Upcoming Dennett speech

Posted 16 February 2005 by Timothy Sandefur

↗ The current version of this post is on the live site: https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/02/upcoming-dennet.html

Daniel Dennett, author of such brilliant books as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and Consciousness Explained, will be giving the W.D. Hamilton Memorial Lecture at the University of New England in April.

77 Comments

Bayesian Bouffant · 16 February 2005

Is that
The University of New England in New South Wales, Australia?
or
The University of New England which has two separate campuses in Maine, USA?

These sorts of details can be important before lining up airline tickets, etc.

Thanks,

Timothy Sandefur · 16 February 2005

Yes, and if you would click on the link provided, you would learn this helpful information.

Bayesian Bouffant · 16 February 2005

So many keystrokes, so little time. your link

New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology 4th Annual William D. Hamilton Memorial Lecture Religion as a Natural Phenomenon Daniel C. Dennett April 29, 2005 at 7:00 PM CHP Room, Parker Pavilion Westbrook College Campus University of New England, 716 Stevens Avenue, Portland, Maine. (abstract omitted)

Timothy Sandefur · 16 February 2005

I just rolled my eyes so hard my glasses fell off.

Oscar Robertson · 16 February 2005

I disagree with almost everything Dennett says, but I never miss an opportunity to hear him say it. I've been to several of his papers at the APA, and he is without a doubt one of the most entertaining people to listen to.

This is my first post on this board, and I don't know anyone knowledgeable on the subject, so can anyone tell me how "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" was received among Darwinists? I know that "Consciousness Explained" (more aptly titled "Consciousness Explained Away") met with harsh criticism from the Phil. of Mind community.

Bayesian Bouffant · 16 February 2005

It's been a few years since I read it, but I thought he was pretty much on the mark about the implications of Darwinism. I also thought he did a very good job of dismantling Roger Penrose's pretentiously titled The Emperor's New Mind.

ts · 16 February 2005

This is my first post on this board, and I don?t know anyone knowledgeable on the subject, so can anyone tell me how ?Darwin?s Dangerous Idea? was received among Darwinists?

Rather well, although Stephen Jay Gould wasn't too thrilled, of course.

I know that "Consciousness Explained" (more aptly titled "Consciousness Explained Away") met with harsh criticism from the Phil. of Mind community.

The dingbat dualist philosophers of the Phil. of Mind community, who ascribe to vitalism, essentialism, and other forms of nonsense don't like Dennett -- no kidding; I wouldn't pay much attention to those folks, who are to "mind" about where creationists are to "life". Their "harsh criticism" didn't go much farther than silly slogans like your "Consciousness Explained Away". But the cognitive scientists, neurophysiologists, and others with proper grounding in the material universe thought rather highly of it -- of course, since it reflected their work. CE is actually a bit old hat by now -- Dennett made some very hedged predictions in CE which have turned out to be true in considerably stronger form than even he imagined, and there's been a lot of groundbreaking work since then, largely consistent with the view he espoused.

ts · 16 February 2005

Danny Yee's reviews of DDI and CE:

http://dannyreviews.com/h/Darwins_Dangerous_Idea.html
http://dannyreviews.com/h/Consciousness_Explained.html

Ginger Yellow · 16 February 2005

Funnily enough I've just got through reading Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea. I thought they were both excellent, but then I'm not a scientist so my view counts for little. He's surely right though to mock the idea that there could be a "zombie" which has all the neural wiring of a "human", but isn't conscious.

I'm debating reading The Intentional Stance. Anyone here got an opinion on it?

ts, have you got any more up to date reading suggestions for Dennettesque models of consciousness? Who's doing the most productive research in this field at the moment? I've read Jackendoff's Foundations of Language, which takes a similar approach with language production and comprehension.

Oscar Robertson · 16 February 2005

By "Philosophy of Mind" I certainly did not intend "vitalism, essentialism, and other forms of nonsense." In fact, it's quite difficult to find a dualist (Keith Yandell at Ohio State comes to mind), vitalist or essentialist these days. Rather, I meant the phrase to include the likes of functionalism, etc.

Serious thinkers such as David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel have criticised Dennett's approach as an ad hoc redefinition of consciousness. Perhaps you think their writing do not go much beyond "silly slogan's." In which case, I must disagree with you.

ts · 16 February 2005

He's surely right though to mock the idea that there could be a "zombie" which has all the neural wiring of a "human", but isn't conscious.

Well, a person in a coma has all the neural wiring of a human but isn't conscious. But the notion of a philosophical zombie goes way beyond that. Dualist philosopher David Chalmers claims that a world that is physically identical to this one, but in which his analogue isn't conscious, is logically possible. But the difference between Chalmers and his zombie twin is nothing physical, nothing characterizable in terms of physical law or observation. The difference is mere assertion, a difference without a distinction.

I'm debating reading The Intentional Stance. Anyone here got an opinion on it?

It's quite a bit different from the others, because it's Dennett's major theoretical philosophical contribution. Dennett's theory includes three stances or levels of description. The physical stance looks at things in terms of their composition. The design stance looks at things in terms of function; you can apply the design stance to a can opener or a heart, but not a rock. The intentional stance looks at things in terms of rational agents -- you can apply it to people and some computer programs, for instance. The value of applying higher level stances is that you can make predictions of a sort not possible at the lower levels. But a person on drugs or with a brain tumor requires the design stance to understand their deviation from rational behavior, and you need to take a physical stance to figure out how many of them you can cram into an elevator.

ts, have you got any more up to date reading suggestions for Dennettesque models of consciousness? Who's doing the most productive research in this field at the moment?

There's lots and lots of stuff going on, and I'm no authority, but you might want to look at Essential Sources in the Scientific Study of Consciousness by Bernard Baars et. al. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262523027/qid=1108580494 Neural Correlates of Consciousness: Empirical and Conceptual Questions by Thomas Metzinger (ed.) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262133709 The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach by Christof Koch http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974707708 The Illusion of Conscious Will by Daniel M. Wegner http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262731622/qid=1108580636

asg · 16 February 2005

Yes, I was just going to say, if David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, Saul Kripke, John Searle, and Ned Block are all intellectual equivalents of creationists (not that they are all dualists or vitalists but they all, to some degree, reject Dennett's functionalism and others' materialism), then perhaps creationism is in better shape than we loyal Panda's Thumb readers had previously thought. The other possibility, of course, is that ts is talking out of an orifice other than his mouth.

ts · 16 February 2005

Serious thinkers such as David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel have criticised Dennett?s approach as an ad hoc redefinition of consciousness.

Chalmers and Nagel are both essentialists in re consciousness. As such they are bound to complain that Dennett is "redefining" consciousness or "leaving something out" -- but these "criticisms" simply reflect their own metaphysical commitments, rather than reveal any actual error on Dennett's part.

ts · 16 February 2005

Yes, I was just going to say, if David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, Saul Kripke, John Searle, and Ned Block are all intellectual equivalents of creationists (not that they are all dualists or vitalists but they all, to some degree, reject Dennett?s functionalism and others? materialism), then perhaps creationism is in better shape than we loyal Panda?s Thumb readers had previously thought. The other possibility, of course, is that ts is talking out of an orifice other than his mouth.

Rejecting functionalism and materialism -- exactly so. The state of Phil. of Mind is largely where biology was before Darwin. That these folks are serious thinkers, hold advanced degrees and chairs, and so on, does not validate their metaphysics. Searle holds a special place as a master of sophism -- he claims that his Chinese Room argument is a proof, despite more refutations than just about any other offering in philosophy, including several from Chalmers. Here Larry Hauser rips Searle a new one: http://members.aol.com/lshauser2/chinabox.html

Ginger Yellow · 16 February 2005

I was oversimplifying the zombie thing, thanks for the correction. Although it's probably fair to say that someone in a coma is not neurologicaly the same as someone not in a coma. There's usually brain damage involved, isn't there?

Oscar and asg, the point Dennett makes is that while (almost) nobody espouses explicit dualism or vitalism these days, they don't follow through the logical conclusions of shedding them. Dennett argues, among other things, that the notion of a "central meaner" is as misguided as the pineal gland being the anchor of the mind, for the same reasons.

Great White Wonder · 16 February 2005

David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, Saul Kripke, John Searle, and Ned Block are all intellectual equivalents of creationists (not that they are all dualists or vitalists but they all, to some degree, reject Dennett's functionalism and others' materialism), then perhaps creationism is in better shape than we loyal Panda's Thumb readers had previously thought.

Dream on.

ts · 16 February 2005

In fact, it's quite difficult to find a dualist

It's odd that you would say that and then mention dualist David Chalmers, who hatched so many. Perhaps you just don't know where to look; try http://www.newdualism.org/

Oscar Robertson · 16 February 2005

"Searle holds a special place as a master of sophism...."

Wow. You'd think we were talking about Gish or Dembski and not one of the current giants (say, next to Putnam) in Anglo-American philosophy.

"...he claims that his Chinese Room argument is a proof, despite more refutations than just about any other offering in philosophy...."

Is "refutations" as you use the term synonymous (assuming you grant synonymy)with "papers written in opposition to"? I've read many such papers with arguments against Searle's Chinese Room experiment, but to call these "refutations" would be to accept the validity of those arguments. I don't.

Is the issue here a (mistaken) belief that all denials of physicalism (e.g., neuroscientific accounts) pose some unspecified threat to Darwinsim? As far as I can tell, the two topics are distinct.

Ginger Yellow · 16 February 2005

Chomsky is a giant (the giant?) of linguistics. He's still wrong about a lot of things.

ts · 16 February 2005

Wow. You'd think we were talking about Gish or Dembski and not one of the current giants (say, next to Putnam) in Anglo-American philosophy.

