• Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    What about all life killed in the name of science, the atom bomb, the knowledge terrorists possess to create bombs, the airplanes used in 9/11?Hillary

    You are making really stupid and ignorant claims mrs Hillary!
    Nobody did those things "in the name of Science" you buffoon!!
    Science produces knowledge. What we humans decide to do with this knowledge is a different thing.!
    Its Politics and economics (pseudo philosophical solutions) responsible for those calls.
    Think before you post such ignorant claims Hillary!
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    I have the moral high ground, I have the intelligence to foresee how free will can affect behavior of biological species with drives and urges in a scarce and competitive environment....So I get to judge this magical made up being...not her
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    hah right, and I'm santa claus.SpaceDweller
    not an argument mate.

    -"morally superior to whom? "
    -to the god of the bible...
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    hah right, and I'm santa claus.SpaceDweller
    ...not an argument.

    -"Why would creator have to do what creation says? or why would parent listen to commandments of a child? "
    -because I am morally superior. The Cosmos knows that and he will force god to do some heavy explanation...
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    I taught maths and computer science for 30+ years you pompus ass!universeness
    then being that bad in Logic is inexcusable.

    -"You struggle to type a legible sentence."
    -Και εσυ δεν μπορείς να γραψεις μια λέξη στα ελληνικά αλλά δεν σε κρίνω!

    -"I don't need musings about probability from an interior designer."
    -Of course you need ....and my occupation is irrelevant.

    -"Stick to picking curtains and floor coverings."
    -ad hominem....these type of fallacies are expected by individuals who don't know how logic works.
    Can you make any relevant argument? I have exposed your ability to reason and your ignorance on how to calculate probabilities but you fail to explain why you are so bad in this.

    -"I referred to my own personal certainty regarding MY atheism."
    -No you didn't, you referred to the credence of the claim....not your certainty., at least be honest when one can point directly to what you wrote.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    His first wife Lillith was a rebel as well. Eve was its second attempt and she was a rebel too. — universeness


    I have no idea where did you get that from...
    SpaceDweller

    In the Hebrew bible mate!Adam was "married" twice!
    rejecting God is one thing, making wrong choices is unrelated:
    if I make a wrong choice I can fix it.
    if I reject God then I gave up my freedom because I can no longer fix my mistakes.
    SpaceDweller
    - If I reject god will be his fault because he was unable to provide the evidence needed to convince me.
    So when I die I will punish him for playing favorites (providing good evidence to other people).
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better

    lol No. ITs what logic tells us Hillary! Its what we should do with all claims and this is what con artist take advantage of when people with your logic do not demand evidence before a transaction!
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    I accept the claim untill it's falsified.Hillary
    lol you can not do that mrs Hillary. If you do that you leave the door open for more logical fallacies.
    If you accept a claim before it is demonstrated then you will be forced to accept all conflicting and competing claims on the same subject. In order NOT to do that you will be force to use Special Pleading and Cherry Picking or utilize your Cognitive Dissonance.
    You are arguing in favor of gullibility mrs Hillary! This is the exact tactic responsible for more than 4.300 different religions and 170+ non secular spiritual worldviews hijacking people's minds.

    You really need a course on Logic 101 asap!
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    If you are too lazy to proofread what you type then few people will have any idea what you are trying to say.universeness

    Sorry mate. The problem is not how lazy I am, but your inability to understand how we calculate probabilities and why percentages about your personal certainty are irrelevant to the credence of a claim....

    Yes you canuniverseness
    ok provide the "tools" by which you can arrive to a statistical figure..and I will come to your Nobel award ceremony....lol

    I know! and your quotes contradict each other. How sure are you about your atheism? Could you suggest a percentage quantifier so that others could gain a sense of how strong your atheism is?universeness
    -My atheism...again...is irrelevant to your factual wrong preconception that your degrees of personal certainty have anything to do with the statistical credence of a claim.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    Do you know what a logical fallacy is? How we define and identify them?
    A logical fallacy is a argument that uses known excuses and logical errors(ad populum,red herring,from ignorance etc) instead of objectively verified set of premises.
    So the existence of Logical Fallacies alone SHOULD remind you that you can not accept a claim before it is objectively verified....and claim that you are a reasonable individual.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    Wrong, dear Nickolast... Their existence comes first. Whether we are able to "objectively verify" their existence remains to be seen. Their existence is for me objectively verified in dream and thought.Hillary
    -wrong? lol I thought you were not interested in convincing me? hahaha

    -"Their existence is for me objectively verified in dream and thought."??? "for you is objectively verified" !!! hahahahahahahahaha
    Do you even know what "objectively" means???

