Posts by Cassius

Interview: Richard Dawkins

QUESTION: Now, if we are gene machines, presumably then our behavior is also programmed by genes -- you have made that case. But Christians would say that there is a thing called free will, and that free will gives us a genuine choice about our actions, that effectively free will allows us to override biology. What is your response to that as a scientist?

MR. DAWKINS: I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will. Indeed, I encourage people all the time to do it. Much of the message of my first book, "The Selfish Gene," was that we must understand what it means to be a gene machine, what it means to be programmed by genes, so that we are better equipped to escape, so that we are better equipped to use our big brains, use our conscience intelligence, to depart from the dictates of the selfish genes and to build for ourselves a new kind of life which as far as I am concerned the more un-Darwinian it is the better, because the Darwinian world in which our ancestors were selected is a very unpleasant world. Nature really is red in tooth and claw. And when we sit down together to argue out and discuss and decide upon how we want to run our societies, I think we should hold up Darwinism as an awful warning for how we should not organize our societies.

QUESTION: So you are not saying then that our genetic programming is fully deterministic?

MR. DAWKINS: It's an important point to realize that the genetic programming of our lives is not fully deterministic. It is statistical -- it is in any animal merely statistical -- not deterministic. Even if you are in some sense a determinist -- and philosophically speaking many of us may be -- that doesn't mean we have to behave as if we are determinists, because the world is so complicated, and especially human brains are so complicated, that we behave as if we are not deterministic, and we feel as if we are not deterministic -- and that's all that matters. In any case, adding the word "genetic" to deterministic doesn't make it any more deterministic. If you are a philosophical determinist, then adding the word "gene" doesn't increase the effect.

Richard Dawkins On Free Will

I posted this a couple years ago on one of my past blogs. I always find the topic worth revisiting. The following is a transcript of a question posed to and…

notesfrombabel.wordpress.com

Richard Dawkins at Politics and Prose .. The God Delusion
Question and Answer

Questioner: Dr. Dawkins thank you for your comments. The thing I have appreciated most about your comments is your consistency in the things I’ve seen you written. One of the areas that I wanted to ask you about and the places where I think there is an inconsistency and I hoped you would clarify it is that in what I’ve read you seem to take a position of a strong determinist who says that what we see around us is the product of physical laws playing themselves out but on the other hand it would seem that you would do things like taking credit for writing this book and things like that. But it would seem, and this isn’t to be funny, that the consistent position would be that necessarily the authoring of this book from the initial condition of the big bang it was set that this would be the product of what we see today. I would take it that that would be the consistent position but I wanted to know what you thought about that.

Dawkins: The philosophical question of determinism is a very difficult question. It’s not one I discuss in this book, indeed in any other book that I’ve ever talked about. Now an extreme determinist, as the questioner says, might say that everything we do, everything we think, everything that we write, has been determined from the beginning of time in which case the very idea of taking credit for anything doesn’t seem to make any sense. Now I don’t actually know what I actually think about that, I haven’t taken up a position about that, it’s not part of my remit to talk about the philosophical issue of determinism. What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don’t feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do. None of us ever actually as a matter of fact says, “Oh well he couldn’t help doing it, he was determined by his molecules.” Maybe we should.. I sometimes.. Um.. You probably remember many of you would have seen Fawlty Towers. The episode where Basil where his car won’t start and he gives it fair warning, counts up to three, and then gets out of the car and picks up a tree branch and thrashes it within an edge of his life. Maybe that’s what we all ought to… Maybe the way we laugh at Basil Fawlty, we ought to laugh in the same way at people who blame humans. I mean when we punish people for doing the most horrible murders, maybe the attitude we should take is “Oh they were just determined by their molecules.” It’s stupid to punish them. What we should do is say “This unit has a faulty motherboard which needs to be replaced.” I can’t bring myself to do that. I actually do respond in an emotional way and I blame people, I give people credit, or I might be more charitable and say this individual who has committed murders or child abuse of whatever it is was really abused in his own childhood. And so again I might take a ..

Questioner: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views?

Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. But it has nothing to do with my views on religion it is an entirely separate issue.

Questioner: Thank you.

No one is overstepping. Even if someone decides that the disagree so firmly with a key Epicurean tenet that they just can't see calling themselves an Epicurean, that is for the best, because no one will be happy with being less than honest.

