Theism, Agnosticism, Atheism.

[richdude]

Thanks, that makes a lot more sense now!

And I have to say I do agree with the principles that everything does come down to physics in the end! Although I do not a PHD and have not studied into science's so many of the links of after reading I have done kinda lost me! I have also never really studied how the mind works with regards to neuro-sciences(biology), but do 100% agree that the understand of this will all come from neuros... and that the understanding of the world will come from particle physics!

Always aim for the simplest explanation and don't believe in any unnecessary stuff unless you absolutely have to. I liked this line as well, because that has always been my way of looking at things! Even as a "spritualist" I have always looked for scientific answers and as you have said, these answers are usually the simpilist and best explanation!

I also think that science is starting the bridge the gap between between some forms of mystic belief & physics. One obvious example to me is that Shaman's (of which the oldest shamanic burial site found was dated at 12,000 year old) have always said that there are multiple dimensions which can be accessed through cracks in the unvierse, and these cracks are everywhere. In recent years physicits have been developing string theory which predicits extra dimensions and a lot of scientist reckon that string theory will become the Theory of Everything!

All every interesting to me!

[kurotoshiro]

Aug 24, 2012 9:36:53 GMT richdude said:

Always aim for the simplest explanation and don't believe in any unnecessary stuff unless you absolutely have to. I liked this line as well, because that has always been my way of looking at things! Even as a "spritualist" I have always looked for scientific answers and as you have said, these answers are usually the simpilist and best explanation!

Just as a side-note: this principle also applies beyond the domain of physics. For example, mathematicians might choose one theory over another because it involves a more elegant solution. Or a moral philosopher might argue in favour of a particular theory of the notion of "justice" because it analyses the concept into a few simple ideas which can be explained in terms of other philosophical theories that are already widely supported - and at the same time, he argues against his rival's alternative theory of "justice" because it involves a much more complicated analysis into a large number of theoretical components, many of which are not clearly understood and don't seem to be consistent with other well-supported theories in other areas of philosophy.

The main reason why the mind falls into the domain of science is pretty simple. Causation. Things that happen to the physical body (eg, physical damage or injury) cause things to happen in the mind (ie, pain). And things that happen in the mind (eg, a sudden urge for ice cream) cause things to happen in the physical world (ie, you get up off the sofa and go looking in the freezer for ice cream). In other words: the mind is clearly embedded in the network of causes and effects that constitute the physical world. And the best causal theories are inevitably scientific. Therefore the best theories of the mind will ultimately come from science.

But as soon as you move away from phenomena that are embedded in the causal network of the universe (such as abstract entities like numbers, or moral concepts like "justice" or "duty") then it becomes less likely that the best theories and explanations will derive directly from science. The theories will no doubt struggle if they lead to any conclusions that are clearly inconsistent with science. And they will also be subject to constraints such as the demand for simple, elegant explanations. But they won't "reduce" everything to science in the same way that theories of the mind are likely to.

[richdude]

Yeah the first two paragraphs make sense, maybe I was being a bit open with the term Science as I can see how the principle can be used in every aspect of life.

Definatly agree with the second paragraph, but how would "feelings" come into that idea. Dont know if you ever felt "i need to go see x" or "i need to turn left here", not thought it, but just had that urge which you cannot explain with concious thought or even think why you would "turn left" when it makes no practical sense to do so!! These "feelings" could just be subconcious thoughts, or some sort of bio-electrical magnatism, so I assume that they would fall under Causation as well, and into the realms of some sort of neuro science?

Not sure what you mean by the final paragraph though, I understand what you are saying and what you mean Just not "But as soon as you move away from phenomena that are embedded in the causal network of the universe " . What do you mean by causal network, and what would fall outside of this?

I hope you dont mind carrying on this convo?

[farzooks]

Me: it's all drivel.
But you can believe what you like.
Amen.

[kurotoshiro]

Aug 24, 2012 11:24:47 GMT richdude said:

I hope you dont mind carrying on this convo?

No, not at all, as long as you don't get bored of me banging on!

Aug 24, 2012 11:24:47 GMT richdude said:

Definatly agree with the second paragraph, but how would "feelings" come into that idea. Dont know if you ever felt "i need to go see x" or "i need to turn left here", not thought it, but just had that urge which you cannot explain with concious thought or even think why you would "turn left" when it makes no practical sense to do so!! These "feelings" could just be subconcious thoughts, or some sort of bio-electrical magnatism, so I assume that they would fall under Causation as well, and into the realms of some sort of neuro science?

Well, feelings are certainly part of the causal network of the world. Something that happens in the physical world (eg, someone breaks your favourite coffee mug) can cause you to feel a certain way (angry, sad, etc). And the way you feel (to use your example: feeling that you need to turn left) can cause physical effects (you turn the steering wheel). So feelings do need to be accounted for as part of the overall causal order, and they are therefore likely to be best explained by the neurosciences.

Philosophically, though, feelings (especially emotions) are harder to account for than thoughts. The main features of thoughts are:

They can represent things (in the sense that a picture of a dog represents a dog, or the word "dog" represents the concept of a dog). They can have meanings (they can be about things). They can be true or false.

We already have a reasonably good model of how it is that the states of a physical system can represent things, have meanings, and have truth values. In a word: computers. Computers are entirely physical systems. And we know that they have internal states that can represent things, have meanings, and be true or false (for example, the presence or absence of electrical current at specific locations in the hardware are able to "represent" sequences of 0s and 1s, and these sequences of 0s and 1s are built up in complex rule-governed ways so that they ultimately represent complex information about the real world).

Emotions and feelings are more tricky to understand than thoughts, because they have an added dimension: they feel a certain way to the person who has them. We don't yet have a good model for understanding how the states of a physical system can end up feeling a certain way to that same system. Computers, as far as we know, don't have states like this. At least not yet. (In my opinion, they will eventually. It's just a question of how complex the system is and what kinds of internal processing it is capable of. We are currently nowhere near having the ability to build a computer with anything even remotely comparable to the massively parallel processing capacity of the human brain.)

So anway, the point is: according to Physicalism, feelings and emotions are in the same boat as other mental states. They are part of the causal order and need to be accounted for as such. It's just that our theories for understanding emotions are a long way behind our theories for understanding thoughts, at least at the moment.

Aug 24, 2012 11:24:47 GMT richdude said:

Not sure what you mean by the final paragraph though, I understand what you are saying and what you mean Just not "But as soon as you move away from phenomena that are embedded in the causal network of the universe " . What do you mean by causal network, and what would fall outside of this?

By "the causal network" I basically mean: everything in the universe that can cause something else to happen, or can itself be brought about as an effect of something else. The human mind is clearly part of this causal network. It can cause things, and other things can have an effect on it.

A good example of things that might fall outside the causal order are moral values. Moral values are not straightforwardly related to facts about the physical world. They are about what ought to be the case, not about what is the case. (This is known in philosophy as the "fact/value distinction" - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact%E2%80%93value_distinction.) So it's unlikely that a scientific account of the world, which deals in facts that are the case, not in ideas about what ought to be the case, will be able to offer a full account of the nature of moral value.

I hope that makes sense. I'm probably making things more complicated than they need to be by using academic jargon instead of plain English!

[EDIT: Actually, instead of looking at the link about the fact/value distinction, it might be better to look here instead, at the related "is/ought distinction": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-ought_problem)]

[richdude]

No Im not getting bored of you "banging on" its actually really interesting to me, and I can also see lots of links to my overall way of thinking about life. I like the academic jargon as its a good base for me to go researching on!

So I think I now have a grasp of what you mean. And I think I understand what you mean about things outside of the casual network, such as imprinted thought patterns, which could be moral values, that cause reactions based on what Ought to be rather than how it is. So "thinking" something might effect something else in one way, when in "fact" it will not? (I can see how hard it will be trying to link that topic to any scientifical account of the world, its hard enough trying to say it in a way you might actually know what im trying to say!!!)

[alijoy60]

I am an atheist. None of my children (now adults) have been christened as I am not Christian and felt they should make their own minds up.

I don't like religion of any kind, as I believe it is human driven dogma.

But beliefs and morals and societies are a completely different thing to me.

[kurotoshiro]

@ richdude .... Just to clarify: When I was talking about "moral value" I didn't mean the thoughts that someone has about moral values, or the way they perceive or understand morality, or anything like that. I mean the actual moral values themselves.

