An LDS argument against the law of attraction

February 19, 2012

This is the fourth argument in a series of arguments against the law of attraction.

“That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin, cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment. Therefore, they must remain filthy still.” —D&C 88:35

Those who take the law of attraction seriously cannot logically also believe in laws of reality by which we are judged. They seek to become laws unto themselves. They reject reality and it’s eternal laws. A belief in reality is the fundamental assumption of LDS theology. Therefore, one cannot consistently be LDS and also believe in the law of attraction.

Discussion Leave a comment Category Ethics, Metaphysics, Religion, Science Tags

The Law of Attraction is Dangerous

February 18, 2012

This is the third argument in a series of arguments against the law of attraction.

The law of attraction assumes that consciousness has primacy over reality. If consciousness really had primacy over reality, then there would be no reason to be respond to feedback from reality. If there is no incentive to react to reality, then a person will be dangerous to himself and to others.

For example, I blame the law of attraction for shortening the life of Steve Jobs. In his biography, we learn that Jobs could have prolonged his life if he followed his doctors counsel—if he had adhered to reality. Instead Steve Jobs believed that he could cure himself through positive thoughts and quack medicine. (It is actually illogical for those who believe in the law of attraction to also believe in any sort of medicine, but it is not surprising that the remedies they do believe in are usually not science-based).

If you really take the law of attraction seriously, then let me know when you are on the road so that I can avoid you. You will be a danger to me and yourself because you will not wish to be bothered by my presence.

In reality, no one actually takes the law of attraction seriously, because no one can live it consistently and survive. Thankfully, those who tried to live it consistently have already removed themselves from the gene pool.

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The law of attraction is self-refuting

January 26, 2012

This is the first argument against the law of attraction.

1. The law of attraction is self-refuting

The law of attraction assumes that consciousness can change reality. Therefore, it must logically assume that there is no objective reality. This is idealism. In my terminology, the law of attraction assumes that, “Consciousness has primacy over reality”.

The first axiom of rationality is that an objective reality exists. This is an axiom because any person that tries to argue against it must first assume it. Whenever a person uses the word “is” as in “This thing is that thing“, they are assuming the first axiom. To say the words “the law of attraction is a true law” is to make a contradiction. That proposition assumes that there is an objective reality and it also assumes that there is no objective reality.

If it was true that the law of attraction could grant the believer anything, then someone could use that law to destroy the law of attraction if they really believed hard enough. The law of attraction applied to itself reveals the contradictory nature of the belief.

No person can live a balanced life when there are contradictions in his/her mind.

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The Law of Attraction

January 25, 2012

In 2006, a DVD was released that offered a sensational depiction of a popular self help idea. “The Secret“, which was followed by a book of the same name, taught that one attracts whatever they think about. They called this notion the law of attraction.

Various speakers spoke in the DVD about this law that can give you anything. Some even suggested that our mind sends out vibrations that attract corresponding things to us including wealth, fame, and happiness. The law of attraction is a genie that will grant your every wish.

When I have spoken to people who believe in the law of attraction, they say that the law of attraction is so powerful that they can achieve anything if only they believe enough.

I know many people that either buy into it or feel that something is wrong with the theory without being able to articulate why. I will offer a four simple arguments to refute the law of attraction. The four arguments are listed below. I will write a post for each of them in the next few days.

1. The law of attraction is self-refuting
 2. The law of attraction insulates the believer from feedback
3. The law of attraction is dangerous
4. The law of attraction is evil from an LDS perspective

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Reason and Emotion

December 26, 2011

Which has primacy between emotion and reason?

What is reason? Reason is the faculty that organizes and integrates facts. What are facts? Facts are propositions that correspond with reality. How do we obtain facts? Through the senses. Therefore reason is the ability to comprehend reality directly through the senses.

What is emotion? An emotion is a response to an object (such as a person, place, or thing) or a proposition as evaluated by the perceiver of the object/proposition. How are emotions created? First, the perceiver, perceives and identifies an object or proposition, and then, he/she evaluates the object/proposition and concludes that the object is good or bad according to his/her values.

