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Incidentally, it's hard to reconcile the idea that belief is not volitional with the idea that people should be morally blameworthy for their beliefs. Generally speaking, people think it is not proper to blame (and punish) people for things outside of their control. If you cannot blame people for their beliefs, then the idea of damnation for incorrect beliefs about religion seems abhorrent. This runs afoul of what most Christians think most of the time. Christians usually think people are damned to one degree or another for having the wrong beliefs and that this is proper.

You can still argue that while people do not have control over what beliefs they have, they do have control over willingness to investigate certain ideas fairly, forming good habits of mind like critical thinking skills, etc. You can blame people if you think they have control over that and have failed to live up to their ethical obligations regarding cultivating how to think and what to think about. I've seen some religious people try to wiggle out of this problem by arguing that if you thought about God in good faith, then you'd believe [insert their religion] so you can be rightly blamed if you aren't a believer. Your lack of belief is proof of your lack of good faith effort. That is what you are damned for. To the non-believer, this is risible, but it's a closed loop of logic that is difficult to penetrate.

Thank you for introducing doxastic voluntarism to the discussion, EA. I wasn't familiar and found it made interesting reading. For a point of reference, this seems to be a fair encyclopedic entry-sized treatment that, if nothing else, serves as a touchstone for what I gathered on the subject: https://www.iep.utm.edu/doxa-vol/#H2

Perhaps the article has it wrong in stating that there is wide-spread philosophical agreement that indirect doxastic voluntarism is true. That being defined as, "acts which are such that although a person lacks direct voluntary control over them, he or she can cause them to happen if he or she chooses to perform some number of other, intermediate actions. For instance, a person untrained in music has indirect voluntary control over whether he or she will play a melody on a violin." But I'll take it at it's word, in part because it doesn't seem to be behind what mikwut said.

So that leaves me with sorting out direct doxastic voluntarism, skepticism towards which does seem to correspond with mikwut saying, "I'm making a demarcation between our belief forming faculties that we really have no control over. Our faculties simply form beliefs based on the evidence presented to them (this isn't to say the evidence is critical or quality in nature). Our belief forming about the question of God for example stem, in my view, from our trusting of our inner senses rather than through a present day cultural critical look at the question." The underlined being most explicit as a statement in that regard.

The encyclopedia entry summarizes multiple arguments against DDV, as well as the critical response to those arguments, but none of them immediately lined up in a way that I could overlay onto what mikwut seemed to be saying. That's mainly because each example afterward refers to "choice" and "evaluation" such as in this example from mikwut's post, "We can choose an attitude towards our sense of wonder that is positive or negative, we aren't making a critical evaluation like we do with beliefs, or should do, because we can't, it isn't an empirical question, it is simply a sense we experience."

Now, I parse this as saying the defining issue isn't whether or not DDV is true. It's that the inputs themselves aren't "empirical", or I am guessing he means they aren't free from subjective influence because their nature is a reaction to something rather than being a thing itself. And the underlying reaction is emerging from both external as well as self-generated inputs like our backgrounds, culture, knowledge, and biases. So whether or not we can choose belief, or even to undertake the steps to investigate something to form a belief that may be counter to our current beliefs isn't inevitably reliable as a mechanism to obtaining a justified, true belief of some kind or other.

So I wondered if mikwut was approaching it from the side of the Empirical Belief Argument, which is presented as follows:

The Empirical Belief Argument against direct doxastic voluntarism runs as follows. A person can have an empirical belief concerning a proposition only if the proposition is true and the person’s perceptual organs are working correctly to cause the belief. For example, a woman can have an empirical belief, say, that the walls in her office are white only if the walls in her office are, in fact, white and her eyes are working correctly to cause the belief. In cases of believing empirical matters at will, “there would be no regular connection between the environment, the perceptions,” and the belief. Thus, believing at will would fail to satisfy the necessary conditions of ‘empirical belief’. Therefore, believing empirical matters at will is conceptually impossible (Williams 1970, 108).

Critics suggest that there are at least two problems with The Empirical Belief Argument. First, people believe all sorts of things about empirical matters that are not caused by the state of affairs obtaining and their perceptual organs functioning properly (cf. Bennett 1990, 94-6). For instance, one might believe that a tower in the distance is round because it seems round to one whose perceptual organs are functioning properly—even though at this distance square towers appear round. Hence, the argument seems to rely on a false premise. Second, even if the argument were sound, it would show only that it is impossible for people to will to believe some propositions. Therefore, the critics contend, even if The Empirical Belief Argument were sound, it would show only that certain beliefs are not within one’s voluntary control, not that direct doxastic voluntarism is false, let alone conceptually impossible.

The problem, however, might seem merely to be Williams’ suggestion that a person can have an empirical belief concerning a proposition only if the proposition is true. Supporters of The Empirical Belief Argument, however, could reject that claim and offer a revised version of the argument. In fact, Louis Pojman has offered such an argument, which runs as follows (Pojman 1999, 576-9). Acquiring a belief is typically a happening in which the world forces itself on a subject. A happening in which the world forces itself on a subject is not a thing the subject does or chooses. Therefore, acquiring a belief is not typically something a subject does or chooses.

The challenge for me, though, is I feel like much of what mikwut presents as support for idealism aligns better with what the article describes as critical responses against the empirical belief argument. From the link:

Critics contend, however, that there are at least two problems with Pojman’s version of the argument. First, they contend that people do have some direct form of voluntary control over their beliefs they form in light of sensory experiences. For instance, someone might have a very strong sensory experience suggesting that there is an external world and, nonetheless, not judge that there is an external world. Rather, one might suspend judgment about the matter (see, for example, Descartes’s First Meditation). Similarly, someone like John Nash, the M.I.T and Princeton professor portrayed in “A Beautiful Mind,” might have a very strong sensory experience as if he or she is in the presence of another person and, nevertheless, not judge that he or she is in the presence of another person. Rather, such a person might judge that he or she is alone and that the sensory experience is a hallucination. Thus, critics conclude, even if people cannot control the information provided to them by their senses, they can control whether they believe (so to speak) “what their senses tell them.” Second, they contend that like Williams’ original version of the argument, Pojman’s revised version would demonstrate, at best, that it is impossible for people to will to believe some propositions. Thus, they conclude that it does not demonstrate that direct doxastic voluntarism is false, let alone conceptually impossible.

At least, that reads a bit like how mikwut described idealism to me. And that didn't fit easily into any of the sections in the article because if I have to figure out how idealism fits into this, there isn't a north to align to that is getting me there yet. In fact, it seemed much of the discussion between other board members and SPG which brought mikwut into the discussion DOES fall within counter arguments that line up with argument for DDV, which I am copying in full from the link:

James Montmarquet offers the following, analogical argument for direct doxastic voluntarism (1986, 49). “[R]easons for action play a role in the determination of action which is analogous to the role played by reasons for thinking-true in the determination of beliefs.” Hence, if the controlling influence of reasons on actions is compatible with the voluntariness of the action, the same is true with respect to the influence of reasons for thinking-true on beliefs. The controlling influence of reasons on actions is compatible with the voluntariness of action. Therefore, the controlling influence of reasons on beliefs is compatible with the voluntariness of belief. Hence, direct doxastic voluntarism is no more problematic than voluntarism about people’s other actions, and since we regard voluntarism as true with respect to people’s other actions, we should also regard direct doxastic voluntarism as true. (For discussions of related arguments, see, for example, Nottelmann 2006, Ryan 2003, Steup 2000.)

Granting that the inferences are warranted, there are two lines of objection open for a possible rebuttal. First, one might be able to rebut the argument by showing that there is a significant difference between the role that reasons play in determining action and the role that reasons play in determining beliefs. For instance, one could undermine Montmarquet’s argument if one could show that there is a problem with the analogy on which it depends: the controlling influence of reasons on acting is to the voluntariness of acting as the controlling influence of reasons on believing is to the voluntariness of believing. What, though, is wrong with that analogy? One possibility is that the controlling influence of reasons on people’s actions is often resistible in a way that the controlling influence of reasons on people’s beliefs is not. For example, it seems to make sense that a person would say, “I have overwhelming evidence that I should not smoke, but I still smoke.” Does it make sense, however, for a person to say, similarly, that she has overwhelming evidence that a proposition is false but that she believes it is true? Some would answer negatively, pointing to claims like, “I have overwhelming evidence that lead does not float in water, but I still believe that it does.” Others would answer affirmatively, pointing to claims like, “I have overwhelming evidence that my son has been killed in action in the war—for example, he has been M.I.A. for years, the rescue team recovered his bloody uniform—nonetheless, I still believe that he is alive” (cf. Meiland 1980). The challenge for those who take this first strategy in attempting to undermine Montmarquet’s argument is to show that the cases of those who answer affirmatively are not cases of choosing to believe, but cases of something else—for example, accepting that a proposition is true or acting as if a proposition is true (cf. Bratman 1999; Cohen 1989, 1992, as well as Alston 1989, 122-7, Buckareff 2004).

Second, one might be able to rebut the argument by showing that the controlling influence of reasons on actions is incompatible with the voluntariness of actions. For instance, one could undermine Montmarquet’s argument if one could show that as the influence of people’s reasons on their actions become stronger, their performance of the actions becomes less voluntary. Why, though, might we think that the influence of reasons on people’s actions would have this effect? One type of possibility includes cases of coercion (cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologicae, I-II, Q. 6, aa. 6-7). Suppose a person gave her money to a mugger who threatened her with a loaded gun, yelling, “Your money or your life!” Did she give the money voluntarily? Some would argue that she did not. At this point, the debate becomes rather subtle. On the one hand, she did choose (that is, she did ‘will’) to perform the action. On the other hand, her act of willing seems to lack the requisite freedom such that we would say she had direct voluntary control over that act in the way that we would say, for instance, that she had direct voluntary control over her act of writing a check to charity earlier that morning. Thus, a second strategy for undermining Montmarquet’s argument requires one both (i) to show that there are cases of acting with respect to which people lack direct voluntary control and (ii) to demonstrate why cases of believing are like such cases of acting.

Hmm.

I am always getting ahead of myself in finding books I think look interesting but, already having a fairly long reading wish list, they don't usually skip to the front of the line unless there is some timely reason to do so. Usually they either end up in an Amazon list or I snap a picture of the cover and keep it in my phone for easy access when at a library or bookstore.

One such book that I made it to this week was published back in 2012 titled, The Pursuit of Happiness by Shimon Edelman. And, surprisingly, the material is timely to this particular thread. Doing some digging, it turns out Edelman has a blog through Psychology Today of the same name one can pursue here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... ss-pursuit

I looked for articles on it that captured some of what he brings up in the book, which begins by discussing how the brain/mind is computation in a way that may be of interest to some who engaged in this this thread.

None make the same points he does in the book but a few get at similar themes, acknowledging some of the points made by the idealist perspective in this thread while still pointing out why they are not grounds for losing ones head to full flights of fantasy:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... da-virtual

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... he-machine

And for Doubting Thomas -

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... -our-parts

honorentheos wrote:I am always getting ahead of myself in finding books I think look interesting but, already having a fairly long reading wish list, they don't usually skip to the front of the line unless there is some timely reason to do so. Usually they either end up in an Amazon list or I snap a picture of the cover and keep it in my phone for easy access when at a library or bookstore.

One such book that I made it to this week was published back in 2012 titled, The Pursuit of Happiness by Shimon Edelman. And, surprisingly, the material is timely to this particular thread. Doing some digging, it turns out Edelman has a blog through Psychology Today of the same name one can pursue here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... ss-pursuit

I looked for articles on it that captured some of what he brings up in the book, which begins by discussing how the brain/mind is computation in a way that may be of interest to some who engaged in this this thread.

None make the same points he does in the book but a few get at similar themes, acknowledging some of the points made by the idealist perspective in this thread while still pointing out why they are not grounds for losing ones head to full flights of fantasy:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... da-virtual

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... he-machine

And for Doubting Thomas -

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... -our-parts

I find psychology interesting, and I'm sure that psychology finds me interesting. The study of how we construct our reality is fun. And perhaps, it even gets into why we construct our reality.

Imagine that we go back into time, maybe 10 billion years. There wasn't much. Stars might be in their first generation of life, no planets of dirt and iron to speak of. We like to think that forming of worlds were just a random (if scientific) action of nature. But even then, there was a consciousness that wanted something. According to the math of BBT (Big Bang Theory) none of this is actually here. The universe is a SUM ZERO creature. For every high, there is a low.

Bio-Centrism would require that even then, a consciousness would have to be there to observe things.

I have said this before, "for it to real, it must have influence." But to be influenced, a thing must have some level of consciousness.

In the universe, two very real things might pass right through each other almost as if the other thing wasn't there. These things are not conscious of each other. If two rocks collide, they were consciousness of each other. Maybe not like you and I, where we can bitch and complain to each other, but simply they cannot occupy the same space.

If a thing existed, (hypothetically) but exerted no influence on anything, then how would we ever know it existed? For something to exist, it must be observed, by something. You have to step out of time and see the universe as a whole and complete event. Like maybe a thing existed but was unobserved until the last moments of the universe. That thing, is still part of the sum total, or the sum zero, of the universe.

Bio-Centrism requires an observer for things to exist. To me, this makes sense. Like, could your favorite thing exist, if it weren't your favorite thing? The physical aspect of it might, but it wouldn't be your favorite thing, it wouldn't have all of the special meaning you give it.

The presence of God in our history and myths tells me that there is an higher observer, someone that gave us special meaning, special purpose. Without it, we are just hairless monkeys. There are several mentions of "watchers" that also imply higher observers.

But the reality, that in order for things to interact is a scientific reality, not just a philosophical one. For example, if you take a two radios, on the same frequencies, but put on antenna horizontal and the other vertal, and transmit to each other, (in a perfect world) they would be invisible to each other. Even though they both exist, they pass right through each. Match the polarity and they crash and cancel each other out.

Point is, all things must be observed, or they cannot exist.

As for the psychology of all of this, like you linked to the Pursuit of Happiness. I think all things basically fulfilled some desire of an observer. Whether observers are beings like you and me, or in the framework of the universe, I don't really know. I think, that we (humans) have layers, that our human personality is but a small part of our observing power. Just because you go to sleep, the universe doesn't shut off, because there are parts of us that don't sleep.

When you read the surface of Bio-Centrism, there are a lot of things to complain about. But if you consider that maybe humans weren't the first ones conscious, nor does something have to be biological (in spite of the name biocentrism) to be conscious, it really makes sense.