    I had a dream and thought telling me that your dreams and thoughts are wrong.
    So I am objectively justified to dismiss your claims as wrong....lol

    I can not believe that a grown up would ever make such claims in public! You are really special Mr Hillary!
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    btw what gods and universeness's inability to understand how we define probabilities have to do with a discussion on how Pseudo Philosophical solutions (Economics/Politics) have meshed up our lives?
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    I mean, they either exist or they don't. What's so bad about it if they existed? We should be lucky they created a universe!Hillary
    -The time to accept their existence is only after you have managed to objectively verify their existence...not a second sooner.
    Well you can ...but you will be you, an irrational magical thinker.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    yes logic has no role in your reasoning......we all know it.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    I don't need advice from Mr Minutia who has already admitted to having sinister motives.
    Just in case you didn't understand my 0.1% belief level in the god posit, let me try to put it another way for you. I am 99.9% sure gods don't exist. Using a little basic logic to help you further. That means I am ALMOST 100% sure gods don't exist. I hope you understand a bit better now, you pompous ass
    universeness

    You are not just moving the goalposts...you are taking them for a walk with your dog! lol
    So now you are attempting to evaluate your certainty when in your initial claim you were give your personal value on the credence you of the claim itself.
    Here is your statement
    Many worlds is a posit I personally consider to have a higher credence to the 0.1% credence I assign to the god posit.universeness

    As I have explained to you, you can not do that. You can not provide a probability number on a supernatural claim.
    A percentage about your certainty, sure you can do that, provide a point and appear to Mr Hillary that you are "open minded".
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    People value their possessions. In many cases they the only thing that allows them to think they are important or successful. Possession is a building block for the hierarchy in our societies...our failed societies.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    Don't apologise.universeness
    I am sorry.

    -"I accept your limited understanding of logic."
    -That is part of the problem you have with your reasoning... You think that others don't get it..lol

    In the REAL world REAL PEOPLE use percentages to quantify a belief level towards a particular posit all of the time.universeness
    -And we call them irrational individuals. This is why most of us are really bad calculating probabilities and lose their money in gamble.......or believe in weird claims.

    -" Mathematical validity has nothing to do with it."
    -Of course it has dear. If you are suggesting statistical probabilities of an idea over an other...you will need to have numbers to compare. If you don't then your conclusion is not valid.

    You know this fine well but you choose to roleplay the indignant analyst and search for some points of minutia you can give the kiss of life to. You simply come across as a pompous ass.universeness
    -Finding excuses won't make your irrational attempt define probabilities in numbers!!!! on ideas that have no numbers to offer look better. I might have sinister motives...but your screwup stands on its own.

    Why is the fact that basic logic is very much employed in science so difficult for you! Mr Minutia!universeness
    Logic is employed in science, but in your case we don't need science to spot the error in your reasoning. So why using Science as an excuse for your mistake.
    You should use Logic and its rules in all the aspects of your life...even when arguing against magical thinkers.
  • Paradox: Do women deserve more rights/chance of survival in society?

    btw...why are you saying "evolutionary important". Maybe at some stage of the human evolution , women were more important than other genders. Does that mean that we should reflect a million year old importance in how we discriminate people in our modern human societies.
    How about monkeys....their ancestors did play a role in our evolution...should we grand them special rights?
    Your excuse sounds nonsensical but I would like to look at the criteria you use to define importance and of course on how you make the jump past importance this to the act of "justified discrimination".
  • Paradox: Do women deserve more rights/chance of survival in society?
    The fact that women are evolutionary more important than men is a documented issue. I will not discuss that in this thread, especially with anyone who has not researched it.ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

    -Evolutionary more important?????
    Importance is a value we as agents project on things that WE personally VALUE. SO its an observer dependent term...not necessarily an intrinsic feature of the process!

    Every characteristic that allowed us to evolved and thrived is very important...this is why successful traits are all still here!!!
    I am not sure you understand what evolution is or how natural processes work.
    Do you care to elaborate those "documented issues"?

