What is a decision in phoodoo world?

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This is a thread to allow discussions about how those lucky enough to have free will make decisions.

As materialism doesn’t explain squat, this thread is a place for explanations from those that presumably have them.

And if they can’t provide them, well, this will be a short thread.

So do phoodoo, mung, WJM et al care to provide your explanations of how decisions are actually made?

2,199 thoughts on “What is a decision in phoodoo world?”

  1. I think that one has to already be committed to a pretty demanding version of the principle of sufficient reason to think that there MUST be an explanation — one knowable by minds like ours — for why the universe as we observe and conceptualize it must have the properties that we can observe and conceptualize.

    It’s not clear to me, absent that commitment, why the universe isn’t just a brute fact with no further explanation.

    I myself have no idea what caused the universe or what explains it. That ignorance does not keep me up at night.

    I guess I’m saying that “why is there something rather than nothing?” doesn’t stir me in the depths of my soul as a particularly interesting question. Maybe I’m just shallow that way.

  2. Alan Fox: I’m not sure it would work for me. A God that can cure cancer overnight can also not inflict such apparent random suffering across humanity: not to mention famine, disease, poverty, insecurity, war.

    Baby steps

  3. walto: I probably should have said “any non-rodent that created the universe….”

    Rabbits aren’t rodents.

    And that’s the last sensible comment I can offer on this sub-thread.

  4. Kantian Naturalist: For me, the presence or absence of evidence has nothing to do with why I don’t believe in God. Then again, I don’t think it is irrational or contrary to reason to believe in God.

    per se it is harmless. And historically, and probably pre-historically, it was a sensible strategy.

    I think that a scientific metaphysics coupled to verificationist epistemology will get you as far as agnosticism. After that, it’s a leap of faith either way – into atheism or theism. But I don’t think there’s anything irrational about a leap of faith.

    Again per se I agree. It’s when it becomes a battle-cry to subdue, exploit and oppress the out-group that we need to be concerned.

    It is perhaps post-rational, in a sense — it is what one does after reason has had its say.

    I have no objections to anyone’s taking a leap of faith. Every individual has the right to determine for him or herself what she needs in order to find life bearable. But that right must be respected by all.

    Indeed. No more pitchforks, stakes and bonfires.

    If I, as an atheist, find that I do not need to believe in God in order to find life bearable — to endure suffering, find gratitude, work towards justice, share love, and express hope — then no theist has the right to criticize me for not sharing her beliefs.

    I envy those who have made a genuine shift of the magnitude of a belief in a deity to non-belief or vice versa. Peaceful coexistence is perfectly achievable.

    And the converse point also holds. I think the New Atheists (a term I actually don’t like very much) don’t draw the distinction in the right place. What really matters isn’t atheism but secularism — not metaphysics but politics.

    Gnu atheism doesn’t seem to appeal to joiners. And I am continually frustrated at the lack of understanding shown by fundamentalist theists regarding what secularism involves.

    If — as I think — reasoning is the non-coercive mechanism of social coordination and constructing collective actions, then the alternative to reasoning is coercion (ultimately violence or the threat of violence, whether backed up by law or not).

    I’m reminded of your remark about politicians.

    If, then, we want to curtail the role of violence in public life as much as possible — and that’s one way of expressing our collective commitment to the ideal of liberal democracy — if what we want is to reduce the amount of cruelty, humiliation, and unnecessary suffering — then we have a compelling reason to want our laws and policies to be what is justified by reasoning, rather than have compliance motivated by coercion.

    You might find it harder to convince others rather than me that liberal democracy would be a good style of government to try.

    Given that, then we have a strong argument that liberal democracies ought to have secular politics.

    Ought to go without saying! 🙂

    That does not mean that the post-rational is expunged, but it does mean that it is part of the private sphere. And that doesn’t mean that there can’t be communities of fellow worshipers, etc. — it means only that no beliefs, values, ideals, or practices that are post-rational may be legitimately coerced by the implicit or explicit violence of the law.

