1. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #279049 by 82abhilash on November 5, 2008 at 1:50 pm

I recall Rabbi Wolpe's debate with Sam Harris. One of the more tasteful and humorous debates I saw on this to subject. I wonder if Hitchens and Wolpe will be gentlemanly like to each other.

2. Why Children Like to Share

Comment #274010 by 82abhilash on October 29, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Comment #273862 by Eshto

Roads, libraries, highways, hospitals, police and fire departments need not be purely socialist programs.

As for people being rich through inheritance there is nothing wrong with that. You have the right to decide who gets to spend your hard earned money after you die.

And if that person spends it badly. If the son of the recently deceased wealthy merchant mismanages his father's business, he gets rewarded with bankruptcy, in a free market. The best it can give is a head start.

So do the wealthy people actually deserve their wealth' That depends, did they make it through a career of organized crime'

3. Why Children Like to Share

Comment #273810 by 82abhilash on October 29, 2008 at 9:55 am

3. Comment #273530 by LeeC on October 28, 2008 at 8:28 pm

Why Children Like to Share

... because parents have told them from an early age that is what they should do[question mark]

A two year old does not want to share their toys - they are told to do so and praised when they do.

By sharing, they are praised.

Just a thought

Lee

Same thought came to my mind. Three to eight years old are not inequality averse while children above age eight are. So what could be happening is that by age eight parents and teachers as well as society at large has convinced the child to share their stuff and equalize resources. In addition it puts pressure on their guardians to provide equally, and this can prevent them from rewarding the more talented among them, as is seen in the case with the teacher and the golden stars. Also have anyone noticed how it penalizes the child with a bit more of anything, even making him/her feel guilty, as if someone has more because they stole it from the one with less. All this means it is a learned behavior not an inherent natural condition.

I for one do not look favorably on it for I see it as the proto form of behavior that in adult life can lead to communism, or more likely today leads to socialism, along with which comes 'spread the wealth' schemes that taxes people who are talented enough to earn more than their peers, stifling entrepreneurship and decreasing the quality of life for one and all.

Seems like a tall tale' Perhaps, but I am open to criticism.

4. Premier debates with Dawkins

Comment #272868 by 82abhilash on October 27, 2008 at 9:57 pm

If the universe exists, then logically it has to have a cause. Not necessary. Only contingent entities require a cause. That is entities whose reason for existence are not contained within itself. So you could say that if god exists, the god is not a contingent entity. Or you could seriously consider the idea that the universe itself is not a contingent entity.

As for the universe being fine tuned for life, wrong. It is barely adequate for life.

This was not one of Richard Dawkin's best interviews. It was possible to give more on to the point answers. The interviewer essentially said, we don't know so god did it, but to his flock he just made his point.

5. Children need to be sprinkled with fairy dust

Comment #272389 by 82abhilash on October 27, 2008 at 10:40 am

I do not remember confusing fairy tales with reality as a child, even though I do remember enjoying the fairy tales. It may have something to do with the fact that my parents sensitized me to the difference between fact and fiction very early on. I saw them as ‘child entertainment’. They did too good a job I think. Because when my 'religious education' started, those stories began to sound to me lot like fairy tales, much to their disappointment. That is when the seeds for atheism where sown.

I guess it all has to do with the sequence in which events are narrated.

I mean if I was taught the religious stories first. Then read the fairy tales, all the time being told, “These stories sound like the religious stories, but these are made up, by people who read the religious stories that are actually true.” or something to that effect. I would have bought it too at that impressionable age.

6. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #272030 by 82abhilash on October 26, 2008 at 10:46 pm

Comment #270457 by root2squared
You'd be surprised but trains in the us are also not on time a lot of times.

I knew that already and I am not very surprised. However in the US there is an excellent road and air infrastructure that people can and do take advantage of.

Comment #270437 by PERSON
82abhilash, if things have got so bad how do you explain the explosive growth of the nation's GDP?

The explosive growth in GDP is the result of the growth of the Information Technology sector in India, which is not as dependent on a good transportation infrastructure as other sectors are.

The continued maintenance of the essential infrastructure, particularly the railways?
Indian railways have much improved from when we can remember. But our generation is now two generations removed from the colonial era.

There was a time when things where even better. But that infrastructure was built for the benefit of the colonial masters. It was never developed with consideration to the needs of the Indian masses. So when independent India inherited it and did the politically correct act of opening it up for everyone, the system began to choke. And since then India has been struggling to fix it so that it works well for everyone. Well, it has been 60 years since independence, but only 17 years since economic reforms have been in effect. So we will see.

