From the department of things I have so many conversations about I want to respond to them in bulk on my blog: social issues.

It’s a Presidential election year in the United States, and that means we’re treated to another fun and entertaining Republican Primary, in which Republican hopefuls continue to boast about how conservative they social issues. And of course, social issues doesn’t mean actually important issues like poverty, homelessness, education, and disease — it means finding ways to restrict abortion, same-sex marriage, and nowadays even access to contraception. Whee.

Now of course, people have taken to argue back against these social issues, saying things like:

If you think an abortion is immoral, then don’t get an abortion. It’s that simple.

and:

Claiming that someone else’s same-sex marriage is against your religion is like being angry at someone eating a jelly donut because you’re on a diet

Cute, but I think these retorts are part of the problem, and when put back in context reveal a blasé attitude toward the actual claims that social conservatives are making, how wrong these claims are, and how harmful their quest for perceived purity is. And along the way, I’ll go down the social issues rabbit hole and try to point out just how absurd focusing on these social issues are. And no, nothing here is infringing, or even coming close to infringing, religious freedom.

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Direct Continuation of: A portion of the comments section of “The Twelve Reasons I Don’t Believe in Supernatural Claims, Part I”

Follow up to: Proving God Through Cosmology?

For the past couple of weeks, three people — Bryan White of the blog Sublime Bloviations, Joseph, and myself — have had quite an involved conversation in the comment fields of my essay “The Twelve Reasons I Don’t Believe in Supernatural Claims, Part I” (conversation started here) about my definition of naturalism, the metaphysical and physical implications of quantum mechanics, uncaused influences, and just general randomness on that definition.

As a general summary, Brian was arguing that the existence of uncaused influences and quantum randomness meant that events existed which do not require an underlying mechanism, meaning my notion of naturalism is wrong and/or incomplete. I am attempting to get to the bottom of this, mostly by arguing against — that there is insufficient reason to think my naturalism is in error. Joseph was probing both of us with questions to sort out more of what is going on.

Already, the essay there ballooned to 79 comments, definitely an unprecedented level for my site. Unfortunately, since I was away from my blog for a week, I had not yet written a response. I now notice that my response is very lengthy, hence I felt it was better suited as a full essay, rather than as a series of comments.

I also noticed that taking to an essay to respond to these comments allowed me to (1) re-examine the issues raised in greater depth than I otherwise would of, and (2) spin-off the comments that were getting increasingly less relevant to the topic of the original essay and more deserving of a topic of their own.

So I will now be responding to all the comments that need responding here, plus providing a lot of background information so that additional readers can get involved in the commentary and weigh in their own opinion. I will invite the topic to continue here from now-on, with a reminder that everyone who wants to get seriously involved is suggested to read all the previous and relevant commentary on the original essay.

Also, as a warning to all parties — involved, interested, or already bored — this essay is going to be long. As a second warning, this post will involve the analysis of physics that goes far beyond my professional expertise, or the expertise of any of the involved commenters. None of us have any credentials in physics, a field widely acknowledged as one you cannot understand simply by reading a few Wikipedia articles.

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So there is this thing called a Web of Beliefs, where you go through each category of philosophy and state your positions clearly. I first found it from Luke Muehlhauser, who did one that was inspired by one done by another blogging philosopher, Richard Yetter Chappell.

Doing this accomplishes quite a few goals: it lets you articulate all of your stances clearly and concisely in one location, so readers can see where you’re coming from, and also draw connections between your beliefs in some areas and see how they influence your beliefs in others. Additionally, it lets you look back on them and see how your positions have changed over time.

Given that I am currently 20 years old, I have a lot more changing of opinions to anticipate, and frequent updates on my web of beliefs should help keep readers up to date. It should also make it much easier to disagree with me, which is something I strongly encourage if you’re doing so in an honest and informed manner.

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Follow up to: The Magical Magician: A Naturalist’s Allegory and Reductionism Made Simple

Imagine, for a moment, three philosophers — we’ll name them Alier, Brennan, and Cynthicles, because those seem like good names for philosophers. All philosophers have really classy, medeval sounding names, right?

Anyways, these three philosophers were heavily scrutinizing a kitchen table, made out of smooth marble. Well, it wasn’t the table itself they were studying, per se, but rather the items on the table. For on the table were five plates, and on the first plate were two slices of bread, on the second plate was a tomato, on the third plate was a bit of lettuce, on the fourth plate was a slice of cheese, and on the fifth plate was some mayonnaise.

Now this situation might seem puzzling to us, but we don’t live in their world, and we can’t take our culture for granted. In the world of Alier, Brennan, and Cynthicles, these ingredients were carefully guarded, and accessible only to the High Philosophers of the University. These ingredients were the subject of much scrutiny and debate.

It all started a decade ago when Brennan first discovered that if you take the tomato, put it on top of the lettuce, and then put that on top of the cheese, and then rub it in mayo before putting it between two slices of bread — with one slice on the top and one slice on the bottom — you get a sandwich.

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Follow up to: Making the Question Go Away and Identity Confusion as Definition Confusion, Part II

I’ve talked recently about how the philosophical concept of “identity” is confused because of our confusions with definitions. This is, however, not the only issue within philosophy of mind that seems confused or problematic because of language concerns: this problem also extends to P-zombies, or philosophical zombies. I think that the notion of philosophical zombies and the conclusions/implications drawn from them are based on fallacious argumentation.

Of course, the standard disclaimer applies: if I have only considered an argument for a week that professional academics have debated for years, chances are that I’m missing something huge. And if what I say is correct, chances are that a lot of philosophers should feel really sorry for themselves. However, given that there is no agreed standard as to how long you’re supposed to think about a problem before you’re allowed to post a resolution on a blog, I’m going to proceed to provide my counterargument now. Feel free to refer me to any arguments you feel I haven’t properly addressed.

Also, a not so standard disclaimer applies: A lot of this theory amounts to no more than a summary of Eliezer Yudkowsky’s ideas on the topic, though I’d like to believe that I sprinkled some original thought here and there. I’m nothing special, only the sum of what I have read and understood.

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