"The Benefits of Belief" - Video

[Calm]

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I am optimistic enough to believe that in the long run, the best way to live happy, good lives is to understand reality and figure out how to be happy.

But the vast majority of people in the world have not understood "reality" as you view it and I see no reason to assume that we come close to understanding it just because our science has advanced some.  If understanding reality is a requirement for the best way for living happy, few, if any, will achieve it, imo.

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Nihilism is just as subjective a conclusion as any other interpretation of the meaning of life. All of this is based on the fallacy that it is somehow important that meaning and purpose be objective, and if meaning isn't objective that somehow means that meaning doesn't exist. There is always an invisible "to whom?" hovering behind the word "meaning".

Nihilism is not based on the fallacy that meaning and purpose needs to be objective to be important.  It is based on the fallacy of the individual.  See quote above from Nietzsche. 

 

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

Reality tells you that people are free-willed? 

Yes. Do you disagree?

1 hour ago, pogi said:

Is the universe free-willed? 

The universe itself? No.

1 hour ago, pogi said:

Are you apart of the universe, or apart from the universe? 

I believe you mean to ask am I a part of the universe, or apart from the universe. The answer is both. I am wholly a part of the universe, but my sense of self emerges from the universe in a way that grants me free will. While there is no evidence that everything doesn't ultimately reduce to physics, that doesn't change the fact that when you are trying to describe the reality of our lives from a scientific perspective, the best way to do so through the soft sciences of psychology, sociology, economics, and so forth. And you can't talk about those things without free will existing. The existence of free will and the laws of physics do not contradict each other...

1 hour ago, pogi said:

Free-will can only exist if it is possible for you to exist apart from the natural laws of cause and effect.

You've been reading the wrong philosophers, my friend.

Sean Carroll is somebody who embraces reality and has his head on straight, and he addresses this throughout The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, and especially chapter 44: "Freedom to Choose."

To give you a feel for it:

There’s a sense in which you do have free will.

There’s also a sense in which you don’t. Which sense is the “right” one is an issue you’re welcome to decide for yourself (if you think you have the ability to make decisions). The usual argument against free will is straightforward: We are made of atoms, and those atoms follow the patterns we refer to as the laws of physics....

Even the most diehard anti–free will partisans are constantly speaking about choices that they and other people make in their daily activities, even if they afterward try to make light of it by adding, “Except of course the concept of choice doesn’t really exist.” The concept of choice does exist, and it would be difficult indeed to describe human beings without it. Imagine you’re a high school student who wants to go to college, and you’ve been accepted into several universities. You look at their web pages, visit campuses, talk to students and faculty at each place. Then you say yes to one of them, no to the others. What is the best way to describe what just happened, the most useful vocabulary for talking about our human-scale world? It will inevitably involve some statements along the lines of “you made a choice,” and the reasons for that choice. If you had been a simplistic robot or a random-number generator, there might have been a better way of talking. But it is artificial and counterproductive to deny ourselves the vocabulary of choice when we talk about human beings, regardless of how well we understand the laws of physics. This stance is known in the philosophical literature as compatibilism, and refers to the compatibility between an underlying deterministic (or at least impersonal) scientific description and a macroscopic vocabulary of choice and volition. Compatibilism, which traces its roots back as far as John Locke in the seventeenth century, is the most popular way of thinking about free will among professional philosophers. From this perspective, the mistake made by free-will skeptics is to carelessly switch between incompatible vocabularies....

Carroll, Sean. The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 379-379). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[smac97]

On 9/20/2018 at 10:41 AM, Analytics said:

I just saw this video. I’ll offer some thoughts, since you asked.

Dr. Kreeft makes some pretty sweeping assumptions, all with the basic pattern of, “If God exists, then the universe is a wonderful, magical, place full of adventure and happy endings. If God doesn’t exist, then everything about the universe sucks. Therefore believing in God is better.”

I don't think Dr. Kreeft is denying the difficulties we face in this life.  I think he is speaking on a macro level.  The continuation of life after we die is indeed a "sweeping assumption," as is its polar opposite: that there is not any continuation of life after we die.

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I have two problems with this. First, his answers to the questions of what the universe is like with a God vs. without a God are based on his own narrow religious beliefs and reveal a lack of awareness of other beliefs about God and other approaches to life.

Oh, come on.  Take a look at his list of publications.  I don't think it's reasonable to infer ignorance.  

He is taking the Judeo-Christian paradigm as a given.  Not because he is ignorant of other paradigms, but because he has to start somewhere.

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For example, I can assure you that if the average Christian is right, untold millions will be wishing for eternity that the vengeful God of Christianity didn’t exist as they burn in hell. For all of eternity.

But if the average member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is right...

Even the most depraved and wicked of us will be given a kingdom, the glory of which "surpasses all understanding" (D&C 76:89).

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My second problem with this is that the question itself is an unabashed appeal to wishful thinking. I find this approach incredibly pessimistic.

Let me explain why. Rather than engaging in wishful thinking, some people want to know the truth about the world as it really is, regardless of what that truth is, and then confront it and deal with it.

I don't think that's right.  You are reserving to yourself and those who think like you the desire "to know the truth about the world as it really is ... and then confront it and deal with it," while denying it to people who have divergent perspectives.

Dr. Kreeft is, I think, a seeker of truth, too.  So am I.

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They realize they can’t know everything perfectly. But they try to understand reality as best as it can be understood.

So, I think, do people like Dr. Kreeft.