What is this, argument by reputation? Among professional philosophers (and most others with personal experience with him), Searle is considered to be a braying ass who doesn't honor the basic requirements of good faith discourse. And on top of that his arguments are fallacious.

Is "refutations" as you use the term synonymous (assuming you grant synonymy)with "papers written in opposition to"?

Refutations are valid rebuttals.

I've read many such papers with arguments against Searle's Chinese Room experiment, but to call these "refutations" would be to accept the validity of those arguments. I don't.

So much the worse for you.

Is the issue here a (mistaken) belief that all denials of physicalism (e.g., neuroscientific accounts) pose some unspecified threat to Darwinsim? As far as I can tell, the two topics are distinct.

There's no "issue", just a matter of what is true and what is not. And what is this nonsense about "threats"? If there's a valid argument against Darwinism, any good scientist should embrace it. And I have no idea why you consider neuroscientific accounts to be denials of physicalism -- that's downright bizarre. Or perhaps you are saying that neuroscientific accounts are instances of physicalism -- that would be even more bizarre. There is a relationship between denials of physicalism and Darwinism. The eventual goal of the ID crowd is the overturn of materialism, so they would welcome any argument against physicalism or any sign that biologists don't accept physicalism. I'm sure the IDists would love to know if some biologists reject the thesis that consciousness evolved through natural selection.

Jim Harrison · 16 February 2005

It's a mere propaganda technique to claim that your favorate hobbyhorse---Dennett's Philosophy of Mind, Libertarianism, or whatever---is in the same position relative to its critics as Darwinism is to Creationists. Whatever our opinions, can't we at least agree that the situations in metaphyics and politics and economics are far murkier than the situation in biology where the main facts of evolution have long been established?

It is particularly demented to pretend that anybody has a handle on the best way to talk about mental activity. It isn't just that there is no consensus on these things. Even those who disagree don't fall into easily definable camps. Normal science, evidentally, will have to wait developments in a field where phlogiston would probably represent progress.

ts · 16 February 2005

It?s a mere propaganda technique to claim that your favorate hobbyhorse?Dennett?s Philosophy of Mind, Libertarianism, or whatever?is in the same position relative to its critics as Darwinism is to Creationists.

Not necessarily, and not in this case.

Whatever our opinions, can?t we at least agree that the situations in metaphyics and politics and economics are far murkier than the situation in biology where the main facts of evolution have long been established?

The main facts of functionalism and materialism have long been established -- longer, in fact, than has evolution.

It is particularly demented to pretend that anybody has a handle on the best way to talk about mental activity.

That's a nice bit of ad hominem propaganda, but there is a consensus among cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, and so on that the mind is what the brain does, and does not require Chalmers' "psychophysical laws" or other forms of dualism.

Normal science, evidentally, will have to wait developments in a field where phlogiston would probably represent progress.

There is far more in terms of "normal science" developments concerning brain function and cognition than you seem to be aware of. Perhaps you should go hear Dennett speak, rather than spout so many content-free cliches.

Jim Harrison · 16 February 2005

I've read Dennett, who tends to give himself a lot of credit, and lots of other functionalists, who are rather less assertive. I have no quarrel with their research agenda. Maybe they're right or at least on the right track; but the title of Dennett's book, Consciousness Explained, remains a check that has yet to clear the bank.

I'm personally inclined to think both that consciousness is an authentic reality, which, for the record, does not commit me or Searle or anybody else to metaphyscial dualism. Indeed, I expect that consciousness has a physical cause and that the mechanism of its production will eventually be elucidated by natural science.

Great White Wonder · 16 February 2005

Sneeze.

ts · 16 February 2005

I'm personally inclined

Why should anyone care what you're personally inclined to? Talk about giving oneself a lot of credit. At least Dennett, recognized by his peers as one of, if not the, leading American analytical philosopher, and certainly one who has had tremendous influence, deserves a lot of credit.

to think both that consciousness is an authentic reality

As Dennett has noted, people should be able to address the ontology of laps and smiles before making claims about far more difficult cases like consciousness.

Buridan · 16 February 2005

ts, you can't just lambaste the likes of Nagel, Kripke, and Searle, without some sort of substantive "rebuttal" and expect us to take you seriously.

Come on, don't be shy . . . . Let us know what you really think.

ts · 16 February 2005

ts, you can't just lambaste the likes of Nagel, Kripke, and Searle, without some sort of substantive "rebuttal" and expect us to take you seriously.

Rebuttal of what, exactly? Someone stated that Dennett was criticized for Consciousness Explained -- well bully -- no substantive criticism was posted here; it seems you've got a double standard going. OTOH, I did post a substantive piece by Larry Hauser that ripped Searle to shreds -- did you read it, or are you just blowing smoke? Hauser wrote his PhD thesis on the Chinese Room; I've located that online at http://members.aol.com/wutsamada/disserta.html It's an impressive piece of work. Nagel and Kripke are far more respectable and far more highly regarded in the philosophical community than Searle, who is well known in the lay community because of his bravado and the fact that so many people like the conclusion of his Chinese Room Argument -- independent of the argument itself, which is fallacious crap, as Hauser and Chalmers and Dennett and Minsky and numerous other philosophers and computer scientists have demonstrated. But the fact that Nagel and Kripke are respected doesn't mean that their criticisms of Dennett -- and the cognitive science community that he is aligned with -- are valid. Kripke is a dualist and Nagel verges on being one, claiming that it's impossible for us to see how physicalism could be true. Dualism is the position that consciousness is a ghost in the machine -- it's bizarre that biologists or any other natural scientists wouldn't reject it out of hand as explanatorily insufficient, regardless of the stature of those who promote it.

ts · 16 February 2005

Here's a paper that tackles Nagel's objections to the possibility of a natural explanation of consciousness:
http://www.lclark.edu/~clayton/papers/explainingcs.html

And here's a paper that addresses, among other things, Kripke's objections to physicalism:
http://www.meta-religion.com/Psychiatry/Consciousness/theories_of_consciousness.htm

Jim Harrison · 16 February 2005

In his last post ts helpfully provides the evidence that nobody much agrees about the nature of consciousness at this point. The various critics of Searle don't agree among themselves either, except to reject the Chinese room bit, which, by the way, isn't the only idea Searle ever floated. I think he's pretty sensible on performatives, for example.

Why make a fascinating but exceedinly difficult set of issues into a pissing contest?

Great White Wonder · 16 February 2005

Speaking as a scientist, the pissing contest is far more fascinating than the issues themselves. If I want to puff my head out, I read Bowles, Gysin, Borges, Cortazar, Nettlebeck, Celine ... you know, people who can actually write.

Buridan · 16 February 2005

TS, let me help you out here - the request for a substantive rebuttal was directed toward you, not someone elses work. Searle's critics are plenty but they've actually done the work.

ts · 16 February 2005

In his last post ts helpfully provides the evidence that nobody much agrees about the nature of consciousness at this point.

That's a rather shallow take on things. Let's go back to the beginning:

can anyone tell me how "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" was received among Darwinists? I know that "Consciousness Explained" (more aptly titled "Consciousness Explained Away") met with harsh criticism from the Phil. of Mind community.
— Oscar Robinson

That was a clever propagandistic slam on Dennett. Dennett wrote a book about evolution, and this fellow (who "disagree with almost everything Dennett says") wants to know what the evolution experts think of it because, hey, when Dennett wrote a book about the mind, the mind experts said he was full of it. Only that's not how it went. "Darwinists" are scientists; philosophers of mind are not. It would have been more appropriate to refer, not to "the Phil. of Mind community", but to the cognitive science/neuroscience community -- where Dennett was rather well received. Also, "met with harsh criticism from the Phil. of Mind community" is misleading, because it also met with praise from the Phil. of Mind community. As I noted, in the case of at least some of the critics, the criticisms simply reflect their own metaphysical commitments, rather than reveal any actual error on Dennett's part. Philosophy isn't science, and it will always be the case that "nobody much agrees" -- in a very shallow sense -- about anything, because philosophers are so factionalized and there's no scientific method to bring about advance and weed out erroneous views. But that there's a lot of different views held doesn't mean that "nobody much agrees". Among scientists studying the brain and cognition, it is widely accepted that something like Dennett's account in Consciousness Explained applies. As I noted, Dennett made predictions that have been empirically verified, and there has been a great deal of scientific work since then that is consistent with and supports the CE model -- which came out of cognitive science in the first place; it wasn't Dennett's invention.

ts · 16 February 2005
TS, let me help you out here - the request for a substantive rebuttal was directed toward you, not someone elses work. Searle's critics are plenty but they've actually done the work.
That's an incredibly stupid ad hominem argument. The validity of a rebuttal is not a function of its authorship. Throughout this site, you will find instances where IDists put forth various challenges and are met with links to material written by others. That's the way it's done throughout science and philosophy. I provided links to material that you could learn from, if that were your object.

Buridan · 16 February 2005
Ok ts, I'll tone it down a bit for civility sake. First, there's no ad hominem involved here. Second, I'm not making an argument. Third, you said "Searle is considered to be a braying ass who doesn't honor the basic requirements of good faith discourse. And on top of that his arguments are fallacious."
I'm not sure the "braying ass" formulation can be seriously supported, but hey, you're more than welcome to prove me wrong. You do, however, have a substantive charge - Searle's arguments are fallacious. So, why do YOU think they're fallacious? I'm not being rhetorical here. perhaps we can have a serious discussion on the merits, or the lack thereof, of Searle's philosophy.
I don't see how exchanging secondary sources as point and counter-point accomplishes much of anything. I can read the secondary literature on my own. I prefer to spare with my own gloves - I may get a little beaten up as a result but I find it more fun and rewarding that way. I'm assuming that's why most of us are here.

