Arguments from Morality for the Existence of God

[Eudaimonist]

But order is not simply the absence of contradiction.

I'd say that's what it is. Or, more precisely, order is something we perceive when we come to understand any reality in which there is an absence of contradictions, and in which we have successfully removed contradictions from our understanding (making it successful understanding).

If our intellect is able to understand what is happening outside, if it is able to look at reality and discern different beings, this is because reality itself is not pure mess.

What is a "pure mess"?

Do you agree with Aristotle, that "to be, is to be something"? To exist is to have definite characteristics. Characteristics make something discernable and understandable to the intellect.

A nominalist would say that all these distinctions of beings and qualities which we make are the product of our minds.

You misunderstand me. I'm not a nominalist.

I'm not suggesting that there is nothing in reality on which to base distinctions. However, the distinctions are based on whatever is present, no matter how "messy" it may be.

And the only time we are incapable of making distinctions is when the impossible happens -- that there is a contradiction, such as a square circle. At this point, we'd be unable to say what the shape of this entity is. That is the only "pure mess" that would foil reason.

Still, the nominalist is still committed to believing in God, for even though he doesn't reach Him through the recognition of the order present in things, he still accepts the existence of things, and this is the most fundamental of all proofs of God: the necessary being, the pure act of existence, basis of the existence of all contingent beings.

Accepting the existence of things does not require the conclusion that God exists, for the nominalist or for anyone else. Even "necessary being" could be something fundamental like quarks. This would not yet be a God.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[The Nihilist]

Oh yes, I haven't shown that step. But that is not my objective here, though I can give a short account: man is a being, and as such it is good for him to remain in existence; he is an animal, and as such it is good for him to preserve the species; he is rational, and thus it is good for him to live according to reason, in society with other men and to know God.


Not at all. Merely accepting the principle of non-contradiction does not in any way estabilish that the world has any order whatsoever; it could be pure uniniteligible chaotic mess, in which it would be impossible to distinguish between different beings or to speak anything about it.
Surely, if we can accept the principle of non-contradiction, it means that we are ordered according to some principle: a working intellect pressuposes an order of being.
But this order is also not the result of the principle of non-contradiction.

Logical principles do not tell us ANYTHING about how reality is in fact; that is why we need experience, and experimental science, to know reality. If logical principles were enough to know what reality is like, what things exist and what things don't, we wouldn't need natural sciences; we would be able to deduce a priori how the universe is and how it works.

Only by accepting an internal ordering principle in ourselves (and this is called soul) and by accepting that the universe too is ordered, and that our intellect is fit for adequating itself to the order of the universe (and thus can comprehend it) can we discuss moral and ethical matters, that is, can we speak about what kinds of human interactions with reality are right and which are wrong.
When people discuss, say, the war in Iraq, and whether it was right or not for the US government to pursue it, they have (perhaps only implicitly) accepted all of the above.
Someone who did not accept all of the above, when asked about the justice or injustice of the war in Iraq or of any other moral question, could only answer "those concepts are meaningless to me" or perhaps "I like/dislike it".

You're labelling all these things as good for no reason. You're going to have to justify it instead of weaving fairytales.
Let us be clear what we mean by the Law of Noncontradiction. I think no one would disagree that by the Law of Noncontradiction, we mean the characteristic of reality that both proposition A and proposition not A cannot both be the case at the same time in the same way. Do you mean to say that there had to be some being to establish this Law as the case? You're going to have to establish that.
I have no idea what the phrase "order of being" means.
No one dispute what you have said about logical principles; this is obvious to all.
Do machines have internal orderings? Do computers? Do animals? Do rocks? Does the sun? Does each of these then necessarily have a soul?
You have not established that the universe is ordered. In fact, I think you're throwing around the words order and chaos without really giving much thought to what they mean. What do they mean?
Additionally, many ethicists have no problem discussing ethics without invoking the soul. Perhaps you should either learn that they can do this, or learn to do it yourself, rather that insisting that it cannot be the case.
If you seriously think that only virtue ethicists can talk about morality, then you live in a fantasy world. Immanuel Kant rejected everything you believe, and he talked about ethics as much and as well as anyone else. There are many less notable philosophers who have held very different positions from yours and have still been able to talk about ethics. Your assertion that your position can be the only foundation of ethics is not only completely wrong, it's also pretty insulting to those of us who have gotten past the intro to philosophy class.

 

[Lifesaver]

You're labelling all these things as good for no reason. You're going to have to justify it instead of weaving fairytales.

Let us be clear what we mean by the Law of Noncontradiction. I think no one would disagree that by the Law of Noncontradiction, we mean the characteristic of reality that both proposition A and proposition not A cannot both be the case at the same time in the same way. Do you mean to say that there had to be some being to establish this Law as the case? You're going to have to establish that.

No, I mean that the principle of noncontradiction does not give us any information about how reality is in fact. Acceptance of logical principles is not enough to estabilish that there exist an intelligible reality outside us.

I have no idea what the phrase "order of being" means.
No one dispute what you have said about logical principles; this is obvious to all.
Do machines have internal orderings? Do computers? Do animals? Do rocks? Does the sun? Does each of these then necessarily have a soul?

You have not established that the universe is ordered.

If it weren't, it would be impossible to maintain our existence for even one second.
More importantly, it would be impossible to deal in any way with reality, as we would be utterly incapable of understanding it at all.

Additionally, many ethicists have no problem discussing ethics without invoking the soul. Perhaps you should either learn that they can do this, or learn to do it yourself, rather that insisting that it cannot be the case.

Most people have no idea of what the soul is, and generally think of a ghost controling the body. This indeed doesn't need to exist, nor does it exist.

However, if one adopted a strict materialistic position and were coherent with it, they would not be able to engage in any ethical discussion; in fact, even basic thinking and evaluation of propositions would have to be abandoned by them. We can see why if you want to.

If you seriously think that only virtue ethicists can talk about morality, then you live in a fantasy world.

I haven't even introduced virtue into the discussion. It is obvious enough that I'm arguing from an Aristotelian viewpoint, though this particular point, natural law, as far as I know, was not developed by him.
In fact, there are many people who reject virtue ethics but who still speak of natural moral law.

And yes, I do believe that there is one basic correct philosophic way to think and thus talk about morality, and alternative ways are, if not entirely wrongheaded, at least very deficient.

Immanuel Kant rejected everything you believe, and he talked about ethics as much and as well as anyone else.