7. May your god go with you

Comment #271901 by 82abhilash on October 26, 2008 at 5:53 pm

People believe in god because they where indoctrinated as children. Fear of annihilation, fear of death they are all there. But the number one reason people believe is because their parents do.

Once they get to them, then religion becomes the outlet for all their dreams, wishes and fears as well as a framework for understanding them, not to mention of course a framework to develop personal relationships. So now the system can perpetuate itself to the next generation.

8. Dare we stand up for Muslim women?

Comment #269657 by 82abhilash on October 23, 2008 at 7:59 am

Muslim societies are not a homogenous block – and it is racist to pretend they are.

This statement caught my eye. Even if muslim societies are not a homogeneous block it is not racist to pretend they are. It could be wrong, but it is not racist. Simply because all muslims do not belong to one race.

9. UCSB study finds physical strength, fighting ability revealed in human faces

Comment #269341 by 82abhilash on October 22, 2008 at 8:40 pm

Comment #269330 by tophermurphy

Maybe it is generally true, not in all cases. But in most cases to continue being useful.

10. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #268172 by 82abhilash on October 21, 2008 at 1:36 pm

Comment #267592 by Goldy

Comment #267588 by Roland_F
Yep - we Brits should have just stayed there. Then everyone would have carried on hating us. Nothing more integrating than a foreign colonial ruling class :-)

Sad day for Independent India. I find myself agreeing with you. I once had the good fortune meeting a Scottish man who had actually lived in British India. He was alarmed at how the country has deteriorated since independence.

Told me of a time when the air was clean. Cars went on roads and trains went on time. All for the Britishers of course. But now things go smoothly for no one.

11. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #268165 by 82abhilash on October 21, 2008 at 1:31 pm

Comment #267675 by liberated

Your argument of segregation of unbeliever might be true in northern India, but certainly not in South

I am from the South I know what I am talking about. Unbelievers are not ill treated or killed. What it means to be an outcast is that it becomes very difficult to live your life unless it is in harmony with the theocratic norms of your society. You have to give way or atleast partially give way. Especially when social units are highly cohesive and you are trying to get along with everyone.

As for parental domination, I was not talking about people who where minors.

Comment #267677 by liberated

NRI's send millions to India to Temples.....

Still insignificant compared to the funding for Islamic and Christian religious groups.

12. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #267429 by 82abhilash on October 20, 2008 at 2:45 pm

Comment #267314 by liberated

Point noted liberated. My attempt was not to justify the situation. Merely affirm the fact it is bigger a mess than it looked initially. I should have been more clear.

13. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #267028 by 82abhilash on October 20, 2008 at 5:57 am

Comment #267021 by Sally Luxmoore

a mixture of cow dung and urine mixed with milk and curd

Traditional Indian medicine. A cure for many ailments according to scripture.

Take it or leave it.

14. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266898 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 8:52 pm

Comment #266894 by Goldy

Well Goldy I would like to distinguish what is true from what is peaceful.

15. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266893 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 8:41 pm

Comment #266888 by root2squared
I do not think we disagree on much. Bombay is different from the rest of India though. It is essentially an international city. So much more is possible in Bombay that is not possible elsewhere in India.

If you want to live in harmony, you act as if you believe and if you do that, you will eventually end up believing as you act.

It does happen though. That is how Islam gains its foothold among young children. With time your mind gets structured to the way you act. Or at the least your mind gets receptive to theocratic ideas. Especially if you are living in a society where there are no other ideas competing for your attention. Ideas of freedom or liberty for instance, the job of the preacher person becomes easy.

It may not work effectively for all people, but it works for most. You can keep the system going by forcing the remaining into submission and killing the few that can't.

We few on whom it does not work are the exception. At a different time or place we would at the least be social outcasts and at the worse dead.

16. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266883 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 8:20 pm

Comment #266878 by Goldy

It is very difficult to leave your caste even by conversion. If you ask me how the caste system sustains itself, what I can tell you is that people of certain castes live by the norms of that caste. They have been living so for long enough and do not know any other way of living. Those norms can micro-manage every aspect of your life. So people other castes know which caste you belong by seeing the way you live. There can be some confusion regarding sub-castes(yes there are sub-castes) but not too much.

So the caste micro-manages your life. People of your caste and other castes keep an eyes on you to make sure that you live in accordance with your caste. It is self-policed and self-regulated. Once the society reaches critical mass, it can sustain itself.

The prevalence of secular institutions has not terribly diluted their impact because people can act differently in their personal life compared to their professional lives and the caste system is mainly a feature of the personal life these days.

17. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266880 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 8:13 pm

Comment #266874 by root2squared

root2squared you do not live in India today. I do not know whether you lived your teenage years in India. I did. I spent all my childhood in India.

Perhaps if you are living in big cities it is possible to not come under scrutiny for practicing your religion. I lived in a small town. People where always sensitive to my unbelief. They talked about it behind my back. The simple fact is when the majority acts as if certain beliefs are true, you are at the least a social outcast if you disagree. In villages, societies are even more cohesive, everyone knows everyone else and what they are up to.

Then there are the social norms stemming from those beliefs that you are obligated to follow whether you believe or not. The respect you are forced to display to people older to you for instance, regardless of whether they are worthy of it. That is from the Ramayana.

Then you have your parents deciding what sort of education you will get and what sort of person you will marry, at the most you have a power to veto, if you are lucky. In the fundamentals of your life, others want to make decisions for you. Freedom is not something that you can assume, but something that you have to rebel for everyday.

If you want to live in harmony, you act as if you believe and if you do that, you will eventually end up believing as you act.

18. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266875 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 7:55 pm

43. Comment #266870 by Goldy

Goldy it is true, these people are converts. What makes it easier for them to get jobs after converting I do not know the exact details, but here are somethings I can tell you. The Indian government has an affirmative action program to economically help people of lower caste by preferentially employing them in government.

Most of these christian converts are lower caste as hindus. In theory that should have no impact on their job prospects. A lower caste can get a government job more easily whether or not he/she converts to any other religion.

But the system is riddled with corruption. That could explain some things.

But in some states there have been attempts to pass laws that require equal number of christians and muslims in work places all in the name of 'fairness'. This helps christians and muslims as they are a minority. Shows how much clout these people have.

I would not call India a kaleidoscope of religions. Kaleidoscopes gives one images of beautiful patterns. It is more like a lunatic asylum of religions. Rationality is always a casualty.

19. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266871 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 7:43 pm

Comment #266811 by root2squared

The VHP is the right wing lunatic Hindu party of India. More Christians means less votes for them.

Unfortunately for you the VHP does not contest elections and Indians do not necessarily vote on religious lines. If they did the BJP would be in power in every state except Kashmir. And would be in full control of the national government.

Besides like you yourself said

But leaving aside their mental derangement, how stupid must you be to fail to see that forced conversion to a religion is never going to actually change the belief inside the mind.

I agree. Except in India religion is a social issue not an individual choice. So society would impose religious conformity on you. And if you are forced to act like a christian (or hindu or muslim) you will begin to think like you act. So forced conversions do eventually end up changing your mind.

Now we can make sense of the last statement you made.

I guess the only reason then is to prevent other people from converting, since that would mean less votes for them.

Doh!

Because people who where forced to change their religion has by now had their minds conformed to the new religion. That would mean less votes for candidates supporting the old religion. Except like I said before, Indians do not necessarily vote on religious lines, in case you do not know.

So then the question remains. What is all this about? It is about the type of society that one lives in.

In India there is the concept of social norm which takes precedence over civil liberties. What that basically means is that you will not be allowed to properly function in that society unless you spend your money and live your life in ways consistent with its norms. The norms are informed by religion. So changing religion is changing the social norms. Changing religion is changing the 'culture'. And Indians are dogmatically proud of their culture.

20. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266862 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 7:24 pm

Comment #266825 by Paine

The Islamic and Christian missionaries are smug oily frauds, but atleast they are indirectly helping the poor. I think the Bajrang Dal should get into the same business and it would help the whole society if a bidding war broke out over the souls of the oppressed.

No can do Paine. The muslims have Saudi oil money. The Christians have foreign funding from the West. The Bajrang Dal has neither and all the groups are facing the pressures of economic liberalization and its liberating influences on society. I think capitalism is India's greatest hope.

So in the future, Lord Ganesha's tusk may get sold to the highest bidder despite the ban on Ivory.

21. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266861 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 7:24 pm

Comment #266821 by cerebate

Curiously enough, this is what the VHP/Bajrang Dal spokesmen say too.

Probably. Sometimes telling truth can help their cause, so they will tell the truth, but not usually and not always.

And Im not sure what their awareness of the Hindu religion is either, because there is no way to 'reconvert', There is no practice or belief that is mandatory in the Hindu religion, for one to be a Hindu.

True. That is their problem. Luckily for them what is not a hindu is easier to identify. christians and muslims are not Hindus. To christians, hindus are idolators. To muslims they are kafirs. To the VHP hindus are the original natives of India and both Islam and christianity are foreign ideologies that threaten national integrity. Which is why it matters to them if you are a muslim or christian.