Assuming that there are objective moral truths (which is a can of worms in itself, but let's not go there ) then the world must contain certain types of moral properties. In other words, if it's an objective truth that murder is wrong, then there must be such a thing as the property of wrongness. Our metaphysical view of the world must account for the existence of this property. It must be a property that some things have and some things don't --- in the same way that "tallness" is a property that some people have and some people don't, or "redness" (or "being red in colour") is a property that some objects possess and some lack. However, it doesn't seem like the kind of property that is going to fit into a scientific cause-and-effect account of the universe.

That's basically what I meant.

It was probably a bad example, though, as philosophical theories about morality are even more convoluted than philosophical theories about the mind.

I'll try to think of a better way to explain this.

[kurotoshiro]

Sorry, posted again by mistake when I was trying to modify the previous. Ignore this.

[Ratfinkz]

blumin heck this conversation sounds really interesting - but I couldnt understand a word of it! I will come back and read when I've not been awake all night and am not 'out of it' on Morphine!!!!

[kurotoshiro]

Just wanted to bump this thread to say thanks for all the responses. I was curious to find out how wide a range of beliefs people have, and that's exactly what I found out. A massive range of views! Very interesting. Thanks folks!

[richdude]

sorry been pretty busy recently, but anyway, where were we! lol

I understand what your mean and your example and thats kinda the point I was trying to get at with what I said! "thinking" was in brackets because I wasnt trying to say it as normal thinking, but as an "objective truth", which if this had a property would cause a reaction(event) based on it, meaning that wrongness would have to be part of the casual network.

So how do things that science has yet to prove/disprove fit in to your beliefs? Such as the good old "bumble bees cant fly" / everything has an energy field(aura) / energy healing / Tradtional Chinesse Medicien. These things (with the exception of the bees as I dont know if they resolved that) all have insuffienct data to prove either way. Just wondering how these type of things fit into your mind.

[kurotoshiro]

I've never heard of the bee thing before, but after looking it up, it seems like a typical case of scientific results being misinterpreted. This is from wikipedia:

"In M. Magnan's 1934 French book "Le vol des insectes", he wrote that he and a M. Saint-Lague had applied the equations of air resistance to bumblebees and found that their flight could not be explained by fixed-wing calculations, but that "One shouldn't be surprised that the results of the calculations don't square with reality". This has led to a common misconception that bees "violate aerodynamic theory", but in fact it merely confirms that bees do not engage in fixed-wing flight, and that their flight is explained by other mechanics, such as those used by helicopters." (my emphasis).

The actual mechanics of bees flight were fully explained in 2005. See here for details: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee#Flight

As for the other things you list, I don't regard them as things that "all have insufficient data to prove either way".

As far as I can see, there is more than enough data to show that "auras" are pseudoscientific nonsense (propogated either by people who are just badly mistaken, or people who are actively lying about it - ie, people who make a living from it in one way or another).

Energy healing and Chinese medicine are a bit more interesting, since it's likely that they generate medically beneficial placebo effects. But then so do "sham" versions of the same procedures (see here for an example: www.skepdic.com/shamacupuncture.html). So what's actually worth pursuing, from a scientific point of view, is further understanding of placebo effects. The metaphysical theories on which these forms of "healing" are based (energy, yin and yang, five phases, or whatever) are all philosophically ridiculous.

The only interesting thing about these metaphysical theories is the fact that if you get people to believe them, and tell them that a medical procedure is based on them, then you might get placebo results from carrying out the procedures. But this doesn't mean that the metaphysical details can be taken seriously. You could just invent a brand new metaphysical world-view based on some complex interaction of supernatural forces, which you know full-well is a load of old bollocks. The point is, as long as you can get people to believe it, and tell them that a medical procedure is based on it, then you stand a good chance of getting similar placebo results. Again: the placebo effect is interesting, but the metaphysics is ridiculous. The bottom line, in my opinion, is this: if you can get people to believe that a medical procedure will be effective without having to downgrade their world-view with false metaphysics, that would be the better route to take, assuming we do want to exploit the potential health benefits of placebo effects. On the other hand: if having the ability to exploit the benefits of placebo depends on having people with hugely mistaken metaphysical world-views, I'm much less keen. (It's an interesting issue, though, because it's a question of balancing health benefits against false beliefs. I wouldn't want to stand in the way of any benefits to peoples' health, but by the same token I would be strongly against the explicit encouragement of false beliefs.)