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This approach to life is called enlightenment thinking. It is based upon the optimistic belief that we can not only handle the truth, but that if we know the truth we could use our ingenuity to make better decisions and make the world a genuinely better place. We don’t need to pretend God exists for there to be meaning, beauty, love, justice, adventure, and happy endings. We can make these things ourselves by taking charge of our own lives.

But this way of thinking seems eminently compatible with believing (not "pretend{ing}") that God exists.

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A philosopher might say that "believing in religion works! That statistics show that on average, religious people live happier, better lives. Therefore believe in religion."

And that philosopher appears to have some pretty solid data to back up that position.

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An enlightenment thinker might respond by saying there are two questions here. First, we should figure out the truth of the matter regarding God regardless.

That assumes that "the truth of the matter" is empirically testable.

I don't think it is.  There is plenty of room for intelligent and reasonable people to disagree about "the truth of the matter regarding God."

This is, I think, at the root of Dr. Kreeft's point.  You can't "figure out the truth of the matter" in any testable, provable, based-on-empirical-evidence kind of way.  You can't disprove the existence of God, and I can't prove His existence.  So . . . stalemate.  Lacuna.  We don't know for sure, so we have to guess, one way or the other.

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Second, we should figure out how to live happier, better lives.

Agreed.  Religionists work on this as well.

And it appears that religionists are better at actually figuring this out.

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I am optimistic enough to believe that in the long run, the best way to live happy, good lives is to understand reality and figure out how to be happy. I am optimistic enough to believe this can be done without engaging in wishful thinking.

Meh.  You haven't established that "wishful thinking" is going on here.

And if we are doing it, so are you, just in a different direction.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited July 28, 2020 by smac97

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

But the vast majority of people in the world have not understood "reality" as you view it and I see no reason to assume that we come close to understanding it just because our science has advanced some.  If understanding reality is a requirement for the best way for living happy, few, if any, will achieve it, imo.

I get your point and don't entirely disagree. But it is a pessimistic position. We will never fully understand "reality".  I agree. And I also agree that perhaps the best way to be happy is to figure out which religion is the happiest (Rastalogy, perhaps?) and then immerse yourself in that. Intelligent people aren't necessarily happier than unintelligent people, and atheists aren't necessarily happier than theists.

However, I personally take immense satisfaction in figuring out the truth of things, and I personally have faith in enlightenment thinking. Steven Pinker makes an incredibly strong argument that "the enlightenment has worked--perhaps the greatest story seldom told." He quotes the enlightenment thinker David Deutsch as saying:

Optimism (in the sense that I have advocated) is the theory that all failures—all evils—are due to insufficient knowledge. . . . Problems are inevitable, because our knowledge will always be infinitely far from complete. Some problems are hard, but it is a mistake to confuse hard problems with problems unlikely to be solved. Problems are soluble, and each particular evil is a problem that can be solved. An optimistic civilization is open and not afraid to innovate, and is based on traditions of criticism. Its institutions keep improving, and the most important knowledge that they embody is knowledge of how to detect and eliminate errors.

The Beginning of Infinity: page 221-222

Edited September 20, 2018 by Analytics

[Calm]

30 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I get your point and don't entirely disagree. But it is a pessimistic position. We will never fully understand "reality".  I agree. And I also agree that perhaps the best way to be happy is to figure out which religion is the happiest (Rastalogy, perhaps?) and then immerse yourself in that. Intelligent people aren't necessarily happier than unintelligent people, and atheists aren't necessarily happier than theists.

However, I personally take immense satisfaction in figuring out the truth of things, and I personally have faith in enlightenment thinking. Steven Pinker makes an incredibly strong argument that "the enlightenment has worked--perhaps the greatest story seldom told." He quotes the enlightenment thinker David Deutsch as saying:

 

 

Do you believe you can disprove the existence of God?

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Oh, come on.  Take a look at his list of publications.  I don't think it's reasonable to infer ignorance.  

I'm sure he is a bright guy, but the churches of the world are full of conceptions of God that should terrify the bejezus out of you. Do you know how many Evangelical Christians think you are going to spend literally all of eternity literally being tortured by demons, all because you didn't accept the right Jesus? Assuming that the existence of God makes the universe is a wonderful, benevolent place is denying what many believers think about God. I'm sure Kreeft is aware of this, but this knowledge isn't reflected in the arguments in this video. 

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But if the average member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is right...

Even the most depraved and wicked of us will be given a kingdom, the glory of which "surpasses all understanding" (D&C 76:89).

...but only after experiencing all kinds of fear, guilt, and boredom as a member, feeling like a total failure for not measuring up (or being resented as pompous jerk that thinks he does measure up), and suffering for up to a thousand years of torture in Spirit Prison. Or not, depending upon the individual. Part of me thinks it would be great if you were right. Part of me would be quite depressed about it--not because I'm prideful and would be disappointed in having bet my eternal exaltation on the wrong team, but rather because despite what D&C 76 says, it just isn't that appealing of a picture for me. 

 

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I don't think that's right.  You are reserving to yourself and those who think like you the desire "to know the truth about the world as it really is ... and then confront it and deal with it."

Dr. Kreeft is, I think, a seeker of truth, too.  So am I.

I am sure you and Dr. Dreeft think of yourselves as seekers of truth and I agree that to some extent, you are. But I am claiming that this desire of yours is compromised by the desire to achieve the "benefits of belief," as described in this video. People who are serious about knowing reality without compromise look closely at what epistemological paradigms have proven most effective for discovering the truth, and which have proven to be ineffective. They closely read books about how the brain works, including how human beings are prone to a whole host of cognitive biases. And when considering how various religionists teach you to arrive at their truth claims, they carefully compare whether those methods are based on rigorous scientific thinking, or are based on a basket of known cognitive biases.

I'm sure there are any number of people out there who have a sincere desire to come to the truth and try to have faith based on that unadulterated desire. The problem is that this approach to the truth is not only proven to be extremely unreliable but, in fact, relies upon the very cognitive biases that scientific thinking is engineered to avoid.

As Dr. Desutsch said in my quote above, "An optimistic civilization is open and not afraid to innovate, and is based on traditions of criticism. Its institutions keep improving, and the most important knowledge that they embody is knowledge of how to detect and eliminate errors." The traditions of criticism that are focused on how to detect and eliminate errors are the opposite of the traditions of faith that are focused on how to receive the gift of believing things that are difficult or impossible to believe given the actual evidence.

So maybe we both think we are after the truth, but can you see the difference in our approaches to the truth? You might say you accept scientific thinking within the "magistrate of science", but think that other tools are better when it comes to other alleged magistrates. But that is the very definition of special pleading.

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[Scientifically evaluating whether God exists] assumes that "the truth of the matter" is empirically testable.

I don't think it is.  There is plenty of room for intelligent and reasonable people to disagree about "the truth of the matter regarding God."

This is, I think, at the root of Dr. Kreeft's point.  You can't "figure out the truth of the matter" in any testable, provable, based-on-empirical-evidence kind of way.  You can't disprove the existence of God, and I can't prove His existence.  So . . . stalemade.  Lacuna.  We don't know for sure, so we have to guess, one way or the other.

The scientific approach to the question isn't to guess one way or the other. The scientific approach is for the person who has a hypothesis that God exists to state that hypothesis, present the evidence for it, and then try to disprove it through rigorous scientific scrutiny. Of course the person with the "God hypothesis" can't even state what the hypothesis is in a way that is even plausible and makes sense, so we don't get very far. Thus, the scientist moves on to more interesting questions. 

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Meh.  You haven't established that "wishful thinking" is going on here.

And if we are doing it, so are you, just in a different direction.

The video says, and I quote, "Why not pray the prayer of the skeptic? 'God, if you exist, you must know that I'm not a believer. So please, God, give me the gift of faith." That is wishful thinking.

And there isn't anything like that in the opposite direction. Carl Sagan or Sean Carroll or Steven Pinker or Stephen Hawking or Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett or James Randi never say anything like:

Why not say the skeptics prayer? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain! Repeat after me: Charles Darwin, if you are hearing my prayer then atheism is totally wrong. But please. Even if I can't sincerely be a scientifically minded atheist please help me act like one so that eventually I receive the gift of scientific skepticism!

Can you see that religious faith and scientific skepticism are not the same thing, only in different directions? They are opposite approaches to the truth (and happen to have opposite track records of getting there).

Some people make excuses for having faith despite its track record. Others try to be scientifically skeptical because of its track record. If somebody has seriously considered the two alternatives, it's hard to believe that the one who chooses the former is as dedicated to the truth as the one who chooses the later.

Edited September 21, 2018 by Analytics

[Analytics]

32 minutes ago, Calm said:

Do you believe you can disprove the existence of God?

No. Likewise, I can't disprove the existence of magic leprechauns at the end of the rainbow, either. But in both cases I'm not aware of any reason to believe in them, so I don't.

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

No. Likewise, I can't disprove the existence of magic leprechauns at the end of the rainbow, either. But in both cases I'm not aware of any reason to believe in them, so I don't.

Would you bet your life on something that has 1 in 10 to the 229th chances of happening?

 

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, Glenn101 said:

Would you bet your life on something that has 1 in 10 to the 229th chances of happening?

 

I'd feel pretty safe with odds like that.

[Glenn101]

8 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I'd feel pretty safe with odds like that.

You would feel pretty safe betting that the event would happen?

 

[Analytics]

29 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

You would feel pretty safe betting that the event would happen?

 

I'd feel pretty safe that it would not.

[pogi]

15 hours ago, Analytics said:

I believe you mean to ask am I a part of the universe, or apart from the universe. The answer is both. I am wholly a part of the universe, but my sense of self emerges from the universe in a way that grants me free will.

You lost me there.   You can't both be "wholly" a apart of the universe and partly emerged from it.  Where does this sense of self exist if not in the universe? How do you propose that this sense of self which does not exist in the universe, communicates with the parts of us that does exist in the universe? 

15 hours ago, Analytics said:

While there is no evidence that everything doesn't ultimately reduce to physics that doesn't change the fact that when you are trying to describe the reality of our lives from a scientific perspective, the best way to do so through the soft sciences of psychology, sociology, economics, and so forth. 

By "the reality of our lives", do you mean the reality of our illusions?  The problem with the soft sciences is that they operate from the unsustainable presupposition that the self exists, and that consciousness exists in "reality" in a way that is not illusory.  If there is no evidence that everything doesn't ultimately reduce to physics, then how can you pretend that the soft-sciences are beyond the reals of physics somehow?  Basically, believing in the soft sciences is like believing in Santa Claus - there is no evidence for it, but you believe anyway. 

15 hours ago, Analytics said:

You've been reading the wrong philosophers, my friend.

Sean Carroll is somebody who embraces reality and has his head on straight, and he addresses this throughout The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, and especially chapter 44: "Freedom to Choose."

To give you a feel for it:

Quote

 

There’s a sense in which you do have free will.

There’s also a sense in which you don’t. Which sense is the “right” one is an issue you’re welcome to decide for yourself (if you think you have the ability to make decisions). The usual argument against free will is straightforward: We are made of atoms, and those atoms follow the patterns we refer to as the laws of physics....

Even the most diehard anti–free will partisans are constantly speaking about choices that they and other people make in their daily activities, even if they afterward try to make light of it by adding, “Except of course the concept of choice doesn’t really exist.” The concept of choice does exist, and it would be difficult indeed to describe human beings without it. Imagine you’re a high school student who wants to go to college, and you’ve been accepted into several universities. You look at their web pages, visit campuses, talk to students and faculty at each place. Then you say yes to one of them, no to the others. What is the best way to describe what just happened, the most useful vocabulary for talking about our human-scale world? It will inevitably involve some statements along the lines of “you made a choice,” and the reasons for that choice. If you had been a simplistic robot or a random-number generator, there might have been a better way of talking. But it is artificial and counterproductive to deny ourselves the vocabulary of choice when we talk about human beings, regardless of how well we understand the laws of physics. This stance is known in the philosophical literature as compatibilism, and refers to the compatibility between an underlying deterministic (or at least impersonal) scientific description and a macroscopic vocabulary of choice and volition. Compatibilism, which traces its roots back as far as John Locke in the seventeenth century, is the most popular way of thinking about free will among professional philosophers. From this perspective, the mistake made by free-will skeptics is to carelessly switch between incompatible vocabularies....

Carroll, Sean. The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 379-379). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

 

I find those to be very weak arguments for free-will.  It is entirely based on the unfounded presupposition that "the self" exists in non-illusory ways.  It is also a weak argument that because human vocabulary uses the word "I" and that because we speak of choices, then the ability to chose must exist. 

There are very strong opponents to compatibilism like William James and Immanuel Kant.  James accused them of creating a "quagmire of evasion" by stealing the name of freedom to mask their underlying determinism.  Kant called it a "wretched subterfuge" and "word jugglery". 

 

[Analytics]

33 minutes ago, pogi said:

You lost me there.   You can't both be "wholly" a apart of the universe and partly emerged from it.  Where does this sense of self exist if not in the universe? How do you propose that this sense of self which does not exist in the universe, communicates with the parts of us that does exist in the universe? 

Yea, I can see how I didn't express myself very well there. I was trying to suggest that the sense of self emerges from the laws of physics.

33 minutes ago, pogi said:

By "the reality of our lives", do you mean the reality of our illusions? 

No. I mean the manifest reality of the things around us.

33 minutes ago, pogi said:

The problem with the soft sciences is that they operate from the unsustainable presupposition that the self exists, and that consciousness exists in "reality" in a way that is not illusory.

The problem with your philosophy is that it leads you to argue that much of what is obviously real is actually an illusion.

33 minutes ago, pogi said:

 If there is no evidence that everything doesn't ultimately reduce to physics, then how can you pretend that the soft-sciences are beyond the reals of physics somehow?  Basically, believing in the soft sciences is like believing in Santa Claus - there is no evidence for it, but you believe anyway. 

I'm not "pretending" that the soft sciences are "beyond the reals of physics." Rather, I'm noting the scientific fact that "patterns emerge at one level of analysis that are not reducible to their components at a lower level." (Sean Carrol)

33 minutes ago, pogi said:

I find those to be very weak arguments for free-will.

Thank you for sharing your opinion with me.

[pogi]

56 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Yea, I can see how I didn't express myself very well there. I was trying to suggest that the sense of self emerges from the laws of physics.

I agree that the "sense" of self emerges from the laws of physics.  My point is that we should not trust our senses to represent reality as it is. 

56 minutes ago, Analytics said:

No. I mean the manifest reality of the things around us.

What manifests as reality is only an illusion.  

56 minutes ago, Analytics said:

The problem with your philosophy is that it leads you to argue that much of what is obviously real is actually an illusion.

I think that is the strength of this philosophy. 

Good quote from the video below taken from Bukowki's article at Times and Seasons.  But I highly suggest you watch the whole video if you want to better understand where I am coming from. 

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Imagine being a brain. You’re locked inside a bony skull, trying to figure what’s out there in the world. There’s no lights inside the skull. There’s no sound either. All you’ve got to go on is streams of electrical impulses which are only indirectly related to things in the world, whatever they may be. So perception — figuring out what’s there — has to be a process of informed guesswork in which the brain combines these sensory signals with its prior expectations or beliefs about the way the world is to form its best guess of what caused those signals. The brain doesn’t hear sound or see light. What we perceive is its best guess of what’s out there in the world.

https://www.timesandseasons.org/harchive/2017/08/guest-post-justifying-visions/index.html

I also recommend you watch the videos I posted from Sam Harris (neuroscientist) earlier.

More good reading:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4116780/

Edited September 21, 2018 by pogi

[Gray]

19 hours ago, pogi said:

Nihilism is not based on the fallacy that meaning and purpose needs to be objective to be important.  It is based on the fallacy of the individual.  See quote above from Nietzsche. 

 

Are you sure Nietzsche  wasn't into goth slam poetry in high school?

[Analytics]

30 minutes ago, pogi said:

I agree that the "sense" of self emerges from the laws of physics.  My point is that we should not trust our senses to represent reality as it is. 

What manifests as reality is only an illusion.  

I think that is the strength of this philosophy. 

Good quote from the video below taken from Bukowki's article at Times and Seasons.  But I highly suggest you watch the whole video if you want to better understand where I am coming from. 

I also recommend you watch the videos I posted from Sam Harris (neuroscientist) earlier.

More good reading:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4116780/

Great video--thanks for sharing. This video is based on a body of research that in turn is based on the observation that consiousness i.e. "the self" exists. The video attempts to briefly describe in layman's terms his scientifically-based understanding of what consiousness actually is and how it emerges.

Doesn't that prove my point? Doesn't the fact that they are studying consiousness and figuring out where it comes from prove that it does in fact exist? We have historically had misconceptions about the nature of concoiusness. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exit. Consiousness is like life itself--there isn't a spirit in the machine or an Élan Vital, but that doesn't mean that life itself is an illusion. Likewise, consiousness isn't driven by a spirit in the machine either, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't really exist.

 

[pogi]

21 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Great video--thanks for sharing. This video is based on a body of research that in turn is based on the observation that consiousness i.e. "the self" exists. The video attempts to briefly describe in layman's terms his scientifically-based understanding of what consiousness actually is and how it emerges.

Doesn't that prove my point? Doesn't the fact that they are studying consiousness and figuring out where it comes from prove that it does in fact exist? We have historically had misconceptions about the nature of concoiusness. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exit. Consiousness is like life itself--there isn't a spirit in the machine or an Élan Vital, but that doesn't mean that life itself is an illusion. Likewise, consiousness isn't driven by a spirit in the machine either, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't really exist.

Consciousness exists.  I am not arguing otherwise. The question is, is it real in any way other than being a real hallucination?  Can we trust that hallucinations exist? Yes.  Are they real.  Sort of, but not in the real sense that we are speaking of.   The sense of "ego", or "I" is a real sense, but the "I" doesn't really exist in anyway other than illusion. 

Here is a great quote from an author (Lee Siegel) of a book about street magic in India (Net of Magic - Wonders and Deception in India), which highlights the problem of defining the reality of consciousness:

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"I'm writing a book on magic," I explain, and I'm asked, "Real magic?" By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. "No," I answer: "Conjuring tricks, not real magic."

Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.

 

Check this one out too:

 

Edited September 21, 2018 by pogi

[smac97]

18 hours ago, Analytics said:

I'm sure he is a bright guy, but the churches of the world are full of conceptions of God that should terrify the bejezus out of you.

Which is why I appreciate my conception of God.  I find it quite wonderful.

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...but only after experiencing all kinds of fear, guilt, and boredom as a member,

Meh.  Most of these are "first world problems."  People feeling guilt about their misconduct is a bad thing?  Boredom is an onerous burden?  

Fear and guilt are overcome through repentence and obedience.  Boredom is overcome by study and effort and paience.

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feeling like a total failure for not measuring up (or being resented as pompous jerk that thinks he does measure up),

This can be overcome through humility and proportion.  And faith.  And reptentance.  And good works.

You're really not doing well at painting my worldview as bleak or traumatic.  To the contrary, I find it profoundly uplifting, optimistic, and bright.

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and suffering for up to a thousand years of torture in Spirit Prison.

For those who sin and refuse to repent.

There is every opportunity to avoid the consequences of sin.  It's a matter of choice.

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Part of me thinks it would be great if you were right. Part of me would be quite depressed about it--not because I'm prideful and would be disappointed in having bet my eternal exaltation on the wrong team, but rather because despite what D&C 76 says, it just isn't that appealing of a picture for me. 

Three scriptures come to mind:

• "For now we see through a glass, darkly."  (1 Cor. 13:12)
• "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."  (1 Cor. 2:9)
• "And thus we saw, in the heavenly vision, the glory of the telestial, which surpasses all understanding."  (D&C 76:89)

I remain convinced that what is in store for virtually all of us exceeds our present ability to even begin to comprehend.

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I am sure you and Dr. Dreeft think of yourselves as seekers of truth and I agree that to some extent, you are.

Thanks!

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But I am claiming that this desire of yours is compromised by the desire to achieve the "benefits of belief," as described in this video.

I could just as easily discount your pursuit of truth.  But I won't, since I haven't walked in your shoes.

Meanwhile, I don't think you have accurately described my faith journey.  I can't say that I started with a "desire to achieve the 'benefits of belief,'" or even that I am principally motivated by that desire now.  Rather, my desire has been to figure out if God exists.  In retrospect, my journey has been quite similar to the following statement by Joseph Smith:

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Let us here observe that three things are necessary for any rational and intelligent being to exercise faith in God unto life and salvation.

First, the idea that he actually exists;

Secondly, a correct idea of his character, perfections, and attributes;

Thirdly, an actual knowledge that the course of life which one is pursuing is according to His will. For without an acquaintance with these three important facts, the faith of every rational being must be imperfect and unproductive. But with this understanding, it can become perfect and fruitful, abounding in righteousness unto the praise and glory of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I started my journey as a child.  My parents raised me in the Church, but also repeatedly encouraged me to figure for myself if the teachings of the Church are true and correct.  So I listened, and gave it a go.  I read the scriptures (the Bible and the Book of Mormon), then applied Moroni's Promise.  My efforts here are not aptly described as being motivated by "the desire to achieve the 'benefits of belief.'"  I wasn't really looking for "benefits."  I was looking for truth.  And bit by bit, I started to feel that I had found it.  I began to feel the Spirit.  And over time I had further experiences, both practical and spiritual, that strengthened my convictions.  Then I went on a mission, and that helped.  Then I returned and got married to a wonderful woman, and that helped.  And I have spent the lasy 20+ years studying, and attempting to live in accordance with the precepts of, the Restored Gospel.

For me, the "benefits of belief" were not the objective.  I arrived at those benefits by starting down a path and finding those benefits along the way.  It's been a great experience.

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People who are serious about knowing reality without compromise look closely at what epistemological paradigms have proven most effective for discovering the truth, and which have proven to be ineffective.

Meh.  You're just resorting to labels and assumptions now.

People "who are serious" are those who have reached conclusions you agree with, and anyone else is not "serious."

People who seek "reality without compromise" reach conclusions you agree with, but everyone else does not.

This sort of conclusory stuff just doesn't work for me.

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They closely read books about how the brain works, including how human beings are prone to a whole host of cognitive biases.

Indeed.  Including self-serving biases that lead people to declare themselves to be "serious" and "without compromise," while denying these descriptions to others who arrive at different conclusions.

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And when considering how various religionists teach you to arrive at their truth claims, they carefully compare whether those methods are based on rigorous scientific thinking, or are based on a basket of known cognitive biases.

"Scientific thinking" has very little to say about most religious truth claims.

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I'm sure there are any number of people out there who have a sincere desire to come to the truth and try to have faith based on that unadulterated desire.

Yes.

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The problem is that this approach to the truth is not only proven to be extremely unreliable but, in fact, relies upon the very cognitive biases that scientific thinking is engineered to avoid.

Not sure what this means.

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As Dr. Desutsch said in my quote above, "An optimistic civilization is open and not afraid to innovate, and is based on traditions of criticism. Its institutions keep improving, and the most important knowledge that they embody is knowledge of how to detect and eliminate errors."

Which is a secular parallel to profoundly religious concepts like repentance and eternal progression.

I'm quite comfortable with that.  It is odd that you are, since the process of "detect[ing] and eliminat[ing] errors" in an individual will usually entail some measure of remorse over wrongful conduct, and/or fear of punishment.  And yet above you speak of "all kinds of fear, guilt" as innately bad things.  But I submit that they aren't.  They are part and parcel of the human effort to "innovate," to "keep improving" ourselves by "detect[ing] and eliminat[ing] errors."

You want to juxtapose your worldview against mine, as if yours is an entirely separate thing.  It's not. 

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The traditions of criticism that are focused on how to detect and eliminate errors are the opposite of the traditions of faith that are focused on how to receive the gift of believing things that are difficult or impossible to believe given the actual evidence.

I disagree.  I see extensive overlap between the Judeo-Christian ethic of seeking self-improvement.  These aren't "opposites" at all.  We're all doing the same thing here.  We are all hoping to "keep improving" by "detect[ing] and eliminat[ing] errors."

Moreover, I'm not sure what you mean by "difficult or impossible to believe given the actual evidence."  You presume that which you have come nowhere near demonstrating, namely, that the existence of God is empirically testable.  That it has been tested in any objectively confirmable way.  That there is some quantum of objective "actual evidence" that proves or disproves the existence of God.

It's just not there.  

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So maybe we both think we are after the truth, but can you see the difference in our approaches to the truth?

No, not really.  You want to arrogate to yourself high-falootin' labels like "scientific thinking," and then juxtapose that with something like blind, self-serving faith.

Nope.  Not gonna go along with that.  Not an apt representation of your position or mine.  "Scientific thinking" is an aspirational thing.  In the real world, efforts to approximate are replete with gaps in information and reasoning.  They are chockablock full of the very biases and self-serving motivations you claim you have sidestepped.

I just can't buy into these definitions.

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You might say you accept scientific thinking within the "magistrate of science", but think that other tools are better when it comes to other alleged magistrates. But that is the very definition of special pleading.

Says the guy who is declaring himself to be a scientific thinker, while arbitrarily and unilaterially denying that label to others who disagree with him.

🤨

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The scientific approach to the question isn't to guess one way or the other.

I quite agree.  I'm not big on random guesswork.  I don't advocate it at all.

Strange that you would think that I do.

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The scientific approach is for the person who has a hypothesis that God exists to state that hypothesis, present the evidence for it, and then try to disprove it through rigorous scientific scrutiny.

Meh.  This argument has been hashed out a thousand times.  The existence of God is neither provable nor disprovable through empirical evidence, scientific testing, etc.  I won't insult your intelligence by asserting the former, and I hope you won't insult my intelligence by asserting the latter.

Belief in the existence of God is, in the end, a matter of faith.

So, for that matter, is disbelief in the existence of God.

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Can you see that religious faith and scientific skepticism are not the same thing, only in different directions?

I can see that you are attempting to arrogate to yourself the lofty notion of "scientific skepticism," to juxtapose that notion with religious faith, and then suggest that this notion can be used to disprove the existence of God.

It doesn't work.

Again, "scientific thinking" is an aspirational thing.  In the real world, efforts to approximate are replete with gaps in information and reasoning.  They are chockablock full of the very biases and self-serving motivations you claim you have sidestepped.

Whatever it is you are describing as "scientific skepticism," it cannot be used to disprove the existence of God.  Such a conclusion is, in the end, based on faith.

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They are opposite approaches to the truth (and happen to have opposite track records of getting there).

Not really.

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Some people make excuses for having faith despite its track record.

Don't know what this means.

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Others try to be scientifically skeptical because of its track record.

What "track record" are you talking about?

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If somebody has seriously considered the two alternatives, it's hard to believe that the one who chooses the former is as dedicated to the truth as the one who chooses the later.

Right.  People like you are more "dedicated to the truth" than people like me.

No bias there.  🤨

Thanks,

-Smac

 

Edited September 21, 2018 by smac97

[Analytics]

42 minutes ago, pogi said:

Consciousness exists.  I am not arguing otherwise. The question is, is it real in any way other than being a real hallucination?  Can we trust that hallucinations exist? Yes.  Are they real.  Sort of, but not in the real sense that we are speaking of.   The sense of "ego", or "I" is a real sense, but the "I" doesn't really exist in anyway other than illusion. 

Here is a great quote from an author (Lee Siegel) of a book about street magic in India (Net of Magic - Wonders and Deception in India), which highlights the problem of defining the reality of consciousness:

Check this one out too:

 

Hmmm. I don't take issue with anything in the Sam Harris video, either. 

Clearly, the language we are using here is imprecise. I'm fundamentally into naturalism in pretty-much exactly the same way that Sam Harris is, as well as all of the other atheists I've listed above. When I say consiousness exists, I'm saying it exists as an irrudicibly subjective phenomon in the way that brain scientists are figuring out. Nothing more. Nothing less. Our subjective Freaky-Friday impressions of consciousness are not an accurate view of what is going on. Of course. But that doesn't mean that consiousness itself is nothing more than an illusion. 

Since you brought up Sam Harris, have you rea The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values? I think that Harris's views on Naturalism don't lead to Nihilism, but rather to Humanism. That is where I'm at.

Out of curiosity, do you think Sam Harris and Anil Seth would take serious issue with my Sean Carroll quotes and what Carroll was getting at, in context? I don't.

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Hmmm. I don't take issue with anything in the Sam Harris video, either. 

Clearly, the language we are using here is imprecise. I'm fundamentally into naturalism in pretty-much exactly the same way that Sam Harris is, as well as all of the other atheists I've listed above. When I say consiousness exists, I'm saying it exists as an irrudicibly subjective phenomon in the way that brain scientists are figuring out. Nothing more. Nothing less. Our subjective Freaky-Friday impressions of consciousness are not an accurate view of what is going on. Of course. But that doesn't mean that consiousness itself is nothing more than an illusion. 

Since you brought up Sam Harris, have you rea The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values? I think that Harris's views on Naturalism don't lead to Nihilism, but rather to Humanism. That is where I'm at.

Out of curiosity, do you think Sam Harris and Anil Seth would take serious issue with my Sean Carroll quotes and what Carroll was getting at, in context? I don't.

Sam Harris does indeed argue that the self is an illusion.  He says, "now that sense of being a subject, a locus of consciousness inside the head is an illusion. It makes no neuro-anatomical sense. There’s no place in the brain for your ego to be hiding".  He also says that "the subjective experience of free-will cannot be mapped onto reality."  Likewise, Anil Seth argues that consciousness is an illusion.  Harris argues that "the notion of free will makes no sense in a naturalistic world".  So, their arguments are indeed in conflict with Sean Carroll who argues for free-will and the self. 

This might better help explain his position:

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How can we be free as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by things we did not intend, and of which we are entirely unaware?  We can't (Quote from video below).

 

Edited September 21, 2018 by pogi

[Analytics]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Which is why I appreciate my conception of God.  I find it quite wonderful....

Hi Smac,

My last post to you was way too personal and something of an attack and I apologize for that. I shouldn't have phrased things like "People of faith do abc while people of science do xyz." Rather, I should have talked about the approaches to life and seeking truth and not made judgments on people who chose different approaches. In the video in the OP when Dr. Kreeft repeatedly said that you should believe in his rosy version of God despite the lack of evidence because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, it really irritated me and felt like an attack on the concept of intellectual integrity. Maybe intellectual integrity doesn't matter that much to Dr. Kreeft and maybe it doesn't matter at all to a cold, godless universe. But it matters to me.

Having said that, I'll reiterate my main point in response to the video and this conversation. Regardless of anyone's individual's commitment to intellectual integrity, approaching truth through the paradigm of faith and approaching truth through the paradigm of reason are two different and mutually exclusive approaches. Further, they do in fact have two different track records. To understand what I mean by that, I highly recommend the book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker. While the book has a few words about religion and faith, it is a positive and extremely optimistic book promoting reason, science, and humanism. Yes, people of faith can and do employ scientific thinking too. The question that remains is why bother to put the question of God and religion in brackets and approach truth in those domains differently than approaching truth in other domains? If you'd like to better understand where humanists come from, that would be a great book.

I'll leave you with a quote from the book that I really like:

Quote

As a psycholinguist who once wrote an entire book on the past tense, I can single out my favorite example in the history of the English language. It comes from the first sentence of a Wikipedia entry: "Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor." Yes, “smallpox was.” The disease that got its name from the painful pustules that cover the victim’s skin, mouth, and eyes and that killed more than 300 million people in the 20th century has ceased to exist. (The last case was diagnosed in Somalia in 1977.) For this astounding moral triumph we can thank, among others, Edward Jenner, who discovered vaccination in 1796, the World Health Organization, which in 1959 set the audacious goal of eradicating the disease, and William Foege, who figured out that vaccinating small but strategically chosen portions of the vulnerable populations would do the job. In Getting Better, the economist Charles Kenny comments:

"The total cost of the program over those ten years . . . was in the region of $312 million—perhaps 32 cents per person in infected countries. The eradication program cost about the same as producing five recent Hollywood blockbusters, or the wing of a B-2 bomber, or a little under one-tenth the cost of Boston’s recent road-improvement project nicknamed the Big Dig. However much one admires the improved views of the Boston waterfront, the lines of the stealth bomber, or the acting skills of Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean, or indeed of the gorilla in King Kong, this still seems like a very good deal."

