Total posts: 3,052
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
My attitude to 'knowing stuff' is that I think everything is provisional, and while one cannot know -for example - the BB was the origin of the universe, it is a good bet that the origin of the universe resembles the BB more than it resembles an eternal steady-state universe or a divinely created one. Were I obsessed with rigour then I'd have no choice bit to sit on the fence. I could fib and say i am open-minded, but i'm not. The origin of the universe was big bang like. i am aware of alternative theories, but i judge the BB to be the closest to the truth. I am ar more interested in thinking about the consequences of that than questioning it.
I will worry about new evidence for the steady state or divine creation if and when it arises- i've already evualated the evidence i am aware of, and rejected it. i don't see the point in re-evaluating the same anti-bb arguments over and over.
Created:
-->
@PGA2.0
What, in your view is the difference between what is moral and what is immoral?
Created:
Posted in:
I am less reluctant because I can always change my mind if it turns out I'm wrong!
Created:
Posted in:
Rocks show no sign of being conscious, have no mechanism to implement consciousness and have no reason to be conscious. I'd bet money they aren't conscious!
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
I think there are conscious things because we naturally classify things as conscious and unconscious. A rock is not conscious, a human being is. I don't put tat forward as proven or true but as a 'point of departure' for investigating what consciousness is. We can drop andamend our ideas a we proceed. Do you think it is unreasonable to suppose rocks are not conscious?
Created:
Posted in:
I am not asking you to make or define a distinction. I asked if you think you (or is it your brain) implements consciousness or implements s simulation of consciousness. In chalmer's terms, do you think you are a p-zombie?
Created:
Posted in:
Do you think that your brain implements consciousness or does it implement a sophisticated simulation of consciousness?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
U2 is not u1 because u2 did not exist until consciousness arose.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
My view is u2 is built on u1, not u2 on u1 as fallaneze contends. Many people argue reality is u1 or that it is u2, but I think reality is both, at least for conscious entities. U1 is mindless and pointless and is the nihistic void some people find distressing. But ,u2 - brought about by the advent of consciousness - is what gives the universe meaning.
Created:
Posted in:
That could well be so, but it's not my main intent. My point is that things like atoms, gravity and inertia are aspects of u1 and things like love , duty and desire are appcts of u2 - IE they didn't exist until consciousness existed. As creatures of u2 duty and desire are 'forces', possibly more important than the physical forces of u1.,
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
I 'sorta' get his attribute lists, but I see them applying to the u1 (physical) and u2 (mental) realms of my model. I suppose rocks live in u1 only, but we humans live with a foot in both u1 and u2.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fallaneze
You wrote that the existence of the material world depends on consciousness, but I would say it is only the perception of the world that requires consciousness. The only consciousnesses we know exist are bound up with very complex material objects (brains). Roughly, my view is that 14 billion years purely physical universe came into being, and much later some of that matter became organised as brains and thus bringing consciousness into being. I don't say that is provable - it is my 'working hypothesis'. So I don't go for 'an external world' but I think about two complementary worlds - u1 the physical/material universe and u2 the mental universe
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
But my desires are MY desires! I do not exercise free will by sorting letters according to zip code... That is being a mindless robot. Whatever it's source, my desire to join the circus is my will, not my boss's! I'm OK with not being able to choose what it is I desire because that is as good as it gets. At least I have desires - not all objects or entities are so lucky!
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
What does the word 'choice' mean? If a computer hits a branch instruction in its program it will go one way or the other but the computer does not have any choice. Spiders - I expect - are hard wired with rules that specify their behaviour in any given situation, so no real choice there either.
Why not say a choice(in this context) is a selection made in response to a desire?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
I have never wanted to join the circus, but I have wanted other things. I know what it is like to have a desire. As an engineer I know how machines work and - unless real magic is involved - machines don't have the interacting parts needed to produce a genuine desire.
If a machine was to have a dream of circus stardom it would have to have a than two cogs and a lever.
If I use more cogs I could make a more life-like fake of 'wanting', but I am not sure I can make a machine feel a desire as I feel desires.
Created:
Posted in:
Is it just a matter of sophistication? The problem I have with that is that I am a very experienced computer programmer but I have no idea how to program a sorting machine with the desire to join a circus! I know how to fake it and give an impression of having a desire, but not the real thing.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Mopac
@3RU7AL
Perhaps we could ask how it is that a person might well want to join a circus but no sorting machine has ever wanted to.
