The Ramifications of Secular Ethics
The ramifications of a rational proof of secular ethics run deep and wide, and I have discussed some of the challenging re-evaluations of existing norms in my other books and articles. Suffice it to say that placing the non-aggression principle at the centre of our moral thought completely rewrites what we think of as society from the ground up.
This may be hard for some people to work through, emotionally and intellectually, but it is essential for the moral progress of humanity.
Over the last hundred years or so, in the Western world, we have seen the unmitigated awfulness of the First World War, the Second World War, hyperinflation, a fourteen-year Great Depression, communism, fascism, innumerable genocides, the Holocaust, the Holodomor, staggering levels of national debts and unfunded liabilities, a collapsing infrastructure, ruinous and decaying public schools, ever-escalating propaganda in higher education, a migrant crisis, increased racial and ethnic tensions – just to name a few of the virtually endless disasters of the modern world.
When societies continually lurch from disaster to disaster, essential principles need to be re- examined – or created for the first time, if need be. We should not fear this examination, but rather welcome and embrace it as a difficult but necessary salvation for civilization.
We have a modern world – with its benefits as well as its disasters – because people in the past challenged essential assumptions about personal and political ethics.
Christians in the West fought and paid and bled and died to end slavery worldwide, with significant success. Slavery was a tradition as old as mankind – for well over one hundred thousand years, and probably closer to one hundred and fifty thousand – and it was ended in a matter of decades, at least in the West.
For countless thousands of years, the state and the church were unified in most Western societies. The separation of church and state – the restoration of the original Christian concept of uncoerced conscience – was eventually largely achieved, albeit after hundreds of years of religious warfare.
Free trade, unimaginable throughout most of the Dark and Middle Ages, was largely achieved from the eighteenth century onward in some European countries.
Equality before the law was largely achieved, albeit with a highly wobbly and uncertain record since.
Moral progress is a difficult and dangerous game for society. The only thing more dangerous than moral progress is moral stagnation and decay.
The Value of Philosophy
We have tried organizing society in countless different ways – none of which fundamentally involve philosophy.
Philosophers have tried entering politics – Plato took this approach in Syracuse and almost ended up being sold into slavery – but that generally meant playing by the foggy rules of sophistry, manipulation and coercion. It is dangerous to tell the truth to a society programmed to love lies.
We have tried organizing society by religion, by class, by theocracy, by tribalism, by democracy, by republics, according to the general will, via fascism, communism, socialism, through the power of the aristocracy and the influence of money over the state – we have tried just about everything except reason, evidence and universal morality.
We have tried revolutions, which impose irrational ideologies – usually by force – upon the unwilling masses. We have tried wiping traditional social values out of existence and replacing them with propaganda, which results in endless and brutal disasters. We have tried appealing to sentimentality, emotion, patriotism, racism and all the volatile and often-destructive passions of the mob. We have deployed sophistry, falsehoods, indoctrination, manipulation, superstition, ostracism for nonconformity, verbal attacks, slander, libel, endless state-sponsored violence – with the end result that we face imminent disaster as a civilization.
The appeal to reason goes back thousands of years – at least to the time of Socrates. It has always remained incomplete and fragmentary, largely because the twin tyrannies of theology and statism threatened or killed those who questioned their imaginary principles.
As free speech gained more certain footing, ostracism and exclusion were deployed to keep freethinkers out of the discussion. Academics, media personalities and owners, publishers, movie and television studio heads – you name it – the gatekeepers were always out in full force, making sure that discussion remained somewhat lively, but only within very narrow parameters.
The growth of the internet – of unfiltered conversations – has created the great gift of the possibility of reason to mankind for the first time in human history. The possibility of universal and direct speech among the curious and the thoughtful has never before existed – and is quite threatened in the here and now.
The possibility exists (in a very narrow window, I believe) that we may finally be able to submit essential questions – of good and evil, force and peace, violence versus voluntarism – to philosophy, to the twin judges of reason and evidence.
