This was a conversation that sparked up on Philosophy forums 
I thought you fuckers would like it.
That is simply false. An atheist, by definition, is someone who is without belief in God (Latin: A Theos), this tells you nothing about their position on dualism etc. Perhaps you should be targeting naturalism or physicalism rather than atheism?
And your definitions are suspect. For instance, knowledge is (often defined as) a true justified belief, that is to say that if you 'know' something you believe it to be true, it is in fact true, and you have some level of epistemic justification. The actual definition is very much debatable, I tend towards Juan Comesana's "Evidentialist Reliablism" as a theory of knowledge and justification, it seems to avoid the usual problems faced by evidentialism and reliabilism when they are alone.
Power is a weird one, I assume you essentially mean that the mind can perform operations regarding thought and movement? Like it is free to act within it's capabilities?
And I'm not on board with your concept of 'Will' either, my understanding of 'will' is an evaluation between conflicting sets of desires and their potential consequences for other desires, and the actual thought and decisions that we perceive ourselves making is a process in the brain of evaluating these competing sets, the harder the decision the more variables are in play, thus the longer we need to think about it. We ultimately always act as to fulfil the most and/or strongest of our competing desires.
Neither does a saline solution, but it's certainly not random. You could argue that it has power tough (in terms of the affects of it's interactions with other objects) so I really think you need to work on your definitions...
So does an algorithm, it evaluates a finite set of choices via some value based relationship, but it's not random.
A choice implies an educated(informed) decision, a random 'choice' doesn't really exist strictly speaking. A random selection might be more accurate.
I agree with the first part, but your part about 'power' is again out of place. I have a mind, I know that the asteroid is approaching, yet I still don't have the power to do anything about it.
And from the definition of power I used, the earth does have power in terms of it's interactions with other objects.
Does a predator drone have will? Because it does have 'knowledge' (in a loose sense) about physics, coordinates, it's own structure and capabilities, and it also has the 'power' to launch missiles, but it wouldn't have a 'will'.
I agree with this.
It's rather presumptive to say that the big bang is the 'first cause', rather, our best understanding of it is as an even relating to the birth and subsequent expansion of spacetime.
As for it being random, unintentional etc, we have no real reasons to favour either position, though unintentional natural events are consistent with our background knowledge, where as intentional natural events are not. This leads me to tentatively favour the idea of it being unintentional.
No... Einstein figured out through observation and mathematics that there exists certain relationships between frames of reference, speed, mass, energy etc. He didn't simply come to this conclusion arbitrarily, it stemmed from his study of the photoelectric effect.
If you are talking about 'contra-causal free will' it doesn't exist, other types of will are perfectly compatible with both determinism and indeterminism.
Does, but your definition is bunk.
Does, and once again your definition is bunk.
FALSE
Or some events are neither caused nor intentional, Radioactive decay is acausal in that it happens in probabilistic terms and not proceeding a prior event.
Choice =/= free will. Machines can chose.
Natural selection doesn't create language, we did. We have concepts of 'things' that are represented in our brains in systems of variables, we have the ability to make noises that also contain variables, thus our use of language is limited to the number of different auditory patterns we create. We can associate our neurological variables with auditory patters simply by pointing at the thing our neurological concept represents, and then associating an auditory pattern with it, thus we can give patterns of noise a relationship to other concepts. We then form a relationship between these auditory patterns and other visual patterns in the form of writing.
Look at the Tuu language, made up of patterns of 50 different 'click, clock and knock' sounds. Each sequence points to something else, and we also have a neurological representation of that thing, giving us the ability to relate the two.
In other words: We have concepts of objects, objects have relationships. We articulate our concepts in the form of language and we can describe the relationships between objects in terms of other objects and/or relationships. Any combination of objects and their relationships can be thus be described using concepts or a set of concepts in the form of a sentence.
Example: "The apple is red"
"Apple" and "Red" are concepts of physical things. "IS" is a relationship giving the former concept a property equal to that of the latter concept. "The" talks about a specific.
There is nothing what-so-ever dualist about that example.
