As a pagan, do you believe in magic and psychic powers? If so, what are your views on love spells, sex spells, tantra, etc.?
It sometimes confuses (or even upsets) people to find out that I have some irrational beliefs, but all humans do. Even the most vocal atheists and dedicated skeptics have some things they accept on faith or because they want to; for example, a couple of years ago there was a group called “Atheism Plus” which insisted its members embrace neofeminist dogma. It could even be said that the principle of self-ownership upon which classical liberalism (modern libertarianism) rests is an article of faith, since there is no way to “prove” that such a principle exists or is “good” for the human species in some concrete way. But in the end, self-ownership is a moral principle, not a scientific one; it cannot be “proven” in the same way as the existence of electromagnetism can be. The moral difference between a good skeptic and an “Atheism Plus” style hypocrite is that while the former recognizes he might himself have some irrational beliefs, he has no right to impose them on others. Furthermore, the wise person recognizes that because different people have different irrational beliefs, it’s probably best to keep them out of most conversation with strangers (the old “avoid religion and politics” rule). The only exception is the self-ownership principle, because it’s the one irrational belief which allows our modern idea of manners to even exist; refusing to accept that every person is the “captain of his soul” opens the door to violence and coercion, which makes polite discourse impossible. Can you have a truly polite conversation with a judge in his courtroom, or a cop anywhere at any time? Of course not, because in both cases the “official” wrongly believes his view of reality is the “correct” one, and that he has the “right” to use violence to enforce that view upon everyone else. Furthermore, he is backed by the vast and brutal machinery of the state, which will uphold his use of force no matter how arbitrary, excessive and immoral it may be. The moral individual, on the other hand, accepts that everyone has the right to his own thoughts; he just doesn’t have the right to implement them in a way that infringes upon the equal rights of everyone else. There’s nothing innately wrong with a personal feeling or belief that sex work is bad or sinful or whatever; it only becomes wrong when the one who believes it employs armed thugs to enforce that belief on other individuals.
Many times in my life, I have experienced events that I cannot explain unless psychic phenomena and deities of some sort (though not anthropomorphic ones) exist. I don’t believe in magic per se, because I don’t believe thought can affect physical reality. In fact, I do not believe that even the gods can affect matter; as I have often said, “God cannot stop a nail from puncturing your tire, but She can move the heart of a passing motorist to stop and help you fix it.” In other words, gods, prayer and “magic” (if you want to call it that) act only within the brain and have no power outside of it, nor do they have any effect on free will. There is no “magical” way to “make” a person do anything; all psychic forces (including gods) can do is to “poke” his mind and create an urge. But just as he has the power to resist the urges caused by the smell of delicious food, the sight of a beautiful woman or the presence of a drawer full of money, so he also has the power to resist the “push” of psychic forces or divine inspiration (though in my experience it’s very foolish to do the latter). Given all this, there is no way at present to empirically demonstrate the existence of either psychic powers or deities; due to my own personal experiences I believe in those things for myself, but I don’t care if anyone else believes in them, nor will I waste my time trying to convince others of their existence. Furthermore, I would oppose any laws based upon my (or anyone else’s) irrational beliefs; laws should be based on facts, not faith, even were that faith to be accepted by the entire human race save one.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
I think as long as its recognized that it’s your belief and not someone else’s then that’s fine.
The problem starts to arise when someone decides you must conform to their belief system and becomes a real problem when they are inclined to use violence to impose their beliefs on others.
Something of a thorny issue, even amongst Anarchists I get Anarcho Feminists telling me what I should think or who I should support, they don’t ever seem to get the irony.
This all neatly traces back to one thing: Authoritarianism. And that you find in any guise and almost any place.
Good reference to current research: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
It really seems people that want to conform to some nonsense an “authority figure” spouts are are more the norm than the exception and in trying to get others to conform, they lose all sight of fundamental moral principles.
I agree with you on religion. My religion is pragmatic and intuitive not rational. I also believe that God inspires but does not intervene. However, Robert Kane’s Moral Sphere Theory is a rational approach to ethics. I can’t set out his arguments here but they are consistent with the self-ownership principle.
I don’t scoff at really anyone’s religious beliefs (with the exception of Mormonism and Mohammedanism).
Fuck do I know what’s up there? I’ve seen some terrible, Godless shit in my time – but I’ve also seen a few things that look like miracles and I have been to places of such beauty – it’s hard for me to figure that it was all an “accident”.
So I’m still a “searcher”. Because of this, I never raised my kids one way or the other. When they asked me questions – I just told them that everyone has to come to their own understanding on religion. I have a daughter who’s an atheist, a son who’s about like me, and another daughter who’s a pretty committed Catholic.
There’s been about five situations I’ve encountered in my life when I SHOULD have died – fuckin’ KNEW I was gonna die. Funny … in every one of ’em … at some point I thought … “God, you get me out of this shit and I will serve you until the end of time.”
And every time I reneged on the promise!
Well I’ve earned my spot in Hell, I suppose – if it exists. Not gonna be a lot of argument from me when the ultimate bouncer kicks me away from the Pearly Gates.
Oh yeah … regarding my kids … I do remember telling them … “Whatever belief system you end up adopting is fine … as long as you’re not an ASSHOLE about it.”
Cuz when I thought about it all again – and my atheist daughter – I realized she’s not an asshole about it! 😛
What makes you think you’re not serving by doing exactly what you’re doing?
If that’s true his prayers must have been answered by one of the particularly unwholesome gods. 😉
LOL … you must be talking about that “God” that resides in the curve of a woman’s hip. That one at least makes sense to me!
That’s a good point but … for a guy like me who holds no “organized” religious beliefs … “to serve” would mean to finally sit down and figure out the answers to all the questions concerning the nature of God and life. I have been exposed to a lot of religions … and really none of them ever “touched” me I suppose except for some of the teachings of Hindus. Now I’m not a Hindu (by any means) – but I do like some of their life philosophy. The way they look at the world seems more legit than the way Christians do – at least in my view. There was an Indian guru … Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who said that the supreme reason for human existence was “God Realization” … or finding God. He was a Hindu … but had also practiced Christianity and Islam and argued that … as long as you are on some kind of a path toward God … it’s the right path because they all lead to him.
I don’t think he was talking, necessarily – about an “organized” path (via Christianity or any of the other organized religion). Though that may be fine, but I think he also meant that at least the individual should be SEARCHING for the answers.
I am not searching for the answers in any diligent way though. The problem seems too hard for me to wrap my brain around. And, there’s some guilt in that for me – because it seems to me that humans have a special intelligence and awareness apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Why do we have it? What are we supposed to do with it? Does mean anything (and it may not mean a damn thing). Maybe there is no God … and therefore no “path”. WTF? I haven’t even answered the first question … “is there really a God”. I can find arguments either way.
It’s like when I was a kid and Mom told me to clean up my room. Then I look at my room and not even know where to begin cleaning because the whole thing was a real shithouse!
Not a problem.
In Hinduism there are more ways to skin a cat than thinking about it.
Jnana Yoga is the path of the mind to realisation.
Bhakti Yoga emphasises love and devotion.
Karma Yoga is activity and service.
Raja Yoga uses contemplation and inner stillness.
All paths are valid. Which one you choose depends on your dharma. Dharma is a function of your karma and in turn expresses your varna (caste).
Off the top of my head I’d guess your caste is Kshatriya krulac. Kshatriyas sometimes follow the Jnana path but are more often practitioners of Karma Yoga.
Needless to say I agree strongly with the thrust of the article (I’d be a complete hypocrite otherwise) but …
The only exception is belief in a moralist, punitive god because it’s the one irrational belief that keeps people in line (to paraphrase Hobbs).
The only exception is Marxism because it’s the one irrational belief that may bring about the classless utopia.
The only exception is Buddhism because it’s the one irrational belief that can end suffering and release us from samsara.
The only exception is neo-feminism because it’s the one irrational belief that can free us from gender oppression and end rape culture.
The only exception is Scientism because it’s the one irrational belief that delivers real miracles, including personal immortality and unlimited unmetered power (in fifty years, max).
The only exception is baseless optimism because it’s the one irrational belief that can save us from despair.
The only exception is (insert your most central tenet here) because it’s the one irrational belief that (insert something you believe to be absolutely vital to society here).
There have been many societies that believe in fate or complete control by deities (check the Gita for example) – thereby denying self-ownership – that have not dissolved into violence, coercion and bad manners. And of course there are many people who don’t believe violence, coercion or bad manners are necessarily bad things.
I’m not understanding this … from what I’ve understood of Hinduism, the deities don’t control everything – there’s still free will, so “self-ownership” … right?
Isn’t there plenty of examples of violence, coercion and bad manners in Hindu society?
Hinduism is in no way a monolithic belief system. In fact I’d suggest there are more variations within Hinduism than there are between all of the other religions combined.
