801. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166080 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 6:04 pm

by the way - I still plan on improving my "essay" on the omnipotence problem, refining it to account for the objections raised on Brian's blog. I'm very busy at the moment and sorry to say I didn't get around to it yet - but I already know how to do it... not that hard, really. The objections raised are easily countered.

802. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166077 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 6:01 pm

Thanks Frankus -

From the index of contents, he does seem to go into every detail of the arguments for the existence of and belief in god, but deals with rather few arguments against, such as those in the compendia edited by Michael Martin on the improbability and impossibility of god.

I also like where he's going:

And I think, for Mackiean reasons, that there
cannot be an 'objective god,' a being such that there would be a prescription, valid and authoritative for all, that
those who believe in its existence must worship this being. I do not believe in the possibility of such
prescriptions. And so I think that the ordinary God-talk and God-thought of believers and disbelievers alike
involves an undermining error, which is that there could be an 'objective god'.

Though I'm not so sure about the evident other possibility of "subjective god"...


Anyway - good to see he mentions Mackie, whose "The Miracle of Theism" is still one of the greatest books ever written on the subject.

803. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166068 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 5:43 pm

Can you discuss anything without using profanity?

Yes I can, thank you for asking. I've had very nice discussions with theists, even on this site... absolutely friendly... but your arrogance is simply outrageous.

That's funny. You have done nothing of the sort.

Yes I have, time and again.

For centuries, logic has deduced the existence of God.

Good one - studied philosophy and logic much? Well, I have.
Descartes, Anselm and Plantinga (among others) have tried with
ontological arguments - all unsuccessful.
But you only listed inductive arguments. And they have been just as unsuccessful.

For centuries all attempts at proving god or even the rationality of believing in god have been successfully shot down.

Based on the laws of epistemology, God is the only reasonable, logical, and rational deduction .

And again you show your ignorance. There are no "laws of epistemology"... there are theories of epistemology. The justified true belief theory for example, advanced first by Plato and refined innumerable times - but still unsuccessful, the coherence-theory, the causal-chain theory, the undefeated justified true belief theory and many many others.... all of which, properly applied show that belief in god is irrational, illogical and unreasonable.

If "logic has proven" god... please give a logical formal proof in the Kalish-Montague calculus (or any other accepted logical calculus), including axioms and inference rules for every step, starting only from logical tautologies as premises. You may use first or even second order predicate logic with identity, lambda and iota operators, and modal logic as well.

Go!

804. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166054 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 5:32 pm

Oh well - since clicking on a link seems to be too hard for you, here you go:

We can prove that the concept of a non-physical, personal god is contradictory, because being a person means being a thinker and potentially an agent, and the concepts necessitate that any potential referent is within time because action and thought is always also a change in state of affairs - which only makes sense in spacetimetime. Our concepts of personhood and agency are inextricably linked to our concept of time.
Therefore, a "personal god outside space and time" is a conceptual impossibility - a category mistake.

Something non-physical effecting something physical is - aside from being in contradiction with the conservation of energy and momentum - another conceptual impossibility.

Furthermore, the concept of intention being fulfilled without a mechanism is incomprehensible in principle. It doesn't make sense. And just saying "well, god can" - won't do.


As for the logically contradictory notion of omnipotence... I'll have to post the link again, since the text is rather long:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2285,Fleabytes,Paula-Kirby,page49#136661

805. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166047 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 5:24 pm

You are attempting to limit God who is outside of the natural world to the laws of the natural world. The laws of nature did not exist until God created them. He is not subject to them. God is eternal. God is not limited by time. At the creation event, space, time, matter, and energy were created. God created time, He caused time. He is outside of time.

Read my comments I linked for you... it's not that hard to see that what you're saying is a lump of inherent logical inconsistencies and category mistakes, aside from being entirely unsupported by any evidence... in short: bullshit.

806. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166039 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 5:19 pm

The God of the Bible, the only God. Now you prove He didn't.

I can and I did - since "he" cannot exist - is a logical and conceptual impossibility.

But even if that wasn't the case - that's not how it works. The burden of proof is squarely on you.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
Joh 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Oh great - kissing Hank's ass

You're saying God's always right because the bible says so, the bible is right because God dictated it, and we know that God dictated it because the Bible says so.

