You want quotes that capture you? I don't know you..
Nonetheless ill give some I like.


“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
― Isaac Asimov

"people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
― Isaac Asimov

“Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“There can be no progress without head-on confrontation.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Faith does not offer a strong link between our beliefs and actual states of the world.”
― Sam Harris


What kind of things are important to you?

Yeah, America really over-reacted to that... imagine if it was a natural event that caused that many deaths and that much destruction.. it wouldn't have upset the entire world, it wouldn't have cast a decade long shadow over all of america..
The Tsunami that stuck Japan in 2011, claimed 15,000 lives.. But they didn't start a decade long war costing trillions of dollars.
Please dont get me wrong, im not arguing against the retaliation, just explaining that there was a real world cost to the reaction itself.
Obviously an intentional terrorism act must be treated differently then an unintentional natural event, but still.

Anyway, I still think your argument is not logical, terrorism is a real thing that happens everyday, there are people who go out of their way to explain in detail what they want to do to us.. We have every reason in the world to react accordingly.

If you want to spend your whole life huddled atop your bed in fear of the infinitely evil aliens that might be hiding under your bed, you are free to it. but then you cant ever drink water again either, or you might catch any of the large number of unbelievably horrible water transmitted virus' or diseases, dont walk down a street either, a car might hit you.

Arguing that people didnt predict 9/11 is not evidence for your God, nor is it reason to fear baseless propositions.

Ok... but your stuck assuming the existence of an infinite number of 'not impossible' threats..
heres two.

The alien before mentioned, but now he has the technology to keep you alive indefinitely and is going to capture and torture you forever, if you get off your bed. not impossible, has to be assumed as true.

There is a God, named Plunkto, and he will torture you forever in the afterlife if you spend a single second of your life believing in the Christian God. Yeah, now your stuffed..

At the end of the day, the magnitude of a threat is irrelevant if the likelihood is entirely dissmissable. I see no reason whatsoever to think hell is real, and thus no reason to even consider the magnitude of its badness. Simply saying something is really really bad, is not a reason to think its true.

I would certainly argue that my alien example is more likely then your hell example. At least it does not require the addition of completely new physical laws and systems.. Its actually possible given just the 'known' order of reality.


Don't even get me started on the absurdity of appealing to something as 'not impossible' on a philosophy forum.

ok, so you should also always assume there is an alien under your bed, going to eat you. so never get off the bed, its the only practical conclusion.
Eternal pain? Need I make up ten different hypothetical's that result in 'eternal pain' if you don't do weird things?

Regardless of your bold assertions, you still have to demonstrate some validity to your concern.. The dog example is simple. Dogs can be unpredictable, there is a lot of data showing that even beloved family pets can act very unpredictable in rare cases.
We simply cant understand what a dog is thinking like we can with humans, we cant talk with them.
Thus, its perfectly logical to be concerned about a dog nearby.
So, why be concerned about hell exactly?

I'll venture to say that I'm about as concerned with your hell, as you are about man eating aliens hiding under your bed.

You've demonstrated that the bible says x, i fully accept that.
What i asked for however, was for you to demonstrate that non-believers, go to hell.
This would require the demonstration that hell is a real place as well of course...
And even your assertion, 'Scripture clearly states that not to believe in God is to be damned in hell." Who's scripture? Yours? The Prasthanatrayi says nothing of the sort for example.

So no, you didn't answer my question at all. my 'acceptance' is obviously quite irreverent.

But, to your proposition..
Indeed there are practical reasons to assume certain things as being true, even when they may well not be. Effectively, pascals wager in this area.

BUT, that does not mean that they actually ARE true, at all. Just because its practical to assume a big nasty dog, does not mean, at all, that there actually IS a big nasty dog.
And the idea of believing anything that could potentially be important to believe, is clearly completely ridiculous, you would have to believe, and act upon, an infinite number of propositions, its impossible.

It might be practical to believe in a God, so what? whats your point?

You have a problem with questions do you?
I'd still like you to demonstrate your assertion... which you clearly have not done.

LOL, oh well, paint me convinced.

Nonsense. Please demonstrate that not believing in god = eternal torment. as far as i can tell thats just a story.

The very quote f mine you gave, the first one, is my main response to your comment. Please apply that to your assertion about the supposed 'afterlife'.

"Late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, etc."
and whats that about?

