Ontological Argument.......Really?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No amount of us answering questions will change the fact that the fundamental burden of proof remains on those making the claim. You assert 'Naturalism'; we say 'prove it'.

Nope. The proof bit has been covered already; what I would add is that naturalism is a tentative, in fact conservative conclusion justified by a methodology with a proven track record of success in consistently serving up reliable knowledge of the nature of the world. If you want to make claims outside that, that's when we start asking interesting questions about the existence and nature of the methodology you propose to use - questions which are, without exception, continually deflected and dodged and just plain old ignored.

or put more honestly nature just looking at itself, explaining itself in it's own terms and making a punt that this is all there is. Naturalists being people sliding serrupticiously from a method to a philosophy hoping no one notices.

That the methodology works on nature doesn't help you out in anyway.

At least it has something to look at. Where's your God?

Look at Jesus Christ....

[Shaker]

Do you think that's wise?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Do you think that's wise?

When did you become an expert on wisdom?

[Shaker]

Do you think that's wise?

When did you become an expert on wisdom?

Oh, ages ago.

[Jack Knave]

No amount of us answering questions will change the fact that the fundamental burden of proof remains on those making the claim. You assert 'Naturalism'; we say 'prove it'.

Nope. The proof bit has been covered already; what I would add is that naturalism is a tentative, in fact conservative conclusion justified by a methodology with a proven track record of success in consistently serving up reliable knowledge of the nature of the world. If you want to make claims outside that, that's when we start asking interesting questions about the existence and nature of the methodology you propose to use - questions which are, without exception, continually deflected and dodged and just plain old ignored.

or put more honestly nature just looking at itself, explaining itself in it's own terms and making a punt that this is all there is. Naturalists being people sliding serrupticiously from a method to a philosophy hoping no one notices.

That the methodology works on nature doesn't help you out in anyway.

At least it has something to look at. Where's your God?

Look at Jesus Christ....

How?

[jeremyp]

Look at Jesus Christ....

How does that help? He's dead.

[Outrider]

And that's it....not whatever else you are dishonestly trying to gussie it up into.

What dishonesty? We have sensory input that suggests a physical reality. We presume that's valid - openly accepting that this is an assumption - and then test that assumption to see what we can discover about that physical reality. From that continued consistency we have a validation of our assumption - still provisional - and we have reason therefore to think that we might be right.

You, and others like you, then throw in ideas like 'gods' and 'souls' and don't have any justification beyond 'but I feel like it', and you pretend like that's therefore worthy of consideration.

I'm not dishonest, I'm perfectly open in what I'm saying. I might, occasionally, misphrase something, or give an incorrect impression, I might even be holding positions that aren't justifiable from those presumptions and you're more than welcome to come an point them out, if you find them.

Doesn't change the facts of the situation: I've presumed physical reality, and the body of scientific evidence reinforces that. You've presumed God, and that's as far you've gotten.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And that's it....not whatever else you are dishonestly trying to gussie it up into.

What dishonesty? We have sensory input that suggests a physical reality. We presume that's valid - openly accepting that this is an assumption - and then test that assumption to see what we can discover about that physical reality. From that continued consistency we have a validation of our assumption - still provisional - and we have reason therefore to think that we might be right.

You, and others like you, then throw in ideas like 'gods' and 'souls' and don't have any justification beyond 'but I feel like it', and you pretend like that's therefore worthy of consideration.

I'm not dishonest, I'm perfectly open in what I'm saying. I might, occasionally, misphrase something, or give an incorrect impression, I might even be holding positions that aren't justifiable from those presumptions and you're more than welcome to come an point them out, if you find them.

Doesn't change the facts of the situation: I've presumed physical reality, and the body of scientific evidence reinforces that. You've presumed God, and that's as far you've gotten.

O.

You are dishonest when you say I throw gods into it. I don't I throw God into it. That you cannot discriminate between the two concepts is either deliberate ignorance or you are being dishonest.

Physicalism, Materialism or any of those leave there own question mark when they say that ''there is only the physical'' or there is only the material''. Any agnostic could make the arguments I make here.

God the uncaused cause is perfectly reasonable once you establish any precedence for ''uncausality''.

