Until we plumb those depths, our opinions about "morality" are just blind, self-serving prejudice.
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Link: https://samharris.org/the-illusion-of-free-will/
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Seems to me that if we believe we have no free will, the entire concept of punishment as a tool of the law to get people to behave goes out the window.
I've always thought that even if we don't have free will, it is more useful to think that we do have it, because if we stop treating people as if they have free will (and if we stop holding people responsible for their actions as if they chose to perform those actions), then they will start acting more irresponsibly, and the well-being landscape will recede or devalue.
Or is it Cheeks that has decided not to believe in free will?
1) There is free will, and I decide to believe in it.
2) There is free will, but I decide not to believe in it.
3) There is no free will, but I "decide" to believe in it.
4) There is no free will, and I "decide" not to believe in it.
I believe in free will, so it is either option 1 or 3 for me. Option 1 is great, because I will be right if that is the case. But, suppose there is no free will? It seems preposterous to encourage belief in something that does not exits, right? But, what if you can maximize well-being by doing so?
Back when I was an atheist, I decided that it didn't matter whether or not free will actually existed. It just seemed apparent to me that society was better off if people as a whole believed that free will existed. I tend to think that my personal well-being curve is maximized by believing it does exist. And, I thought, the overall well-being landscape of society (the aggregate of all indivdidual well-being curves) would also be maximized by such a belief.
Granted, I only got through a few paragraph's of the guys blog post while waiting in line to vote. He may yet change my mind by the time I reach the end.
(I am with you incidentally, but this is based on your option 3)
According to option 3, we allegedly do not have free will because our brains are wired to react in a set of ways to incoming sensory data. The wiring of our brains include whatever our beliefs are - they act as the ultimate black box processors for generating actions based at least in part on our sensory input. I find it amusing that our belief in free will must necessarily affect how we generate actions in response to sensory input. In other words, we were pre-wired to get that subject wrong in the first place, and yet it has created a higher level filter that is affecting our actions.
Put more bluntly, even if free will does not affect our actions, our belief in free will does. A gnostic view of free will, if you will. Or a Jorge Borges story waiting to be written.
Saying that there is no free will, and then discussing that we shouldn't tell (that is, we should decide not to tell) children that because it will affect their choices...that is kind of comical.
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Should I kill this frog? Yes, I always have fun when I do that! But you'll drown? No I won't, I have this under control.
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Link: https://samharris.org/life-without-free-will/
He talks a lot about external factors/urges/desires, the origins of which are complex or unknown, but which influence our acts. OK. But, none of those things are evidence that no free will exists. Those things are the inputs upon which free will works. Free will is the function performed in our brains, in response to those stimuli. The presence of stimuli, even a great many stimuli from unknown source, do not nullify the choices made based on those stimuli.
People don't just become pediatric surgeons without making a choice to do embrace urges, or embrace the benefits in face of hard work. We are not slaves to urges. We either embrace them, or reject them. He did not sell me at all with that example at all.
He argues that because there are unexamined lives that occur, then free will does not exist for anyone. But, there are people who live an examined life, and who weigh options, and who change course after agonizing internal and external debate. Just because some people float downstream without paddling does not mean that paddles do not exist.
As I said in my other post, when I was an atheist, I believed it was best to believe in free will, even if free will did not exist. It was best for society, and for other individuals, as that belief would change their actions for the better, and we would all benefit. But isn't that line of reasoning some evidence for free will? If people's decisions change based on whether they decide to believe in free will or decide to disbelieve in free will, doesn't that mean a choice has been made after consideration of the situation then at hand? Kind of funny to say that there is no free will, so choices cannot be made, but that maybe we should decide to teach kids that free will exists, so that they will make good choices when they grow up. That's pretty much what he said. How can he say there is no free will when he gives advice regarding choices?
He says, "Understanding [that there is no free will] shouldn’t...tempt us to [decide to] go off our diets." That seems a crazy thing to say. How could we decide to go off of our diets because we decide that there is no free will...there is no free will to allow such a decision. And, for him to advise us as to whether or not a fact should cause us to decide one way or the other is comical...given that he believes we have no ability to make the decision he advises of us.
Or more accurately, by making a choice you create a new iteration of the universe. Enter the multiverse theory...
Even though it has little to do with his thesis, I found his assumptions regarding how we'd view the stabby guy at trial and the bear in the zoo differently. That is based on our expectations of animal behavior. We expect humans to act differently than bears. And for that matter, I might hate the fucking bear anyway. If I am not a threat or food, the fuck him.
As I said, though, that's not really his thesis. That is more along the lines of demonstrating how silly we are for believing in free will (stabby guy has it, bear doesn't, in our weak superstitious minds). What examples he does give, that of becoming a surgeon, is wanting.