    Maybe you mean something differnet that isn't understood by those terms. I give you the benefit of the doubt and I won't assume that you are trying to escape a tight corner by avoiding to converse with facts.
    Let me help you with an example
    The evolution of a physically stronger gender that has the luxury to waste energy(protect, carry resources) without putting in danger the metabolic demands and needs of his offspring in a scare and dangerous environment is important for the survival of the species.

    Mutations in the color of moths in England was important for their survival during the industrial revolution. So something that small can be evolutionary important...HOW ON EARTH do you make this evaluation among thousands of traits sir?

    Do you want to change the premise? Maybe "evolutionary important" is not a good way to go.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    A completely illogical comment!universeness

    Again your opinion doesn't change the fact that Logic exposes your irrational attempt to define probabilities without establishing possibility first and without any samples to evaluate. sorry.

    I assign 0.1% credence to the god posit as MY OWN PERSONAL way to explain to others my level of belief in the truth of the god posit. This is a perfectly valid position. The fact that YOU find it not mathematically sound means nothing to me and I doubt it means much to anyone else except YOU.universeness
    -You are explaining why you used that way and I have no reason to doubt it. I don't have issues with your intention, I only point out that the way you decided to presenting (using statistical probabilities) is nonsensical and wrong...that's all. Again you can not assign probabilities when you have zero samples to study and compare.
    Its not an issue for you being mathematically unsound...but mathematically invalid (I hope you know the difference between soundness and validity). You can not conclude to a mathematical figure without first numbers of different cases out of a total. You have no numbers to arrive to statistical figure !lol

    I suggest you first try to help yourself!universeness
    If you need to understand your error, you will have to focus on the example non my segway lol.!

    -"Your thinking is so skewed! So according to your thinking, there is nothing scientific about calculating the probability of life in the solar system other than life on earth? really? That's your idea of a logical sentence? As I suggested, your the one who needs help."
    -lol....again "scientific" has nothing to do with how we calculate probabilities. Why are you keep bring science in something that has to do with basic logic?????
    Again in order to calculate the probabilities of life in our solar system you will need to count the planets you know that have life, the planets you "know" they don't have life and that will give you the percentage you are looking for!
    You can not do that with a hypothesis that you has zero numbers to work with!
    Why is this so difficult for you???
  • I'd like some help with approaching the statement "It is better to live than to never exist."
    It is not at all miscellaneous. There are different schools of thought with a different definition of the object. At the fringes there will be there will be disagreement, just like there is with all categorization.Tobias
    As an Umbrella term Metaphysics means nothing more than any philosophical effort that deals with claims beyond the current limits of our epistemology.
    So by defintion (μετα- φυσική/after we are done with Physika (modern Science) any claim that isn't answer by our currently epistemology is a metaphysical claims.
    Now they are Philosophical Metaphysical claims i.e. why(teleological) questions on human behavior and pseudo Metaphysical claims i.e. why(teleological) question on Natural workings.

    -"Is that post directed to Mr. Smith or me?"( Well it is simple because we can not include all the scenarios in a generalization.)
    -Not sure I think it was for you.

    -'You take an everyday definition of imagination. That is not what I am talking about. We do not need to imagine aliens to account for rules of evidence. This is the STEP definition: "To imagine is to represent without aiming at things as they actually, presently, and subjectively are. One can use imagination to represent possibilities other than the actual, to represent times other than the present, and to represent perspectives other than one's own.""
    -No those were just real life examples of what imagination can produce. I never offered a definition on Imagination.
    Imagination is our ability to make "unorthodox" connections between facts and arrive to ingenious conclusions and perspectives.

    -"Imagination played a role in the history of philosophy and means something like: to imprint. We need that to order impressions we get from sense data and literally 'make sense' of them. We need it to form ourselves a world. You skip this whole conundrum between the rationalists and empiricists and just put your eggs in the empiricist basket."
    -You need to understand that Imagination includes many different mind properties that when combine we identify the result as imaginative. But those properties alone and their contributions are far from not making the cut and being recognized as imaginative.
    The fact is that empirical input is fundamental for every single one of them. In addition to that, in order for imagination be be epistemically or philosophical or logically valuable....the produced results still need to be objectively evaluated.
    This is why I insist in the fundamental nature of our Observations and Objective verifications.
    This is a good like to check all those different types of imagination...and what we call imagination.
    https://www.teachthought.com/learning/types-of-imagination/

    Imagination played a role in the history of philosophy and means something like: to imprint. We need that to order impressions we get from sense data and literally 'make sense' of them. We need it to form ourselves a world. You skip this whole conundrum between the rationalists and empiricists and just put your eggs in the empiricist basket.Tobias
    -No no no I don't deny that........I only point out that those eggs NEED to be put in a basket or else you can not distinquish a mad man from an imaginative one.