Their solution to it all is establishing a theocracy based on native religions. I see that as a step backwards.

22. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266857 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 7:20 pm

Comment #266780 by liberated
Why didn't you mention the same fradulent activities done by Hindu Gurus ?

I do it all the time. Here is the video I posted on YouTube. It has been viewed more than 50,000 times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb3BHjgXDKc

And I have another one too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VzhxXRpBl8

I understand your frustration. When it comes to religion, India is a looney land where common sense is the main casualty, I know. But please stop over-reacting and try to be constructive.

23. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266691 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Response to Comment #266672 by Mr. Davies:

Converting to an imaginary god to save time and lives may be more problematic than you imagine. In a theocratic society, what that conversion implies is that you are willing to abide by the theocratic norms of that society which up until then they did not impose on you. If you want to live in harmony with the inhabitants there you should act as though you believe their dogma and that involves not just adjusting your life to conform to their dogmas but making sure that other people in that area conform to the same dogmas as well. The problem is after a time one tends to believe as one acts.

Even if you eventually leave, you may be emotionally scarred and take some time to recover back to your natural condition.

I am speaking from experience. Just returned from a trip to India.

24. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266642 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 1:25 pm

Raynor and joshuaslocum it is not my argument. I am not equating rape, murder and arson to bribery and trickery. The truth is that religion in India forms a basic and fundamental part of everyday life of all people that if there is organized trickery done to promote a certain religion, violence can result once the tricks get exposed.

Violence could get initiated by the people who feel cheated. Violence can also be initiated by those who bought into the trickery. Try going to Puttaparthi, the place where Sai Baba is headquartered and try telling them that all he does is cheap magic tricks.

My point is that there is enough going on in the name of religion in India that you can selectively pick events to support the agenda of any particular interest group. In fact there is a lot more going on that what gets reported even in the Indian media.

Sometimes violence over religious issues are given a secular color. Sometimes secular issues are reported with a religious flavor to it. It all depends on what interest group is in power on the ground and doing the reporting.

My point is that in Orissa the most well-financed interest group is the christian lobby and the VHP is their most fiercest opponents. There are no angels on either side. But the christian lobby has more money as well as access to mass media outlets. So they can decide how the outside world gets the news. I just wanted to sensitize you people to that. I could have done it better.

25. Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Comment #266614 by 82abhilash on October 19, 2008 at 12:21 pm

This is only one side of the story. The other side of the story is how Christian missionary groups funded from abroad use bribes and trickery to convert poor and gullible local and then gets them to destroy their temples which are now considered places of idolatry. The trickery is the most interesting part. They are not too different from the trickery used in the West except people there do not have access to the means used in the West to confront them. That side of the story never gets reported.

Extremism on one end begets extremism on another. My point is not to give this matter more attention than it deserves. The purpose of this story is to feed into the persecution complex that christians all over the world are well known to portray. This selective reporting of events is possible in India because the Christian lobby is very powerful and well-funded despite their lack of numerical superiority. Also the Indian blogosphere is not as active as it is here in the West because broadband internet is beyond the purchasing power of most Indians.

Also not told here, this organization VHP, according to them Hinduism is not a religion it is a national identity and a geographic indicator. Historically that is what the word used to mean, before it evolved into its new meaning. Although that is just the official stand. On the ground the meaning of words can shift based on what seems sensible during local power struggles.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71O8LzOWaWo

26. Christian group calls for a Christian university in Britain

Comment #265373 by 82abhilash on October 16, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Britain is not the USA, where just about anyone can setup an university. You need a Royal Charter. I wonder how they will pull it off.

27. Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over

Comment #265364 by 82abhilash on October 16, 2008 at 2:03 pm

"We are mixing into a glo-bal mass, and the future is brown."

What a relief, I will fit right in. I am already brown.

28. Turkey bans biologist Richard Dawkins' website

Comment #250558 by 82abhilash on September 19, 2008 at 11:01 pm

In the age of the internet can anything be truly banned? The Turkish government is making a fool of itself. Maybe even giving a shot in the arm to the atheist movement in Turkey.

http://mises.org/story/3060

29. The real difference between liberals and conservatives

Comment #250305 by 82abhilash on September 19, 2008 at 10:40 am

I found this video on onegoodmove yesterday and left this comment which I thought I would repost here. So here it is:

The liberal vs conservative, the democrat vs republican, this dichotomy that Jonathan Haidt tries to address, necessary in a country that is highly polarized along the political line is well known and well described here. His solution though is unusual, embrace values from Eastern philosophies.

I wish he had given libertarianism some more time, which is after all that is the western solution to the problem of polarization.

The Ying and Yang, Shiva and Vishnu, they are easily recognizable to people of those regions because that philosophy borrows from a context they readily associate with. While it is important to learn from them I would like to stress that they suffer from one fundamental flaw, which is their failure to accommodate the concept of freedom, something that people in the west highly value.

I also found a link to Haidt's article on Edge

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

As well as Sam Harris's reply to it:

http://www.edge.org/discourse/vote_morality.html#harriss

30. Religion in America: Why Many Democrats and Europeans Don't Get It

Comment #248495 by 82abhilash on September 16, 2008 at 10:26 am

Scott Atran is nauseating some said, he is a windbag said another. I would like to add a third, comment one oh his extreme arrogance, his illusion of self-grandeur that are most common among theists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IahLaDYjXWQ

Exposed explanations of people's behavior in the past does not provide a systematic explanation about their behavior in the future.

A person who has voted in accordance with his religious beliefs, suffered the consequences both good and bad, and knows the reasons that moved him will use that knowledge to make what he considers to be better decision in the future.

I am not a fan of either the democrats or the republicans. But in today's political climate I am willing to say this much. The McCain/Palin ticket is going to loose perhaps by the biggest margin in history. For many life-long republicans, it would probably be a vote against McCain rather than a vote for Obama. Expect a higher share of votes for third party candidates this time, including many write in ballots for Ron Paul which would probably never get counted.

31. Participating In Religion May Make Adolescents From Certain Races More Depressed

Comment #243360 by 82abhilash on September 5, 2008 at 2:05 pm

It is odd that a study co-relates depression to races, seems phony to me, race is mostly a superficial non-scientific categorization anyway. There could be cultural and life style differences that could help explain this trend though.

32. Priest Antonio Rungi wants beauty contest - for nuns

Comment #237061 by 82abhilash on August 25, 2008 at 9:05 pm

I have a feeling that we shouldn't get too excited. Father Antonio Rungi's beauty contest most probably won't be anything like the things we find enjoyable and something tells me that I am deeply familiar with his idea of 'inner beauty.'

My sister went to an all girls catholic high school in India and when they had a beauty contest (yes they had one), no guys where allowed to attend. What is the point?

33. Do subatomic particles have free will?

Comment #231947 by 82abhilash on August 17, 2008 at 10:59 am

Some of you may find this lecture by Daniel Dennett on free will to be of interest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS5Q-9uNCLU

He thinks determinism and indeterminism is besides the point when it comes to free will, evolutionary biology is the way to understand it.

34. A cast-iron case for a secular society

Comment #223843 by 82abhilash on August 3, 2008 at 2:00 pm

How Orwellian. Legalizing privilege in the name of equality.

35. Religions thrived to protect against disease

Comment #221622 by 82abhilash on July 29, 2008 at 11:00 pm

This can't be right. Except perhaps for STDs and diseases that are spread through human contact. What if the disease is spread by air or water?

36. Breeding for God

Comment #221527 by 82abhilash on July 29, 2008 at 5:47 pm

They are using current trends to project how things will be in 2045? 38 years into the future? 38 years ago the year was 1970? How similar is the world of 1970 to the world of today? I was not there but people I know where and it is a lot different. If you go to developing countries the difference is even higher. In Middle East, things are changing extremely fast. Yet the change is somewhat planned. It is not anarchy, like it was during the cultural revolution in China.

That fact itself makes me optimistic. Religion thrives under two circumstances. One is a circumstance of constancy created by religious living itself. The other is a circumstance of utter chaos, which gives appeal to the constancy of religion.

But here we have a situation with social change driven in a quick, more or less orderly manner driven mostly by the strength of Western economic institutions, which seem to spawn similar ones in the rest of the world. In other words we are having globalization; not just a global market, but globalization even at the grass root level, even societies are becoming transnational. Nothing like this has happened before and scientific advancements are driving it. This is not the environment that religions evolved in. Hopefully this is not an environment where religions can survive. If anything it is proving very difficult.

Religious people may for now be having more children, but whether they will grow up to be religious themselves remains to be seen. That may depend a lot on what people like us do today.

Besides religion itself is changing so rapidly, I am not sure what problems the christianity and islam of 2045 can pose. Maybe they won't exist, or if they do, only in a non-toxic form. I do not know.

37. Church exorcism protected by First Amendment

Comment #221445 by 82abhilash on July 29, 2008 at 4:12 pm

Instead of bringing charges against the religious institution, why not just charge the people who perpetrated the vicious deed? That way the enlightened principle of religious freedom need not be threatened, the victim will still get justice and fewer churches leaders will be willing to perform exorcisms, because they do not want to go to jail for it.

