SteveCook

Actually, you will be pleased to know, RationalBiker, that the third person on my list was in fact you and I got the third name incorrect on the list. aplologies for that Softwarenerd. I have been writing reports all day and my memory of who, what where and when on this forum was abit fuzzy when writing the post above. Who knows though, maybe i have dissapointed you by removing you from my hall of infamy....

I was determined not to post here again. It is somewhat dishonerable. However, I am compelled to do so. I promise not to again. Apologies for this. So.... To reiterate. I do not feel personally harshly treated. Apart from anything else, I am too thick skinned for that, either personally or intellectually (though i hope less so intellectually). To be more specific, i must accept that it is not enogh for me to simply state that "some" people are intellectually fraudulent. I guess I did so because I think it is obvious who I refer to. I am referring in particular to David Odden and, to a lesser extent, Blackdiamond and Rational biker. David has a tendency to quote sections of AR to other contributers as though it were sacred scripture. As though, these quotes, in and of themselves provide self evident truths. Maybe it is sacred scripture. If so, it is not inetellectual debate that is takiing place here. Also, I note his other tendency to take umption if someone should question his underlying assumptions. His typical response is to rubbish such questioning as "irrelevant". At the same time, he is, quite correctly, ready at every opportunity to liguisticallt unpack the minutia of others contributions. I should like to make mention of Viking here. whilst, it might appear, at first glance, that Viking and I shaer ea similar position on certain issues contained in the "racial" thread that is currently running. There are a number of makor points of argument where we significantly differ. I point this out because I wish to state here that he has been treated on that thread in an intellectually disgraceful manner. I am quite sure Viking does not need me to come to his defence as he give me the impression he is someone who is well cappable of holding his own and so I would respectfully ask for his indulgence for my citing him as part of the argument I am putting forth here. Whilst I do not agree (I think) with Vikings underlying assumptions regarding racial differneces and their consequent behavioural consequences, he presented arguments concerning the use of probabilities that, whilst certainly debateable, were instead treated with intellectual dishonesty and retorical obfuscation. When that did not work (I find his tenatiousness admirable) downright ridicule and then false accusations were applied againts him. Disgraceful. So,,,this is what happens when you challenge a high priest in this place is it? Anyway....forgive the intrusion Goodbye

I have spent some time recently on this forum in the hope that I might be able to subject my own ideas to strong intellectual scrutiny since this is how one grows intellectually. I was also hoping to learn from other ideas presented here. Regarding the above two things, I have had some success in both regards and would like to thank those contributors who have provided stong constructive critisisms of my arguments and who have also provided me with food for thought on a number of topics such that I have been driven to reassess some of my central opinions. However, I have also witnessed the treatment of some arguments, and also the proponants of those arguments to be petty and personal. There is more than a whiff of doctrinal orthodoxy in the posts of a number of high profile contributors here. Indeed, when the orthodoxy has been questioned on occassion. sometime clumsily, sometime with great erudition, it tends to be treated by the aforementioned contributors in an intellectually obfuscatory and off-hand manner. Which is to say, it is treated in an intellectually fraudulanet manner. As with any orthodox church, there are the lowley peasants and there are the high priests. As with any orthodox church, to question the orthodoxy is to risk hellfire and damnation. I guess that is fine if we are talking about a religion. However, I had initially taken this forum to be a place where honest, rigourous, and open intellectual debate would be possible. I was mistaken. Again, as I have said, there is much here to commend this forum in terms of the intellectual debate that takes place. However, there is also an intellectual rotteness lurking here aswell. The stench of which causes me, sad to say, to decide to take my leave. I have recently taken part in a thread that discussed the persistence of religion in modern day society. I find it quite ironic that a number of high profile contributors to this thread and to others, have made bold statements about the illogicallity and philisophical fraudulence of religion (a position I happen to concur with, by the way) whilst at the same time adopting a quasi religious position with regards to the foundations of their own arguments. I admit it, I give up. As the old adage goes, "you can't reason with a person of faith". Naturally, I do not refer to my own contributions and how they may or may not have been treated since this is for others to judge. Besides which, I am quite capable of looking after myself Goodbye

You are correct in your interpretation HunterRose. I do mean pragmatic as being contextually beneficial. Regarding your last paragraph. I am intrigued by this. Please forgive my ignorance regarding its underpinnings. I would be grateful if you could unpack it a little for me.

Since you do not appear able/willing to address the post by the last contributor and, since my problems with your arguments are (more or less) the same and, since you indicated in your post just previously that you were primarily addressing me, parhaps you might be encouraged to deal with these issues if I put them to you, since, as I have said, much of the previous contributer's issues with your argument match onto my own at least on this particular fine point. Before I begin, though, please allow me to apologise for referring to the content of one of your previous post's arguments as being silly. Obviously, I am happy to apologise for this. However, please be note that the apology extends that far and no further. That is to say, I apologise for offending your argument. since I did not offend you personally (I didn't actually realise that arguments had feeling that could be hurt). Unlesss, of course, you are unable to distinguish the difference between an argument and a person. I am assuming you are able in this regard. In reference to the above, your use of the word "cause" causes me concern. The reason being that probabilites rarely imply cause. Or, at least it is very unwise to infer cause from them. However, what they do provide is evidence of a "correlational" relationship" between variable. However, a correlational relationship does not imply no-cause. It simply tells us that two or more variables are related. That is all. You use of the word "cause" suggests to me that you think unless a cause can be absoloutly established, probabilities are innapropriate. But, that is the point of them. If a cause can be absoloutly established, you will not require the use of probabilities. Well, if we accept the original thought-experiment premise (hopefully I have got this the right way round!) that there were more tall people in prison than short people, there is, by definition, a relationship between the two variables of "presence in prison" and "height". It may or may not be a causal relationship. But that there is a relationship in evidence is logially undeniable. Thus, when faced with a moral dillema to place trust in a tall person or a small person, in the absence of any other evidence, logic would dictate that you chose to place your trust in a shorter person. Probabilities, being what they are, menas that you would be likely to be correct in your actions X percentage of the time and incorrect Y percentage of the time. This would be the case whatever the nature of the relationship between the variables. Be it correlational or causal.

What? No need for probabalistic assumptions on your part here BlackDiamond. You can be certain that I have absoloutly no idea what on Earth you mean by saying that there is an "established metaphysical relationship with your current situation". Perhaps you might be so kind as to enlighten me as to its meaning? Please be slow though, because my limited intellect might miss it's meaning otherwise. On the basis of the limited information I have in my possession at the moment, I must make the probabalistic calculation that either the above statement you have made has a meaning that is logically explicable, but which I am quite happy to accept I am too ignorant or stupid to have understood it without further explanation. Althernatively, it is a grand sounding, but essentiially vacuous statement designed to rhetorically obscure a lack of coherent argument.

I would be very dissapointed if I thought you and I (or for that matter, any significant number of us) were of the same mind. Apart from being extremely boring, such a situation would be of little value to anyone concerned since it would mean that no learning could take place. A desire to learn from others by listening to their ideas as well as subjecting my own to scrutiny is the primary reason I join forums such as this. I am susrprised by your post suggesting that unless we are of a similar mind I am in the wrong place. Perhaps I too have mis-understood.

Hang on a minute...I think you are mixing up certainty with probability. It would be the case that, in the absence of any other evidence (in other words, not knowing the woman had just arrived on a plane) the probability would be 70%. That doesn't make the probabalistic assunption invalid. It just makes it a probabalistic assumption. Nothing more, nothing less. What I think Viking is trying to get at and I think I at least agree with him on this point (please forgive me Viking if I have misunderstood you) is that if you use probabilities in such a situation you will probably be correct in your probabalistic assumtions 70% of the time. The whole point about probabilities is that they are used when all of the causal (or even correlational) factsd are not known. Thats the point of probabilities. If you knew all of the variable sinvolved, you wouldn't need to use probabilities because you would know for certain. Your critisism of vikings reasoning in this regard is actually a critisism of the use of probabilities...period. Which is a bit silly really. Anything as messy as biology..of which psychology and behaviour are a sub set must make use of probabilities otherwise we might all just as well go home. If you don't think that you use probabilities in your everyday interactions with the world consider this thought experiment: Lets assume that you have to cross a river at one of two points. which you choose is up to you. However, historical records have been kept for mortality rates of the people crossing the river at the two points. At one point, 50% of people have been found to drown when trying to cross. At the other point, 1% of people have drowned. Which crossing are you going to use Blackdiamond? On a more everday note, whenever you plan anything, you are taking probabilities into account (or are at least doing somthing in your brain that is functionally equivalent to calculating probabilities). For example if you are choosing where to go on vacation between two or more options. You eventual choice will come down to which of the propposed destinations you think might offer the most interest to you. You can't know for certain because you haven't had the experience yet. You must simply make a probabalisitc calculation based on the limited information you have. etc etc etc...

Go on then..i shall be brave/foolish......20% The above is based on the following assumptions: Each man has 4 wives All women have, on average, the same number of children Without the above assumptions....erm...I'm not sure...

Hello Sophia. I am sorry to say that I am not. However, I would be obliged to you if you could outline it's principles here or, alternatively, point me in the direction of a suitable introductory publication.

Forgive me..I must be misunderstanding you...You can't actually be trying to suggests that a moral code is based upon an objective reality can you? If you are, then please do explain which of the moral codes of say Christians versus Muslims is the objective one and which is the self delusion? In an attempt to anticipate your reply, I would might guesse that a possible reply to the above question might be to say that all codes based on a religeous foundation are self delusional. If that would be your response, then perhaps you might like to answer this question as an alternatve: Which of the two moral codes of say a capitalist versus a socialist....or a humanist versus an objectivist is the objectively based code and which the delusionally based one? Please feel free to substitute any particular philisophical/political/religious code for the ones I have provided I look forward to your reply

Yes I agree. I remember watching a doumentary on an anthropologist who spent a year living with an indigineous tribe of people in the Amazon. At first he was welcomed into the tribe. However, two weeks in, he was nearly murdered in his bed. He managed to persuade the tribal elders to spare him. He asked them why they had decided to kill him. They explained it was because he was a child in a man's body. This was something they found deeply offensive. An incident the previous day had led them to this conclusion. He had brought a camera with him. They had asked him how it worked. He explained that you aimed and pressed a button. you then sent the film off to a developers to be processed. They quickly deduced from this that much of what had initially made the anthropologist appear to be superior to them was in fact an illusion. Pretty much all of the things he relied upon for his survival were poorly understood by him because he relied on many other agents in his society to provide them for him. This is pretty much the definition of a child. They understand little of what is required to keep them alive, and why should they? they are children. These things are provided by the adults that are caring for them. The tribal eleders explained to the anthropologist that a fully formed human should know intimately all of the things he needs to keep himself and his family alive. Every tribesperson was taught this form a very early age. Pretty much the rest of that year was spent by the anthropologist learning how to be a man as defined by these tribespeople.

Quite so Mobius. However, I would not define the above as altruism. I would define it as "reciprocation" based on rational self interest. I do realise that, superficially, "reciprocation" looks like a duck and quacks like a duck when compared to altruism. But that doesn't mean it is a duck. To reiterate, I would define pure altruism as the giving of resources (materials, time, etc) that profits the reciever and leaves the giver economically neutral at best and at a loss at worst. Profit and loss are defined in terms of reproductive success.

Perhaps you might like to provide an answer to the following question: Why is it that in the scandinavian countries (Norway, Iceland etc.) where welfare provision, as viewed from your standpoint, is hideously high, do we find exceptionally low level of civil disturbance, crimes against the person, self harm and just about any other definable human deviance? I should add here that comprehensive welfare provision is not merely the provision of resources in order to allow a person not to have to work. On the other hand, in countries that, relatively speaking, have much lower levels of welfare provision, all of the above deviances are much higher in their incidence. I am thinking particularly of the US and, to a lesser extent, the UK, as compared to the scandinavian countires mentioned above. It seems to me there must be one of two explanations to the above question: 1) Countries such as the US have other cultural factors that lead them to have greater levels of deviance which is unaffected either way by welfare provision. 2) Welfare provision is positively related to lower deviance levels in society. If you have other explanations, I am genuinely interested to hear them.

Yes I agree with the point about rational self-interest. Also I would like to go further and make mention of the morality of paying taxes to fund a welfare system. If I pay less taxes, it would appear, in a superficial sense, that I am servicing my own self interests more than I might if I were to pay more taxes. However, if the consequence of my paying lower taxes is such that those people who might have recieved more welfare payments are now more socially unruly as a result, my life may well be affected. This can range form the trivial...As I go to the theatre to enjoy a new play, my experience is negatively impacted by having to clamber over the people living in carboard boxes on my way to the ticket offfice! On a more serious note, the civil disturbances that become more likely in a society where the welfare system is less generous than might be otherwise means that I have to spend more money on personal security, my freedom to live, work and play wherever I want is limited to those areas that are not too poor etc. I realize that the morality I am advancing is one of pragmatic rational self interest. But I believe that to be the best basis there is. Since it is rooted in the real and not in the ideal.

Quite so David, with regard to Schizophrenia and manic depressiveness. These are two of the more obvious directly heritable neurological conditions. However, my previous post was referring to less obvious, more indirectly heritable psychological landscapes that make for certain belief structures being more or less likely to be constructed than for people with differing mental landscapes. A particularly obvious example would be the difference between introverts and extroverts. Of course, there are no such types except insofar as we define them. They are merely two opposite ends of a scale. Psychopathy (extreme extroversion), Gullibility, thoughtfulness, sociability, and many other cognitive traits have a measurable heritability to them (primarily via monozygotic twin studies). Each of these traits makes for the mental landscape I have mentioned earlier. This provides the foundations for certain behavioural patterns, certain learned habits, certain beliefs to be more likely to develop in some people than for others. I know that what I am arguing implies that people's freedom to form their own beliefs and values is somewhat limited...but there we are.

Excellent. My standard of grammer, whilst not bad, is entirley based on intuition since I was not taught anything along these lines when I was a boy. I generally know when something is grammatically correct but I am, more often than not, buggered if I know why I know it is correct (is is grammatically (or, even, semantically) correct to say "I know why I know"). So, I think I will take myself off to a bookseller and purchase one of the books you have reccomended folks.

I think I agree with this. Except I don't know what "psycho-epistemological" means.......duuuuhhhhhh If it means what I suspect it means....then A.R. managed to say in one sentence what it has taken me several bleeding paragraphs to say!

You make the assumption that our genes are only responsible for our appearance. They are responsible for laying the foundations off all of what we are. This includes personality traits as well as intelligence (what ever the hell that is!) Such inherited cognitive characteristics can increase or decrease the probability of adopting certain values and beliefs. For example, there have been some heritability studies that have shown there may be a genetic basis to religiosity for God's sake!!

