Mill would have strongly disagreed with you. — Marchesk

Actually, Mill specifically said that whilst talking about the greed of the Corn dealers should be allowed, talking about the greed of the Corn Traders to an angry mob outside the house of a Corn dealer would be immoral and a government would be legitimate in banning it.

An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard. — J S Mill

As Peter Singer has said, now that we live in an age of global communication, anyone could be addressing the 'excited assembled mob' and so this caution needs to be extended to all and every form of communication.

It's de-platformed -> the people opposing it talk less about it -> the people opposing it argue less against it -> less rational and logical arguments are presented against it -> it's easier to rationally come to the conclusion that the idea is correct. — BlueBanana

Why because it's de-platformed must people talk less about it? I think there's been quite a bit of discussion about the university protests. What is preventing anti-racists from talking about why they feel speaker x should not be allowed to speak, explaining what it is about his previously expressed views that they so strongly disagree with. Students are not de-platforming people because they 'look a bit shady'. They're de-platforming people whose opinions are already in the public sphere, we can argue against the opinions they've already expressed we don't need to give them a platform to do it again.

This is another strawman frequently brought out in these arguments, it is always presumed that the person in question has something to say that's not been said before. If that were the case, no-one would be de-platforming them. These are people who've expressed their views already, and the community where they are about to speak has decided that they do not want to allow that kind of language in their community. The 'rational debate', such as there is one, has already been had, the racists have lost, but they want to keep going anyway because they know that the rationality of their argument is irrelevant to winning people over to it.

My how horrible they are! Poor, brave XYZ for standing up to them. I will vote for him' — andrewk

This is a completely irrational reason to vote for someone, or to agree with their views, as is voting for or agreeing with, someone simply because the accusations against them are carried violently. We know people do not behave this way. The Nazis were extremely violent right from the beginning, this didn't bolster support for their opposition in any meaningful way (I'm not saying it didn't happen, but the effect was insignificant). On the other side of the political divide, the civil rights movement in the 60s and the gay rights movement in the 70s and 80s quite often became violent, again the violence probably didn't help their cause, but in the end it made little difference to the groundswell of opinion. I'm struggling to find an example from history which demonstrates the effect you're claiming, perhaps you could provide the examples you're working from?

Notwithstanding the above, I still can't quite see how your "Poor, brave XYZ for standing up to them. I will vote for him" influenced voter would be persuaded otherwise by the alternative. Lets say the students behave and let the person speak, some academic responds in the media rebutting his racist claims (though what would have prevented him from doing so anyway I don't know but we'll skip over that for now). What difference would that have made to your voter? We've already established that they are completely irrational, so the actual argument will be irrelevant to them. If they're the sort of person to be persuaded by the 'victimisation' of the speaker, then what's going to happen when the racists speaks, tells everyone how badly treated white minorities are in some ghettos, how positive discrimination is robbing white people of jobs, how white girls can't even walk the street in areas dominated by immigrants?

This is the point that I don't think is being addressed. Racists lie, and people are persuaded by the lies they want to hear. Once they're out in the public discourse, it doesn't matter how much they're logically and calmly rebutted, people simply don't care about logical calm rebuttal. People are not so impressed by dignified protest that they're going to turn away from the persuasive and powerful rhetoric that's saying exactly what they want to hear just because the opposition to it are well-behaved.

Your theory is just storytelling, I can't see any evidence that it actually happens, by which I mean people who would have voted/though otherwise are persuaded to change their minds because of the suppression of racist rhetoric.

Is that the definition we're using? — Roke

Unless anyone's got a better one.

No we don't. If the ideas are only de-platformed and not rationally argued against, they become more attractive from the rational point of view. — BlueBanana

I don't understand. How could an idea become rationally more attractive simply because it has been de-platformed. What rational step means that an idea is more likely to be right because lots of people don't want it talked about?

What I can do. As i said, not much. — René Descartes

Don't buy Chinese goods.

I don't wish to cast aspersions on you personally, this is a general comment, but I find the constant resort to "it's someone else's responsibility to act" somewhat misses the mark.

Sure, you alone not buying Chinese goods because you disagree with their foreign policy is not going make a difference, but since when was it one's moral duty to be on the winning side?

