I don't see the relevance of the objection that you won't find out whether you were right or not. If I value true knowledge for its own sake, it doesn't matter if it's indistinguishable from false knowledge. That would matter if I instead valued, for example, the psychological satisfaction of having true knowledge. In that case, I'd certainly get the satisfaction either way, and it would be just as good to be convincingly fooled as to be right.
You can't distinguish between a belief you sincerely believe is true but is actually false, versus a belief you sincerely believe is true and is actually true. Thus you cannot value these things differently, since they are indistinguishable to you.
If I value true knowledge for its own sake, I should avoid actions that have a high chance of reinforcing a false belief.
I agree with this. But if we're taking the pure agnostic approach here, i.e. we take no position whether a god or gods exist, then not praying is just as likely to reinforce a false belief as praying. If a God actually exists that wants you to pray to it, then by not praying you're reinforcing the belief that there's no God out there who wants to talk to you. So the "reinforcing false beliefs" issue is a wash. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
You can't distinguish between a belief you sincerely believe is true but is actually false, versus a belief you sincerely believe is true and is actually true. Thus you cannot value these things differently, since they are indistinguishable to you.
That doesn't follow. Why does their being indistinguishable mean that they cannot be valued differently?
I agree with this. But if we're taking the pure agnostic approach here, i.e. we take no position whether a god or gods exist, then not praying is just as likely to reinforce a false belief as praying. If a God actually exists that wants you to pray to it, then by not praying you're reinforcing the belief that there's no God out there who wants to talk to you. So the "reinforcing false beliefs" issue is a wash. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
When people pray, they tend to experience a sense of communion that actively reinforces their faith. There is no comparable phenomenon that occurs all the time when you're not praying. I don't see how this is a wash.
You can't distinguish between a belief you sincerely believe is true but is actually false, versus a belief you sincerely believe is true and is actually true. Thus you cannot value these things differently, since they are indistinguishable to you.
That doesn't follow. Why does their being indistinguishable mean that they cannot be valued differently?
I have two baseballs. One of them (you don't know which) was signed by Babe Ruth. The other bears a perfect counterfeit of a Babe Ruth signature. You value real signatures over fake signatures.
Which ball do you value more? The one in my right hand or the one in my left hand?
You can't value them differently because you can't distinguish which is which.
I agree with this. But if we're taking the pure agnostic approach here, i.e. we take no position whether a god or gods exist, then not praying is just as likely to reinforce a false belief as praying. If a God actually exists that wants you to pray to it, then by not praying you're reinforcing the belief that there's no God out there who wants to talk to you. So the "reinforcing false beliefs" issue is a wash. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
When people pray, they tend to experience a sense of communion that actively reinforces their faith. There is no comparable phenomenon that occurs all the time when you're not praying. I don't see how this is a wash.
If God does exist, then not experiencing a sense of communion with him would tend to reinforce the false belief that he doesn't exist.
I have two baseballs. One of them (you don't know which) was signed by Babe Ruth. The other bears a perfect counterfeit of a Babe Ruth signature. You value real signatures over fake signatures.
Which ball do you value more? The one in my right hand or the one in my left hand?
You can't value them differently because you can't distinguish which is which.
Just because there is a situation in which I can't know my true valuation doesn't mean I can't value those things differently. I would rather have the authentic one, and that fact isn't changed by me being unable to tell which is which.
If God does exist, then not experiencing a sense of communion with him would tend to reinforce the false belief that he doesn't exist.
No, I should expect to not feel communion from not praying whether god exists or not. That is no evidence either way.
I have two baseballs. One of them (you don't know which) was signed by Babe Ruth. The other bears a perfect counterfeit of a Babe Ruth signature. You value real signatures over fake signatures.
Which ball do you value more? The one in my right hand or the one in my left hand?
You can't value them differently because you can't distinguish which is which.
Just because there is a situation in which I can't know my true valuation doesn't mean I can't value those things differently. I would rather have the authentic one, and that fact isn't changed by me being unable to tell which is which.
There is no such thing as "my true valuation." Your valuation of something is the value you assign to it based on the information you have. If you obtain more information, you might revise your valuation, but unless you're omniscient, you never can and never will assign a "true" valuation to anything. No matter how sure you think you are, it's always possible there's more information out there that could change your valuation again.
Unless I give you more information about the baseballs, you must necessarily value the one in my right hand the same as the one in my left hand because you have no way to distinguish between them. If you never obtain more information about the balls, you will continue to value them the same forever.
If God does exist, then not experiencing a sense of communion with him would tend to reinforce the false belief that he doesn't exist.
No, I should expect to not feel communion from not praying whether god exists or not. That is no evidence either way.
Right, that's the point. If God is not real, it's reinforcing a false belief when you pray. If God is real, it's reinforcing a false belief when you don't pray. Since we don't know whether God is real or not, it's equally probable that you're reinforcing a false belief whether you pray or don't pray. It's a wash.
