tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post6677697675269946206..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: More Happiness and Desire FulfillmentAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-92164321808277987502008-01-12T11:39:00.000-07:002008-01-12T11:39:00.000-07:00An interesting discussion, if I can stir the pot:-...An interesting discussion, if I can stir the pot:-)<BR/><BR/>@atheistobserver:<I>The idea we seek to make propositions true is philosophically interesting, but it’s almost certainly not consciously true for virtually all animal behavior, including some very complex ones.</I><BR/>Who says it needs to be "consciously true". desire here is a description of a brain state. In our case, usually although not always, we can verbalise out desire. The fact that animals cannot and may not even be conscious of their desires does not alter this as a description of a type of brain state. <BR/> <BR/><BR/>@atheistobserver:<I>Since we’re animals that means either 1) we have a totally different motivational system than all other animals,</I><BR/>This does not follow at all. Please explain how they are fundamentally different. <BR/><BR/>@atheistobserver:<I> 2) We have some sort of tacked-on additional motivational system, </I><BR/>No rather we have an expanded motivational systems - due to the capacities for imagination and symbolisation the targets of our desires is greatly expanded beyond those of animals, plus we can verbalise and analyse these desires which animals cannot do either. Still underlying this is the same type of motivational system for both us and other animals.<BR/><BR/>@atheistobserver:<I>or 3) this whole “seeking to make propositions true” concept does not accurately describe our motivational system at all.</I><BR/>I cannot see how this follows given the above. <BR/><BR/>@atheistobserver:<I> I can easily propose that the agent desires H and sees all these as ways to get to H. Without H, why does the agent have these desires?</I><BR/>You can propose this yes, but what is your evidence that this is the case. This looks like (not just from this quote) that Happiness is an intrinsic value and the only end to evaluate all desires against and they are all means to that end. Surely this falls prey to the Euthyphro dilemma. Is it good because it makes you happy or does it make you happy because it is good. Well there are numerous problems if you take the first horn of this dilemma and if you take the second then happiness has not added anything substantive to the debate.<BR/><BR/>@atheistobserver:<I>The issue of incommensurability of value ...If one allows happiness instead to be a two dimensional plane or three dimensional space, based on some combination of three brain chemicals, say serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline, it’s quite possible one could enjoy the sensation of happiness at one point in this space, but realize that the sensation of happiness could be qualitatively different at another point.</I><BR/>Your idea of happiness is becoming very nebulous with this multi-dimensional formulation and why not avoid talk of "happiness" and just talk about these chemicals like the eliminative would like? Why now assert this as an intervening variable, or multiple entities - Occam's could would eliminate it? Why not just state that desires are brain states with the various neurochemicals etc? <BR/><BR/>@atheistobserver:<I>What we have to establish is how evolution can tell the brain what things out there in the real world are good and bad.</I> <BR/>Evolution does not tell the brain what is good and bad in the world, so there is nothing to establish. Organisms succeed via how they obtain states of affairs suitable for survival and replication and avoid states of affairs that prevent survival and replication, including providing heritable characteristics to their progeny. The brain is just one the means, an important one yes, but not an end. <BR/><BR/>@atheistobserver:<I>Some things it gives us an instinctive fear of. Some things it teaches us through pain. Some things it rewards us through pleasure. You claim this is not all. </I><BR/>I assume by 'it' you mean evolution all these some are means of using the brain as a means to the success of the organism. Our motivational set might have these as prototypes but it is much broader - due to the expanded capacities of our brain - than collapsing this to these two features as a single dimension.Martin Freedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-87824207780823362032008-01-12T08:34:00.000-07:002008-01-12T08:34:00.000-07:00I did not intend the question to be the nonsensica...I did not intend the question to be the nonsensical “why do we want to do the things we want to do?” but the question you seem never to want to answer, “Where do these desires come from?”<BR/>It’s relatively easy to determine certain chemical states drive one to seek food, and there are hormones that drive sex urges, but how does one come to have a desire to make the world a better place? “I want to make the world a better place because I have a desire to make it a better place” explains nothing, it’s just circular.<BR/>The idea we seek to make propositions true is philosophically interesting, but it’s almost certainly not consciously true for virtually all animal behavior, including some very complex ones. Since we’re animals that means either 1) we have a totally different motivational system than all other animals, 2) We have some sort of tacked-on additional motivational system, or 3) this whole “seeking to make propositions true” concept does not accurately describe our motivational system at all.<BR/>In your example you have an agent with desires A1, A2, A3, A4, and A5. I can easily propose that the agent desires H and sees all these as ways to get to H. Without H, why does the agent have these desires?<BR/>The issue of incommensurability of value can only be used if one demands happiness be a one-dimensional vector. If one allows happiness instead to be a two dimensional plane or three dimensional space, based on some combination of three brain chemicals, say serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline, it’s quite possible one could enjoy the sensation of happiness at one point in this space, but realize that the sensation of happiness could be qualitatively different at another point.<BR/>As to your last question, all evolution can do is work with out brain states. Our genes can’t control the external world. As you have so often stated, the external world has no value at all without desires. What we have to establish is how evolution can tell the brain what things out there in the real world are good and bad. Some things it gives us an instinctive fear of. Some things it teaches us through pain. Some things it rewards us through pleasure. You claim this is not all. I’d just like to know what other mechanisms you think evolution uses to give us our view of what real things out there we should desire to be true.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-29054607947870298052008-01-10T21:25:00.000-07:002008-01-10T21:25:00.000-07:00Atheist Observer(1) I do not need to explain why w...<B>Atheist Observer</B><BR/><BR/>(1) I do not need to explain why we want to fulfill these desires because I deny that we want to fulfill these desires.<BR/><BR/>A desire that P is a brain state that motivates an agent to bring about a state of affairs in which P is true. The desire explains why the agent wants P. The desire also explains the motivation to bring about P, because the desire that P and the motivation to bring about P <I>are the same thing</I>. They are two different descriptions of the same brain state.<BR/><BR/>You want me to explain "why we want to fulfill these desires". However, to say that we want to fulfill these desires is to say that we desire to fulfill these desires. Or, it is to say that we "desire that P" where P = "that our desires are fulfilled."<BR/><BR/>If I am required to give an answer to this question then I must also be required to give an answer to the next question:<BR/><BR/>Why do we want to fulfill our desire that we fulfill our desires?<BR/><BR/>Which leads to the next question: Why do we want to fulfill our desire to fulfill our desire to fulfill our desires?<BR/><BR/>Your question contains an assumption that leads to an infinite regress. This suggests that there is something wrong with the question. What is wrong with the question is that it assumes that motivation is something separate from the desire. It takes a desire and says, "Where is the motivation to fulfill this desire?"<BR/><BR/>A desire is a motivational state. The motivation to fulfill a desire is built into the desire itself. Indeed, if an agent is not motivated to act so as to bring about P, then it would be a mistake to say that he desires that P.<BR/><BR/>(2) It is not, in fact, simpler to have one reward system that motivates a group of different actions.<BR/><BR/>Let us say that an agent desires H, and that they do actions A1, A2, A3, A4, and A5 because they are means to bring about H. You still have to postulate five different pathways to H - plus you have to postulate H.<BR/><BR/>If, instead, you postulate that an agent desires A1, A2, A3, A4, and A5 directly. This turns out to actually being simpler than postulating five different pathways to H.<BR/><BR/>Another problem with the happiness theory is the incommensurability of value - that fact that there is something missing when we obtain one good and sacrifice another. This suggests that we have multiple goods, not just one good (H).<BR/><BR/>And there is the question of why evolution would mold us to realize a particular brain state than to realize states in the real world. It's states in the world that are responsible for our genetic replication, not brain states.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-66476655081865746462008-01-10T20:59:00.000-07:002008-01-10T20:59:00.000-07:00Alonzo,You have made a couple of logical errors. F...Alonzo,<BR/><BR/>You have made a couple of logical errors. First you say DU explains why external things matter. It does not. It states that they matter to fulfill desires, but does not explain why we want to fulfill these desires.<BR/>Second, you confuse conceptual simplicity with biological simplicity. Conceptually it is simpler to have no underlying reward system for a particular desire, but biologically it is far simpler to have one or a few reward systems which can be used to motivate a wide variety of desires than to evolve a different motivation or reward system for each new desire.<BR/>I don’t know if happiness is the only motivator, or even if happiness is a particularly good descriptive word for the underlying motivation reward state, but I think it highly likely that the fundamentals of behavior motivation depend on no more than the minimum processes and mechanisms that evolution has found necessary for us to survive.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com