Posts tagged Philosophy

Metaphysics Finale (Part 4 of 4)

2 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

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.

Principle of Fairness: Relation of Consent to Justness (Part 1 of 2)

2 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

Since the dawn of the first civilizations, and likely before, there was the question of how to most effectively govern. Whereas a migrating people can place distance between them and those they disagree with the nature of sedentary societies places us in the position of addressing problems and addressing them in the fairest possible manner. There have been no less than 50 globally recognized forms of governing bodies, each has attempted to address this problem, from Adhocracy to Timocracy the goal has been to provide the most efficient form of government. To provide the most appreciated environment with the least amount of resources and to cause the lowest possible levels of dissent amongst the citizens. Few things end a governing body quicker than a nation of unhappy citizens. The goal of this paper is to discuss one important problem, known as the Principle of Fairness, this is a problem of when actions or situations are just and likewise when all parties have officially recognized and agreed to the actions or situations. Likewise while discussing this issue it will establish some Locke’s and Nozick’s principles and show how they can be used in much broader ways than previously proposed.

The first important venture is to establish what exactly the Principle of Fairness is: If a group of persons (any number above 1) are engaged in a mutually beneficial, cooperative venture, which requires restrictions of their liberties , then all those who have submitted to the restrictions are entitled to the following benefits so as to make the agreement fair:

· All in the agreement must receive the benefits.

· All parties must be made better off by the entire deal.

· If the above two do not detail your interaction with the deal then the agreement has nothing to do with you.

· Finally you cannot be forced (or coerced in any manner) into the deal. IE. All parties must consent.

Some important conundrums need to be immediately addressed before moving on. Preconceived notions of right and wrong may need to be placed aside to freely examine this topic. It is possible to create a situation where slavery would fit into the above stipulations, which places those supporting it in a tough spot. I a set of guidelines can be treated in a manner where they become unjust then those guidelines require further detail and examination before they can be properly used in a civilization.

For example if a farmer has copious supplies of food while nearby citizens are on the brink of starvation the farmer could provide the citizens with a deal that they will sign on as slaves and work at the whims of the farmer. In return they will be fed when necessary so as to not die. In this example all parties agree fairly, each is better off by the deal, and there is no force or coercion involved in the deal. So in this way slavery can be a fair agreement in at the very least one case.

Secondly we must address the situation of justness, or justice, as these are topics that become highly subjective. For the sake of uniformity I will use the definition of justice in holdings defined by Nozick. It has three stages (or principles): Firstly is the principle of acquisition, for acquisition to be just it essentially must be gained from nature and be something nobody else has ever owned before. Likewise if using personal skills to convert a piece of nature you are establishing that it is yours, for example carpentry turns wood (a natural resource) into a structure (a personal good) this is a concept championed by Locke and is known as the "Theory of Property". Second is the principle of transfer which is just iff (if and only if) it is done voluntarily. This principle and all others used in this paper will assume a state of properly functioning cognition. Thirdly is the principle of rectification which requires the prompt repair of previous unjust acquisitions or transfers. Such as giving a merchant the money they undercharged you after a transaction.

Now that we’ve established a definition of justice, which while designed for transactions of goods, does well in all situations involving just interactions we can move on to the four most prominent definitions of consent.

· They honestly assert to everybody that they want to be in the deal.

OR

· Consent is when you accept the benefits in full knowledge of the deal.

OR

· By Enjoying the benefits they consent to the negatives.

OR

· They would rather be in the deal than not and they accept the benefits in full knowledge of the deal (In Layman’s; Only pay for the services you agree with).

The issue of honesty is one that is brought up both by Rawls in the "Theory of Justice" and by Nozick in "Anarchy, State, and Utopia." For Rawls it was covered by the hypothetical Original Position, in essence this places those establishing an agreement in a position of full cognitive range but removes their personal selfishness that leads to unequal distribution of essential resource (IE. Primary Goods). This paper will assume a similar position to show that even at a near best case scenario these systems may come up short.

There is a level of omniscience that is required for a being to earnestly assert a decision without unknowingly placing themselves in a position that they would not retrospectively have entered. It is not unusual for a person to enter into an agreement without realizing the full extent of their involvement in the deal. Be it from overlooking fine print in a contract or more reasonably being easily distracted.

For example, if there was a group of friends at a bar that decided they wanted to drink pitchers of beer for the rest of the night and that it would be best if all of them one after one another paid for a pitcher. This way for the cost of one pitcher (per person) they would get a return of five pitchers. On the surface this is a pretty fair trade. However in this agreement one of the people did not realize that they would have to pay for a pitcher. Perhaps they misunderstood or perhaps the decision for each person to pay was an implied cost of entering into the deal. By this definition of consent they have entered into the deal and have thus agreed to the position of purchasing a pitcher when it becomes their turn however equally so they appear to be a victim of circumstance.

Further still it could simply be a case of cultural differences. During a trip to Japan I decided that it would be nice of me to clean up the dining area after we ate. To a casual onlooker the response looked like I had beaten their first born. This was a simple case of cultural differences, whereas in the west it is implied that such a deed is a courteous act, in the east it can come off as insulting for the guest to clean the owners home.

This form of consent only functions properly in a position where absolutely nothing is implied, because humans are lacking omniscience all parts of the agreement must be laid out bluntly. Likewise this definition is victim of carelessness, accidental omissions can greatly affect the final decision of party members.

This problem is addressed by the second definition in which consent is only achieved when the member has not only asserted that they accept the deal but likewise they have accepted it with full knowledge of the deal. The goal here is to eliminate the necessity of an impossible trait (namely omniscience) by creating an agreement where all unmentioned information is superfluous to whether or not the member will agree to the decision.

Returning once more to the pub we look at the same situation but this time following the second definitions take on consent. This time it was made absolutely certain that everyone knew they would have to make a financial investment into the deal. They would buy in a clockwise order and continue until the end of the night. Everyone gives a very obvious form of consent such as verbal or written and the participation begins. What happens however when they reach the end of the night and one person has purchased less than anyone else? Or perhaps they go in such a manner that one person never buys one. In either case one member (at the very least) always comes out better than the rest of the group, they have all the gains of the investment, with less or none of the negatives.

This particular problem is merely a nuisance in these small numbers however the litigation required when dealing with millions of people could be nearly impossible. Indeed the most common form of this agreement, known as a loophole, is the cause of more than a billion dollars annually of lost income for the US government. Whenever a rule set does not work on the micro level and cannot function on the macro (or vice versa) it requires reworking.

Once again this problem is addressed by the third definition of consent. If a member enjoys the benefits they are consenting to the negatives, by consenting to the negatives one must assume that those negatives will befall them. So now the parties are honestly joining in the agreement, they are doing so with full knowledge of the deal, and finally they are doing so with full consent of the negatives of the deal. On first glance this appears to be a pretty solid deal. However just as the previous form of consent was weak depending on the size of the party, this particular formation is weak when examining it over a period of extended time.

Again at the pub we have a group that has agreed upon buying pitchers for the group, each has accepted that it will be a financial investment, and whenever someone doesn’t pay equally to the rest they start off the series of buys the next time the group returns. However the deal is made so that each is contractually bound to return to this setup every night for the next 5 years. There is absolutely no coercion and all members enter into the agreement with full understanding of the positives and negatives they will be receiving as a result of the deal. However a year or two into the deal one of the members has a change of heart. Let’s say that the member has recently become a parent and must be home (and sober) to properly take care of their child at night. At the point of original agreement they could very well have had no idea that they would be becoming a parent, they did not knowingly consent to a situation that they would soon have to break.

Indeed it is not at all uncommon for people to regret a decision after a certain amount of time under the ramifications of that agreement. Intuitively the new parent is more a victim of circumstance than an unjust or unfair dealer in the agreement. As before, a system that does not function properly in a reasonably present situation, such as the one outlined above, is not a system that should be adhered to. It should be examined and refined to more completely cover all possible outcomes and to produce the least amount of situations where someone is placed unknowingly into an unjust, unfair, or otherwise punishable position.

  To be continued and finished tomorrow. I just noticed that it was going on pretty long. I have to reach 4k words with this essay, it is currently 19 words below 2k. So this is going to be quite difficult without either having an epiphany or BSng…the latter of which I am not a big fan of doing.

Metaphysics Finale (Part 3 of 4)

2 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

Over the next day or two I will be discussing the following topics (Update: Obviously its been more than a few days but I didn’t forget):
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. The Bolded AND Italicized 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. Keeping in mind any story about Patriots is fabricated by my professors, I’m just trying to re-iterate them here to make sure I remember them :P .

Lets start with a story about Ernest Patriot, the cousin of Kid Patriot. Earnest Patriot wanted to be a secret service agent his whole life, not unlike Kid Patriot. Essentially all things between the stories are the same except no aliens come and screw around with Earnest Patriots brain. While protecting the president Earnest Patriot notices a piece of lint on his outfit. “Holy snipe!” He thinks and he decides he will dust it off. However, for reasons unknown, he pulls his gun and unloads a shell into the president. Immediately he panics unsure of why the hell it had just happened, perhaps a complex seizure…nobody will ever know because the other agents unloaded on the poor Earnest and dropped him within seconds.

The reason for this story has to do with a philosophy known as Simple Indeterminism which anyone who frequents my site has heard of before.

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.

I’d clarify this but for those curious you can read here. As for Ernest, his actions were indeed undetermined. In fact there was likely far less than a single percent change that what he did would have happened. However it did happen. But this action that was undetermined does not indeed feel like a free action and it most certainly is not fair to assume that someone should be morally responsible for such a deed. Unless we are to start punishing all seizure victims who are placed in a situation where they harm someone else unintentionally. The best I can come up with is that Earnest is morally responsible for placing himself in a position with the president after a previous family member had killed a president. But we’ll see a recurring theme with the patriots that stretch far beyond this second member.

For those who are interested the argument would look like this:

The Ernest Patriot Argument against Simple Indeterminism

(1) If Simple Indeterminism were true, Ernest patriot would be morally responsible.
(2) Ernest was not responsible.
—–
(3) Simple Indeterminism is False.

The justification for the above argument is outlined in the previous paragraphs (I hate redundancy but am generally caught being redundant).

The next magic word to be conjoined with Indeterminism is known as “Volition”.

Volition: The act of choosing, willing, or deciding to do something.

Pretty straightforward. So lets see how this applies to the idea of Volitional Indeterminism:

Volitional Indeterminism

(1) There are some undetermined volitions.
(2) People act freely when they act under undetermined volitions or else actions caused by their own undetermined volitions.
(3) People are morally responsible for their own undetermined volitions and actions caused by their own undetermined volitions.

As we always do lets begin with the reasoning behind the lines. Working from the theory of indeterminism not all actions are predetermined. These periods of freedom allow the person to make their own choice, IE an act of volition. That covers line one, moving on to line two it is relatively easy to see that when you are acting of your own choosing that you are acting freely. Finally if you are acting freely than it seems fair that you would be morally responsible for actions done under the realm of freedom. At first glance this does seem pretty obvious, but lets take another dab into the family of the patriots.

The following is the story of the cousin of Kid Patriot AND Daughter of Earnest Patriot, known to all since birth as Vera Patriot. Once again those damn dirty apes are back…er…martians. They’ve come and placed a chip in Vera much like Kid, this particular chip is not unlike Kids and what it does it makes you REALLY want to do something. It’s that kind of urge that causes people to do really stupid things that they regret greatly later. The story pans out much the same and she becomes the presidents secret service agent. The aliens slap the machine to “super-ultra-mega 99.99999999999999999999998%-mega-death-kill.” indeed she gets this nearly overwhelming urge and blasts the president. They turn off the machine and she is mortified but much like her two siblings she is dropped hard. (Again disclaimer these aren’t my stories).

The Vera Patriot Argument against Volitional Indeterminism
(1) If Volitional Indeterminism were true then Vera Patriot would be morally responsible.
(2) Vera Patriot is not Morally Responsible.
—
(3) Volitional Indeterminism is False

The justification for line one is that it was not a 100% chance and thusly it was an act of volitional indeterminism. The justification for line two is that Vera was a victim of the aliens and not morally responsible. I know…not the worlds most thrilling stuff. But thankfully you only have to see one more argument with a Patriot in it…tomorrow. After that we move on to more interesting stuff. (Lord knows I’ll mix this all up on the exam day since its pretty nonsensical).

Metaphysical Finale (Part 2 of 4)

2 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

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.)

Metaphysical Finale (Part 1 of 4)

2 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

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.

How I would do Time Travel.

2 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

  This is the last topic on Time Travel for quite sometime I promise. This has nothing to do with Fatalism because I feel I’ve already explained why its absolutely positively stupid (to me at the very least). This is instead how I figure time travel would actually work and why it would not or should not create paradoxes.