There is no such thing as "my true valuation." Your valuation of something is the value you assign to it based on the information you have. If you obtain more information, you might revise your valuation, but unless you're omniscient, you never can and never will assign a "true" valuation to anything. No matter how sure you think you are, it's always possible there's more information out there that could change your valuation again.
Unless I give you more information about the baseballs, you must necessarily value the one in my right hand the same as the one in my left hand because you have no way to distinguish between them. If you never obtain more information about the balls, you will continue to value them the same forever.
The fact that I must value the left and right hand the same doesn't mean that I must value authentic and inauthentic the same. Suppose instead that you're going to tell me which is which after I pick one. I still value the left and right hand the same when I'm picking, but that says nothing about whether I care about authentic or inauthentic.
Right, that's the point. If God is not real, it's reinforcing a false belief when you pray. If God is real, it's reinforcing a false belief when you don't pray. Since we don't know whether God is real or not, it's equally probable that you're reinforcing a false belief whether you pray or don't pray. It's a wash.
I think you've misunderstood what I said. I'm saying that in the case where you don't pray, you receive no information. This does not reinforce any belief, true or false. Certainly no one would say, "I'm pretty sure god isn't real because I don't pray and not praying doesn't give me a sense of communion with god." But people certainly say, "I'm pretty sure god is real because I pray and receive a sense of communion with god."
There is no such thing as "my true valuation." Your valuation of something is the value you assign to it based on the information you have. If you obtain more information, you might revise your valuation, but unless you're omniscient, you never can and never will assign a "true" valuation to anything. No matter how sure you think you are, it's always possible there's more information out there that could change your valuation again.
Unless I give you more information about the baseballs, you must necessarily value the one in my right hand the same as the one in my left hand because you have no way to distinguish between them. If you never obtain more information about the balls, you will continue to value them the same forever.
The fact that I must value the left and right hand the same doesn't mean that I must value authentic and inauthentic the same. Suppose instead that you're going to tell me which is which after I pick one. I still value the left and right hand the same when I'm picking, but that says nothing about whether I care about authentic or inauthentic.
I'm not saying you don't care about authentic versus inauthentic. My example explicitly stated that you prefer authentic signatures. I agree, you care about having an authentic ball.
Under the circumstances I'm describing, however, the fact that one ball is "actually authentic" and the other is "actually inauthentic" has no effect on your valuation of the two balls. Based on the information you have, you would derive the same benefit from choosing the left ball as you would from choosing the right ball. You have no ability to distinguish.
Obviously, if you later find out which is authentic and which is fake, your valuation of the balls would change. I agree. You will now assign unequal values to the balls.
However, if you never find out which one is authentic, you benefit equally from taking the right ball or the left ball. If you never find out which ball is authentic, you don't get any extra benefit from choosing the "correct" ball.
Likewise, if you never find out your sincere belief in God is false, you receive the same "I want to believe true things" benefit as though it was a true belief.
Right, that's the point. If God is not real, it's reinforcing a false belief when you pray. If God is real, it's reinforcing a false belief when you don't pray. Since we don't know whether God is real or not, it's equally probable that you're reinforcing a false belief whether you pray or don't pray. It's a wash.
I think you've misunderstood what I said. I'm saying that in the case where you don't pray, you receive no information. This does not reinforce any belief, true or false. Certainly no one would say, "I'm pretty sure god isn't real because I don't pray and not praying doesn't give me a sense of communion with god." But people certainly say, "I'm pretty sure god is real because I pray and receive a sense of communion with god."
Someone might very well say "If God is real I would expect to feel his presence. Since I do not, my belief that God is not real is reinforced." However, if it turns out that God actually is real, and the only way you could feel his presence is through prayer, then you would be reinforcing a false belief in the nonexistence of God by not praying.
I'm not saying you don't care about authentic versus inauthentic. My example explicitly stated that you prefer authentic signatures. I agree, you care about having an authentic ball.
Under the circumstances I'm describing, however, the fact that one ball is "actually authentic" and the other is "actually inauthentic" has no effect on your valuation of the two balls. Based on the information you have, you would derive the same benefit from choosing the left ball as you would from choosing the right ball. You have no ability to distinguish.
Obviously, if you later find out which is authentic and which is fake, your valuation of the balls would change. I agree. You will now assign unequal values to the balls.
However, if you never find out which one is authentic, you benefit equally from taking the right ball or the left ball. If you never find out which ball is authentic, you don't get any extra benefit from choosing the "correct" ball.
Likewise, if you never find out your sincere belief in God is false, you receive the same "I want to believe true things" benefit as though it was a true belief.
