Another reason why philosophers are useless

[Charlemagne_II]

Innoruk

The wall is stronger, because it has “physics” aka. “reality” on its side.

The reality walls have on their side is that walls are made to fall, and people are made to knock them down. .

 

[jonathan_hili]

I want to stick with this, Innoruk, because it is really the point I’m trying to make.

I said:

Innoruk, I still don’t see how you can escape the sceptical criticism.
Question: How do we know that our noetic faculties are accurate, that is, geared to truth?
Answer: We survive.
Question: But survival is not of itself geared towards truth, only survival, so how does this justify truth?
Answer: ???

The problem with the “survival” model is that survival has nothing to do with truth. As I’ve tried to show, there are innumerable possibilities where an entity can survive but still not have truth.

You replied:

Answer: Survival is the “truth”. If you die, your assessment of reality was wrong. The once-in-a-blue-moon examples to the contrary are just that. Very rare exceptions. Yes, for a while, in some lucky circumstances one can get away with incorrect model forming. But eventually, reality will catch up with you, and will remove you from the gene-pool.

Of course we already went through this far too many times.

Is there anything else?

But the problem with your answer is that we do not know that survival = truth. Any scenario where survival doesn’t equal truth demonstrates that it is very possible that all instances of survival do not equal truth. I mean, how do you know such exceptions are rare?

There are instances where we could be right but still die, and others wrong but still live.

You could not know unless how noetic faculties were geared for truth. Now, I believe they are - and I think you do too - but the question I want you to really consider is what metaphysic justifies such faculties.

 

[jonathan_hili]

Jonathan

How many more times can you stand to bang your head against the wall with Innoruk? :banghead::banghead::banghead:

Shrugs

I don’t know.

We seem to be going round in circles.

He doesn’t seem to get the logic of the argument, though I could be explaining it poorly. Does what I’m saying make some kind of sense to you?

 

[Innoruk]

But the problem with your answer is that we do not know that survival = truth.

The wording I used was a bit sloppy. I should have said that “survival is the final arbiter of truth”. I already pointed out that the real test to compare our model to reality is not a mental exercise, it is a down-to-Earth, physical interaction between our body and the reality.

Also in some previous post there was another somewhat sloppy wording when we talked about the tentative nature of our models. The mental interpretation is “tentative” - when we speak of the scientific explanation (or theory) of a phenomenon, but when it comes to “verifying” the result of an experiment, there is nothing “tentative” about that. A burned finger, the discoloration of a litmus-test, or any physical outcome is not “tentative”. Facts are facts, only the model about them can be disputed.

This is what you said before:

But again, you are assuming that our senses need to be accurate for us to survive.

You also said:

But we are testing the claims against the same perceived reality. If the perception or interpretation of reality is untrustworthy to begin with, how does such a test help?

The perception is not untrustworthy. The outcome of the experiment is not untrustworthy. Only the abstract explanation is what can be disputed - but ONLY if there is a good, serious reason to do so.

Your stance all through this discussion is called “universal skepticism”, which is really a self-refuting philosophical stance (as all self-referential systems can be). The reliability of our senses cannot be disputed. How could it be? What method could be used to show that our senses are “unreliable”? Obviously you could not use sensory experience to show that sensory experience is unreliable. What else? Some esoteric, armchair contemplation? And how would one know that such contemplation is “true”? By comparing it to reality.

The acceptance of the reliability of the senses is a “properly basic principle”. Just like the acceptance of the laws of logic. And no need for “faith” in either case.

Any scenario where survival doesn’t equal truth demonstrates that it is very possible that all instances of survival do not equal truth. I mean, how do you know such exceptions are rare?

Well, so far the only examples you gave were charging tigers being mistaken for playful kittens. Any person, who, after short observation would make develop such a model would very quickly take himself out of the gene-pool. Do you (or Plantinga) have a real world example, when one develops an incorrect model of reality, KEEPS on living by that model and does not suffer deleterious consequences?

You could not know unless how noetic faculties were geared for truth. Now, I believe they are - and I think you do too - but the question I want you to really consider is what metaphysic justifies such faculties.

Since I answered your question to the best of my ability, let me ask you: “what kind of noetic faculties” are needed to discern that placing your hand on a hot stove is “bad for you”?

Those “noetic” faculties are only needed to develop a “theory” for the explanation of our experiences. That is something that the animals cannot do (as far as we can tell). But the “functioning, working model of reality” we (and the animals) develop requires no abstract thinking. And its reliability is constantly verified by the most “unscientific” method there is… our continued survival.

Of course to have a sound, scientific theory is a huge help in aiding our survival. If one could give a forecast for an earthquake, it would allow more people to survive. The weather-forecast - not very accurate - is still a great tool to run away from the oncoming hurricane. However, there is no need to assume any “super-natural” interference for the emergence of such faculties.

From the time of the simple cave-men we have been accumulating knowledge, to make more precise correlations. Those people who are better “predicting” the future will live longer, and will sire more children. Their genetic material is more likely to be passed on. As a “universal skeptic” you might contend that dumb people, with lesser faculties survive, too. Undoubtedly. But this only points to blind forces of nature. If there would be a conscious designer, he could do a much better job than this slow crawling “toward to light” (to be a little poetic).

 

[anthony022071]

They are unable to come up with a coherent definition of “free will”.

Definition #1:
Some will assert that in order to have free will, one needs the following:

1. at least two different courses of action - where both of them would lead to a desired (willed) outcome for the agent
2. the locus of decision (which one to choose) must be with the agent
3. the agent can execute either action

Definition #2:
Others dispute this. They say that it is enough to be able to “will, wish, desire” to execute a certain action, but it is not necessary that one should be free to actually carry out that action. These people wish to separate “free will” and “freedom of action”. In their opinion the internal freedom of “wishing to do something” is a sufficient criterion of “free will”.

What is your opinion? I suggest to give an example why you prefer definition #1 or definition #2 (as the case may be).

Why would you expect philosophers to arrive at a consensus on free will? Of course they will have different opinions. That does not mean all philosophers are useless. Some philosophical opinions will be more logical and in accord with the truth and others will be less so.

The second definition of free will is more reasonable,simply because “will” itself originates in the mind and heart and has to do with thought,regardless of whether its intentions can be carried out. And thought is free,even if there is no opportunity for acting upon intentions. The association of free will with freedom of action is a looser,imprecise,colloquial idea of free will.

 

[Innoruk]

Why would you expect philosophers to arrive at a consensus on free will? Of course they will have different opinions. That does not mean all philosophers are useless. Some philosophical opinions will be more logical and in accord with the truth and others will be less so.

That would require a method to find out which opinion reflects reality. And philosophers have only opinions, nothing else.

The second definition of free will is more reasonable,simply because “will” itself originates in the mind and heart and has to do with thought,regardless of whether its intentions can be carried out. And thought is free,even if there is no opportunity for acting upon intentions. The association of free will with freedom of action is a looser,imprecise,colloquial idea of free will.

The “heart” is simply an organ pumping blood. And next time, when the “free will defense” will come up in the discussion of the “problem of evil”, I hope you will come forward and tell the apologists that God should take away the “physical ability to rape, maim and torture”, since the “ability” to carry out these wishes/wills/desires is not important, as long as the perpetrator’s mind is left intact…

 

[jonathan_hili]

Ahhhh now we get to it.

The acceptance of the reliability of the senses is a “properly basic principle”. Just like the acceptance of the laws of logic. And no need for “faith” in either case.

On the contrary - this is precisely faith. Notice, it’s nothing like logic. Logic is a coherent set of necessary linguistic rules, hence the laws of non-contradiction, excluded middle and identity are always true by the very nature of their definitions (i.e. language).

But “that the senses are reliable” cannot be a properly basic belief since it need not be true. It isn’t logically necessary, nor does it rest on either a logically necessary presupposition or else be based on evidence.

Now, if the former, I’m not sure what logically necessary presupposition that could be. If the latter, then you’re stuck in a pickle because any evidence is based on the senses themselves, which are in question. That’s why I conclude the principle: “that the senses are reliable” is taken on faith, we just believe it is true.

Likewise, you say:

“survival is the final arbiter of truth”.

But there’s no logical reason why it’s the final arbiter of truth.

Now, I’m not a universal sceptic at all. All I’m arguing is that you need a particular metaphysical background in order to justify the reliability of the senses.

Well, so far the only examples you gave were charging tigers being mistaken for playful kittens. Any person, who, after short observation would make develop such a model would very quickly take himself out of the gene-pool. Do you (or Plantinga) have a real world example, when one develops an incorrect model of reality, KEEPS on living by that model and does not suffer deleterious consequences?

For the sake of argumentation, it doesn’t matter if there is a real-world example. All I need to do is show that there could be a possible alternative, that truth does not necessarily mean survival value, and if this is the case, then we cannot base truth merely on survival.

Here’s another example, though. The spring from which a village gets its drinking water is poisoned by an underground mineral leak. Drinking such water would kill someone. Now, the villagers are told about the mineral leak, but not understanding chemistry, some go away and drink the water anyway, and die. Instead, you tell the villagers that the spring has been taken over by an evil demon and the water is now cursed, and this stops them drinking the water, so they live. In such an instance, false information permits survival, whereas true information might not necessarily do so.

Since I answered your question to the best of my ability, let me ask you: “what kind of noetic faculties” are needed to discern that placing your hand on a hot stove is “bad for you”?

But notice that survival doesn’t have to be based on the truth. I could tell someone, don’t put your hand on the stove because it will anger the fire god who will burn you. Now, if he puts his hand on the stove, he’ll get burnt, but might believe the fire god did it. In this case, he knows not to put his hand on the stove, but that’s it - he doesn’t know truth.

Likewise, why should we believe that just because we survive that we are discovering truth? The only way we can be sure of this is if our faculties (e.g. ability to reason, imagination, etc.) are somehow established for truth.

Obviously we are gaining more information, but how do we know it’s true information rather than just survival information?

Look, we don’t seem to be getting very far. As it stands, I’ll just repeat, I don’t disagree with most of the points you’re making, I’m only concerned with the metaphysical background of our noetic faculties. But anyway, I’d like to suggest having a look at Alvin Plantinga’s Warrant And Proper Function, particularly from page 220 onwards.

Peace.

 

[inocente]

The wording I used was a bit sloppy. I should have said that “survival is the final arbiter of truth”. I already pointed out that the real test to compare our model to reality is not a mental exercise, it is a down-to-Earth, physical interaction between our body and the reality.

I agree with that and a lot of what you say. So now you know there’s a “but” coming.

We are an evolved species, animals not production-line computers, and reality is the sum of our experiences, not a set of abstract philosophical arguments. In the world outside the philosopher’s ivory tower we have to make decisions daily with too little data and not enough time. Survival depends on intuitions and feelings. When a truck is coming at us we don’t have the luxury to debate whether to fight or flight. In real life there are no absolute truths.

Feelings are not just essential to our survival as individuals, they are what make life worth living. We eat because we feel hungry, not because we rationally determine a need to ingest protein and sugars. We do science because we are curious, whether or not our curiosity aids our immediate survival. We make music and paint pictures, man doesn’t live on bread alone. Survival is about a life worth living, and that’s a value judgment based largely on feelings, not on philosophical argument.

And an interesting thing is that we all have different ideas about what makes a like worth living, which is itself a survival mechanism to prevent us ending up in a dead-end monoculture. Survival is the final arbiter of that truth.

 

[Innoruk]

On the contrary - this is precisely faith. Notice, it’s nothing like logic. Logic is a coherent set of necessary linguistic rules, hence the laws of non-contradiction, excluded middle and identity are always true by the very nature of their definitions (i.e. language).

Should I also say: “on the contrary”? Here is the analysis.

Universal skeptic (US) says: We don’t know if the senses are reliable, we must accept it on faith.
Regular skeptic (RS) says: Why so? We rely on our senses every second in life.
US: But you cannot be sure that they give you an accurate picture of reality.
RS: How do you know that the picture is not accurate? What epistemological method do you use to ascertain that the “actual reality” and the “perceived reality” are different? Do you have direct access to the “actual reality”, which does not include the sensory data?
US: No, I don’t. But I can point out that the senses give “inconsistent” information about reality.
RS: For example?
US: Well, here is this glass of water. I place a pencil into it. I look at it, and the pencil seems to be broken, but when I touch it, I can feel that it is not broken.
RS. Actually I look at it, too, but it does not seem “broken” at all.
US: Well, not where you stand… but come over to me and you will see that it seems broken.
RS: So your “proof” that the senses are unreliable is contingent upon the exact position where you stand? Strange! By the way, the pencil is not broken, it seems to be disjointed. And the real reason for that it that the speed of light in air and in water are different. Nevertheless your “proof” that the senses are unreliable is contingent upon the assumption that the senses ARE reliable. After all you assume that your touch gives you correct information about the pencil not being broken, while your eyes also give you correct information, that the pencil is broken. So you say that the senses are unreliable but your method to prove this relies on the assumption that the senses are reliable. Are you serious?
US: ??? (please continue )

(By the way, this is a perfect example of a self-refuting proposition…)

Disclaimer: this example was taken (not verbatim) from the book of George Smith: “Atheism, A Case against God”.