Some Hindus insist on the reality of free will, some deny it, some believe it neither exists nor doesn’t exist (I’m not kidding) and some believe the question itself to be wrongheaded.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna makes it clear to Arjuna that his agonising over whether to fight or not is irrelevant because everything that happens does so according to fate and the will of Krishna not the delusion of mortal autonomy.
I didn’t get that from the whole Krishna / Arjuna encounter. What I got from it was that Krisna was telling Arjuna not to fret about destroying his enemies because … in the end … he wouldn’t really be destroying them since all of the lives he was about to take existed from the beginning of time and would continue to exist forever even after he killed them.
So he still had free will … it’s just that Krishna was informing him that that “free will” wasn’t as destructful as Arjuna thought.
Yep, that was in there too.
Krishna raises several arguments against Arjuna’s pacifism, all of which draw on notions expounded in the Vedas and Upanishads.
I’ve gotta admit, several of His arguments seem pure sophistry to me, but every Indian philosopher from Sankara to Gandhi has written a commentary on the Gita which attempts to justify some of those arguments and I’m nowhere near familiar enough with the field to be able to evaluate them on their merits.
Sure, but you’d be doing well to argue they’re more prevalent there than in societies in which the notion of self-ownership is more widespread (the US for example).
Come to think of it, you can only have coercion in societies that believe in self-ownership. You can’t lose your freedom of action if there’s none to lose.
Okay I get what you’re saying now.
As Maggie says somewhere in these here comments, as a society you need to begin somewhere. The task then is to choose your central tennis consiously.
The best way to argue in favor for self ownership is to simply ask: If people do not own themselves, who does? It cannot be no one, because once the idea of ownership exists it cannot un-exist.
Even if an idea can’t be made to unexist it can be rejected.
Try reading Ursula Le Guin’s Dispossessed if you don’t get it.
Some people would suggest that the American Civil War was a violent rejection of the notion people can be owned. But even if you accept that people can be owned it doesn’t follow that they own themselves. Lots of people think they own their kids or partners and can make coherent arguments as to why that is appropriate.
I get what your saying, and perhaps the only honest thing to do would be to form two distinct cultures from infants, give each the same resources and challenges, teach one the idea of self ownership and not the other, and see which thrives best.
Given that that is something of a fantasy, I’d say the jury is out on which is definetly best, but honestly? Cultures with a belief in self ownership definetly have the best stuff right now.
That would assume that “thriving” is a valid fitness criteria for “level of ethical development”. I don’t think that can be taken as a given.
“Even if an idea can’t be made to unexist it can be rejected.”
There are some ideas where this is true. Self-ownership is not one of them. By engaging in the process of independent thought and judgement, you are actively engaging in self-ownership behavior. It would be like saying “my hands are paralyzed and cannot move” while actively doing the Macarena. It is inherently self-contradictory, and therefore must be wrong.
You are only correct if you are starting from the assumption that you are the source of the thoughts and judgements that occur in your mind (i.e. you have built your conclusion into your premise and begged the question).
Buddhism, for example, teaches we are not the agents of our own mental processes and that there is in fact no core ‘self’ that acts as the agent for anything we usually attribute to ourselves. Many people have started from the idea of self-ownership and eventually rejected it in favour of the Buddhist concept of anatta.
You are in good company though. Descartes made the same error.
Hey, deep down we are all solipsists. Physical reality is just hard to ignore, so we make arrangements to accommodate it.
Well, deep down I probably am, but the rest of you aren’t because you only exist in my mind.
But more seriously …
I think some developmental psychologists argue that we all start out as solipsists and that the concept of ‘other’ and theory of mind only come later (I’m not sure how orthodox this idea is) but I don’t think we’re all solipsists deep down really.
A lot of people seem far more aware of their theory of other people’s thoughts and opinions than they are of their own. In some forms of psychosis the psychotic believes herself to be unreal but everyone else to be real. More common is the psychotic conviction that one’s thoughts are not one’s own but are inserted by external beings.
Not me though. I never go anywhere without my tinfoil hat.
But wait! What about the research of Rahimi, Recht, Taylor and Vawter?
Arrgh! Tricked again!
See, I think that phenomenon is actually an extention of solipsism. You begin to see other people as “just like you”, implying that acting for these people is basically acting for yourself, just abstractly.
Interesting idea, that empathy might be some kind of extension of solipsism.
I don’t know that the ‘just like you’ aspect of it is telling. You can believe in other beings that are nothing at all like you. Paranoiacs and xenophobes aren’t generally seen as solipsists and the former often complain of thought insertion, sometimes by demons or aliens.
But the idea that you can truly know someone else enough to empathise with them or fall in love with them implies that you think you can hold a reasonably complete model of another person (or lots of other people) in your mind. That seems pretty darn unlikely to me but it would also have to be what solipsists believe in order to explain how they ‘imagine’ the existence of everyone else.
My daughter and I have a prayer that I think sums up much of what you say. Though we use the term god in it it is not meant for doctrinal/religious purposes.
“We will win. Why, we’ll tell you why. Because we have faith, courage and enthusiasm. God thank you for this day, bless our mothers and fathers and all our loved ones. And help us to have another wonderful day tomorrow, amen.”
🙂
Oh and by the way, define logical? I always find it amusing that the “Big Bang” is considered logical. Like if that isnt fantastical belief to think it “Just” happened. 😉
“Rational” means “based in reason”, in other words proceeding from reproducible evidence subjected to mathematical & scientific logic. The results of such a practice can still be pretty fantastical; the important thing is that they’re reproducible and falsifiable, which irrational beliefs aren’t.
Actually rational beliefs don’t have to be falsifiable unless you subscribe to Popper’s critical rationalism (which some philosophers reject).
Some rationalists even believe in inductive logic.
Inductive reasoning is still falsifiable, it’s just a less linear way of deriving conclusions from given data.
The best studies are done by using inductive reasoning and test methodology to develop a hypothesis, and deductive reasoning and test methodology to try and disprove it.
Correct. My second para was just an aside referring to the fact that critical rationalists reject inductive reasoning (because it doesn’t have a logical leg to stand on and routinely produces conclusions that are utter crap).
Bah. Inductive resoning is a valid tool, it just needs to be varified, just like deductive resoning.
Speeding as and engineer, I have personally witnessed the industry wide dependence on inductive reasoning, they just get dressed up as “Gut feelings based on experience” or “inspiration”.
I have never heard a compelling argument that given the same basic assuptions, inductive and deductive resoning will give different answers (or at least answers of different reliability)
However, I think we left the point behind somewhere, so I’ll catch it up- inductive reasoning is still founded in reason.
Nonsense.
Deductive reasoning does not require verification. If the premises are correct the conclusions are necessarily true (Russell would argue they are tautologically true).
Inductive reasoning produces conclusions more general than the premises. Even if the premises are correct whether the conclusions are or not is random.
Then read a bit of Hume and learn some basics.
Deductive resoning verifies during the process and thus requires more time, inductive resoning must be verified after the fact.
Huh?
Dogs are mammals.
Fido is a dog.
Therefore Fido is a mammal.
How much time did that take?
Inductive reasoning often can’t be verified at all.
If there’s just one black swan out there – even if it’s holed up with Bigfoot – your inductive reasoning about white swans fails.
I think the problem is that simple premises do not adequately represent the real problems you apply reason too.
Inductive reasoning relys on probability- and thus the conclusions are still probabilities
deductive reasoning rely on absolutes, thus the conclusions are absolites.
Reality, though, is not absolute. Oh, it can be functionally absolute sometimes, but in general you are left with probability
Mammals do not lay eggs
duck bill platypus lay eggs
Platypus are not mammals
Whether rational logic is applicable to real problems or not is irrelevant to whether it is valid.
Hobbits have hairy feet.
Frodo is a hobbit.
Therefore Frodo has hairy feet.
Inductive reasoning does not incorporate probability because it can’t. When Europeans thought all swans were white they had no idea how many swans there were in the universe nor where they were and so no way to evaluate whether their sample data was representative. I’m not certain of the numbers but I think most swans are black. Around here they all are.
You might use probability to select one inductive hypothesis from a myriad of choices but that gets back to what I said. It’s not the inductive reasoning that makes the hypothesis more likely it’s the application of probability.
Dogs are mammals.
Fido is probably a dog.
Therefore Fido is probably a mammal.
Wow! We agree on that now. In an earlier thread I thought you were arguing that there is an absolute reality out there and that observations and interpretations were what differed.
Some folk would just point out that the first premise is wrong so it’s hardly surprising the conclusion is.
Others would suggest the issue is definitional. If you choose to define mammals as ‘animals that don’t lay eggs’ then your conclusion is correct.
You must verify both, as all reasoning is by abstraction and that can contain inaccuracies large enough to invalidate the conclusion. Therefore, in scientific discourse, if you cannot verify your statements, they are considered highly suspect.
It really annoys me when people treat the biggest discoveries in astrophysics as silly, or worse, just as illogical and unfounded as any old creation myth.
Those discoveries that have been made using observation and reason are not religious myths, nor should they ever be treated as such.
I don’t think JT was ridiculing the “big bang” itself. What it seems he was poking fun at was the notion that it just “happened” on its own – caused by a freakish combination of completely accidental events in a universe of nothingness … which then produced “everything”.
It’s probably the biggest obstacle I have to shedding this notion that there may be a “God”. They can discover all the “God Particles” they wish to … but the question keeps arising in my mind … “How did that get there?”
Actually, I can see your point there, but I would also point out that time also began then too, so the idea of “before” is actually rather fallicious.
however, like I said, I can see your point, and untill a better answer is reasoned out, some kind of vague agnostic style “god” is a perfectly functional placeholder explanation.
Bravo.
Do you know how few people are actually prepared to accept the notion of bounded time?
I think a lot of folk just reject it because they can’t get their head around it, though I don’t see what makes it so difficult.
Indeed:
Before time began there was…..n’t
Universal time may have begun then – but if there is a creator – he’s on a different schedule – therefore the idea of “before” would be valid.
If there was an omnipotent creator surely She wouldn’t be restricted to linear forward motion in a single dimension of time as are we. So I’d guess ‘before’ and ‘after’ would mean nothing to Her.
(Disclosure: My Goddess is Mahakali and She is Time and Death).
It’s turtles all the way down.
‘God particle’ <- One of the worst pop sci terms ever, for reasons that should be obvious.
'completely accidental events' <- another, and far more consequential.
If it wasn't intentional, that doesn't mean it was an accident. That has so much baggage! 'Things that happen' is fundamental ;'accident' is a high-level concept. It's denigrating realism by leaving God in but making Him incompetent.
Observation: Things with a complex design are made by intelligent beings.
Observation: In our village, the potter makes things of complex design out of clay.
Observation: People have a complex design.
Inductive reasoning: People were made by an intelligent being out of clay.
Fallacy: Complexity implies design
Fallacy: A pot is of the same order of complexity as a biological human being
Inductive reasoning only works if you start with accurate assumptions, just like in deductive resoning.
Ack! Why’d it post twice?
Observation: This computer is complex and was designed.
Observation: The car parked outside is complex and was designed.
Observation: Nuclear power stations are complex and were designed.
Inductive reasoning: Complexity implies design.
It’s no different to the inductive reasoning that told Europeans all swans were white until they weren’t. Inductive reasoning regularly produces fallacies.
No, it only works if you’re very lucky.
Pure inductive reasoning will almost always produce nonsense. In real life it is usually applied with common sense and when it’s right it is a function of the common sense, not inductive reasoning.
Your data set is incomplete- Ecosystems are complex, but they are not designed.
inductive reasoning does not! produce garbage unless your lucky- it is literally the same as deductive in that Garbage in = garbage out.
However, many people try to use inductive reasoning as a lazy shortcut around deductive resoning, which may give the impression that it is less usefull, but if you try to use a hammer when you need a screwdriver, you will of course end up with shoddy work. Vice versa as well.
Inductive reasoning is always applied to incomplete data sets.
If you were to observe all swans and they were all white the statement “all swans are white” would not be a product of reasoning, just observation.
If you could see into the future you could say “the sun will rise tomorrow” without recourse to inductive reasoning (I hope).
All reasoning is, technically, applied to incomplete data sets!
I never had the stomach for philosophy for this very reason. Inductive resoning is a resoning tool, and so is deductive resoning. To show how they must always work together in order to understand the world, let’s go back to our friend the scientific method:
Make observations
Develop a Hypothese (via inductive resoning)
Develop a Test Procedure (via deductive resoning)
Observe the results of the Test Procedure.
Do the results match the hypothese? Observe how they differ.
Modify Test Procedure or Hypothese with appropriate type of resoning
Repeat forever.
Well, yes. Data is always incomplete, and any hypothesis must be based on the incompleteness of data. Yet no thesis can ever be perfect, because knowledge and understanding is a journey, a process, rather than an end. And then we apply Bohr’s constant (that any theory only gets accepted when the deniers die off). What’s the problem with that? Is it that so many look for certainties where none exist? Evolution etc tells us that it’s all a matter of chance, and the idea of “chance” is just too hard to swallow; there is no reason the we exist, it’s just “chance”. We look for certainties, for explanations, even where there are none.
Wrong again.
In my syllogism about Fido you can see that all the data is there from the start. It has merely been rearranged to give a new conclusion. That’s why Bertrand Russell said deductive reasoning is tautological (as is mathematics).
Your summary of the scientific method is arguably correct but critical rationalists would point out that while inductive reasoning might be used to falsify a hypothesis at an early stage it cannot be used to select a sensible one. So, for example, if a chemist puts two chemicals in a test tube twenty times in a row and gets the same reaction it would be equally valid inductively to say the two chemicals always react with each other or that they both respond to the presence of a test tube. One is guided by common sense and may be correct, the other is guided by pure inductive reasoning and is probably wrong. In the classic example, inductive reasoning suggests that things only exist because I pay attention to them. I have never observed an exception.
But even if you are 100% correct, what happens when you look at the history of scientific development? It is littered with the wreckage of false hypotheses that have been derived via inductive reasoning. Far more than potentially correct ones that have stood the test of time thus far, especially if you take into account all the failed experiments that never saw the light of publication. Tell me again how it’s just as reliable as deduction?
There is no way to completely separate inductive and deductive reasoning when working scientifically, therefor it is impossible to differentiate between theories that stood the test of time and ones that did not by the type of reasoning used to develop them.
I’m not sure when you said it, but you claimed inductive resoning didn’t use probabilities, that is false. I suggest you go back to philosophy 101 and review when inductive resoning is applied, and also what probability is and how it is used in scientific analysis.
I do not recall this conversation you remember where I argued that reality was absolute, but I’ll just be clear- I make no judgments on when whether or not there is an absolute reality, because even if their is one, we cannot (yet?) observe it.
Well I think it’s pretty clear that if a scientific theory is a generalisation from a specific that it’s been arrived at by inductive reasoning. You can’t do that with deductive reasoning.
So, for example, I might note that sensory input seems to be transmitted via media. Touch comes from material contact, taste and smell the exchange of chemicals, sound the impact of pressure waves. So I might theorise that therefore visible light is transmitted by vibrations in something called the ether. ‘Good’ inductive logic. Completely wrong conclusion that couldn’t have been arrived at deductively.
Perhaps you would like to provide an example of inductive reasoning that relies on probability (as opposed to inductive reasoning about probabilities – obviously you can apply reasoning to anything but that doesn’t mean that it uses it to draw conclusions. e.g. deductive reasoning doesn’t rely on dogs named Fido).
Here’s the logic 101 example of inductive reasoning and why it can’t rely on probability.
Socrates has seen one thousand swans. They were all white.
He reasons “All swans are white”.
But without knowing how many swans there are in the universe or whether his sample is representative how on earth can he assess the probability he is correct?
Here’s one example of how probability might refute inductive reasoning though.
Every day of my life the sun has risen in the east.
I might therefore reason inductively that the sun will always rise in the east.
But my sample size is finite and ‘always’ is infinite.
Therefore I know that my experience tells me nothing about whether the sun will always rise in the east.
It is not logical at all, it is “observable”. That is a fundamentally different thing, but it seems even these days it requires a scientific mind to see that.
Might be worth mentioning that rationalism itself is an irrational belief system. You can’t demonstrate it’s primary tenets rationally (i.e. you can’t use reason to show that reason – as opposed to experience exclusively – is a valid source of knowledge).
Of course that’s a cheap shot. Almost all belief systems fail the test of self-reference. They’re kinda Godelian that way.
That’s more or less what I was getting at with self-ownership. There’s always some point at which we have to throw up our hands and agree to start there; my reason for preferring reason & self-ownership is that they produce results less likely to create violent repression. All the other systems you mentioned in your devil’s advocate comment above lead directly to violent repression of minorities.
Government, according to Jefferson, exists to protect people. It does us no harm if our neighbor believes in no gods or fifty gods as long “he doesn’t pick my pocket or break my leg.”
This is actually a fail (you are mixing abstraction layers). Rationality is on the same abstraction level as “irrational belief system”, so the one does not describe the other in a more abstract sense. The question of whether rationality is irrational does not apply. Rationality is rational by definition.
I worded it poorly.
What I should have said was that rationalism can neither be validated nor justified rationally. There is no rational reason for choosing rationalism over, say, strong empiricism.
Rationality may be, but rationalism is no more rational than Scientism is scientific.
You could argue that a particular interpretation of rationalism is internally rational (some interpretations clearly are not)
Oops. Hit the wrong key. As I was saying …
You could argue that a particular interpretation of rationalism is internally rational (some interpretations clearly are not) but you can’t bootstrap rationalism with rationality in the same way you can bootstrap faith with faith.
Well, true. Faith has this special mechanism called “miracle” that allows you to do anything.
But you are right about rationalism. (Should have looked up the definition before replying….) Rationalism seems to ignore important facts and that can be called irrational every time.
I often have trouble explaing that just because I am an Atheist doesn’t mean I don’t subscribe to superstitions and spiritual fancy on occasion, all it means is that I acknowledge these things are in the realm of superstition and fancy.
I have run into a similar issue: I am an atheist, but I am also a dualist (i.e. “humans are more than physical”). Most (US-American) atheist seem to think that a proper atheist must believe in physicalism (“there is nothing but physics”), a belief for which there is no rational basis. Science says the issue is wide open. Yet these people insist on it as a fact.
If you want some real “magic”, here are a few candidates which are clearly part of observable reality, but science has zero reliable explanations:
– Self-awareness: Nobody has any idea how it works, yet most people claim to have it. All science has is observations of its effects. The experiments claiming that you decide to do something before you become aware of it are bogus in their explanation, because there is no way to measure when you become aware of something, just when your brain exhibits some indicators.
– Intelligence: Computer Science has consistently failed to come up with a working model, much less a convincing (to experts) demonstration. The only working model (automated theorem proving) is unworkable in this physical reality due to extreme effort. Yet people have intelligence, and some are even using it occasionally.
– Life: Nobody has any idea how life works. There are some explanations for its mechanisms, but what makes the “spark” that distinguishes living from non-living matter is unknown. This one may be some form of automatism though, but at this time we do not know.
– Existence of the physical Universe: The current explanation from physics still is “quantum fluctuation from a virtual quantum universe”. (I am not making this up.) That is a fancy way of saying “poof, and it was there”, i.e. zero scientific explanation known.
And here is one that gets overlooked frequently, because it is subtle:
– Randomness: Current physical theory has still not got to grips with it. They managed to reduce it down to only quantum effects being random and all other “random” things like thermal noise being in principle (although not practice) predictable. Now, there is no explanation how “quantum noise” works. Nobody has any idea. And it is present in a few places that really matter in relevant intensities, e.g. in synapses in the human brain.
So much for “science explains all”. For all these things, it is unclear whether they can be explained scientifically or not. But no real scientist is troubled by it. There is no need to be able to explain anything. There is just a need to clearly know what can be explained scientifically and what cannot, because otherwise “Science” becomes a tool of manipulation by claiming false “truths”. A very blatant example of that is Creationism.
The statement should never be “science explains all”, but “science can explain all”
Some of the things you point out are indeed fascinating mysteries, but you computer and life ones are off. Computer science is a baby, give it a few hundred years and we shall see.
As for life, it’s not that we don’t know how it works, it’s that it’s difficult to draw the line between alive and not alive. Is a virus alive? What about a storm system?
I tend to agree but with qualifications.
To say whether computers will ever be intelligent it would first be necessary to come up with a working definition of testable intelligence. I think we all know that the Turing test would only suffice if it were open-ended, in which case there is always the possibility it would disqualify the candidate at some time in the future. I doubt Mr Spock could pass a Turing test.
If a computer communicates like a human being by virtue of devoting many billions of times more raw processing power to it than people do can we say it’s intelligent or that it’s simulating intelligence through pure grunt.
Life too is a matter of definition but I think we know a fair bit about the mechanics of self-sustaining and self-replicating reactions and I’m pretty sanguine with the idea that just about any milepost you want to define as ‘life’ is technologically achievable in theory.
I think what Celos was alluding to is the dualist theory of vitalism. That there is some extra-physical ingredient that makes living things alive. I think vitalism is another example of failed inductive logic. Scientists are unable to bring the dead back to life even if they repair the damage that caused the death, so they inductively reasoned that some other vital ingredient had left the corpse at death and was no longer there to animate it.
I think the few remaining functions of life that cannot be explained with pure physicalism are more conservatively explained by emergentism than by postulating vitalism.
Of course emergentism itself has never really been explained though and you could argue that the way order often ‘spontaneously’ arises from chaotic complex systems is another piece of ‘magic’ that is beyond current science.
I am a pragmatic witch. Magic is applied will. I apply my will to my corner of reality and change it, thereby affecting my reality. It looks an AWFUL lot like work in practice.
The Natural world of ‘magick’ is about psychic power, that power which emanates from our relation to our natural elements.
There is ‘nothing’ irrational about experiental truth.
The notion of a “fetish” is a religious concept. Sex is our physical proof in the power of the irrational.
The best theology is parasitology!
The best book on the subject is PARASITE REX by Carl Zimmer.
Until we have studied parasites, we are ignorant of the intelligence of the Universe!
“Can you have a truly polite conversation with a judge in his courtroom, or a cop anywhere at any time?”
In a courtroom? No, because I would think no one is there to have a polite conversation, even in an ideal state where no judge is ever immoral, arbitrary or excessive.
As for LEOs, so none of them are capable of polite conversation, ever? I have no personal experience, so this is all in the abstract, but if that’s the case, I see no hope of ending the vicious cycle we’re in of LEOs seeing all non-LEOs as obstacles to be vanquished in some amorphous ‘war on crime’ and of non-LEOs seeing all LEOs as faceless, soulless butchers. Someone’s got to go first to break it. One would hope it’s the LEOs.
I suppose as long as we’re talking about ‘irrational’ beliefs, mine is that people are capable of rising above their hatreds and seeing the humanity of those around them, whether it’s across the barricades or from up in the penthouse, even if it goes very slowly.
Just wanted to point out that you do not need one or more “deities” for the things you believe you have observed (I am not making a statement about their validity, but we all tend to be overly impressed by statistical anomalies). Some other non-physical entities that can act in the way you describe are quite enough. So benign “ghosts” of some kind seem to fit the bill as well. For example, some cultures believe that some of their ancestors stick around to cause effects like the ones you describe.
I just do not see any need or indication for the “better”, “larger”, etc. that “deity” implies. (Yes, I have a problem with “authority” that is assigned instead of proving itself to me. 😉
On the plus side, if the effect is actually there, it may be possible to prove its existence, although low intensity effects that are in addition intelligence-driven are really really hard to nail down and usually only if that intelligence cooperates.
My idea of deities are probably a lot smaller than what you’re imagining, but ancestral spirits would probably do the job nicely. The important factor is that they’re sentient, but incorporeal.
I see. With that definition your idea works fine.
“But in the end, self-ownership is a moral principle, not a scientific one;”
As CS Lewis (of all people) pointed out: it is logically impossible to get from indicative premises to an imperative conclusion. You cannot reason from any amount of “this is the case” statements to a “this ought to be the case”. Any attempt to do so always, always, necessarily always smuggles in a moral judgement as a premise.
I tend to agree with David Hume, in a loose sense (without all his specific terminology), that reason is the slave of the passions. So, laws should be based on facts and people’s agreement on how to live with one another. I don’t believe in some absolute moral principles. However, it seems that humans are kind of forced into a situation, as social animals, where they must figure out how to live with each other. I believe in social problem-solving and that is basically what laws are. We generally can learn from history that tyrannical social systems seem to lead to more unhappiness in the average person. If people have more choices in how they can live their lives, they tend to be happier, even according to surveys and assessments of happiness in various countries. It makes sense to do what feels good over the long run. Tolerance of different people, so long as they aren’t infringing on your freedom to do what you want to do, might be uncomfortable over the short term, but it leads to more happiness for everyone over the long term. Valuing freedom is good for everyone, I think. There is evidence for this. Maybe you can’t prove it. But it seems highly plausible.
The point I made above is that reason and emotion are important. Emotion drives reason. Certain emotions are generally preferable to others for humans. I think that believing irrational things generally seems to lead to less long term well being. Some of the least religious countries are the happiest according to research. Some of the most religious countries are war-torn and pretty unhappy (some Middle-Eastern countries, for example). Generally committing to believing in what is rational (based on what we actually know, self-helping, accurate) is less likely to lead to certain insane cultural practices. For instance, believing that a god cares about our sex lives and basing laws on this is generally a damaging thing for many people. To say that the issue is not the irrational belief is a problem, I think. John Stuart Mill used rationality to argue for freedom in On Liberty. Rationality is our friend. People should not be forced to not have irrational beliefs. However, I believe in reasoned debate about such things. I think it is why we don’t throw virgins in volcanoes anymore (as Steven Pinker would say).
I don’t know about countries but I know that surveys consistently show that people with a religious faith tend to be happier than those without.
Maybe it’s a case of unhappy countries being more religious rather than visa-versa.
Reblogged this on hocuspocus13.
[…] I don’t merely mean a few irrational beliefs which we recognize as irrational; everyone, including the most die-hard skeptics, have such beliefs, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as we recognize them as […]
I’m an atheist – quite a militant one after the Lee Rigby incident as well (though I still believe in freedom of religion), but I admit to knocking on wood so much you might as well call me a woodpecket :p
I do know of those atheism plus morons. Tried to kick up a fuss by tearing down MRA posters claiming them to be ‘hate speech’. Yet curiously for atheists, they had no evidence to prove what they were saying, which is embarrassing to say the least. :/