    We certainly need imagination when drafting criteria for what counts as evidence. Accepting something as evidence entails counter factual reasoning: given information that points to a situation being a situation of Y, can it still be a situation of X? Or does this information conclusively prove Y?Tobias
    -Not that much, what we mainly need is Symbolic Language (a capability of our Lateral Thalamus ), our ability to observe and reason. Sure If you equate abstract thinking with Imagination, then I can accept your claim, but then again imagination is defined as something more than a basic mental capability.
    I think that you need to define the term without including every mental properties that happens to process symbolic language.

    There are no 'rules of reality'. there is not rulebook given from the sky to tell you what reality is or isn't.Tobias
    The rules of reality are not prescribed if you think that this is what my phrase implies(I thought it was obvious). We as agents describe the emergent rules that natural processes produce. i.e. there is a reason why you can only exit your appartment by using a door or a window.
    The electromagnetic cohesion of molecules produce this "rule" and you need to take it in to respect it in your everyday interactions.

    especially since reality itself is a purely abstract concept devoid of any material content.Tobias
    -You are confusing the map with the territory. The term "reality" is a concept, but rules about this reality are facts and their properties that are a part of the territory.

    Moreover, you are incoherent on your own terms because you define imagination contrary to reality.Tobias
    -No I didn't. My point was really simple. Any claim based on imagination needs to be verified by what we see in reality....Imagination can be a really good way to connect pieces and arrive to new information that are true about reality, but without objective verification they are useless.
    GrEAT EXAMPLES:
    Einstein's imaginative idea on relativity was accepted AFTER the english astronomer verified it objectively through empirical means.
    Peter Higgs imaginative idea on a Bozon was verified 60 years after CERN verified the energetic footprint of that particle.
    You need to understand that imagination is nothing without Objective verification....well it is something we call it...."crazy people".


    -"Without imagination you as an artist would be out of business as well, so they seem equally important. It does not make sense to prioritize one over the other. As Kant stated: "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions (sense impressions TA) without concepts are blind."
    -Of course they are equally important in my work but not equally fundamental. Without objective verification and compatibility to reality's rules, those ideas are useless.
    Let me put it differently.
    The imaginative nature of an idea (how wild or how fancy or how amazing it sounds) bares no weight in how epistemically or instrumentaly valuable it is. The quality by which we make this evaluation is Objective verification...not Imagination.(only is movies !).
    After we evaluate an idea as knowledgeable or wise...then can see the important role in it.
    But that is like drawing a circle around the arrow. For every imaginative idea that hit the bulls eye they are thousands that led their creators at stray, because they denied the role of objective verification.

    Not all axioms and principles are the product of piecing things together in unusual orders. Some are just descriptions of our ability to use symbolic language.

    Because you measure advance in metaphysics with the wrong yardstick. You want them to be displayed by evidence. However, metaphysics (epistemology) questions when evidence needs to be given, what can count as evidence, under what circumstances etc. Metaphysics informs our worldview and therefore questioning it from a certain worldview will lead to failure. You are asking the wrong question. As for "our Philosophy", I have no idea what you mean. Philosophy is not yours. Your division between history of philosophy and philosophy displays something else. An unhistorical view of philosophy, i.e., what is shown is your metaphysics. You think the history of a certain something is unimportant for the determination of that certain something, a claim I would contest.Tobias

    -No No No. Metaphysics is the way for adding frameworks in to our Philosophy or Science...this is the only goal of metaphysics. If that wasn't its goal...then we would be talking about Hollywood scenarios or religious dogmas.......

    -"Metaphysics informs our worldview and therefore questioning it from a certain worldview will lead to failure."
    -Only if they can arrive to wise conclusions (epistemically verified) one can then justify them as informative.
    Metaphysics is what we do in science and philosophy in order to expand our epistemology or wisdom.
    You seem to believe that metaphysics is a way to use Philosophy as an excuse for accepting unfounded worldviews(correct me if I am wrong).
    Its not I who uses a wrong yardstick, you are ignoring the standards and criteria of what claim or question qualifies as philosophical or not.

