Science and Ideology

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by scilosopher, Nov 17, 2003.

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  1. Craig Smith Banned Banned

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    There's a lot of assumptions above, namely that morality is inherent and/or necessary (I don't know which you mean from the context above). Your last paragraph is a gem and very true in my view.
     
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  3. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    I agree insofar as science reduces morality to superstition, or to a set of altruistic survival strategies, and holding this view must affect our behaviour. But how would you say it informs it other than this? As I understand it science denies the very existence of morality, (which may be why people feel uncomfortable discussing it).
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2003
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  5. scilosopher Registered Senior Member

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    craig,

    I didn't intend to make any claims that everyone needs to have a defined moral code or inherently certain underlying social perspectives, but was simply speaking in the context of those that do (as it was an example of a thought system that guides social interaction).

    I would say though that at the very least everyone has a set of reactions towards various people for doing various things. Whether reasoned or not these are informed by their view of the world, which is sometimes informed by science. There is some part of the morality concept in there which is what I was getting (ie the etc.) whether I phrased it in your preferred terminology or not.


    Canute,

    There is great dimension to society that is beyond scientific analysis. Although social ideas like moral systems can be viewed to some degree as "altruistic survival strategies" or what have you, this is not the final complete word. Even if it was, that doesn't mean that such strategies wouldn't be beneficial for certain purposes.

    I'm not sure what you mean by science denying the existence of morality, but it clearly exists as a concept and some people make many decisions based on their concepts of it so it exists in a very meaningful sense.
     
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  7. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    I meant that the orthodox scientific view is that we our conscious decisions and choices do not affect our behaviour. (As seen in the evolving zombies of Neo-Darwinism for instance).
     
  8. scilosopher Registered Senior Member

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    For real? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.

    The only way I can respond to that is that our scientific process still isn't up to understanding humans very well. It's well known in molecular and cell biology that we are very limited in our understanding of dynamical processes with many components, both for experimental and theoretical limitations.
     
  9. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    Morality as an influence on our behaviour could still exist without free will... its influence would just be deterministic, that's all.

    In any case, the present concepts of determinism (which I assume are a premise of the evolving zombies argument) presupposes a pretty fixed concept of time and causality, neither of which we understand well enough to be able to use them as evidence for the nature of human action in this kind of categorical way.
     
  10. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    I don't agree with science on this one either. But science insists that the physical world is causally closed. If so then morality doesn't exist except as part of a pointless self-delusion.

    BBH - Are you sure that morality could affect our behaviour without freewill? Without freewill we are not responsible for our behaviour. Believe it or not some philosophers (I forget who, but I think Dennett has said something about this) really do advocate changing our legal system to better reflect the absence of human freewill.

    As always, truth is stranger than fiction.

    To return to Sciphilospher's original quesion, I'd ask whether what we believe about science affects our ideologies, or whether science is an ideology that affects what we believe, or whether our ideology affects what we believe about science. . :bugeye:

    Probably all three are true. As a layman what I've learnt about the current scienctific view so far leads me to the strong ideological belief that it's a mess of contradictions.

    Canute
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2003
  11. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    I've heard about that... Determinists often advocate harsher punishment in the belief that it is the most reasonable way to reform people - reform being a mechanistic process in this context.

    Morality is a mechanism as well, and if it is represented as a series of brain states, a sort of punishment for wrongdoing and praise for good actions, then it will act in the same way as the punishments of a legal system. Therefore, if you assume that morality relates to mental state, morality can have an effect in a deterministic universe. (Morality would only have to do with post-hoc responsibility, y'see.)

    The only thing in question is how, in a deterministic universe, we can choose to influence our own behaviour. But that's not an impossible question.
     
  12. scilosopher Registered Senior Member

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    To make an anology, robots with deterministic software are still controlled by their software. If morality if part of the human software it would still guide our actions.

    We might not pick our morality, but rather it's a function of our upbringing, genetic temperment, etc. - still that doesn't rule out its real existence. If it is simply the causal result of other factors, it is still is an intermediate entity that plays some role in the unfolding of actions and events.

    semi-synchronous postings ...
     
  13. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    Sorry - I did an edit when you weren't looking.

    According to the common view we can't decide to punish people more or less harshly. It's not our decision. If we do it it's because of phsyical cause and effect.

    Stirct materialists get around this by saying that conscious states are phsyical. That way such states can be causal and freewill becomes logical again. The problem is that it means thoughts, concepts, feelings etc are phsyical objects, which is, umm, a little counterintuitive.
     
  14. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    You can program behaviour, but can you programme morality? If it's programmed then wouldn't we have no choice?

    I agree that behaviour that appears to be moral might be possible, but in reality it would no more moral than the behaviour of a rock rolling down a hill.
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2003
  15. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    How can morality not be programmed? It has to be part of our consciousness or we couldn't really have it...
     
  16. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    Perhaps we each mean something different by programmed.

    A computer can be programmed to behave morally (do you remember Asimov's famous three rules for robots by any chance?) but the morality belongs to the programmer, not the robot. The robot just does what it's told.

    As Hamlet says 'Theres's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so'.
     
  17. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    Then where is the morality? What if the programmer dies? Is morality only a preceding intent? (If it is, then it has no current influence, one would think).

    Usually people consider morality to be an influence upon their actions at the time of the action.
     
  18. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    My argument would be that morality implies choice. A programmed robot has no choice, and a human without freewill has no choice.

    I'm not suggesting that morality doesn't exist, but just raising the issue that if the scientific model is correct then it doesn't.

    Therefore if we really do believe that the model is correct it's going to have a major impact on on our behaviour and ideology.

    Whether it does exist or not is an open question. There seem to be good arguments on both sides. It's hard to believe that it doesn't, but this is what science suggests. Philosophers have also so far been unable to reconcile science with common sense on this issue. It's an odd situation.
     
  19. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    Too true... that's why I'm asking where morality is. I would have to say that morality is material, insofar as it is represented by a pattern of influence in the way we think (which is also material, I guess).

    Is morality a pre-existing force? Is it a collective term for a series of actions? Is it a collective term for a series of influences? We should probably discuss this a bit to find out where we stand.
     
  20. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    This is a minefield, but here goes.

    I take it from this you are a materialist as I described one above. If morality and thought is material then it is materially detirmined and personal choice and judgement do not exist. In this case morality doesn't exist. After all, nobody assigns any morality to behaviour that is physically detirmined. (But have I misunderstood your position?)

    Yeah I agree. I'm happy to follow my dictionary on this, which gives this definition: 'moral act - an act that can be morally evaluated, in contrast to a merely physical event."
     
  21. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    In some ways I am a materialist and in other ways not... I think that it's possible that the universe is represented entirely by physical things, although I'm still not quite sure about some aspects of the universe (numbers, for instance... it's hard not to be a Platonist about numbers).

    However, I do not believe in the material determinism... I think that this is a blind alley that Phil of Science has wandered into, partly because of the modern conception of time in physics as something that has already happened and is just being played out.

    I don't think that an entirely material universe logically implies that there is only a single cause, way back at the beginning, and I don't think that the arguments for material determinism are convincing, since they rely on the pre-set concept of time, which seems to me to be a vast presumption made on little evidence.

    However, morality can be sufficiently described as a series of states and behaviours of a creature that follows a logical set of rules. We may feel that those rules are external, but they don't need to be for morality to be functional. Your dictionary presupposes a higher plane of reality on which morality exists; hence my question "Where is morality?"
     
  22. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    I'll take that as meaning that you aren't a materialist.

    Aren't numbers just concepts?

    Definitely not a materialist.

    It is scientists, not philosophers, who tend to believe in materialism, or physicalism.

    But unless matter is eternal or arises uncaused from nothing then surely there must have been a first cause.

    I don't quite get what you mean about time.

    If all they're doing is following rules then there is no moral aspect to their behaviour, They are not capable of performing an act that can be morally evaluated.

    The rules must be internal, unless there's a cosmic rulebook of some kind. Even if there was it wouldn't affect the situation unless we actually knew what was in it.

    My dictionary presupposes that we are conscious, that's all, and assumes that this is the higher plane of existence where morality exists. I don't see how it can be wrong really. A machine can't do right or wrong in principle, right and wrong are conscious concepts.

    Mind you, I think we may be using 'morality' in slightly different senses.
     
  23. scilosopher Registered Senior Member

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    On programming, there is a significant difference between humans and robots in that our experiences effect our "programming". Although our thoughts effect our beliefs, especially earlier in life we have certain beliefs fostered within us by others that is more like the initial programming of the robot.

    In the context of free will, this feedback towards our programming is interesting in that a human as a defined entity has choice, but is deterministic. That is to say it doesn't have a choice as to what it's nature is, but given it's nature it will make a given choice - THAT IS NOT SOLELY FORCED UPON IT BY THE WORLD AROUND IT AND LARGELY IN THE CONTEXT OF A SET OF BELIEFS THAT HAVE DEVELOPMENT IN A LARGE PART DUE TO WHAT IT IS. The point being that one's will is not strictly free, but it is largely shaped by a process that give it more independence from the environment than most anything else.

    Of course the fact that at some point one is generated by one's environment is more subtle aspect such that one has to trace a long chain of some form of order arising from the environment and interacting with it over long periods of time, which does of course mean it is largely determined by the envrionment - just in a non-trivial manner. In fact the process of evolution has many facets to it that are similar to those of personal development and independence.
     
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