Religion: works based vs. grace-based.

So I'll just go right ahead, and take that as "I can't".

That's not my position.

Go back to what I said about the fork and the spoon.

No answer? Thought so.

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Must be having eye trouble....

http://www.wordforge.net/showpost.php?p=1924312&postcount=361

When there is no answer in the post to which you link, it's not a question of eye trouble. An analogy that doesn't fit the situation is hardly an answer.

I know ducking and dodging and then pretending you've "won" is what you like to do, but the question is still there, and you have totally failed to answer it.

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Yes it does, just because you won't acknowledge it out of pure petulance isn't my bother.

If you think it does, then use it to answer the question instead of dodging it all the time:

If a person is truly convinced that all his own positions, as well as all the positions of those with whom he disagrees, are entirely the result of influences over which none of them have any control whatsoever, what criterion can he use to say that one of those positions is "true" and the others are "false"?

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You're not this stupid...

The nature of the machine matters.
A spoon isn't a fork, a sewing machine isn't a waffle iron.
The pattern of the molecules matters.
That's how evolution works.

Now, it's easy enough to apply to that to two political positions.

Just shrink society down to tribes of apes.

If everyone runs off acting on their own opinion of what to do, you have chaos, so just for bare survival, you need a bit of consensus, in order for everyone to work toward a common goal.

And some common goals will be better at aiding survival than others.

So, some ideas are just plain going to suck.

Scale it back up to large sophisticated societies, and political philosophies, and the image should become clear.

Nazism was a flop, because, if you're going to be slaughtering large chunks of your citizenry,...well, you've got a failed state there, don't you?

Also, fascism had at its core "might makes right", and they didn't win, so...they were wrong.


Failed ideologies are forks trying to scoop soup.

Pattern matters, survival matters, and it scales down to protein molecules, and up to us.

So no, just because you don't like materialism, doesn't mean the straw man is true that "all positions are equal".

And that's why I used the fork analogy to start with.
If all positions, including molecular positions, and thus patterns, are equal, dry scooping soup with a fork.
Position clearly matters.

And you're not that stupid.

But, you are cornered, and are hoping by barking at me to write out the fleshed out version, you can find chinks to pick at.

Have at it.

It won't help you.

A lot of words, not one of which answers the question: What criterion allows you to call one position true and another false, if you are honestly convinced that your own position was forced on you from the outside, and that all other opinions were also forced on those people from outside?

Are you admitting you can't?

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I answered it, asshole!


Survival for a start!

Since people who hold to all kinds of positions survive, then that answer would seem to indicate that all positions are correct.

Furthermore, what criterion allows you to say that survival is a good thing? That position is also subject to the epistemological test: If it is the result of determinism, what criterion do you have for saying it is correct?

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So?
That's where reasoning ability came from.
Natural selection.
Clearly position mattered to our ancestors.

How do you figure?

Your ability to ask the question.

http://www.wordforge.net/showpost.php?p=1921814&postcount=234

You give "survival" as a sufficient answer to how a person who believes that his positions are entirely the result of influences outside his control can decide that they are correct. Since that person is surviving, he can conclude that his position is correct. But since the person who holds the contrary position is also surviving, that means he would have to conclude that the other person's position is equally correct.

So either your answer is totally insufficient, or it implies that someone who believes in determinism must think that all positions are correct.

In what way is that relevent?

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I said "survival FOR A START", so literally right out of the gate, you're fucking lying.

You never miss a chance to twist words, I wonder...are you really as sleazy as you seem, or are you so deeply fucked up, you really can't see you're doing it?

I dunno which is spookier....

Let me walk you through it again.

Evolution sculpts brain, survival sculpts social ordering, so argument is a by-product of the survival formed mechanism of decision making.

That we're arguing now, and it has nothing to do with survival doesn't matter.

Decision making was vital to survival in harsher times, nowadays, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

In cushy countries like ours, it hardly ever is life and death.

But, when it comes to political policies, decisions do matter.

If you doubt that, go hang out with the Taliban.

Given the above, that's just simplistic, to the point of being infantile.

It leaves out reams of information about the real world.

Or, maybe, just maybe, you're fucking WRONG.

But no, that can never be, right?

You're the mighty Asyncritus.

^ Nice long post that includes plenty of insults but fails to address the points. Is it because you can't?

I will repeat:

1) If survival is what allows you to know that a given opinion--an opinion concerning whose origins you are convinced you had no control and no influence--is "right," then why would that not imply that all opinions of all those who survive are right?

2) The conviction that survival is a good thing is, itself, an opinion. (How many people say things like "Come on, Apophis!" That shows that not everyone agrees that survival is a good thing.) What basis is there for claiming it is, especially if you are convinced that you had no part in formulating that opinion in the first place, that you were simply forced to believe it by influences over which you have no control?

Does a person who knows they have been brainwashed still have any reason to believe that the things they have been brainwashed to believe are correct?

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Why would the default position be that they're all right?
Why not wrong?

Nature of the machine.

That's what I would think. But I'm not the one claiming that survival is the primary criterion for knowing whether one's opinions are true or not...

Says who? That, too, is an opinion. From where I'm sitting, the "nature of the machine" is a philosophical matter. Some think that survival is a good thing in itself, others don't. And in any case, at least from the point of view of the matter and energy involved, survival is not in danger--first law of thermodynamics. So unless you believe there is something more to reality than just the thermodynamic components (and I don't think you do, if I am not mistaken), you can be sure that everything will survive, no matter what opinions are held by anyone.

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By what criteria?

Nor am I.
Note again where I qualified it with "for starters", and then fleshed it out.

Yes, from where you're sitting.
Subjective.
Opinion.

