Benjamin

This will be a forum page were one can post hilarious examples of funny rhetoric, nonsensical madness and any other piece of text that could make our days more fun and enjoyable.

Why are you so anry

No reason to put up such a face

XD       XD          XD

You cannot predict what number your dice will land on, but still, we understand that the laws of physics cause the randomness, not acausuality

Clearly, this is the definition of probability.

My option B was a definition under which we assume we already know the inner workings of the system in which the probable event supposedly could happen

Yeah, I did not understand the importance of that, as this is my first forum debate.

If there is no cause for an event, there can be no probabilistic model. Or do you mean that "probability" in this case refers to God rolling dice, waiting to get all one million dice to show the number six, and then he will release the purple flying elephants?

Sorry, I am new to debating, what does OP mean?

 

Why?

Why is there no flying pink elephants in space? Because there is no cause.

In other words, the event "flying pink elephants" is only held back because of causality.

Tell me, do you believe that an event can happen out of nowhere, without any cause?

Sorry, I mean no disrespect, but to me, that sounds ridiculous.

And we have never found such a claim to be true, while we constantly prove that what we thought were random or uncaused, in reality, has a logical explanation.

Tell me why you think that only certain "acusual" event can possibly happen, like quantum mechanics but not pink flying elephants

I would dispute that. 

From my point of view, the only thing I can be absolutely sure about is that "I" exist.

Thus any fact about the outside world, of which we do not have full insight into, would be lesser than the fact that "I" exist.

Fact: an observation about reality or the universe.

If "I" do not exist, then observations do not exist except as molecules moving around.

In conclusion, I can be more sure that "I" exist than the fact that my brain is physical.

Yeah, 3RU7AL, I see that we have a lot in common.

The problem I see with many world views, including my religion Christianity, is the belief in non-casual or illogical effects.

People I have talked to seem to believe that God, or randomness or some other concept is illogical in nature. In fact, both free will and randomness is at least possible to exist as a complex logical system. Computers can calculate random numbers and the logical laws of physics create free will, not as an illusion but a description of humans. It is easy to understand why Christians can believe that God is beyond logic, while to me that seems nonsensical, as even in the bible he clearly reacts to our actions not randomly but rationally. Now with atheists, they often have the exact same problem. They believe that the big bang was "true randomness", thus illogical and not requiring any cause. The view I hold can comprehend both a logical God and logical randomness.

drafterman & co seem to use an argument from ignorance to prove that illogical concepts could in fact exist.

Also, I really disagree with statements like these:

If we accept human logic as a necessary tool for debating, I could easily prove how strange and stupid real illogical concepts would really be. :

1. Illogical events or things require no cause

2. Thus the lack of a cause would not stop an illogical event from happening

3. Every illogical thing possible would exist and happen at the same time constantly. The only reason why there are no flying pink elephants is that logic requires a cause

When talking about logic I do not mean human reasoning, which is limited, but causality, which theoretically would only make sense if universal.

3RU7AL, what do you think about "I". As far as science and philosophy have come, there is no explanation for why "I" exist. Without "I" existing, the experience of being alive, my human body and brain would not see any difference. What do you think this "I" is, a soul, atoms, nothing?

Faith is necessary anyways, as without faith in reason one cannot be sure about anything.

The faith here is simple:

1. Science proves that humans are purely physical processes, which would render "I" nonexistent

2. My experience is that "I" is not the same as my body

3. In conclusion, my experience clearly points towards a soul, while science clearly points towards my body

It is not contradictory to believe in a soul, even if you trust science.

My point regarding this topic is that even if a soul exists, it most probably is logical. So the thing all people from all religions and world views should agree on is the idea that everything is logical, nothing happens without a cause.

Logical: The idea that every cause A has an effect B

That no cause stands without effect and vice versa.

The only illogical event would be one that did not have a cause.

Yes different factors affect the result. But you claimed that conciousnes is basicly ONLY atoms. I Belive that a "soluts" is what transforms "conciousness" into the experience we feel.

Your definition of consciousness does not explain why I exist as a person, just how my body reacts to the world.

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Yeah. From a purely naturalistic standpoint, consciousness would not exist. Our body would be no more "conscious" than a pile of dust. Yes, our body reacts to stimuli, saves memory and takes action, but without a "soul", the experiences we have should not exist. They must be a metaphysical concept because matter does not inhibit the ability to create "experience". By experience I mean feeling like a person, we feel like having a body, not being a body. If we think of the experience as a purely material product, I do not believe we can trust our own objective existence, as "I" do not exist, only the atoms my body is built of. That is the reason why everybody must have a world view beyond science.

The question really is not how our brains make decisions, but what metaphysical thing makes us "feel" alive, even if a computer could simulate a brain, I doubt that consciousness would feel "alive"

Why? You have exactly the same brain, with the same quantum states.

It doesn't matter.

God means in this case:

1. The cause of the universe

2. The one with perfect knowledge of the universe

3. The one with perfect reasoning abilities

My point is, everything we know abides by the rules of logic.

Humans do not follow a set of logical rules, we follow the laws of physics, which are a set of logical rules. Your viewpoint is based on the idea that we must be described from the perspective of another human. When God looks at humans he would know everything going on inside our brain, and to him, our actions would seem as logical effects of the laws of physics.

As with quantum mechanics and radiation, it is no real argument. Quantum mechanics clearly show us that a cause (like "observing" a particle) actually has a logical effect (collapsing the wave function). The wave function is just a piece of probability that fits the pattern with which particles move. There is no reason to believe that a seemingly random process that only outputs a single number (position) and also fits inside a probabilistic model, would not be logical in nature. Again we might never understand the randomness in quantum mechanics because the process is to small to detect and understand. But assuming that we are looking at actual, non-casual randomness would be totally blind faith. Evolution, rolling dice, the decimals of pie, humans and even cars act randomly, because of logical reasons, namely the laws of physics.

The point to take away is that everything is logical, except fantasies we could make up and hope are true.

I agree with that definition to some extent. 

But the problem for me is that our brains should react to stimuli without feeling "existence". A computer as complex as our brain would not necessarily perceive the world, rather it would just react to it. If consciousness is purely a product of atoms then how come our brains react to stimuli while another consciousness, named the soul, perceives our world just spectating it through our bodies. Consciousness as a product of atoms would not need to "see" our world, as the information needed could be processed directly by our brains.

If somebody made an exact clone of me, and we killed me, would that still have my consciousness? 

Scientifically, there is no major difference between a couple of atoms and a fully functional human when it comes to the fact that it must follow all the laws of physics.

Free will could be described as being the result of highly complex chemistry in our brains. Consciousness is a little bit different. If an atom cannot have consciousness why can humans have? I mean, imagine a human without consciousness, we would not know the difference since it would act the same way, as free will can be a result of complexity. Consciousness is not scientific, but metaphysical. I cannot even understand why it exists.

Let us make a thought experiment, imagine that we are able to simulate free will and a human body in a computer. Consciousness could not be detected, since a human with and without consciousness would react in the same way to our communication. I think that such a computer-simulated-human would simply not "feel" existence, rather it would just calculate its own feelings and show them to us. 

The existence of consciousness is one of the reasons I am a Christian, it proves to me that a soul exists. To me, it does not matter if this metaphysical consciousness can affect my brain physically, as long as it makes me more than a complex structure of atoms.

What do you mean, do you reject the scientific fields of chemistry, biology and psychology. Humans literally exist dependant on the purely logical laws of physics. A computer operates under the exact same laws of physics, and it is purely logical. Are you claiming as a fact that an illogical soul exists that actually moves atoms around in our head in order to make our actions illogical? Such a thing could only exist in a religious doctrine, as science could never prove such a thing.

Can you please defend this view, that we cannot be certain that processes are logical? Has gravity ever been negative? Has quantum mechanics ever created a flying purple elephant? Science is built upon this thing you call "not evident": Any process in existence is a logical one. Theism does not claim illogicallity exist, neither does atheism.

As I stated above, without causality everything would exist at the same time, everywhere. There would be no rule of logic that made sure explosions did not happen inside our heads. Do you talk about the ultimate reality, explain how God or the alternative could be non-casual.

