Correlation

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Hillside a description of what you did at the weekend hardly constitutes a refutation of ........well anything.
Indeed it just demonstrated derived ability to do or to be.

You've a Just isicist Old Chap.

You cannot have derived power ability or any of the numerous words you have been provided with without actual power.

Your refutation turns out (finally to be philosophical materialism which is based on the circular argument. Mine is based on the logic of no derived without an actual.

You seem to be supporting no actual power but an infinity of derivation..

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Hillside a description of what you did at the weekend hardly constitutes a refutation of ........well anything.

Indeed it just demonstrated derived ability to do or to be.

Yes it does because it shows you where your ludicrous reasoning leads. Some stuff happens to be conveniently shaped and available to interact or combine with other stuff – that does not though mean that either stuff has “power” or “ability” as if there were some mysterious property situated in ether. What you’re actually doing is projecting forward onto something an inactive latent “something” that’s just waiting to be activated with the right input.

Funnily enough this takes us back to emergence – the backward thinking that there’s some special inherent property in, say, ants that means they’re built to farm other species whereas in fact the farming happens spontaneously rather than because the ants have qualifications in animal husbandry. 

You've a Just isicist Old Chap.

Stop lying. I’m actually a “at certain points no-one knows, but here are some promising hypotheses that may or may not in due course have explanatory use-ist”. “Just is” on the other hand implies a shrug of the shoulders and a walking away from the problem, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

You cannot have derived power ability or any of the numerous words you have been provided with without actual power.

Depends whether you’re talking about your made up version of “power” (that you can neither define nor demonstrate) or the common-or-garden meaning, which is only “derived” in the standard way that effects are “derived” from causes.

And if it is the latter, you’re back to bog standard “nothing can come from nothing, therefore god” territory again.

Your refutation turns out (finally to be philosophical materialism…

Again, are you using your made up version of the meaning of that term or the actual one? If you’re back to your personal re-definition, we can all point and laugh. If though you want to use the actual meaning (that the natural is all we know of that’s reliably accessible and investigable) then that remains the case. If you can’t demonstrate this “power”, “ability” etc of yours using naturalistic method then finally find a method of your own instead to demonstrate them. 

…which is based on the circular argument.

It isn’t - which is why you’re unable to demonstrate that supposed circularity.

Mine is based on the logic of no derived without an actual.

Oh stop it now. Yours is based on wishful thinking, poor reasoning, undefined terms, dishonesty about the arguments that undo you, and an understanding of the world developed by the ancient Greeks that has long been superseded.   

You seem to be supporting no actual power but an infinity of derivation..

No, actually you do. If you want to posit an infinitely old universe, then the chain of cause and effect is infinite too. I’m relaxed about that, but I’m surprised that you are as it removes one of the gaps in which your god can hide.

Enough now. Unless you can finally tell us what you even think you mean by these terms and then demonstrate their existence at all using whatever method you like cogently to distinguish your claims from just guessing, then – once again – we’ll know that you’ve crashed and burned.   

[wigginhall]

Vlad's discussion of 'ability' and 'power' reminds me of vitalism, which was kicking around in the 19th century, and even into the 20th.    Something similar can be found in 'elan vital', discussed by Bergson.

Of course, it disappeared, as it became clear that no-one could find this mysterious 'life force'.   It does survive in some areas of alternative medicine, thus, homeopathy used to teach that some immaterial vital force was disturbed in illness, and could be rebalanced.

But one interesting issue is that vitalism seems to be unfalsifiable.   Now, does that remind you of anything?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Wiggs,

Vlad's discussion of 'ability' and 'power' reminds me of vitalism, which was kicking around in the 19th century, and even into the 20th.    Something similar can be found in 'elan vital', discussed by Bergson.

Of course, it disappeared, as it became clear that no-one could find this mysterious 'life force'.   It does survive in some areas of alternative medicine, thus, homeopathy used to teach that some immaterial vital force was disturbed in illness, and could be rebalanced.

But one interesting issue is that vitalism seems to be unfalsifiable.   Now, does that remind you of anything?

Or phlogiston maybe. Funnily enough during that exchange with Vlad I've thought several times of homeopathy - various claims of supposed properties are made for that too, only no-one can ever find them either. The trick seems to be to pick words like "power" and "ability" that do have meanings in other contexts, and to hope that some of their credibility will rub off when they're used in contexts for which there's only bad logic and no evidence whatever. Of course his escape from that is, "It's all immaterial innit, so you and your stupid naturalism will never find it" or some such, though that of course opens up so many more problems that he bolts as soon as he tries it.

Ah well.

[wigginhall]

It's quite familiar really, you get a cross-over from something metaphysical (there is this power in everything), to something physical (the apple has the power to be eaten).   It produces bizarre results, and tends to be very vague and unempirical, and as you say, it just rings the changes on the cosmological argument.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

It's quite familiar really, you get a cross-over from something metaphysical (there is this power in everything), to something physical (the apple has the power to be eaten).   It produces bizarre results, and tends to be very vague and unempirical, and as you say, it just rings the changes on the cosmological argument.

Why do I keep hearing echoes of, "No I'm not a creationist...I believe in intelligent design"?