You know, I don't care what you believe - but when you want others to believe you and live the way you think is right... you better have some fucking good arguments... and then of all places you come here, where there are dozens of people who know a hell of a lot more about every subject you make bold claims about than you do from biology to philosophy, logic, physics etc.

Poor thing.

807. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166027 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 5:10 pm

I didn't mean questions by me.

God is outside of our natural world. He is eternal. He is the first cause. He created space, time, matter, and energy. He is no subject to the laws of the natural world. He created them.

1. No evidence

2. Impossible - as I have shown multiple times. Doesn't even begin to address my arguments.

See these comments of mine:

Concerning personality and interaction

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2480,Gods-and-earthlings,Richard-Dawkins,page2#164400
(and the next one by me on that thread, in response to Steve)

And concerning Omnipotence:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2285,Fleabytes,Paula-Kirby,page49#136661

Everything that begins to exist must have a cause.

The universe (all space, time, matter, and energy) began to exist.

The universe must therefore have a cause.

God is that eternal first cause.

Science again appeals to a supernatural event of something coming from nothing that violates logic and a first principle of knowledge.

You're infantile attempts at philosophy here are ridiculous. Every Christian philosopher would tell you so - like Plantinga, Swinburne or Craig.

And every real philosopher will tell you the same - and show you why even the arguments by the likes of Plantinga, Swinburne and Craig are wrong.

You are talking to people on here who have a very good knowledge of logic, philosophy, biology, physics etc.

You are seriously in far over your head.

808. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166001 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 4:50 pm

Remnant,


a n s w e r


t h e


q u e s t i o n s

809. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165990 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 4:41 pm

Not answering any questions, are you, Remnant?

Quelle surprise!

810. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165977 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 4:29 pm

Matter frozen in time? Could you elaborate on that?

You mean matter for which time doesn't pass? I thought that happens only at v=c?

811. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165973 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 4:27 pm

Well, I've been on both sides of the fence, I can say that you are wrong.

...and now we wait for the obligatory

"...not a real Christian...",

"...you simply have rejected the truth because you couldn't live with it..."

or

"...your faith wasn't strong enough..."

comment.

812. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165965 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 4:19 pm

Oh please - you doubt the existence of black holes?

Give me a break!

and "life from no life" - Are you serious?

You are the one who believes that it is possible that intention can be directly fulfilled without any mechanism (God), you are the one who believes that there can be an agent who is not subject to time (which is impossible), who believes that something nonphysical can effect something physical, who believes that an unobserved, unobservable entity, the assumption of which is untestable and whose existence is a logical impossibility, the attributions of properties to which are category mistake...


life from no life... "life" is a concept - and a very ill-defined one until modern biology... a property of a system.

You could as well say computers are impossible, because the molecules that make them up don't run windows or linux!

813. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #165937 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 3:47 pm

...and Occam's Razor still applies anyway - bloated ontology...

814. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #165933 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 3:46 pm

I don't think the complexity-argument applies as Dawkins thinks it does to the traditional theistic dogma.

The laws of causality and the concept of "simply appearing by chance" apply only in spacetime. But most theists assert that god is not within spacetime, ie not a physical being. If true, this would mean he is not subject to the laws of causality and since metaphysical entities need no causal explanation of their being, the probability of such a complex "suddenly appearing" is a meaningless concept.

Of course the idea of god as metaphysical gets the theist out of this trap, but right into a more serious one - namely that of logical incoherence (not physical but present everywhere and always in the physical world; not physical but effecting events in spacetime) and category mistakes (a person, an agent outside time? Agency requires change, change requires being subject to time) etc.

Anyway - this is where I think Dawkins could do better, his arguments doesn't hit home. Others (like the one I have laid out above) do - and are fatal to theism.

815. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #165924 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 3:34 pm

To be fair, Steve, this is also a conceptual problem - concerning our notions of causality and especially necessity and contingency.

It was a possibility open for exploration by philosophers that a creator is a conceptual and metaphysical necessity. In that case we would be truly irrational and unjustified in denying the existence of "whatever entity x that terminates the infinite regress of causes".

A serious question.

Swinburne's cosmological argument was serious philosophy for the most part. Also consider modal logic. It is indispensable... and when Plantinga came up with his ontological "proof" that was a major advancement. Mackie and others have shot Plantinga and Swinburne in their cosmological and ontological arguments down, but it was certainly a serious advancement in the debate.

That is to say - if their premises and arguments were correct, they would indeed prove what they set out to do so... but they aren't - and we're back to science and real philosophy. :)

816. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165899 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 2:37 pm

chewmanfoo,

Why stop now - I have directed you to comments of mine that make a very strong case, and I'd like to tell me if and why in light of that you still think you have epistemic justification for your position.

817. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165894 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 2:23 pm

chewmanfoo,

Oh, and concerning omnipresence, I'd like to refer you to this comment of mine:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2285,Fleabytes,Paula-Kirby,page60#138081

818. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165891 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 2:19 pm

chewmanfoo,

since when does clay reproduce and mutate?

And concerning your notion of divinity -

If your concept of god is that god is a non-physical, personal, omnipotent, omnipresent entity interacting with physical world - then aside from the fact that there is no evidence for that, the concept is also contradictory, and as such cannot refer to something real. There can be no god just as there can be no green ideas sleeping furiously and no square circles.

See these comments of mine:

Concerning personality and interaction

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2480,Gods-and-earthlings,Richard-Dawkins,page2#164400
(and the next one by me on that thread, in response to Steve)

And concerning Omnipotence:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2285,Fleabytes,Paula-Kirby,page49#136661

819. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #165879 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 1:53 pm

And Bonzai,

concerning musicals - have you seen "Once"... the best one I have ever seen... especially because it's everything but the typical Hollywood musical. Can't get enough of "Falling Slowly".

820. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #165872 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Steve,
...PM waiting for you.

821. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165846 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 1:08 pm

Stein did not ridicule or call Darwinists names

No, he did far worse things.

-Likening scientists applying the rigorous standards of science and the drawing the necessary consequences of people in scientific positions not conforming to the standards of science to authoritarian suppression of free speech and ideas..

...sorry, but the standards of science are the standards of science - you stop doing science, you're no longer fit to fill a position in the research and teaching of science.

and

-Implicitly stating that people who accept the theory of evolution as best scientific explanation are adherents of an "ideology" that lead to the exterminatoin of about 6 Million people.


And please, have you never heard of the Dover trial? ID is just creationism in disguise.

CDesign Proponentists?

822. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165823 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 12:28 pm

Everything except that last paragraph from this piece by Dinesh is true, but in no way enough:

He didn't only now and then use religious rethoric.
I don't believe he was a Christian either, but read my long post on this thread... he was very very friendly to the churches, and without the help of the churches, priests, and other religious institutions (such as the CV) he would have never made it. They all welcomed him with open arms. They bought his religious rhethoric and approved of him as Christians.

And again - not Darwinism...Lamarckism and artificial selection.

823. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165802 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 11:27 am

if I want to show that my idea of God should be compelling for you too

But that's not all this is about. It's about epistemic justification - not (just) for us, but for you. For that you would have to show

1. That what you claim is logically possible
2. That what you claim is physically possible
3. That what you claim is actual

1 seems no problem, except if you want to claim any of the logically incompatible or inherently contradictory ascriptions that are made in the bible (or anywhere else)

2 is seemingly at least not completely unproblematic

3 is the main problem

The probability of your scenario has to be higher than the probability of any other scenario - which means you have to avoid ockams razor and if that should be possible (which I doubt) you have to show that rival explanations of the phenomena you seek to explain by your hypothesis is - given background knowledge (knowledge, not opinion and conviction) - more likely.
Then you have to show that any evidence you can produce is more likely to occur given the truth of your hypothesis than given its falsity or its falsity in conjunction with the truth of a rival hypothesis.

Your hypothesis absolutely fails to gather any epistemic probability, which is why there is no epistemic justification for anyone - including you - to accept it.

824. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165701 by MPhil on April 22, 2008 at 4:10 am

"Anyone, I just think it must be increasingly frustrating if you're German. It seems no one can mention German without Nazism being in the sentence along with it."

Extremely frustrating doesn't even begin to describe it. We have in our history some of the greatest composers, scientists, inventors, philosophers, novelists(and writers in general), poets etc...

Over a thousand years of culture, and for most people, Germany is not linked in their minds with Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Kafka, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Einstein, Plank, Heisenberg - but with Hitler and those 12 years from 1933 to 1945.

It's very sad.
For a recent study, schoolchildren in Britain were asked to name "evil states"... guess what the top answers were? Iraq and Germany.
Among the less educated (and the averagely educated) in english-speaking countries, if you tell anyone you're from Germany, they lift their right arm to the "Hitler-Gruß" and shout "Sieg Heil".