Did he? This is a judgement you make, which is by no means universally agreed upon.
I agree that Kant's thought was very important for modern philosophy, at least in building stronger obstacles that must be overcome. But as for positive contributions of Kantian ethics, I'm afraid I entirely disagree with your judgement.

There are many less notable philosophers who have held very different positions from yours and have still been able to talk about ethics.

There sure have. Epicurus, William Ockham, Kant, Bentham, Mill and many others have held many different ethical positions. Their thought has been of immense important for philosophy.
But that doesn't mean they have all been correct and that their positive contributions are in themselves valuable or good.
In fact, if Bentham is correct then Kant is wrong and vice-versa, and there are no two ways about it.

Do I insult you if I say that important philosophers have committed huge mistakes and errors, even though they have been important for philosophical discussion?

But we have got far from the original topic. I will re-state my case more briefly:

If it is possible to think and speak objectively about morality, that is, come up with moral principles which are universally valid (even if they don't lead to prescriptions of actions which are universally valid) for all men, that means two things: first, there is something which is equal in all men, their essence, and secondly, that there is some order in external reality, which is where action takes place (and if this didn't exist, it would be impossible to know the effects of any action and thus talk about right and wrong actions would be meaningless).
The existence of reality, and of a reality which is ordered (intelligible), necessarily pressupose an intellect which is the cause of this order, the basis of all existence and order. This being we call God.

 

[quatona]

Maybe I'm just speaking from my point of view.

That´s a given.

 

[michabo]

However, if one adopted a strict materialistic position and were coherent with it, they would not be able to engage in any ethical discussion; in fact, even basic thinking and evaluation of propositions would have to be abandoned by them. We can see why if you want to.

Maybe I don't understand what you mean by "materialistic", but I don't understand this point.

If it is possible to think and speak objectively about morality, that is, come up with moral principles which are universally valid (even if they don't lead to prescriptions of actions which are universally valid) for all men, that means two things: first, there is something which is equal in all men, their essence, and secondly, that there is some order in external reality, which is where action takes place (and if this didn't exist, it would be impossible to know the effects of any action and thus talk about right and wrong actions would be meaningless).

Do you mean that you think there are objective moral values? What does this mean, that there are some things which are moral to all people even if not everyone would follow them, or that there are some things which all people would agree is moral?

If the first, how would we know?

If the second, what would they be?

The existence of reality, and of a reality which is ordered (intelligible), necessarily pressupose an intellect which is the cause of this order, the basis of all existence and order. This being we call God.

Why does order presuppose an intellect?

Do you really mean "presuppose", or do you mean "requires" or "implies"? We can suppose all we want, but it won't affect reality, so I suppose you mean something else

 

[Eudaimonist]

The existence of reality, and of a reality which is ordered (intelligible), necessarily pressupose an intellect which is the cause of this order, the basis of all existence and order. This being we call God.

I don't presuppose this just fine. It was just as mistaken when the Stoics insisted on presupposing this with what they sometimes called Zeus, which they imagined to be something like a rarified gas in the universe that shaped it according to its intellect and will.

(BTW, I suspect that when Aquinas said "The being we call God", his intended audience was fellow Christians. He was trying to convince Christians that he was talking about the same being that they believed in. This phrase is useless when speaking with atheists, since that being we don't necessarily call "God".)

"Order" (intelligibility) does not require a cause -- it merely requires an existence in which the entities that exist have characteristics that do not contradict each other. Since it is impossible for a contradictory reality to exist -- since we don't need a God to save us from square circles -- then any possible existence is "ordered" and does not require divine intervention to make it intelligible. There is no mystery why we should be able to understand the universe, since it proves itself to be a possible existence merely by existing, and therefore no reason to make any presuppositions regarding a "God".

Keep in mind, too, how complexity arises from simplicity. Our atmosphere is made up of molecules that have very simple natures, and yet when they accumulate in a gas, they together have a behavior which seems in some respects "chaotic" and in some respects "orderly". The chaotic aspect merely refers to our inability to understand every aspect of what is occuring (e.g. we don't know the location and vector of every molecule with accuracy). An atmosphere may appear very "messy" indeed. The orderly aspect refers to our ability to understand well enough to develop aerodynamical principles that allows us to design airplanes that stay aloft. But at no point is there any need to invoke some intelligence to have "designed atmospheres using aerodynamical principles". The properties of the atmosphere merely arise from the interactions of simple constituents. This is another reason to avoid presupposing God as the creator, in this case not of "order" itself, but of specific complex orders that might impress us.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Verv]

St. Augustine would not agree witht his, and on this issue I agree with him:

He noted that many people worship God out of fear of going to hell, and not out of love of God. To worship out of fear of goign to hell demonstrates self-interest and mere belief/worship for avoidance of punishment, which is counter to the plan God has for you (loving others, helping other, etc.) and is merely a manifestation of selfishness, one of the reasons that Satan was kicked out of the Kingdom of Heaven.

For the same reasons people behave morally: repercussions threaten them. Thus, they act morally.

It does not indicate that man hs a natural morality attached to him, but merely a natural fear of punishment.

 

[The Nihilist]

Ok, Lifesaver, the only interesting mistake you have made is this one: you grant that two contradictory things cannot be true, but you say that even if that is the case, existence can only be intelligible if it is ordered. The problem here is that the way you are talking about a non-ordered world is the way people talk about a world that can contradict itself. I think you're confusing these two concepts.
Why do you think others are wrong about the soul and you are right? Have you seen a soul?
I brought up the other philosophers not because I agree with them, but to establish that your assertion was grossly incorrect.
I don't know what problem you have with what I've said with Kant. I do not agree with Kant myself, but I feel that Kant was probably one of the best philosophers who ever lived.
Yes, materialists can talk about ethics. Everyone can talk about ethics. At the very least, ethics seems to be hardwired into the human brain. If materialists can't talk about this, then I don't know what they can talk about.

But none of this will matter. You make a lot of assertions that you either can't or won't support, and it seems like you either can't or won't understand and answer the criticisms I've levied against you. You sound like a bright kid, but right now, you're not as serious a thinker as I think you think you are. If you're in school, take more classes, if you're not, read some criticisms of Aristotle. You're not dumb, but you've got a long way to go.

 

[Marz Blak]

...man is a being, and as such it is good for him to remain in existence

I do not see how this follows. Man (or men) might have a *preference* to exist, but how does one infer that man's existence is *good* in some objective of transcendent sense from this fact?

he is an animal, and as such it is good for him to preserve the species

I don't see this one either, and it seems to me to be a remarkably a speciesist view.

One could certainly argue, for instance, that the existence of man as a species has resulted in the extinction of many other species and that the continued existence of H. sapiens sapiens poses a persistent threat to many if not most species on earth today.

...he is rational, and thus it is good for him to live according to reason, in society with other men and to know God.

1. Man may be capable of rational thought, but that does not necessarily make him an essentially or even mostly rational being.

It seems to me that most of what motivates people's behavior is not rational, but rather that our capability to reason is most accurately modeled as a tool we use to gain fulfillment of our desires, which (apart from basic necessities like food and shelter) often derive from sub-, pre- or irrational motivations.

2. I don't see how, even assuming that man is (at least partly) rational, one can assert that God exists or that it is objectively *good* for us to know Him. This seems to me to be pulled entirely out of then air, and I'd need to see a lot more support for such an assertion before I could accept it.

(Note: it seems to me that there is an underlying presuppositionalism in your entire approach to these matters, and I think that this is preventing you from seeing how your view is nowhere near as obvious or compelling as you seem to believe.)

Not at all. Merely accepting the principle of non-contradiction does not in any way estabilish that the world has any order whatsoever; it could be pure uniniteligible chaotic mess, in which it would be impossible to distinguish between different beings or to speak anything about it.

I don't think this is right. Certainly, Non-contradiction implies a certain sort of order in things, by which they could not be completely unintelligible. But if one adds in Identity and Excluded Middle, which it seems to me go hand-in-hand with Non-contradiction almost like correlaries one to the others, then one is then very far away from the sort of chaos you describe.

Surely, if we can accept the principle of non-contradiction, it means that we are ordered according to some principle: a working intellect pressuposes an order of being.

I have no idea what this means.

Logical principles do not tell us ANYTHING about how reality is in fact; that is why we need experience, and experimental science, to know reality. If logical principles were enough to know what reality is like, what things exist and what things don't, we wouldn't need natural sciences; we would be able to deduce a priori how the universe is and how it works.

Do we *know* what reality is like, really? Are there no questions of ontology or epistemology left for the philospopher to ponder? I didn't get the memo.

Seriously, though, we have models that work, certainly, but the model is *not* the thing, as I am sure you know.

But that aside, there seems to be an underlying notion in what you say that logical principles *exist* or that we could have developed logical principles apart from emprical observation, and this seems completely wrongheaded to me. By the time the notion of a priori analytical knowledge occured to anyone, we as a species already had millions of years evolving in a universe in which logical principles seem to be an inherent feature of existence (to be sure, the apparent fact that logic seems to be built into the universe has puzzled us since we realized it, but that's another story).

Observation, inference, modeling; these seem to me to be the best explanation of where our ability to think abstract thoughts (an example of which is the idea of deducing things a priori) *came from*.

When people discuss, say, the war in Iraq, and whether it was right or not for the US government to pursue it, they have (perhaps only implicitly) accepted all of the above.
Someone who did not accept all of the above, when asked about the justice or injustice of the war in Iraq or of any other moral question, could only answer "those concepts are meaningless to me" or perhaps "I like/dislike it".

I personally think that ethical statement *are* in essence opinions in instances where they can be made sense of at all. (That is to say that where they have meaning, it is *only* as statements of preference; in some cases, they are essentially non-cognitive: complicated ways of saying 'ewww.')

What of it?

 

[Lifesaver]

Ok, Lifesaver, the only interesting mistake you have made is this one: you grant that two contradictory things cannot be true, but you say that even if that is the case, existence can only be intelligible if it is ordered.

The principle of non-contradiction does not give us any information about how reality is like.
Order is the principle of intelligibility.
Surely, everything that exists has, to some degree, intelligibility, for that is necessarily entailed by existence itself (in fact, both are synonymous terms).

Why do you think others are wrong about the soul and you are right? Have you seen a soul?

That you ask whether someone has seen a soul shows you have a wrong concept of what a soul is (probably a "ghost" living inside the body or some variant of this).

Yes, materialists can talk about ethics.

They can and they do, but in the very act of doing it they deny their materialist positions.
A materialist cannot even speak (coherently with his philosophy) of truth and falsity, for if ideas are the product of the brain as saliva is the product of our glands then there are no true or false thoughts any more than there is true or false saliva.

Everyone can talk about ethics. At the very least, ethics seems to be hardwired into the human brain. If materialists can't talk about this, then I don't know what they can talk about.

In order to be coherent with the doctrines they profess to believe in, they shoul cease all kind of discussion and even of rational thought. But surely they don't do this, just like a Hegelian who dismisses the principle of non-contradiction uses it all the time in his ordinary thought.

But none of this will matter. You make a lot of assertions that you either can't or won't support

I haven't supported assertions which are only accidental to the discussion whether there can be a moral argument for God (such as: is existence truly a good thing for man?).
Even if we were to assume it weren't, it wouldn't change the fact that the possibility of talking objectively about morality proves God exists.

 

[Lifesaver]

I don't presuppose this just fine. It was just as mistaken when the Stoics insisted on presupposing this with what they sometimes called Zeus, which they imagined to be something like a rarified gas in the universe that shaped it according to its intellect and will.

It is perfectly possible to imagine that this rarified gas doesn't exist. Therefore it is certainly not that being whose existence is necessary.

(BTW, I suspect that when Aquinas said "The being we call God", his intended audience was fellow Christians. He was trying to convince Christians that he was talking about the same being that they believed in. This phrase is useless when speaking with atheists, since that being we don't necessarily call "God".)

No, this is a misunderstanding. You may replace the name "God" for any that you choose; but it will always refer to the same being, the basis for all existence.
It is, with all certainty, not a gas, not atomic particles, not a horse, not anything that can be thought of as non-existing.

"Order" (intelligibility) does not require a cause -- it merely requires an existence in which the entities that exist have characteristics that do not contradict each other.

I agree that fundamentally order and being are synonyms.
Even prime matter, completely formless (that is, without ordered modifications to it), is already something thinkable, to the extent that it is something.

Since it is impossible for a contradictory reality to exist -- since we don't need a God to save us from square circles -- then any possible existence is "ordered" and does not require divine intervention to make it intelligible.

Oh yes, I agree completely. Creation and being intelligible are not separable things, though they may be distinguished abstractly.

There is no mystery why we should be able to understand the universe, since it proves itself to be a possible existence merely by existing, and therefore no reason to make any presuppositions regarding a "God".

The universe is merely possible; its essence is perfectly different from its existence. And nothing is its own cause.
Therefore, its cause is either nothing or a Being whose existence is His essence (therefore, the absolutely necessary being). This Being is called "God".

Keep in mind, too, how complexity arises from simplicity. Our atmosphere is made up of molecules that have very simple natures, and yet when they accumulate in a gas, they together have a behavior which seems in some respects "chaotic" and in some respects "orderly". The chaotic aspect merely refers to our inability to understand every aspect of what is occuring (e.g. we don't know the location and vector of every molecule with accuracy). An atmosphere may appear very "messy" indeed. The orderly aspect refers to our ability to understand well enough to develop aerodynamical principles that allows us to design airplanes that stay aloft. But at no point is there any need to invoke some intelligence to have "designed atmospheres using aerodynamical principles". The properties of the atmosphere merely arise from the interactions of simple constituents.

This is basically the fifth way. Even though this higher order is in no way in the essence of its constituents, each being acting according to its own nature produces an ordered system.

 

[Lifesaver]

Maybe I don't understand what you mean by "materialistic", but I don't understand this point.

A materialistic philosophy is one according to each every immaterial event (such as thoughts) is the direct product of material factors.
A cruder version is that according to which there are not even anything immaterial at all; it is just moving bodies.

Both are self-contradictory and absurd, though the first version's contradictions are harder to show.

Do you mean that you think there are objective moral values? What does this mean, that there are some things which are moral to all people even if not everyone would follow them, or that there are some things which all people would agree is moral?

Using his reason, man is able to discover principles that should guide his action in order for him to achieve true happiness, the perfection of his own nature.

If the first, how would we know?
If the second, what would they be?

These are very good questions, and I briefly stated my beliefs on these matters, though I haven't tried to prove or evidentiate them, as this is somewhat beside the point. The acceptance of objective morality, whatever its content may be, is all that is needed for a "moral argument for the existence of God".

Why does order presuppose an intellect?

Everything needs a cause.
To say that something is ordered means that it obeys the designs of an intelligent will, and that it is thus intelligible to other intellects which come to perceive it.

If one were to deny this, they'd have to admit that order comes from nothing, that being comes from non-being, in short, they hold that the most basic principles of our speculative reason are invalid.

To use an example: a messy room (and this already has some degree of order, so that we can recognize a bed, a table, a chair, etc) will not be organized "on its own", with no cause. Plus, purposeless interferences on it will not organize it either. Either someone cleans and organizes the room or it will remain messy.

Truly, someone may say that that the formation of complex ice crystals does not need the direct intervention of any mind; it is just a thing that naturally happens. But they miss the deeper point: surely, not every order needs a direct orderer; it may be the by-product of an prior ordered system (the laws of physics, the nature of water, etc).

Do you really mean "presuppose", or do you mean "requires" or "implies"? We can suppose all we want, but it won't affect reality, so I suppose you mean something else

Perhaps "requires" is a better word, even though when I say "pressupose" I mean "logically requires".

 

[michabo]

Lifesaver,

Thanks for your reply, and for bearing with me. I've read some philosophy but am not familliar with all of the language so it must be a bit tiresome to be dealing with such basic questions.

A materialistic philosophy is one according to each every immaterial event (such as thoughts) is the direct product of material factors.
A cruder version is that according to which there are not even anything immaterial at all; it is just moving bodies.

Both are self-contradictory and absurd, though the first version's contradictions are harder to show.

Self-contradictory, or contradicted by observation?

Frankly, I can't see problems with either. Can you demonstrate a clear problem rather than relying on ignorance (e.g.: "how can our minds arise from physical materials")?

How would you respond to an extensive and growing body of research which shows extensive mental and personality changes that arise from changes to the body. To my knowledge, there are no fixed and immutable properties of our mind and personality which can not be affected by the body.

This seems to be entirely consistent with what you describe as a materialistic philosophy, but I see no inconsistencies.

Using his reason, man is able to discover principles that should guide his action in order for him to achieve true happiness, the perfection of his own nature.

To be clear, this is your definition of "objective morality"? It doesn't seem to say anything about morality which confuses me. You also don't make any claims about objectivity which would seem to be essential.

The acceptance of objective morality, whatever its content may be, is all that is needed for a "moral argument for the existence of God".

I don't accept objective morality, as I understand it. My understanding is that objective morality would be a moral belief which we may either derive by observation, or which must be shared by all people regardless of culture, age, or upbringing. I don't think such a thing exists.

Everything needs a cause.

Well, we know that's not true.

To shortcut the discussion, let me try to pick one of the clearer examples in QM, that of entangled particles. An observation in one, immediately determines properties of the other regardless of distance. This means that entangled particles exhibit "non locality". Because of properties of time, different observers may not be able to agree on which particle was observed first and so there is no way to determine the cause and the effect.

There are many other examples out there, but we don't need to go into that. As you know, a universal claim ("Everything needs...") requires evidence which you do not have. Any universal claim may be falsified by a single contradicting observation, which we have in plenty. All of QM is filled with other examples and while I've seen people resort to asserting that there are causes, they've never been able to demonstrate this.

To say that something is ordered means that it obeys the designs of an intelligent will, and that it is thus intelligible to other intellects which come to perceive it.

Are you defining "order", or are you observing a property of "order"?

If the former, then you need to demonstrate that an intelligent will was responsible for it before concluding that it is ordered. If the latter, then you must demonstrate that order (as commonly defined) requires intelligent will. And as with other universal claims, I would then provide a long list of order that arises naturally, without intelligent will.

Let's start with pouring a ping pong balls into a shallow, square box. They will naturally form a pyramid which is ordered, yet no intelligent will ordered them. There are many, many examples of order which arise due to gravity or chemisty.

If one were to deny this, they'd have to admit that order comes from nothing, that being comes from non-being, in short, they hold that the most basic principles of our speculative reason are invalid.

I don't see how any of this invalidates reason.

But they miss the deeper point: surely, not every order needs a direct orderer; it may be the by-product of an prior ordered system (the laws of physics, the nature of water, etc).

Is the use of "ordered system" an intentional equivocation or an accident? That seems to be begging the question. Demonstrate that these are "ordered" in the same sense of the word that you have been using before.

Note that these physical laws are not intelligent, unlike your earlier claim. You had said that order arises from an "intelligent will" and now you're saying that they don't need to arise from an intelligent will, but rather a system of physical rules is adequate. It seems to me that this is a very significant point which we should not overlook. If we can infer that there must be a mind behind these physical rules, that's excellent, but merely observing "order" (whatever you mean by this) does not seem to be adequate.

 

[Eudaimonist]

It is perfectly possible to imagine that this rarified gas doesn't exist. Therefore it is certainly not that being whose existence is necessary.

It is perfectly possible for me to imagine that an intelligent creator or orderer of the universe doesn't exist.

No, this is a misunderstanding. You may replace the name "God" for any that you choose; but it will always refer to the same being, the basis for all existence.

I wouldn't be replacing the word "God" with anything. I have no use for this "name", or any concept of a "basis" for existence, which begs a lot of questions. (No "basis", aside perhaps from the simplest of entities, e.g. quarks, strings, or quantum loops in spacetime, depending on the theory.) I need only a word for existence, and the word "universe" works just fine. This has no necessary relation to the concept "God".

It is, with all certainty, not a gas, not atomic particles, not a horse, not anything that can be thought of as non-existing.

I suspect, then, that you will save God by losing God. God will disappear in a puff of metaphysical abstraction.

BTW, I don't think the Stoics insisted that Zeus was a gas in the conventional sense, but merely spread thinly and invisibly throughout the universe, and "gas" was the most convenient way to describe this.

I agree that fundamentally order and being are synonyms.

I wouldn't call them synonyms. I would simply say that they imply each other.

Even prime matter, completely formless (that is, without ordered modifications to it), is already something thinkable, to the extent that it is something.

Prime matter?

I do not believe in "completely formless" anything. This is an impossibility, and unthinkable to me.

To exist is to have form. The two are inseparable.

The universe is merely possible; its essence is perfectly different from its existence.

I don't know that. While the form of our universe in the present moment may have been merely one possibility out of many possible "slices" of a universe, that doesn't mean that everything that is possible includes possibilities dramatically unlike our universe. It may be that a godless natural universe like our own reflects the only set of possibilities, since it may only be in the "large scale" that essences become merely possible, but not in the "micro scale" where they may be required.

BTW, essence is never "perfectly different" from existence, except in abstract thought. The two are always one in entities.

And nothing is its own cause.

Does that include God?

I agree with this, but I don't believe the universe ever did not exist, though time (change) might have had a beginning. Galaxies may have a cause (an efficient cause), but physical reality as such has no cause and needs no cause, IMV.

Therefore, its cause is either nothing or a Being whose existence is His essence (therefore, the absolutely necessary being). This Being is called "God".

The idea of a "Being whose existence is His essence" sounds like very creative philosophy, but is highly speculative and completely outside of our experience. It would make more sense, and be within our experience, if something small and simple like a quark, or large and simple like spacetime, which is not made up of any more fundamental building blocks and is therefore not efficiently caused (such as galaxies and people) is "absolutely necessary being".


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Lifesaver]

It is perfectly possible for me to imagine that an intelligent creator or orderer of the universe doesn't exist.

Depending on what we mean, this may be true or false.

We can imagine there not being a universe, and therefore no Creator of the universe.

In the same way, even though we know there is a universe, and thus that there must be a being whose existence is necessary and which is the first cause of all else, and we call this being "God", we still do not know why this being is necessary. We do not know God's essence, that is, we don't understand why He is necessary.
But since there exists a universe, He must be necessary; in other words, the necessary being must be necessary.

I suspect, then, that you will save God by losing God. God will disappear in a puff of metaphysical abstraction.

BTW, I don't think the Stoics insisted that Zeus was a gas in the conventional sense, but merely spread thinly and invisibly throughout the universe, and "gas" was the most convenient way to describe this.



I wouldn't call them synonyms. I would simply say that they imply each other.

Prime matter?

I do not believe in "completely formless" anything. This is an impossibility, and unthinkable to me.

To exist is to have form. The two are inseparable.

I agree completely. There can be no such thing as formless matter.
But in our knowledge of things we can mentally distinguish between what a thing is (form) and what it is made of (matter).

And so we can think, through abstraction (that is, the separation of these two things which are always together), of prime matter, pure potentiality, though it of course can never exist in fact without some form, that is, without something that orders it and makes it a definite something.

We do the same mental process with things such as colour; no-one will venture to say that the red can exist apart from the apple which has it as its colour; and yet, we have no problem in thinking of the colour "red" abstracted from all the substances which have it.

I don't know that. While the form of our universe in the present moment may have been merely one possibility out of many possible "slices" of a universe, that doesn't mean that everything that is possible includes possibilities dramatically unlike our universe. It may be that a godless natural universe like our own reflects the only set of possibilities, since it may only be in the "large scale" that essences become merely possible, but not in the "micro scale" where they may be required.

The discussion hinges on one question: is any physical being am absolute logical necessity such that it would be a contradiction in terms to say it does not exist?

BTW, essence is never "perfectly different" from existence, except in abstract thought. The two are always one in entities.

Granted. It is in the act of being a man that I exist.

Does that include God?

Yes. God is not His own cause. God has no cause. He doesn't need one (in fact, it is logically impossible for Him to be caused; for if he were, the being in question would not be God but something else)

The idea of a "Being whose existence is His essence" sounds like very creative philosophy, but is highly speculative and completely outside of our experience. It would make more sense, and be within our experience, if something small and simple like a quark, or large and simple like spacetime, which is not made up of any more fundamental building blocks and is therefore not efficiently caused (such as galaxies and people) is "absolutely necessary being".

But quarks are not necessary at all. To begin with, their accidents are always changing (their local position, for instance). Secondly, they have a definite essence, that is, their existence is limited.
Thirdly, they are not even intelligent, have no intellect, which means that we would have to assume the intellect of men to be a product of physical components; a philosophical position which entails endless contradictions.

Just to name a few reasons why material particles cannot possibly be the Being of which we are talking about.

In the end, one will have to choose one of two assertions: there is a first Cause, a necessary absolute being, wihch is the cause of the universe and not a part of the universe, or else the universe comes from nothing(logically if not also chronologically).

 

[Lifesaver]

Lifesaver,

Thanks for your reply, and for bearing with me. I've read some philosophy but am not familliar with all of the language so it must be a bit tiresome to be dealing with such basic questions.

That's no problem at all. I believe good philosophy ought to be simple enough that any person will be able to understand if they make a little effort and receive an explanation of the technical terms.
So, if some concepts seem cloudy and some steps of the arguments are unclear, that is rather my own fault.

Self-contradictory, or contradicted by observation?

Frankly, I can't see problems with either. Can you demonstrate a clear problem rather than relying on ignorance (e.g.: "how can our minds arise from physical materials")?

Yes.
I will briefly outline two problems with a materialist worldview.
The first is an objection only to the most radical materialism: that which asserts that the mind IS the brain (or some body of any kind).
It is the problem of the irreducibility of mental acts (thoughts, experiences) to brain states (actual phyisical phenomena that takes place in the brain).
This problem assumes something which is already a great concession to materialism: that each and every every particular mental act has a perfectly correlated brain state.

When you think of a red ball, one or some mental acts take place. At the same time your brain state changes (neurons make their synapses or whatever).
Now, if someone holds that the mental acts are physical phenomena, then your thought is actually the neurons and electrical signals taking place in your brain.
But it is obvious that there is no red ball inside your brain at the moment.
An observer who watched your changing brain states as you thought of the red ball would still have no access to your actual experience of the red ball.
They could possibly take note of the synapses which took place and then conclude that you thought of a red ball; but the actual experience the red ball is nowhere to be seen; it is not itself physical.

It may be, as our example supposed, that mental acts and brain states carry the same exact information. But even if that is the case, they are absolutely different languages (much like the images on the computer screen and the actual processes which go on in the CPU when the image is shown).
One may be the direct product of the other (mental acts are the effect of the brain states), but they cannot possibly be the same thing, as they have a manifest difference. And one and the same thing cannot be different from itself in any way.

The second objection to materialism is broader: it refutes the position which affirms that the mind, or the thoughts, are a product of the brain or of some other physical phenomenon.
Just like saliva glands produce saliva, it is held that the brain and its physical processes produce thoughts.

If that were the case, it would be impossible to speak of true or false thoughts and opinions. Afterall, just as there can be no true or false saliva (only different kinds), there can be no true or false thoughts (only different thoughts, which are the effect of different physical conditions). They are merely the product of the material conditions of the body. The notion of truth and falsity become meaningless concepts.

Thus, anyone who accepts this version of materialism ought to accept that it makes no sense to speak of "true" or "false" thoughts, opinions, descriptions, etc. Thoughts are only the product of the brain; they do not make any reference to the object of the thought.
If it doesn't make sense to speak of "true" and "false" positions, then it doesn't make sense to defend materialism as being true. Materialism, like every other philosophy, is the outcome of certain bodies being affected in a certain way.
It doesn't make sense to think of materialism as being in any way a philosophy superior to any other (why is bodily state A better than B?).

Therefore everyone who thinks materialism to be a better position ought to accept that it is as irrelevant and "equally valid" as all others.

How would you respond to an extensive and growing body of research which shows extensive mental and personality changes that arise from changes to the body. To my knowledge, there are no fixed and immutable properties of our mind and personality which can not be affected by the body.

I would say such research enlarges our knowledge of the many ways in which body and soul interact.

This kind of knowledge is only a problem if one believes in a Platonic/Cartesian soul (the transparent ghost trapped in the body, or the unextended thinking substance which controls a body absolutely separate from it). Since these traditions of thought posit an absolute separation between soul and body, it is hard for them to acknowledge that the body may affect the soul in a number of ways.

The soul's activities are dependent on the body.
We can only see if we have eyes; we can only digest if we have a stomach.
The soul is the principle of life; that which differentiates the living being from dead matter.

What is the difference between a simple bacteria and a non-living organic complex? The activity of the bacteria's components are all ordered toward the same end: the preservation of its life and the survival of the species.
It is the ordering principle behind this ordered activity which is the soul. Of course, if the body were to be destroyed, so would the activity of this soul. And since all its activity consists precisely of this, then the soul itself, in the case of the bacteria, ceases to exist as the bacteria dies.

The same holds true for plants and animals, whose souls have many more functions (growth, senses, self-movement, memory, etc), but all of them necessarily dependent of physical organs.
In the case of man our soul has activities which, despite being dependent on the body in this life, are not necessarily dependent on it: abstract thought.

We only think with what we have experienced, based on our memory, with objects of past experience. So we do need the body to think in this life; but the actual activity of abstract thought, of reasoning, does not depend by necessity on any physical component, and that is why the soul of man does not disapear with his death.
Rather, it retains its activity, though in this state of separation (which for man is unnatural) knowledge will be acquired in a completely different way.

To be clear, this is your definition of "objective morality"? It doesn't seem to say anything about morality which confuses me. You also don't make any claims about objectivity which would seem to be essential. I don't accept objective morality, as I understand it. My understanding is that objective morality would be a moral belief which we may either derive by observation, or which must be shared by all people regardless of culture, age, or upbringing. I don't think such a thing exists.

By objective morality I mean that man, using his reason, is able to discern principles that ought to guide his action if he wants to be happy and wants to help others achieving happiness as well.
The application of these principles will in different circumstances lead to different actions, and it is impossible to draw a priori a perfect set of practical rules which tell us how to act in every case. Only our own experience, which develops our practical reason, and the example of those who are more virtuous than us, will help us learn how to act more correctly in every situation.
In short, it is impossible to know how to act independently of the concrete situations we are faced with, but at the same time it is not "anything goes"; there is such a thing as right and wrong action, and a man may reach that knowledge using his rational capacities.

To shortcut the discussion, let me try to pick one of the clearer examples in QM, that of entangled particles. An observation in one, immediately determines properties of the other regardless of distance. This means that entangled particles exhibit "non locality". Because of properties of time, different observers may not be able to agree on which particle was observed first and so there is no way to determine the cause and the effect.

It may be that certain things have "random" movements in the sense that whether it goes left or right is up to pure chance.
However, such phenomena are in no way uncaused. On the contrary, they have a series of conditions which must exist for them to take place, even though it is impossible to predict what the outcome will be. We need particles to exist with their nature, to be in a certain position, etc.

Are you defining "order", or are you observing a property of "order"?

I am observing it. Observing facts which happen in an intelligible way.

Note that these physical laws are not intelligent, unlike your earlier claim. You had said that order arises from an "intelligent will" and now you're saying that they don't need to arise from an intelligent will, but rather a system of physical rules is adequate.

What I meant is that a particular observed order in the events of the universe needn't be the direct result of someone's willing it. It may be the secondary effect of such a will; that is, it may be that the whole universe is ordered by one principle which is in fact willed and the rest of our observed laws of nature actually follow from this one.

 

[michabo]

This problem assumes something which is already a great concession to materialism: that each and every every particular mental act has a perfectly correlated brain state.

When you think of a red ball, one or some mental acts take place. At the same time your brain state changes (neurons make their synapses or whatever).
Now, if someone holds that the mental acts are physical phenomena, then your thought is actually the neurons and electrical signals taking place in your brain.
But it is obvious that there is no red ball inside your brain at the moment.
An observer who watched your changing brain states as you thought of the red ball would still have no access to your actual experience of the red ball.
They could possibly take note of the synapses which took place and then conclude that you thought of a red ball; but the actual experience the red ball is nowhere to be seen; it is not itself physical.

It may be, as our example supposed, that mental acts and brain states carry the same exact information. But even if that is the case, they are absolutely different languages (much like the images on the computer screen and the actual processes which go on in the CPU when the image is shown).
One may be the direct product of the other (mental acts are the effect of the brain states), but they cannot possibly be the same thing, as they have a manifest difference. And one and the same thing cannot be different from itself in any way.

I don't follow this. What does your comment "the red ball is nowhere to be seen" mean? What does the absence of a physical ball inside our heads have to do with a mind/brain separation? How does this prevent us from reasoning?


Finally, you conclude that "one may be the direct product of the other", presumably you're saying that the mind may be the product of the brain. Surely this is all that anyone is arguing. The brain does not arise from the mind, after all. Rather, the mind is an illusion caused by the processing of the brain.

Reading between the lines, I'm still seeing the argument from ignorance with some sort of strawman. We don't know exactly how the mind arises from the brain (though it almost certainly does), and yet you wish to draw conclusions from it. Namely, that it is impossible for the mind to arise from the brain. And instead of showing something which would prevent the mind arising from the brain, instead you seem to be arguing that we must reason based on our experiences of the world instead of against the world itself, so therefore we can't trust our thoughts.

I agree that we can't trust our thoughts to be 100% accurate which is why the scientific method builds in so many checks such as replicatability. But I really don't see how any of this prevents us from reasoning at all.

If that were the case, it would be impossible to speak of true or false thoughts and opinions. Afterall, just as there can be no true or false saliva (only different kinds), there can be no true or false thoughts (only different thoughts, which are the effect of different physical conditions). They are merely the product of the material conditions of the body. The notion of truth and falsity become meaningless concepts.

This seems to be some sort of equivocation.

What is a "true thought"? On the one hand, you speak of it as if it the correct result of our brain's processing, rather like the correct saliva to help digest a piece of food. But then at the end, you seem to switch this around to be a true representation of the external world, the "notion of truth."

Nothing you've said implies that the mind arising from the brain would inhibit our ability to correctly reason about the world or to distinguish truth from falsity.

Thus, anyone who accepts this version of materialism ought to accept that it makes no sense to speak of "true" or "false" thoughts, opinions, descriptions, etc. Thoughts are only the product of the brain; they do not make any reference to the object of the thought.

I agree about true opinions as it is a contradiction in terms. I don't know what a true thought is in this context. But truth in general? I don't think you've presented an argument for that.

Because something is merely the product of the brain and so we aren't holding the actual object physically in our head seems like little reason to think that our thoughts cannot be rational.


Now, let me try this same argument out on you

If our minds aren't the result of our brain and our biochemistry, then our reasoning must be separate and independent from our bodies. What we do to our brain should not affect our ability to determine truth and reality. So if you do not believe in materialism, you should not see any difference between a sober man and a drunk man, a healthy man or a lobotomized man.

Do you see any difference?

We only think with what we have experienced, based on our memory, with objects of past experience. So we do need the body to think in this life; but the actual activity of abstract thought, of reasoning, does not depend by necessity on any physical component, and that is why the soul of man does not disapear with his death.

By objective morality I mean that man, using his reason, is able to discern principles that ought to guide his action if he wants to be happy and wants to help others achieving happiness as well.

Why do you start with the assumption that morality is focused on the happiness of individuals and/or society? Which takes priority?

How did you objectively decide that this is the best?

In short, it is impossible to know how to act independently of the concrete situations we are faced with, but at the same time it is not "anything goes"; there is such a thing as right and wrong action, and a man may reach that knowledge using his rational capacities.

So you only judge things to be "wrong" if the person doing them is not made happy afterwards?

I am observing it. Observing facts which happen in an intelligible way.

Then you are begging the question.

We are attempting to demonstrate that there is a will to the universe. You say that you observe order, yet you define order as something which "beys the designs of an intelligent will, and that it is thus intelligible to other intellects which come to perceive it."

Thus you may observe "order" (your definition) only if you observe that it is the design of an intelligent will. You are seeing "order" (conventional definition) and then equivocating to your own definition in order to conclude there is an intelligent will.

If you wish to conclude there is an intelligent will, you will need to define order in such a way that we may observe it without observing its cause, and then draw inferences as to its origin.

What I meant is that a particular observed order in the events of the universe needn't be the direct result of someone's willing it. It may be the secondary effect of such a will; that is, it may be that the whole universe is ordered by one principle which is in fact willed and the rest of our observed laws of nature actually follow from this one.

Maybe. I can't see any reason to conclude any of this, however.

 

[Lifesaver]

I don't follow this. What does your comment "the red ball is nowhere to be seen" mean? What does the absence of a physical ball inside our heads have to do with a mind/brain separation?

Thoughts and their correlate brain states are not identical. On the contrary, they are radically different.
Therefore, they are not the same thing.
Therefore, there is a distinction between brain and mind.

This already refutes many materialist positions which assert that thoughts ARE brain states.

I agree that we can't trust our thoughts to be 100% accurate which is why the scientific method builds in so many checks such as replicatability. But I really don't see how any of this prevents us from reasoning at all.

I'm sorry, the second argument was not clear enough.
It is not that the truth-value of our thoughts would be questionable or unreliable if the mind is a product of the brain.

It is that, if the mind is a product of the brain, then the concepts of "true" and "false" are meaningless.

What is a "true thought"? On the one hand, you speak of it as if it the correct result of our brain's processing, rather like the correct saliva to help digest a piece of food.

No.
There is no such thing as correct or incorrect saliva. It cannot possibly be true or false. It is nonsensical to speak of it with these terms.

Nothing you've said implies that the mind arising from the brain would inhibit our ability to correctly reason about the world or to distinguish truth from falsity.

If the mind is the product of the brain then there is no truth or falsity; just different thoughts, that is, different products of the brain.

Suppose a certain man is a socialist.
A non-materialist could probably explain this fact in this way: the man in question thinks equality is a desirable goal for society and that it would be possible to centrally plan the activities of man; because of this he upholds socialism as the best form of social organization.

However, the materialist would give a very different explanation: the man in question is not a socialist because of any value or idea he has. He is a socialist, that is, he believes socialism is a good system, because certain physical conditions of his brain produced this belief in him.
The cause of his belief in socialism is a physical one: a certain chemical in the brain in a certain quantity, together with the activation of some neurons; this is the cause of his belief in socialism.

The belief does not refer in any way to the real world; it is not an attempt to describe it, or to teach how the world ought to be, or anything like it; it is the product of an organ.

In short, a similar explanation that one would give to explain why a certain man produces saliva of a certain kind and not another.
And just as there can be no true or false saliva, there can be no true or false thoughts. Not even materialism itself.

Because something is merely the product of the brain and so we aren't holding the actual object physically in our head seems like little reason to think that our thoughts cannot be rational.

Now you are confusing the arguments.
The first was to prove that mental acts and brain states are distinct from each other.
The second to prove that it is nonsensical to say that thoughts are the direct product of the brain or of other physical conditions.

If our minds aren't the result of our brain and our biochemistry, then our reasoning must be separate and independent from our bodies.

Not at all.
Both interact and their activities are interdependent, but they are distinct principles.

Why do you start with the assumption that morality is focused on the happiness of individuals and/or society? Which takes priority?

Both are in accordance if properly understood.

How did you objectively decide that this is the best?

Again, just like theoretical thought needs us to accept some principles (logical principles) which cannot be proved, ethical thought also needs us to accept some principles.

 

[Lifesaver]

I think it is a good oportunity to post here a much better explained version of the argument I am putting forward against materialism.
It is in fact the source I got it from (about economics, incidently):

Ludwig Von Mises's book "Socialism":

If the emergence of every idea is to be dealt with as one deals with the emergence of all other natural events, it is no longer permissible to distinguish between true and false propositions. Then the theorems of Descartes are neither better nor worse than the bungling of Peter, a dull candidate for a degree, in his examination paper. The material factors cannot err. They have produced in the man Descartes co-ordinate geometry and in the man Peter something that his teacher, not enlightened by the gospel of materialism, considers as nonsense. But what entitles this teacher to sit in judgment upon nature? Who are the materialist philosophers to condemn what the material factors have produced in the bodies of the "idealistic" philosophers.

It would be useless for the materialists to point to pragmatism's distinction between what works and what does not work. For this distinction introduces into the chain of reasoning a factor that is foreign to the natural sciences, viz., finality. A doctrine or proposition works if conduct directed by it brings about the end aimed at. But the choice of the end is determined by ideas, is in itself a mental fact. So is also the judgment whether or not the end chosen has been attained. For consistent materialism it is not possible to distinguish between purposive action and merely vegetative, plant-like living.

Materialists think that their doctrine merely eliminates the distinction between what is morally good and morally bad. They fail to see that it no less wipes out any difference between what is true and what is untrue and thus deprives all mental acts of any meaning. If there stands between the "real things" of the external world and the mental acts nothing that could be looked upon as essentially different from the operation of the forces described by the traditional natural sciences, then we must put up with these mental phenomena in the same way as we respond to natural events. For a doctrine asserting that thoughts are in the same relation to the brain in which gall is to the liver, it is not more permissible to distinguish between true and untrue ideas than between true and untrue gall.

 

[michabo]

Thoughts and their correlate brain states are not identical. On the contrary, they are radically different.
Therefore, they are not the same thing.
Therefore, there is a distinction between brain and mind.

Thoughts are different than "brain states" (not entirely sure how you're using this term). So? I don't recall arguing that they were identical. And yes, I've never said that the brain and mind were identical. I think they are very different, but I think that the brain gives rise to the mind. The brain wholly determines the mind. There is nothing in the mind that does not arise directly from the brain.

This already refutes many materialist positions which assert that thoughts ARE brain states.

I've never heard of this, unless your term "brain state" means something very different than what I imagine it to mean.

Perhaps you are arguing against one specific materialist? I'm trying to learn about the mind right now ("How the Mind Works" by Pinker) and I haven't seen what you're talking about.

It is that, if the mind is a product of the brain, then the concepts of "true" and "false" are meaningless.

From what I understand, you argued that thoughts cannot be true. But you haven't said anything about the concepts of "true" or "false" themselves.

There is no such thing as correct or incorrect saliva. It cannot possibly be true or false. It is nonsensical to speak of it with these terms.

I think you're confusing the thought "true" from whether a given thought accurately represents reality. I think you're also confusing whether a thought in the mind is a proper thought for that mind to make from whether that thought is rational.

Suppose a certain man is a socialist.
A non-materialist could probably explain this fact in this way: the man in question thinks equality is a desirable goal for society and that it would be possible to centrally plan the activities of man; because of this he upholds socialism as the best form of social organization.

However, the materialist would give a very different explanation: the man in question is not a socialist because of any value or idea he has. He is a socialist, that is, he believes socialism is a good system, because certain physical conditions of his brain produced this belief in him.
The cause of his belief in socialism is a physical one: a certain chemical in the brain in a certain quantity, together with the activation of some neurons; this is the cause of his belief in socialism.

This is true to an extent, but you are missing a large chunk: the brain interacts with the external world in a constant feedback loop. A belief in socialism comes from observations and teachings as well as genetic and developmental inclinations. These observations and teachings are stored physically in the brain but were not present at birth. A materialist can easily abstract the low-level mechanics of storage and feedback of the brain and talk about beliefs just as you describe the non-materialist.

Materialism does not make a person an automaton.

If you wish to draw a comparison, you should talk at the same level. This would require the non-materialist to say something about how the soul believes and then pushes the brain to do something or I don't know what. The non-materialist position confuses me in the low-level details.

The belief does not refer in any way to the real world; it is not an attempt to describe it, or to teach how the world ought to be, or anything like it; it is the product of an organ.

Why this dichotomy you continually draw?

My skin is an organ yet it lets me interact with the real world. I can feel texture, temperature and pressure. It lets me learn about the real world and let me describe it though the feedback it generates are the "product of an organ."

Both are in accordance if properly understood.

Then explain it. I thought the thread is about morality, so how do we objectively arise at the conclusion that happiness should be our moral objective? How do we objectively decide between the happiness of an individual and society? How do we objectively determine what makes a person happy?

Again, just like theoretical thought needs us to accept some principles (logical principles) which cannot be proved, ethical thought also needs us to accept some principles.

And tell me how this doesn't kill your entire argument.