Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Science & Philosophy vs Babaism (Sheepish Adherence to Norms?) Message-ID: <1951@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Wed, 23-Oct-85 13:44:29 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1951 Posted: Wed Oct 23 13:44:29 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 24-Oct-85 08:14:26 EDT References: <1663@pyuxd.UUCP> <1820@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1907@pyuxd.UUCP> <609@spar.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 94 >> Hmmm, this is an intriguing proposition. The internal state, having gotten >> to be the way it is (with indoctrination and conditioning leading that >> internal state into various forms) is "responsible" for anything it does >> despite the fact that it is not responsible for becoming the way it is, >> which may mean a state in which it is unable to make reasoned decisions. >> I call this proposition a vacuous assertion. [Rich Rosen] > Why? What's the rosenist definition of "responsibility"? Does it require > a soul or something? Responsibility is accountability, a measure of > participation in a causal chain. Don't you believe in causality? [BABA] ("Rosenist"???) Responsibility has come to mean two things. First, as Baba says, there is the "measure of participation in a causal chain". X is responsible for Y if X caused Y to happen. But then Baba adds in "accountability", which really has nothing to do with THIS definition of responsibility. Yet responsibility has come to mean "charged with the duty of accomplishing/not accomplishing something, taking the credit for 'good' things accomplished, and taking the blame for 'bad' things accomplished (or 'good' things not accomplished)". If perchance we were able to create a sentient machine, and we conditioned/programmed it to kill someone, would the machine be "responsible" for the death of the person? NOT just in that first sense of "participation in a causal chain", but in the second sense of taking the blame for what occurred? How can you impose blame on a non-self-determining entity? Of course, you get some people who work backwards from a desired conclusion: well, humans ARE self-determining entities, otherwise how could we blame/credit ourselves and others for the things that are done... >> If a person has learned >> through religious indoctrination or any other means to be unable to make >> conscious rational decisions, if they have not learned such methods for >> making such decisions, how on earth could a reasonable thinking person >> hold them responsible? > If your thesis of materialistic determinism is correct, it can hardly > matter whether a person is capable of reason or not. Oh, but clearly it does. The person you are today exists as a result of all your experience that came before. If today you can think rationally, it is because you were taught to use your brain in a maximal fashion from early on in childhood, and have had that behavior reinforced by the positive results it offers in interfacing with reality. If today you are a mass murderer, is it because you "made a conscious free decision" to become a mass murderer? Or because those previous experiences led you to your current state? You saw your parents behaving violently and learned that this was "acceptable". You grew up behaving violently and had that behavior reinforced by the success of behaving violently. You learned that acting violently when things don't go your way is acceptable behavior. Etc. Which is it? >> Obviously a lot of people want to do so, because >> that enables them to engage in various forms of blame and punishment for >> wrongdoing. > As long as you're interested in talking about motives, Rich, do you take > pleasure in punishing people? Did your parents? You seem to have this > strange vision of the world as an endless sea of sadistic disciplinarians. I do? Obviously the people who formulate such notions as societal rules see things that way. Look at the Christian motif of "man is fallen, we are all evil and need to be regulated and controlled, and if we're not good we should be punished". The sea isn't endless, but I still haven't seen the other coastline yet. This notion permeates a good deal of western law: you do something wrong, YOU are a bad person who should be punished. That may not be the hallmark of "sadistic discplinarians", but it hardly sounds like the actions of rational people to me. > Or is it important to you to feel free of responsibility for something you > have (or haven't) done? Yes, I go around killing people, and I don't want to be blamed for it. Whatever the truth of the matter (I haven't killed or maimed in years...), the facts are this: we have human beings whose experiences lead them to become what they grow up to be. To tag them with "responsibility" when they do something wrong (i.e., punishment) strikes me as extremely shortsighted and vacuous. If what I say is false, regarding the way experience and exposure to the rest of the world leads you (conditions you) to become what you become, why do we bother with parenting, with attempting to imbue positive values in children, guiding that conditioning process toward a goal of a mature rational adult? Hell, by your reasoning, it doesn't matter what we do as parents. If we smoke in front of our kids, if we show violence and anger as acceptable behaviors, if we act dishonestly or hatefully when we serve as examples to our children, they are still "responsible" for what they do as adults, right? It wasn't OUR fault that the kid is now a delinquent, or a failure, or a murderer, or a hacker... (Unfortunately, a lot of parents feel EXACTLY that way.) If you want to believe the latter idea about people, then the ball is in your court to show how such thinking contrary to experience and learning can (and does) occur. -- Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr