Dawkins - The God Delusion [Archive] - Two Plus Two Newer Archives

hmkpoker

11-26-2006, 06:05 PM

I'm watching the second video, and I disagree with Dawkins' response to the question asked at 4:30, where he talked about the origin of morality. He claims that he is moral, even though it is slightly irrational (like cooperating in a prisoner's dilemma), simply because he wouldn't want to live in a world where people are antisocial. It goes along with his belief that moral (that is, beneficial to the group) behaviors are naturally selected. Social customs are not encoded into our genes; no person of long english descent born to a world that doesn't speak english will speak english. A reinforced tit-for-tat strategy (which borodog talked about in the Great Leap Forward thread) is far more useful to explain morality than genetic natural selection.

The basic elements of motivation are the pursuit of reward and the aversion of punishment (which are not mutually exclusive). Dawkins asserts that it's rather rotten for the source of Christian morality to be nothing more than the aversion of punishment, yet what he claims to be moral actions of his own (not stealing, paying taxes) are unquestionably things that the vast majority of people do simply because of the aversion of punishment.

A more correct stance on naturalism would be to simply throw out morality altogether and explain things in terms of efficiency and utility, but that's too iconoclastic a message to get out.

hmkpoker

11-26-2006, 07:11 PM

The second video is a train wreck. Dawkins faces an onslaught of Christian teenagers and annoying philosophy students all asking the same dumb crap that txag007 spouts. I feel bad that they didn't equip him with a gun.

madnak

11-26-2006, 07:19 PM

If this is true then an inherent tendency toward tit-for-tat reciprocal altruism would be selected for. Thus, there would be a biological basis for morality. Also, as Dawkins himself explained, people don't act based on personal rewards, but on the preservation of their genome.

chrisnice

11-26-2006, 09:23 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I just bought the god delusion yesterday....

I picked up a few other books as well that I have read a lot of online, but never read through the whole thing.

quick poll

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow...I think those should be the next 6 books that you read as they are all great.

I voted for The God Delusion as the one but I think that it, The End of Faith and Ancestors Tale should be the first 3.

Dont let the fact that no one has voted for End of Faith keep you from reading it quick. I read this on a flight a few weeks ago and was very impressed with it. With a background in philosophy and neuroscience, Harris adds insights that I at least had not heard before. The most enjoyable parts of the book for me was when he stepped back from religion and let loose on some other untenable philosopical beliefs. Moral relativism and pacifism esp. He also does quite the number on Islam and those westerners who apologize and maintain that it is somehow "a religion of peace"

thylacine

11-26-2006, 09:58 PM

hmkpoker said:[ QUOTE ]
I'm watching the second video, and I disagree with Dawkins' response to the question asked at 4:30, where he talked about the origin of morality. He claims that he is moral, even though it is slightly irrational (like cooperating in a prisoner's dilemma), simply because he wouldn't want to live in a world where people are antisocial. It goes along with his belief that moral (that is, beneficial to the group) behaviors are naturally selected. Social customs are not encoded into our genes; no person of long english descent born to a world that doesn't speak english will speak english. A reinforced tit-for-tat strategy (which borodog talked about in the Great Leap Forward thread) is far more useful to explain morality than genetic natural selection.

The basic elements of motivation are the pursuit of reward and the aversion of punishment (which are not mutually exclusive). Dawkins asserts that it's rather rotten for the source of Christian morality to be nothing more than the aversion of punishment, yet what he claims to be moral actions of his own (not stealing, paying taxes) are unquestionably things that the vast majority of people do simply because of the aversion of punishment.

A more correct stance on naturalism would be to simply throw out morality altogether and explain things in terms of efficiency and utility, but that's too iconoclastic a message to get out.

[/ QUOTE ]

hmkpoker, there is a mistake in your thinking here, and I think I can convince you with your own post. (madnak has already posted with similar points to mine.) You correctly point out that no-one is born with specific English-speaking genes. But most people are born with the capacity to learn some language, whatever language they happen to be exposed to. There is a large amount of brain-structure encoded by lots of genes, that give most humans this capacity. Natural selection has chosen these genes over others. Mice, having followed a different evolutionary path, lack these genes and consequent brain structures, and don't have language of the type that humans do.

The nature/nuture debate is dead because there is a significant contribution from both nature and nuture. You (hmkpoker) basically way underestimated the nature part. Many people make the mistake that just because the human brain is so hugely flexible, and just because there are obviously many social influences that affect it, they fail to realize that there is also a huge amount of genetically encoded hardwiring, that gives the brain its flexibilty in the first place. And this genetically encoded hardwiring is a result of evolution including natural selection.

All of this applies just as much to the capacity for social behavior, morality, etc. as it does to the capacity for language. There is a significant naturally selected genetic component that could have been utterly different if history had taken a different path, and is utterly different in other species.

In intelligent social species, the members of that species (most of them) will have evolved with a characteristic that can be loosely termed `morality'. A crucial element is that there be selection pressure against individuals (and their genes) with antisocial predispositions, and it is not hard to see how this can come about.