    True secularism guarantees religious freedom.

    And that rather little to do with epistemology and metaphysics. It is perhaps a reflection on what we ought to do as a society, given how little epistemology and metaphysics can do.

    If Hillary succumbs to pneumonia, who is going to oppose Trump. All it takes is for good men to do nothing. You were born in the US, KN? Your duty is clear!

    On the other hand there are those who want to reject all of my starting points because they want to establish that theism (or atheism) is grounded in reason. And if they were right about that, then they would have the right to insist on their theism (or atheism) in public spaces. Everyone would insist on their own theocracy or atheocracy.That’s not a recipe for a modus vivendi, but history is written by the victors, right?

    Rabble-rousing by appealing to the basest instincts has always been an easy route for dictators

  5. I’m still confused about the car-in-the-desert analogy. Is the desert supposed to be the universe prior to there being a universe? The car something, the desert nothing? So if when we see the car we infer something prior that explains the car being there we ought to also infer something prior to there being something? Is that the idea? Because it requires there being time prior to there being time and like flamadiddles. Don’t have that with sedans, thankfully.

  6. walto:
    I’m still confused about the car-in-the-desert analogy. Is the desert supposed to be the universe prior to there being a universe? The car something, the desert nothing? So if when we see the car we infer something prior that explains the car being there we ought to also infer something prior to there being something? Is that the idea? Because it requires there being time prior to there being time and like flamadiddles. Don’t have that with sedans, thankfully.

    Gods have universe factories.

    I guess.

    Glen Davidson

  8. Alan Fox,

    Two books that have shaped my thinking here are Big Gods by Norenzayan and The Necessity of Secularism by Lindsay.

    Norenzayan argues at length that large-scale permanent societies in which one must cooperate — that is, trust — strangers are stabilized by a shared belief in gods who watch what everyone is doing.

    This in contrast with hunter-gatherer societies, where the spirits don’t play an explicit ethical role; their function seems to have more to do with compressing important information into narrative form that can be transmitted across generations without writing (When They Severed Earth From Sky) and with regulating ecological relations (The Spell of the Sensuous).

    I think that Norenzayan’s work does a lot to illuminate the cognitive psychology of religious practice, and has some bearing on why religious attitudes tend to be weaker in societies with strong social safety nets and stronger in societies with more uncertainty and precariousness.

  10. walto: I bought one of those on Ebay. Didn’t work any better than the time machine.

    Should have tried Revelation.

    Doesn’t really work, but it certainly makes some people say that it works–again, and again, and again…well, you know.

    Glen Davidson

  11. God hypothesising always make me laugh. God wouldn’t need to create a universe if he could imagine one. Nor is there any reason to do either, for a God.

  12. Richardthughes:
    God hypothesising always make me laugh. God wouldn’t need to create a universe if he could imagine one. Nor is there any reason to do either, for a God.

    You know an awful lot about God-constitution, Richard!

  14. walto,

    I don’t believe that humans evolved from apes because of bacteria in a petri dish. I believe that humans evolved from apes because of my willingness to render unto scientists (who have brought me the internal combustion engine, the microwave oven, and the internet) that which belongs to them. I have no theories about this stuff myself.

    The theory says that humans and Apes evolved from a common ancestor. I used to believe this also based on the authority of science until I realized there are two distinct levels of science.
    !. Science based on hypothesis and repeated testing of the hypothesis.
    2.Science based on inference based on scientific consensus of the best alternative hypothesis.

    I have lots of confidence in scenario one and much less in two. Historical sciences more often fall into category 2.

  15. It may be a fact for you, phoodoo, that the universe is evidence of a god, but it’s also a fact you can’t explain how decisions are made in your universe.

    You lose this thread. Objectively.

  16. Richard, How can yoou tell that a maximal God wouldn’t create a universe if s/he could imagine one? Maybe benevolence requires the creation?

  19. walto:
    Richard, How can yoou tell that a maximal God wouldn’t create a universe if s/he could imagine one? Maybe benevolence requires the creation?

    A maximally great God cannot be motivated.

  20. colewd:
    walto,

    The theory says that humans and Apes evolved from a common ancestor.I used to believe this also based on the authority of science until I realized there are two distinct levels of science.
    !. Science based on hypothesis and repeated testing of the hypothesis.
    2.Science based on inference based on scientific consensus of the best alternative hypothesis.

    I have lots of confidence in scenario one and much less in two.Historical sciences more often fall into category 2.

    Yet you have lots of confidence in your bizarre dichotomy.

    Glen Davidson

  21. colewd:
    walto,

    The theory says that humans and Apes evolved from a common ancestor.I used to believe this also based on the authority of science until I realized there are two distinct levels of science.
    !. Science based on hypothesis and repeated testing of the hypothesis.
    2.Science based on inference based on scientific consensus of the best alternative hypothesis.

    I have lots of confidence in scenario one and much less in two.Historical sciences more often fall into category 2.

    I don’t consider myself sufficiently expert to make distinctions of that kind. My hunch is that you have ulterior motives for doing so.

  22. Richardthughes: A maximally great God cannot ibe motivated.

    I don’t see that. Just as God can’t make a rock too heavy for her to move, she can’t make what’s best not best.

    Not really that much fun imho.

  23. walto,

    I don’t consider myself sufficiently expert to make distinctions of that kind. My hunch is that you have ulterior motives for doing so.

    I agree we all are dealing with some level of cognitive bias. I am personally a theist but not a literalist and want to understand as much about the natural world as I can. I am a firm believer in the scientific method and had assumed that evolution was solidly tested.

    Initially my research started because I found unexpected problems with the theory and was trying to figure out why it was so widely accepted when its key claims (UCD) were not successfully tested like chimps and man splitting from a common ancestor. Through discovery I realized that Darwin used a different standard then I had used in the business world (the scientific method).
    Here is a paper that discusses Darwin’s methods.
    Van Fraassen’s Critique of Inference to the Best Explanation
    Samir Okasha*

  25. walto: I don’t see that. Just as God can’t make a rock too heavy for her to move, she can’t make what’s best not best.

    Not really that much fun imho.

    Felix culpa.

    The recognition that God can only be boring.

    Add in some sin, and things get interesting. Although, we still need to be saved from having interesting lives.

    Glen Davidson

  26. colewd: Through discovery I realized that Darwin used a different standard then I had used in the business world (the scientific method).

    Oh yes, let’s have the formula of business applied to science in order to determine what real science is.

    No Dunning-Kruger here, just someone who fails to understand the importance of inference, and how to test ideas in the historical sciences. Science begins as observational (not experimental) science, and making models based on inferences (notably, the spherical earth, then heliocentrism (now of the solar system)).

    Yes, you’re the one to tell scientists how to do science. Because you’re so ignorant about the matter.

    Glen Davidson

  27. colewd: The theory says that humans and Apes evolved from a common ancestor. I used to believe this also based on the authority of science until I realized there are two distinct levels of science.

    petrushka,
    Sure, but above colewd says he used to believe humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor. So what does he believe now? How did humans and apes come into existence? What specifically happened to bring humans into existence?

  28. walto,

    Why are people motivated? Some future state more desirous than the current. How does that work for God? An Atemporal one.

  29. OMagain: Sure, but above colewd says he used to believe humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor.

    He spent his life thinking he knew what science indicates about these issues.

    Then he read some pseudoscientists, and now realizes that he didn’t know, but now he’s a true expert.

    Funny how that happens. Science is easy when you just believe whatever some simpleton writes in a “critique.”

    Glen Davidson

  31. colewd: Initially my research started because I found unexpected problems with the theory and was trying to figure out why it was so widely accepted when its key claims (UCD) were not successfully tested like chimps and man splitting from a common ancestor.

    So, if man and chimps did not evolve what idea does the evidence support?

    Where did chimps and man come from?