Created:
Posted in:
If it is caused it is not free and if uncaused it is not willed.
Given the attention free will has received from philosophers, you'd have thought there was more to it...
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Mopac
@3RU7AL
I don't think caused/uncaused is what matters. What matters is whether the cause of the choice is 'self' or 'non-self'.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
The vid is a bit lawyer-oriented, not philosophy based, but the issue is a good one!
Historically, probably only high status adult males of a given ethnicity could be confident they had full rights.
Created:
Posted in:
Is that what you find comforting about free will, or is it just the rest of us who find it comforting?
As I see it, the puzzle of free will is not really seperable from the puzzles of consciousness and self.
Which is not a useful thing to say. I admit. But I hope no-one expected a solution!
Created:
Posted in:
I wonder why you said 'comforting'!
It's not quite a fiction because I can ask questions such as what is the minimal set-up that can support free will. Dry leaves do not manifest free will, humans do.
Is the self a fiction or the one thing we can be certain about as Descartes held?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
I am not very interested in the phenomenon that bru calls free will. The free will I am interested in is concerned with the role of self. I want my actions and choices to be determined, not random! Specifically, I want my choices and actions to be determined by my desires or preferences.
I am not worried that I 'can't choose my preferences' - it is imo more significant that I do have prefernces and can choose to act on them - because leaves in the wind can't do either.
I get why I am like a leaf blowing in wind - but how I different is more interesting!
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
I suggest the third alternative is to recognise free will as a cause in its own right.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@PGA2.0
I don't have a "moral framework" - what i have is a rag-tag collection of instincts and intuitions that result in me judging some things as good and other things as bad.
I don't know, but I firmly believe, humans evolved a 'sense of morality' because it encourages behaviour suitable for a eusoial species.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stronn
It is not true that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
I agree. That adage is downright misleading! I'd accept 'absence of proof is not proof of absence'.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stephen
...or just simple politics pandering to the religious.
The religious of which religion?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@K_Michael
'Classical' natural selection is the result of variation between individuals tending to make some individuals live longer and have more offspring than others. Selection was the result of a daily struggle to survive, not a goal or planned outcome.
I expect that having more intelligence was a Darwinian advantage in our ape-like ancestors, but it is not clear that being more intelligent today means you have more offspring. If anything, the opposite is probably true.
I doubt we are more intelligent now than previously. We are, however, much better educated.
I'd say that genetic evolution is glacially slow compared to social evolution. It is likely that human society will be very different in 500 years - but I dout our genome will be much changed in that period.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@K_Michael
What is new is that humans are (very plausibly!)the only species that have the concept of evolution and has any conscious control over it. Darwin and Wallace correctly identified natural selection as the prime driver of adaptive evolution for most of the history of life, but it is clear that these days evolution is shaped by our (ie humanity's) will, not 'survival of the fittest'.
100,000 years ago no species had the conceptual apparatus or power to direct evolution. (affect yes, but not to plan it). Now it would be absurd to ignore humanity's conscious plans if you want to predict the path of evolution. The species and individuals that survive are not the fittest any more - they are the one's we choose to survive and breed. Natural selection has practically disappeared and all selection is now artificial.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stronn
What's interesting is that the example of the 10ft tall gold statue of Zeus is more likely false than true, yet your view is that this negative claim should be harder to justify than the positive claim.Not harder to justify--harder to verify. Justifying belief in the absence of any such statue is straightforward. If no such statue has been observed or reported, that, along with knowing the difficulty of constructing such a statue and the rarity of gold, are enough justification for disbelief. Presumably this is how you determined it to be more likely false then true.
There is also the important difference between 'rigorous' and 'reasonable doubt' levels of proof. One can provide rigorous proof a gold statue of zeus exists simply by putting it on show, but you can only ever prove no such statue exists 'beyond reasonable doubt', never prove it absolutely.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
The distinction is meaningless. I disbelieve both.
What is it with binary thinking? Perhaps I'm so old I still think in analogue shades of gray!
I don't believe in that BB theory in it's present form is the complete answer and solution to 'where do we come from?', but I do believe it is a lot closer to the truth than Moses' six-day theory.
I believe the final answer will be a refinement of the BB. If you think in black and white then I too 'disbelieve' the BB because its not a perfect theory yet, but my disbelief towards the BB is not the same kind of disbelief I have towards Genesis.
