Tag: philosophy

The Criterial Argument for God

I tend to be a little dubious of logical “proofs” of the existence of God.  While I think it is self-evident by virtue of Occam’s Razor, and I think both Pascal and Voltaire presented logical arguments worth keeping in mind, it’s not an area that I find particularly interesting. 

That being said, Machine Philosophy asked if I’d take a look at his argument, which goes as follows:

The Criterial Argument for the Existence of God – Version 2.0

Our most basic assumptions are necessarily used and referenced to be able to think about anything.

Therefore, our most basic assumptions are necessary to recognize and know that certain objects of our experience are persons.

But only a person can arbitrate whether an object is a person.

Therefore, taken together like the operating system of a computer, the standards and fixed values we operate with as running assumptions or control statements, are necessarily referenced, and treated as the unified predicative and adjudicative structure of an ideal ultimate personal mind.

This criterial structure must be applied universally.

Therefore, this non-local rational structure arbitrates all truth about everything including itself.

Hence, there is a sense in which this structure is omniscient as the instrument of all knowledge, ultimately authoritative as the final court of appeal, sovereign as the universally decisive inferential factor, omnipresent in it’s physically universal applicability, and transcendent in being perfectly functional at any point in the spacetime nexus.

Consequently, the characteristics of this structure are just as ultimate and inherently mind-like as any personal ultimate God is conceivable of being.

Treating this aggregate intellectual object as a reality-wide guide in all thinking about everything is therefore unavoidably necessary, even in reasoned denials that this object has that status as an ultimate universal ruling factor.

I often wonder about the reliability of my computer, but not about reason. Without even thinking about it, I necessarily try to approximate to some achievable extent whatever reason is always unwaiveringly indicating as the perfection standard of thought.

Moreover, there is no controversy about the ultimate authority of what it reveals to me, even if I don’t live up to it, or perfectly actualize the rational ideal in some way.

Furthermore, we merely need to contemplate these ultimates of mind such as reason, formal logic, the rule-set of an ordered context of reality, a hierarchy of values, and so on, in order to discover an endless stream of new knowledge when applied to our ongoing experience of the world.

Consequently, there is some sense in which these ultimate decisive rules and ideals of thought actually communicate knowledge and even wisdom by merely thinking about them and their relationship to our belief systems and our world of objects.

Lastly, the necessity of our referencing of these principles itself implies both purpose and value, which are equally ultimate in this comprehensive set of guiding operational principles. We reference inferential factors for various purposes, and those purposes are based on a hierarchical set of values.

Consequently, I believe in God because my thinking already necessarily assumes and references an unchanging and enduring god-level object of mind that arbitrates all things including personhood, makes inquiry of anything and everything possible including itself, and is indistinguishable from an ultimate personal mind or God.

I’ve been wrestling with some feedback mechanics today, so I haven’t gone over it in any detail yet, but a cursory glance suggests some apparent logical flaws.  The one that bothers me most at first glance is the claim that only a person can arbitrate personhood.

Anyhow, he’s looking for criticism, so I thought I’d throw it out to the Dread Ilk before seriously attempting to punch any holes in it.  Do your worst.

A discourse on Euthyphro

Since this exchange concerning the classic dialogue took place on Chad Orzel’s blog more than four years ago, a lot of you never had the chance to read it.  I think it’s worth posting here in its entirety because it is very nearly a textbook example of the way half-educated midwits who can’t believe they are not smarter than their intellectual superiors behave.  Notice how at every step along the way, there are repeated attempts to disengage, attempts to avoid having to support the naked assertions without recanting them, pointless passive-aggressive shots, and in general, a consistent effort avoid dealing with the actual subject at hand.  And, in the end, the hapless midwit simply runs away, still clinging to his now-exposed assertions, appealing to others in the hopes that they will pat him on the head and tell him that he is still a smart and good boy.

This behavior is quite typical when dealing with the moderately intelligent.  They are so accustomed to being superior that they literally cannot grasp the idea that the thinking of the highly intelligent is as far beyond them as they are beyond those they regard as ignorant mouth-breathers.  Anyone who disagrees with them must be stupid and a bad thinker; the possibility that they are in over their heads despite their ability to even follow, much less address, the salient points genuinely does not occur to them.  This particular discourse began with a throwaway comment by one Jasper in reference to The Irrational Atheist.

[T]here’s no reason not to allow him to continue to maintain those
particular beliefs – although not necessarily the beliefs in the book
itself, most of which are a little sad, insofar as he genuinely appears
to think that he’s resolved the Euthyphro dilemma. (A clue: he hasn’t.)

As usual, nothing but safely general comments… because you can’t make
the specific case. Regarding Euthyphro, you’re about the 20th atheist
to claim this. And yet, every time I ask the person to explain
precisely how my resolution of the dilemma on either Christian or
Socrates’s own terms is mistaken, they fall silent. Every single time.
So, by all means, Jasper, please show how my resolutions of it are
flawed, as I always like to improve my arguments. Post your critique on
my blog or email it to me, I’ll post it in its entirety and we’ll see
how valid it is.

In seeking to resolve the dilemma, you state that At first
glance, this looks easy enough, as simply substituting “obedience” for
“the pious” will destroy the dilemma because it eliminates the tautology
posed. One can’t do this since it’s not right to simply substitute
whatever terms one likes and declare the problem solved. Later in the argument, you then say: At
this point we can reach three conclusions: 1. The Euthyphro “dilemma”
is defeated by shifting the focus from “the pious” to “obedience,”
therefore it is an inappropriate criticism of Christian morality that is
founded on obedience to God’s Will. So this point is based on you doing something that you have previously declared is not allowed.

You also state that it can only be considered a genuine problem
for those who insist that a fixed principle cannot be arbitrary. In
other words, for those paying absolutely no attention to reality. There
are a panoply of fixed variables which, if they were different than they
are, would radically alter the reality of our universe. Here you
conflate moral principles with physical variables; but they are not the
same, and consequently this point is irrelevant.

You finally state that The section about disagreement between gods
regarding the pious and impious does not apply to a monotheistic god or
a Supreme God who rules over other, lesser gods and deines their
morality for them. Socrates and Euthyphro agree in the course of the dialogue to discuss that “what all the gods love is pious and holy, and the opposite which they all hate, impious” – in all respects, a situation identical to being under a monotheistic god. So this point is irrelevant.

The rest of your refutation rests on a misunderstanding of what
actually constitutes the Euthyphro dilemma. You focus obsessively on a
literal translation of the language, rather than attempting to
understand the underlying argument. In modern terms, this is phrased as:
Is something moral because god commands it, or does god command it
because it is moral? You simply don’t address this at all in your
supposed refutation, as far as I can see; I may be missing the point
entirely, but in that case you have not managed to convey your argument
well. You may then say that you are not prepared to compromise your
writing in order to make yourself understood; but then why did you
bother to write in the first place?

Jasper, thank you very much for presenting your response to my critique
of the Euthyphro “Dilemma”. In summary, yes, you did miss the point, in
fact, you managed to successfully miss the point on all four issues you
raised. As promised, I will explain this in whatever detail is
necessary on the blog tomorrow, so please consider stopping by.

Vox: if that’s the case, I’ll withdraw my points, so there’s no need to
post them on your blog. Since you accuse nearly everybody that disagrees
with you of missing the point, your only problem is that you appear to
be unable to communicate fairly simple points, which I would have
thought was a pretty crippling problem for a writer.

Incidentally, why are you not prepared to address my response on this blog? It’s all very Sun Tzu, but a little bit childish.

“Vox: if that’s the case, I’ll withdraw my points, so there’s no need to post them on your blog.”

Please tell me you’re kidding. You don’t seriously expect me to
believe that you’re willing to just take my word that your critique is
flawed after you’ve informed us how my arguments are mostly sad and my
Euthyphro refutation is a failure?

“Since you accuse nearly everybody that disagrees with you of
missing the point, your only problem is that you appear to be unable to
communicate fairly simple points, which I would have thought was a
pretty crippling problem for a writer.”

I don’t accuse anyone of anything I can’t demonstrate. I don’t
pretend to be a particularly good writer, so fortunately, it’s merely a
pasttime. Perhaps if I really concentrate and write really well, I’ll
be able to demonstrate why the Euthyphro refutations are solid.

“Incidentally, why are you not prepared to address my response on this blog? It’s all very Sun Tzu, but a little bit childish.”

I’ll post it here too if you like. I just assumed that no one would
see it if I post it here tomorrow.

You didn’t say that my critique was flawed, you said that I’d
completely missed the point of your argument. If I’ve missed the point
of your argument, that means that my critique is not of your argument.
Nobody knows your argument better than you, so why wouldn’t I take your
word on it?

Since we’ve already established that you can’t convey relatively
simple points, why on earth do you think you’re “demonstration” will be
any more comprehensible than your original text? There are two
possibilities here – either you’re a poor thinker or a poor writer –
but in either case, why would anybody read your work?

“In seeking to resolve the dilemma, you state that “At first
glance, this looks easy enough, as simply substituting “obedience” for
“the pious” will destroy the dilemma because it eliminates the tautology
posed. One can’t do this since it’s not right to simply substitute
whatever terms one likes and declare the problem solved.” Later in the
argument, you then say: “At this point we can reach three conclusions:
1. The Euthyphro “dilemma” is defeated by shifting the focus from “the
pious” to “obedience,” therefore it is an inappropriate criticism of
Christian morality that is founded on obedience to God’s Will.” So this
point is based on you doing something that you have previously declared
is not allowed.”

You’re skipping over the extremely relevant section wherein I
distinguish between refuting the Euthyphro dilemma on its own terms and
refuting its mistaken application to Christian morality because the
definition of that morality precludes the second horn of the dilemma.
Ergo, no tautology and no dilemma. One cannot simply change Socrates’s
definitions and claim to be attacking the dilemma on its own terms,
while on the other hand, one cannot apply the dilemma to a specific morality such as the Christian moral standard without
first changing those definitions.