Even as a resident of the Boston waterfront, I’d have to agree.

Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (pp. 64-65). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Edited September 21, 2018 by Analytics

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, pogi said:

Sam Harris does indeed argue that the self is an illusion.  He says, "now that sense of being a subject, a locus of consciousness inside the head is an illusion. It makes no neuro-anatomical sense. There’s no place in the brain for your ego to be hiding".  He also says that "the subjective experience of free-will cannot be mapped onto reality."  Likewise, Anil Seth argues that consciousness is an illusion.  Harris argues that "the notion of free will makes no sense in a naturalistic world".  So, their arguments are indeed in conflict with Sean Carroll who argues for free-will and the self. 

Sean Carroll does not argue for free-will and self in the woo-woo manner you are talking about. Carroll is the scientist, you will remember, who is famous for strongly promoting the idea that the laws underlying the physics of everyday life are completely understood. All of these people agree that the underlying physics are understood and don't leave room for woo-woo. As I quoted above, Sean Carroll said, "There’s a sense in which you do have free will. There’s also a sense in which you don’t." The sense in which Carroll says free exists is not the same sense that Harris says does not exist.

Have you read The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself? If you are absolutely committed to the belief that the ultimate implication of naturalism must necessarily be nihilism, then this book won't persuade you. But if you are at least a little open to the idea that we can create joy and meaning in our own lives and that humanism could be the way to do this, then you might really find the book valuable.

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Sean Carroll does not argue for free-will and self in the woo-woo manner you are talking about. Carroll is the scientist, you will remember, who is famous for strongly promoting the idea that the laws underlying the physics of everyday life are completely understood. All of these people agree that the underlying physics are understood and don't leave room for woo-woo. As I quoted above, Sean Carroll said, "There’s a sense in which you do have free will. There’s also a sense in which you don’t." The sense in which Carroll says free exists is not the same sense that Harris says does not exist.

Have you read The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself? If you are absolutely committed to the belief that the ultimate implication of naturalism must necessarily be nihilism, then this book won't persuade you. But if you are at least a little open to the idea that we can create joy and meaning in our own lives and that humanism could be the way to do this, then you might really find the book valuable.

Can you elaborate on the bold part?  In what sense does Carroll think free-will exists?  As illusion, or as reality?  If Carroll thinks free-will exists as anything other than illusion, then they are not compatible views. 

Again, from Harris's video above:

“The truth is, we feel, or presume, an authorship over our actions and thoughts - over a certain channels of information in our conscious minds - it is illusory.  So how can we be free, as conscious agents, if everything that we consciously intend is caused by things we did not intend, and of which we are entirely unaware? ...We can’t.”

He then continues.

“...you are no more responsible for your next thought then you are for your birth into this world.  You have not built your mind.”

“...you are no more responsible for the exact structure and state of your brain at this moment, then you are for your height.” 

“The idea that we as conscious beings are deeply responsible for the characters of our minds, simply can't be mapped onto reality."

Would Carroll agree with all the quotes above?  Absolutely not.  Carroll is a compatibilist.  Harris refutes the idea of compatibilism as a neuroscientist. 

It's kind of funny, he starts out by saying, "the only philosophically respectable way to defend free-will, is to adopt a view in academic philosophy called compatibilism."  He then continues to shove compatibilism on it's butt. 

 

Edited September 21, 2018 by pogi

[poptart]

On 9/6/2018 at 9:28 AM, mfbukowski said:

Great stuff, pure Pragmatism.

That's what I did and it works

I am here because of that way of thinking.

You're a Bishop right?  So, going to guess you've seen a wide spectrum of people in your ward, rich and poor alike.  I'll be honest, this just screams of entitlement to me, that your special, that some diety in the sky will hand you everything you want.  Also, related to the vid, I get a little peived when people refer to Lord of the Rings, for many the book was about passing, not some ring being chucked into the fires of mount doom.  The movie conveniently left out the ealier villians, the constant wars and how not only the shire was torched, but that the dwarves were slowly dying off and the power of the Elves was in rapid decline.  Anyway, I'll admit I had a bad experience with many LDS and yeah, the entitlement was there.  TBH, took me a while to acknowledge that it's not just you guys, it's Americans in general but still, stuff like this makes me cringe a little inside, step back and think how a lot of people deserve it when life burns them for being so entitled.  Have to wonder though, as a Bishop (Former?)  You've had to have seen more than your share of white and delightsome, entitled upper class members who judged the poorer, newer members who were struggling.  You still stick by the pragmatic line?  As someone who's a huge Tolkein fan and at my core an ardent pagan I am genuinly curious.  Please keep in mind i'm probably quite different than many here, this is the kind of stuff I go for when I'm genuinly interested in *Religion*.  Basically, while there is deity, it's ultimately up to you the fate of your soul.  Funny, even old school Christianity with it's Aristotle/philisophical base had this understanding and among the educated still does. 

Also, props to you, Bishops have a hard job.  It's one thing to sit next to people you would rather shove down a flight of stairs than look at, another to actually have to listen to their drivel and serve them, all without pay.  You guys don't even get the cool robes, hats and bling the High Churches get and in my opinion have to do a lot more.  You have no liturgical calendar to slack off of, no fancy Missal, not as much prestige and yet while you do have teeth, considering the job cuts into your own time and mental health, well, like I said props to you.