From the Thinking about Free Will thread:
If self is the [physical decision-making] system…and the system is all the component parts that collect sensory input etc…does that mean if I lose component parts of myself that I am no longer myself? If I lose my arms, eyesight, hearing, etc…am I somehow less of a self?
Which parts of the system are self and which parts aren’t? And why?
[Thanks to Alan Fox for asking questions about YEC and Elizabeth Liddle for her generosity in hosting this discussion]
YEC part 1 gave some theological and philosophical context to the case for YEC, and part 2 will hopefully focus solely on empirical and scientific considerations. Part 2 challenges the mainstream view that the fossil record is hundreds of millions of years old.
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While I do not accept Elizabeth’s analysis of what divides us, I do share her desire to engage in a manner that values dialogue over diatribe.
Elizabeth:
So how to heal the rift, rather than drive the Wedge in further? It was always part of my vision for this site that we would try to do the former rather than the latter. It’s not easy, and we have not always been successful. But I am not despondent.
I don’t believe the rift can be healed. I believe the wedge is being driven in by multiple sides and it’s not possible to prevent the various sides from taking swings at it and driving it in further. Claims of “she hit me first” are childish at best, and unproductive.
So how to proceed. Well, first, I suggest a mutual respect. I think the desire for this is expressed in the site rules, in which respect each other becomes respect the rules, because the rules are worthy of respect, because we are each worthy of respect. Is that circular?
Think before you respond. Do I have something of substance to contribute? Is it possible I do not understand? Am I sure I am not misrepresenting the opposing view? Reduce trollish behavior.
Seek to understand. Dismissiveness is not a virtue. What are the propositions? What is the argument? What is the evidence?
ok, so far i’ve probably not said anything that anyone can disagree with, lol! This demonstrates that I am never wrong.
I do believe that in a past life I suggested a “book swap” approach. You pick a book then I pick a book. That went nowhere.
So what interests the regulars here at TSZ? Is ANTI-ID the general purpose of this site? I have lots of anti-ID books. We could look at their arguments.
I can’t promise that I’ll have time to engage deeply in any given topic, but I did try to come up with a list of topics of potential interest:
Biosemiotics
Causation
Code Biology
Genetic Algorithms
Materialism
Organisms and Artifacts
Philosophy of Science
Scientism
Other suggestions?
Governor Shumlin (reluctantly) signs legislation to remove philosophical or “personal belief” exemptions from vaccination law.
A 2012 version had allowed parents to claim a philosophical or so-called “personal belief” exemption for their children but required the parents to review “educational materials” before claiming it. There was no way to enforce the educational mandate. There is no doubt that strategy did not work: areas of the state remain below 80% immunization rates necessary to protect the vulnerable population, those with compromised immune systems or too young to be vaccinated. Meanwhile the rate of philosophical exemptions filed by parents of kindergartners climbed from 5.1% to 5.9% in 2014, and dense pockets of vaccine non-compliance in some communities provide the ideal environment for an epidemic to take hold.
Vermont was one of the three worst states for cases of whooping cough. The record number of cases in 2012 should have been enough to get the 2012 bill turned around, but it wasn’t until the recent US outbreak of measles that the Vermont legislature took a stand for public health.
It’s important to note that Vermont still retains a “religious” exemption from vaccination, as do 46 other states, and medical exemptions as do all 50 US states. It doesn’t seem possible to predict parental response to vaccination requirements with regards to “personal” versus “religous” exemptions, but the data are certainly clear that allowing only medical exemptions gets vaccination rates up to 99.7%.
It’s nice not having measles in Mississippi. Now, maybe it can be nice not having measles in Vermont, either.
,
…in the beginning, God was no size at all. Because there was no Space. And no age at all, because there was no Time.
God just was.
And perhaps, because she was lonely, God grew.
And when God grew, Time and Space exploded into being.
Stuff at colossal temperatures shot outwards, clumping into clouds of burning
gas and splashes of red hot liquid. Suddenly God was everywhere, because there was everywhere to be.
And God called Time and Space her Universe.
[Alan Fox asked why I’m a YEC (Young Earth Creationist), and I promised him a response here at The Skeptical Zone.]
I was an Old Earth Darwinist raised in a Roman Catholic home and secular public schools, but then became an Old Earth Creationist/IDist, a Young Life/Old Earth Creationist/IDist, then a Young Life/Young Earth Creationist/IDist. After becoming a creationist, I remained a creationist even during bouts of agnosticism in the sense that I found accounts of a gradualistic origin and evolution of life scientifically unjustified.
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…How to have a conversation, (comments open).
I see out good friend whose real name shall not be used despite he himself perpetually linking to it on his website, KirosFocus, has written another copypasta filled FYI / FTR:
Look, KF, You’re clearly reading TSZ and would like to participate. You can have Admin privileges and start threads. The only thing you can’t do it edit, moderate them or delete them for reasons other than listed in the site. (It is better if moderators don’t moderate their own threads, IMHO).
It is my opinion that your FYI / FTR posts are a bad idea. Here’s why:
If your ideas are good, they’ll hold up under scrutiny. Exposing them to pointed criticism may help you refine them. A quick check shows non constitutional crises in a certain island that shall not be named, so it’s a great time to take the plunge, with a hearty “BYDAND!”
[title truncated by Lizzie]
A few years ago, there was an article in New Scientist by Dan Jones,entitled, Grand delusions: Why we’re determined to be free. It began:
IT IS the year 2500. Physicists have long had a Grand Unified Theory of Everything and neuroscientists now know precisely how the hardware of the brain runs the software of the mind and dictates behaviour. Lately, reports have begun to emerge that computer engineers at the Institute for Advanced Behavioural Prediction have built a quantum supercomputer that draws on these advances to predict the future, including what people will do and when. Trusted sources say that IABP researchers have secretly run thousands of predictions about citizens’ behaviour – and they have never been wrong.
Suddenly, deep philosophical questions are making headlines as commentators sound the death knell for free will. On the face of it, the consequences of proving all our actions are predetermined look bleak. Psychological experiments have shown that undermining people’s sense of free will leads them to behave more dishonestly, more selfishly and more aggressively. But perhaps there is no need to panic. Some philosophers have found that our sense of free will is less threatened by determinism than the commentators suppose – so even faced with incontrovertible evidence that behaviour is predetermined, we still see ourselves as free and responsible for our own actions. Nothing will change.
Who is correct? Will the public buy this reassuring message? Or will the manifest truth of determinism kill off belief in free will, taking down notions of moral culpability and punishment with it? Will nihilism, moral disintegration and anarchy follow?
I composed a response, which I ended up not sending, but sent to Daniel Dennett instead, from whom I received a very nice reply, in which he attached a relevant article he’d recently written, Some Observations on the Psychology of Thinking About Free Will. Here is the draft of my own response to New Scientist:
I repeat my invitation to Dr. Winston Ewert to join us here for discussion of several questions I raised. It helps immensely to display mathematical formulas, rather than talk about them vaguely. However, he has replied at Uncommon Descent, where that is impossible. I’m genuinely astonished to see:
The Wedge Document, which appeared on the internet in 1999, is a curious thing. I don’t want to discuss is merits and demerits in this post, but what it says about fear: on the one side of the wedge, the fear that motivated its writing, and on the other side, the fear of those who felt targetted by it.
Because even though the document itself has ceased to have force, the mutual distrust remains.
Dawkins was asked if seeing God would cause him to believe, he replied, in effect, he’d presume he was hallucinating. You can hear him in his own words at about 12:30 in the following video:
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