This feels wrong. Yet, I can offer no evidence to deny it, no recommendations for how to avoid this. Perhaps it feels wrong, simply because it runs counter to “commonly accepted wisdom”. Perhaps, even more so, it feels wrong because it means that everyone is inevitably powerless. But, perhaps that is reality and the feeling is just a mistaken attempt to feel like we really have some control.
I sincerely apologize that reality fails to meet your expectations.
Commonly accepted wisdom is very unwise. If it was actually valuable then we’d have no reason for actual wise people.
Commonly accepted wisdom also holds black people as dumber and more violent, poor people as unethical (despite research indicating that a sense of superior class is more likely to cause unethical behavior) and that Acorn was a pimping agency.
side note. I’m treating you very very fairly and presuming that you’re not just JAQing off. Do not disappoint me.
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
simply because it runs counter to “commonly accepted wisdom”
Whose commonly accepted wisdom?
No such thing.
Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoysays
For a more personal approach, what precautions do you take? Are these meaningful or symbolic?
I rarely leave the house. I have few friends who aren’t on Pharyngula, and the only one I spend time with in meatspace is a gay feminist man slightly more toward the “radical” end of the spectrum than I am; even so it took me some time to determine I would be safe around him (which he 1. noticed and 2. was very kind about). I keep my distance from my classmates and anyone unfamiliar and am rarely off my guard around them. When I have a door between me and other people that I can lock, I do so. When I have to be outside of my house, I am extremely vigilant, although I have to make some concessions because of my inability to tolerate certain sensory stimuli (I usually have my iPod playing and therefore could not always hear someone approaching me). When I have energy to put in to paying attention to my body language, which is rarely, I try my best to appear confident and alert. I have hypervigilance issues that make parts of my life difficult; I am afraid constantly. I have an exaggerated startle response that could potentially be dangerous to other people. I have put some time – although in reality I think one’s ability to do so or not is more influenced by experience than by time – into trying to convince myself that I could/would be right to hurt someone in my own defense if the need arose.
Almost none of these “precautions” would have done anything to prevent what happened to me. Even staying inside my house wouldn’t have helped me. The only one that would have done anything significant is my lack of friends and pattern of cutting friendships off at the root as soon as I see a danger sign, and let me tell you… it’s not a great life to have. But I do it, and all the other things that may be useless, because of the fear.
I no longer alter my preferred patterns of dress to avoid attention, partly because I realize that doesn’t work (not just to avoid rape, to avoid attention) and partly because I’m trying to learn to not engage in stupid slut-shaming patterns of thought aimed at myself.
Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoysays
And in fact, several of the things in that top paragraph, I’m working on doing something to stop. Because it’s not fair for the people who got away with taking my sense of self and my ability to feel safe to take the rest of my life too.
jeffretsays
Yes, I understand that “commonly accepted wisdom” is frequently wrong. That’s why I quoted it that way.
Yet you still used it as a defense for your “skepticism”
As a side note the question should not be “what can one do to not be raped” it should be “what can we do to prevent rape”
Even if dressing in a sackcloth meant you wouldn’t be raped by strangers…it doesn’t stop SOMEONE from being raped. It just changes who the target is. it won’t affect rape statistics at all.
You haven’t answered my question about parking lots
I am thinking you’re not honest at all. Address my points now.
A. Rsays
jeffret: Normally, I am quite patient with people here, but after a week of dealing with people JAQ’ing off on rape-related threads, all I am going to say is this: Either display an ability to comprehend what others are trying to relate to you, or leave.
Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottlesays
So, I’ve been reading about this Leah person apparently from some atheist blog that everyone knew about but me, who recently “converted” to Kiddie Raping, Inc. Specifically, reading her interview with The Blaze The. Fucking. BLAZE.
Why are so many people apparently saddened by this “loss”?
So, I’ve been reading about this Leah person apparently from some atheist blog that everyone knew about but me, who recently “converted” to Kiddie Raping, Inc. Specifically, reading her interview with The Blaze The. Fucking. BLAZE.
Why are so many people apparently saddened by this “loss”?
I had the same reaction. My take is “nothing of value was lost” She wasn’t exactly a deep thinker and her sense of ethics are dismal IMHO. Her atheism is based on “no one ever taught me religion” and she was searching for answers. Really the fact that people are taking “person with an ill formed world view changed their ill formed world view” as anything worth mentioning seems laughable.
jeffretsays
Let me ask you a question. Do you ever notice something lying out on a seat in someone’s car in the parking lot that is valuable? If so is your first instinct to check the doors to see if they’re locked so you can take it? Or do you not even look in other people’s cars in the parking lot? Locking the door prevents honest people from stealing, “rape prevention” prevents non-rapists from raping.
Do you get what I was trying to say? Do you get the point?
hotshoesays
‘Tis Himself:
I just made a post about the MacDonald vs Campbell feud and the intertubes eated it. I has a sad!
I’m sad, too.
I bet it was interesting.
And now we’ll never see, unless you chose to expend the energy to recreate it … and even then, it wouldn’t be exactly the same :(
Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoysays
Look, jeffret. You recited a few of the things that we would obviously say in response to your questions, then waved them away with “Clearly, though, we’re not at that point.” What point are we not at? Of the things you said, what part is not relevant because “rapists still rape”?
hotshoesays
So, I’ve been reading about this Leah person apparently from some atheist blog that everyone knew about but me, who recently “converted” to Kiddie Raping, Inc. Specifically, reading her interview with The Blaze The. Fucking. BLAZE.
Why are so many people apparently saddened by this “loss”?
I had the same reaction. My take is “nothing of value was lost” She wasn’t exactly a deep thinker and her sense of ethics are dismal IMHO. Her atheism is based on “no one ever taught me religion” and she was searching for answers. Really the fact that people are taking “person with an ill formed world view changed their ill formed world view” as anything worth mentioning seems laughable.
I wasn’t saddened. I was furious. Still am furious. Yeah, I know, I should get a life if that kind of tangential shit has the power to make me mad and keep me mad for weeks. :(
I have personal issues with Catholicism that intersect with an unsolvable dilemma I have with my closest relative – I can (barely) acknowledge that a person who was raised in a Catlicker family may not be a total monster just because they don’t overthrow their faith as an adult. But the idea that a not-childhood-indoctrinated person would voluntarily join into that anti-human church makes me see red. She’s doing harm to me and mine by crossing over to the wrong side. Indirect harm, yes, but real nonetheless.
I can’t imagine any way to prohibit people from converting without totalitarianism which would make life hellish for everyone (and wouldn’t even work, to boot; look at the underground church when Russia was officially “atheist”). But I think people who do convert should be called out as scum, mocked and made miserable for their immoral decision.
Fortunately, I’ll never bump into Leah Libresco in real life. Fortunately, despite the propaganda value for the Unholy Church of getting one voluntary convert, the Church is dying out in civilized countries. One here, one there, doesn’t even begin to make up for the flood of people leaving because they can no longer stomach being part of the Raping Children – and killing Africans – and killing women of childbearing age – global empire.
Eh. I’m not even sure it’ll last. Remember Anne Rice. I don’t know if she’s a nonbeliever again but she isn’t Catholic anymore and had said that religious people are creepy to “people like her”
Libresco is attracted to the “complexity” of Catholic philosophy, she may react to the bug fuck reality of it differently. If not than she’s the type of amoral twit we don’t want. Everybody wins.
Amphioxsays
Even if dressing in a sackcloth meant you wouldn’t be raped by strangers…it doesn’t stop SOMEONE from being raped.
Two hikers encounter an angry bear in the woods. The bear charges.
Hiker A pauses to put on running shoes.
Hiker B: “What are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear even with the best imaginable running shoes!”
Hiker A: “I’m not trying to outrun the bear. I’m just trying to outrun you.”
TLDR: it seems like LL is treating the Catholic church like a comic book. I like the mythology and complexity so I join. IMHO she doesn’t seem to take the decision that seriously. At least not as much as someone raised with religion would. Again she never was someone who had a reason for atheism.
marilovesays
Or to put it more carefully, is RAINN correct on the statistics, but wrong on the recommendations?
Oh for Pete’s sake, REALLY? My JAQ-off radar is starting to blink.
consciousness razorsays
I wasn’t saddened. I was furious. Still am furious.
It pisses me off that she goes on fucking CNN and The Blaze* to preach about her bullshit conversion. Who the fuck does she think she is? Is she sure about it and totally not confused about her new position, or not? Keep this shit a personal decision you still have trouble reconciling as a coherent set of views, or don’t. You can’t have it both ways.
*Though it’s no surprise they’re willing to milk this story as much as they can.
Libresco is attracted to the “complexity” of Catholic philosophy, she may react to the bug fuck reality of it differently.
Well, if Fincke has been interpreting her motivations accurately, I wouldn’t blame her for being unattracted to a lot of the bullshit “simplicity” of certain kinds of atheist moral philosophy. That doesn’t mean Catholicism is a rational, ethical alternative or that she isn’t responsible for seeing some atheist’s bullshit for what it is on her own, but it’s fucking frustrating when some atheists don’t take morality or philosophy seriously, then flip out and blame the person for being mislead by people like them.
If not than she’s the type of amoral twit we don’t want. Everybody wins.
Huh? We don’t “win” because an amoral twit doesn’t consider herself of “us.” It doesn’t matter if we want to identify ourselves with amoral twits. It matters that there are fewer amoral twists.
consciousness razorsays
Err, I meant that she doesn’t consider herself one of “us” … and twits, not “twists.”
kassadsays
it seems like LL is treating the Catholic church like a comic book. I like the mythology and complexity so I join.
It’s enough for a lot of people I know. You add a certain gravitas and theatrical sense (cathedrals, priests’ garbs…), and you touched the heart of the religious sense for a lot of catholics.
A fun fact: the beguinning of the dechritianization of France (starting in the 17th century) wasn’t due to the Enlightement itself, but to the fact that the Gallican bishops started to modify religion for a more sofiticated theology, a “more civil religion” (to quote bishops of that time).
Done with the processions, the worship of matyrs’ bones, etc. People started to lose interest, because that was religion for them. It is a funny phenomenon.
Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottlesays
Oh for Pete’s sake, REALLY? My JAQ-off radar is starting to blink.
The moment they start with the pathetically transparent “gotcha” questions, mine starts to blink. Here, apparently he wants someone to say that RAINN isn’t wrong to post “don’t get raped” guidelines, so that he can proclaim it okay for ANYONE to lecture women on how not to get raped.
Dunning-Kruger strikes again. The level of expertise at RAINN, the fact that THEIR FOCUS IS VICTIMS OF SEX-BASED CRIMES, etc. doesn’t figure. If RAINN can post a list of ways to reduce the risk of sexual assault, then ANY sexist asswipe in the near vicinity can tell you that your skirt/your drinking/you’re going on a date with that guy when you should have known better is why you were raped and it’s your own fault. Because it’s TOTALLY the same thing.
+++
It pisses me off that she goes on fucking CNN and The Blaze* to preach about her bullshit conversion. Who the fuck does she think she is?
Which is why i disagree with BlagHag’s post on this which ended with the demand that no one pull the Never Was an Atheist fallacy. Generally, i would agree that is a fallacy to be avoided. It’s a No True Scotsman.
but, in this case, her running immediately to the fucking BLAZE makes me seriously doubt her honesty and completely destroys her credibility.
I just made a post about the MacDonald vs Campbell feud and the intertubes eated it. I has a sad!
Lazarus: Form Recovery is the boss. It has saved me so many times it is sick. Firefox and Chrome. It is the best add on I have, ’cause nothin’ like creating a post and researching in alternate tabs, spend half an hour, then accidentally kill your open comment tab.
It pisses me off that she goes on fucking CNN and The Blaze* to preach about her bullshit conversion. Who the fuck does she think she is?
That does show arrogance on her part and bullshit on CNN’s. Really? Who the fuck cares? The Blaze is especially noteworthy. She’s some amoral opportunist. I am also growing suspicious that she’s not doing what Matt Dillihunty was joking about doing for years.
consciousness razorsays
She’s some amoral opportunist.
Well she was blogging at fucking Patheos, where ethical and intellectual standards go to die. And she was already peddling a lot of dualist woo as an atheist. So while maybe she was a True™ Scotsman atheist, if we’re supposed to give a fuck about what that means in this case, this isn’t news to me.
I guess it’s kind of nice that Mehta isn’t likely to dig very deep into any hard questions, so we’ll probably never have to see him become a Scientologist or a Mormon or whatever.
I am also growing suspicious that she’s not doing what Matt Dillihunty was joking about doing for years.
Matt has commented that he could make a fortune if he became Christian, going on tours about how he used to be this big atheist and has now found the truth. Because the Chrstians eat up stuff like that
consciousness razorsays
Ing, that’s about what I thought. Christians are a big market, but it’d probably be easier to find a niche where you can really become a big name. If that were the idea, maybe some kind of Chopra-Catholic fusion would be a smarter choice than straight-up Roman Catholicism, which is boring as fuck along with being patently absurd. A lot of Catholics hate or are completely indifferent to their own dogmas, so you’d have to spice it up a bit, you know? Who wants to hear even more about it, from a former Satan-worshiper no less (or however she’d sell herself)? I know some of them get off on that sort of thing, but you’ve got to offer something special that all the other “former atheist” converts can’t.
Also her stated reason was apparently that she already accepted as a presupposition that there was a supernatural platonic moral law.
Oh but don’t worry she’s “concerned” about the homosexuality thing and is dedicated to studying this through due diligence and the over arching belief there morality comes from God.
jeffret, why are you asking about rape and rape prevention? It sounds to me like you want someone one to do your homework for you.
I’m not about to hand you my personal experiences unless I get an answer about why in the fuck you’re asking such personal questions from people you don’t know.
Silisays
Out of curiosity did anyone actually hear of her before this?
Only when she was up against PZed in some silly popularity contest.
And even then I only ever made not of the name of the blog not the blogger.
jeffret, why are you asking about rape and rape prevention? It sounds to me like you want someone one to do your homework for you.
I’m not about to hand you my personal experiences unless I get an answer about why in the fuck you’re asking such personal questions from people you don’t know.
I smell a rat. This person is fucked because of their answer to why they want to know what precautions are recommended even after being told that it is ignorant to suggest any because we all know the common sense already, and that there are no precautions a person can take because 70% of victims know their attacker.
I also call bullshit because they could’ve just read the thread they referred to instead of making some shite excuse about joining late, or whatever.
No, I almost immediately smelled a troll at work laying bait.
Certified un-fucking-kosher, methinks.
scifisays
Sophia Dodds,
“It would have been nice to see scifi in a cagefight with a godbot. Some things are just meant not to be. *sigh* ”
Actually, I went toe to toe recently with a Creationist by the name of Paul G. Humber. He used to teach math but now is the minister of a small church and has several creationist books out. You can find them on Amazon, if you really care. He had sent out some political nonsense about Obama to a right wing friend which I showed was false. He then came back and suggested that I probably believed in evolution, which I responded, absolutely yes. It turns out that he believes literally in Noah and the global flood. I told him that he must be delusional if he really believed this myth to be factual. He kinda took exception to that, i.e., I pissed him off and he stopped communicating.
Owlmirrorsays
scifi, I am pretty sure that you’re not a creationist.
But can you acknowledge that, just maybe, Karen Anderson was sloppy in what she wrote about Stephen J. Gould; so sloppy that her words were wrong?
And that defending her words over Gould’s own was even more wrong?
cm's changeable monikersays
@jeffret: Tread very carefully here. Read the links you have been provided. Take a day or two to think about them. Read them again, and take another day or two to think about them again. Then, maybe post again.
—
I’m guessing you’re talking about the “situation” thread. I read that, with an ever-growing sense of despair as clueless person after clueless person was beaten down with argument, evidence, and horrific testimony.
“But!” I continued to think, somewhere in the back of my mind, “here’s my situation: I have two young daughters, and of course, I don’t want them to come to any harm!”
However, that thread made me understand even more clearly that:
1) Nothing I could tell them would really work as a preventative (not a new insight, just reiterated), and would probably–unless accompanied by an absolutely unconditional caring instinct, of a kind one can’t really do on the internet–contribute to victim-blaming
2) They’re smart and will figure out pretty much anything I could tell them for themselves (and most likely some stuff that I will never know about)
… but more importantly that:
3) The person I should really be talking to is my son
—
So this:
Are there things that a woman can do to reduce her risk of rape?
What are these things?
… strikes me as either not particularly well-thought-through, or maybe, somewhat dishonest. Why not “a man”? Why is this women’s responsibility?
And:
I notice that the author of “Schrödinger’s Rapist” discusses the precautions that she takes.
… makes me question: do you understand the difference between “she [feels compelled to take]” and “[I think] she [should take]”?
Are you really certain that you’re looking for information?
—
Like I said, take time out to think about this, please.
No, I almost immediately smelled a troll at work laying bait.
Certified un-fucking-kosher, methinks.
I caught a whiff of a rape apologist. I may well be wrong, but the amount of creeps who have shown up here, starting almost the exact same way as jeffret make me damn suspicious.
My life is not up for them to use as justification for whatever shit they have in mind.
consciousness razorsays
Have a cookie, shiloh.
Amphioxsays
But can you acknowledge that, just maybe, Karen Anderson was sloppy in what she wrote about Stephen J. Gould; so sloppy that her words were wrong?
What shiffy needs to acknowledge is that even bringing up Gould or Armstrong is an invalid argument, and apologize for the deliberate manner in which it has dishonestly continued to bring up this argument again and again and again, simply dressed up in different fallacious authorities, even though great pains have already been taken by all of us here to explain to it why the argument is invalid.
scifi, I am pretty sure that you’re not a creationist.
