Rico Penguin

With my final coming tomorrow it appears it is time to finish the last of the topics to prepare for what will likely be a very unhappy examination. Seeing as what is the proper way of achieving an A (Carbon copying what the professor says to the book) is not how I like to learn I’m probably looking at another C.

That mini rant out of the way lets collect the 4 parts in a series of links for you:

Part 1:
Formulating and Explaining: Determinism.
Presenting, Explaining, and Evaluating: An Argument Against Moral Responsibility.

Part 2:
Presenting, Explaining, and Evaluating: The Kid Patriot Argument Against Soft Determinism.
Formulating and Explaining: Hard Determinism, Soft Determinism, Indeterminism.

Part 3:
Formulating and Explaining: Volitional Indeterminism.
Presenting, Explaining, and Evaluating: Volitional Indeterminism, The Ernest Patriot Argument Against Simple Indeterminism, The Vera Patriot Argument Against.

Part 4 (Below):
Formulating and Explaining: The Theory of Agency, Fatalism, Theism, and Atheism.
Presenting, Explaining, and Evaluating: What I take to be the best argument against The Theory of Agency, The Argument for Fatalism, What I take to be the best argument for Theism, and What I take to be the best argument for Atheism.

— — — — — — —

So with that out of the way lets begin with a slew of formulations and explanations!

Externally Determined is defined as A being made physically necessary by events outside of A’s agent.
Example: Once you have jumped it is Externally Determined that you will come back to Earth. (via Gravity)

Libertarian Actions are defined as Actions that are not Externally Determined and are caused by their agent.
Example: The act of jumping is not externally determined (you don’t have to jump) and doing so is caused by the agent (you).

These definitions are important to help further understand the Theory of Agency:

The Theory of Agency

(1) There are some Libertarian Actions.
(2) People are acting freely whenever they perform Libertarian actions.
(3) People are morally responsible anytime they perform Libertarian actions.

The first tenant of Agency states that not all actions in the universe are forced by nature or natural law. It is not a universal statement and because of this even if a single action is Libertarian that would entail that some sum of actions are libertarian thusly making the first true. Secondly by the definition of Libertarian actions any action performed by oneself without external demands is a free actions. Finally the last tenant states that when you act of your own agency without outside forces you are morally responsible.

The best objection to the theory of Agency is the one of Unintelligibility. Which looks as follows.

The Mystery Objection to the Theory of Agency

(1) The Idea of Agent Causation is Unintelligible.
(2) if (1), then the Theory of Agency is Unintelligible.
———————————
(3) The Theory of Agency is Unintelligible.

The above argument states that the concept of Agent Causation is unintelligible. A simple example is the phrase “The baseball broke the window.” Whenever people say such a thing what they really mean is that the child who hit the baseball in the direction that they did broke the window. However even this statement is missing out on various other agents at play in the situation. Our languages functional level is not at a range of detail to properly detail a proper Agent Causation paradigm. Because of this any attempt to address the Agent Causation omits important factors that render it unintelligible. Furthermore in order to make the concept intelligible it requires the omission of a confounding amount of information. Intuitively when examining the idea of agency we find ourselves being very ambiguous.

Next we have the wonderful world of f..f…Fatalism! *gouges out his own eyes* Ok. Calm down Rico…We’ll make this quick because I’ve already ranted about this particular topic for 2 full days before.

Fatalism

(1) There exists now a set of propositions that explains exactly what might happen in the future.
(2) All propositions are either true or false.
(3) If (1) and (2), there exists a set of true propositions already depicting the future.
(4) If there now exists a set of true propositions the future is already Unavoidable.
——————————
(5) The future is Unavoidable.

The first tenant states that if you were to take every possible set of events and combine it in inverse manner with every other possible event that inevitably one of the near infinitely many possible outcomes would cover all of what might happen in the future. In Layman’s the idea is that you start with TFF, then TTF, then TTT, and so on until you’ve hit every combination. Except that you have unimaginably large quantities of lines instead of I believe the 9 possible from a series of 3 events. Properly written all propositions are either true or false, however it goes further than that, all propositions are false until true. This is the staple behind the concept of sanity, when you start believing in false propositions you are clinically insane. The third tenant states that there exists now a set of true propositions, it is only a half true statement. There exists now a set of propositions that will be true in the future. Tenant four simply states that if we already have defined our future than our future is unavoidable. Originally I felt that this argument was valid and perhaps sound. Now I would state that it is merely valid, IF all the above lines were true the conclusion would be true. However the above lines are not all true.

Quite simple the second Tenant is false (or at least gravely misstated). All propositions are false until they become true. While there exists a set of false propositions that will someday all be true that is only because there is a set of false propositions for all possible outcomes. Because of this it is impossible for one set of these propositions to not be filled entirely. That is the nature of infinity, it covers all possible ranges and because of this it governs absolutely nothing. The future is in no way unavoidable, however a future is. But really there is nothing fatalist about a future in that manner, unless you take the point that you’ll likely die someday. But that’s an philosophical thought for another day. For those who want a further explanation the breaking of the second tenant likewise breaks the third and fourth tenant. Leaving Fatalism with only a single tenant (tenant 1) that in no way concretely leads to tenant 5.

Now lets move on to the mightiest of all arguments (supposedly) the arguments of theism and atheism.

Theism: There is a god.
Atheism: There is no god.

There it was good to get that out of the way. Oh…wait you wanted more? Like a definition of what god is perhaps? Alright.

God as we will use it in the following arguments is a contingent being that is omniscient, Omni benevolent, and omnipotent. However it pays to define these four terms as well.

A Contingent thing is something that exists necessarily.

Omniscience is defined as knowing every true proposition. The reasoning behind this definition is a being knowing that red is green (a false proposition) is nonsensical and pointless. It is easy to argue that there is no reason to believe that God doesn’t know that as well but lets stick with what will keep the professor from grading me down .

Omnipotence is defined as being able to bring about any possible state of affairs. For those of you firing off the “God creating something larger than god can lift” this was meant to snuff out your hopes and dreams. Frankly I don’t see how a being can create something from nothing (IE exist in a universe where natural laws don’t exist) and yet cannot do other impossible things in this realm where all things are possible. But again…I have to omit that problem because I’ll see a big D on my final.

