This is the eighth part of my review of Dr. Edward Feser's The Last Superstition. You can find parts one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven at those links. I am again going without my notes, so I wanted to make to write this while the material was still fresh in my mind.
The remainder of chapter 4 is devoted to a discussion of sexual morality as understood through the lens of natural law, and a brief section on the argument from evil, a position that claims God can not be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent because evil exists. Below the fold I will discuss both of those topics in this post, where I find myself, ala Bret Maverick, agreeing with Dr. Feser in an unusual way.
In Dr. Feser's philosophy the soul is the form of a human. Because this statement implies an acceptance of all four Aristotelian causes, including final causes, moral choices become choosing to accept and follow the final causes of actions, even if we have a natural inclination to go against these final causes. That is, to be good means to exhibit form that allows the final cause to be more closely fulfilled, so that a triangle on a chalkboard drawn with straight lines is a better triangle than one drawn with curved lines. Following that, to be moral is to choose to do what is good, for example, choosing to draw a straighter triangle becomes a moral good (Dr. Feser does not use this example in this way). When applied to sexual activity, the final cause of sex is put forth as reproduction, because it is obvious to Dr. Feser that this is the case. This means that every act of sex that ends with depositing semen inside the proper orifice is the proper way to have sex, and all other ways are less proper, less good, and less moral. Further, the needs of raising children mean that there needs to be a stable relationship between the mating couple so that the man will stay around to care for the children. This is the essentials of the natural law argument against homosexual activity and homosexual marriage; it does not engender actions that would further the final cause of sex.
Along the way he discusses various riffs on this idea and various objections to it. For example, the inability to complete the act of reproduction (due to infertility for one reason or another) does not change the final cause of sex, and so does not change what good sex will result in (the proper depositing of semen). Another one is that other features of sex, like the pleasurable sensations, are not equal in status, but subservient to this primary cause (we enjoy sex so we will have more of it, and thus make more babies). Finally, the notion that any organs involved have multiple, disparate functions does not change the final cause when involved in one function in particular.
I happen to agree that, if one can determine a final cause for sex (a proposition of which I am dubious, but I will grant it for the sake of the argument), then one can make the sorts of determinations Dr. Feser makes. However, making such a determination by fiat seems counter to the spirit of using nature to determine causes. Instead, let's look at nature to see what the real final cause of sex is. If we go back two or three billion years in our history, we see our ancestors as single-celled living things, not yet rational souls. They are having sex (at any rate, exchanging bodily fluids), but not for reproduction, which is a different process. Instead, we see processes like bacterial conjugation and syzygy being used to strengthen other members of our community and our species, preserving a healthy species, and binding the community together. Reproduction becomes attached to sex later on.
So, since these causes exist in a hierarchy, the top of the hierarchy is not reproduction, it is the preservation of a healthy species and the binding of a community. Obviously reproduction is one of the ways sex can accomplished this, as a healthy community needs a steady supply of new members, but any activity that serves to bind a community together and strengthen it also serves the final cause of sex equally well. In particular, monogamous homosexual partners strengthen a community by adopting children that might otherwise be uncared for. Those who have no children will leave their mark in the community by using other, more self-sacrificing means, often by using excess resources in civic activities for the community as a whole. Clearly, a commitment to natural law entails the acceptance of homosexual marriages as valuable to the community, and thus as a moral good.
I again challenge Dr. Feser to really stand by his principles and start promoting the moral goodness of homosexual marriages. However, I don't expect this to happen, because I don't believe Dr. Feser chooses his moral beliefs to follow the teachings of natural law. Rather, I suspect that he chooses the principles of natural law to reinforce his personal prejudices, and I would be surprised if he did anything other than reject my reasoning outright, claiming that I don't understand his argument or have misidentified the true final cause of sex. He will make these claims, but all they can ever come down to is personal preference. This is the real difficulty of saying formal and final causes exist; there is no way to say what they are. Different observers will see the same object or activity and use their own prejudices to put a formal and final cause on that activity, resulting in different formal and final causes being assigned to it. This make the morality that comes from natural law just as arbitrary as morality that comes from fiat by God or from a local culture, but the arbitrariness is given cover by natural law reasoning. Peel back the cover, and you still have basic human prejudices and arbitrariness underneath. I don't find natural law convincing or rational, and the veneer of rationality does not change this.
