Flailing

Darn well impossible if you ask me but I'm no zen monk :/

What does it matter to us if the existence of universe itself is purposeless? We have purpose simply because we want to thrive in it, don't we? And thus the universe's purpose, from our perspective, is to be a good and enduring environment for us to thrive in?

Zen monks'd tell you the key to true happiness lies precisely in not needing a purpose or attachment to anything.

Yeah, but even Zen monks gotta eat.

Aimless OTM.

so surely the universe has a "purpose" even if that purpose is that it exists for its own reasons. we have "purpose" in terms of whatever systems we decide to place ourselves in.

Eh, I think there's a difference between your two "purposes". If you believe in some sort of determinism, true, the universe as a whole is a big system that will end up in some final predetermined state. But the universe doesn't really have teleology, either in the way that we do as discrete organisms designed for survival and genetic propagation (we have "purposes" as such that have nothing to do with any game-like contexts we imagine or illusory goals we set for ourselves), or in the sense of some "ultimate end" it's being guided toward as noodle vague seems to worrying about.

i only meant that purpose is something we attribute to things in the world because of autopoetic closure, will to power, etc.

as for the universe itself, we cant say much with any certainty.

or guys and chicks, if you happened to be simone de beauvoir.

http://www.exclassics.com/newgate/brownrg1.gif

You write:

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635174444,00.html

"How smart should we be allowed to be? How tall? How happy?"

These are among the strangest and most distressing questions I have
ever
seen printed in a responsible journal, or indeed any outside
totalitarian
societies. "Allowed" by whom? Implicitly, you condone the suggestion
that
someone else has a moral right to reduce or limit my intelligence and
happiness, or that of my children. Extraordinary!

I assume this is not something you really think, but is purely an
artifact
of journalism's routine but often profoundly misleading "On the one
hand,
on the other". Would you feel equally comfortable writing: "How
literate
should we be allowed to be? How old? How ethical?" Like yours, these
are
all questions more suited to a Taliban theologian, I think, or one of
Pol
Pot's ideologues.

Damien Broderick, PhD
University of Melbourne
Australia

Aw, but it's not all Nietzsche and reification-- what about evolutionary design?

as for the universe itself, we cant say much with any certainty.

I can't really say anything about much of anything with any certainty, but as an atheist I'm forced to take a guess about the universe and its lack of "purpose". But, yes, for all I know it could have been designed by ultradimensional space gods, etc. and from this vantage point it's rather hard to judge.

Re: transhumanism, I love their utopianism and would have no problem with humanity becoming "more than human", as long as everybody actually got to partake of those fruits in a egalitarian/communitarian manner. The Baptist guy's worries about immortalism actually seem sound from two vantage points: one worried about the selfishness of those grasping for power and their willingness to share with others, and the other worried about the "spiritual" harm that constantly grasping for the unattainable and giving short shrift to the here and now might do a person (or a society as a whole).

Well, the use of steroids is objectionable when they're damaging to health and used for trivial purposes, so if people are exposing themselves to health hazards to win the next pub quiz, I think that's where you can draw the line! Of course, there's egalitarian issues to worry about, too. Which schoolkids get access to smart drugs? How do you ensure equality of opportunity?

On the other, it's a way of fiddling with the natural aging process.

Fiddle away if you can get away with it! As a teenager, in all seriousness I wondered why society didn't completely devote itself to eradicating death, and if I had more talent as a research scientist I might have tried to do something about it myself. Eventually I realized that most people think the task would be impossible (especially given the likely eventual heat death of the universe) and would rather live well now than live desperately and die a miserable failure.

The hypothetical Grace has an auto accident that destroys the right half of her brain, at which time her remaining brain is suffused with nanoelectrodes hooked up to a computer that has the same power as the human brain. At the same time, a bath of neural growth factors and cloned neural stem cells stimulate her remaining brain cells to grow new connections to the brain prosthesis. As time goes by, the brain prosthesis assumes an increasing role in Grace's head.

This was actually the plan I came up with as a teenager for living forever (well, not the auto accident part)-- but I think it has serious philosophical issues, which is part of why I abandoned it (lack of talent the other factor, natch). I think Kurzweil is absolutely mad to think that a computer copy is anything other than a copy-- the plan was always going to be a gradual phasing-over to artificiality.

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/185/1925/320/crazy_it_party.jpg

People have (mostly) got used to the idea that living things were
designed by natural selection, but they have more trouble accepting
that human creativity is just the same process operating on memes
instead of genes. It seems, they think, to take away uniqueness,
individuality and "true creativity".

Of course it does nothing of the kind; each person is unique even if
that uniqueness is explained by their particular combination of genes,
memes and environment, rather than by an inner conscious self who is
the fount of creativity.

Yeah. Why was I giving Trayce a hard time upthread? I was probably being glib. Dogen's (or whoever's) thing: just be ordinary-- eat when you're hungry, take a shit when you have to, sleep when you're tired, et cetera, et cetera. Or, as Ikkyu reputedly wrote: "Don't hesitate, get laid-- that's wisdom. Sitting around chanting-- what crap." Fuck Zen anyway-- that's enough stating the obvious out of me.

x-post

each person is unique even if
that uniqueness is explained by their particular combination of genes,
memes and environment, rather than by an inner conscious self who is
the fount of creativity.

Yeesh-- what a can of worms your Susan Blackmore quote opens in the name of purposelessness. Claims to self-knowledge like this make my head hurt, what's a "meme" anyway, what would a mind-body dualist say in response to this, et cetera. Good night, ILX.

Dawkins contrasts ideas that are just memes, mindlessly and slavishly copied from brain to brain like computer viruses, with scientific ideas, which he likens to useful software that is critically evaluated by potential users and adopted or rejected on rational grounds. Such a distinction may be valid, but it is not a distinction that a materialist can make. It is based on there being an essential difference between machines, which can only do as they are told, and intelligent and free users of those machines, who can decide for themselves what to do. In the materialist’s universe, however, all users are themselves just machines, and are therefore as much driven by physical necessity (or chance) as everything else is. As the great mathematician and physicist Hermann Weyl observed,

There must be freedom in the theoretical acts of affirmation and negation: When I reason that 2+2=4, this actual judgment is not forced upon me through blind natural causality (a view that would eliminate thinking as an act for which we can be held answerable) but something purely spiritual enters in.

amen

Oh, fine. Supposedly, Blackmore's mechanistic view quoted upthread causes problems for Dawkins when he wants to privilege "brights" over credulous religious types-- if we're all just big agglomerated mechanisms and not self-aware agents, then he can't really favor one over the other in that way, we have no "free will", boo hoo. Supposedly. I don't see why you can't have both options be true at the same time (the agent that accepts and rejects ideas is just another beneficial meme-- bang, problem solved), and I don't understand why those last two sentences of your selection from this creationist's hatchet job of a book review are combined like that. They actually describe the two different possibilities-- that final quote (and it's a nice quote BTW) doesn't elaborate on the "materialist" conception of things that thi guy wants to outline, it supposedly refutes it.

In a nutshell, it's another variation on the claim that the theory of evolution requires faith in the same way that creationism does. Dawkins says no, and I agree.

Darwinism as understood by Dawkins necessarily involves a completely naturalistic conception of the world, in which there is no place for God or ultimate purpose. It is plain that this view is incompatible with belief in an objective moral order, and the more clear-thinking atheistic Darwinians have always understood this.

This is BS, but at least it's tied to the thread. If we have good reasons as human subjects for our moral valuations, we don't need an "objective moral order" of the universe to appeal to. Churchy, stop telling me what I'm supposed to be thinking. Nihilism is dumb. Fritz Nietzsche to thread!

And what is the biological function of an organism? Simply and solely to survive and to propagate its own kind. Natural selection gives nothing beyond that.

There is no place for intellectual or moral freedom in a universe that is mere matter in motion. That is why Sir Francis Crick, Edward O. Wilson, and many others who share Dawkins’ basic views call free will an illusion.

This guy has gigantic balls attacking Dawkins for being a shallow philosopher. Philippa Foot and Immanuel Kantto thread!

There is nothing in Darwinism, even in its most naturalistic form, that must lead one to despise religion as Dawkins does. There is every indication that religion is natural to man and conducive, on the whole, to his survival. It can give him hope in adversity, strengthen family bonds, and motivate sacrifice for the common good.

Oh, for god's sake-- there's a huge gap between belief and faith. (And this quote makes it sound like this guy is promoting religion on the grounds that it's a "noble lie"!) Dawkins may be slightly stupid about the spiritual benefits of religious faith, but the dude that wrote this article seems to have similar blinders going the other way. "Fuck Zen" aside, Zen kinda shows that you don't need dogma or belief in a divinely imposed cosmic order to have "spirituality" (even though lots of bad Western fundie Buddhist convert types might still have these delusions, for all I know). As far as I'm concerned, atheism and materialism do not "deny the spiritual soul in man" (nice gender choice BTW).

Chris thanks Im a bit slow witted and cant reply off the cuff, will digest your links and and reply when I get a chance

I swish I new where the Real me begum-ed and the alchymical misfire be gan. But truth be told I suspect there's no definite-ive bondary. What makes me happy? My misery. This'sh been reflected back toomey tonight by an iller freind, a hand I wants to grasp buttle feel a hippogriff reaching twards. I recognise that common scents says stay shtum. I ponder, all the time, the pencil line between acceptable and accessible. How d'ya recognise a illness from inside? And how d'ya stamp yr own foot on yr own sanitary?

Appy-olly-ogy to follow to-sober-morrow.

Classy dude.

Chin up now.

It's approaching
600 pounds gas and flesh
Robes in tatters
It's approaching
Lips and tongue abhorrent
Flickering lexicon
Or a stray dog pack leader

Do I so worry you
You need to hurry to my side, it's very kind
But it's to no avail
I don't want the bail
I promise you everything will be just fine

If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can't help it, the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me or treat me mean
I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine

Chris F --Ill reply tonight, not re Kant and Nietzsche I htink youre jerking around there, just memes ok.

I enjoy yr approximation of comprehensibility, kiddo :D

Y'know when Alexander the Great went mental he invented Rama, Jehoovah and Jesus in one felt swoop, yus?

We both know youre better than everyone else, so why not share this news with those you love princess and leave me alone.

Gods Speed Jerk

I'm not sure where yr chip come from, but perhaps you can explain. No really. What fence have you taken? I's only mumpling to my self.

Chris

Dawkins the “moral philosopher”! You speak very highly of him in such a capacity, a worthy companion to Kant and Nietzsche no less!

His charming influence is clear-- “oh fine”, “boo hoo”, “gigantic balls”, “hatchet job”,“ BS”, “Churchy”, not to mention his modus operandi; playing fast and loose with facts, dare I say “actual facts”?

Firstly lets clear up a few facts. S Barr is not a “creationist” he believes in Darwinian evolution-- a fact you could easily have checked as he has written a number of online articles on evolution. He is also a highly respected theoretical particle physicist whom I would suggest has a far greater understanding of the “huge gap between faith and belief” than you do. I would however be interested in what scientific qualifications you have. Secondly it is no way a claim “that evolution requires faith in the same way that creationism does” your so called “nutshell”.
A philosopher whom I think has more in common with Dawkins, Bertrand Russell observed that a true philosopher should try to understand another thinker on his own terms before criticising. Your complaint of a hatchet job on Dawkins rings an dull ironic hollow sound, the type of sound someone who hasn’t even read Dawkins might possibly make.

Your arguments then:

“I don't see why you can't have both options be true at the same time”

You miss the point of Dawkins work. Dawkins strategy is to put down religion as being simply a "meme" or "virus". For sure you could say that thinking in general is also just a meme or virus, with the difference being that it is a beneficial one. However, then the force of Dawkins's taunt is gone. If a scientific mind is "an infected mind" no less than a religious one, then what is the point? You might say that one infection is more "beneficial", but that simply moves the argument to different ground altogether. As a matter of fact, religious people do not just copy ideas about religion and morality uncritically.
Very simply Dawkins's taunt is implicitly based on the idea that religious people act like automatons. But if one's idea is that everyone is an automaton, then that argument loses all force.
What has Barr got so wrong here, what is the catch?

“As far as I'm concerned, atheism and materialism do not "deny the spiritual soul in man"”

As much as it is oblivious to you, who cares what you think! Sorry but Barr was talking about Dawkins and Dawkins is unequivocal “no intelligent person who has not been raised as religious can believe in the supernatural”.

Your other arguments below are so poor IMHO as not to not need to be refuted, but we can do these tomorrow night as well -- some things are perhaps best left unsaid?

“If we have good reasons as human subjects for our moral valuations, we don't need an "objective moral order" of the universe to appeal to....This guy has gigantic balls attacking Dawkins for being a shallow philosopher...Oh, for god's sake-- there's a huge gap between belief and faith!”

Look forward to your clarification and\or correction

Anybody who's read Bertrand Russell on Nietzsche will snicker snicker at his observation that "a true philosopher should try to understand another thinker on his own terms before criticising".

His charming influence is clear
the type of sound someone who hasn’t even read Dawkins might possibly make.

I could continue with your line of anti-polemical polemic here using this, but I won't. There no point. Dawkins as "moral philosopher" on the level of Kant and Nietzsche? I apologize if I gave the impression that I held this opinion! I was writing from a view that your article writer and Dawkins were in fact equally shallow in their views on this issue. I don't "miss the point of Dawkins work"-- I've griped about this in regards to him on other threads. I'm NOT one of Dawkins's followers. My frustration with "churchy" types (and I assume that you're among them-- your polemic uses some of their standard tropes in this debate) stems from the fact that I LIKE them-- they're generally the type of people that I like to be around. That was the point of the comment on "belief" and "faith"-- I worry that most people's talk about God and moral order in the universe is empty at some level, and I don't like that the beneficial aspects of "faith" seem tied to a "belief" that I don't think is sustainable without some level of willful ignorance. I've been thinking about this stuff seriously for half my life, whatever it may appear to you-- your article writer's scientific credentials seem to be rather beside the point, although of course and justifiably my needless belligerence brought you rushing to slap me down in his defense. Dawkins has a point in his quote about "no intelligent person"-- you wouldn't be talking about this stuff in these terms without the "hearsay" of your traditions. Just because we have a word for a thing doesn't mean that that word describes a real thing, or even that we can really define the thing we're talking about to the satisfaction of an impartial observer. The thing about your dude being a respected blah blah blah is beside the point-- people who specialize in one field can still say uninformed things in another. "Creationist" was a bad word to use, as I was referring to his apparent belief that God was the creator of the order of the universe from the get-go-- I didn't mean to tar him with that broad a brush. The Kant/Nietzsche stuff was serious though badly done and in poor taste-- Kant "solved" the free will/determinism problem he brought up in the article, and there was other stuff I was obliquely referring to in a similar fashion, noodle vague-stylee, though of course there real way for you to know what I was talking about without mindreading.

If you actually want to have a conversation about this, contact me via e-mail. If you just want to engage in authoritarian badgering, don't bother-- I know the bounds I overstepped here, and what's more, unlike you, I know WHY I did so. The debate over Dawkins's use of the meme thing as propaganda tool is sort of interesting to think about, but at the moment I'm too agitated by this to respond. I'm serious about the e-mail thing-- I'm probably off browsing ILE for an indefinite period of time for a variety of reasons, me being a jerk here lately among them. If you want to have the last word here, that's fine, but most probably I'll never see it. "Remember, it's just lines on paper, folks!"

shantih.

I dont think ILX is very good for me I like things a little more transparent and Im slowly (4years)waking up to us,were a disaster ... I probably take some things the wrong way-- Noddles posts esp Jan 25 and if they had nothing to do with me then Im sorry, how embarrassing, whoops.

I do try and get on but get stuck between stockholm cindy and troling + past typecasting myself means I get poked with sticks until I spontaneously combust- combustion of the v worst childish bitter sarcastic churlish kind.

Urgh NOT GOOD. FWIW tho Dwarkins IS a very shallow philospher IMHO at least. Also I do have a BASIC grasp of Kant and post Hume\Kant closed -circle theory but I just view it as differently packaged Cartesian thinking methinks a new approach is needed in human ecology and Im returning to study to try and do just this. Ha. Youll laugh at that as well Im sure.

Hope you stick around Chris