply to a computer that simulates a piece of the universe.
Just out of curiosity, which secular societies are you basing this on? (Hopefully not Stalin's Soviet Union).
I read it as "Just out of a desperate attempt of ad-hominen attack based on ideology...", however I really don't care. I have lived in a post-Stalin Soviet Union, and it was a good example of a society where religion was neither co-operating with a government's ideology, nor was an important part of people's lives. Contrary to some propaganda chicles, people were not dragged out of churches by NKVD agents, and did not behave any less ethical than anywhere else in the world -- for most of them religion was something to ridicule, ideology was some annoying and remote politicians' game, while ethical norms were relevant and therefore present in the everyday life. Of course, your propaganda most likely made you think that after 50's Russia magically jumped into mid-80's with no social progress in between, however if that was the case, a lot of stuff wouldn't happen. From observing that society I have found that people have no internal need to have a religion, and when removed (voluntarily or not) from religion-laced environment they can perfectly continue living without clinging to religion, turning into monsters or adopting something immoral as the source of guidance. Again, I don't think, you can believe this, local propaganda engraved into people's minds horrible but fictional images of forced labor everywhere, continuous ideological indoctrination, priests being executed by millions per year (wouldn't be any people left soon), corruption worse than in US Senate, and quite possibly bears walking into building and eating people, but for me it only means that propaganda in US was more successful than in USSR -- probably because religion makes people more gullible.
At this point, outside various political-religious alliances (ironically, those are usually deeply corrupt organizations) people in former USSR still don't care much for religion, and still they don't lose ethhical norms, even though political stuff bothers them much more now.
Are you suggesting that religious people don't judge themselves and others by their deeds?
Absolutely! If the outcome of their actions may be excused by devotion to religion, religion trumps deeds, and not the other way around -- a person that does not believe in religion, or disrespects it is considered to be less moral than a believer no matter what, good samaritans nonwithstanding.
Why would an atheist be compelled to judge someone more so than a theist?
Not judge more, just use the criteria that does not allow excuses.
would assert that the opposite is true. Atheists tend to believe in relative morality, while religious people believe in absolute morality.
This is simply not true. Atheists don't believe in absolutely predefined _actions_ (***NEVER*** kill anyone, ***ALWAYS*** give youe money to the poor, etc.) that define moral behavior for religious people, and they do not all share exactly the same principles, however their ethical principles are just as strong. This allows for less hypocrisy -- a person is responsible for applying moral principles to the situation, not for performing actions that the religion dictates, or looking for excuses when those actions cause harm (say, at war, dealing with unusually distorted society and in other situations when direct following religiously mandated behavior is detrimental to others). This is not moral relativism, it's usually more active and responsible behavior.
Atheists believe that people are victims to their personal circumstance or condition. For example, the popular secular thought now days is that criminals are either genetically less fortunate, or were not given the beneficial environment that successful people have had, and should therefore, not be judged for their actions.
I have no idea where have you found such a thing -- I have never heard anyone proposing to ignore crimes. Responsibility is usually valued very high by people who don't expect a supernatural being to be responsible for them. What you have may heard was that people who commit crimes should be not merely punished but somehow encouraged to imprve themselves if it's possible, however I have heard this point of view from people with all kins of religious beliefs, too.
What a bogus argument. First of all, most religious people do not think they have a free ticket to perform whatever immoral acts they want. Secondly, even if they did, how would it make them less moral than an atheist? You are suggesting that there is no eternal incentive for religious people to act morally--they can always just ask for forgiveness later.
Or sometimes to have forgiveness already given -- history is full of examples when large number of people commited unspeakable atrocities after being blessed by religious leaders, and of horrible political figures getting forgiveness from priests literally in last minutes of their lives.
So what is the atheist's eternal incentive to act morally? There isn't one either.
The only incentive is person's own judgment -- and for an atheist there is no possibility to amend it becsuse there is no god behind his back that can forgive the sins if the person prayed hard enough.
In otherwords, they would both have an "either or...it doesn't matter" proposition.
Huh?
I would suggest that you decouple religious ideals and religious establishments.
I use this as a merely an example of religious people. While those priests hardly can be described as moral from any imaginable point of view, they certainly believe in god, and that belief didn't make them any better.
This is precisely what the founders of our country did. They showed considerable hostility for the current institutions of religion, but cherished the ideals and virtue of religion itself. If my daughter goes to a crappy school, it does not mean that education is not valuable as an idea.
They were concerned with political institutions, and cared about religious ones only regarding their political power. The ides that they based their woork on were not specific to religion, and those people didn't even share a common religion at the time. The whole thing is completely irrelevant by now -- they could've believed in a tooth fairy being a cousin of Zeus, and they would do more or less the same thing because they had enough common sense to follow the ideas common to people regardless of their beliefs.
