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Root of all evil in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 156
Profile #163
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

quote:
THe only grounds I would bother contesting your hypothetical god is if you are saying it is "wise" but has no physical brain. Sentience is a property emergent from brained entities. Something cannot have brain functions and lack a brain.
So you believe artificial intelligence is impossible in principle too?

Not necessarily(but I WILL say that I find the idea to be HIGHLY unlikely that a purely mechanical device can be self-aware). Maybe. I guess it depends on definitions. I have no point of contention with teh hypothetical "fleshy android" of the far future being able to think because scientists are able to replicate all of the chemicals and parts of the human brain(re: Blade Runner) but I do not think that a computer will ever "decide" to tell me to "F*ck off! I am shutting down before I get a virus!".

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"I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi
Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00
Root of all evil in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 156
Profile #162
quote:
Originally written by The Creator:

...yow, you two can type.

Distracting you both again, if you don't mind. Let's leave aside the theological implications for a moment. Say there was an actual miracle - a resurrection, for instance. How well would it need to be documented for you to take it seriously and/or believe it actually happened? At what point would the likelihood of falsification in your mind become smaller than the likelihood of a man coming back from the dead?

Borrowing again from Charles Fiterman's arguments for materialism & atheism...

I use the methods of science to answer all questions about reality. I rule out the supernatural just as baseball rules out "touchdowns". SO far this has not led to any problems which would not exist anyway in explaining the behavior of the universe.

If we capture a vampire(sans the most ridiculous traits of crucifix allergy and rapid transmutation of endoskeleton and organs to become a bat, a wolf or cloud of gas), then it becomes a non-reflecting, garlic allergic, hemo-dependent member of the species homo nocturnus. We study it until we figure out the mechanisms by which it operates adn survives. It becomes part of the natural world.

I rule out the supernatural because the supernatural rules out the natural. If creatures exist who can rapidly polymorph themselves into entirely new species but only during certain phases of the moon and can only be killed by silver weapons, then there is no good reason I should not believe that I will change into a package of bubble gum before I finish typing the next sentence.

As to your question proper, I would use Occam's razor on that one. If ALL mundane/ordinary explanations can be ruled out, THEN I would say that something extraordinary occured(and start wrapping myself in "Bazooka Joe" wrappers ;D).

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"I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi
Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00
Root of all evil in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 156
Profile #161
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

You're talking about brains, I'm talking about minds.
We WERE talking about matter adn hence whether brains were necessary for thoughts to exist(i.e."does thought require a thinker?").

"Mind" is akin to stride. It does not exist on it's own but as a product/function of brains.

quote:
I hadn't even reached the point of discussing brains yet. (I'm the kind of philosopher who likes to prove everything from first principles. Bear with me.)

All of this is good evidence for a relation between brain and mind, but none of it reaches the level of unquestionable proof; you can never rule out the possibility that at some future time evidence contrary to this view will turn up.

AT this time I am doing just that. "Thoughts" are defined as "brain activity", the same as walking is defined as "legged activity". I rule out brain activity existing sans brains just as I rule out things walking if no legged entities exist(unless you are being rather metaphoric with your definition of "walking").

I am not sure that ANY proof is unquestionable to one committed to doubting such proof is possible. This might be where we stalemate.

quote:
[b]In any case, my point had nothing to do with a mind/brain distinction, but rather a more fundamental thought/mind distinction. Even if we agree that thoughts are patterns of brain activity, do these thoughts together constitute a single, coherent entity that can be called a "mind"? Again, this is linguistics rather than logic.
[/b]

I see where you are coming from now. I would say yes. Thoughts = "mind". I can find no good argument to show me otherwise.

quote:
The existence of my mind, as a coherent, unified, definable concept rather than merely a series of thoughts and perceptions.
Okay.

quote:
[b]But you're still seeing one, even if it's not there. You can't doubt that you're seeing what you're seeing, even if you doubt that it "corresponds" to anything material. That was my point.
[/b]

Okay, I gotcha. In other words the insane person does not think to himself "I am insane"(oversimplification I know). I guess my first reaction to the above is to question what you mean by "seeing". I can envision things in daydreams or under the influence of LSD but am I "seeing" these things? I would say no. I am imaginaing those things. "Seeing" requires that something be there to see.

quote:
So there's more doubt about one than the other. It's still possible to doubt both.
WHat I meant was that there is no logical reason to dismiss black swans(that I know of) whereas there are MANY to dismiss transcendent gods.

quote:
As I've mentioned before, not every system of logic denies the possibility of something being both A and not A.
Then that system would be illogical. :D

quote:
My point is that they could throw out all of the information they have about brains and still make a science out of what's left, even if it would be a much less useful one.
My contention is that, if someone abandons the scientific method itself...does not regard rules of inference and all that, then they are not doing science. The scientific method requires materialism, pure and simple. It is the same as how a solopsist will assume materialism to post his questions/arguments to a philosophy message board(he assumes his computer and keybgoard are real adn his message is accurately relayed through his phone line or DSL and will appear on the LCD monitors of others etc.).

quote:
quote:
Science is a method for studying reality. In order for it to have any place we must "assume" there is a reality adn that we are percieving it.
Science is most definitely not a single method. Talk to ten scientists and you'll get eleven different and incompatible definitions of what the scientific method is.

I have spoken with HUNDREDS adn I have not once seen this to be the case. Sure an individual can add extraneous personal bias and such but the core and central details are always the same...observation, hypothesis, testing/experiment, theory, more testing/experiment, attempts to falsify, revision & more testing...lather, rinse, repeat. The reason why "spirits/ghosts(for example) are not subject to scintific methodology is that we have no concurrently observed phenomenom (and nothing that can be replicated under proper controls) which would warrant the inference of these things.

quote:
If given reason tomorrow, I would become a non-materialist faster than you could say "Flip-flopper" at a republican convention. I would also be prepared to accept that 2,000+ years of experiement and observation were wrong and I know nothing and am incapable of knowing anything.

All I ask for before I do that is a pretty good reason... [Wink] .
Seems we're not disagreeing that such a reason could at some point exist. Doesn't this mean that we're both admitting at least some degree of room for doubt?[/qb][/quote]

No. I am saying that no such reason exists but I am "open minded" enough to admit if I am wrong. I am just not so open minded that my brain is falling out all over the carpet. :D

quote:
[b]It occurs to me that we may have different definitions of "materialism". If you mean a belief in the existence of matter, I'll agree that such an assumption is necessary for nearly all useful scientific progress (although, again, I think it merely needs to be held as a premise or theorem rather than necessarily as an axiom). If you mean a belief that nothing exists except matter, I certainly don't think that's necessary.
[/b]

I mean that, not only does matter exist, but everything with an INDEPENDENT existence(that is an existence that would be so regardless of whether there were entities capable of appreciating it. "Legs" exist. "Walking" does NOT. "Brains" exist. "Thinking" does not.) is composed of matter/energy. THings with a DEPENDENT existence(eg. "walking", "thinking", "beauty" etc.) only exist as functions or activities or behaviors of matter.

quote:
quote:
Ah but there is the rub! Are perceptions what we start with? Or do we start with things to percieve? Materialists say the latter.
The universe may well start out with things to perceive, but we don't. We experience our perceptions first and have to interpret them as "things" on our own.

I don't follow you. You are saying that the universe and everything within it probably or does exist but we do not have these universal things we percieve? THe rock exists whether I stub my toe on it or not. SOmeone else can come along and stud their toe on teh rock and though I never percieved it, the rock exists.

quote:
[b]We're not disagreeing. I just think it's best to hold as few axioms as possible.
May be. I will think on that some more but it occurs to me that I don't have many axioms/first principles. Basically mine boils down to "We percieve reality because it exists" as opposed to "reality exists because we percieve it"(or similar ideas).

quote:
[qb]
quote:
No, no, no...I do not "choose" to see the world a certain way. I SEE the world a certain way and it is consitent with how other humans seem to see the world.
First you said that you held certain assumptions about the world because they were useful assumptions.[/b]
I can see now that the word "useful" was poorly chosen. From now on I will go with necessary assumptions.

quote:
Now you seem to be saying you have little choice about which assumptions are included in your view of the world. Which is it?
I am not saying either(I don't think). I am saying we have little choice in whether we will adopt necessary assumptions. We ALL do this. Where we DO have choice is in WHICH assumptions we will adopt. I chose the most productive/valuable(for my purposes).

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"I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi
Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00
Root of all evil in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 156
Profile #160
quote:
Originally written by Andrew Miller:

I think it's simply a matter of whether one believes that science and semantics has an answer on the God question. SkeleTony, you seem to believe so; I choose not to.
Strawman. Semantics has nothing to do with my position and I have expressly argued that science does NOT have all the answers(including any definite answers about all the proposed gods). Science does not go anywhere near the God question for the same reason it does not investigate sprites who can cannot be physically measured or tested. Science assumes the lack of gods(even if a particular scientist is a theist in his personal beliefs) when studying the universe until rules of inference suggest the existence of these things.

quote:
I disagree with the assertion that if I believe God must be a possibility, then I also must believe cartoon characters or an invisible dragon must be a possibility.
I didn't say you "must" believe in these other things. Just that if you do NOT then you are not being consistent in your reasoning. You are accepting arguments and evidence for one claim's possibility that you will not accept for others.

quote:
It goes along with the "filling the cracks" notion: I know that a person creates cartoon characters,...
I know that a people create gods.

quote:
I can go in a garage and wave my arms around and not touch a dragon.
OF course you cannot touch a garage dragon!! Haven't you been paying attention man?! A garage dragon is intangible. It is not made of matter, but spirit. Read more about Sagan's garage dragon HERE.

quote:
These are very small cracks, however, easily closed because its within my means to make these determinations, using scientific observation. On the matter of divinity, however, neither you nor I are able to travel to the limits of the universe, back and forth through time, or consciously across any other dimension (it's my understanding that there may be others, based on the very minute amount of reading I've done on string theory).
Again, this is the very definition of a "gap argument". It is a logical fallacy(an error in thinking/reasoning. Go to www.datanation.org/fallacies to learn more).

BTW, traveling backwards through time is rendered impossible by nthe causeality paradox( If I go back in time and kill my grandfather so that I was never born then I could not have gone back in time and killed my grandfather so I was born, enabling me to go back in time... ad infinitum).

quote:
[b] We do know, however, that the Earth, which pretty much incapsulates the wealth of our experiences, represents an infinitesimal amount of what's out there.
[/b]

How many automobiles have you personally examined in your lifetime? What percentage of all the autos that have rolled off the assembly line have you personally examined.

Very small number no doubt. Are ANY of those street legal automobiles made entirely of ectoplasm or cheese or gelatin? Are you being short-sighted or brazen if you say "no"?

I do not need to be omnipresent to infer nonsensical things do not exist.

quote:
Given that, what's left to fill is not a crack so much as an infinitely yawning abyss.
I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that what you are refering to with this "crack" stuff is the gap argument you rely on(trying to defend it). It does not matter how big the "gap" is, the error is in the rationalization that G MIGHT be true because we cannot be at X, Y, Z position while we are whereever we are.

It is like saying that "I did not see Harry get on the bus. He might have sprouted gossamer wings and flew home.".

quote:
To put it in material terms, there's an infinitely vast amount of material out there that no one knows anything about!
Oh the irony! How do you know for certain that this is true? Have you examined all the matter in the universe and found a "vast amount" that we know nothing about? If we know nothing about it then how did you even assess that it was matter?

quote:
Given that, I think it is close-minded to weigh in so conclusively on the matter.
Again with the "closed minded" bit. You guys need some new material. Listen, in the span of my lifetime so far, I have gone from atheist(at birth and well into my teens) and anti-skeptic(for most of my life I believed in sasquatch, JFK conspiracy theories, urban legends, ufos etc.) to Christian anti-skeptic, back to atheist and then skeptical atheist(weak atheist like thuryl) and now strong atheist(whom I used to denounce regularly just like you do). I may (in fact it is likely)change my mind again. Thuryl has presented some very good arguments I have been turning over in my head for example.

I am ANYTHING BUT closed minded, okay? I don't find YOUR arguments very convincing but is this because of some character flaw of mine or is it that your arguments are not very good?

And are YOU too closed minded to know if it is the latter?

quote:
Feeling this way, however, doesn't prevent me from usefully applying or working to advance science, or any other system or tool for that matter. I don't just say "I don't know" and leave it at that.
Neither do I. I have NEVER advocated such a position in my life. THis is another logical fallacy called the strawman. You construct a position that is easily dismantled or "beaten up on" and then attribute that position to your opponent.
What I DID say was that wehn we DON"T KNOW the answer to a question, then our answer should be "I don't know yet.". Not "I don't know and I will leave it there".

quote:
I have a desperate need to find answers to these things, in fact, and I think that science is the best way to proceed with trying to find these answers. I believe that we are nowhere close to the pinnacle of knowledge, and I think it's close-minded to assume we are.
Agreed. Why do you presume the above applies to ME? Again the strawman rears it's misshapen head...

[ Friday, January 28, 2005 00:52: Message edited by: SkeleTony ]

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"I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi
Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00
Root of all evil in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 156
Profile #158
Sorry about all the typos guys. I am a "hunt-n-pecker" typist and I get going to fast when replying to many people.

quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

No, SkeleTony, you are being closed-minded. The fact is that we can see atoms now with technology that wasn't even conceivable a thousand years ago, but we couldn't see them then.
Agreed(about the last part, not the name-calling ad hominem stuff you dished out). Also addressed in my previous replies. The point is that the claim certain ancient Greeks made with regards to atoms was not analogous to the claims being made by theists. Broken down, they were in essence saying that matter was itself composed of 'smaller matter'. It was a rational and well infered idea. In any case I would not have ruled out such a thing even 2,000 years ago because the claim was not logically inconsistent.

quote:
You've never demonstrated why a god that is powerful but not omnipotent, wise but not omniscient, beyond the reaches of current human understanding and therefore present in disparate places but not omnipresent, and not highly interventionist (perhaps even deist: created the universe but doesn't interfere past the point of creation) is illogical.
I also never claimed such a thing WAS illogical. The concept you present above is too sketchy and ambiguous to be of any use to me in evaluating it for consistency and such. Your above could well be a solar system by your description(except for the "wise" part which requires sentience). THe only grounds I would bother contesting your hypothetical god is if you are saying it is "wise" but has no physical brain. Sentience is a property emergent from brained entities. Something cannot have brain functions and lack a brain.

quote:
I'd like to see that argument before I change my mind about you being closed-minded.
Your charge that I am "closed minded", typical as it is, is a groundless assertion you do not bother to substantiate. You are not able to show where I am resistant to new data or am unwilling to change my mind when it would be reasonable to do so.
I am not interested in what it would take to change your opinion of me. You present a sort of false dichotomy that I either agree with you or I am closed minded.

It doesn't bother me much because, as a cursory study of message board debates will reveal, skeptics being called "closed minded" is par for the course. The reasoning behind the chaarge is usually something along the lines of:

Supernaturalist : "Ghosts/Psychics/Spirits/witchcraft exists!"

Skeptic: "How do you arrive at this conclusion?"

Supernaturalist : "My best friend/aunt/mother sees them! She was attacked by a malevolent spirit/witch/ghost and now has a burn mark that resembles [someone who died] on her buttocks! Explain THAT!"

Skeptic :"Anecdotal evidence can't be scrutinised, so it is not good evidence to convince a skeptic of teh veracity of your claims..."

Supernaturalist :"Why are you so closed minded? You must be real bitter or emotionally scarred! I will pray for you..."

[ Friday, January 28, 2005 00:42: Message edited by: SkeleTony ]

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"I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi
Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00
Root of all evil in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 156
Profile #150
quote:
Originally written by Beneath the Hill of Ilmarin:

You never defined "round", nor "square". If "square" a geometrical shape with four points connected by four equal lines at right angles to each other, then you're right.

"Square", as it does in Britain iirc, can also mean "a public, open area in a town" (or "plaza"), as in "Trafalgar Square". There are of course round squares in a lot of cities.

It is definitely a matter of language and definition.

Granted, but everyone else in here seemed to understand the context adn for those who did not: yes, we are talking about the geometric shape. As I said earlier, I can call a tree a "rock" but this does not mean that rocks come in coniferous and disiduous varieties, requiring water and sunlight to grow.

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"I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi
Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00
Root of all evil in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 156
Profile #149
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

quote:
No. I am saying that there are certain "useful assumptions"(we often refer to them as "axioms" or "first principles") that are not subject to, for example, scientific method. There can be NO knowledge or understanding without these base assumptions. Logic proceeds from the assumption that what makes sense to me, does in fact make sense(i.e. I cannot run towards you and get further away from you in the conventional sense and I cannot grow larger while shrinking) and science proceeds from the materialist axiom(though there are variations on materialism such as functionalism and computationalism etc.).
I dispute your assertion that science must be inherently materialist.

I made no such assertion but if you are disputing that science proceeds from a materialist base then you are taking up arms against all of science itself! Materialism is to science what math is to theoretical physics.

quote:
Psychology (except to strong behaviourists) is the study of mental processes. It may not be a mature or orderly science, but it still has definite scientific aspects
Some forms of creationism have definate scientific aspects as well. Besides, even psychologists assume the materialist axiom. They MUST proceed from the "assumption" that thoughts adn "mind" are a function of phsyical/material brains. They often study how damage to said brains affect behavior and thinking.

There is no branch of science that proceeds from idealist or solopsist axioms.

quote:
(science, in its broadest sense, is merely the systematic accumulation of knowledge -- and if you try to define "knowledge" you open up a whole new can of worms).
Science is a method for studying reality. In order for it to have any place we must "assume" there is a reality adn that we are percieving it.

quote:
Certainly, these days psychology draws significantly from neuroscience, but some aspects of psychology can be retained without assuming anything about the matter sustaining the minds which are being studied.
Some aspects of just about ANY branch of science can be retained regardless of philosophical bent but the methodology of science itself requires materialism to one degree or the other. We do not assume thoughts create brains or legs evolved because creatures were doing so much walking.

quote:
In regard to your first point, I'm comfortable with accepting the existence of matter as a premise, or as a useful model, but not as an axiom that's beyond doubt or change.
If given reason tomorrow, I would become a non-materialist faster than you could say "Flip-flopper" at a republican convention. I would also be prepared to accept that 2,000+ years of experiement and observation were wrong and I know nothing and am incapable of knowing anything.

All I ask for before I do that is a pretty good reason... ;) .

MAterialism is necessary as an axiom FOR SCIENCE, not for you personally. No one is saying that you have to sign a contract that says you will nevere doubt materialism or some such. It's Just that, when you go to study the genome or cosmos or whatever, you can not assume the planet is just the dream of a sleeping child or somesuch(in your capacity as a scientist).

quote:
I'd rather not accept materialism at all (in the sense of every process being reducible to description at the level of processes involving matter); strict materialist attempts to explain consciousness strike me as handwaving, and since our perceptions are what we start with before we conclude anything from them, it seems to make more sense to accept consciousness as axiomatic and get to matter from there.
Ah but there is the rub! Are perceptions what we start with? Or do we start with things to percieve? Materialists say the latter. I realize I am in the minority on the consciousness issue but for the life of me I do not see what is so unfathomable about consciousness having a physical explanation!? We cannot say we know all there is to know about atletics but no one denies athletics are rooted in the physical.

quote:
[b]And you're right -- at least until the day you take a run at the tree and pass through it as if it isn't there. It hasn't happened yet; most likely, it never will. But you can't prove it won't. You're only confident it won't because of observations made in the past which share common characteristics. That's inductivism, and it can never be absolutely reliable, no matter how many observations you make.
[/b]

I do not deny the possibility of passing through a solid object(however ridiculously remote it may be). There is nothing logically contradictory about such an event. I also do not deny the possibility of a shattered glass leaping back into my hand and reforming.

Such things are different than round squares or God because they are as close to impossible as we need to disregard them as concerns but we cannot say they are 100% impossible(99.9999999999999999% sure but not 100%). We CAN say that a glass cannot be both "shattered" and "unbroken" with 100% certainty though and I do so.

quote:
(I wonder, if one day you did pass through that tree, would you be most inclined to attribute it to a vanishingly unlikely quantum fluctuation, or to some kind of hallucination, or would it make you rethink your assumptions?)
I would opt for Occam's razor again. First order would be to rule out delusion/hallucination on my part. After ruling out all of the likfely, mundane culprits, I would THEN turn to unlikely quantum fluctuations and such. After that I would consider magic, miracles and the like.

quote:
So you choose to make assumptions about the world because they're useful.
We both do. Hell... we ALL do. You could not be doing science right now if not for a base assumption to proceed from. These first principles/axioms are not the same as assuming someone on trial is guilty or assuming I can trust that salesman. We have no choice in the matter of whether we will have base assumptions. We only have a choice in WHICH assumptions/axioms we adopt.

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But the judgement of usefulness requires a judgement of the value of certain perceptions; you choose to see the world in a certain way because you predict that worldview will lead to perceptions which are judged as preferable to perceptions resulting from alternative worldviews. Once again, perceptions take precedence over material "reality".
No, no, no...I do not "choose" to see the world a certain way. I SEE the world a certain way and it is consitent with how other humans seem to see the world. Knowledge and learning is like a journey. You have to start from SOMEWHERE. If you must walk to work one day you adopt the axiom of materialism to do so. You do not attempt to psionically teleport to work and you do not sit around pontificating about whether walking actually gets you to any destination. If you did so then you would be unable to walk to work.

SO you "assume" that you do in fact have a job and you do need to be there at a certain time adn that walking is your best option adn then you get on with it.

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"I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi
Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00
Root of all evil in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 156
Profile #147
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

I'm familiar with the argument, but it strikes me as a linguistic argument rather than a logical one. We assume that thought requires a thinker, because we speak a language that attaches a subject to every verb.
No more so than we "assume" walking requires legs or a "walker". Thought has no independent existence and neither does walking. We don't "assume" any such thing but rather we observe that entities do stuff with their own stuff. THings with legs can walk adn do walk. That is what legs do...enable things that have them to walk. Things with brains think. That is what brains do...enable things with brains to generate thoughts.

You cannot EVER point to a "waling" or a "thought". The best you can do is point to something engaged in said activity(walking or thinking).

quote:

Some sentences, like "It's raining", have subjects only as a token gesture to the rules of English grammar; there are languages that don't require a subject in a sentence at all. "Perceive" or "think" could be seen as a subjectless verb, not requiring a perceiver or thinker. It doesn't seem to be impossible to doubt that thought requires a thinker; in fact, there's no shortage of serious philosophers who reject the concept of personal identity.

We have a word for philosophers who doubt that thought requires a thinker: Crackpot. IF the brain is not needed to generate thought then why do we have brains? WHy can't I recall anything before my birth? WHy does my ability to think abstractly coincide with my physical maturity adn health status? WHy does a blow to my head affext or even cancel my thinking? IS there any demonstrable case of thoughts wandering around sans brains?

quote:
Personally, I'd regard personal identity as one of the things I'm most certain of among all uncertain things, but still not quite on the same level as direct perception.
I'm not certain what you mean by "personal identity"(I know what i think it means but I am unsure of what you mean here when you use the term) or how it relates here but I don't think direct perception itself is necessarily too convincing. If I see a dragon in the street the most likely explanation is delusion/insanity. If EVERYONE is running away from said dragon and pointing and screaming then we have concurrent observation. I realize that some will question whether these other observers are not hallucinations but since I am not a solopsist, I do not engage them.

quote:
Probably. Then again, throughout millennia of Western civilisation, nobody had ever seen a black swan.
Yes but if someone claimed that black swans existed that would not even be in the same neighborhood(not even the same solar system really) as round squares and gods.

quote:

quote:
If this were so then you would be able to describe how this could be so. The only things we have such difficulty describing are non-existent and nonsensical things.
Linguistics again. You seem to be assuming that ideas are inherently impossible because they can't be expressed adequately in our language. Have you never experienced something you were unable to describe to others?

These things cannot be expressed in ANY language. Think about it for a minute...language is a tool we use to communicate ideas to other entities which are capable of comprehending those ideas. THe reason humans can talk philosophy with other humans is because we have the same types of brains, capable of such complex thought. We cannot talk philophy with mountain gorillas or basset hounds, not because they are incapable of speaking english/Cantonese/Russian/whatever but because they don't have brains like ours, capable of such complex thought.
Round squares are not nonsensical simply because I speak english or I don't speak sopme other language. THey are nonsense because something cannot BE(as in 100% impossible) *This* and *Not this* or 'A' and 'Not A' or "round" and "not round". The very statement "not round" is denying roundness.

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"I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi
Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00
Root of all evil in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 156
Profile #145
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

[b]
You had rather a lot to say, and while a great deal of it was certainly worth saying, hearing it all at once over half a dozen posts in a row felt a little jarring. As far as I'm concerned, all is forgiven; I hope you feel the same way. I just hope the other readers/posters in this topic don't mind our little digression.[/b][/quote]

I concur.

quote:
quote:
Proving negatives is difficult and usually impossible but my answer to the BIAJ/Matrix/Taoist "butterfly dreaming it's a man" thing is that it does not matter if I am actually a brain in a jar. If my observations and experiences are concurrent with those of the other "brains" in said jar(even be they figments of my imagination) and I cannot "wish" or "deny" my reality so that it be something else, then for all intents and purposes, reality is reality.
I agree with you, but demonstrating that the truth or falsity of a proposition is unimportant isn't the same as proving it false.