On the other hand, this forum is for made by and for people who are interested in promoting Epicurean philosophy, so that goal has to override total free speech here at the forum, as is very clearly set forth. That's a hard policy to enforce, but I think I need to do it as best I can for the good of the project.

Sometimes a higher "level" forum will solve the issue, as more "mature" Epicureans can better handle the debate. Another step after that would be "take it to private conversation.". The best I can say for now is that I think continuing the conversation in level three will be better, and we will see where things go from here.

Quote from Don

We need to work with the material world at hand as it is currently understood.

If that means that no ordinary person can have an opinion about the way his world works without a career in physics, and that even those with careers in physics have to be prepared to revise their opinions of the way the world works with every new seminar from Cambridge, then that is a prescription for total skepticism if taken literally.

I don't think anyone suggests that we need to take De Rerum Natura as a blueprint for a nuclear reactor, but the principles and perspectives laid down there remain valid and useful even as science changes.

And it is far more important for happy living to keep the global principles and perspectives in mind rather than it is to pore over the latest dissertations from Cambridge with our minds open to accepting any possibility.

Today Cicero hit the panel with one of the toughest questions in Epicurean philosophy, summarized in one way as: "If a life of pleasure is the good, why isn't a longer life of pleasure better than a shorter life of pleasure?"

We struggled through some initial thoughts, which I will get edited and posted as soon as I can. However this question will be extended throughout the next several episodes, so we will have an opportunity to grapple with this key issue.

Here is the heart of CIcero's argument:

But I shall be reminded (as you said yourself) that Epicurus will not admit that continuance of time contributes anything to happiness, or that less pleasure is realized in a short period of time than if the pleasure were eternal. These statements are most inconsistent ; for while he places his supreme good in pleasure, he refuses to allow that pleasure can reach a greater height in a life of boundless extent, than in one limited and moderate in length. He who places good entirely in virtue can say that happiness is consummated by the consummation of virtue, since he denies that time brings additions to his supreme good; but when a man supposes that happiness is caused by pleasure, how are his doctrines to be reconciled, if he means to affirm that pleasure is not heightened by duration? In that case, neither is pain. Or, though all the most enduring pains are also the most wretched, does length of time not render pleasure more enviable? What reason then has Epicurus for calling a god, as he does, both happy and eternal? If you take away his eternity, Jupiter will be not a whit happier than Epicurus, since both of them are in the enjoyment of the supreme good, which is pleasure.

Quote from Onenski

Assumption: The swerve is the basis for sustaining free will (leeway freedom a.k.a. the capacity to have done otherwise).

I look forward to the responses to the detailed way that Onenski presents this, but (per the arguments I seem to recall from the Sedley article) I do not think we should presume that Epicurus held that the swerve is the main reason for sustaining free will. It is likely more of a "multiple possibility" response, with the real basis for holding "free will" to be found as much in the canon as in the physics.

While the anti-determinism viewpoint features prominently in the Letter to Menoeceus and the Vatican Sayings, it's interesting to think about why it is not so explicit in the Principal Doctrines.

I would say that (at the very fewest) the following presume that we have the power of choice to pursue the things mentioned (prudence, honor, justice, reason) and, that Epicurus would say that holding to hard determinism is therefore detrimental to their implementation. Most of the rest (even the existence of a list in the first place) imply that the statements therein can be chosen as a basis of a happy life, which also presumes that the person seeking to implement them is not a hard determinist.

PD05. It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly, [nor again to live a life of prudence, honor, and justice] without living pleasantly. And the man who does not possess the pleasant life is not living prudently, honorably, and justly, [and the man who does not possess the virtuous life] cannot possibly live pleasantly.

PD16. In but few things chance hinders a wise man, but the greatest and most important matters, reason has ordained, and throughout the whole period of life does and will ordain.

PD17. The just man is most free from trouble; the unjust most full of trouble.