  I picture a time traveler as someone who can separate themselves from reality, if I’m to understand that the universe really does ‘vibrate’ in some fashion than perhaps the time traveler would vibrate in a opposing manner so as to ‘separate’ from reality. Next we have some sort of function, device, or means that we send time either into ‘fast forward’ or ‘rewind’. In the case of fast forward you send time as it is into an accelerated fashion, or at the very least an illusion of such caused by the beings separation from time and space (or at least this series of time and space) and they can pop in at a future point. They ceased to exist the moment they separated from the timeline physically, one would assume that all their friends and family would wonder where the hell they went.

  When going ‘back in time’ what literally would happen is that all things would do their inverse, exhales would become inhales, matter splicing would begin to rejoin and all motion in the universe would flip into reverse, genes would repaid, cancers would degrade, and time itself would literally begin to reverse. We’ll consider the point that you hit the rewind as point A and the point that you end up at as point B.

  All things between point A and B would cease to exist. Essentially these things have no longer happened, you could even go back in time and kill your parents, you are not bound by the laws that they must be alive for you to exist because you have separated from time and space to go back. In fact technically you haven’t been born yet (in the physical sense obviously you exist). All that would happen is that you would not be born again.

   One would assume that you would stop yourself from doing what you did so as to not make you cease to exist if they too jumped back in time (because in this new timeline you began existing the moment you popped back in, that was essentially your birth, so now you are part of time). If we were to assume that multiple people separated themselves from the universe and were in a parallel existence of some kind the traveling of past and present would only be exclusive, in the sense that you could either go back or forward and you could only stop at one point. Think of it like driving a car, no matter where everyone wants to go you all end up where the car stops (assuming nobody hops out) likewise hopping out of a car while moving is likely to end your life.

  I’d like to work this out further so I was wondering if people could ask some questions about certain functions so I could explain them. I’ve likely not explained something that is important because it seems obvious to me.

The Time Traveler – Another case of Flawed Fatalism

2 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

  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.”

Fatalism – Finish him!

2 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

  We look today at another metaphysical argument. So lets just dive right in!

The Argument for Fatalism
(1) There exists now a set of propositions describing everything that might happen in the future.
(2) Every proposition is either true or else false.
(3) If (1) and (2), then there exists now a set of true propositions completely describing the future.
(4) If there exists now a set of true propositions completely describing the future, then whatever will happen in the future is already unavoidable.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
(5) Whatever will happen in the future is already unavoidable.

  The first premise is a pretty easy to grasp idea, if you were to create every possible set of actions from the beginning of time till end of the infinitely many sets one of them will in fact describe everything that has happened, likewise it’ll describe everything that not just ‘might’ but everything that will happen. For those curious as defined by the wonderful world of Wikipedia a propositions is as follows:

In logic and philosophy, the term proposition refers to either (a) the "content" or "meaning" of a meaningful declarative sentence or (b) the pattern of symbols, marks, or sounds that make up a meaningful declarative sentence.

- Wikipedia

    Likewise the second premise is entirely correct as well, every possible proposition in the universe is defaulted to false and if it happens the triggers sets to true. Think of it like a computer script, if something is undefined then it automatically is false until otherwise defined. Because of the Law of Excluded Middle all propositions are either true or false (which is obvious in previous thought).

The Law of Excluded Middle (LEM): Every proposition is either true or else false.

  The third premise is equally true, as I’ve stated before if you are to take into account every single possible set of propositions possible than at least one set is going to be inevitably correct. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, to be further explained soon.

  However this is where I break away from the argument and no longer can support it. The fourth premise is what I like to call a leap of faith, or perhaps an extreme super duper ultimate fabulously monstrous leap of blind and utterly unbelievable faith. The fourth premise says that if of all the possible outcomes in the universe that one of them is bound to happen that the future is already unavoidable. Unavoidable is defined as follows:

e is unavoidable =df no human is able to prevent e from occurring.

  This is where we break off, ironically the strongest supporter in my class was the very person who stated why the logic behind the fourth premise is intelligible (or at least poorly worded). In essence when the fatalist says that the future is unavoidable they are saying that you are destined to do what you do and are thusly not responsible for anything that you do because it was already pre-ordained. However as our professor said in one of his examples “The past is a closed path and the future is an open one.” The past has already happened and thusly the triggers for all the propositions that were involved with the events of the past have been flipped to true. However just because the past has happened in one way does not mean the future is set to happen in a single way.

