Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress • Hacker News Board

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#151

Post by naasking » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

fjsolwmv wrote: post #140

naasking wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you pretty fairly describe the current landscape of this debate, which is unusual in itself. Kudos! > Part of the dispute is over whether such a definition of "free will" matches people's everyday pre-philosophical usage, and also whether it works for the purposes of other disciplines in which the concept of "free will" might be invoked, such as ethics or law. Fortunately, this is an empirical question that h…

Lay people, yes, but lay people also believe in ghosts and angels. Lay people believing it doesn't make it true. Scientific reasoning shows compatibilism is inaccurate, But just how like how belief in an scientifically absurd afterife can make people happy, being scientifically correct is not equivalent to having a good life. And this is a potential definition of the essence religion or wait, properly opposed to scie…

> Lay people, yes, but lay people also believe in ghosts and angels. Lay people believing it doesn't make it true.

I suggest you read the study and others like it. If you flat out ask people what they believe, with no further context, they tend to support incompatbilist intuitions. But when they test their responses to moral questions, they employ Compatibilist moral reasoning, and agree with claims that are Compatibilist.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#152

Post by salmonfamine » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

brobdingnagians wrote: post #45

Sounds like a clever, witty, and charming guy. Would be very interesting to talk to him; I like his style of talking. Curiously ironic that he cites a consensus in personal belief in atheism and agnostics among philosophers (at least, modern philosophers, most philosophers in history believed in God..) as a good reason for philosophy not accepting the existence of God, which appears to be a popularity contest (and ec…

It's hard to actually address this comment since it's such a ramble, but I think you make some disingenuous rhetorical moves that deserve to be addressed.

You employ a rhetorical move that some theists have used in the past -- namely, casting doubt on the veracity of scientific beliefs by painting them in the guise of religion.

This is also a convenient move that lets you characterize huge swaths of academia that disagree with you by questioning their psychological motives for holding the beliefs they do.

And now that philosophy and science are reduced to priesthoods, what makes them better than religion? After all, most atheists "have some personal, emotional reason for not believing in God rather than a well-thought out chain of reasoning; but most people believe things for personal and emotional reasons, so it isn't surprising." As if the motivations behind a given belief have any ramifications on its truth value.

This effectively allows you to justify belief in God without actually making any arguments for it -- as if in the hypothetical vacancy of science and philosophy we're left with no choice but to default to theism.

I would encourage you to investigate the philosophy of belief and God in more detail, and to be "open to discovery of truth even when [you] may not like it." There is a great deal more literature on the subject than the pithy writings of Dawkins et al (of whom I am no fan) that deal with the subject in much greater detail, and with much more nuanced arguments than you're giving the entire discipline of philosophy credit for.

Also, for the record, I am not an atheist or an agnostic. I am not a philosopher, and I didn't even major in it college. There's a lot of great philosophy out there I haven't even tried to tackle. But I appreciate its value.

I think it's clear you're arguing in bad faith. And I'm disappointed that such an argument is the first thing that comes up on an article like this on HN.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#153

Post by naasking » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

Veedrac wrote: post #138

naasking wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To put it shortly but slightly inaccurately, compatibilism basically comes from the idea that "free will" is implied by "moral responsibility", and then it is noted that moral responsibility and determinism are compatible. It's actually the other way around: if you acted according to your own free will, then you are morally responsible for your choice.

No, read the link I gave. (Note also that I'm explaining the dominant arguments, not endorsing them.) If it's still not clear why I put the implication that way around, note that not everyone thinks that you have a moral responsibility in the way Peter Singer argues, but basically every philosopher thinks it's wrong to kick a dog.

I've been studying and debating this issue for years, I know what it means. From your own link, "As a theory-neutral point of departure, then, free will can be defined as the unique ability of persons to exercise control over their conduct in the manner necessary for moral responsibility".

In other words, making a choice of your own free will entails moral responsibility, not the other way around like you said. I don't know what Singer has to do with any of this.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#154

Post by eli_gottlieb » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:58 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #148

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Faith in science is not an unreasonable assumption—says me who holds that assumption—but it's faith nonetheless. Faith is when one acts on a belief without having any rational reason for it. My rational reason for believing in science is simply: it works!

Look, I don't want to get all in the weeds here because it would complicate things unnecessarily, but if it's really that simple to you then you should know that this argument contains a logical falacy: Argumentum ad consequentiam or appeal to consequences . Once you let go of thinking that truth is knowable you'll realize that there is some faith that you have. It's not in science per-se; but it might be faith that…

Redefining "truth is knowable" to "truth is knowable with infinite certainty a la Descartes" is itself a deeply contentious epistemological stance, and still doesn't validate the use of the term "faith" for ordinary abductive reasoning from experience.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#155

Post by eli_gottlieb » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 4:00 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #137

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Faith in science is not an unreasonable assumption—says me who holds that assumption—but it's faith nonetheless. Faith is when one acts on a belief without having any rational reason for it. My rational reason for believing in science is simply: it works!

I suppose that's one definition of faith, but it's not the definition I would use to describe my faith. My great grandmother's nickname was, apparently, Jennie. No official records note this fact. But it's something told to me by my mother, who knew her. And because of everything I know about my mother, I have faith that she is telling me the truth. Without any evidence except my mother's word, I can't prove it, but…

> Without any evidence except my mother's word, I can't prove it, but I don't think it's irrational for me to believe it.

