Philosophical cojones

[SteveH]

Just a thought which occurred to me, which I don't expect to make a very long or complex thread (though you never know on here).
It often seems that some people, with some knowledge of, and interest in, philosophy (probably mainly blokes) always go for the bleakest, least comforting, least flattering to humanity position on any philosophical question, not because it is the one they are driven to by rigorous logic (that's what they claim, and probably believe, but often it is a nonsensical position), but to prove that they are intellectually tough enough to face "the truth", unlike all the other poor fools who demand a more comforting option. Take the free-will versus determinism thread, where various philosophasters are falling over each other to deny any kind of active choice, and promote the hardest version of determinism, despite the fact that if that was true they couldn't know it to be true, since they would have been predestined from all eternity to believe it, so it has nothing to do with logic. (I admit that we do not have full free-will as popularly conceived, but that's another matter.)
Then there are the epiphenominalists, who think that human consciousness is nothing more than the accidental result of chemical and electrical changes going on in our brains, whose main function is to control our bodies and help us feed and defend ourselves. This is obviously open to a similar objection to the one to hard determinism, but no matter - it makes its proponent look tough-minded, which is what matters.
At a cruder level, there are all the dim-wits who know pretty much nothing about philosophy, but will proudly say that they are Nietzcheans, because they've heard of Nietzche, and know him to be the bad boy of philosophy, so pretending to admire him earns you brownie points for edginess - never mind that Nietzche inspired the Nazis and numerous murderers, and was Ian Brady's favourite philosopher.
Thoughts?

[Nearly Sane]

Interesting post, but I think you need to illustrate things as being nonsensical positions. Essentially your trying to put forward that the motivation you have claimed for any on the free will determinism thread that you disagree with means they are wrong, rather than actually show that. That someone might have no choice in believing something is not an illustration that they are wrong. I agree that in one sense it makes it all a bit pointless if true, but people aren't defined by arguments like this.

 I see no reason to believe in free will because it doesn't seem to be defined in any logically coherent way BUT that makes no real difference to my life. It's an intellectual position which doesn't really have any effect on my day to day life, As I've often quoted on this in that ' Of course I believe in free will, I have no choice'. A lot of this is related to feeling as if someone is very confused when they tell me they have a worldview. I've never been able to work out a worldview and on an 99,5% of what I do it's not a consideration.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Just a thought which occurred to me, which I don't expect to make a very long or complex thread (though you never know on here).
It often seems that some people, with some knowledge of, and interest in, philosophy (probably mainly blokes) always go for the bleakest, least comforting, least flattering to humanity position on any philosophical question, not because it is the one they are driven to by rigorous logic (that's what they claim, and probably believe, but often it is a nonsensical position), but to prove that they are intellectually tough enough to face "the truth", unlike all the other poor fools who demand a more comforting option. Take the free-will versus determinism thread, where various philosophasters are falling over each other to deny any kind of active choice, and promote the hardest version of determinism, despite the fact that if that was true they couldn't know it to be true, since they would have been predestined from all eternity to believe it, so it has nothing to do with logic. (I admit that we do not have full free-will as popularly conceived, but that's another matter.)
Then there are the epiphenominalists, who think that human consciousness is nothing more than the accidental result of chemical and electrical changes going on in our brains, whose main function is to control our bodies and help us feed and defend ourselves. This is obviously open to a similar objection to the one to hard determinism, but no matter - it makes its proponent look tough-minded, which is what matters.
At a cruder level, there are all the dim-wits who know pretty much nothing about philosophy, but will proudly say that they are Nietzcheans, because they've heard of Nietzche, and know him to be the bad boy of philosophy, so pretending to admire him earns you brownie points for edginess - never mind that Nietzche inspired the Nazis and numerous murderers, and was Ian Brady's favourite philosopher.
Thoughts?

I think Dawkins goes for Macho bleako when he can. But because he is highly contradictory he can get very Pinker and become ludicrously optimistic. Funnily enough, there is evidence that he is not really that enthusiastic about science where although terrifically gifted untimately proved secondarily committed to it's promotion IMHO.
Gray is Mucho Bleako in that we are trapped ina destructive human nature

[SteveH]

Interesting post, but I think you need to illustrate things as being nonsensical positions. Essentially your trying to put forward that the motivation you have claimed for any on the free will determinism thread that you disagree with means they are wrong...

It's not that strict determinsts are necessarily wrong, but that if they are right they can never know it - or anything else.

[Stranger]

...since they would have been predestined from all eternity to believe it, so it has nothing to do with logic.

It's not that strict determinsts are necessarily wrong, but that if they are right they can never know it - or anything else.

How about some actual logic to back up these assertions? I see no reason at all to exclude a deterministic being from coming to logical conclusions and being able to have actual knowledge.

Hearts have evolved into pretty good blood pumps, why wouldn't brains have evolved into pretty good knowledge gatherers and reasoning devices? We can also add to that, the evidence from our abilities to manipulate the physical world based on our beliefs and understanding.

See also: Darwin's “strange inversion of reasoning” - Plantinga's Attempted Reductio ad Absurdum of Naturalism

[SteveH]

How about some actual logic to back up these assertions? I see no reason at all to exclude a deterministic being from coming to logical conclusions and being able to have actual knowledge.

Hearts have evolved into pretty good blood pumps, why wouldn't brains have evolved into pretty good knowledge gatherers and reasoning devices? We can also add to that, the evidence from our abilities to manipulate the physical world based on our beliefs and understanding.

See also: Darwin's “strange inversion of reasoning” - Plantinga's Attempted Reductio ad Absurdum of Naturalism

If strict determinism is the case, we were always pre-determined to believe what we believe - it's got nothing to do with logic or evidence.

[Stranger]

If strict determinism is the case, we were always pre-determined to believe what we believe - it's got nothing to do with logic or evidence.

That's just a non sequitur, for the reasons already given. Predetermined does not imply absence of logic or evidence.

[wigginhall]

Yes, an interesting OP, but a distinct lack of detail.   For example, 'dim wits' who like Nietzsche.   For example?   Ditto epiphenomenalists, who do you mean? 

These seem like easy targets, as nothing is spelled out. 

[Dicky Underpants]

At a cruder level, there are all the dim-wits who know pretty much nothing about philosophy, but will proudly say that they are Nietzcheans, because they've heard of Nietzche, and know him to be the bad boy of philosophy, so pretending to admire him earns you brownie points for edginess - never mind that Nietzche inspired the Nazis and numerous murderers, and was Ian Brady's favourite philosopher.
Thoughts?

Bit of a simplistic summing up of Nietzsche. Your approach is akin to those who say we must reject everything that Darwin argued for because he inspired social Darwinism, which is a vile idea, and mostly extrapolated from arguments and mere phrases which Darwin never actually used (Spencer is the bugbear here).
That apart, the case of Nietzsche is not quite so clear-cut, since there is a hysterical element in the later Nietzsche (he went nuts after all) which the Nazis latched onto. Most of the fascist bilge, however, derived from jottings that N had consigned to the wastepaper basket, from where they were rescued by his egregious sister and her shit-brained husband Forster - these jottings were then cobbled together in the sorry tome "The Will to Power", to make it seem that Nietzsche himself thought of this concept in purely militaristic and political terms. N deserves to be read without the kind of anecdotal bias you have promoted.
(The outcome of Nietzsche's sister and her husband's grand plans for an Aryan colony in Paraguay had a tragi-comic outcome, by the way. The genetic monsters resulting from 'pure' inbreeding didn't quite produce the Master Race.)

P.S.
In a way, the thought of Nietzsche epitomises the whole free will/determinism debate, beloved of posters here. Nietzsche believed that the Ubermensch could be eventually realised by acts of will. However, this aspect of his thought is contradicted by his idea of Eternal Recurrence. Maybe the latter concept has been nullified by the discoveries of modern physics, since Nietzsche's idea is dependent on a universe of a finite number of atoms which could, in the infinity of time, be recycled again and again. Even so, N's life sums up the basic problem in a particularly graphic way.

[torridon]

If strict determinism is the case, we were always pre-determined to believe what we believe - it's got nothing to do with logic or evidence.

Not sure that follows. For a start, determinism does not imply predetermination as we cannot account either way for randomness.  Secondly, there is nothing about that concept of determinism that prevents thinking, believing, knowing etc.