Therefore emotion is not a faculty of comprehending reality. Emotions cannot tell us anything about reality. Emotions only reflect what we think—implicitly or explicitly—about reality. If our ideas are true and aligned with our emotions, then emotions can be said to indirectly give us feedback about reality.

Emotional Processes

Example: Some people have a positive response to Barack Obama, and some people have a negative response toward Obama. A child who has never heard of Obama will have no emotional response to him. The difference in responses is due to different ideas and values in the perceiver’s minds. The response itself does not give us any direct knowledge of President Obama in reality. It only reflects our cognitive evaluations of him.

Example of the process of emotion

Concepts by themselves may or may not be integrated through the faculty of reason. Concepts and values may be unidentified (subconscious). One can hold an identified, integrated concept and an unidentified inconsistent concept at the same time. Therefore, people can accept contradictions without knowing it.

We often identify “mind” with the process of reason and “heart” with the process of emotion. Conflicts between the mind and heart are conflicts between identified concepts and unidentified concepts that cause automatic emotional responses. Therefore conflicts between the heart and mind are ultimately conflicts between thoughts in mind. Such conflicts cannot be resolved by ignoring reason, they are only resolved by using reason to identify subconscious thoughts and integrating them with concepts as derived from reality.

Therefore, reason (the mind) ultimately has primacy over emotion (the heart).

Discussion 2 Comments Category Epistemology Tags , , , , ,

Reason and Faith

December 20, 2011

Is there any conflict between reason and faith? According to one epistemological position known as fideism faith is independent of and hostile toward reason. How does fideism define faith? It defines faith as belief without evidence. According to some philosophers such as Kierkegaard, reason cannot fully comprehend God and so one must take a “leap of faith”. Martin Luther said, “Reason receives life from faith.”

Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates concepts as derived from man’s senses. The thinkers mentioned above did not categorically reject reason, but they clearly believed that faith has primacy over reason. That means that faith is primary and reason is secondary. There are 2 problems with this way of thinking:

The first problem comes from their definition of faith—”belief without evidence”. As I wrote in my last post, this definition is incorrect. I will argue here that it is also dangerous. It is dangerous because any belief without evidence will insulate the believer from feedback from reality. If one holds the view that faith has primacy over reason, then if they must choose between reality and religion, they will choose religion over reality. They will not be able to identify truth when it contradicts with their beliefs. They will be blind and their spiritual and physical growth will be stunted. Islamic theocratic fascism is an extreme demonstration of the consequences of this view. Terrorists commit violent acts that reason would otherwise prevent them from doing.

The second problem is revealed by asking a simple question: How did they come to the conclusion that faith has primacy over reason? The answer is that they used reason. Therefore, they primarily rely on a concept that they regard as secondary. Therefore to say that faith has primacy over reason is self-refuting because they used reason to come to that conclusion.

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Evidence and Faith

November 29, 2011

Many religions teach some version of the concept “faith”. Many religious adherents believe that faith is “belief without evidence”. The religious philosopher Kierkegaard said, “Without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk the greater the faith … [to understand faith] is to understand that faith cannot be understood … must not be understood … and this absurdity, held fast in the passion of inwardness, is faith, the earnestness of facing the absurd.” 

His picture of faith was as follows:

This picture argues that faith has primacy over evidence. I believe this interpretation is incorrect. I think this misinterpretation partly comes from scriptures that suggest faith is believing without seeing. Seeing is one type of evidence. Hearing, smelling, touching, feeling may be other types of evidence. I think that any scripture referring to “belief without seeing” really implies “belief without directly seeing.”

Faith is belief with evidence. It simply excludes evidence that comes from direct observation. Why does it exclude direct observation? Because if we have direct observation, then we have no need for faith. Direct observation leads to a perfect knowledge.

We have evidence for many things that we cannot directly observe. We have never seen an atom but we infer that they exist based on evidence. According to my definition of faith, it is appropriate to say that we have faith that atoms exist.

Orson Pratt, one of the original leaders of my religion, said, “Faith or belief is the result of evidence presented to the mind. Without evidence, the mind cannot have faith in anything … Faith in every fact, statement, truth, or proposition which we have confidence in, is, in all cases whatsoever, derived from evidence. Therefore, without evidence, faith can have no existence.”

This picture of faith is as follows:

This picture shows that evidence has primacy over faith. Only this type of faith can lead us toward a correct picture of reality.

 

 

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What is knowledge?

October 30, 2011

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. There are 3 types of knowledge.
(1) Knowledge how—Example: Legolas knows how to shoot an arrow.
(2) Knowledge by acquaintance—Example: Frodo knows Gandalf
(3) Knowledge that—Example: Sauron knows that Frodo has the ring.

Most epistemology is the study of “knowledge that”. In this context, the traditional definition of knowledge is justified, true, belief. I think that this definition is a good start in analyzing knowledge. I will define each of these aspects of knowledge.

Justification
The state of being validated by proper means.

Truth
The state that applies to propositions that accurately correspond to reality.

Belief
A proposition that one accepts as being true.

If a belief is true and it is justified, then we say that a person has knowledge.

Example of not having knowledge:
If the time is actually 12:00am and Ronald looks at a broken clock that is stuck on 12:00am and then Ronald believes that it is 12:00am, then Ronald has a belief that is true but is not justified. Therefore, we say that Ronald does not have knowledge because he did not gain his true belief by proper means. At least all 3 conditions must be met to consider whether or not someone has knowledge.

Example of having knowledge:
If Lula witnesses a murder then she has knowledge that the murder happened because (1) Perceptions are a justified means, (2) the murder actually happened in reality and is therefore true, and (3) Lula believes that it happened.

Discussion 10 Comments Category Epistemology Tags

Why stereotypes are accurate.

October 29, 2011

People form concepts from their experiences with reality. Not all concepts accurately reflect reality. I have argued that concepts are more likely to be true (i.e.: accurately reflect reality) when they are closer to objects in reality. They are less likely to be true the farther they stray from objects in reality.

Why is this philosophical discussion relevant to everyday life? The answer is that all other branches of human knowledge depend on what you believe about the relationship of concepts to reality (epistemology and metaphysics). One political and ethical application of this discussion is the issue of stereotypes.

A stereotype is a conceptual categorization about a group of people. Examples of stereotypes are: Jews are wealthier than white anglo-saxton protestants, blacks are more likely to be on welfare than whites, students in business are more conservative than students in the arts, men are stronger than women, homosexuals are effeminate etc.

Many people believe that stereotypes are inaccurate and lead to bad things such as racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice. Because they automatically assume that stereotypes are bad, they therefore assume that stereotypes are not true. Instead of checking to see if stereotypes are accurate, they attack the concept of stereotypes altogether. How do they attack stereotyping? By (1) attacking the concept of objective reality and concept-formation and (2) assuming a constructivist theory of truth. This strategy is self-refutting since all concepts eventually assume an objective reality to begin with. This attack is one cause of the tremendous amount of confusion in the western world.

It turns out that stereotypes are generally accurate conceptual categorizations of groups. Stereotypes are accurate because human concept-forming faculties are reliable. Stereotypes are concepts that are close to objects in reality.  According to the cognitive scientist, Steven Pinker,

“People’s stereotypes are consistent with the statistics, and in many cases their bias is to underestimate the real differences between sexes or ethnic groups. This does not mean that stereotyped traits are unchangeable, of course, or that people think they are unchangeable, only that people perceive the traits fairly accurately at the time. Moreover, even when people believe that ethnic groups have characteristic traits, they are never mindlessstereotypers who literally believe that each and every member of the group possesses those traits. People may think that Germans are, on average, more efficient than non-Germans, but no one believes that every last German is moreefficient than every non-German. And people have no trouble overriding a stereotype when they have good information about an individual. Contrary to a common accusation, teachers’ impressions of their individual pupils are not contaminated by their stereotypes of race, gender, or socioeconomic status. The teachers’ impressions accurately reflect the pupil’s performance as measured by objective tests.”

It should be clear to any person that accepts reality, that stereotypes do not justify prejudice. Stereotypes are not, “simply human inventions that have done more harm than good.” In fact acknowledging stereotypes would be the most productive way to mitigate negative differences among groups.

Please check the comments for the best treatment of stereotypes in Steven Pinker’s book The Blank Slate.

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