Utilitarians believe that everything that matters can be ranked on one single scale of 'utility'. But if what matters extends over things that can't be valued on a single scale, then Harris's theory comes crashing down. It provides no guidance for action except in the very simple situations where everything that matters can be neatly quantified on a unique one-dimensional scale. (Classical utilitarians and their consequential descendants strive to address those problems, but Harris seems not to have given any thought to them.) — Pierre-Normand

How can you say this? The very title of the book you yourself have brought up a number of times, is 'the moral landscape'. The whole point of the analogy to a landscape is to show how its a complex system with multiple peaks and troughs, he explicitly says a number of times that there may be many equal peaks, there may be better or worse ways to get to a peak etc.

of course their are multiple ways of being 'well off'. this is the whole point, we should study it. Is it generally preferable to have a life of blissful pleasure, or a life of intellectual stimulation? a life of overcoming hardship, or a life of ease? If either can be equally as good given the right upbringing and thinking tools, then which is more sustainable? etc.

these are moral questions with objective factual answers, whether we can ever know those answers or not.

I typed out long responses to both of you, then deleted it realizing how pointless it all was.. basically i feel that none of your criticisms actually hit anything i believe at all.

the biggest thing would be that neither me nor Sam are actually claiming that people 'should' act a certain way as an absolute rule, we are saying that people should act a certain way IF they want to achieve a certain outcome. (a truism for sure, right?)

so instead of going down a rabbit hole of, 'i didnt say that, i dont believe that' etc. ill just try and restate what im actually arguing for.

1- wellbeing is being defined as 'everything that matters, everything of value, all past present and future facts that have any effect on the quality of life of all beings' (hence the argument that wellbeing is not necessarily that, is pointless, because its the idea we are using, the word is irrelevant)
2- morality is about values,in order for anything to have value, it has to have value to something sentient, therefore morality is entirely about wellbeing (as defined above).
3- If we desire more wellbeing, then we ought to try and understand how wellbeing works and how to effect it.
4- it is objectively better to improve wellbeing.

those claims are really all im claiming, most of it is totally obvious and almost silly to even point out.

The main thing people seem to argue against is the notion that we could objectively say some action or desire is better or worse. do you guys feel this way?

Please note though that im certainly not claiming that we can know 100% what is the best thing to do, its likely far to complex to ever get there. But this is not a reason to not work towards a better understanding, obviously. We wouldn't stop doing biology if we found out it was fundamentally impossible to know every biological fact.

I think your missing the point of it.. You have said just before, that Sam Harris says that we ought to act like x, because of y, this is entirely false, he makes no claim that anyone ought to do anything. an ought cant just exist on its own, that makes no sense whatsoever.
An ought MUST be based on a goal.
So, sam is simply pointing out what is the best goal. the real thing he is doing though, is claiming that all of morality can be objectively studied, thats really where his point lies.
And i have no idea how anyone can doubt it. wellbeing is everything that could possibly matter, by definition. To say its 'simplistic' is to miss the point entirely. its defined as everything that could matter so it can hardly miss stuff out can it?

OK, so my point is, that since we are not responsible, what makes you think that we would want a productive society? — Metaphysician Undercover

For the same reasons (and many more) that a computer opens word when you double click the word icon. because we are programed to understand out environment to some degree.. not a great one generally. but we've come a long way aye?

Doesn't wanting a productive society only come about as the result of a person being responsible? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, thats precisely what i said, for pragmatic reasons we do need to act personally responsible, because our attention can hardly benefit other people as directly as ourselves. While our actions, beliefs, thoughts etc, may be determined, they obviously still interact with reality.

You reverse this, and say that the irresponsible person ought to want to be responsible. — Metaphysician Undercover

What? no i absolutely do not say that at all. this and the rest of your post don't really connect with my beliefs at all.

Furthermore, you've already described it as impossible for a person to change what oneself is — Metaphysician Undercover

Like this? what is this? where did that come from?
I certainly never said anything of the sort.

'in order for something to matter, it has to matter TOO some sentient being'

i think this is basically a truism. and of ultimate importance to understand. — PeterPants

why? — Noble Dust

Because its handy to understand what matters, if you want to effect it. I think most people do, positively thankfully.
Basically, you cant intentionally do anything of importance, if you don't know what matters. however simple the fact may be.