Bob Maurus · 16 February 2005
Buridan,
Sorry for butting in, but are you saying that your philosophy of debate is to declare out of bounds citations of the research, evidence, and testimony of authorities in the field ("I don't see how exchanging secondary sources as point and counter-point accomplishes much of anything." "Searle's critics are plenty but they've actually done the work..") and substitute instead your own storyteller ability to spin a tale out of that evidence "I prefer to spar with my own gloves,"?
Who better to speak to the evidence than those who developed it? You and I? I don't have a clue what your cv is, but I'm a sculptor/illustrator.
Until secondary sources are accepted by both sides, there can be no meaningful debate or (more importantly?) no dialogue.

ts · 16 February 2005
I'm not sure the "braying ass" formulation can be seriously supported, but hey, you're more than welcome to prove me wrong.
I said that he's considered a braying ass. Call Hauser or Dennett for details. I can't "seriously support" the charge in this forum any more than I can prove to you how much money I have in my pocket; them's the breaks. But I'll give you an indication -- as I already noted, Searle claims that he presented a knock-down proof -- he has claimed this many times in print as well as at numerous talks -- despite a great number of highly respected people in relevant fields, such as Chalmers, Dennett, and a gaggle of computer scientists, showing errors in his argument, which is presented in very informal language and is loaded with undefined terms and unelaborated concepts. Even if all the rebuttals are wrong, it is unseemly to continue to make the claim without even hinting that it is widely disputed, especially when for years he didn't even attempt to answer the objections from people like Dennett and Hauser or even acknowledge them. Consider, in contrast, Andrew Wiles, who circulated his formal proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, and when someone found a flaw, he nearly committed suicide and then spent a year working out a way to fix the problem. Yet Searle acts as if his result is as well established as Wiles'.
You do, however, have a substantive charge - Searle's arguments are fallacious. So, why do YOU think they're fallacious?
I think it for the reasons that have been spelled out numerous times, by myself (in other forums) and others. To reject "secondary sources" so you can "spar with your own gloves" is a silly game that I'm not interested in playing, and certainly is not why I'm here. If you really want to know what's wrong with Searle's argument, look it up. But you're being an incredible hypocrite, because if you were serious about what you say, you would state Searle's argument in your own words, and ask me to show what's wrong with that argument. Searle purports to have shown that computers can't have mental states solely by virtue of executing a program -- kindly provide a sound argument to that effect. Perhaps you can do better than Searle, who in effect simply asserts that a computer competent in the Chinese language doesn't "understand" Chinese because Searle, who doesn't understand Chinese, could play (very very slowly) the role of the CPU. That's fallacious on at least two counts -- the mental states of the CPU aren't the mental states of the computer system running the program, and "understanding" isn't some ethereal spirit substance, it's competence to perform. Anyone or anything that speaks Chinese fluently can and should be said to understand it -- that, after all, is how teachers determine whether their students understand the material; they don't mind meld to see if it "feels" like understanding. And you're being hypocritical beyond that -- as I asked before, and you didn't answer, what am I to rebut? Someone said that Consciousness Explained was harshly criticized by the Phil. of Mind community, and Searle's name was later floated, and I said he was a master of sophism -- and backed up the charge with a paper that makes the case. But no one, including you, has indicated what Searle's objection to CE is, with their own "gloves" or anyone else's.

PJF · 16 February 2005
Maybe I'm not quite up on the Cast of Characters here in the Comments Community, but something is striking me as puzzling: the ID fans seem to be on the side of Dennett (the hardworking, methodical naturalist), and the skyhook fancying mystery-mongers about consciousness (Chalmers, Searle and such) are getting the most support from the fans of evolution.
Myself, I'm very much of the view that appeals to mystery are as embarrassing as they are unhelpful. I'm a naturalist as to the origin of life, and likewise as to the best-explanation for consciousness. (In both opposing cases -- ID and whatever "spooky", non-naturalist "account" of mind you want to focus on -- I'd go further and say that *no* actual explanation is being offered against naturalism *at all*. Just a foot-stamping assertion that you don't like what you hear.)
Count me among the people who see some pretty serious resonances of (old-fashioned and new-fangled) Creationism in the writing of people like Chalmers and Searle.

ts · 16 February 2005
the ID fans seem to be on the side of Dennett
Eh? What ID fans? I doubt that there's an IDist on the planet who is on the side of Dennett.
Count me among the people who see some pretty serious resonances of (old-fashioned and new-fangled) Creationism in the writing of people like Chalmers and Searle.
Quite so, which is why I find it so odd that evoists would favor such folk, both of whom are dualists -- Searle vehemently denies it but, as Larry Hauser says, "methinks he doth protest too much".

PJF · 16 February 2005
Chalk the first bit up to confusion as to which people in here had what stance on ID/evolution. I think my utter astonishment on the second point helped me get a little lost.
(And, just for the record, Searle may well be justified in denying he's a dualist -- but only because he's entrenched himself so deeply in foot-stamping "no AI!" dogmatism that he doesn't really "have" a substantive position at all, anymore...)

Buridan · 16 February 2005
Listen folks, ts began this tirade with a rather sophomoric set of remarks about some of the most influential philosophers of the later 20th century - Kripke, Nagel, Searle et al. His only substantive remark of the lot was to accuse Searle of making a fallacious argument; the rest were all name calling.
I challenged ts to provide his own substantive critique to back up his non-substantive claims, to which he responded by merely citing someone else's work. In the real academic world in which these philosophers operate, including the source that ts cites, that doesn't cut it. If you're going to criticize the work of figure's such as Kripke, Searle, Nagel, the Churchlands et al, you better be prepared to play the game on their level - and that means devising your own set of arguments and not merely rely on the work of others to do your arguing for you.
To call Searle a "braying ass" because Dennett and a few others find his work sophistry is about as disingenuous as it gets. It's intellectual laziness and the height of absurdity when such laziness is passed off as an informed critique. Use secondary sources all you want, but do your own thinking for god's sake. Don't just parrot what other people have said.
And I don't really give a rat's ass whether you agree with Kripke, Nagel, Searle, Quine, Davidson, or any of the other panoply of true 20th century scholars, but if you think you're going to be taken seriously when you attempt to dismiss their work through sophomoric name calling, you're deluded.

ts · 16 February 2005
Buridan is obviously an intellectual coward who is unable and unwilling to address the substance of my remarks, even after drawing me out. What a fucking asshole.

PJF · 16 February 2005
Here's a substantive criticism, and the reason why I'm baffled by the way a lot of strongly anti-ID people, here, seem to have a lot of time for non-physicalists about mind:
Non-naturalistic explanations aren't explanations at all.
We don't give Creationist/ID-ers any credit for their position that "God/Unspecified Designer did it" is a better explanation than evolutionary theory. In a very real sense, it's no explanation at all, just an appeal to mystery. And one that we very-well understand, psychologically: people want life to be "special", or think that their moral system will collapse, or whatever. That desire leads the into bad habits of mental hygiene.
And so it is with non-naturalists about mind. "It's a machine, made of meat, running a sort of 'program', which has come about through generations of natural selection" might sound a little strange as the beginnings of a theory of mind, but it's orders of magnitude better than "it's Mind Stuff". Reading Chalmers and Searle, particularly, the undercurrent of "but if the naturalists are right, then mind isn't special in the way that I think it is, and I want mind to be special like that, and so the naturalists are wrong" is often frighteningly easy to discern. And pretty obviously, all of its steps are wrong.
And arguments from influence shouldn't be allowed to cut much ice, either. I'll leave the obvious historical parallels ("but, Mr Galileo, the Church has been extremely influential...") largely aside, and hope the we don't actually put that much stock in someone's reputation, if what they're saying is bunk.

Buridan · 17 February 2005
You're really a class act ts.
By the way, given what you've said above, I really don't think you understand Searle's argument. Nowhere does Searle construe understanding as an "ethereal spirit substance." And may I suggest you familiarize yourself with Searle's Speech Act theory -- if you had any clue about Searle's philosophy, you wouldn't have said " "understanding" isn't some ethereal spirit substance, it's competence to perform." I'll let you figure out what's wrong with that statement on your own, but an earlier post alludes to it.
Nevertheless, I'm not a disciple of Searle's philosophy of mind. I think one of the better critiques of Searle's Chinese room argument comes from the Churchlands. And the reason why I like their formulation is due, in part, to their modeling of the problem, i.e., the complex networking that corresponds more readily to the synaptic processes that actual occur in brain activity. On Searle's view it would appear that we're faced with a sort of Homunculus figure who's pulling all the strings so-to-speak. This clearly has Cartesian overtones but it need not be construed as such, and it also doesn't necessarily entail a commitment by Searle to a dualistic framework.
By modifying Searle's thought experiment to include a network of individuals (agents) rather than Searle's single individual, one can remove the onus of "understanding" from any single individual and locate it with the collective interactions of a networked system. In other words, the collective product is what constitutes the understanding and not any single contribution. This would seem to satisfy Searle's notion of semantic understanding at least partially and not fall within his criticism of understanding through syntactic processes alone. Nevertheless, one could criticize this position by countering with the charge of committing a fallacy of composition, viz., concluding of the whole what is true of the sum of its parts. I think that's a rather weak counter however.
It's your move sweety pie.

asg · 17 February 2005
Reading Chalmers and Searle, particularly, the undercurrent of "but if the naturalists are right, then mind isn't special in the way that I think it is, and I want mind to be special like that, and so the naturalists are wrong" is often frighteningly easy to discern. And pretty obviously, all of its steps are wrong.
If this is your idea of a substantive criticism, I'd hate to see what you think is a substance-free one. And if you think that's a fair reading or representation of either Chalmers or Searle, then perhaps some of the IDists' bad habits have rubbed off on you.
I did not have time to read all or even most of the stuff ts posted. However, the one he describes as (in part) a response to Kripke contains the following curious passage:
However, there is an obvious enough alternative solution. Instead of trying to identify some genuine possibility which we are imagining, physicalists can simply say that there is no real possibility associated with the thought that pains are not C-fibres firing (or any other physical property), and that the thinkability of this thought consists in nothing beyond the facts that we have a concept pain, a concept C-fibres firing, the concepts are and not, and the power to form a thought by joing them together.
This is the crux of the author's criticism of Kripke's imaginability argument, yet I can't even parse it. What the heck does "the concepts are and not" mean?
In any case, as long as we are posting links to the secondary literature, here are two good papers critical of the functionalist/materialist view of the mind:
Jaron Lanier, "You Can't Argue with a Zombie"
Michael Antony, "Against functionalist theories of consciousness"

ts · 17 February 2005
This is the crux of the author's criticism of Kripke's imaginability argument, yet I can't even parse it.
That's your problem, not Papineau's. I certainly had no trouble with it.
What the heck does "the concepts are and not" mean?
The concept "are" and the concept "not" -- it's not that hard to understand that these were implicitly quoted, if you try.
Jaron Lanier, "You Can't Argue with a Zombie"
Standard issue Lanier ad hominem snark -- accusing people who argue for a physicalist notion of consciousness of lacking consciousness. I saw him put on an amazing performance at Tucson II in 1996 -- not his piano performance, but his attack on Alan Turing for having been homosexual.

asg · 17 February 2005
So what do you have to say about Lanier's actual, you know, argument?

asg · 17 February 2005
I'd also say that it's pretty rich for someone who labels anyone not agreeing with the currently in-vogue school of thought in philosophy of mind as equivalent to a creationist to throw around accusations of ad hominem argumentation.
And, frankly, I think it's dishonest of you to say that Lanier "attacked" Turing for his homosexuality. Other accounts of that event (I was not there) do not share that view, and Lanier's writings mentioning Turing are laudatory, not scornful. Your attempt to mischaracterize him in this way, presumably in order to reduce his credibility among readers here who are not as familiar with the people we are discussing, is pretty pathetic. In fact, ignore my above post, since I'm actually not at all interested in what you have to say about Lanier's argument or anything else.

Mike S. · 17 February 2005
"Non-naturalistic explanations aren't explanations at all."
— PFJ
Isn't that begging the question? I'm not up on all this philosophy of the mind stuff, but isn't the basic argument against physicalism that a piece of meat running a program can't have free will? Surely, even if you think human beings don't truly have free will, or if (as I presume Dennett claims in Freedom Evolves) that we do have free will even though we're just a bunch of atoms arranged in the right way, you can see why most people would either resist such an idea or not be able to grasp the concept easily. And where does rationality fit in to this? Does it really exist or is it an illusion?

PJF · 17 February 2005
(Not up on the fancy formatting tricks. Still new here.)
It's not really "begging the question" to say that non-naturalistic explanations aren't explanations at all. It's more like a Rule of Engagement. And most people here would actually have an awful lot of sympathy for it, in general, even if they don't like it being applied to philosophy of mind. We (strongly, and rightly) criticise the proponents of "ID" for not putting forward any sort of positive ideas that would, for example, lead to a research program.
I think the "it's Mind Stuff" claim is strikingly similar to that. Once you say "it's a machine made of meat", you can talk about mental modules, or neural networks, and programming analogies, and evolutionary adaptions, and memes and language acquisition and all sorts of fun stuff -- and you can debate the merits and nuances of each, and slowly add to the "research program". If someone was to say "oh, that? It's Mind Stuff", where do you go? Doesn't everyone else get the same feeling they got when they first asked someone peddling Creationism "yeah, okay, fine, but where did *God* come from?". Both the "Mind Stuff" and "God Stuff" camps are, I think, far more guilty of "explaining away" than naturalism ever was.
And it couldn't possibly be an "argument against" physicalism that a "piece of meat running a program can't have free will", since we can't *really* investigate whether any given thing *has* free will in the first place. So it's much more in the class of "I really don't want to believe this, so therefore I won't" positions.
So yes, I can see why people would "resist" the idea. And yes, a position like Dennett's can be difficult to grasp, and occasionally involves some strenuous mental effort. But the source of my continued bafflement is why people *here* -- who certainly aren't very forgiving when ID-ers come at us with "I don't want to believe it" and "I don't understand the theory" -- would so quickly cheer for non-naturalism about mind.

Michael Finley · 18 February 2005
Non-naturalistic explanations aren't explanations at all.
— PFJ
What possible justification is there for this bald assertion? Calling it a "Rule of Engagement" doesn't seem to help.

Mike S. · 18 February 2005
It's not really "begging the question" to say that non-naturalistic explanations aren't explanations at all. It's more like a Rule of Engagement.
— PJF
I suppose that depends on what the question is. ;) If the question is, "how does the brain work?", then I agree with you. But if the question is, "what's the answer to the mind/body problem?", then I think it is begging the question to assert that only naturalistic explanations count. This doesn't mean one can't argue for a completely naturalistic account (i.e. claim there is not mind/body problem), just that one can't automatically rule out non-naturalistic accounts ahead of time. I suppose this then raises the question of, "what counts as (non)naturalistic?".
And it couldn't possibly be an "argument against" physicalism that a "piece of meat running a program can't have free will", since we can't *really* investigate whether any given thing *has* free will in the first place. So it's much more in the class of "I really don't want to believe this, so therefore I won't" positions.
I suppose that depends on what you mean by *really* investigate. Clearly the way we interact with other human beings depends upon the assumption of free will. What would be the point of Panda's Thumb in the absence of the assumption that human beings are capable of rationally considering the evidnence and coming to a non-preordained decision? What would be the point of the law if one rules out free choice? So I think it is a reasonable argument against, even if it cannot be a decisive one. Didn't Hume basically laugh at himself for his skepticism argument, acknowledging that nobody actually lived that way?
But the source of my continued bafflement is why people *here* --- who certainly aren't very forgiving when ID-ers come at us with "I don't want to believe it" and "I don't understand the theory" --- would so quickly cheer for non-naturalism about mind.
It seems that this stems from the assumption that all defenders of evolution are strict materialists, no?

PJF · 18 February 2005
There's a very real sense, I'd say, in which "how does the brain work?" just is a way to address the so-called Mind/Body Problem. After all, the leading concern, for the "Problem" is basically "how is it the case that a machine made of meat would be conscious?".
I guess it's fair enough, if I'm pushed, to back off a little and say that it's not that non-naturalistic "accounts" of mind "don't count", as I said above. Maybe what I should say, instead, is just that they are so embarrassingly poor, in terms of content (or in terms of how they could lead to a "research program", and all the other things I mentioned), that they should be fairly summarily dismissed -- especially in light of the solid work that is being done in terms of strictly materialistic "explanation".
I mean, sure, if we're investigating an murder (or something) and someone stakes their claim, from the start, to saying "it was a Miracle" -- and it turns out that it actually *was*, then that really is the "explanation" is a very real sense. But it's just poor mental hygiene, I say again, to cheer for non-naturalism so readily. Giving up strict materialism is a huge, huge philosophical committment -- one that I think *completely* unjustified by any troubles with the "mind question".
(Especially so when we can understand the "psychological" reasons why strict materialism is unattractive: it makes us feel unfree, it makes us feel unspecial, etc.. Part of the point of thinking "philosophically" is to try and set aside those sort of motivators.)
And I'm not "assuming" that all defenders of evolution are strict materialists, since I've found a bunch of people, just here (but also previously), who seem to be believers in evolution but are easily swayed by non-naturalistic accounts of mind. I'm just saying that I think it's pretty surprising that that would be the case.

ts · 19 February 2005
What would be the point of Panda's Thumb in the absence of the assumption that human beings are capable of rationally considering the evidnence and coming to a non-preordained decision?
Free will is not required for rational consideration of the evidence -- in fact, rational consideration, and rational decision, is arguably determined by the evidence. Why would we want a decision regarding the facts that was not determined by the facts? And to the degree that decisions are not determined by the facts, in what sense are they rational? In Freedom Evolves, Dennett says that greater cognitive capacity provides greater "freedom" to reach correct conclusions based upon the evidence, something that those with lesser cognitive capacity are not free to do. It's mechanical sort of freedom, but as we're (per physicalism) mechanisms, that's the only sort of freedom we can really have -- other than freedom through randomness, which Dennett argues isn't the sort of "free will" we want. If a car comes at us, we want to dodge out of the way because of rational consideration of the consequences of not doing so, not accidentally as a result of quantum indeterminacy. And we do want to -- predictably, pre-ordainedly -- dodge out of the way.
What would be the point of the law if one rules out free choice?
To deter negative behavior. See www.naturalism.org I definitely agree that non-natural explanations don't explain anything, in any relevant or useful way. This is well demonstrated by the interaction problem with cartesian dualism -- there is no way for non-material "mind" to affect or be affected by anything physical. Useful explanations must be causal, which means they must be natural. The modern view of the mind is as a process -- it's what the brain does. Every feature of the mind, of consciousness, is -- as far as we can tell -- a causal result of something happening in the brain. And what else could it be?

