According to atheist materialism, free will is an illusion, and math is simply a useful fiction.
As a Calvinist, I’m not going to take a glorified view of man’s free will. But I find it interesting that atheists proudly hew to such determinism. Determinism is the only honest position for a materialist to take, but it’s ironic that the atheists are so proud of this position. The topic generally comes up in discussions of justice (“How can God be just if he predestined me to evil?”) or in discussions of the stupidity of Christians (“Those stupid Christians talk about free will, but we atheists don’t believe in such illusions!”).
Evolutionary biology suggests that altruism is a sort of “costly signal” which signals one’s suitability as a mate. Standing up for something we believe to be true, at great cost to ourselves (and especially in the face of universal opposition) is sexier to women than a peacock’s feathers are to a peahen. Such intellectual honesty is the sexiest thing in the known universe. A man’s willingness to extinguish his own ego in service to the truth of determinism is, therefore, the most costly signal man could give to a woman. It is the ultimate altruistic “costly signal”, right?
The problem is, costly signals are, by definition, signals that cannot be faked. If you can fake it, it’s not a properly costly signal. And the atheist’s commitment to determinism is nothing if not fraudulent.
Atheist materialists like to explain that there is no such thing as free will. They want you to know that they are totally cool with that fact. They want you to find them to be sexy and courageous (or at least, they want you to admit yourself superstitious and delusional for believing in free will). But it’s all a bunch of posturing. For all practical purposes, these proud atheists operate under the same delusion, and adopt the same lie, that they claim to reject.
What, exactly, is different about the atheist who professes determinism on the Internet, and the Pelagian who professes free will? In practice, how is the life of the professed determinist different? Do these atheist determinists “cut to the chase” and commit suicide, since “all ends in death”? Do they reject “atman” in daily practice, and fully realize “anatman”? Hardly! Every act of the atheist determinist belies his professed belief, proving that his profession is a sterile, impotent, and purely intellectual assent; far removed from any practical manifestation. Indeed, the only practically measurable difference between the atheist and the Pelagian is the belief about free will that each professes on Internet message boards! And this professed belief has no impact on actual behavior.
In species where female sexual selection is operative (e.g. peafowl and humans), any public forum which includes females is a platform for lekking. In such forums, women need to be extraordinarily skeptical of any feather displays, and need to ensure that feather displays are authentically costly (i.e. not fraudulent). The best females do not tolerate male beliefs which are fictional, imaginary, and which impose no cost. In practice, any professed belief in determinism is virtually indistinguishable from a belief in free will, and is therefore useless for signalling.
Baffling post Josh.
@Atheist.pig – I’m saying that people are mostly posturing when they talk about free will vs. determinism. It’s a semantic quibble with no impact on reality.
There are many ways to make the point, but I decided to play around with the idea of lekking and sexual selection. I suppose this angle is pretty obscure for people who haven’t read a lot about evolutionary biology explanations for altruism, and particularly the sexual selection theories of altruism.
I will do a post in the next couple of days, summarizing the key points about sexual selection theory of altruism necessary to grok this post.
I agree for the most part that free will vs determinism might not have any real impact in our daily lives per se. But our justice system might change over the next few decades as our knowledge in neuroscience grows. So its more than a semantic quibble. But if it is just an illusion then we are all under the same illusion. Science can probe behind the curtain in the lab but I still have this brilliant illusion telling me “I’m” the master. A good optical illusion is a decent way to think about it, even after we’re told about the illusion our brain still feeds us the distorted view or illusion.
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/sze_shepardTables/index.html
I’m actually fairly up to date with evolutionary theories of altruism and sexual selection for an amateur, its one of my favorite topics in science. Do you know what the theory of sexual selection says about why women have brains?
@Atheist.pig – We’ve been hanging out with some female biologists and their families this extended weekend, so I’ll ask the women today to explain how they got brains. It might be a miracle, LOL
Seriously, though, I think sexual selection is the best current explanation for the size of the cerebrum. Dunbar did the most important early work in this direction, by demonstrating correlation between group size and size of cerebrum, and showing that our brain size is perfect for the average matriarchal clan size (the number of living descendants the oldest female can keep track of). Even then, Dunbar theorized that the function of the cerebrum was to remember who did what to whom, who owed payback to whom, etc.
In apes, it’s pretty clear that this cerebral functionality is primarily about surviving in a male-dominated hierarchy. But for humans, it seems to have evolved to keep track of who has altruistically punished whom, who has failed to altruistically punish, and so on. Where you sit on that judgment scale is directly tied to breeding opportunities, your success within the community, and so on. Therefore, both men and women have evolved to be very good at knowing where everyone stands, and obsessed with seeing justice ultimately be done. It’s why we love fiction and Bible stories.
FWIW, I think that Judaism and Christianity have been grappling with the intersection of determinism and justice for thousands of years, and I’m skeptical that neurobiology really adds much new. But I’m still forming my thoughts on this.