Omni benevolence is defined as always preferring what is best for the world. Why such an ambiguous definition? Well when you have 150k children a year (in the US alone I believe) for unknown reasons being still born or having other birth defects that lead to lifelong pain, early death, and terrible things like heart existing outside the infants chest you need to say that its not out of love. Those babies needed those hearts outside their bodies to help them remember they are born sinners. ANYWHO…those are the important definitions.

I apologize in advance because the next part requires me to take the best argument that was given in class to defend Theism. Don’t get me wrong I have heard some wonderful arguments but the following pool of options is terrible. So if you have a better one I’m sure I’ve heard it before and frankly I might even like it (I don’t agree with it but I may like it). So without further adieu here is the best argument for Theism from our class.

The Traditional Cosmological Argument

(1) Many contingent things exist.
(2) Every contingent thing has a cause.
(3) if (1) and (2), then there was a necessary first cause.
(4) If there was a necessary first cause, then there is a God.
— — — — — — —
(5) There is a God.

Indeed there are many contingent things existing in our universe. It is the nature of contingency that gives us the balanced chaos that surrounds us. For everything that is contingent, that means that there must be something that happened to cause that thing to exist, thusly every contingent thing has a cause. If the first two tenants are true then it seems apparent that there must be a first cause. If there was a first cause it must have been god.

Now I’m not sure if this is a valid statement. I do not see how the first three lines lead definitively to a god in the fourth. Because of this I personally will say that it is invalid. Unfortunately this is a problem with all the arguments that I had available. They essentially say something like “Plastic is used in some bags, if this is true then there are planets made of marshmallows.” I do not see how the first observation leads to the second assumption.

I would further query as to why it is acceptable for God to be an uncaused cause and yet in that same breath say the universe cannot be. Likewise if nothing can be an uncaused cause what caused God to exist? We tend to look for causes for all physical things and yet nobody asks what the reasoning behind the lord (or any god) existing is in the first place. Why would some thinking being just exist? It seems reasonable to assume that a stone can exist, all it does is exist. Yet for an organism to exist in all known cases means it has a purpose, the most universal of purposes being to extend its genetic code for as long as possible. What is any God’s reasoning for existing? Is it reproducing? If not why exist at all? An eternity without any real non manufactured purpose seems exceptionally upsetting. Might explain the previously mentioned birth defects however (just a very bitter individual maybe).

The next and final piece to this long winded post is the best argument we were given for atheism. I in no way picked a poor argument above and then took the best argument below just to make theist look like fools, it was sort of forced upon me. Had I had the option I would have taken some amazing argument for Theism, unfortunately in my course it was entirely absent and I apologize to anyone feeling short changed.

To begin the final piece you need a short definition.

Principle for Ontological Parsimony: It is irrational to believe in the existence of anything unless the overall evidence supports your claim.

For those keeping count this is essentially the previous point about propositions, it is literally and definitively insane to believing in a false proposition as true.

The Argument from Ontological Parsimony

(1) There is no good empirical evidence for the existence of God.
(2) There is no a priori evidence for the existence of God.
(3) If (1) and (2), it is irrational to believe in the existence of God.
— — — — — — —
(4) It is irrational to believe in God.

The support for tenant one comes from the fact that there is no repeatable test that can provide evidence for the existence of God. Likewise with tenant two there is no a priori evidence for the existence and as time moves on and technology advances to give people a better perspective of the world and surrounding universe the previously considered a priori evidence “Like our existence at the center of the universe and other false beliefs.” is devolving and vanishing. Finally the support for tenant three is that if you are believing in anything that the overall evidence does not support you are doing so irrationally.

It is important to note that this does not state that God exists or does not Exist, it merely states that believing in the existence of a being that there is no physical evidence supporting the existence of is irrational. Indeed all evidence that is physical is contradicted by other equally supported evidence (such as various religious texts) and all physical events that are used to support the evidence fall apart under scrutiny (such as the flood). The latter being explained by the fact that in early civilizations people lived near areas that were prone to having large floods and that if you had no access to cars or horses it would indeed appear that the entire world had flooded.

A good thought experiment is to look at the events in New Orleans and imagine how the native Americans would have explained it had they been in the center watching everything in all directions getting submerged beneath a massive wall of water. Or anyone who is victim to a large tsunami watching their friends, family, and some of the unfortunately contained livestock being consumed by a massive wave of water. Of course it appears the world has flooded.

So that’s it. I believe I’ve hit every topic that needs to be hit for the exam. Here is to hoping that this time around I don’t get a C. For those that noticed some inconsistencies with the Vera and Kid Patriot in my previous posts I will clarify.

Vera was supposed to simply be the volition of killing the president.
Kid Patriot was supposed to be the desire to kill the president.
Ernest was supposed to be the unfortunate victim of random events that lead to killing the president.

I hope that helps.

Over the next day or two I will be discussing the following topics:
Formulating and Explaining: Determinism, Hard Determinism, Soft Determinism, Indeterminism, Volitional Indeterminism, The Theory of Agency, Fatalism, Theism, and Atheism.

Presenting, Explaining, and Evaluating: An Argument Against Moral Responsibility, The Kid Patriot Argument Against Soft Determinism, The Ernest Patriot Argument Against Simple Indeterminism, The Vera Patriot Argument Against Volitional Indeterminism, What I take to be the best argument against The Theory of Agency, The Argument for Fatalism, What I take to be the best argument for Theism, and What I take to be the best argument for Atheism.

Bolded parts can be found here. This may be a few days worth of material so I’ll continue to bold things and perhaps color them so its easy to find the parts relevant to visitors. I also realize that some of this has been stated before, but I will try to give new (I know fantastic) responses to them.

Hard Determinism

(1) Determinism is True
(2) People never act freely.
(3) People are never morally responsible for their actions.

Determinism was defined earlier and the this requires no further explanation. Hard determinists believe that determinism is true, just like gravity. If Determinism is true then one would be hard pressed to say that people act freely and likewise a hard determinist says just that, people do not act freely. Finally if people never act freely then they are never morally responsible, after all you wouldn’t judge a man forced to kill someone as you would someone who freely does so the same.

Soft Determinism

(1) Determinism is True
(2) People act freely when they commit unconstrained and voluntary actions.
(3) People are morally responsible only when they commit unconstrained and voluntary actions.