Forces opposed to philosophy – most of the existing power structures in the world, from the state to academics to the mainstream media, to public and private powermongers of every kind – gather even as you read this, even as we speak, to shut down the growing voices demanding and respecting philosophy.
Mankind has the power to think and reason, to oppose evil and support virtue. We are born with this power, but it is scoured and stripped from us through omnipresent propaganda and violence.
Our birthright is free thought; our upbringing is ever-escalating censorship and abuse.
Society remains trapped within a dismal cycle wherein economic freedoms bring wealth, wealth brings political corruption, and corruption brings social collapse. As the old saying goes, hard men bring good times, good times bring weak men, and weak men bring bad times.
The only way out of this cycle is through philosophy, through an acceptance and submission to objective reality and rationality, through the development and promulgation of universal and rational ethical propositions, and through the rejection of anti-rational ideologies.
All of this sounds wonderful – who could be against the rational? – which begs the question: Why has it yet to be achieved?
It has yet to be achieved because philosophy has yet to take down its greatest foe.
The universalization of equality under the law eliminated slavery and the various injustices against minorities. And it is working slowly but surely against the prejudices of childism – the acceptance of male and female genital mutilation; and the physical violence against, the mental drugging of, and the overall neglect of children.
Equality under the law is not a universalization, since there are those who remain above the law – not just in theory, but in practice.
The existence of centralized lawmakers – of the state – is a violation of universality and rationality, and thus remains an anti-rational moral hypothesis.
Taxation is the initiation of force to take property.
Science does not advance through voting – a scientific theory is not considered valid if fifty-one out of one hundred scientists vote for it.
Moral propositions do not become valid because the majority votes for them.
Two men in a forest do not morally get to rape a woman they find, even if all three put it to a vote.
Two crazy people do not logically get to override a mathematician who tells them that two and two make four.
Truth, reason, objectivity and virtue lie outside the collective mindlessness of the mob. The mob voted to put Socrates to death; their vote did not make their murder moral.
Sophists love to make the mob the standard of virtue, because sophists are so good at manipulating the passions of the mob.
The Essence of Sophistry
The main purpose of sophistry – its main value to those in charge – is its capacity to create pseudo-universals.
If you can create a rule called “thou shall not steal” – and then create an exception to that rule for yourself, your group, your tribe – or your government – then you are about the most effective thief you can be.
Governments were instituted, so the belief goes, to protect property and people. This is entirely false, as history clearly shows.
Governments “protect” people in the way that farmers protect their livestock – in order to ensure maximum continued exploitation. If governments were so interested in protecting people, then why did governments murder over two hundred and fifty million of their own citizens – outside of war – in the twentieth century alone?
Governments “protect” property because property rights promote wealth generation. Governments apply property rights to their tax livestock in the way that farmers apply antibiotics to their meat livestock.
If governments were so interested in protecting property, then why do governments take the majority of their citizens’ property at gunpoint?
Many priesthoods around the world claim that everyone is subject to the law of God, but then claim priests alone have special access to the will of their God. Ignorance of God’s law is no excuse, but only they truly understand God’s law.
Here again we see a category and an exception.
The exception is the purpose of the categorization – morality was originally invented to convince gullible people to be “good,” so they could be more easily and efficiently exploited by evildoers.
Think of the “social contract.”
In this construct, people voluntarily give up certain freedoms in order to gain the protections of the state. However, this describes nothing at all in reality. We are born subjected to the near- infinite power of the state, which can strip us of our property and freedom virtually at will, and we never sign a damn thing.
Also, note that the “social contract” is unilateral – it can only be imposed by governments upon citizens, not by citizens upon each other, and certainly not by citizens upon their government. If the government is part of society, but it is exempted from being subject to the initiation of force justified by the social contract, then we have a special sophistic exception, a pseudo-universal.