ts · 19 February 2005
I'd also say that it's pretty rich for someone who labels anyone not agreeing with the currently in-vogue school of thought in philosophy of mind as equivalent to a creationist to throw around accusations of ad hominem argumentation.
Hey, that's pretty funny, being explicitly ad hominem -- somehow the truth of the accusation is a function of something I did. And it's a tu quoque argument, one of those other classic fallacies. I didn't say anything about "the currently in-vogue school of thought in philosophy of mind" -- what I referred to is dualism -- you know, God did it, or our souls did it, or some non-material non-causal spirit stuff did it. Some non-causal non-naturistic non-scientific claim to explanation, or a denial that any causal natural scientific explanation is possible. The latter is the claim of modern dualists -- they have no positive explanation for consciousness, only a negative claim that no physical, material, natural explanation is possible. If that sounds a whole lot like Intelligent Design -- well, it is a whole lot like it. Which is not to say that Chalmers is stupid or uneducated or dishonest or anything else that one might say about creationists, it is only to say that the position he holds suffers from the same sort of flaws. In other words, my criticism is not ad hominem at all. Chalmers is a great guy, very very smart, very funny, holds his liquor well, throws great parties -- from my selfish perspective, it's a shame he's gone back to Australia. But he's wrong about consciousness. And any scientist, anyone committed to methodological naturalism, should think so too. As for Jaron Lanier, I was there and I know what he said, and I called him on it afterwards. He discussed at some length Turing's homosexuality -- how could that be anything but ad hominem at a conference about consciousness? It is much like his claim that people like Daniel Dennett and I aren't conscious -- he offers homosexuality and lack of consciousness as explanations of why we hold the views that we do. That's not a valid form of argument, and doesn't really warrant a response. But as for what I think of his argument -- like most anti-functionalist arguments, it consists of seductive but misleading intuition pumps, that can be answered by a positive physicalist theory of consciousness like the one I cited by David Papineau.

ts · 19 February 2005
I mean, sure, if we're investigating an murder (or something) and someone stakes their claim, from the start, to saying "it was a Miracle" --- and it turns out that it actually *was*, then that really is the "explanation" is a very real sense.
I don't understand. What does it mean to say that "it actually was a miracle"? What's the epistemological justification for such a claim? What's the ontological status of "a miracle"? Is a particle going through one slit rather than another "a miracle"? I claim that you were right in the first place: the only sorts of explanations -- semantically meaningful explanations -- are natural ones. "it was a miracle" means there was no cause -- but per Hume, cause is just a perceived correlation between events. Saying "it was a miracle" is tantamount to saying that we have no explanation -- that's not, itself, an explanation.

PJF · 19 February 2005
ts: little clarification so that our ("Naturalism Only Please") side of this discussion doesn't suffer from any infighting.
The "Miraculous Murder" case wasn't meant to adjust my position. I was just allowing for the *possibility* (which I believe so slight that it's not worth anyone's time banking on it or believing it in any way -- let alone defending it when they're die-hard matieralists about evolution) that non-natural "claims" might actually be correct after all. And -- in that case -- then the "miracle" explanation of the hypothetical murder would be the right one.
PS: Dave Chalmers, in moving to Australia, has actually moved from where you are, to where I am. And (if I remember rightly) to my old university. Nice little coincidence, there.
But speaking of holding his liquor well: don't all these new-fangled dualists get creeped out by the idea that, for them to get lagered, a) their non-material brain must either be influenced by purely material lager, or b) there must be some non-physical beer correlate right there in the bottle, as well. Either situation seems decidedly creepy and bizarre. Certainly in desperate need of explanation, which isn't really forthcoming. And so here we are, as you suggest, back with Descartes. Not very impressive progress.

Michael Finley · 19 February 2005
Isn't the suggested dichotomy between strict physicalism and some sort of ethereal Cartesian dualism a false one? Aren't there options in between.
For example: Quine, a champion of naturalism and no friend of dualism, accepted an ontology that included non-physical entities, viz., sets. He did so from a belief that mathematics could not be accounted for without such entities. What, in principle, distinguishes this move from those of, e.g., Chalmers or Searle? Is Quine guilty of giving up on naturalism; is his position "embarrassingly poor, in terms of content "?
Why not this approach: search for a naturalistic solution, but keep non-physical one's (of all varieties) on the table? What is gained by removing them? I can see nothing intrinsically sinister about them.

ts · 20 February 2005
ts: little clarification so that our ("Naturalism Only Please") side of this discussion doesn't suffer from any infighting.
Well, being on one "side" or in one camp or another doesn't put one's claims beyond dispute. I was trying to make sense of your claim, but I still can't, because you didn't address the questions I posed.
The "Miraculous Murder" case wasn't meant to adjust my position. I was just allowing for the *possibility* (which I believe so slight that it's not worth anyone's time banking on it or believing it in any way -- let alone defending it when they're die-hard matieralists about evolution) that non-natural "claims" might actually be correct after all. And -- in that case -- then the "miracle" explanation of the hypothetical murder would be the right one.
I don't accept that it is possible that non-natural claims "might actually be correct" or that "it was a miracle" could be "the right" explanation. Not just that it's incredibly unlikely, but that it's logically impossible. Because I don't believe that "it's a miracle" asserts anything positive -- it's no different from saying "I don't know how it happened", or "what I saw happen is beyond my understanding". If someone claims to have established beyond any doubt that a miracle happened, then -- thinking of Arthur C. Clarke's dictum -- I might ask how they ruled out space aliens with technology beyond our imagining. And if you say that, yes, we can't be sure that it really was a miracle, but it might have really been a miracle, I would have to disagree because I don't think that the word "miracle" actually refers to anything; there aren't any criteria by which to distinguish miracles from non-miracles. It certainly can't be "God did it", because, if there is a God (which I would argue also is impossible, but that's another discussion), presumably God does everything. And "miracle" can't refer to "a random fluctuation of spacetime", because the whole quantum world is a matter of random fluctuations. And "miracle" can't mean "uncaused", because causality is about relations between events -- there is no set of "caused" events vs "uncaused" events. So "miracle" doesn't have any meaning of its own beyond "something I don't know how to explain", and so "it was a miracle" a priori cannot serve as an explanation of a murder or anything else.
PS: Dave Chalmers, in moving to Australia, has actually moved from where you are, to where I am. And (if I remember rightly) to my old university. Nice little coincidence, there.
I can explain that -- it's synchronicity. :-)

Michael Finley · 20 February 2005
I don't accept that it is possible that non-natural claims "might actually be correct" or that "it was a miracle" could be "the right" explanation. Not just that it's incredibly unlikely, but that it's logically impossible.
— TS
Really? How's that? What logical rule in particular is being violated?
...I don't think that the word "miracle" actually refers to anything; there aren't any criteria by which to distinguish miracles from non-miracles.
Your comments contain some confusions. (1) While it may be true that the word "miracle" has no reference, it is obviously false that it has no meaning. The basic distinction between sense and reference is standard (see Frege's Sinn und Bedeutung). "Miracle" means a supernatural suspension of the laws of nature. (2) Thus, there are semantic/metaphysical criteria to distinguish miracles from non-miracles. There may not be epistemic criteria for such a distinction (a la Hume), but that's a different issue.

ts · 20 February 2005
Really? How's that? What logical rule in particular is being violated?
The logical rule that only semantically coherent descriptions are logically possible. Chalmers discusses this at length in "The Conscious Mind" in discussing whether zombies are logically possible. He notes that he cannot see anything incoherent in the description of zombies, and therefore they appear (to him) to be logically possible. Physicalists differ, because they take consciousness to be nothing more than something the brain does, so the idea of the zombie brain doing exactly what the non-zombie brain does but one being conscious and the other not is incoherent.
Your comments contain some confusions.
Perhaps, but you've demonstrated none.
While it may be true that the word "miracle" has no reference, it is obviously false that it has no meaning.
That's swell, but irrelevant, since I didn't claim that it has no meaning, nor did the argument I presented depend on it having no meaning. Rather, I went on at some length as to what it does mean, as opposed to what it doesn't. So I'd say it is you who is confused -- or worse.
"Miracle" means a supernatural suspension of the laws of nature.
And "supernatural" means? That appears completely redundant here. "suspension of the laws of nature" -- what does that mean? "the laws of nature" are our descriptions of what we observe in nature. Nature is as it is, and isn't subject to the laws that we have lain down for it. The notion that those laws could be "suspended" is incoherent. Something occurring in nature that doesn't match "the laws of nature" just means that we got the laws wrong, or that our description of nature is incomplete -- as it always is. I'd say that the confusion here is yours, concerning the epistemology of science.
There may not be epistemic criteria for such a distinction (a la Hume), but that?s a different issue.
You're clearly confused, since that is exactly the issue when "it's a miracle" is presented as an explanation. Explanations are epistemic devices, but "I can't explain it", "the laws of nature were suspended", and "it was a miracle" add no epistemic content to a description of an event (the first one provides epistemic content about the person making the claim, but that's not what we're after).

ts · 21 February 2005
Yet me take another stab at this. I wrote
I don't accept that it is possible that non-natural claims "might actually be correct" or that "it was a miracle" could be "the right" explanation.
I then gave an argument (which might, of course, be flawed) to that effect, concluding with
and so "it was a miracle" a priori cannot serve as an explanation of a murder or anything else.
An a priori argument against a claim is an argument that the claim is, ahem, logically impossible. It is silly then, to ignore the argument and ask "Really? How?s that? What logical rule in particular is being violated?", just as it would be silly to ask of Euclid what logical rule is being violated by the claim that there's a largest prime -- it is by virtue of Euclid's proof that the claim leads to a contradiction that it is logically impossible. And it would be silly to ask what rule of logic is violated by talk of square circles -- square circles are logically impossible because they require contradictory attributes. And David Papineau argues that -- on his view -- zombies are logically impossible, not because of a "logical rule", but because conscious states are physical states, and so saying that two beings have identical physical states but different conscious states is contradictory. For "it's a miracle" to be the right explanation, it must not just mean something, it must be true. "square circle" means something, but it can't possibly be true of anything. If, like square circles, there's nothing to which "miracle" could refer, then "it's a miracle" can't be right. And while "it's a miracle" may mean that the laws of physics that govern the behavior of the universe were suspended, it can't possibly be true, because the laws of physics don't govern the behavior of the universe and aren't the sort of thing that can be "suspended". Rather, they are just our best description to date of how things go. So the notion that "it's a miracle" could be right depends upon an erroneous reification of "laws" -- taking them too literally as being prescriptive, like human laws, rather than descriptive. What could be right is that an event isn't consistent with our current understanding of physics, but that's no explanation of the event -- quite the contrary.

Michael Finley · 21 February 2005
Your attempt at clarification seems (to me) to deepen your confusion. Your initial claim appears to be that the notion of a miracle contradicts something else that is known to be true, say naturalism (it does not cohere with some known truth, and is therefore incoherent). The logical impossibility of miracles, then, depends on the justification of naturalism. Please provide the justification.
"Square circle" means something, but it can't possibly be true of anything.
This example of logically impossibility, on the other hand, is different from above. The notion of a square circle is [bold]self contradictory[/bold]. And as such, it is meaningless. It does not have a meaning, and therefore, it does not have a reference. This brings us back to the distinction between sense and reference. A square circle lacks both, and in particular, it lacks reference because it lacks meaning. Meaning is a necessary condition for reference. The word "Miracle" has meaning, but it may not have reference. Furthermore, to have sense is to be possible (see Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, et al.). Your comparison of "miracle" and "square circle" shows a lack of understanding here.
...the laws of physics don't govern the behavior of the universe and aren't the sort of thing that can be "suspended". Rather, they are just our best description to date of how things go.
This is a confusion of the laws of nature with their expression. By "best description" I assume truth is meant, i.e., best in terms of truth. Thus, the expressions of laws are correct or not, and if correct, then they describe something, viz., laws. Were "laws of nature" merely descriptions that cover how things have gone to date, they would not be very useful for making predictions. I suspect that you are (perhaps unwittingly) relying on some version of Humean skepticism concerning causality. The problem with such arguments is that, when carried through, they make science impossible.

Michael Finley · 21 February 2005
TS:
Well, I shall make an effort to be more civil as you are a fellow graduate of my alma mater. I graduated from Hillsdale in 1997 with a B.A. in philosophy. I still think your position needs some constructive refinement, but I shall suggest improvements with a smile from now on.

Mike S. · 21 February 2005
Part of the point of thinking "philosophically" is to try and set aside those sort of motivators.
— PJF
Why? I think they are important parts of the 'data set' of observations. ---
Free will is not required for rational consideration of the evidence --- in fact, rational consideration, and rational decision, is arguably determined by the evidence. Why would we want a decision regarding the facts that was not determined by the facts? And to the degree that decisions are not determined by the facts, in what sense are they rational?
— ts
Rationality is only part of the issue - the issue is the freedom of choice. In fact, rational decisions are usually not determined by the evidence: most problems are underdetermined. The rational part comes in assuming that the person you are conversing with is genuinely capable of changing their mind - consciously choosing to hold a different belief. But they're just as capable of choosing to ignore (or go against) the available evidence - that's why it is non-determinate. (And that is frequently a good thing, since often the available evidence points in the wrong direction.) You seem to be dismissing irrational decisions as not real decisions - not truly free choices. Is that so? (I don't think the jump-out-of-the-way-of-a-car example is useful - that's an instinctive behavior, not a considered one. Unless you're arguing (or Dennett is) that all decisions are instinctive.)
It's mechanical sort of freedom, but as we're (per physicalism) mechanisms, that's the only sort of freedom we can really have
I don't know about you, but my experience is not that I only have a mechanical sort of freedom, which is really no freedom at all. I can't prove it, all I can do is make the claim that arguing that human beings don't truly have free will is contrary to people's experience, and to the assumptions we make in dealing with others. I said, "What would be the point of the law if one rules out free choice?" To which ts replied,
To deter negative behavior. See www.naturalism.org
That's remarkable. The only reason for punishing wrongdoers is to deter others? Justice is not involved at all?
I definitely agree that non-natural explanations don't explain anything, in any relevant or useful way.
That depends upon how you define 'relevant' or 'useful'.
This is well demonstrated by the interaction problem with cartesian dualism --- there is no way for non-material "mind" to affect or be affected by anything physical.
Like I said, I don't really know the latest theories. But I think Cartesian dualism is a straw man, is it not? I don't have the vocabulary (or the time or energy, for that matter), to discuss this in detail, but my limited understanding of the mind/body problem is not that there is a "Ghost in the machine" a la Decartes, but that the human experience cannot be meaningfully encapsulated by reduction to a particular pattern of neuronal firings.
Useful explanations must be causal, which means they must be natural.
Useful in what sense? For example, I think that the most powerful causal explanation for the spread of Christian belief is that it is, in fact, true that Jesus was resurrected. The most parsimonious explanation for the behavior of his early followers was that they truly believed that he was who he said he was, and that he had, in fact, been resurrected. That doesn't prove that they were correct, only that it requires more ad hoc assumptions to fit their behaviors into a model where they were deceived or were trying to deceive others. The cause of his bodily resurrection was a supernatural (or non-natural) intervention by God. Thus this explanation is both useful and non-natural (at least in part). Perhaps you have an entirely materialistic account of the whole scenario. We could then argue (probably ad nauseum) over which explanation was the most 'useful'. But then you'd have to revise your statement. Or else you can just require an arbitrary condition that all explanations must be naturalistic.

Mike S. · 21 February 2005
BTW, the article by Thomas W. Clark on naturalism.org is ridiculous. He argues that all behavior is determined in some sense, yet he still argues that we should hold criminals responsible for their behavior:
Some might suppose that dispensing with free will amounts to universal exculpation--- that to understand is necessarily to excuse. But, even in the light of science, our moral standards of right and wrong remain intact; we still find murder abhorrent, and we must still protect ourselves from dangerous individuals. Likewise, we can still distinguish the sane from the insane, the immature from the mature, those who act voluntarily from those who act under duress; and so the concept of a responsible agent---an agent that it makes sense to hold responsible in order to shape moral behavior---still has footing, even though all agents are fully determined in their actions.
This is nonsensical - our moral standards of right and wrong depend upon the notion of free will. In his scenario, they emphatically don't 'remain intact'. Besides, how can we rationally determine policies that will 'shape moral behavior' if 'all agents are fully determined in their actions'?

PJF · 21 February 2005
Don't really have much luxury-time to post (it's not a holiday, here), but I just have to chuck a few things in:
The "motivators" I referred to when I said that part of the point of philosophy was to avoid such things -- I mean things like "what we want to believe", and preferring to believe what we can easily grasp -- are not, contrary to what Mike S. suggests, "part of the data set of observations". They're not "observations" at all, really. They only refer to ourselves, not the thing in question.
Presented with a bowl of fairly plain, white-colored ice cream, I pretty much have to conclude it's vanilla. Even if my die-hard preference is for (identically colored) White Rum, MSG and Salt flavor (which I do hope is fictional), it's just not really justified to believe such. And even if I just plain don't understand what the hell vanilla is, or how you make icecream out of it, I'm still obliged to admit it's the better bet. A weird analogy, to be sure, but as I say; I'm rushed.
Methinks you've got a pretty bunked-up view of "parsimony", from what you said about Christianity's "success" and the matter-of-fact of Christ's resurrection. It's not a "simpler" explanation for the success that the resurrection actually happened, because that thesis entails a whole steaming great big tangle of philosophical committments: the existence of God, the personality of God, the dual-natures incarnation of Christ, the theology of the sacrifice and resurrection, etc., etc..
The alternative, naturalistic explanation involves the invocation of no new entities. The process of cultural change isn't "easy" to follow, sure, but there's some good work being done (memes and things are handy tools, obviously) and it's becoming understandable. And we've got all sorts of textual history that was done, particularly with the Gospel of Mark (working off the top of my head, here) and its ending, where the ressurection-story is told. We know there's been a process of textual change, and we can document some of it.
The naturalistic explanation is more detailed than "Christ actually rose from the dead", but that should be seen as a virtue, really, much more than a vice. In the relevant senses, it is far more parsimonious.

Mike S. · 22 February 2005
The "motivators" I referred to when I said that part of the point of philosophy was to avoid such things --- I mean things like "what we want to believe", and preferring to believe what we can easily grasp --- are not, contrary to what Mike S. suggests, "part of the data set of observations". They're not "observations" at all, really. They only refer to ourselves, not the thing in question.
I think we have fundamentally different foundations from which we're approaching this problem, so we're not going to get anywhere continuing the discussion. The 'problem' I'm saying that 'how people feel about certain concepts' is a relevant observation for is 'what are human beings?', not necessarily any individual person. And I'm including in the realm of possible explanations that the Bible is correct in its description of what human beings are (i.e. created in the image of God). You frame the problem as one where people have these emotional reactions to a particular idea (that people are meat machines), but those emotional reactions are irrelevant, or are explained away. I'm saying they are relevant to describing human beings and why they are the way they are. But if you start from the physicalist assumption, then there's nothing to discuss: I don't start from that assumption, and nothing either of us says is likely to change the assumptions of the other. You can always find naturalist explanations of any human behavior, and I can always say that such explanations are incomplete. But you can't prove that the physicalist assumption is correct, and I can't prove that it isn't. If you're open to the idea that it isn't, I could offer persuasive arguments to support my position (assuming I had the time & energy - probably a dubious assumption), but if you rule it out ahead of time there's not much point in my trying to persuade you.

PJF · 22 February 2005
True, you can always *say* that naturalistic explanations are incomplete. That's easy enough; no denying that. My point is that that such claims look increasingly ad hoc, unjustified and motivated by irrelevancies as the game goes on. And you won't catch me in any of the old canards about who can "prove" what: all I'm saying is that it is far more reasonable to believe in the naturalistic view of the mind, than any of the alternatives floating around.
If you do have the time and energy to set forward what you see as the persuasive arguments in favor of your position, then I've got the time and energy to read them. As you say, it's unlikely I'll be convinced, believer as I am in the strengths of naturalism. Your position is of interest to me, however, because it stands as a Thing People Aren't Yet Convinced About Naturalism. What is it about "our" view of the mind that is so deficient; or what about "your" view is so much stronger..?

ts · 23 February 2005
Well, I shall make an effort to be more civil as you are a fellow graduate of my alma mater.
— Michael Finley
I have no idea why you think that -- it isn't true. And I think your other comments are equally confused and mistaken, but as the discussion would be interminable, I won't address them further, other than to point out that Frege noted that the sense of a statement is the composition of senses of its components, which renders "suspend the laws of nature" senseless, since there's no concept that it picks out, any more than "end a batchelor's marriage". They both sort of look like they mean something, until one carefully examines the semantic relationships of the components.
BTW, the article by Thomas W. Clark on naturalism.org is ridiculous.
— Mike S.
It's a big site and he has written many articles there. I don't agree with all of it, but I haven't found any of it to be "ridiculous".
This is nonsensical - our moral standards of right and wrong depend upon the notion of free will.
Clark's view is not made nonsensical merely by asserting that it is. Your position strikes me as similar to a comment made in all seriousness many years ago on talk.philosophy by, IIRC, Laura Creighton, that "If I thought I didn't have free will, I'd shoot myself". But of course, no choice can be justified on the basis of a belief that one lacks free will. This includes choices to murder, steal, etc. Whatever reasons for opposing these behaviors, having free will doesn't enter into it. Rather, our moral standards of right and wrong depend on culturally established norms that are largely rooted in our biology as a social species. Murder, theft, disobeying parents, and inseminating a man's wife in a patriarchal society disrupt social order; in a more egalitarian society where women's autonomy is valued, rape rather than adultery is a crime. It's not our standards of right and wrong, but rather the idea of retributive justice, that depends on the notion of free will -- just as Thomas Clark observes. But a move from libertarian free will to determinism suggests a move from retributive justice -- making people suffer on the sheer basis that they "deserve" it, to the idea of deterrence -- changing people's behavior, through punishment, reward, and constraint, to reduce crime both by the perpetrator and by others (deterrence). This move is rational since it reduces crime, both as a matter of logic and statistics. Of course, this is discussed at length by Clark at his site, as well as throughout the extensive literature on crime prevention and deterrence, human psychology, animal training, etc. (We don't tolerate killing humans or removing or destroying their property by animals, either, and we take steps to prevent it through constraint, training, and "capital punishment" -- e.g., putting killer lions and bears to death. It is interesting how we apply mercy to animals but treat criminals with cruelty and contempt. We justify this on the basis of moral culpability, but the underlying reason has to do with deterrence -- we think that this sort of treatment discourages other people from acting criminally, but of course we don't expect it to have any effect on animals.)
Besides, how can we rationally determine policies that will 'shape moral behavior' if 'all agents are fully determined in their actions'?
In the same way that we rationally determine policies that shape the behavior of puppies so as to not crap on the furniture. Those policies that are rational are those that achieve the goal at which they are aimed.
I don't think the jump-out-of-the-way-of-a-car example is useful - that's an instinctive behavior, not a considered one.
This misses the point entirely. I said "If a car comes at us". Try it -- stand in a quiet roadway and contemplate what you are going to do if a car approaches. See what you do when a car approaches. Since you don't want to suffer great pain or die, you shouldn't mind the fact that it is very hard for you to just stand there and think calmly about the possible outcomes as the car comes near. That you lack that sort of freedom is no problem, since it isn't a sort of freedom you want -- or should want. I for one wouldn't mind if I "instinctively" made the best financial choices -- if I had a computer in my brain that examined the facts and calculated the probable outcomes and, when I go to make an investment, caused me the same sort of discomfort about bad choices as the discomfort that comes from standing in front of an oncoming car -- or the sort that comes from contemplating financial ruin. I don't know about you, but I have been faced by the latter and, believe me, it caused a very strong feeling of a desire to avoid that outcome on a par with facing an oncoming car -- and I wish I had such a computer inside me, as I would be a lot wealthier. I can "consider" remaining in front of an oncoming car or making a bad financial choice -- but why should I want to? The point of my comment about the car is that it is predictable that we will act in our interests -- as we see them -- and we want that to be predictable -- we have no desire to be "free" to act in a way that is inconsistent with our interests as fully conceived (e.g., acting altruistically if that is what we desire as a matter of our self-image and self-esteem), and in fact we go to considerable effort to avoid such freedom -- by not drinking to the point where our judgment is impaired, for instance, or not giving ourselves the freedom to be able to fall off a precipice. In all cases, the only freedom we want is the freedom to do that which accomplishes our desires -- additional freedom is pointless. Underdetermination is irrelevant -- it's fine if more than one behavior fits our best interests. It's not as if Dennett's sort of free will requires a deterministic universe -- after all, the universe isn't deterministic at the quantum level. It's only that it is compatible with a deterministic universe -- there's nothing in our behavior that is inconsistent with determinism.
But they're just as capable of choosing to ignore (or go against) the available evidence - that's why it is non-determinate. (And that is frequently a good thing, since often the available evidence points in the wrong direction.)
How very bizarre. It's frequently a good thing to be able to make a choice that the available evidence indicates is unfavorable, because it might be a good choice anyway? Hey, how about buying all my overvalued stocks from me, because they might make you a lot of money? Or how about playing Texas Hold'em with me -- you can ignore the cards on the table, the odds, my past and present behavior and what kinds of hands I bet, bluff, and fold on, or go against what all that evidence suggests, because it's "frequently a good thing". Man, I hope you don't hold a position of responsibility of any sort. The fact is that, for instance, diversification, rather than investing everything in the market with the most potential, is a good thing not because it goes against the available evidence, but because the totality of the evidence suggests that strategy. The notion that it's "frequently a good thing" to ignore or go against the available evidence misconstrues what "the available evidence" consists of, miscontrues probability and induction, and is a philosophy for losers. "the available evidence" includes the historical probability of outcomes so, if going against something were frequently a good thing, the available evidence would indicate that. While it's always possible that going against the available evidence in any given circumstance might result in a good outcome, we can't possibly know that, so such a choice is never advisable. If, for instance, the available evidence is that the odds against an event are 2 to 1, it is never advisable to take an even odds bet on it -- if you do so "frequently", you'll lose your shirt. And if the world were so random and so unpatterned that ignoring the available evidence were "frequently a good thing", then it would be a very inhospitable place in which rational faculties like ours never could have evolved.
You seem to be dismissing irrational decisions as not real decisions - not truly free choices. Is that so?
Uh, no, I dismiss irrational decisions as not desirable -- there's no reason to want to be able to make them. We want the decisions we actually make to be limited to rational ones, so it's no loss if we are constrained to make only those decisions.

Michael Finley · 23 February 2005
I have no idea why you think that — it isn’t true.
— TS
My mistake. I (wrongly) assumed that "ts" meant Timothy Sandefur, the originator of this thread. That, "T.S." is a graduate of my alma mater. I should have known that no graduate of Hillsdale could be as brashly obtuse as you.
...other than to point out that Frege noted that the sense of a statement is the composition of senses of its components
. As I've said to you elsewhere, you need to read more books. You have confused Frege's notion of sense with that of truth value. For Frege, the truth value of a complex sentence is determined by the truth value of its component sentences. Frege never defines sense more than providing suggestive examples.
which renders "suspend the laws of nature" senseless, since there’s no concept that it picks out, any more than "end a batchelor’s marriage." They both sort of look like they mean something, until one carefully examines the semantic relationships of the components.
Even were you right about Frege, which you are not, what you say here is wildly off point. Each of the components of the phrase "suspend the laws of nature" is meaningful. On your bizarre rendition of Frege, therefore, their composition is meaningful. What you are stumbling towards is Wittgenstein's qualification that words have meaning in certain connections (see LW on "grammar"). What you mean (with some generous fill-in-the-blank assistance) is that these words have no meaning in that configuration. Good luck justifying that claim. To quote Aristotle: "Your premises are false, and your conclusion doesn't follow." Try as you might, the phrase "suspension of the laws of nature" is not self-contradictory in the way "square circle" or "married bachelor" are. And given that self-contradiction is what your position requires, your argument is futile.

Mike S. · 23 February 2005
In the same way that we rationally determine policies that shape the behavior of puppies so as to not crap on the furniture. Those policies that are rational are those that achieve the goal at which they are aimed.
— ts
So, who is doing the rational determination of policy, and who is the puppy?
Uh, no, I dismiss irrational decisions as not desirable --- there's no reason to want to be able to make them.
This makes no sense - surely you've heard of, or can imagine, decisions that were irrational at the time that turned out to be fortuitous?
We want the decisions we actually make to be limited to rational ones, so it's no loss if we are constrained to make only those decisions.
I don't want my decisions to be limited to only rational ones - I want to have the freedom to choose, regardless of the apparent rationality of the choice. But desire is irrelevant - the question is, what is the reality? The reality is that human beings have the capacity to choose actions that are irrational or rational. And your assertion that "it's no loss" if we don't have that freedom is profoundly wrong - in fact, we lose what it means to be human.

Mike S. · 23 February 2005
"Does it not occur to you...that by purging all sacred images, references, and words from our public life, you are leaving us with nothing but a cold temple presided over by the Goddess of Reason -- that counterfeit deity who, as history has proved time and time and time again, inspires no affection, retains no loyalties, soothes no grief, justifies no sacrifice, gives no comfort, extends no charity, displays no pity, and offers no hope, except to the tiny cliques of fanatical ideologues who tend her cold blue flame?"
--John Derbyshire

PJF · 23 February 2005
Mike S.: I suspect you might be missing quite what I'm on about when I talk about the ir/relevance of what I referred to as "motivators".
I'm drawing a comparison between non-naturalism in regard "origins", and non-naturalism in regard "mind". In the history (and present) of the debate over evolution, many, many "deniers" (be they Creationists outright, or "ID" supporters, or whatever) speak along these lines:
"If evolution is true, it entails [something I don't want], and therefore I don't believe it is true." Lest this seem like a caricature, there's a book on my shelf at home which was quite popular for a time called 'In Six Days'; a collection of short pieces by Ph.D.-holding Genesis-literalist Creationists. It was divided into two halves; fully fifty percent of the book was devoted to "moral" objections to evolution, ie: if evolution is true, it implies something about morality I don't like, therefore evolution's not true. It's been a common theme for years; you can read William Jennings Bryan making just that claim as part of his writings at the time of the Scopes trial.
(I'll leave aside all the reasons why I believe that argument to be flawed; for now, I'm interested in its form.)
If people are discussing origins, and don't want to believe that they are related to monkeys (or mushrooms, for that matter), or just don't like the way it makes them feel less "special" -- that doesn't make it relevant to the actual question of origins.
Yes, it's an interesting question, in human terms: Why don't people like seeing themselves as related to other animals? Why do people feel like their "special nature" is threatened by evolution? Why do people feel the need to feel "special" in that sense, at all? And so on.
But it is not at all relevant to the actual question of origins.
Likewise, with mind. There, the "motivators" are usually a fear of losing our sense of "free will", and an aversion to seeing ourselves as an "unspecial" machine made of meat. (And again, I'll leave aside the serious flaws I see in those arguments; I am concentrating on their form.) They are interesting questions, to be sure, but they are likewise totally irrelevant to the actual question as to the nature (naturalistic or non) of mind.

ts · 24 February 2005
In the same way that we rationally determine policies that shape the behavior of puppies so as to not crap on the furniture. Those policies that are rational are those that achieve the goal at which they are aimed. So, who is doing the rational determination of policy, and who is the puppy?
Ahem. You asked "Besides, how can we rationally determine policies that will 'shape moral behavior' if 'all agents are fully determined in their actions'?" Obviously, the first "who" is your "we" and the second who is those whose moral behavior we wish to shape.
Uh, no, I dismiss irrational decisions as not desirable --- there's no reason to want to be able to make them. This makes no sense - surely you've heard of, or can imagine, decisions that were irrational at the time that turned out to be fortuitous?
I discussed this at length in the post you are responding to. The one not making sense is you, since restricting oneself to rational decisions is at least as likely to result in fortuitous outcomes as is making some mix of rational and irrational decisions. This follows from the very meaning of "rational". If some other behavior would, in totality, have better expected results than the "rational" behavior, then the "rational" behavior wouldn't be rational after all. For instance, game theory indicates that, in many games, it is better to behave randomly rather than to make conscious choices, because making conscious choices could reveal a pattern of bias to your opponent and allow prediction of your future behavior. In that case, behaving randomly is rational and behaving consciously is irrational.
I don't want my decisions to be limited to only rational ones
But you should -- if you were to be rational.
I want to have the freedom to choose
You don't have any choice over what freedom you have, but you should want the freedom to make rational choices -- if you were to be rational.
regardless of the apparent rationality of the choice
I said nothing about apparent rationality, only rationality in fact. That seems to be at the heart of your confusion.
But desire is irrelevant - the question is, what is the reality?
Indeed, quite so. And reality of human behavior is deterministic and mechanistic -- the evidence is overwhelming.
The reality is that human beings have the capacity to choose actions that are irrational or rational.
Yes, quite so, and I never said otherwise. The point was that a process of evolution has produced in us a capacity to act rationally -- it has turned us into somewhat rational mechanisms. And we should have to desire to make irrational choices when out brains are working out rational ones -- not if we were to be rational.
And your assertion that "it's no loss" if we don't have that freedom is profoundly wrong
Nope, wrong.
in fact, we lose what it means to be human
This is a conceptually confused construction, and is the sort of thing that is at the heart of a lot of irrational thinking about these sorts of matters. We are human; "what it means to be human" is to have human characteristics, whatever those are, so we can't "lose" that. And human characteristics include being a biological mechanism produced by evolution, an object that operates in a deterministic fashion in a deterministic world. Unlike a rock, these objects respond to their environment in complex ways. And these objects produce some very intricate behavior, which we call language, and these objects tell themselves and listen to stories in this language, and one of the stories is that the complex responses that these objects make are "choices", and they "could have done otherwise", and so these "choices" are "free". It's a very useful story which is itself utilized as part of the objects' complex responses to other of these objects, but it's just a story nonetheless. This is not "profoundly wrong", but rather is profoundly right, and is a major discovery by scientists and philosophers who have studied and investigated these matters extensively.

Mike S. · 25 February 2005
Obviously, the first "who" is your "we" and the second who is those whose moral behavior we wish to shape.
— ts
But what happens when the shaper and the shapee are the same person? (Actually, this isn't necessary, it just highlights the contradiction.) Then we have the same person rationally making policy (or moral rules) towards some end, but you're arguing that the same person is also 'fully determined in his actions'. The whole necessity of making the policy is due to the fact that the actions, or behavior, of the shapee could be different if the policy were different. Yet you say those actions are fully determined. Can you at least see the contradiction that I do? If there's a way out of it, please explain it to me.
I said nothing about apparent rationality, only rationality in fact. That seems to be at the heart of your confusion.

If some other behavior would, in totality, have better expected results than the "rational" behavior, then the "rational" behavior wouldn't be rational after all.
The point is that the "in totality" or "rationality in fact" are only apparent after the consequences of the decision have become clear. Prior to making the choice, one choice may have been much more rational than the other, but you chose the less rational, or irrational one. After the fact, that choice turned out to be highly beneficial. You can't retroactively claim that the original decision was rational, though, since given the available evidence at the time, it was the irrational choice.
We are human; "what it means to be human" is to have human characteristics, whatever those are, so we can't "lose" that. And human characteristics include being a biological mechanism produced by evolution, an object that operates in a deterministic fashion in a deterministic world.
True, we can't "lose" it - but we can lose the correct understanding of what human beings are, with drastic consequences. For example, look at Marxism. It was built on a profoundly incorrect understanding of human nature, and had disastrous consequences for those that bought into its description of reality. Human characteristics, do, indeed, include being a product of evolution, but it is not true that we are deterministic (or that the world is). You said yourself that we are only partly rational, and I'm sure you'd agree that human beings make mistakes. How do you know with such confidence that we are deterministic in nature? You seem to be rather cavalier about the possibility that you are wrong, or about the severity of the consequences of your being wrong. +++
If people are discussing origins, and don't want to believe that they are related to monkeys (or mushrooms, for that matter), or just don't like the way it makes them feel less "special" --- that doesn't make it relevant to the actual question of origins. Yes, it's an interesting question, in human terms: Why don't people like seeing themselves as related to other animals? Why do people feel like their "special nature" is threatened by evolution? Why do people feel the need to feel "special" in that sense, at all? And so on. But it is not at all relevant to the actual question of origins. Likewise, with mind. There, the "motivators" are usually a fear of losing our sense of "free will", and an aversion to seeing ourselves as an "unspecial" machine made of meat. (And again, I'll leave aside the serious flaws I see in those arguments; I am concentrating on their form.) They are interesting questions, to be sure, but they are likewise totally irrelevant to the actual question as to the nature (naturalistic or non) of mind.
— PJF
You need to place a modifier in front of 'origins'. I agree with your assessment if you're talking about biological origins. But if you are talking about metaphysical origins, then I don't agree with you. We agree that biology is necessary for a comprehensive description of human beings - the question I'm getting at is whether it is sufficient. If the question is whether biology (or the natural world) is sufficient to explain human beings, then you cannot limit the possible levels of explanation to biology only - that is predetermining the answer (or at least predetermining that it can never be addressed in a rational manner). Evolution and the mind are two different facets of the same problem: what are human beings?

ts · 25 February 2005
But what happens when the shaper and the shapee are the same person? (Actually, this isn't necessary, it just highlights the contradiction.) Then we have the same person rationally making policy (or moral rules) towards some end, but you're arguing that the same person is also 'fully determined in his actions'. The whole necessity of making the policy is due to the fact that the actions, or behavior, of the shapee could be different if the policy were different. Yet you say those actions are fully determined. Can you at least see the contradiction that I do? If there's a way out of it, please explain it to me.
That you see a contradiction (but can't actually demonstrate one, in terms of a logical contradiction) where there is none is due to conceptual confusion. I suggest that you read Dennett's "The Intentional Stance" and "Freedom Evolves".
what are human beings?
They're featherless bipeds.

ts · 26 February 2005
The point is that the "in totality" or "rationality in fact" are only apparent after the consequences of the decision have become clear. Prior to making the choice, one choice may have been much more rational than the other, but you chose the less rational, or irrational one. After the fact, that choice turned out to be highly beneficial. You can't retroactively claim that the original decision was rational, though, since given the available evidence at the time, it was the irrational choice.
It would help if you actually understood the meaning of the words you use. "rational" refers to reasoning, to the justifications for decisions -- it is always and only "prior to making the choice". It has nothing to do with whether it was the best choice in hindsight. You're treating "rational" as a synonym for "most beneficial", which is, well, deeply irrational.