  The reason that Fatalism is weak is because no matter what happens, regardless of what choice you take, you will eventually fill up at least one of the infinitely many possible outcomes. This is not because the future is bound to happen, it’s because a future is bound to happen. When we reach the end of time (assuming there is one) the fatalist can state that “see this particular history was the history that happened” but this does nothing but support the fact that if you state the obvious (IE. Something is going to happen) then you are bound to be correct.

  Now take into thought the idea of the time traveler. Say you know that Kennedy gets shot when you are 13, so you go back in time and tell Kennedy the day before he is shot that he will be shot and he never goes on that parade. Kennedy survives and the future is changed, you have provided a being with what was originally a true proposition in the timeline the knowledge necessary to make it no longer true. Likewise this event does nothing to stop fatalism, because Fatalism just states that something is going to happen.

  Fatalism would state that freedom does not exist, yet no aspect of freedom is negated by Fatalism likewise no act of free will negates Fatalist beliefs. Whatever you choose to do of the millions of choices you have in any given time you are filling in one of the infinitely many possible outcomes, it’s a shotgun approach to belief. What the fatalist requires is the knowledge now of the exact timeline that is going to happen for the belief structure to have any merit.

  Likewise once you know which future was going to happen you can now change it and thusly your Fatalist proposition list has now become incorrect. It ties back to my first major quote here:

“Anything that explains everything explains absolutely nothing.”

- Me

  Because by its very nature Fatalism does indeed explain (likewise predict) absolutely nothing, it merely states the obvious. Likewise it takes an ambiguous statement and tries to mask it behind a fictitious concrete statement. Check the Illusionary Occam’s Razor for a recap on Ambiguity.

 

Freedometer 2.0 – Still not quite there

2 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

  I’ve been thinking about the glaring flaws in my original Freedometer and the fact that it didn’t express my point correctly. So without further adieu this is the new and approved Freedometer:

freedometer2

The Freedometer 2.0

  The way this works is that you have a binary situation, there are only two likely outcomes to be had. Now I understand that this is an unlikely situation and possibly impossible, but this diagram was made to explain the simplest situation so as to help people understand more complex ones. You would have a bar on top of this circle the length of its diameter and pinned at the center so that it can spin. Ideally you would turn it clockwise, the left hand side of the bar would show you the % likelihood that option 1 (or A what have you) would be chosen and the right hand side of the bar would instantly show you the % likelihood that option 2 (or B) would be chosen.

  Now this is grossly oversimplified and I believe it is easily argued that my ‘red zone’ is too large. However again this is for the concept and not necessarily precise. Lets look at example one for a little bit of guidance.

freedometer2example1

Example 1 (Option 1 20%/Option 2 80%)

  What this example shows is the bar moved so that you have an 80% likelihood of choosing outcome 2 and you have only a 20% likelihood of choosing outcome one. If I was good with gradients I’d have a third zone “yellow” that would probably span 89% to 71% and 11% to 29% respectively as a “zone for debate” or “possibly free choice”. The general idea being that once you get into the extremes of one choice being chosen 9 out of 10 times you have entered a region of positive gain to negative punishment that is far too large to be considered an earnest free choice. Likewise when you get really far, say 99/1 chance that you’ve entered an ‘ultimatum’ or some sort of extreme non-free choice.

  So by the loose definition of the 2.0 Freedometer (who’ll see a facelift once I learn gradients) the above example is a situation where you do not have a free choice, you are given a choice where option 1 is exceptionally poor and option 2 is exceptionally great. Say someone offering you cold unflavored coffee (option 1) or offering you cold filtered water (option 2) after you’ve just competed in a triathlon.

  freedometer2example2

Example 2 (Option 1 27%/Option 2 73%)

  This would be a situation of free choice, it’s in that yellow zone that may be added at a later date but for now its a situation of free choice. While one option is nicer than the other neither puts the organism in a place of great disadvantage. I suppose this would be something akin to going to see a bad movie or a good movie, neither will destroy your day and while you do have a higher likelihood of choosing the good movie you may end up last minute entering to see the bad one to give it the benefit of the doubt.

