tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post112252398221655409..comments2024-03-28T12:34:14.649-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: The Argument from the Reliability of our Rational Faculties, or Should We Attack Water Balloons? (With a postscript from a commentator)Victor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-49805793652155376082011-06-25T17:10:14.918-07:002011-06-25T17:10:14.918-07:00No. He said some things I liked, however.No. He said some things I liked, however.Victor Repperthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-56878137142421947292011-06-25T16:49:15.459-07:002011-06-25T16:49:15.459-07:00I guess Anon is Victor Reppert?I guess Anon is Victor Reppert?Leonhardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13815705241524089233noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-72764069973832904382009-06-16T03:02:08.164-07:002009-06-16T03:02:08.164-07:00A few comments to some of Ahabs points:
In fact h...A few comments to some of Ahabs points:<br /><br /><i>In fact humans do not tend to respond positively to placebos. 70% or more of those taking them will not get better.</i><br /><br />If 30% of those taking sugar pills will get better, then humans often respond positively to placebos. That's quite astonishing and fits well with other reasearch in psychology about the influence of positive thought about the future. <br /><br /><i>Actually, if one found out that they were taking a placebo they would want the real medicine and consequently increase their chances of survival.</i> <br /><br />I agree with this, but the point is that the placebo effect promoted survival in the past, not that it does now. Many traits don't serve survival well now but did so in the past (adrenaline in a stress situation).<br /><br /><i>But now you've jumped from an individual belief to a system of beliefs.</i> <br /><br />I agree that this is the best objection to the "systematic error" argument. I guess this could be turned into a good argument, but nobody has done this so far.<br /><br /><i>Natural selection does not select for individual beliefs. It selects for the mechanism which is capable of forming beliefs. A person whose brain is able to arrive at enough true beliefs to increase its chances of surviving the hazards of this dangerous world is, all else being equal, going to have a greater likelihood of passing on her genes than a person whose brain is less adept at good belief formation.</i> <br /><br />This is the typical answer to any argument from reason. I think the problem with this answer is that it requires and presupposes a huge metaphysical framework that is highly controversal and becomes less and less plausible. It requires the "naive" view of mental causation, the idea that the content of our thoughts directly influence behavior. David Chalmers has made a great case against the kind of mental causation required for this view. <br /><br />Usually it also presupposes that evolution delivers an explanation for our phenomenological mental life. But this is highly implausible and disputed by many in the philosophy of mind. My zombie twin would have the same advante in natural selection that I have. <br /><br />I can't make a cogent case against this objection in a comment here because it presupposes so much. But overall it seems to me that the premise of the objection is highly disputed and that contemporary philosophy of mind actually moves away from it. This makes the objection useless.<br /><br />The reason why this objection is so common seems clear to me. It is very simple and fits very well with ordinary common sense convictions about the mental. This makes it attractive to anyone who is not familiar with the metaphysical problems it causes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-1123027340883932182005-08-02T17:02:00.000-07:002005-08-02T17:02:00.000-07:00Ahab,That was pretty brief so lemme expand (althou...Ahab,<BR/><BR/>That was pretty brief so lemme expand (although expand briefly as my exposure to probability and statistics is also pretty brief).<BR/><BR/>In some discussions (I believe Plantinga's, but I don't have a text at hand), it is said that the probability that we would have reliable faculties given evolutionary theory and naturalism is either low or inscrutible. The argument for this is that selection pressures don't favor such faculties. <BR/><BR/>I think this overlooks something important--selection pressures operate on populations where organisms have various traits already. So while selection pressures might not favor certain things across the board (except perhaps things that confer survival value), selection pressure might favor reliability for certain creatures with certain features under specified conditions. We might argue that the probability of organism having reliable faculties (R) is low given evolution (E) and naturalism (N) but as we fill in further details of that organism, their continued survival may in fact show the conditional probability of R and this extra information on E and N is quite high. <BR/><BR/>So while we might be able to conceive of creatures who can survive without reliable ways of informing themselves about their surroundings, that is very very different from imagining how we might fluorish given our equipment, needs, and surroundings without reliable faculties.Clayton Littlejohnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05596200828134402805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-1122839330639344382005-07-31T12:48:00.000-07:002005-07-31T12:48:00.000-07:00You wrote:If naturalism is true, it is often argue...You wrote:<BR/><BR/><I>If naturalism is true, it is often argued that natural selection would support the emergence of rational as opposed to irrational belief-forming mechanisms. But it is not at all clear to me that the most reliable belief-forming mechanisms are the most advantageous from an evolutionary point of view.</I><BR/><BR/>Perhaps. But isn't the issue really going to be whether they are advantageous given our surroundings, other features of our design, etc.? If so, then this isn't really so much of a problem for the defender of E&N as some such as Plantinga suggest. The odds that something with other aspects of our design in situations that are like ours could survive without reliable belief forming processes might be exceedingly high even if other conditional probabilities will be lower depending on what is omitted from the antecedent. This seems like a very elementary point about evolution and probability but if Plantinga and crew have addressed it, I must have completely missed it.Clayton Littlejohnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05596200828134402805noreply@blogger.com