Root of all evil
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 05:08
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quote: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. -------------------- "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 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 06:23
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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. 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'd like to see that argument before I change my mind about you being closed-minded. [ Thursday, January 27, 2005 06:34: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 07:13
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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. 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. It goes along with the "filling the cracks" notion: I know that a person creates cartoon characters, I can go in a garage and wave my arms around and not touch a dragon. 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). 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. Given that, what's left to fill is not a crack so much as an infinitely yawning abyss. To put it in material terms, there's an infinitely vast amount of material out there that no one knows anything about! Given that, I think it is close-minded to weigh in so conclusively on the matter. 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. 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. [ Thursday, January 27, 2005 07:17: Message edited by: Andrew Miller ] Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4557
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 11:55
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quote:Ironically, its this kind of thinking that led to the Quantum Revolution. Doesn't mean I support it. [ Thursday, January 27, 2005 11:56: Message edited by: KernelKnowledge12 ] Posts: 264 | Registered: Wednesday, June 16 2004 07:00 |
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BoE Posse
Member # 112
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 13:35
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...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? [ Thursday, January 27, 2005 13:37: Message edited by: The Creator ] -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 17:51
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quote:You're talking about brains, I'm talking about minds. 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.) quote: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. 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. quote:The existence of my mind, as a coherent, unified, definable concept rather than merely a series of thoughts and perceptions. quote: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. quote:So there's more doubt about one than the other. It's still possible to doubt both. quote:As I've mentioned before, not every system of logic denies the possibility of something being both A and not A. 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. quote: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. quote: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? quote: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. quote: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. quote:We're not disagreeing. I just think it's best to hold as few axioms as possible. quote:First you said that you held certain assumptions about the world because they were useful assumptions. Now you seem to be saying you have little choice about which assumptions are included in your view of the world. Which is it? [ Thursday, January 27, 2005 17:52: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 18:11
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Okay, replying to Creator now. Sorry about the double post. quote:Ideally, I'd like to witness it myself. At the very least, I'd want to see the resurrectee and the site of resurrection in person, in order to discount the possibility of media fraud. The person would have to have been dead for a very considerable amount of time (people have recovered days after being pronounced clinically dead.) Preferably, it'd be someone who died centuries ago, and who was able to give details about his life that were verifiable but could not have been known by any person living today. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2820
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 20:14
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Though I am impressed with many of certain people's lengthy arguments, I still think that what we consider to be paranormal apparition ghosts do exist. God might exist, and invisible dragons do not. Here is an interesting backwards argument: I think that ghosts exist because that would be evidence of a soul, and a soul would indicate that a higher spiritual being could exist, and so God could be real. -------------------- What do I put here? -Garrison Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 22:51
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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: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: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: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 ] -------------------- "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 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 23:00
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quote:So you believe artificial intelligence is impossible in principle too? -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Thursday, January 27 2005 23:29
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quote: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 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:I know that a people create gods. quote: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: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] 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: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: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: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: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: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 ] -------------------- "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 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Friday, January 28 2005 00:13