“You also state that it can only be considered a genuine problem
for those who insist that a fixed principle cannot be arbitrary. In
other words, for those paying absolutely no attention to reality. There
are a panoply of fixed variables which, if they were different than they
are, would radically alter the reality of our universe. Here you
conflate moral principles with physical variables; but they are not the
same, and consequently this point is irrelevant.”

Conflate? Combine into one? Not at all. You’re forgetting the
rather obvious fact that whereas the necessary physical variables of
this universe are fixed, moral principles vary even within it.
Therefore, it is a massive logical error on multiple levels to assume
that in the universe next door, moral principles must be the same as
they are in this universe, while physical variables are assumed to be
different. In fact, given the competing moral principles currently on
offer in this universe, one couldn’t possibly even say which of them
must be the fixed ones next door.

“You finally state that The section about disagreement between gods
regarding the pious and impious does not apply to a monotheistic god or
a Supreme God who rules over other, lesser gods and deines their
morality for them. Socrates and Euthyphro agree in the course of the
dialogue to discuss that “what all the gods love is pious and holy, and
the opposite which they all hate, impious” – in all respects, a
situation identical to being under a monotheistic god. So this point is
irrelevant.”

You’re incorrect. If you read the dialogue more closely, you will
see that the situations are not identical because in the one case, the
net result of “what all the gods love” is a drastically restricted set of
polytheistic divine preferences reduced to the lowest common denominator,
whereas in the monotheistic case, the preferences are singular and exercised in full.
For example, Athena’s love for Athens would have to be excised in the former
case, but retained were she the sole god in the latter one.

“The rest of your refutation rests on a misunderstanding of what
actually constitutes the Euthyphro dilemma. You focus obsessively on a
literal translation of the language, rather than attempting to
understand the underlying argument. In modern terms, this is phrased as:
Is something moral because god commands it, or does god command it
because it is moral? You simply don’t address this at all in your
supposed refutation, as far as I can see; I may be missing the point
entirely, but in that case you have not managed to convey your argument
well.”

This is a false statement based on intellectual laziness. There is
no “underlying argument”, Socrates makes a specific and detailed
argument which contains various assertions and assumptions along the way, and as I
have shown, some of them are not logically justifiable. Now, if you want an
answer to what you describe as the modern terms, it is that something
is moral because god commands it. God’s game, god’s rules. Now, you
can still argue that God doesn’t exist or that his rules are imperfectly
understood by Man, but that’s a tangential subject that cannot be
reasonably used to defend the dilemma.

I think we’ll have a problem with continuing the dialogue. It seems
fairly clear that – whether I have missed your points or not – you
genuinely don’t understand either my comments or – more worryingly – the
Euthyphro dilemma itself.

For example, your response to my first point appears to be completely
unrelated to the point that I’ve actually made – which was that you
said “one could defeat it by doing X, but obviously one can’t do X” and
then later said “by doing X, I’ve defeated the argument.” On the
“drastically reduced” set of preferences – it’s irrelevant to the
discussion. If there’s only one thing on the menu of divine command, it
still poses exactly the same problem for theists. On the “variable
morals”: well, you’re the one arguing that there is in fact only one set
of fixed morals in this universe (your god’s) – and since some physical
variables in this universe do vary depending on context, it seems that
your point is defeated on both sides. To be brutally honest, though,
your writing is poor enough that it’s possible that even you’re not sure
what your argument is.

Euthyphro stands. If you honestly don’t see that, there isn’t really
anywhere for the discussion to go – we can just leave it here and other
readers can decide for themselves. 

If you want an answer to what you describe as the modern terms,
it is that something is moral because god commands it. God’s game, god’s
rules.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum! It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

 “I think we’ll have a problem with continuing the dialogue. It
seems fairly clear that – whether I have missed your points or not – you
genuinely don’t understand either my comments or – more worryingly –
the Euthyphro dilemma itself.”


Actually, Jasper, you omitted what has become the most obvious
conclusion, which is that you’re simply not very intelligent. The fact
that you are having trouble understanding this doesn’t mean everyone is.
But do keep making those little passive-aggressive statements, I’m
sure they’re very convincing.

“For example, your response to my first point appears to be
completely unrelated to the point that I’ve actually made – which was
that you said “one could defeat it by doing X, but obviously one can’t
do X” and then later said “by doing X, I’ve defeated the argument.””

It’s not unrelated and I didn’t write “by doing X, I’ve defeated the
argument”, I wrote “The Euthyphro “dilemma” is defeated by shifting the
focus from “the pious” to “obedience,” therefore it is an inappropriate
criticism of Christian morality that is founded on obedience to God’s
Will”. It is not only appropriate to amend the relevant terms in order
to correspond with a religion that differs from the original, it is
necessary. You are clearly having problems understanding the
distinction between refuting the dilemma on its own terms and explaining
why the dilemma can’t successfully be applied to Christian morality.
Christian morality != “the pious” or “what God loves”.

“On the “drastically reduced” set of preferences – it’s irrelevant
to the discussion. If there’s only one thing on the menu of divine
command, it still poses exactly the same problem for theists.”