Again we are looking at the statement that determinism is true, again for the same reasons above. However we introduce two new ideas. The idea of unconstrained actions and the idea of voluntary actions. So lets clarify those two .

An action is unconstrained if it is an action that is if the agent were to decide to not do an action that it would in fact not do that action. Seizures for instance are not unconstrained as you will do them whether or not you want to (which is sad). However jumping is an unconstrained action as you don’t jump if you don’t want to and aren’t forced to. However no amount of hope keeps you from returning back to the Earth which is why falling is unconstrained . Hope that helps.

An action is voluntary if the agent decides to do the action. More specifically the action is voluntary if the organism doing the action decided that it wanted to. Sort of sounds the same but I believe there are subtle and appreciable differences (might be the coffee).

The basic idea here is that there are activities that people can do that do not conflict with Determinism and those particular actions are the ones you are responsible for as long as they are unconstrained and voluntary. However this raises a complaint that was labeled the “Kid Patriot Argument against Soft Determinism”.

The Kid Patriot Argument against Soft Determinism

(1) If Soft Determinism were true kid patriot would be morally responsible for shooting the president.
(2) Kid Patriot is not morally responsible.
—
(3) Soft Determinism is False.

Short sweet and to the point. However you might be asking yourself “Why the hell did kid patriot shoot the president?” Well here is the story in a nutshell. Lets say that there is a boy by the name Kid Patriot, as his last name would suggest he is absolutely obsessed with protecting the president. He spends his whole life getting the grades and experience required to become a secret service agent. Truly an example for us all. Well a group of Aliens who hate the American Way (or perhaps were bored) secretly implant a chip in Kid Patriots brain that essential tells him to do things (mind control). They could give him urges to eat pizza, slap nuns, or perhaps…shoot the president.

When he’s at the white house they flip the switch to “presi-kill” and indeed he puts a bullet into the president and with the precision of a surgeon kills him. The second its over they turn off the brainwash and he is mortified, the other agents gun him down and that is the end of Patriot. Poor kid.

Kid patriots action was unconstrained and it was voluntary. Now I personally was very hard pressed to accept these reasoning’s and in fact I’m likely forgetting the rationale. Because in this situation he is indeed not morally responsible it is argued that soft determinism is equally flawed. I warn you now these stories only get wackier from here.

The argument itself is valid, if kid patriot is indeed supposed to be morally responsible for the presidents death according to soft determinism than we have a conundrum because it would appear he is a victim in the situation like the president. The second premise is true because it seems relatively reasonable to say that he was not morally responsible. The argument also appears to be sound for the same reasons that it is valid.

I would argue personally if you want to make Soft Determinism more appropriate you would perhaps replace voluntary with desired.

Desired Actions would be defined as “Any action done in sound mind that the agent finds the most appetitive.” The idea being that whenever an agent acts in the interest of itself with full faculties that it is acting to its desires. Introductions of great distress, ultimatums, and brain control devices negate the sound mind feature of the definition so I ‘think’ that it is relatively solid.

Indeterminism: Not every event that occurs is completely determined by previous events.

Indeterminism finds strength in not making a universal statement (in the conventional sense). It leaves room open for human naivety. Much like soft determinism it essentially establishes that the entire timeline has not already been determined and played out (and consequently boring). There is nothing about natural law that dictates that it has complete domain over thoughts and decisions (which is something that determinism never seems to address).

To be Continued Tomorrow . (Slowly but surely folks expect other updates with these too. I’m feeling spunky.)

Over the next day or two I will be discussing the following topics:
Formulating and Explaining: Determinism, Hard Determinism, Soft Determinism, Indeterminism, Volitional Indeterminism, The Theory of Agency, Fatalism, Theism, and Atheism.

Presenting, Explaining, and Evaluating: An Argument Against Moral Responsibility, The Kid Patriot Argument Against Soft Determinism, The Ernest Patriot Argument Against Simple Indeterminism, The Vera Patriot Argument Against Volitional Indeterminism, What I take to be the best argument against The Theory of Agency, The Argument for Fatalism, What I take to be the best argument for Theism, and What I take to be the best argument for Atheism.

Disclaimer:  For those of you that are here for entertainment, than I’d say you are in for a good couple of days. However if you are one of those students currently taking metaphysics with Ned Markosian that you might as well just turn around, he dislikes my explanations a great deal. Whereas the average visitor here understands this stuff, I have quite a few “makes no sense” tags in the exam. At any rate that’s the disclaimer since I know people Google before exams.

So lets get this part started:

Determinism: Every event that occurs is completely determined by previous conditions.

It’s essentially explained just by writing the line. Completely determined essentially means that the laws of nature require that the action carry out in the manner that it does. The common theme here will be abusing the concept of natural law.

The Argument Against Moral Responsibility

(1) Every event that occurs is completely determined by previous conditions.
(2) if (1), then every action that transpires is completely determined before the birth of the agent.
(3) If every action is determined by events before its agent then people do not act freely.
(4) If people do not act freely then people are not morally responsible.
—–
(5) People are never morally responsible for their actions.

The idea for premise one is that every event is completely determined by the series of events that lead to its activation. If you flip a coin the action of your finger would be the previous event beginning the flipping of the coin, your decision to flip the coin was the signal that told your finger to flip (ideally) and a series of events leading to that thought…so on and so forth. Premise two says that if everything is indeed decided by events before it then obviously the series of events leading up to your activities began before you existed. Another very reasonable assumption. The third premise states that if every action has already been determined by a series of events going before you were even alive then you do not act freely. Again reasonable given the argument. Finally the fourth premise states that if people do not act freely then they are not morally responsible.

Well once we make our way past that huge layer of text it pays to mention that indeed that is a valid statement, if premises are true then indeed the conclusion is true as well. However I would not go as far as to say that it is sound. The laws of nature, gravity, space, and time as well as others I am not thinking about are indeed outside of the control of humans (at least for now). However it is quite a bold jump to say that something like gravity has the same effect on thoughts and decisions as it does on a coin flip.

Reflexive actions are indeed outside of the realm of responsibility of a person. I’m pretty sure all reflexive actions from below the neck happen (relatively) long before a signal reaches the brain. However actions that are decided upon are hardly decided before the agent is born. I would never argue that you are in full control of the events transpiring around you, but you are (to a great degree) able to decide how you respond to them. It is that ability to choose your response that is why people are morally responsible. Natural laws play little or no part in the thoughts and decisions of any living organism. That is the primary difference between a living organism and a non-living thing (like wind). Wind is entirely at the whim of natural forces, your thoughts are not.