With regard to the argument from evil, Dr. Feser's rebuttal is quite simple: the argument from evil depends on the presumption that God can't turn an awful act in this world into an even greater blessing in the next. Aside from the consequence that this means you are doing people a favor when you do evil to them, since God will make that into an even greater good, this objection satisfies me on a rational level. The argument from evil is an emotional argument, not a rational one, and it doesn't carry much rational weight.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
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45 comments:
One Brow said: "I again challenge Dr. Feser to really stand by his principles and start promoting the moral goodness of homosexual marriages."
I bet he would do it if the money was right, ya know? I can see Rev. Feser performin the ceremony now...
"I now pronounce you....uh....lemme see....uh....Fudgepacker and Pillow-biter. Now git the hell outta my church, eh!?"
Doea every man have a price? If not, is Dr. Feser one of the ones that don't? I have no idea. You could well be right.
In Dr. Feser's philosophy the soul is the form of a human. Because this statement implies an acceptance of all four Aristotelian causes, including final causes, moral choices become choosing to accept and follow the final causes of actions, even if we have a natural inclination to go against these final causes.
Well, that's what he says, but note that Feser doesn't really address Freedom per se (ie the free will/determinism chestnut). Why? Probably because Aristotle doesn't really leave room for it. Then, are Aristotle's causes to be considered equivalent to the teachings of the catholic church? I think not.
I don't pretend to have mastered the greek klassics but I am quite sure Aristotle's religious views were slightly...pagan. It's not monotheism. And per monotheism humans are NOT really free--they might think they are, but were a G*d to exist, He would know all, command all (by definition)--that's one reason I say monotheism is absurd--G*d would know a priori what His creatures would do, would they not? He made'em. And even Feser's rational theology has to deal with issue, regardless of all his metaphysical yakking.
That said, I am not a strict determinist, (except when in bad moods). People make decisions, and should be held accountable for them. That's one reason I still read Kant--he offers a somewhat plausible (or interesting) explanation of Reason as Freedom (ie noumenal). Actually, there's a lot of baggage with Kant too, but he's attempting to preserve human autonomy. In ways Darwinian mechanists might be every bit as tyrannical as religious zealots.
J,
I have no doubt the view of Aristotle offered by Dr. Feser, or any other Thomist, is highly selective.
It's interesting that you seem to imply under strict determinism, people are not accountable for their actions. I don't agree, but then I'm a strict determinist even in a good mood. Whether you are a free agent choosing to do wrong or a broken machine, various fines and imprisonments serve to help you correct your behavior (even if the only fashion possible is in a Skinnerian fashion) as well as protect society.
Is that view of human nature tyrannical? I'm not sure.
well, what's "broken" to say a tasmanian behaviorist may not be to a malaysian behaviorist--what ends do behaviorists agree upon, and why? I happen to think there's quite a qualitative --and quantitative-- difference between a rat which learns the best way to get to the pellet-lever, and say, Karpov playing the sicilian gambit...Karpov's not merely responding to stimuli--he makes use of something like conceptual thought.... so I feel inferences about Mind are allowable at some stage.
And it seems a bit odd to say a person is "guilty" of, like anything if he's merely responding to stimuli, and a flesh-machine. Why is slavery--if not murder--wrong to a Skinnerian? People just trying to improve their own interests. Couldn't a behaviorist easily argue that say his group --a majority of tasmanians---have some agreed upon right to enslave the minority of malaysians? One could condition one group to be masters, and another to be slaves or robots --say a behaviorist caste system, or totalitarian army. Behaviorism means nothing really, except reinforcing certain actions--but any time psychologists or educators attempt to decide on what actions/behaviors should be rewarded/conditioned they hint at normativity. Food pellet-ism has some drawbacks, OB.
For that matter, what's immoral to a Tasmanian compatibilist/dualist/whatever may not be to a Malaysian compatibilist/dualist/whatever. Merely adding free will or some similar riff doesn't change that particular issue.