No, it isn’t because the second horn of the dilemma depends upon
this “irrelevancy”. You clearly haven’t read the dialogue closely
enough. Socrates even admits that he is amending his original
definition because he has to narrow it so closely that all individual
preferences are removed in order to maintain the viability of his
argument. This is why the second horn could be a problem for
polytheists, (although it really shouldn’t, due to the bait-and-switch
on Socrates’s part), but it is no problem for monotheists or those who
worship one supreme God.

“On the “variable morals”: well, you’re the one arguing that there
is in fact only one set of fixed morals in this universe (your god’s) –
and since some physical variables in this universe do vary depending on
context, it seems that your point is defeated on both sides. To be
brutally honest, though, your writing is poor enough that it’s possible
that even you’re not sure what your argument is.”

You’re dancing to avoid the obvious. Physical constants are assumed
to vary from universe to universe. There is absolutely no logical
reason to declare that moral principles could not vary as well, whether
the Creator God is the same in both universes or not.

“Euthyphro stands…. Quod Erat Demonstrandum! It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.”

It doesn’t stand in either modern or Greek terms. Do you also find
William of Ockham’s logic to be funny and sad, given that he reached
precisely the same conclusion I did?

Where do you go with these kinds of discussions, when somebody misses
the point of a basic philosophical argument so completely – and defends
himself by accusing everybody who disagrees with him of missing the
point? I begin to see what you were getting at in your original post…

Perhaps, after reading this, one will better understand why I am so often forced to tell people that they are missing a relevant point. Now, perhaps it is because I am a bad thinker, or because I am a bad writer and my points are so often insufficiently clear. Or, alternatively, perhaps Most People Are Idiots.
I leave it to you to decide which explanation is more strongly supported by the documentary and scientific evidence.

Spengler and the geography myth

In Form and Actuality, Spengler also appears to have anticipated my expressed doubts about the ability of non-Anglo Saxons to correctly grasp, let alone uphold and sustain, the Common Law-based Rights of Englishmen, on the basis of changes in their geographic locations:

“Today we think in continents, and it is only our philosophers and historians who have not realized that we do so. Of what significance to us, then, are conceptions and purviews that they put before us as universally valid, when in truth their furthest horizon does not extend beyond the intellectual atmosphere of Western Man?

“Examine, from this point of view, our best books. When Plato speaks of humanity, he means the Hellenes in contrast to the barbarians, which is entirely consonant with the ahistoric mode of the Classical life and thought, and his premisses take him to conclusions that for Greeks were complete and significant. When, however, Kant philosophizes, say on ethical ideas, he maintains the validity of his theses for men of all times and places. He does not say this in so many words, for, for himself and his readers, it is something that goes without saying. In his aesthetics he formulates the principles, not of Phidias’s art, or Rembrandt’s art, but of Art generally. But what he poses as necessary forms of thought are in reality only necessary forms of Western thought, though a glance at Aristotle and his essentially different conclusions should have sufficed to show that Aristotle’s intellect, not less penetrating than his own, was of different structure from it. The categories of the Westerner are just as alien to Russian thought as those of the Chinaman or the ancient Greek are to him. For us, the effective and complete comprehension of Classical root-words is just as impossible as that of Russian and Indian, and for the modern Chinese or Arab, with their utterly different intellectual constitutions, “philosophy from Bacon to Kant” has only a curiosity value.

“It is this that is lacking to the Western thinker, the very thinker in whom we might have expected to find it — insight into the historically relative character of his data, which are expressions of one specific existence and one only; knowledge of the necessary limits of their validity; the conviction that his “unshakable” truths and “eternal” views are simply true for him and eternal for his world-view; the duty of looking beyond them to find out what the men of other Cultures have with equal certainty evolved out of themselves. That and nothing else will impart completeness to the philosophy of the future, and only through an understanding of the living world shall we understand the symbolism of history. Here there is nothing constant, nothing universal. We must cease to speak of the forms of “Thought,” the principles of “Tragedy,” the mission of “The State.” Universal validity involves always the fallacy of arguing from particular to particular.”

It would be a mistake to confuse Spengler’s historical relativism with modern moral relativism.  Anyone who speaks more than one language is familiar with the phenomenon of the untranslatable word; how much more untranslatable are the concepts that cross temporal, genetic, and cultural boundaries as well as mere linguistic ones? What the Ancient Greeks meant by the term we translate as “barbarian” is very different than our concept of the word, while even words as seemingly simple and straightforward as “African” and “infringed” are today interpreted very differently by people living at the same time within the same political boundaries.

Spengler’s observation underlies the problematic nature of mass immigration in general as well as the total madness of permitting mass immigration from non-European nations in a quasi-democracy in particular.  To expect any respect for the totemic foundations of Western civilization from those whose very structural worldviews are, quite literally, alien, is to defy both logic as well as millennia of recorded observations through history.  And even the modern fear of addressing the consequences of this madness beautifully illustrates Spengler’s point; would the highly civilized Athenians who brutally butchered the Melians for the crime of remaining neutral in the Peloponnesian War, hesitate to act in seeing their agoras overrun by aliens?  Would the Romans, who went to war with their own socii rather than permit them to claim Roman citizenship? Would the Chinese, past or present?

Mailvox: the utility of rhetoric

NorthernHamlet objects to the rhetoric inherent in the post Homeschool or Die.  He writes, in response to my explanation:

“Trying to talk about big pictures or summoning statistics is about
as relevant as reciting the Iliad. [Rhetoric] is not petty politics or point
scoring, it is the only possible form of dialogue.”

We both can run through this line of thinking easily.

Your
public audience, at least some of it, knows you could have it both ways
in a blog post, the rhetorical argument, the statistical reality,
and the meta-argument. You yourself admit that the situation has already
been politicized; suggesting that you are purposefully furthering that
politicization process for argumentative gain, and nothing more. You can
claim all day that the only audience you care about is your own (a
claim easily disputed) or however you choose to put it, but from an
outside perspective, the post comes off as extremely petty.

I’m
sure more of your public audience than you realize would appreciate both
the amusing rhetoric you are known for and which I’m sure sells books
and gains site traffic in addition to the insightful observations you
are equally known for peppered in to the post as opposed to the
comments; leaving room for even better conversation in the thread.

How the rhetoric in the relevant post comes off to conventionally-thinking conservatives who happen agree with me on the issue of the primacy of gun rights is totally irrelevant, not only to me, but to the argument.  I mean, I harbor very little concern for what most people think anyhow, as per MPAI, but the group whose opinion least concerns me is the most rhetorically impotent and argumentatively challenged group in American political discourse today.

It tends to remind me of those who used to insist that Ann Coulter would be more “effective” if she was only nicer and less strident.  Never mind that no one would have heard of her or that she didn’t really have a whole lot to say other than ruthlessly pointing out the hypocrisy and malicious intent of the American Left.

First, note that the post was linked to by Instapundit.  Why?  Because Instapundit recognizes an effective rhetorical argument when he sees one even though his primary public response was dialectic.  Does anyone think that his perfectly rational, perfectly correct argument about the false sense of security provided by gun-free zones will have any effect whatsoever on the minds of women who are posturing about how hard they are crying and how they are “hugging them close today”?

Of course not.  The dialectic cannot reach the rhetorically-minded.  Yes, it is logical nonsense to say “if you do not homeschool your children, they will die”, just as it is nonsense to say “because one crazy individual shot 27 people, we must forcibly seize 300 million privately owned firearms that prevent government tyranny.”  And yet, these logically nonsensical rhetorical arguments that shamelessly play upon the emotions of individuals are the only ones that the majority – the majority –  of the electorate find credible and convincing.  And so they must be made.

Is this rhetorical assertion a genuine surprise to NorthernHamlet or anyone else: “Standing up to the gun lobby is the best way to honour the innocent victims.”  If so, it shouldn’t be.  This is hardly our first shooting-inspired gun control rodeo.  In the past, the pro-control crowd reaped a rhetorical harvest in the early days while the pro-freedom crowd remained silent out of fear of politicizing the tragedy or limited itself to weakly protesting in a dialectical manner.  Those days are done.  We know the drill.

As I’ve already explained, any argument that focuses on the rhetorical aspect of “homeschool or die” can be easily turned against the rhetorical arguments made by the other side.  That is the power of the meta-argument that utilizes both rhetorical and dialectical arguments; the other side can either lose on rhetorical grounds, or, after attacking the rhetoric and stripping itself of its own rhetorical arguments, lose on the more substantial dialectic grounds.

There is nothing petty about it; to claim that it is petty is to fundamentally miss the point that the argument being won and lost on petty grounds because it is mostly being fought on ground that primarily consists of petty little minds.

What is wrong with killing children?

One of the interesting things I’ve noticed about all the emotional posturing about the Connecticut public school shootings is that a fair share of it is being done by people who claim there is no God, no good, and no evil.  Some of those people also happen to be those who assert that the Earth has too many people.

So, I find myself wondering if they are knowingly striking false poses in order to hide their amoral inhumanity at a time when sensitivities are particularly acute or if they are merely intellectually incoherent.  The logical fact of the matter is that if there is no divine spark within us, if we are merely bits of stardust that happens to have congregated in one of many possible manners, then therre is nothing wrong or objectionable in rearranging the stardust a little.  What difference does it make to an atom if it now happens to be part of arrangement X instead of arrangement Y?  What difference does it make to the universe?

And if consciousness does not exist, if it is the illusion that some of the more imaginative neurophilosophers claim it to be, then how can anyone possibly object to the elimination of the nonexistent?  What tragedy can be found in the transformation from nothing to nothing?

And if there are too many people on the Earth, in the country, then is not the reduction of that excessive number to be celebrated?

And if it is good, moral, and legal to kill a child in a trans-natal abortion, how long after birth is such killing truly licit?  Would it make the deaths of the young public schoolchildren more palatable to describe them as 24th trimester post-natal abortions?

In an increasingly post-Christian pagan society, what is is wrong, precisely, with killing schoolchildren?

Embrace the cruelty

Isn’t it remarkable how this excellent essay on heterotopic discourse versus sensitivity-based discourse sounds very much like a description of two blogs for which I serve as a bête noire?

Lacking a high tolerance for difference and disagreement,
sensitivity-driven discourses will typically manifest a herding effect.
Dissenting voices can be scapegoated or excluded and opponents will be
sharply attacked. Unable to sustain true conversation, stale monologues
will take its place. Constantly pressed towards conformity,
indoctrination can take the place of open intellectual inquiry.
Fracturing into hostile dogmatic cliques takes the place of vigorous and
illuminating dialogue between contrasting perspectives. Lacking the
capacity for open dialogue, such groups will exert their influence on
wider society primarily by means of political agitation.  The fear of conflict and the inability to deal with disagreement lies
at the heart of sensitivity-driven discourses.

As bad as Pharyngula can be in its mindless groupthink regard, PZ’s focus on science tends to somewhat reduce its author’s ability to be sensitive to the feelings of others.  It doesn’t matter how many times a reader bravely confesses to having been abused by a mongoose at the age of 4, PZ isn’t going to tolerate her nonsense if she sets herself against the tenets of the current scientific consensus, whatever it happens to be at the moment.

Even Amanda of Pandagon has more intellectual integrity, at least in this regard, than John Scalzi. His Whatever is a veritable warren of the Rabbit People, who compete for status by being more sensitive than each other.  No matter how convincingly John cringes and attempts to make himself accommodating to the ample concerns of his readership, he can never succeed because the sensitivity horizon is an ever-receding one.  I go into that aspect of the essay in more detail on Alpha Game.

But here, I want to focus on the vital importance of never giving the Rabbit People any entrance or respect on their terms.

When these two forms of discourse collide they are frequently unable
to understand each other and tend to bring out the worst in each other.
The first form of discourse seems lacking in rationality and ideological
challenge to the second; the second can appear cruel and devoid of
sensitivity to the first. To those accustomed to the second mode of
discourse, the cries of protest at supposedly offensive statements may
appear to be little more than a dirty and underhand ploy intentionally
adopted to derail the discussion by those whose ideological position
can’t sustain critical challenge. However, these protests are probably
less a ploy than the normal functioning of the particular mode of
discourse characteristic of that community, often the only mode of
discourse that those involved are proficient in.

To those accustomed to the first mode of discourse, the scathing
satire and sharp criticism of the second appears to be a vicious and
personal attack, driven by a hateful animus, when those who adopt such
modes of discourse are typically neither personally hurt nor aiming to
cause such hurt. Rather, as this second form of discourse demands
personal detachment from issues under discussion, ridicule does not aim
to cause hurt, but to up the ante of the debate, exposing the weakness
of the response to challenge, pushing opponents to come back with more
substantial arguments or betray their lack of convincing support for
their position. Within the first form of discourse, if you take offence,
you can close down the discourse in your favour; in the second form of
discourse, if all you can do is to take offence, you have conceded the
argument to your opponent, as offence is not meaningful currency within
such discourse….

The power of offence and outrage was very much on display in that which
followed. Those who protested that they have been offended were able to
close down Jared Wilson’s voice and get him to apologize, something that
was regarded as a victory for those prepared to attack ‘misogyny’.
While I believe that Jared was right to apologize, the empowering of
offence-takers is far from a salutary development in Christian
discourse.

So close, and yet so far.  The author is completely wrong about how heterotopicals should engage with the Rabbit People.  There is simply nothing there to understand in the first mode of discourse, the sensitivity-based mode.  It is a binary mode of thought where there is only submission or rejection.  Jared Wilson should never, ever, have apologized; he had done nothing for which TO apologize and by apologizing, he surrendered in the eyes of the Rabbit People.  All of his arguments were rendered vain and instantly dismissed in his interlocutors’ eyes by that single act of submission.

Never surrender to emotional manipulation.  Never back down in the face of nonexistent arguments and appeals to sensitivity and feelings.  Embrace the cruelty. Meet each demand for submission by amping up the ridicule, jacking up the humiliation, and increasing the pressure of intellectual precision.  Drive the Rabbit People out mercilessly whenever they show themselves; rest assured they are actively seeking to do the same to everyone who doesn’t submit to their never-ending demands.  Force them to expose their total inability to accept contradiction and criticism to everyone. Pull their triggers with all the angst-filled remorse of an ice-cold hitman.

I understand the intrinsically dictatorial nature of the Rabbit People.  As I noted at AG, that is precisely why I give sensitivity-driven discourse no respect whatsoever. I don’t
care if you were
raped every day of the year and twice on Mondays by the family cat,
after which your father killed you with a knife and danced on your
grave. Your
personal victimization grants you neither moral authority nor
intellectual credibility, much less any form of veto on what others are
permitted
to think, say, or feel.  Vox Popoli will always be a bastion of heterotopic discourse; it would not be unreasonable to think of it and Alpha Game as the
Wild Hunt for Rabbit People.

 Call me Herne.

UPDATE: John Scalzi helpfully underlines my point for me:   “The irony of a dude griping that my blog caters to sycophants, on a
blog which caters to sycophants, never loses its clueless
deliciousness.”

Who is griping?  Scalzi is only doing what Rabbit People always do.  Notice the reference to a nameless “dude”.  On a nameless blog.  And note the accusation that this nameless place caters to sycophants, when the majority of the Dread Ilk of Vox Popoli, let alone the more casual readers, a) don’t belong to the same political party or ideology that I do, and b) don’t belong to the same religious denomination that I do, and c) cheerfully argue with me vociferously over everything from inflation/deflation to the limits on God’s knowledge.  If you guys are sycophants, you must be the worst sycophants in the world!

It is remarkable but not surprising that Scalzi is such a complete rabbit that he can’t even imagine a blog of this size not being sycophantic in the manner that his observably is.  For example, you will seldom see me, or anyone else, congratulating me on my “courage” for posting something.  Meanwhile, Scalzi’s posts are always an interesting race between John and his readers over who can pat him on the back more vigorously.

I will bet that on any post of over 100 comments at Whatever, one can find at least 10 comments that are amusingly sycophantic.  And I’ll bet one cannot do the same here.

Mortality

You know you’ve officially reached middle age when people you knew in your youth start dying of adult things like heart attacks and cancer.  I got an email from a friend today; a man who’d graduated with him, with whom I’d ridden to school from 7th through 9th grade, died recently of cancer.

He wasn’t a friend and I never really knew him, even though we were sitting next to each other practically every day for three years.  (In other words, there is absolutely no need for expressing any condolences.)  I didn’t dislike him, but I didn’t like him either.  I can’t say I’d even thought about him one single time since he graduated the year before me more than 25 years ago.  But, by all accounts, he turned out to be a good man, a good Christian, and a good father.

And yet, it seems impossible that he could be in his forties, lead alone dead.  When I think of him now, I still picture a slightly overweight blond guy, 17 years old and of average height, wearing a t-shirt that is a little too tight and an air of calm superiority.  Of course, when I look in the mirror, I wonder who that weary-eyed Lovecraftian monster staring back at me could be. 

Our time here is short.  Make the most of it, in the knowledge that one day you’ll be accountable for it.

Mailvox: the logic of God II

In which Passerby attempts to poke holes in the logical argument demonstrating the irrationality of his position concerning the simultaneous existence of evil and the nonexistence of God.

Well! I wasn’t expecting an entire fresh post devoted to my challenge
in that other thread. I’m so honored. Pardon my late arrival.  Okay,
first off, VD, looks like you threw a gutter ball from your second
premise, as Riki-Tiki-Tavi already sensed. Let’s have a look at it:

2.
The existent fact of wrongdoing necessarily requires that there is a
material universal standard of right and wrong by which actions can be
classified.

Incorrect. The existent fact of wrongdoing/evil
does not require a material universal standard of right and wrong. The
existent fact of wrongdoing is self-evident because the alternative is…
the nonexistence of wrongdoing. Good luck making a sound argument for
the nonexistence of wrongdoing. Think anyone can do it passably? I
don’t and I suspect you don’t either. So we should agree there. That’s
point number one.

Point number one is incorrect.  Notice here that Passerby is not only taking exception to my point, but to entire philosophies such as nihilism, existentialism, and, ironically enough, rational materialism.  His argument is surprisingly weak, based as it is on the self-evidence of wrongdoing.  Is it self-evident that stealing is wrong?  That not voting is wrong? 

Consider how little sense his argument makes if we substitute a non-existent fact for wrongdoing/evil.  The existent fact of unicorns
does not require a material universal standard of unicorns and not-unicorns. The
existent fact of unicorns is self-evident because the alternative is…
the nonexistence of unicorns.

If we cannot tell the difference between a unicorn and a not-unicorn, then we cannot possibly declare that unicorns do or do not exist.  But if we have established the fact that unicorns do exist, we have necessarily established a material and universal standard for what a unicorn is and what a unicorn is not.  Therefore, point number one fails and the second step in the logical argument remains standing.

Point number two. Another thing wrong
with this “necessary universal standard” claim of yours (I noticed you
used that word “standard” seventeen times in your post, so to continue
the bowling metaphor, it’s like your very bowling ball to bowl with,
without which… well, game over — but I’ll give you a dollar so you can
go play some Ms. PacMan) is that six billion people in the world could
have six billion different standards of wrongdoing, but everyone would
nonetheless agree that wrongdoing does exist in the world.

So
let’s imagine those six billion individuals’ six billion different
standards of wrongdoing can be each given a numerical value. I’m not
saying it can ever actually be done, but just go with me here. After
they’ve all been given a numerical value, they’re arranged in order on a
vertical meter with a red zone on the bottom and a green zone on the
top. Put the meter on the lowest setting of “1”. That setting belongs
to a guy who disagrees with all 5,999,999,999 people above him whom he
considers to be an increasing bunch of prissy Miss Manners types who see
wrongdoing in all kinds of ways he doesn’t. But he at least sees one
instance of wrongdoing in the world and everyone above him agrees that
he at least got one right. So it seems to me (I’m just now coming up
with this, but I’ll try to land this thing in one piece) that this
minimum setting of “1” is the standard, if anything, for the existence
of wrongdoing. Below that is “0” which represents nonexistence of
wrongdoing.