If I value authentic things, I only receive an "end benefit" from taking the authentic one. I might derive secondary benefits such as "happy I have a possibly authentic ball" from either one, but that says nothing about whether I receive an equal end benefit from the two. Just because I'm not aware of whether I have received it, and can't cash it out for other secondary benefits doesn't mean I don't receive the fundamental benefit of possessing authentic things. If that's a state I consider an end benefit, then I receive it only if I take the authentic one.
Someone might very well say "If God is real I would expect to feel his presence. Since I do not, my belief that God is not real is reinforced." However, if it turns out that God actually is real, and the only way you could feel his presence is through prayer, then you would be reinforcing a false belief in the nonexistence of God by not praying.
If people don't feel god's presence when not praying, that's a factor for both those who pray and those who don't, because people aren't praying all the time. Whether you pray or not, you receive the same information about what happens during the times you don't pray. This is different from the question of whether you feel god's presence when praying. In that case, only those who pray receive evidence on that point. Those who do not pray have no belief reinforced because they receive no evidence about what happens if you pray.
"Thing X" is a benefit to me if I subjectively perceive the sum total of its effects as beneficial. In other words, Thing X is a benefit to me if it's something from which I obtain net positive utility.
A "benefit" is inherently subjective, meaning the existence of a benefit is contingent on your ability to subjectively perceive it.
If something is completely unknowable and imperceptible to you, how can it be beneficial to you?
I don't agree that that's a coherent way of determining whether things are beneficial. It just kicks the can one step down the road, and you're left to define whether those effects are beneficial. Consider the following:
Food gives me energy. Energy allows me to work. Work earns me money. Money buys me food.
Unless I am willing to assign one or more of food, energy, work or money a value that is independent of its effects, how can I determine whether any of this is beneficial? I can't say food is beneficial because it gives me energy which is beneficial because it lets me work which is beneficial because it gives me money which is beneficial because it buys me food which is beneficial because it gives me energy (etc.).
It seems to me that instead I have to say, for example, that having energy is a goal in itself. The cycle is beneficial because it includes an item which is an "end benefit". Food is beneficial because it gets me, after a step, an end benefit. Work and money get me to an end benefit after two and three steps respectively.
I don't agree that that's a coherent way of determining whether things are beneficial. It just kicks the can one step down the road, and you're left to define whether those effects are beneficial. Consider the following:
Food gives me energy. Energy allows me to work. Work earns me money. Money buys me food.
Why is this not coherent? I understand it might not be very satisfying, but unsatisfying is not the same thing as incoherent.
If you cut out the "money" step and replace "work" with "hunt," this could be an accurate description of how a lion perceives value and benefits in its life. Humans are more complex than lions, but we're still animals.
Again, I'm not sure whether benefits work like this or not, but it seems like your argument is premised on the assumption that the "endless chain" model is definitely wrong, and you've provided no support for this claim.
Unless I am willing to assign one or more of food, energy, work or money a value that is independent of its effects, how can I determine whether any of this is beneficial?
Again, "benefit" is subjective. If you subjectively perceive something to be beneficial, it's beneficial to you.
There's no objective metric of "benefit." A bar of gold is only more "valuable" or "beneficial" than a bar of lead because people subjectively decide it is so. If people didn't exist to ascribe value to these things, it would be incoherent to talk about these things as having value.
I can't say food is beneficial because it gives me energy which is beneficial because it lets me work which is beneficial because it gives me money which is beneficial because it buys me food which is beneficial because it gives me energy (etc.).
Why can't you say that?
But like I said, I don't claim to know one way or the other. Maybe "endpoint benefits" do exist. If they do, I still maintain they're subjective. For example, maybe food has an associated "endpoint benefit" in that it gives you a sense of satisfaction and satiation to eat. Maybe we could call that a benefit in-and-of-itself. Ok, but that benefit is still dependent on you subjectively experiencing it. If you're unconscious and being fed through a tube, you're not getting those endpoint benefits because you can't perceive them. You get the "endless chain" benefits of surviving, but the direct benefits of enjoying food-for-the-sake-of-food are gone because you can't perceive them.
Likewise, if there's an endpoint benefit associated with truth, it's a feeling or a brain state. But a sincere-yet-false belief feels exactly as true as a sincere belief that's actually true (assuming you never find out additional information that changes your beliefs).
There's no objective scorekeeper who keeps track of the "endpoint benefits" you accrue, even if you never experience or perceive them. You're the scorekeeper. You have to experience the benefit in some way for it to matter.
Why is this not coherent? I understand it might not be very satisfying, but unsatisfying is not the same thing as incoherent.
Are you asking me to explain why circular reasoning is incoherent?
If you cut out the "money" step and replace "work" with "hunt," this could be an accurate description of how a lion perceives value and benefits in its life. Humans are more complex than lions, but we're still animals.
I'm not sure I believe that lions are capable of that sort of reasoning. I also don't see how this is relevant.
Again, I'm not sure whether benefits work like this or not, but it seems like your argument is premised on the assumption that the "endless chain" model is definitely wrong, and you've provided no support for this claim.