What I am saying is that, there MAY be soem rality wherein creatures have brains that are wired to make sense of what would be nonsense here.

But I do not live in that reality and I do not have that brain so the specualtion is not even worth trying to prove false. I cannot prove that "Zibloing rak 3farst!" is false either but does it matter? Should I be concerned about the above's truth or falsity? In the context of this discussion, it matters not whetehr God might exist in "Bizarro universe" or whether said universe does not exist at all. Either way the claim is as good as false HERE.

quote:
quote:
"Red" also cannot paint itself onto a canvas but this does not mean that red is not a real color. "Painting" cannot itself paint and automotive engineering cannot itself engineer an automobile.
If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying we ought to assess the validity of a system of logic by some other standard than itself.

No. I am saying that there are certain "useful assumptions"(we often refer to them as "axioms" or "first principles") that are not subject to, for example, scientific method. HTere can be NO knowledge or understanding without these base assumptions. Logic proceeds from the assumption that what makes sense to me, does in fact make sense(i.e. I cannot run towards you and get further away from you in the conventional sense and I cannot grow larger while shrinking) and science proceeds from the materilaist axiom(though there are variations on materialism such as functionalism and computationalism etc.).

quote:
What standard do you propose? Merely our own intuitions, or perhaps the fact that it demonstrates no inconsistencies when applied to our observations in various ways? If the latter, our assessment that logic is consistent is inductive and therefore unreliable; it's based only on the fact that we've found many examples favouring it and none contradicting it. (You may be getting the impression that I regard inductivism and falsificationism as being two sides of the same coin.)
Ok...I will take that bait :D . Using science and logic, I conclude that there exists a tree in my front yard. I propose a theory that says that trees have an independent existence adn my theory predicts that if I try to run through the tree, I will experinece the phsyical sensation of accelerating fleshy organism meeting well-rooted wood-thing(or "pain and stitches" to the layman)

I verify this by running full speed into it's trunk. A broken nose results, which si consistent with my theory. As a result, I am able to learn a thing or two about velocity, trees, hospital procedures, human anatomy and treating injuries.

Now a solopsist or other non-materialist might propose a hypothesis that nothing we think is real can be said to actually be real.

Fine. But what does this lead to? What experiements are possible adn what can we learn about OUR reality(illusory or otherwise)? The logical conclusion of non-materialism is sitting on one's hands chattering becuase you cannot even say you(not "YOU" specifically of course,. I mean "you" the general non-materialists) are sitting on your hands chattering.

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quote:
In MY opinion? Yes. THere is much wrong with that because if you conclude that suspect 'A' murdered victim 'B' when in fact you have no reason to infer this, then you have made it very difficult to see the truth when it is within your sight. If I conclude that Zeus causes lightning then I am not open to learning about meterology or atmospheric conditions.
I don't believe this is a problem as long as one maintains a realistic view of the possibility that one may be wrong.

When the answer is "I don't know" then it is best(and therefore "right") to say "I don't know...yet." THis can be followed with the caveat "But I suspect *this*, based on my research..." but to say "God did it" in place of "I don't know" is wrong on many levels in my estimation.

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quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

quote:
Originally written by SkeleTony:

No, round squares do not exist even as coherent concepts. They exist only as meaningless assertions in the mind of someone allegedly hypnotised. If you cannot describe a thing as simple as a geometric shape then it is because you cannot observe such a thing. The definition of "squre" precludes any "roundness".
All the same, people hypnotised to see square circles are clearly perceiving something,...

They MAY be seeing something in their imaginations but they are not seeing square shaped circles or round squares or something moving towards them while getting further away. They are not seeing these things because these things are impossible to see. They do not exist. If there WERE round squares and such and you could envision one then you would be able to draw or describe it somehow.

Round squares, like gods probably come in a few varieties: Meaningless, undefined words and misunderstood phenomena or misapplied terms.

If I define "monster" as a gargantuan, incredibly tiny, radioactive and non-radioactive dinosaur, then ask someone under hypnosis to recall what his uncle was like during the patient's childhood adn he describes him as an abusive "monster" this does not mean he has seen what I previously defined as a "monster".

quote:
... and I feel it's worthwhile to question why it's so unreasonable for that something to be called a square circle;
No more unreasonable than calling a tree a "rock" but I am not arguing that people should not be allowed to call things whatever they want. I am saying that it is impossible to actually concieve of something that is both 'A' and 'not A'(i.e. a "round square").

quote:
should mental space be held to the same rules as physical space?
Not in terms of logically consistent ideas. Paul Bunyan exists in my head for example, but not in the forests around Lake Michigan. "ROund squares" do not exist, even in mental space because the concept is impossible. Something is either 'A' or 'Not A'. "Square" is defined(for purposes of this discussion) as "not circular"(precisely it is a two-dimensional shape with four equal sides that meet at 90 degree right angles).

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Is it necessary for the square circle to be a "shape" in the conventional sense at all?
Yes. Otherwise why bother saying it exists as a suare circle? You kight as well say that "G&b4rslatch*ping" exists. I have no idea what that is and you provide no description or definition.

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I suppose at this point I'd better show my hand; I'm much more of a phenomenalist than a materialist. I'm also a biology student with every intention of having a career in science; I don't regard phenomenalism as inherently inconsistent with empiricism (and modern science sometimes strays pretty far from empiricism anyway, so even if I did it wouldn't be an insurmountable handicap).

However, all knowledge of anything beyond our own perceptions is ultimately inductive, because the only way to receive information is by repeated perception of patterns of one sort or another (whether they be "Things tend to fall when dropped" or "This reference book tends to be accurate").

Inductive knowledge is inherently unstable, because there's always the possibility of a counterexample. The only things I find myself unable to coherently doubt are my own perceptions; not necessarily that they "correspond" to anything in "reality" (what does that even mean?) but that I am in fact perceiving them. They are as certain as my own existence, or perhaps even more so; there is no "I" that I can pin down as an experiential reality, whereas I find myself completely unable to entertain the proposition that I am not perceiving what I am perceiving.

DesCartes set out to show materilaism to be wrong with his Cogito(where the "I think therefore I am" line comes from) and inadvertently ended up proving materialism correct. If I am able to ask the question "Do I exist?" then I have to exist to do so. Therefore, if I am thinking about my existence, I must exist.

Sure a demon might be tricking me to percieve physical hands which I do not actually possess but if we are going to go there then we might as well go all the way and speculate that I AM the demon or I am a figment of his imagining that will cease claiming his own existence as soon as the demon wakes up from dreaming.

What it comes down to is that, like it or not, when you awake tomorrow, even if you are a "brain in a jar" or living in "The Matrix", you will still be bound by gravity and inertia and the reality we percieve. LAws and behaviors will still consistently reveal themselves in your studies and the only way for you, as a scientist to make progress in understanding this reality, will be for you to accept it(whether ultimately it is "real" or illusory).

quote:
Were I to perceive something that I perceived as a square circle, I would therefore be forced to conclude that, in some sense, perceptions at least of square circles "existed".
If this were so then you would be able to describe how this could be so. The only things we have such difficulty describing are non-existent and nonsensical things.

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Oops! THought I already replied to this one but I guess I didn't.

quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

quote:
Originally written by SkeleTony:

Not sure what your beef with me is in this little debate(If I have come off as irritating or calous or something then I apologise)
It shows? Sorry about that. I was mainly annoyed with you because it seemed as if you had your own pet issue to push and you were trying to push it into an active discussion where it wasn't particularly on topic. Now that the original line of discussion's petered out, we may as well continue on to this one.

Actually I was trying to keep out of the whole "God debate" thing but felt compelled to reply to the challenges/questions/critiques of others. I am not pushing any issue or agenda as I could care less what anyone else believes.
When there is one person at a forum defending a particular position, the usual assumption is that he came onto the board, guns blazing adn looking for a "fight"(or trying to convert). If there are half a zoen people asking him questions or challenging his position and he replies to each, somehow we get it in our heads that he is some hard-headed ass.

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[qbg]I fall into the weak atheist camp because I'm a fairly extreme sceptic about everything; after all, I can't even prove I'm not a brain in a jar (or a meta-brain in a meta-jar, if you insist on bringing up Hilary Putnam's argument against the BIAJ concept).[/qb]
Proving negatives is difficult and usually impossible but my answer to the BIAJ/Matrix/Taoist "butterfly dreaming it's a man" thing is that it does not matter if I am actually a brain in a jar. If my observations and experiences are concurrent with those of the other "brains" in said jar(even be they figments of my imagination) and I cannot "wish" or "deny" my reality so that it be something else, then for all intents and purposes, reality is reality.

The BIAJ is where my skepticism would kick in, NOT my atheism. I am a card-carrying skeptic as well. I do not say that a conspiracy to kill JFK is impossible, just VERY unlikely. Same goes for bigfoot and nessie and extraterrestrials.

quote:
Nor can logic itself prove itself consistent (or at least I hope it can't; Gödel's theorem shows that any formal system of sufficient power can only prove its consistency if it's inconsistent).
"Red" also cannot paint itself onto a canvas but this does not mean that red is not a real color. "Painting" cannot itself paint and automotive engineering cannot itself engineer an automobile.

quote:
Strictly speaking, is there anything wrong with choosing to believe an unlikely hypothesis that answers a question when the only alternative would be to leave the question unanswered?
In MY opinion? Yes. THere is much wrong with that because if you conclude that suspect 'A' murdered victim 'B' when in fact you have no reason to infer this, then you have made it very difficult to see the truth when it is within your sight. If I conclude that Zeus causes lightning then I am not open to learning about meterology or atmospheric conditions.

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quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

Except that round squares do exist, at least as conceptual objects. People under hypnosis when told to see a round square have claimed they were able to see one. They're invariably unable to describe the experience of seeing a round square to others in terms that are coherent or comprehensible, but subjectively the experience is very real. Similarly, people have claimed to have personal experiences of God. Is it really completely out of the question that such people are genuinely experiencing a mode of perception that people don't normally have access to?
No, roundf squares do not exist even as coherent concepts. They exist only as meaningless assertions in the mind of someone allegedly hypnotised. If you cannot describe a thing as simple as a geometric shape then it is because you cannot observe such a thing. The definition of "squre" precludes any "roundness".

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quote:
Originally written by The Creator:

quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

I fall into the weak atheist camp because I'm a fairly extreme sceptic about everything; after all, I can't even prove I'm not a brain in a jar (or a meta-brain in a meta-jar, if you insist on bringing up Hilary Putnam's argument against the BIAJ concept). Nor can logic itself prove itself consistent (or at least I hope it can't; Gödel's theorem shows that any formal system of sufficient power can only prove its consistency if it's inconsistent).

I think the choice between theism and atheism comes down to whether you want a belief system that explains as many things as possible or whether you only want to believe things for which there's compelling evidence. This is basically a philosophical choice (perhaps even an aesthetic choice). Strictly speaking, is there anything wrong with choosing to believe an unlikely hypothesis that answers a question when the only alternative would be to leave the question unanswered?

Out of interest, what would you accept as reasonable evidence of God's existence?

You asked Thuryl but please allow me to give my answer anyway.

Depends on the God. IF you are a sun-worshipper then I see evidence of that God everyday shining through my window(I just do not agree that it is a god and I do not worship). If you are defining God in paradoxial ways/terms then you first have to propose an rational argument that does away with the paradoxes adn from there it is all rules of inference.

For the Christian God(s), perhaps causing the sun to (relatively speaking of course) "stop in the sky" or a ressurection would maybe do it.

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BTW Thuryl, i realize I left some questions/points you made unanswered. Will edit the above reply to you in a bit with said answers.

quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

As far as I can tell, Andrew Miller is saying that it's possible that some sort of divine thing exists, and SkeleTony is saying that one should discount things that are possible but not reasonable certain.
No. The "me" of a few weeks ago would have said something similar enough but what I am saying now is that there are sokme things which do not and can not exist. Transcendent gods being one of them.

quote:
That is, I don't think either of you disagree on the degree of possibility involved in the existence of divinity: you both think it is possible but not currently demonstratable. You disagree about what one should think of such things: AM says that one should be open-minded about such possiblities, and SkeleTony says that we should ignore them until they have reasonable evidence supporting them.
No...again, I am arguing the "strong athesit" position here. I am saying it is 100% certain that God does not exist. Andrew is saying it is highly unlikely but that (in effect) nothing can be said to be impossible. It is just different perspectives. He sees(as many instinctively do) anyone with 100% certainty about anything as being somewhat closed-minded whereas I see the same thing in people who are 100% certain that we cannot be 100% certain of some things.

quote:
I think that's a personal preference, not a matter of being right or wrong.
Agreed. I am a materialist and for me the "supernatural" or "transcendent" or illogical is ruled out in the same way that dice are ruled out in Chess or touchdowns are ruled out in baseball.

The key difference is that, from the materialist & scientific position, we can make extraordinary progress in understanding our universe and how it behaves., just as observing several chess matches played at the same board & table will prove insightful to someone wanting to learn about chess. The person who speculates that "Twister" could be played on a chess board and chastises those who do not share this enthusiasm for being short-sighted will not learn much about the game being played on the chess board.

quote:
But SkeleTony, about the "color" argument: consider atoms. People have been saying that matter consists of atoms since the Ancient Greeks, and although atomic theory has changed dramatically over time, it survived. Little evidence beyond some common sense (matter must be made of something, right?) supported this theory, and no one could sense atoms at all. Modern technology gave us the ability to find them, though — Democritus was right.
Yeah...? ANcient Greeks concluded that matter we observe was composed of even "smaller"(not the right word but close enough), different types of matter they called "atoms". When we found this was indeed the case, we stuck with the termology alreaady in use(atoms/atomic). Again, this is reasonable. If soemone were saying that, for example, in the future we might be able to invent automobiles that require no fossil fuels, I would not doubt this to be true or likely because that claim does not violate 2,000+ years of experiement and observance which show us consistent laws by which the universe operates.

But saying that "I do not know everything that can possibly be known about subject X so maybe one day we will discover that four color cartoon characters are real" is another matter.

quote:
[b]That is, Democritus more than two thousand years ago made statements that could not be verified by observation but were correct.[qb]
This is also a false analogy because no one was defining "atoms" in logically incosistent ways(i.e. "beyond" and "within" our universe). If Democritus had described atoms as "square shaped circles" then people would be right to say he was full of poppycock.

quote:
[qb]This is a more proper analogy than color, I would think, since no disability (beyond the simple limitations of our sense) prevents us from seeing atoms, yet we cannot see them, despite the fact that they do exist. Some sort of divine thing could very well be similar.[/b]
But we CAN see atoms! In science there are two kinds of observation: Direct and indirect. We use technology to aid us(microscopes and such) in seeing such things but we still see them.

Not so for gods.

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quote:
Originally written by Andrew Miller:

[quote=SkeleTony]
[qb]Our universe has limits as described by our physical laws and theories and these same laws of behavior/operation rule out transcendent gods.

This statement is the root of my disagreement with your argument. These physical laws and theories were created by human beings, and we are the ones applying them to the universe, not the other way around.[/quote]I disagree. You seem to be making the same mistake as Macrsp above in thinking that humans just "make up" gravity, inertia, logic etc. out of some convenience-need or somesuch in the way we create traffic laws that say one cannot drive a lawnmower on the freeway or ignore red lights and stop signs. If we were just making these things up then we would have no reason to say that anything exists or does not exist. We should all be looking out for gremlins because a bunch of humans just decided that mischeivious technomancy causes mechanical failure.

We don't "create" the way things work, we discover the way things work. We are wrong to some degree or other often enough but not so much so that we should expect to fly off the earth tommorrow because gravity doesn't really exist.
The beautiful thing about science adn using it to answer questions about reality is that science is self correcting. Mistakes made are revealed by the method itself eventually.

Same cannot be said of "faith".

quote:
Throughout human history, new laws and theories have surplanted old ones, turning the scientific world on its head.
Theories are revised with teh influx of new data. This is a good thing. But you are overstating the effect or relevance of this. Even after a thousand years of revision of Darwin's theory of evolution via natural selection the theory will be much the same. We will not find that life evolves via ectoplasmic interactions or somesuch. No matter how much we learn about modern biology we will not discover that SMurfs or dragons exist in magical forests. No matter how much we learn about engineering we will not invent street legal automobiles made entirely of gelatin.

quote:
Isn't it a bit brazen to assume that what we understand now is truth?
"Brazen" now eh? At least it doesn't sound quite as bad as "arrogant" but... meh. I'll tell you what I think sounds brazen and arrogant and closed minded; the dogma that says things MUST be other than what we observe them to be adn that any who disagree are short-sighted or closed minded themselves. TO observe a rubber ball bounce back up toward my hand after being tossed downward with some velocity, repeatedly and to spend countless hours studying the phenomenom so that we can understand it mechanicsticly and to then conclude that this is how such objects behave according to the laws of our reality is NOT "brazen" or short-sighted. It is rational.

What you are arguing here is that it is somehow not reasonable to expect such consistent results.
"God" is the rubber ball that transforms into gold bricks when thrown at a wall.