Point being, our subjectivity is flawed, but it’s far
from useless! There is, after all, communication and agreement. It’s
precisely because of our limitation as trapped individuals of
subjectivity that science is the best idea we’ve ever come up with (or
happened upon) to make gains on objectivity. To paraphrase Steven
Pinker, science is our highest, purest expression of reason.
Objectivity is perhaps an unattainable goal, but we’ve seemingly made
lots of progress toward it given our technological conquests, our
steadily decreasing rate of violence in ever larger, more complex
populations, etc. I say seemingly because a cosmic rug pulling could be
in store for us a la The Matrix at any time, but that caveat aside,
it’s our processes of communication, cooperation, record keeping,
rhetorical persuasion, experimentation, reason, science, etc. that we
arrive at standards of right and wrong be they amoral (e.g., math,
chemistry, physics) or moral. And we arrive at them, to the extent we
do, through our own shared reasoning, thank you very much. No divinity
needed or even evident. 

Point number two is not so much incorrect as irrelevant, bordering on a category error. In this section, Passerby fails to grasp that an objective standard is more than the sum of six billion subjective opinions, and in fact, no number of subjective opinions can produce an objective standard, by definition.  The more the standard is “influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice”, the less objective it can be, regardless of whether those competing feelings, interpretations, and prejudices are harmonious or not.  Existent evil/wrongdoing requires a material and universal standard, even if our subjective experience of the objective reality is different in six billion different ways.

If the readers don’t mind indulging me in following Passerby on one of his tangents, I will add that Stephen Pinker is wrong about science as he is wrong about so many things.  Science is most certainly not the highest and purest expression of reason.  Not only is it not reason at all, it was specifically conceived, developed, and utilized to replace pure reason.  This is why Science is so often at odds with Philosophy as well as Religion; Science is nothing more than the systematic codification of experience.

Mailvox: the logic of God

Passerby’s challenge somehow tends to remind me of this series of photographs.  But who knows, perhaps the stag will surprise us:

Definition of evil:  the fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing

I’m an atheist and going by Merriam-Webster’s def. of evil above, I say evil exists.  According to VD, my stance is irrational. Prove it. Anyone. Show your work. Lay out the steps proving my logic is flawed. You’ll fail. I will crush you.

Well, let us see about that.  He has made his claim that his stance is rational, (which is to say that evil exists but God does not), so I’ll take up the burden of attempting to falsify it.

  1. Passerby asserts that “the fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing” exists.
  2. The existent fact of wrongdoing necessarily requires that there is a material universal standard of right and wrong by which actions can be classified.
  3. A material universal standard of right and wrong must be objective.
  4. Man’s standards of right and wrong are inherently subjective and non-universal.
  5. Therefore the objective, material, universal standard of right and wrong cannot be produced by Man.
  6. The most likely source of an inhuman, objective, material, universal standard of right and wrong is an intelligence of grand scope possessing a direct connection to the area in which that standard applies.
  7. The scope required for that inhuman intelligence to provide the universal standard implies, though it does not necessarily require, extra-universality.
  8. The most reasonable connection between the presumably extra-universal intelligence providing the standard and the area in which that standard applies is that of creator to creation.
  9. The presumably extra-universal intelligent creator that provides the objective, material, universal standard to its presumed creation is quite reasonably described as God.

This logic provides for a small degree of wiggle room here.  A being need not necessarily be either extra-universal nor the creator to successfully impose an objective standard on the universe.  However, since any act of creation that results in an observed objective standard necessarily requires the creation of a standard of some kind, the most rational conclusion is to assume that the standard observed was provided by the creator rather than by some other intelligent, inhuman entity that successfully replaced the original standard.

But I think even if the logic-dictated provider of the universal standard of right and wrong is neither the creator nor extra-universal, its observed ability to impose such a standard upon the universe suffices to justify its recognition as an existent god, at the very least, if not necessarily the Creator God or the Creator God of the Christian Bible.

The atheist problem of evil

I have pointed out many times that the so-called “problem of evil” is not an actual problem for Christianity. Indeed, Christianity is predicated on the existence of evil. This post, discussing how the modern academy blunders about completely failing to grasp the basic concept of evil, tends to underline that point:

Hindered by their postmodern moral relativism, many participants tended to be tentative and vague in their ruminations on moral evil (except when it concerned political conservatives). Some of the better papers concerned the theme of evil in great writers such as Kafka and Dostoevsky but left the concept of evil undefined. Only a few papers addressed the problems of the origin of evil and the essential nature of evil. One of these was a Hungarian scholar’s treatment of Plato’s thoughts on how a good deity (the Demiurge) could allow for the existence of evil. I had no idea that thinkers other than Judeo-Christian monotheists had dealt with this issue. The paper demonstrated that the existence of evil is a real intellectual puzzle that merits deeper attention than the sort of superficial, conventional moralizing on display in other presentations

As a general rule, if your first thought concerning evil revolves around political party identities, you’re totally missing the point.