38. Daniel Dennett: Autobiography (Part 1)

Comment #220671 by 82abhilash on July 28, 2008 at 8:40 pm

10. Comment #220565 by Spinoza on July 28, 2008 at 3:22 pm

Dennett makes a distinction between fatalism (where the decision you make does not matter) and determinism (where the decision you make does matter). Why is it difficult for you (and most people) to see?

Is it because free will implies choice and determinism implies a lack of free will and therefore a lack of choice? Probably.

But what if all freedom is, is our capacity to make decisions without duress and nothing more? - there may be choice, there may not be choice but there will still be free will. The universe may be deterministic, the universe may be indeterministic, there will still be free will.

39. Daniel Dennett: Autobiography (Part 1)

Comment #220452 by 82abhilash on July 28, 2008 at 1:04 pm

Comment #220382 by Upgrade01A

"Freedom Evolves" - I read this one pretty much straight through over just a few visits to my local coffee shop - very interesting approach to the concept of freedom and what is important about it. However, I am still convinced that philosophical free will is an illusion, and I think Dennett's view is really talking about something different than free will... read it and see for yourself.

You are right, Dennett's view of free will is remarkably different from what people generally understand as free will.

Our intuition of free will has a Biblical origin. Eve wants to bite the apple. Eve is tempted to bite the apple. She is perfectly free to do otherwise, so perfectly in fact that even god cannot foresee what she will do. She may or she may not, no one can know till it happens.

What Dennett calls free will is our innate tendency to willfully perform actions that avoids harm and enhances our well-being. In other words free will is our capacity to act responsibly.

So if Dennett wrote the story of Eve it might go something like this. A talking snake told Eve that eating the apple is good. If you think snakes can talk, you are probably not feeling well. Perhaps you need a rest before you go eating fruits you know little about. Better yet, feed it to the snake that seemed to just talk to you. You can eat the apple, if it is still ok. What if the snake dies? Well, it helps her with the hallucinations about talking snakes. Then maybe Eve won't eat the apple, in fact she better not. Unless she thinks dying is in her best interest. In which case she is probably stupid. Does she have a choice? Of course. The best of kind of choice. The type that allows her to make responsible decisions. So the essence of free-will is not choice, but the capacity to make sound decisions.


Of course Dennett's kind of free will implies there is a co-relation between free will and competence. The more competent (and less stupid) people have more free will. Judging from the state of the world today, I can't help but feel he is right.

I assembled this video about Dennett's lecture on free will for anyone who is interested:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=20E474C2200FBD05

40. Historian predicts the end of 'science superpowers'

Comment #218130 by 82abhilash on July 24, 2008 at 10:40 pm

10. Comment #217539 by Dr Doctor on July 24, 2008 at 12:20 pm
The Soviet Union was seriously damaged early on by bad science. Read up on Trofim Lysenko.

There was Lysenko. But the Soviet Union made several real advances in science which cannot be overlooked. After all they did put the first man made object in space, then the first animal in space and then the first man in space and the first woman in space and mastered the space walk first. They also perfected Space Station building.

In the field of medicine Soviet scientists (in present day Georgia) did develop an alternative to antibiotics to fight infection - bacteriophage. Basically evolve viruses in a lab that infect bacteria causing infection and use it on the patient. The virus won't harm the patient because it evolved only to infect bacteria.

There was also a technique that allowed one to operate on the heart without using a heart lung machine.

So you see, the Soviet Union did make significant advancements in Science and Technology in a relatively short period of time. That is why the US government of the time was worried. They feared that they would provide a useful role model to the developing thus threatening thus making liberty a causality to progress.

41. Good Science Writers: Richard Dawkins

Comment #217785 by 82abhilash on July 24, 2008 at 4:14 pm

Steve my friend I cannot resist having the discussion here. It is like if I leave I will loose momentum.

111. Comment #217122 by Steve Zara on July 24, 2008 at 12:48 am

How can you claim therefore that all evolutionary outcomes are thus free from contingency?

I don't believe I did.

76. Comment #216744 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 1:18 pm

It is not just that there is no effort involved, it that these things are pretty much going to turn up no matter what.

Now I claim that you said there is no contingency, but you came real close. What you said here is true, but not across the board.

42. Historian predicts the end of 'science superpowers'

Comment #217528 by 82abhilash on July 24, 2008 at 12:13 pm

Let us not make the mistake of co-relating scientific prowess to national well-being. Science is necessary but not sufficient. The Soviet Union was scientifically highly advanced yet collapsed.

In the ancient world we have the examples of the Greek civilization. This guy is a historian he should know that as well.

Even before good science what we need are free societies. Societies that tolerate open discussion and free-thinking. Otherwise the benfits of good science will be lost to society and instead directed towards maintaining the power of tyrannical political institutions.

43. How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results

Comment #217063 by 82abhilash on July 23, 2008 at 9:30 pm

The reason for this cognitive disconnect is that we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool.

So I was reading this and thinking, that can't be right. Believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not can also be harmful at times. I was thinking of a good example. Fortunately for me Michael Shermer came up with one himself.

So it is that any medical huckster promising that A will cure B has only to advertise a handful of successful anecdotes in the form of testimonials.

That is where false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) becomes harmful. Now there is chance that a false positive can take you out of the gene pool. Indeed if false positives are not harmful, why would Michael Shermer even bother writing this article and why would anyone bother printing it.

So maybe our ancestors evolved in a world where false positives where less harmful than false negatives, but we no longer live in such a world.

So let me re quote Shermer, with a special emphasis on my favorite word:

The reason for this cognitive disconnect is that we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool.

44. Good Science Writers: Richard Dawkins

Comment #217008 by 82abhilash on July 23, 2008 at 7:37 pm

104. Comment #216944 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 5:40 pm

I think we are talking about constraints and convergence vs contingency here. And very appropriate too. There is very less contingency in the evolution of the eye, it is almost inevitable, however that is only a specific instance of evolution.

How can you claim therefore that all evolutionary outcomes are thus free from contingency? When it comes to probability, some events have probability close to one others have it close to zero and many others in between. I think the debate between us (and scientists too), is that when it comes to evolution, are the outcomes more contingent or less?

I do not think that the concept of contingency can be applied equally across the board for all evolutionary outcomes.

45. Good Science Writers: Richard Dawkins

Comment #216936 by 82abhilash on July 23, 2008 at 5:33 pm

86. Comment #216774 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 1:58 pm

Comment #216773 by 82abhilash

See there is no inevitable progression to eyes, even in a world with illumination.

I suspect we will find that there is. I think that replicators will always tend to explore sufficient space of phenotypes to end up with vision

Steve there is no reason to think that. There are photosensitive living things in nature right now that does not use eyes. Pretty much every member of the plant kingdom. They are photosensitive without vision.

In animals, we have bats, they have neither photosensitivity nor vision. But they prefer the dark side of an illuminated world. But still we have an example of an animal making a very unique adaptation to an illuminated world.

I looked it up. Roundworms have photosensitive skin but no eyes. Biological name Caenorhabditis elegans.

However in one respect I agree with you. Eyes are the most prominent feature among animals in the spend time in the illuminated world. Why should it be any other way? After all eyes are cheap and effective.

But my point is that eyes are not inevitable in an illuminated world even if they are highly likely.

We know complexity is not a barrier for evolution. Although it might be that the phenotypes will first explore simple solutions within their design space, it in no way makes those simple solutions inevitable. Also it does not imply that phenotypes are incapable of coming up with more complex solutions.

46. Good Science Writers: Richard Dawkins

Comment #216899 by 82abhilash on July 23, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Well Richard, looks like the title gave the wrong impression about this book and this why it remained under-rated.

47. Good Science Writers: Richard Dawkins

Comment #216773 by 82abhilash on July 23, 2008 at 1:57 pm

76. Comment #216744 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 1:18 pm

There is no hill to climb - their formation is quite usual and, it seems, inevitable.

I understand where you are coming from. But the idea that their formation seems so likely that it is inevitable does not apply equally for all evolutionary outcomes. That is one of the reason that a mountain with peaks and valleys makes sense.

Also even where it is highly likely, there is still some effort required. There is sun light so eyes naturally form. That is not quite so.

Let us do a thought experiment. Initially there where no eyes. Creatures used to exist in a world without eyes. Any one of them may have a distinctive advantage if they had eyes, but there is no selection pressure for eyes, yet for there are no creatures that are sensitive to that natural condition.

There must be a disruptive mutation. Something that made a patch of skin a bit curvy, that provides some creature with a distinctive advantage where all its contemporaries are blind.

Now we have reached a stage where there is selection pressure to adapt for an environment with eyes. Some of the adaptation maybe results in other creatures with eyes themselves. Others may evolve camouflage. Some may become nocturnal.
Creatures that use camouflage and/are nocturnal may have eyes but need not and some don't.
See there is no inevitable progression to eyes, even in a world with illumination.

48. Good Science Writers: Richard Dawkins

Comment #216728 by 82abhilash on July 23, 2008 at 1:01 pm

60. Comment #216573 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 9:54 am

Comment #216534 by 82abhilash


But even then there it takes time and effort spanning tens of thousands of years (and generations).

It's the "effort" aspect I feel uncomfortable with. A better way of putting it is that it is simply an unlikely route to take.

By effort I did not mean actual effort like we use in everyday language but rather effort as a function of time and resource required to achieve an outcome, especially given that there is no particular outcome in mind (that would require foresight, besides there is no mind). An eye is relatively simple and has independently evolved several times. Yet even that took tens of thousands of years (time) and had to be field tested on several generations of organisms (resources).

Here is one way to bring the mountain to scale. There is a mountain and there are peaks. The taller and steeper the peak is the more time and resource (effort) that is needed to climb up. The eye will be one of those short peaks that are not too steep and can be climbed with less 'effort'. But self-consciousness maybe one of those tall peaks in the process of evolution, few organisms may ever realize that outcome. It is certainly not well developed in our current primate cousins and may even have been missing in our last common ancestor.

49. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216578 by 82abhilash on July 23, 2008 at 10:00 am

Comment #213969 by Richard Dawkins on July 19, 2008 at 9:59 am

I have heard Dawkins make the point several times that a universe designed by a god would be completely different from one that happened by accident.

Does he ever list some examples of how it would be different? I never seem to catch them.

A universe with a god would be a different kind of universe from one without, even if we can never point to an observable difference between a universe with a god and one without.

Richard

I pay attention to what Richard Dawkins comments because I find it interesting. Although in this instance I feel he may have contradicted himself. When a scientist makes a claim it is because evidence indicates to him that the claim he is making is correct. But maybe it is not a scientific claim he is making, maybe it is just an informed opinion of his that 'a universe designed by a god would be completely different from one that happened by accident.' But that begs the question what kind of information lead him to that opinion?

It cannot be the information about the nature of the event horizon. That example can only lead one to the conclusion that 'We can never point to an observable difference between a universe with a god and one without.' And rightly so. That can only lead to agnosticism, and I guess we are all technically agnostic about the concept of god even though we might be atheistic with respect to the god of any almost all religions.

There is a fundamental way in which a universe designed by a god would be completely different from one that happened by accident. In the sense that if natural laws are the creations of a supernatural entity then that entity must exist outside of those natural laws and either he or people he favor (prophets) thereby must be able to transcend them at a time and place of their choosing. It is in that sense that a universe designed by a god would be completely different from one that happened by accident.

It is not the fact that people died that was taken as proof of divinity, but the fact that people rose from the dead. It is not the fact that water tastes sweet that was a miracle, but water turned to wine. In a universe in which god exists the following are possible and in fact has already happened, of which of course we have no evidence for:

1. There was burning bush that never extinguished.
2. An arc that carried all the animals of the world in pairs, plus the global flood which required it.
3. Jews and Christians who where turned into monkeys and pigs
4. A man who bodily rose three days after he died.
5. A bridge made of floating stones by monkeys connecting mainland India to modern day Sri Lanka - this one is a Hindu myth.

And how are some Christians hoping to be vindicated about their beliefs? By a rapture in which they will bodily ascend into heaven sometime in this century.

A universe designed by a god would be completely different from one that happened by accident because a universe with a god will be a universe saturated with miracles. But the reality is; only our myths are saturated by such miracles. Other things that seem miraculous have naturalistic explanations. The miracles turn out to be a neat bag of tricks.

50. Good Science Writers: Richard Dawkins

Comment #216534 by 82abhilash on July 23, 2008 at 9:19 am

20. Comment #216307 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 12:53 am

Comment #216055 by 82abhilash


Also the 'Descending mount probable' gives the idea that complexity is an inevitable outcome of evolution.

The problem I have with "mount improbable" is that it suggests to me that certain aspects of life are intrinsically unlikely, and that some sort of extra energy must be put in to "get up the mountain". It turns out that certain supposedly "hard-to-evolve" features like eyes and wings turn up often - they may even be universal features of complex life.

It might as well be true that some sort of extra energy must be put to climb up the mountain. Certain ideas like eyes and wings turn up often because they are easier to evolve and extremely useful given convergence and constraints. But even then there it takes time and effort spanning tens of thousands of years (and generations).

Evolutionary biologists may call it 'easy' compared to other complex features that take millions of years to evolve and does not happen too often, like the exploding type defence of the bombardier beetle. Or intelligence in humans.