Karma

[bluehillside Retd.]

SOTS,

Your problem? You accuse someone of something and cannot even be bothered to cite a single example?

Yes, my problem if you want me to do the work for you on an issue that's pretty much irrelevant in any case. Hope has been called on it many times, but so have other posters here. So presumably did people attempt it in Russell's day, which is why he took the time to rebut it.

It is not a secondary issue as you are accusing people of using it when they are not. It therefore allows you to hide behind having to account for your own position.

It's precisely a secondary issue because it's irrelevant to the argument - namely that the NPF is fails because non-falsification is a necessary condition for a truth proposition but not a sufficient one. Russell's teapot accentuates the point by showing that the NPF can lead to "god" and to a celestial teapot with equal facility, and you fell of a cliff when you critiqued that by complaining that the teapot was obviously made up.

So rather than keep ducking and diving on an irrelevance, do you now grasp:

1. That the the NPF is a false argument (and why)?

2. That your critique of Russell's teapot misses the point of it entirely?   

[bluehillside Retd.]

SOTS,

Your failure to provide any evidence to back up your point is duly noted...

Numerous instances eh? So numerous, you can't even find one

Again, who attempts it and how often wasn't the point at all. It was just a diversionary tactic by Vlad, and the actual point concerns the fallaciousness of the NPF and your failure to comprehend its rebuttal.

Why is this difficult for you?

[Gordon]

Your failure to provide any evidence to back up your point is duly noted...

Numerous instances eh? So numerous, you can't even find one

Since you've been referring to fallacies, and it has been pointed to you that you have been using them and misunderstanding them since you arrived here, then I'd suggest you start by looking at responses to your own posts.

As I said - do you own homework. I'll also repeat what I said to you a while back: that if your going to get involved in issues related to philosophy in general (such as fallacies) then you need to do some homework there too else you'll continue to look ill-informed.

Since you are clearly evading much of what has been said directly to you, or you haven't understood it, then as far as incisiveness is concerned I'd say you were more 'Butter-knife' than 'Sword'.

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

#267

re the poster Hope and the NPF:

Yes.....but did he actually say it....or is it your inference?

Sppof,

He said it – often in fact, as have various others who come here. It’s an old trope too – which is why back in the day Russell came up with his celestial teapot as a counter to it.

Then you will have no problem providing citations of where it has been used.

Clearly, this is a problem, and not just for bluehillside.

I would suggest that the charge is erroneous and bluehillside, Gordon, SusanDoris, ...,  need to stop making it. The (partial) results of my homework

From the AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence thread:
#176

Then you think wrongly. Hope (and some others here) regularly use the NPF to imply that his/their conjecture "God" is thereby true. If he/they didn't think "but you can't falsify it" implied that why otherwise would they return to it over and over again?

imply. Sounds kind of subjective to me!

#178

Yes. Hope and others imply that regularly. If that wasn't the implication, why bother with it?

Even more subjectivity!

#183

What Hope and other actually do though is rely on the NPF to imply "God". They seem to think that non-falsifiability is an argument for something being true, when it's no such thing.

Three examples that illustrate that bluehillside is reading into the posts of others what they are not necessarily saying.

[Gordon]

Three examples that illustrate that bluehillside is reading into the posts of others what they are not necessarily saying.

Or three examples of you not understanding the points being made by BHS.

[Sriram]

That's all very nice, but I think it creates more unanswered questions than it solves.  It says nothing about what a spirit is, about where they came from, what their properties are, how many are there, are these spirits discreet and unique or are they all part of a greater whole, is the number of spirits constant over time, does each e-coli bacterium have a spirit of its own, do spirits exist in spacetime or do they transcend it in some way, would we expect there to be spirits on Mars and Europa ?

Could go on but you get the picture - I see this sort of top down rationale as creating more unexplained things than it explains, and for evidential support in the modern sense you end up having to rely on fragmentary and anecdotal claims of exotic aberrant phenomena like out of body experiences whilst ignoring the overwhelming bulk of insights accrued through mainstream research into the nature of life.

It's an interesting contrast to western traditional ways of thinking, but at the end of the day it seems to me to fly in the face of evidence more than it explains the evidence, and furthermore, like western judeochristian traditions, it is anthropocentric at heart, it starts from our human experience and extrapolates a universe from that.  In contrast, modern research shows us a cosmos in which we are very much an exotic extreme rarity rather than the centre of things; and it is telling that your philosophy depends much on introspection paralleling the western traditions of meditation and prayer - by focussing on what is inside us we end up seeing the cosmos through a highly personalised human-centric lens rather than an objective view.  These ways of thinking appeal to our narcissism, so they become popular.  They also act to support our denial of mortality, again, an immensely seductive power.