Then you haven’t been paying attention. it probably came out in Shiloh era, but I am just actively presuming they’re the same person since Shify’s refusal to even comment on that speaks volumes.
scifisays
PZ Myers,
OK, I will back off some here since it is obvious that Gould has indicated something different from what he said in Rock of Ages. Still, are you denying that he said what I quoted? Also, from what I can see, Karen is far from a fundamentalist. Not exactly sure where she stands but she pretty much appears to treat all religions as man-made. Correct me if you think I’m wrong. She indicates that though Gould believed in natural selection, he believed that did not eliminate the possibility of a creator.
So far, we disagree on Karen’s intellect. I think it far exceeds anything I’ve seen on this board.
BTW, it is not hard to know where you stand on the existence of a creator, but no matter how you yell and scream, you, nor anyone else can show evidence of natural cause of the beginnings of our universe from nothing. Krauss comes closest with his argument that nothing is unstable and, therefore, can result in matter appearing from this nothingness. He goes on to argue that particle pairs, on matter, the other anti-matter, have been observed to come from nothing and then disappear once more. He tries to extrapolate this quantum mechanics to before the big bang to explain how matter could have appeared from nothing and then expand into the big bang. What I want to know is how this could be since quantum mechanics is looking at atomic matter in our universe and attempting to extrapolate it to before the big bang. The problem I see with this is that it is before our universe, which makes it difficult to know if quantum physics would even be valid then plus quantum physics deals with the atomic level whereas the matter that expanded into our universe appears to be much larger.
What I want to know is how this could be since quantum mechanics is looking at atomic matter in our universe and attempting to extrapolate it to before the big bang. The problem I see with this is that it is before our universe, which makes it difficult to know if quantum physics would even be valid then plus quantum physics deals with the atomic level whereas the matter that expanded into our universe appears to be much larger.
You don’t understand quantum mechanics. I’m not a physicist and I know what you said was stupid.
cm's changeable monikersays
Oh!, consciousness razor:
a former Satan-worshiper no less (or however she’d sell herself)
This has been done before: Doreen Irvine. It wasn’t good.
IIRC Doreen Irvine has an actual body count to his hoax
cm's changeable monikersays
And, finally: If you’re a non-native speaker of Mandarin, The Economist’s linguist blog wants your opinion on learning the language …
I think I’m done here. Off to roam. ;)
scifisays
Owlmirror,
“scifi, I am pretty sure that you’re not a creationist.
Thank you! For some reason a number of people here want to accuse me of being a creationist when I actually despise them. Funny, I have quoted stuff I gotten over here to make a point only to be accused of being an atheist. I being an agnostic can cause this depending on which side you are arguing against.
“But can you acknowledge that, just maybe, Karen Anderson was sloppy in what she wrote about Stephen J. Gould; so sloppy that her words were wrong?
And that defending her words over Gould’s own was even more wrong?”
OK, you forced me to look for my copy of Gould’s Rock of Ages. Karen got her quote form p.6 in his preamble and I find that Karen appears to be right on. In fact, Gould states the following: “To summarize, with a tad of repetition, the net, or magisterium, of science covers the empirical realm: what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the old cliches, science gets the age of rocks, and religion the rock of ages; science studies how the heavens go, religion how to go to heaven.”
WTF do you give this guy ANY credit? All he does is repeat the same exact shit again and again.
consciousness razorsays
Where does Gould say “natural selection” (not “science”) can explain everything in the natural world?
You understand that “natural selection” is not the whole of “science,” right?
Sophia Doddssays
@scifi
The cage fight comment was theophontes, not me. Not that I don’t appreciate the irony of the sentiment, but… yes.
What -I’d- really like to see, on the other hand, is less circular reasoning. Get off the bleedin’ roundabout, other people need to turn left. *shakes fist*
Owlmirrorsays
OK, you forced me to look for my copy of Gould’s Rock of Ages. Karen got her quote form p.6 in his preamble and I find that Karen appears to be right on.
That wasn’t the part that PZ (and others) were complaining about. Yes, we know that Gould espoused NOMA. (And for the most part, we disagree with him.)
But Anderson went further, and misrepresented what Gould said about natural selection.
For an evolutionary biologist, that’s a problem.
A. Rsays
scifi: It is my responsibility to inform you that you are likely about to be banhammered, in that spirit, I will do so in the Politburo-approved manner:
It is the judgement of this court that you are guilty of the crime of insipidiy and egregious stupidity.
[Gavel sounds]
[A. R. dons the Black Cap]
scifi, formerly known as shiloh, you will be taken hence to a lawful thread prison and from there to a place of banning where you will be banhammered until you are silent and thereafter you will be confined to the Dungeon and may the Lord Cthulu have mercy upon your soul.
No fair! Doesn’t the proper due process allow us a chance to recreate the Trial song from The Wall!?
Amphioxsays
And of course, we ALL know that quoting from a preamble of a book is always the perfect and most accurate way of summarizing the author’s positions as represented in the entire book.
And even if it were, its still all irrevelant.
The shiffy’s perseveration on this fallacy from authority is just further evidence of its pitiful intellectual dishonesty.
A. Rsays
Ing: Possibly, but I’m not sure how the rest of the Politburo feels about anything more than the appearance of Due Process.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Still, are you denying that he said what I quoted?
From a quotemining presuppositionalist? Who usually quotemines someithing rhetorical, and not the thesis. No, and it doesn’t matter in any case. Gould is irrelevant to you presenting physical evidence for your imaginary creator. And PZ and I know that, and you should too…
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
you, nor anyone else can show evidence of natural cause of the beginnings of our universe from nothing.
Irrelevant. Science explains the process. It happened. Ergo, it is “proved”. Whereas your unparsimonius imaginary deity….
scifisays
Owlmirror,
“Yes, we know that Gould espoused NOMA. (And for the most part, we disagree with him.)”
That’s obvious that you disagree. My main point is that Gould was saying essentially what I have been saying that science is only equipped to work with the natural world and cannot really prove or disprove the supernatural. But before you jump in and remind me that a negative cannot be proven, I stick with my statement that so long as science cannot show evidence for the natural start of our universe, those who claim that a natural start is the only possible one, are only being arrogant. the definition of a “dogmatic” person is one who “asserts opinions in an arrogant and authoritative manner.” I’m not saying you are one of these person, but that there are quite a number of them here, including the guru.
scifisays
Nerd,
“Irrelevant. Science explains the process. It happened. Ergo, it is “proved”.”
OK, a statement without any evidence to back it up. Ok, I can say the same thing. It happened. Ergo, it is “proved” that a creator did it. Neither statement proves our point since neither one of us presented any evidence to back our arguments.
scifisays
A.R.,
“scifi: It is my responsibility to inform you that you are likely about to be banhammered, in that spirit”
My main point is that Gould was saying essentially what I have been saying that science is only equipped to work
Gould is wrong because the supernatural is not a coherent subject. Gould was being political.
But before you jump in and remind me that a negative cannot be proven, I stick with my statement that so long as science cannot show evidence for the natural start of our universe, those who claim that a natural start is the only possible one, are only being arrogant. the definition of a “dogmatic” person is one who “asserts opinions in an arrogant and authoritative manner.” I’m not saying you are one of these person, but that there are quite a number of them here, including the guru.
FFS you’re never ever going to fucking address what people say to you are you? You’re just going to sit around in your own shit shoving turds up your nose and looking down on us for not valorizing your efforts.
Ban the idiot. This is beyond boring.
consciousness razorsays
scifi, it is very easy to acknowledge the mistake we’ve pointed out. To be honest, I’d still think of you as a slimy liar and an idiot for other reasons, but slightly less of one. I promise, I will not bring it up again if you do. There’s really nothing to lose, if you only wanted to make a point about NOMA.
My main point is that Gould was saying essentially what I have been saying that science is only equipped to work with the natural world and cannot really prove or disprove the supernatural.
It’s just a shame for the poor theists that in addition to science, we also have philosophy to dismantle even the concept of the supernatural. Which of the two magisteria do you suppose that belongs to, or is NOMA a false dichotomy as well as a load of content-free horseshit?
But before you jump in and remind me that a negative cannot be proven, I stick with my statement that so long as science cannot show evidence for the natural start of our universe, those who claim that a natural start is the only possible one, are only being arrogant.
Before you jump in and remind us of that, so long as you have no evidence of anyone here doing that but continue to make this point as if they were, you’re acting like a dishonest fucking idiot.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
I have been saying that science is only equipped to work with the natural world and cannot really prove or disprove the supernatural.
Actually it disproves the stupornatural. It has no need for it. You fail logic 101 again, as this has been explained to you ad nauseum. Your stoopidity causes you to fail to acknowledge your errors.
a statement without any evidence to back it up.
Yes, there is evidence. The universe since it exists with a naturalistic explanation. No need for your imaginary creator, which only exists in your delusional mind. Now, where is the evidence for your imaginary creator???? Put up or shut the fuck up….
Ok, I can say the same thing. It happened. Ergo, it is “proved” that a creator did it.
You claim an agent. Where is the evidence for your required agent, and how was it “created”. SHILOH, YOU HAS A LOT OF ‘SPLAININ” TO DO.
Still playing the loser hand. But then, that’s all presuppositional losers have.
If you creator can only be derived by sophistry, it only exists in your mind. If it is real, science can detect it. So, if you state the stupornatural, you tacitly acknowledge it is only a delusion in your fuckwitted mind. You lose…
Scifi are you Shiloh? Or is that a supernatural claim?
A. Rsays
I say we respond to every one of Shiloh’s comments with “Scifi are you Shiloh,” and nothing more.
scifisays
PZ,
“She’s a vacuous bliss-ninny”
I have to give credit where it is due. That is quite a clever insult. LOL!
A. Rsays
Scifi are you Shiloh?
consciousness razorsays
Actually it disproves the stupornatural.
No, it fucking doesn’t. If you were dealing with anyone less idiotic than scifi, I’d expect them to hand you your ass about this.
It has no need for it.
That’s not anything like disproving it. Logic 101 and all that.
Owlmirrorsays
That’s obvious that you disagree. My main point is that Gould was saying essentially what I have been saying that science is only equipped to work with the natural world and cannot really prove or disprove the supernatural.
*sigh*
What does the term “supernatural” mean?
Really, what? What is it? How would you point at something and say “aha, that’s supernatural!”?
But before you jump in and remind me that a negative cannot be proven, I stick with my statement that so long as science cannot show evidence for the natural start of our universe, those who claim that a natural start is the only possible one
Who, exactly, has made that claim?
are only being arrogant.
It’s pretty arrogant — and dishonest — to put words into people’s mouths.
Amphioxsays
I stick with my statement that so long as science cannot show evidence for the natural start of our universe, those who claim that a natural start is the only possible one, are only being arrogant.
*Yawn*
Been there, refuted this.
Many times already.
My main point is that Gould was saying essentially what I have been saying that science is only equipped to work with the natural world and cannot really prove or disprove the supernatural.
*Yawn*
Been there, refuted this.
Many times already.
Boring repetitive lying fool is boring.
Ban the idiot. This is beyond boring.
Yes.
Owlmirrorsays
I’m not calling for scifi to be banned — but if he is, I won’t feel too sorry.
It’s boring to argue with someone who doesn’t read very well, and doesn’t write very well, and doesn’t think very well.
I actually hope that it might be possible to encourage scifi to read better, write better, and think better . . . but he needs to show that he’s capable of making the effort. There’s been far too little shown so far for me to have much hope.
So: faint hope. Very, very, very faint hope.
theophontes (坏蛋)says
@ scifiloh
FIFY: Sophia Theo Dodds Phontes
he believed that did not eliminate the possibility of a creator.
Correctly. We cannot prove “no-god”. That is also not required of anyone. Do you spend you time proving conclusively that Almighty Zeus ™ does not exist? Is YHWH any more reasonable to “disprove”? Especially in the light of the FACT that my Imaginary Cat (petant pend.) is the true Author of teh Uniberse.
Krauss
Boltzmann walnuts have already been discussed at length on this thread.
quantum physics deals with the atomic level whereas the matter that expanded into our universe appears to be much larger.
Bricks|Shithouse…
…
FIFY: The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning outright lying and moral value immoral behaviour.
religion [studies] how to go to heaven.
You realise that they are trying to sell real estate that DOES NOT EXIST?
(There is nothing to “study” about a place that does not exist. They are charlatans, plain and simple.)
@ Ing #47
Mwahahaha! {clutches sides}
…
Perhaps Scifi’s continued stay here should be contingent on answering whether xe is, or is not, Shiloh (we don’t need hir to keep going on and on in bad faith).
theophontes (坏蛋)says
@ mikmik #28
Lazarus: Form Recovery is the boss.
Thanks, that looks great. I’ve got it installed now.
If you are making the move to Linux, I definitely recommend installing Glipper (in the repositories). It is a scrolling clipboard that lets you select text from different sources and then store sequentially. Very useful for Marjanovićing comments.
Vilem Saptarsays
(X-posted to TET)
Hi Horde.
<
I've been reading Pharyngula for about three years now and have also been an on and off lurker during this time, though I've also occasionally commented here (,which was like the 3 or 4 times, using atleast three different nyms coz I forgot usernames/disposable email ids between those times and ended up making new ones) and other FTB blogs.
<
This is the first time I'm posting to TET, but not TZT. And I must admit I've been wanting to post here for a long time, and join in in all the fun y'all have so much of here: the sharing and support and camaraderie and long queues for ghey secks with Brownian and all that, but have been putting off until now.
<
Mostly because I'm a bit of an outsider to most of the things you people have in common;I'm not from an English speaking country nor from a western one, I don't get many of the relatively less well known(obscure to me) references to music, tv, film, art, politics, food, society etc. in the anglosphere. And also mostly because I'm a bit of a sociophobe myself :-)
<
But the real reason I've sucked it up, gathered some courage and decided to venture out at this time, *sheepish grin*, is because I’m in a terrible state of flummox right now and could use a little advicey help from you people, if that doesn’t come across as a lil too self-centered of me. I feel I really really don’t have anyone else I could go to for well informed and rational and ethical guidance about this particular thing.
(“It” isn’t anything extraordinary, “it” is rather mundane, but somewhat complicated in my situation)
<
I've got to run to work now, I'll check back soon. Do let me know if I'm being even a bit more entitled than I should(?) be in asking for help this way. Clue me in and I'll um…change topics.
<
Thanks for listening.
<
P.S: How does one put in line breaks in here? Sorry for the slightly weird looking chevrons-run-amuk-amidst-the-text.
Two Sudanese men currently detained in Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre in London have been on hunger strike for 37 days in protest against their indefinite detention, and are determined to continue until they are released. Visitors and human rights activists supporting their cases are extremely concerned for their health.
Tarik Adam Rhama and Ali Abdullah Ahmed began their strike on 22 May in Campsfield IRC (Kidlington, nr. Oxford) but have since been moved to Harmondsworth. Tarik reports that he was subject to torture while imprisoned in Sudan, while a medical examination could not show conclusively that Ali is over 18. Both should therefore fall under UKBA’s category of “persons considered unsuitable for detention.” Their state of health and the fact that neither of their removals is imminent argue further for their release.
Both men are non-Arab Darfuris and are therefore classed by current case law as being at risk of persecution should they be returned to Darfur; Tarik was arrested in 2008 in Khartoum and believes he would be killed if he were to be returned to Sudan. His father is from the Tunjur tribe and his mother is from the Nuba mountains, a region whose inhabitants are currently the target of considerable persecution at the hands of the Sudanese government; upon his arrival in Dover in March 2012, he was immediately detained, then moved to Campsfield, where he began his strike after being in detention without indication of when he might be released for over two months.
There are further complaints relating to inhumane treatment and lack of medical care in detention; an independent doctor’s report described observations of Ali’s vital signs taken by the detention centre during his strike as “sporadic.” At one point, staff at Harmondsworth ignored Tarik’s request for a lower bed when he complained that after 30 days of only water he was too weak to climb up to the top bunk bed he was allocated. He is not receiving regular attention from a doctor, but only from a nurse, despite extreme stomach pain and stabbing pains in his chest, as well as back pain from a pre-existing condition. He cannot walk without difficulty or speak loudly. He is not kept informed of what will happen to him.
Access to legal advice with appropriate translation has also been very infrequent. At over thirty days into his hunger strike, although legal appointments had been conducted with translators present, they had been Algerian or Iraqi rather than speakers of Sudanese Arabic.
I actually hope that it might be possible to encourage scifi to read better, write better, and think better . . . but he needs to show that he’s capable of making the effort. There’s been far too little shown so far for me to have much hope.
So: faint hope. Very, very, very faint hope.
I’m frankly amazed at your endless capacity for ‘benefit of doubt’. Forgive me for being too forward but it seems to be veering past virtue towards character flaw. How many incarnations of this thread, and how many verbatim repeats of conversations sans any acknowledgement of responses given, does Scifi have to do before you accept that he doesn’t care at all to listen to people’s responses? He’s not here to talk, he’s here because he thinks it’s the Monty Python Argument Clinic. How long as scifi been doing this? Even longer if he IS Shiloh, and neither have ever shown the slightest evolution of thought, a single ACKNOWLEDGEMENT that people responded, nor a single solitary retiring of a previously refuted debate. How many times have the agnostic definition been explained to him? Argument from Authority? Burden of Proof? Dragon in the Garage? All these things have been explained in numerous times; and he just CLICK RESETS and starts back on his script ignoring those answers. How do you propose to get someone to ‘read better’ when his entire fucking debate strategy is “if I don’t like the answers I restart the conversation”
A. Rsays
I’m with Ing, scifi is dishonest, repetitive, and boring. It needs to be banned.