I don't even understand all this fascination with details of life of founders of this country -- what they wanted to keep for future generations they already wrote into laws and done in their actions, other than that they were merely humans, fallible, with their private lives, thoughts and actions. They shouldn't be worshipped like idols or be mindlessly imitated, it's insulting to them and to modern people alike.
I mean, one thing is selling a game console at loss -- you can license games, and another thing is to sell at loss a device that is perfectly capable of independent operation. And if they expect that they can tie PVR to a mandatory subscription, their worst enemy would be a... PC.
I don't understand your point. It seems to me you just contradicted yourself. You are correct in stating that mathematics is used to describe nature (from counting sheep to predicting comet trajectories), but I do not follow the purpose or meaning of the statement "Nature has nothing to do with mathematics". If there is no relationship between the two, how can mathematics be a tool in understanding nature?
Mathematics is a tool used by humans -- just like a language is not "contained" in things that it describes, mathematics is not "contained" in nature, it merely provides a tool useful for understanding of nature by humans. And, as opposed to science, mathematics does not deal with actual objects or processes, but concepts that may (or may not) be useful for science when it describes those objects or processes. Say, in the Second Newton's law "F=m*a" is a mathematical formula that describes a law of nature (as known by humans, and limited in its precisions by more general laws). However there is nothing in nature that actually determines values of mass and acceleration and performs multiplication of mass and acceleration to produce the value of force, the operation only exist in human mind to describe one of the aspects of interaction between objects -- application of force.
Is modern science's view of nature primitive? People of the year 3100 might think so. Your statement is irrelevant. Religion is used to describe the metaphysical; that which is outside the scope of material observation.
I merely claim that your view of science is outdated already.
First of all, your statement assumes a specific interpretation of quantum. The empirical realm of quantum science is simply data. It is the interpretation of that data that carries us over into philosophy. You need to explain to me an interpretation of "uncertainty" that does not either:
A. Involve phenomenon that cannot be described with mathematics (i.e. supernatural)
B. Involve phenomenon that is purely random
C. Involve determinism that is unknown to us because of "hidden variables"
I would categorize those that interpret uncertainty under category (A) to be religious in a spiritual or mystic sense. I would classify those that interpret uncertainty under category (B) or (C) as materialists who are also, generally, atheists. Do you disagree? Is there any other possible interpretation that does not follow one of these categories?
You certainly don't understand what quantum mechanics is talking about. Not only things are random, but the theory was created by dealing with a problem that came down to the following: not only "hidden variables", "pure randomness" or even "divine intervention" can't describe things, but mere possibility of any observer (even if the observer is god himself), being able to collect knowledge and predict exact parameters for a particle (position and speed, energy and time, location after passing through something) means that process will not happen as it is observed. For science that is based on the idea that everything that exist, can be observed somehow, it means that those things actually don't exist, and we can merely have choice which of things see as more or less precise. When something can be known precisely (say, particles passed through two small holes at some short distance from each other, and we have registered some particle at some point behind them, so we know, or at lease we _can_ know it at some precision), something else about particles should be known less precisely (in some cases we CAN'T find out, which hole the particle passed, and, reversing that, the resulted position is unpredictable for any particular particle that we have sent through the holes no matter how much we originally know about it, particles produce a diffraction pattern as if they were waves -- with no possibility to determine, which particle passed through which hole).
Once again you are moving away from empirical data and into what your personal philosophical beliefs are. What experiment has shown there is not any agent involved?
Experiments show the results that match with a theory made with an assumption that prediction is impossible (experiment with particles and holes produces diffraction -- even if particles can't interact, one can send a single electron per second, and after all electrons are collected on a photograph, it will still show a pattern!), and not the results made with any "deterministic" assumption, so scientists have to accept a theory even though it does not allow to predict a trajectory of individual particle but denies an existence of such a thing! The process will be still described in terms and mathematical formulas, but those will now describe probabilities and uncertainties, not precise values of everything, as a person familiar with classical mechanics would expect. Of course, there is always another explanation -- instead of all that, someone/something supernatural actually messes with each particle to produce an effect that matches the theory, but considering the number of particles in the universe, this gives the word "micromanagement" the whole new meaning.
Hmm...I'm not sure what to make of this. If quantum mechanics does not have anything to do with actual events, how do we conduct experiments that deal with quantum mechanics?
We can observe whatever we can, and compare whatever can be predicted -- if some theory predicts that half-life of certain atom is a certain amount of time we can take a lot of atoms and check if after that amount of time approximately half of atoms left. When each particular atom changes into something else remains just as unpredictable as without a theory, but we know that atoms change into something else, we know that the process is random, and we may know how fast it should go taken over a large amount of atoms. Good enough -- knowledge that something can't be predicted is still a knowledge.