Once my headache breaks (hopefully tomorrow) I’ll have a larger chunk of this done.

  Today we look a bit deeper into the case of the time traveler that I made up yesterday. This is somewhat of a rehash but a bit of a deeper explanation on why Fatalism is Fatally Flawed. We first must establish a few things.

  Firstly the timeline that we are currently in is ‘the’ future. According to Fatalism it is the set of events that is already going to happen and thusly is unavoidable. Now I know some of you might be saying “but the mere knowledge of the set of events in the future immediately changes them” but we’ll save the millions of obvious problems with Fatalism and deal with this one .

  Now secondly we take into considering the individual who is at the end of time (well close to the end) and has all the information of history leading up to that point as well as the availability of time travel. He’s a smart fellow indeed, for those of you that think it would be a lady you can replace the male tones in this story with female, heck I think I will too. Guys are too busy killing one another to use time travel, unless it was for more killing .

  So this time traveler decides that she really likes President Kennedy, she has always been upset that he was killed off and decides that she is going to back in time the day before the event (any point can be used I’m just using day before for simplicity) and tells him that if he goes he will be killed and explains her time traveling tricks. Kennedy just happens to be a big fan of this sort of thing and decides to trust her and does not go on the motorcade and likewise he survives, paradox’s aside of how this might effect the future (you can change the story to put the women born before Kennedy’s shooting to fix any issues of birth) we now have an entirely different future than “the Fatalist Future” however you’ll find that this in no way negates fatalism.

  Because Fatalism does not entail that the future is unavoidable, it entails that a future is unavoidable. Which frankly is hardly a revelation, because if this ultimate form of freedom (changing history itself) does not get broken under the tenets of Fatalism than I can see in no way how Fatalism really entails anything other than stating the painfully obvious nature of history. It happened and thusly it has happened, yes…hard to argue with that. Circular reasoning masked in a blanket of shiny terminology is still circular reasoning, and likewise Fatalism is Fatally Flawed because no amount of altering the past, present, or future would ever cause it to be untrue which means that there is no set pattern of events that must happen in order for it to happen. It only requires that a set of patterns happen, which is inevitable since it’s sort of a necessity for time and space.

  So that’s it for today, just felt I should get this little bit out because it’s what I’ll be discussing in my class tomorrow to hopefully put the final nail in the coffin of this (to me) moronic metaphysical concept, I’m starting to wonder what the rules are for making a popular metaphysical view. “Take a completely logical point, attach a bunch of wildly unrelated or miscoded points, and slap on a grandiose conclusion.”

  Dipping back into the wonderful world of Determinism we have a slightly different take on the idea. We’ll begin by defining Indeterminism:

Indeterminism: Not every event that occurs is completely determined by previous conditions.

  Now you might be saying “Well that’s obvious Captain Jack.” To which I’d remind you I’m not Jack, regardless we’ll continue. The next important thing to know is what it means for something to be undetermined.

e is undetermined =df e is not completely determined by previous conditions.

  This is important because it leads us into what becomes of Indeterminism. It’s a fascinating philosophy because as with other philosophies it gets taken to some very unusual extremes. One such extreme is called “simple determinism” which looks as follows:

Simple Indeterminism
1) There are some undetermined actions.
2) People act freely whenever they perform undetermined actions.
3) People are morally responsible for their own undetermined actions.

    At first glance this appeared to be a pretty reasonable setup. The first tenet says that there are ’some’ undetermined actions. It is difficult to say that something never happens, so its safe to say that there are ’some’ undetermined actions. Likewise it comes out to feeling common sense when you look back on your life. Some events did not move along because of the flowing of the wind or the force of gravity.

  Likewise tenet two is making a general statement that seems difficult to argue with. A person is acting freely when they are performing an action that is undetermined. In essence they had options A) and B) (at the very least) and decided to go with one or the other. That choice was their freedom in action.

  Finally the third tenet states that when you act freely you are morally responsible. The idea being that if you choose to murder someone then you are responsible for that activity. However there is a large loophole that this particular version of Indeterminism has and it has to do with the global nature of the third tenet. A seizure is indeed an undetermined action, during that particular moment before the seizure you had the event you desired and the possibility of a seizure. However if you killed someone while having seizures many would be hard pressed to file charges against you. There are more complicated examples but this simple situation puts us in the place of either denouncing Simple Indeterminism or deciding that indeed a seizure victim is fully responsible for the repercussions of their seizure.

  If we were to make some minor modifications to Simple Indeterminism we could clean up most situations.

Rico’s Indeterminism
1) There are some undetermined actions.
2) People act freely whenever they perform undetermined and desired actions.
3) People are morally responsible for their own undetermined and desired actions.

  The introduction of desired to the pre mentioned “undetermined” situations fixes the issue of involuntary problems. In this case when presented with (for simplicities sake) two options if you choose to do one but you are unable because of uncontrollable variables (IE. Seizures or similar situations) then the resulting act is not something you are morally responsible to.

  Now this philosophy has the possibility for abuse but only in the judgement of the person by other persons. If we are to accept morality as something of a natural law (which it isn’t but bear with me) then the person IS morally responsible it’s just that they are attempting to mask the fact that they are. Likewise the action of lying about it being their desired action is also another situation of being responsible.

  Morality is certainly a discussion for another day, however when taken into context of the idea of Indeterminism I feel it’s somewhat self explanatory. Likewise I’m relatively hard pressed to think of a situation where your desired action is not one you are morally responsible for or even one that isn’t an act of freedom. However anyone feeling frisky can take a shot at providing a situation where you are acting out in a desired fashion and are not morally responsible (or even should not be).

  As I sit here realizing that it would cost me 100 dollars to recover my corrupt one note files, I feel that (time permitting) that it may at least be good for the topic of determinism (Note: Time was not permitting). Otherwise its an incredibly crushing experience that gives me a very negative view of Microsoft at the moment (which is a shame because Windows 7 had peaked my interest in them). So to anyone out there make backups of your one notes, there is NO way to recover them (as far as I know) without paying some random asshole 100 dollars. May sound hard but charging that much for file recover is preposterous.