Asshole and thunderfoot in the same sentence!? WHAAAAA!?
Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoysays
So, I read the latest post from the douchecanoe in the thunderfoot thread, flew into a rage, began shaking so hard I couldn’t type, and haven’t stopped shaking yet. Honestly I’m not sure why it happened – yeah, he’s a douche, but they always are and usually that doesn’t happen to me. It could be because my eating schedule got all off and I haven’t been eating much, but jeez.
Vilem Saptar – P.S: How does one put in line breaks in here? Sorry for the slightly weird looking chevrons-run-amuk-amidst-the-text.
At this page, Special ASCII HTML Character Codes, the ‘line feed’ and ‘space’ html codes are the second and third listed. Type this
‘ :’ but with ‘;’ instead of ‘:’
to get an empty space in a line, and just copy and keep pasting it to make multiple new lines with spaces like I did to make 3 extra lines before and after the  :
Alternately, you can type this,
‘
:’ but with ‘;’ instead of ‘:’
chigau (違う)says
A. R and theophontes
Cool and moist here.
I’m 1000 km from home (probably, I don’t know precisely where I am) and there are loons calling on the lake.
Amphioxsays
Even longer if he IS Shiloh, and neither have ever shown the slightest evolution of thought, a single ACKNOWLEDGEMENT that people responded, nor a single solitary retiring of a previously refuted debate.
To be fair, early on in the Sciblogs threads, Shiloh did. It didn’t last long, though. It was as if it dipped its toe into the pool of intellectual honesty, found the experience too painful, then turned around, doubled down, and ran off screaming in the other direction.
A few of its previously refuted arguments it actually acknowledged as refuted in this early period, only to shamelessly trot them out again later, after the regression, as if it had wiped this early period of thought-provoking out of its memory.
What SciFi/Shiloh never learned:
What is the null hypothesis, and why it is used.
What parsimony is, and how it is used.
What logic is, and how it is used.
What common definitions are, and how they are used.
Why extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.
Why not far less than ordinary evidence cannot back extraordinary claims
How to acknowledge being refuted.
How to acknowledge absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
In order to prove a negative, that which is being refuted must be sufficiently defined to be falsifiable.
If not defined sufficiently to be falsifiable, it is nonsense, like the stupornatural.
On ad infinitum.
A. Rsays
SciFi/Shiloh was banhammered.
And there was much rejoicing on the thread.
A. Rsays
You know, xe never did address the question “Are you Shiloh?”
To be fair, early on in the Sciblogs threads, Shiloh did. It didn’t last long, though. It was as if it dipped its toe into the pool of intellectual honesty, found the experience too painful, then turned around, doubled down, and ran off screaming in the other direction.
A few of its previously refuted arguments it actually acknowledged as refuted in this early period, only to shamelessly trot them out again later, after the regression, as if it had wiped this early period of thought-provoking out of its memory.
If you are making the move to Linux, I definitely recommend installing Glipper (in the repositories). It is a scrolling clipboard that lets you select text from different sources and then store sequentially. Very useful for Marjanovic’ing comments.
Yes, a quite extraordinary suggestion, my good tartigrade. We were thinking earlier that ClipBoard History puts on a rousing effort here, on the home pitch at Wimpdronez $tadium, and we had failed to include mention of CBH for inclusion in the line up in a starting role.
Good chap, CBH , not afraid to mix it up in the 18mm box, or comment field as these wanker Canadians refer to it. Fakking don’t have metric, I’m afraid, but we’ve learned to adapt to the peasant ways of the colonists by tippling several pints of 3 week old port every morn’ upon arisal.
In any event, old tartigrade, in my haste to oppress the upstart buggers over here, we quite failed to consider the manner in which we would approach Alright, that’s it, this fakking post is cancelled, goan bile yer haed, ya wee ninny mikmik]
I will, theophontes (坏蛋)!
what’s going on here at TZT? Has it devolved into an imitation of TET or has it stayed true to its roots? Woa, it looks like serious discussions are going on here now. What gives?
At least unlike TET this is 100% StevoR-free, right? Right?
Also glad to see that Walton seems to be back who was gone before I was gone. But now I’m back, and so that makes two of us.
Kinda confused myself here.
Phalacrocorax, z Třetího Světasays
Hi, pelamun.
PZ has decreed the zombie confinement room to be the new stately pleasure-dome. Not StevoR-free, but if he shows up here, I’d like to ask him if he thinks I should be preemptively killed or not. (I’m an imminent threat to the WESTERN CIVILISATION!!! in case nobody has noticed.)
A. Rsays
pelamun: As a member of the TZT Politburo, I would like to extend my official welcome to you. This thread serves as a facility for troll incarceration, discussion of free will, and moderate TET-like discussion.
TZT is a minimal-overlord-interference zone. Hack’n’slash. I won’t complain. It’s also where I quarantine obnoxious ninnyhammers as a lesser punishment than banning. Consider it the Pharyngula wood-chipper.
TET is a social zone. Try to be friendly. Disagreement is OK, but bringing out knives is seriously frowned upon. Also the overlord is a little more prone to jump in and bust heads if it gets a bit too rowdy.
theophontes (坏蛋)says
@ Walton
Off-topic: [Sudan]
No.
Any news about Sudan is always on-topic and prioritised. I lived there for a year in the nineties. All of my senior colleagues where incarcerated and/or beaten. The Colonel Bashir junta was and is apalling in how it treats its own people.Those people simply cannot be sent back there. They will end up in “ghost houses” – or worse.
(To get medical treatment by the British Government you have to be a cold blooded killer like Salah Gosh…)
@ chigau & A.R
*cough* Pouring with rain... we just missed a big typhoon.
@ Pelamun
Welcome back to Pharyngula. This is the infamous breakaway Peoples’ Republic of South The Endless Thread (TZT). As you can see from the post-apocalyptic landscape, the mud and filth, we have given this place over as a troll battleground. That big ebil-looking empty cage in the middle there …{points} … that is where we shall be holding troll/godbot/MenZ fights in due course.
You are just in time. Grab a uniform from AR and procede to the trenches.
Hey, A.R. I was wondering that myself.
Tomorrow is Canada Day, so we get Monday off because us secularists insisted that if the whiny Christians got a day off extra when Good Friday and Excellent Christmas fall on weekends, then we want Labor Day, Boxing Day, Canada’s Birthday, Victoria Day, Remembrance Day, Thanksgiving, February Family Day or August Family Day – our choice , kinda, and tomorrow we are petitioning for St. Patrick’s Day as an accomodationist holiday, well, I am, anyways.*
So, perhaps all my fireworks watching compatriots are out stocking up on booze and getting good and hammered Fri. and Sat. and Sun. night and have hangovers.
In any event, where is everybody? Should we take over, or something?
* This is a reminder to all Christians that think that joke about April Fools Day being an atheist holiday is so fucking hilarious. April Fools is every day because, you fucking morans, secular holidays outnumber your fucking religious ones 7 to 2, FFS. Plus, because of unions, which are commie and therefore atheist, according to you, we also get 2+ weeks off every year for vacation, you fucking morans.
A. Rsays
[A. R. spots mikmik’s attempt to foment rebellion, begins givingg orders to his underlings]
Weapons officer, obtain a target lock om mikmik and prepare to fire a high yield blast of LOLcats. Landing bays fifteen through one hundred, prepare to begin landing 50,000 LOLtroopers on the thread. Landing bays three and four, prepare the DOG-DOG landing barges.
consciousness razorsays
mikmik:
Being Canadian, like Britishness or any other un-American activity, is against the precepts of the Reformed Eleventieth Church of Zombie, Scientismist. Repent and have your brains eaten, or else your brains will be eaten.
Owlmirrorsays
@ Owlmirror
You are now officially: Public Enemy Number One.
A spiffing new uniform is being mailed to you as we speak.
Yes!
I am . . .
Owlmirrorsays
𝕻𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖈 𝕰𝖓𝖊𝖒𝖞 № 𝟙
Owlmirrorsays
I really wish that Fraktur “y” had a more distinctly “y”-like appearance; else the word could be misread as being a term that is unfitting to my dignity and status.
I am . . . 𝕳𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖎𝖆𝖗𝖈𝖍 № 𝟙 of (𝕭𝖗𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖔𝖘𝖆𝖚𝖗𝖚𝖘𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘) 𝕻𝖍𝖎𝖑𝖔𝖘𝖔𝖕𝖍𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖑 𝖅𝖔𝖒𝖇𝖎𝖊 𝕵𝖊𝖘𝖚𝖘𝖎𝖘𝖒 . . . !!
Vilém Saptarsays
mikmik,
Thank you! I havent tried those out yet, but I will whenever I need to.
Currently i’m making do with   ;
A. Rsays
That’s it, all landing bays, begin LOLtrooper and DOG-DOG deployments to the surface.
chigau (違う)says
theophontes
*ahem*
——-
We have no holiday tomorrow but we will do a twentyone bear-banger salute at noon.
Bush camp inter(mittent)net.
I’m pretty much limited to reading.
theophontes (坏蛋)says
@ chigau
The video was “The Trial” by Pink Floyd. It is particularly relevant to Schilohfi as it has the judge wiggling his “pompous ass” (as the troll has described PZ et al) at the camera.
@ A.R
klatu
*cough*
A. Rsays
theophontes: I’m working on a TZT page for the Pharynguwiki. I’ll try to post my draft version by tomorrow, and you can take a look.
[A. R. spots mikmik’s attempt to foment rebellion, begins givingg orders to his underlings]
Weapons officer, obtain a target lock om mikmik and prepare to fire a high yield blast of LOLcats. Landing bays fifteen through one hundred, prepare to begin landing 50,000 LOLtroopers on the thread. Landing bays three and four, prepare the DOG-DOG landing barges.
Man, it’s quiet, too quiet. “Surveillance! Come in Orbital, repeat, come in Orbital. Anything to report?” I can haz fuel and fresh catnip. I iz getting!
Surface station! Report! “Iz study enemiez,“
Get back to your assignmentz! Ground Forces, come in Ground Forces. Cease training maneuvers. Report to Battle stations. “Iz received, soon can haz. Iz over and out.”
Later…
That’s it, all landing bays, begin LOLtrooper and DOG-DOG deployments to the surface.
actually yesterday there was a big demo in our state capital too: 1000 employees of a for-profit hospital concern were fired after they went on strike. Turnout was 3,500 people I hear (I had other engagements). Can post video as soon as it becomes available too ;)
theophontes (坏蛋)says
Translation: Umthondo we Sizwe —–> “Spear” of the nation.
oh the painting thing I heard about that I think. Didn’t know it had been dubbed Penisgate is all.. I mean didn’t he have a lot of scandals relating to his Umthondo we Sizwe, it coulda been anything ;)
theophontes (坏蛋)says
@ Pelamun
Can post video as soon as it becomes available too ;)
Enough defiance for one day, I’m going to grab a cigar and double malt then call my yacht broker… ;)
theophontes (坏蛋)says
@ Pelamun
scandals relating to his Umthondo we Sizwe
He is always letting it do the thinking for him.(The whole point of the artwork if you ask me.) The dudebro is a a real dyed in the wool menZ. He would get hung drawn and quartered if he ever made it to this blog.
@ Theo and LILAPWL, I am thinking Red Hat, because Sys Admins are highly valued, earning about 50% more than Windows counterparts. This is my education goal, with a heavy emphasis on web apps and programming – db management.
I’ve run it long ago and found it quite comprehensible and useable as a desktop environment. Any warnings? My SSD is 111GB, and I have 50GB size for Win 7 so far, with all my data except for the App Data folder, om another HDD. That leaves ~ 20 GB free for Win7 to expand, but of course I want always at least 3 – 5 GB free space, and 36GB empty partition for Linux. This is more than enough, yse?
I know it’s unsupported – subscriptions are $349/year, and I can’t afford anywhere near that. Perhaps SUSE?
Rhinebeck!
The organizing committee of Mattir, Muse, and Onion Girl have meet and have begun to plan the Horde invasion of Rhinebeck. The best way to think of this is a mini-Horde con* that just happens to happen near sheep. You are welcome even if you don’t like sheep – there are plenty of things for you to do (maple sugar cotton candy for one).
Rhinebeck will happen from Friday, October 19 to Sunday October 21st. We will arrive at the hotel on Friday and have a Horde pizza party. Saturday morning will be a trip to Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool (or other activities as people want) then a nice dinner out at a restaurant on Saturday evening followed by debauchery as desired. Sunday we’ll have brunch together then get on the road.
Slightly differently than last year, we are going to make it an upfront cost that you can pay into over time, rather than having to come up with hotel costs all at once (and have us having to cover for the person who forget to pay their room cost). We are estimating that the cost is going to be around $350, although that might go down. That $350 will cover your room cost, the party room, pizza on Saturday and brunch on Sunday as well as entry into Rhinebeck and snacks throughout the weekend. Additionally, built into that cost is eeeeeevil socialism. We’d like to be able to support some people who would not otherwise be able to attend because of lack of money – so we’ve rounded that number up a bit (yes, if you can toss in a bit extra toward the scholarship fund we’d appreciate that too).
All of that said, we need to start figuring out who is going to attend. To that end, we’ve created an email address, a poll, and a paypal account. Mattir, Onion Girl and Muse all have access to all three. The email address is RhinebeckHorde at google’s email service.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ATTENDING PLEASE FILL OUT THE POLL.
If you have any questions, please email us.
*Yes, there will be a harassment policy. It will be made by radical, shrieking, feminist harpies and will be enforced by making sure no one has any fun (and sharp pointy sticks). No, you may not sexually harass the sheep.
pelamun, the Linguist of Doom, I was going to go 1 – 0 at first, also. 2 – 1 looked quite possible at the start of the 2nd, but what an unreal performance by Spain! To bad about your pool, wish it had gone 1 – 0.
yes, officially, that’s right, it would cost you $700. But read again: there’s eeeevil socialism included in the scheming,
ok, thanks. I shall discuss with boyfriend, since with the train, that would be $1400 for the two of us. We might indeed have to take advantage of Teh Ebil Soshulizm.
consciousness razorsays
I was hoping for a little more discussion on this question in that thread.
What more is there to discuss? If determinism is true, our behavior can affect others’ and vice versa. One’s motivation for behaving a certain way doesn’t need to have anything to do with blaming people for thinking what they do.
One’s motivation for behaving a certain way doesn’t need to have anything to do with blaming people for thinking what they do.
But the question is do you blame people for thinking/doing what they do?
A. Rsays
The Ratlets Have Hit The Planet.
[A. R. begins scheming to implant an espionage program into the ratlets’ brains to spy on their future owners.]
Musesays
Jadehawk – Yes, fancyish clothing as defined by the wearer.
Owlmirrorsays
The organizing committee
Sheesh. Totalitarian fascism: Yur doin it rong.
At the very least, Organizing Committee should be capitalized. But that seems insufficient, unless you tack on the historically ominous “for Public Safety”. Rather than the banal term “Committee”, consider “Ruling Junta” or “Tribunal”. Perhaps “Troika”. Or “Triumvirate” . . . (or, “Triumfeminate” (I see I am not the first to suggest that term)).
that just happens to happen near sheep.
“The Organizing and Steering Troika for Public Safety and General Security and Sheep(le)”
It will be made by radical, shrieking, feminist harpies
“The Organizing and Steering Triumfuriate for Public Safety and General Security and the Protection of Sheep”
Motto: We Can’t Be Having With This
Mattirsays
Owlmirror, you made me smile for the first time today (or at least the first time reading anything on FtB). We will work forthwith on making up some scarier titles and more onerous rules. Anyone who violates them will not get any maple sugar cotton candy. Or fluffiez.
Musesays
@Owlmirror
Ow – don’t make me laugh. I have a sore throat. THE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE (one capitalization good, all caps better) is not amused?
Hey pitbull, if you are around, wondering what you think about the what I would call macro- versus microdeterminism divide ?
By which I mean that I see two types of determinism mentioned in the various books on the Free Will topic, one that stresses how our actions are determined by genes and environment (I have a small problem with that, there are 25000 coding genes and 10 billion neurons in the brain, obviously the genetic code only determines the size of the house, number of rooms etc., not the furniture or what goes into the cupboards), and then another that comes from the angle of how every atom in the universe, including our brains, is starstuff, and on an endless causal chain since the big bang (the “macro”-determinism). The latter I can get my head around, the former (and its moral imlications, or lack thereof) I’m having trouble with. Any thoughts ?
are they supposed to look so… unfinished? also, 12 rats? your cats are going to have a fit.
theophontes (坏蛋)says
@ mikmik
Red Hat, because Sys Admins are highly valued
Why not sysadmin on Ubuntu? It has a larger market share . Also, I would not make too much of the differences. I play pretty much as happily on Ubuntu as on PuppyLinux . Once you understand the essentials you are essentially there on any flavour.
36GB empty partition for Linux.
Way more than you need. I suggest using the whole thing though (see below).
Just go with Ubuntu 12.4?
Just go with Ubuntu 12.4!
I highly recommend you go with my previous suggestion and commit fully to Linux . You can always add whatever different flavours of windows, redhat, suse etc etc on top of that by using a virtual machine. You have more than enough storage. Rather look at more RAM(I have 8GB, it is soooo cheap) as the virtual machines love their RAM. Also Ubuntu is very big on the cloud (and they give you free 2GB on the cloud gratis to play around with.