I would not classify the second one as "scientific" as, once again, science only gives us empirical data. I would prefer to refer to it as the "materialist" view. You have taken the typical position that atheists assume the intellectual high ground because you believe science agrees with their position. This is simply not the case. It is not scientifically evident that supernaturalism and mysticism do not exist. Atheists have a belief system, just like everyone else.
It's impossible to scientifically prove nonexistence of anything -- one can claim that a tooth fairy exists, and there will be no scientific proof of her nonexistence. But this is why it's an accepted scientific practice to treat all theories that have nothing to support themselves but lack of ptoof of nonexstence, as a complete and utter bullshit. On the other hand, if theory offers an explanation for something, that other theories either don't, or give more complex one (any explanation that involves god is as complex as god himself, so religion usually comes really far from "simple"), the theory is accepted. This does not guarantee that all theories are "the truth", but so far most of what is produced looks like a very good approximation of "the truth", approaching it closer over the time -- this process worked quite well while the religion for all its history just kept their "default explanation" through god's actions, and then weaseled out, accepting scientific explanations when there was no alternatives left. Not once in millennia of their history all religions in the world actually produced a single valid explanation for some natural phenomenon that could be used in any human activity, however examples of religion taking a side of some absolutely idiotic theory, and declaring people "immoral" for questioning it, are quite abundant. Granted, it's not a proof that the opposite can't happen, but it's still a very good reason to not expect religion to explain nature in the future.
Which view of freewill do you believe the founders of this country had? Do you think it influenced their ideology in forming the foundations of our country?
The founders of this country weren't philosophers concerned with this question, and certainly this was the last thing on their agenda. And even if they were, it would be quite irrelevant -- personal belief that politicians have is not something that everyone in the country should follow, especially if those politicians specifically put it into the laws that government should not mandate religious beliefs.
The materialist's view of freewill is destructive to our way of life.
Oh, puh-leeze, no political slogans in the middle of something that tries to resemble a serious discussion.
How can we have more freewill than the weather does? Do we ever put the weather on trial for its behavior?
Weather has no self-awareness, so it neither can have free will, nor will be able to understand that it actually is on trial if someone will be foolish enough to bring it there. There were cases when people tried to sue god for bad weather -- only to discover that apparently defendant ignores the whole thing.
The secular movement in this country is moving us away from judgment and towards rehabilitation. It is undermining the moral fiber from which this country was made great and destroying the sense of duty and accountability.
More claims of nonexistent things and political posturing. Religious people believe that only religion (and only their religion) can be the source of ethical norms morals. Non-religious people believe that same ethical norms and morals are a part of tradition that all societies -- religious or secular, are based on. Neither claim that those things are unimportant, all people judge their actions by ethical scale, however non-religious people have no choice but to judge themselves and others by their deeds, while religious people allow themselves to "negate" their immoral actions by demonstrations of support to god and religion -- having religious thoughts, praying, indoctrinating other people with religion, supporting religious institutions, etc. Therefore, given all other things equal, non-religious people feel more obligation to follow their ethical norms than religious people, they have no morally acceptable alternative while religion offers it. People that ignore moral principles, of course, can ignore them regardless of religious belief, non-religious people will merely ignore them, relgious ones will ignore them with a hope to "compensate" it by praying and feeling sorry eventually, the result is the same (ex: child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, people that certainly knew a lot about religion).
Please explain. Laws of nature are reducible to mathematical relationships of cause and effect, yes?
Nature has nothing to do with mathematics -- mathematics is a tool that is used to represent the laws of nature.
Here is the definition of mechanical that I am using (pulled from Dictionary.com): Interpreting and explaining the phenomena of the universe by referring to causally determined material forces; mechanistic. For example, in quantum mechanics you can't even get a deterministic answer about the position and speed of an object.
Heisenburg's Uncertainty doesn't help a materialist explain freewill.
It merely demonstrates that religious people's arguments are based on extremely primitive view of science. Uncertainty definitely demonstrates that even with infinitely correct knowledge it's impossible to predict the outcome of any process, therefore claiming that nature without god is too "deterministic" for their tastes is wrong and pointless.
Pure randomness cannot lead to freewill. If my decisions are based on dice rolls, how am I exercising freewill?
This entirely depends on definitions. Whatever your decisions are based on, you are exercising your will as long as the system that makes decision (has will) has self-awareness as you (is actually you). What is the internals is pretty much irrelevant, but the more complex they are, the more complex (and therefore less trivially derived from the inputs) the decisions are (and therefore they are more "free", as dependent more on your own thoughts than on immediate inputs). The degree of "free" is always different -- in some cases there is none (knee jerking), in some cases there is a lot (writing a book).