How does it 'fly in the face of evidence'?  What evidence do you have that conflicts with or negates what I have written?

All that science and rational thinking produce are evidence for the working of the physical world. They say nothing about the spiritual world and its purpose.

It is like understanding what a car is made of and how it works. That is what science does.  What I have written about on the other hand,  is that the driver of the car is not a part of the car itself and is an independent entity who leaves the car when it crashes. It is something different and runs parallel to what science investigates, while also blending into it.

There is no conflict between the two.

You are probably confusing with religious mythology and dogma.

[SusanDoris]

All that science and rational thinking produce are evidence for the working of the physical world. They say nothing about the spiritual world and its purpose.

I do not believe there is a 'spiritual world', let alone that such a thing has a purpose. If you do, where is it, what is it, how can I acquire any objective knowledge  about it; I am not referring to imagined ideas about it, but actual knowledge?

[Bramble]

You are probably confusing with religious mythology and dogma.

Just wondering how this is different from 'religious mythology and dogma':

1. Spirits have for some reason become tarnished, ignorant and unclean.  They are enveloped by some form of 'dirt' which makes them individualistic and selfish.

2. The spirits are therefore born in bodies of various kinds beginning with the most ignorant lower level organisms.

3. Then through the process of evolution, the erosion of the 'dirt' begins and the inner consciousness slowly awakens. This obviously has several levels.

4. As we reach the human level, self awareness becomes more pronounced. This helps further in the process of spiritual development by consciously removing the 'dirt' and awakening the inner Self.  Religious processes are also a part of this.

5. As we develop, we become more and more selfless, loving, universal which are the true qualities of the Spirit. It would be more correct to say that these qualities that are latent within us ...start surfacing.

6. Once we are cleansed of the 'dirt', we become free and are not born again. We then exist as spirit beings.

[SusanDoris]

Bramble #307

It is really desperately worrying to think that there are thinking human beings who, in this day and age,  believe that stuff you quoted.

[Jack Knave]

JK,

1) I’m not sure who you think “your types” to be, but the arguments from personal incredulity is a basic logical fallacy. It’s a bad argument.

2) You’re not getting it. There’s nothing wrong with using analogies, but to be analogous there have to features in common that make the comparisons meaningful. Your problem was that your analogy wasn’t, well, analogous.

3) Seriously? Of course it’s “held by the brain”. Where else would it be held? Consciousness is an emergent property of the material stuff and forces of which the brain consists. You can’t just conjure up a separate “something” because it stretches too far your credulity that the brain is complex enough to do all these things and more.

1) If it is a bad argument you should be able to show it to be so, not to resort to unfounded assertions about it and ah hominen.

2) Yes it was. It was spot on.

3) You're not getting it at all. This statement of yours is just rhetorical waffle. Saying something, like a theist does, doesn't make it so. The image has to be somewhere, as an image, and viewed by a subject or entity of some fashion, as a process of subject-object relationship. 

[Jack Knave]

Whether your eyes are open or closed makes little difference, seeing/imagining is still an internal neurological phenomenon happening in the occipital lobe; the eyes are merely outfacing sensors supplying novel information into that mix, but that 'mix' is mainly internally sourced from memory anyway. 

There cannot be a master neuron, for the same base reason that there cannot be a god - they both fail in information theory terms, they are but naive attempts to head off an infinite regress.

"information theory terms" - what is that suppose to mean?

But there is an image which is being observed i.e. there is a subject-object relationship, and the image is not found in the brain, for it only has a mass of neurons nothing else.

[Bramble]

Bramble #307

It is really desperately worrying to think that there are thinking human beings who, in this day and age,  believe that stuff you quoted.

I think what boggles me is that anyone might want to believe it. Why would anybody voluntarily imagine oneself as a 'dirty spirit' - 'tarnished, ignorant and unclean' - who had to go through goodness knows what rigours over innumerable lifetimes eventually to become 'free'. Some folk really do seem to hate themselves. Very sad.

[Jack Knave]

and if intelligence and consciousness can exist independently, what then is the point of having a body ?  Why don't we just exist as spirit beings ?  All those messy body parts ugh ...

What is the point of a body? What is the meaning of life? What is the point of your life?

[bluehillside Retd.]

SOTS,   

In Reply 303 you wrote:

I would suggest that the charge is erroneous and bluehillside, Gordon, SusanDoris, ...,  need to stop making it. The (partial) results of my homework

And then, just two posts later, Sriram gave us a doozy of an NPF with:

How does it 'fly in the face of evidence'?  What evidence do you have that conflicts with or negates what I have written?

Genius! He sets up an unfalsifiable conjecture (“spirit”) and then demands the evidence that would falsify it.

How’s that “homework” of yours feeling now?