Your logical contortions and floundering when challenged on origins just to maintain your position as ''senior prefect for antitheism merely demonstrates how large God looms in Cosmic explanation.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Doesn't change the facts of the situation: I've presumed physical reality, and the body of scientific evidence reinforces that. You've presumed God, and that's as far you've gotten.

O.

Yes it's like Johnson kicking a stone to disprove Berkeley. But I am not making Berkeley's argument and what you say merely tells us a physical universe is there......not that it is the whole of reality....Now that is really you gussying something up

[Outrider]

You are dishonest when you say I throw gods into it. I don't I throw God into it. That you cannot discriminate between the two concepts is either deliberate ignorance or you are being dishonest.

So you aren't suggesting that a god exists? This is news - who is that's being dishonest, here?

Physicalism, Materialism or any of those leave there own question mark when they say that ''there is only the physical'' or there is only the material''. Any agnostic could make the arguments I make here.

How can you read what I put and not see an element of 'agnosticism' in it? Naturalism is an openly stated assumption. I don't say 'there is only physical', I say 'we only have reason to accept the idea of material'. We keep asking for a methodology by which we could validate the claim 'god'; until then, agnosticism is quite happily saying your case remains unproven, and therefore I have no obligation to accept it.

God the uncaused cause is perfectly reasonable once you establish any precedence for ''uncausality''.

No, an uncaused cause is begging the question 'why do we need an uncaused cause, what's wrong with an infinite reality'. You have not established any precedence for 'uncausality', and even if you had you have missed the step where you went from 'uncaused cause' to God.

Your logical contortions and floundering when challenged on origins just to maintain your position as ''senior prefect for antitheism merely demonstrates how large God looms in Cosmic explanation.

I didn't realise I'd been promoted. As for logical contortions, what logical contortions? We have an established, well-evidenced system of cause and effect that holds in as much of reality as we are able to determine. So far you've offered nothing to undermine the idea that reality could be infinite and therefore not require any 'creator'. That's not 'logical contortions' unless you're logically challenged.

O.

[Outrider]

Yes it's like Johnson kicking a stone to disprove Berkeley. But I am not making Berkeley's argument and what you say merely tells us a physical universe is there......not that it is the whole of reality....Now that is really you gussying something up

I haven't said 'there is only physical'. I've said there's reason to accept physical, give us a reason to accept something else or I will continue on the presumption that there's only physical.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

why do we need an uncaused cause, what's wrong with an infinite reality'. You have not established any precedence for 'uncausality',

An infinite reality would be uncaused. You establish the precedence every time you propose an infinite reality.

[Outrider]

why do we need an uncaused cause, what's wrong with an infinite reality'. You have not established any precedence for 'uncausality',

An infinite reality would be uncaused. You establish the precedence every time you propose an infinite reality.

No, the concept of an ultimate cause is irrelevant in an infinite reality, nothing is uncaused

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

why do we need an uncaused cause, what's wrong with an infinite reality'. You have not established any precedence for 'uncausality',

An infinite reality would be uncaused. You establish the precedence every time you propose an infinite reality.

No, the concept of an ultimate cause is irrelevant in an infinite reality, nothing is uncaused

O.

No

1 something that has no beginning or end is definitionally uncaused. An irrelevance argument here is a red herring.

2You haven't considered the why something and not nothing.

3. Why is it this way? (The question of laws)

4: If you state it is an infinite reality then there is no warrant for the question 'who created God'

5: The universe we live in appears to have had a beginning or at least a point beyond with the laws we observe don't function.

6: Explain why entropy begins 30 billion years ago.

7: Explain the phenomenon of cause.

[Outrider]

1 something that has no beginning or end is definitionally uncaused. An irrelevance argument here is a red herring.

It makes no sense to consider the 'causation' of an infinite thing.

2 You haven't considered the why something and not nothing.

You haven't given any reason to think there's a why.

3. Why is it this way? (The question of laws)

Are there any other options? Are there other examples with different options?

4: If you state it is an infinite reality then there is no warrant for the question 'who created God'

Only if you can a) demonstrate God and b) demonstrate that God is that infinite reality. If you'd done that we wouldn't be having this discussion.

5: The universe we live in appears to have had a beginning or at least a point beyond with the laws we observe don't function.

Yes. Our universe is not all of reality.

6: Explain why entropy begins 30 billion years ago.

I presume you mean ~13.8 billion years ago, our current best estimate of the age of the universe. Entropy began at that point because it was the point at which time was instigated. It's possible time and entropy - or their corollaries - existed in that broader reality, but we have no evidence to make a determination.

7: Explain the phenomenon of cause.

Cause is that identifiable precursor event which leads to effect. Cause can be any number of different phenomena depending on the scale being observed and the effect identified. It's a conceptual framework that works over a range of contexts.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

1 something that has no beginning or end is definitionally uncaused. An irrelevance argument here is a red herring.

It makes no sense to consider the 'causation' of an infinite thing.

2 You haven't considered the why something and not nothing.

You haven't given any reason to think there's a why.

3. Why is it this way? (The question of laws)

Are there any other options? Are there other examples with different options?

4: If you state it is an infinite reality then there is no warrant for the question 'who created God'

Only if you can a) demonstrate God and b) demonstrate that God is that infinite reality. If you'd done that we wouldn't be having this discussion.

5: The universe we live in appears to have had a beginning or at least a point beyond with the laws we observe don't function.

Yes. Our universe is not all of reality.

6: Explain why entropy begins 30 billion years ago.

I presume you mean ~13.8 billion years ago, our current best estimate of the age of the universe. Entropy began at that point because it was the point at which time was instigated. It's possible time and entropy - or their corollaries - existed in that broader reality, but we have no evidence to make a determination.

7: Explain the phenomenon of cause.

Cause is that identifiable precursor event which leads to effect. Cause can be any number of different phenomena depending on the scale being observed and the effect identified. It's a conceptual framework that works over a range of contexts.

O.

You are conflating reality by which you mean unconscious matter with infinite reality.
first of all you are left with the following problems.

1: Demonstrating that material is all the reality there is.

2: Demonstrating that it had no beginning. Just saying matter is infinite does not make that true.

3 Demonstrate that matter is exclusively non conscious.

4 demonstrate why infinite matter is not conscious, has never been conscious

5 why are you specially pleading infinite unconscious reality?

6 What happened to your timeless matter argument.

7: You cannot hope to argue against other options of how the universe is without encountering a demonstrable big bang.

8: The question of laws. Are you just redefining matter as it is or are you proposing some kind of platonic nature of the laws if so what is the connection between the world of forms and this universe?

It seems the big bang militates against your argument of infinite material.

[Outrider]

You are conflating reality by which you mean unconscious matter with infinite reality.

No, I'm presuming 'unconscious matter' because there's no reason to presume anything else.

first of all you are left with the following problems.

1: Demonstrating that material is all the reality there is.

Again? When have I said that, definitively, that's all there is? All you need do to lever in something else is give a reason to think that there is something else. Until then, given that there is justification for presuming physical reality exists, I'll work on the physical reality.

2: Demonstrating that it had no beginning. Just saying matter is infinite does not make that true.

No, it doesn't. That's a deduction from the fact that everything we see is an effect of a prior cause. In the absence of any effects which do not have a cause, we can either deduce that the chain continues infinitely or arbitrarily decide that there must have been an uncaused cause. I think the former introduces fewer unevidenced elements, but if you can make a case either for an uncaused cause or against infinite reality I'm happy to review.

3 Demonstrate that matter is exclusively non conscious.

I don't need to demonstrate that. There is ample matter for which we have no evidence of consciousness. We have evidence that consciousness we have is not beholden to any particular piece of matter. We have evidence of consciousness being strongly correlated with particular patterns of behaviour of physical matter. We therefore hypothesise that consciousness is emergent from those patterns, we test those hypotheses and so far that evidence has validated the hypothesis. That's provisional - do you have any evidence to suggest that it's wrong?

4 demonstrate why infinite matter is not conscious, has never been conscious

I won't presume consciousness in the absence of evidence for it. The burden of proof is on you to prove consciousness if you think it's there.

5 why are you specially pleading infinite unconscious reality?

I'm not, but bonus points for the irony of accusing me of dishonesty then popping that little straw nugget in.

6 What happened to your timeless matter argument.

You mean infinite reality - that's what this is.

7: You cannot hope to argue against other options of how the universe is without encountering a demonstrable big bang.

You're conflating reality with the universe. The universe originated with a Big Bang, by the best current model we have. That Big Bang happened, in this model, in a broader, infinite reality.

8: The question of laws. Are you just redefining matter as it is or are you proposing some kind of platonic nature of the laws if so what is the connection between the world of forms and this universe?

