a two year old for instance has not yet developed a full on form of consciousness that incorporates self awareness - are we supposed to believe that a two year old has not got its soul yet ?A further comment on this statement -
torridon,
You're missing the whole point. The driverless car did not evolve by itself through some random variations and environmental factors. It has been produced through decades of effort by Intelligent human beings. The car has evolved to become driverless only because of humans. There are no emergent properties that arose automatically. All properties have been introduced into the car at various stages of its evolution/development, only by humans.
The self is the driving force.
That is rather irrelevant to the point of the analogy. That the car is not a biological unit is obvious, but it is nonetheless useful as a metaphor for describing the defacto relationship between 'body' and 'soul', and my OP demonstrates why my analogy is more faithful to observed reality than traditional concepts.
But anyway, we could say that driverless cars did evolve, in a broader sense in that they are part of the extended phenotype of humans, just as termite castles are part of extended phenotype of termites. Human ingenuity is not magic, it is an evolved trait.
Why do you keep using the word 'magic'? I have never indicated that any of this creation is 'magic'. If we don't understand or sense how something happens, it seems like magic, that is all.
Just because we call something 'spirit' does not mean it is 'magic'. It could have its own laws and limitations that we may not understand. Just as robots will not be able to understand what humans are made of and how we could possibly exist without any metals and plastics in our system..or how we could be intelligent without having microprocessors.
Not according to research; cognitive science demonstrates that the conscious self is a retrospective construction of mind. All we need to do is decide whether to be true to the evidence, or lead lives of denial.But according to you, that decision is already made ???
Not long ago we would have considered the idea of driverless cars laughable science fiction. Driverless Uber taxis are now a reality on the streets of Pittsburgh and they are being rolled out in San Francisco. Sriram is fond of using car/driver analogy to illustrate the relationship between body/soul. I'll suggest we can use the Uber model to understand why the concept of illusory self is truer.In which case, as in proposing intelligence as the point of emergence of consciousness, we have to look into which part of a car the driver has emerged from.
But according to you, that decision is already made ???
I'll suggest we can use the Uber model to understand why the concept of illusory self is truer.Who or what is being illuded?
In which case, as in proposing intelligence as the point of emergence of consciousness, we have to look into which part of a car the driver has emerged from.
To do this we must look at the finest of the human race, the great new atheist thinkers.
From this we can deduce that the driver probably evolved from the EXHAUST PIPE.
Thank you for your contribution ;)Who or what is being ''illuded''?
Dismissing magic places both the evolution of humans and the evolution of human creations such as cars within the natural order, ok, we agree on that. So that is not a valid basis to dismiss the analogy.Intelligent designers take biological structures and argue that they are parts of a kit.
Who or what is being illuded?
I suspect that there will be much confusion in this thread unless somebody defines the words 'self' and 'soul'. The driverless car analogy is likely to cause problems as the religion oriented person would say that the car's creator God is a human who uses his intelligence to form the car and develop its capabilities, sustain its form and provide the fuel to energise it. The virtual Uber driver could be likened to a personality i.e. a self image which an individual can identify with and present to others but which can cover up a host of other characteristics seething beneath the surface. The two year old could be seen as having a consciousness which is engaged in the early stages of creating a persona to identify with. The psyche (translated as soul in the New Testament) is the reservoir of what lies beneath the surface of the persona and if you have experienced what can emerge from a 2 year old, in that sense you could believe it has a soul. It may be that this kind of self and soul does not disolve but consciousness simply temporarily disconnects from it (for a bit of peace and quiet).
Cognitive science has shown us for instance that the conscious self is not really in control, just as a virtual Uber driver would not really be in control. Real decision making goes on before and underneath conscious awareness; conscious awareness follows retrospectively, almost as an afterthought. An emergent, apparent self, raises no problems explaining how immaterial beings could interact with matter. An emergent, virtual self, is consistent with the observation that the self dissolves on going to sleep, is compromised by various brain pathologies and disappears altogether when the body dies. An emergent, virtual self, is consistent with the observation that the development of the self mirrors the development of the body - a two year old for instance has not yet developed a full on form of consciousness that incorporates self awareness - are we supposed to believe that a two year old has not got its soul yet ?
I suspect that there will be much confusion in this thread unless somebody defines the words 'self' and 'soul'. The driverless car analogy is likely to cause problems as the religion oriented person would say that the car's creator God is a human who uses his intelligence to form the car and develop its capabilities, sustain its form and provide the fuel to energise it. The virtual Uber driver could be likened to a personality i.e. a self image which an individual can identify with and present to others but which can cover up a host of other characteristics seething beneath the surface. The two year old could be seen as having a consciousness which is engaged in the early stages of creating a persona to identify with. The psyche (translated as soul in the New Testament) is the reservoir of what lies beneath the surface of the persona and if you have experienced what can emerge from a 2 year old, in that sense you could believe it has a soul. It may be that this kind of self and soul does not disolve but consciousness simply temporarily disconnects from it (for a bit of peace and quiet).
But according to you, that decision is already made ???
Yes I agree this is not easy. I didn't claim it was easy, rather that is truer to evidence. The simple answer would be that it is the virtual self that is being illuded, but the deception inflicted on the virtual self is merely a reflection of the original self-deception that occurs in lower levels of preconscious mind later on extrapolated into the synthesis of conscious experience. I know that sounds a mouthful and it cuts to the heart of the question, what exactly is awareness, what is it made of, where is it located ? I don't think we can give easy sound bite answers to that. But the evidence is pointing us in the direction of the self as being an emergent proprioceptive projection created by mind, similar to the notion of a soul in so far as it is defacto intangible. But can we say anything at all about the nature of the soul that sits comfortably within the knowledge base from science ? A virtual self is harder for us to conceive of, but it is truer to evidence.Why the talk of the virtual self? And how does that differ from an answer which goes that this is a real system of great sophistication capable of consciousness which is being illuded?
Why the talk of the virtual self? And how does that differ from an answer which goes that this is a real system of great sophistication capable of consciousness which is being illuded?
What does the word 'real' mean there ? I'd agree there is a real system, but it produces a phenomenology that is not quite what it seems. I have a real ankle; I can show you where it is, what is is made of, guess at how much it weighs. Do you have a real soul ? Can you point to it, or tell me its mass or its temperature ? There is no ontological basis to a self or a soul, it is a slippery concept. What am I ? I can tell you my name and my weight but do those things really define me ? Is an ocean wave defined by the particles of water that are currently in its service ? So what is the 'me' that is left when you subtract all the particles of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and so forth that are currently in the employ of being 'me'. I'm trying to figure out how to describe that slippery knowledge concept in a way that is consistent with evidence.The self is an emergent property is it not.
The self is an emergent property is it not.
Virtual is a cop out of admitting something that doesn't fit in with materialism has emerged which is unfortunate for you since the virtual should not exist in a perfect world of reductionist materialism.
The problems are all yours.
I disagree. To my mind the extra problems created by invoking a spiritual soul are far greater, and the fact that no-one attempts to flesh out the notion of soul suggests I am right. No-one ever steps up to the mark.But there is no consistency in the materialist account as your dependence on the word virtual has shown. Wake up to what you are saying yourself.
A 'materialist' account is not easy, but it has consistency - in a materialist account, everything ultimately has a material basis, so even feelings and thoughts have a material basis - we can measure the speed of thoughts, a desire for action is translated into motor action without any compromise to current scientific models as it is all material acting on material according to well understood principles at the levels of physics and cellular biology.
An immaterial soul on the other hand introduces more unexplained things than it explains - the provenance of the soul, how it interacts with matter etc. These problems place a soul way outside current understanding of everything from quantum theory up to biology. The hard parts of the 'materialist' account are in understanding how mind can be matter, how can a flux in potassium ions up synaptic gradients from a third person perspective also be a loud sound or a pleasurable feeling from a subjective aspect ? But the correlations are there if we have a mind that is open to understanding and not in denial holding out with 'correlation is not causation'.
But there is no consistency in the materialist account as your dependence on the word virtual has shown. Wake up to what you are saying yourself.
Also it undermines the notion of emergence.
A material self is OK anyway for Christians who recognise we are part of a created order that we are dust and return to dust and have to be resurrected in a new body.
So the real problem lies in maintaining consistency of the reductionist materialist argument.
As I said the problems are all yours.
It's interesting though that both modern scientific analysis and the mystics of all religions end up with no-self. Sure, they have taken very different routes to get there, or not get there, but the convergence has often been commented on. The mystics did it via direct experience, since they could not find a separate self, and obviously science cannot either.Not having a soul would therefore explain all the talk of having a dark night of the soul...of course ....it's all clear to me now ....one must be without a soul in order to have a dark night of one....simples.
Having said, that, I think that Protestantism tended to erase this mystical aspect of Christianity, so it is poorly known, except among the Orthodox and some Catholics.
Not having a soul would therefore explain all the talk of having a dark night of the soul...of course ....it's all clear to me now ....one must be without a soul in order to have a dark night of one....simples.And since we have a word for leprechauns, you have just argued they exist....simples.
A material self is OK anyway for Christians who recognise we are part of a created order that we are dust and return to dust and have to be resurrected in a new body.
And since we have a word for leprechauns, you have just argued they exist....simples.Actually my point is that Wigginhall was talking about mystics of all religions find no self. I'm not sure that is either the goal or indeed the experience of all mystics in all religions.
Not having a soul would therefore explain all the talk of having a dark night of the soul...of course ....it's all clear to me now ....one must be without a soul in order to have a dark night of one....simples.
Actually my point is that Wigginhall was talking about mystics of all religions find no self. I'm not sure that is either the goal or indeed the experience of all mystics in all religions.So you phrased a strawman badly
Some believe in souls and some are ''A-souls.''
A further comment on this statement -Thank you, you have just described how other creatures can have soul.
If the brain and its sensory inputs is the soul's window on to this material world, our awareness will not be fully functional until these physical instruments are fully developed and working.
Yes I agree this is not easy. I didn't claim it was easy, rather that is truer to evidence. The simple answer would be that it is the virtual self that is being illuded, but the deception inflicted on the virtual self is merely a reflection of the original self-deception that occurs in lower levels of preconscious mind later on extrapolated into the synthesis of conscious experience. I know that sounds a mouthful and it cuts to the heart of the question, what exactly is awareness, what is it made of, where is it located ? I don't think we can give easy sound bite answers to that. But the evidence is pointing us in the direction of the self as being an emergent proprioceptive projection created by mind, similar to the notion of a soul in so far as it is defacto intangible. But can we say anything at all about the nature of the soul that sits comfortably within the knowledge base from science ? A virtual self is harder for us to conceive of, but it is truer to evidence.But the evidence derived from human scientific investigation is not a complete picture of reality, so the conclusions derived from it may not be valid. I admit that I am not an expert in quantum theory, (indeed can anyone claim expert knowledge in this area?), but I do know that many quantum events are unpredictable and unfathomable to human intellect. I know that some investigations into conscious decision making have shown some correlation with increased quantum activity in areas of the brain. This does not provide definitive explanations for causation, but it opens up the possibility that conscious thoughts and decisions could be derived from whatever causes these quantum events to occur. In other words there could be a gateway into a quantum world which is outside the scope of any scientific investigation.
OK, but none of that is conclusion from evidence.Non sequiter. It means we have no vested interest in an immaterial soul. Therefore since you use the word virtual we have to ask the question why...and of course there are the problems with equating intelligence with consciousness when intelligence does not need consciousness and of emergence when no linking mechanism between intelligence and consciousness can be found since you would not be using the word virtual to describe such a system.
Thank you, you have just described how other creatures can have soul.The development of the brain and its sensory inputs can also be sufficient for the emergence of a biological robot (ie animal) with no conscious perception. Conscious perception is not needed for behaviour based on instinct and learnt experience. It is only needed to exert free will decisions which override our animal behaviour patterns.
Their brains are just not developed enough and working at our level, to show it in the same way that we do.
That gets round your earlier objections eg 'show me a monkey that can appreciate the beauty of a sunrise'.
::)
But the evidence derived from human scientific investigation is not a complete picture of reality, so the conclusions derived from it may not be valid. I admit that I am not an expert in quantum theory, (indeed can anyone claim expert knowledge in this area?), but I do know that many quantum events are unpredictable and unfathomable to human intellect. I know that some investigations into conscious decision making have shown some correlation with increased quantum activity in areas of the brain. This does not provide definitive explanations for causation, but it opens up the possibility that conscious thoughts and decisions could be derived from whatever causes these quantum events to occur. In other words there could be a gateway into a quantum world which is outside the scope of any scientific investigation.
So I will continue to have faith in my own ability to drive my thoughts, words and actions and be content to wait for the human scientific endeavours to catch up with the reality of my own existence.
The development of the brain and its sensory inputs can also be sufficient for the emergence of a biological robot (ie animal) with no conscious perception. Conscious perception is not needed for behaviour based on instinct and learnt experience. It is only needed to exert free will decisions which override our animal behaviour patterns.Or they do have a soul and they are not a biological robot it is just that their relatively undeveloped brain is not able to display it in the same way that we do.
I don't think we have any substantive or detailed definition at all for 'soul' do we. It is a vague concept and its vagueness helps protect it from falsification. With 'virtual self' I am trying to get closer to a description of what we have traditionally meant by soul in terms of the phenomenological experience of being, the feeling of existing, self-awareness, the compelling feeling of being a person and not just a body, being in receipt of experience and choosing to take action, in other words the feeling of agency, all of which has led intuitively to a dualist conception of mind as being something separate from body. I'm trying to rewrite 'soul' in a way that is true to our contemporary knowledge base.I wish you luck with that. I suspect that you will end up with just another concept but more closely associated with neurochemicals. The expression 'Emergent property' seems quite vague too but if I could access an extra pint of it, I wouldn't care what it was called. I think a lot of the confusion arises from the imaginative change in meaning from the original source words. 'Soul' for instance, if I remember correctly, has a Germanic origin and meant 'life' and those who identify with it might say 'I am life' (pure and simple) and 'I am here that you might have life more abundantly'. Often the path to this is the sacrifice of the self/person which many identify with e.g. purify the soul/life of its attachments which go to make up the self/person. This is a difficult process and you can see the 'self' defensive reaction if somebody who considers himself to be an intellectual and is called a fool or a tough man called a weakling.
The development of the brain and its sensory inputs can also be sufficient for the emergence of a biological robot (ie animal) with no conscious perception. Conscious perception is not needed for behaviour based on instinct and learnt experience. It is only needed to exert free will decisions which override our animal behaviour patterns.
a quantum world which is outside the scope of any scientific investigation.Ah, something which cannot be investigated.
So I will continue to have faith in my own ability to drive my thoughts, words and actions and be content to wait for the human scientific endeavours to catch up with the reality of my own existence.
I would have thought that in classical theism, it's the loss of ego (separate self) , which leads to the birth of soul. But again, Protestantism largely erased this stuff, a pity. With the hard-core mystics, e.g. 'The Cloud of Unknowing', I'm not sure how soul fits in, in the general abolition of reifications.Since you seem equally keen to support both the materialist and neuroscientific view of the self and the Buddhist idea of eradicating the self...perhaps you would be good enough to tell us which part of the brain actually disappears when a Buddhist successfully negates his or her self.
But then in some Eastern religions, everything must go, ego, soul, spirit, world, all burned up in the furnace of now.
I guess that for Protestants, the self is valuable, since it gets saved. Again, some Buddhists argue that its actual non-existence is a kind of salvation.
Since you seem equally keen to support both the materialist and neuroscientific view of the self and the Buddhist idea of eradicating the self...perhaps you would be good enough to tell us which part of the brain actually disappears when a Buddhist successfully negates his or her self.
I'm no Buddhist, but I would have thought that something that isn't actually there in the first place cannot disappear. The Buddhist route would simply discover and reconcile to the fact that it isn't there in the first place. Wiggs can correct me if I'm wrong on that.But were not talking just Buddhism here, we are talking materialist Buddhist.......or are you suggesting Wigginhall will take any sufficiently antichristian position?
Since you seem equally keen to support both the materialist and neuroscientific view of the self and the Buddhist idea of eradicating the self...perhaps you would be good enough to tell us which part of the brain actually disappears when a Buddhist successfully negates his or her self.
But were not talking just Buddhism here, we are talking materialist Buddhist.......or are you suggesting Wigginhall will take any sufficiently antichristian position?
Since you seem equally keen to support both the materialist and neuroscientific view of the self and the Buddhist idea of eradicating the self...perhaps you would be good enough to tell us which part of the brain actually disappears when a Buddhist successfully negates his or her self.
Actually, I'm very heartened by the considerable amount of mystical stuff in Christianity on surrendering the self, self-abandonment, and so on, some of it ancient, e.g. 'The Cloud of Unknowing'. As I said, a lot of it has been ignored in modern Protestanism.But not as much as modern atheism and antitheism which you seem to utterly love.
Quite apart from the phenomenological issues thrown up by neuroscience and biology, I think the idea of a unitary self is also problematic in purely psychological terms.Of course and there are magisteria which seek to address the unitary self if but in recognising it e.g. Freudianism, Trinitarianism.
But not as much as modern atheism and antitheism which you seem to utterly love.
Not long ago we would have considered the idea of driverless cars laughable science fiction. Driverless Uber taxis are now a reality on the streets of Pittsburgh and they are being rolled out in San Francisco. Sriram is fond of using car/driver analogy to illustrate the relationship between body/soul. I'll suggest we can use the Uber model to understand why the concept of illusory self is truer. ...