  So without further delay:

Determinism: Every event that occurs is completely determined by previous conditions.

E is physically necessary =df E is required by the laws of nature.

E is completely determined by previous conditions =df the combination of previous events and the laws of nature makes e physically necessary.

  Now this is important information. For those that do not know =df means "if by definition", likewise if you’ve seen it before iff means if and only if. E is simply a variable much like *.

  The idea is that our history is a singular line, each event directed by the previous event which is also governed by its previous event traveling all the way back to the big bang (be that for you a cosmic blast or just some deity doing the ole bang solo). In essence it says that all actions have been predetermined by events that happened even before the agents of those actions were alive.

  It goes so far for some as to say that because we cannot control our actions (and instead are merely reacting) that we should not be responsible for those actions. It has caused a few thoughts to spark in my head that make it a very sketchy system.

  The second is an example of the life of a simple system. In the beginning it’s as simple as a coin toss, then in this particular case it becomes a 3 way outcome. However if we look back historically the actions of this organism would look like the above line because there would be only one outcome to every one of the actions.

  Essentially Determinism says that because natural law is unable to make decisions and must act directly with the world around it that living organisms act entirely in the same way. However essentially determinism says the following.

If every single variable in the past happened exactly in the same way the exact same history would transpire.

  This explains everything and in the same manner states nothing (a very popular tactic in philosophy). When an organism is born the actions it makes are at the simplest level a coin toss between two possibilities, the response is so quick to the outside viewer that it can be mistaken for a mere reaction to the environment not unlike how the waves move with the turning of the Earth, the gravitation of the moon and other bodies, as well as the shear orgy of shoving between the forces in the sea. In fact random functions like coin tosses aren’t even negated in the universe of determinism. Because if the coin was tossed with the exact same force, from the exact same point, with the exact same wind resistance, the exact same gravitational pull, landing exactly on the same spot on a surface that is in the exact same condition as the first attempt, and all other variables I cannot even fathom being exactly the same then the results would be exactly the same. However this requires a universal knowledge (omniscience I think its called) for it to be a form of understanding that has any purpose in life.

  Even the previous example explained by determinism breaks down when rendered on a PC. If you created a simple program to flip a coin (return the result of 0 or 1 with a 50% chance) you would receive results each time that are completely separate from the results of the former. In theory if you were to rewind time you would get a different set of results each time that you did it (assuming you did it 10-20 times). This is because the forces acting upon the results in the digital realm are not a result of the outside world and thusly would not be held down by the rules of determinism.

  There are many different forms of determinism, some harsher than the one I’ve described and some weaker. However in all cases it appears that determinism is very weak. Organisms much like Personal Computers take in information, run it through a series of scripts (or a script if its a really small program on a PC >_>), this is a process that nothing else in the universe does (to my knowledge). There is a point where the outside senses of an organism does indeed directly influence it to a point that trumps the looping processes, but that appears to only be in instances of errors. If you place a person in a room that’s twelve times their body temperature you will find a direct influence on their activities (producing a small set of responses), however if you place someone in a room that is .12 percent warmer than their body you will find a multitude of responses. However in either case when you look back it will only look like a straight line.

  It is impossible for history to have more than one result when looking back, philosophy aside, it wouldn’t make any form of sense to expect anything else but single incidents in history. One of the simplest forms of logic known as modal logic says (essentially) the following:

If X can exist without Y then X is not identical to Y.

  What this essentially says is that you cannot logically exist and not exist at the exact same time. Likewise in history an event cannot happen and not happen. This means that in history even if an event had 90 trillion possible outcomes, there can only be one to have happened, and I feel this is something that even a child grasps. Which is what bothers me about Determinism. It essentially says that since history only happened in one way then all of time has only one possible outcome. This seems like quite a bold statement, it would be like me saying that if I ran a program to flip a coin and it returned heads, that in all cases in the future I’d see heads. It seems foolish to take an obvious property of history and attempt to use it to explain the future.

  I’d have dipped more into this but spending 5 hours attempting to recover my notes has all but crushed my writing spirit… Goodnight all . I should be more chipper next update.

  I’ll continue with the Greek Tragedy stuff a little later. This felt like a more pressing piece to speak on today. The subject of course as one would imagine is the idea of Occam’s Razor. Now this is a relatively simple concept that essentially boils down to the following.

The Simplest Explanation is Often the Correct one.

  Now I feel that the common misconception here is that any answer as long as it is simpler than all it’s competitors is the correct one. However as I’ve stated before anything that explains everything explains absolutely nothing. Essentially if you make an explanation broad enough it can be used to answer all of life’s questions, it is ambiguity that we often allow to take hold in explanations that creates a false sense of security. In fact it is ambiguity that cannot exist when deciding upon an explanation using the Occam’s Razor.

  One thing we must remember that gets missed many many times, is the following quote.

"Simpler theories are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones"

- Swinburne 1997 and Williams, Gareth T, 2008

The key word there being "other things being equal". This is where ambiguity breaks down against clarity. In many, many cases we find that people feel they can quote Occam’s Razor to justify their response of "Because". I’ve spoken on it before when discussing the God Problem, people feel that by saying "well because" they have suddenly defeated their opponent. However it comes down to our ability to concretely envision something, can you truly vision what you are postulating or are you merely examining an abstract and speaking about it as if it is a concrete thing.

  We cannot truly conceive the nonphysical world communicating or altering our physical world, in doing so we begin to attach physical traits to nonphysical things. This attribution is an error that is commonly refuted by saying "because". Occam’s Razor is not a magical cure all and it would seem that many people erroneously believe that it is. This is where the divide between faith and science seems to burst forth like an infant from the womb. The latter defines something concretely and then displays it ambiguously and for decades it results in ambiguous information being thrown about as if it is concrete fact.

  This is absolutely no evidence at all that would suggest that there is a nonphysical world attached in any way shape or form to the physical one. All explanations that seem to support this notion that there is do not have solid evidence to prove so they rely on the Illusionary Occam’s Razor.

  So the next time you think that Occam’s razor is the best explanation for your theory. Keep in mind that it requires that all other things be equal, ambiguity is always the lesser to certainty. Likewise as I’ve said before if you are willing to ignore the evidence of the physical world for no better reason than to fulfill confirmation bias then you might as well not debate at all. Nothing can be said to change your mind.