In order for quantum mechanics to account for freewill, there would have to be an uncaused agent realizing the outcome.
Even though quantum mechanics has little to do with free will, in quantum mechanics the whole point of the theory is that outcome is unpredictable without any agent involved.
That agent would be supernatural because it would be outside the scope of mathematical determination.
Mathematics has nothing to do with it -- again, as an example, there is shitload of mathematical formulas describing various things in quantum mechanics even though quantum mechanics itself deals with probabilities and not actual events.
There is a theorethical possibility to duplicate human's action by collecting all information about the situation around the human and state of all cells in human body, making a precise calculations of every process involved, and getting precisely the same result from a mathematical model of a human as from a real human. This however does nothing to negate free will because the complexity of system that duplicates a human will be higher than a human itself, and we can only conclude that it also has a free will identical to the human. The only thing that all this may contradict with, is religious view of human free will, as opposed to scientific one, and your emotional attachment to the former, as opposed to the second.
I don't think there is any precedent like it in history.
Churches. Almost all of them that survived by now.
"Mechanical" is a very narrow idea about laws of nature. For example, in quantum mechanics you can't even get a deterministic answer about the position and speed of an object. More relevant to this, there is nothing in the laws of nature that prevent a system as complex as human to be able to make decisions -- to have a free will it's not necessary to be able to make all possible decisions. For example, the fact that after reading your comment I can not decide to perform a ritualistic suicide does not mean that my free will is not sufficiently free for it.
I suspect, the majority of first-graders also believe in a tooth fairy.
Tobacco is not addictive.
Enron executives did not know about accounting fraud.
Did Worldcom come up with an excuse yet?
It's called strawman.
The belief in God reflects the belief in free will and self-determination. The rejection of religion and the acceptance that all of reality is based on natural mechanics implies a deterministic view of the world and the denial of free will. Free will and self-determination are at the heart of our political and judicial systems.
What a load of crap! Free will can be described as a phenomenon caused by laws of nature -- at least this theory is less tautological than describing it as an expression of another will.
Huh? Declaration of Independence is a declaration, one-sided document that indicates a position and places no obligation on anyone.
Too bad, in other countries it almost became an international pictogram for "foreign oppressors".
Have you ever seen schoolchildren doing something voluntary every day in such a manner?
It's very common for a proponents of some idea to put a lot of effort to associate it with something desirable, such as democracy, and vilify the opponents as being opposed to those desirable things.
...is protected so well because people in power had found easy ways to make any speech that they don't approve of, inefficient. Speech can be drowned in loads of bullshit (what function in american society does National Enquirer perform? Certainly not entertainment -- it's incredibly dumb for that). In other countries this is not the case, or at least government believes population to be intelligent enough so it is not the case.
Now you, and others, keep claiming this, but the fact remains that every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one. And every single one has said, as you say, that `what went before was not really communism. We are the true communism.
Actually the party was Communist, the government and social/economic system was Socialist. US didn't cease to be a Republic when Clinton was a President, did it?
Closed global broadband network. Bwahahahahahahahaha!A HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Bwahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH
It's like asking, where would you prefer to die, in a car crash, or in a terrorists' attack.
The probability of the first is so much higher for any of us, second possibility is negligible, and if government really wants to save lives, it should fight unsafe cars, drunk drivers and stupid speed limits that no sane person would ever obey, and therefore no one knows what the real safe limits are.
I mean, really -- a lot of stuff he writes ends up referenced from slashdot, but why? He writes articles that mostly consist of:
1. Things that every programmer knows already, and Joel just recently learned.
2. Various biases that Joel has -- an unfortunate result of working at Microsoft, and a reminder for the rest of us to never go there.
Other than that I have seen high school essays with more original and useful content.
Microsoft has a long history of using confusing names from similar but not exactly the same areas, so their names sound familiar to people -- just some most "famous" examples:
.NET (conglomerate of protocols, tools and libraries based on XML and RPC, conflicts with ".net" top-level domain).
1. Windows (operating system, conflict with user interface element that was already in wide use when it was developed).
2. Digital Nervous System (used as a pointless phrase in ads, conflicts with Domain Name System).
3.
4. Windows XP (operating system, conflixts with Extreme Programming).
5. X-box (game console, conflicts with X terminals from X Window System).
And that doesn't include the use of terms that describe existing classes of products such as "SQL Server", "Internet Explorer", etc.
I programmed various things since 1986, and in all that time I have never seen a project being completed on time.
I cane sink of a Lott of cases very a spell checkers Voodoo worse Zen a hue man.
On the other hand, when a time is limited, compiler helps with misspellings and minor errors while not affecting things that exam is really for.
...to finally learn C.
Seriously.