Thank you for pointing out the part about definitions, though.

A logic event or result has a cause

An illogical event would have no cause

So unless we want to think that outside our universe basically everything possible happens at the same time even without a cause, we must think that cause and effect exist outside our universe.

Consciousness is was distinguishes us, humans, or God, from a computer. In that every decision we make change our internal status as well as the outside world.

No, I believe that logic is not a rule God must follow, rather it is a part of his nature. 

Both logic and revelation point towards God. 

The problem that I see is that your view makes wrong conclusions.

I believe humans are made of atoms. Would you call that "elevating atoms" until they are equal to or even above humans. No of course not. Since God is the ultimate reality and is logical in nature, that means that logic is a part of his nature, not that logic is above him. The reason I divide God into logic is that we can talk about other world views in the same category. Because if any view of the ultimate reality cannot be described by logic we can easily reject it. 

Yes, I agree, but I disagree with the assumptions. I believe that no truth is logical in nature, they are "true" in nature. But logic is the only way in which a cause can "cause" an effect. Some truths we just assume are true, like consciousness. Just because we cannot logically prove a fact does not mean it is not a fact, it just means that the explanation we cannot find still needs to be logical. We do not know what consciousness works, but it would be far fetched to believe that it, contrary to anything we can explain, is illogical in nature.

You think my reasoning goes like this

1. Everything is logical

2. Some things, like morality, have no logical explanation

3. Some truths are subjective

My actual reasoning goes like this

1. Everything is logical

2. Some things, like consciousness, have no logical explanation

3. Some truths, like consciousness, are based on the knowledge we humans do not possess, but still must be a logical explanation

Consciousness exists even if we humans cannot understand him.

What I mean by "Logic" is not human reasoning, but rather a cause and effect relationship between to truths. 

I do not claim only things we can understand exist, but that anything possible could be understood by an outside observer, God for instance.

I agree that it is a Faith of mine that logic must exist.

I see why you disagree with my claim that anything logical must exist based on the fact that humans can never create a logical system incorporating all knowledge

However, this version of my argument is the appropriate one:

1. Anything that exists can be described by one or more truth claims

2. Any process in existence is a logical one

3. Anything that is untrue or illogical cannot exist

No illogical process has ever been recorded or proven, and claiming that illogical processes exist outside of our universe is like claiming "A wizard did it"

By logical, I mean that a cause A has a clear and only effect B so that the effect is completely dependant on the cause. A non-logical cause and effect process can not exist as the definition of non-logic would be that an effect B happen independently of a cause A

I will use God as an example as except for randomness, only supernatural beings are claimed to operate independently of logic:

For example, if one believes that God is spirit and thus does not abide by the laws of logic, then one must ask themselves this question: how does God make decisions then, randomly? And by the way, randomness is a product of logical systems. You can literally get random numbers by calculating irrational decimals, or by rolling dice. Math is a logical process because the output is 100% dependant on the input. Maybe a spirit makes choices using free will then? Free will is an emergent feature of our brain, which operates by the totally logical laws of physics. Thus even God must follow the laws of logic.

Now one could claim that this "spirit" does not operate under the law of logic, that it is simply a law God created for our universe. Now, this is theoretically possible, but then again how could we then understand him, be made in his image or even describe him. The only viable idea here is to think that both God and humans have a spirit, but that would be, like I said, to claim that "a wizard did it". One could not claim that a process such as randomness or free will, that have been proven to be an emergent feature of logical physical laws, could exist independent of logic outside our universe. Claiming that true randomness or true free will exists outside our universe independent on logic, would be like claiming that "a wizard did it" when the questions of randomness or free will emerge inside our universe. Ultimately one cannot claim that free will and randomness exist inside and outside our universe with different properties. The only reasonable conclusion would be that either does randomness, logic and free will exist only inside our universe, or accept that it must be based on logic also outside our universe. In other words, God, if he has free will, must be an emergent feature of logical processes. The same thing goes for randomness, it cannot exist based on logic in our universe but independent of logic outside our universe.