It's not irrational because it was never particularly implausible in the first place. If there was an apparent law of the universe saying your great grandmother's nickname cannot possibly be Jennie, and you insisted that your mother told you and that's that, you'd be talking about "faith" on the level usually addressed in the disputes between religious and nonreligious epistemologies.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#156

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

civility wrote: post #133

FabHK wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of science is to make a plausible conjecture and try to prove it false. FWIW, and I'm not an expert, but I'd say that the Popperian view you summarise reflects philosophy of science circa 1960's, and things have moved on since then.

I don't want to sound too snarky, but "moved on" sounds like we're talking about fashion... Has modus tollens moved on too? I haven't studied modern philosophy (or Popper), but if there is a concise explanation I'd like to hear it.

[deleted]

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#157

Post by mercer » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 4:06 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #137

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Faith in science is not an unreasonable assumption—says me who holds that assumption—but it's faith nonetheless. Faith is when one acts on a belief without having any rational reason for it. My rational reason for believing in science is simply: it works!

I suppose that's one definition of faith, but it's not the definition I would use to describe my faith. My great grandmother's nickname was, apparently, Jennie. No official records note this fact. But it's something told to me by my mother, who knew her. And because of everything I know about my mother, I have faith that she is telling me the truth. Without any evidence except my mother's word, I can't prove it, but…

The difference between 'faith' in a more religious sense and the 'faith' of your example is that for the latter, the evidence that you have is reasonable in light of the claim.

Knowing your great grandmother's nickname doesn't significantly affect your life, and assuming your mother isn't a compulsive liar, there's little reason to doubt her. Furthermore, it also strikes me as the kind of information that would probably be passed down intact because it's easy to remember.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#158

Post by blueprint » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

salmonfamine wrote: post #152

brobdingnagians wrote: post #45

Sounds like a clever, witty, and charming guy. Would be very interesting to talk to him; I like his style of talking. Curiously ironic that he cites a consensus in personal belief in atheism and agnostics among philosophers (at least, modern philosophers, most philosophers in history believed in God..) as a good reason for philosophy not accepting the existence of God, which appears to be a popularity contest (and ec…

It's hard to actually address this comment since it's such a ramble, but I think you make some disingenuous rhetorical moves that deserve to be addressed. You employ a rhetorical move that some theists have used in the past -- namely, casting doubt on the veracity of scientific beliefs by painting them in the guise of religion. This is also a convenient move that lets you characterize huge swaths of academia that dis…

> You employ a rhetorical move that some theists have used in the past -- namely, casting doubt on the veracity of scientific beliefs by painting them in the guise of religion.

Are you not doing the same thing back to him ?

If you disagree, then please tell me the definition of science.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#159

Post by gepi79 » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 4:13 PM UTC

thanatropism wrote: post #108

gepi79 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I have not spent time with the philosophy of other people. Could you explain what you mean, especially with regard to my previous comment ? This is my opinion: https://machineperson.org/ai.html https://machineperson.org/existence.html

I can't. The essential blocks of Dreyfus are in Martin Heidegger (which I also haven't studied in depth). Helping you obtain a partially understood, utilitarian version of my partially understood, utilitarian version of Dreyfus's partially understood, utilitarian version of Heidegger would be... enabling. You really need to "spend time with the philosophy of other people" if you want to move ahead with the notions ex…

Ok. I thought you might have something particular or obvious in mind by mentioning self driving cars.

https://machineperson.org/existence.html#self-awareness

I have spent some time to answer my own questions. But I have neither the motivation nor the time and maybe not even the intelligence to learn and to understand the ideas most philosophers.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#160

Post by mfoy_ » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #125

brobdingnagians wrote: post #45

Sounds like a clever, witty, and charming guy. Would be very interesting to talk to him; I like his style of talking. Curiously ironic that he cites a consensus in personal belief in atheism and agnostics among philosophers (at least, modern philosophers, most philosophers in history believed in God..) as a good reason for philosophy not accepting the existence of God, which appears to be a popularity contest (and ec…

Wow, you are really equating * subscribing to an aesthetic hunch about fundamental physics (which has no consequences on how to lead our lives at all!), with * subscribing to an epistemology of revelation, and the ancient, unethical, incoherent scribblings of the Abrahamic religions (with big, bad consequences for our lives), as both being instances of some harmless, justified (or justifiable) "faith"? That's very wr…

Good response! To add to your points, GP also misses a really important distinction between science and religion and the way each system arrives at conclusions.

Science is merely a set of tools and processes, nothing more. Seriously, NOTHING more. If, as GP says, you are taking it on faith that some "scientific conclusion" is true, you're merely deferring expertise on the matter. Much like when your tech support guy says your hard drive is shot and you need to replace it, you just trust that he's more likely right than not, and take his advice. If you didn't want to believe him, you could go back to school to learn everything there is to know in the field and find out for yourself whether or not your hard drive is salvageable. You may even come to a different conclusion!

With Religion, there is nothing you can do to understand it. You can only "have faith". If your spiritual leader or holy book tells you the world is a certain way, you can only believe it, or disbelieve it, you cannot do anything to investigate the veracity of those claims. Truly, this is the most authoritarian of world views: Believe this because I tell you to!