But there are also extremely many people who know better :)

Nevertheless - something has to be done about it... and I would say it mostly has to do with the history education in schools.

825. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165318 by MPhil on April 21, 2008 at 10:31 am

David Robertson,

It was also a community which more than any other group in Weimar Germany, supported Hitler.

Absolutely untrue - there were many academics who did this, so much is certain.
This is due to same facts that explain why so many non-academics supported Hitler (aside from the poverty-argument): A long-standing tradition of antisemitism (have you read Luther's "Über die Juden und ihre Lügen"?), the treaty of Versailles, Depression challenging even the rich and the longing for the old glory of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation - Monarchism.

But actually Hitler would have never made it without the Zentrums-Partei and the CV (Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen) - The Zentrums Partei was the largest Christian party in Germany, and always one of the parties with most members in Germany. They both supported Hitler - the Zentrums Partei by willingly making way and the CV by telling its members that "any good Catholic has the duty to vote for Hitler".

Then of course there was the almost unanimous support of Hitler by the German churches, both Roman Catholic and Lutheran Protestant. (And aside from Bonnhöfer, most of those very few clergymen who didn't support Hitler mostly weren't philanthropists , but did so because they wanted a monarch by the grace of good who was in line with the German nobility and because of the murdering of the mentally ill, not the Jews.)

and some would argue the moral and spiritual degradation of the German people caused by the collapse in Christianity

Well, they would be wrong then. In fact, to get the German churches to support the Weimar Republic, a lot of concessions had to be made to the churches, who strongly supported the Christian monarchy. These concessions are why Germany as a democracy even nowadays isn't laicistic - why there is obligatory, confessionally bound religious education in all German schools (not comparative or merely educational religious eduction, but confessionally bound - ie indoctrinating).

German Christianity was incredibly strong, far stronger than nowadays in the times of the Weimar Republic. A cult of some mixture of Norse mythology (religion) - based partially on Richard Wagners understanding of it arose - but only after Hitler became Reichskanzler.

In fact, to get the support of the Vatican and the Lutheran Protestant church, Hitler had to strengthen the ties between state and church(es)... and he did so, willingly - knowing that when he has the support of the Christian religion in Germany (with their long-standing tradition of antisemitism), religious education and ties between churches and state would strengthen his position.

To get the support of the Vatican and the Protestant church, he had to make the Reichskonkordat - instituting so called "Konkordatslehrstühle" at German universities... chairs where the catholic and protestant church had the final say in the choice of candidate. These still exist today. And mind you - not chairs in theology or even biblical studies... chairs in anthropology, sociology, philosophy, history etc - thus guaranteeing the potential of a church-imposed bias.

came as a result of the Church largely having given up faith in the Bible - due to the effects of the Higher critical movement (largely based in Germany); and because of the adoption by the German academic middle classes of a materialist philosophy, fueled by Nietzsche, Marx and the understanding of modern science - especially their understanding of Darwinism.

Again, absolutely not true.

While it is a fact that many people embraced these philosophies, the Christian faith, true to the bible - was still by far the most powerful comprehensive doctrine in Germany at that time.

Furthermore it is a grave mistake to call the philosophy of Nietzsche and especially Marx "materialist"... have you ever studied any of them? Marx founded his philosophy on an inversion of Hegel, whose central idea was the "Geist" - very metaphysical. Marx's political ideas were based completely on the Hegelian understanding of the "metaphysical truth" that all things in this world are dialectic - a progression from thesis to antithesis and finally synthesis.
Nietzsches idea of the eternal re-occurrence of the same in particular was decidedly non-materialistic.
And the passage about "their understanding of Darwinism" is complete nonsense.

Hitler twisted Nietzsches philosophy of the superman and of the ressentiment and its genesis in the jewish people to suit his needs. Note that Nietzsche was not at all antisemitic - actually he thought the jews were very worthy and cunning adversaries - even helping to bring about the superman. Nietzsches superman-philosophy was absolutely Lamarckian, although he did not acknowledge it - based on the idea of heredity of acquired traits. So it's the understanding of Lamarckism and misinterpretation of Nietzsche that was the ideological basis for a relatively small number of middle-class and upper class "intellectuals" supporting Hitler - not Darwin, not what Nietzsche really wrote (his Sister did a lot of editing of her brother's work to support Hitler) and specifically not what Marx wrote - since he was all about a socialistic egalitarian society, where all that matters is overcoming the class-distinctions.