Quite apart from the phenomenological issues thrown up by neuroscience and biology, I think the idea of a unitary self is also problematic in purely psychological terms. Ask me what my favourite music is, and one day I might respond 'Bach'; on another day I might say 'Motorhead'. How do you reconcile that. Try playing them together, the result is awful. Thing is, there is no single self even in psychological terms; rather we are host to a continuous flux of bubbling under competing interests, desires and fears, which are continuously rising to the surface while others subside. I can only give a psychological description of 'me' that is valid at that moment in time. Over time, tendencies and habits change; this is consistent with a materialist account in which constant change is a given, but not with some primal ontologically pure separate self.
#1
This may have been your intention Torridon, but I would ask you to consider that your analogy provides more support for the counter argument (summed up in Sriram’s #2, also Alan Burns’ #3) than it does for you. It illustrates that something is responsible for the transition car with driver to driverless car and that the something is external to the system. As such, it's actually a good argument for design!
It appears to me that you are trying to solve the problem of a gain by using what applies when there is an increase. An increase doesn’t have to have an external influence, a gain does. The philosophical arguments used against possible sources for the gain (e.g. the regression arguments) seem to be accepted without question, yet Sriram’s #536 on the Karma thread (http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12985.msg650505#msg650505) illustrates a fundamental flaw with them.
Anoher issue caused by trying to dismiss external influences for the gain is that it is not supported by observational evidence
• Increase: Something complex can come from something less complex if the ability to do so is there at the start, .e.g a plant growing from a seed.
• Increase: Something complex can come from something less complex if the increase comes at the expense of something else, e.g. in Chemistry the order from disorder that takes place in the transition liquid->solid occur because heat energy is given up and the molecules giving up their dynamism
• Gain: Something complex can come from something less complex if there is an external influence, e.g. the order from disorder in the patterns seen in sand dunes have the external influence of the wind.
I would suggest that the transition car with driver to driverless car is a gain, not an increase. Because there is not an acknowledgment of the external influences required for this gain, another problem is created, which Emergence-The Musical mentioned in #20; the approach becomes circular.
Fascinating stuff. Dealing with it in therapy shows some of the problems, partly to do with lack of consistency, as you say, and incoherence really of the personality. Of course, people try to be consistent, and coherent, but in the old phrase, the repressed leaks all over the place, or people have to drink and do drugs, to deal with it. In the end, we have to accept the incoherence.
Dismissing magic places both the evolution of humans and the evolution of human creations such as cars within the natural order, ok, we agree on that. So that is not a valid basis to dismiss the analogy.
My wife got the photo album out yesterday to show someone who expressed an interest,and I was looking at early photos of various people, including me at around the time we got married. Interestingly, I regarded the person in the photograph(although it obviously bore some resemblance to me as I am now) as quite a separate person. I share the memories and experiences of course, but the overall feeling was that I was looking at someone distinctly different in many respects. I was reminded of the scene in the Shawshank Redemption where Morgan Freeman considers his former self as an entirely different character whom he would advise not to take the course of action he did, if he could only go back in time.
Somewhat off topic, I was not looking to turn this into another thread on information and complexity.Except that is what your analogy relies on, therefore I have to address the concept at the top level, rather than getting bogged down in the detail.
Just briefly, are you claiming that increase in complexity as exemplified in the Darwinian tree of life is not possible?and briefly, I see things happening top-down, not bottom up. Variation can then come from what already exists, and increases can occur because the ability for them to happen already exist (more in my #52). What you refer to as increase in complexity are in my opinion gains in complexity, therefore an external cause is needed.
Quite apart from the phenomenological issues thrown up by neuroscience and biology, I think the idea of a unitary self is also problematic in purely psychological terms. Ask me what my favourite music is, and one day I might respond 'Bach'; on another day I might say 'Motorhead'. How do you reconcile that. Try playing them together, the result is awful. Thing is, there is no single self even in psychological terms; rather we are host to a continuous flux of bubbling under competing interests, desires and fears, which are continuously rising to the surface while others subside. I can only give a psychological description of 'me' that is valid at that moment in time. Over time, tendencies and habits change; this is consistent with a materialist account in which constant change is a given, but not with some primal ontologically pure separate self.
...
and briefly, I see things happening top-down, not bottom up. Variation can then come from what already exists, and increases can occur because the ability for them to happen already exist (more in my #52). What you refer to as increase in complexity are in my opinion gains in complexity, therefore an external cause is needed.
Therefore, returning to the subject of your opening post, I see the self as a property for which the cause is external, rather than internal, because it is a gain for the system, not an increase. Your analogy illustrates that, because the transition car with driver to driverless car has an external cause, ironically, the self!
OK, So, for example the first increase in complexity was the formation of atomic matter from the pre-existing plasma when the universe was but a few hundred thousand years old. Was that a gain, and if so, what is the external input ?At this stage, I have to say that I don't know. I don't know enough about the subject (yet) to comment either way.
There is nothing problematic about a unitary self. All changes (whatever they may be) happen to something. Changes don't happen by themselves in a vacuum. What changes? Who changes? It is always something that changes.
Changes are like the clothes we change or the hair style we change. They all happen to YOU. There is a constant subject to whom all development and change happens....
There is a constant Higher Self that watches and guides. There is a Lower Self (the individuality) that undergoes changes and eventually gets eradicated. It is this self that appears real but after a stage gets eliminated. After this the Higher Self is free. So...there is a Self that is constant and eternal and there is a self that is changing and which eventually disappears.
The secret teachings in all religions teach the same thing. This is secular spirituality.
At this stage, I have to say that I don't know. I don't know enough about the subject (yet) to comment either way.
OK, give an example of a gain where you are on more familiar ground.As you started this thread to deal with self, some properties of human beings:
Regress back far enough and you have a something from nothing scenario, the ultimate example of how the problem of what clearly needs an external influence is disguised; what exists (nothing) being the cause of that which emerges (something).
This is a doozie since it invokes multiple fallacies: ignorance, incredulity and begging the question for starters. Well done you.Ok Gordon. It's a big planet. Give me one example of anywhere in the world I can go to observe something being caused by nothing. Then I'll lose my incredulity. Fair enough?
Ok Gordon. It's a big planet. Give me one example of anywhere in the world I can go to observe something being caused by nothing. Then I'll lose my incredulity. Fair enough?Shifting the burden of proof, ignoring the problem of induction, and special pleading. House!
Until then, I'll stick to my understanding of Newton's laws and observations from the natural world...
Ok Gordon. It's a big planet. Give me one example of anywhere in the world I can go to observe something being caused by nothing. Then I'll lose my incredulity. Fair enough?
Until then, I'll stick to my understanding of Newton's laws and observations from the natural world...
You really don't understand fallacies, else you wouldn't have compounded your original fallacy-fest by adding some more.
Shifting the burden of proof, ignoring the problem of induction, and special pleading. House!Any positive assertion carries a burden of proof. Can you get more specially plead than an infinite chain of derived power?...i'm not sure you can.
Any positive assertion carries a burden of proof. Can you get more specially plead than an infinite chain of derived power?...i'm not sure you can.since I haven't made any such claim, this is you lying again.
Any positive assertion carries a burden of proof. Can you get more specially plead than an infinite chain of derived power?...i'm not sure you can.
As you started this thread to deal with self, some properties of human beings:
- gender
- consciousness / self-awareness
- senses
- reproductive ability, especially the complementary roles involved in sexual reproduction
Explain any of these with A and then the question is, what is the explanation for A? Evolution says B.
What is the explanation for B? Evolution says C
What is the explanation for C? Evolution says D
...
Regress back far enough and you have a something from nothing scenario, the ultimate example of how the problem of what clearly needs an external influence is disguised; what exists (nothing) being the cause of that which emerges (something).
my understanding is that complex things derive from simpler thingsHuman creativity certainly can demonstrate that complex things can be built up from simpler things using intelligent interaction with this physical world, which mirrors God's abundant creativity in bringing us into existence. The source of human creativity is bound up in the mysteries of conscious awareness and free will. The source of God's creativity also remains a mystery beyond human understanding.
There you go contradicting your own assertion. You cannot go claiming that changes happen to a subject and one sentence later you are asserting a constant subject. Either the subject is changed by experience or it isn't, you can't have it both ways.
I would endorse what Enki says above, we are changed constantly through interaction. Nothing and nobody is an island, hermetically sealed off from the rest of the cosmos. We change our environment and the environment changes us. This is consistent with my OP describing a virtual self as that is merely a projection from a constantly changing brain.
All very nice, but this Hindu philosophy is not derived from modern standards of evidence. By contrast, I'm trying to put across a way of understanding these things that is authentic, true to the evidence.
Well that is a nice allegory, granted. I'm not sure that it has much relevance in the context of this thread which is trying to understand the phenomenological nature of self in a way that is true to modern evidence through my more contemporary analogy. We can't talk about science and mythology in the same breath without inviting confusion.
So why not just address this thread within its own frame of reference.Fair enough.
All I am saying is that the notion of a virtual driver for an Uber taxi created by the vehicle's onboard software is a reasonable metaphor in evidence terms for how we can think of a selfhood or personhood. It is truer to a modern evidence base in that it avoids the problems associated with the concept of a separate immaterial soul. Body goes to sleep, virtual self dissolves, no problem. Body dies, virtual self no more; no problem. Do you agree or not agree ?You probably won't be surprised if I said that I disagree. Sticking to the remit that you've requested, here's one reason why. From your post:
It is truer to a modern evidence base in that it avoids the problems associated with the concept of a separate immaterial soul.Surely the approach should be to try and solve any problems rather than avoid them, come up with an alternative and try and make the evidence fit?
Fair enough.
You probably won't be surprised if I said that I disagree. Sticking to the remit that you've requested, here's one reason why. From your post:Surely the approach should be to try and solve any problems rather than avoid them, come up with an alternative and try and make the evidence fit?
Eerm, a trivial misreading of the word 'avoid' there. All I meant was in terms of Mr Ockham and his razor, a separate soul/spirit creates more new problems than it solves. It terms of explanatory power it is one step forward and many steps back.
Surely the approach should be to try and solve any problems rather than avoid them, come up with an alternative and try and make the evidence fit?
Surely the approach should be to try and solve any problems rather than avoid them, come up with an alternative and try and make the evidence fit?
They all laughed at Christopher Columbus
When he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison's recorded sound
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother
When they said that man could fly
They told Marconi
Wireless was a phony
It's the same old cry
But ho, ho, ho!
Who's got the last laugh now?
They all laughed at Christopher Columbus
When he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison's recorded sound
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother
When they said that man could fly
They told Marconi
Wireless was a phony
It's the same old cry
But ho, ho, ho!
Who's got the last laugh now?
Well...if we are forced to come up with such explanations as ...'the car produces its virtual driver'...and stuff like that...there isn't much to be said for Ockham and his razor IMO. ;)
Well this is precisely what the evidence suggests I would offer. It is consistent with the observations that the person dies when the body dies, it is consistent with the observation that the person dissolves when we go to sleep or succumb to pathologies of the brain. It is consistent with the observation that body development seems to go hand in hand with the development of the person. It is consistent with research that demonstrates that the conscious self is in effect an afterthought rather than the real driver of choice and action. It is consistent with our understanding of proprioception.
On the other hand if you introduce a soul you are introducing huge new conceptual regions that have no basis in observation and no explanation. Mr Ockham would disapprove of this scenario. Better that we furnish explanations that fit the evidence and put our minds to try to understand them.
I don't give a damn what Occam would approve of! You can't come up with idiotic explanations just to stay with Occam's razor or whatever...!
For heavens's sake....fellas! What the heck is the matter with you guys?! You guys are tying yourselves up in knots and building fences after fences around you with all your stuff......Occam's razor, logical fallacies, some other fallacy, whatever....! Lots of rubbish!
Reality doesn't restrict itself to your boundaries.
You don't want to accept spirit and after-life etc. because there isn't sufficient empirical evidence and because you are scornful of anything associated with religion....that is fine. I have no problem with that. But coming up with ridiculous explanations and offering Occam's razor or whatever, as a reason is utter nonsense.
Face reality guys....with all its mysteries and possibilities. Live life and experience it! We don't know... is just fine! We don't need to know everything.
Sheesh!!
I don't give a damn what Occam would approve of! You can't come up with idiotic explanations just to stay with Occam's razor or whatever...!
For heavens's sake....fellas! What the heck is the matter with you guys?! You guys are tying yourselves up in knots and building fences after fences around you with all your stuff......Occam's razor, logical fallacies, some other fallacy, whatever....! Lots of rubbish!
Reality doesn't restrict itself to your boundaries.
You don't want to accept spirit and after-life etc. because there isn't sufficient empirical evidence and because you are scornful of anything associated with religion....that is fine. I have no problem with that. But coming up with ridiculous explanations and offering Occam's razor or whatever, as a reason is utter nonsense.
Face reality guys....with all its mysteries and possibilities. Live life and experience it! We don't know... is just fine! We don't need to know everything.
Sheesh!! ::)
Human creativity certainly can demonstrate that complex things can be built up from simpler things using intelligent interaction with this physical world, which mirrors God's abundant creativity in bringing us into existence. The source of human creativity is bound up in the mysteries of conscious awareness and free will. The source of God's creativity also remains a mystery beyond human understanding.
Brilliant stuff, torridon. This kind of religion is not empirical.I think that the answer to that is probably - throughout history' - and that's why so many people are still stuck* in the delusion that there is a god etc. .
AB also tends to bring his conclusion into his initial reasoning, thus 'this physical world, which mirrors God's abundant creativity'. Hello, when was God's creativity explained, and not just asserted?
Religious thinking often seems to lead to 'mysteries' does it not ? In a way that science does not. Science faces unexplained phenomena, religions end in mysteries. I'll suggest a reason for the qualitative difference. Religious reasoning is not based on any attempt at objective reason in the first place, rather it is based on subjective reasoning born of anthropocentrism and this soon leads to paradox in an objective sense. I think there are innumerable examples of this, but just to run with the current one above, logic says that complexity arises out of simplicity; the illogic converse, however, that simplicity derives from complexity implies a never ending upwards ladder of complexity leading inevitably to a paradox. Hence the mysteries of god are really the impossible paradoxes born of faulty underlying reasoning.I think it depends upon which religions you are talking about. For some it is more about life being a mystery to be lived rather than a problem to be explained and that living in harmony is better achieved in inner tranquility and simplicity rather than in a state of mental agitation and complexity. Anthopocentrism would be seen as another form egotism and the sort of egotism which leads to, for example, the ecological state the planet is in now. I don't think that the suggestion is 'simplicity derives from complexity' but more that simplicity can be found in the midst of complexity and that it is always there.
I think it depends upon which religions you are talking about. For some it is more about life being a mystery to be lived rather than a problem to be explained and that living in harmony is better achieved in inner tranquility and simplicity rather than in a state of mental agitation and complexity. Anthopocentrism would be seen as another form egotism and the sort of egotism which leads to, for example, the ecological state the planet is in now. I don't think that the suggestion is 'simplicity derives from complexity' but more that simplicity can be found in the midst of complexity and that it is always there.
Some of us are interested in life though, and we want to understand it. I don't see why that should be controversial. Occam's razor of course is just a useful principle for anybody wanting to figure out a way to an explanation and experience shows that unnecessary complications in an explanation are a sign that it is flawed. As far as I can see, my analogy fits the available evidence neatly so is much more likely to be correct than explanations based on souls that have no evidential support. Simple really. The only difficulty is that my scenario is counterintuitive in some respects (aren't all significant advances in knowledge counter intuitive at first ?) and it requires us to get to grips with the hard problem of consciousness, a work in progress. If you don't see any parallel problems with your ideas on spirits/souls it is likely because these ideas contain no comparable detail, you seem happy to run with them as vague poorly defined ideas. But if we were to bring scientific levels of scrutiny and rigour to bear on them, start investigating how immaterial things interact with matter for instance, then you are going to run into problems orders of magnitude greater than in my much simpler scenario. At the end of the day, if you care about whether your understanding is correct or not, then you will want to see that high level of rigour, sloppy work rarely produces good results.
torridon,’Addictive’? What an odd word to use about a desire to acquire knowledge.
Wanting to understand anything is a natural part of being human. It is a need like hunger or sex. As children we have great curiosity and need to ask and imitate and learn, which is the means of our survival. I am not questioning that. It can however become addictive...which is another matter.
My point here is different. Never mind soul, spirit, etc. That is a different discussion.Well, there could be a discussion about them if they were, in fact, things, but since they are only useful words to label different aspects of all humans, then the only discussion can be about trying to extract a reliable definition of the terms from those who believe they are things.
How much of such perverse thinking is prevalent in theories of evolution and other areas, is frightening to imagine.I can’t think of an example of this – can you supply one?
..Humans may have designed the driverless car, but it is a defacto reality on the streets of Pittsburgh now. They are negotiating traffic conditions using onboard sensors and software. Soon driverless cars will be talking to each other, negotiating unclear rights of way or warning of issues; better vehicle to vehicle communication will be a massive upgrade to the current situation where human drivers can only gesticulate or flash the headlights or blow the horn, and this will make for much safer roads.
From the car analogy it is very clear that humans are entirely responsible for the development of cars and also for the functioning of driver less cars. There is really no 'driverless' car. It is driven indirectly through sensors, GPS..whatever, that humans have created. The mechanism of control may be direct or indirect..which is not relevant here.
The point is that. Cars do have a real living thinking Self. It is the human being! Period! There cannot be any doubts or arguments about that.
In spite of this obvious factual situation, you manage to derive from this scenario something like a 'virtual self' and the 'self being the emergent property of the car' and so on and so forth. This raises many doubts about this kind of 'scientific thinking' and its roots in reality. It is a clear instance where 'science' misleads the thinker into perverse concepts that are obviously not real.
..
We need to learn to think outside the box of legacy ideas.I think we also need to work on what's inside the box of legacy emotions as it is this which determines the production of driverless missiles full of destructive content, (assuming it's not too late).