@ Jadehawk
there’s also cute fuzzy bunnies
Angoras? [whispers] Better keep quiet. Next we know, they will be appearing on teh anti-caturday post…[/whispers]
@ Caine
Ratlets
Conga… er …Ratlet Elations. In the interests of Public Safety, you are hereby instructed to post a series of videos for the adoring myrmidons.
@ A.R
implant an espionage program into the ratlets’ brains
No need, ratties are committed allies of TZT. They are all happily ensconced in Room 101.
Yep. There’s a reason feeder babies are called pinkies. It won’t be long before they are looking like proper little ratties.
Going by Esme, you’d think birthing was the easiest thing on the planet. She stood up, started dropping ratlets, never made a single sound, whole thing from start to finish in under 40 minutes. I’m seriously impressed.
I added another pic of the ratlets, you can see their bellies are full of milk.
Owlmirrorsays
Against the dread LOLstar . . . I choose WAR HEDGEHOG . . . . !!
theophontes (坏蛋)says
@ rorschach/mikmik
Unity
Unity can take a little getting used to. It tends to assume you know what you are doing already. For this reason it is perhaps easier to go with the “old style” desktop, which has lists of menus. This is helpful as you get used to the system. If you want to go the old style route, consider Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu) which offers you various options for desktops (look at “Mate” and “Cinnamon”. I like Unity, theaphontes likes old style Gnome (on Ubuntu).
Causal determinism (your macro type) is what I tend to talk about, because I’m interested in showing the consequences of the impossibility of ever having chosen otherwise, that is, the lack of standard/libertarian/contracausal free will. It’s a bonus that causal determinism is easy to talk about, and easy to misunderstand, but then the misunderstandings are easy to correct too.
Biological/environmental determinism is tens of thousands of interesting topics, none of which are relevant to standard free will. However, if someone believes that compatibilist free will is the worthy target, and believes that compatibilist free will is false*, then biological/environmental determinist arguments are a frequent means of arguing for its falsehood. That’s what Crick has attempted.
These sorts of arguments can be done well, but I’ve noticed that they frequently go off the rails. And when they do, they’re harder to correct. So we hear weird arguments sometimes that conscious planning has nothing to do with real decision making, because Libet, therefore no compatibilist free will. And weird counterarguments that because consciousness uses a lot of calories, it must have some impact on real decision making, so fuck Libet, therefore free will.
Well, that’s just the weird stuff. But it can get pretty ugly. “Biological/environmental determinism therefore no compatibilist free will” arguments for some reason seem to often turn toward fatalism, with claims basically that “therefore you are powerless” — which is just not true, but since biological/environmental determinist arguments are often very complicated, showing why they shouldn’t lead to fatalism (and are unsound if they do) can also be complicated.
That’s what springs to mind for me at the moment. If you want something more specific, please ask — otherwise, I’ll keep this in mind when I get around to answering old comments this week; I’ll point out when the distinction is relevant and say “rorschach” so you can Ctrl-F for it.
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*Note this is different from my stance, which is that any well-formed compatibilism is of course true, tautologically true because it’s a redefinition of “free will”, and not usually a worthy target for taking seriously.
By which I mean that I see two types of determinism mentioned in the various books on the Free Will topic, one that stresses how our actions are determined by genes and environment (I have a small problem with that, there are 25000 coding genes and 10 billion neurons in the brain, obviously the genetic code only determines the size of the house, number of rooms etc., not the furniture or what goes into the cupboards), and then another that comes from the angle of how every atom in the universe, including our brains, is starstuff, and on an endless causal chain since the big bang (the “macro”-determinism). The latter I can get my head around, the former (and its moral imlications, or lack thereof) I’m having trouble with. Any thoughts ?
Hmmm. I think this distinction is helpful, and I think I’ve been guilty in the past of conflating these two types of determinism.
Ah yes, thanks for taking the time to reply sgbm ! I am getting the feeling that in many arguments about the topic these two “types” of determinism are getting conflated and mixed up, and I wasn’t clear of what the background for that was, thanks for pointing it out !
KGsays
Causal determinism (your macro type) is what I tend to talk about, because I’m interested in showing the consequences of the impossibility of ever having chosen otherwise, that is, the lack of standard/libertarian/contracausal free will.- LILAPWL
That seems to make the lack of contracausal freewill dependent on macrodeterminism – and the latter is far from being established. According to at least some interpretations of quantum mechanics, it is false. If it is false, it is possible to have chosen otherwise – but that does not establish the existence of contracausal free will. The non-existence of the latter only depends on the hypothesis that our choices are always in principle analysable as the outcome of physical processes following the same regularities as in any other context: that there is no magical “agent causation” (and for that matter no agent) independent of these processes.
consciousness razorsays
Hmmm. I think this distinction is helpful, and I think I’ve been guilty in the past of conflating these two types of determinism.
I don’t understand what the difference is supposed to be. For the former (if it’s genetics and environment), all you’re really doing is stopping at some arbitrary point before you get to the latter. Or I guess it’s more like leaving out parts of the environment which probably aren’t as significant.
I’d also say it’s harder for me to wrap my head around the idea of all the causes all the way back to the Big Bang (or earlier), but I guess in a way it might be easier to comprehend because it’s more consistent and less arbitrary.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
That seems to make the lack of contracausal freewill dependent on macrodeterminism
I keep hoping that by this point the usual participants in the discussion are aware of the standard argument against free will, which has two prongs, one for the possibility of determinism and one for the possibility of indeterminism.
Colin McGinn: “The argument is exceedingly familiar, and runs as follows. Either determinism is true or it is not. If it is true, then all our chosen actions are uniquely necessitated by prior states of the world, just like every other event. But then it cannot be the case that we could have acted otherwise, since this would require a possibility determinism rules out. Once the initial conditions are set and the laws fixed, causality excludes genuine freedom.
On the other hand, if indeterminism is true, then, though things could have happened otherwise, it is not the case that we could have chosen otherwise, since a merely random event is no kind of free choice. That some events occur causelessly, or are not subject to law, or only to probabilistic law, is not sufficient for those events to be free choices.
Thus one horn of the dilemma represents choices as predetermined happenings in a predictable causal sequence, while the other construes them as inexplicable lurches to which the universe is randomly prone. Neither alternative supplies what the notion of free will requires, and no other alternative suggests itself. Therefore freedom is not possible in any kind of possible world. The concept contains the seeds of its own destruction.”
If it is false, it is possible to have chosen otherwise
Indeterminism means that it’s logically possible for a different choice to be made, everything else being apparently equal — but that is not an ability to freely choose differently. It’s the chooser having the choice influenced by unknown randomness.
Since I just spent all afternoon collecting (and posting) quotes on this, I might as well put one here :
“We don’t so much make decisions as our brain makes them for us. When we claim conscious ownership of the actions performed by our brain, we act like the proud parents of a gifted child, taking credit for the child’s brilliance even though we only provided the necessary conditions for that brilliance.”
“We don’t so much make decisions as our brain makes them for us. When we claim conscious ownership of the actions performed by our brain, we act like the proud parents of a gifted child, taking credit for the child’s brilliance even though we only provided the necessary conditions for that brilliance.”
Richard Restak
Such inanity! Our brain is part of us, and consciousness is just another thing it does in addition to making decisions.
(Like saying the car doesn’t propel itself so much as its motor provides motive force, so the car doesn’t get to be proud of being motile)
John Moralessays
“Life calls the tune, we dance.”
John Galsworthy
So what?
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
I don’t understand what the difference is supposed to be. For the former (if it’s genetics and environment), all you’re really doing is stopping at some arbitrary point before you get to the latter. Or I guess it’s more like leaving out parts of the environment which probably aren’t as significant.
In principle there doesn’t have to be any difference; it should be possible to discuss biology plus environment as causal chains of the fundamental forces, viewed at a particular magnification.
(I guess this falsifies my “none of which are relevant to standard free will” clause. It’s more like the wrongness of any particular argument about biology+environment doesn’t even appear to offer a glimmer of possibility of contracausal free will, the way that quantum indeterminism can appear to offer such a glimmer.)
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Walton, I don’t remember if you’ve made bad arguments about this. I think you were clear in this comment, for instance.
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It’s just really easy to make bad arguments at the level of the brain. But they aren’t all necessarily bad or irrelevant.
Since I think you are a “hard determinist” like I am, can you rationalize blaming religious people for thinking what they do?
I was hoping for a little more discussion on this question in that thread.
First, been there, done that = agree with consciousness razor.
Next, whether it was caused(determinism), or not(random), they did what they wanted to! Everything we do, it is always correlated to what we wanted to do, so even if it wasn’t a ‘free’ choice, it’s the one that they felt was best. It was their intention to argue for religion.
Therefore, their intent makes them culpable, and they would agree with this. It’s what they wanted to do.
Bonus observation: We evolved to feels these things; culpable, and to blame and seek retribution. It is how we survived as a social species, and therefore it is necessary to behave these ways. It is an, or even THE, way we protect ourselves and society. It is an inbred morality that is ethical to protect ourselves. Our deeper understanding of cause and blame, does not lead to necessary ‘abandonment of blame’ or the need to address anti-social behavior.
In my case, it is important and justified to argue with them and call them stupid, or in other situations, perhaps try to reason with them, because their religious viewpoint is dangerous to rationality and sensical decision making at election time, or in passing laws, or stoning people and calling them evil, and therefore, justifying their(fundy) amoral treatment and judgement of others.
As members of the same society, the two ideologies cannot co-exist constructively, and it is a choice between rationally justified behavior, and irrationally coerced dogmatism, which is anti-adaptable to change and reason.
How can they be culpable for having this intent rather than another?
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the Basic Argument, by Galen Strawson:
“(1) Interested in free action, we are particularly interested in actions that are performed for a reason (as opposed to ‘reflex’ actions or mindlessly habitual actions).
(2) When one acts for a reason, what one does is a function of how one is, mentally speaking. (It is also a function of one’s height, one’s strength, one’s place and time, and so on. But the mental factors are crucial when moral responsibility is in question.)
(3) So if one is to be truly responsible for how one acts, one must be truly responsible for how one is, mentally speaking — at least in certain respects.
(4) But to be truly responsible for how one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, one must have brought it about that one is the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects. And it is not merely that one must have caused oneself to be the way one is, mentally speaking. One must have consciously and explicitly chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, and one must have succeeded in bringing it about that one is that way.
(5) But one cannot really be said to choose, in a conscious, reasoned, fashion, to be the way one is mentally speaking, in any respect at all, unless one already exists, mentally speaking, already equipped with some principles of choice, ‘P1′ — preferences, values, pro-attitudes, ideals — in the light of which one chooses how to be.
(6) But then to be truly responsible, on account of having chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, one must be truly responsible for one’s having the principles of choice P1 in the light of which one chose how to be.
(7) But for this to be so one must have chosen P1, in a reasoned, conscious, intentional fashion.
(8) But for this, i.e. (7), to be so one must already have had some principles of choice P2, in the light of which one chose P1.
(9) And so on. Here we are setting out on a regress that we cannot stop. True self-determination is impossible because it requires the actual completion of an infinite series of choices of principles of choice.’
(10) So true moral responsibility is impossible, because it requires true self-determination, as noted in (3).”
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
Bonus observation: We evolved to feels these things; culpable, and to blame and seek retribution. It is how we survived as a social species,
That’s group selection.
and therefore it is necessary to behave these ways.
That’s the naturalistic fallacy.
In my case, it is important and justified to argue with them and call them stupid, or in other situations, perhaps try to reason with them
An interesting take. I am trying to reduce my contribution, but it has been a long, uphill battle.
A. Rsays
War hedgehogs: I shall begin recruiting them at once. I believe a large bowl of worms should bring them in.
joeysays
Colin McGinn through lipstick:
On the other hand, if indeterminism is true, then, though things could have happened otherwise, it is not the case that we could have chosen otherwise, since a merely random event is no kind of free choice. That some events occur causelessly, or are not subject to law, or only to probabilistic law, is not sufficient for those events to be free choices.
Seemingly random events may not be sufficient for those events to be described as free choices, but I don’t see how that automatically excludes them from being free choices either. Indeterminism simply means that events can’t be predicted. That they appear random. But just because some things appear random does not automatically mean that they weren’t freely chosen. Declaring such is simply an assumption based on lack of evidence.
————
Owlmirror:
Indeterminism means that it’s logically possible for a different choice to be made, everything else being apparently equal — but that is not an ability to freely choose differently. It’s the chooser having the choice influenced by unknown randomness.
But how can you know for sure that the choice is influenced by merely unknown randomness? It’s impossible to know that for sure.
Thought experiment. Let’s simply assume that free will exists and I have it. Each morning I am assigned to choose (out of my own free will) what a prisoner eats for breakfast, whether it be eggs, cereal, pancakes, toast, waffles, etc. The prisoner has no knowledge that a person is actually choosing his breakfast for him. For 10 years the prisoner keeps a log of what he eats each morning, and he finds no type of distinguishable pattern from my breakfast choices. From his point of view, the choices are completely indeterminent…random. So he concludes that these breakfast choices aren’t freely chosen by someone, but rather is the outcome of a pure random generator. Although it would be reasonable for the prisoner to conclude this based on his limited perception, he would be wrong.
So no, I don’t see how the existence of free will is “logically impossible”. To prove that it exists may be impossible, but not that its existence is logically impossible.
joeysays
mikmik:
First, been there, done that = agree with consciousness razor.
Next, whether it was caused(determinism), or not(random), they did what they wanted to! Everything we do, it is always correlated to what we wanted to do, so even if it wasn’t a ‘free’ choice, it’s the one that they felt was best. It was their intention to argue for religion.
That just simply shifts the problem to being responsible for “wanting” something as opposed to another thing.
I see what Owlmirror is up to. Subversion by Cute ™. That is really heinous maneuver. No wonder the monniker “Public Enemy #1” is so appropriate.
KGsays
LILAPWL,
Only on the premise that a choice can be random and non-deliberate. I feel that is too contradictory of the commonly understood meaning of “choice”.
Why should I care what you feel? There’s no more contradiction in saying that a choice is random and non-deliberate (or that it is predetermined), and saying it is a choice; any more than there is between noting that my calculator’s workings are either determined or have random elements, and that it performs arithmetic operations correctly (within certain limits). These are different levels of description. Something is a choice (this is a sufficient but not necessary conditions), if a process of considering or comparing apparent alternative courses of action precedes it, and plays an appropriate causal role in bringing it about. No metaphysical commitment to the existence of spooks or magic is implied.
But in any case, it is impossible to have chosen to choose otherwise.
KGsays
Sorry, the last sentence in my #193 was LILAPWLs, and I meant to answer it:
But in any case, it is impossible to have chosen to choose otherwise.
No, it isn’t. Suppose a smoker decides to give up smoking. They have then chosen that they will make future choices in a particular way. Then suppose they are offered a cigarette: it is quite possible that the prior choice to give up could have a critical causal role in making the choice on this occasion to refuse the offered cigarette, i.e., if they had not previously chosen to choose otherwise (and that might be determined, or it might be random, it doesn’t matter), they would on the later occasion have chosen differently.
theophontes (坏蛋)says
@ KG
As we seem to have these running discussions going on across the eons, I’ll keep the matriarchal society one going too:
“Cyrus [of the Cyrus cylinder] … was defeated and killed in battle by Queen Tomyris of the Massagetae, another Iranian tribe that fought mainly on horseback, like the Scythians. … There are signs in Herodotus (Book 1:216) that the Massagetae showed some features of a matrilineal, polyandrous society, in which women might have a number of husbands or sexual partners(but men only one).” – Michael Axworthy – “Iran, Empire of The Mind”
See? LOL, LILAPWL! You rock. (I’m not trying to butter up here, just that I like this talk)
You quoted an exact description of why I was arguing that our choices, and therefore our lives, have no meaning. I agree with the quote, and I knew that was a weakness to my argument. I also am a proponent of group selection, and I think everyone is except Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, but I digress(I’m also being sarcastic – I don’t know who is a proponent, just that I’ve read that most evolutionary biologists consider The Selfish Gene to be outmoded).
(3) So if one is to be truly responsible for how one acts, one must be truly responsible for how one is, mentally speaking — at least in certain respects.
Yes, and I say we are responsible because, determined or not, we have incorporated our own generated thinking(creatively) in a way that another might not do. Others may, or will, arrive at different behavior impulses, so it is an individual mindset. I am only saying that another individual has a different set of circumstances, and therefore, different cause to act.
It is a materialistic aspect, but keep in mind, that our consciousness is a necessary part of the decision process, and the evaluation of all possible considerations, P(x).
The conscious process may well be determined, but it arrives at the best choice for fulfilling the entity’s desires(which may also be deterministically caused).
Now, and here I am going to invoke my ‘fundamental law of morality’, existence is preferable to non-existence, for non-existence has zero inherent meaning, or concept. Existence means only that you are present as an entity with survival needs, and this has meaning for other entities with their own survival needs. This concept construes meaning to everything in the environment of the individual entity, presence of food, etc.
Now, what I am getting at is that all our behaviors have a moral basis, the right to exist – because that is universally applied to one’s own state of existing in the first place, but not only do we recognize that the others have a right to exist, it is imperative that these existences do not conflict with each other. If one of them does, that violates the fundamental morality of existence v. non-existence.
So, sigh, even if the individual entity did not freely choose its behaviors, it must still be judged as either right, or wrong. And since it is that entity/individual that is manifesting the behavior, that entity is responsible for the consequences of its actions, in that those consequences would not exist if that individual did not exist.
That entity is behaving in an anti- or pro- social manner, and by valuing existence, that entity has accepted the realm of moral judgement, even if it meant to, or not.
