What is a decision in phoodoo world?

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. The idea that we ought to put less trust in paleontologists than in microbiologists is, so far as I can tell, a fabrication of creationists. There’s no warrant for it.

    The reason for that, however, is that from the disunity of sciences, it follows that there is no trans-scientific criterion of theory acceptability. What makes a theory rationally acceptable in paleontology is going to be different than in sociology or cosmology.

    The creationist chicanery here is elegant: since they couldn’t establish creationism as a legitimate theory by the standards of paleontology, they decided to impugn those standards altogether. (The strategy works for Holocaust deniers, after all.)

    (This is a sore-spot with me, since paleontology was my first intellectual passion.)

    The chicanery can also be detected by noting that it singles out those events that are remote from us in time but not in space. But a moment’s reflection indicates that this is inconsistent. Our knowledge of distant objects is just as mediated as our knowledge of past events. (Differently mediated, yes.) And if all mediated knowledge is second-class, compared to what is observable in the near-and-now, then we have shrunk our knowledge to suit our unaided perceptual and conceptual powers.

    It is hard to imagine a more extreme epistemophobia.

  2. keiths: That’s a robotic response, not an answer. You need a way to terminate the regress.

    why?

    what you call a regress is really a intensification

    God’s revelation is what is at the bottom of it all.There is nothing below it to appeal to

    The entire universe itself is simply God’s self revelation to himself.

    The entirety of cosmic history can be thought of as blessed eternal intertrinitarian revelation.

    peace

  3. newton: Well if God is truth, his revelation should be absolutely true

    Why? ever hear of progressive revelation?

    peace

  4. fifthmonarchyman: 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

    Since your answer to all questions is revelation ,it is hard to imagine you talking about something else that would not get back to revelation, for instance the Higgs.

    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.

    Exhibit A

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

    A noble endeavor, an open mouth is the devil’s workshop

  5. newton: A noble endeavor, an open mouth is the devil’s workshop

    Has anyone ever noticed that an open mouth is exactly the size and shape as a banana?

  6. John Harshman:

    Here you explain that nature + environment cause decisions. That’s a causal explanation that doesn’t allow for the third thing, free will. It’s straight determinism, denial that a third thing is possible. That’s in total agreement with the materialist determinists. Would you agree?

    No our nature is not a material thing.
    I am a determinist (we call it Calvinism) but I’m not by any stretch of the imagination a materialist determinist

  7. fifthmonarchyman: 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

    We were trying to find out phoodoo’s argument for why immaterialism about the soul explains how voluntary actions differ from involuntary actions.

    Still waiting on that, by the way.

    And then you asserted that reasons are supernatural. I suggested that that’s not true, because we can give a perfectly naturalistic explanation of what reasons are: reasons are non-coercive mechanisms of social coordination for arriving at collective actions. (That is, what we do when we reason is try to agree on what it is that we are going to do.)

    By all means, try to explain why the ability to reason requires an immaterial soul. I’d be very curious to see your response.

  8. John Harshman: Let me provide examples.

    Me: I will just ask you what is it about non-materialism that makes decision possible.

    You: A decision is a non-material thing. As is a reason

    The only thing your “answer” has in common with my question is the presence of the words “decision” and “non-material”. It tells me nothing about what makes decision possible.

    Sure it does, As I said decision is a non-material thing. Therefore there is nothing about non-materialism that renders decision impossible AFAICT.

    If you are suggesting that there is something about non-materialism that makes decision difficult you need to spell it out because it’s certainly not apparent

    peace

  9. Kantian Naturalist: And then you asserted that reasons are supernatural. I suggested that that’s not true, because we can give a perfectly naturalistic explanation of what reasons are:

    Is your explanation a reason?
    Is it materiel?
    If so where exactly is it located and how much does it weigh?

    peace

  10. fifth:

    If you are suggesting that there is something about non-materialism that makes decision difficult you need to spell it out because it’s certainly not apparent

    Good. Then it will be easy for you to tell us exactly how it works.

    Have at it. We’ve been waiting.

  11. keiths: Then it will be easy for you to tell us exactly how it works.

    I have already pointed out that one can not lay out a step by step process for something that is not algorithmic. To ask for an exact explanation is a category error

    This should be obvious.

    peace

  12. keiths:
    fifth:

    Good.Then it will be easy for you to tell us exactly how it works.

    Have at it.We’ve been waiting.

    It’s not FFM’s immaterialism inherent in Calvinism’s task to match your pathetic level of detail…

    …or something like that.

  13. Kantian Naturalist: We were trying to find out phoodoo’s argument for why immaterialism about the soul explains how voluntary actions differ from involuntary actions.

    Voluntary action requires a center of consciousness something that can decide.

    If materialism is true then there is noting but matter in motion at the heart of it all. There is no discrete continuous “you” to decide.

    peace

  14. fifthmonarchyman: As I said decision is a non-material thing. Therefore there is nothing about non-materialism that renders decision impossible AFAICT.

    If you are suggesting that there is something about non-materialism that makes decision difficult you need to spell it out because it’s certainly not apparent

    Firstly, we still have no idea why you or anyone else would think that decisions and reasons can’t be accommodated within a naturalistic metaphysics.

    Is it because we can’t see them and pick them up with our hands? Why is that the criterion? We also can’t take a credit default swap, load it in a pistol and shoot it onto a breakfast roll. Does that mean that the consistent materialist should deny that there are credit default swaps? If so, then there aren’t going to be many materialists working as hedge fund managers.

    My point is, you have an extremely limited — indeed, completely caricatured — conception of the explanatory resources available to naturalism.

    But your insistence that reasons must be supernatural is completely dependent on that caricature.

    Secondly, if you insist that there simply must be an immaterial soul — the kind of thing that can be constrained by reasons but not by causes — then you need to face the problem of how the soul can affect the body in order to do anything. Substance dualism turns mental causation into an utter mystery.

    Granted, I see no way that naturalism can resolve the hard problem of consciousness. That’s why I don’t work on consciousness. If I can help naturalize semantic content I’ll be quite happy.

  15. fifth:

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

    newton:

    A noble endeavor, an open mouth is the devil’s workshop

    And reason is the Devil’s whore.

    Shut up, stop thinking, and believe what you’re told. It’s what God wants you to do.

  16. keiths: We aren’t asking for an algorithm. Just an explanation.

    I want some pizza. I decide to stop at the local Pizza hut.

    My nature and environment work together to inform initiate and constrain my decision.

    next question

    peace

  17. keiths: And reason is the Devil’s whore.

    Shut up, stop thinking, and believe what you’re told. It’s what God wants you to do.

    No reason is God. You need to start thinking but in order to do that you need to shut up.

    It’s impossible to lean anything when you won’t be quiet for two seconds and listen.

    quote:

    “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
    (Psa 46:10)

    and

    Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud: “To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man. O simple ones, learn prudence; O fools, learn sense. Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right, for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteous; there is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are all straight to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge. Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. I have counsel and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength. By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; by me princes rule, and nobles, all who govern justly. I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me. Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver. I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice, granting an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries. “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. “And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death.”
    (Pro 8:1-36)

    end quote:

    peace

  18. phoodoo: You want the God to materialize before your eyes

    Didn’t he do exactly that when he sent himself in the form of his son and started to perform miracles? Or when he talked to Moses and many others long before that? Or do you believe all those things are just metaphorical and never really happened?

  19. fifth,

    what you call a regress is really a intensification

    No, it’s a regress.

    God’s revelation is what is at the bottom of it all.There is nothing below it to appeal to

    No, because the regress never terminates. There is an unanswered question at every stage of the regress: Is this a real revelation, or imaginary?

    Your presuppositionalism has no foundation.

  20. Kantian Naturalist: My point is, you have an extremely limited — indeed, completely caricatured — conception of the explanatory resources available to naturalism.

    Go ahead and enlighten me. How does a system that contends that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are results of material interactions. can explain how immaterial reasons can give rise to immaterial decisions.

    Simply claiming that you have a superior special nuanced form of materialism is not enough if you want me to interact with your brand of materialism you need to articulate it

    peace

  21. fifthmonarchyman: Is your explanation a reason?
    Is it materiel?
    If so where exactly is it located and how much does it weigh?

    In other words, you think that the only entities that materialism can allow are those can be loaded into a pistol and shot onto the breakfast plate.

    That’s confused.

    First, let’s distinguish between “materialism” and “naturalism”. I want to defend the latter, and not worry about the former. That’s why I insist that reason can be naturalized, without worrying about whether reasons are literally made of matter. (Whatever “matter” could mean in this context, since in one important sense, there’s no such thing as “matter”. The perturbations in quantum fields are nothing at all like very small rocks.)

    Naturalism starts off with a lean metaphysical commitment: to be is to make a difference. Nothing is real if it does not do something. (Already, note the contrast with “to be is to be the value of a bound variable”.) To that, we add the suspension of cognitive privilege: no one has the ability to peer through the veil of percepts and concepts and stare into the heart of noumena. But we are also finite, hence fallible. Our only hope of correction comes from other people (who are also finite and fallible).

    From these sparsely characterized resources, it follows that the confidence of our ontological commitments should track degrees of intersubjective confirmation. The wider the intersubjective circle, the more confidence we are entitled to that what we are talking about it real.

    The problem now is that even the most stripped-down elements of Christian doctrine — the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will — cannot withstand scrutiny on the widest scope of intersubjective examination, because it is trivially easy to construct rival metaphysical systems that are just as comprehensive and just as impossible to refute on their own terms.

    Once the mind is sensitive to the inability of reason to arbitrate between incommensurable metaphysical systems should conclude that when it comes to what we ought to accept as real, we must withdraw our intellectual allegiance from those entities only accepted as real by those who already share all of our assumptions about the world because they were raised as we were.

    In short, if there is any objective knowledge of reality at all, then it is only by virtue of intersubjective check-and-balances, within a community and across communities, synchronically and diachronically.

    That is sufficient to establish the only kind of naturalism that I aim to defend: the prohibition on ontological commitment to causal powers that cannot be identified with any spatio-temporal interval, since no claim about such powers could be verified by anyone who occupies a different spatio-temporal position than myself. This is the only criterion of ontological commitment that protects me (or anyone else) against self-deception.

    On these terms, naturalism is far more liberal and open-minded that the crude materialism that insists that someone isn’t real unless you can place it on a scale or pour it through a sieve. The reasoning here is that there are always multiple forms of intersubjective verification, and any ontological commitment is fine as long as it can pay its way by one of them.

  22. It’s impossible to lean anything when you won’t be quiet for two seconds and listen.

    Says the guy who robotically repeats “revelation, revelation, revelation…” and cannot answer the question we keep raising: How can you tell the difference between a genuine revelation and an imaginary one?

  23. colewd:
    John Harshman,

    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.

    What sort of discussion? Why would 44 million differences be a problem? (I think that’s a bit inflated, by the way. I know of only 40 million or so, 35 million point mutations and 5 million indels. Where does that count come from?)

    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.

    I don’t understand what inconsistencies you find in that paper. Could you elaborate?

  24. fifthmonarchyman: No our nature is not a material thing.
    I am a determinist (we call it Calvinism) but I’m not by any stretch of the imagination a materialist determinist

    I’m not in the least interested in distinguishing materialist determinists from non-materialist determinists. If you agree that there is nothing other than causation and randomness at work in human decisions, that’s enough for me. We agree that there is no third thing, whether the first two are contributed by brains, souls, or a combination. True?

  25. keiths: Your presuppositionalism has no foundation.

    how do you know?

    keiths: There is an unanswered question at every stage of the regress: Is this a real revelation, or imaginary?

    No there is an answered question at every stage.

    do you love me?
    yes look at the cross
    do you mean it?
    yes look at the cross
    can I know for sure?
    yes look at the cross
    will you always tell me the truth?
    yes look at the cross
    can I know this even if I’m unworthy
    yes look at the cross
    can I know this even if my mental faculties are deficient
    yes look at the cross

    etc etc etc

    It’s an eternal dialogue between the creature and the creator.
    Man and God in blessed communion world with out end

    amen

    peace

  26. fifthmonarchyman: As I said decision is a non-material thing. Therefore there is nothing about non-materialism that renders decision impossible AFAICT.

    If you are suggesting that there is something about non-materialism that makes decision difficult you need to spell it out because it’s certainly not apparent

    You mean something different by “decision” than do phoodoo and the others I was asking questions of. They’re talking about a decision that’s something more than the determined result of prior causes (and possibly some random element). I agree that determinism allows for decisions.

    I never said there was something about non-materialism that makes decision difficult. What I said was that there seems to be nothing about non-materialism that makes decision (in the sense of free will) possible, or more possible than under materialism. Since you reject free will, we have nothing to talk about.

  27. John Harshman: We agree that there is no third thing, whether the first two are contributed by brains, souls, or a combination. True?

    yep
    There is no un caused cause. Except God who is his own cause

    peace

  28. John Harshman: I agree that determinism allows for decisions.

    Determinism does allow for decisions, materialism does not allow for decisions

    What happens in these discussions that determinism becomes conflated with materialism and we end up chasing rabbit trails.

    like we just did 😉

    peace

  29. fifthmonarchyman: Simply claiming that you have a superior special nuanced form of materialism is not enough if you want me to interact with your brand of materialism you need to articulate it

    Step One.

    Here’s Step Two

    Let’s start here with my provisional characterization of reasons as non-coercive social mechanisms for coordinating collective action. There needs to be an argument against Platonism here, but the shortest way to motivate it would be to notice what we do when we reason, what kind of practice reasoning is, and under what conditions we engage in reasoning.

    If that characterization were in place, then there’s no problem for naturalizing reasons unless there’s a reason why naturalism cannot allow for social mechanisms in general. And the only reason why that would be the case, given the version of naturalism defended above, would be if it were impossible to intersubjectively verify the presence or absence of social mechanisms. In other words, if psychology and sociology were impossible as sciences, then sure. But we can and do recognize salient patterns of social interaction. Heck, even chimpanzees can do that. Reasoning is just a special kind of social interaction — one that produces collective action without coercion.

    In short, if reasons are non-coercive mechanisms for producing collective action then reasoning has been successfully naturalized.

    As I see it, the only real challenge for the naturalist in this arena is to explain why reasons are non-coercive mechanisms for producing collective action, rather than the non-coercive production of collective action just being something that we do with reasons but not what reasons are.

    And the explanation there depends on cashing out the idea that “reasons are non-coercive mechanisms for producing collective action” is a sentence rather like “temperature is mean kinetic energy” — it is an explanation, not piece of conceptual analysis.

  30. WTF, fifth?

    “Look at the cross” does not answer the question “Is this a genuine revelation, or merely imaginary?”

    Dear God,

    I’m begging you. Please send smarter theists to TSZ. Surely you can spare a couple, no?

    Please.

  31. Determinism does allow for decisions, materialism does not allow for decisions

    Says fifth, while offering no supporting evidence or argument.

    Please, God.

  32. Kantian Naturalist: There needs to be an argument against Platonism here,

    you bet there does

    Kantian Naturalist: but the shortest way to motivate it would be to notice what we do when we reason, what kind of practice reasoning is, and under what conditions we engage in reasoning.

    When I take notice of reason nothing material presents itself at all.

    In fact I would assume that the vast majority of mankind would join me in putting reason and the results of material interactions in two entirely different and possibly apposing buckets

    think “mind over matter”

    Kantian Naturalist: And the only reason why that would be the case, given the version of naturalism defended above, would be if it were impossible to intersubjectively verify the presence or absence of social mechanisms.

    I would argue that intersubjectivity is impossible given materialism.

    minds are not matter

    Kantian Naturalist: In short, if reasons are non-coercive mechanisms for producing collective action then reasoning has been successfully naturalized.

    Coercion or lack thereof only makes sense in the immaterial realm. You don’t coerce or a rock or a computer indeed you can’t.

    peace

  33. Kantian Naturalist: Here’s Step Two

    you need to get past step one first.

    Just a hint this is the internet not a classroom lecture or journal paper.

    short and to the point with discussion works best

    peace

  34. fifthmonarchyman: Just a hint this is the internet not a classroom lecture or journal paper.

    Constructing actual explanations of a phenomenon that are complex enough to deal with objections is much harder than just saying “revelation! revelation!” like a well-trained parrot.

  35. keiths: “Look at the cross” does not answer the question “Is this a genuine revelation, or merely imaginary?”

    Keith I don’t believe you are really this clueless

    Is this a Is this a genuine revelation?
    yes look at the cross
    Is this for sure something other than my imagination
    yes look at the cross

    etc etc

    peace

  36. fifthmonarchyman: Coercion or lack thereof only makes sense in the immaterial realm. You don’t coerce or a rock or a computer indeed you can’t.

    Can dogs coerce each other? What about cats? Or chimps?

    Again you insist on the crudest possible examples for your objections instead of actually thinking about what naturalism is actually willing to allow.

    That is not arguing in good faith.

  37. Kantian Naturalist: Constructing actual explanations of a phenomenon that are complex enough to deal with objections is much harder than just saying “revelation! revelation!” like a well-trained parrot.

    why not wait for the objection before you try and deal with it?

    It’s called communication.

    peace

  38. fifth:

    Keith I don’t believe you are really this clueless

    Heh.

    Is this a Is this a genuine revelation?
    yes look at the cross
    Is this for sure something other than my imagination
    yes look at the cross

    etc etc

    Is Barack Obama the Antichrist?
    yes look at the cross
    Is this a genuine revelation?
    yes look at the cross
    Is this for sure something other than my imagination
    yes look at the cross

    etc etc

    What were you saying about cluelessness, fifth?

  39. Kantian Naturalist: Can dogs coerce each other? What about cats? Or chimps?

    I don’t think so.

    You would have to make an argument that these things have a mind rather than just a brain.

    If you could do that then we would no longer be talking about materialism so it would defeat the purpose

    peace

  40. KN, to fifth:

    Constructing actual explanations of a phenomenon that are complex enough to deal with objections is much harder than just saying “revelation! revelation!” like a well-trained parrot.

    Even parrots are smart enough to mix it up once in a while.

  41. keiths: Is Barack Obama the Antichrist?

    FMM Really is that what occupies your mind? Barack Obama is perhaps an antichrist but I doubt he is the Antichrist
    Keiths how do you know?
    FMM

    quote:

    For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.
    (2Jn 1:7)

    and

    quote:

    “More than 2,000 years ago, a child was born to two faithful travelers who could find rest only in a stable, among the cattle and the sheep. But this was not just any child. Christ’s birth made the angels rejoice and attracted shepherds and kings from afar. He was a manifestation of God’s love for us”

    end quote:

    Barack Obama

    peace

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