  It would be unfortunate but not exactly life ending. Now this last example is what I envision when I look at situations where someone says something like “You can either give me your wallet or die.”

freedometer2example3

Example 3 (Option 1 100%/Option 2 0%)

  These are highly popular abuses of the free choice concept. You are given the choice of say “believing in a deity” or being punished to an eternity of unpleasantness. Neither option accurately relates to the consequences of its choice and likewise the grandiose nature of the aversive to the mediocre nature of the appetitive is (likely) infinitely large. Because of this you have a choice between a seemingly infinitely large positive outcome on one end and a seemingly infinitely large negative outcome on the other end. This is not a free choice at the utmost, it even looks weird on the Freedometer 2.0, it makes him very unhappy.

  So of course this is a work in progress. I think ideally I’m just trying to create a visual diagram (with the wonders of geometry) that can help provide visual aid for a very serious problem. Far too much of the world’s population abuses the concept of freedom or free choice. It seems to me anytime the options are vastly different in a negative correlation that they are directives masked behind choice.

The Human Body – A Collaborative Project

2 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

  Today is more of a thought experiment than anything else. I just felt it would be interesting to discuss the human body. Whenever we think of ourselves generally we see ourselves as singular beings, metaphysics aside, generally you look at a person and say “Them” or something of that nature. However in actuality your body is one huge collaborative project, a collection of somewhere between 50 and 100 trillion cells. Each working (hopefully) in symbiosis with all the other cells around it. Even our cells are made up of smaller matter that at one point or another decided (I say that jokingly) that it would hang out with the other matter that now make up the cells.

  As I said in the last post when I look at people I tend to think of Jelly fish. Now I know some people might be wondering why, is it because people seem to enjoy outbursts of possibly fatal nature whenever they come into contact with other organisms (mean-world hypothesis ;D), is it because we react most noticeably to the simplest of stimuli, or is it the outside appearance of no actual brain articulating our movements and survival? While all three of these might be fun possible answers it ties in more with what a Jelly fish is. If my memory serves me correctly, be it from animal planet or one of the numerous books that have found their way into my hands over the years, jelly fish are not necessarily one animal. They have collections of other animals on them, now not to say that hamsters are chilling inside the dome of a jelly fish, but very small organisms use these miraculous organisms as a shelter or sorts. In at least one case a jelly fish uses plants to generate nourishment from photo synthesis, in effect what looks like a single organism is in actuality a colony of wonderfully coexisting organisms, albeit its a killing machine, but it’s a beautiful one.

  Humans come off to me as much of the same. Our brains aren’t single chunks of matter but collaborative projects of some 100 billion neurons (I don’t think anyone’s ever actually counted, it’s an estimate) each working in kind with its surrounding neurons to create a very efficient command center. It pays to note that while each part of the human works in conjunction with the parts around it it’s not always a safe one, when blood enters the brain it causes severe damage because it causes Neurons to basically fill with an element, I want to say NA (salt) but I don’t recall exactly, until the cells burst. Likewise when a neuron bursts it has a chance of killing the neurons around it which can have dire consequences to the human. It’s one of the many reasons I don’t think humans are ‘intelligently designed’ anyone who designs a cell that receives nourishment from another cell that if they come into contact will obliterate one or both is silly and hardly intelligent. It’s why I don’t try to use electro magnetic coils to power my PC, I like everything functioning.

  But when we get down to it, the human body is this amazingly convincing collection of microscopic matter. While there is remarkably little in between certain organs who do well with their fluids, and other parts of the body that would fall apart if that fluid contacted them, it does seem to function properly more often than not (wouldn’t have billions of people if it didn’t). It pays to remember that whenever we do things we aren’t just deciding wether we as a collection of thoughts and actions survive, but every single cell in our being. In a sort of odd sense every time a person dies a form of genocide has unraveled, where trillions of organisms die off in a matter of hours (or days if the weather is just right). So as with the Jellyfish, what looks like a single organism, is actually a colony of wonderfully coexisting organisms, albeit its a killing machine, but it’s a beautiful one.

  Who knows, maybe the next time you see a guy on the bus talking to himself he’s really just trying to give his cells a pep talk. I’ve read that sound can stimulate the growth of a plant, if that happens to actually be true, perhaps sound makes your cells all giddy in some manner or another. But don’t ask me to bank on that hypothesis because I’d rather not go down in flames like a US Corporation :) . (Oooh political burn)

Go to Top