I am only saying that ....if all your Occam's razor and stuff lead to such conclusions as you seem to have arrived at (the self is an emergent property of the car)...then there is something dramatically wrong with the whole system of thinking and analysis.
From the car analogy it is very clear that humans are entirely responsible for the development of cars and also for the functioning of driver less cars. There is really no 'driverless' car. It is driven indirectly through sensors, GPS..whatever, that humans have created. The mechanism of control may be direct or indirect..which is not relevant here.
The point is that. Cars do have a real living thinking Self. It is the human being! Period! There cannot be any doubts or arguments about that.
In spite of this obvious factual situation, you manage to derive from this scenario something like a 'virtual self' and the 'self being the emergent property of the car' and so on and so forth. This raises many doubts about this kind of 'scientific thinking' and its roots in reality. It is a clear instance where 'science' misleads the thinker into perverse concepts that are obviously not real.
This is what I am talking about.
How much of such perverse thinking is prevalent in theories of evolution and other areas, is frightening to imagine.
Taking pot shots at religious concepts does not solve this problem btw.
PS: Sorry if I was somewhat offensive in my earlier post!
Humans may have designed the driverless car, but it is a defacto reality on the streets of Pittsburgh now. They are negotiating traffic conditions using onboard sensors and software. Soon driverless cars will be talking to each other, negotiating unclear rights of way or warning of issues; better vehicle to vehicle communication will be a massive upgrade to the current situation where human drivers can only gesticulate or flash the headlights or blow the horn, and this will make for much safer roads.
In a sense, it is irrelevant how driverless cars came to be, but they are now. Similarly we don't know the exact pathways of how biochemistry led to biology on this planet. It is a reality here and now. The story of the development of life on this planet is something epic, and of all the fascinating step changes such as from single cell life to multicell life, from prokaryote to eukaryote, the development of photosynthesis, the evolution of consciousness, none are more remarkable than the evolution of homo sapiens and whilst we can talk about this in terms of this or that cognitive development, the really remarkable framing of this to my mind is the evolution of apes into persons, a step change without compare in the history of life. Understanding this cannot neglect an understanding of what substantiates personhood, where does our sense of self come from, what does it consist of, how is it maintained. Traditional notions of souls and spirits might have sufficed in the past and might still suffice for most people who are not particularly interested in how things work under the hood. My Uber taxi analogy is meant to be illustrative of a more authentic understanding of the apparent duality of human experience which is true to current research. For sure driverless cars, although they can detect and resolve external conditions, they cannot 'see' as we do, they are not conscious, although that is not to say they will not be so far in the future. In a sense we could liken a driverless car's perception to that of a human with blindsight - someone who sees, but does not 'know' that he can see. I know this can all be a bit much for people habituated in traditional ways of thinking, but all significant advances in thinking have been courterintuitive at first. We need to learn to think outside the box of legacy ideas.
It is very relevant how the cars came to be...and it is also very important how and why they move.
The entire system is human in origin. The cars themselves do not do anything nor are they capable of it. Left to itself a driverless car will not be able to do anything. It is the system created AND OPERATED by humans that makes it move around. It is human intelligence that is reflected in the car at all points.
To claim that in course of time, some kind of a latent intelligence automatically emerges from the car itself and makes it driverless...is nonsense! That is not what has happened in the driverless car. Even a driveless car still remains a piece of metal...nothing more.
And the fact that you and some others, seriously believe that an emergent property has actually arisen in the car....is shocking! That is the perversity I am referring to....which could perhaps be a fundamental feature of all scientific analysis.
torridon,
It is very relevant how the cars came to be...and it is also very important how and why they move.
The entire system is human in origin. The cars themselves do not do anything nor are they capable of it. Left to itself a driverless car will not be able to do anything. It is the system created AND OPERATED by humans that makes it move around. It is human intelligence that is reflected in the car at all points.
To claim that in course of time, some kind of a latent intelligence automatically emerges from the car itself and makes it driverless...is nonsense! That is not what has happened in the driverless car. Even a driveless car still remains a piece of metal...nothing more.
And the fact that you and some others, seriously believe that an emergent property has actually arisen in the car....is shocking! That is the perversity I am referring to....which could perhaps be a fundamental feature of all scientific analysis.
A strong sense of self and autonomy is essential to the way we live our lives. Such a sense of self is not so important if you are a dog or a horse or a rabbitI don't think that is the issue within some religions. A baby appears to have a weak sense of self and probably identifies more with the source of its sustenance, but as life progresses it develops a 'self', perhaps to fit in with or relate to a host of already established 'selfs'. It might be partly the result of emergent properties like instincts, appetites, drives, genetic traits but also 'inmergent' properties derived from the influence of e.g. parents, education and society. Expressions like self centred, self important, self satisfied, self willed, self assertive derive from this constellation of 'properties'. Conflict can result from a clash 'selfs', the ad hominem is a mild example. Pack animals like the dog or herd animals like the horse perhaps have a rudimentary 'self' which we recognise with expressions like top-dog and under-dog. This 'self' in Sriram's land is referred to as ahamkara, I believe. There is another word Atman which is often translated as Self with a capital 'S' to distinguish it and which is more pristine.
I think you're still not getting the point. I'm not saying driverless cars have evolved themselves, they are the products of human intelligent design clearly. The point of the metaphor is to be illustrative of the nature of the relationship between body and soul, to put it in traditional terms. Clearly cars are not alive and not evolving in any biological sense, and clearly Uber taxis do not have a hologrammatic driver. Humans however are alive and clearly are evolving, and the point of the metaphor is that what we traditionally have called the soul in analogous to a virtual driver created by the driverless car's software. It is a product of the running car, when the car is powered down, the driver disappears, just as when a human body sleeps or dies, the self disappears too. The virtual driver is not really driving the car, it is there for more subtle reasons. Likewise with humans, the conscious mind is not really in control, it is an afterthought that is there for more subtle reasons.
It has been the subject of debate among neuroscientists and philosophers as to why we have a conscious mind at all if it is essentially superfluous with deeper levels of mind really running the show. I think there will be several reasons for this, and my analogy also touches on just one aspect of that when I pointed out that Uber taxis with a hologrammatic pretend driver would probably get more rides than those with an empty 'driving' seat. I think an understanding of the evolution from ape to person should place centre-stage the evolution of the self. I think this focuses and links all the other cognitive developments that are part of the human portfolio. A strong sense of self and autonomy is essential to the way we live our lives. Such a sense of self is not so important if you are a dog or a horse or a rabbit, but they do have stronger sense of eyesight and smell than us; and we appear to have rescinded some of our earlier senses in buying things like a stronger sense of self. Now our sense of self is so strong that we cannot imagine life without it, and to the extent that we all pass our lives with a defacto cognitive illusion that the self is a separate thing, a thing in its own right. So powerful has this sense become that people seem bewildered when I use metaphors like driverless cars to talk to the reality underlying the illusion.
In reality, the true 'self' of the car is a human (or a bunch of humans). The software, hardware, sensors, GPS etc. are operated and maintained by humans. So humans really and actually do drive the car even if it seems driver less. This fact doesn't go away.
But if the car could think, it would not be aware of any humans controlling it. The human element will probably be seen by the car as its 'unconscious mind'....which takes decisions seconds before the car is aware if it.
This is wrong though. This would be true of normal cars but you are failing to see the difference. In a driverless car the car drives itself without any human input. You seem to be saying there is no difference between driven cars and driverless cars. There is a difference, that is why the driverless cars are called 'driverless'. Their provenance is irrelevant to the power of the metaphor.Torri, Your analogy of the driverless car is totally dependent on human perception being used to recognise what is meant by "driverless". The analogy breaks down without the human concept of what "driverless" actually means. Both the driverless car and a normal car are just pieces of machinery designed to transport.
Torri, Your analogy of the driverless car is totally dependent on human perception being used to recognise what is meant by "driverless". The analogy breaks down without the human concept of what "driverless" actually means. Both the driverless car and a normal car are just pieces of machinery designed to transport.
This merely confirms a point I made in an earlier post that the concept of an emergent property only exists in human perception.
Eh ?What I am saying is that outside human perception, a property such as fluidity is just sub atomic particles acting in accordance with natural laws. It is only recognised as a property in human perception. All examples of emergence just boil down to human recognition of some perceived pattern or functionality. Outside human perception everything is just a continuum of material reacting in accordance with scientific rules.
Are you saying that the principle of emergence only started to operate when humans evolved and developed the cognitive skills to understand it ? Fluidity is an emergent property of lots of water molecules together; I'm pretty sure that rivers were running downhill long before humans were around to observe the phenomenon.
What I am saying is that outside human perception, a property such as fluidity is just sub atomic particles acting in accordance with natural laws. It is only recognised as a property in human perception. All examples of emergence just boil down to human recognition of some perceived pattern or functionality. Outside human perception everything is just a continuum of material reacting in accordance with scientific rules.Can you have rules outwith human perception?
What I am saying is that outside human perception, a property such as fluidity is just sub atomic particles acting in accordance with natural laws. It is only recognised as a property in human perception. All examples of emergence just boil down to human recognition of some perceived pattern or functionality. Outside human perception everything is just a continuum of material reacting in accordance with scientific rules.
I think you are confusing a phenomenon with the description of that phenomenon. 'Fluidity' has always emerged, we just gave it a name and a description, is all.
From both definitions we have the words "observed" and "perception", both of which derive from the act of human perception. So I ask the question - does a phenomenon exist as a separate entity outside of human perception?
Wow, analogies, eh? There was a thread on it a while ago, pointing out that they are not intended to be 100% accurate. Of course, if they were, they would not be analogies but perfect copies. But people persist in taking up aspects of an analogy which don't fit. Ah well.
Just looking at the dictionary definition of phenomenon:
1.
a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question.
2.
Philosophy
the object of a person's perception.
From both definitions we have the words "observed" and "perception", both of which derive from the act of human perception. So I ask the question - does a phenomenon exist as a separate entity outside of human perception?
This is wrong though. This would be true of normal cars but you are failing to see the difference. In a driverless car the car drives itself without any human input. You seem to be saying there is no difference between driven cars and driverless cars. There is a difference, that is why the driverless cars are called 'driverless'. Their provenance is irrelevant to the power of the metaphor.
Irrelevant because the driverless car does not have a human driver. That is why it is called 'driverless'.
If the driverless car crashes somewhere, who will be arrested? Certainly not the car! The software fellows will be hauled up. They are responsible for the mess up.
The software is the mind of the driver less car, the computer is the brain....
...the human is the spirit
If the driverless car crashes somewhere, who will be arrested? Certainly not the car! The software fellows will be hauled up. They are responsible for the mess up.
The software is the mind of the driver less car, the computer is the brain....the human is the spirit.
Wow, analogies, eh? There was a thread on it a while ago, pointing out that they are not intended to be 100% accurate. Of course, if they were, they would not be analogies but perfect copies. But people persist in taking up aspects of an analogy which don't fit. Ah well.In some cases, the analogies while helpful in explaining the point made by the poster also illustrate the problem, as shown in e.g. responses #1, #2, #9, #20 to the opening post.
Some here do not want to acknowledge the external contribution to the gain of a system because it supposedly creates an infinite regression.
If the driverless car crashes somewhere, who will be arrested? Certainly not the car! The software fellows will be hauled up. They are responsible for the mess up.
The software is the mind of the driver less car, the computer is the brain....the human is the spirit.
In some cases, the analogies while helpful in explaining the point made by the poster also illustrate the problem, as shown in e.g. responses #1, #2, #9, #20 to the opening post.
Some here do not want to acknowledge the external contribution to the gain of a system because it supposedly creates an infinite regression. One attempt to get round the problem is to try and claim that any gain is actually an increase and can therefore come from within the system (extrapolating from examples where an increase can come from within the system, e.g. the example with rivers in #112). The analogies used all have the cause of the gain being external, e.g. the opening post on this thread and the SIMS example in bluehillside’s #106.
Yes of course it does. This goes back to Kant who was the first to formalise the difference between a thing in itself (noumenon) and a perception of the same thing (phenomenon). My perception of the sun shining in the sky would be a phenomenon in Kantian terms, but that doesn't mean that the Sun stops shining when no one is looking. The perception of a thing is not the same as the thing in itself, but they are related. Hence the old Zen riddle that a tree falling in the forest makes no sound if there is no one around to hear it - this is exploiting a difference between noumena and phenomema.The tree falling in the forest will vibrate a few air particles, but this just becomes part of the continuum of material activity. It does not exist as the phenomenon of sound outside human perception. All "emergent properties" only exist as separate entities in human perception.
The tree falling in the forest will vibrate a few air particles, but this just becomes part of the continuum of material activity. It does not exist as the phenomenon of sound outside human perception. All "emergent properties" only exist as separate entities in human perception.So the tree falling will not be heard by the deer passing a little distance away?
Responsibility in the case of accidents is an interesting thing to consider, if a diversion. Warning to all wannabee programmers out there : it is not just couriers and truck drivers and taxi drivers whose careers are threatened by the rise of driverless cars - the software of the future will increasingly not be coded by skilled corporate Java programmers but rather will be evolved by machine learning techniques on an open source basis. In which case it is going to harder to assign culpability to a person for bugs in code. And driverless cars are going to have to be capable of taking hugely difficult decisions, whether to mount the pavement and run down that mother with baby in pushchair to avoid that out of control truck headed our way for instance. Diversion over.
The tree falling in the forest will vibrate a few air particles, but this just becomes part of the continuum of material activity. It does not exist as the phenomenon of sound outside human perception. All "emergent properties" only exist as separate entities in human perception.
The issue of taking responsibility identifies the real Self of the car.
Well you're on the right lines, but of course as Seb points out, it is not just humans that have a sense of hearing; in fact Seb's deer almost certainly has superior auditory perception to any human. You really need to broaden out your understanding, you give the impression that humans are the only creatures that exist and matter.If the deer just reacts to the vibrating air molecules, then this reaction is just part of the continuum of material reactions. Conscious perception, (not reaction), of the vibrating air molecules is needed to identify it as sound.
The tree falling in the forest will vibrate a few air particles, but this just becomes part of the continuum of material activity. It does not exist as the phenomenon of sound outside human perception. All "emergent properties" only exist as separate entities in human perception.
If the deer just reacts to the vibrating air molecules, then this reaction is just part of the continuum of material reactions. Conscious perception, (not reaction), of the vibrating air molecules is needed to identify it as sound.
If the deer just reacts to the vibrating air molecules, then this reaction is just part of the continuum of material reactions. Conscious perception, (not reaction), of the vibrating air molecules is needed to identify it as sound.
The deer experiences it as sound, that is what auditory cortex does and deer certainly have that. What further cerebral events are triggered by the perception of sound might vary from species to species, but at the base level of loud and sudden noise the stimulus leads to an emotional state of fear or panic and this is ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom.What you describe is simply a chain of physical reactions caused by the vibrating air molecules. What you perceive as an emotional state of panic is just your own interpretation of the animal's natural reaction to the vibrating air molecules. Outwardly perceived reactions can't verify internal conscious perception, which requires no reaction.
I think, Alan, you're effectively making this up by creating your personal 'hook' on which to hand your particular take on the divine which, at its core, is no more than your own personal incredulity getting in the way.You are correct in assuming that my own personal incredulity will not allow me to believe that conscious awareness can be generated by the collective behaviour of a group of elementary particles.
I think, Alan, you're effectively making this up by creating your personal 'hook' on which to hand your particular take on the divine which, at its core, is no more than your own personal incredulity getting in the way.
You are correct in assuming that my own personal incredulity will not allow me to believe that conscious awareness can be generated by the collective behaviour of a group of elementary particles.
AB,I would guess that his personal incredulity will not allow him to think that is a bad arguement!
Just out of interest, do you even understand why personal incredulity is a very bad argument for anything?
You are correct in assuming that my own personal incredulity will not allow me to believe that conscious awareness can be generated by the collective behaviour of a group of elementary particles.
I would guess that his personal incredulity will not allow him to think that is a bad arguement!
::)
Alan: you do realise the above is you admitting that your reasoning is flawed.
What you describe is simply a chain of physical reactions caused by the vibrating air molecules. What you perceive as an emotional state of panic is just your own interpretation of the animal's natural reaction to the vibrating air molecules. Outwardly perceived reactions can't verify internal conscious perception, which requires no reaction.
Likewise with your wife. If you shout at your wife, she will show outward signs of distress. But as you say, 'outwardly perceived reactions can't verify internal conscious perception, which requires no reaction'. How do you know your wife is not also a zombie like the deer ?
Anyways, it’s a fascinating subject in its own right. I don’t blame you for looking askance at first sight either – it feels pretty counter-intuitive to begin with – but when you come to understand it it’s a powerful model for all the reality we perceive – even forces and mass being emergent properties of an underlying field of information whose ripples we perceive as elephants and umbrellas and skyscrapers. And indeed as “we”.Except you kind of gave the game away in your #122 when you said this:
That's emergence - and when you look for it it's pretty much everywhere you look in nature as well as in man-made environments. Single stupid components consistently following a relatively small number of basic rules will produce much more complex emergent phenomena with no need at all for a designer to make it so.Hence my quintessential objection. The aim is not to get to the truth of the matter, it is to come up with a narrative that does not involve a designer! Therefore the process is not objective, because it is not distinguishing between circumstances where the gain can come from within the system and where the gain happens because of an external influence.
The aim is not to get to the truth of the matter, it is to come up with a narrative that does not involve a designer! Therefore the process is not objective, because it is not distinguishing between circumstances where the gain can come from within the system and where the gain happens because of an external influence.
Some here do not want to acknowledge the external contribution to the gain of a system because it supposedly creates an infinite regression.
It is more the case that no good reasons have been proposed for 'external contribution'Observation show that both are possible. One has to ask the question then, why one is always ruled out, even when the analogies used to try and illustrate why it should be ruled out show why it should be present (#1, #2, #9, #20 in response to the opening post on this thread for example)
Seems to me you've already decided the 'truth' involves a 'designer'.That is my conclusion based on the evidence, including observational evidence.
You can demonstrate this I presume: and since you cite objectivity let's have your objective demonstrations of this external 'designer'. No fallacies mind!
Ok...imagine a situation where robots had sensory perceptions (cameras and sensors) with which they could sense only other metallic/plastic objects. They cannot sense biological organisms at all. So...in their world they have only other robots, cars and things like that. No humans, animals etc....though all these organisms exist all around them.in short, whatever conclusion was arrived at would be wrong.
These robots find from their fossil records that cars, computers, planes and robots had evolved from simpler systems. Because they cannot sense humans, they believe that the evolution of all these robots and cars and computers and planes happened automatically due to random metallic variation and environmental pressures. Why did robots become more complex and more intelligent? Emergent Property. Nothing else. They will cite many cases of complex robots from different parts of the globe that have evolved from simpler ones. That is just the way it happens!
If they could only sense biological humans, they would realize that all their supposed evolution due to random variation was actually driven by intelligent intervention. There is nothing random about it. All emergent properties were calculated interventions by humans and all complexity is their doing.
Before proceeding, I need to ascertain one thing. Are you happy for all of the charges of fallacies that are normally cited, to be applied in a similar way to the things human beings design and make?
It's an important question because of something Sriram illustrated brilliantly in his #536 on the Karma thread (http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12985.msg650505#msg650505)in short, whatever conclusion was arrived at would be wrong.
Except you kind of gave the game away in your #122 when you said this:
“That's emergence - and when you look for it it's pretty much everywhere you look in nature as well as in man-made environments. Single stupid components consistently following a relatively small number of basic rules will produce much more complex emergent phenomena with no need at all for a designer to make it so.”
Hence my quintessential objection. The aim is not to get to the truth of the matter, it is to come up with a narrative that does not involve a designer!
Therefore…
…the process is not objective, because it is not distinguishing between circumstances where the gain can come from within the system and where the gain happens because of an external influence.
I have no problem with emergence in non-adaptive systems. I've given several examples in the past to support it. Neither do I have a problem with emergence in adaptive systems, so absolutely I would find it fascinating to study.
However...
One key property of an adaptive system is that life is already present.
All the analogies/examples using living organisms show this. Your SIMS reference in your #106 is software written by human beings so any emergence that is possible is ultimately because of what human beings have done. The opening post uses an analogy of technology ultimately created by human beings! So if an adaptive system is being claimed for life being caused from organic and/or inorganic matter coming together (or specifically on this thread, 'self' from 'non-self'), the reasoning is circular, whilst a non-adaptive system stays that way.
Observation show that both are possible. One has to ask the question then, why one is always ruled out, even when the analogies used to try and illustrate why it should be ruled out show why it should be present (#1, #2, #9, #20 in response to the opening post on this thread for example)
Why do you always rule out stork theory when discussing childbirth?
I'm for it - saw it happening too at the beginning of a documentary about circus animals. The documentary is called 'Dumbo', and it is very colourful. It is undeniably true that storks deliver babies - here is the evidence, so you can see for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dODSHuvuoTM
#152 SotSIf you have observed something (which has led to your conclusion), then it should be observable to others too. Can you give an example or two?
... my conclusion based on the evidence, including observational evidence.
Hence my quintessential objection. The aim is not to get to the truth of the matter, it is to come up with a narrative that does not involve a designer!
AB,My personal incredulity is certainly not a proof, but it is an indication that something may not be possible. And my conclusions are based on much more than mere personal incredulity.
Just out of interest, do you even understand why personal incredulity is a very bad argument for anything?
My personal incredulity is certainly not a proof, but it is an indication that something may not be possible. And my conclusions are based on much more than mere personal incredulity.Then my personal incredulity indicates that souls, as described by you, may not be possible.
My personal incredulity is certainly not a proof, but it is an indication that something may not be possible. And my conclusions are based on much more than mere personal incredulity.
I could argue that much of your belief is based on your personal optimism on what can be achieved by "emergence".
In my younger days I used to own/ride horses and I recall that one day I was riding on the moor at Mugdock (just outside Glasgow) on a well behaved horse that was spooked by a sudden clap of thunder & lightning and (as horses do when frightened) it bolted with me on top - there is no doubt in my mind that the horse 'perceived' the event since it took a couple of hundred yards at a flat-out gallop before I was able to pull-up.
What you quote are examples of animal instincts which are common to both humans and other animals. The evidence for conscious awareness lies in such examples as contemplating the beauty of a sunset, listening to a symphony or savouring the bouquet of a fine wine. Also there is our ability to interpret meaning from what our senses detect, rather than just react. And likewise the evidence for our free will lies in our ability override our basic animal instincts if we so wish to. These are the unique attributes which set us apart from other animals and provide evidence for the human soul.
These are the unique attributes which set us apart from other animals and provide evidence for the human soul.
A 'soul' implies vastly more than these cognitive functionsI think at least one of you needs to define what you understand by 'soul' otherwise each of you will be arguing for and against your own personal concept which is not fully shared with the other.
I think at least one of you needs to define what you understand by 'soul' otherwise each of you will be arguing for and against your own personal concept which is not fully shared with the other.
The evidence for conscious awareness lies in such examples as contemplating the beauty of a sunset, listening to a symphony or savouring the bouquet of a fine wine. Also there is our ability to interpret meaning from what our senses detect, rather than just react.
And likewise the evidence for our free will lies in our ability override our basic animal instincts if we so wish to.
These are the unique attributes which set us apart from other animals and provide evidence for the human soul.
What you quote are examples of animal instincts which are common to both humans and other animals. The evidence for conscious awareness lies in such examples as contemplating the beauty of a sunset, listening to a symphony or savouring the bouquet of a fine wine.
And likewise the evidence for our free will lies in our ability override our basic animal instincts if we so wish to. These are the unique attributes which set us apart from other animals and provide evidence for the human soul.Do you have some examples of these basic instincts?
Talking to Alan's idea, which I presume includes - a god-given, immaterial, immortal self aware being that is temporarily resident within and interacting with a human body. I don't use the term myself except to contrast it with the related notion of 'self'.Perhaps Alan can confirm your assumptions and whether he distinguishes it with 'self'.
You’re twisting in the wind about this because you think it’s another nail in the coffin of some superstitious beliefs you happen to think are true. Whether it is or not though, you don’t get just to misrepresent entirely the phenomenon in the hope that it’ll make the problem go away – it won’t.Your response really does lay bare your prejudices for all to see.
Your response really does lay bare your prejudices for all to see.Sword, it is so simple , just show the evidence to support your claims . That's it , nothing more , it will all be over there will be nothing left to argue .
1. You’ve brought up my religious beliefs when I have not mentioned them. Furthermore, you’ve made assumptions about them when you don’t even know what I believe and why! If religious belief is a factor then what is the factor for Jack Knave (who is not a theist), who was also challenging aspects of what is claimed on the Karma thread?
2. By bringing up religious beliefs when they have not been mentioned, it shows that your approach is not one based on getting to the truth of the matter. It is to avoid anything that could potentially lead to a religious explanation for a cause.
3. You evaded all of the issues raised in my previous post. No surprise there. Anyone reading your post would think I am against the notion of emergence!
Therefore, let me explain again what the quintessential problem is.
On the Karma thread, the poster Enki asked a key question: what makes one system adaptive and another non-adaptive where emergence is concerned? The question was asked three times (#546, #560, #581). Each time you responded (#552, #562, #584) you evaded the question by describing what adaptive and non-adaptive systems are. So let the examples and analogies illustrate!
In an adaptive system, that which causes it to be adaptive is already present. In all of the examples where living organisms are involved, life is already present. In your SIMS analogy, human beings were responsible for the game, so the simulated life in that game (a characteristic for the adaptive system from which any emergence occurs) has its ultimate cause as a result of the computer coding of human beings! So guess what? Your own analogy ends up illustrating why an external cause is needed and suggests possible characteristics of that cause!!
Despite all this, you continue to peddle the hypothesis that an adaptive system can result in organic and/or inorganic matter coming together for life to emerge when all of the analogies and examples show that life is present in order for it to be adaptive.
How silently, how silentlyyou're right, it shows how strangely some people think . very odd!
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.
Just listened to Dylan's Christmas Album - Christmas in the heart
For the first time I was struck by these profound words from the last verse of the last song on his album. In just these few words, so much is said.
How silently, how silentlyI feel the same about the great moving words
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.
Just listened to Dylan's Christmas Album - Christmas in the heart
For the first time I was struck by these profound words from the last verse of the last song on his album. In just these few words, so much is said.
2. By bringing up religious beliefs when they have not been mentioned, it shows that your approach is not one based on getting to the truth of the matter. It is to avoid anything that could potentially lead to a religious explanation for a cause.Which words imply not wanting to get to the truth?
Therefore, let me explain again what the quintessential problem is.i.e. what you believe to be the problem.
I think at least one of you needs to define what you understand by 'soul' otherwise each of you will be arguing for and against your own personal concept which is not fully shared with the other.
It's all well and good to define the soul - and there are plenty of variations available, e.g. Aristotle, Descartes, the Catholic Church - but we need to go further and find someone who can demonstrate its existence, and its workings. Otherwise, we are in the land of pure assertion.sometime ago I was reading about the BIG BANG and it said it could have happened many many times before but all was annihilated almost immediately However during the last big bang there was a slight imbalance between matter and anti matter and when all the annihilating had finished the resulting extra mater that remained was left to form what we call the universe.
I was thinking this about anti-matter yesterday, about which no doubt people feel incredulity. But scientists are not content with defining it, they have been doing research on it, and trying to track anti-matter particles, with some success.
I suppose this is difficult with something immaterial, but then how do you know it's there?
I feel the same about the great moving wordsI like it, is it all your own work?
When I am sad and lonely
When all hope is gone
I walk upon High Holborn
And think of you with nothing on
I like it, is it all your own work?One of Adrian Mitchell's
Your response really does lay bare your prejudices for all to see.
1. You’ve brought up my religious beliefs when I have not mentioned them. Furthermore, you’ve made assumptions about them when you don’t even know what I believe and why! If religious belief is a factor then what is the factor for Jack Knave (who is not a theist), who was also challenging aspects of what is claimed on the Karma thread?
2. By bringing up religious beliefs when they have not been mentioned, it shows that your approach is not one based on getting to the truth of the matter. It is to avoid anything that could potentially lead to a religious explanation for a cause.
3. You evaded all of the issues raised in my previous post. No surprise there. Anyone reading your post would think I am against the notion of emergence!
Therefore, let me explain again what the quintessential problem is.
On the Karma thread, the poster Enki asked a key question: what makes one system adaptive and another non-adaptive where emergence is concerned? The question was asked three times (#546, #560, #581). Each time you responded (#552, #562, #584) you evaded the question by describing what adaptive and non-adaptive systems are. So let the examples and analogies illustrate!
In an adaptive system, that which causes it to be adaptive is already present.
In all of the examples where living organisms are involved, life is already present. In your SIMS analogy, human beings were responsible for the game, so the simulated life in that game (a characteristic for the adaptive system from which any emergence occurs) has its ultimate cause as a result of the computer coding of human beings! So guess what? Your own analogy ends up illustrating why an external cause is needed and suggests possible characteristics of that cause!!
Despite all this, you continue to peddle the hypothesis that an adaptive system can result in organic and/or inorganic matter coming together for life to emerge when all of the analogies and examples show that life is present in order for it to be adaptive.
One of Adrian Mitchell'sI don't think I've read any poetry since leaving school, English lit. almost did my brains in :o
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Mitchell
It's all well and good to define the soul - and there are plenty of variations available, e.g. Aristotle, Descartes, the Catholic Church - but we need to go further and find someone who can demonstrate its existence, and its workings. Otherwise, we are in the land of pure assertion.Yes that is the difficulty in discussing the various words associated with religions and how they apply to humans. Your question in a way illustrates it as it implies a subject 'you' a verb 'know' and an object 'it' and invites an investigation into discovering what 'it' is as we would for any matter/energy form. Organised religions seem to have built on this and have created images or symbols to represent 'it'. Mystics of many of the religions however invite the individual to 'know' the subject 'I' by 'being' it rather than conceptualising it and there are a variety of methods to help overcome the obstacles preventing it, the most important obstacle being the egotistical 'self' composed of its variety of desires and fears. There are a variety of symbols representing this, like crossing a river, walking on the water and flying the magic carpet. Unfortunately it's validity cannot be demonstrated objectively, the individual has to demonstrate it to himself by 'walking the walk rather than just talking the talk'.
I was thinking this about anti-matter yesterday, about which no doubt people feel incredulity. But scientists are not content with defining it, they have been doing research on it, and trying to track anti-matter particles, with some success.
I suppose this is difficult with something immaterial, but then how do you know it's there?
Yes that is the difficulty in discussing the various words associated with religions and how they apply to humans. Your question in a way illustrates it as it implies a subject 'you' a verb 'know' and an object 'it' and invites an investigation into discovering what 'it' is as we would for any matter/energy form. Organised religions seem to have built on this and have created images or symbols to represent 'it'. Mystics of many of the religions however invite the individual to 'know' the subject 'I' by 'being' it rather than conceptualising it and there are a variety of methods to help overcome the obstacles preventing it, the most important obstacle being the egotistical 'self' composed of its variety of desires and fears. There are a variety of symbols representing this, like crossing a river, walking on the water and flying the magic carpet. Unfortunately it's validity cannot be demonstrated objectively, the individual has to demonstrate it to himself by 'walking the walk rather than just talking the talk'.
There is only one truth. You may reach it through objectivity or subjectivity, depending on your personal attributes. But the most important thing is that you find it.
For some reason, which I still don't get, some Christians claim objective truth for their beliefs.
There is only one truth. You may reach it through objectivity or subjectivity, depending on your personal attributes. But the most important thing is that you find it.did you find it AB? I would hate to think you've been misled .
There is only one truth. You may reach it through objectivity or subjectivity, depending on your personal attributes.
But the most important thing is that you find it.
If there is only one 'truth' and if this 'truth' depends on personal attributes, as you suggest, then it can't be objective since we don't all have the same attributes - and subjective 'truth' sounds awfully like an oxymoron.You will know when you find it
Even if you thought you had, how would you check you weren't mistaken?
There is only one truth. You may reach it through objectivity or subjectivity, depending on your personal attributes. But the most important thing is that you find it.I found it. It is that there is no such thing a a God given soul.
You will know when you find it
Very trite - but since 'know' implied knowledge more is needed than personal conviction: after all, one might be wrong.I know this is difficult to comprehend for non believers, but you will know when God makes Himself known to you. It will be a conversion experience which you can't comprehend until you receive it. I am not talking from personal experience in this, but from lots of personal witness stories from those who have discovered God in their lives.
So, what knowledge (as opposed to personal conviction) do you have that we can review?
I know this is difficult to comprehend for non believers, but you will know when God makes Himself known to you. It will be a conversion experience which you can't comprehend until you receive it. I am not talking from personal experience in this, but from lots of personal witness stories from those who have discovered God in their lives.
I think personal experience is fine; however, theists such as AB seem to suggest that that is evidence, which I doubt. After all, what about all the people who have different or contradictory experiences - is this evidence also? There are people who will swear that they have been abducted by aliens - so do we just believe them?I don't think personal experience can be claimed as evidence for somebody else, particularly as such an experience can be misinterpreted or retrofitted to a preconceived religious persuasion. Being abducted by aliens or possessed by demons or visited by angels is more or less a subject/object experience. The mystic's experience tends to be more a transformative experience of the subject 'I', which, if so inclined, he/she will wish to share with others. Part of the problem in doing so is that the language that is used is usually mythos not logos e.g. the Kingdom of Heaven is like the raising agent in flour which causes the whole to rise i.e. it is expansive and enlivening, and it cannot be pointed to as it is within you. As I said before, the next thing is to provide a method for others to hopefully experience the same, which usually entails 'self' sacrifice in some form. The reason for this, I suspect, is that the experience is empowering and if that power flows into a self/ego it inflates it and all the associated temptations rise up.
I've always been interested in the ego/self distinction, which is found in all kinds of religions and non-theistic ideas (e.g. Jung), but again, it's personal to you or him or her.
For some reason, which I still don't get, some Christians claim objective truth for their beliefs.
I know this is difficult to comprehend for non believers, but you will know when God makes Himself known to you. It will be a conversion experience which you can't comprehend until you receive it. I am not talking from personal experience in this, but from lots of personal witness stories from those who have discovered God in their lives.
On the Karma thread, the poster Enki asked a key question: what makes one system adaptive and another non-adaptive where emergence is concerned? The question was asked three times (#546, #560, #581). Each time you responded (#552, #562, #584) you evaded the question by describing what adaptive and non-adaptive systems are. So let the examples and analogies illustrate!
Ok Gordon. It's a big planet. Give me one example of anywhere in the world I can go to observe something being caused by nothing. Then I'll lose my incredulity. Fair enough?
Until then, I'll stick to my understanding of Newton's laws and observations from the natural world...
AB,You obviously do not know God. If you did, you would see things in a totally different light.
What I find curious about this kind of thing is not so much that you have a strong opinion about something and some very bad arguments you think should make others think you’re right about that. That’s fine – the rest of us can treat you as just another person with just another strong opinion and no logical bridge of any kind to suggest that you’re right any objective sense.
Rather it’s that you seem to have no arguments or method of any kind to verify to yourself that you’re right.