  32. colewd: Here is a paper that discusses Darwin’s methods.
    Van Fraassen’s Critique of Inference to the Best Explanation
    Samir Okasha*

    Did you mean to put a link there?

  33. Richardthughes:
    walto,

    Why are people motivated? Some future state more desirous than the current. How does that work for God? An Atemporal one.

    I’ve tried pointing this out on a number of occasions to a variety of theists hereon, but none seem to really understand the implications or inherent conclusions.

    How could an omni – anything God ever feel anything? Ever want or desire anything?

    How or why could an omni – anything God ever care about anything?

    How could anything ever created by an omni – anything god be anything other than auto-deterministic – like a movie playing out that can never be edited while playing.

    None of the stories about any type of sentient God makes any sort of sense to me because they all attribute to god human-limited conditions that such entities could never actually have.

    To me, saying “Omni – something God” is no different than saying “nuclear fusion”. That’s about as close as I can come to modeling the actual characteristics, to say nothing of interpersonal skills and morality, an omni-god could actually have.

    As for the rest of the thread, I’ve come to realize that the term “immaterial” is, in the minds of theists anyway, synonymous with “magic”…

  34. colewd: The theory says that humans and Apes evolved from a common ancestor. I used to believe this also based on the authority of science until I realized there are two distinct levels of science.
    !. Science based on hypothesis and repeated testing of the hypothesis.
    2.Science based on inference based on scientific consensus of the best alternative hypothesis.

    I have lots of confidence in scenario one and much less in two. Historical sciences more often fall into category 2.

    You make an artificial distinction. 1 and 2 are the same thing, stated in different words.

    And by the way, the theory says that humans evolved from apes, and in scientific terminology still are apes. This is based on hypothesis and repeated tests of that hypothesis, which is to say on scientific consensus of the best alternative.

    Here is one simple test.

  35. walto,

    Van Fraassen’s Critique of Inference to the Best Explanation
    Samir Okasha*

    Did you mean to put a link there?

    I don’t know how using the tools. If you highlight and google search that paper comes up.

  36. walto: Did you mean to put a link there?

    Never mind, I found the article. The thing is, it’s an ATTACK on Van Fraassen’s complaints about inference to the best explanation. Here’s the conclusion:

    <

    9. Conclusion
    According to van Fraassen, when IBE is scrutinized carefully, its credentials are found seriously wanting. By scrutinizing van Fraassen’s own arguments, we see that this conclusion can be resisted. Van Fraassen’s point of departure was the ‘bad lot’ argument. That argument forced the defender of IBE to retrench, and talk the language of degrees of belief. Van Fraassen then argued that IBE conflicts with Bayesian rationality constraints; this argument was shown to depend on an idiosyncratic way of representing IBE in probabilistic terms. A better way was proposed: goodness of explanation is reflected in the priors and likelihoods needed to apply Bayes’s theorem itself. This proposal was defended against various objections. Finally, I noted that IBE can handle certain types of belief revision where conceptual change is involved that are notoriously problematic for the Bayesian.

    Of course, the foregoing analysis leaves plenty of questions unanswered. I have said nothing about what the relation of explanation actually consists in, and offered no criteria for ranking explanations in order of their goodness. It may seem surprising that a defence of IBE can remain neutral on such key questions. But van Fraassen’s attack on IBE takes no stand on these questions either, and my aim has only been to show that IBE can withstand the force of that attack. Darwin’s ‘method of arguing’ lives to fight on. [my emphasis]

    So is the idea that reading Okasha’s paper somehow led you to believe that van Fraassen’s critique was actually correct? If so, where do you think Okasha went wrong?

  37. John Harshman,

    You make an artificial distinction. 1 and 2 are the same thing, stated in different words.

    You and I have argued this before and I respectfully disagree with you. There is a distinct difference between testing a hypothesis and inferring it from data without the addition of a test.

  38. walto,

    So is the idea that reading Okasha’s paper led you to believe that van Fraassen’s critique was actually correct? If so, where do you think Okasha went wrong?