Because if I was convinced that I had not "figured it out" in any way, shape or form, but had just been forced by factors beyond my control to believe it, I would find it highly suspect. By the same token, if I was convinced that everyone else's opinions were of the same nature, I would find them highly suspect as well.

Nor am I.
Note again where I qualified it with "for starters", and then fleshed it out.[/quote]
You keep saying that, trying to back off from your simplistic, "Survival, for starters" statement, but the clear implication of such a claim is that survival is the first and primary factor for knowing whether or not an opinion is true.

Where I would say it's pretty much irrelevent. I am not at all convinced that the opinions of the white Europeans who invaded North America, wiped out 90% of the native population, and totally obliterated their culture, were more "true" than the opinions of those they supplanted. But I am not the one arguing that natural selection and survival show who is right. Lots of people, in my opinion, have died for the truth. Just because Socrates drank the hemlock doesn't mean he was wrong.

Which is what I said, no?

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By what criteria would you find it suspect if you even finding it suspect was "forced on you by factors beyond your control"?

I'm not backing off from it at all, i said survival for starters, and proceeded from there.

How do you figure?

Nor am I.
I'm saying natural selection is where the ability to form an opinion originated from, and now we purpose those abilities to other things.

Like how religion is a mutation of storytelling, parental affection, authority, etc, etc.

^ All of that has to do with reasoning, where you think you are actually reasoning. It is thus irrelevent to the discussion of a person who is convinced that his every thought is forced on him by factors beyond his control.

That is the bottom line you just can't get around. You even got close to it, with your "By what criteria would you find it suspect if you even finding it suspect was 'forced on you by factors beyond your control'?" But it eluded you.

The point is, there is no consistent way to formulate the idea of believing in determinism. The best you or anyone can do is "believing that determinism is true, but you don't know it." Which is not at all the same thing as believing in it. If the people in the Matrix know they're in the Matrix, it's no longer the Matrix.

You aren't getting close to showing how one can formulate a non-contradictory belief in determinism. You aren't even gaining on it. You are just pretending you can, by talking about the basis for thinking your ideas are right when you believe you have actually come up with them yourself, and/or talking about whether or not determinism could be true but you couldn't know it. No one can believe in determinism. It is self-contradictory to believe in it. All your dancing around has not gotten you one micron closer to showing how one could meaningfully say, "I believe this is true, even though I know I had no part whatsoever in formulating this thought, and am just saying this because I was forced to say it by factors over which I have no control."

I would suggest you give up, but I know you can't do that. You can't answer the question (or you would have done so long ago), but you won't admit you can't.

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How so? You say reasoning is irrelevant, and yet in the example you give, you invoke an act of reasoning.

Which is exactly my point. If you actually believe in determinism, then you no longer believe in determinism.

Like I said, if the people in the Matrix know they're in the Matrix, it's no longer the Matrix.

And you have been totally incapable of showing how it would be.

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But that would have no bearing whatever on whether it were true or not.

"No bearing"? No; it would definitely have bearing on the issue. It wouldn't determine it all by itself; as I said a long time ago in this thread, the fact that it is impossible to formulate a belief in determinism in a non-contradictory manner does not, in itself, prove it is false. Nevertheless, it sure is an indication that it probably isn't true. If you can't even formulate a non-contradictory belief in something, there is no good reason to think it is true.

However, you have been arguing all this time (when you aren't busy throwing around childish insults) that it is possible to formulate a non-contradictory belief in determinism, and you still haven't done it. Or even come close.

You can't do it, and no one else can. Which is why I say that no one believes in determinism. At best, they can believe that it might be the case, but no one believes in it. Because if you believe in it, you no longer believe in it.

"If the people in the Matrix know they're in the Matrix, it's no longer the Matrix."

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My question is why would a God demand behaviors of humans that humans are incapable of? No one in their right mind would tell a 2-year-old to write a book report on War and Peace to get his dinner, yet an all wise God is doing the exact same thing -- demanding the impossible with much larger stakes.

Now as to handing out grace -- as explained by Christians the whole thing makes little sense. First off, it's blackmail plain and simple. Since the standard was created to be impossible, that means that the real deal is "Worship Jesus or else". Secondly, the idea of one man being murdered essentially for the sake of others is problematic. Human sacrifice is human sacrifice, even if god did it. Another thing -- If Jesus is a god, than you have two choices -- Either Jesus is immortal (thus there isn't really a sacrifice, just a morality play), or Jesus is mortal, and someone other than god was holding the universe together while he was dead.

This is a common mistake, which has been disproven again and again at least since Augustine's de libero arbitrio. Determinism only implies that reasoning determined those positions and that the course of reasoning was in turn determined. This does not deny reasoning; in fact, it presupposes reasoning.

On the contrary, judging whether a position is determined by poor reasoning or by sound reasoning is one of the opportunities afforded by determinism. It is those who believe that reasoning has to include some purely arbitrary part beyond deterministic factors that can never completely correlate the quality of reasoning with the quality of the outcome.

It doesn't matter if no one is around to percieve it.

If the reality is that something is an illusion, it simply does not become real just because someone perceives it as such.

For example, a drug-induced hallucination, no matter how real to the sufferer, is not in fact, reality.

Why in the world are you even trying to pretend it does?

Diacanu...there is no unique reasoning in pure determinism. That is a major flaw in your logic right there.

Like a computer, there are certain functions that can be carried out, certain "reasoning" done but only along pre-determined parameters.

If two people holding opposing views are created under determinism, how can either be right or wrong since they were both made that way. Their programming won't allow them to change their views or take a truly objective view of what they are discussing...they are carrying out their directives based on their programming. Asking questions and acting out a period of self-discovery would be meaningless since the end result is already decided and programmed.

Unless it involves 'shrooms or peyote...