Of course most of the German people at that time would have been baptised as Lutherans or Catholics - including Hitler? But does that make them Christians?

Oh please - by far most people were Christian back then. They went to church, quoted the bible, expressed firm belief in God, and followed the political commands of their priests in church (oh yes, that was done unanimously). And the priests told them to vote for Hitler, how the Jews are a scourge etc - this is all historically absolutely verifiable.

You are committing the "no true Scotsman"-fallacy. They were pro-Hitler, so they couldn't have been "real" Christians. Yes they were - and their political opinion was based as much on political delusion as on religious delusion. There is antisemititsm in the gospels - and there is antisemitism in the writings Luther and many catholic Saints and high figures.

There were Franciscan monks employed as overseers in concentration camps. Also, read up on Pavelic and Stepinac.

All it took was playing up that part of the bible in combination with the above mentioned elements - and voila - completely Christian Nazi-supporters.

...

Of course - because it no longer fits the Zeitgeist - now that we have seen where the social consequences of Darwinism have lead us.

No, because that would be a naturalistic fallacy... look it up. The is/ought fallacy. Science does not make morally normative statements - it cannot, per definition not. Therefore it's not because it no longer fits the Zeitgeist, but because people have realised it is no longer science.

Whenever someone claims that a certain natural event, process or entity has a moral value - that has nothing to do with the science that investigates and uncovers that event, process, entity. Social Darwinism is all about the moral values - and is furthermore based upon a seriously flawed understanding of evolution.

That's is also why this is complete nonsense:

Actually again you are being a little disingenous. They were. Hitler believed, just as you do, that human beings can overcome their genes and help nature along. The Jews were rats - they were to be exterminated - after all did we not now know from 'nature' that the strong survive, the weak perish.

And just on a side note - the adaptive, not the strong survive.



For the future - remember the
"no true Scotsman" fallacy
and the
"naturalistic fallacy".

And don't commit them again - that's really disingenuous!

-Mike

826. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165273 by MPhil on April 21, 2008 at 9:31 am

Generally, everyone does it. Retroactive attempts at justification for a preconceived notion. Common sense notions in general. But for many people, religion is a common sense notion (when they - in childhood - have received unanimous affirmation of religion and were trained to worship its figures) - and if and when reason and rationality develops to a certain degree, people attempt to reconcile religion with it. Since most people don't get beyond the everyday varieties of religion, and since the "reconciliation" is tantamount, the potential for understanding of reason and science extends only to misconceptions and selective knowledge that can be reconciled with religion.

Potentially, this involves active (deliberate or not) distortions of science and invention of pseudoscience.

Without meaning any disrespect,
with Karda/you, I think it's reasonably similar - only that a certain event and probably a lot of subconscious wishful thinking or some such took the role of childhood indoctrination (since I seem to remember that he/you didn't grow up in a religious houshold?)...

...and since thus, his/your abilities for exploring science are more highly developed, an everyday concept of religion would not do - so his/your mind came up with this elaborate plot...

... the tell-tale sign is still that it involves so many assumptions of actuality of states of affairs, where there is no epistemological justification for assuming this actuality at all - since the possibility either isn't given at all or the probability of actuality is based on current scientific knowledge so low that it is entirely irrational to postulate actuality.

As I said, no disrespect intended in this - but the comments about Steve's supposed ignorance... that deserves quite a bit of disrespect.

827. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165101 by MPhil on April 21, 2008 at 4:06 am

"hitler.org"

... I'm not sure that's a site that ought to be graced by anyone's presence. Sounds suspicious.

828. Gods and earthlings

Comment #165100 by MPhil on April 21, 2008 at 4:03 am

Definitely!

829. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165041 by MPhil on April 21, 2008 at 1:15 am

My my my - how I hate it when people who have no idea about philosophical ethics and metaethics make bold statements about it.

Care to deconstruct the Kopenhagen interpretation of Quantum Theory as well?

Really, the nerve of theists who pick their morality from a book whose authority they just accept to talk about ethics.

Study some Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism and Epikureism, Mill, Kant, Rawls, Mackie, Scanlon, Tugendhat etc... and while you're at it some cognitive neurosciences and learn about ESS...