As for the difference between Karpov and the rat, it may well be a qualitative difference, I just don't see any evidence for that. It could also just be the ability to store, remember, and interpret larger and more abstracted patterns than the rat stores.
Whatever your objections are to slavery, murder, or anything else, you won't find them based in a notion of free-will, but in notions of human dignity, compassion, empathy, and the like. The rest is mere window dressing.
Mind you, I'm certainly not a Skinnerian, in the sense I think a great deal of this conglomeration we call our "self" results from the innate characteristics of our brain and body.
In terms of holding people accountable for crimes such as murder or slavery free will/intentionality plays a part. It seems rather odd to say someone did anything "wrong" if he simply obeys bio-chemical impulses, like an animal--I mean, is a wolf killing an elk a crime? Nyet. And the behaviorist at least suggests that humans are no different than wolves, rats, or other animals. (I think there are differences. Wolves don't play chess, or invent firearms, or write novels).
Animals could not have done differently, it seems (tho' higher level mammals, even wolves might have traces of intentionality). Humans say X could have done differently; he should not have car-jacked Miss So and So. He had other options (though, admittedly,many criminals might be forced by necessity to commit crimes).
What is the "should" there referring to? Something like intentionality, free will. Wolves don't have a language, and no "shoulds", and no ability to plan, no foresight, another aspect of free will. Karpov can envision a few moves ahead: how does that work out in behaviorist-determinist terms? He's not merely reacting to stimuli, but....thinking.
The better question: to the extent a wolf can commit a crime, is a wolf killing another wolf a crime?
Determinism is compatible with intentionality, from what I can tell. It certainly does not entail eliminativism.
When you dog is in your yard barking at something, and you call them inside, the dog has to choose between conflicting impulses: to obey or to protect. Both of these notions involve the abstraction of "pack". Is that free will? If yes, why is free will incompatible with determinism? If no, why is the decision of a grandmaster, or a murderer, based on conflicting information analyzed by abstractions an exercise in free will?
Choosing, analyzing by abstractions, deciding: a person is not forced to do that. Karpov can engage in intense concentration for his next move, or he might decide to resign. That someone can do differently seems to suggest freedom (and intentionality); certainly one can look back and find a bad move--ie not thought through. The moves don't seem necessitated, but decided upon.
For that matter, future events are mostly unknown. It seems strange to hold to determinism given the implausibility of any LaPlacean-like demon to tell the future--even at the level of a chess game. Yes, a powerful player or chessbot might be able to tell how a game will end, given say a bad move by an opponent. But in many games between equals you don't know how it will end (--that also seems to suggest decision making, rather than just following routines....)
On a macro level--say the economy, stock market, super bowl, weather determinism obviously doesn't really apply, even if it describes the physical world in part, and even some aspects of human nature (tho' not all aspects of human thinking).
My view thus is more like compatibilism than pure libertarianism. IN some cases--say hunger, or pain, even economic requirements, determinism does apply. But at higher cognitive levels--language, math, chess--it doesn't seem adequate.
It's not at all similar to a wolf hunting deer. Higher mammals like wolves do have some primitive intentionality (or sentience, perhaps), but they are not really making decisions, or at least the inference does not seem warranted. They merely follow instincts, react to stimulus and biological needs.
Until you specify what "is not forced to do that" to do that means, it's hard for me to avoid the idea that you might be conflating free will with uncoereced decision-making. Certainly, you seem to be saying that unpredictabiltiy due to complexity means non-determinism. I just don't find those arguments persuasive.
Well, there seems to an obvious difference between a wolf hunting (which does appear prima facie, coerced, instinctual, stimulus-response), and say plotting chess moves, or deciding on dinner, or gals going out shopping. Humans can do differently in most cases, certainly from our own perspective. I don't think animals can "do differently", except in a very limited sense, perhaps among higher mammals.
And at least from one's subjective perspective, choice matters, greatly. When some punk say robs a neighbor lady by putting a gun at her head, most normal people say , "how awful--he shouldn't have done that."--meaning, he had other choices, better choices; he should have known better. The law itself is based on the idea of accountability, which follows from a notion of free will. The persons who say, well, he was forced by necessity, he grew up poor, etc. are generally reviled and scorned.