I don't understand what you're asking, here.

It seems the big bang militates against your argument of infinite material.

No, because I'm not saying that the universe is all of reality.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You are conflating reality by which you mean unconscious matter with infinite reality.

No, I'm presuming 'unconscious matter' because there's no reason to presume anything else.

We are matter and we are conscious............ there's one reason

You are presuming this universe is not all of reality....what is your reason for that?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

...................... we can either deduce that the chain continues infinitely or.............

Which makes the chain uncreated.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I don't need to demonstrate that. There is ample matter for which we have no evidence of consciousness. We have evidence that consciousness we have is not beholden to any particular piece of matter. We have evidence of consciousness being strongly correlated with particular patterns of behaviour of physical matter. We therefore hypothesise that consciousness is emergent from those patterns, we test those hypotheses and so far that evidence has validated the hypothesis. That's provisional - do you have any evidence to suggest that it's wrong?
.

We have no evidence for any consciousness since we cannot prove we are not just intelligent automata.
Except that we know it ourselves.

Therefore a human being is the only reliable means of detecting consciousness.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You are conflating reality by which you mean unconscious matter with infinite reality.

No, I'm presuming 'unconscious matter' because there's no reason to presume anything else.

first of all you are left with the following problems.

1: Demonstrating that material is all the reality there is.

Again? When have I said that, definitively, that's all there is? All you need do to lever in something else is give a reason to think that there is something else. Until then, given that there is justification for presuming physical reality exists, I'll work on the physical reality.

2: Demonstrating that it had no beginning. Just saying matter is infinite does not make that true.

No, it doesn't. That's a deduction from the fact that everything we see is an effect of a prior cause. In the absence of any effects which do not have a cause, we can either deduce that the chain continues infinitely or arbitrarily decide that there must have been an uncaused cause. I think the former introduces fewer unevidenced elements, but if you can make a case either for an uncaused cause or against infinite reality I'm happy to review.

3 Demonstrate that matter is exclusively non conscious.

I don't need to demonstrate that. There is ample matter for which we have no evidence of consciousness. We have evidence that consciousness we have is not beholden to any particular piece of matter. We have evidence of consciousness being strongly correlated with particular patterns of behaviour of physical matter. We therefore hypothesise that consciousness is emergent from those patterns, we test those hypotheses and so far that evidence has validated the hypothesis. That's provisional - do you have any evidence to suggest that it's wrong?

4 demonstrate why infinite matter is not conscious, has never been conscious

I won't presume consciousness in the absence of evidence for it. The burden of proof is on you to prove consciousness if you think it's there.

5 why are you specially pleading infinite unconscious reality?

I'm not, but bonus points for the irony of accusing me of dishonesty then popping that little straw nugget in.

6 What happened to your timeless matter argument.

You mean infinite reality - that's what this is.

7: You cannot hope to argue against other options of how the universe is without encountering a demonstrable big bang.

You're conflating reality with the universe. The universe originated with a Big Bang, by the best current model we have. That Big Bang happened, in this model, in a broader, infinite reality.

8: The question of laws. Are you just redefining matter as it is or are you proposing some kind of platonic nature of the laws if so what is the connection between the world of forms and this universe?

I don't understand what you're asking, here.

It seems the big bang militates against your argument of infinite material.

No, because I'm not saying that the universe is all of reality.

O.

Given you think it unreasonable to presume that which you cannot see. Why presume what you have just said?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You are conflating reality by which you mean unconscious matter with infinite reality.

No, I'm presuming 'unconscious matter'

Which brings us back to the question of laws. What is the nature of the laws governing infinitely unconscious material?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I don't need to demonstrate that. There is ample matter for which we have no evidence of consciousness. We have evidence that consciousness we have is not beholden to any particular piece of matter. We have evidence of consciousness being strongly correlated with particular patterns of behaviour of physical matter.

Or to put it more correctly..... we have no way of knowing whether we are looking at sophisticated non conscious intelligence or consciousness.

There is therefore no such thing as consciousness (Dennett) or we are the means of the detection of it.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

3 Demonstrate that matter is exclusively non conscious.

I don't need to demonstrate that.

It is a positive assertion.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It makes no sense to consider the 'causation' of an infinite thing.

Yes because it is by definition uncaused.