And he finishes with a non-sequitur! BRAVO!
I thought you fuckers would like it.spinoza99 Wrote:I have outlined my points in another thread here.
http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threa...43972.html
Now I will discuss the main points in it succinctly one by one.
To be a true atheist you have to believe that there is only material. That is to say there is no immaterial force which can control the movement of material. Let me be very clear exactly what I mean by mind or immaterial force. The mind has three basic properties:
knowledge: the ability to know what bodies to move and where in order to achieve a result
power: the ability to move those bodies to the desired location
will: the desire to actually perceive the movement of these bodies as good, beneficial, desirable or necessary.
That is simply false. An atheist, by definition, is someone who is without belief in God (Latin: A Theos), this tells you nothing about their position on dualism etc. Perhaps you should be targeting naturalism or physicalism rather than atheism?
And your definitions are suspect. For instance, knowledge is (often defined as) a true justified belief, that is to say that if you 'know' something you believe it to be true, it is in fact true, and you have some level of epistemic justification. The actual definition is very much debatable, I tend towards Juan Comesana's "Evidentialist Reliablism" as a theory of knowledge and justification, it seems to avoid the usual problems faced by evidentialism and reliabilism when they are alone.
Power is a weird one, I assume you essentially mean that the mind can perform operations regarding thought and movement? Like it is free to act within it's capabilities?
And I'm not on board with your concept of 'Will' either, my understanding of 'will' is an evaluation between conflicting sets of desires and their potential consequences for other desires, and the actual thought and decisions that we perceive ourselves making is a process in the brain of evaluating these competing sets, the harder the decision the more variables are in play, thus the longer we need to think about it. We ultimately always act as to fulfil the most and/or strongest of our competing desires.
Quote:Mind is directly juxtaposed with randomness. Randomness has no knowledge, no power, and no will.
Neither does a saline solution, but it's certainly not random. You could argue that it has power tough (in terms of the affects of it's interactions with other objects) so I really think you need to work on your definitions...
Quote: Randomness merely selects a choice from a finite set of choices.
So does an algorithm, it evaluates a finite set of choices via some value based relationship, but it's not random.
Quote: As it chooses, randomness does not care what it chooses, does not know what to choose and has no desire to choose one choice over another choice, it will simply choose any choice from a finite set, it doesn't matter.
A choice implies an educated(informed) decision, a random 'choice' doesn't really exist strictly speaking. A random selection might be more accurate.
Quote: For example, let us take the alleged destruction of the dinosaurs by an asteroid which is believed to have landed near the Yucatan Penninsula near Chixculub. The Earth has no mind, so one it couldn't KNOW about the approaching asteriod. Two, if it did know, it couldn't do anything about it because it has no POWER over the asteriod or any other object.
I agree with the first part, but your part about 'power' is again out of place. I have a mind, I know that the asteroid is approaching, yet I still don't have the power to do anything about it.
And from the definition of power I used, the earth does have power in terms of it's interactions with other objects.
Quote: And three if it did have knowledge and power, it couldn't use it because it has no WILL.
Does a predator drone have will? Because it does have 'knowledge' (in a loose sense) about physics, coordinates, it's own structure and capabilities, and it also has the 'power' to launch missiles, but it wouldn't have a 'will'.
Quote: Second example, the nucleic acids T C A G form the basis of DNA. When they are replicated incorrectly, so the monists believe, this is not the result of a mind KNOWING the result of the mutations, nor does a mind have the POWER to move these nucleic acids such that they are incorrectly replicated. Third, these mutations are not the result of any WILL.
I agree with this.
Quote:Causation
The monists believe that all movement of bodies is the result of a physical cause and that all causes trace back to the first cause, the Big Bang, which was not the result of knowledge, power and will, it just happened, it was unintentional, accidental, random, arbitrary.
It's rather presumptive to say that the big bang is the 'first cause', rather, our best understanding of it is as an even relating to the birth and subsequent expansion of spacetime.