We know that many people believe in many “truths” just as deeply as you believe in yours, yet you privilege your experience above theirs for some reason.
We know that very deep and strong emotional responses can be triggered by all sorts of factors other than the object the subject thinks has caused it, yet you seem entirely indifferent to finding a process that would eliminate those possibilities so you’d at least have some sort of basis to claim “truth”.
We know that religious beliefs are almost entirely cultural – people believe in the god(s) most proximate to them in place and time – and sure enough, so do you apparently entirely untroubled by you just happening to be in just the right place at the right time for the right god to make himself known rather than, say, a Roman or an Aztec god (in which doubtless you’d have believed just as fervently).
And yet none of these things concern you it seems. Are you not even slightly curious to find a method of some kind to validate your personal religious belief?
I know I would be if I were in your shoes.
You obviously do not know God. If you did, you would see things in a totally different light.
You obviously do not know God. If you did, you would see things in a totally different light.Oh dear, that is such a bland, meaningless reply.
Give me one example of anywhere in the world I can go to observe something being caused by nothing. Then I'll lose my incredulity. Fair enough?
Until then, I'll stick to my understanding of Newton's laws and observations from the natural world...
Apparently if we remove all matter from a region of space and reduce the temperature to absolute zero, we achieve a quantum vacuum state but even in this null state matter is constantly being created ex-nihilo in the form of 'virtual particles' which start existing briefly before being almost immediately annihilated [...] It might be the case that 'nothing' is not really a meaningful concept in any discussion on ultimate reality.A very good example. There's little to no traction in physics for the concept of nothingness as in the total absence of anything and everything whatever, for the reasons given - virtual particles are created by 'borrowing' quantum vacuum energy for minuscule periods of time.
You obviously do not know God. If you did, you would see things in a totally different light.
AB,But it is not a problem. I have discovered God's love, that is all that matters.
And nor almost certainly do you, and nor indeed does anyone else either. The point though was that, however strong your opinion on the matter, you have no method of any kind to eliminate the various non-divine explanations for your experience.
You can duck and dive the problem as much as you wish, but your problem it remains nonetheless.
But it is not a problem. I have discovered God's love, that is all that matters.Absolutely and I think the various ''non-divine explanations'' are pretty thin stuff and generally based on some kind of specific psychological incompetence on the part of theists (basically a play ground name calling argument) and a polished argumentum ad populum possibly with a misplaced Occams razor chucked in.
But it is not a problem. I have discovered God's love, that is all that matters.
Absolutely and I think the various ''non-divine explanations'' are pretty thin stuff and generally based on some kind of specific psychological incompetence on the part of theists (basically a play ground name calling argument) and a polished argumentum ad populum possibly with a misplaced Occams razor chucked in.
Good to see you again, bluey! Hope yours was a superb Christmas - a happy and healthy new year to you and yours.
AB,I think there is a tendency amongst some forum atheists who view life as some kind of debating chamber/shoot em up mash up where the winner doesn't even have to have a knock down argument but merely has to be the one seen to be needed to be satisfied. I'm afraid the tendency is, if you have a reputation for not missing a trick and there's one that you not only miss it but fail to get, to polish it away hence the constant of reductionism.
No, you've discovered an opinion that you've "discovered God's love". Your problem remains that you have no way to validate that opinion, either to yourself or to anyone else. That you attempt very bad arguments in the effort doesn't mean necessarily that your opinion is wrong, but it does suggest that it's all you have.
CS Lewis's sums it up in his essay on ''man or rabbit''Was he confused by the two, bless him?
Good to see you again, bluey!There goes the neighbourhood........
You could not be more wrong. God's love is real.
No, you've discovered an opinion that you've "discovered God's love".
You could not be more wrong. God's love is real.Oh no, it's not!
You could not be more wrong. God's love is real.my pencil case loves me, its love is real , it also loves you whether you want it to or not
Oh no, it's not!He's behind you!
He's behind you!ten miles to London and still no Dick!
I think there is a tendency amongst some forum atheists who view life as some kind of debating chamber/shoot em up mash up where the winner doesn't even have to have a knock down argument but merely has to be the one seen to be needed to be satisfied.
I'm afraid the tendency is,…
… if you have a reputation for not missing a trick and there's one that you not only miss it but fail to get, to polish it away hence the constant of reductionism.
CS Lewis's sums it up in his essay on ''man or rabbit'' where he challenges us to be men or self identify with something with not much depth caught in the headlights of a determinism/fatalism to which one could add reductionism.
You could not be more wrong. God's love is real.
Vlad,I think the section critiquing your take on morality sums up your so called knock down arguments......i.e. ''Philosophical poverty.''
Actually, the arguments are “knock down”
I think the section critiquing your take on morality sums up your so called knock down arguments......i.e. ''Philosophical poverty.''
Your take on morality suffers from philosophical poverty.
"No universal morality? Oh no, but that's too scary for me therefore...
AB,And they would think he was wrong because.........?
Yes, we know that that's your personal opinion on the matter. Why would anyone think you're right about that though?
Vlad,Monotheism since all the derived power/potential around points to something identifiable with the classic view of God.
Actually, the arguments are “knock down” – why is why rather than even attempt to rebut them some will instead resort to assertion, abuse, irrelevance, bizarre claims like “psychological competence” "god dodging" etc.
…not true.
Except of course you’ve never yet managed to demonstrate that there’s something from which to reduce. Apart from that though…
What would you suggest we self-identify with – your choice of the gods? Zeus? Thor? Ra maybe? How about Poseidon instead?
And they would think he was wrong because.........?
Your take on morality suffers from philosophical poverty.
And also it's the transgressor of universal morality who has a huge vested interest in explaining morality away...as a mere matter of taste.
And they would think he was wrong because.........?
Vlad,How do you know he is guessing?...... answer? Hillside doesn't......he's guessing.
...because it's in the nature of guesses that they're more often wrong than right.
How do you know he is guessing?...... answer? Hillside doesn't......he's guessing.I'm sure that Alan has been given many opportunities many times by many different people to demonstrate that he isn't merely guessing.
I'm sure that Alan has been given many opportunities many times by many different people to demonstrate that he isn't merely guessing.As many times as Hillside has positively asserted he is, do you think?
Vlad,Not finally Hillside........ I have already. Basically it is the failure to make any valid point on morality since morality is an adjudication and your take on it cannot make that.
Only in your head Vlad, only in your head. At least, unless you finally want to have a go at explaining what the "philosophical poverty" might actually be?
Because it's merely opinion about something with no coherent definition, no evidence of its existence, and in any case scepticism in the absence of the preceding is the rational default position.Opinion is not necessarily wrong is it. It is merely your opinion that he is but in your case opinion seems to be right...in short, that it is opinion does not seem to give you warrant that he is wrong.
Opinion is not necessarily wrong is it.Not necessarily, no; but as bluey has already pointed out, when guessing there are vastly - perhaps infinitely - many more ways of being wrong than right.
Is scepticism a declaration of wrongness and not merely suspicion of it? I don't know.Scepticism is scepticism, Vlad - doubtless another one of the many words whose definition you don't understand.
Seems to be a bit of word piracy.....
Not necessarily, no; but as bluey has already pointed out, when guessing there are vastly - perhaps infinitely - many more ways of being wrong than right.Except when you guys do it obviously. Ha Ha!
That's the beauty of Wikipedia. You and Hillside almost invariably get found out, trouser talking, by it.
Scepticism is scepticism, Vlad - doubtless another one of the many words whose definition you don't understand.
But God's love is much, much more than an opinion. It is a life changing experience.
Yes, we know that that's your personal opinion on the matter. Why would anyone think you're right about that though?
my pencil case loves me, its love is real , it also loves you whether you want it to or notTo compare the creator of our universe with a pencil case is truly bizarre.
But God's love is much, much more than an opinion. It is a life changing experience.Only if it's your opinion that it's based on something external to your individual brain - still opinion.
Just re reading this essay, it seems to give an inspired description of the nature of some prominent posters on this forum. I would hope that they would recognise themselves if they ever come to read it.
CS Lewis's sums it up in his essay on ''man or rabbit'' where he challenges us to be men or self identify with something with not much depth caught in the headlights of a determinism/fatalism to which one could add reductionism.
Just re reading this essay, it seems to give an inspired description of the nature of some prominent posters on this forum.Such as?
But God's love is much, much more than an opinion. It is a life changing experience.This isn't just begging the question, this is purest green, undistilled, mountain spring B&S begging the qyestion
Just re reading this essay, it seems to give an inspired description of the nature of some prominent posters on this forum. I would hope that they would recognise themselves if they ever come to read it.
Just read it: twice in fact, and it is just as much twaddle as the rest of this old duffers output.Since ''Old duffer'' seems to be a disqualification, I take it we can disregard your post.
It is simplistically twee special pleading in favour of Christianity with a dash of added false dichotomy (Christians vs Materialists), a bunch of non sequiturs and a patronising misrepresentation of those who aren't 'Christians': it is nauseating pap, so much so that I wondered if I'd stumbled into something by Enid Blyton.
I can't see that I recognise any of our non-theist posters in this.
I can't see that I recognise any of our non-theist posters in this.Me either, but Alan thinks he does so let's see if he'll come up with the goodies.
Just read it: twice in fact, and it is just as much twaddle as the rest of this old duffers output.You seem to find it very easy to dismiss the works of one of the greatest literary scholars of the 20th century. Do you seriously think that Lewis did not realise what a non sequitur is?
It is simplistically twee special pleading in favour of Christianity with a dash of added false dichotomy (Christians vs Materialists), a bunch of non sequiturs and a patronising misrepresentation of those who aren't 'Christians': it is nauseating pap, so much so that I wondered if I'd stumbled into something by Enid Blyton.
You seem to find it very easy to dismiss the works of one of the greatest literary scholars of the 20th century.His academic work may have been very good and may still stand up, for all I know. Or maybe not; it's not my area, though I do know these things can be superseded. I've read a little of it relating to the mediaeval troubadour tradition, courtly love etc. while researching for something else. It's OK. His Narnia books however are tenth-rate pseudo-Tolkien rip-offs and his apologetics risible.
Do you seriously think that Lewis did not realise what a non sequitur is?Why not? Competence, even excellence, even genius in one specific field is not and never has been a guarantee of competence in any other. A bad argument is a bad argument whoever uses it. And Lewis can deploy bad arguments with the best - or is that the worst? - of them. Gordon's analysis, brief as it was, was quite correct. Lewis is doing no more than any business does on a daily basis; trying to tout his wares that he wants you to buy by rubbishing the competition. It has always been standard practice in especially monotheistic religions just as it has in trade and commerce.
Me either, but Alan thinks he does so let's see if he'll come up with the goodies.Perhaps I am mistaken about the nature of some of our non theistic posters. I certainly hope so.
Perhaps I am mistaken about the nature of some of our non theistic posters. I certainly hope so.What nature? You haven't said.
;)
Absolutely and I think the various ''non-divine explanations'' are pretty thin stuff and generally based on some kind of specific psychological incompetence on the part of theists (basically a play ground name calling argument) and a polished argumentum ad populum possibly with a misplaced Occams razor chucked in.
I think it is divine explanations that are 'thin stuff'. Where exactly is the evidential basis for gods and all the related paraphernalia such as souls, demons, heaven, angels etc ? Last time I checked it wasn't there, but that doesn't seem to bother some people. Just keep calm and carry on old boy ;)Well, there is a huge preponderance of derived power/potential/change/ability in the universe and logically an infinite series of derived anything is a nonsense.
Competence, even excellence, even genius in one specific field is not and never has been a guarantee of competence in any other. A bad argument is a bad argument whoever uses it. And Lewis can deploy bad arguments with the best - or is that the worst? - of them. Gordon's analysis, brief as it was, was quite correct. Lewis is doing no more than any business does on a daily basis; trying to tout his wares that he wants you to buy by rubbishing the competition. It has always been standard practice in especially monotheistic religions just as it has in trade and commerce.I need to point out that Lewis was very familiar with most non theist arguments because he used them himself before he discovered God. So he was able to use his considerable literary skills to offer detailed, in depth rebuttals of these arguments. Yet his arguments get dismissed as fallacies without offering any constructive criticism or alternative logic. This to me confirms the shallow thinking of the non theists he highlighted in his essay.
I need to point out that Lewis was very familiar with most non theist arguments because he used them himself before he discovered God. So he was able to use his considerable literary skills to offer detailed, in depth rebuttals of these arguments.When did this happen?
Yet his arguments get dismissed as fallacies without offering any constructive criticism or alternative logic. This to me confirms the shallow thinking of the non theists he highlighted in his essay.If an argument is fallacious, it's game over. That's it - done and dusted. That's all that needs to said. Once an argument, or I should say would-be argument, has been identified as fallacious there's no further requirement to engage - the person deploying the fallacy has made no argument at all. The very fact of their having committed this or that logical fallacy, by definition, demonstrates that their reasoning is awry.
When did this happen?well said, Shaker, but it will never sink in, will it? :D
If an argument is fallacious, it's game over. That's it - done and dusted. That's all that needs to said. Once an argument, or I should say would-be argument, has been identified as fallacious there's no further requirement to engage - the person deploying the fallacy has made no argument at all. The very fact of their having committed this or that logical fallacy, by definition, demonstrates that their reasoning is awry.
Also known as wrong.
I need to point out that Lewis was very familiar with most non theist arguments because he used them himself before he discovered God. So he was able to use his considerable literary skills to offer detailed, in depth rebuttals of these arguments.
Christianity claims to give an account of facts* -to tell you what the real universe is like. Its account of the universe may be true, or it may not, and once the question is really before you, then your natural inquisitiveness must make you want to know the answer. If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might if it gives him no help at all.
* italics in original
Honest rejection of Christ, however mistaken, will be forgiven and healed - 'Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him.'! But to evade the Son of Man, to look the other way, to pretend you haven't noticed, to become suddenly absorbed in something on the other side of the street, to leave the receiver off the telephone because it might be He who was ringing up, to leave unopened certain letters in a strange handwriting because they might be from Him - this is a different matter. You may not be certain yet whether you ought to be a Christian; but you do know you ought to be a Man, not an ostrich, hiding its head in the sand.
If an argument is fallacious, it's game over. That's it - done and dusted. That's all that needs to said. Once an argument, or I should say would-be argument, has been identified as fallacious there's no further requirement to engage - the person deploying the fallacy has made no argument at all. The very fact of their having committed this or that logical fallacy, by definition, demonstrates that their reasoning is awry.But just labelling an argument as fallacy is not very convincing. You need to indicate why you think it is a fallacy in some detail, and if possible offer an alternative argument. I have noted that many accusations of fallacy boil down to differences of opinion or misunderstanding the argument put forward.
But just labelling an argument as fallacy is not very convincing. You need to indicate why you think it is a fallacy in some detail, and if possible offer an alternative argument. I have noted that many accusations of fallacy boil down to differences of opinion or misunderstanding the argument put forward.
You seem to find it very easy to dismiss the works of one of the greatest literary scholars of the 20th century. Do you seriously think that Lewis did not realise what a non sequitur is?
(And I assume you will be labelling this as the fallacy of arguing from authority) ???
But just labelling an argument as fallacy is not very convincing.
You need to indicate why you think it is a fallacy in some detail, and if possible offer an alternative argument. I have noted that many accusations of fallacy boil down to differences of opinion or misunderstanding the argument put forward.
It is then a shame that 'man-or-rabbit' is such a poor essay, especially in his characterisation of 'Materialists'. Take this passage, in which we have a claim of 'facts' but without either any indication of what these 'facts' are or how they are known to be factually correct. So, this does read like special pleading, and then we have, bearing in mind his apologist stance, a veiled ad hom that not accepting Christianity would be dishonest.You obviously have not understood or fully read what Lewis is saying. He uses the word "claims" in the context of facts, and concedes that you may or may not believe them to be true. If you read this passage in context, you would realise that Lewis is simply pointing out that you should not believe in something like Christianity just because it is helpful.Quote
Christianity claims to give an account of facts* -to tell you what the real universe is like. Its account of the universe may be true, or it may not, and once the question is really before you, then your natural inquisitiveness must make you want to know the answer. If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might if it gives him no help at all.
Two tricks are being missed here though. One is Lewis doesn't talk about honest disbelief here except to discount it from his study but evasive disbelief and fence sitting.
Secondly Lewis poses this as an existential question which we ask of ourselves and therefore Gordon's statement that he doesn't recognise this in any of his colleagues misses the point.
Lewis leaves us with one of his trilemma......are we an honest disbeliever, a believer or a dogmatic fence sitter?
I think he proposes that that position is both honestly and dishonestly held.
Then he misses those of us who have no beliefs regarding the divine.
I think he proposes that that position is both honestly and dishonestly held.
Then he is wrong: if I hold no beliefs then they can't have attributes like honestly or dishonestly assigned.I'm afraid you are wrong because having heard of Christ and the Gospel one moves to a view of it and I think yours is clear. If one doesn't one is evading and is therefore the subject of the essay. Lewis makes this clear in his essay.
I'm afraid you are wrong because having heard of Christ and the Gospel one moves to a view of it and I think yours is clear. If one doesn't one is evading and is therefore the subject of the essay. Lewis makes this clear in his essay.
Then, as I said, Lewis is wrong in his presumption of evasion and, therefore, his presumption of people like me: there are no good reasons to think there is anything meaningful to evade.So what decision have you made regarding Christ?
But just labelling an argument as fallacy is not very convincing. You need to indicate why you think it is a fallacy in some detail, and if possible offer an alternative argument.
How do you know he is guessing?...... answer? Hillside doesn't......he's guessing.
So what decision have you made regarding Christ?
Opinion is not necessarily wrong is it.
It is merely your opinion that he is but in your case opinion seems to be right...in short, that it is opinion does not seem to give you warrant that he is wrong.
Is scepticism a declaration of wrongness and not merely suspicion of it? I don't know.
Seems to be a bit of word piracy.....
But God's love is much, much more than an opinion. It is a life changing experience.
You seem to find it very easy to dismiss the works of one of the greatest literary scholars of the 20th century. Do you seriously think that Lewis did not realise what a non sequitur is?
(And I assume you will be labelling this as the fallacy of arguing from authority)
I have suspended judgment:Then you are still on the fence.
I get ''a quick listen'' of Lewis just like I understand ''a swift read'' of him......It's called evasion! Done it myself.No, as I know to my own cost it's called "having vastly better things to do with one's time than endure a succession of woeful pseudo-arguments."
Then you are still on the fence.
Vlad,No, there was one yesterday!
Ooh, a negative proof fallacy - we haven't had one of those for a bit.
I get ''a quick listen'' of Lewis just like I understand ''a swift read'' of him......It's called evasion! Done it myself.
Then you are still on the fence.
No, there was one yesterday!
there are no good reasons to think there is anything meaningful to evade.This may be your opinion, but if there was nothing meaningful to evade, how have we managed to generate thousands of posts on the subject?
Not really: I think it highly unlikely there is anything to 'Christ' based on the arguments I've heard from Christians and the provenance issues surrounding the stories: my position on that is unlikely to change for as long as the same tired old fallacies are repeatedly used by Christians.In a nutshell ...
However, that there is always a risk of unknown unknowns prevents me from absolutely excluding the 'divine' - but for as long as the same fallacious arguments continue there are no current reasons why I should take 'Christ' as being a serious proposition.
This may be your opinion, but there was nothing meaningful to evade, how have we managed to generate thousands of posts on the subject?
Vlad,I don't think you understand ''being on the fence'' which is a state of having suspended judgment.
Ooh, a negative proof fallacy - we haven't had one of those for a bit.
I can think of no good reason to think that was a divine Jesus, but I have to allow for the possibility at least that it happened just as I must allow for the possibility of anything else. That's not sitting on the fence - it's just the only possible response to an unfalsifiable conjecture; any unfalsifiable conjecture.
This may be your opinion, but there was nothing meaningful to evade, how have we managed to generate thousands of posts on the subject?
Spoof,......and what were they?
Mistakes are mistakes are mistakes, regardless of whether you happen to spot them in the first three minutes of something.
What a fine legacy you've left us Hillside.
There are thousands of posts about leprechauns too, so...
That would be people, Alan: most here are interested in a variety of issues, albeit religion is the main event. I think you are conflating 'meaningful' in relation to the veracity (or otherwise) of certain claims with the inclination of people to talk about things that interest them.Have you then suspended judgment on Christ or not?
Trouble is, “all this” is just another restatement of your failure to understand the phenomenon, and yes – the hypothesis is that life can emerge from non-life because that’s what all the evidence and reasoning suggests.This time, I'll repost ekim's questions in full from the Karma thread:
I notice that the word 'adaptive' has been introduced, which I don't remember seeing before. What causes one system to become adaptive as opposed to non-adaptive?#562
Yes, that part I think I understand. If a rock is reduced to sand and left in the sea it doesn't attempt to reassemble itself, but if a living sponge is put through a blender and left in the sea it will reform itself. My question was 'What causes one system to become adaptive as opposed to non-adaptive?'#581
Thanks for the information.
This seems to imply consciousness or awareness. In order to pay attention to a neighbour the component must be aware of the neighbour's presence, surely? Similarly pattern recognition and feedback. A grain of sand doesn't have awareness and so the same kind of mass movement doesn't take place. All that Johnson seems to be doing is suggesting a kind of control loop which is used in business but without any plan. There does seem to be a motive though ... adapting to the environment. So to rephrase my question, what causes one piece of matter to initiate an adaptation to its environment and another piece to be non adaptive?
Life itself could be described as the point at which non-adaptive systems become adaptive for example as layer of complexity builds upon layer of complexity.but on #604 on the Karma thread (http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12985.msg650642#msg650642)
Snowflakes are non-adaptive emergent systems because they stay snowflakesI think the inconsistency is clear...
Have you then suspended judgment on Christ or not?
I don't think you understand ''being on the fence'' which is a state of having suspended judgment.
Do you think being ''on the fence'' undermines one's manhood or ego or the patina of perfection one is trying to cultivate?
Lewis's point is that being on the fence is all a rabbit can achieve but the question of Jesus is something that can be answered existentially. Science in which unfalsifiability has meaning
is not interested in existential questions.
I think the inconsistency is clear...
......and what were they?
SOTS,You're doing the same thing as on the Karma thread in response to ekim's questions...
Than you think wrongly: some emergent systems adapt (cities, people, some software), other do not (snowflakes, snooker balls etc). It's simple enough, at least conceptually.
Snowflakes are non-adaptive emergent systems because they stay snowflakesis true, then there is no way for a non-adaptive emergent system to become an adaptive emergent system. Therefore, what you say here
Life itself could be described as the point at which non-adaptive systems become adaptive for example as layer of complexity builds upon layer of complexity.cannot be true.
You're doing the same thing as on the Karma thread in response to ekim's questions...
If what you said here on the Karma thread
Quote
Snowflakes are non-adaptive emergent systems because they stay snowflakes
is true, then there is no way for a non-adaptive emergent system to become an adaptive emergent system. Therefore, what you say here
Quote
Life itself could be described as the point at which non-adaptive systems become adaptive for example as layer of complexity builds upon layer of complexity.
cannot be true.
cannot be true.
Your justification for this statement is what exactly?
Oh dear. Just because some non-adaptive systems do not become adaptive ones says nothing about the non-adaptive systems that do.Then clearly, they were not non-adaptive in the first place! Hence ekim's questions on the Karma thread!
Your justification for this statement is what exactly?It's in the rest of my #299, that you didn't quote!
Then clearly, they were not non-adaptive in the first place! Hence ekim's questions on the Karma thread!
Well, there is a huge preponderance of derived power/potential/change/ability in the universe ...
Vlad,You still haven't exemplified.
A straw man, a false dichotomy and an argumentum ad consequentiam came in quick order in the first few minutes.
You still haven't exemplified.
I suggest you take a slow. careful read of the whole thing.
It's strange that Lewis was once feted as a talented apologist, especially with books such as 'Mere Christianity'. I remember reading this, and 'The abolition of Man' 30 years ago, and there is a kind of superficial polish to the rhetoric. But as others have said, Lewis had an unswerving addiction to the use of straw men, and especially false dichotomies, which pop up all over the place. In 'Man or rabbit' you get a corker - Christianity is the greatest truth ever told, or a fraud. Well, no, it could be a mistake, and it could be incoherent mush. And in 'Mere Christianity' he advances the famous or notorious trilemma. Was this man really a Professor at Cambridge?Yes but look at what you have written Wiggs.
It's in the rest of my #299, that you didn't quote!
What is it then Wiggs?
And does the act of jibing it actually prevent it being the greatest truth ever told since the idea that the mere act of coming up with an alternative theory or even a plead of ignorance negates all other arguments seems to have gained traction with you antitheist types.When bluey talked about your random word generator running at full stretch, he wasn't wrong.
Is there ?Start with your own power/potential/change/ability. You will see that it is dependent/derived from something else. and the power/potential/change/ability of that something is dependent or derived and so on but what you can't have logically is an infinite chain of derived power/potential/change/ability.
What exactly is a 'preponderance of derived power/potential/change/ability' ?
Vlad,Evasion noted.
I suggest that you grasp what logical fallacies entail, and then try the "slow, careful read of the whole thing" yourself so you can count them off as you go.
You may actually learn something!
Vlad,Well that still gives us Christianity is true or it isn't. Explain how that is a ''false dichotomy''.
You've entirely missed the point. Wiggs was pointing out that Lewis set up a false dichotomy - nothing more. What Christianity actually is is a different conversation.
Evasion noted.
I've read it, I'm not sure you finished it...
...did you get round to watching the Feser article?
Well that still gives us Christianity is true or it isn't. Explain how that is a ''false dichotomy''.
I feel the trouble might be that some folks are not reading it slowly and carefully.
When bluey talked about your random word generator running at full stretch, he wasn't wrong.Well i'd like to hang around but you've convinced me this is no place for a grown up.
Wiggy an antitheist? News to me. With your typical lack of any comprehension of subtlety, nuance and context I can only assume that when you see wiggy intelligently criticising the ideas of someone you approve of, the 'antitheist' light goes on.
Vlad,Yes but they boil down to two. How is that a false dichotomy?
The false dichotomy is in setting up the greatest truth ever told vs a fraud as the only two options - there are plenty of others.
Perhaps if you did try reading it slowly and carefully you'd spot some of the mistakes too?
SOTS,Have you watched or read Feser yet?
Then clearly you don't understand the first thing about the phenomenon. Of course they're "not adaptive in the first place" - they're just component parts of the system. It's the way they interact that causes the emergent adaptive system.
Good grief - read the freakin' book willya!
Vlad,We had this conversation on the Karma site. Either your memory is going or you find what I say unimportant.
Bit rich coming from the kind of evasion, and what evasion do you think you even think you spotted in any case?
And what was you fallacy count when you got to the end of it?
What Feser article? If you think he (or anyone else for that matter) has a legitimate point to make, just tell us what it it. What I've seen of him is pretty hopeless, but that's not to say that you haven't found something that isn't.
Yes but they boil down to two.
How is that a false dichotomy?
Have you watched or read Feser yet?
We had this conversation on the Karma site. Either your memory is going or you find what I say unimportant.
Vlad,Either Christianity is true or it isn't. How is that the false dichotomy you've been arguing for for your last two or three posts?
No they don't - there are several more different possibilities, so the dichotomy is a false one.
See above. To be a true dichotomy only the two options he sets out would be available.
lad,Well then...I think we're done then.
The latter.
Either Christianity is true or it isn't. How is that the false dichotomy you've been arguing for for your last two or three posts?
Well then...I think we're done then.
We had this conversation on the Karma site. Either your memory is going or you find what I say unimportant.I'll have £50 on (b).
Either Christianity is true or it isn't. How is that the false dichotomy you've been arguing for for your last two or three posts?Which two definitions or which two versions of Christianity would you select for a true dichotomy?
Which two definitions or which two versions of Christianity would you select for a true dichotomy?what it boils down to.Lewis lays out what he means by Christianity and the alternative is that is a big lie passing something untrue of as true. In other words he is saying it is either true or it isn't. That's what it boils down to. If it isn't true then the statement that people need Christ IS,as Lewis states a fraud and , which Wigginhall failed to mention and Hillside bought the Wigginhall omission, a big sell. If not true it is nothing other,as Lewis states, than a fraud made and a sell bought.
His version is that which makes the claim on a person. He lays that out quite clearly in the essay.
Lewis lays out what he means by Christianity and the alternative is that is a big lie passing something untrue of as true.
In other words he is saying it is either true or it isn't.
That's what it boils down to.
If it isn't true then the statement that people need Christ IS,as Lewis states a fraud and , which Wigginhall failed to mention and Hillside bought the Wigginhall omission, a big sell. If not true it is nothing other,as Lewis states, than a fraud made and a sell bought.
The essay is all about the person who asks do they need Jesus.
Any pedantry avoiding a judgment on that and one comes under the terms of the essay.
It is the very call to commitment for or against which wrankles...since people forgive supposed false dichotomies and other supposed fallacies all the time.
Have you read it?
Start with your own power/potential/change/ability. You will see that it is dependent/derived from something else. and the power/potential/change/ability of that something is dependent or derived and so on but what you can't have logically is an infinite chain of derived power/potential/change/ability.
OK, I see, but doesn't that just boil down to the argument that SOTS likes to make - essentially, I appear to have power, that power must have come from somewhere, it cannot have come from nothing, therefore it must derive from some powerful being working in isolation. I cannot see the how that follows. It just looks like a ploy to avoid something from nothing because we are supposed to be satisfied with that as an answer without asking where that superbeing got its powers from.I feel you are turning a bottom up into a top down also you've deliberately removed the bottom up observation that the power is derived by removing the er, derived bit.
. It just looks like a cheap ploy to avoid something from nothing because we are supposed to be satisfied with that as an answer without asking where that superbeing got its powers from.It wouldn't be a superbeing since it would only have derived power like the rest of us and an infinite chain of derived power is not logical.
eerm, translation anybody ?I mean you have forgotten to mention that power is derived so that you can turn this into an argument about the Kalam Cosmological argument.
I am saying I have derived power [...]Cool but GCSE English would do, Vlad.
I mean you have forgotten to mention that power is derived so that you can turn this into an argument about the Kalam Cosmological argument.
I'm not saying I have derived power ergo superbeing.
I am saying I have derived power from a derived power from a derived power at anyone moment. An infinite chain of derivation is illogical.
I haven't seen anybody suggesting we do that.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAIHs5TJRqQ
Super - one less thing for you to worry about then.
So you say - the question is though what on earth do you mean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAIHs5TJRqQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAIHs5TJRqQ
I don't have an hour to spare so perhaps you can paraphrase his approach, since you are citing him.Yes....Baywatch it ain't.
Yes....Baywatch it ain't.
Basically at any one moment your potential to do, to change, to be....... depends on something else and that things potential to do, to change, to be depends on something else etc etc. This dependent is referred to as ''derived''. But you cannot logically or reasonably have an infinite chain of derived power ergo there must be an actual power which is not derived. Which changes and is not changed itself since that would mean it is a derived power and an infinite chain of derived power is not logical.
My potential to do anything at all depends upon energy; energy is there and it is eternal according to physics. Energy ultimately is not derived, so why an infinite chain of dependencies ?Energy changes though and cannot be the candidate.
Yes....Baywatch it ain't.
Basically at any one moment your potential to do, to change, to be....... depends on something else and that things potential to do, to change, to be depends on something else etc etc. This dependent is referred to as ''derived''. But you cannot logically or reasonably have an infinite chain of derived power ergo there must be an actual power which is not derived. Which changes and is not changed itself since that would mean it is a derived power and an infinite chain of derived power is not logical.
Energy changes though and cannot be the candidate.
My potential to do anything at all depends upon energy; energy is there and it is eternal according to physics. Energy ultimately is not derived, so why an infinite chain of dependencies ?Changes in energy show that it too has derived potential or power.
Energy changes form, but it persists, it transcends all change, it is eternal. So what is the problem with a chain of dependencies terminating at energy ?you have said that energy changes form. It therefore has derived power and therefore cannot be a candidate for actual power.
Changes in energy show that it too has derived potential or power.
you have said that energy changes form. It therefore has derived power and therefore cannot be a candidate for actual power.
But you cannot logically or reasonably have an infinite chain of derived power ergo there must be an actual power which is not derived. Which changes and is not changed itself since that would mean it is a derived power and an infinite chain of derived power is not logical.
I don't follow that. Energy has many manifestations but it does not derive from something more primitive. It might take the form of kinetic energy, it might take the form of potential energy, it could be chemical energy, it could be thermal, etc etc, these are all forms of energy but that does not mean that energy itself is derivative. All forms of power derive from energy in one of its guises.Your still not getting it, probably because of your habit of missing out key points which funnily enough don't suit your argument.
Your still not getting it, probably because of your habit of missing out key points which funnily enough don't suit your argument.
We are not talking about their being energy. As I said there can always have been energy. We are talking about CHANGE and potentiality which is derived.
Your argument is essentially not one of the physicist...but the just is-icist. Unless you can explain change other than it being derived change then you aare left with an illogical infinite chane of derived power.
What I like about this Aristotelian approach is that it satisfies logic, parsimony and basic scientific principles.
I have the feeling that certain people are going to have to resort to scrapping parsimony and Occam's razor to preserve their antitheism. We shall see.
Is it just me...
... or is somebody desperately waving the word physics around shamanically here and suggesting an infinite chain of derived change as well?
Feser's argument works whether energy is eternal or not because it talks about change and potential.
There is no mileage in trying to change playing fields here.
Start with your own power/potential/change/ability. You will see that it is dependent/derived from something else. and the power/potential/change/ability of that something is dependent or derived and so on but what you can't have logically is an infinite chain of derived power/potential/change/ability.
OK, I see, but doesn't that just boil down to the argument that SOTS likes to make - essentially, I appear to have power, that power must have come from somewhere, it cannot have come from nothing, therefore it must derive from some powerful being working in isolation.In terms of a direct response to this Torridon, nothing to add to what Emergence has said in #335 and subsequent posts.
#334
In terms of a direct response to this Torridon, nothing to add to what Emergence has said in #335 and subsequent posts.
However, as you did mention the argument I'm allegedly making, I'll just add some comments
1. The 'something from nothing' argument is based on Physics.
2. The last part therefore it must derive from some powerful being working in isolation. is not correct. My contention is that the cause of the power is external. It is consistent with Physics and is supported by the kind of observations and experiments that anyone on the planet can observe or even demonstrate themselves! I can also conclude that the cause for the power is external, because the system is not doing any work in order to generate it, nor does it come at the expense of another part of the system.
One can reach different conclusions about the nature of the external influence, but it doesn't alter the truth that there is an external influence responsible. I would rather go down the route of investigating what that external influence is, rather than going for the alternative, which violates laws of Physics.
I would rather go down the route of investigating what that external influence is, rather than going for the alternative, which violates laws of Physics.
Your still not getting it, probably because of your habit of missing out key points which funnily enough don't suit your argument.
We are not talking about their being energy. As I said there can always have been energy. We are talking about CHANGE and potentiality which is derived.
Your argument is essentially not one of the physicist...but the just is-icist. Unless you can explain change other than it being derived change then you aare left with an illogical infinite chane of derived power.
What I like about this Aristotelian approach is that it satisfies logic, parsimony and basic scientific principles.
I have the feeling that certain people are going to have to resort to scrapping parsimony and Occam's razor to preserve their antitheism. We shall see.
One of the troubles with these Aristotelian terms such as potentiality, actuality, and change, is that it's possible to sculpt them infinitely. For example, an acorn is potentially an oak tree, but hang on, a squirrel eats it, so now it is actually part of squirrel meat, and potentially squirrel poo. But squirrel poo itself is potentially part of the forest's composted floor, which of course, potentially feeds the surrounding trees.
This is quite entertaining, but it seems without constraints. I suppose Feser would say that God, since he is not created, unifies potency and act. But this is a bit like angels dancing on a pin-head, isn't it?
No it doesn't. A better alternative is to understand what the laws of physics are actually telling us rather than rely on ignorance of them to open up a faux gap in which a god can hide.Where is the ignorance of them taking place?
Where is the ignorance of them taking place?
Second, even if it were the case that science didn't have an answer to something that does not give you licence to drop in a superstitious belief to like to fill the gap.Where has this taken place?
Your approach here is equivalent to Sven saying to Eric, “That thunder stuff – your science can’t explain it, so I’m going to explore my Thor option instead”.Again, where has this taken place?
Where has this taken place?
Again, where has this taken place?
Just check any creationist website - say AIG (especially if you like a laugh).I haven't seen this on any creationist website.
I haven't seen this on any creationist website.
Have you any citations that illustrate specifically what bluehillside is claiming?
Dining Dinos
For instance, I have found that most Christians are mystified at how to explain dinosaurs. However, if we know God's Word, we can make many authoritative statements about dinosaurs.
Think about this. Does the Bible tell us when dinosaurs first appeared, or what the first Tyrannosaurus Rex ate? Most Christians emphatically say 'No!' However, the Bible does provide a logical basis for answering such questions.
There was no death and bloodshed of man or animals before sin. So the dinosaurs whose bones we find could not have died millions of years before Adam.
The Bible tells us in Genesis, and again in Exodus 20:11, that everything was made in the same six days as Adam and Eve. This means, on the authority of God's Word, not based on opinion, we can state for certain that dinosaurs lived beside the first people, just thousands of years ago.
We are also told in Genesis 1:29–30 that Adam and Eve, and all the animals, were to have vegetarian diets. So T. Rex was originally a herbivore!
Again, where has this taken place?
One of the troubles with these Aristotelian terms such as potentiality, actuality, and change, is that it's possible to sculpt them infinitely. For example, an acorn is potentially an oak tree, but hang on, a squirrel eats it, so now it is actually part of squirrel meat, and potentially squirrel poo. But squirrel poo itself is potentially part of the forest's composted floor, which of course, potentially feeds the surrounding trees.Wigginhall.
This is quite entertaining, but it seems without constraints. I suppose Feser would say that God, since he is not created, unifies potency and act. But this is a bit like angels dancing on a pin-head, isn't it?
Virtual particles created in a quantum vacuum are an example of something from nothing. Are you claiming something from nothing is impossible and therefore these particles must have an external source ?Coming into being from nothing is a change. The being of that something is therefore a derived power and therefore it must be in a heirachical chain ending in an actual power. Also, given that the universe is not a quantum vacuum is it not possible that these particles have come from somewhere else in the system? Earlier for instance you reiterated the notion that energy is not created or destroyed...that energy is eternal. Why are you contradicting yourself now?
Regarding Professor Feser...have you read or seen any videos of the Master? An introductory ad hominem attack by Bluehillside is a recommendation and endorsement I would have thought.A recommendation and endorsement of bluehillside, certainly.
Coming into being from nothing is a change. The being of that something is therefore a derived power and therefore it must be in a heirachical chain ending in an actual power. Also, given that the universe is not a quantum vacuum is it not possible that these particles have come from somewhere else in the system? Earlier for instance you reiterated the notion that energy is not created or destroyed...that energy is eternal. Why are you contradicting yourself now?why do you keep using the word 'power' , what do you mean by it?
I have a feeling though that the nothing you describe is actually a physicists nothing which as we know is a something. And I'm sure you reflected Krauss earlier in the argument by saying that questions concerning a nothing might be invalid.
Also you used the term virtual self to avoid admitting to a real non illusory self. Are virtual particles therefore real or illusory?
why do you keep using the word 'power' , what do you mean by it?Ability to change. The scientific definition of power would, for instance come under this since power is energy transferred in a given time.
why do you keep using the word 'power' , what do you mean by it?
Vlad's never been preoccupied by 'power' before so it sounds like he has found a new toy to play with - perhaps he got a battery charger for Xmas and has been inspired by that,this constant clutching at straws, like a man drowning in his own desperation, to find some truth in an implausible belief system which has infiltrated his mind, only shows that he's loosing the battle ,even with himself.
Coming into being from nothing is a change. The being of that something is therefore a derived power and therefore it must be in a heirachical chain ending in an actual power. Also, given that the universe is not a quantum vacuum is it not possible that these particles have come from somewhere else in the system? Earlier for instance you reiterated the notion that energy is not created or destroyed...that energy is eternal. Why are you contradicting yourself now?
I have a feeling though that the nothing you describe is actually a physicists nothing which as we know is a something. And I'm sure you reflected Krauss earlier in the argument by saying that questions concerning a nothing might be invalid.
Also you used the term virtual self to avoid admitting to a real non illusory self. Are virtual particles therefore real or illusory?
this constant clutching at straws, like a man drowning in his own desperation, to find some truth in an implausible belief system which has infiltrated his mind, only shows that he's loosing the battle ,even with himself.I'm afraid Walter, you should be worried, not only because of the soundness of the argument but that Gordon's previous comment is nearer to the mark than yours and his looks completely inane.
In so far as virtual particles and suchlike, we are close to the edge of our current understanding of reality and many things at the coalface so to speak are work in progress. We don't yet know how to reconcile gravity with quantum theory, we don't know how black holes can really exist yet clearly they do, we don't know what caused the big bang, we don't know why there is so little antimatter, we don't know what caused inflation, we don't know what dark matter is or dark energy but I think it a fair bet that to write all our don't knows down to some unknowable external source is a policy that is going to fail us in the long term. It kills off our curiosity. Clearly the big bang happened and that has set in motion a consequent chain of events played out according to the principles of natural law. As a result, constant change is now inevitable and incessant given that all matter is interconnected and in constant motion and interaction. Does a chain of change need an unchanging instigation ? Maybe that might be right, maybe not, perhaps that implies some external reference frame is required to instigate the first change, but that would then beg the question of the provenance and nature of the external reference frame. If we have learned one thing from the last hundred years of science, it is that our intuitions are not always right.I have no beef over the science but the science is not a philosophy and will always end with matter energy nor is science actually a cosmological argument although both science and a hierarchical rather than a consequential chain are bottom up. The hierarchical chain starting with observed derived power
I have no beef over the science but the science is not a philosophy and will always end with matter energy nor is science actually a cosmological argument although both science and a hierarchical rather than a consequential chain are bottom up. The hierarchical chain starting with observed derived powernone of your posts actually offer any explanations to anything .You just continue to say
none of your posts actually offer any explanations to anything .You just continue to sayWalter...you cannot have derived power without actual power.
'well, what about this , and this , or this, oh , and I've just thought of this.
Just give it a rest , or PROVE IT.
Ability to change. The scientific definition of power would, for instance come under this since power is energy transferred in a given time.I fully understand the scientific definition , but what do YOU ,mean by it?
I have no beef over the science but the science is not a philosophy and will always end with matter energy nor is science actually a cosmological argument although both science and a hierarchical rather than a consequential chain are bottom up. The hierarchical chain starting with observed derived power
Walter...you cannot have derived power without actual power.perhaps you should think of it like this instead.
Your approach is just antitheist Alf Garnettism. A shouty anti-intellectual totalitarianism.
Because antitheism is a type of populism you are i'm afraid a mere foot soldier, fodder for the likes of.
These arguments sound very like the First Cause, or Unmoved Mover arguments, coming down from Aristotle and Aquinas. They rely on the exemptions granted to the First Cause, it is without change or movement, it is not in time, it is not part of cause and effect, and so on.Wigginhall your post is by turns 1) vague 2) illogical since derived power is different from actual power so the only exemption is difference and then 3) Back to vague.
You seem to find this convincing, but I don't find analogies of goods trains rattling along, and needing an engine at the front, very persuasive. It also seems a peculiar mish-mash of physics and metaphysics.
perhaps you should think of it like this instead.Since all you seem to have done is just express assent to what others have said you are acting an necessary middle-man/chorus in a greek tragedy.
You do not warrant the courtesy of my full intellect, the tone of my posts reflect this , as you clearly have noticed .
These arguments sound very like the First Cause, or Unmoved Mover arguments, coming down from Aristotle and Aquinas. They rely on the exemptions granted to the First Cause, it is without change or movement, it is not in time, it is not part of cause and effect, and so on.Physics and this metaphysics start from observations. They are both bottom up.
You seem to find this convincing, but I don't find analogies of goods trains rattling along, and needing an engine at the front, very persuasive. It also seems a peculiar mish-mash of physics and metaphysics.
It also seems a peculiar mish-mash of physics and metaphysics.That seems not to be an issue for you in your support for scientism, naturalism and materialism. Special pleading?
Wigginhall your post is by turns 1) vague 2) illogical since derived power is different from actual power so the only exemption is difference and then 3) Back to vague.I hope you don't intend to drive anywhere today!
What I find puzzling is you can accept derived power without actual power, but derived power from actual power is a no no. Where or from whom did you pick that up from? Can it be anything other than actual power presents you personally with difficulties? Perhaps you could explain?
SOTS,Which was preceded by
Here (Reply 358):
"One can reach different conclusions about the nature of the external influence, but it doesn't alter the truth that there is an external influence responsible. I would rather go down the route of investigating what that external influence is, rather than going for the alternative, which violates laws of Physics."
2. The last part therefore it must derive from some powerful being working in isolation. is not correct. My contention is that the cause of the power is external. It is consistent with Physics and is supported by the kind of observations and experiments that anyone on the planet can observe or even demonstrate themselves! I can also conclude that the cause for the power is external, because the system is not doing any work in order to generate it, nor does it come at the expense of another part of the system.So where is your claim
A better alternative is to understand what the laws of physics are actually telling us rather than rely on ignorance of them to open up a faux gap in which a god can hide.happening, with respect to this?
That seems not to be an issue for you in your support for scientism, naturalism and materialism. Special pleading?
It's amazing how you always have to misrepresent other people's views. There is little point in discussing anything when you do this.I'm sorry if you have already criticised the positions of scientism, naturalism and materialism as being mish mashes of science and philosophy recently but I confess to not recalling any of your recent posts having done this.
Regarding Professor Feser...have you read or seen any videos of the Master? An introductory ad hominem attack by Bluehillside is a recommendation and endorsement I would have thought.
I'm sorry if you have already criticised the positions of scientism, naturalism and materialism as being mish mashes of science and philosophy recently but I confess to not recalling any of your recent posts having done this.
Aw bless - and still trollboy shows that he has no idea what the term ad hominem means despite having it explained several times.Oh yes reply hash 343 doesn't at all start as an ad hominem............... much.
Fortunately I have my English/Vladdish translator to hand so we can try again:
Ad hominem
English:
Directed against a person rather than the argument position they are maintaining.
Vladdish:
Criticising the argument or action of someone with whom I happen to agree.
They never cease to do that already.
Seriously .......................................................................... you may be surprised at the responses you get.
Oh yes reply hash 343 doesn't at all start as an ad hominem............... much.
They never cease to do that already.
Vlad,Hillside............ unfortunately for you, in terms of Feser you have had no time to set up your usual defence for your opinion of him. You cannot on this occasion claim that you have done anything but merely assert Fesers lack of qualification to a PHd.
Evasion noted.
Who'd have thought it eh?
Hillside............ unfortunately for you, in terms of Feser you have had no time to set up your usual defence for your opinion of him. You cannot on this occasion claim that you have done anything but merely assert Fesers lack of qualification to a PHd.
You could of course treat us to your demolition of his arguments and mine now...but experience teaches me not to hold my breath on this.
LOL
I've done that many times.
Vlad,I think you've missed a point I've made a few times before.
PS Any thoughts by the way on your volte-face about this god of yours no longer being the creator of everything?
I think you've missed a point I've made a few times before.
The question of why there is something rather than nothing is not the same as how does something pop out of nothing''.
Also I think you and I have been aware of the term ''ground of being'' prior to Feser popping up from nowhere.
Vlad,You still aren't making the distinction between the two questions
Yeah yeah - so back to the question you've just ducked again. Previously you asserted a god who created everything. Now you seem to accept that energy is infinitely old, therefore your god didn't create it.
That's a remarkable change of claim, yet you seem to want to elide the two versions as if nothing had happened.
Look, I'll even simplify it for you: do you think your god created everything (old Vladdism), or do you think your god didn't create energy but just decided to tinker with it once he stumbled across it (new Vladdism)?
You still aren't making the distinction between the two questions
Why is there anything and not nothing and how does anything pop out of nothing.
The context of the first question is that something is not dependent on time or finitude or infinitude.
That cannot be said of the second.
I think you have described my position as 'the polish plumber situation that God finds energy and tinkers with it.
Firstly actual power never finds anything least of all already realised potential. You assume actual finds something rather than causes something.
I think your model might have the derived power changing the actual power and misunderstands energy as essentially something static rather than a change or transfer. But i'm open to an alternative argument
LOL
Vlad,
You’re still ducking and diving. No-one is asking why anything. What you’re actually being asked is a what question: what did this god of yours do - create energy or just tinker with it?
It’s a simple enough question I’d have thought, so why all the prevarication and obfuscation?
Vlad,Being one of the ''corollaries'' I recognise I am sometimes guilty of that.
“The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive incapacity, on the part of those with low ability, to recognize their ineptitude and evaluate their competence accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: high-ability individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.”
(Wiki)
If the chain of events is finite. if the universe changes from nothing material then that is a change and is therefore derived from the actual which was therefore immaterial.
If the universe is infinite. If there has always been the derived then there has always been the actual from which the derived owes it's being(that is logical).
This has been spelt out to you in various ways and is again here.
I guess that answers your question.
Being one of the ''corollaries'' I recognise I am sometimes guilty of that.
Vlad,Clear enough that you don't understand energy or that you don't understand the concept of being dependent on actual power at ANYtime not just one moment in time.
Then, as ever, you guess wrongly. Look, I’ll even put it in capital letters for you this time so you have no excuse for yet more misrepresentation:
DID THIS GOD OF YOURS CREATE ENERGY OR WAS IT THERE ANYWAY?
Clear enough now?
Clear enough that you don't understand energy or that you don't understand the concept of being dependent on actual power at ANYtime not just one moment in time.
Energy is change Hillside and change is derived. Can we make it any clearer to you?
Your Polish plumber tinkering with the plumbing analogy is arse clenchingly off the mark.
Hillside and that is a bottom up argument based on the observation of the derived. I think we can all see you agree with that and have therefore conceded the argument but are locked into the last polishings of your turd.
You don't understand the physics or metaphysics here. Watch Feser again and learn something and then get a basic physics textbook.
Clear enough that you don't understand energy or that you don't understand the concept of being dependent on actual power at ANYtime not just one moment in time.Are you aware that others are reading this thread but prefer to watch you commit intellectual suicide . I for one will not interfere , ill just carry on watching.
Energy is change Hillside and change is derived. Can we make it any clearer to you?
Your Polish plumber tinkering with the plumbing analogy is arse clenchingly off the mark.''No derived without an actual''Hillside and that is a bottom up argument based on the observation of the derived. I think we can all see you agree with that and have therefore conceded the argument but are locked into the last polishings of your turd.
You don't understand the physics or metaphysics here. Watch Feser again and learn something and then get a basic physics textbook.
Vlad,False Dichotomy.
Perhaps if I put the question in capitals and use each word as a separate line you’ll finally stop ducking and diving and will attempt an answer?
DID
THIS
GOD
OF
YOURS
CREATE
ENERGY
OR
WAS
IT
THERE
ANYWAY?
There are only two possible answers to that question:
Answer 1: God created energy
Answer 2: Energy was there anyway
Are you aware that others are reading this thread but prefer to watch you commit intellectual suicide . I for one will not interfere , ill just carry on watching.I can understand you being pissed off.
I can understand you being pissed off.
However there is no sign of an ''intellectual'' response to what I've written and certainly not from you.
As for those watching Hillside and me I think the best you can depend on is Hillside and there are probably those out there watching him not creating his own intellectual suicide but sustaining it on the same basis that God sustains energy.
False Dichotomy.-.
Answer 3: God ''creates''/''sustains'' energy moment by moment.
Answer 4: Without God, no energy.
It has been all spelt out for you Hillside. If you cannot see it and I think you can and all that is stopping from owning up to it because of personal reasons then that is something it is not my place to be correcting you on.
I'm afraid though that your concession to the actual and derived is probably worse than you realise.
Not only then does God create the universe......... he does so moment by moment.
What we don't yet know is whether there is a moment of creation or infinite sustaining/creation.
If you would rather an infinite chain of derived power then that is obviously illogical and you had better start polishing now.
I'd say, Vlad, bearing in mind we are familiar with your 'style', that you have seized upon something you don't understand (because it seems what you've seized upon is highly suspect) and you're gradually working yourself into a frenzy whilst looking foolish in the process.Assertion with no accompanying justification.
I can understand you being pissed off.
However there is no sign of an ''intellectual'' response to what I've written…
…and certainly not from you.
As for those watching Hillside and me I think the best you can depend on is Hillside and there are probably those out there watching him not creating his own intellectual suicide but sustaining it on the same basis that God sustains energy.
I can understand you being pissed off.carry on E-T m
However there is no sign of an ''intellectual'' response to what I've written and certainly not from you.
As for those watching Hillside and me I think the best you can depend on is Hillside and there are probably those out there watching him not creating his own intellectual suicide but sustaining it on the same basis that God sustains energy.
Vlad,Yes I agree your conception of the word CREATE is not up to the job of describing the ''notion of sustaining''. Because it completely explains AWAY without tackling the nature of a hierarchical chain of derivation.
It’s not a false dichotomy at all, because…
In which case if “God” “creates” energy then you opt for option 1; if “God” “sustains” energy though then presumably it was there anyway for him to sustain (ie, option 2).
Which do you prefer?
In which case energy wasn’t there all along (also option 1).
Nothing has been “spelt out” at all. Your continued ducking and diving is obfuscation, not spelling out.
Did that car crash of a sentence mean something in your head when you wrote it?
But by “the universe” are you including or excluding energy from that conjecture?
What “we” don’t know is why anyone should take your conjecture “God” seriously at all, let alone your un-argued and un-evidenced notions of how He goes about His supposed activities.
Actually I’d rather you stopped lying and finally attempted a cogent argument for this god of yours, but as there’s precious little chance of that it seems we’ll have to endure your continued ludicrousnesses, personal re-definitions of terms and endless evasions instead.
Oh well - new year, but same old Vlad eh?
Are you aware that others are reading this thread but prefer to watch you commit intellectual suicide . I for one will not interfere , ill just carry on watching.
Walter,Why does this post put me in mind of Bertrand Russell chewing the cud with his old friend Alf Garnett at the East Ham Con Club?
I think perhaps that you're rather assuming there to be a functioning intellect to commit the suicide, but I take the point - he actually seems too delight in throwing himself off a cliff every time his efforts are rebutted. Odd.
Walter,
I think perhaps that you're rather assuming there to be a functioning intellect to commit the suicide, but I take the point - he actually seems too delight in throwing himself off a cliff every time his efforts are rebutted. Odd.
rebuttal n 1. The content of a bluehillside post expressed in disagreement with what another poster has written.Rebuttal n2 ''I said something funny and cutting about another poster therefore my argument is right''
Yes I agree your conception of the word is not up to the job of describing the ''notion of sustaining''. Because it completely explains AWAY without tackling the nature of a hierarchical chain of derivation.
You have therefore played the intellectual fascist/pirate role again and deliberately fixed creation as a point in time.
I'm afraid if being can be eternal, something you and others have argued for then dependent being can be particularly when ability is observed to be derived.
In short nothing you have said addresses the derived power/actual power dilemma.
In maintaining eternal being without actual power your argument is going to remain illogical.
As I said, start polishing.
There is no ducking on my part. Just your avoidance of the logical.
Once again without the actual the derived cannot be. Energy is change and therefore derived.
If energy is eternally sustained then without God it ceases to be.
If it is eternal then a God who finds it clearly isn't and is derived.
That leaves all energy derived and that is illogical since where is your actual.
Actual power is unavoidable if derived power is observed and it is.
I'm afraid that rather leaves you as the naughty schoolboy of whom the teacher reports
''if only he spent time and his intellectual capabilities learning rather than on avoiding learning.''
As I said if the universe has a moment where it popped out of nothing that is a change and therefore that has to logically be derived power and therefore there has to be actual power.
If it doesn't then I'm afraid there is, has been and will be forever more only anything here because of actual power and the complete eternal dependence of it.
As far as the unseen hordes apparently watching me committing intellectual suicide are concerned I think they are being treated to more than enough instances of bruised egos lashing out.
Listen toots.
I'm having a blast at the moment…
… but maybe you just need time to adjusting to the new realities of New Vladdism and I think your gradual acceptance of your logical dilemma your intellectual efforts are landing yourself in.
Vlad,Still making the same false dichotomy again?
Er, no – if you think something is being “sustained” then it needs to be there in the first place to be sustained. You can’t though just elide “create/sustain” as if that removes the problem.
That’s a called a non sequitur (there is no “therefore”) – and there’s nothing fascistic about using words properly. Either you think your god created energy ex nihilo, or you think it was there all along for him to sustain.
Which is it?
And for those of us working in English?
That’d be because – so far at least - you’ve not shown that there is a dilemma. Using terms you clearly don’t understand and that seem to be fluid in their meaning anyway according to whatever it is you’re trying to say each time doesn’t even come close to doing that - you're still marooned in "not even wrong" territory.
What “eternal being” do you think anyone is “maintaining” here?
Of course there is. You’ve been asked a binary question: did “God” create energy, or was it already there? So far, all you’ve done is to throw gibberish at it in the hope that no-one notices.
Why is that?
A mantra that clearly means something in your head – perhaps if you tried using basic words and did so consistently and accurately we’d have some clue at least about what that might be?
Why? If thunder keeps happening without Thor, does it cease to be too?
If not, why not?
Or doesn’t exist at all.
Hmmm…
Again, perhaps English language would help you here?
See above.
Actually it just leaves you dribbling gibberish again, but ‘twas ever thus.
Cosmic borrowing does not mean “popped out of nothing”. Perhaps if you tried reading a little you’d avoid this mistake in future?
Oh dear. More alphabet soup as argument I see then.
Then I suggest you stop doing it.
Yes, as I understand it that’s what trolls do…
As “new Vladdism” seems to be an unholy alliance of the same old dull incomprehension with a shifting to some new assertions about your god that fundamentally contradict your earlier assertions I think perhaps it’ll be kinder to leave you to your personal grief on this one.
Rebuttal n 1. The content of a bluehillside post expressed in disagreement with what another poster has written.
Rebuttal n2 ''I said something funny and cutting about another poster therefore my argument is right''
rebuttal 3 I am not going to say what it is or where it can be found but it is enough for me to say that I have made it several times.
rebuttal n4 I'd like to tell you but you are too thick to understand. (suitable reply = what year did you say you left school?)
Vlad,It is only there because of him. Without him, without the actual power ''Nihilo''. That's true whether it's a point in time or eternal.
Er, no – if you think something is being “sustained” then it needs to be there in the first place to be sustained. You can’t though just elide “create/sustain” as if that removes the problem.
That’s a called a non sequitur (there is no “therefore”) – and there’s nothing fascistic about using words properly. Either you think your god created energy ex nihilo, or you think it was there all along for him to sustain.
Which is it?
SOTS,I'm afraid I'm not like you and we've reached the point where I think this is no place for a grown up. Ciao for now.
Provided that post is logically cogent, yes.
You should try it.
Vlad,
Nope. That’s fun to do sometimes, but the rebuttal stands or falls on the cogency of its logic. That’s the bit you’ve never grasped.
Even by your standards that’s dishonest. After countless times of asking the same question(s) only for you to keep running away from them, eventually even the most stoical will shorthand to adumbrated versions.
More dishonest than “thick” I’d say. I’ve never taken your semi-literacy for example to be an argument against you – either you’re capable of mounting a cogent argument or you’re not. So far it’s a “not”, but cock-eyed optimist that I am I live in hope…
Still making the same false dichotomy again?
The eternal being is the being of energy.
1) We don't know that energy is eternal
2) Even if it is it is derived change and therefore there has to be an eternal actual power from which it is derived.
You just don't get this linear/hierarchical chains of causation or actual or derived business do you?.
Out of interest do you think the universe just popped out of nothing or is eternal?
Vlad,Or without him it would be eternal ''nihilo''.
No, because there was no false dichotomy. Either this god of yours created energy ex nihilo, or he just “sustains” it.
It is only there because of him.
Without him, without the actual power ''Nihilo''. That's true whether it's a point in time or eternal.
Actual does not ''find'' derived............... that is true whether things are finite or infinite.
I really don't understand why you fail to see that your so called true dichotomy is false.
Or without him it would be eternal ''nihilo''.
What's the matter with you?
Vlad,Why not? Take your time but remember you can't have derived power without actual power. Jjjjust trying to stop you making a complete arse of yourself.
Nope. If you want to posit a god who’s eternal and energy that’s also eternal, then neither can depend for its original existence on the other.
Why not?
Take your time but remember you can't have derived power without actual power.
Jjjjust trying to stop you making a complete arse of yourself.
Vlad,LOL.
Because if both are eternal neither could have been around .............
LOL.
Vlad,
You may need to have your keyboard seen to - it seems to be tapping out random letters with no relationship to the previous reply.
Vlad's probably like totally with a POS, and thinking OMG, bhs thinks 'I'm like busted' and like 'it would be so tope' to put up an intellectually coherent argument, but whatevs! Anyway g, girl!E-Tm has retired to search the web for any new ideas to support his world view . When he comes back it might be quantum electrodynamics or rainbows or even little pink ponies. We'll see?
E-Tm has retired to search the web for any new ideas to support his world view . When he comes back it might be quantum electrodynamics or rainbows or even little pink ponies. We'll see?
Walter,you did well to keep your cool through all that , id have been banned some time ago .
He does seem to be edging dangerously closer to Sparky Marks territory these days – perhaps he was given a tinfoil hat of his own for Christmas?
you did well to keep your cool through all that , id have been banned some time ago.
Walter,He surely must be a WUM to be able to continue in the same vain without collapsing into a quivering heap after sustaining a relentless attack such as todays . Anyway, it was fun to watch , thanks .
Yeah well, he’s just your basic internet troll. If ever he managed to say something coherent and that I couldn’t undo I might get more vexed, but as it stands he seems to have no solid position of his own, no arguments to support whatever it is he does think, and no notion at all it seems of the difference between truthfulness and lying. The latter is the one that’s difficult to process – I can’t tell you how often there have been exchanges of the, ”the moon is made of rock”/”so you think the moon is made of cream cheese then do you?” type yet no matter how many times his lies are pointed out he carries on as if nothing had happened.
Oddly SOTS has now appeared as a sort of “Vlad with slightly more joined up writing” but the essentially same mistakes and bad arguments.
Perhaps there’s a school of irrationalism somewhere where they train them before letting them loose on boards like this one?
Walter,I understand Nicholas refers to energy as electricity Hillside whereas you refer to it as ''The plumbing''.
He does seem to be edging dangerously closer to Sparky Marks territory these days – perhaps he was given a tinfoil hat of his own for Christmas?
He surely must be a WUM to be able to continue in the same vain without collapsing into a quivering heap after sustaining a relentless attack such as todays . Anyway, it was fun to watch , thanks .And then Walter and Hillside woke up and found they were dreaming....
And then Walter and Hillside woke up and found they were dreaming....happy new year you nucking futter ;)
Walter,It is always interesting to read your detailed responses to Vlad! I liked #429! In a strange, possibly mystical?!, way, I prefer Vlad's post to #sotS's. :)
Yeah well, he’s just your basic internet troll. If ever he managed to say something coherent and that I couldn’t undo I might get more vexed, but as it stands he seems to have no solid position of his own, no arguments to support whatever it is he does think, and no notion at all it seems of the difference between truthfulness and lying. The latter is the one that’s difficult to process – I can’t tell you how often there have been exchanges of the, ”the moon is made of rock”/”so you think the moon is made of cream cheese then do you?” type yet no matter how many times his lies are pointed out he carries on as if nothing had happened.
Oddly SOTS has now appeared as a sort of “Vlad with slightly more joined up writing” but the essentially same mistakes and bad arguments.I think one of the differences is that, again, in a strange, possibly mystical, way, Vlad's posts contain bits of humour, while it appears to me from his posts that SotS thinks, knows, absolutely that his opinions are superior to those of the rest of us.
Perhaps there’s a school of irrationalism somewhere where they train them before letting them loose on boards like this one?
It is always interesting to read your detailed responses to Vlad! I liked #429! In a strange, possibly mystical?!, way, I prefer Vlad's post to #sotS's. :)I think one of the differences is that, again, in a strange, possibly mystical, way, Vlad's posts contain bits of humour, while it appears to me from his posts that SotS thinks, knows, absolutely that his opinions are superior to those of the rest of us.The trouble is though is that the Question of derived power puts atheists in a quandary. By avoiding or explaining away actual power any thing they are left with leaves their argument illogical.
The trouble is though is that the Question of derived power puts atheists in a quandary. By avoiding or explaining away actual power any thing they are left with leaves their argument illogical.
Hillside has shown himself to be incompetent in issues like eternity and misunderstands the science of energy.
Nobody I think interprets Nearly Sane properly. His insistence on a methodology for everything is a broadside against philosophy.
However he and his followers will find themselves well within scientism.
To Hillside I will say this. If you have a potential rebut of Feser......now is the time to actualise it.
happy new year you nucking futter ;)And to you you wig banker.
You definitely don't interpret me correctly. Please stop lying.Ok the why the insistence on methods then eh.....have balls to at least answer that.
Ok the why the insistence on methods then eh.....have balls to at least answer that.
On second thoughts don't bother.................as I shall not be bothering with your forum.it isn't mine but hey there you go. Bold lying Sir Vlad flounced away.
Still waiting for Hillsides rebuttals or links to them.
The trouble is though is that the Question of derived power puts atheists in a quandary. By avoiding or explaining away actual power any thing they are left with leaves their argument illogical.
Hillside has shown himself to be incompetent in issues like eternity and misunderstands the science of energy.
Nobody I think interprets Nearly Sane properly. His insistence on a methodology for everything is a broadside against philosophy.
However he and his followers will find themselves well within scientism.
To Hillside I will say this. If you have a potential rebut of Feser......now is the time to actualise it.
Ok the why the insistence on methods then eh.....have balls to at least answer that.
it isn't mine but hey there you go. Bold lying Sir Vlad flounced away.
a physicist looks for causes; that does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere. A man may look for gold without assuming that there is gold everywhere; if he finds gold, well and good, if he doesn't he's had bad luck. The same is true when the physicists look for causes. As for Sartre, I don't profess to know what he means, and I shouldn't like to be thought to interpret him, but for my part, I do think the notion of the world having an explanation is a mistake. I don't see why one should expect it to have, and I think you say about what the scientist assumes is an over-statement.
I was looking at the debate between Russell and Father Copleston (1948), yes, I know, what a sad life I lead, and there is an interesting bit where they talk about causes, and Russell makes this point:
The whole debate is online:
http://www.scandalon.co.uk/philosophy/cosmological_radio.htm
Russell seems to be making the interesting point that the fact that scientists look for causes, doesn't mean that causation is a universal aspect of nature. It also relates to the point that because things in the universe may have a cause, that doesn't mean that the universe does, (of course, this is the composition fallacy).
Of course, Copleston was a highly intelligent and skilled debater, whom Russell seems to have respected.
Yes, post hoc rationalizations. I've never met anyone who felt thunderstruck by kalam, and started going to church.
Or as old Johnny Locke famously put it: "I find every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly: and where it fails them, they cry out, It is matter of faith, and above reason."
It's very weird reading Russell/Copleston, as the debate doesn't seem to have changed in 70 years. I'm not sure if that's testimony to its vitality, or decrepitude.Wiggs
the 'debate' only exists in the minds of those who believe they have a valid point to make . They have never proved it nor will they ever be able to. No matter how cleverly and forcefully they use the English language to argue their position ultimately they will fail.
There is just one question to ask them WHERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE? unless they can produce it there is nothing to discus.
Hi Walter,Ill tell you what is odd, the fact that you and me are here on this board attempting to , well I don't know what we are attempting to do but what I notice is what ever we say has no effect on the believer .
It's actually a bit more nuanced than that I find (though not by much).
Some theists will say, "but there is evidence". Already they're on iffy ground because evidence is itself a naturalistic concept, yet they think it can be jemmied into service to demonstrate a supernatural "God" nonetheless. Notwithstanding, the next problem is that the term has to be so devalued that it effectively becomes meaningless – essentially “any argument I can think of” is deemed evidence. The acid test here I think is to ask whether they’d accept qualitatively the same evidence for the gods in which they don’t believe.
Mohammed flying to heaven on a winged horse for example is as much “witnessed” as the resurrection of Jesus, yet it’ll be dismissed out of hand as plainly ridiculous. That the Muslim reaches exactly the same conclusion about the resurrection and for just the same reason seems to bother the evidence-claiming Christian not a jot though.
Odd eh?
#477 & #478Oh dear................ another science/scientism mash up. Science is not scientism. Humanism is.
Just the most huge problem, and the dam that is holding back the increasing awareness of what scientists and technologists can do, and powerful and influential religious leaders and beliefs cannot, is the certainty of the latter group that what they are saying is truth, and pretty much truth for all! I bet there will come a time when suddenly a large number of people at once will point out that the emperor has no clothes, the dam will break and God/god/s and their priests will be relegated to a minor role. The humanist philosophy of Star Trek was way ahead of its time.
Oh dear................ another science/scientism mash up. Science is not scientism. Humanism is.
.... wouldn't it be great if they could say BASED ON A TRUE STORY. at the introduction.And wouldn't it be great if you could accept the truth, because the truth will indeed set you free.
And wouldn't it be great if you could accept the truth, because the truth will indeed set you free.When you can demonstrate that it's true rather than the hopeful guessing it looks like, Alan, we'll consider it ;)
And wouldn't it be great if you could accept the truth, because the truth will indeed set you free.And wouldn't it be great if you could do exactly the same?
And wouldn't it be great if you could accept the truth, because the truth will indeed set you free.please demonstrate to me this truth so I can be set free (of what, I am not sure) because I already feel free.
It's very weird reading Russell/Copleston, as the debate doesn't seem to have changed in 70 years. I'm not sure if that's testimony to its vitality, or decrepitude.
And wouldn't it be great if you could accept the truth, because the truth will indeed set you free.
3. Third, humanism isn’t scientism at all – they have different meanings.
Apart from all that though…
...good effort!