Even while hunting, wolves make decisions (continue the chase or break it off, when to leap, etc.) based on various abstractions of various criteria. For that matter, so do bees (go to the next flower or go back to the hive). I'm happy to acknowledge there is a large difference in the degree of abstraction involved and in the ways ideas can be combined. Does non-determinism come in through that process? Is it an emergent phenomenon, like intentionality? Is ti just another name for unpredictability? I don't know.
However, I do know that the ability to have and wiegh choices does not imply that the choices are made using free will. I also think that holding people responsible for how they make decisions is just as sensible whether or not free will exists.
Humans are faced with decisions, which are made voluntarily; when the gals make a choice on where to eat lunch, or when a perp decides to rob the AM-PM, they aren't really coerced or compelled--yet that is what the determinist says. At any rate, any prior causal conditions--biological, neurological, conditioned etc--are not generally known to the human agent. Choosing taco bell instead of mcDonalds a matter of neurology, or genetics, conditioning, all of the above?/ So it's apparent freedom--or shall we say volution, willed. And it does matter whether one is free or not in terms of accountability. If people were not free, or responsible for their own actions, why hold them guilty for crimes? For that matter, crime/law itself would seem to be merely arbitrary. Why is murder wrong? Merely because of consensus, if even that according toa strict determinist.
You also make the assumption that all the causal factors could be known. I don't. At any rate you couldn't specify a chain of bio-chemical events, whether in terms of deciding on lunch, playing chess, or what a perp thinks (or reacts to).
And if not knowable, saying all is determined just seems like a great generalization. I don't deny many if not most acts are determined, or follow from prior situations, but a determinist would need to be able to show the entire causal path--biologically, genetically, conditioning--and that they can't do. Humans have the unique ability to originate actions--Im not saying their bio-chemical make-=up is not involved, but that the Understanding (at least of a sane person) may override the merely physical. Sort of supervenience in a way, but Im not claiming metaphysical dualism, per se (except perhaps a property sort, re irreducibility of mind, reason, intention)
We seem to be going in circles, J.
The ability to make decisions without corecion does not mean those decisions are not determined. Again, bees make decisions without coercion. Going to free will instead of determinism does not automatically make murder prohibited, you still need to do the same work to get a morality. Differentiating between legaly sane and legally insane, in a deterministic worldview, if just a comment on the accuracy ot the process to recognize and abstract information. If they can correctly know what they are doing and why it is wrong, yet freely choose to do it (even under a determiistic viewpoint, you can recognize the defference between internally and externally causes decisions), they are responsible, even if they could not have done otherwise.
I certainly do not make the assumption all causal factors can be known, and I hope you have noted I have separated determinism from predictability. No person can specify what moves will be made in a game of Deep Blue vs. Deep Blue II before hand, but the computers involved still act deterministically.
I think there is room to say the mind, reason, and intentionality are emergent even in a deterministic universe. Yes, determinism is a generalization, one of causal influences. I fully acknowledge it may be wrong, or even just fundamentally unprovable.
Are all human actions like breathing, or sneezing, or urination? Nyet. A sneeze is certainly causally determined. OB putting together his lesson plans re the binomial theorem is not akin to sneezing.
And even cogsci. people suggest as much re the modularity of the brain. Monkey brains are quite close to humans--say in terms of seeing. But they're not even 286s compared to the 3.0+ dual core GHz human brain (the analogy may not hold in all respects...brains are organic; CPUs not). Yet even the best CPU does not really initiate actions (unless programmed to), or ...create.
I agree with all of that. What the future will hold will be interesting, no doubt.
One Brow said: "However, I do know that the ability to have and wiegh choices does not imply that the choices are made using free will."
It don't imply they aint, either, eh, Eric? What, in your mind, necessarily implies that choices are NOT made using free will?
It seems to me that any claim that free will does not exist undermines any and all argument which might be advanced to support the claim. I'm sure this view has been articulated in much more precise and elegant form that I can achieve, but, that said, looky here:
Whatever argument One Brow may advance to convince himself, or me, or anyone, that free will does not exist is itself not freely made. It is not, and cannot be, the product of the rational, dispassionate, objective weighing of the evidence, pro and con. Why? Because any conclusion purportedly reached by such means was simply predetermined by prior accidental circumstances.
Human being are simply automatons, pre-programmed to think and say whatever they may subsequently think and say. They are, in essence, "told" my a superior force to read a script that has already been written. They are mere puppets or actors, and their thoughts/actions are not a product of self-determination, analysis, understanding, or any such notion.
So, if you tell me I have no free will, and if I then believe you, I do so knowing that you have no "reason" whatsoever to make your claim, you have no choice but to believe it and say it. Of course I have no choice whether I choose to believe you or not, either.
Why would anyone even bother to argue "for" determinism, if he actually believes in it? If he believes in it, he knows that all argument for or against it is senseless. He is only making the arguments he does because he is forced to, and he knows anyone hearing his arguments will accept or reject them out of force, independent of all reason or choice in the matter.
He knows he has not even convinced himself that his arguments have any independent merit, because he knows they are only lines in a script that he is forced to read aloud. He doesn't decide anything about what he thinks is most logical or rational. That decision has already been made for him, before he was even born, ya might say.
I acknowledge that there is no proof from the ability to weigh choices to the lack of free will, and the general lack of proof that there is no free will.
Why would anyone even bother to argue "for" determinism, if he actually believes in it? If he believes in it, he knows that all argument for or against it is senseless. He is only making the arguments he does because he is forced to, and he knows anyone hearing his arguments will accept or reject them out of force, independent of all reason or choice in the matter.
You have presented an argument of the sort I would expect from Dr. Feser. The answer is simple: I would argue for determinism because it will then be added to the input processes of more people, leading to a more realisitic situaiton from which their decisions are made, leading to decisions that better obtain the desired outcomes. If your outputs (behavior, belief, etc.) are predicated on your inputs to any degree at all (and in determinism, they most certainly are), than changing the inputs of a person can make a real change in their output.
He knows he has not even convinced himself that his arguments have any independent merit, because he knows they are only lines in a script that he is forced to read aloud.
I am forced to read them because the result of careful deliberation was pre-determined? YOu can't wipe away the deliberation and decision by mere rhetoric.
He doesn't decide anything about what he thinks is most logical or rational. That decision has already been made for him, before he was even born, ya might say.
Feel free to try to prove determinism entails this position. Good luck.
One Brow said: "I am forced to read them because the result of careful deliberation was pre-determined? YOu can't wipe away the deliberation and decision by mere rhetoric."
Whether you even carefully deliberate is pre-determined. Whether you do, or you don't, deliberate (which you have no choice about) you will only do so as long as pre-existing circumstances compel you to (you have no choice about that either), and, then, the conclusion you reach will be determined by prior circumstances (you have no choice about that, either). It may "appear" to be freely chosen deliberation, etc., but it aint, at least not if you're right about no free will.
Or are you sayin that I can "choose" to deliberate of my own free will? If so, can I choose when to stop deliberating? If so, can I then freely choose among available alternatives what I do next? If yes to those questions, where's the "determinism" and the "lack of free will," I ax ya?
One Brow said: "Feel free to try to prove determinism entails this position."
What does "determinism" entail, exactly? Accordin to our homeys at wiki, it's this here:
"Determinism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences.[1] Determinists believe the universe is fully governed by causal laws resulting in only one possible state at any point in time."
"Causally determined by an UNBROKEN chain of PRIOR occurences," eh? "Resulting in only one possible state," eh? Maybe you have a different idea about what determinsim entails, eh, Eric?
So-called "compatibilsts" don't seem to deny any of the foregoing, according to wiki, anyway:
"you could choose to continue reading or to stop reading this article; while a compatibilist determinist would not deny that whatever choice you make will have been predetermined since the beginning of time, they will argue that this choice that you make is an example of free will..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism
Heh, a "choice" which was predetermined since the beginning of time is an example of "free will," eh? Go figure.
One Brow said: "The answer is simple: I would argue for determinism because it will then be added to the input processes of more people, leading to a more realisitic situaiton from which their decisions are made, leading to decisions that better obtain the desired outcomes."
When you say "because," are you saying you had a choice about it? If so, where's the lack of free will? If not, then how can that be the cause of what you say and do, which things were all predestined by accidental circumstances over which you had no control whatsoever long before you were even born? The real "cause" preceded your existence.
Assuming that all decisions are predetermined, does the fact that a decision is predertermined prevent it from being a decision? When I go to Wendy's to get a Frosty, and I select Vanilla instead of Chocolate as I do upon occasion, I think it's true that I was destined, as it were, to choose Vanilla at that time. Still, I also weighed the flavors against my mood and made a selection. The mood was determined, and the range selections was determined.
Is this really an argument over more than definition about what it means to have a choice? What do you call it when a computer looks at an input and follows one of several possible tasks based ont he value of the input? In at least a couple of varieties, the very name of the function is CHOICE.
Is free will the ability to make different choices in identical circumstances? Does always making the same choice in the same circumstances mean you are not making a choice at all?
One Brow said: "Is this really an argument over more than definition about what it means to have a choice?"
I don't know, is it? Does an actor have a "choice" about what to say each time the script calls for him to deliver a line? In my definition, any event that was predetermined at the beginning of time involves zero choice and 100% mechanistic necessity. You might as well try to argue that a tire "chooses" to go around when you mash down on the accelerator.
One Brow said: "Is this really an argument over more than definition about what it means to have a choice?"
I don't know, is it?
Probably.
A computer program is set up so that:
1) if the input is an even number, store "E" in a place.
2) if the input anything else, store "X" in that place.
Does the computer make a choice? Make a decision? Do you have a term for that?
One Brow asked: "Does the computer make a choice? Make a decision? Do you have a term for that?"
I personally would not call it either a decision or a choice, at least not by the computer. It was a decision or choice on the part of the programmer, I spoze, but....
As far as the computer's behavior, it is about as much a "choice" or a "decision" as is made by an odomter when it changes it's readings from 0 to 60 as you accelerate. In other words, not at all.
Other people might have other definitions, but like I said, anything that occurs strictly by mechanical necessity (like the computer's "actions") are not what I would call choices or decisions.
I haven't given it much thought, but I suppose you could look at what the computer does in about the way the skinnerian brand of determinist does, i.e., merely a function of mechanistic stimulus and programmed response (without the "conditioning").
The difference there is that the odometer can only give one reading following any other reading. If the current reading is 62,771.8, it will be followed by 62.771.9.
I don't mnind at all saying that the logic behind the decision was programmed in. However, when the computer reads in and assigns a value 300,000 times over the course of a few minutes, I have trouble reconciling that to 300,000 human decisions.
I wonder if there is a reasonabel one- or two-word phrase we can substitute for "merely a function of mechanistic stimulus and programmed response" that you would not object to?
One Brow said: "I wonder if there is a reasonabel one- or two-word phrase we can substitute for "merely a function of mechanistic stimulus and programmed response" that you would not object to?"
I'm sure there probably is. Like I said I haven't really given any thought to the question of what to call it. One reason I don't quickly identify it as a "decision" or a "choice" is because I tend to look at those actions as a product of consciousness. Another is that I am not a determinist. If I were, and thought all human decisions were mechanistically predetermined, then I would no doubt be more inclined to equate conscious actions with those of machines.
How about we call that a determination? The question of determinism then becames do we makes choices or just determinations?
That would work for me.
Well, if that works for you, stay with it, eh? That way no determination has been, or can be, made until the choice is made. So much for determinism.
Actually, that way you don't need to make a choice in order to make a determination, because computers make determinations.
Nope.
Computers don't "make" decisions. They just follow routines which humans set, OB. We built computers, set the parameters, etc. Not the other way around.
And what is the input for a human decision (as opposed to a computer)?? That could not easily be defined,given conditioning, culture, bio-genetic factors. That doesn't disprove determinism, but a person certainly doesn't know all, or even most causal factors which precede a choice. When X decides say to rob some lady at the mall, that's not merely a reflex action, or something like breathing. He deliberates, makes plans, envisions his chances for success (either rightly...or wrongly).
J,
As I said, I'm willing to go with "determination" instead. If you don't like that, what your word for individually placing a character in 300,000 lines of data, depending on certain conditions that it examines?
Again, I think you're attributing something like intention to the machine, when it's not intending anything, or making decisions, or thinking at all, but just following preset routines. (That was Searle's point with the old chinese room analogy as well, more or less).
The person who wrote the code set the parameters. So with some basic spreadsheet BS, you enter numbers in a column, and then maybe there's a little app. which figures out the mean, some other stat. function. Is Mr Quicken thinking?? Hardly. Some geeks coded Quicken years ago, did all the work. I would say it's no different than an adding machine, just much faster, digitalized, with memory, etc. Fancy adding machines, word processors, chess bots, etc. ...sometimes with pretty graphix: that's computing.
When they implant a RJ-45 (or wireless , etc) in the back of someone's head and he can download his memory of ...like Daisy Mae, then maybe AI will be on the way. But even then it's still simulation (ie circuits as neurology, more or less).
I'm trying to find a short phrase that we can agree does not attribute intentionality, but does allow for difering outputs based upon differing inputs without human intervention. When an inventory tracking system bypasses the datgabase entry routine for a radio tag broadcast because the receiving tower is identical to the tower in the last transmission, no human is actively present in that whole process.
Honestly, if anything, its like you are determined to say there is a conyon, not let anyone even think about there being a bridge. If you try to just define the whole issue away, will that reasoning stand up long-term?
Any attempt to impute the appearance of "intelligence," "choice," "decision-making," etc., to a mechanistic computer simply mistakenly attributes the ultimate source of those appearances to the effect, rather than the cause. The cause is the computer programmer. Kinda like God, with Acquinas, ya know?
Not really. I'm not a substance dualist (ie I doubt a mind-substance exists apart from the brain, but it IS--somehow--embedded in the neurology). I agree most human actions/decisions are determined==perhaps, ultimately all. But the brain-experts are still very far from specifying the neural pathways, or describing the specifics of intention (or, memory, perception, language, math etc). And, really strict determinists and naturalists tend to resort to a sort of reductionism which bothers me (politically and metaphysically). Beethoven's 6th symphony is not a meme, I don't think.
Humans do have the ability to make choices, decisions, and have a certain degree of freedom, at least from their own perspective, even if it's brought about by biological factors, conditioned responses, . And it does seem prima facie evident that in many cases they could have done otherwise, which doesn't square (at least yet) with strict determinism. We must breath. But we don't have to watch Dick Clark's New Year's Eve show (or any.).
I am still fond of the monkeys on typewriters analogy (from Berlinski I believe). It shows some large qualitative difference--even gap--between higher primates and humans. Language itself is anomalous (as Chomsky pointed out in his spats with Skinner and the behaviorists).
Even in computers, you get behaviors no programmer intends. Sometimes code gets transmitted incorrectly, or programs interact in unspecified ways. Computers don't make every determination exactly as the programmers want them to make them.
At any rate, treating the actions of such processes as if they are no different from a ticking clock, while human decisions are completely different level higher, strikes me as more of an attempt to rig the game than to see what the genuine differences are.
One genuine difference would appear to be neurology, not to say a human's entire bio-physical make up. A computer's merely some circuits and silicon chips, powered by electricity. And Searle was correct that while a CPU might process information very rapidly, follow routines, etc, it doesn't know what anything means. The google translating app. doesn't know spanish or chinese, even though it can spit out a translation in a few seconds. Humans coded it, set the parameters. Merely a tool.
Are adding machines brains too OB? I don't think so. And a CPU's merely a high-powered adding machine with a monitor.
Computers are more than just CPUs. The real questions are much more interesting that that.
Yes, they have memory, and storage capacities, in addition to being great calculators, chess bots, word processors, or MIDI-bots. But fundamentally just powerful adding machines and calculators linked up via servers. Do like high-powered calculators think OB? I don't think so. They do simulate one aspect of human thinking (ie calculations of various types). And set to expert, a modern chess bot like Fritz will defeat about any mere mortal. But that's just rapid fire calculations--not thinking.