Do you see what I'm saying?

I think I'm saying something fairly standard here.

hmkpoker

11-26-2006, 11:29 PM

[ QUOTE ]

hmkpoker, there is a mistake in your thinking here, and I think I can convince you with your own post. (madnak has already posted with similar points to mine.) You correctly point out that no-one is born with specific English-speaking genes. But most people are born with the capacity to learn some language, whatever language they happen to be exposed to. There is a large amount of brain-structure encoded by lots of genes, that give most humans this capacity. Natural selection has chosen these genes over others. Mice, having followed a different evolutionary path, lack these genes and consequent brain structures, and don't have language of the type that humans do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent point. You're right.

[ QUOTE ]

The nature/nuture debate is dead because there is a significant contribution from both nature and nuture. You (hmkpoker) basically way underestimated the nature part. Many people make the mistake that just because the human brain is so hugely flexible, and just because there are obviously many social influences that affect it, they fail to realize that there is also a huge amount of genetically encoded hardwiring, that gives the brain its flexibilty in the first place. And this genetically encoded hardwiring is a result of evolution including natural selection.

All of this applies just as much to the capacity for social behavior, morality, etc. as it does to the capacity for language. There is a significant naturally selected genetic component that could have been utterly different if history had taken a different path, and is utterly different in other species.

In intelligent social species, the members of that species (most of them) will have evolved with a characteristic that can be loosely termed `morality'. A crucial element is that there be selection pressure against individuals (and their genes) with antisocial predispositions, and it is not hard to see how this can come about.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps I should re-evaluate what I said: successful (moral) social norms themselves exist socially (in a medium that Dawkins described in Viruses of the Mind), but the capacity for them to exist, that is, the existance of a mind that knows it has self-interest, knows that other minds have self-interest, and can estimate the social repurcussions of its actions, must be naturally selected through genetics. The selection of the social norms themselves is somewhat independent (like third party software), but if it is to exist it must accomodate the hardware of interacting, self-interested minds. Do you agree with this?

Good post btw.

thylacine

11-27-2006, 01:21 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

hmkpoker, there is a mistake in your thinking here, and I think I can convince you with your own post. (madnak has already posted with similar points to mine.) You correctly point out that no-one is born with specific English-speaking genes. But most people are born with the capacity to learn some language, whatever language they happen to be exposed to. There is a large amount of brain-structure encoded by lots of genes, that give most humans this capacity. Natural selection has chosen these genes over others. Mice, having followed a different evolutionary path, lack these genes and consequent brain structures, and don't have language of the type that humans do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent point. You're right.

[ QUOTE ]

The nature/nuture debate is dead because there is a significant contribution from both nature and nuture. You (hmkpoker) basically way underestimated the nature part. Many people make the mistake that just because the human brain is so hugely flexible, and just because there are obviously many social influences that affect it, they fail to realize that there is also a huge amount of genetically encoded hardwiring, that gives the brain its flexibilty in the first place. And this genetically encoded hardwiring is a result of evolution including natural selection.

All of this applies just as much to the capacity for social behavior, morality, etc. as it does to the capacity for language. There is a significant naturally selected genetic component that could have been utterly different if history had taken a different path, and is utterly different in other species.

In intelligent social species, the members of that species (most of them) will have evolved with a characteristic that can be loosely termed `morality'. A crucial element is that there be selection pressure against individuals (and their genes) with antisocial predispositions, and it is not hard to see how this can come about.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps I should re-evaluate what I said: successful (moral) social norms themselves exist socially (in a medium that Dawkins described in Viruses of the Mind), but the capacity for them to exist, that is, the existance of a mind that knows it has self-interest, knows that other minds have self-interest, and can estimate the social repurcussions of its actions, must be naturally selected through genetics. The selection of the social norms themselves is somewhat independent (like third party software), but if it is to exist it must accomodate the hardware of interacting, self-interested minds. Do you agree with this?

Good post btw.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mostly agree. We're mostly making complementary consistent points --- it's a big picture.

Yes there is definitely memetic evolution in human culture. And yes humans are capable of high level thinking such as contemplating the minds of others (which is not necessary for memetic evolution, it's yet another element). These are part of the picture I did not mention, but they are very much there.

A couple of points, for what they're worth.

The range of living beings that have existed on earth depends, among other things, on the laws of physics, and on the physical conditions on earth such as strength of gravity and sunlight, chemical composition of ocean and atmosphere etc. Biological evolution occurs in this physical background rather than on a generic blank slate. Similarly, memetic evolution of human culture occurs in a background that includes the range of human minds that actually exist, rather than on a generic blank slate. And this range of human minds depends on biological evolution.

Things also get interesting when you consider that the biosphere feeds back into the physical environment (e.g. oxygen producing microbes transforming Earth's atmosphere) and similarly, the cultural `memosphere' feeds back into biological evolution as one of the factors in natural selection.

One possible point of contention (among many people, for much of human history) is the question: what are human beings actually like? Another possibly contentious question is: which answers to the previous question are consistent with evolution?