Thus, for example, I may or may not be blowing smoke (and from my perspective, I’m not entirely sure myself;]), but it is my carcass that is doing it, no one else’s, and because I(my body) choose to exist, my body is responsible for its actions being here in the first place.
Then, your body/being/unit/brain is incumbent upon to judge my actions as right or wrong for the values that you possess (This is a point of weakness in my argument, perhaps!), for both of our value systems are in competition if they threaten one of us in one way or another.
This comes down to our individual meaning, and you have argued earlier that we do ascribe meaning to our own lives, at least, and we all also ascribe meaning to everything in our environment, as I have argued.
It seems to me, therefore, that we are right in protecting our own values by holding others responsible for theirs, which is a question of morality, or right and wrong, and must be treated as such.
(Okay, yes, I’ve kind of lost myself, but I hope you’ve understood the gist)
A person may not be personally responsible for choosing their actions, but they are personally responsible for having them. They want to be(or not to be, that is the question), and so they are forced to choose their presence and behaviors that they ultimately exhibit, and because awareness is part of this ‘decision'(our awareness is just a mechanism for impelling us to value existence), and part of every decision process we invoke, our awareness of our decisions is subject to the laws of morality.
∴, we are mentally responsible(by choosing to exist, which is a mental process and which then gives rise to all our subsequent mental processes) by being mentally aware, and thus, truly responsible.
How’d you like them apples? (LOL, that’s my signature phrase for my arguments from the idea that a fundamental morality exists!)
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐsays
To the compatibilist:
Why should I care what you feel?
Don’t overthink it. :) It’s merely a rhetorical device for explaining why “choice” is a bad term for random events.
There’s no more contradiction in saying that a choice is random and non-deliberate (or that it is predetermined), and saying it is a choice; any more than there is between noting that my calculator’s workings are either determined or have random elements, and that it performs arithmetic operations correctly (within certain limits).
There does seem to be more contradiction in the former, because, as you note:
Something is a choice (this is a sufficient but not necessary conditions), if a process of considering or comparing apparent alternative courses of action precedes it, and plays an appropriate causal role in bringing it about.
“Choice” does strongly imply to most people that it’s caused by a deliberative process. But if a choice is random and non-deliberate, then any apparent considerations are in fact not causal. A random choice would be an unwilled choice; any corresponding will would come into existence at the same time as the choice, not preceding it.
A fully predetermined choice fits more readily with common intuitions about what choice means, since at least the causal role of a preceding will is there.
No, it isn’t. Suppose a smoker decides to give up smoking. They have then chosen that they will make future choices in a particular way.
Okay, I can see how my previous wording would be misleading.
Granting the assumption that random events can be called choices, here’s a fix:
“For any particular choice a person made, it was impossible for them to have chosen to choose differently than they did.”
At the moment the smoker decided to give up smoking, it wasn’t possible for them to have willfully chosen to not give up smoking. And their decision can of course influence future decisions, but at any moment when offered a cigarette, if they don’t smoke, it wasn’t possible to have willfully chosen to smoke, and vice versa.
joeysays
mikmik:
∴, we are mentally responsible(by choosing to exist, which is a mental process and which then gives rise to all our subsequent mental processes) by being mentally aware, and thus, truly responsible.
But we can’t “choose to exist” either. Again, you’re just shifting the problem backwards. If we have no free will, then we have no control over our actions, our intents/desires, or even our own existence.
(6) But then to be truly responsible, on account of having chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, one must be truly responsible for one’s having the principles of choice P1 in the light of which one chose how to be.
(7) But for this to be so one must have chosen P1, in a reasoned, conscious, intentional fashion.
I can tell you every reason I acted, and the thoughts behind that decision. I am conscious of this, and the intention is to promore my well being.
(8) But for this, i.e. (7), to be so one must already have had some principles of choice P2, in the light of which one chose P1.
We do, because we do evaluate possibilities based on our ability to plan our future. But I agree with (8), here. We were only going to choose P1, but this is not 100% predictable before the decision to act is taken. Our decision is alterable by new information, which may be self generated, which still, in honesty, may be predetermined, and is, for the purpose of this discussion.
(9) And so on. Here we are setting out on a regress that we cannot stop. True self-determination is impossible because it requires the actual completion of an infinite series of choices of principles of choice.’z
Non sequitur. It requires only one instance, which is not predicate only earlier events, only the ability at this one time.
This is an irrelevant argument. Everything after (3) is irrelevant.
– – –
and therefore it is necessary to behave these ways.
That’s the naturalistic fallacy.
How so? If everything is determined, then acting this way is determined, and that makes it necessary to behave these ways. I am not saying these are good or bad, but only in that they ‘are.’
I also do not commit the moralistic fallacy(I hope), because my system of morality derives from a physical fact, that non-existence is meaningless, and that existence has meaning, and that that meaning is expressed by the very process of evolution – that the organisms that survive, or exist, in a more co-operative manner with their environment survive, and thrive.
The mere fact of competition for survival based on limited resources underlies this.
! Maybe this is a moralistic invocation!
It is because of the laws of physics that abiogenesis and evolution occur, and this provides the framework for valuing existence over non-existence, for the simple fact that profligation is innate once self replication occurs, and in an environment of finite resources, and continued existence is ‘bequeathed’ contingent on survival.
It looks like now that I have to start considering ‘survival of what’, but I think this can be expressed as “survival of the individual long enough to reproduce” as a survival of the ‘kind’ , which is ‘species’, and the survival past reproduction in order to facilitate the survival of incident individuals, drives our desire to live longer and experience life creatively – survival of the ‘kind’, that of individual.
I don’t even know if I’m making sense – sorry. Even if I am, no doubt it has already been thrashed out by some naturalists somewhere.
But we can’t “choose to exist” either. Again, you’re just shifting the problem backwards. If we have no free will, then we have no control over our actions, our intents/desires, or even our own existence.
Yeah, I agree. Never the less, it is a mental process that causes this desire to exist, and although that mental process is not chosen, it is a mental process.
That was my point, that introducing ‘mental process’ is redundant.
I sincerely apologize that reality fails to meet your expectations.
Commonly accepted wisdom is very unwise. If it was actually valuable then we’d have no reason for actual wise people.
Commonly accepted wisdom also holds black people as dumber and more violent, poor people as unethical (despite research indicating that a sense of superior class is more likely to cause unethical behavior) and that Acorn was a pimping agency.
side note. I’m treating you very very fairly and presuming that you’re not just JAQing off. Do not disappoint me.
Whose commonly accepted wisdom?
No such thing.
I rarely leave the house. I have few friends who aren’t on Pharyngula, and the only one I spend time with in meatspace is a gay feminist man slightly more toward the “radical” end of the spectrum than I am; even so it took me some time to determine I would be safe around him (which he 1. noticed and 2. was very kind about). I keep my distance from my classmates and anyone unfamiliar and am rarely off my guard around them. When I have a door between me and other people that I can lock, I do so. When I have to be outside of my house, I am extremely vigilant, although I have to make some concessions because of my inability to tolerate certain sensory stimuli (I usually have my iPod playing and therefore could not always hear someone approaching me). When I have energy to put in to paying attention to my body language, which is rarely, I try my best to appear confident and alert. I have hypervigilance issues that make parts of my life difficult; I am afraid constantly. I have an exaggerated startle response that could potentially be dangerous to other people. I have put some time – although in reality I think one’s ability to do so or not is more influenced by experience than by time – into trying to convince myself that I could/would be right to hurt someone in my own defense if the need arose.
Almost none of these “precautions” would have done anything to prevent what happened to me. Even staying inside my house wouldn’t have helped me. The only one that would have done anything significant is my lack of friends and pattern of cutting friendships off at the root as soon as I see a danger sign, and let me tell you… it’s not a great life to have. But I do it, and all the other things that may be useless, because of the fear.
I no longer alter my preferred patterns of dress to avoid attention, partly because I realize that doesn’t work (not just to avoid rape, to avoid attention) and partly because I’m trying to learn to not engage in stupid slut-shaming patterns of thought aimed at myself.
And in fact, several of the things in that top paragraph, I’m working on doing something to stop. Because it’s not fair for the people who got away with taking my sense of self and my ability to feel safe to take the rest of my life too.
Yes, I understand that “commonly accepted wisdom” is frequently wrong. That’s why I quoted it that way.
@Jeffret
Yet you still used it as a defense for your “skepticism”
As a side note the question should not be “what can one do to not be raped” it should be “what can we do to prevent rape”
Even if dressing in a sackcloth meant you wouldn’t be raped by strangers…it doesn’t stop SOMEONE from being raped. It just changes who the target is. it won’t affect rape statistics at all.
You haven’t answered my question about parking lots
marilove suggested I google and directed me to RAINN. I looked there and found this Ways to Reduce your Risk of Sexual Assault.
Is RAINN wrong?
(Or to put it more carefully, is RAINN correct on the statistics, but wrong on the recommendations?)
@Jeffret
Did you read my response at all?
I am thinking you’re not honest at all. Address my points now.
jeffret: Normally, I am quite patient with people here, but after a week of dealing with people JAQ’ing off on rape-related threads, all I am going to say is this: Either display an ability to comprehend what others are trying to relate to you, or leave.
So, I’ve been reading about this Leah person apparently from some atheist blog that everyone knew about but me, who recently “converted” to Kiddie Raping, Inc. Specifically, reading her interview with The Blaze The. Fucking. BLAZE.
Why are so many people apparently saddened by this “loss”?
Seriously, I was quite thorough. Is there any point I made you disagree with. If so explain why.
To your SOUL question about stranger rape
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape#Prevention_and_treatment
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32306
In light of that do you have any other problems?
I had the same reaction. My take is “nothing of value was lost” She wasn’t exactly a deep thinker and her sense of ethics are dismal IMHO. Her atheism is based on “no one ever taught me religion” and she was searching for answers. Really the fact that people are taking “person with an ill formed world view changed their ill formed world view” as anything worth mentioning seems laughable.
Not often.
No.
Not usually.
Any other questions you had that I missed?
@Jeffret
Do you get what I was trying to say? Do you get the point?
‘Tis Himself:
I’m sad, too.
I bet it was interesting.
And now we’ll never see, unless you chose to expend the energy to recreate it … and even then, it wouldn’t be exactly the same :(
Look, jeffret. You recited a few of the things that we would obviously say in response to your questions, then waved them away with “Clearly, though, we’re not at that point.” What point are we not at? Of the things you said, what part is not relevant because “rapists still rape”?
I wasn’t saddened. I was furious. Still am furious. Yeah, I know, I should get a life if that kind of tangential shit has the power to make me mad and keep me mad for weeks. :(
I have personal issues with Catholicism that intersect with an unsolvable dilemma I have with my closest relative – I can (barely) acknowledge that a person who was raised in a Catlicker family may not be a total monster just because they don’t overthrow their faith as an adult. But the idea that a not-childhood-indoctrinated person would voluntarily join into that anti-human church makes me see red. She’s doing harm to me and mine by crossing over to the wrong side. Indirect harm, yes, but real nonetheless.
I can’t imagine any way to prohibit people from converting without totalitarianism which would make life hellish for everyone (and wouldn’t even work, to boot; look at the underground church when Russia was officially “atheist”). But I think people who do convert should be called out as scum, mocked and made miserable for their immoral decision.
Fortunately, I’ll never bump into Leah Libresco in real life. Fortunately, despite the propaganda value for the Unholy Church of getting one voluntary convert, the Church is dying out in civilized countries. One here, one there, doesn’t even begin to make up for the flood of people leaving because they can no longer stomach being part of the Raping Children – and killing Africans – and killing women of childbearing age – global empire.
Eh. I’m not even sure it’ll last. Remember Anne Rice. I don’t know if she’s a nonbeliever again but she isn’t Catholic anymore and had said that religious people are creepy to “people like her”
Libresco is attracted to the “complexity” of Catholic philosophy, she may react to the bug fuck reality of it differently. If not than she’s the type of amoral twit we don’t want. Everybody wins.
Two hikers encounter an angry bear in the woods. The bear charges.
Hiker A pauses to put on running shoes.
Hiker B: “What are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear even with the best imaginable running shoes!”
Hiker A: “I’m not trying to outrun the bear. I’m just trying to outrun you.”
TLDR: it seems like LL is treating the Catholic church like a comic book. I like the mythology and complexity so I join. IMHO she doesn’t seem to take the decision that seriously. At least not as much as someone raised with religion would. Again she never was someone who had a reason for atheism.
Oh for Pete’s sake, REALLY? My JAQ-off radar is starting to blink.
It pisses me off that she goes on fucking CNN and The Blaze* to preach about her bullshit conversion. Who the fuck does she think she is? Is she sure about it and totally not confused about her new position, or not? Keep this shit a personal decision you still have trouble reconciling as a coherent set of views, or don’t. You can’t have it both ways.
*Though it’s no surprise they’re willing to milk this story as much as they can.
Well, if Fincke has been interpreting her motivations accurately, I wouldn’t blame her for being unattracted to a lot of the bullshit “simplicity” of certain kinds of atheist moral philosophy. That doesn’t mean Catholicism is a rational, ethical alternative or that she isn’t responsible for seeing some atheist’s bullshit for what it is on her own, but it’s fucking frustrating when some atheists don’t take morality or philosophy seriously, then flip out and blame the person for being mislead by people like them.
Huh? We don’t “win” because an amoral twit doesn’t consider herself of “us.” It doesn’t matter if we want to identify ourselves with amoral twits. It matters that there are fewer amoral twists.
Err, I meant that she doesn’t consider herself one of “us” … and twits, not “twists.”
It’s enough for a lot of people I know. You add a certain gravitas and theatrical sense (cathedrals, priests’ garbs…), and you touched the heart of the religious sense for a lot of catholics.
A fun fact: the beguinning of the dechritianization of France (starting in the 17th century) wasn’t due to the Enlightement itself, but to the fact that the Gallican bishops started to modify religion for a more sofiticated theology, a “more civil religion” (to quote bishops of that time).
Done with the processions, the worship of matyrs’ bones, etc. People started to lose interest, because that was religion for them. It is a funny phenomenon.
The moment they start with the pathetically transparent “gotcha” questions, mine starts to blink. Here, apparently he wants someone to say that RAINN isn’t wrong to post “don’t get raped” guidelines, so that he can proclaim it okay for ANYONE to lecture women on how not to get raped.
Dunning-Kruger strikes again. The level of expertise at RAINN, the fact that THEIR FOCUS IS VICTIMS OF SEX-BASED CRIMES, etc. doesn’t figure. If RAINN can post a list of ways to reduce the risk of sexual assault, then ANY sexist asswipe in the near vicinity can tell you that your skirt/your drinking/you’re going on a date with that guy when you should have known better is why you were raped and it’s your own fault. Because it’s TOTALLY the same thing.
+++
Which is why i disagree with BlagHag’s post on this which ended with the demand that no one pull the Never Was an Atheist fallacy. Generally, i would agree that is a fallacy to be avoided. It’s a No True Scotsman.
but, in this case, her running immediately to the fucking BLAZE makes me seriously doubt her honesty and completely destroys her credibility.
Lazarus: Form Recovery is the boss. It has saved me so many times it is sick. Firefox and Chrome. It is the best add on I have, ’cause nothin’ like creating a post and researching in alternate tabs, spend half an hour, then accidentally kill your open comment tab.
PS When did Italy become so devastating? 2 – nil, and Germany can barely get out of their end!
That does show arrogance on her part and bullshit on CNN’s. Really? Who the fuck cares? The Blaze is especially noteworthy. She’s some amoral opportunist. I am also growing suspicious that she’s not doing what Matt Dillihunty was joking about doing for years.
Well she was blogging at fucking Patheos, where ethical and intellectual standards go to die. And she was already peddling a lot of dualist woo as an atheist. So while maybe she was a True™
Scotsmanatheist, if we’re supposed to give a fuck about what that means in this case, this isn’t news to me.I guess it’s kind of nice that Mehta isn’t likely to dig very deep into any hard questions, so we’ll probably never have to see him become a Scientologist or a Mormon or whatever.
I can only guess.
@CR
Matt has commented that he could make a fortune if he became Christian, going on tours about how he used to be this big atheist and has now found the truth. Because the Chrstians eat up stuff like that
Ing, that’s about what I thought. Christians are a big market, but it’d probably be easier to find a niche where you can really become a big name. If that were the idea, maybe some kind of Chopra-Catholic fusion would be a smarter choice than straight-up Roman Catholicism, which is boring as fuck along with being patently absurd. A lot of Catholics hate or are completely indifferent to their own dogmas, so you’d have to spice it up a bit, you know? Who wants to hear even more about it, from a former Satan-worshiper no less (or however she’d sell herself)? I know some of them get off on that sort of thing, but you’ve got to offer something special that all the other “former atheist” converts can’t.
Out of curiosity did anyone actually hear of her before this?
Cause everyone who I’ve heard tell the story has basically said “blah blah blah, who I never heard of”
Also her stated reason was apparently that she already accepted as a presupposition that there was a supernatural platonic moral law.
Oh but don’t worry she’s “concerned” about the homosexuality thing and is dedicated to studying this through due diligence and the over arching belief there morality comes from God.
To quote myself “she’s a fucking idiot”
jeffret, why are you asking about rape and rape prevention? It sounds to me like you want someone one to do your homework for you.
I’m not about to hand you my personal experiences unless I get an answer about why in the fuck you’re asking such personal questions from people you don’t know.
Only when she was up against PZed in some silly popularity contest.
And even then I only ever made not of the name of the blog not the blogger.
I smell a rat. This person is fucked because of their answer to why they want to know what precautions are recommended even after being told that it is ignorant to suggest any because we all know the common sense already, and that there are no precautions a person can take because 70% of victims know their attacker.
I also call bullshit because they could’ve just read the thread they referred to instead of making some shite excuse about joining late, or whatever.
No, I almost immediately smelled a troll at work laying bait.
Certified un-fucking-kosher, methinks.
Sophia Dodds,
“It would have been nice to see scifi in a cagefight with a godbot. Some things are just meant not to be. *sigh* ”
Actually, I went toe to toe recently with a Creationist by the name of Paul G. Humber. He used to teach math but now is the minister of a small church and has several creationist books out. You can find them on Amazon, if you really care. He had sent out some political nonsense about Obama to a right wing friend which I showed was false. He then came back and suggested that I probably believed in evolution, which I responded, absolutely yes. It turns out that he believes literally in Noah and the global flood. I told him that he must be delusional if he really believed this myth to be factual. He kinda took exception to that, i.e., I pissed him off and he stopped communicating.
scifi, I am pretty sure that you’re not a creationist.
But can you acknowledge that, just maybe, Karen Anderson was sloppy in what she wrote about Stephen J. Gould; so sloppy that her words were wrong?
And that defending her words over Gould’s own was even more wrong?
@jeffret: Tread very carefully here. Read the links you have been provided. Take a day or two to think about them. Read them again, and take another day or two to think about them again. Then, maybe post again.
—
I’m guessing you’re talking about the “situation” thread. I read that, with an ever-growing sense of despair as clueless person after clueless person was beaten down with argument, evidence, and horrific testimony.
“But!” I continued to think, somewhere in the back of my mind, “here’s my situation: I have two young daughters, and of course, I don’t want them to come to any harm!”
However, that thread made me understand even more clearly that:
1) Nothing I could tell them would really work as a preventative (not a new insight, just reiterated), and would probably–unless accompanied by an absolutely unconditional caring instinct, of a kind one can’t really do on the internet–contribute to victim-blaming
2) They’re smart and will figure out pretty much anything I could tell them for themselves (and most likely some stuff that I will never know about)
… but more importantly that:
3) The person I should really be talking to is my son
—
So this:
… strikes me as either not particularly well-thought-through, or maybe, somewhat dishonest. Why not “a man”? Why is this women’s responsibility?
And:
… makes me question: do you understand the difference between “she [feels compelled to take]” and “[I think] she [should take]”?
Are you really certain that you’re looking for information?
—
Like I said, take time out to think about this, please.
mikmik:
I caught a whiff of a rape apologist. I may well be wrong, but the amount of creeps who have shown up here, starting almost the exact same way as jeffret make me damn suspicious.
My life is not up for them to use as justification for whatever shit they have in mind.
Have a cookie, shiloh.
What shiffy needs to acknowledge is that even bringing up Gould or Armstrong is an invalid argument, and apologize for the deliberate manner in which it has dishonestly continued to bring up this argument again and again and again, simply dressed up in different fallacious authorities, even though great pains have already been taken by all of us here to explain to it why the argument is invalid.
Then you haven’t been paying attention. it probably came out in Shiloh era, but I am just actively presuming they’re the same person since Shify’s refusal to even comment on that speaks volumes.
PZ Myers,
OK, I will back off some here since it is obvious that Gould has indicated something different from what he said in Rock of Ages. Still, are you denying that he said what I quoted? Also, from what I can see, Karen is far from a fundamentalist. Not exactly sure where she stands but she pretty much appears to treat all religions as man-made. Correct me if you think I’m wrong. She indicates that though Gould believed in natural selection, he believed that did not eliminate the possibility of a creator.
So far, we disagree on Karen’s intellect. I think it far exceeds anything I’ve seen on this board.
BTW, it is not hard to know where you stand on the existence of a creator, but no matter how you yell and scream, you, nor anyone else can show evidence of natural cause of the beginnings of our universe from nothing. Krauss comes closest with his argument that nothing is unstable and, therefore, can result in matter appearing from this nothingness. He goes on to argue that particle pairs, on matter, the other anti-matter, have been observed to come from nothing and then disappear once more. He tries to extrapolate this quantum mechanics to before the big bang to explain how matter could have appeared from nothing and then expand into the big bang. What I want to know is how this could be since quantum mechanics is looking at atomic matter in our universe and attempting to extrapolate it to before the big bang. The problem I see with this is that it is before our universe, which makes it difficult to know if quantum physics would even be valid then plus quantum physics deals with the atomic level whereas the matter that expanded into our universe appears to be much larger.
*clicking sound*
Oh look time to flip the tape over again
*eject, flip, play*
*static* SHILOH DISC 1 SIDE A
You don’t understand quantum mechanics. I’m not a physicist and I know what you said was stupid.
Oh!, consciousness razor:
This has been done before: Doreen Irvine. It wasn’t good.
IIRC Doreen Irvine has an actual body count to his hoax
And, finally: If you’re a non-native speaker of Mandarin, The Economist’s linguist blog wants your opinion on learning the language …
I think I’m done here. Off to roam. ;)
Owlmirror,
“scifi, I am pretty sure that you’re not a creationist.
Thank you! For some reason a number of people here want to accuse me of being a creationist when I actually despise them. Funny, I have quoted stuff I gotten over here to make a point only to be accused of being an atheist. I being an agnostic can cause this depending on which side you are arguing against.
“But can you acknowledge that, just maybe, Karen Anderson was sloppy in what she wrote about Stephen J. Gould; so sloppy that her words were wrong?
And that defending her words over Gould’s own was even more wrong?”
OK, you forced me to look for my copy of Gould’s Rock of Ages. Karen got her quote form p.6 in his preamble and I find that Karen appears to be right on. In fact, Gould states the following: “To summarize, with a tad of repetition, the net, or magisterium, of science covers the empirical realm: what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the old cliches, science gets the age of rocks, and religion the rock of ages; science studies how the heavens go, religion how to go to heaven.”
@Scifi
FFS we’re not stupid you’re not an agnostic.
This is beyond tedius
@ Owlmirror
WTF do you give this guy ANY credit? All he does is repeat the same exact shit again and again.
Where does Gould say “natural selection” (not “science”) can explain everything in the natural world?
You understand that “natural selection” is not the whole of “science,” right?
@scifi
The cage fight comment was theophontes, not me. Not that I don’t appreciate the irony of the sentiment, but… yes.
What -I’d- really like to see, on the other hand, is less circular reasoning. Get off the bleedin’ roundabout, other people need to turn left. *shakes fist*
That wasn’t the part that PZ (and others) were complaining about. Yes, we know that Gould espoused NOMA. (And for the most part, we disagree with him.)
But Anderson went further, and misrepresented what Gould said about natural selection.
For an evolutionary biologist, that’s a problem.
scifi: It is my responsibility to inform you that you are likely about to be banhammered, in that spirit, I will do so in the Politburo-approved manner:
It is the judgement of this court that you are guilty of the crime of insipidiy and egregious stupidity.
[Gavel sounds]
[A. R. dons the Black Cap]
scifi, formerly known as shiloh, you will be taken hence to a lawful thread prison and from there to a place of banning where you will be banhammered until you are silent and thereafter you will be confined to the Dungeon and may the Lord Cthulu have mercy upon your soul.
@A.R.
No fair! Doesn’t the proper due process allow us a chance to recreate the Trial song from The Wall!?
And of course, we ALL know that quoting from a preamble of a book is always the perfect and most accurate way of summarizing the author’s positions as represented in the entire book.
And even if it were, its still all irrevelant.
The shiffy’s perseveration on this fallacy from authority is just further evidence of its pitiful intellectual dishonesty.
Ing: Possibly, but I’m not sure how the rest of the Politburo feels about anything more than the appearance of Due Process.
From a quotemining presuppositionalist? Who usually quotemines someithing rhetorical, and not the thesis. No, and it doesn’t matter in any case. Gould is irrelevant to you presenting physical evidence for your imaginary creator. And PZ and I know that, and you should too…
Irrelevant. Science explains the process. It happened. Ergo, it is “proved”. Whereas your unparsimonius imaginary deity….
Owlmirror,
“Yes, we know that Gould espoused NOMA. (And for the most part, we disagree with him.)”
That’s obvious that you disagree. My main point is that Gould was saying essentially what I have been saying that science is only equipped to work with the natural world and cannot really prove or disprove the supernatural. But before you jump in and remind me that a negative cannot be proven, I stick with my statement that so long as science cannot show evidence for the natural start of our universe, those who claim that a natural start is the only possible one, are only being arrogant. the definition of a “dogmatic” person is one who “asserts opinions in an arrogant and authoritative manner.” I’m not saying you are one of these person, but that there are quite a number of them here, including the guru.
Nerd,
“Irrelevant. Science explains the process. It happened. Ergo, it is “proved”.”
OK, a statement without any evidence to back it up. Ok, I can say the same thing. It happened. Ergo, it is “proved” that a creator did it. Neither statement proves our point since neither one of us presented any evidence to back our arguments.
A.R.,
“scifi: It is my responsibility to inform you that you are likely about to be banhammered, in that spirit”
Oh no!!!!
Gould is wrong because the supernatural is not a coherent subject. Gould was being political.
FFS you’re never ever going to fucking address what people say to you are you? You’re just going to sit around in your own shit shoving turds up your nose and looking down on us for not valorizing your efforts.
Ban the idiot. This is beyond boring.
scifi, it is very easy to acknowledge the mistake we’ve pointed out. To be honest, I’d still think of you as a slimy liar and an idiot for other reasons, but slightly less of one. I promise, I will not bring it up again if you do. There’s really nothing to lose, if you only wanted to make a point about NOMA.
It’s just a shame for the poor theists that in addition to science, we also have philosophy to dismantle even the concept of the supernatural. Which of the two magisteria do you suppose that belongs to, or is NOMA a false dichotomy as well as a load of content-free horseshit?
Before you jump in and remind us of that, so long as you have no evidence of anyone here doing that but continue to make this point as if they were, you’re acting like a dishonest fucking idiot.
Actually it disproves the stupornatural. It has no need for it. You fail logic 101 again, as this has been explained to you ad nauseum. Your stoopidity causes you to fail to acknowledge your errors.
Yes, there is evidence. The universe since it exists with a naturalistic explanation. No need for your imaginary creator, which only exists in your delusional mind. Now, where is the evidence for your imaginary creator???? Put up or shut the fuck up….
You claim an agent. Where is the evidence for your required agent, and how was it “created”. SHILOH, YOU HAS A LOT OF ‘SPLAININ” TO DO.
Still playing the loser hand. But then, that’s all presuppositional losers have.
If you creator can only be derived by sophistry, it only exists in your mind. If it is real, science can detect it. So, if you state the stupornatural, you tacitly acknowledge it is only a delusion in your fuckwitted mind. You lose…
Scifi are you Shiloh? Or is that a supernatural claim?
I say we respond to every one of Shiloh’s comments with “Scifi are you Shiloh,” and nothing more.
PZ,
“She’s a vacuous bliss-ninny”
I have to give credit where it is due. That is quite a clever insult. LOL!
Scifi are you Shiloh?
No, it fucking doesn’t. If you were dealing with anyone less idiotic than scifi, I’d expect them to hand you your ass about this.
That’s not anything like disproving it. Logic 101 and all that.
*sigh*
What does the term “supernatural” mean?
Really, what? What is it? How would you point at something and say “aha, that’s supernatural!”?
Have you read this link?
http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2007/01/defining-supernatural.html
Who, exactly, has made that claim?
It’s pretty arrogant — and dishonest — to put words into people’s mouths.
*Yawn*
Been there, refuted this.
Many times already.
*Yawn*
Been there, refuted this.
Many times already.
Boring repetitive lying fool is boring.
Yes.
I’m not calling for scifi to be banned — but if he is, I won’t feel too sorry.
It’s boring to argue with someone who doesn’t read very well, and doesn’t write very well, and doesn’t think very well.
I actually hope that it might be possible to encourage scifi to read better, write better, and think better . . . but he needs to show that he’s capable of making the effort. There’s been far too little shown so far for me to have much hope.
So: faint hope. Very, very, very faint hope.
@ scifiloh
FIFY:
SophiaTheoDoddsPhontesCorrectly. We cannot prove “no-god”. That is also not required of anyone. Do you spend you time proving conclusively that Almighty Zeus ™ does not exist? Is YHWH any more reasonable to “disprove”? Especially in the light of the FACT that my Imaginary Cat (petant pend.) is the true Author of teh Uniberse.
Boltzmann walnuts have already been discussed at length on this thread.
Bricks|Shithouse…
…
FIFY: The magisterium of religion extends over
questions of ultimate meaningoutright lying andmoral valueimmoral behaviour.You realise that they are trying to sell real estate that DOES NOT EXIST?
(There is nothing to “study” about a place that does not exist. They are charlatans, plain and simple.)
@ Ing #47
Mwahahaha! {clutches sides}
…
Perhaps Scifi’s continued stay here should be contingent on answering whether xe is, or is not, (we don’t need hir to keep going on and on in bad faith).
@ mikmik #28
Thanks, that looks great. I’ve got it installed now.
If you are making the move to Linux, I definitely recommend installing Glipper (in the repositories). It is a scrolling clipboard that lets you select text from different sources and then store sequentially. Very useful for Marjanovićing comments.
(X-posted to TET)
Hi Horde.
<
I've been reading Pharyngula for about three years now and have also been an on and off lurker during this time, though I've also occasionally commented here (,which was like the 3 or 4 times, using atleast three different nyms coz I forgot usernames/disposable email ids between those times and ended up making new ones) and other FTB blogs.
<
This is the first time I'm posting to TET, but not TZT. And I must admit I've been wanting to post here for a long time, and join in in all the fun y'all have so much of here: the sharing and support and camaraderie and long queues for ghey secks with Brownian and all that, but have been putting off until now.
<
Mostly because I'm a bit of an outsider to most of the things you people have in common;I'm not from an English speaking country nor from a western one, I don't get many of the relatively less well known(obscure to me) references to music, tv, film, art, politics, food, society etc. in the anglosphere. And also mostly because I'm a bit of a sociophobe myself :-)
<
But the real reason I've sucked it up, gathered some courage and decided to venture out at this time, *sheepish grin*, is because I’m in a terrible state of flummox right now and could use a little advicey help from you people, if that doesn’t come across as a lil too self-centered of me. I feel I really really don’t have anyone else I could go to for well informed and rational and ethical guidance about this particular thing.
(“It” isn’t anything extraordinary, “it” is rather mundane, but somewhat complicated in my situation)
<
I've got to run to work now, I'll check back soon. Do let me know if I'm being even a bit more entitled than I should(?) be in asking for help this way. Clue me in and I'll um…change topics.
<
Thanks for listening.
<
P.S: How does one put in line breaks in here? Sorry for the slightly weird looking chevrons-run-amuk-amidst-the-text.
Off-topic: This is why I’m angry about immigration detention.
I’m frankly amazed at your endless capacity for ‘benefit of doubt’. Forgive me for being too forward but it seems to be veering past virtue towards character flaw. How many incarnations of this thread, and how many verbatim repeats of conversations sans any acknowledgement of responses given, does Scifi have to do before you accept that he doesn’t care at all to listen to people’s responses? He’s not here to talk, he’s here because he thinks it’s the Monty Python Argument Clinic. How long as scifi been doing this? Even longer if he IS Shiloh, and neither have ever shown the slightest evolution of thought, a single ACKNOWLEDGEMENT that people responded, nor a single solitary retiring of a previously refuted debate. How many times have the agnostic definition been explained to him? Argument from Authority? Burden of Proof? Dragon in the Garage? All these things have been explained in numerous times; and he just CLICK RESETS and starts back on his script ignoring those answers. How do you propose to get someone to ‘read better’ when his entire fucking debate strategy is “if I don’t like the answers I restart the conversation”
I’m with Ing, scifi is dishonest, repetitive, and boring. It needs to be banned.
We have an asshole in the thunderfoot sexual harassment thread, if anyone happens to be open to some troll-stomping.
Asshole and thunderfoot in the same sentence!? WHAAAAA!?
So, I read the latest post from the douchecanoe in the thunderfoot thread, flew into a rage, began shaking so hard I couldn’t type, and haven’t stopped shaking yet. Honestly I’m not sure why it happened – yeah, he’s a douche, but they always are and usually that doesn’t happen to me. It could be because my eating schedule got all off and I haven’t been eating much, but jeez.
@Cipher
Well at least we’re not Rwanda!
True! I should probably just stfu and stop acting like this whole sexual harassment thing matters, since my rapists weren’t UN soldiers!
There’s another Thundertroll showing up n the last cartoon PZ shared.
theophontes & chigau: Very hot and dry today.
Vilem Saptar – P.S: How does one put in line breaks in here? Sorry for the slightly weird looking chevrons-run-amuk-amidst-the-text.
At this page, Special ASCII HTML Character Codes, the ‘line feed’ and ‘space’ html codes are the second and third listed. Type this
‘ :’ but with ‘;’ instead of ‘:’
to get an empty space in a line, and just copy and keep pasting it to make multiple new lines with spaces like I did to make 3 extra lines before and after the  :
Alternately, you can type this,
‘
:’ but with ‘;’ instead of ‘:’
A. R and theophontes
Cool and moist here.
I’m 1000 km from home (probably, I don’t know precisely where I am) and there are loons calling on the lake.
To be fair, early on in the Sciblogs threads, Shiloh did. It didn’t last long, though. It was as if it dipped its toe into the pool of intellectual honesty, found the experience too painful, then turned around, doubled down, and ran off screaming in the other direction.