But “that the senses are reliable” cannot be a properly basic belief since it need not be true. It isn’t logically necessary, nor does it rest on either a logically necessary presupposition or else be based on evidence.

Again, on the contrary, it is a properly basic principle, since its denial requires the assumption that the senses are reliable, as explained above - and this is a contradiction. There is no logical necessity that a physical object cannot move faster than speed of light. Yet, as Einstein’s famous thought experiment showed, from the assumption that any physical object can go faster than the speed of light we arrive at a logical contradiction. Just because a proposition ITSELF is not a logical contradiction per se, it does not follow that it will never lead to logical contradiction. Also, there is no logical necessity that the zero Kelvin should be the “absolute zero”. It is simply a brute fact, without any reason. There is no logical necessity that the virtual size of the Sun and the Moon (when viewed from Earth) should be almost identical. Another “brute fact”. (Since there is no logical necessity, do you contend that we must accept this fact on “faith”?)

The method we use here is called “indirect proof” in mathematics. The principle is again simple: “in order to prove that a proposition is true, one can start with the negation of the proposition, and if this negation leads to contradiction, the original proposition is proven to be true”. There is no logical reason for this principle. There is no logical reason for the “direct proof” either. There is no logical reason that “mathematical induction” should lead to true propositions. None of these proving methods are the corollary of the axioms of mathematics. These are all properly basic principles - and no faith is needed in accepting them, even with your definition of “faith”, which I reject.

But there’s no logical reason why it’s the final arbiter of truth.

Brute facts need no logical reason for what they are. Also you keep using the word “truth”. As long as you use it as an abbreviation for “a sufficiently correct model of reality”, I have no problem with it. But I suspect that your usage is different.

Now, I’m not a universal sceptic at all. All I’m arguing is that you need a particular metaphysical background in order to justify the reliability of the senses.

You may not like the label, but what you keep saying is exactly what a US says. I hate to repeat it so many times, but the denial of the reliability of the senses leads to a contradiction, therefore the principle cannot be denied.

You cannot “prove” that the universe exists - in a logical fashion. Therefore in your verbiage one must accept the existence of the universe “on faith”. There is a huge problem with your usage of this word: “everything, except the axioms in a formal system must be accepted on faith”. And that makes “faith” a meaningless word.

But notice that survival doesn’t have to be based on the truth.

On the short run, in some lucky circumstances yes, it is possible. I already agreed to that. But on the long run reality (which you call truth) will catch up with you. And when your model will be seriously at odds with reality, you will die.

 

[Innoruk]

I agree with that and a lot of what you say. So now you know there’s a “but” coming.

We are an evolved species, animals not production-line computers, and reality is the sum of our experiences, not a set of abstract philosophical arguments. In the world outside the philosopher’s ivory tower we have to make decisions daily with too little data and not enough time. Survival depends on intuitions and feelings. When a truck is coming at us we don’t have the luxury to debate whether to fight or flight. In real life there are no absolute truths.

Feelings are not just essential to our survival as individuals, they are what make life worth living. We eat because we feel hungry, not because we rationally determine a need to ingest protein and sugars. We do science because we are curious, whether or not our curiosity aids our immediate survival. We make music and paint pictures, man doesn’t live on bread alone. Survival is about a life worth living, and that’s a value judgment based largely on feelings, not on philosophical argument.

And an interesting thing is that we all have different ideas about what makes a like worth living, which is itself a survival mechanism to prevent us ending up in a dead-end monoculture. Survival is the final arbiter of that truth.

I cannot introduce a “but”… since there is nothing to disagree with.

 

[jonathan_hili]

Thanks for the responses, Innoruk. I suppose we’re not getting anywhere here, but I appreciate the dialogue nonetheless.

 

[Innoruk]

Thanks for the responses, Innoruk. I suppose we’re not getting anywhere here, but I appreciate the dialogue nonetheless.

You are welcome.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Survival is the final arbiter of that truth.

I cannot introduce a “but”… since there is nothing to disagree with.

Uh… Whose survival?

And… how and by whom is that question to be arbitrated?

If a proposition is made in the forest and there is no survivor there to arbitrate it, is there no truth?

How would you know that? How would the truth of an answer to that question be arbitrated?

 

[Peter_Plato]

I cannot introduce a “but”… since there is nothing to disagree with.

Survival is the final arbiter of that truth.

Okay, Frick and Frack, what do you say about the truth of propositions referring to one’s “self” or the “self” of another person?

Statements such as “I am loyal,” or referring to the personal qualities of another, such as, “She showed great courage,” are simply meaningless, then? What if the courage of a person leads to their demise, does that disprove their courage?

What aspect of a “person” is to be included in the definition of survival? Who or what aspect of the person must survive to determine truth? Their person? Their body? What precisely?

Given that bodies, of themselves without at least some personal aspects such as intellect, haven’t a clue as to the meaning of “survival” it would seem very unclear how simple biological survival could arbitrate something so esoteric as truth.

Do plants also arbitrate truth simply by their survival? How about paramecium? Why not? On what basis is the arbitration made concerning what kinds of beings get to arbitrate truth?

For that matter, it is still very unclear as to what survival has to do with truth at all. Survival might relate to one’s ability (or lack thereof) to access truth, but it certainly doesn’t determine what the truth actually is, unless you want to propose that truth is ONLY what is actually known by a knower. However, that would seem to trivialize the need for epistemology, completely.

 

[polytropos]

And next time, when the “free will defense” will come up in the discussion of the “problem of evil”, I hope you will come forward and tell the apologists that God should take away the “physical ability to rape, maim and torture”, since the “ability” to carry out these wishes/wills/desires is not important, as long as the perpetrator’s mind is left intact…

Meh, you responded (in post #14) to my post #8 saying that you did not, in this thread, intend to debate the alleged inconsistency of the definition of free will as it pertains to the problem of evil, but here (and in a few other places) you have brought it up anyway.

In any case, (as usual) the issue is more nuanced than you let on. Free will is freedom of will; it is the ability to will one thing or the other. Freedom to act is freedom to carry out an action. Free will is what is ultimately important; one can have free will without instantially being able to carry out a given evil act. If I have a loaded gun, for instance, and am separated from someone I hate by bulletproof glass, it is still sinful for me to fire the gun at him, even if I do not succeed in killing him. It is sinful even if I wish that someone would die, without attempting to kill.

So why doesn’t God just prevent evil and let us will it but not perform it, then? If God prevented evil, he would (of course) prevent all evil, ie. we would never be able to do evil. (One might object to that point and say that God could prevent most evil while allowing some, but one problem with that objection is that evil still exists, so the objection fails to show that a good God must prevent all evil. The other problem is that there is nothing to indicate that that is not what God is doing right now, and that there would be far more evil “without God,” assuming the sustenance of our world were possible “without God.”) But if we can never do evil, then we cannot will evil because evil action does not “exist.” That which is not principally possible (anything that God prevents would be principally impossible) does not exist as an option. There is no longer good and evil to choose between because there is no such thing as doing evil if it is literally impossible to do evil.

An example: God is right now preventing an evil action, which is called “snarfling.” Back in biblical times, He issued the Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shall not snarfle.” However, He has never actually let anyone snarfle, because that would be evil and He is a good God. To snarfle is impossible; God would not let us humans err in such a vile way. Note at this point that this example is thoroughly unfalsifiable (besides the Eleventh Commandment part); you have no way of knowing that there is not some evil action out there, called snarfling, which would be desecrating God’s creation if He had not thought to prevent it, because you don’t even know what it means to snarfle. So you obviously can’t will to snarfle in the same way that you cannot will to do any other evil act that you don’t know about and in principle cannot perform.

The case is different with murder, or rape, or stealing, or any real evil act. You know what murder is, so you actually can will it even if you cannot perform it in a particular instance.

Hence, God’s prevention of evil would entail the impossibility of willing evil.

 

[polytropos]

Okay, Frick and Frack, what do you say about the truth of propositions referring to one’s “self” or the “self” of another person?

A good question. If survival is truth, then one seems to be slated to fall into one contradiction or the other: one either must define which “self” is actually surviving (or else survival is a meaningless term) or one must claim that there is no self, in which case nothing is surviving in particular, there are just pieces of matter that “look like” they are surviving.

The response, presumably: Stop thinking about it! Just survive.

