Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[Alexis Jacobi]

But you can’t deal with that directly, can you? Instead, you invent pseudo-mystical nonsense like “the cosmos is in a disfavoring phase,” as if I ever claimed history was a horoscope. You don’t argue against my view—you argue against a parody, because that’s all your slippery, evasive rhetoric can handle.

Your entire philosophy, I think because it is (obviously?) postmodern, lefty and progressive at its very core, is delightfully amenable to parody and also to ridicule.

The function of parody (my use in any case) is to extend your policies into an imagined future.

Your view of determined reality is similar to an older cosmological idea about astrological alignment. You cannot get away from this Mike.

I submit that your views can be submitted to scrutiny. And when carefully examined they self-indicate how bizarre their grounding actually is.

You know of course that I see such ideas as flowing from a demented mind, a strange and even twisted psychology! (Like a mad professor!)

I know that you disagree — vehemently! — that the psychological angle is a fair one to labor with. But I think it is necessary.

[Pistolero]

What Mickey is alluding to is Biblical.
He has no choice. choice is an illusion, according to him. He chooses a definition of 'choice' that will constitute it an illusion.
Furthermore, his will is unfree, so he does not will the world to change, he was selected, determined, to be the agency of change.
He feels special..... He, among many others, was chosen to be an agent of cosmic change.
He did not choose this. He was chosen....or determined.

Natural selection becomes natural determination.

Meanwhile, he is unable to explain how, despite knowing all the advantages of a big brain, how all these advantages manifest in real time.
How, for instance, does good judgments benefit a man if his choices and actions are illusions and unfree?

In my mind, the advantage is a higher understanding and ability to choose from available optinos.
In my mind, the advantage of a bigger brain, is its ability to willfully direct the organism through better paths, toward an objective.

If we eliminate choice and a will's ability to select, to choose, we eliminate the advantage.
So how did big brains evolve, if choice in a magical illusion, and will is not free at all. Not slightly un-free but absolutely so.

[phyllo]

Pistolero,

In reading your posts, I got the impression that you believe in a compatibilist version of free-will. Free-will without anything uncaused.

Do you think there is an uncaused component in free-will?

[Alexis Jacobi]

The cosmos did not choose me, it only chose Mickey.....and Mickey had no choice but to become a 'willing agent' of divine justice.

Biblical.

This is an interesting and I think a valid point.

It brings to mind the notion of the transvaluation of values in the sense that though BigMike declares himself totally opposed to the idea of a ruling divinity that determines Justice; yet he presents himself as a demi-god-like vehicle for True Justice to become seated in our world.

Less transvaluation, perhaps, and yet a mirroring re-valuation. A re-application.

And one very certainly determined by a man’s will and decision.

Mike’s God is a novelistic, postmodern version.

[Pistolero]

Pistolero,

In reading your posts, I got the impression that you believe in a compatibilist version of free-will. Free-will without anything uncaused.

Do you think there is an uncaused component in free-will?

I never said un-caused.
I do not deny causality.
I say life is a wilful participant in causality.
Every choice PARTICIPATING in what will be determined.

Choice is an action....a lucid action, selecting between available options.
But most of life wills itself unconscionably.....selects unconsciously.

The problem is how we define words, like choice.
Do we begin with the perceptible act, or do we begin with texts in a book, that becomes conventional, meaning it becomes popular?
If we begin with the act, then we cannot say that choice is an illusion, and our will is unfree.

[Alexis Jacobi]

And your race/genetics tangent? Lazy bait. I’m not here to entertain racial essentialism masquerading as philosophy.

Hold on. I can think of no philosophy more amenable to race and genetic realism than that of hard determinism.

Need this be explained and defended?!

[Pistolero]

The cosmos did not choose me, it only chose Mickey.....and Mickey had no choice but to become a 'willing agent' of divine justice.

Biblical.

This is an interesting and I think a valid point.

It brings to mind the notion of the transvaluation of values in the sense that though BigMike declares himself totally opposed to the idea of a ruling divinity that determines Justice; yet he presents himself as a demi-god-like vehicle for True Justice to become seated in our world.

Less transvaluation, perhaps, and yet a mirroring re-valuation. A re-application.

And one very certainly determined by a man’s will and decision.

Mike’s God is a novelistic, postmodern version.

Underlying it is Mickey's belief that he's "on the right side of history"....meaning that cosmic determinism will inevitably lead to his utopia, and he is its will-less agency.

He's for cosmic totalitarian authoritarian absolutism, i.e., god, minus mediating earthly authorities, priests, and the anthropomorphism.
An updated version of Abrahamism.

Tikun Olam - healing the world from its multiplicities and injustices.

[Pistolero]

And your race/genetics tangent? Lazy bait. I’m not here to entertain racial essentialism masquerading as philosophy.

Hold on. I can think of no philosophy more amenable to race and genetic realism than that of hard determinism.

Need this be explained and defended?!

His determinism is selective....idealistic.
It is always fair....benevolent.
See?

God has been replaced by Universe.

He will always self-contradict.
As I said....nihilism can only endure an existence it cannot tolerate, but wants to nullify, if it self-contradicts, using linguistic obfuscations.

The blame must always be directed on what they can change....ironically, what they choose to change.
They will deny races as being causally determined...contradicting their own bullshyte.
Compartmentalization. Double-speak.

I know a guy who was like Mickey, for other reasons....
He declared free-will void of meaning, but continuously blamed the police, judges, the system, for his plight...essentially contradicting himself.
If he has no free-will, then why does the police?
Why did the Nazis?
Why do Mary's ovjectivists, have a choice, if she's their innocent victim, with no choice?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Mike, please. Crack open not one but TWO potent energy drinks and for the love of Cosmic Determinism work out an adequate defense here!

Cracks have appeared in my world! A fierce wind howls! I hear the hoofs of approaching Horsemen!

[Pistolero]

Pistolero,

In reading your posts, I got the impression that you believe in a compatibilist version of free-will. Free-will without anything uncaused.

Do you think there is an uncaused component in free-will?

Just to be clear...
I do not deny causality. Everything is caused...everything is interactive.
I say that life is a special kind of causality - an intentional one.
I say, life PARTICIPATES in what is being determined....otherwise life is unnecessary and the method if its evolution is contradicted, if choice is an illusion and actions are un-free.

Free is a qualifier.
I do not define it as these hypocrites to, by choosing a definition that will satisfy their desires.
Free does not mean independent from existence.
Free, like strong, like power, refers to Will, as a descriptive qualifier, vaulting a relationship.
So will is not absolutely free, as it is not absolutely powerful - it is relatively so.
What is Will - intentional action. Action with an objective.
So, what is free?
A measurement of options.

[Pistolero]

Little Mickey tells us about all the benefits of having a big brain, but his "big brain" neglects to tell us how this manifests in real time.
How does the ability to perceive and foresee, become an advantage, if actions are un-free - absolutely and completely - and choices, another kind of act, are illusions?
He negates the advantages he just told us about.
How does a good judgment manifest in the world, Mickey?
If not through actions, then how....projections.....magical forces....How?

Then he, conveniently, denies that determinism determines races, though we can all see human variances, and subspecies are part of all species.
All species have sub-species...except, according to little Mickey and his postmodern deterministic fanatics...except one.
In this one case, all the determining occurs in a society.
Convenient no?

See, for little Mickey, determinism is just and in agreement with his chosen ideals.
His determinism is postmodern.....isn't that amazing?
Magical.
Some MAGI has fooled us that we have a choice, that our will is free, and it can choose from among multiple options, but it has also determined that there are no races.
I call that an amazing conjuring trick.

Does life exists, or is it another illusion?
Because I cannot explain how life emerges, and little Mickey cannot explain how organic varieties evolve, so it must be some kind of trick....an illusion.
Maybe everything is not living, but we were fooled into believing that we are alive.

Does gravity exist?
I mean I can't entirely explain that, either....but I experience it, as I experience my will.

These hypocrites are amazing.
Magical thinking.
Defensive projections- they accuse you of what they fear they are most guilty of.
Whatever challenges their worldview, is an illusion....a product of the human mind. Like race and gender.
But when it suits them, then no man is responsible for his circumstances.

I see will acting every day. I experience it in myself...nope, it's unfree, according to little Mickey.
I expedience choice in myself and in others. I choose daily.
Nope...unreal. A conjurer's trick. But I'm the Magical thinker.
I see races. I experience them performing in predictable ways....nope, that's where Mickey draws the line on determinism
On Causality.
He can only go as far as where man can be blamed for human disparities.
But he cannot tell us how that works.
If men cause human differences in wealth and IQ, then do they choose to do so, or are they free to will it?
Does this mean the universe is at fault, and little Mickey is here to reminds us that he will set things right....without agency, mind you.

[Alexiev]

See, for little Mickey, determinism is just and in agreement with his chosen ideals.
His determinism is postmodern.....isn't that amazing?
Magical.

I agree with most of your criticisms of Mike (as is clear if you read this thread, which, given its length, I do not recommend). However, Mike is a modernist, not a postmodernist. Modernism suggests grand, explanatory truths; postmodernism suggests differing points if view. Modernism suggests the parts explain and predict the whole; postmodernism suggests the whole csn sometimes "emerge" as being more than the sum of the parts.

[Pistolero]

See, for little Mickey, determinism is just and in agreement with his chosen ideals.
His determinism is postmodern.....isn't that amazing?
Magical.

I agree with most of your criticisms of Mike (as is clear if you read this thread, whic, given its length, I do not recommend). However, Mike is a modernist, not a postmodernist. Modernism suggests grand, explanatory truths; postmodernism suggests differing points if view. Modernism suggests the parts explain and predict the whole; postmodernism suggests the whole csn sometimes "emerge" as being more than the sum of the parts.

True....he may be another modernist, influence by the enlightenment.

But I consider modernism a necessary precursor to postmodernism.
The failure of modernism to produce its ideal world, produced the insanity of postmodernism that denies the very existence of objective reality.

His rejection of races, falls in line with denying the apparent, for the sake of the ideal.

[Pistolero]

In both cases god is replaced with the cocnept of absolute order.
If absolute order were a fact then all would be determined, following predictable paths.
No need for consciousness or life, or the "illusion" to be perpetrated.
But they neglect chaos, properly defined.
Not complexity, but the absence of order.
Then will is essential to survival.

[Alexiev]

In both cases god is replaced with the cocnept of absolute order.
If absolute order were a fact then all would be determined, following predictable paths.
No need for consciousness or life, or the "illusion" to be perpetrated.
But they neglect chaos, properly defined.
Not complexity, but the absence of order.
Then will is essential to survival.

Mike's attitude toward race is scientific and modernist. In my childhood, physical anthropologists thought there were 4 basic races. Since there was no DNA testing back then they based their theories on the notion that phenotypes mirrored genotypes. Modern DNA testing (clearly modernist) has demonstrated that these theories were poor descriptors of human genetic diversity. Race -- based on phenotype-- is of course still important culturally, but it is natural for the scientific modernist to emphasize the scientific reality over the cultural reality.