If the government is not part of society – but is composed of human beings – then we have more pseudo-universals. The concepts of “humanity” and “society” contain opposite moral prescriptions – a commandment to respect persons and property, which applies to human beings called “citizens,” and an opposite commandment to violate persons and property, which applies to human beings called “the government.”
Once you begin to see these pseudo-universals, they will be revealed everywhere, and you will understand that they form the basis for the development of almost all systems of morality.
The destruction of sophistry is the destruction of pseudo-universals and the revealing of the naked coercive power that hides behind the hidden weaponry of ornate language.
The organization of human society along the lines and arguments of rational philosophy – according to the true universals reflected in reason and empirical evidence – will finally create a sustainable society of universal freedoms. The grim cycle of history – from freedom to abundance to corruption to collapse – will be broken at last.
It is my fervent hope that you will join me in promoting philosophy – to help turn this “hope” from a destructive mirage into a true oasis that can liberate and sustain us.
Massive swaths of humanity have adapted to surviving on the shreds of power, like pilot fish living on the scraps of sharks’ meals. The transition from coercion to voluntarism will not be easy, but as long as we have free speech, as long as we have a strong will, and as long as truth and reason are on our side, it is my belief that we will prevail, and the world will become free.
If society continues as it is, the existing fascistic finance system will collapse, the food supply will falter, and untold millions of people will fight and die. This is not a vision, but a mathematical and historical certainty.
It is probably too late for everyone to be saved by words, but enough can be saved to make words worthwhile.
Perhaps more importantly, philosophy can lay the foundation for the kind of society that will arise from the ashes of coercion and anti-rationality.
The great danger is that the coming crisis will be blamed on freedom, on trade, on property rights, on free speech and voluntarism. With this kind of diagnosis, our remaining freedoms will become like life-giving trees, hacked down and used to fuel the raging fires of eternal fascism.
What we have gained, the freedoms we possess, are too precious to sacrifice, even at sword point.
Entire future generations hang in the balance of what we do now, today – the words we can wield, and the strength of our will, and the consistency of our positions.
You have freedoms because past generations did not fail you. Do not fail the future, or there will be no future.
Sample Arguments
“Reality Is Subjective”
● I wish to take issue with the quaint notion that we can comprehend such a thing as “objective reality.” We do not, as humans, have the capacity to determine objectivity, or directly perceive what is commonly called “the real world.” Every statement we make contains the implicit premise: “as I see it!” “This is true, as I see it.” Every culture, every religion, every individual sees reality and defines truth in a different manner. And it is the mark of an uneducated person to imagine that his own personal perspective somehow translates into “true” statements about “objective reality.”
● Thank you for your statements. Are you saying it is objectively true that we cannot perceive objective truth?
● That is a foolish first-year undergraduate question, a silly trap from which there is a simple escape. The very concept of “objectivity” is what I wish to dismiss. Saying that it is objectively true that there is no such thing as objective truth would of course be a contradictory statement, but my whole point is that we should start rising above such petty tricks, and look at the true limitations of our “knowledge.”
● I do not see how that answers my question. You admit that both claiming and denying objective truth is a contradictory position, but then you deny the validity of the question, without making any further argument. It seems to me that you are denying the capacity for disproof in order to be able to make bland assertions without the requirement for reason and evidence.
● See, here is the problem again – you are talking about proof and disproof, and reason and evidence, and that is my point exactly! Such terms arise from archaic perceptions of philosophy prior to the rise of our understanding of quantum physics, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and other deep explorations of reality that utterly destroy even the concept of objectivity. We can call this the subjectivity hypothesis. I know it is difficult to accept emotionally, because we are so wedded to the superstition of objectivity – just as our ancestors were wedded to the superstition that ghosts lived in trees – but we must accept science and outgrow our prior limited perspectives.
● Are you saying that objectivity has been scientifically disproved by science?
● I am trying not to get impatient, but you do keep talking about proof and disproof, despite my repeated reminders that these are terms of mere historical interest, like “Zeus” and “alchemy.” Science supports the subjectivity hypothesis. Anthropology supports the subjectivity hypothesis. Cultural studies, gender studies, historical analyses – all these disciplines support the subjectivity hypothesis. Now, if you wish to master each of these disciplines and overturn the obvious subjectivity of their greatest practitioners and deepest analyses, be my guest – such a fantastic hubris is beyond my humble self.
● Do you consider science to be a subjective or objective pursuit?
● Again with these words – subjective, objective – I am saying that they are meaningless!
● No, you started this conversation by claiming that objectivity was incorrect and that we can only make statements about subjective perception. You made absolute statements – one of which was: “Whatever we say must be appended with ‘as I see it.’ ” However, you are not using your own thesis of universal subjectivity to reject my requirements for proof. Your argument that my words are archaic and should be discarded is presented as an absolute fact, not ‘as you see it.’ You make absolute statements about universal truth, and then retreat into rank subjectivism when I ask for objective proof of objective truths.
● Well of course everything I say is subjective – my point is that everything you say is subjective as well.
● Subjective – compared to what?
● There is no such thing as “compared to what.” That is my entire point! I have my subjective perceptions, you have your subjective perceptions – and that is the sum total of the human experience: subjective perceptions!
● So, when you say you know the “sum total of the human experience,” is that a subjective perspective, or an objective claim?
● It is a denial of objectivity!
● Is it a subjective denial of objectivity?
● Of course – everything is subjective!
● When you say everything is subjective, you are making a universal claim! Do you not understand that?
● If everything is subjective, there can be no such thing as a universal claim.
● I am a little confused – do you actually know what the word “everything” means? It means all things – in this case, every human perspective.
● Sure, every human perspective is subjective.
● Is it your subjective perception that other human beings exist?
● What do you mean?
● Pretending to not understand the question is usually a way of buying time, but all right, I will explain what I mean. If you say that every human perspective is subjective, you are claiming that other human beings exist outside your mind, which is an objective statement.
● I cannot prove for certain that other human beings exist outside my mind.
● Hm – now you seem to be friendlier with the word “prove,” but let us put that aside for now. If you cannot prove other human beings exist outside your mind, how can you make claims about the contents of their minds?
● I do not follow.
● All right – if I do not know how many art galleries there are in Budapest – or even if there are any art galleries in Budapest – how can I make certain claims about the pictures hanging in an art gallery in Budapest?
● I am not sure what this has to do with our argument.
● Well, if I do not know whether there any art galleries in Budapest, can I definitively say that there is no modern art hanging in any art gallery in Budapest?
● Again, you are using words like “definitively,” which I specifically reject.
● This is the problem we are having – any time I try to apply any kind of proof to the universal arguments you are making, you claim that there is no such thing as universals. You claim that all human perceptions are subjective. This requires that you have a deep knowledge of the contents of the minds of every human being, past, present and future. This is a universal statement.
● Nonsense! Do you believe that all mass has gravity?
● I do.
● Does that mean you require deep knowledge of all mass in the universe – past, present and future?
● Of course not.
● I do not require a deep knowledge of the contents of every human being’s mind to know that human beings are subjective, any more than you require deep knowledge of all mass to know that mass has gravity.
● I quite agree. When I make a universal statement about mass having gravity, I do not need to know details about every object in the universe – that is the entire point of universals.
● Then we are in agreement.
● We are, but not in the way that you want, or will like very much. We agree that you have made a universal statement about human subjectivity.
● I most certainly did not!
● You most certainly did – and you used the universal statement “mass has gravity” to supposedly argue against what I was saying. When you have a universal principle, according to your argument, you do not need specific details. You can only affirm that all human beings are subjective by using a universal principle, rather than a deep knowledge of all human consciousness. This you cannot wriggle out of – if all human beings are subjective, that is either a universal principle, or an empirical observation of universal characteristics. Either way, it is a claim of universal truth outside merely subjective human consciousness.
● Once more, you veer towards words like “proof” and “truth” and so on, when I specifically deny the validity of such language.
● Is such language universally invalid?
● You are stuck in a loop.
● No, my friend, it is you who are stuck in the loop. You make universal truth claims and absolute objective statements. When I then press you for proof or point out the contradictory nature of your statements, you merely deny the validity of truth, absolutism and objectivity. I reject such sophistry as foolish and self-serving. And so I ask you once more: Is it universally true that there is no such thing as universal truth?
● And I reply once more: There is no such thing as universal truth.
● Is that a universal truth?
● It is whatever you want it to be, my friend, because everything is subjective.
● I wish to be honest with you – I view your manipulations as destructive and cowardly. If you do not believe there is any such thing as universal truth, then why do you make philosophical arguments? Should there not be rational consequences to the rejection of particular concepts? For instance, if I claim I do not believe in ghosts, would it be honest for me to make money by leading people on ghost-hunting expeditions? If I claim to be a fishing guide while I do not believe there are any fish in one particular lake, does it make any sense for me to make money by encouraging people to fish in that lake? If I do not believe in God, am I an honourable man if I become a priest?
● Your comparisons do not make any sense to me.
● If I reject the possibility of alchemy – a magical process by which lead can be transformed into gold – then does it make much sense for me to spend my life trying to turn lead into gold?
● You can do whatever you want!
● No one is arguing against that. My question is: If I truly believe that everything is subjective, does it make any sense for me to use arguments to “correct” other people’s perspectives?
● Of course it does, if someone incorrectly believes that his consciousness can be objective!
● Here we are, right at the heart of things, and I thank you for putting your argument so concisely. You believe my perspective is incorrect, is that right?
● Of course. That should be obvious by now!
● If everything is subjective, how can I be incorrect?
● You are incorrect if you believe that something can be objective.
● That is not true. If everything is subjective, then all human perspectives are a matter of taste. If I say I like French fries, can you rationally contradict me? Can you tell me that I am wrong?
● Perhaps not, but if you say French fries are universally the best, then I can tell you that you are wrong.
● How can you tell me I am wrong? With reference to what? The reason I am asking is because when I attempt to disprove your arguments, you reject any standard of proof for objectivity or universality or comparison with material reality. Why could I not do the same to you if you attempt to disprove my belief that French fries are the best?
● I do not follow.
● If my subjective belief is that human beings can be objective, how can you disprove my perspective?
● Well, if everything is subjective, believing that objectivity is possible is incorrect.
● Why?
● Because it is a contradiction. It is a belief in something that is not true to say that human beings are capable of objectivity, since all human consciousness is subjective.
● So now you are willing to entertain the reality that a self-contradictory statement is incorrect. Earlier, when I pointed out that your statement that “it is universally true that there is no such thing as universal truth” was contradictory, you rejected self- contradiction as a valid reason to dismiss your argument. Now, you are embracing self-contradiction as a valid reason to dismiss my argument. The only thing that has changed is that in this scenario it is I who make the self-contradictory argument, whereas previously, it was you who made the self-contradictory argument. This is not a fair application of the principle, to apply it only to me, while excusing any self- contradictory arguments that you make. This is really a “heads I win, tails you lose” scenario.
● Now I am confused.
● No, you are not confused, you are just wrong.
“There Is No Such Thing as Free Will”
● Free will is an illusion. The human brain is composed of matter and energy, which are physical objects and properties. Such entities are subject to physical laws, which do not allow for free will. Saying that human beings choose their destiny is like saying that the moon chooses its orbit. Free will is the belief that human beings have the power to make choices outside the material realm of physical reality – in other words, that we are inhabited by a wilful ghost that is able to magically surmount the laws of physics and generate material states of mind from immaterial causes. Studies have repeatedly shown that human beings merely think they are making choices, when brain scans can clearly see that the origins of their “decisions” occurred deep in the mind, and then are only rationalized after the fact by people holding on to their precious superstition of free will. We are programmed by our minds to act – and we are also programmed by our minds to believe in free will, which mostly arises out of a superstitious lack of knowledge regarding the scientific reality of determinism. Prior to having physical explanations for natural phenomenon – storms, volcanoes, tsunamis – we projected an imaginary consciousness onto the material world. It is understandable, although regrettable, that largely through a lack of scientific understanding, we still project an imaginary consciousness called “free will” onto the material brain. It seems hard for people to let go of the soul, or the imaginary friend called “free will,” because it takes away their sense of specialness, as well as their ability to morally castigate others for their “failings.”
● There is a lot to digest in what you said. I will try to take things one step at a time. When you say that free will is an illusion, do you mean that an accurate understanding of the world – you refer to science very positively – is preferable to false beliefs about the world?
● Of course, we should always prefer truth to illusion, no matter how hard it is for our fragile egos – or for our illusion that we even have an ego.
● It does seem odd to me, I will confess, that you criticize those who believe in free will for morally castigating others, but you seem to refer to such people in derogatory terms. However, we will return to that later. First I wish to understand your position, that there is such a thing as a preferred state – for example, truth over falsehood – when the deterministic position would imply that there is no such thing as a preferred state.
● Determinism does not deny the existence of preferred states.
● Well, if it rains on your wedding day, you would be unhappy, but you would not take it personally – in other words, you would not ascribe negative moral qualities to the weather for ruining your special day.
● Of course not. That is my entire point!
● Would you say that it is possible for the weather to have a preferred state?
● I do not follow.
● Is it possible for a storm cloud, say, to prefer raining on a lake rather than a meadow?
● If I follow you correctly, no, I do not think it is possible.
● Can you think of any condition under which a storm cloud would – or could – have a preferred state?
● No.
● Now I am confused – is not your entire argument that the human mind is functionally indistinguishable from a storm cloud?
● Both are composed of matter and energy, yes.
● Right – and would you say that matter and energy can themselves have any kind of preferred state? In other words, could it be possible that the moon would prefer to be closer or further away from the earth in its orbit?
● No, the moon could not prefer that.
● Is there any form of matter or energy that could have a preferred state?
● Not that I can think of – and certainly not according to my arguments.
● And that is what is most remarkable about the deterministic position. You say the human mind is exactly the same as every other aggregation of matter and energy in the universe – and that it is utterly ridiculous to ascribe singular qualities to the human mind – while at the same time you ascribe singular qualities to the human mind, setting it aside as utterly different from every other aggregation of matter and energy in the universe.
● I do not see how I am doing that!
● Let me show you this hand puppet, which I will call “Ned.” Now, you are having a debate with me – with my mind – which seems like a rational course of action to you. You say that I have no more free will than this hand puppet, but I assume you would consider it insane to continue this debate with my hand puppet instead of with me.
● Now you are just being silly.
● That is not an argument. Do I possess more free will than my hand puppet?
● No, neither of you possess free will.
● All right, then why is it sane to debate me, but insane to debate Ned?
● I am not sure what you are getting at.
● I think that you are sure, but you are just stalling and pretending ignorance in the hopes of making my argument look foolish.
● That is also not an argument.
● How right you are! Let me try another approach. Let us say I am getting married in a hall with a retractable roof. During the ceremony, it starts raining. What should I do?
● Well, close the roof of course.
● I am in my wedding best and I do not know how to close the roof – what should I do?
● Get someone familiar with the building to close the roof.
● Exactly! Alternatively, I could scream up at the clouds to stop raining, or I could attempt to ask the roof itself to close.
● You mean, talk to the roof?
● Yes, exactly. Wait – does that seem a little crazy to you?
● Well it does not seem exactly sane, and if I were getting married to you, I do not think I would complete the ceremony.
● I think that would be wise! So, it would be sane to talk to a person about closing the roof, but it would be insane to talk to the clouds, or the roof itself. My question is: Why?
● I am not sure why you would ask that.
● The reason I would ask that is because you are telling me that there is no difference between the cloud, the rain, the roof – and the human being I would ask to close the roof. All are mechanical, predetermined objects, with no free will of their own. Why would I only talk to the person, if the person is exactly the same as everything else? If I see three apples in front of me, I say each of the apples is exactly the same, and yet I will only eat the first apple and would consider it insane to take a bite out of either the second or the third apple, can my perspective that the apples are exactly the same be rationally sustained?
● No, if you will only choose one of the apples and strongly reject the others, they cannot all be the same.
● Thank you – that is my perspective as well. Therefore, you need to explain to me why the apple you call a person is so different from the apples you call the cloud or the roof.
● If I understand your question correctly, the answer is simple. The person has an input system called the senses, which the cloud and the roof do not. If you beckon to a person, or call him over, he is capable of perceiving your request, and changing his behaviour accordingly. If you ask him to close the roof, he has ears, and will hear you – while the roof has no ears, and cannot hear you.
● An excellent answer! If I am a singer, and record a song, my recording device has inputs, does it not?
● It would not be much of a recording device if it did not.
● Now, if my song wins an award, would it seem sane or crazy to you if, at the awards ceremony, my recording device received the award?
● What?
● Being in possession of an input device – whether it is a microphone jack or a set of ears – makes no material difference in the deterministic universe. An input device does not magically provide an entity with free will. For instance, it is easy to instal microphones on the side of a computerized robot and then program it to respond to various inputs. Here we have a machine that responds to external stimuli. Would you say that I have granted such a robot free will?
● No, of course not – that is why I am arguing that neither human beings nor robots have free will!
● Have you ever argued with a robot?
● Not unless you are a very well-made robot!
● While funny, jokes will not save your argument. How many arguments or debates have you had with human beings?
● Hundreds, perhaps thousands.
● Well that seems entirely bigoted of you, my friend! All those debates with human beings, but none whatsoever with robots? Again, we are back to square one: you say that human beings are exactly the same as robots, but would consider it crazy to argue with a robot, while it’s perfectly sane – valuable even – to argue with human beings. It cannot be due to the presence of inputs, since robots can easily have inputs as well – in fact, almost all do.
● So you are saying that I should argue with a robot? The difference is that I know what the robot is going to respond with. I do not know what you will respond with.
● That is not necessarily true – the robot could spit out randomized numbers or randomized phrases, which would be unpredictable. Also, you do not know what form a cloud is going to take in the next minute, but that does not mean you will stand in a field like King Lear and scream at the clouds, right?
● Human beings are far more complex than anything you are talking about here – far more complex than rain or clouds or roofs or robots or anything like that!
● Ahah! Now we are getting to the heart of things, and I appreciate that comment – though by your face you may have some idea where this will now go. You are saying that complexity can breed an emergent property – a property or characteristic that is greater than the sum of its parts.
● I am not sure I am saying that.
● Well, let me explain to you what you are saying! No individual atom has the power to reverse or arrest the direction of light, correct?
● Each atom affects the direction of light.
● Of course, but no atom can itself reverse the direction of light.
● That is correct.
● However, if you gather enough atoms together into the form of a black hole, light has no power to escape its gravity well. In other words, the property of “arresting the direction of light” – which is possessed by no individual atom – is possessed by an aggregation of atoms called a black hole.
● Are you saying that atoms possess free will?
● Please try not to jump ahead of what I am saying. All it does is indicate that you are not listening. Life is composed of atoms, is that correct?
● It is.
● In particular, the carbon atom. Would you say that any individual carbon atom possesses the quality called “life”?
● No.
● Certainly not, since there are countless carbon atoms that are not alive or part of any living organism, and therefore carbon atoms cannot innately possess the characteristic called “life.”
● Correct.
● Now, although no individual carbon atom is alive, is it fair to say that particular congregations of atoms – and energy of course – can be part of a living organism?
● Certainly.
● This is an example, I am sure you will agree, of an emergent property – the emergent property called “life,” which is possessed by none of the individual components of a living organism.
● This does not prove free will at all!
● I agree, but it does get us in the right direction at least. Would you say that an individual atom has the property of locomotion, or eating, or reproducing itself?
● No.
● An individual carbon atom cannot run across the African plain, but aggregated into the form of a lion, so to speak, it can. Individual atoms cannot produce other carbon atoms, but through insemination, pregnancy and birth, animals can.
● This seems all rather elementary.
● I agree. Let me ask you this: Does any individual atom in your brain have the capacity to engage in a debate?
● No – three of them act together, though, and I win!
● Again, funny is not right. You are engaging in an action – debating – that relies on a vast and stacked pyramid of emergent properties. No individual atom can clean your blood, but your kidney can. No individual atom can breathe, yet your lungs work. No individual atom can form words, yet I hear you speak – no atom can debate, yet here we sit.
● I cannot dispute what you are saying.
● At least, not without affirming it! So, your position is that there are countless emergent properties, but that free will cannot possibly be one of them?
● Are you saying that is an inconsistent position?
● It is inconsistent with your first position, which is that atoms have no free will; therefore, human beings have no free will.
● That is still my position!
● No, it is not a position; it is an anti-rational specific.
● I am not technically aware of that term.
● If my entire existence as a human being relies on emergent properties, but my argument denies the possibility of emergent properties, I am in fact a walking self- contradiction.
● I do not deny the existence of emergent properties. I just affirmed them!
● You did, right after I reminded you of their existence – at the beginning of the debate, you denied emergent properties.
● Nonsense, I only denied that free will was an emergent property.
● No, you said that human beings have no free will because atoms have no free will – which is a subset of the proposition that human beings can have no properties not possessed by individual atoms themselves.
● I never said that about all emergent properties!
● No, your argument did not accept that life and locomotion and debating are all emergent properties, but then specifically reject emergent properties in the realm of free will – which would have been honest. Instead, you relied on a base reductionist materialism, saying that all free will was a superstition, a ghost in the machine, without referencing any other emergent properties that might oppose your argument against free will.
● Now you are just pretending to read my mind.
● No, I am simply referring to what you said. However, you are correct in that I cannot prove your state of mind when you make these highly specific points. Now that you admit emergent properties exist, you must now prove there is no possibility that free will is an emergent property.
● I refer you to the numerous scientific studies that show human behaviour can be predicted fairly accurately with deep brain scans of the subconscious motivations for supposedly conscious decisions. People think they are choosing whether to click on a red or blue icon on a screen, while their subconscious mind has already made that decision for them.
● Even if we accept all these studies as true – although their accuracy rate is never 100 percent or even very close – the entire purpose of science is to achieve the preferred state of truth or accuracy, which implies that there is such a thing as a preferred state, which requires the concept of free will. The moment you say it is true that there is no such thing as free will, you are accepting that there is a preferred state called truth, which human beings should voluntarily choose.
● Do you not think that the truth is preferable?
● Here we have it – in order to correct me during this debate, you must constantly slip into using the language of free will. “Truth,” and “preferable,” and “choice,” and so on.
● I cannot reject all of the existing habits of language. If I say that there is no such thing as God, am I religious for having used the word “God”?
● I am not sure what that means, but it does not address my argument. If you say that I should choose to accept determinism and reject free will, can you not see that that is a contradiction?
● I want you to embrace the truth, yes.
● Do you think that is preferable for me to choose the truth?
● Of course!
● Then you have already accepted that there is a preferred state, and that I have the capacity to compare the contents of my mind to that preferred state, and choose better. If that is called being a determinist, then I guess I am a determinist as well, since only the labels differ, not the contents of our arguments.
