For someone who is not even certain that the universe really exists outside your own head, you seem to know an awful lot about 'things'. They're finite, contingent and causally dependant. Where are you getting this from?

You're confusing 'justified' with 'true'. It is justified that I believe it is 6:40pm, if you look at your (unbeknownst to you) broken clock, it is justified that you believe it to be 6:00. We cannot both be right, but we both hold justified beliefs.

I don't give a fuck if it makes you yawn. I'm not here for your entertainment.

It is utterly ridiculous to suggest that unless the American system is 100% successful in repressing the opportunities of migrants and minorities then it's fulfilling its dream. Of course some things can be achieved by migrants in America. It's possible to build a relatively successful business in Zimbabwe, does that mean the Zimbabwean dream is working?

Name me a single country in the world where it is literally impossible, no matter how much hard work and injenuity a person puts in, for them to achieve some minor measure of success (a slightly better paid job, some improvement in living standards). I'd be surprised if you could come up with more than a handful of the worst dictatorships on the planet.

So America offers immigrants a slightly better deal than they get in the countries that Western trading policies trashed in the first place. Well done them.

But how would you demonstrate that a being is necessary in a way that would not also allow you to demonstrate that a 'universe of things' is necessay? And that being the case, you'd still end up with "because it just is".

What possible answer to 'why things are' could there be that does not lead to infinite regress?

A claim is justified by evidence of its truth — unenlightened

Right, so if neuroscience demonstrated it to be be 'true' that certain passions were, by biological necessity, present in the brain, how would that not be a justification?

or valid argument from accepted premises — unenlightened

P1. Passion x is common to all humans, it is physically impossible to be a human without also having passion x.
P2. I am a human.
C1. From p1 and p2 - I am justified in having passion x.

A bio-evolutionary/neurological explanation of belief in God is a very different thing from a justification of belief in God. — unenlightened

This is not analogous. The existence of God has a separate truth value to a belief in the existence of God. We cannot say with certainty that there is a God, but we can say with certainty that someone has a belief in God. Hume was never positing that a passion could have a truth value, nor that anyone ever said it could. We're talking about justifying it's presence. Otherwise the statement becomes meaningless, if we're asking that the actual property of the passion is justified, then to say that science cannot justify it is a straw man, nothing can justify the properties of an entity in that way. A passion is not a proposition, it is a state.

Yawn — Hanover

Oh, brilliant. What an insightful piece of philosophy. I can see why they invited you to be a moderator.

What does a desire for any X thing look like prior to language? — schopenhauer1

It looks like someone acting in such a way as to bring the object of that desire about. If someone acts in such a way as to eat cake, we can can presume they desire to eat cake, if someone books a holiday in the Algarve, we can presume they desire a holiday in the Algarve. We might need to do some work to get at what the underlying desires might be, but that's not scientifically unusual. Evolutionary biologists make completely unremarkable educated guesses as to what a particular limb or organ is 'for' in evolutionary terms. It's really no big deal to do the same with apparent desires.

have never seen a human have a pre-linguistic thought as such. How are we to tell? — schopenhauer1

You realise this is self-immunising don't you? If you can't tell whether someone is having a pre-linguistic thought, then how do you know they're not?

Also, what empirical evidence is there that "I want to raise a child" is hard-wired? — schopenhauer1

I've already given you the evidence (out of respect for your preferred tone I'm not going to tell you how many times). It is that every single other animal on earth has such a desire hard-wired. How much more evidence do you need than it being the case for literally every other example in existence?

If you have some religious conviction that humans are special, that's fine, but it makes it easier to discuss if you make that clear from the outset.

It's the achievement of your goals generally, which would include some degree of wealth, but it would more likely include security, freedom, upward mobility, and greater happiness generally. I'd imagine it's subjective and variable from person to person. If you're currently living the life you desire (more or less), I'd call you successful, even if not wealthy. — Hanover

So if your goal was to be a CEO of your own company perhaps (where as a woman you have about half the chance a man has), or maybe you just want the fresh outdoor life of a rancher (where as an Black or African American you have one tenth the opportunity a white person has). Maybe science is your thing (where a Black or African American has half the opportunity a white man has), although you're all right if cleaning is your thing because Hispanics and Latinos are four times more likely to remain in these professions, not sure I know anyone whose dream it is to be a cleaner though, but it takes all sorts.

200 years and the American dream has been through periods of one of the biggest racial genocides in human history, racial segregation, imprisoning people for their political opinions, breaking the Geneva convention, presided over a steady increase in wealth disparity and suicide is still one of the the leading causes of death for most age groups.

If you're trying to build a case for it being some kind of saviour because it's prepared to employ low grade workers at rates marginally above the rates their own countries can afford (largely as a result of Western trading policy in the first place), then I'm afraid it's just not a 'dream' I can really get behind.

Sorry I can't make out from that what 'justify' means to you, would you mind spelling it out a bit more clearly?

The American dream says that success is achieved through hard work. — Hanover

What's 'success' then?

the reasoning of science cannot justify them [passions]... — unenlightened

What does 'justify' mean to you in this context? I take it to mean 'demonstrate the necessity of', which is something science is entirely capable of doing. It is perfectly feasible that neuroscience, evolutionary biology, social psychology etc can identify passions which must 'necessarily' exist by virtue of our being biological entities.

Does 'justify' mean something different to you?

I'm not sure why you think it's untrue. I am trying to understand where you think that humans have an "innate" desire to raise children by asking — schopenhauer1

This is exactly what I mean by going round in circles. I'm not sure why you think it's true and I'm trying to understand why you think humans don't have an innate desire to raise children.

My argument is simple - all animals must have an innate desire to raise children otherwise they would have become extinct, humans are animals, therefore humans have an innate desire to raise children.

All I've gleaned from your posts is an assertion that the desire to raise children is not innate in humans, that it is language-based and culturally inherited. You've argued succinctly how it would be possible for this to be the case (evolution acting on culture), but something being theoretically possible does not make it true. Its obviously theoretically possible for the desire to be innate too (after all, we've just established it is exactly that in elephants). What you still haven't explained is why you've chosen your new possibility, when the existing one already explains everything.

there is an obvious difference between something existing at a time, T and something not existing at that time. — PossibleAaran

No, there is no difference to us, the observer. In order for your position to be tenable, the paper's lack of existence has to make no difference at all because if it made a difference we would know it was still there by the difference it makes.

There are plenty of good counters to the argument against verificationism, but that would be completely off topic. What would be on topic would be if you could provide a quick outline of what it means to you. What would it mean to you if you had it proven either way?

I understand the distinction you're making I don't understand why. It doesn't matter how many times you keep repeating it it doesn't magically make it true.

We're just going round in circles here.

Does an elephant desire to raise a child? Yes. If it did not desire to raise a child it would not raise a child. They clearly do, so such a desire must be present.

Do elephants have complex language? No, probably not.

It must therefore be possible for a species without complex language to have a desire to raise young.

You genuinely don't understand the statistics do you. The failure of one subset to match the socioeconomic distribution of the population as a whole means that that subset must be made up from some criteria not available to the population as a whole on the basis of their socioeconomic status.

Unless you're suggesting that poor people are generally not 'good marketers' or 'smart' then the disparity between the groups has still not been explained.

Yes, it is an instinct for the elephant parent. For the human it is cultural to raise a child. — schopenhauer1

Why? For what sound logical reason are you proposing (insisting, in fact) that humans, despite having evolved in exactly the same way as all other animals, mysteriously lack an instinct present in all other animals, even though the evidence for it is so clearly present that you've had to come up with some other explanation for it.

You keep insisting that the desire to raise children is cultural in humans but instinctive in all other animals without providing any reason at all why that should be the case.

Who said it's supposed to achieve 95%? :s — Agustino

Simple statistics, but if you want me to spell it out for you...

The American dream says that if you want to get rich all you have to do is work hard.

People who are born rich are not somehow genetically predisposed to want to be rich, nor are they any more likely to be harder workers.

Therefore that subset of the population who want to be rich (want it enough to work hard to get it) should reflect the socioeconomic make-up of the whole population.

The subset of the population who actually are rich does not reflect the socioeconomic make-up of the whole population (not even close).

Therefore, statistically, the two subsets are unrelated. Ergo being in the subset 'people who want to be rich and are willing to work hard to achieve it' does not have any statistically significant relationship to being in the group 'people who actually are rich'.

If things are so bad, why are 62% of American billionaires self-made? Clearly the evidence shows that most of the new rich were much poorer people at one point. — Agustino

35% of the Forbes 400 list were from lower class backgrounds. 95% of the country are in that category. A completely free journey uninfluenced by prior wealth we would expect to result in a similar distribution. 95% of billionaires should be self made if the American dream is working. In fact only 35% are. You're a businessman, you tell me if a strategy that is supposed to achieve 95%, but actually only manages 35% is usually classed as 'working'.

That "people are a herd and don't think" is one of them and is neither entirely true nor entirely false. — Bitter Crank

As is the idea that whatever's right must somehow lie in the middle of every two polemic views.

Personally, I think you're getting hung up on the story, not the behaviour. We all know that time does not exist in the way we think it does, we all now know that atoms are made mostly of empty space. But we act as if time were an immutable straight line (unless we're doing physics) because it works. We act as if the table in front of me is solid because it works. The story we tell as to why it works is irrelevant, it's post hoc, just a soothing picture for us. What matters is what we're going to do next.

You must either act as if the paper will still be there when you re-open the drawer or not. If you have an important document which will lose you your job should it be lost, do you keep it in vision at all time, set a camera up next to it to photograph it every nanosecond to ensure it remains in existence? No, you simply act as if it will continue to exist unperceived, and this works. You cannot not act, there is no 'wait and see' option, so scepticism doesn't help us here, you must choose one behaviour or another.

The important job having been done, you can tell whatever story you like to yourself about why the paper turned out to still be in the drawer when you came back to it, so long as that story provides you with useful predictions about how to act in future. If you choose to believe that the paper simply carries on as it were even whilst you're not looking, that works, because it provides the useful prediction that if we were to go to that drawer at any point in time, the paper would be there. If you want to tell yourself that an absolutely reliable and 100% consistent demon puts the paper back every time anyone or any thing tries to perceive it, then that's fine too as it provides you with the same useful predicting power.

What's not fine is if you tell the story that a real evil demon, a capricious wilful demon, puts the paper back whenever you look at it. That provides you with the very unhelpful prediction that its re-existence when you come to look at it again can't be trusted, that valuable objects must be constantly observed lest they fail to re-exist when we need them. It leads to the very unhelpful prediction that we cannot chart a rocket to the moon simply on the basis of our mathematical assumptions about where it is, because it might well have simply dropped out of existence since we last observed it.

Hume's problem of induction aside, this is the difficulty with your approach, it becomes an entirely semantic, story-telling exercise. There is no utility to the result. Whatever the reason, we experience that the paper does indeed, reliably re-exist when we open the drawer. Whatever the reason for this, it is entirely consistent and reliable. So tell yourself whatever story about it you like, so long as it does not contradict the evidence we have. If you think you have a story that will provide predictions that are different from the standard model then think of a way of testing it, but I'm not sure what value you're seeing in pointing out that we could use different words to describe the phenomenon we experience.

I didn't see the citation you're referring to, though. Was it further in the article? — czahar

I'm characterising the ethic behind the author's responses. I hope I haven't read too much into it, but they frequently make reference to the treatment of other people and expect it to be commensurate with the treatment of their son, hence 'fair'.

A possible response to your argument would be that when we talk about fairness, we simply mean playing by the rules. If the rules state that people should be rewarded for hard work, then it would certainly be unfair if people were rewarded for not working hard. — czahar

I don't think anyone uses fair in this way, otherwise we would be unable to say "these rules aren't fair", which we frequently do.

What evidence have you that "I desire to raise a child" is anything but a linguistic notion where first you have to have a notion of self, world, other, caring for, reproduction, etc. etc. — schopenhauer1

That literally all other animals raise young - some in quite complex and long-term ways. How on earth do you think they do this without a desire to do it motivating them. Are you suggesting that Elephants spend 16 years nurturing, feeding and protecting their young entirely by accident?

All that needs to take place for procreation is any functional process that creates more humans. — schopenhauer1

No, because we are in competition with other humans and animals, that's the nature of evolution. If all we did was produce children, but another tribe produced them, taught and kept them healthy and generally well cared for, the latter tribe would soon out-breed the former.

The avenue can be instinctual (I.e. innate like other animals) or it can be cultural (like humans). — schopenhauer1

Yes, but it's a vastly more likely and a simpler explanation to say that humans have the same instinct to successfully raise young adults any other animal, why would we invent a new reason for our own apparent desire?

The thing is “raising a child” and “birth” are conceptual. That is these are linguistically-based. That is, they are derived socially through more complex learning. They are not innate. — schopenhauer1

I just don't understand how you can say this in the face of the overwhelming evidence from evolution that this is not the case. Am I missing something? It sounds like you're trying to make an argument that despite the urge to successfully raise young being evident in literally every living thing that has ever been, and it being an absolute necessity for a species to survive, the human version of it is entirely cultural, that we're the only animal to have ever lived that doesn't have an instinctive desire to raise children but luckily (for our survival thus far) we just happen to have replaced our missing instinctive desire with a culturally imposed one. You realise that sounds crazy.

Then what's been your problem all through our conversation? You've professed to be baffled by the difference between the two positions, you've furrowed your brow in puzzlement, you don't understand, etc., etc. So now you're telling me you do understand after all? Huh. So what was all that rigmarole about then? — gurugeorge

I never professed to be baffled by the suggestion that there was any difference at all. What I'm baffled by is your difference. Your suggestion that one provides a utility to humanity that the other does not.

Youve demonstrated that one approach is different to the other. Nobody has disputed there exist some differences between scientific explanations and aristolelian ones, it would be near miraculous if there weren't. What you've yet to demonstrate is that the differences actually result in a loss of utility.

Youve jumped from some epistemological difference (namely that aristolelian 'natures' are necessarily the case whereas scientific descriptions only 'appear' to be the case, to talk about 'meaning' and I've yet to understand how you got from one to the other.

How exactly does a thing 'necessarily' being the way it is rather than merely 'appearing' to be the way it is have a negative impact on the meaning we assign it, and what evidence do you have that this is happening?

So, if I'm right, there's two threads to what you're saying.

Firstly that we could look at the sample size more favourably if we changed our definition of a 'single instance' to only the 'initiating instance' of some kind of mechanistic process, rather than every single result. The problem is that we then end up with an entirely arbitrary distinction. If we're accepting evolution, then actually, the only thing that was invented was DNA, the rest follows mechanistic all from that. But then DNA follows mechanistic all from the basic properties of chemicals until we end up at the big bang. So, if we accept a mechanistic interpretation, the only 'instance' is the big bang - after all, why accept evolution, but not physics? Then we end up with a dilemma because aren't humans ultimately a creation of the big bang? Thus everything we've designed (indeed the very fact that we design things at all) is part of the one single instance of design. Which means we have a sample size of one and no answer to the question "was it designed?".

Could you pick a definition of an 'instance' which makes the sample size of human designs more favourable? Yes, probably. Would you have any objective justification for choosing that definition? I can't see it.

For evidence, as a thought experiment, let's say that the sample size, however we measure it, is currently too small to justify an inference. We've decided that, in all liklihood, we are not justified in saying that nature is designed. I then decide to change things, I go on a design rampage, and using my powerful AI, I file 1,000 patents a minute. After a couple of years the numbers start to stack up. Have I somehow changed reality? How have my actions affected how likely it is that nature is designed?

Secondly, you mention the God of the gaps arguments, that there are limits to what nature can do and so a designer is required.

Im not sure if your point here was just to point them out or to posit them as seriously worthy of consideration, but in the case of the latter...

Genes do not always produces small changes. The hox genes for example can completely alter the position of an entire limb, now with epigenetic as well, there is absolutely no biological requirement for changes to be tiny or sequential.

Evolution is not random, it selects from favourable attributes and rejects those which are unfavourable. Way back, Richard Hardison demonstrated the ease with which seemingly complex thing could be created randomly when selection was introduced. His computer program randomly generated phrases at a similar rate to genetic mutations, but selected for those groups of letters that were similar to a particular Shakespeare play. Within four and a half days it had written Hamlet, word-for-word, entirely from random generation of phrases.

Im not going to continue to list the entire library's worth of biological, mathematical and physical refutation of these psuedo-scientific approaches, just in case your objective was just to point out that they exist, but if its a discussion you want to have I'd be glad to.

Your characterisation of my position is relatively accurate, with one exception "... the average individual ... must therefore be guided by [a group] who happen to actually understand the world and are in a position to know what's best and what should be forbidden.". In the long-term, I don't actually think democracy works at all, but that's definitely for another discussion. In the short-term, given the society we're in, I believe in representative democracy (just). That means that I do not think that the technocratic elite "just happen" to know what's best, they have been elected exactly for that purpose, to decide what's best. They have been chosen, by the population as the people who they would like to make those decisions on their behalf. That is what gives them the authority to do so, not some technocratic qualification.

Obviously there are also a few stray polemics ("contrary to the beliefs of ... most contemporary political philosophers" I would dispute, but I think that's probably too trivial a point to bog down the discussion with). Basically, it is correct apart from the point made above.

Obviously I don't expect anyone to automatically take an interest in every philosophical position proposed, but If you were interested in exploring this idea further, the anthropologist Clive Finlayson outlines the concept of 'Conservatives' (followers) and 'Innovators' (leaders) best I think. His ideas would be the place to start (if you were interested). It's not as simple as it sounds. The easy stereotype is of poor meek followers waiting for instruction from powerful luxuriating leaders, but for most innovators (according to Finlayson) it's not like that. Most are rejected from society and live at the outskirts, barely benefiting from it's products until their innovation happens to solve a problem caused by a changing environment, then they become leaders, briefly, before being rejected again once their ideas have become the norm. Anyway, that's probably too much of an aside, I just didn't want you to get the idea that I was in favour of rule by elite, it's not like that.

So, with regards to the use of Utilitarianism.

I agree that the social contract is founded on inalienable human rights, but I think that these are a meta-ethical position, not a normative one. This is best expressed by the example of free-speech (since that's the topic here). We have a 'right' to free speech, but that 'right' is commonly imposed upon. We may not incite hatred, we may not defame, we may not harass verbally, we may not swear or use sexual language in broadcasts before the watershed. Socially, we impose even stricter restrictions on free-speech. So rights are not actually inalienable after all, they are a definition ( and quite a lose one) of the sort of thing we class as 'good' - a meta-ethical position. Utilitarianism, as you know, is a strictly normative ethic, it does not seek to define 'utility', only provide a framework for how to achieve it. So when I say that utilitarianism is the default position for the ethical decisions of authorities, I'm talking about it in a normative sense, with the preservation of human rights being (a significant part of) the meta-ethical definition of utility. Balancing all these rights is where utilitarianism come in. Hence the lists of harms from either option are harms against human rights.

The point I'm making with the 'will of the people', if I could return to that briefly, is that I think the old paradigm of the oppressed (but ulitmately united) populous keeping in check the tyrannical monarch is outdated and no longer applies. Again a massive diversion, but to understand my position (should you wish to) you would have to also understand a considerable amount of related thought, maybe that's why this format doesn't really work, I don't know. Briefly then I think that advertising and media influence does have an affect on people, I think that since the 1920s, that effect has been to suppress critical thinking in order to overcome the economic problems of a stalled technological progress (we already had most of what we actually needed), and the result of nearly a century of this attrition is a population who are (to put it bluntly), by and large easily led and satisfied almost entirely with superficial commodity acquisition. Entirely unlike the population at the time of the Magna Carta. This is a long argument and not easily made in a few brief paragraphs, but I just wanted to outline the fact that there is a difference, in my mind, between the situation we have to deal with today, and the situation a few hundred years ago.

It is therefore slightly missing the point to say that democratic congressmen in America, do indeed reflect the will of their constituents. They certainly do, but the 'will of their constituents' has
been almost entirely manufactured by a few charismatic people, not necessarily the actual leaders themselves. Again, as another long and complicated aside, but necessary just to mention. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think the 'few charismatic people' are the same few in each case, nor that they actually know what they're doing. Often, the few charismatic people don't even know who they are and certainly are not leading society in one direction consciously, but that doesn't prevent them from doing so nonetheless.

Notwithstanding the above, I actually think that the virtue ethical argument for restriction (de-platforming) of racists views is actually stronger then the utilitarian one, so I don't think we need to be committed to a utilitarian framework to reach this conclusion. I don't tolerate racist language in my house as an expression of an objective I hold to be a virtue (non-discrimination). I don't see why any community should not be allowed to similarly express it's collective virtues by their actions.

I think a central part of our disagreement seems to stem from some fundamental axioms which I'm not sure we can surmount;

1. It seems you think all data counts as 'information' and all people are essentially rational (or at least should be treated as such). I think that the rhetoric of racists does not count as 'information', as it is almost entirely lies, and that people are not rational and treating them as such is dangerous. In my defence - ask yourself why we do not extend the vote to children or allow them to be exposed to violent or sexual images, and then try to apply that same logic to the population of adults, given the sense they have demonstrated themselves to have.

2. You think that the right to free-speech and to be allowed to take part in the democratic process by expressing ideas is more important an objective than allowing society as a whole to express it's virtues by their actions. I think that the collective expression of virtue is more important than the inclusion of fringe ideas which are unlikely to be of any utility. In my defence here, if I have a right to say what sort of talk I will accept in my house, why does a University not have a right to say what sort of talk they will accept in their buildings, or democratic community not have the right to say what sort of talk they will accept in their country?

3. I think perhaps you require less of a person to entitle them to a right than I do. I'm guessing that we both agree that rights are not automatic in that they can be infringed upon, (we deny murderers the right to freedom, for example). If one wishes the right to free-speech, one has a responsibility to ensure that such speech meets that standards of the rights that provide one with the facility. I don't think it makes logical sense to say that someone has the right to speak out against human rights. It is a self-defeating right. We must either say that human rights are inalienable or not. If they are inalienable then there are no circumstances under which we would consider their abandonment. If there are no such circumstances, then there is no argument to be heard from those wishing to do so. If there is such an argument to be heard, the rights are clearly not inalienable, they are up for debate, on the basis of their merits, including the right to free speech.

As to your final question. I'm afraid I don't think it's answerable in one simple way. It depends on the risks in either case, it depends how bad the worst case scenario is, how high the risks of striving for the best are and how likely the best is to happen.

Basically, in summary of your point about utilitarianism, I don't think one can have a purely deontological ethical system where duties conflict with one another. They must either be universal, or conflicts need to be resolved, which then requires some other form of normative ethic to decide which is more important. If rights are truly inalienable (meaning they must be worded in such a way as to not conflict with one another) then there is literally no point in hearing from anyone who advocates their restriction because their position has been ruled out as an option by the very rights we're using to allow them to have their say.

I apologise if my tone had offended you, it was not my intention.

I just don't think you can suggest with any authority that the desire to raise children is not a natural instinct. Any creature which did not have the desire to both have, and successfully raise, young hard-wired into their DNA would simply have become extinct long ago. It is absolutely without doubt that if anything at all is a natural instinct then raising children is.

Presumably I'm not explaining myself clearly enough. Despite two attempts to explain otherwise, you still seem to be working on the idea that I'm saying all activities related to having children are directly the result of instinct without any other input.

I've said twice now that behaviour is the result of a reaction between instinct and the environment (culture/nature). No matter how much cultural /environmental involvement you posit, desire has to ultimately be innate otherwise we would never do anything. How do you think a culture creates a desire?

So, knowing that all of our behaviour ultimately comes from natural instinct, the question to ask of any apparent desire we find is "what natural instinct is this trying to satisfy?"

What I'm saying with regards to antinatalism is that all of our actions related to having children are based-on the natural instinct to reproduce and so are not behaviours we even consider justifying by their ultimate objective.

People who choose not to have children must still make such a choice ultimately motivated to satisfy some natural instinct, otherwise where did the desire come from? It sounds very much to me like you'd like to reject free-will, but aren't prepared to accept the consequences.

You keep stating that I believe "having and raising a child" is an unavoidable instinct, yet I have nowhere stated this to be the case. What I've said is that either having a child or contributing to society's ability to raise children, is an unavoidable instinct, and that what people feel is the best way for them to achieve the latter is quite varied because the environments in which they have to make that calculation are quite varied. I never said that instincts were simple, only that it is a reasonable theory that they unavoidably drive us to act.

All of the examples you give make the same question begging fallacy. You presume a) that instincts are going to give one single desire so any alternative must not be an instinct, or b) that you somehow know which desires are instincts. How do you know that the desire to diet doesn't result from an instinct? How do you know that peaceful conflict resolution isn't an instinct?

As I said, I agree that there is not a logical argument for continuing life from Utilitarianism and accepting free will, but I don't accept either of those premises, so it's not an issue for me.

You've just restated the argument in exactly the terms I put it without addressing the problems.

Basically your position boils down to the fact that the scientific explanation for why things are as they are is insufficient because it cannot (does not even attempt to) demonstrate that they necessarily are that way, just that that is they way they seem to be. I'm with you so far, that's a perfectly sound definition of science.

But then you go on to say that various metaphysical positions do give reasons why things are the way they are necessarily because of some metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, which you can't quite remember but nonetheless believe profoundly is the case.

no, that's not an appeal to "authority" — gurugeorge

Really? Because it sounds an awful lot like an appeal to authority.

This is essentially the problem. What if things just do happen to be the way they are? What if that is why all the metaphysical attempts to show otherwise have failed? You seem to be convinced that we cannot continue fulfilling lives with this being the case, I've not heard any evidence for that conclusion. Things don't seem to be significantly worse now (with half the population atheist) than they were 200 years ago when most of the population had this over-arching meaning you opine.

I will discuss about this “linearity” in my next post. — Sunny S Koul

How do you know it will be your 'next' post?

Sounds great, what would it be for?

Are mathematicians/scientists/philosophers dumber than the average person you walk into on the streets?

What was Socrates doing? Being rational or intelligent? — TheMadFool

How should I know? I don't have IQ results, nor the results from any cognitive bias tests. What's the point of the question? Perhaps you could rephrase it to something I could answer.

I don't think I'm wrong in defining an equivalence between intelligence and rationality. What is the basic structure of an IQ test? Logical ability right? — TheMadFool

You definitely are wrong. As I've said, rationality is the ability to derive one thought logically from another. Intelligence is the ability to see a successful path to a particular goal. I gather from your previous postings that you seem to take little notice of actual evidence when you have an idea (why let evidence get in the way of a good theory, right?). But with a resigned sigh. Here are the results of the famous Stanovich experiments

Professor Stanovich and colleagues had large samples of subjects complete judgement tests (tests which show their susceptibility to irrational thinking - cognitive biases, in this case the conjunction fallacy), as well as an IQ test. What they found was that a person with a high IQ is about as likely to suffer from irrational behaviour as a person with a low IQ i.e Intelligence does not correlate at all with rationality.

Later studies, repeating the same set up have actually found that people with higher IQs are slightly more prone to irrational thinking.

So there's good evidence that rational thinking is actually reducing the sort of 'evil' behaviour you're describing, by making people more able to see both sides and less likely to come to prejudiced or biased conclusions.

From any naturalistic or religious point of view that accepts purpose, meaning, etc., as intrinsic to the Universe, things have natures, and their behaviour follows with logical necessity from their nature. Consider: it's "logically possible" that if I walk out the door the floor will turn into jelly. But it's not actually possible - the materials of which the ground is constructed have a limited range of possible things they can do, and turning into jelly isn't one of them. — gurugeorge

I'm baffled as to what the distinction you're trying to make is here. The fact that things have 'natures' is entirely what science, and therefore by extension materialist philosophy, has confirmed. Physical things are bound by the laws of physics to behave the way they do, living things are guided by the interaction of their DNA with the environment. It's sounding increasingly like all you want is for the purpose to be 'a bit magic' and you just don't like science having found it out.

From that point of view, it just happens to be the case that the ground doesn't turn into jelly, that's simply a regularity that we observe, and nothing more can be said about it. — gurugeorge

How does a thing's Aristotelian 'nature' not just happen to be the case? Why are you allowing philosophical ideas to just 'be the case' for no reason, but when scientific ideas try to just 'be the case' for no reason, you think they've somehow lost something?

From this point of view anything that's logically possible is materially possible, we must simply observe and note whatever causal regularities exist, and talk in terms of probabilities (i.e. the floor turning to jelly cannot be ruled out entirely, it just has a vanishingly small probability of occurring, based on the mass of other observed regularities). — gurugeorge

It sounds to me from this that you're actually having trouble, not with science per se, but with the loss of idoloatry. I will try to explain using your example;

Science and Aristotle have both reached the same conclusion about the basic idea of the floor turning to jelly - that it won't do that because it goes against the floor's nature/laws of physics.

The difference is that science goes on to say that this is just our best current theory and if a better theory turns up or if something unexpected happens then the floor might well turn to jelly. It's just that our best current theory is that it won't.

So what you're really looking for is a return to idolatry, which is what belief-based philosophies are really all about. You want to simply believe someone without having to use your own critical thinking, whether that someone is Aristotle, Spinoza, St Paul, doesn't matter, just someone other than yourself. Scientists admit they might be wrong (there is only a high probability), belief in what Aristotle said does not entail an admission that it might be wrong, you've eliminated that nasty doubt, that 'probability' simply by uncritically accepting someone else's view of 'what is the case'

Look at all the alternatives you've mentioned. Did you come up with any? Why not? None of them rely in any way on evidence which is not also accessible by you. It's because you want to absolve the responsibility for your own decisions to an outside agency. Sorry for the pop-psychology, but it's crucial to understanding where I'm coming from.

Just try to rationalise your distinction between 'apparent' goals and 'actual' goals. In what way do they really differ, other than that your 'actual' goals are the certain pronouncements of an authority? How would Science and these other philosophical ideas differ if you just said right now that you were going to believe that all our current scientific theories are definitely and permanently true?

Your idea that it is simply instinctual drive doesn't really answer much. A) We can choose not to. B) People have chosen not to. C) People can go against "natural" instincts. D) How do you answer the "is" "ought" problem- just because its instinctual (if that is even the case) why should one ought to follow the instincts? — schopenhauer1

Your theory begs the question. Your arguments only work if you've already presumed (unlike Schopenhauer) that we have a choice about what it is we will. I do not believe that, and you evidently do. You're asking for a compelling argument but only accepting ones from a set of premises in which you believe, which include, it would seem, free-will.

I entirely agree with you that there is no logic whatsoever to creating new life under an assumption of both utilitarianism and free-will, which seem to be the assumptions you're working under. Entirely for the arguments you've put forward, there cannot be argued to be any net utility gain, which is exactly what Schopenhauer said. But the entire reason he wasn't explicitly an antinatalist is because of his position on free-will, which, though weaker than mine, lead him to believe that continued procreation was inevitable.

So the idea that it is an instinctive drive answers the question completely, if you do not hold onto the notion of free-will.

A) We cannot choose not to, what some people choose is a lifestyle which (at an instinctive level) some part of their brain is telling them will support other people who are raising new life and whose DNA will be similar to theirs.
B) See above - You might want to look at people like Edward Wilson for some ideas as to how non-breeders could have evolved despite the disadvantage of not passing on their DNA, but it's basically to do with increasing the life chances of closely related people.
C) Only if you already believe that's what they're doing. Otherwise, this is a non sequitur. How do you know they're going against their 'natural' instincts? Have desires got little labels on them that we can check? Do 'natural', ones show up in a different colour on fMRI scans?
D)The 'is' 'ought' problem is only a problem for those who believe in free-will. abandon free-will and there is only 'is'.

That's interesting, do you have any names I could look into?

I suggest you go and look up the meaning of the word 'if'.