But hey, the cost of avoiding teleology was never low.

 

[polytropos]

RS: So your “proof” that the senses are unreliable is contingent upon the exact position where you stand? Strange! By the way, the pencil is not broken, it seems to be disjointed. And the real reason for that it that the speed of light in air and in water are different. Nevertheless your “proof” that the senses are unreliable is contingent upon the assumption that the senses ARE reliable. After all you assume that your touch gives you correct information about the pencil not being broken, while your eyes also give you correct information, that the pencil is broken. So you say that the senses are unreliable but your method to prove this relies on the assumption that the senses are reliable. Are you serious?
US: ??? (please continue )

(By the way, this is a perfect example of a self-refuting proposition…)

Perhaps you’re just not doing Mr. George Smith’s argument justice, but this does not seem logical. If one wanted to demonstrate that the senses are unreliable, what one would do is assume that they are reliable, and then see if such an assumption leads to a contradiction. If the sense of touch tells you that the pencil is unbroken and the sense of sight tells you that the pencil is broken, then two senses are contradicting each other. Since they contradict, they would therefore not be reliable: if they contradict each other then they definitely cannot both be correct (principle of non-contradiction). But we would not even have to go through the indirect proof. We could just go straight to sense experience without assuming that they are either correct or incorrect. They could both be wrong, even, but if they contradict each other, the principle of non-contradiction would still show that senses are unreliable because one of them, at least, must be wrong. (This, of course, relies on the principle of non-contradiction, which is a properly basic belief as you are alleging sense experience is, but I’d say the principle of non-contradiction is more basic. Giving it up to maintain that senses are reliable would probably lead to a much less coherent worldview.)

It doesn’t matter if the proof is contingent on the position of standing. The counterexample would only have to demonstrate unreliability in a single circumstance. So the senses are reliable is not a properly basic belief; it is in principle falsifiable, and its opposite does not problematically presuppose it.

I’d disagree that the senses really contradict each other in such a situation, simply because the conclusion that the pencil is broken is premature given the visual experience of the pencil’s disjointedness.

The other issue with claiming that the senses are reliable a priori is that solipsism demonstrates that it is at least conceivable that they are not, ie. there would be no way for you to know if you were in the matrix, hallucinating, being experimented on by mad scientists, or being manipulated by a demon.

However, the world “reliable” seems problematic anyway. Does it mean that everything they give you is correct (the pencil will both feel and appear unbroken)? Does it mean that you could theoretically infer the actual state of affairs (even though the pencil looks broken, you could understand that it’s not)? Does it mean the senses can be used to find anything? Does it mean that the senses can be used to help you survive (even this would seem to have its share of counterexamples, since sensory errors lead to people’s deaths)?

The reason I cannot take the regular vs. universal skeptic distinction seriously is that it seems like a way to deny what one wants to deny and accept what one wants to accept. You are willing to treat reliable sense data as a properly basic belief, but you are not willing to treat the principle change is a transformation from potency to act by something else in act as a properly basic belief, even though the opposite of that belief is inconceivable. This is “skepticism.”

I would not consider myself a “universal skeptic.” I think solipsism fails the test of Occam’s razor, so there is most likely an external world (although solipsism cannot be disproven, except, perhaps, by an ontological argument). I think the senses are generally “reliable,” although with such a term you’d have to be careful since they are not “reliable” for everything (I couldn’t use my sense of smell to tell what color a tree is, and my sense of hearing is limited in that I can’t hear all noises).

 

[inocente]

I cannot introduce a “but”… since there is nothing to disagree with.

That’s a horrible thing to say.

 

[inocente]

A good question. If survival is truth, then one seems to be slated to fall into one contradiction or the other: one either must define which “self” is actually surviving (or else survival is a meaningless term) or one must claim that there is no self, in which case nothing is surviving in particular, there are just pieces of matter that “look like” they are surviving.

The response, presumably: Stop thinking about it! Just survive.

But hey, the cost of avoiding teleology was never low.

Methinks you misread it. Survival isn’t the truth (although it’s said history is written by the victors).

We were instead discussing “survival is the final arbiter of truth” - what’s closest to the truth is what remains when the rest have been shown false.

No rational argument can prove what music is, or that we must make music, let alone prove that a given piece of music is transcendent. That’s the same for just about every question to do with a life worth living, there are no rational proofs, we are far too complicated.

But we can find answers by looking at all that went before, for instance why has Bach’s music survived when lots of others never get performed any more. So again we find that survival is the final arbiter of truth.

As that’s a very complicated process and life is short, an alternative is to create satisfying simplifying myths. But even there, survival is the final arbiter of myths.

 

[Innoruk]

If I have a loaded gun, for instance, and am separated from someone I hate by bulletproof glass, it is still sinful for me to fire the gun at him, even if I do not succeed in killing him. It is sinful even if I wish that someone would die, without attempting to kill.

The correct definition of “evil” is “to do harm intentionally to someone with a nervous system”, where harm is understood as physical or emotional. Pointing a gun is only a “thought-sin” (paraphrased from 1984), especially if the intended victim is not even aware of the intent. And “thought-sin” (thought crime) does not matter - no matter what Jesus allegedly said.

So why doesn’t God just prevent evil and let us will it but not perform it, then? If God prevented evil, he would (of course) prevent all evil, ie. we would never be able to do evil. (One might object to that point and say that God could prevent most evil while allowing some, but one problem with that objection is that evil still exists, so the objection fails to show that a good God must prevent all evil.

Again, the question is the definition of “evil”. The usual catholic definition “the privation of good” is woefully incorrect; the absence of rain is definitely a lack or privation of good, but it is not “evil”. That being said people would be munch better off, if God would prevent those “evils” which actually harm others. For example, the “sin of missing mass” would be permitted, or performing masturbation would be permitted, along with the “evil” of contraception and extra-marital “fornication”. (By the way the personalized license plate of “4NICK8” is one of my all time favorites. ) You seem to fall into the all-or-nothing or black-or-white fallacy. Of course in the eyes of an atheist none of these are evil, nor are they sinful - since the concept of “sin” is a christian concept.

There are two types of “sins” or “crimes”, one which harms others, and one which is “victimless”. If the first type is prevented, we are better off, and the second kind will still give ample opportunities to fill up the cauldrons of hell with sinners.

The other problem is that there is nothing to indicate that that is not what God is doing right now, and that there would be far more evil “without God,” assuming the sustenance of our world were possible “without God.”) But if we can never do evil, then we cannot will evil because evil action does not “exist.” That which is not principally possible (anything that God prevents would be principally impossible) does not exist as an option. There is no longer good and evil to choose between because there is no such thing as doing evil if it is literally impossible to do evil.

The fact that one cannot “do” evil does not mean that one cannot imagine and wish to do “evil”. Right now I could imagige to have an ability to kill remotely all those people whom I despise, but I lack the ability to carry it out. Of course, even by wishing such an act I am already a fodder for hell - if one accepts the concept of “thought crime”. (Isn’t it frightening that the most horrifying concept of the worst possible society is the same which was advocated by Jesus?)

An example: God is right now preventing an evil action, which is called “snarfling.” Back in biblical times, He issued the Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shall not snarfle.” However, He has never actually let anyone snarfle, because that would be evil and He is a good God. To snarfle is impossible; God would not let us humans err in such a vile way. Note at this point that this example is thoroughly unfalsifiable (besides the Eleventh Commandment part); you have no way of knowing that there is not some evil action out there, called snarfling, which would be desecrating God’s creation if He had not thought to prevent it, because you don’t even know what it means to snarfle. So you obviously can’t will to snarfle in the same way that you cannot will to do any other evil act that you don’t know about and in principle cannot perform.

You use an “argument from ignorance” sprinkled with a nonexistent concept. Your “non-argument” would be similar to this: “How do you know that God just did not prevent an invisible dragon in your basement to burn down your house”? I know that because there is no evidence either for the dragon, or for God’s action. The point is that “absence of evidence is a very strong evidence of absence”. (Not to be confused with “the absence of proof is not a proof of absence”, which would be true, if there would be such a thing as “proof” outside the formal, axiomatic systems.)

The case is different with murder, or rape, or stealing, or any real evil act. You know what murder is, so you actually can will it even if you cannot perform it in a particular instance.

And if I cannot perform it, then no one is hurt. (Please spare me of usual nonsense that it would hurt “my soul”.)

Of course all of you who fight for the continued existence of the psychopaths and wish to keep their cherished freedom to perform all the rape, murder, genocide, etc… miss the simple solution for the whole problem. This solution does not require curtailing the freedom to think or the freedom to act upon all that will. I leave it as a homework to figure out this solution.