I should have known better.
I don't know what TED is, exactly, but my impression is that it is something to avoid. It's like Scientology, right?
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Diversity of topics is overrated.
The Outfield.
Your Love.
And I think I speak for the rest of the country when I suggest that such things should stop.
There is (NY) pizza, and then there are other, semi-related meals, some of which are edible, but none of which are pizza.
I hate to say it, but the best pizza I've ever had in my life was an anchovy pizza in an Italian restaurant in Berlin.
But my wife and I are all in and still have it sent to us frozen. Provel cheese is a marvel of science, who does not want processed cheese on crispy toast
It goes great with a budweiser and the cardinals playing on TV. There's no other way to experience it properly, IMO.
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I'm admittedly biased, but a large Imo's with sausage, mushrooms, onions and jalapenos is badass. The crispy crust is a very nice texture that lets the flavors of the sauce and toppings come through, and the lighter nature of it lets it pair well with heavier beers that may be "too much" with a thick-doughed pizza.
The thin crust is good, but not that unique.
Thick crust pizza sucks ass. It is invariably coupled with too much tomato sauce. I'm looking at you, Chicago-style pizza.
But I enjoy just a simple pepperoni Imo's, too.
Jet's is Detroit style.
I never knew that.
The low rent version is Little Caesars.
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But the D is not really a pizza town like NYC or Chicago
A local place defines these three styles that they offer as follows:
New York Thin Crust
Thin, but not razor thin, ask for extra thin if you like your pizza real thin.
Chicago Deep Dish
Thick & bready, with a big lip to hold everything in. A little cornmeal in the dough makes for a hearty crust.
Detroit Deep Dish
Thick & bready, NO LIP. Cheese all the way to the edge of the pan so the crust caramelizes.
Of the three I prefer the Detroit style at this particular joint.
I enjoy all types, but if I could only choose one pizza, it would be a margherita style on a cracker thin crust. If you're ever in Iowa though, get a pizza from a convenience store called Casey's, they are everywhere. It's simple, not fancy; made from scratch and just simply good. It exemplifies what it means to be an Iowan really.
Also lots of pepperoni.
Squares.
Sorry. Had to be done. It was just hangin' out there, incomplete.
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Because he said "I am not saying that we’ll have science that can answer every conceivable moral question". His point is, in my understanding, don't exclude science when we talk about moral issues because some moral issues can be explained by science. If it is his point, I agree with him. But for a few fundamental, universal moral values, can science explain them? I doubt about it. science is about fact, a "is" issue, morality is about value, a "ought" issue. You can't derive "ought" from "is". 300 years' old Hume's law will still be valid.
My answer is: Probably
The problem with no universal values is that if there’s no single acknowledged definition of value, i.e. if people have different views on every value, there is no way for science to do experiment to prove whose result is right and whose result is wrong.
He wants to do away with the "who are we to judge" attitude that allows good people to stand by and do nothing while other people (good intentioned or bad intentioned) do bad things to harmed people.
I get that. But, his viewpoint, employed by power hungry people, can be as dangerous as the live-and-let-live attitude he is fighting against.
The key for him is the maximization of the well-being curve, which he thinks can be objectively measured (thus, "science"). But, it may be objectively measured only to a point. There is a significant "moral uncertainty principle" which kicks in, and that is the intrinsic value of individual freedom. For me, I think there are two factors to maximizing the well-being curve: both kindness/goodness, and freedom. The moment I start substituting my perception of well-being for another person's perception of well-being, and forcing them into a so-called well-being curve of my own construction and not theirs, I open the door to despotism and great human suffering. Obviously he doesn't want that, but that is the side risk to his premise that "it is ok to judge."
He says, it seems clear that it is not helpful to a child to have a teacher beat him with a stick in Mississippi. Maybe there are 2% of outcomes that could be argued in a positive light from that treatment. So maybe we should say, No, it is not ok to let teachers perform corporal punishment in schools.
We shouldn't let fears of a nanny state keep us from fixing some obvious problems. Just because we don't want the government to outlaw having more than 2 beers at a tailgate (after all, it's much healthier not to drink 11 beers), doesn't mean we shouldn't outlaw some "religious" practices like genital mutilation.
A preference for chocolate over vanilla ice cream is a natural phenomenon, as is a preference for the comic Sarah Silverman over Bob Hope. Are we to imagine that there are universal truths about ice cream and comedy that admit of scientific analysis? Well, in a certain sense, yes. Science could, in principle, account for why some of us prefer chocolate to vanilla, and why no one’s favorite flavor of ice cream is aluminum. Comedy must also be susceptible to this kind of study. There will be a fair amount of cultural and generational variation in what counts as funny, but there are probably basic principles of comedy — like the violation of expectations, the breaking of taboos, etc. — that could be universal. Amusement to the point of laughter is a specific state of the human nervous system that can be scientifically studied. Why do some people laugh more readily than others? What exactly happens when we “get” a joke? These are ultimately questions about the human brain. There will be scientific facts to be known here, and any differences in taste among human beings must be attributable to other facts that fall within the purview of science. If we were ever to arrive at a complete understanding of the human mind, we would understand human preferences of all kinds. Indeed, we might even be able to change them.
However, morality and values appear to reach deeper than mere matters of taste — beyond how people happen to think and behave to questions of how they should think and behave. And it is this notion of “should” that introduces a fair amount of confusion into any conversation about moral truth. I should note in passing, however, that I don’t think the distinction between morality and something like taste is as clear or as categorical as we might suppose. If, for instance, a preference for chocolate ice cream allowed for the most rewarding experience a human being could have, while a preference for vanilla did not, we would deem it morally important to help people overcome any defect in their sense of taste that caused them to prefer vanilla — in the same way that we currently treat people for curable forms of blindness. It seems to me that the boundary between mere aesthetics and moral imperative — the difference between not liking Matisse and not liking the Golden Rule — is more a matter of there being higher stakes, and consequences that reach into the lives of others, than of there being distinct classes of facts regarding the nature of human experience.
Science, and me, can tell you why "Chicago style" is the aluminum ice cream of the pizza universe.
And science can tell us what's wrong with you.
He definitely is saying that there are clear issues that all moral beings should be able to agree upon. Honor killings of family members who did nothing wrong? We can agree that's wrong...only, we can't all agree that its wrong, because people still do it and they think they are right. His point is that even if we can't all agree, we still don't have to respect their opinions, because a substantial majority can recognize that they are wrong and the minority view should be suppressed. I think that is clear for some things, such as consequential acts (acts which have physical effects on people...like honor killings). It is less clear on non-consequential acts (having kids spend 8 hours a day memorizing the Koran). He might argue that having them do that stunts their well-being curve...and he may be right. But freedom is what prevents us from imposing our view on others. He is arguing that freedom should not trump all things, and prevent us from stopping evil. I agree. The issue is where do you draw the line. Does he draw the line in a different place than I do? Does Obama draw the line in another place, and Trump in another, and Hitler in another? Obviously. Do we just defer to majority rule? That can be very oppressive...in fact, majority rule leads to some of the oppressions he names.
Yes, the extremes can be condemned, and freedom can sometimes be sacrificed in favor of promoting good (imposition of good in violation of people's wishes). Yes, there is a reasonable middle ground, in which freedom should not be sacrificed even for more supposed good. And yes, there are people who will use his "I can judge" paradigm to do good, and there are people who will use that paradigm to do evil in the name of doing good.
If he is arguing that we need not let the gray areas block us from taking action when things are black and white (and I think he is arguing that), then I agree. But, constant vigilance is required, to watch for people who would, for example, infringe on parenting rights just because they claim to know better, when in fact they may not know better, even though they may have the power of the state or a majority of the population behind them.
Here is his brief summary of his book called "The Moral Landscape".
Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds — and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe. Conscious minds and their states are natural phenomena, of course, fully constrained by the laws of Nature (whatever these turn out to be in the end). Therefore, there must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science. On this view, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life.
I posted this brief 20 minute preview of his ethos to provoke thought and I am pleased that a few are more interested in this topic than what a detroit style pizza is. I get the sense that in the minds of most on this forum, the question of "who will win the midterms?" is far more important than "can science define morality?".
I wish I knew the thesis sentence going in.
I and my kids have gone to school in those states all of our lives. I've never heard of anyone being disciplined the way he says is allowed.
Back in the day (decades ago), I went to an all boys Catholic high school, and I definitely saw teachers (all male) use physical punishment on students (all male). It was a different environment...tougher. And yet, I can count the "corporal punishment" instances on one hand (hard punch to the arm of a smart ass student, throwing a book at a student's head who was sleeping in class, grabbing a shirt/backpack and pulling, squeezing a hand to cause pain). In Catholic elementary school, I received a firm swat to my open palm with a ruler from a nun (as did everyone else in the class for a group offense). No one was ever formally beaten. He describes something that I've just never see happen, even in schools famous for such discipline. I can't imagine it happening in a public school. Anyone else ever see what that guy describes as being allowed?
It was like being taught by the Hansen Brothers.
If you fucked with them, they would wreck you.
Meanest mo fo’s I ever dealt with. But you respected them.
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I started typing up some thoughts, but perhaps that is better done with some sleep.