  I hope this short lesson was entertaining . This is my 11th entry in a row, which is exciting because both my father and myself currently share ages that are multiples of 11 .

  The following subject should interest some people, for the rest of you…for shame! It’s a concept known as Experiment Neurosis. When I was actually taking Psychology courses (before the Major’s structure caused me to want to write a collection of depressing poetry) there was a particular concept that I found remarkable. Remarkable both in the fact that it was true and likewise in the fact that it didn’t cause an outcry of "Ah Ha’s!" amongst the class room. I was utterly dumbfounded by the lack of connection. A connection that should hopefully be set within all of you very soon.

experimental neurosis
medical dictionary

A behavior disorder produced experimentally, as when an organism is required to make a discrimination of extreme difficulty and "breaks down" in the process.

  Now this definition is full of links that should hopefully aid anyone reading this in reaching a level of understanding that is required. It’s all pretty simple in concept which is why I like it.

  Think of it this way. You have a dog (or if it helps a mean person) strapped into a box so that they cannot escape. They are presented with either a circle or an oval. If they click the button when they are presented with the circle they get something nice like food (for the mean person it could be something they like like watching babies cry) and if they click the button when its an oval they receive something not nice like a painful shock (or happy baby imagery). For those that know the terms we would call the first situation an appetitive one. The idea being that all an appetitive stimuli is is one that an organism actively seeks. Whereas the latter stimuli is an aversive stimuli which is simply a stimuli that an organism actively avoids.

  What we do with this experiment is slowly make the oval look more and more like the circle until they are almost indiscernible. At this point it becomes a guessing game for the organism and after a even as little as a half dozen (perhaps less) trials you will see a spike in distress. If you continue along this path the organism will begin to show severe signs of neurosis becoming either highly aggressive or highly passive, attacking all things around them or looking almost dead.

  Now imagine if you will a situation where the entire world surrounding the organism is structured with a collection of situations where the desired outcome is masked behind a circle and an almost indiscernible oval. This is essentially what hypocritical laws and customs create. In the US alone we have the following hypocrisies (off the top of the head):

  Tobacco and Alcohol, the two drugs who hold the highest levels of deaths per year, are the only two drugs that are legal. Whereas much less harmful substances with much higher rates of quitting are illegal and have extreme penalties.

  It is illegal to be sexually involved with someone under 18 but likewise teenagers are constantly shown in sexually suggestive situations on television, in music, and in everyday life. This creates a paradigm where you are told it is wrong and yet even the Disney network is doing it.

  Humans are like any other organism built to sustain their genetic code and thusly are attracted to and pleased by sexual interaction. However we likewise have taboos that say that these things are dirty, calling people sluts, hoes, and other derogatory terms, actively sexual people are attacked when running for office and sex is the center of one of the most heated discussions in the US political scope: Gay Marriage.

  Religions are almost always quoted as being belief systems of peace and love and yet slavery, homosexual prejudice, the twin towers incident, the crusades, multiple nations invading other nations, and even the events between Israel and Palestine are all stated as being supported acts of whatever major deity depending on the event.

  Anyone reading this could likely name ten separate things off the top of their head that are hypocritical and yet pervasive throughout their country. This I believe is the cause of many of the worlds worst issues. If not the worlds worst issues it is easily the cause of the events that lead up to those issues.

  Experimental Neurosis is what I feel to be the best explanation for the reactions people have with the unknown. The aggression against homosexuality being a grand example. There is no real outside way of knowing for certain who is and who is not gay. This creates a paradigm of circle and near-circle-oval that places the person (well their brain) in a level of discomfort that leaves them with two likely responses: High levels of Aggression or High levels of Passiveness.

  It’s also likely why people hold on so harshly to their beliefs. The unknown is likely the greatest example of neurosis inducing stimuli one can deal with. It not only resents you with a circle and a near circle it essentially presents you with an infinite number of them. Even though statistically you are going to be victimized during the day most people are scared of the dark, the absence of light leaves us with a plethora of zones that we cannot see and thusly leaves us with many zones of neurosis inducing unknown. The brain enjoys distinct dichotomies because they are the simplest form of knowledge.

  So as you look at the world around you, take some time to think of all the things that are one way but said to be another. Taboos, laws that conflict with personal desire, and the conflicting worlds of reality and belief. It’s a fascinating view on life that makes the quest for knowledge all the more vital to our survival as a species. If we allow neurosis to continually spread with every increasing hypocrisies we will likely not survive it. It only takes one aggressive neurotic in control of nuclear or biological weaponry to end the lives of many.

Idealism:

  Idealism is the philosophy that people are identical to their mind/soul. Their bodies are just tools to an end much like a bicycle is not identical to the body riding it but instead a tool to an end. To be a living person you require a body and a mind.

  A mind (or soul) is a nonphysical thing, it is the embodiment of a persons entire self. To put it simpler, it is a “Nonphysical, conscious thing.” When thinking of Idealism the previous statement of the bicycle is probably the easiest way to understand it. Likewise it is important to realize the system of communication is entirely one way in Idealism. The soul/mind commands the body without return information.

Materialism:

  Materialism is the philosophy that people are identical to their bodies. The mind/soul is really just physical processes acting out in ones own physical brain via electro chemical responses (or more simply physical processes). It also states that all psychic phenomena are actually physical phenomena.

  A phenomena is a process that is seemingly unexplainable, so in the case of a psychic phenomena people tend to bring up things like telekinesis or out of body experiences. Basically in line with all other concrete knowledge it is the assumption that all things involving the person is likewise a series of events acted out entirely in the physical plane.

Dualism:

  Dualism is the Philosophy that a person is a composite object, a living person requiring a mind/soul and a body.

  The idea being that our mind is the nonphysical thinker and our body is the physical doer. They act in tandem to create a total organic package. When our body dies our mind goes off to live (misnomer?) on its own merry way.

Interactionism:

  Interactionism is the Philosophy that a person is a composite object, a living person requiring a mind/soul and a body. Furthermore the mind and body work in tandem communicating back and forth between each other.

  When thinking about this it’s easiest to look at the mind and body as the two input/output devices, each sending information to the other and each receiving information from the other. The difference between Dualism and Interactionism is the explicit statement that there is a two way information transfer between mind and body.

