Do you think your god would interfere with the data you collect?
Good question. Not for me of course, I don’t have one of those things. But it’s the Descartes evil demon thought experiment. First, are you being controlled by a demon? Second, how would we know? Is it letting you feel happy sometimes just to trick you? Is it letting you believe you can think and reason for yourself, creating a logical world for you to interact with? Are you in the Matrix, providing energy to the machines while you experience in the dream world?
Descartes escaped the experiment by saying there is a benevolent perfect being behind it all but left us on an island where without a way off. Hume set us adrift by showing that the total skeptic would be paralyzed by the impossibility of making any decisions. I ask, what else can we do? We use the skills and abilities we are born with to figure out what’s true, always knowing that our knowledge will change in the future.
It’s ironic we have someone going around complaining about people saying he displays a double standard, and call him disingenuous and some even go so far as to consider him an out and out Intellectual Vandal, in the spirit of a Singer or Lindzen. He’s very offended, telling us he’s here for intellectual conversation and that others are picking on him unfairly.
Yet this person has explicitly invited me to start this thread a couple times. It’s here now. He’s been vigorously posting about his perceived unfair treatment this morning - but he chooses to ignore this post that’s pretty much dedicated to him helping clarify his position to us.
Now that’s what I call disingenuous game playing - this commentary has nothing to do with ad hom, it is a descriptive.
Lausten thanks for the thoughtful response:
Lausten: Descartes escaped the experiment by saying there is a benevolent perfect being behind it all but left us on an island where without a way off. Hume set us adrift by showing that the total skeptic would be paralyzed by the impossibility of making any decisions. I ask, what else can we do? We use the skills and abilities we are born with to figure out what’s true, always knowing that our knowledge will change in the future.
What a stupid topic designed to be confrontational. Who’s trolling now??
Sometimes it seems tit for tat. That said, maybe, Citizenschallenge-v.3, you could have ignored said person, if you thought it was a set up, you weren’t interested in fulling the request, or what have you. However, said person may have a clue as to who you were referring to. Needless to say, I have an idea of who you are referring to and it might have been best not to post it, if you didn’t want to post or if you thought there were alterier movetives. Just some thoughts.
That said, I don’t have such a concept, no whatever deity you’re referring doesn’t interfere with date because said deity does not exist except in the minds of some humans.
If “in the mind”, “faith”, and “belief” all meant the same thing, then we wouldn’t need the different words. I don’t think anyone here has expressed the thought that they believe there is no real mind-body problem. If they did, I’d probably refer to neuroscience, that has some real information on that, but has not solved the problem. I don’t think looking up all of these definitions and discussing them would yield much at this point, so I’ll say what usually do about science; if you believe in empiricism, you’re doing it wrong.
Empiricism is a theory, so it’s not dogma. I know many people make the mistake of thinking it’s some sort of truth in itself, but they are wrong, or they just haven’t thought about it that much because they are too busy discovering the different varieties of Cuervo. More power to ‘em. But if you do think about such things, the starting point should be that you are theorizing. All methods of scientific inquiry include the premise that they themselves (the methods, the assumptions) can be shown to be wrong. Without that, you aren’t doing science.
What a crock Sherlock. You are suggesting that investigating hypotheses using the scientific method has no more basis for learning new things than does simply having faith in some religious dogma. If that were the case, how come we know so much more than we used to, by virtue of science?
What a stupid topic designed to be confrontational. Who’s trolling now??Gosh all the victims, cry me a river Player. He's the one that invited this thread, if anything it's TRAWLING I'm doing you goof-ball.
What is confrontational? We got Holmes running around here trumpeting the ID notion, dripping contempt on serious scientific efforts, misrepresenting and hiding known facts - why the hell should he get a free ride?
Every time I ask him to give us a simple description of what his ID is and what good it is to science - he plays games instead.
I’m trying to get him out of his closet and to say a thing or two about what he believes or at least what in the universe his version of ID is - while he rather play gotcha word games.
“I’m trying to get him out of his closet and to say a thing or two about what he believes or at least what in the universe his version of ID is – while he rather play gotcha word games.”
BORING
Besides it’s a good question.
Holmes: "The belief for example that empiricism is the only way to knowledge is such a belief, they belief that the world around is wholly materialistic, the belief that there is no real mind-body problem, the belief that consciousness is a wholly mechanistic process?You may believe some or all of these yet this is also “in the mind” – none of these beliefs are provable, they are faith."
Wow, I don’t have the philosophical reading under my belt to do that justice. All I have is a personal memory, before I was ten, had friend a year or two older, Chicago neighborhoods, narrow three story apartments, except that his family owned/rented? the top two floors. They had these metal “portable” closets, three on two floors and three different room, all identical. On various occasions this kid would try to convince me there was only one closet that moved between the rooms and challenged me to prove him wrong. Back then we was into the spiritual mysteries, ghost and stuff like that. But, not that much, it didn’t seem right, so I played devil’s advocate with myself quite a bit over that, how could I disprove him while confined to one room. Never did come up with an answer. He was also told me he believed (well he way playing a younger kid, so who knows what he “believed”) than when you closed your eyes the world wasn’t out there.
In the end it seemed to me that believing his story about the closet, or his notion that my consciousness could have that kind of effect on the world around me, was the way to insanity. Holmes words sound like that sort of unhinging to me.
I guess Holmes is right my Mindscape is based on some fundamental beliefs.
I am a subordinate part of the universe. I live within it’s reality. We all externally experience the same physical reality. What varies greatly is in how we perceive it, what will we be “present” to. How many data points we collect with every experience and so on.
I believe we need each other to keep ourselves honest.
I believe science is at its most fundamental a set of agreed upon rules and process that offers the best chance of gathering an objective appreciation for the physical world around us and her ways and means.
Science consists of a global community of dedicated people who have studied and struggled in the field, focusing their lives on learning and better understanding the world we live within. Honesty is a cornerstone of that society not matter how hard it is for politicos to appreciate! That honesty is guaranteed by a community of educated, informed, critical, competitive individuals looking over each others shoulders.
Now Holmes and his type do produce those wonderful lofty idealistic words - the problem is; and where it all falls apart, is that Dr. Holmes’ side depends on slandering scientists and experts, respectable productive humans, enraging emotions, misdirecting their audience for the matter at hand - which was supposed to be a better understanding our Earth and her processes.
They offer no evidence - it’s cherry picking, arguments of incredulity and a theatrical contempt towards serious science.
Driving confusion rather than clarification - why shouldn’t serious people call it out???
@Holmes I think you may find this video interesting- Why We Believe in Gods - Andy Thomson - American Atheists 09 - YouTube It’s an hour long and it’s called Why We Believe in Gods, lecture by Andy Thompson, a psychiatrist. I found it a very interesting and fascinating lecture. I do believe the idea of a deity is a human creation and only exists in believers’ minds. Anyway, I think you may also find the video interesting.