Well, we don't have any working definition of what a thought is or what an idea is, on a neurological level. According to Jaron Lanier. — Ying

So talk about hard AI as if it's a thing is like talking about nuclear fusion in the living room. Maybe possible in the future after some or the other huge breakthrough, but banking on such issues is science fiction at this point in time. — Ying

You've made quite a leap there from what a single, rather fringe, computer scientist thinks to two very firm statements about what is the case. It's this kind of presumption that I'm questioning here. 20 years ago it would have been fine for you to simply go along with whatever your preferred philosopher is saying on the matter without having to justify that belief. What I'm asking, suggesting I suppose, is that we no longer have that luxury because even the possibility of advanced AI means that we need to consider worst case scenarios rather than simply what we 'reckon' is right.

My reason is that it has no effect. People hold beliefs and give answers that are socially acceptable within the group they wish to belong to and speech acts reinforce their bonds with each other. — Benkei

Absolutely, and there's a considerable amount of good psychological evidence to support this view (as no doubt you already know).

But does it not then follow that obvious displays of what particular social groups find acceptable are important in maintaining their integrity. So if we're going to engage in any sort of social engineering then encouraging the displays of those social groups whose views are most amenable to civilised society over displays by those groups who are not is something we should be supporting?

You both seem to be making the same point, that people are neither entirely rational nor entirely socially led. This is where I think the importance of practical ethics comes in. I'm not saying that we could ever decide which is the way people act, nor even that there is one way, but we cannot act in such a way as to presume both, even if both are the case.

We must either de-platform racists (presuming most people are socially led and we need to set a clear example), or we debate with them (presuming most people are rational and will see how silly their arguments really are). I'm not sure I see how the insight that people are really a mixture of both actually helps us make the decision.

I think advocates of this position should lay out some specific guidelines for determining what types of speech would be banned. — Erik

Do you think that comes first, or do you think we actually need to decide what method we're going to use before applying it. By that I mean, if we were to exclude racists from the debate, why would we be doing so? Once we've answered that question it would become a matter of arguable (but ultimately resolvable?) fact as to whether a particular point of view fits this criteria or not. I don't know if I've just missed it, but I don't feel like we've actually decided, as a society, what it is about racist views that makes us feel able to flatly deny them. Is it the fact that they're unfair (no-one chooses who they're born to), or the fact that they're wrong (you race does not determine your character in any way), or that fact that they're harmful (potentially)? The problem is I can think of lots of commonly held ideas that could fall into any of these categories (though perhaps not all three).

the idea that holding certain political and economic policy preferences can be seen as implicit forms of racism, on par with (or even more sinister than) explicit racist statements, is extremely disconcerting. Sensing a possible slippery slope here may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. — Erik

I don't see this as being a problem personally. Racism is quite clearly defined as being treating someone differently because of their birth parents. If people wish to have a net migration target, for example, there's clearly no racism involved there, but if people want to have an immigration target (regardless of emigration) from particular countries, I don't see how that's anything but racist, it's clearly saying that the potential immigrants are somehow of a lower value than the native population, or some other population, purely on the basis of where they were born.

Images of aggressive students shouting somebody down or blocking people from peacefully attending a lecture are high-octane fuel to the populist narrative of the Trumps and Milo Yiannopoulos's of this world, and do enormous damage to progressive causes. — andrewk

It's interesting that you think this. I tend to agree about the ability of such images to be used by the alt-right, but I'm not quite so convinced that there's an argument for them actually helping their cause more than the actions of the students would have hindered it.

Consider firstly the effect such images would have on a theoretically equivocal voter. What views would they already have to hold in order that such images would actually persuade them one way or the other? No Liberal defender of free-speech is going to vote for Trump just out of spite, so it wouldn't be enough that they dislike the repression of free speech, such a person would remain politically as they were, but just be more annoyed. So we're concerned about those who have some sympathy with racists views but perhaps have held back until now. What I don't get then, is what kind of weird reverse psychology do we imagine would cause them, on seeing how violently a group of students do not want a racist to speak, to think "well I wasn't so sure about racism before, but I am now". The only thing I can think of is that they really hate students, and tend to think that whatever students hate, they must like. I accept this is possible, but I really can't see it as being a more likely explanation than that they were going to think/vote that way anyway and if it hadn't have been this image/excuse, it would just have been another.

In either case, we also have to ask how allowing the racist to speak (persuading the angry students to let him past) is going to somehow pacify this equivocal voter, how would it make them actually think that their latent racism is somehow less acceptable and they'd better not vote for the racists after all. I'm just not sure how this mechanism is supposed to work.

As is evident from my post, I agree entirely. I think it is a right for any community to express what kind of views and language they are willing to tolerate within their community and ostracise those that do not meet that standard.

If a meeting of physicists trying to decide on which particular theory of quantum physics was best was attended by a couple of astrologers, their views would not be listened to, they would be 'de-platformed' in the debate, and quite rightly too as they clearly have nothing to bring to it.

In a discussion about the policies of a liberal democracy, racists have nothing to bring to it, suggesting they do is to suggest that their way is a legitimate option we need to consider.

But I'm interested to hear from people who defend the rights of racists to speak, to try and understand how they reconcile the apparent paradox, are we presuming people decide mostly on rationality or social influence, and if the latter, how are we deciding what kind of influence de-platforming will have?

Your suggested alternative being....? — Wayfarer

Presuming a fragile metaphysical construction that is less risky.

That's basically the argument I'm making. I'm asking if anyone sees any real dangers in presuming (when it comes to AI) that free-will and conciousness may well be properties entirely emergent from complex systems. It seems to me to be the safest option, to act as if free-will were not unique to humans, just in case it isn't, and treat the progress of AI under than assumption.

As to the fact that we will remain in control, that's exactly one of the safety measures that might be put in place under a presumption that it is possible for a machine to obtain free-will, but without that presumption, or at least if we do not take the possibility seriously, I can easily see it seeming like an attractive option to leave the machine in charge of it's own power supply, solar harvesting or internal fission, for example.

So are we saying that human beings do not have the possibility of functioning as autonomous, self regulating, self directional (free) moving beings, (I am not talking about physical biology here)? — Pneuma

Yes, that's certainly what I'd say about it, but that's not the question I asked. The question is, do you think it is important to maintain a belief in free-will as unique to humans in the light of advances in AI, or do you think the risk from potentially being wrong is great enough to warrant more caution?

I think AI has a chance of doing evil but most likely it won't be because of free will but because of accidents or because of the will of humans controlling them. — René Descartes

OK, so why do you think this, what's line of thinking has lead you to this conclusion?

I don't see AI truly thinking for themselves — René Descartes

Again, I'd be intrigued to hear you reasoning, but more pertinent to the question, why you have weighed it the way you have against the harm that could be caused if you are wrong. Do you see some greater harm in presuming free-will is obtainable by an AI that has lead you to think we need not take this approach? Or perhaps is your faith so important to you that you feel it needs to be expressed regardless of the risk?

And I'm just saying I don't like those sorts of threads. — Noble Dust

Yeah I get that, I'm trying to find out what it is you don't like about them. Not that it's particularly related to the thread topic, but your reaction intrigued me. I still don't feel like I've understood your position.

If a question is up for debate (i.e not entirely factual), it's not 'question begging' to already have an opinion on the answer. 'Question begging' is when the answer is actually implied in the wording of the question, in such a way that you can't even ask the question without assuming the answer as a matter of fact. It's not the same as asking a question whilst holding an opinion on the answer. I think that's way too high a standard to hold anyone to, to come at each question of moral or political import without holding any view whatsoever as to the answer. I have an opinion on the answer already, but I don't know what everyone else's opinion is, that's why I'm asking.

On a wider note, it's something I've found endemic on this site so far and it stifles proper discussion When a question is asked or statement made, there seems to be a knee-jerk reaction for people to write their opinion on the topic, not the question. I've asked here a very specific question about people's views on the pragmatism of having a view that free-will and conciousness are unique to humans (or biological life). Already, all I've got are people stating their opinions on free-will and conciousness (the topic), not whether those views are actually a pragmatic/safe way to approach the question of AI (the actual question). What I asked was what arguments they have for considering those positions pragmatic, or the least risk approach, in the light of advances in AI.

If I might join in the 'types of thread that annoy me' discussion you've opened, then that would be my number one, threads where people just state their views at each other on wide and vague topics with no attempt to actually relate them to anything practical or engage with the philosophical sticking points.

Where did I say you're not allowed to have an opinion about this? — Noble Dust

You said "I don't like these OPs where the questions are leading me somewhere."

Then I asked "How does the question lead you somewhere?"

Then you replied with a list of quotes in which I imply my opinion.

Ergo, you "don't like" the fact that I implied my opinion (your definition of "questions [which are] leading me somewhere").

Take A to be 'questions [which are] leading me somewhere'

You state you don't like A.

I asked you to define A.

You give a set of paragraphs in which I express my opinion.

Hence my conclusion that you don't like me expressing my opinion in the OP.

Where have I gone wrong?

I haven't the faintest idea what you're going on about. Am I not allowed to have an opinion about this in order to open a discussion? Yes I think free will and consciousness are illusions. I think any sufficiently complex system designed with self-analysis would exhibit the same traits. Does that somehow mean I'm not allowed to ask others what they think would be a pragmatic assumption with regards to AI?

The tone of your OP was clear that you thought it was unwise to make the stake; so I made it. — Noble Dust

What? Because I indicated I thought it unwise you decided to go for it. I'm touched that my opinion is so influential in your decision making, even if only to oppose it.

I don't like these OPs where the questions are leading me somewhere. — Noble Dust

How does the question lead you somewhere? It's a simple enough question. Do you believe in the uniqueness of consciousness and free will enough to stake the future of humanity on it, do you think we should proceed under a presumption that is safer, or alternatively do you think there is even more risk from presuming these traits are not unique?

But that's exactly the question. With AI something of an unknown, do you believe humans (alone) have free will strongly enough to just let the computer scientists get on with it?

Really? Care to explain why? I don't mean why you think free will and consciousness are real and unique to humans (or perhaps biological life), I mean why you think it is sensible to be so sure about that belief that it's worth risking the future of humanity on. Just to make a point? Or is there some greater threat you see from admitting that it might just be an illusion and we ought to proceed under that assumption for now?

Almost none of our beliefs are justified (in our mind) by science. So if you only accept reductive explanations as justification for beliefs, then you would have to conclude that almost all of our beliefs lack any justification whatsoever - and that cannot be true, because it is part of our usual understanding of the notion of "justified belief" that a large proportion of our beliefs is fairly justified. — SophistiCat

That's exactly the point I'm making. I'm not saying that our beliefs can either be justified or not (that's an entire epistemological position) I'm disputing that there is any good grounds for specify that science cannot justify the passions, as if there were some other group of things that it could justify. If there's nothing that science can justify (in that way) then the comment is entirely specious, claiming to provide some in formation about 'the passions', when in fact it is merely reporting the limits of science in general.

Whether or not I know of some scientific explanation for my feeling of hunger or my perception of the color of the sky is completely irrelevant to my warrant for holding the respective beliefs. — SophistiCat

This rather presumes a position on conciousness which is far from agreed upon. If you take the view that conciousness is some kind of causal force than you might be right, or even if it is an epiphenomenon caused by the actual brain states it 'watches', but if it is either a brain state itself, or an epiphenomenon caused by a brain state specifically responsible for causing it, then it is perfectly possible for you to be wrong about your belief that you are hungry. 'Hungry' would be typically held as being that disposition which (in the absence of competing forces) would cause a person to eat. It is perfectly possible that your brain could be in that state, but the part of your brain responsible for generating the epiphenomenon of concious awareness erroneously reports that you are not. In that sense you would be incorrect about your assertion 'I'm hungry'.

Just proof that you have proof. The decoupling of instinct from general processing is not an easy story. I'd like to see this. — schopenhauer1

http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=http://www.academia.edu/download/37133243/Moro_Syntax_without_language.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm210BRby4ji6XE6q3EVp86UNC-CZA&nossl=1&oi=scholarr&ved=0ahUKEwjPh5_YpZPZAhXCtBQKHZJFDHUQgAMILSgAMAA

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737615/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9036851

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21280961

Ruth Feldman - From a "neurobiology of parenting" talk "Based on neuroimaging research of parents' brain response to infant cues, this talk will chart a global ”human parental caregiving” network, which consists of several interconnected cortical networks superimposed upon an ancient limbic network that has shown in animal studies to underpin the expression of maternal care in female rodents."

from the same talk "the ”maternal pathway”, is triggered by hormones of pregnancy and childbirth and relying to a great extent on the subcortical mammalian network, and the ”paternal pathway”,

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001664

http://www.pnas.org/content/114/45/E9465

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157077/

Will that do?

YOU SAID
Whether the purpose is survival, or conformity to a sexually selected morphology is immaterial to the argument.

I disagree for the reasons I said. — charleton

So you think it is material to the argument whether a person sees the illusion of purpose as survival, or whether they see it as morphological conformity? Id really like to know how.

What is the impact on the argument against intelligent design of whether a person interprets the appearance of purpose as being toward survival, or toward morphological conformity? As far as I can tell it makes no difference at all. The argument is that the illusory 'purpose' people consider apparent is the result of naturally occuring selection forces acting on random variation. I really don't see how the exact nature of their illusion makes any difference. Perhaps you could explain?

That's what I mean about reading my post rather than just picking individual sentences you think you can make an argument about.

The 'purpose' I was referring to in that sentence (which you have conveniently taken completely out of context) is the apparent purpose I referred to in the sentence immediately preceding it, as anyone capable of understanding English could have seen. That's the reason we put sentences in order rather than just make random strings of propositions - so that we can specify a subject in one sentence which can then be referred to in a subsequent one without having to redefine it in every single utterance. It really is a basic tool of communication, and as any politician knows, it also makes it easy to fabricate any error you like by taking a sentence out of context as you have done.

What does a person do if an award committee gives him an award (even if he it wasn't his intention to receive an award)? Following the Kantian duty, then, he must reject the award. — Caldwell

Yes, I would say so. Universalising the maxim "I should accept any rewards that are offered to me" would certainly create a world where those less morally scrupulous than yourself would start to act motivated by reward rather then duty. Of course you could phrase it as an hypothetical imperative, "if I have not acted solely to achieve the award, then I should collect the award", but I really don't see how that could be universalised.

This is the problem with Kant's ethics, they tend to lead to odd conclusions because he requires that we universalise the maxim presuming the world is made up of rational people, it isn't so the outcome of doing so is never quite as we'd expect. But then Kant wasn't interested in outcomes. As you might tell, I'm not a Kantian, I just though his insight into the fact that moral knowledge contains both the instruction and the incentive was pertinent here.

Personally, I don't see any problem receiving an award, the moral issue is with the people issuing the award, receiving it could be seen simply as an act of kindness, not wanting to reject that which is offered. It's not that rewards should not be used to incentivise moral behaviour, I'm not of the view that morality is dictated by intention, it's that they should not be required. It's difficult to define behaviour as moral if it does not yield a result that clearly increases the well-being of the community, including the moral agent themselves.

"appear, to human eyes, to be well suited to some 'purpose' we can identify."

Please read my posts before responding with such vitriol. I quite clearly stated that the 'purpose' was one that merely appeared to be such to human eyes. That animals 'appear' to be put together to serve some purpose is exactly what this thread is about. I am explaining that the natural process of evolution is what makes them 'appear' that way, not an intelligent designer.

I'm happy to admit the expression could have been more accurate. I was only trying to convey the fact that a process exists which selects otherwise random mutations in favour of those which would appear, to human eyes, to be well suited to some 'purpose' we can identify. Whether the purpose is survival, or conformity to a sexually selected morphology is immaterial to the argument.

Your only option is to remain silent. — Thorongil

That is what I, and I think Janus, have been trying to say. That you must remain silent. That no logical argument can be brought forth for the existence of everything without using (within that argument) something which you must first presume to exist.

Nonetheless, Michael makes a really good point about the effects of internalising these reactions. There's every reason to believe it was that very helplessness that caused your problems in the first place.

What I'm asking is what form would your argument for the necessary existence of a creator or the universe actually take?

It can't take the form - if... then... Because we have no 'ifs' that we can establish as being necessarily the case (if we did we'd have solved our problem already).

It cannot take the form - X therefore y, because again we have no 'x' that is necessarily the case.

It cannot be a tautology because that would not be explicatory.

I admit logic is not really my field (I'm an ethicist), but I'm struggling to see any form that the argument showing 'why the universe is' could possibly take that doesn't rely on some existing facts that we have yet to establish are necessarily the case.

I'm only going to try this one more time, it's been an interesting excersice and I thank you for the challenge but I cannot see the sense in us just repeatedly talking past on another.

So, last time - I completely and utterly agree with you that your theory about humans somehow losing their innate desire to raise children and having it replaced by a cultural desire is possible. You do not need to provide me with any more stories about how things might have been, I am convinced, and have been from the start.

What I am lacking is any evidence that this actually is the case, not further means by which it could be. I'm asking, not for any further explication of you theory, but for the reason why you have rejected the far more simple, almost universally held theory that our desire to have children simply arises from the same place as all other animals.

So you admit to strawmanning my position. — Thorongil

A caricature and a strawman are two entirely different things. One is a summary of a position that is deliberately facetious but still based on real features, the other is the construction of a position similar to the one a person holds, but deliberately different in one or more respects such the it can be easily rejected. As I have not rejected, or even argued against, Idealism, it could not possibly have been a strawman.

A necessary being by definition avoids it, a point you seem incapable of acknowledging for whatever reason. — Thorongil

Your argument was that "... the more important question is not what objects are, but why they are."

If you conclude that a being is 'necessary' (not that I believe such a thing is possible), then you require also the existence of logic (which you presumably used to reach your conclusion) and a least one fact (on which your logic acts). So you still have not answered the question, "why should logic work and why is fact 1 is a fact".

In other words why is the necessary being necessary?

You can't simply pluck an argument out of thin air (though God knows enough people try) so you still have to explain why the elements of your argument are necessarily the case. If you can't explain that, then you cannot demonstrate that your conclusion is truly necessary.

We’re lucky we’re not conducting this conversation inside the boundaries of the PRC. Otherwise, it would be monitored and if it created enough noise, then the Forum would suddenly go offline. — Wayfarer

I think you would be doing the community a service if you removed the post. — Wayfarer

Instead, why don't we show them how it's done properly?

You are equating justification with a reductive explanation. — SophistiCat

Justification - as you yourself said - is reason to believe. — SophistiCat

Reductive explanation is a reason to believe. It is the standard reason we believe in everything else, that we have a reductive explanation for its being the case.

The comment I was disputing was "he is simply saying that the reasoning of science cannot justify them, [the passions]".

My argument was, in what way can the reasoning of science "justify" anything other than by explaining the causal chain of its existence back a few steps?

I have a passion 'hunger', science can explain exactly what that passion is in physical terms (brain states), why it is there causally (DNA - protein synthesis - neurons development - interaction with the environment), and also why it is there teleologically (evolutionary function of hunger). What additional thing can science provide with regards to the proposition "the sky is blue" that is missing from what science can tell us about passions such as to warrant the distinction made?

Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. — Edward Feser

This just begs the question. They don't seem devoid of meaning to someone who thinks that 'meaning' is a particular brain sate. Then they have 'meaning', in that they cause this particular brain state. Obviously if you've decided that 'meaning' is a thing other than a brain state then you're going to prove that 'meaning' must be separate from physical processes, but that requires that you already believe 'meaning' is a thing, so you've already committed to dualism anyway. It's not an 'argument' for dualism, it's just a statement of the author's belief in it.

What? — unenlightened

You are misusing the word 'justify'. Justifying a proposition does not require that no other conflicting proposition can possibly be true, it requires that you have good reason to believe the proposition.

Notwithstanding this, your example is false anyway. Only the view that child x's welfare is paramount and child y's welfare is paramount are mutually incompatible, but this is not the form our passion takes. If I had three children x,y, and z, and in the night child z was replaced with an identical looking copy, my passion would not be centred on the real child z, it would be centred on the new one. My passion does not externally refer and so incompatibility in the real world is not relevant to is truth value. My passion is that "the welfare of one's children (whoever I believe them to be) is paramount".

Furthermore, you are asking of the passions a level of reason that is not being asked of propositions about empirical truths. To say I have a passion for food, is a truth statement if the brain can be shown to be in a state common to all other humans who desire food. In the same way as 'the sky is blue' can be said to be true if all other users of the terms 'sky' and 'blue' agree. We do not ask that the proposition is justified by proving that the sky 'ought' to be blue, that it has some final cause for being blue. It is sufficient that it matches the definition of 'blue'.

Strawman. I neither said nor suggested any such thing. In fact, if you read the OP, I said exactly the reverse of what you impute of me here. — Thorongil

I was caricaturing the idealist position you prefer for rhetorical effect, you'll see it has no influence whatsoever on my line of argument, which you've ignored in favour of the easier target.

How do you avoid the infinite regress? Whatever you claim to 'know' about 'things' you must have derived somehow. That necessitates a belief in the existence of at least some facts a priori, and the authenticity of whatever mental process you used to derive these new facts about things from the ones you take to be true a priori.

If you are prepared to accept a priori facts simply on the grounds that they are self-evidently true, then why not the apparent 'fact' that a universe appears to exist?

If you wish to ask why a universe exists, then why are you not asking why logic exists and why your a priori truths exist, both of which you require in order to assign any properties at all to the set 'all things'?

A small detail question first;

The preference for a holiday, let alone a "holiday at Algrave" is not something that just wells inside of us like some primal desire. — schopenhauer1

So how do birds migrate then, if nothing as complex as the desire to journey to a specific other place on the earth for a set period of time before journeying back again could never evolve without language?

Regarding your main argument.

So humans, like all other animals, at one time had a set of genes that coded for the innate desire to raise young, if we hadn't have had we would have become extinct. You're suggesting that at some point in our evolutionary history, we lost that set of genomes entirely but immediately (it must have been immediate otherwise we would have become extinct within one generation) it was replaced with a convergently evolved set of genomes coding for complex language functions which allowed us to develop cultural preferences for raising children, just in time to save the human race from extinction.

So a few questions arise.

1. What would have been the competitive advantage of the mutation that replaced our genetic sequences coding for an innate desire to raise young? Presumably, not having answered my religion question, you believe in evolution by natural selection. Whatever it was must have been an incredibly strong influence for the new mutation to have swept through the entire species, but I can't quite see how it would have given anyone a competitive edge over those naturally invested in raising young.

2. If there was a competitive advantage to not having a desire to raise children, how come it was immediately replaced with a cultural desire to have children, wouldn't those cultures have faded away almost immediately as a result of whatever competitive force was driving this massive shift in genetics?

3. When did this sea change in our genetic coding take place. It must have been after complex language and culture because it needed to be replaced immediately with the cultural urge to have children in order to avoid extinction, yet paleobiology has yet to turn up any significant change in the human genome since then. Is this something you predict we're gong to find out in the next few years of genetic research?

4. You mention convergent evolution, but this refers to the novel arrival of features via two evolutionary paths, what you're proposing here would not be an example of this. We've established that it is a biological necessity that humans had a genetically innate desire to raise young at some point in their evolutionary history. What you're proposing here would be the the novel emergence of a trait already present in the organism, but emerging as a result of a different force and then entirely supplanting the original gene(s). This is, to my knowledge, completely unprecedented. Are there other examples of this happening in the animal kingdom you're working from, or is this the first time this has happened in evolutionary history?

America remains the country where immigrants want to come for a better life, despite very clear declarations they are unwelcome, and they do in fact find great success here. If they didn't, they'd stay home. — Hanover

Immigrants want to leave the countries they are in because Western trading policies and colonialism have trashed their economies. Did you read the example Cavacava gave of the Italians forced out of their country by cheap imports?

America then offers them marginally higher living standards, because it needs the cheap labour to keep making the cheap imports that prevent other countries from developing their own economies.

I don't see what's so impressive about that. If a luxury cruise liner drags a few people off the shipwreck they just caused so they can employ them as cleaners, that would be your idea of a noble dream would it?