A few of its previously refuted arguments it actually acknowledged as refuted in this early period, only to shamelessly trot them out again later, after the regression, as if it had wiped this early period of thought-provoking out of its memory.
SciFi/Shiloh was banhammered.
Cross posted from Worst Diffuses Thread
What SciFi/Shiloh never learned:
What is the null hypothesis, and why it is used.
What parsimony is, and how it is used.
What logic is, and how it is used.
What common definitions are, and how they are used.
Why extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.
Why not far less than ordinary evidence cannot back extraordinary claims
How to acknowledge being refuted.
How to acknowledge absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
In order to prove a negative, that which is being refuted must be sufficiently defined to be falsifiable.
If not defined sufficiently to be falsifiable, it is nonsense, like the stupornatural.
On ad infinitum.
And there was much rejoicing on the thread.
You know, xe never did address the question “Are you Shiloh?”
That’s what I meant. Same difference
theophontes (坏蛋)
Yes, a quite extraordinary suggestion, my good tartigrade. We were thinking earlier that ClipBoard History puts on a rousing effort here, on the home pitch at Wimpdronez $tadium, and we had failed to include mention of CBH for inclusion in the line up in a starting role.
Good chap, CBH , not afraid to mix it up in the 18mm box, or comment field as these wanker Canadians refer to it. Fakking don’t have metric, I’m afraid, but we’ve learned to adapt to the peasant ways of the colonists by tippling several pints of 3 week old port every morn’ upon arisal.
In any event, old tartigrade, in my haste to oppress the upstart buggers over here, we quite failed to consider the manner in which we would approach Alright, that’s it, this fakking post is cancelled, goan bile yer haed, ya wee ninny mikmik]
I will, theophontes (坏蛋)!
Hey,
what’s going on here at TZT? Has it devolved into an imitation of TET or has it stayed true to its roots? Woa, it looks like serious discussions are going on here now. What gives?
At least unlike TET this is 100% StevoR-free, right? Right?
Also glad to see that Walton seems to be back who was gone before I was gone. But now I’m back, and so that makes two of us.
Kinda confused myself here.
Hi, pelamun.
PZ has decreed the zombie confinement room to be the new stately pleasure-dome. Not StevoR-free, but if he shows up here, I’d like to ask him if he thinks I should be preemptively killed or not. (I’m an imminent threat to the WESTERN CIVILISATION!!! in case nobody has noticed.)
pelamun: As a member of the TZT Politburo, I would like to extend my official welcome to you. This thread serves as a facility for troll incarceration, discussion of free will, and moderate TET-like discussion.
TZT is a minimal-overlord-interference zone. Hack’n’slash. I won’t complain. It’s also where I quarantine obnoxious ninnyhammers as a lesser punishment than banning. Consider it the Pharyngula wood-chipper.
TET is a social zone. Try to be friendly. Disagreement is OK, but bringing out knives is seriously frowned upon. Also the overlord is a little more prone to jump in and bust heads if it gets a bit too rowdy.
@ Walton
No.
Any news about Sudan is always on-topic and prioritised. I lived there for a year in the nineties. All of my senior colleagues where incarcerated and/or beaten. The Colonel Bashir junta was and is apalling in how it treats its own people.Those people simply cannot be sent back there. They will end up in “ghost houses” – or worse.
(To get medical treatment by the you have to be a cold blooded killer like …)
@ chigau & A.R
*cough* Pouring with rain... we just missed a big typhoon.
@ Pelamun
Welcome back to Pharyngula. This is the infamous breakaway Peoples’ Republic of South The Endless Thread (TZT). As you can see from the post-apocalyptic landscape, the mud and filth, we have given this place over as a troll battleground. That big ebil-looking empty cage in the middle there …{points} … that is where we shall be holding troll/godbot/MenZ fights in due course.
You are just in time. Grab a uniform from AR and procede to the trenches.
AFAICR, StevoR-free.
@ chigau/AR
*cough*
theophontes: *HACK!* *HACK*
The PZ Meyers unit haz red. Is he important?
No, as a cephalopod, his text changes colour according to mood…
Hmm where is everyone?
Hey, A.R. I was wondering that myself.
Tomorrow is Canada Day, so we get Monday off because us secularists insisted that if the whiny Christians got a day off extra when Good Friday and Excellent Christmas fall on weekends, then we want Labor Day, Boxing Day, Canada’s Birthday, Victoria Day, Remembrance Day, Thanksgiving, February Family Day or August Family Day – our choice , kinda, and tomorrow we are petitioning for St. Patrick’s Day as an accomodationist holiday, well, I am, anyways.*
So, perhaps all my fireworks watching compatriots are out stocking up on booze and getting good and hammered Fri. and Sat. and Sun. night and have hangovers.
In any event, where is everybody? Should we take over, or something?
* This is a reminder to all Christians that think that joke about April Fools Day being an atheist holiday is so fucking hilarious. April Fools is every day because, you fucking morans, secular holidays outnumber your fucking religious ones 7 to 2, FFS. Plus, because of unions, which are commie and therefore atheist, according to you, we also get 2+ weeks off every year for vacation, you fucking morans.
[A. R. spots mikmik’s attempt to foment rebellion, begins givingg orders to his underlings]
Weapons officer, obtain a target lock om mikmik and prepare to fire a high yield blast of LOLcats. Landing bays fifteen through one hundred, prepare to begin landing 50,000 LOLtroopers on the thread. Landing bays three and four, prepare the DOG-DOG landing barges.
mikmik:
Being Canadian, like Britishness or any other un-American activity, is against the precepts of the Reformed Eleventieth Church of Zombie, Scientismist. Repent and have your brains eaten, or else your brains will be eaten.
Yes!
I am . . .
𝕻𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖈 𝕰𝖓𝖊𝖒𝖞 № 𝟙
I really wish that Fraktur “y” had a more distinctly “y”-like appearance; else the word could be misread as being a term that is unfitting to my .
I am . . . 𝕳𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖎𝖆𝖗𝖈𝖍 № 𝟙 of (𝕭𝖗𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖔𝖘𝖆𝖚𝖗𝖚𝖘𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘) 𝕻𝖍𝖎𝖑𝖔𝖘𝖔𝖕𝖍𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖑 𝖅𝖔𝖒𝖇𝖎𝖊 𝕵𝖊𝖘𝖚𝖘𝖎𝖘𝖒 . . . !!
mikmik,
Thank you! I havent tried those out yet, but I will whenever I need to.
Currently i’m making do with   ;
That’s it, all landing bays, begin LOLtrooper and DOG-DOG deployments to the surface.
theophontes
*ahem*
——-
We have no holiday tomorrow but we will do a
twentyone bear-banger salute at noon.theophontes & chigau: Miserably sick. Argh!
Bush camp inter(mittent)net.
I’m pretty much limited to reading.
@ chigau
The video was “The Trial” by Pink Floyd. It is particularly relevant to as it has the judge wiggling his “pompous ass” (as the troll has described PZ et al) at the camera.
@ A.R
*cough*
theophontes: I’m working on a TZT page for the Pharynguwiki. I’ll try to post my draft version by tomorrow, and you can take a look.
theophontes & chigau: I’m feeling a bit better.
@A.R.
Did she turn you into a newt?
@ A.R
Keep well!
theophontes: Take a closer look at comment 121. Periods and address bars go well together, don’t you think?
Man, it’s quiet, too quiet. “Surveillance! Come in Orbital, repeat, come in Orbital. Anything to report?”
I can haz fuel and fresh catnip. I iz getting!
Surface station! Report!
“Iz study enemiez,“
Get back to your assignmentz! Ground Forces, come in Ground Forces. Cease training maneuvers. Report to Battle stations.
“Iz received, soon can haz. Iz over and out.”
Later…
“Oh, nozzzzzzzzz!”
I would like to thank our Overlord and the members of the TZT Politbureau for explaining the situation.
So maybe StevoR should have come here instead…
Happy Birthday Canada!
@ Pelamun
Big protest in front of our home….(HK)
chigau (違う), Happy 145, Canada!
Theo
what’s the reason this time?
@ Pelamun
Hu… in HK, handover, concerned citizens etc. The future looks disconcerting when activists die under unusual circumstances.
and since I was catching up on the Atheist community’s so-called Penisgate, I came across SA president’s very one PG. What say you about that?
@ Pelamun
I sent you an email. I’ll post a youtube link here when it is uploaded.
@ Pelamun
SA… Yeah, an artist did a painting of him with his “Umthondo we Sizwe” ¹
Re: Hong Kong Protests (link to my video clip) Low angle so you don’t see quite how big the crowd was.
actually yesterday there was a big demo in our state capital too: 1000 employees of a for-profit hospital concern were fired after they went on strike. Turnout was 3,500 people I hear (I had other engagements). Can post video as soon as it becomes available too ;)
Translation: Umthondo we Sizwe —–> of the nation.
oh the painting thing I heard about that I think. Didn’t know it had been dubbed Penisgate is all.. I mean didn’t he have a lot of scandals relating to his Umthondo we Sizwe, it coulda been anything ;)
@ Pelamun
Enough defiance for one day, I’m going to grab a cigar and double malt then call my yacht broker… ;)
@ Pelamun
He is always letting it do the thinking for him.(The whole point of the artwork if you ask me.) The dudebro is a a real dyed in the wool menZ. He would get hung drawn and quartered if he ever made it to this blog.
@ Theo and LILAPWL, I am thinking Red Hat, because Sys Admins are highly valued, earning about 50% more than Windows counterparts. This is my education goal, with a heavy emphasis on web apps and programming – db management.
I’ve run it long ago and found it quite comprehensible and useable as a desktop environment. Any warnings? My SSD is 111GB, and I have 50GB size for Win 7 so far, with all my data except for the App Data folder, om another HDD. That leaves ~ 20 GB free for Win7 to expand, but of course I want always at least 3 – 5 GB free space, and 36GB empty partition for Linux. This is more than enough, yse?
I know it’s unsupported – subscriptions are $349/year, and I can’t afford anywhere near that. Perhaps SUSE?
(I’m reading this: RedHat Enterprise 6 and Windows 7 dual boot, and have an image of Win installation on my second HD as backup, so no worries.)
Fack, SUSE is $$, too. Just go with Ubuntu 12.4?
Spain 2 – 1.
mikmik,
noooh, it should stay 1-0, because that’s what I bet in my private betting pool…
damn, there goes my three pts…
Rhinebeck!
The organizing committee of Mattir, Muse, and Onion Girl have meet and have begun to plan the Horde invasion of Rhinebeck. The best way to think of this is a mini-Horde con* that just happens to happen near sheep. You are welcome even if you don’t like sheep – there are plenty of things for you to do (maple sugar cotton candy for one).
Rhinebeck will happen from Friday, October 19 to Sunday October 21st. We will arrive at the hotel on Friday and have a Horde pizza party. Saturday morning will be a trip to Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool (or other activities as people want) then a nice dinner out at a restaurant on Saturday evening followed by debauchery as desired. Sunday we’ll have brunch together then get on the road.
Slightly differently than last year, we are going to make it an upfront cost that you can pay into over time, rather than having to come up with hotel costs all at once (and have us having to cover for the person who forget to pay their room cost). We are estimating that the cost is going to be around $350, although that might go down. That $350 will cover your room cost, the party room, pizza on Saturday and brunch on Sunday as well as entry into Rhinebeck and snacks throughout the weekend. Additionally, built into that cost is eeeeeevil socialism. We’d like to be able to support some people who would not otherwise be able to attend because of lack of money – so we’ve rounded that number up a bit (yes, if you can toss in a bit extra toward the scholarship fund we’d appreciate that too).
All of that said, we need to start figuring out who is going to attend. To that end, we’ve created an email address, a poll, and a paypal account. Mattir, Onion Girl and Muse all have access to all three. The email address is RhinebeckHorde at google’s email service.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ATTENDING PLEASE FILL OUT THE POLL.
If you have any questions, please email us.
*Yes, there will be a harassment policy. It will be made by radical, shrieking, feminist harpies and will be enforced by making sure no one has any fun (and sharp pointy sticks). No, you may not sexually harass the sheep.
pelamun, the Linguist of Doom, I was going to go 1 – 0 at first, also. 2 – 1 looked quite possible at the start of the 2nd, but what an unreal performance by Spain! To bad about your pool, wish it had gone 1 – 0.
Pity. I had hoped Smoggy would come.
true. there’s also cute fuzzy bunnies
will this include formal-ish clothing, like last year?
is that per person? as in: if I bring the boyfriend, will that cost me $700?
d’oh. oh well, if none of you sees this post, I’ll re-ask in e-mail.
mikmik,
at least I still got 1 pt for betting on a win by Spain
deephlat posted here:
I was hoping for a little more discussion on this question in that thread.
@Jadehawk – yes, officially, that’s right, it would cost you $700. But read again: there’s eeeevil socialism included in the scheming,
ok, thanks. I shall discuss with boyfriend, since with the train, that would be $1400 for the two of us. We might indeed have to take advantage of Teh Ebil Soshulizm.
What more is there to discuss? If determinism is true, our behavior can affect others’ and vice versa. One’s motivation for behaving a certain way doesn’t need to have anything to do with blaming people for thinking what they do.
X-posted.
The Ratlets Have Hit The Planet.
But the question is do you blame people for thinking/doing what they do?
[A. R. begins scheming to implant an espionage program into the ratlets’ brains to spy on their future owners.]
Jadehawk – Yes, fancyish clothing as defined by the wearer.
Sheesh. Totalitarian fascism: Yur doin it rong.
At the very least, Organizing Committee should be capitalized. But that seems insufficient, unless you tack on the historically ominous “for Public Safety”. Rather than the banal term “Committee”, consider “Ruling Junta” or “Tribunal”. Perhaps “Troika”. Or “Triumvirate” . . . (or, “Triumfeminate” (I see I am not the first to suggest that term)).
“The Organizing and Steering Troika for Public Safety and General Security and Sheep(le)”
Triumfuriate! (as someone suggested here)
“The Organizing and Steering Triumfuriate for Public Safety and General Security and the Protection of Sheep”
Motto: We Can’t Be Having With This
Owlmirror, you made me smile for the first time today (or at least the first time reading anything on FtB). We will work forthwith on making up some scarier titles and more onerous rules. Anyone who violates them will not get any maple sugar cotton candy. Or fluffiez.
@Owlmirror
Ow – don’t make me laugh. I have a sore throat. THE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE (one capitalization good, all caps better) is not amused?
Hey pitbull, if you are around, wondering what you think about the what I would call macro- versus microdeterminism divide ?
By which I mean that I see two types of determinism mentioned in the various books on the Free Will topic, one that stresses how our actions are determined by genes and environment (I have a small problem with that, there are 25000 coding genes and 10 billion neurons in the brain, obviously the genetic code only determines the size of the house, number of rooms etc., not the furniture or what goes into the cupboards), and then another that comes from the angle of how every atom in the universe, including our brains, is starstuff, and on an endless causal chain since the big bang (the “macro”-determinism). The latter I can get my head around, the former (and its moral imlications, or lack thereof) I’m having trouble with. Any thoughts ?
holy crap.
are they supposed to look so… unfinished? also, 12 rats? your cats are going to have a fit.
@ mikmik
Why not sysadmin on Ubuntu? It has a larger market share . Also, I would not make too much of the differences. I play pretty much as happily on Ubuntu as on PuppyLinux . Once you understand the essentials you are essentially there on any flavour.
Way more than you need. I suggest using the whole thing though (see below).
Just go with Ubuntu 12.4!
I highly recommend you go with my previous suggestion and commit fully to Linux . You can always add whatever different flavours of windows, redhat, suse etc etc on top of that by using a virtual machine. You have more than enough storage. Rather look at more RAM(I have 8GB, it is soooo cheap) as the virtual machines love their RAM. Also Ubuntu is very big on the cloud (and they give you free 2GB on the cloud gratis to play around with.
@ Jadehawk
Angoras? [whispers] Better keep quiet. Next we know, they will be appearing on teh anti-caturday post…[/whispers]
@ Caine
Conga… er …Ratlet Elations. In the interests of , you are hereby instructed to post a series of videos for the adoring myrmidons.
@ A.R
No need, ratties are committed allies of TZT. They are all happily ensconced in .
Jadehawk:
Yep. There’s a reason feeder babies are called pinkies. It won’t be long before they are looking like proper little ratties.
Going by Esme, you’d think birthing was the easiest thing on the planet. She stood up, started dropping ratlets, never made a single sound, whole thing from start to finish in under 40 minutes. I’m seriously impressed.
You should only do that if you want your Desktop to look like your phone. (one word : Unity)
rorschach,
Heeeee. It’s really simple to install Gnome though, and never log into Unity again.
+++++
Causal determinism and biological/environmental determinism. A few things come to mind, which I’ll post shortly.
I added another pic of the ratlets, you can see their bellies are full of milk.
Against the dread LOLstar . . . I choose WAR HEDGEHOG . . . . !!
@ rorschach/mikmik
Unity can take a little getting used to. It tends to assume you know what you are doing already. For this reason it is perhaps easier to go with the “old style” desktop, which has lists of menus. This is helpful as you get used to the system. If you want to go the old style route, consider Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu) which offers you various options for desktops (look at “Mate” and “Cinnamon”. I like Unity, theaphontes likes old style Gnome (on Ubuntu).
Stephen Colbert vs. Gay Oreos (as a set of animated GIFs)
rorschach,
Causal determinism (your macro type) is what I tend to talk about, because I’m interested in showing the consequences of the impossibility of ever having chosen otherwise, that is, the lack of standard/libertarian/contracausal free will. It’s a bonus that causal determinism is easy to talk about, and easy to misunderstand, but then the misunderstandings are easy to correct too.