It's like with MIDI. I'm a keyboardist, and amateur composer, when I have time. The best MIDI simulations--even high-grade patches, sampling, etc.--- rarely capture the sound of real pianos, strings and horns, etc. And when notating a piece for MIDI it's nearly impossible to get the accenting and phrasing that pro. classical or jazz players, or even rockers get--(and I had a fair amount of formal musick training back in the day). You can get a fast quasi-paganinni sound, with some work--just rapid 16th notes, arpeggios, scales, etc. And MIDI's not bad for some percussion sounds. But a smooth, legato tone on a sax, brass or strings is about impossible (and the sax patches sound phony as well).
One Brow,
You say, "the argument from evil depends on the presumption that God can't turn an awful act in this world into an even greater blessing in the next. Aside from the consequence that this means you are doing people a favor when you do evil to them, since God will make that into an even greater good, this objection satisfies me on a rational level."
I don't think that Feser's presuppositions, or Christianity in general, requires Feser to hold that by doing evil to a person, you are "doing them a favor," full stop.
I don't know what Feser himself would say, but off the top of my head, it occurs to me that if I do evil to my neighbor -- say, if I break his arm -- I take away from him the freedom to do what he otherwise would have done if he'd been uninjured. If God compensates him in Heaven in some fashion, such that the injustice is always perfectly compensated-for, then in the end he himself is subjectively neither better-off, nor worse-off.
And that's only half the story. My neighbor then has a choice of how he responds to the evil I've done. He can repay evil for evil; he can forgive; he can never trust other people again; he can allow himself to slip into the habit of letting people abuse him with impunity; or whatever.
If, in that situation, he responds in a really saintly way, then -- through his own choice -- he benefits from the whole series of events and is way better off than before. But, he might respond by hating me implacably until the day he dies, in which case, he goes to hell (Matthew 6:15). I haven't exactly "done him a favor" by tempting him in that way!
And of course that fails to consider the consequences to me, if I did evil knowingly and with full consent of my will, and never repent of it until the day I die. (In Feser's Catholicism, that's "mortal sin" and the consequence is Go Straight To Hell, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect 30 Pieces Of Silver, or some such formula.)
Taking a very non-professional stab at reconciling all of this, I would guess the following: God ultimately sees to it that more and greater good is ultimately done than the sum of evils, in such a way as to guarantee a net-positive over the whole history of creation. Ultimately, good wins; ultimately it turns out to have been a "good gamble" to have created free-willed beings, despite the evil they chose to do.
BUT, just because all that good occurs, doesn't mean that everyone subjectively experiences its benefits. If my neighbor whom I've harmed responds wrongly, the good that makes up for it is good that he never experiences.
As a consequence, it never makes sense to "do evil, that good may come of it." It's always the better individual choice to not do evil. And by putting my neighbor's soul in jeopardy, the "favor" I'm doing him is very conditional on his response. So even if he reacts rightly, it's he who has done himself a favor. All I've done is risk his soul and mine. Not very neighborly!
R. C.,
I don't think that Feser's presuppositions, or Christianity in general, requires Feser to hold that by doing evil to a person, you are "doing them a favor," full stop.
I don't know what Feser himself would say, but off the top of my head, it occurs to me that if I do evil to my neighbor -- say, if I break his arm -- I take away from him the freedom to do what he otherwise would have done if he'd been uninjured. If God compensates him in Heaven in some fashion, such that the injustice is always perfectly compensated-for, then in the end he himself is subjectively neither better-off, nor worse-off.
I referred to an argument he was better off, not perfectly compensated.
If, in that situation, he responds in a really saintly way, then -- through his own choice -- he benefits from the whole series of events and is way better off than before. But, he might respond by hating me implacably until the day he dies, in which case, he goes to hell (Matthew 6:15). I haven't exactly "done him a favor" by tempting him in that way!
Everyone has evils (or actions they see as evil) done to them. If your neighbor does not react to one of yours because you choose to not do it, they will react to a different one.
I'm not inclined to argue at length over an aside about an argument I think has no value, thought, so if you ever happen to check in and respond (and since it took me so long to reply, it would be unfair for me to have any expectations on you), you may certainly have the last word here.
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