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quote: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: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] 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:Okay. quote:[/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: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:Then that system would be illogical. :D quote: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: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: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] 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: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: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:I can see now that the word "useful" was poorly chosen. From now on I will go with necessary assumptions. quote: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). -------------------- "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 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Friday, January 28 2005 00:25
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quote: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). -------------------- "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 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Friday, January 28 2005 00:31
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quote: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!". -------------------- "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 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Friday, January 28 2005 00:34
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quote:That argument IS backwards! WHy do you think souls exist? This seems circular(at the very least) but I cannot make enough sense of it to really address it. -------------------- "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 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, January 28 2005 01:29
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quote:That's a silly definition. For one thing, we can have brain activity without thinking (our brains are still active when we're unconscious). For another, it's an unfair definition; brains are important because of what they do (thinking), not because of the kind of matter they're made of. The fact that the composition of a living brain is sufficient for thought doesn't prove that it's necessary for thought, unless you explicitly define thought as requiring a brain, which is no better than proof by assertion. quote:I think it's where we agree, actually. We even both seem to agree that there are some things we're generally better off not doubting, but that this doesn't mean they can't be doubted in principle. quote:The problem lies in defining a mind, as an object with boundaries. (To slightly paraphrase Wittgenstein, we cannot draw a limit to thought, for to do that we would have to be able to think both sides of the limit.) Is unconscious brain activity still part of the mind? One can argue either way. A mind is an abstraction in the same sense as any other object composed of multiple parts is; which parts to include and which to exclude is partly a matter of subjective judgement. quote:Interesting, but basically another linguistic argument. Can we at least agree that you'd be experiencing perceptions of some sort? quote:Time for another cards-on-the-table moment; I don't think that human brains are inherently wired for logic. I think it's a human invention that's an outgrowth of language, and that our thoughts are much less precise and dependent on consistency than the laws of classical logic. A word, for example, can have opposite meanings to different people; if both participants in a conversation hold the relatively common belief that "inflammable" means "not flammable", and one of them uses the word in this way and is understood, then the word has been used to mean that; if you argue that the word does not in fact mean that, you may have lexicographers on your side, but the fact remains that it has been successfully used to mean that, and that, after all, is what language is all about. quote:Going through your laundry list below (on which I shall say more when it comes): *Observation doesn't require materialism; it's a pure act of perception, and thus a mental process. *Hypothesis doesn't require materialism for the same reason. *Conducting an experiment may not require materialism. Many experiments in economics and psychology take the form of abstract games (e.g. the Prisoner's Dilemma) which require only the experimental subjects and no specific material apparatus. They'd still work fine in a world containing no matter (assuming some non-material means for minds to communicate with each other). *Attempts to falsify are a part of the experimental process; if the original experiment didn't require them, subsequent experiments aren't likely to require them either. *Formation of a theory is a mental process and doesn't require materialism. quote:Paul Feyerabend, for starters. (Admittedly, he spent most of his career as a philosopher, but he had a degree in science.) quote:That's not a method. That's a list of words. "Testing", especially, is such a broad term that it can be (and is!) used to mean anything a particular researcher wants it to mean. Many scientists and mathematicians argue that mathematics counts as a science; many argue that it doesn't. quote:And that no such reason could ever exist? Surely if any observation at any future point in time could ever change your mind, then there's room for doubt (even though I'm not saying that that doubt should necessarily have an influence on your actions in your daily life, since something can be as good as certain without being absolutely certain). quote:I would assert that the idea of something existing without anyone ever observing it or any consequences of it is meaningless, because "meaning" itself is something that can only exist if there's something for a thing to mean anything to - that is, a conscious being. Without a conscious observer, everything is meaningless. What can it mean for something to have a meaning if the meaning doesn't mean anything to anyone? (On this note I'd like to mention E-Prime, a version of the English language which excludes the verb "to be" and all its variations (e.g. "exists"). Some argue that any statement that can't be expressed in E-Prime is meaningless; I wouldn't necessarily go that far, but trying to write in it sure makes for an interesting exercise.) EDIT: A further thought: would you willing to entertain the idea that "meaning", like "walking", is something a thing does rather than something it has? In fact, isn't this exactly the sense in which we use the word when we say that something means different things to different people? So if something doesn't mean something to somebody, how can it be said to mean anything at all? quote:How can you possibly know this? quote:If there weren't someone to perceive it, whether it existed or not would be irrelevant. Of course, then you have all that quantum weirdness about observation affecting results, which I'll try to avoid getting into because I'm far from an expert, having read only a handful of books on the subject. quote:Are you saying you accord some special status to brains; that they do something that it is in principle impossible for any machine to accomplish? In principle, it shouldn't be impossible to create a machine that emulates all the functions of a single neuron, and therefore to construct a complete and functional brain out of these. Classically, this thought experiment continues with a pre-existing, live human brain's neurons being replaced one by one with the artificial neurons over a long period of time, and asking whether the resulting organism is self-aware. (Of course, I'm certainly not saying that if AI is developed, that's how it will be done in practice.) [ Friday, January 28, 2005 01:47: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Friday, January 28 2005 02:58
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quote:Yeah...?So...? I never said we could not have brain activity without thinking but we cannot have brain activity without BRAINS. quote:Though I agree with this subjective opinion about what makes a brain "important", I fail to see what this has to do with what I posted. The important point is that brains are matter adn they generate thought(not the other way around). quote:If we do NOT explicitly define our terms then the whole discussion is worthless. If thought can be anything from an idea to a purple walnut then what is the point? quote:I think this is a case of applying the same conditions to a thing which does not exist independently as we would to a thing which DOES. Thoughts/minds and brains are not equivalent in their existence any more than making a killing on the stock market is equivalent to killing your wife for the insurance money. quote:Good question and not one I am prepared to answer yet. Will think on it adn try to get back to you. quote:Actually, no. Linguistic argument or no, I am making a distinction between perceptions/seeing and imagining. One requires an externally existent object while the other creates images of an object what do not reside outside that person's head. quote:Well, this is to one extent or the other true. We are(historically speaking at least) better wired for superstition and "faith" and this is probably what allowed us to survive early in our ancestry. However we do have an amazing capacity(when we choose to use it) for rational thought. quote:Yes, words shift meaning with context and usage, speaker and audience. That is why I am not one of those who pull out dictionaries to support an argument(re: "Here it says that an atheist is someone who is wicked and hates God!"). However, there are what I call essential definitions for use in these sorts of debates. Whenever a particular type of theist offers a critique of atheism in general by attacking what amounts to(at best) a small minority of particular atheists(re: strong atheists), I point out that the bare essential definition of the term is one who lacks a positive belief in God(s), for whatever reason. Just as the essential defintion of "Christian" is one who believes in Christ(for whatever reason and by whatever usage of "believes" one invokes). I do not challenge Christianity in general by pointing out the goofiness of Pentacostal snake handlers or Mormon ideas for example. quote:Depends on what you mean by "perception" adn "observation". I think science is pretty clear on how these terms are applied and they most certainly reuire a materialist axiom. quote:Probably right here but hypotheses really don't even require SCIENCE! YECism is a grand hypothesis after all! quote:Economics and psychology...? That is a whole 'nother debate there friend. :) quote:I am not getting you here. Are you saying that grounds for falsification are not necessary to science?!? I am almost positive I am reading you wrong so I will await your explanation on that. quote:Arguable but even if I granted this one and the hypothesis point, that would still leave most of science requiring materialism. Incidently, I think you are the first actual scientist I have met that has disagreed with this point about materialism. I wonder how many more of you are hiding out in your labs...? :D quote:You are aware of course that having a scientific degree(however one defines THAT qualification) does not make one a scientist. Working in a field of science and publishing in peer reviewed journals does. Otherwise the creationsits would be right to say that a ton of scientists were denying evolution(their lists, when not outright fraud, are composed mostly of engineers and computer tech guys and such whose views on biology are irrelevant). quote:*Sigh* I oversimplified because, going from memory and without any books in front of me ATM, I was sure I would fail if I tried to give a word-for-word definition of the Liberal scientific method and I was under the impression that you were already aware of such anyway adn we could deal with the crux of my arguments(right or wrong) rahter than these semantics. quote:No. I do not doubt what I have expressed in here as certain. What I AM saying is that if I am wrong adn I am made aware that I was wrong then I will not cling to my "wrongness". *Cue the argument that says that I am too stubborn to ever accept any proof that I was wrong "so we will not bother providing said proof".* :) quote:See this is exactly my point. "Meaning" does NOT exist(in the way we are using the term "exists" to describe matter and such). "Mind" does NOT exist. "Walking" does NOT exist. You cannot put any of those non-existent things in a jar or box and tell me how much they weigh or how big they are. They have a dependent existence. "Walking" is something that LEGS do(and legs EXIST!). "Mind" is a property of the brain and thinking is something that brains do(and brains EXIST!). You cannot pull the 'bait-and-switch' with the term "existence" like that. quote:Agreed. Doesn't change my arguments though. quote:Don't know. Not my dog you got there. quote:In essence what I have said all along. There are two types of "existence". Dependent and independent. Meaning falls under the former usage. quote:Don't know. I do not argue for any objective "meaning"(in fact I deny it as vigorously as I deny the existence of round squares and such). quote:Again, part of that "necessary assumption"/axiom thing. Knowledge has to proceed from somewhere. Mine is the materialist axiom. quote:Agreed. [quote] Of course, then you have all that quantum weirdness about observation affecting results, which I'll try to avoid getting into because I'm far from an expert, having read only a handful of books on the subject.[quote] Yeah, that won't be necessary, nor would it do any good as I have banged heads with people who DO claim expertise in this area and am still unconvicned of their position(s). TO me, bring quantum mechanics into a philosophical discussion is like bringing a fishing pole to a billiards tournament(rather than a pool cue). Sure you can do it, but you will just end up sucking as both a fisherman and a pool player. quote:Define "machine". Actually, as I said above in the "fleshy android" bit, I do not deny the possibility of replicating the brain through artifice. But there is probably a lot more questions to deal with like what role does the absence of genetic inheritence play in the machine's self-awareness? How important or replicable is a lifetime of experiences to the machine's abstract-thought ability? etc. -------------------- "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 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, January 28 2005 03:43
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quote:I don't object to defining our terms; I object specifically to your definition, because I object to your defining the concept of a brain into thought. Thoughts are something we have direct experience of; when you have a thought, your experience of it doesn't have any subjective quality of "brain-ness" to it, despite the fact that a brain is involved in producing it. Sure, brains may create thought, but to our experience the thought comes first and the brain comes second; we know thoughts before we know brains. (Anyway, every system has basic concepts that it can't define. Thought may be one of them. Nor is explaining the reasons for its existence the same as defining it, at least to me. If you don't mind me bringing up the blind man from a previous page, telling him everything physicists know about wavelengths of light and cells in the retina doesn't tell him everything I know about the colour red, because I know what it actually looks like, even though that information is beyond my power to describe. Likewise, I couldn't describe to a hypothetical non-sentient intelligent being what it's like to have a thought.) quote:Fine. Since you don't want to stretch the definition of "perception" that far, can we at least say you'd be having a subjective experience? I regard subjective experience as being synonymous with perception, but for the purposes of my argument it's not overly important which words I use. quote: quote:Your definition of "observation" seems to require a perception that corresponds to an actual object and is caused by that actual object. If so, firstly, that's not my definition (in fact, that definition doesn't mean much to me because I don't even hold a correspondence theory of truth), and secondly, that's not how science works. Remember Kekule's dream in which the structure of benzene came to him? Was he being unscientific by using that dream as an inspiration to test whether the structure he interpreted the dream as conveying to him was correct? quote:We were debating whether science required hypotheses, not whether hypotheses required science. (None of the individual components of science require science as a whole in order to take place, anyway.) quote:If you're going to argue that all experiments conducted in economics and psychology are unscientific, I'm afraid I'm going to have to argue that they meet all the criteria of your posted definition, so you'll have to expand your definition. quote:I'm saying that an attempt to falsify requires only two things: conditions under which the hypothesis would be falsified, and a further experiment which tests whether those conditions apply. Those conditions don't have to involve anything material if the hypothesis is about something non-material (e.g. the hypothesis in economics that "rational individuals will always act in their own best interests"; rational individuals can, in principle, exist and have interests in a universe without matter), and I've already argued that experiments don't necessarily require materialism. (By the way, no theory is strictly falsifiable if you don't want it to be anyway; you can explain away any data you like.) quote:Talk to a quantum physicist some time. It's mostly in biology that you tend to meet the hardline reductionists these days. quote:Point taken. Is anyone always a scientist anyway? Surely, if there is some objective standard for whether a method is scientific, one is a scientist when one is applying a scientific method and not when one is not. Or perhaps a scientist is one who habitually (if not always) applies scientific methods, in much the same way that a sailor is frequently but not always found on a seagoing vessel. quote:Sorry. I try to minimise the amount of semantic argument required, but I do consider semantics both interesting and important. Anyway, I really don't believe there's a consensus on what the scientific method is; my experience is that lots of scientists think everyone knows what it is, but nobody can really give it a detailed and coherent description when pressed. quote:If you don't believe it's even logically possible that you could be wrong, then I can't see how stating what you would do if you were wrong is meaningful. (Okay, in a classical-logic sense it is, but in classical logic you could equally say, being absolutely confident in the assumption you're right, "If I am wrong, Napoleon was American and round squares exist", which is one of the reasons I'm a little uncomfortable with classical logic.) On the other hand, if you do think there are some conceivable circumstances under which you could be proven wrong, then surely that means you're leaving room for doubt over whether you are right. I get the impression that this is really turning into a semantic discussion hinged on the meaning of the word "doubt". quote:If there were no minds, there'd be nobody to know that brains existed, and therefore it'd be meaningless to say that they existed. Therefore minds are more directly the objects of our experience, and we can be more certain of their occurrence (since you don't like the word "existence" as applied to minds). quote:Yes it is. You're saying that things can exist independent of our experience. I'm saying that the concept of things existing independent of our experience is a concept that cannot be meaningfully understood. quote:An artificial system which produces a specific pattern of responses to stimuli. quote:Whoa. I think that linking genetic inheritance with self-awareness is a very long bow to draw indeed; it almost seems like a kind of biological mysticism. As for experiences, if you're a strict materialist, surely you're committed to the idea that any knowledge or experiences must be stored in some physical form, and therefore be measurable and replicable in principle. [ Friday, January 28, 2005 03:52: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Friday, January 28 2005 07:01
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quote:I thought it was obvious. The description in my post above is the most reasonable (and until fairly recently, most widely accepted) idea of a god, and it logically followed from a number of posts that had already been made, but you had ruled it out without discussion. The only way that you can deny the possibility of something without being closed-minded is to define exactly what that something is and then demonstrate why any version of it is completely impossible. You have not done that for divine beings yet. quote:You seem to have drawn the wrong conclusion from this, though. Science is inherently agnostic, not atheistic: science can only disbelieve in something if there's evidence against it. Philosophy can disbelieve in something without evidence, but that's something else again. Occam's Razor does not tell us what is true in the absence of evidence; it merely tells us what our working assumptions ought to be in the absence of evidence. God is a non-falsifiable hypothesis. Science neither believes nor disbelieves in such things. quote:So are you saying that it's possible? That's a normal definition of a god, you know. That's the idea that you'd have to deal with if you wanted to say that there cannot possibly be gods of any kind, because that fits well within the definition. quote:You can't possibly know that with certainty. That's a statement that I'm not willing to accept. The only sentience that we know of right now emerges from brain activity, but to say that this is the only possible sentience is the epitome of the mistake that you have been accused of earlier, thinking that what we know now is all that there is to know. [ Friday, January 28, 2005 07:05: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Friday, January 28 2005 07:01
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Thuryl- you're a med student, right? If the brain is not the only part of the body that controls thought, then take this challenge- remove your brain and have a thought, I dare you. Well, without being able to cut somebody up and poke around their grey matter, no duh it's proof by assertion only- but we can take that brain, remove it and then notice that thoughts stop. (And maybe, at the end of the day, you can continue believing in an indelible soul if you want, but there is no basis for it; doing so not only has clearly identifiable ethical implications with regards to objectivity, but also does nothing of worth in this discussion except immediately end it. A soul means a higher power that you believe in, which means that talking about this is moot.) PS- If you want to know my stance on "evil" or whatever fappery you're slapping your pizzles at, my posts still exist and remain unreplied to. -------------------- 私のバラドですそしてころしたいいらればころす Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Friday, January 28 2005 07:05
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quote:Looking back, it seems he may have actually been right! ;) SkeleTony, I can't match your knowledge of philosophy. I think, however, that I can safely assert that you can't prove that God does not exist, and it seems to me that even you admit there is some possibility (however remote) that a divine being could exist. Given that, how is your "strong" atheism anything greater than a belief? [ Friday, January 28, 2005 08:20: Message edited by: Andrew Miller ] Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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For Carnage, Apply Within
Member # 95
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written Friday, January 28 2005 08:58
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quote:If your heart or lungs were removed, chances are your ability to think would be drastically reduced. Doesn't mean those organs are responsible for thought. Posts: 567 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, January 28 2005 11:45
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quote:I'm not claiming that a living, healthy brain isn't sufficient for thought, merely that an alternative medium for thought is not impossible in principle. In fact, there's evidence of consciously-perceived neural processing in areas outside the brain (although more at the level of what most people would call perceptions and emotions than thoughts). quote:I try to avoid having any ethics that aren't useful to me. Morals are defined by the consensus of a language community. If a language community regards the existence or otherwise of souls as having moral implications, then they do. Otherwise, they don't. quote:In regard to your apparent claim that it's wrong for me to even be having this discussion, I'm having this discussion for fun, not for ethical reasons or because I think it's important. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 5421
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written Friday, January 28 2005 11:55
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Too much words, make a kids version please. -------------------- The number 5421 is the OTHER meaning of the universe. Posts: 4 | Registered: Saturday, January 22 2005 08:00 |
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BoE Posse
Member # 112
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written Friday, January 28 2005 16:29
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Thanks guys, I was just curious. My basic stance on the subject goes like this: Logic and observation tell us that nothing happens or exists without a cause. Logic also tells us that at some point, something had to exist without a cause, else there would be no cause for everything else to exist. Thus, it makes sense to assume that some things happen that don't correspond with what we are able to reproduce in a laboratory. I.e. it makes more sense to me to allow for the possibility of the supernatural rather than preclude it simply because it doesn't follow the patterns of the natural world. (This is probably covering old territory for you two. Sorry, didn't bother reading all that stuff.) To provide an example, a story from a close friend of mine. This happened before he became a Christian. His life had completely fallen apart, and he decided to kill himself. He drove to the beach, got out of his car and started walking out into the ocean. Partway out, he thought he heard someone call his name. He kept going. He heard it again, and was sure this time. Looking back to the beach, he saw a woman with two dogs on the beach. Didn't recognise her. He came back to the beach, and asked her if it was her that had called. She said no, and hadn't heard anything. He got into his car, and started driving away. He glanced in his rearview mirror, and they were gone. He stopped quickly, got out, and looked around. They were completely gone, and no, there was nowhere out of sight they could have disappeared to in that space of time. You argue he was hallucinating - after all, he was under a lot of stress. I prefer the more straightforward explanation. -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |