The Illusion of Self

[Walter]

And then Walter and Hillside woke up and found they were dreaming....

happy new year you nucking futter 

[SusanDoris]

#423

Having already had one (This page can't be displayed' at 7:0 a.m. this morning, (I got back on by turning off/on the router - well that might have been coincidence) I'm wondering whether I can  choose a hot key to recognise some of Vlad's posts and  advise Synthetic Dave not to read them!!:D

[SusanDoris]

Walter,

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.

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.

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?

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.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Still waiting for Hillsides rebuttals or links to them.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

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.

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.

[Nearly Sane]

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.

You definitely don't interpret me correctly. Please stop lying.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

happy new year you nucking futter 

And to you you wig banker.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

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.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

On second thoughts don't bother.................as I shall not be bothering with your forum.

[Nearly Sane]

Ok the why the insistence on methods then eh.....have balls to at least answer that.

Because if you are making factual claims, you need a method. This has been coveredmultipke times before so why are you lying that it has not. There are plenty of that ngs I don't think are amenable to methods such as personal taste, and again this has been covered multiple tines with you before so why are you lying about that? 

[Nearly Sane]

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.

[Walter]

Is it possible to get a PhD in WISHFUL THINKING , E-Tm has displayed a proficiency in it on this thread recently?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Still waiting for Hillsides rebuttals or links to them.

Would that be in addition to the hundreds (or possibly thousands) of rebuttals I've posted to your mistakes over the years that you've either just ignored or dishonestly misrepresented?

Just out of interest, why do you think that relentless lying does you any favours at all? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

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.

Of course it doesn’t. There is no "question" – it’s just a piece of deep stupidity you’re trying to peddle with no underlying logic to support it.

Hillside has shown himself to be incompetent in issues like eternity and misunderstands the science of energy.

Not sure whether you think lying is a good idea or you actually have no conception of the difference between truth and lying. Either way, why keep doing it?

If you want to posit both energy and a conjecture you call “god” as eternal then axiomatically neither can have been causal of the other. And no, quantum borrowing does not entail something popping out of nothing however much your deep misunderstanding of the hypothesis forces you to assert otherwise.

Nobody I think interprets Nearly Sane properly. His insistence on a methodology for everything is a broadside against philosophy.

Of course it isn’t – “philosophy” fundamentally relies on logic, which is itself a method. If not for a method, how else should we test the claims and assertions of you and the leprechaunist alike?

However he and his followers will find themselves well within scientism.

Only because you insist on lying about what “scientism” means despite being corrected on it many times.

To Hillside I will say this. If you have a potential rebut of Feser......now is the time to actualise it.

I have done, several times in fact. It’s not difficult to do. If you think he’s said something specifically that hasn’t been rebutted though, tell us what you think it is – preferably using words correctly and short enough for you to grasp, and preferably with the lies left out for a change.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Ok the why the insistence on methods then eh.....have balls to at least answer that.

Because - as has been explained to you many, many times - if you don't have a method to sift the probably true from the probably not true, then all guesses have equal epistemic value. That you make statements of butt-clenching stupidity about methods flying in the face of philosophy just confirms to the rest of us your utter cluelessness about this.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

it isn't mine but hey there you go. Bold lying Sir Vlad flounced away.

His behaviour here suggests to me that he's more a Sir Anthony than a Sir Vlad, but there you go...

[wigginhall]

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:

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.

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.   

[Nearly Sane]

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, there seems to be a mistake in the idea that we can use cause and effect to think that either all things have a cause, surely an inductive problem, or indeed that it's not just related to our perceptions. Russell would surely agree with Hume's position on this. That the Kalam or whichever formulation similar to it has an assumption that this is a universal which is then thrown away at the end always reminds me of someone climbing a ladder and throwing it away when they reach the top and expecting not to fall down.

[wigginhall]

It's partly what I meant earlier by the mash-up between physics and metaphysics.   Causation might be a useful tool in physics, but can you then turn it into a metaphysical principle?   Well, I guess that you can, but you probably need to do a lot of preparatory work in order to get there.

And as you say, NS, causation is dumped, in relation to Vlad's 'actual power', which is uncaused, apparently.   The analogies with trains become quite odd, as here there is an engine which just exists (God), yet the idea that the universe just exists is reckoned to be very bad.   

[Nearly Sane]

Yes, the whole derived actual power thing just looks like gussied up cause/uncaused cause and suffers from the same basic problems. This also relates to the pointless attacks on supposed illogicality of an infinity of causes since it attempts to elide the physics methodology into a metaphysical statement that is a strawman and a misrepresentation of people's position.

[wigginhall]

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.

[Nearly Sane]

As we have discussed before, I think this has essentially been the standard argument since the enlightenment. The attempt to use the approach to science as if you can move from the methodological to the philosophical is very odd, especially when this is then the challenge that is supposedly sensible to throw at those only pursuing the methodological.


And these types of arguments never really seem to be why people believe at a base level. They seem to be window dressing for a much more primal belief.

[wigginhall]

Yes, post hoc rationalizations.   I've never met anyone who felt thunderstruck by kalam, and started going to church.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

Yes, post hoc rationalizations.   I've never met anyone who felt thunderstruck by kalam, and started going to church.

Quite. I’m always struck too by how quickly sometimes the notion of “faith” is abandoned: “I know god is real because that’s my faith. Oh hang on, here’s some logic or evidence that I think demonstrates god so – er – let's forget that faith thing…

…here’s the proof!”

Perhaps some at least recognise that a faith belief is only personal, subjective and so offers no logical path to truths for anyone else. These supposed proofs always seem to collapse when you examine them (“derived power” anyone?) but nonetheless the rapid change of horses from “that’s my faith” to “here’s the proof” I find a bit startling.

[Shaker]

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."