    Great question:
    The paper made me realize that Darwin used a different way to argue then the scientific method which I was used to. This made me understand the basis of the evidence around his theory.

    Inference to the best explanation is a valid way to investigate historical sciences where a repeatable experiment is difficult like chimps and man descending from a common ancestor.

    What we are missing is a tested mechanism to explain how this happened. I had assumed this mechanism existed and was very surprised when I found out we could not validate it through repeatable testing.

    Inference to the best explanation works well when the evidence is compelling. IMHO the argument we continue to have on this blog is based on contradictory biochemical evidence that has been surfacing over the last 50 years.

  40. colewd:
    John Harshman,

    You and I have argued this before and I respectfully disagree with you.There is a distinct difference between testing a hypothesis and inferring it from data without the addition of a test.

    Define “test”. Would a new analysis with independent data constitute a test? If not, why not?

  41. colewd: IMHO the argument we continue to have on this blog is based on contradictory biochemical evidence that has been surfacing over the last 50 years.

    When asked to supply this contradictory biochemical evidence you have presented nothing relevant.

  42. Alan Fox: The problem is there is still lively argument among cosmologists on scientific explanations so not knowing seems to be the only option, currently.

    Do you think that there is a lively argument among cosmologists as to why there is something rather than nothing? If so you have an inflated conception of what cosmology can accomplish

    peace

  43. colewd: I don’t know.

    Do you acknowledge that there appears to be some evidence that chimps and humans have a common ancestor?

  44. John Harshman,

    which is to say on scientific consensus of the best alternative.

    I realize there is no other detailed alternative and design is a limited explanation.

    When you look at the DNA differences between chimps and man there are 44 million differences. Vincent Torley tried to get a discussion on this in a previous post with no takers.

    When I looked at your 2008 paper there were inconsistencies with the common descent hypothesis which you surfaced. The biochemical data is continuing to reveal inconvenient truths.

  45. colewd: IMHO the argument we continue to have on this blog is based on contradictory biochemical evidence that has been surfacing over the last 50 years.

    What is it contradicting? Do you have specific examples? That evidence itself must be pointing at some conclusion? What?

  46. OMagain,

    Do you acknowledge that there appears to be some evidence that chimps and humans have a common ancestor?

    Yes. There is evidence that supports this which is 95% or greater DNA sequence similarities.

    There is evidence that contradicts this which is 2% or greater DNA sequence differences plus other biochemical differences like splicing and gene expression.

  47. walto: One wonders what you think the point is of these little tete-a-tetes. It’s just endless repetition at this point, no? I guess you must enjoy it. But really.

    No I don’t especially enjoy it and would rather talk about something else. The problem is that folks on the other side seem to be obsessed and keep bringing it up over and over again. I guess they are hoping that the answer will change

    walto: I’m curious, FMM. Have you ever convinced anybody of anything, anywhere?

    When it comes to this stuff it’s not my job or desire to convince anyone of anything. God does that.

    The purpose of presuppositionalism is not so much to change minds as to close mouths.

    peace

  48. colewd: There is evidence that contradicts this which is 2% or greater DNA sequence differences plus other biochemical differences like splicing and gene expression.

    So the evidence that chimps and humans actually evolved to be different from each other–as predicted by evolutionary theory once interbreeding is rare to non-existent–is evidence that contradicts common ancestry.

    Strange view of evidence.

    Glen Davidson

  50. OMagain,

    What is it contradicting? Do you have specific examples? That evidence itself must be pointing at some conclusion? What?

    Evidence like the existence:
    De Novo genes
    New Alternative splicing codes
    The emergence of new multi protein complexes
    The emergence of new biological systems like respiration, walking, seeing, flight etc. and the biochemical sequences required to implement.

    IMHO the strongest conclusion is design but I agree with almost everyone on this blog that the explanation only answers the first level how question. No one knows if the design inference is right how the design was implemented.

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