I still entirely think your distinction between practical and theoretical reasoning is a distinction without a difference. or at least i fail to see how this argument about morality is diminished in the least due to this seemingly bizarre distinction.

I just argued that *even if* you had a perfect predictive/causal model of the behavior of a human being, that still would not tell you how it is that you ought to behave towards her. And that's because knowing how your interactions with (or manipulations of) that human being will affect her doesn't tell you whether you should do it. To gain knowledge of the potential effects of your actions is a matter of theoretical reasoning. To arrive at a decision regarding what it is that you ought to do is a matter of practical reasoning. — Pierre-Normand

I think your missing the point of a 'should'.. there are no 'should's' magically floating about in the void. A should must be couched upon a goal.
no one is claiming that anyone 'should' do anything as an abstract absolute, that would be silly.

what Sam claims, what i believe, is that IF you desire wellbeing, then you should strive to improve it. which is admittedly a completely obvious point.

So your main criticism of what im actually claiming, is simply not of a claim im actually making, nor is Sam IMO.

"Harris rather regards it as a matter of faith in his own intuition and he simply voices astonishment that anyone else's intuition could be different."

this is absolutely false, and based on your mistaken view of him claiming a should exists where it does not. he makes no claim that anyone should act this way as an absolute rule of reality. he is just saying that it is objectively better if people are well off, which is incredibly obvious.

There is no goodness that exists outside a context of well being, except some sort of arbitrarily imposed goodness from a religious source. — Jake Tarragon

Which could only possibly 'matter' insofar as it effected the lives of sentient beings, and thus is part of wellbeing anyway.

either way, i see Sams descriptions of freewill and morality as being entirely 'practical reasoning'...whatever that means :P
I see it as the same as anyone else's views in this area, just more coherent and defend-able.

Absolutely, wellbeing is clearly the basis of morality, a desire to see wellbeing increase is morality itself.
and of course wellbeing has to have meaning if it is to matter.
but if it didnt... then it wouldent matter, be definition :P

i agree entirely, wellbeing is literally all that could possibly matter, heres my line i like to give in this area;

'in order for something to matter, it has to matter TOO some sentient being'

i think this is basically a truism. and of ultimate importance to understand.


as far as how to build a utopia, the answer is simple, it just leaves all the details unanswered. But still, one must recognize the goal before working towards it.

Maximizing well-being, being defined as anything that could possibly matter to everyone, is the goal. So all things must be considered, sustainability, fulfillment, satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, joy, pain, pleasure, intellectual stimulation, gratification etc.
its an endlessly complex task :P what fun.

i STILL dont see the difference...

obviously no one has a perfect model of another human being, we certainly dont have that capacity yet.
so what? i dont see your point.

Sam is making a model just like anyone else, your not even interacting with it, your saying its bad somehow because its 'theoretical'... its based on his experiences with people just like any other model is...

ie, people dont like being punched, my goal is to safekeep others wellbeing, therefore i shouldn't punch people. this is a model, its practical, and its theoretical. its not hard science, its a hypothesis of sorts... your drawing a strong distinction without any difference in my eyes.

i still cant see the difference, they both seem to just be reason.. can you give an example of 'practical reasoning' as opposed to 'theoretical reasoning'?

and i don't think anyone decides what to believe, belief just happens. things are as convincing as they are to us, we cant just decide to believe something that is not convincing to us.
i mean... maaaaaybe its possible i guess, but its certainly not the norm.

"t seems to me to be generally the case that Sam Harris often fails to distinguish practical from theoretical reason and thereby seeks to substitute to our practical understanding of our interactions with our fellow human beings a theoretical understanding of the causes of our behaviors. He wants us to treat each other like we were dogs"

so, im really confused about this practical / theoretical understanding thing. Id appreciate if you could explain further.
The way i see it (this should help you set me straight) is that we all create models of other peoples behaviors in our minds (theoretical models) these models are based on our real world experiences of people (derived practically)...
I dont see the difference, practical reasoning seems to just be intuition? surely not... you surely are not appealing to intuition over reasoning.

its really quite simple... on an intellectual level i dont blame them, i hold no ill will against them, my actions rarely betray this stance.
But obviously im not a robot, i still react emotionally all the time. and sometimes i react emotionally against people who could not have done otherwise, its a difficult instinct to get over.

I dont see any contradiction here, do you?

reason is reason, there is no theoretical/practical reasoning, what are you talking about?

"He wants us to treat each other like we were dogs"
what? no..
wait.. are you like some theist who believes we have souls are are not animals and need to be treated with special human dignity and all that stuff? if so then we have likely hit an impasse. if not then im very confused about where the heck this came from.

i fully stand with Sams view of Morality, and im yet to hear a remotely relevant criticism against it. I have however, heard a LOT of criticism of straw man versions of it..

Thats a damn good point, regardless of whether the good Samaritan ever DID anything good, the fact that when presented with that situation he would have done good, means he is good anyway.

so what? hurry up and get the ideas into your computer that will stop you acting like a child. :P

so yes, i agree that bad behavior usually is and should be met with shame, i would say this is due to cultural conditioning and innate human altruism as given by evolution.

if the world was populated by beings, it is indeed objectively better if those beings have a sense of personal responsibility. But what does this have to do with free will?

I actually disagree here, to hold someone responsible is not to blame, i distinguish between the two.
we can of course, ignore the words and stick to the ideas. so please feel free to substitute better words in :P.

if someone harms me, i hold them responsible, i expect them to apologize if they are a moral agent, i ask for them to make amends, all for pragmatic reasons, but i dont blame them, i blame their environment, their imperfect genes, the whole multitude of variables that led them to their current situation.

there is a practical (and thus logical) place for personal responsibility, there is no such place for blame.

please note, im using the word blame here to include a negative emotional response, thats how i distinguish it from responsibility.

perhaps a better way to say this, is that i hold people responsible for their actions, but i recognize they are not ultimately responsible for who/what they are, and thus i feel towards them the same as i would any human. (or at least i try).

"(Sam Harris would probably see this as a second best solution to some form of brainwashing or brain surgery that would entirely remove people's abilities to park illegally in any circumstance.)"

He wouldn't put it that way, he would likely point out (not to put words in his mouth :S) that what you call 'brainwashing' we call society. is treating theft like its a bad thing 'brainwashing' the next generation?
but, why are we talking so much about morality? i dont see how its remotely related..

i fully support Dennit's view, except that i disagree with his silly notion of holding onto the term 'free will'.
he believes society would break down without the delusion, so he hides the truth. he has openly admitted to this. he believes some things are better not known.
he pretends (knowingly) that free will is 'degrees of freedom'. while in reality, no one means that when they use the term.
I disagree with the conclusions he draws from a lack of free will, he thinks they are bad, i dont.


I agree with everything else you said about responsibility, i hope you didnt think i didnt. it all seems quite obvious to me, but thank you for making it clear anyway.

my argument is more about blame, the only place i see a lack of free will having an effect on how we think, is in blame.
i dont blame anymore, i recognize that peoples flaws have reasons, reasons beyond their control. 'bad' people are sick people, they need help not hatred.

ah huh... well done.

"Sorry, it is out of my hands. I have no choice."

yes, sarcastically stating my argument, is not itself an argument. Its what children who have no argument do..
I really don't understand why you would want to make yourself look so silly..

"And you have not shown how the deterministic laws that govern physical systems (while abstracting away most of their significant functional features) preclude human beings from having such abilities to freely and responsibly determine their own futures."

Im not argue that they do.. nor am i arguing that humans don't have that ability.

im arguing that 'humans' are just yet another physical entity, that we are no different from machines, except in complexity. a computer can determine its own future too. the computers electronics fail, and it dies, its insufficiently constructed hardware determined its future. ie, part of the computer, determined the rest of the computers future.

so what? wheres the free will come into any of this?

of course they are very different sorts of influence, i dont see how that matters.

what if we make a computer that changes its own program, put it in a robot and it ends up killing people, it it then personally responsible for its actions? was it not an unfortunate series of events originating in a lack of foresight on whoever originally made the robot?

i dont see how any of this leads you to human minds having the ability to break free of determinism.. my argument is very simple, it is as follows.

there is no evidence whatsoever that human minds have any ability to make decisions outside of deterministic behavior, just like a complex computer.

