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The Moral Landscape is a such dismal book that taking shots at it is like shooting fish in a barrel, a feat even a fundie godbot like Mary Ann can manage.
I just don’t follow a lot of what’s posted in here, and the “free will” schtuff is pretty inconsequential to me so I generally don’t read these topics.
Nice! I only read the exert from Sam’s Freewill and that was so bad, like TML, that I had no interest in reading anymore. But hey what do I know Sam was voted as one of the top 5 minds in human history by posters here…......
Not at all. I do have respect for someone capable of taking down her opponent the way she did. Harris’ response was to delete hundreds of posts written by thoughtful people who’d spent considerable time responding to his request for their opinions. What a great thinker. Right.
Rather than fruitlessly arguing about whether or not Harris’ take on free will is correct, it might make sense instead to wonder about Harris’ and others’ goals in their arguments. People don’t write books just to make points out of context with real-world goals, fears and emotion-based views. I can think of some valuable reasons to pronounce the death of free will. How about you? If I only get cricket chirps, I’ll try to return to this question later with some of my personal opinions on the matter.
I’ll be interested to see what you come up with. It doesn’t seem to make a difference one way or the other to me, except maybe in determining whether someone deserves to be punished. But whether someone deserves to be punished is a separate issue from whether someone should be punished.
If I have free will then I deserve to be punished because I’m morally culpable for my bad behavior.
If I have no free will then I should be punished as a deterrent to my own future bad behavior, and as a deterrent to others who also have no free will and whose future behavior will therefore be influenced by the threat of the same punishment.
Not at all. I do have respect for someone capable of taking down her opponent the way she did.
Every dog has it’s day.
Harris’ response was to delete hundreds of posts written by thoughtful people who’d spent considerable time responding to his request for their opinions.
Not his day.
What a great thinker. Right.
One of the top 5 in human history according to some
A great philosopher Sam is not. He’s a populist rabble rouser with a certain gift for rallying an audience. I thought The End Of Faith was a worthy read because of its sheer chutzpah. The work since then has been uninteresting (and in the the case of TML seriously inaccurate)
But I’m not down on the guy. I met him and chatted briefly. I believe that he acts with sincerity. I like that he provokes controversy and dialogue and gives young atheist ladies someone to swoon over. I respect that he gets his ass out of the house and puts his neck on the line for something important. Even if he commits the odd fallacy while doing so. He is sticking the red poker up the right asses and I would NEVER want to do or say anything to discourage that.
I look at it like this. Different demographics consume different products. Pop philosophy has its niche and its a valid one. With luck many sharp young adults will find a gateway drug to the heavier reading.
A great philosopher Sam is not. He’s a populist rabble rouser with a certain gift for rallying an audience. I thought The End Of Faith was a worthy read because of its sheer chutzpah. The work since then has been uninteresting (and in the the case of TML seriously inaccurate)
That’s been my view for many years now.
But I’m not down on the guy. I met him and chatted briefly. I believe that he acts with sincerity. I like that he provokes controversy and dialogue and gives young atheist ladies someone to swoon over. I respect that he gets his ass out of the house and puts his neck on the line for something important. Even if he commits the odd fallacy while doing so. He is sticking the red poker up the right asses and I would NEVER want to do or say anything to discourage that.
Sure, but I would guess he gets compensated pretty well.
I look at it like this. Different demographics consume different products. Pop philosophy has its niche and its a valid one. With luck many sharp young adults will find a gateway drug to the heavier reading.
The problem is that he has become popular enough, the horsemen and all that, that when he says something stupid it has a bigger negative effect on atheist community at large.
Rather than fruitlessly arguing about whether or not Harris’ take on free will is correct, it might make sense instead to wonder about Harris’ and others’ goals in their arguments.
Are you saying we should look at goals before we decide if we like facts?
nv - 04 April 2012 01:42 PM
People don’t write books just to make points out of context with real-world goals, fears and emotion-based views. I can think of some valuable reasons to pronounce the death of free will. How about you? If I only get cricket chirps, I’ll try to return to this question later with some of my personal opinions on the matter.
None of us choose the bodies we are in, or the series of events that made us who we are. Open disdain of others is widely accepted due to this ingrained and misguided notion of free will. It justifies cruel prison conditions and jaded attitudes toward helping others. Because the common notion of free will is clearly a false belief, Sam Harris is performing an important function through marketing his book to a wide audience and changing beliefs of people who may not have thought of the issue much. So yes, I believe pronouncing “free will is dead” is a good thing.
Are you saying we should look at goals before we decide if we like facts?
I recommend you reread what I’ve actually said in this thread.
Jeff M - 05 April 2012 02:14 PM
None of us choose the bodies we are in, or the series of events that made us who we are. Open disdain of others is widely accepted due to this ingrained and misguided notion of free will. It justifies cruel prison conditions and jaded attitudes toward helping others. Because the common notion of free will is clearly a false belief, Sam Harris is performing an important function through marketing his book to a wide audience and changing beliefs of people who may not have thought of the issue much. So yes, I believe pronouncing “free will is dead” is a good thing.
You seem hypnotized and paralyzed by the lovely sounding words of fools, Jeff. I’ll be happy to write a prescription for you, but I won’t count on your taking me up on it: Study Wittgenstein for 2 or more years as needed, a task to be balanced with some leisure reading of Dreiser novels. E-mail me in the morning.
Are you saying we should look at goals before we decide if we like facts?
I recommend you reread what I’ve actually said in this thread.
Jeff M - 05 April 2012 02:14 PM
None of us choose the bodies we are in, or the series of events that made us who we are. Open disdain of others is widely accepted due to this ingrained and misguided notion of free will. It justifies cruel prison conditions and jaded attitudes toward helping others. Because the common notion of free will is clearly a false belief, Sam Harris is performing an important function through marketing his book to a wide audience and changing beliefs of people who may not have thought of the issue much. So yes, I believe pronouncing “free will is dead” is a good thing.
You seem hypnotized and paralyzed by the lovely sounding words of fools, Jeff. I’ll be happy to write a prescription for you, but I won’t count on your taking me up on it: Study Wittgenstein for 2 or more years as needed, a task to be balanced with some leisure reading of Dreiser novels. E-mail me in the morning.
i have a hard time following what all of you are saying - you reject the term “free will” as having some religious overtones embedded in metaphysics? at least that is what i think i am understanding - but are you says that the human brain is not capable of making a choice independently based upon information that it receives - that the brain does not really weigh the options and come to an independent conclusion - are you saying that all the brain is doing is making decisions based upon a rigid cause and effect phenomena that drives the brain to a predetermined resolution?
cause and effect occurs almost nowhere in this universe - it occurs in most but not all mathematics [impossible numbers are outside this] and in general physics but not in relativity, quantum, sub-quantum, string, or black-hole related physics, not in dark matter nor dark energy physics as far as we can tell - this pushes cause and effect into a narrow corner - when the “forward pointing arrow” of that thing we call “time” is irrelevant than cause and effect mean nothing - cause and effect don’t take into account impossible ideas - nor can it take into account possibilities - Watson can run from now til the end of time - it can never posit a possibility only a probability - the human brain is capable of considering things that are impossible: the notions of add - or - neither - both and/or; neither and/ or - these notions fly in the face of cause and effect but we use them all the time in philosophy and in physics and in fuzzy math - [which helps Watson to “think”] - none of this has anything to do with cause and effect - the mental creation of impossibilities such as paradox, contradictions, absurdities. etc,etc etc.
Simpson’s paradox for continuous data: a positive trend appears for two separate groups (blue and red), a negative trend (black, dashed) appears when the data are combined. In probability and statistics, Simpson’s paradox (Yule–Simpson effect) is a paradox in which a correlation present in different groups is reversed when the groups are combined. This result is often encountered in social-science and medical-science statistics, and is particularly confounding when frequency data are unduly given CAUSAL interpretations. As Karl Popper pointed out we can never know with any certainty as to whether causality can be asserted in almost anything having to do with human behavior - inferential statistical analysis is flawed by the phenomenon of the ability of only ever being able to prove the consequent - inferential analysis - the only way we have of present to assess human behavior can never be proven - it lies in the realm of possibilities. Causality can only exist in the world of probabilities. It has no place in the world outside of the scope of what can be understood to be possible. The human brain on the other hand is capable of positing the impossible.