I also think one of my favorite passages from Lucretius Book 2 strongly implies an anti-determinist viewpoint:

[1023] Now apply your mind closely to the documents of true reason, for a new scheme of philosophy presses earnestly for your attention, a new scene of things displays itself before you. Yet there is nothing so obvious but may at first view seem difficult to be believed, and there is nothing so prodigious and wonderful at first that men do not by degrees cease to admire. For see the bright and pure color of the sky, possessed on every side by wandering stars, and the Moon’s splendor, and the Sun's glorious light; these, if they now first shown to mortal eyes, and suddenly presented to our view, what could more wonderful appear than these? And what before could men less presume to expect? Nothing surely, so surprising would the sight have been. But now, quite tired and cloyed with the prospect, none of us vouchsafes so much as to cast our eyes up towards the bright temples of the sky. Therefore do not be frightened, and conceive an aversion to an opinion because of its novelty; but search it rather with a more piercing judgment. If it appears true to you, embrace it; if false, set yourself against it.

(The above quote is from the 1743 edition, whose "lost" translator Joshua is diligently even as we read this working on finding!)

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Boy this thread is extremely helpful for many reasons. Thinking about the David Sedley article equating Epicurus' attitude on Skepticism and Determinism leads to an obvious conclusion --- there was at least an "Unholy Trinity" of ideas that were anathema to Epicurus in the form of Idealism / Skepticism / Determinism. That leaves the question of whether supernatural religion falls with idealism, or whether it would be best to shift the literary analogy and consider supernatural religion, idealism, skepticism, and determinism to be the "Four Horsemen."

Quote from Don

but I don't see how the "swerve" - by definition a random event if I understand - can lead to a macro level volitional "choice" exercised by an free agent on the individual level.

You won't find a detailed explanation in those papers either, any more than Epicurus' atomism allowed him to be a nuclear physicist. As I gather the situation, the swerve operates on determinism in the same way that atomism operates on religion and "he who says that nothing can be known knows nothing" operates on skepticism. These posiitons provide a plausible perspective on specific challenges so we can live our lives productively while never knowing a complete "explanation" of all the mechanisms involved in any of them.

The religionists and the radical skeptics and the hard determinists don't have the evidence to establish their conclusions with certainty either, but they happily insist on superficially persuasive arguments which have real impact on real people who swallow them. And it appears that Epicurus held that it's not valid to retreat into "agnosticism" on any of these. Doubt and uncertainty on basic questions of life don't lead to happy living, they lead to passivism and nihilism and other unpleasantries.

If you adopt those views (religion/skepticism/determinism) then you go through life under the sway of people who generally use those religious / skeptical / determinist viewpoints to promote specific social conclusions.

At the end of your life you're dead and no more aware of whether the religionists / skeptics / determinists were right than when you started, but you have accepted viewpoints of others which are not what you yourself could validate through your own experience. You've lived your life (if you lived it at all) in practice without gods telling you what to do, in fact acting as if knowledge is possible, and in fact as if you had choices about the decisions you made. But all the while, if you accepted their claims, you lived under the sway of people who told you that your practical perspectives were unreal.

It seems to me that Epicurus was saying that the best course is just to reject the pretensions of religion, skepticism, and determinism in the first place, and live with the faculties that Nature gave you.

The burden of proof on the issues is not on Epicureans, who are living as nature provided using the faculties nature provided. The burden of proof is on the religionists, skeptics, and determinists, and Epicurus' arguments provide real-world observations that contradict their assertions. Nothing comes from nothing - the supernatural gods are refuted. Those who allege nothing can be known contradict themselves - skepticism is refuted. You can cite the swerve or simply say that it is not necessary to "live with necessity" because at the very least we can exit life when it ceases to please us - determinism is refuted. Each issue comes down to having confidence in the faculties that nature gave us vs imagining that there are "logical" proofs that can invalidate our practical experience. Epicurus says to go with practical experience.

Letter to Pythocles:

First of all then we must not suppose that any other object is to be gained from the knowledge of the phenomena of the sky, whether they are dealt with in connection with other doctrines or independently, than peace of mind and a sure confidence, just as in all other branches of study.

[86] We must not try to force an impossible explanation, nor employ a method of inquiry like our reasoning either about the modes of life or with respect to the solution of other physical problems: witness such propositions as that ‘the universe consists of bodies and the intangible,’ or that ‘the elements are indivisible,' and all such statements in circumstances where there is only one explanation which harmonizes with phenomena. For this is not so with the things above us: they admit of more than one cause of coming into being and more than one account of their nature which harmonizes with our sensations.

Welcome to Episode 216 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.