A recursive definition of benefits that has no base case is meaningless.
Again, "benefit" is subjective. If you subjectively perceive something to be beneficial, it's beneficial to you.
There's no objective metric of "benefit." A bar of gold is only more "valuable" or "beneficial" than a bar of lead because people subjectively decide it is so. If people didn't exist to ascribe value to these things, it would be incoherent to talk about these things as having value.
What does this have to do with anything? I've said nothing about benefit being objective. I'm totally on board with beneficial and valuable being subjective terms, but that has nothing to do with my argument.
Why can't you say that?
Because it's meaningless? Come on, you know why circular reasoning is invalid.
Why is this not coherent? I understand it might not be very satisfying, but unsatisfying is not the same thing as incoherent.
Are you asking me to explain why circular reasoning is incoherent?
This is a cop-out, and a weak one at that. Observing that people's desires do not necessarily have a particular endpoint or goal is not the same thing as "circular reasoning."
Like I said, we can observe that many things in the real world follow a cyclic path without any particular endpoint or goal. Biological evolution, for example. Since our desires are a product of biological evolution, it wouldn't surprise me if our desires and goal-seeking followed an essentially cyclic path as well.
Again, I'm not sure whether benefits work like this or not, but it seems like your argument is premised on the assumption that the "endless chain" model is definitely wrong, and you've provided no support for this claim.
A recursive definition of benefits that has no base case is meaningless.
The chain is not the "definition of benefits," it's a description of the end result of seeking beneficial things.
Again, "benefit" is subjective. If you subjectively perceive something to be beneficial, it's beneficial to you.
There's no objective metric of "benefit." A bar of gold is only more "valuable" or "beneficial" than a bar of lead because people subjectively decide it is so. If people didn't exist to ascribe value to these things, it would be incoherent to talk about these things as having value.
What does this have to do with anything? I've said nothing about benefit being objective. I'm totally on board with beneficial and valuable being subjective terms, but that has nothing to do with my argument.
"Subjective" means it has to be experienced. We say the beauty of art is "subjective" because it's in the eye of the beholder. The beauty of the art is not an objective or inherent property, it is a subjective experience in the psyche of the observer.
If you agree that benefits are subjective, this invalidates your earlier statement:
Just because I'm not aware of whether I have received it, and can't cash it out for other secondary benefits doesn't mean I don't receive the fundamental benefit of possessing authentic things.
An un-perceived benefit cannot exist if benefits are subjective.
"Thing X" is a benefit to me if I subjectively perceive the sum total of its effects as beneficial.
If there is no end benefit, and everything is beneficial because its effects are beneficial, this is a circular definition of "beneficial". That's what I'm saying is incoherent.
"Thing X" is a benefit to me if I subjectively perceive the sum total of its effects as beneficial.
If there is no end benefit, and everything is beneficial because its effects are beneficial, this is a circular definition of "beneficial". That's what I'm saying is incoherent.
Sure, this was sloppy phrasing. I was trying to get across the point that benefits are subjective judgments. I'll rephrase two different ways.
Technical version: "Thing X" is a benefit to me if I derive net positive utility from it.
Plain language version: "Thing X" is a benefit to me if I subjectively perceive the sum total of its effects as desirable.
I think these two definitions are basically synonymous, just phrased slightly differently for clarity. Also, to be clear, "effects" is meant very broadly to include both indirect effects as well as direct effects like "endpoint benefits" if these exist.
It seems to me that both of those would support the statement "If I desire true knowledge, then having true knowledge is beneficial". But clearly you disagree.
To me, if we say that "beneficial" is "subjective" we mean that the state of being beneficial is determined by the person (the subject) rather than the thing (the object). This definition doesn't really make sense in the context of your argument, though. So what exactly do you mean by subjective?
It seems to me that both of those would support the statement "If I desire true knowledge, then having true knowledge is beneficial". But clearly you disagree.
To me, if we say that "beneficial" is "subjective" we mean that the state of being beneficial is determined by the person (the subject) rather than the thing (the object). This definition doesn't really make sense in the context of your argument, though. So what exactly do you mean by subjective?
Again, subjective means it's "in your head" or "in the eye of the beholder." In other words, your subjective mind sets the goal or criteria for what a benefit is (e.g. "I desire true knowledge") and your subjective experience determines whether you have attained that goal or criteria (e.g. "I believe I have attained true knowledge").
So I would tweak your statement to say "If I desire true knowledge, then perceiving that I have true knowledge is beneficial." Notice how the word perceive is built into both of those definitions above. (It's not explicitly stated in the first, but the technical definition of utility requires that it is perceived.)
This is because "true knowledge" is not a subjective brain state. Unless you are omniscient, you can never subjectively know whether you actually have true knowledge. You can only think you have true knowledge "insofar as it is possible for a human being to know anything" (to borrow a phrase from Highroller). A sincere-yet-false belief is just as subjectively "true" to you as an actually true belief.
I'm on board for your subjective mind setting the goal, but I don't see how your subjective experience determines whether you have attained it. I can subjectively assign value to an objective state.
I'm on board for your subjective mind setting the goal, but I don't see how your subjective experience determines whether you have attained it. I can subjectively assign value to an objective state.
We both seem to agree that a benefit has two parts: (1) having a goal or desire, and (2) acheiving that goal or desire. You get the benefit when both (1) and (2) are satisfied.
We also agree that part (1) is subjective. The goal is determined by you, and exists subjectively in your mind. The goal is not an objective goal that exists independent from you or your mind. The goal is part of you, it does not have a "life of its own."
Because the goal only exists in your mind, not floating around out in the ether somewhere, this means the only place the goal can be satisfied is in your mind. The goal cannot be satisfied in some objective sense, because the goal itself does not exist in an objective sense.
You subjectively decide on the following goal: "I desire objectively true knowledge." One of two things can happen:
Option 1: If you are very strict about your goal, then only 100% unquestionably objective truth will satisfy it. But since you are human and not omniscient, you can never know whether anything is 100% true. Therefore your goal can never be satisfied in your mind. Since your goal only exists subjectively in your mind and does not have an objective life of its own, it can never be satisfied outside your mind either. Therefore your goal can never be satisfied. You can have this goal if you want, but you will never obtain a benefit from it because you will never be able to achieve part (2) of the benefit definition above.
Option 2: If you are less strict, then you will consider the goal satisfied by anything you know is true "insofar as it is possible for a human being to know anything." This means a sincere-but-false belief will satisfy the goal, because you "know" it is true to the best of your ability to know anything.
I disagree that the goal can only be satisfied in your mind. The goal is a description of an objective state of the world. The goal is satisfied when the world is in that state, regardless of my perception of the world. The label of that state as a goal is the subjective part. Not the state itself.
Consider the analogy with the placebo effect in medicine.
Is it coherent for a medical researcher to say that sugar pills have no medical benefits? (My answer: Yes. There is no mechanism of action that both results in a health benefit and can be traced back to the sugar pill in a Humean-causal fashion.)
Nevertheless, in some cases patients who take sugar pill are observably healthier afterwards. Does this contradict the prior notion? (My answer: No, because there isn't a causal connection between the sugar pill specifically and the benefit. The placebo could have been a sugar pill, a gelatin capsule, a wax suppository, or who-knows-what -- all of these things are known to produce the effect. Thus the benefit came not from the specific placebo, but rather, from the mental state of the patient.)
Can we not apply the same semantic analysis to whether or not prayer is beneficial? Are the supposed benefits of prayer associated causally and specifically with the attempt to commune with God, or is prayer one of an interchangeable set of tools that can produce some appropriate anterior mental state?
Private Mod Note
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Alright: I disagree that telling a lie is morally wrong.
Now, are you going to pony up, or are you going to continue to dodge the question?
Ok, I'll concede this point for the sake of argument.
Wow. So, in other words, you have nothing? No reason whatsoever to justify your statement that lying is morally wrong?
I also want to address why I brought up the (im)morality of lying issue in the first place. This was a response to your statement that "All lies cause harm by their being lies." The way you phrased this statement is an attempt to make it seem like I'm endorsing the act of telling a lie. I'm not doing that, and I explained this by noting I believe lying is morally wrong.
This was an attempt on my part to prevent the argument from straying off course. But you seized onto that statement and demanded I establish that lying is wrong. I can only think of two reasons why you'd care about my personal views on the issue, since bitterroot's personal views on anything are by definition irrelevant to this argument. I think either you're hoping my explanation will provide fertile ground for an ad hominem, or you're hoping you can win some kind of side-debate on lying to make it seem like you've won the actual argument. Neither of these things are legitimate debate tactics, and I won't humor them.
You're still not getting it.
I argued that lying was wrong on the grounds that it is inherently harmful. You're saying that lying isn't harmful, but it's still wrong. And every time I try to press you on why, exactly, lying would still be wrong, you just dodge the question. You keep trying to make it out to be irrelevant to the thread.
Except it's COMPLETELY relevant to the thread. And here I am asking the same question for the umpteenth time: If lying is not harmful by virtue of it being a lie, and it is beneficial, why not lie?
You will no doubt respond something along the lines of accusing me of bringing up irrelevant stuff or engaging in underhanded debate tactics or some other statement to allow you to wheedle out of answering this question. But no, you've claimed lying is morally wrong, so I'm going to continue to ask you to justify it. In a thread about self-deception, why do you consider deception of others immoral but deception of the self perfectly fine?
If lying has no inherent harm, then why is lying wrong? If it is not because lying has an inherent harm, by virtue of it being a lie and not truth, what is the reason for lying to be wrong?
And if — as I believe — you have absolutely no basis for saying this and are simply dodging the question to avoid revealing this, then why are you denying that lying's immorality is rooted in it being harmful?
I just want to make sure I fully understand this response, since you're qualifying it. Under the set of conditions I described above, is there any reason for a rational person not to do X?
Not that I can see, no.
(To make sure I'm being totally clear, we're measuring "benefit" and "harm" as compared with the alternative. In other words, the benefit represents the positives gained by doing X instead of not-X.)
So wait, I just want to see if I understand you correctly here. You're defining "harm," as in "X does someone harm," by the fact that doing X would represent less positives than doing not-X?
You can't distinguish between a belief you sincerely believe is true but is actually false, versus a belief you sincerely believe is true and is actually true. Thus you cannot value these things differently, since they are indistinguishable to you.
I agree with this. But if we're taking the pure agnostic approach here, i.e. we take no position whether a god or gods exist, then not praying is just as likely to reinforce a false belief as praying. If a God actually exists that wants you to pray to it, then by not praying you're reinforcing the belief that there's no God out there who wants to talk to you. So the "reinforcing false beliefs" issue is a wash. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That doesn't follow. Why does their being indistinguishable mean that they cannot be valued differently?
When people pray, they tend to experience a sense of communion that actively reinforces their faith. There is no comparable phenomenon that occurs all the time when you're not praying. I don't see how this is a wash.
I have two baseballs. One of them (you don't know which) was signed by Babe Ruth. The other bears a perfect counterfeit of a Babe Ruth signature. You value real signatures over fake signatures.
Which ball do you value more? The one in my right hand or the one in my left hand?
You can't value them differently because you can't distinguish which is which.
If God does exist, then not experiencing a sense of communion with him would tend to reinforce the false belief that he doesn't exist.
Just because there is a situation in which I can't know my true valuation doesn't mean I can't value those things differently. I would rather have the authentic one, and that fact isn't changed by me being unable to tell which is which.
No, I should expect to not feel communion from not praying whether god exists or not. That is no evidence either way.
There is no such thing as "my true valuation." Your valuation of something is the value you assign to it based on the information you have. If you obtain more information, you might revise your valuation, but unless you're omniscient, you never can and never will assign a "true" valuation to anything. No matter how sure you think you are, it's always possible there's more information out there that could change your valuation again.
Unless I give you more information about the baseballs, you must necessarily value the one in my right hand the same as the one in my left hand because you have no way to distinguish between them. If you never obtain more information about the balls, you will continue to value them the same forever.
Right, that's the point. If God is not real, it's reinforcing a false belief when you pray. If God is real, it's reinforcing a false belief when you don't pray. Since we don't know whether God is real or not, it's equally probable that you're reinforcing a false belief whether you pray or don't pray. It's a wash.
The fact that I must value the left and right hand the same doesn't mean that I must value authentic and inauthentic the same. Suppose instead that you're going to tell me which is which after I pick one. I still value the left and right hand the same when I'm picking, but that says nothing about whether I care about authentic or inauthentic.
I think you've misunderstood what I said. I'm saying that in the case where you don't pray, you receive no information. This does not reinforce any belief, true or false. Certainly no one would say, "I'm pretty sure god isn't real because I don't pray and not praying doesn't give me a sense of communion with god." But people certainly say, "I'm pretty sure god is real because I pray and receive a sense of communion with god."
I'm not saying you don't care about authentic versus inauthentic. My example explicitly stated that you prefer authentic signatures. I agree, you care about having an authentic ball.
Under the circumstances I'm describing, however, the fact that one ball is "actually authentic" and the other is "actually inauthentic" has no effect on your valuation of the two balls. Based on the information you have, you would derive the same benefit from choosing the left ball as you would from choosing the right ball. You have no ability to distinguish.
Obviously, if you later find out which is authentic and which is fake, your valuation of the balls would change. I agree. You will now assign unequal values to the balls.
However, if you never find out which one is authentic, you benefit equally from taking the right ball or the left ball. If you never find out which ball is authentic, you don't get any extra benefit from choosing the "correct" ball.
Likewise, if you never find out your sincere belief in God is false, you receive the same "I want to believe true things" benefit as though it was a true belief.
Someone might very well say "If God is real I would expect to feel his presence. Since I do not, my belief that God is not real is reinforced." However, if it turns out that God actually is real, and the only way you could feel his presence is through prayer, then you would be reinforcing a false belief in the nonexistence of God by not praying.
If I value authentic things, I only receive an "end benefit" from taking the authentic one. I might derive secondary benefits such as "happy I have a possibly authentic ball" from either one, but that says nothing about whether I receive an equal end benefit from the two. Just because I'm not aware of whether I have received it, and can't cash it out for other secondary benefits doesn't mean I don't receive the fundamental benefit of possessing authentic things. If that's a state I consider an end benefit, then I receive it only if I take the authentic one.
If people don't feel god's presence when not praying, that's a factor for both those who pray and those who don't, because people aren't praying all the time. Whether you pray or not, you receive the same information about what happens during the times you don't pray. This is different from the question of whether you feel god's presence when praying. In that case, only those who pray receive evidence on that point. Those who do not pray have no belief reinforced because they receive no evidence about what happens if you pray.
A "benefit" is inherently subjective, meaning the existence of a benefit is contingent on your ability to subjectively perceive it.
If something is completely unknowable and imperceptible to you, how can it be beneficial to you?
I don't agree that that's a coherent way of determining whether things are beneficial. It just kicks the can one step down the road, and you're left to define whether those effects are beneficial. Consider the following:
Food gives me energy. Energy allows me to work. Work earns me money. Money buys me food.
Unless I am willing to assign one or more of food, energy, work or money a value that is independent of its effects, how can I determine whether any of this is beneficial? I can't say food is beneficial because it gives me energy which is beneficial because it lets me work which is beneficial because it gives me money which is beneficial because it buys me food which is beneficial because it gives me energy (etc.).
It seems to me that instead I have to say, for example, that having energy is a goal in itself. The cycle is beneficial because it includes an item which is an "end benefit". Food is beneficial because it gets me, after a step, an end benefit. Work and money get me to an end benefit after two and three steps respectively.
Why is this not coherent? I understand it might not be very satisfying, but unsatisfying is not the same thing as incoherent.
If you cut out the "money" step and replace "work" with "hunt," this could be an accurate description of how a lion perceives value and benefits in its life. Humans are more complex than lions, but we're still animals.
Again, I'm not sure whether benefits work like this or not, but it seems like your argument is premised on the assumption that the "endless chain" model is definitely wrong, and you've provided no support for this claim.
Again, "benefit" is subjective. If you subjectively perceive something to be beneficial, it's beneficial to you.
There's no objective metric of "benefit." A bar of gold is only more "valuable" or "beneficial" than a bar of lead because people subjectively decide it is so. If people didn't exist to ascribe value to these things, it would be incoherent to talk about these things as having value.
Why can't you say that?
But like I said, I don't claim to know one way or the other. Maybe "endpoint benefits" do exist. If they do, I still maintain they're subjective. For example, maybe food has an associated "endpoint benefit" in that it gives you a sense of satisfaction and satiation to eat. Maybe we could call that a benefit in-and-of-itself. Ok, but that benefit is still dependent on you subjectively experiencing it. If you're unconscious and being fed through a tube, you're not getting those endpoint benefits because you can't perceive them. You get the "endless chain" benefits of surviving, but the direct benefits of enjoying food-for-the-sake-of-food are gone because you can't perceive them.
Likewise, if there's an endpoint benefit associated with truth, it's a feeling or a brain state. But a sincere-yet-false belief feels exactly as true as a sincere belief that's actually true (assuming you never find out additional information that changes your beliefs).
There's no objective scorekeeper who keeps track of the "endpoint benefits" you accrue, even if you never experience or perceive them. You're the scorekeeper. You have to experience the benefit in some way for it to matter.
Are you asking me to explain why circular reasoning is incoherent?
I'm not sure I believe that lions are capable of that sort of reasoning. I also don't see how this is relevant.
A recursive definition of benefits that has no base case is meaningless.
What does this have to do with anything? I've said nothing about benefit being objective. I'm totally on board with beneficial and valuable being subjective terms, but that has nothing to do with my argument.
Because it's meaningless? Come on, you know why circular reasoning is invalid.
This is a cop-out, and a weak one at that. Observing that people's desires do not necessarily have a particular endpoint or goal is not the same thing as "circular reasoning."
Like I said, we can observe that many things in the real world follow a cyclic path without any particular endpoint or goal. Biological evolution, for example. Since our desires are a product of biological evolution, it wouldn't surprise me if our desires and goal-seeking followed an essentially cyclic path as well.
The chain is not the "definition of benefits," it's a description of the end result of seeking beneficial things.
"Subjective" means it has to be experienced. We say the beauty of art is "subjective" because it's in the eye of the beholder. The beauty of the art is not an objective or inherent property, it is a subjective experience in the psyche of the observer.
If you agree that benefits are subjective, this invalidates your earlier statement:
An un-perceived benefit cannot exist if benefits are subjective.
If there is no end benefit, and everything is beneficial because its effects are beneficial, this is a circular definition of "beneficial". That's what I'm saying is incoherent.
Sure, this was sloppy phrasing. I was trying to get across the point that benefits are subjective judgments. I'll rephrase two different ways.
Technical version: "Thing X" is a benefit to me if I derive net positive utility from it.
Plain language version: "Thing X" is a benefit to me if I subjectively perceive the sum total of its effects as desirable.
I think these two definitions are basically synonymous, just phrased slightly differently for clarity. Also, to be clear, "effects" is meant very broadly to include both indirect effects as well as direct effects like "endpoint benefits" if these exist.
To me, if we say that "beneficial" is "subjective" we mean that the state of being beneficial is determined by the person (the subject) rather than the thing (the object). This definition doesn't really make sense in the context of your argument, though. So what exactly do you mean by subjective?
Again, subjective means it's "in your head" or "in the eye of the beholder." In other words, your subjective mind sets the goal or criteria for what a benefit is (e.g. "I desire true knowledge") and your subjective experience determines whether you have attained that goal or criteria (e.g. "I believe I have attained true knowledge").
So I would tweak your statement to say "If I desire true knowledge, then perceiving that I have true knowledge is beneficial." Notice how the word perceive is built into both of those definitions above. (It's not explicitly stated in the first, but the technical definition of utility requires that it is perceived.)
This is because "true knowledge" is not a subjective brain state. Unless you are omniscient, you can never subjectively know whether you actually have true knowledge. You can only think you have true knowledge "insofar as it is possible for a human being to know anything" (to borrow a phrase from Highroller). A sincere-yet-false belief is just as subjectively "true" to you as an actually true belief.
We both seem to agree that a benefit has two parts: (1) having a goal or desire, and (2) acheiving that goal or desire. You get the benefit when both (1) and (2) are satisfied.
We also agree that part (1) is subjective. The goal is determined by you, and exists subjectively in your mind. The goal is not an objective goal that exists independent from you or your mind. The goal is part of you, it does not have a "life of its own."
Because the goal only exists in your mind, not floating around out in the ether somewhere, this means the only place the goal can be satisfied is in your mind. The goal cannot be satisfied in some objective sense, because the goal itself does not exist in an objective sense.
You subjectively decide on the following goal: "I desire objectively true knowledge." One of two things can happen:
Option 1: If you are very strict about your goal, then only 100% unquestionably objective truth will satisfy it. But since you are human and not omniscient, you can never know whether anything is 100% true. Therefore your goal can never be satisfied in your mind. Since your goal only exists subjectively in your mind and does not have an objective life of its own, it can never be satisfied outside your mind either. Therefore your goal can never be satisfied. You can have this goal if you want, but you will never obtain a benefit from it because you will never be able to achieve part (2) of the benefit definition above.
Option 2: If you are less strict, then you will consider the goal satisfied by anything you know is true "insofar as it is possible for a human being to know anything." This means a sincere-but-false belief will satisfy the goal, because you "know" it is true to the best of your ability to know anything.
Consider the analogy with the placebo effect in medicine.
Is it coherent for a medical researcher to say that sugar pills have no medical benefits? (My answer: Yes. There is no mechanism of action that both results in a health benefit and can be traced back to the sugar pill in a Humean-causal fashion.)
Nevertheless, in some cases patients who take sugar pill are observably healthier afterwards. Does this contradict the prior notion? (My answer: No, because there isn't a causal connection between the sugar pill specifically and the benefit. The placebo could have been a sugar pill, a gelatin capsule, a wax suppository, or who-knows-what -- all of these things are known to produce the effect. Thus the benefit came not from the specific placebo, but rather, from the mental state of the patient.)
Can we not apply the same semantic analysis to whether or not prayer is beneficial? Are the supposed benefits of prayer associated causally and specifically with the attempt to commune with God, or is prayer one of an interchangeable set of tools that can produce some appropriate anterior mental state?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
You're still not getting it.
I argued that lying was wrong on the grounds that it is inherently harmful. You're saying that lying isn't harmful, but it's still wrong. And every time I try to press you on why, exactly, lying would still be wrong, you just dodge the question. You keep trying to make it out to be irrelevant to the thread.
Except it's COMPLETELY relevant to the thread. And here I am asking the same question for the umpteenth time: If lying is not harmful by virtue of it being a lie, and it is beneficial, why not lie?
You will no doubt respond something along the lines of accusing me of bringing up irrelevant stuff or engaging in underhanded debate tactics or some other statement to allow you to wheedle out of answering this question. But no, you've claimed lying is morally wrong, so I'm going to continue to ask you to justify it. In a thread about self-deception, why do you consider deception of others immoral but deception of the self perfectly fine?
If lying has no inherent harm, then why is lying wrong? If it is not because lying has an inherent harm, by virtue of it being a lie and not truth, what is the reason for lying to be wrong?
And if — as I believe — you have absolutely no basis for saying this and are simply dodging the question to avoid revealing this, then why are you denying that lying's immorality is rooted in it being harmful?
Not that I can see, no.
So wait, I just want to see if I understand you correctly here. You're defining "harm," as in "X does someone harm," by the fact that doing X would represent less positives than doing not-X?