...all this is of course not entirely necessary to have discussions about it. But don't expect to be taken seriously when you make bold claims about naturalism and ethics if you have no knowledge in philosophical ethics, metaphysics, epistemology etc.

830. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164697 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 2:28 pm

Cheers Frankus - and you might enjoy this:

http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/Tissues.htm


Actually, anyone with even a slight familiarity of philosophical thought-experiments is bound to get a good, hearty laugh from this :)

(and there's more where that came from - which is here: http://consc.net/phil-humor.html )

For those familiar with many philosophers - these are wonderfully hilarious:

Causes of death of philosophers:
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/dhm11/DeathIndex.html

Philosophical Lexicon:
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/lexicon/

831. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164693 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Actually it was Reason, Truth and History... but that's a minor detail.

832. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164691 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 2:14 pm

Frankus...


well done! Couldn't have put it more succinctly myself - actually I think I would have written about a page about that. At least I thought I would write that long a comment - which is why I didn't bother.


anyway - well done! Did you remember that right away?

833. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164686 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 2:07 pm

epeeist,

I think when I came to RD.net, I read some comments by Dianelos... but I have no real recollection.

Perhaps you would care to enlighten me what that has to do with "theistic-idealism"? Did Dianelos argue for something like that?

834. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164679 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 2:02 pm

My my, what's with all the smilies in my comments - must be in a particularly good mood today. Ah what the hell - I'll enjoy it while it lasts:

:)

...there.

835. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164677 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 2:01 pm

As MPhil is saner and a clearer thinker than I am

must be the first time I've heard (read) that said (written) about a philosopher... :D

836. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164675 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 2:00 pm

epeeist,

well, Berkley's idealism was almost "theistic" - he said that matter doesn't exist, only minds and ideas - that "esse est percipere aut percipii" (to be is to perceive or to be perceived)... and that ideas that don't originate in human minds originate from god, who puts them there - such as the ideas of what we perceive to be an "outside world".

:)

837. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164666 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 1:53 pm

No need to apologise, ThoughtsonCommonToad...


And bye Karda.

838. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164660 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 1:50 pm

ThoughtsonCommonToad,

a 'God' in the theistic sense.

and

I'm not talking about a classic God

You see why I referred you to that comment of mine? "theistic sense" implies a deity of theism - and those are usually those I dealt with in that comment :)

839. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164657 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Karda,

yes, I knew that already... it is of course idle speculation... but the general principle is that of the philosophical thought-experiment called "brain in a vat".

It's basically the same challenge as those of solipsism and Berkley-idealism. (though there are varying elements depending on whether you're talking about idealism, solipsism, brain in a vat or computer-simulation)

Most think it's just an interesting possibility whose probability can in principle never be calculated because of the inherent problem of skepticism (if we are living in a simulation, there is no guarantee whatsoever that those who run the simulation are going to give us the possibility to work out the probability of that)...


...and furthermore there is an interesting answer to the "brain in a vat" (doesn't matter if its just software btw) challenge from the field of philosophy of language, but I'm not in the mood of laying the argument out right now :)

840. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164651 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Of course science alone can also increase our potential for self-destruction - but reason, rationalism, enlightenment is more than that - and would see to it that this doesn't happen.

841. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164650 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 1:42 pm

stop this now. You are mutating in front of me. You are turning into...

... a sofa? (Sorry, couldn't resist the Douglas Adams reference :)

842. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164644 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 1:37 pm

but this universe could very plausibly have a 'God' in the theistic sense.

You'll get a straight "no it can't" from me there, for reasons already stated too often. Most recently (and very briefly) here:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2480,Gods-and-earthlings,Richard-Dawkins,page2#164400

843. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164638 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 1:35 pm

Science, History, Philosophy - I agree...

Poetry/Literature can teach us something where it either tells us facts in a direct or indirect way (though whether these are facts has to be determined by science, history, philosophy...) - and it can enlighten us about aspects of our own mind didn't know or had repressed. But it can also deceive us about just that.

Experience and emotion can do that as well - no factual statements can be derived from that at all.

As for Meditation and prayer - those can also only tell us something about our own mind - and even then, no statements about facts other than "these are the emotions, experiences I am having" can be justifiably derived from that.

Discussion/Debate has to refer back to the first three if you want to learn something about the universe from that.

844. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164621 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 1:15 pm

Well of course our intelligence and creativity as the source of our culture has shaped our evolution at least in the way that we (at least we in first-world countries) are able to reduce selection pressure through shelter, through abundance of food and water, through technology, also through our means of travel and individual freedom increasing the set of potential mates (from distant countries for example) etc.

These are huge effects on the selection, but they are not in the same way deliberate shaping of evolution as by employing technology to modify the genome itself.

845. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164583 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 12:29 pm

Since this is of personal interest to me -

Steve, did I get my facts straight at least in general in post 2845?

846. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164575 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 12:25 pm

Karda,

the chicken example will not do - artificial selection is only possible through control of breeding - and complete control over evolution only through control of choice of mate and environment.

847. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164571 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 12:21 pm

Addendum: what I was alluding to by saying "it is enlightenment that will in the end[...]" was that only through science and rationality in general did we and can we find out what really threatens our lives, develop means to avert the disaster and employ them - irrationality will be detrimental to that, even if it only takes up resources of time and energy - but that is by far not the only way in which it impedes the above.

Enlightenment is of tantamount importance.

848. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164564 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 12:17 pm

On the topic of evolution and teleology.

We know that the mutations that are "filtered" by natural selection are random. Some may be triggered by deterministic, calculable events - and thus a laplacian demon could know that beforehand and intended it by setting of evolution - but as far as I know, some mutations in the genome are due to radiation produced by the genuinely random radioactive decay - and as such could not even in principle be intended. Seeing as at least some of the mutations caused by this would have to have been beneficial, the effect of this random mutation based on a genuinely random event is cumulative, and as such the product of billions of years of evolution is certainly not even in principle possibly intended - and evolution cannot in principle be completely teleological.

That is - if I got my facts straight.... over to you, Steve...

849. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164534 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 11:42 am

epeeist,
Too much month at the end of the money... tell me about it :)

Indeed I do disagree with moderationsmuse. I agree that even if science had no bearing on anything, and would just be the seeking and providing of knowledge (interestingly, the German word for science is "Wissenschaft", literally the creation/development of knowledge) - it would still be extremely worthwhile.

But it does have a bearing on so many things - myths, everyday beliefs, the quality of life through medicine and technology etc.
For a complete rationalist, I can see science being "cosy" in the sense of not triggering mental discomfort when one holds beliefs that are incompatible with science and also being provided with a corpus of fascinating hypotheses, theories and data. It certainly is not and ought not to be (IMO) an ivory tower discipline... I am a rationalist, and an advocate of enlightenment - and as such think enlightening people is practically a duty of the already enlightened.

Enlightenment, as Kant famously said, is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.

The German word for "disappointment" is "Enttäuschung", literally "dis-deceivement" or "dis-'illusionment'"- and that's what enlightenment is in a positive sense. Taking away elements of self-(illusion) and self-(deception) from people. What could do this better than education in science and philosophy?

When science shatters illusions, some of them held dear that is IMO a good, worthwhile and partially necessary thing in the end.

There might be, as Nietzsche suggested, necessary (self-)deceptions... but I'm not entirely sure, and don't think that this is really a problem. We can go about our lifes with the background knowledge that many of our everyday preconceptions (that the future will resemble the past, that there is a material world around us etc) are not completely beyond any doubt, but still hold these conceptions as pragmatic necessities. That does not mean one should not seek enlightenment.

It is enlightenment that will in the end be the only way to save our lives, our species, other species, maybe the planet...

if it takes "robbing" (by education, not by force and coercion) some people of their comfortable
superstitions and misconceptions - that seems to me to be worth it.

850. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164520 by MPhil on April 20, 2008 at 11:05 am

epeeist,

ah thank you... I've been meaning to ask what you thought of my list :)

Once you're through with the Knowledge compendium (only took me a year :) there's an interesting new development in epistemology... until now, everyone has always tried to analyze knowledge as "true belief X"... Timothy Williamson has written a book where he lays out a completely new approach... taking knowledge as basic, and analyzing the concepts of belief, evidence and justification through knowledge, not the other way round. Once this semester is over - I'll tell you if it is indeed as revolutionary as the approach suggests.

I do hope you'll find these books as fascinating as I (and thousands of others) did... come to think of it, I'm pretty much positive that you will...

Anyway - if you're interested in discussing any of these once you've read them - I would be happy to.

Best,
-Mike