As for it being random, unintentional etc, we have no real reasons to favour either position, though unintentional natural events are consistent with our background knowledge, where as intentional natural events are not. This leads me to tentatively favour the idea of it being unintentional.
Quote:The dualists believe that there are numerous causes and that each of us is the prime mover of all our ideas and actions. Our ideas are the results of our mind exercising its knowledge, power and will. For example, let's say you think the thought: "what would happen to time if I approached the speed of light?" When Einstein thought this, this thought was not the result of him blindly obeying physical causes, rather he was the prime mover in this idea. He had never encountered this idea before in any essay, but it was he himself that caused it.
No... Einstein figured out through observation and mathematics that there exists certain relationships between frames of reference, speed, mass, energy etc. He didn't simply come to this conclusion arbitrarily, it stemmed from his study of the photoelectric effect.
Quote:Either: Will exists
Or: will does not exist
If you are talking about 'contra-causal free will' it doesn't exist, other types of will are perfectly compatible with both determinism and indeterminism.
Quote:Either: Power exists
Or: power does not exist
Does, but your definition is bunk.
Quote:Either: Knowledge exists
Or: knowledge does not exist
Does, and once again your definition is bunk.
Quote:Either: all three exist together
Or: all three do not exist together
FALSE
Quote:Either: ALL causes are due to an obedience to physical laws
Or: ALL causes are not due to an obedience to physical laws, but some are due to mind
Or some events are neither caused nor intentional, Radioactive decay is acausal in that it happens in probabilistic terms and not proceeding a prior event.
Quote:The brain
The human brain, in the monists view, is no exception. It too is obeying physical laws. All outputs are the result on an input. Input stimuli, output action. So when a person utters the phrase: "I have dream that one day people will be judged not by the content of their character but by the color of their skin," that phrase is simply the result of the stimuli that person encountered. That person did not choose to utter that phrase he was just obeying physical laws, just as a rock obeys gravity whensequitur it falls down.
Choice =/= free will. Machines can chose.
Quote:The problem human language poses to monism
This is where monism falls apart. How do you program a human to speak correct sentences? The number of correct sentences is easily more than a googolplex, it may even be infinite, and the number of incorrect sentences is still larger. Natural Selection cannot program a human to utter langauge because how do you write a code large enough for all the output? This code certainly could not be located in the DNA because the genetic code is only 3.2 billion base DNA pairs long. Moreover, natural selection not being intelligent and not knowing what langauge is, could scarcely contain the wherewithal that even eludes the smartest human beings.
Natural selection doesn't create language, we did. We have concepts of 'things' that are represented in our brains in systems of variables, we have the ability to make noises that also contain variables, thus our use of language is limited to the number of different auditory patterns we create. We can associate our neurological variables with auditory patters simply by pointing at the thing our neurological concept represents, and then associating an auditory pattern with it, thus we can give patterns of noise a relationship to other concepts. We then form a relationship between these auditory patterns and other visual patterns in the form of writing.
Look at the Tuu language, made up of patterns of 50 different 'click, clock and knock' sounds. Each sequence points to something else, and we also have a neurological representation of that thing, giving us the ability to relate the two.
In other words: We have concepts of objects, objects have relationships. We articulate our concepts in the form of language and we can describe the relationships between objects in terms of other objects and/or relationships. Any combination of objects and their relationships can be thus be described using concepts or a set of concepts in the form of a sentence.
Example: "The apple is red"
"Apple" and "Red" are concepts of physical things. "IS" is a relationship giving the former concept a property equal to that of the latter concept. "The" talks about a specific.
Quote:Here is the dualist picture of language. The human mind has knowledge of what words mean and what constitutes a correct sentence. The mind then uses its power over neurons to move the mouth such that the proper sounds are uttered so that someone else can roughly understand what they mean.
There is nothing what-so-ever dualist about that example.
Quote:Once you admit that there is a force that can manipulate material, it is very easy to understand that God is that force which can manipulate the material of the universe, and that what we do with our bodies, God can do with other material in the universe, though on a larger scale.
And he finishes with a non-sequitur! BRAVO!
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