I completely agree with the above statement as well

ah....I have made a very poor job of laying out my thoughts....becauseI completely agree with the above statement by you. Absoloutly, the highly specific cognitive finctions that are valued in modern society would never have evolved in a preinductrial age and could not have evolved since the advent of the industrial revolution for two reasons: 1) not enough time 2) there is no selection force to speak of I suspect that the cognitive abilities that are valued in our society are no more or less than genetic "noise" in our genotypes. That is to say, anything that has no effect on our survival chances just tends to persist at a low but chronic level in a population simply because it sneaks under the radar of natural selection. How very convenient, one might ask that these very arbitary characteristic shouod be the ones that are deemed most useful in our society. I think the answer to this is that we have come to vlaue those characteristics we find ourselve to possess. In other words, if other characteristics had been more preveleant then we would have valued them just as much. We may have ended up not having an industrially based society as a result.Who knows? One might also suspect, that different racial grouping, as a result of their different evolutionary histories, would have had no particular reason to have had the same "neutral" genes drift into their populations isnce the process is essentially random due to the neutrality of the genes visa vi natural selection. I hope that has clarified my position

I completely agree with this.. Altruism only developed in early human species because of their tendency to live in small groups of high relation and low dispersal. What I mean by this is the following: True altrusim CAN NOT evolve. I must first define altruism. Altrusim, functionally, can be described as the giving of resources that profits the reciever whilst at the same time causing no profit for the giver at the very least. The altruism could be said to be even stronger if the giver suffers a loss as a result of the giving. The above, of course, now require that I give a definition for profit and loss. Profit and loss, in the context I have described above, can be defined as that which allows a gene to better lever itself into the next generation. It does this by having phenotypic expression in the world. This is usually achieved by building an organism around itself. Anything that the organism is or does that causes a profit to another organism (and by extension the genes that made it) could be described as altruistic. In the sense of altruism as I have described it, there is no such thing. So, how is it that we see apparently altruistic acts in the world of humans. Well, to explain this we need to remember that a gene should not be seen as existing as a single copy inside the single organism it has made for itself. Rather it should be seen as existing in the form of all of its copies spread across many individuals. Any gene that evolves the the tenedency to cause its phenotype to act in such a way as to increase the profit of any other phenotype of a copy of itself, will tend to persist in a population since the reproductive success of the gene that is shared at the very least remains constant. Indeed, more than this, if the giver is a grandfather who has passed his reproductive best and the reciever is a grandchild who has yet to fulfil their reproductive potential, the net reproductive success of the "altruistic" gene that they share will actually increase as a function of the grandfather behaving in an "altrusitic" fashion to his grandchild. So, to summarise so far, Altrusim in the pure sense cannot evolve in any organism. However, a form of behaviour that looks like altruism but is in fact the result of selfish genetic imperatives can evolve between related individuclas who have a very high liklihood of sharing that gene when compared to non-related individuals who are much lkess likly to share it. How then does this relate to altruism in prehistoric man. Well, to go back to my original point. The anthropological evidence suggests that early man evolved under conditions of high relation and low dispersal. By low dispersal, I mean that individuals tended not to migrate very far from their tribal group, who were more or less related ot them. It is precisely these kind of conditions that are rerquired for "altruistic" behaviour to evolve. Of course, in order to behave nicely to a related individual, one needs to be able to identify the fact that they are in fact related to you. In a species of low dispersal, this is easy and can be satisfied by a relatively simple behavioural rule. It might take something like the form: Behave nicely to anyone who lives within a given radius of you Alternatively Behave nicely to anyone who you spent the majority of your time near from birth up to a critical age Obviously, with a psecies of high dispersal, things are not quite so easy. In such cases the organism need to some kind of genotype matching with itself in order to establish the genetic releatedness of any individual it is considering giving resources to. In some animals this is done by phenotype matching. That is to say, giver makes an assessment of how much the potential reciever is similar to them. This can be done via any of the sense organs (e.g. smell, sight, sound). This thouhg is much more complicted to hard wire in as a behavioural routine and is probably why we see much less "altruistic" behaviour in species that have a tendany to disperse. So, given that we now live in huge cities where the individuals that share our immediate environment are no more or less likely to be related to us than are the people who live a hundred miles away, why do we persist in seemingly altruistic behaviour to one another. The answer< I believe, is due to a genetic legacy left to us from our ancesters mentioned above. In other words, it does not, actually, make any genetis sense for us to be altruistic to each other in cities since we are not related. However, this tendancy evolved when it did make sense. We are simply living off the back of that genetic heritage. If we conduct a thought experiment and were to assume that the amount of altruitic behaviour we engaged in had a direct effect on our reproductive success, we would soon see the genes that cause us to behave in that way dissapear from the human population. Indeed, let me leave you with this thought. Modern cities with the complex social systems that are required for them to function effectively, would never havebeen possible had our ancesters evolved in a different way and so not had such a simple (and therefore pevertable) behavioural rule for interacting with one another.

when i say that "the universe couldn't care less whther I choose to behave in any particular way...I should also have added... there is no particular reason why I should care either....but, of course I do. For most people, choosing to care is based on either: 1) a fear of religioius consequences 2) a gentic imperative 3) a philisophically based and, thus, invented, code of conduct. Number 1 is an unconscious social or personal invention (in other words...a dishonest lie) that allows the individual to absolve themselves of responsibility for their action Number 2 is based upon a real absolution of responsibility and so cannot really be regarded as being the basis for moral behaviour Number 3 is the only form of behaviour that can be regard as being truly moral.....even if it is merely a conscious invention (in other words...an honest lie)

I am an atheist and I think that that without God...all values are baseless. don't misunderstand me...some values serve a pragmatic function wich is why they persist across time. For example, I choose to behave in such a way as to ensure my family fare well in the world. I do this, though, becuase it serves the selfish interets of the genes we share. I choose to behave well to my neighbour in an effort to encourage him to reciprocate. Again, at a more fundamental level, I am statistically unlikely to have sex with my sister for genetic reasons similar to the ones cited earlier. There are others. In a universe without God, none of the above morality has any intinsic value or maining. The universe doesn't care if I copulate with my sister or murder my family. I may care. But this is only because I have a genetic imperative driving me to do so. Alternatively, I may choose, for reasons philisophical, to behave in certain ways that conform to a code of conduct I, or someone else has invented. This last reason is the most noble since it is really based on a dream. However, the dream is one that is voluntarily entered into. An atheist must, if he or she is honest, re-invent his or her morality each day when they consciously re-enter the world. The universe couldn't care less if they chose not to. This is, surely, superior to the morality of a person of religion. Such a person is also dreaming, but is too blind to know that they are.

I must dissagree with you assertion that deception, in and of itself, does no harm. If I use the most elementary example. Lets assume I were to ask you a question to which there was a singualr factually true answer, but for which there was no physical consequence to me of your telling me an untruth in response to the question. Lets assume we had a relationship of mutual trust. Thus mutual trust was born of a long series of engagements between us that allowed us to make certain positive asumptions about one another that we would be less likely to make of other individuals. If I were to discover that you had told me an untruth, whilst there were no physical consequences to the untruth, my ability to predict your intentions as regards my well being in any future engagement would be placed in jepordy as a result of my discovery. This would cause a psycholocial dissonance at the very least. Dissonance being defined as having two conflicting beliefs held at the same time. Psychological dissonance, by itself is deemed harmful. Physiologically measurably so in fact (extended periods of psychological dissonance are correlated with eleveated cortisone level, leading to increased risk of heart disease, strokes, cancer etc.). This is not to mention the possible damage to our relationship which might have unforseen physical/economic consequences for each of us. I am trying to anticipate a possible response to my argument above. a particularlly obvious one might be to say that if I were never to discover the untruth, then no possible harm would ensue (psychological or otherwise). However, that means that your original assertion would need to be modified to something like the following.... No harm will arise from deception so long as the person being decieved is not subject to the following: 1) direct physical harm resulting from the deception itself 2) direct psycholgical harm (dissonance) resulting from knowledge of the deception potentially leading to indirect physical harm