 

In the next section I will present popular arguments against Materialism and my counter arguments to them (these arguments are not of my doing they are from metaphysics).

The Argument from Death:

  When a relative dies the common vernacular is to say that “that relative has passed on.” Materialism is wrongheaded because when we enter a funeral and see the dead body of someone we do not say “There they are.” In fact we instead say that they have left us, or passed on, or in some other way departed from there body. Because of this it is certain that the person and their body are not a singular being and thusly Materialism is wrong.

  Logically it would be seen as.

  (1) Uncle Mort passed on.
  (2) Uncle Mort’s body did not pass on.
  (3) If (1) and (2), Uncle Mort is not the same as his body.
  (4) If (3), Materialism is false.
  ———
  (5) Materialism is false.

  Justification for line 1 is that when someone dies we say that “They’ve passed on.” Justification for line 2 is that we can see that their body still exists under normal conditions after death. Justification for line 3 is that if a person is not the same as their body then Materialism is false.

  If all parts of the logical structure are true, then the argument from death is entirely valid. For an argument to be valid is just to say that if all lines are true then the conclusion must be true. It uses a series of Modus Ponens. For clarification Modus Ponens is the following logical structure. Where each line is a premise.

Modus Ponus
if P then Q
P
—
Q

    However while the argument is valid, it is not sound, which is to say that all lines are true. Firstly we look at premise one. Popular opinion is still an opinion, in the same sense that just because you say something does not mean that it is true. It is erroneous to say that uncle mort has passed on, the following example shall illustrated why.

Jerry the Caterpillar

  When Jerry enters the metamorphosis stage we do not say that Jerry no longer is with us. Likewise when Jerry leaves the cocoon and is now a Caterpillar we do not say that Jerry is gone and a new being has appeared. Instead we acknowledge that Jerry has just entered one of his many stages. In all cases still being a physical being.

  Likewise the same is true with uncle mort. The materialist would argue that Uncle mort is in fact in the coffin in front of us. Uncle Mort has merely entered another stage of his physical sequence, in this case death. Much akin to our desktop still existing when we shut off our computer just no longer being accessible Uncle Mort’s brain has ceased to function and we have been shut off from communication. Likewise it may help to think of Uncle Mort’s brain as a monitor that projects thoughts and ideas and that with the ceasing of his heart he has lost power and is equally ineffective at functioning.

  Finally not only is this argument unsound I would further stress that it is a very weak argument. If one is willing to accept vernacular as a decider in real life facts then essentially all things are possible as long as we view them as possible. Yet merely saying something is possible has never been shown to suddenly make it true, to help further understand this it is meant that until something is said it is untrue (or impossible). In essence had everyone who walked into the church said “Uncle Mort is not dead.” would that act alone then make Uncle Mort alive?

The Problem of Other Minds

(1) If Dualism is true, then it’s not possible for me to know that there are other people in the world.
(2) It is possible for me to know that there are other people in the world.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
(3) Dualism is not true.

  Now to help understand the above problem is to first look at a concept that shall be known as “Zombies”. Trying your best to not think of fantasy Zombies, it just makes us both look silly if you do.
  Zombies for the purpose of this discussion are human bodies without minds.
  The Zombie Principle: There is no way for me to definitively prove that other people have minds.

  So with this in mind we look at the above argument. Premise one establishes that by the tenants of Dualism that to be a live person you must a composite object of a mind and a body, however there is no process that we can use to prove that people have a mind. They could very well just be incredibly sophisticated machines simulating the same activities that one would attribute to having a soul. Responses, emotions, and all other human activities can be emulated and thusly there is no way for us to know. Likewise it is utterly nonsensical to think of examining a nonphysical entity with physical tools (the only ones at our disposal).
 
  The second premise is equally reasonable, nearly all persons would recognize that there are people around them. It would be a large stretch (and likely a hypothetical only) to say that anyone has lived their entire life and all those they know and love are to them just zombies. Equally simple would be using Materialism which can be proven by stating that all physical people around you are indeed people.

  If we take these two lines to be true then the argument is valid, because it is impossible to know whether there are other persons through the tenants of dualism yet it is ridiculous to say that all people around you are not people. It would place you in a position where you couldn’t have a discussion at all since all those around you are mere simulations of an actual living person.

  Further I would say that this argument is sound. I could think of no way through dualism that you could prove that there are people with souls. It is entirely possible to even program a software to believe IT has a soul which would take it even further to say that the dualist cannot even prove they have a soul. Ones own brain cannot accurately portray what it is because it cannot exist outside of itself (from the view of a materialist).

  If a statement can only be judged off nonphysical evidence it is flawed because all possibilities in life could be explained with ‘because I think so”. If we take this stance once we no longer need to search for enlightenment since our strategy will simply be to ignore physical evidence in the light of it conflicting with nonphysical evidence. I make this bold statement because it would appear if you are willing to omit physical evidence then all knowledge is omitted seeing as all things we know is either based on outside information or inferences based on previously gained outside information. Even knowledge at the genetic level is passed from parent to child, traveling far enough back until the information is first ingrained from the outside world into the DNA.

The Argument of Psychic Phenomena
(1) Psychic Phenomena Occur
(2) If (1), Minds exist.
(3) If (2), Materialism is false.
—-
(4) Materialism is False

  A story and some clarification is necessary. Firstly we have Psychic Phenomena which are designed as follows.

Psychic Phenomena are defined as all events involving the mind that have no explanation, out of body experiences, reincarnation, and telekinesis being a few.

  Now for the story. There have been many reported cases of events such as telekinesis, out of body experiences, reincarnation, and other irrefutably psychic phenomena. Because of this it is blatantly obvious to anyone who is not close minded that psychic activities happen, psychic activities cannot happen without minds. Materialism states that the mind does not exist, but this evidence proves it does and thusly the philosophy of Materialism is wrong.

  With the above story and definition we find that it is a valid argument. Indeed psychic phenomena (according to the story) occur, thusly minds must exist, and finally Materialism is false if minds exist. I would argue while according to the story and the definition it is a valid argument, I don’t believe in reality that it is a sound argument. See below what I theorize is really happening.

  There is not necessarily such a thing as a Psychic Phenomena, instead there are two sub divisions, a perceived psychic phenomena, and a genuine psychic phenomena. It is quite possible people experience what they perceive in all honesty to be a genuine psychic phenomena however likewise they are not actually genuine. If Perceived makes it difficult to grasp instead try “Apparent”. It would then be safe to say the following:

Apparent Psychic Phenomena
(1) Apparent Psychic Phenomena Occur.
(2) If (1), Then Minds Exist.
(3) If (2), Materialism is False.
—
(4) Materialism is False.

  If you look at it instead in this light you will find that it is not only not sound but it is also not valid. While it is true that Apparent Psychic Phenomena occur they in no way are explainable solely by the existence of a mind or soul. Which means line 2 is false. In fact there is no better an explanation from the side of minds than there is from the side of materialism. Each raises many questions and neither answers them.

  In fact Materialism already states that all Psychic Phenomena are actually physical phenomena. This would mean that the apparent occurrence of psychic phenomena does nothing to disprove the existence of Materialism. Which means that line 3 is also false.

  For the Argument of Conceivability go back and read this article which is almost entirely on the topic of conceivability and misconceptions with it.

The No Interaction Argument

(1) Causal interaction between nonphysical and physical things is inconceivable.
(2) If (1), causal interactions do not happen between nonphysical and physical things.
(3) if (2), Interactionism is false
—
(4) Interactionism is false.

  The logic behind the first line is that there is no way to reasonably conceive an interaction between a non-physical and a physical thing. To do so requires very high levels of ambiguity that as I’ve discussed before is inappropriate. The reasoning behind line two is that if there is no way to conceive of it then the operation cannot happen. For a further understanding this returns to previous statements of physical evidence. If you accept natural law then the action cannot happen without negating natural law. If you negate natural law then you essentially rebuke existence which is a bold statement to make while arguing within it. The reasoning behind line three is that Interactionism explicitly states that there is a causal relation between both the mind and the body. If there is no means for this to happen then the philosophy is false.

  For reasons stated above the argument is valid, likewise I would say it is also sound. There is no way with any possible outside evidence to prove that nonphysical things interact with physical things. Because by design nonphysical things are entirely undetectable. If we are willing to create new rules to make it possible then we’ve essentially created a precedent to make everything true.

Finally we reach the last possible Argument on the exam tomorrow:

The Argument for Materialism by Taylor
(not me I think I could make a better on and probably did already on the conceivability article about god ).

(1) Materialism is no worse off than any non-Materialist view in answering for a persons thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc.
(2) Materialism is better than non-Materialist views in explaining the connection between the conscious self and the physical self.
(3) If (1) and (2), Materialism is True.
—
(4) Materialism is true.

  Of all the arguments this one requires the most deep explanations to make it make sense. The justification for line one is that when you require non-ambiguity it is shown through comparison that non-materialist views are no better at explaining the difficult questions (many addressed above). Which is a nice way of saying on the unknown Materialism is tied with its competitors. The rational for line two is the idea that a materialist views the conscious self and the physical self as one in the same, there are tools one can use to show physical activities carrying out within the mind when a person is thinking that support it, in the sense that there are many physical means of displaying thought it would appear that Materialism is indeed one up on that.

  If then Materialism is no worse at explaining the difficult questions and is better at explaining the critical question of the conscious self and the physical self. With this it becomes apparent that it would be illogical to choose a non materialist view and thusly if you do choose Materialism (as evidence should direct you to) you are then admitting that it is True. Even if you are to say it is “True with all known evidence.” that means at the point of discussion you believe it is true. Indeed why would someone believe in something they don’t think is true, that would be nonsensical.

  If we have established the previous reasoning then the argument is sound, you cannot have a case (if you accept the above two paragraphs) where the above lines are true and the conclusion is not. I would further argue that it is a sound argument. The best counter argument I can think to this argument is that one could refute physical evidence but that would to me create the paradigm of explaining everything as true.

  However I will likewise admit that while this argument is sound, it’s a very weak or poorly worded argument. It requires far too much explanation to help make its point which is counter productive to the system of logical structure.

—

  With this I am done with studying for my next exam tomorrow, I hope anyone who reads this enjoys themselves. I realize in the beginning I was erroneously stating what ‘valid’ is but I corrected myself near the end. Regardless my points should still be correct .

  Something that has annoyed me for quite sometime is a common strategy used in many debates. “Prove me wrong.” This I feel is entirely incorrect and takes a very immature and utterly pointless road on the journey to intellectual enlightenment.

  There are any number of statements that someone can safely make and by the logic of “Prove me wrong” herein called “PMW” you create a difficult situation that does nothing constructive. Some of life’s greatest questions have been defended with this view. What people fail to recognize is the conundrum they place themselves or at the very least their views in. As stated in a previous article it is the case that all knowledge is either from the outside world or previous information gathered from the outside world. Any and all debates should take this into account and consider any information not in this outside world superfluous.

  You might ask why such a bold suggestion would be made. However it comes to pass that if you are willing to accept information with no outside support because it ‘feels’ right you essentially can say absolutely anything and it becomes true (at least to you). Example below:

(1) There are invisible creatures circling the earth generating absolutely no information that could aid any other entity in detecting them.

  You can easily defend this argument with PMW but does that accomplish anything but superficially making you ‘win’ (one of the poorer reasons to debate). The PMW is another example of something that explains everything and because of this it explains absolutely nothing. It is not a proper response to support absolutely any argument. It’s highly popular because of its simplicity. Essentially the person making this defense is saying the following:

“All things that cannot be explained at current time can justly be explained with any answer.”

  For me the burden of certainty lies upon information. If I am not willing to require solid information then why am I trying to learn? It seems to me asinine to scour the world for knowledge and then toss it aside when it doesn’t sparkle with your beliefs. (Kudos to those that get the joke in that last line)

  So that’s it, this goes also for any posts in the future that will inevitably link me to linking back to here. In all cases within this Universe (unless you are willing to negate all Knowledge and thusly the entire discussion in the first place) the burden of proof lies upon all things that are not currently understood. If there is no evidence to support a belief then that belief is unfounded and likewise a piss poor citation.

  A final note, an equally poor response to evidence is saying “I don’t believe it.” Instead one must say “I don’t believe it because…” and remember not to fall back upon hokey support discussed above.