So enough of the ducking and diving. Again:

Do you now grasp -

1. That the the NPF is a false argument (and why)?

2. That your critique of Russell's teapot misses the point of it entirely?   

Why so coy?

Three examples that illustrate that bluehillside is reading into the posts of others what they are not necessarily saying.

That'll be a big fat, 24 carat, fur-lined, ocean going "nope" then.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

They say nothing about the spiritual world and its purpose.

For the same reason that it says nothing about the Loch Ness monster, voodooism or the Soup Dragon.

How does that help you?

[Sriram]

And then, just two posts later, Sriram gave us a doozy of an NPF with:

Genius! He sets up an unfalsifiable conjecture (“spirit”) and then demands the evidence that would falsify it.

Blue,

Not really!  Torridon mentioned that my ideas 'fly in the face of evidence'. I want to know how? It is not a NPF.

[bluehillside Retd.]

JK,

1) If it is a bad argument you should be able to show it to be so, not to resort to unfounded assertions about it and ah hominen.

You don’t understand the meaning of ad hominem (there wasn’t one), and the argument from personal incredulity is a bog standard logical fallacy. It’s easy enough to look up if you’re interested.

2) Yes it was. It was spot on.

Just asserting something doesn’t make it true. If you want to use analogies, that’s fine – just as long as they are analogous.

3) You're not getting it at all. This statement of yours is just rhetorical waffle. Saying something, like a theist does, doesn't make it so. The image has to be somewhere, as an image, and viewed by a subject or entity of some fashion, as a process of subject-object relationship.

But it’s not an “image” at all in the brain like some sort of internal cinema screen. The brain just processes the inputs from our various senses (essentially they’re all wavelengths) to make them comprehensible. There’s no little picture in there though (or anywhere else for that matter).

Good grief!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Not really!  Torridon mentioned that my ideas 'fly in the face of evidence'. I want to know how? It is not a NPF.

Yes really. What you actually did (and I quote) was to ask for the “evidence…that conflicts with or negates what I have written?”

Setting up an unfalsifiable conjecture and then demanding the evidence that falsifies it is the NPF!

Game over. (Thank you though for saving me trouble of trawling through Hope's old posts just to satisfy SOTS's diversionary tactic).

[Sriram]

Sriram,

Yes really. What you actually did (and I quote) was to ask for the “evidence…that conflicts with or negates what I have written?”

Setting up an unfalsifiable conjecture and then demanding the evidence that falsifies it is the NPF!

Game over. (Thank you though for saving me trouble of trawling through Hope's old posts just to satisfy SOTS's diversionary tactic).

Blue,

Nothing of that sort!  I am not asking anyone to prove that my ideas are wrong. That would be a NPF.  I am specifically asking torridon to explain his claim that my ideas fly in the face of evidence.

What evidence? And how do my ideas conflict with them?

[wigginhall]

You could say that the brain constructs representations of different kinds.   There is plenty of research into this:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/decoding-space-and-time-in-the-brain/

[Gordon]

The image has to be somewhere, as an image, and viewed by a subject or entity of some fashion, as a process of subject-object relationship.

When you dream, JK, do you recall this ever involving apparent images?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Nothing of that sort!  I am not asking anyone to prove that my ideas are wrong. That would be a NPF.

Yes you are: that's what the words, "What evidence do you have that conflicts with or negates what I have written?" mean! 

I am specifically asking torridon to explain his claim that my ideas fly in the face of evidence.

Even if you soften your NPF from "conflicts wth or negates" to "fly in the face of" it doesn't help you. Flies in the face of means:

"To openly flaunt or oppose, to violate normal rules or go against conventional wisdom. Derived phrases are flying in the face of, flies in the face of, flew in the face of and flying in the face of." (The first Google link I found)

That's precisely what your spirit conjecture does.

What evidence? And how do my ideas conflict with them?

And repeating an NPF won't help you either!

Incidentally, you're on hot form today. I was explaining false analogies to Jack Knave earlier, and you provided another doozy with your car/driver effort. "Science" has no problem with the fact of cars and of drivers. For an analogy with "spirit" though, you would have had to have come up with a car vs pixies in the boot or similar.   

[Udayana]

Sriram's framework is unfalsifiable, but Torri suggested it "flew in the face of evidence" thus, probably inadvertently, dignifying it as a possibility.

Obviously appealing to the "lack of evidence" or asking for evidence against an unfalsifiable  proposition is falling into the NPF, as there can be no evidence for or against. However, the proponent may not accept that the proposal is unfalsifiable.

[wigginhall]

Not even wrong?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

Not even wrong?

Yup - he asked for evidence that he was wrong about a conjecture that's not even wrong.

Wasn't SOTS' diversionary, "no-one uses the NPF anyway" followed just two posts later with Sriram using the NPF a pearler though!