Sometime a perceived disagreement may actually come down to what is meant by the term `self-interested', or more to the point, what exactly is it that is being optimized, or even more to the point still, what would you expect if you consider all factors.

Anyway I would not describe the generic human as a highly calculating self-interested being in the sense that a typical person would interpret those words. Not only are people very often altruistic, cooperative, social, etc., but they often choose to be so without putting a huge amount of calculation into it. I could probably type pages defining exactly what I mean, and trying to justify it, but I'll leave it at that.

Propertarian

11-27-2006, 02:10 AM

[ QUOTE ]
A reinforced tit-for-tat strategy (which borodog talked about in the Great Leap Forward thread) is far more useful to explain morality than genetic natural selection.

[/ QUOTE ] This is a false dichotomy. Natural selection/our ancestral environment favored those who used the tit-for-tat strategy, so those who used it had more descendants than those who did not.

Also, people have a tendency to use reciprocal altruism in experiments even when it was made clear that the participants involved were never going to see each other again.

Also, reciprocity breaks down from time to time on a grand scale. Evolutionary explanations can explain why this occurs; Borodog's view cannot.

[ QUOTE ]
yet what he claims to be moral actions of his own (not stealing, paying taxes) are unquestionably things that the vast majority of people do simply because of the aversion of punishment.

[/ QUOTE ] This is not true of more heinous attrocities such as rape and murder.

moorobot

11-27-2006, 02:40 AM

Bowles and Gintis (http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~bowles/) (among others) have done some fascinating research on this.

Real people care about the process of interaction and not just outcomes e.g. they care whether or not the process was fair.

Also, people will punish unfair behavior, even when it comes at a cost to themselves even if they have no hope of getting a benefit that compensates for that cost in the future.

A theory which attempts to explain morality in terms of disguised self-interested gains must therefore be false; people are sacrificing their own outcomes in order to punish those who cheated them and to ensure fairness.

hmkpoker

11-27-2006, 03:14 AM

[ QUOTE ]
This is a false dichotomy.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've retracted this statement, see my post to thylacine. I didn't mean for it to be a dichotomy. What I think they represent is development of different mediums; evolution gives rise to a brain that is capable of understanding abstract concepts and planning, which makes it possible for other social "viruses" to exist. But those behaviors can't exist until the genetics have selected the mediums for them.

[ QUOTE ]

Also, people have a tendency to use reciprocal altruism in experiments even when it was made clear that the participants involved were never going to see each other again.

Also, reciprocity breaks down from time to time on a grand scale. Evolutionary explanations can explain why this occurs; Borodog's view cannot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Altrusism isn't always about tit-for-tat; to believe that would be to deny that human empathy exists. A very hard-grounded economist might consider a charitable donation to someone you'll never meet again to be irrational, but I don't think that it necessarily is. It's not uncommon to get a good feeling from helping someone, and that is an incentive for even non-reciprocal altruism. If that's an evolutionary trait, we must admit that it's a damn good one.

I have no idea to what degree empathy is genetic or conditioned. Child studies often suggest that children are remarkably unempathetic, and racial hatred has dominated human history for centuries. A little social pressure drove the entire German people into militant anti-semitism, and most people have absolutely no hesitation about eating meat even though they know that it came from an animal with feelings and pain.

[ QUOTE ]
This is not true of more heinous attrocities such as rape and murder.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seems to happen a lot in impoverished, warlord-dominated Africa where such punishments are much less frequent or severe. While I do believe that many humans, especially those raised in the civilized world, would be averse to such behaviors out of pure empathy, the threat of punishment is undoubtedly an important mechanism protecting people from violence.

hmkpoker

11-27-2006, 03:40 AM

[ QUOTE ]
A theory which attempts to explain morality in terms of disguised self-interested gains must therefore be false; people are sacrificing their own outcomes in order to punish those who cheated them and to ensure fairness.

[/ QUOTE ]

If such gains are purely monetary, then yes, such a theory would be false. People are sometimes willing to go to great and even self-injurious lengths to reap the satisfaction of vengeance. I'm convinced that our judicial system (which often focuses more on punishment than rehabilitation) is rooted in our vindictive tendencies. Like empathy, there is a good evolutionary explanation for vengeant behavior too, and it's probably more fundamental to our animal mind than empathy is.

[ QUOTE ]

Bowles and Gintis (among others) have done some fascinating research on this.

Real people care about the process of interaction and not just outcomes e.g. they care whether or not the process was fair.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm familiar with this type of study and I find the results very interesting. However, one thing to bear in mind is that you will get a very different result if you presented one of these Ultimatum game scenarios in SMP or POG (or for that matter anywhere on 2+2 that isn't BBV or OOT.) Most people do not understand game theory worth a damn, so the default strategy to an unfair ultimatum is the instinctive "[censored] you you cheap-ass mother-[censored]!" Most people would consider accepting such a small sum to be dishonorable or to look desperate; a high price to pay for a small monetary gain. We cannot doubt the usefulness of such an instinct in the real world, even if in this situation it results in a loss.

To what degree fairness is genetic or socially conditioned, I don't know. However, fairness is undoubtedly an extremely useful norm to a civilizing society; it is very simple, and it helps ensure the "treat others as you wouldbe treated" rule that is so important to civilization. I believe that it would probably evolve in any homosapien circle.

vhawk01

11-27-2006, 09:31 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A reinforced tit-for-tat strategy (which borodog talked about in the Great Leap Forward thread) is far more useful to explain morality than genetic natural selection.

[/ QUOTE ] This is a false dichotomy. Natural selection/our ancestral environment favored those who used the tit-for-tat strategy, so those who used it had more descendants than those who did not.

Also, people have a tendency to use reciprocal altruism in experiments even when it was made clear that the participants involved were never going to see each other again.

Also, reciprocity breaks down from time to time on a grand scale. Evolutionary explanations can explain why this occurs; Borodog's view cannot.

[ QUOTE ]
yet what he claims to be moral actions of his own (not stealing, paying taxes) are unquestionably things that the vast majority of people do simply because of the aversion of punishment.

[/ QUOTE ] This is not true of more heinous attrocities such as rape and murder.

[/ QUOTE ]

Isnt that simply because we tend to employ a 'best in the general case' mentality to most of our problems? The reciprocal altruism USUALLY works, because we USUALLY do see the person again and again, so that is what people default to. They listen to the instructions, but they don't really hear them or care about them because its such an abnormal case. This is represented by the fact that they are still dealing with 'other people,' and they will surely see 'other people' again. Its why I let people in front of me on the highway, probably.

Borodog

11-27-2006, 01:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Bowles and Gintis (http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~bowles/) (among others) have done some fascinating research on this.

Real people care about the process of interaction and not just outcomes e.g. they care whether or not the process was fair.

Also, people will punish unfair behavior, even when it comes at a cost to themselves even if they have no hope of getting a benefit that compensates for that cost in the future.

A theory which attempts to explain morality in terms of disguised self-interested gains must therefore be false; people are sacrificing their own outcomes in order to punish those who cheated them and to ensure fairness.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it simply means that genes have a lower time preference than people do. There is a selective advantage in enforcing "fairness", because most interpersonal interactions are not isolated; life is a long series of iterated prisoner's dilemmas.

Any theory that attempts to explain morality without disguised self-interested gains must be false, because we are built and programmed by purely self-interested entities, genes.

Even in those numerous cases where human beings perform altruistic acts at their own expense that cannot ever possibly conceivably help them or their genes, like donating money to Earthquake relief on the far side of the world (although some would argue that indeed there could be a benefit to your genes by being seen to be generous by those in your own community, but we'll neglect that argument), this happens because of a "misfiring" of our programming. We evolved in small communities. Genes for being altruistic, fair, cooperative, etc. are extremely advantageous in small groups. We are quite likely to share genes with others in the group, and our own genes benefit enormously by cooperation, the division of labor, etc. We're built for cooperation, fairness, altruism because we evolved in small groups where these things are highly advantageous. They still are in large groups and among distant groups, with the possible exception of pure altruism (although I could construct an argument for that as well).

You should really read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.

thylacine

11-27-2006, 03:49 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Bowles and Gintis (http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~bowles/) (among others) have done some fascinating research on this.

Real people care about the process of interaction and not just outcomes e.g. they care whether or not the process was fair.

Also, people will punish unfair behavior, even when it comes at a cost to themselves even if they have no hope of getting a benefit that compensates for that cost in the future.

A theory which attempts to explain morality in terms of disguised self-interested gains must therefore be false; people are sacrificing their own outcomes in order to punish those who cheated them and to ensure fairness.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it simply means that genes have a lower time preference than people do. There is a selective advantage in enforcing "fairness", because most interpersonal interactions are not isolated; life is a long series of iterated prisoner's dilemmas.

Any theory that attempts to explain morality without disguised self-interested gains must be false, because we are built and programmed by purely self-interested entities, genes.

Even in those numerous cases where human beings perform altruistic acts at their own expense that cannot ever possibly conceivably help them or their genes, like donating money to Earthquake relief on the far side of the world (although some would argue that indeed there could be a benefit to your genes by being seen to be generous by those in your own community, but we'll neglect that argument), this happens because of a "misfiring" of our programming. We evolved in small communities. Genes for being altruistic, fair, cooperative, etc. are extremely advantageous in small groups. We are quite likely to share genes with others in the group, and our own genes benefit enormously by cooperation, the division of labor, etc. We're built for cooperation, fairness, altruism because we evolved in small groups where these things are highly advantageous. They still are in large groups and among distant groups, with the possible exception of pure altruism (although I could construct an argument for that as well).

You should really read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably everyone in this discussion has read "The Selfish Gene". Also I'm not sure there is any major point of dispute. The crucial point is that selfish genes lead to, and explain, altrustic people (within reason). Altruism, at the level of individuals, is very real, and this phenomenon needed, and received, a thorough explanation from standard evolutionary theory, though of course the research continues.

moorobot

11-27-2006, 03:59 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Any theory that attempts to explain morality without disguised self-interested gains must be false, because we are built and programmed by purely self-interested entities, genes.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
You should really read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.

[/ QUOTE ] The Selfish Gene is a book which shows how self-interested genes create human beings who are not self-interested; the genes don't care about our gains in terms of 'utility' or happiness, just about replicating themselves. Hence, they don't necessarily create creatures that are self-interested.

However, it could be simply a matter of semantics, given your paragraph inbetween these two.

Skidoo

11-27-2006, 04:30 PM

Regarding this notion of the selfish gene, can a person be regarded as merely the instrument of a complex molecule (i.e. DNA)?

Only if you deny free will. The capacity of a human being to choose for him/herself in a manner that is not entirely caused by material circumstance, while DNA has no such ability, puts the primacy of purpose on the side of the conscious person.

vhawk01

11-27-2006, 04:33 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Regarding this notion of the selfish gene, can a person be regarded as merely the instrument of a complex molecule (i.e. DNA)?

Only if you deny free will. The capacity of a human being to choose for him/herself in a manner that is not entirely caused by material circumstance, while DNA has no such ability, puts the primacy of purpose on the side of the conscious person.

[/ QUOTE ]
Is that an argument or just an "I wish this were so" statement?

Borodog

11-27-2006, 05:31 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Any theory that attempts to explain morality without disguised self-interested gains must be false, because we are built and programmed by purely self-interested entities, genes.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
You should really read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.

[/ QUOTE ] The Selfish Gene is a book which shows how self-interested genes create human beings who are not self-interested; the genes don't care about our gains in terms of 'utility' or happiness, just about replicating themselves. Hence, they don't necessarily create creatures that are self-interested.

However, it could be simply a matter of semantics, given your paragraph inbetween these two.

[/ QUOTE ]

My only point was that this statement:

"A theory which attempts to explain morality in terms of disguised self-interested gains must therefore be false; people are sacrificing their own outcomes in order to punish those who cheated them and to ensure fairness."

is false; morality is easily explained in terms of "disguised self-interested gains", and indeed can only be explained in this manner, once you realize that the self-interested entity is not necessarily an individual organism, but rather its genes. For obvious reasons the two largely coincide, but not always.

SNOWBALL

11-28-2006, 02:18 AM

I thought it was pretty sick that 2/3 of Israeli kids expressed "total approval" for Joshua's genocide against the arabs. The reasons the kids cite are absolutely terrible also. They basically say that the arabs needed to be killed or else the purity of their race and religion could be compromised by assimilation. I guess stuff like this is pretty standard for religion.

arahant

11-28-2006, 04:42 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Regarding this notion of the selfish gene, can a person be regarded as merely the instrument of a complex molecule (i.e. DNA)?

Only if you deny free will. The capacity of a human being to choose for him/herself in a manner that is not entirely caused by material circumstance, while DNA has no such ability, puts the primacy of purpose on the side of the conscious person.

[/ QUOTE ]
Is that an argument or just an "I wish this were so" statement?

[/ QUOTE ]

Based on history, I would say it's an argument.

We have some debate on it here, but 'free will' as skidoo sees it is pure silliness. I have no problem with anything that denies free will.

That said, this mystical 'free will' wouldn't conflict with a view of creatures as the reproductive instruments of genes. We'd just have to ensure that 'free will' contributed to the survival of the instrument (people).

Kind of like the immune system, or indeed life in general. Variability is in itself a trait that is selected for, because the ability to adapt is itself an adaptation. 'Free will' can just be another way to ensure variability in outcomes.

soon2bepro

11-28-2006, 06:16 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I'm watching the second video, and I disagree with Dawkins' response to the question asked at 4:30, where he talked about the origin of morality. He claims that he is moral, even though it is slightly irrational (like cooperating in a prisoner's dilemma), simply because he wouldn't want to live in a world where people are antisocial. It goes along with his belief that moral (that is, beneficial to the group) behaviors are naturally selected. Social customs are not encoded into our genes; no person of long english descent born to a world that doesn't speak english will speak english. A reinforced tit-for-tat strategy (which borodog talked about in the Great Leap Forward thread) is far more useful to explain morality than genetic natural selection.

The basic elements of motivation are the pursuit of reward and the aversion of punishment (which are not mutually exclusive). Dawkins asserts that it's rather rotten for the source of Christian morality to be nothing more than the aversion of punishment, yet what he claims to be moral actions of his own (not stealing, paying taxes) are unquestionably things that the vast majority of people do simply because of the aversion of punishment.

A more correct stance on naturalism would be to simply throw out morality altogether and explain things in terms of efficiency and utility, but that's too iconoclastic a message to get out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. But you can't prove moral behaviour isn't at least partially naturally selected.

Although this Dawkin's hypothesis is really far from becoming an accepted theory.

Psychoanalysis (Freud etc) sees the subject as an individual, selfish entity, and considers every impulse is based on what you feel is best for yourself. I totally agree with this view. You probably do too, as a good ACer /images/graemlins/smile.gif

thylacine

11-28-2006, 12:04 PM

soon2bepro said:[ QUOTE ]

Psychoanalysis (Freud etc) sees the subject as an individual, selfish entity, and considers every impulse is based on what you feel is best for yourself. I totally agree with this view. You (soon2bepro means hmkpoker) probably do too, as a good ACer /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Then I definitely disagree with Freud and I'm sure Dawkins does too. Human beings are social beings, and the idea that they are purely self-interested is utterly wrong. Selfish genes do not (necessarily) produce selfish individuals. This is old news. ("Selfish Gene" is 30 years old.)

Freud may be an interesting historical figure, and he may have had a role in getting psychology started but modern, psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, sociobiology, etc. have totally left Freud in the dust and he is essentially irrelevant to modern science.

Freud has been left in the dust in a way that Newton and Darwin (to whom Freud egotistically compared himself) will never be left in the dust.

BTW what is an "ACer"? I keep seeing this term but I have not heard of it.

AWoodside

11-28-2006, 01:38 PM

Dawkins is great, must see videos. The audience questions are by and large fairly atrocious though.

Look at me! I'm a bio major at LIBERTY college, I have a question and I just know it's going to totally wtfPWN Dawkins!

Borodog

11-28-2006, 02:03 PM

[ QUOTE ]
soon2bepro said:[ QUOTE ]

Psychoanalysis (Freud etc) sees the subject as an individual, selfish entity, and considers every impulse is based on what you feel is best for yourself. I totally agree with this view. You (soon2bepro means hmkpoker) probably do too, as a good ACer /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Then I definitely disagree with Freud and I'm sure Dawkins does too. Human beings are social beings, and the idea that they are purely self-interested is utterly wrong. Selfish genes do not (necessarily) produce selfish individuals. This is old news. ("Selfish Gene" is 30 years old.)

Freud may be an interesting historical figure, and he may have had a role in getting psychology started but modern, psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, sociobiology, etc. have totally left Freud in the dust and he is essentially irrelevant to modern science.

Freud has been left in the dust in a way that Newton and Darwin (to whom Freud egotistically compared himself) will never be left in the dust.

BTW what is an "ACer"? I keep seeing this term but I have not heard of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Anarcho-capitalist, also know as a free market anarchist. s2bp doesn't understand the philosophy, and is hence misapplying it. There's no conflict at all between anarcho-capitalist theory and selfish gene/altruistic individual theory.

The confusion stems from the fact that Austrian economic theorists (the school of economic thought that underlies free market anarchism) take it to be axiomatic that human beings act purposefully to exchange less satisfactory states of affairs for more satisfactory states of affairs. The problem comes in when people seem either incapable of understanding or unwilling to recognize that people can find altruistic acts inherently satisfying, because of they way they've been programmed by their genes. Hence they think that anarcho-capitalism = pure (at the individual level) selfishness, and that altruistic behavior is some sort of prima facie evidence that the fundamental axiom of human action is false, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Skidoo

11-28-2006, 03:10 PM

[ QUOTE ]
That said, this mystical 'free will' wouldn't conflict with a view of creatures as the reproductive instruments of genes.

[/ QUOTE ]

You contradict yourself. Free will is not the instrument of anything.

luckyme

11-28-2006, 03:23 PM

[ QUOTE ]
You contradict yourself. Free will is not the instrument of anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

I send a squad on a specific mission -- take out that bunker -- Do A, Do B, Do C ...

I send a squad to on a specific mission -- take out that bunker -- Do what ya want to achieve that.

If the mission is, 'pass on your genetic material', it may well be that 'and do whatever you want to achieve that' is as close to a meaningful free will as we can get. 'Random will' is not 'Free will' it's an oxymoron.

luckyme

Skidoo

11-28-2006, 03:33 PM

The fault with your analogy is that free will can put its own purposes first and so integrate its biologically-assigned "missions" into other activities in a way that contradicts the genome's overall operation.

The genome doesn't have that flexibility. Therefore, free will is the strategist, not the genome.

luckyme

11-28-2006, 03:42 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The fault with your analogy is that free will can put its own purposes first and so integrate its biologically-assigned "missions" into other activities in a way that contradicts the genome's overall operation.

[/ QUOTE ]

The guys in the squad may get distracted by a whorehouse and blow the mission, yet my best shot for the mission was to give them free will within it.

Jumping up and having our adrenalin rise when we hear a loud bang doesn't work as well as it used to, but we're likely still better off than it not getting our attention.

You're using the 'it won't always work so it's the wrong approach' argument. Getting all in with AA doesn't always work either.

The counter argument has to be focused on a better option, at the very least, not that the one used is not infallible.

luckyme

Skidoo

11-28-2006, 03:59 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The guys in the squad may get distracted by a whorehouse and blow the mission, yet my best shot for the mission was to give them free will within it.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not only about the specific mission. At least as important is integration toward to an overall objective.

The free will can do its job-as-described just fine while also becoming an entrepreneur on its own and imposing a new goal.

madnak

11-28-2006, 04:02 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Anarcho-capitalist, also know as a free market anarchist. s2bp doesn't understand the philosophy, and is hence misapplying it. There's no conflict at all between anarcho-capitalist theory and selfish gene/altruistic individual theory.

The confusion stems from the fact that Austrian economic theorists (the school of economic thought that underlies free market anarchism) take it to be axiomatic that human beings act purposefully to exchange less satisfactory states of affairs for more satisfactory states of affairs. The problem comes in when people seem either incapable of understanding or unwilling to recognize that people can find altruistic acts inherently satisfying, because of they way they've been programmed by their genes. Hence they think that anarcho-capitalism = pure (at the individual level) selfishness, and that altruistic behavior is some sort of prima facie evidence that the fundamental axiom of human action is false, when nothing could be further from the truth.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're on a roll, Boro.

arahant

12-03-2006, 05:26 PM

OOOOKAY....i guess i'm supposed to post this question here since my post was locked, even though it is an entirely different topic, and none of the people i'm interested in hearing from are on this thread....but whatever...
[ QUOTE ]
I haven't read this yet, but probably will in the near future. It sounds like a book that I'll read in the bath to needlessly reinforce my beliefs. Plus, Dawkins seems to always make me feel smart.

Anyway, I'd like to know what to focus on ahead of time, so the question is...have any of our resident vocal christians read this book? If so, were there parts that you found fallacious? objectionable? Parts that you agreed wholeheartedly with?

I really hope some of you bothered to read it!
(In fact, if you don't intend to read it, I'll read the book of your choice if you read god delusion - similar length books, of course )

[/ QUOTE ]

John21

12-03-2006, 05:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
OOOOKAY....i guess i'm supposed to post this question here since my post was locked, even though it is an entirely different topic, and none of the people i'm interested in hearing from are on this thread....but whatever...
[ QUOTE ]
I haven't read this yet, but probably will in the near future. It sounds like a book that I'll read in the bath to needlessly reinforce my beliefs. Plus, Dawkins seems to always make me feel smart.

Anyway, I'd like to know what to focus on ahead of time, so the question is...have any of our resident vocal christians read this book? If so, were there parts that you found fallacious? objectionable? Parts that you agreed wholeheartedly with?

I really hope some of you bothered to read it!
(In fact, if you don't intend to read it, I'll read the book of your choice if you read god delusion - similar length books, of course )

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm probably not one of the more vocal, but I read it. The Secular Humanists at Borders had it prominently displayed in the religion section amidst the bibles and what not. And as a further temptation, had it marked 30% off.

Negative: I think he did quite a bit of over-generalizing as to religion's responsibility to the strife in the world. He was coming close to saying that religion was the sole cause of the entire world's problems, and just skimmed over the idea that territory and power may have also played a role in different regimes. I don't see that as a very accurate account.

Positive: Really made me think about what role religion should play, or the extent it should be involved politics, etc… in society. While I felt he exaggerated several of his points, there were enough relevant examples of the negative consequences that can occur when religions do run astray.

It has a preaching to the choir tone, but since he looks at the situation as a war to the death, I guess that's expected and if I was part of the choir, probably welcomed.

hmkpoker

12-15-2006, 11:49 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Real people care about the process of interaction and not just outcomes e.g. they care whether or not the process was fair.

Also, people will punish unfair behavior, even when it comes at a cost to themselves even if they have no hope of getting a benefit that compensates for that cost in the future.

A theory which attempts to explain morality in terms of disguised self-interested gains must therefore be false; people are sacrificing their own outcomes in order to punish those who cheated them and to ensure fairness.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just realized how this can be demonstrated to be false, and I am surprised that no one has said this.

If human beings participating in the ultimatum game are indeed acting according to the fairness of distribution more so than self-interest, then they should be declining unfair distributions in their favor too. Assuming the most fair distribution to be 50/50 (I think it's safe to assume that's what most people consider it), then amounts in excess of 50% should become increasingly likely to be declined as the percentage becomes greater. What do you think a participant will do when offered a highly unfair 95-5 distribution in his favor? My money's on him accepting it, and rather excitedly so.

I have a feeling that such instanced of this are rare, simply because the participant making the offer would be very unlikely to offer an amount greater than 50% to the reciever, which of course further reinforces the point that humans act according to self-interest. I have a strong feeling that if this participant were removed and instead a randomly generated distribution were proposed, the instances of acceptance will continue to increase as the reciever's percentage gets greater.

madnak

12-15-2006, 11:54 PM

It happens all the time, actually.

hmkpoker

12-16-2006, 12:00 AM

What do you mean?

madnak

12-16-2006, 12:03 AM

Well, I don't know. I guess I don't have evidence to back it up, but doesn't it? Haven't you ever seen the winner of a contest divide up the loot or something?

hmkpoker

12-16-2006, 12:15 AM

I don't understand your point. My assertion is that, if offered a grossly unfair but personally beneficial distribution, he is far more likely to accept than decline.

ojc02

12-16-2006, 12:39 AM

I love the little pause at about 9:10 in the second video where Dawkins says: "Thank ... Goodness"

Caught it just in time /images/graemlins/smile.gif

madnak

12-16-2006, 03:06 AM

Yeah, his optimal ploy for a fair distribution is to accept, and then give some extra to the other guy. No reason to decline under any circumstances - once he gets his share, he can give it all away if that's the outcome he wants.

hmkpoker

12-16-2006, 03:21 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, his optimal ploy for a fair distribution is to accept, and then give some extra to the other guy. No reason to decline under any circumstances - once he gets his share, he can give it all away if that's the outcome he wants.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, he can't. The ultimatum game is explicitly designed to be anonymous; you do not know the other person, and it is assumed that you will not meet the other person. They want the participants to be aware that they have not interacted in the past and will not interact in the future in order to keep IPD type strategies from forming.

MaxWeiss

12-16-2006, 03:32 AM

You are talking about if there is no perceived downside. Sure people will take what's given to them. What the other guy is talking about is in a group, with consequences, and with knowledge of what everybody else is doing.

madnak

12-16-2006, 12:23 PM

Okay, you're right, I'm thinking too much of the real world.

But in this case both players get a better deal if he accepts, no? It wouldn't be in anyone's interest for him to decline, so accepting doesn't indicate pure self-interest on his part.

DougShrapnel

12-16-2006, 01:22 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I don't understand your point. My assertion is that, if offered a grossly unfair but personally beneficial distribution, he is far more likely to accept than decline.

[/ QUOTE ]Originally, I had thought along the same lines as you. It turns out that hyperfair offers are rejected routinly. Then we consider two Papua New Guinea groups, the Au and the Gnau. These groups
are neighboring forager-horticulturalists who have a culture of competitive
gift-giving. In the ultimatum game, about one fifth of proposers made hyperfair
offers of 60% or more of the pie to responders. Moreover, nearly half of the
hyper-fair offers were rejected by responders! These results, never before seen in
ultimatum game experiments, reflect the everyday life experience of
self-aggrandizement through making generous offers, and self-abasement by accepting
such offers.(Gintis,2002).

Just do a goolgle search for ultimatum game hyperfair Gintis should give you the resluts you need.

hmkpoker

12-16-2006, 02:10 PM

Come on, your counter example is a distant, isolated group of people with a distribution of labor so small that single interactions are alien to them. Try this with experiment with someone from anywhere else on the globe.

DougShrapnel

12-16-2006, 03:01 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Come on, your counter example is a distant, isolated group of people with a distribution of labor so small that single interactions are alien to them. Try this with experiment with someone from anywhere else on the globe.

[/ QUOTE ]It should at least be interesting that when societal norms are in place against accepting hyper fair offers. That people do in fact reject those offers. One of the main problems getting research that comfirms the rejection of a subjective sense of fairness in other parts of the world. Is that in other parts of the world I have yet to see any study with a signifacte population of hyperfair offers being made. I would be easily convinced if a study was put forth that dismissed the idea of rejecting hyperfair offers. As that position initially makes the most sense. But as with alot of different components of human nature, the typical model of humakind is not very good at eliciting responses inline with experimental study. The very few studies I have seen treat hyperfair offers as outliers, and don't include them in their modeling forecasts.

Of course I want to add that it is self interest at play. And not alturism or fairness that is the driving force behind these interaction. As dawkins point out the typical rational person wants to design the societal rules governing these interaction in a manner that One is unable to know if they will be the ultimater or the ultimatee. It is in that sense that fairness comes into play in the cultures you speak of.

hmkpoker

12-16-2006, 03:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]
It should at least be interesting that when societal norms are in place against accepting hyper fair offers. That people do in fact reject those offers. One of the main problems getting research that comfirms the rejection of a subjective sense of fairness in other parts of the world. Is that in other parts of the world I have yet to see any study with a signifacte population of hyperfair offers being made. I would be easily convinced if a study was put forth that dismissed the idea of rejecting hyperfair offers. As that position initially makes the most sense. But as with alot of different components of human nature, the typical model of humakind is not very good at eliciting responses inline with experimental study.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is one of the most poorly constructed paragraphs I have ever read.

DougShrapnel

12-16-2006, 03:15 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It should at least be interesting that when societal norms are in place against accepting hyper fair offers. That people do in fact reject those offers. One of the main problems getting research that comfirms the rejection of a subjective sense of fairness in other parts of the world. Is that in other parts of the world I have yet to see any study with a signifacte population of hyperfair offers being made. I would be easily convinced if a study was put forth that dismissed the idea of rejecting hyperfair offers. As that position initially makes the most sense. But as with alot of different components of human nature, the typical model of humakind is not very good at eliciting responses inline with experimental study.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is one of the most poorly constructed paragraphs I have ever read.

[/ QUOTE ]I'll try again. If I was to see a study that shows that people don't reject hyperfair offers when the notion of fairness they are opperating under would dictate that action, I would be forced to change my mind.