Biological/environmental determinism is tens of thousands of interesting topics, none of which are relevant to standard free will. However, if someone believes that compatibilist free will is the worthy target, and believes that compatibilist free will is false*, then biological/environmental determinist arguments are a frequent means of arguing for its falsehood. That’s what Crick has attempted.
These sorts of arguments can be done well, but I’ve noticed that they frequently go off the rails. And when they do, they’re harder to correct. So we hear weird arguments sometimes that conscious planning has nothing to do with real decision making, because Libet, therefore no compatibilist free will. And weird counterarguments that because consciousness uses a lot of calories, it must have some impact on real decision making, so fuck Libet, therefore free will.
Well, that’s just the weird stuff. But it can get pretty ugly. “Biological/environmental determinism therefore no compatibilist free will” arguments for some reason seem to often turn toward fatalism, with claims basically that “therefore you are powerless” — which is just not true, but since biological/environmental determinist arguments are often very complicated, showing why they shouldn’t lead to fatalism (and are unsound if they do) can also be complicated.
That’s what springs to mind for me at the moment. If you want something more specific, please ask — otherwise, I’ll keep this in mind when I get around to answering old comments this week; I’ll point out when the distinction is relevant and say “rorschach” so you can Ctrl-F for it.
+++++
*Note this is different from my stance, which is that any well-formed compatibilism is of course true, tautologically true because it’s a redefinition of “free will”, and not usually a worthy target for taking seriously.
Baby war hedgehogs. [Cute Alert!]
Hmmm. I think this distinction is helpful, and I think I’ve been guilty in the past of conflating these two types of determinism.
Ah yes, thanks for taking the time to reply sgbm ! I am getting the feeling that in many arguments about the topic these two “types” of determinism are getting conflated and mixed up, and I wasn’t clear of what the background for that was, thanks for pointing it out !
That seems to make the lack of contracausal freewill dependent on macrodeterminism – and the latter is far from being established. According to at least some interpretations of quantum mechanics, it is false. If it is false, it is possible to have chosen otherwise – but that does not establish the existence of contracausal free will. The non-existence of the latter only depends on the hypothesis that our choices are always in principle analysable as the outcome of physical processes following the same regularities as in any other context: that there is no magical “agent causation” (and for that matter no agent) independent of these processes.
I don’t understand what the difference is supposed to be. For the former (if it’s genetics and environment), all you’re really doing is stopping at some arbitrary point before you get to the latter. Or I guess it’s more like leaving out parts of the environment which probably aren’t as significant.
I’d also say it’s harder for me to wrap my head around the idea of all the causes all the way back to the Big Bang (or earlier), but I guess in a way it might be easier to comprehend because it’s more consistent and less arbitrary.
I keep hoping that by this point the usual participants in the discussion are aware of the standard argument against free will, which has two prongs, one for the possibility of determinism and one for the possibility of indeterminism.
Colin McGinn: “The argument is exceedingly familiar, and runs as follows. Either determinism is true or it is not. If it is true, then all our chosen actions are uniquely necessitated by prior states of the world, just like every other event. But then it cannot be the case that we could have acted otherwise, since this would require a possibility determinism rules out. Once the initial conditions are set and the laws fixed, causality excludes genuine freedom.
On the other hand, if indeterminism is true, then, though things could have happened otherwise, it is not the case that we could have chosen otherwise, since a merely random event is no kind of free choice. That some events occur causelessly, or are not subject to law, or only to probabilistic law, is not sufficient for those events to be free choices.
Thus one horn of the dilemma represents choices as predetermined happenings in a predictable causal sequence, while the other construes them as inexplicable lurches to which the universe is randomly prone. Neither alternative supplies what the notion of free will requires, and no other alternative suggests itself. Therefore freedom is not possible in any kind of possible world. The concept contains the seeds of its own destruction.”
Only on the premise that a choice can be random and non-deliberate. I feel that is too contradictory of the commonly understood meaning of “choice”.
But in any case, it is impossible to have chosen to choose otherwise.
I liked the way I phrased it last subthread:
Since I just spent all afternoon collecting (and posting) quotes on this, I might as well put one here :
Or my favourite :
“Life calls the tune, we dance.”
John Galsworthy
rorschach quotes Richard:
Such inanity! Our brain is part of us, and consciousness is just another thing it does in addition to making decisions.
(Like saying the car doesn’t propel itself so much as its motor provides motive force, so the car doesn’t get to be proud of being motile)
So what?
In principle there doesn’t have to be any difference; it should be possible to discuss biology plus environment as causal chains of the fundamental forces, viewed at a particular magnification.
(I guess this falsifies my “none of which are relevant to standard free will” clause. It’s more like the wrongness of any particular argument about biology+environment doesn’t even appear to offer a glimmer of possibility of contracausal free will, the way that quantum indeterminism can appear to offer such a glimmer.)
+++++
Walton, I don’t remember if you’ve made bad arguments about this. I think you were clear in this comment, for instance.
+++++
It’s just really easy to make bad arguments at the level of the brain. But they aren’t all necessarily bad or irrelevant.
First, been there, done that = agree with consciousness razor.
Next, whether it was caused(determinism), or not(random), they did what they wanted to! Everything we do, it is always correlated to what we wanted to do, so even if it wasn’t a ‘free’ choice, it’s the one that they felt was best. It was their intention to argue for religion.
Therefore, their intent makes them culpable, and they would agree with this. It’s what they wanted to do.
Bonus observation: We evolved to feels these things; culpable, and to blame and seek retribution. It is how we survived as a social species, and therefore it is necessary to behave these ways. It is an, or even THE, way we protect ourselves and society. It is an inbred morality that is ethical to protect ourselves. Our deeper understanding of cause and blame, does not lead to necessary ‘abandonment of blame’ or the need to address anti-social behavior.
In my case, it is important and justified to argue with them and call them stupid, or in other situations, perhaps try to reason with them, because their religious viewpoint is dangerous to rationality and sensical decision making at election time, or in passing laws, or stoning people and calling them evil, and therefore, justifying their(fundy) amoral treatment and judgement of others.
As members of the same society, the two ideologies cannot co-exist constructively, and it is a choice between rationally justified behavior, and irrationally coerced dogmatism, which is anti-adaptable to change and reason.
Your inclinations, biological entities?
I am not a brain, I am an human being!
“Eloquent, maaaan!”
How can they be culpable for having this intent rather than another?
+++++
the Basic Argument, by Galen Strawson:
“(1) Interested in free action, we are particularly interested in actions that are performed for a reason (as opposed to ‘reflex’ actions or mindlessly habitual actions).
(2) When one acts for a reason, what one does is a function of how one is, mentally speaking. (It is also a function of one’s height, one’s strength, one’s place and time, and so on. But the mental factors are crucial when moral responsibility is in question.)
(3) So if one is to be truly responsible for how one acts, one must be truly responsible for how one is, mentally speaking — at least in certain respects.
(4) But to be truly responsible for how one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, one must have brought it about that one is the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects. And it is not merely that one must have caused oneself to be the way one is, mentally speaking. One must have consciously and explicitly chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, and one must have succeeded in bringing it about that one is that way.
(5) But one cannot really be said to choose, in a conscious, reasoned, fashion, to be the way one is mentally speaking, in any respect at all, unless one already exists, mentally speaking, already equipped with some principles of choice, ‘P1′ — preferences, values, pro-attitudes, ideals — in the light of which one chooses how to be.
(6) But then to be truly responsible, on account of having chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, one must be truly responsible for one’s having the principles of choice P1 in the light of which one chose how to be.
(7) But for this to be so one must have chosen P1, in a reasoned, conscious, intentional fashion.
(8) But for this, i.e. (7), to be so one must already have had some principles of choice P2, in the light of which one chose P1.
(9) And so on. Here we are setting out on a regress that we cannot stop. True self-determination is impossible because it requires the actual completion of an infinite series of choices of principles of choice.’
(10) So true moral responsibility is impossible, because it requires true self-determination, as noted in (3).”
That’s group selection.
That’s the naturalistic fallacy.
That doesn’t require that they be culpable.
The weight of nations: an estimation of adult human biomass
An interesting take. I am trying to reduce my contribution, but it has been a long, uphill battle.
War hedgehogs: I shall begin recruiting them at once. I believe a large bowl of worms should bring them in.
Colin McGinn through lipstick:
Seemingly random events may not be sufficient for those events to be described as free choices, but I don’t see how that automatically excludes them from being free choices either. Indeterminism simply means that events can’t be predicted. That they appear random. But just because some things appear random does not automatically mean that they weren’t freely chosen. Declaring such is simply an assumption based on lack of evidence.
————
Owlmirror:
But how can you know for sure that the choice is influenced by merely unknown randomness? It’s impossible to know that for sure.
Thought experiment. Let’s simply assume that free will exists and I have it. Each morning I am assigned to choose (out of my own free will) what a prisoner eats for breakfast, whether it be eggs, cereal, pancakes, toast, waffles, etc. The prisoner has no knowledge that a person is actually choosing his breakfast for him. For 10 years the prisoner keeps a log of what he eats each morning, and he finds no type of distinguishable pattern from my breakfast choices. From his point of view, the choices are completely indeterminent…random. So he concludes that these breakfast choices aren’t freely chosen by someone, but rather is the outcome of a pure random generator. Although it would be reasonable for the prisoner to conclude this based on his limited perception, he would be wrong.
So no, I don’t see how the existence of free will is “logically impossible”. To prove that it exists may be impossible, but not that its existence is logically impossible.
mikmik:
That just simply shifts the problem to being responsible for “wanting” something as opposed to another thing.
Translation, presuppositionalist mental wanking drivel.
@ A.R
I see what Owlmirror is up to. Subversion by Cute ™. That is really heinous maneuver. No wonder the monniker “Public Enemy #1” is so appropriate.
LILAPWL,
Why should I care what you feel? There’s no more contradiction in saying that a choice is random and non-deliberate (or that it is predetermined), and saying it is a choice; any more than there is between noting that my calculator’s workings are either determined or have random elements, and that it performs arithmetic operations correctly (within certain limits). These are different levels of description. Something is a choice (this is a sufficient but not necessary conditions), if a process of considering or comparing apparent alternative courses of action precedes it, and plays an appropriate causal role in bringing it about. No metaphysical commitment to the existence of spooks or magic is implied.
But in any case, it is impossible to have chosen to choose otherwise.
Sorry, the last sentence in my #193 was LILAPWLs, and I meant to answer it:
No, it isn’t. Suppose a smoker decides to give up smoking. They have then chosen that they will make future choices in a particular way. Then suppose they are offered a cigarette: it is quite possible that the prior choice to give up could have a critical causal role in making the choice on this occasion to refuse the offered cigarette, i.e., if they had not previously chosen to choose otherwise (and that might be determined, or it might be random, it doesn’t matter), they would on the later occasion have chosen differently.
@ KG
As we seem to have these running discussions going on across the eons, I’ll keep the matriarchal society one going too:
See? LOL, LILAPWL! You rock. (I’m not trying to butter up here, just that I like this talk)
You quoted an exact description of why I was arguing that our choices, and therefore our lives, have no meaning. I agree with the quote, and I knew that was a weakness to my argument. I also am a proponent of group selection, and I think everyone is except Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, but I digress(I’m also being sarcastic – I don’t know who is a proponent, just that I’ve read that most evolutionary biologists consider The Selfish Gene to be outmoded).
Yes, and I say we are responsible because, determined or not, we have incorporated our own generated thinking(creatively) in a way that another might not do. Others may, or will, arrive at different behavior impulses, so it is an individual mindset. I am only saying that another individual has a different set of circumstances, and therefore, different cause to act.
It is a materialistic aspect, but keep in mind, that our consciousness is a necessary part of the decision process, and the evaluation of all possible considerations, P(x).
The conscious process may well be determined, but it arrives at the best choice for fulfilling the entity’s desires(which may also be deterministically caused).
Now, and here I am going to invoke my ‘fundamental law of morality’, existence is preferable to non-existence, for non-existence has zero inherent meaning, or concept. Existence means only that you are present as an entity with survival needs, and this has meaning for other entities with their own survival needs. This concept construes meaning to everything in the environment of the individual entity, presence of food, etc.
Now, what I am getting at is that all our behaviors have a moral basis, the right to exist – because that is universally applied to one’s own state of existing in the first place, but not only do we recognize that the others have a right to exist, it is imperative that these existences do not conflict with each other. If one of them does, that violates the fundamental morality of existence v. non-existence.
So, sigh, even if the individual entity did not freely choose its behaviors, it must still be judged as either right, or wrong. And since it is that entity/individual that is manifesting the behavior, that entity is responsible for the consequences of its actions, in that those consequences would not exist if that individual did not exist.
That entity is behaving in an anti- or pro- social manner, and by valuing existence, that entity has accepted the realm of moral judgement, even if it meant to, or not.
Thus, for example, I may or may not be blowing smoke (and from my perspective, I’m not entirely sure myself;]), but it is my carcass that is doing it, no one else’s, and because I(my body) choose to exist, my body is responsible for its actions being here in the first place.
Then, your body/being/unit/brain is incumbent upon to judge my actions as right or wrong for the values that you possess (This is a point of weakness in my argument, perhaps!), for both of our value systems are in competition if they threaten one of us in one way or another.
This comes down to our individual meaning, and you have argued earlier that we do ascribe meaning to our own lives, at least, and we all also ascribe meaning to everything in our environment, as I have argued.
It seems to me, therefore, that we are right in protecting our own values by holding others responsible for theirs, which is a question of morality, or right and wrong, and must be treated as such.
(Okay, yes, I’ve kind of lost myself, but I hope you’ve understood the gist)
A person may not be personally responsible for choosing their actions, but they are personally responsible for having them. They want to be(or not to be, that is the question), and so they are forced to choose their presence and behaviors that they ultimately exhibit, and because awareness is part of this ‘decision'(our awareness is just a mechanism for impelling us to value existence), and part of every decision process we invoke, our awareness of our decisions is subject to the laws of morality.
∴, we are mentally responsible(by choosing to exist, which is a mental process and which then gives rise to all our subsequent mental processes) by being mentally aware, and thus, truly responsible.
How’d you like them apples? (LOL, that’s my signature phrase for my arguments from the idea that a fundamental morality exists!)
To the compatibilist:
Don’t overthink it. :) It’s merely a rhetorical device for explaining why “choice” is a bad term for random events.
There does seem to be more contradiction in the former, because, as you note:
“Choice” does strongly imply to most people that it’s caused by a deliberative process. But if a choice is random and non-deliberate, then any apparent considerations are in fact not causal. A random choice would be an unwilled choice; any corresponding will would come into existence at the same time as the choice, not preceding it.
A fully predetermined choice fits more readily with common intuitions about what choice means, since at least the causal role of a preceding will is there.
Okay, I can see how my previous wording would be misleading.
Granting the assumption that random events can be called choices, here’s a fix:
“For any particular choice a person made, it was impossible for them to have chosen to choose differently than they did.”
At the moment the smoker decided to give up smoking, it wasn’t possible for them to have willfully chosen to not give up smoking. And their decision can of course influence future decisions, but at any moment when offered a cigarette, if they don’t smoke, it wasn’t possible to have willfully chosen to smoke, and vice versa.
mikmik:
But we can’t “choose to exist” either. Again, you’re just shifting the problem backwards. If we have no free will, then we have no control over our actions, our intents/desires, or even our own existence.
I can tell you every reason I acted, and the thoughts behind that decision. I am conscious of this, and the intention is to promore my well being.
We do, because we do evaluate possibilities based on our ability to plan our future. But I agree with (8), here. We were only going to choose P1, but this is not 100% predictable before the decision to act is taken. Our decision is alterable by new information, which may be self generated, which still, in honesty, may be predetermined, and is, for the purpose of this discussion.
Non sequitur. It requires only one instance, which is not predicate only earlier events, only the ability at this one time.
This is an irrelevant argument. Everything after (3) is irrelevant.
– – –
How so? If everything is determined, then acting this way is determined, and that makes it necessary to behave these ways. I am not saying these are good or bad, but only in that they ‘are.’
I also do not commit the moralistic fallacy(I hope), because my system of morality derives from a physical fact, that non-existence is meaningless, and that existence has meaning, and that that meaning is expressed by the very process of evolution – that the organisms that survive, or exist, in a more co-operative manner with their environment survive, and thrive.
The mere fact of competition for survival based on limited resources underlies this.
! Maybe this is a moralistic invocation!
It is because of the laws of physics that abiogenesis and evolution occur, and this provides the framework for valuing existence over non-existence, for the simple fact that profligation is innate once self replication occurs, and in an environment of finite resources, and continued existence is ‘bequeathed’ contingent on survival.
It looks like now that I have to start considering ‘survival of what’, but I think this can be expressed as “survival of the individual long enough to reproduce” as a survival of the ‘kind’ , which is ‘species’, and the survival past reproduction in order to facilitate the survival of incident individuals, drives our desire to live longer and experience life creatively – survival of the ‘kind’, that of individual.
I don’t even know if I’m making sense – sorry. Even if I am, no doubt it has already been thrashed out by some naturalists somewhere.
@ life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ #197:
yes!
joey
Yeah, I agree. Never the less, it is a mental process that causes this desire to exist, and although that mental process is not chosen, it is a mental process.
That was my point, that introducing ‘mental process’ is redundant.
Bang. This zombie is splattered. Too bad there’s another one.