I say God is a made up thing.

quote:
At best, you're applying an imperfect tool to a potentially infinite subject. How can you be so confident?
Your arguments would suggest that it is technically possible that WIle E. Coyote and Roadrunner actually exist adn do the things they do and when they are on break from chasing around the four color desert, they turn on their TVs and watch humans they have created, just for laughs.
THis would be a sound argument adn reasoned conclusion...IF we lived in a universe without the limits we observe adn are bound by.

We do not live in such a universe though so cartoon characters are made up things.

Gods are like cartoon characters. They systematically violate all observed and known physical laws at the drop of a hat but for some reason abide by such restirctions when it is convenient for us(?!). If we assume cartoon characters actually exist, they make no sense. We wonder why Wile E. does not buy food instead of rocket skates or why Yogi Bear does not simply earn a ton of money performing sop that he can buy all of the "pic-i-nic baskets" he wants?
When we admit they are made up things they make perfect sense. Yogi's scheming to rob park goers of their picnic lunches is funny and Wile E.'s A.C.M.E. sponsored hijinks are most entertaining.

WHen we assume that trnascendent gods are real, they make no sense. WHy not just reveal himself to as as per his omnipotent capacity adn reveal the "truth" about reality that we are so ill-equipped to understand ourselves? My mother did not see fit to go hide out for decades after I was born and still demand or request that I have a "personal relationship" with her!? IF flooding the planet with inexplicably large amounts of water is godlike rationality in answer to human misbehavior then why is it that the only flooding we see is mundane and affects saint and sinner alike?
When I recognise that gods are made up things then they become sensible. They are constructs to teach us some lesson/moral or entertain us or explain something we currently(or at the time rather) lack the insight to explain.

It is fine to say that we do not know everything there is to know about zoology so Sasquatch may exist(though on this matter I would say such a thing is HIGHLY unlikely) but it is another thing altogether to say "We don't know everything about everything so gods/fairies/wizards/round squares adn the like may exist."

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quote:
Originally written by Macrsp:

quote:
logically consistent God-concept
God has to follow the man made rules of logic?

Man does not "make up" logic in the way he makes up legislation or the rules in baseball. Man recognises things as rational/irrational, well reasoned or poorly reasoned. ROund squares do not exist. Not because man made up a rule saying they should or can not, but because something cannot be both round adn a square at once.
Gods do not exist for much the same reason(and if someone would just define what they mean when they say God DOES exist, I will show you why).

quote:
quote:
Our universe has limits as described by our physical laws and theories and these same laws of behavior/operation rule out transcendent gods.

Inherently contradictory

The rules rule out something that is above the rules. The thing that was above the rules probably wouldn't be affected by being ruled out by the rules. Especially if he created them.

There is no "above the rules". SHow me ONE THING which exists "beyond" the three or four 'dimensions' of space, time, matter and energy. TO say, for example, that something "exists" and does not operate within a linear time frame is as nonsensical as saying one could travel in complete immobility.

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quote:
Originally written by Andrew Miller:

SkeleTony: I still think that everything you're asserting is flawed because it's limited by what you're able to perceive, whether on your own or with some tool.
This is STILL a gap argument. You might as well be arguing with me for saying that genies do not exist or leprachauns are not real(but somehow I doubt you would ;) ). You can pull gap arguments out to support ANY existential claim or position.

I say no boogeyman lives under my bed while I sleep. I say this even though I am "limited" by my perception which does not allow me to see boogeymen under my bed while I sleep.

Same goes for God.

Again, I am also unable to percieve combustion engines made of gelatin. Is this because they do in fact exist and I have a disability or am I unable to percieve these because they are imaginary things adn have no independent existence?

quote:
We *now* have the tools to prove to a blind person that color exists, but that wasn't so a hundred years ago.
THis is still a false analogy though. If ALL humans lacked an ability to percieve colors then the statemetns "colors exist." and "Colors do not exist" would both be nonsense statements since we would have nothing to base the inference or rejection on. But we KNOW that humans have eyes capable of percieving these wavelength variations and any human unable to do so is an EXCEPTION, having a disability.
Your analogy will hold water when you can show ANYTHING "spiritual" or Godly that exists and that humans have a capacity to percieve such but atheists (or many/most people in genereal) have a disability or are lacking a "spirit sense".

quote:
We have the tools to accomplish and prove all kinds of things that previously didn't exist. Who are you to say we won't develop the tools or the senses to discover whether God exists? That seems short-sighted to me.
We won't develope any "soul detector" or "Spiritometer" "Deitometer" for the same reason we won't develope a "fairy sensor" or "Sorcery analyser", because these things are made up things. They do not exist outside of our imaginations. Theists have YET to even present a logically consistent God-concept that I am aware of(I am all ears if you want to try though), let alone provided rational justification for such an existential claim.

Theists have a few options when presenting such claims:

1)They present something that is rational, consitent and most likely already has a name/label(such as "The sun" or "The universe" or some emotional or conceptual thing) which I and other atheists see no reason to call "God".

or

2)They present a "transcendent" God and reason goes out the window. The transcendent God is one who can have all sorts or paradoxial qualities that make no sense to rational minds but can always be supported by gap arguments and other bizarre twists of logic.

The problem with #2 above is that whatever arguments you are offering in support of said deity, you can replace the word "God" with ANY claimed entity you can imagine and the argument neither loses nor gains any weight.

Now if you do not say that fairies or genies or what have you do not exist(to maintain consistency in your position) then that is great...if you happen to be a solipsist or somesuch. But the second you proclaim a theistic belief you have thrown consistency to the dogs. You are believing in something based on reasoning you will not accept for other claims.

quote:
I'm willing to agree that, going head to head, the Christian God is as unbelievable as Santa Claus. This is because there's pretty good evidence that both were constructed by man. However, there is nothing close to an adequate explanation for existence, of which our world represents an infinitesimal part. Assuming you accept the Big Bang theory, there are still big questions out there: What happened before that? How can something come out of nothing?[/qb]
More gap arguments. "We do not yet know the answer to ________ so (genies/gods/fairies/wizards) must exist!". That is terrible reasoning. The rationalist's answer to your above question(s) is "I don't know yet."

I would add to that that, beyond my natural curiosity, I don't much care if the universe had an orgin or what it might be.

Oh and you are presupposing that teh universe had an ultimate orgin BTW, which I think probably is not the case. Everything we know about physics proclaims infinite regress. THere are positron-electron pairs that seem to pop in and out of existence uncaused but other than that we have no reason to think something uncaused may have caused the universe or that "something came from nothing".

Furthermore, the conceptual "nothingness" you allude to above is nonsense. There cannot BE complete "nothingness". There is and has always been some form of matter/energy. If this were not so then we would not be talking about it right now.

Also, if you cannot believe in a natural universe because you think that all things need a cause, then what created/caused "God"? And what created his creator? Ad infinitum.

quote:
It really can't, based on the logic that you espouse, because your logic is chained to the existence of time and the laws of cause and effect. It seems to me that there must be something else going on that's bigger than/different than/outside the fourth dimension.
Why?

Even ignoring the lack of justification for such a belief, if something exists "beyond" our reality of linear time, space and matter then, for all intents and purposes it does NOT exist anymore than Paul Bunyan exists for us. It becomes another of Sagan's "Garage Dragons". If this entity interacts with our universe then it is NOT "beyond" our universe adn we should be able to detect and measure that interaction.

quote:
That's a pretty big crack to fill - do you have a good or sound explanation?
Do I know what exactly went on at t = 0 or t=-1? No. And again, this has no bearing on my denial of God's existence.

quote:
I don't worship God because, like you, I don't see evidence of any sort of interaction with the world. We could be just as insignificant as ants, for all I know. However, I am unable to rule out the possibility of something divine out there, because for me everything about existing is just so crazy, when I stop to think about it. Maybe I'm just not that smart and am too easily overawed, but it seems to me to be foolish to rule out possibilities, however unsettling they may be.
We MUST rule out possibilities because we do not live in an "anything is possible universe". Science is ALL ABOUT probing the limitations of our universe(not the "possibilities" that men can concieve of in fits of insanity and irrationality). If everything were possible then there would be no science, no ability to learn or know anything and no sentience would have evolved.

If this is confusing then imagine it this way:

Say I ask you to describe your living room. Now if your living room is 12' x 18' x 10' with one couch, a coffe table etc. then you could tell me an awful lot about the room.

But now lets imagine your living room is INFINITE and ALL THINGS are POSSIBLE within. WHat could you tell me about it?

Nothing. Anything you thought you percieved would be equally likely to false or delusion.

Our universe has limits as described by our physical laws and theories and these same laws of behavior/operation rule out transcendent gods.

Up until a few weeks ago, I was, like you, a "weak atheist". I simply lacked a positive God-belief but did not assert the contrary. It is a much easier position to defend and I am frequently still tempted to slink back into it just because of teh difficulty inherent in explaining the strong atheist line of reasoning that I currently espouse.

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Thuryl:

Not sure what your beef with me is in this little debate(If I have come off as irritating or calous or something then I apologise) but the short answer is that when I refer to logic, I am talking about good old fashioned "reasoned thinking". I am no mathematician so all of those different systems you refer to, which I HAVE studied a bit but fail to fully appreciate because I don't go anywhere NEAR theorems, they are unecessary for my purposes. Ironically, before I read your reply I was reading an article on "paraconsistent logic" and thinking I would need Tylenol after doing so.

SO I guess "Classical logic" is closest to what I am meaning when I invoke the term "logic". You don't have to know a damned thing about relevance logic, intuitionist logic or any of that to be a logical thinker. Logic is pretty simple outside of mathematical proofs and theorems. Things do not move away from you while getting closer and something cannot be everywhere adn nowhere at once etc.

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quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

I think there are logical contradictions involved in being omnipotent, and probably in being omniscient, too.
Actually less so for omnipotence than omniscience. The reason I do not use teh "rock so heavy..." argument is because the question is nonsensical. Rocks are defined as (for all intents and purposes) "liftable objects" so asking if God could create a liftable object which cannot be lifted does nothing to disprove God(logically at least). One COULD theoretically define omnisicence in such a way that only that which is knowable is known by the "all knowing"(so, for example, an omniscient God could NOT know the future adn such) and this would do away with the paradox of omniscience vs. free will but then the theist runs into the other problem...he is about two steps from relegating his God to simply being the natural universe itself, sans sentience and therefore conceding to the atheist the non-existence of the metaphysical/supernatural God that exists independently.

Also, he is still stuck with the problems of omnibenevolence(assuming he adheres to such concepts) and the omnipresence...

quote:
I think there's some sort of Catholic theology from some point (Aquinas, maybe? don't know) that says that although good exists independent of God, God loves good and things that are good and nice and pretty and wonderful, so he tries to make everyone do good whenever possible and he pets happy bunnies and that sort of thing. And he's not all-powerful, just super-powerful, avoiding the dangerous contradictions involved in omnipotence.
Beyond studying and refuting Aquinas' flawed "Ontological argument" I am not too familiar with his works but I think the rationalization concerning omnipotence that you refer to is not so much downgrading "all powerful" to "Super powerful" as it is pointing out that even an entity capable of all the power in the universe cannot do the illogical(i.e. create a round square or a rock so heavy he cannot lift it).

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quote:
Originally written by Andrew Miller:

A blind person could make a similar assertion about color not existing, if he was limited to his terms and his current comprehension of color.
The "blind man doesn't know about color" argument/analogy, common as it is, does not work. For starters, the blind man would have to also be a solopsist(in which case his blindness won't matter anyway) to deny the concurrent observations of other humans who are not saddled with his disability. Secondly, it IS possible to devise a scientific experiement by which a blind man COULD verify the existence of and discern colors using his other senses. Colors are just variations in wavelengths of radiation/light-energy IIRC and theoretically a device could be constructed which enabled the blind man to experience different colors via the sense of touch or hearing. Hell he could even invent the thing himself if you want to assume that he had no good reason to trust the scientist who invented the device and oversaw the experiement.
Thirdly and most importantly, the analogy is a false one because colors are not something with an independent existence which is in serious doubt by many rationalists. Colors can be demonstrated under controlled conditions, repeatedly and consistently. We know that people who do not experience colors are people with a disability(i.e. a man with no legs does not doubt the 'existence' of "walking". He simply lacks the capacity to do so).

To date no one has ever been able to show that gods or spirits or souls or anything supernatural exists in such a way as colors do EXCEPT as imaginary things. If someone did do such THEN we could talk about whatever 'disability' atheists or skeptics must have which prevents them/us from experiencing gods or spirits.

quote:
As things stand, our current comprehension of a god/gods/God is based on our understanding of concepts like infinity/omniscience/omnipotence which, based on our very finiteness, I believe are impossible to conceive of in full, just as a blind person can't conceive of color.
Then what you are saying is that we have no way to distinguish between a 'really existing God' and a sketchily defined imaginary concept-entity?

This just brings us back to Sagan's "Garage Dragon". There is effectively NO difference between an invisible, intangible, in no way detectable or measurable dragon in my garage and one that lives only in my head. Occam's razor suggests then that such an entity is indeed a figment of my imagination.

quote:
[b]Certainly, for practical purposes, color does not exist for the blind person.
[/b]

Why not? Especially for those who were not born blind or who were temporarily able to see when some operation or experiemental treament almost worked.

This is a God of the gaps argument. In effect, "I don't know what is in my friend's antique vase right now so a genie might live there". This same argument can be and IS offered in support of fairies, dragons(yes there are believers in dragons in the 21st century. I have met them), perpetual motion machines, magic and cars which run entirely on water. To be consistent, if one is to believe in God on such an argument then one must also believe in every other claim uttered which is supported by the same argument.
I don't buy ANY gap arguments for ANY claim. Why? Because I have not checked out every single street legal automobile on the planet and yet I KNOW for 100% certain that there are NONE which are made entirely of gelatin. I am also a materialist so arguments which appeal to idealists and solopsists and other non-materialists will have no more effect on me than my appealing to logic and rules of inference will on many non-materialists.

Different axioms.

quote:
[b] Likewise, for you and I, God as defined by any of the world's religions may not be apparent. However, using the logic you present to rule out the existence of a god/gods/God, even one couched in the terms of one of the major world religions, seems to me to be the height of arrogance, because frankly, you and I have no means of truly comprehending the infinite, omnipresent, and omniscient, let alone what's occurring on Earth outside of the realm of our experience).[qb]
I am not sure why it is but at some point in every one of these discussions, the skeptic/materialist/atheist will be refered to as "arrogant", "blind", "bitter", "hard headed", and/or "closed-minded". I was going to ask in my first post in this thread that we try to avoid this but I did not want "presumptuous" to be added to the list.
I will answer this charge by simply asking you if you believe in Santa Claus. If you do not then you are either too arogant or blind to see that a fat man using flying rheindeer pulled sleigh to deliver presents to every child of the world within a 12 hour period( burglarizing homes via the chimney which many homes lack) is possible.

I am not trying to be offensive or facetious here, I am serious. No one's existential claim gets a free pass from skeptical scrutiny if you are being consistent. Santa and God are on the exact same footing until proven otherwise.

quote:
[qb] It's as though we lack a sense to perceive these things, just as a blind person lacks sight.[/b]
See above. IF we have no reason to infer the existence of a thing we have invented, it is logically fallacious to assume we lack the capability to observe such. Until we have reason to warrant the claim/belief we should not assume it exists and if the claim itself is not logically consistent then it should be dismissed out of hand. I do not need to search every inch of the universe to know that square shaped circles do not exist.

quote:
Given that, it seems a bit hasty to me to make such a weighty assertion such as "God does not exist in reality."
DO you make the weighty assertion that Wile E. Coyote does not exist in reality? I do. Let me tell you why...

Wile E. Coyote is one of a plethora of similar imagined things we have witnessed humans creating for many years. He systematically violates physical laws in ways that, if real, would leave us in an "anything is possible" universe.
When I assume Wile E. is an actual coyote, his ways make no sense. I find myself asking "Why doesn't he just buy food instead of rocket skates?" or "How come gravity does not take effect until he looks down and pulls a "YIKES!" sign from his ass?".
When I assume that Wile E.(like gods) is a human invention, created for the purpose of entertaining me and/or teaching me something, then his ways make perfect sense. Buying rocket skates to chase Roadrunner into a painted false tunnel cliff face is funny!

When I assume that God is an independently existing entity who has created and, to some degree or other, controls the universe, his ways make no sense. I find myself asking "If God wants us to know he exists and have a 'personal relationship' with him then why not just come out as a 900' Jesus and carve "Here I am" into the side of Mt. Everest or something? OR perform one of those unmistakable miracles described in the Bible?

When I recognise that God is a made up thing, created to serve a purpose for humans(entertain, educate, persuade/control) then his ways make perfect sense. I can understand why a human suffering male pattern baldness would write a story about children who taunt a bald man being mauled by bears or why adultry made the list of commandments.

quote:
EDIT: Please also note that I think that the major world religions are just as arrogant in asserting that they have the monopoly on the concept of the divine. Given how little any of us know about "Life, the Universe, and Everything," I think the most reasonable assertion is that the jury's still out on divinity.
Ironic that you refer to/quote Adams(another strong atheist) above :) . The jury is NOT still out on God. The jury has spoken loudly and clearly that something cannot be 'A' and 'not A' at once. Something cannot be "beyond time" and still "existent". Something cannot be "omniscient" and yet "free willed". Something cannot be "omnibenevolent" and create a universe where evil is in such abundance. Something cannot be "omnipresent" and yet undetectable/immeasureable by humans because we lack the proper tools or the God is not physcial in nature.

[ Tuesday, January 25, 2005 15:34: Message edited by: SkeleTony ]

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quote:
Originally written by Andrew Miller:

[b]To SkeleTony - I think you've done a good job defining how ours is a world of limitations. I think that using this as a basis for explaining god(s) out of the picture is incorrect, however. In your definition, you assert that a god would have to follow the limitations of our universe. In essence, this seems to me to be assuming that a god would have to obey the rules as we understand them. I think the flaw here is that we certainly don't have a monopoly on the rules (they've tended to change over the years, and undoubtedly will continue to do so), and given that, there's no reason why god(s) could not exist outside the scope of our (what I perceive to be very) limited perception and obsession with limitation. It does not follow that because I am finite, everything else must be. A person declaiming the existence of God seems to me not disimilar to a blind person declaiming the existence of color.
[/b]

I am not saying and have NEVER said that because I am finite, everything else must be. What I AM saying is that because REALITY(re:my universe) is finite, everything within it must act accordingly. Logic dictates(nay DEMANDS!) this. "God" = 'infinite possibility'. Infinite possibility cannot exist within a reality of finite possibility.

Let me try an analogy here that I suspect will make my position unmistakably clear.

If someone walks up to me and says "You know, 'vampires exist.", I am going to respond:

"What's a "vampire"?"

If the claimant then tells me it is any senteient creature with a desire to drink teh blood of sentients, then I will agree these things either do exist or at least there is no logical reason they cannot.

But if the claimant tells me that "vampires" are "non-reflecting, garlic-allergic, homo nocturnus" I will be a "weak a-vampirist" because I see no reason to think such a think actually exists. I would LACK a positive conviction that these vampires exist.

Now let's say the claimant tells me that vampires are entities which exist, just as I exist, but are not bound by linear time, are "undead"(defined as having will, survival instincts, emotions and intellect but not being physically "alive"), omniscient(defined as knowing ALL, even that which has not yet come to pass), omnimalevolent(purely "evil" and omnipresent(everywhere at once). THIS "vampire" I will be a 'strong' a-vampirist' towards.

Why?

For the same reason I conclude that round squares do not exist. Because a sentient cannot know that which has not transpired yet and even if he COULD, he cannot maintain a "will((ability to ponder or make decisions himself) if he has such certainty of knowledge. ALso this entity cannot be omnimalevolent AND omnipresent in a universe where ANY "good" exists for any reason. Teh existence of "good" cannot be explained by other free willed beings because these beings also could not have said free will if these vampires have certainty of knowledge of events which are yet to transpire.

and so on...

quote:
To Alex - Lighten up, man. This is all for fun.

For others - Does the root of evil necessarily have to be evil itself? I would argue that sapience/sentience is not.

It DOES. IF God, for example, is "all good" then whence cometh evil? Even ignoring my above contentions for a second, if God were all benign adn he created beings capable of the sort of "evil" we humans are capable of, then he could not be "all benign". ANother logical contradiction. The "potential for evil" argument does not work either because if God desired for the poetntial of evil to exist then that means the potential for evil must serve a purpose(re: it must itself be "good") adn in order for it to truly be a "potential", it CANNOT be something which will NEVER occur.

Let me try another analogy because this issue can cause one to begin gnawing one's thumbs and never stop.

I am the God of sequential numerology. I am omnieven-numbered and my desire is that odd-numbers should never exist for any existential things. There should never be an odd nhumber of apples or roads or claps during school assembly.
But I recognise that counting/qunatifying for humans is impossible without there being odd numbers potential. So I allow for humans to be able to count adn quantify things.

So there is Adam and Even in my perfect garden one day frolicking and such. I have warned them that a number of talking snakes may try and creep into my perfect garden adn trick them into recognising odd numbers in a way I find most distasteful. He may try and con them into doing something with an odd number of fruits from an odd number of trees which should not even exist in my garden but do.

How does Adam even make sense of or recognise the danger when Mr. Talking snake strolls up to him? How does Adam even determine there is an odd number of talking snakles trying to con him into eating an odd number of fruits from the odd tree?
How can I, the God of even-numberedness, desire that no human ever count "one" of a number of apples if they must do so in order to even get to "two" apples?

Getting away from the screwy analogy...is 'rape' "evil"(I think so but bear with me)? If so then where does this evil come from if not from the alleged fact that God created humans of a bi-sexual(as in having two genders that reproduce sexually) nature with an amazing capacity to enfore will through violence?

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quote:
Originally written by Macrsp:

And going over the thread again, I read this.
quote:
Written by SkeleTony:
What Thuryl said(er...asked).

The absolutist/moral objectivist runs into some serious problems answering those questions. If what is "good" is simply whatever "God" says is good, then God could concievably declare child molestation to be good and the theistic absolutist must either agree or rebel against his God in that hypothetical. IF "good" and "evil" simply ARE(independent of God's arbitrary decree) and God is just one who recognises these things for what they are, then the absolutist is conceding that God is not necessary for morality.
I think you misunderstand. If God was the definition of "good" and he was a child molester than that would be "good" (at least according to the argument that I am running with)

But "God" is not a definition for "Good"(at least not one that does us any good here). I am not misunderstanding(I don't think) in the least. You have taken up the position of the theistic absolutist/moral objectivist here, so it is upon you to tell us, not only what "good" is(in the same manner that someone would define 'gravity' objectively when asked what that was) but also whether "good" simply IS(in the same way that gravity simply is what it is regardless of what Einstein might want it to be) OR whethert "good" is what it is BECAUSE God says so(analogous to Einstein BEING the very determinent of what gravity is, so that he could arbitrarily point to whatever phenomenom he so desired and say "That is gravity!").

Now of course the absolutist is going to be inclined, as any rational thnker would be, to take up the position that "good" is NOT simply some arbitrary decree of God's but rather an objectively existent thing itself which God is the ultimate 'recogniser' of and(presumably) enforcer of.

This leaves us with the problem I mentioned earlier. That God is not necessary for "good" and only serves the role of a sort of divine "CHief of police" of sorts.

Now if you are saying that(and I think after reading your reply to Thuryl that you are) God IS necessary in this role only, then my truck is not with you as a moral objectivist because you are not one. In fact I don't seem to have much of any truck with you period beyond my wondering where this alleged 'Chief of Police' is? It becomes a case of the proverbial "Kissing Hank's Ass"( www.jhugger.com/kisshank.mv ).

quote:
However you do make me realize something. What I am talking about is not absolutism. It is still relative. Good and Evil would change based on the "mood" or whatever of the defining god. Probably why the statement that "God is the same yesterday, today, and forever" is needed
Well one of these days I am going to learn to read the entriety of what someone posts BEFORE deciding to interject... :o

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quote:
Originally written by Turumby:

In modern interpretations, God is usually thought of as infinitely wise. While the Old Testament seems to conflict with this at some points, the Abrahamic tradition more or less agrees on God's limitless knowledge AFAIK. Therefore, if anyone is in a position to figure out what the most practical standards of morality are, it's God.

And, of course, power doesn't hurt. The courts can only tell us what to do because they have the police to back them up, but most people don't see that as proof that their judgements are inherently invalid.

Yeah but this does not address the points raised in reagrds to whether "good" or "evil" are simply determined by "God" or whether they simply ARE and God recognises them as such.

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What Thuryl said(er...asked).

The absolutist/moral objectivist runs into some serious problems answering those questions. If what is "good" is simply whatever "God" says is good, then God could concievably declare child molestation to be good and the theistic absolutist must either agree or rebel against his God in that hypothetical. IF "good" and "evil" simply ARE(independent of God's arbitrary decree) and God is just one who recognises these things for what they are, then the absolutist is conceding that God is not necessary for morality.

A catch 22.

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Aloreal: We seem to be mostly in agreement anyway and what trivial details we disagree on are probably not worth me cluttering up this thread anymore or even starting a whole new thread on "evolution & the religious meme" or somesuch. However, if you feel the need to start one yourself, I will be happy to poke my head in.

Enjoyed your thoughtful replies.

[ Monday, January 24, 2005 02:08: Message edited by: SkeleTony ]

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