What you wrote implies you have exactly the same attitude towards Genesis and the BB. I'll concede they are both wrong, but the important thing is they are wrong in different ways.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
@Fallaneze
Fallaneze wrote:
To make it short and sweet, you either believe the claim is untrue after hearing it or you don't believe it's untrue after hearing it. If you believe it's untrue, this is referred to as disbelieving it. If you don't believe the claim is untrue, but still don't believe it, then you neither believe nor disbelieve it. This is called mere non-belief.
To me it seems Fa defined disbelief of X as belief in not-X, so which is the belief and which is the disbelief depends how a proposition is worded.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
I reject both hypotheses based on their untestable nature.
I submit you reject neither, not both.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
I believe the 'unconscious BB' model of creation is essentially correct and the conscious creator model is essentially incorrect..
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stephen
You will just have to keep wondering.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fallaneze
My definition of God is a prime, eternal consciousness and creator of the universe
I think the important word is 'conscious'. Many atheists believe in a 'prime, eternal creator' of the universe called 'the big bang', but the BB is generally considered mindless and unconscious and hence it is not a 'god'.
I think there is no conscious entity that created the universe for his inscrutable purposes who listens to and answers
prayers and sends the dead to either heaven or hell.
I do believe there was a big bang, and we got from there to here - not by conscious planning and intelligent interventions by a god but - by the playing out of cause and effect ever since.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stephen
I detest systems based on theistic myths and nonsense.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
@Stronn
@Fallaneze
@Mopac
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fallaneze
One approach - I don't think it's appeared on DA yet - is to take fictional characters (such as the FSM and Holmes) as objects with their own sort of quasi existence. God is certainly a character in the bible- is he anything more?
But we are moving away from discussing free will.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@janesix
If we two had the money we couldhire abunch of programmers, buy a super-computer and run our own climate models. Assuming you don't own a super-computer and run your own cimate models on it, what reason is there to disagree with the IPCC?Climate change is a fact. That humans had anything to do with it is an interpretation I disagree with.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fallaneze
The FSM is a 'fictional character' and as such tricky to deal with.
Consider 'Did sherlock homes smoke a pipe?'.
Clearly yes - there are many mentions of Holmes pipe moking in the stories.
Clearly no, because sherlock holmes never actually existed and non existent things can't smoke pipes!
So does FSM refer to a fictional character or to the subect of that fiction?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@janesix
What's wrong with western science? Antibiotics and vaccines have saved billions more lives than accupucture ever has.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@janesix
I don't believe everything I read with 'pyradmid' or 'ancient' in the title.
I think your search for 'the truth' is great... but I think you are looking in the wrong places.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@janesix
And this time next week you will believe something else.God created this universe,and I believe he did it through numbers and vibration.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fallaneze
Now all that is needed is to get everyone to adopt that convention - and use it properly every time!To make it short and sweet, you either believe the claim is untrue after hearing it or you don't believe it's untrue after hearing it. If you believe it's untrue, this is referred to as disbelieving it. If you don't believe the claim is untrue, but still don't believe it, then you neither believe nor disbelieve it. This is called mere non-belief.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Alec
The UK will operate an opt-out system from next year.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
@Stronn
@Fallaneze
if I say 'the capital of Benin is Ouagadougou' then you might not believe me in two ways;
1 - you might think it is only possibly true
2 - you might know for sure its not true.
I have no idea which posters take which position, nor which posters would describe their position as 'not accepting' or as 'rejecting', as 'disbelief' or as 'non-belief'! English just isn't defined that precisely! There is no right or wrong answer to what words and terms are correct for each case nor what case the words refer to.
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto
Let's call the whole thing off
(George and Ira Gershwin)
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
My attitude towards many 'factoids' is to trust my hunches. Pedantically, I don't know (for example)that there are no gods, but I judge 'no gods' as a safe assumption to make, so i make it. That means all my reasoning could be wrong, but I see that as a small price to pay for not getting bogged down at square one!
I don't know how open I am to a good argument that god exists because I haven't heard any new ones for more than 30 years! i doubt any theist on DA has anything to say on the matter I haven't heard before. In short, I will continue to assume god does not exist until something causes me to change my mind. It might not even be a proof god exists - a demonstration that god is likely would probably do. But that seems unlikely to happen so I make no provison for it.
In general, I have no problem with making assumptions because its always possible to junk them and start again if neccessay. i think that is what Aristotle meant by 'entertaining' ideas.
Created: