| | In response to the first post by Brady here, just for the record - and this doesn't mean that I'm a Christian or have any belief in Gods or Goddesses (well, on that count.. there are definitely Goddesses , e.g., a certain Erica - just not with any supernatural powers... I think...) - any more than my post that I have no inherent objection to non-coercive man-boy love makes me a pedophile - but, as I was writing...
For the record, I know and have known a number of Christians who were great fans of "Atlas Shrugged," which amazed and continues to amaze me. Rand explicitly posed her philosophy as a denial of and replacment for the whole Judeo-Christian ethos. Somehow that got past them.
That said, some of the Christians I have met over the years display a very high regard for rationality and do not consider their religious beliefs to be founded upon unsupported "faith." Christendom has a long and powerful intellectual tradition, deriving mostly I think from the neo-Aristoteleans of the high middle ages - despite the lack of evidence for it in the mass media evangelical circuit or the typical pulpit.
I have several times discussed here the fact that we really don't know, in any absolute sense, that we are not in some dream, hallucination or epistemology machine, including one created by a self-styled "God." In a dream, we "remember" things that never happened, as part of the internally generated reality. So, also, in an epistemology machine we could be recalling with great certainty that we clearly proved "A" to be true, when in fact the machine was just turned on a moment before.
This is something we do all the time in dreams. We awaken with the thought that we just discovered a profound truth of the universe, but in the morning when we read our scrawled note to self, it is something like (as a friend of mine found next to his bed) "Man is something else...."
Since I know of no way around this problem other than decision theory, I will stick with that. Decision theory involves the weighting of conclusions according to outcomes. Even though one conclusion might be more likely than another, we may rationally choose to go with the less likely on the basis of the projected consequences. For example, perhaps 99% of the time, a man approaching our car in a dark alleyway is looking for directions, spare change, etc.
However, if we are a 110 pound female unversed in martial arts, we lock the doors anyway, because that 1% has much weightier consequences. Pascal's wager, discussed by me elsewhere here, is an explicit use of what became decision theory, although his wager fails for reasons I cite. The bottom line is that you should assume that you are awake and in a "real" reality until evidence shows otherwise and provides something to do about it.
However, there are other problems with Objectivism and a belief in a diety. Objectivism stipulates and provides good reason to conclude that the primary value to each individual is his own life, objectively speaking, and should be subjectively chosen by each individual as such. This is not consistent with the idea that we should live for another, whether God or our neighbors.
In fact, selfishness on the most basic level is indistinguishable from intentionality. We act to gain and or keep things that we value. Operationally speaking, a value is that which we act to gain and/or keep. How could we choose to act against our own values? If we choose to take an action - a purposeful* motion (*intended to achieve a goal) - then for us, subjectively, that IS our value.
Because operational values are a matter of choice, resting upon knowledge of consequences and a hierarchy of preceding evaluations, however, there is the possibility of error. Just because we chose to make something a value - something to be sought after - does not mean that it was a correct decision.
For example, if the value we just chose is inherently impossible to attain, then all our effort will be wasted.
Or, if the value chosen contradicts other values we already are in pursuit of which are actually more important, then attaining that value will actually be a net dis-value, by our own standards.
Thus, consistency and possibility are at least two parameters by which we can judge prospective values. Already this severely limits the field of candidate.
Another criteria is that if you are no longer alive, then no values are possible to you, as "you" no longer exist. Thus, a "value" that inevitably kills you is not a good candidate.
In fact, if you think of yourself as a value-driven system, with an inherent desire to maximize the number and quality of values achieved, then it follows that only by chosing values that enhance your survival and general capacity to act as a particular kind of being with a particular identity - "human," will you most fully satisfy that inherent desire. Attempting to act in contradiction to your nature or beyond your inherent capacities simply falls into the category already discussed of values either inherently impossible to achieve or values that contradict each other, including more important values.
More later...
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