Thats it, thats all im arguing. do you have such evidence? because most people seem to simply assume we have such a magical ability, presumably based on the way 'choices feel'.


morality and whatnot is a rabbit hole we should probably not go down here. but suffice to say, i think its perfectly rational and requires no supernatural shenanigans, morality seems to simply be a desire to improve everyone well being. (yes i 100% follow Sam Harris' thinking in this area)

nope. my arguments will either convince you or they wont, if you interact with me in a more open minded way, if you try to actually understand what im saying, then your mind might be changed, but based on our conversation so far, im starting to doubt it a little. still, id like to try, i think its a fascinating and useful realization.

ok, no worries, you go ahead and live in your little fantasy world, i dont know why your on a philosophy forum if your not interesting in talking about the true nature of things.

determinism at the scale of human thought is what the evidence of reality shows us is real. non-determinism in how our minds function is an illusion, or maybe in your case, a fantasy.

But i do think your view of atheists is ridiculous and bigoted (especially since you seem to be one). ive never met ANYONE who took solace in the idea of determinism, in fact everyone seems to hate it, atheists and theists alike, so your belief that its a tool used by atheists to feel better seems perfectly deranged to me. a fantasy, a tool to make yourself feel better and dismiss people and ideas from outside your worldview. i might be wrong of course :P

I dont take comfort from it at all, not in my personal life anyway. but, a lack of free will does wonders to your outlook on life, people are not bad, they are sick. while goodness, love, compassion are entirely untouched.

Perhaps it will help if i retern to my original point, and come from a more pragmatic angle..

so, im inventing a sadistic murderer, his name is Bob. say hi to Bob.

So, Bob brutally murders a child, delighting in their pain, later, we find he has a massive tumor in his brain, and it perfectly explains his sadistic nature, we remove the tumor and he is a perfectly kind, healthy happy and balanced person.
I think its safe to assume that basically everyone agrees Bob was not really responsible for his actions, even if the moral thing to do would be to take responsibility for his actions.


now, instead consider if a person is simply born with a messed up brain, no tumor, but they are violent and sadistic, they cant help it they were just born that way. How is it different? imagine we had the technology to fix the persons brain... would that not totally tear down any conviction that the person is personally responsible for who they are?

my argument is jsut that everything is a tumor, everything that happens has its role to play in who and what we are, and we dont have control over any of it, we are the product of chance and should be treated as such.

I wouldn't judge a murderer anymore then i would judge someone with autism for their differences. i would certainly stop them from doing bad things though.

Im not saying all actions are determined, im saying all the evidence we have so far suggests they are. i dont rule out the possibility that they are not, but everyone seems to assume they are not.

If you think determinism is wrong, prove it.
im not claiming its right or wrong, just pointing out that there is no evidence of free will.

prove it.. i say the reason could just be complexity and chaos.

your basically saying we CANT predict human actions and that its fundamentally impossible.

all im saying is that hey, maybe we can, i dont see any evidence that we cant. yours is a god of the gaps argument;
"well, we cant explain this bit currently, therefore, freewill"

"Maybe "ordinary people" who are being probed into coming up with explanations regarding the source of their abilities to act responsibly in a universe that is allegedly governed by impersonal forces come up with funny explanations. But just because the explanations aren't very good, or are overly simplistic, doesn't entail that what is explained doesn't exist!"

im confused here... the ability for a person to act responsibly obviously comes from our genes and our culture... right?

Whats this got to do with free will/determinism?

or are you saying there is zero evidence that our actions are determined by reality?

.... there is zero logic and zero evidence for what exactly??

what on earth do you think im talking about here... im saying something does NOT exist... of course there is no evidence for it, thanks for supporting my argument?

confused am i.

"What ability don't you see any evidence of? The ability to make justified rational decisions or enlightened moral choices?"

No... straw man alert straw man alert! :P
no no, its just the choices bit, of course our actions are influenced by morality and rationality, just like a computers actions are influenced by energy states, logic circuitry etc. its a wonderful and beautiful phenomena.

'But the conception of free will you are arguing against just is sophomoric and ridiculous"

great then you agree with me, so why are you arguing against me?
wait... but you DID defend that sophomoric and ridiculous conception just before.. didnt you?
You implied that we could do multiple different things, based on our decisions entirely abstracted from determined reality... didnt you?

want has nothing to do with it... its where my logic has led me. im open to being corrected but so far all you've offered is your own personal feelings that you dont want determinism to be true. forgive me if they dont convince me.

OH, btw, when i said determinism is a law, i wasn't stating that its a fact of reality, i was giving its catagory.. maybe thats where we got muddled here..

i wasn't saying it was necessarily true, i was jsut saying its an idea like gravity (categorically speaking), its a law itself, not a group of laws.