Behavioural determinism and religious morality

[Denny Crane!]

How do religious people cope with proven behavioural deterministic behaviour.

People who succumb to schizophrenia and other illnesses or who are born with measurably low capabilities to control their own actions who act immorally and depressingly hurt someone or kill them.

Do you think they are condemned?

Follow this a little further down the rabbit hole, we are finding out now that blows to the head can awaken certain genes that encourage violent behaviour. This is just one amongst a million things that effect and determine our behaviour on a day to day basis leading us further down the path that everything we do is predetermined.

Couple this with the fact that statistically our fates our determined by our socio-economic birth group and this in turn effects our behaviour it leads to a depressingly poor amount of personal control we can have over our lives. How do we explain that most domestic violence happens in poor households but that somehow it is that rich people are more moral? But then again as a charity worker it quickly becomes more obvious you will make more money from poor areas than rich for your given charity.

Freaky stuff.

If I am to believe that we have any free will at all then I can only suggest that it is in a long term way, that we can make large efforts to shape the person we are in small ways that will hopefully cumulate in a stimulative and large change. Meditation particularly deals with finding core truths personally and unearthing the myriad influences that create who you are and find more independent spirits (for want of a better word at this moment) but don't think for a second that it doesn't trouble my own psychological perspective of buddhism and what I do.

Thoughts?

[The Dude]

My thoughts are this: human beings are machines. I'm utterly convinced that there exists no such thing as free will, not in the sense that we are free to choose what sort of person we want to be. At best we can reject or fight our natural urges, but even then only because that's a function built into us by a certain type of neural wiring. I think the best way for us to build a moral and functional society is the complete acknowledgement of what we are, no exceptions. Eliminative materialism is the way forward. Away with gods, prophets, souls, divine law and any sort of idea that allows man to keep his head in the sand. We're biological machines, and that's no problem at all.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

My thoughts are this: human beings are machines. I'm utterly convinced that there exists no such thing as free will, not in the sense that we are free to choose what sort of person we want to be. At best we can reject or fight our natural urges, but even then only because that's a function built into us by a certain type of neural wiring. I think the best way for us to build a moral and functional society is the complete acknowledgement of what we are, no exceptions. Eliminative materialism is the way forward. Away with gods, prophets, souls, divine law and any sort of idea that allows man to keep his head in the sand. We're biological machines, and that's no problem at all.

Have a look at this interesting video that contradicts your views on determinism:

[The Dude]

Have a look at this interesting video that contradicts your views on determinism:

Oh but I completely agree with what's said there. I've for a while now argued against the classic notion of identity aswell, so what he says there at the end particularly speaks to me. My statement wasn't so much made with regard to determinism itself, I more meant to say that if there's any cause for who and what we are then that cause is material. The material process itself is not necessarily determined. The machine only has functions that its cogs and chains allow, but the machine is programmed to be able to replace its cogs and chains. Only to some extent, though, certainly not completely, and most of the time the machine has any authority over how it works is only when it arbitrarily slows down the spinning of a part. It can say no to itself, but it cannot change itself at random.

I absolutely do not believe in behavioural determinism in the sense that everything's been pre-ordained. I believe that man ordains himself, and that in that sense we're limited. I do not immediately have the ability to be more than the biological construct I currently am, but that biological construct is completely unnecessary. It could've been anything else, had I made other decisions at previous points in my life. I am steerable, not randomly alterable.

[Nietzsche]

I absolutely do not believe in behavioural determinism in the sense that everything's been pre-ordained. I believe that man ordains himself, and that in that sense we're limited. I do not immediately have the ability to be more than the biological construct I currently am, but that biological construct is completely unnecessary. It could've been anything else, had I made other decisions at previous points in my life. I am steerable, not randomly alterable.

You're on to something...

The whole is greater than it's parts. A brain in a vat is nothing without the sense to apprehend. Our biology does decide what we can know and how we can know it. We have our limitations, but that does not mean we are free to explore and choose what we are. Some may have more barriers to success, but that does not mean their future is determined by those barriers.

[The Dude]

You're on to something...

The whole is greater than it's parts. A brain in a vat is nothing without the sense to apprehend. Our biology does decide what we can know and how we can know it. We have our limitations, but that does not mean we are free to explore and choose what we are. Some may have more barriers to success, but that does not mean their future is determined by those barriers.

Exactly. And conquering those barriers, well, the man you named yourself after has a few interesting theories on how to do that and what doing that means. I spent some time yesterday contemplating the inherent contradiction in the way religion assesses self-governance.

Most who believe in an objective moral standard or something similar believe that it's irresponsible and immoral to claim that a lot of our actions are determined by the way we've been wired (and disregard the fact that this wiring can be altered over time, as otherwise it wouldn't be self-governance). They say that if we excuse the murderer on the grounds that he never had any choice, how can we ever uphold a standard of justice or punishment? But in doing so they disregard that in ninety-nine percent of the cases where people are not murderers, that behaviour is as much determined.

I could not, for example, right now pick up a knife and walk into my neighbour's house and massacre the lot. It's not in me. I could tell myself that I'm going to do it, I could even with knife in hand walk up to their front door telling myself that I'm going to do it (actually, could I? Probably not). I could ring the door and wait for them to open and tell myself that I'm going to do it. But when push comes to shove and the first thrust has to be made, I can't. I'm not a murderer. I'd be thinking about how I'd be killing an innocent person who just wants to live their life, I'd be thinking about their loved ones, their children, their goals and aspirations. I'd think about all that I'd be destroying and my will would falter and I couldn't go through with it. It's why I'm not a murderer. I'm not wired to be one.

Could I become one?

Yes.

That's where moral behaviour comes from. Knowing that I could be something evil, and not working towards becoming it. If only I changed enough about my behaviour inclinations over the years, minor alteration after minor alteration, I could do it. I'd have to rewrite my feelings, I'd have to rewrite the way my brain uses logic to arrive at certain conclusions, newer conclusions that nevertheless feel valid, because it's only when we are convinced of the validity of our conclusions that we act on them. In the same way the murderer would have to work for years to write his inclinations towards taking the lives of others out of his system. It's not easy, but it can be done.

Precisely knowing that I could become someone worse if I wanted to is what keeps me conscious about not becoming it. An interesting loop, of course: I am a machine programmed to not want to become a different machine. Maybe there comes a time where necessity overwrites desire, but until that time what -I- want reigns. Self-governance.

[Kissaki]

Have a look at this interesting video that contradicts your views on determinism:

Doesn't actually address the issue. Of course there is uncertainty in the sense that we don't know where a particle is at a given time, but the particle still is in a certain place, in spite of our uncertainty as to where that place is.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Doesn't actually address the issue. Of course there is uncertainty in the sense that we don't know where a particle is at a given time, but the particle still is in a certain place, in spite of our uncertainty as to where that place is.

The particle isn't just a particle. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2...rticle_duality

[Kissaki]

The particle isn't just a particle. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2...rticle_duality

Not exactly my field, so could you sum up for me how Heissenberg's uncertainty principle deals with particles not having certain states rather than the predictability of certain states? Because if Michio Kaku offered a good rundown of it in the video, then it does nothing to gainsay determinism.

[Denny Crane!]

Do you think then that you consciously reject nihilism just because that is the mental progression and psychological state you have arrived at deterministically? That the sum of your thoughts is that of your influences and causes?

That gives the change from meditation a curious slant, we change because something caused us to want to meditate, still deterministic?

Am I muddying concepts here? I don't think you can rule out behavioural determinism with general determinism. That there could be random elements yes, but that doesn't mesh with free will in the slightest.

[Himster]

The uncertainty of particular aspects of physics does not demean the certain and predictable parts.

[God]

It still doesn't mean we have free will. The future may not have a fixed path but if we have no power over what causes our actions even if they're random we still have no free will.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

It still doesn't mean we have free will. The future may not have a fixed path but if we have no power over what causes our actions even if they're random we still have no free will.

Well, the thing is, our actions are neither random, nor predictable. The abiltiy to consciously go against one's instincts is an evolutionary stable strategy for many mammals, particularly us. We have evolved the ability to chose against our evolutionary instincts. Where isn't the free will?

In constrats, insects and the like are mere computer programs. You can get such a simple creature stuck in a behavioural loop.

[AqD]

The abiltiy to consciously go against one's instincts is an evolutionary stable strategy for many mammals, particularly us. We have evolved the ability to chose against our evolutionary instincts. Where isn't the free will?

It doesn't mean free will or make you unpredictable. It only means we have bigger and more complicated desires other than the most primitive instincts which we're able to identify easily. Still we're driven by desires and the desires always result from our natural genes and the enviroment we grow up and live in.

We cannot make choices out of nothing. We make chocies by processing the our desires according to the rules either built-in in our brain or from what we have learned in the past, together with other factors from the outside environment (such as weather or a fly passing your head), then we get the result, our "choice". The choice is always certain if all inputs including our experiences are certain, hence free will doesn't really exist.



We are nothing more than what we are made to be

[Himster]

This is true also: unpredictable is not a synonym for free-will.

[God]

We've evolved big brains that have the power to think of alternatives against our instincts but I still don't think this necessarily means these are 'free' thoughts, we may still have no control over them. We're just much more complicated 'computer programs'. If you have a spare hour look up Sam Harris's talk about free will, it sums up my view much better than I can, and I promise it's pretty interesting.

[Nietzsche]

How do religious people cope with proven behavioural deterministic behaviour.

People who succumb to schizophrenia and other illnesses or who are born with measurably low capabilities to control their own actions who act immorally and depressingly hurt someone or kill them.

Do you think they are condemned?

What religion?

Follow this a little further down the rabbit hole, we are finding out now that blows to the head can awaken certain genes that encourage violent behaviour. This is just one amongst a million things that effect and determine our behaviour on a day to day basis leading us further down the path that everything we do is predetermined.

Couple this with the fact that statistically our fates our determined by our socio-economic birth group and this in turn effects our behaviour it leads to a depressingly poor amount of personal control we can have over our lives. How do we explain that most domestic violence happens in poor households but that somehow it is that rich people are more moral? But then again as a charity worker it quickly becomes more obvious you will make more money from poor areas than rich for your given charity.

Freaky stuff.

Please provide a citation for your charitable giving commentary because I've a hunch it's totally erroneous.

Fates are determined? How then do you explain the exceptions?

If I am to believe that we have any free will at all then I can only suggest that it is in a long term way, that we can make large efforts to shape the person we are in small ways that will hopefully cumulate in a stimulative and large change. Meditation particularly deals with finding core truths personally and unearthing the myriad influences that create who you are and find more independent spirits (for want of a better word at this moment) but don't think for a second that it doesn't trouble my own psychological perspective of buddhism and what I do.

Thoughts?

While you are sitting in a room thinking about it, I'll just work harder to determine my own future. Eventually, everyone needs to come down from the mountain.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Please provide a citation for your charitable giving commentary because I've a hunch it's totally erroneous.

Well, I have heard this mentioned many times before and didn't think it would be contentious, but here is what a quick google turns up.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7...hy.html?pg=all
http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/...than-the-rich/

Now, I understand you have an existential anchor in politics that may prevent you from accepting this. But it is the case.

[Nietzsche]

Well, I have heard this mentioned many times before and didn't think it would be contentious, but here is what a quick google turns up.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7...hy.html?pg=all
http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/...than-the-rich/

Now, I understand you have an existential anchor in politics that may prevent you from accepting this. But it is the case.

Reputable sources please. kthx.

[Denny Crane!]

What religion?

I left it vague deliberately

Please provide a citation for your charitable giving commentary because I've a hunch it's totally erroneous.

Google it, it is confirmed in many sources but my own thoughts came from years of experience in fund raising, poor and very wealthy are very phanthropic, middle class and upper middle class are terrible people to try and target for fundraising.

Fates are determined? How then do you explain the exceptions?

They had another lucky break from some new external cause, statistically it holds true.

Depressingly it rather seems like you are cherry picking to make this political - please don't.

Ill post replies to the other replies when not on a phone.