This week we continue our discussion of Book Two of Cicero's On Ends, which is largely devoted Cicero's attack on Epicurean Philosophy. Going through this book gives us the opportunity to review those attacks, take them apart, and respond to them as an ancient Epicurean might have done, and much more fully than Cicero allowed Torquatus, his Epicurean spokesman, to do.

Follow along with us here: Cicero's On Ends - Complete Reid Edition. Check any typos or other questions against the original PDF which can be found here.

This week pick up after devoting an episode to Happiness to where the discussion continued in Book 2 at the very end of Section XXVII, continuing into Section XXVIII:

REID EDITION

XXVII. ... On bodily pleasure (I will add mental, if you like, on the understanding that it also springs, as you believe, from the body) depends the life of happiness. Well, who can guarantee the wise man that this pleasure will be permanent? For the circumstances that give rise to pleasures are not within the control of the wise man, since your happiness is not dependent on wisdom herself, but on the objects which wisdom procures with a view to pleasure. Now all such objects are external to us, and what is external is in the power of chance. Thus fortune becomes lady paramount over happiness, though Epicurus says she to a small extent only crosses the path of the wise man.

XXVIII. Come, you will say to me, these are small matters. The wise man is enriched by nature herself, whose wealth, as Epicurus has taught us, is easily procured. His statements are good, and I do not attack them, but they are inconsistent with each other. He declares that no less pleasure is derived from the poorest sustenance, or rather from the most despicable kinds of food and dink, than from the most recherché dishes of the banquet. If he declared that it made no difference to happiness what kind of food he lived on, I should yield him the point and even applaud him ; for he would be asserting the strict truth, and I listen when Socrates, who holds pleasure in no esteem, affirms that hunger is the proper seasoning for food, and thirst for drink. But to one who, judging of everything by pleasure, lives like Gallonius, but talks like the old Piso Frugi, I do not listen, nor do I believe that he says what he thinks. He announced that nature’s wealth is easily procurable, because nature is satisfied with little. This would be true, if you did not value pleasure so highly. The pleasure, he says, that is obtained from the cheapest things is not inferior to that which is got from the most costly. To say this is to be destitute not merely of intelligence, but even of a palate. Truly those who disregard pleasure itself are free to say that they do not prefer a sturgeon ‘to a sprat; but he who places his supreme good in pleasure must judge of everything by sense and not by reason, and must say that those things are best which are most tasty. But let that pass; let us suppose he acquires the intensest pleasures not merely at small cost, but at no cost at all, so far as I am concerned; let the pleasure given by the cress which the Persians used to eat, as Xenophon writes, be no less than that afforded by the banquets of Syracuse, which are severely blamed by Plato; let the acquisition of pleasure be as easy, I say, as you make it out to be; still what are we to say about pain? Its agonies are so great that a life surrounded by. them cannot be happy, if only pain is the greatest of evils. Why, Metrodorus himself, who is almost a second Epicurus, sketches happiness almost in these words; a well regulated condition of body, accompanied by the assurance that it will continue so. Can any one possibly be assured as to the state of this body of his, I do not say in a year’s time, but by the time evening comes? Pain then, that is to say the greatest of evils, will always be an object of dread, even though it be not present, for it may present itself at any moment. How then can the dread of the greatest possible evil consort with the life of happiness? Someone tells me: Epicurus imparts to us a scheme which will enable us to pay no heed to pain. To begin with, the thing is in itself ridiculous, that no attention should be given to the greatest of evils. But pray what is his scheme? The greatest pain, he says, is short. First, what do you mean by short? Next, what by the greatest pain? May the greatest pain not continue for some days? Look to it, that it may. not continue some months even! Unless possibly you refer to the kind of pain which is fatal as soon as it seizes any one. Who dreads such pain as that? I wish rather you would alleviate that other sort, under which I saw that most excellent and most cultivated gentleman, my friend Gnaeus Octavius, son of Marcus, wasting away, and not on one occasion only or for a short time, but often and over quite a long period. What tortures did he endure, ye eternal gods, when all his limbs seemed on fire! Yet for all that we did not regard him as wretched, but only as distressed, for pain was not to him the greatest of evils. But he would have been wretched, if he had been immersed in pleasures, while his life was scandalous and wicked.

I've got limited time to pursue this at the moment but when I can I will also review David Sedley's "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism." In the meantime I highly recommend this for those digging into the issue.

File

Sedley: "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism"

1983 Paper which is the one of the best treatments of Epicurus' view of the Free Will / Agency / Determinism issue available.

Cassius

June 3, 2020 at 8:40 AM

Also, in my own mind I combine Sedley's interpretations with those of AA Long in his "Chance and Natural Law In Epicureanism" which puts forth an explanation I find convincing as to why "the swerve" does not swallow up and invalidate the entire rest of the physics. By providing how small is the degree of the swerve you have a theory that allows both for the swerve of the atom giving rise to "choice" while also allowing the rest of the universe to proceed in a uniformly mechanistic way.

To me the two positions staked out by Sedley and Long go hand in hand to allow concistency in the theory.

File

Long: "Chance and Natural Law In Epicureanism"

Long: "Chance and Natural Law In Epicureanism"

Cassius

June 28, 2019 at 8:52 AM

Quote from TauPhi

Considering determinism as harmful or destructive is giving it too much power. I don't think it's such powerful concept. If this is fallacy on my behalf, feel free to point it out but let me explain how I see it.

I was looking for something else today and came across this. Given the recent discussions with Onenski, Tau Phi, are you of the same opinion today?

Quote from Don

It's still a deterministic wolf in free will clothes.

I've not studied Dennett closely but something that sounds like "you don't really have it but you think you do" cannot be particularly satisfying.

Episode 215 of the Lucretius Today Podcast Is now available. Today we take up the Epicurean view of happiness.

Quote from Don

I've prattled on long enough for now... Satisfied, Cassius

Yes, very satisfied, thank you!

I think it's time for an Administrative comment targeted mainly at those who might lurk and be reading this thread without knowing anything about the major participants.

Those who know Onenski know that he is a highly valued participant of long standing who has piled up tremendous amounts of credibility points for his general support and interest in Epicurean philosophy over many months, even years. He is a regular in our meetings and he is always constructive and helpful.

Onenski's posts in favor of determinism certainly contradict a key aspect of Epicurean philosophy, and a long series of pro-determinist arguments would violate our forum policies, as we are not here to invite in people who are dedicated to anti-Epicurean positions. We don't have to all agree on every issue, but we do need to respect that this is a pro-Epicurean forum, and those who conclude that their beliefs require them to be a constant thorn in the side of those who support Epicurus will eventually be shown the door. More to the point, there are many "outsiders" who - if they came into the forum and pursued determinist arguments strongly - would have their posting privileges restricted or removed.

We just don't have the time to patronize the many Stoics and other anti-Epicureans who are determinists and would be happy to monopolize our time. We also don't need to expose our sincere lurkers and newer participants to the demoralizing aspects of determinism any more than is necessary.

However this is a topic that will never go away, and people who study Epicurus will be regularly confronted by it, just as was Epicurus and the ancient Epicureans. It's important for people to have at least a basic understanding of the arguments and to have a basic understanding of where Epicurus stood on the issue, and that's why this thread is continuing and why the posters here aren't violating the letter or the spirit of our forum rules.

We should thank Onenski and others for their respectful postings on this topic, as the thread is becoming an excellent resource for the future.

Since Epicurus strongly opposed determinism, and held that praise and blame can be attached to actions regardless of what the determinists argue, we can simply remind anyone who might be tempted by the leeway we offer to established members that we will happily wield the ban hammer when necessary for the protection of the purposes of the forum.

No one at this point is anywhere near needing this warning, but given that the related issues of determinism and skepticism have proven in the past to be two of the best indicators of the division between those who stay with Epicurean philosophy and those who are just "passing through" on their way somewhere else, this can serve as a marker to assist in future moderating decisions.

Quote from Pacatus

I guess I would not call that “choice” but the illusion of choice.

Yes the linguistic leapfrogs being used by the professional determinists is a very big red flag to me.

I also have one more follow-up question: how does believing that everything you do is predetermined enhance a person's happiness?

I am perfectly willing to think that for some people it might, because everyone does have different perspectives and pleasures and pains, and the same idea that some find offensive may be pleasing to others.

But I find it difficult to see how the positions being advocated for determinism would be of general usefulness even from a determinist point of view.

Quote from Don

Kalosyni I have not read Harris's book. On my list but not yet.

Hey Don - You started this latest iteration of the Determinism saga and then you never weighed in yourself!!!