    -"You want them to be displayed by evidence. However, metaphysics (epistemology) questions when evidence needs to be given, what can count as evidence, under what circumstances etc."
    -Again not true. Metaphysics is what we do when we lack the evidence. But our starting point must ALWAYS be inside our established epistemology, free from logical fallacies and in agreement with Logic.
    Evidences are necessary only when a metaphysical conclusion attempts to become Philosophy (wise claims) or Science (Knowledge).
    If it remains with unknown an unknown epistemic value, it can never be acknowledge for its wisdom so it will remain metaphysical for the time being.

    Metaphysical worldviews are the claims that "cheated" and forced their way in Frameworks. They took advantage of human existential and epistemic anxieties and they enjoyed a spot in Philosophy for many years pretending to offer wisdom or knowledge about the world.
    Science and Logic have change that.

    As for "our Philosophy", I have no idea what you mean. Philosophy is not yours.Tobias
    Our Philosophy refers to this human construction, a methodology(s) by which we are able to arrive to wise claims. Metaphysical claims that do not have that capability are not part of our Philosophy....like frameworks that have unverified knowledge value are not part of our Science.

    -" Your division between history of philosophy and philosophy displays something else. An unhistorical view of philosophy, i.e., what is shown is your metaphysics."
    First its not mine division. Chronicling (reproducing philosophical claims) is not Philosophy.
    Mario Bunge in his book "Philosophy in Crisis", outlines the problem of many people using Historical "statements" as an Argument from Authority fallacy to reproduce unwise metaphysical conclusions.
    Its like having Alchemists claiming Alchemy to be scientific just because it is part of Chemistry's History.
    Philosophical claims SHOULD rise and fall on their own merits.
    Nobody is really an expert in metaphysical opinions so we should never accept metaphysical claims of the past just because their author is a celebrity now. Metaphysics refers to opinions that are currently unfalsifiable, because they go beyond our current knowledge by definition.
    Those claims that originate from our epistemology and respect Logic are more credible and this is the only evaluation we can do. If we are able to verify the claim it self, then its no longer metaphysical but epistemical and this is the ultimate goal for evvery metaphysical claims.

    -"You think the history of a certain something is unimportant for the determination of that certain something, a claim I would contest."
    No I think, like in the case of imagination, we can only verify which historical claims are philosophical or not through their ability to be produce wisdom while they are supported by knowledge.
    History alone is not a sufficient excuse to argue in favor of a position....that is a logical fallacy (Appeal to tradition/from Age).

    I see here that you have a very distorted misconception on what Metaphysics is or SHOULD be. This misconception is common and allows all type of pseudo philosophy to sneak in Philosophy and pollute the body of our inquiries.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better

    Scientific rigor has nothing to do with basic logic or theism.
    You made a claim and you provided a statistical probability for a metaphysical hypothesis without being able to demonstrate Possibility first!
    Again if you feel the urge to calculate plausibility you will first need to demonstrate Possibility.
    Let me help you with a simple example.
    Life in solar system is Possible. We know that because we have a verified case of that phenomenon(Earth).
    Now if you want to calculate probabilities of life in the solar system you will need to compare the known case you have ont planets having life and those who have not and apply it to the total number of planets and moons of the system (number of planets and their conditions).
    This is nothing scientific or special. We are talking about basic Logic.
    So theism and multiverse are NOT hypotheses that we could calculate probabilities.
    What we can say for sure is that the Multiverse is a ar more reasonable hypothesis because we know that a Universe can exist, we have examples in the nature that more than one processes can occur and we have our Math from different fields of study pointing to the idea.
  • Paradox: Do women deserve more rights/chance of survival in society?
    Equal and just societies do not need to favor specific members.
    The problem with our societies is that they are organized by pseudo philosophical systems based on the only type of discriminatory and racist idea that still officially acceptable by almost everyone.
    Classism.
    So in order to make up for the problems systemic class discrimination creates....we use more gender discrimination to "make things right"....great!

    Now in a group of an species with 7 billion+ members, your argument on biological importance(procreation) is just silly at best.
    Bill Burr comedy routine on wage inequality has far more sound foundations than that premise....
    First of all your claim alone assumes that women can only bear one child at a time. Have you ever heard about twins triplets etc etc?
    What about those women who decide not to have children? Do we need to discriminate those women differently?....I mean you argument has too many holes to be philosophical...not to mention ethical.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    the snake is from my understanding evil (the devil) embodied, ex. not literarily a snake . But then even if one does not believe in God or the devil, one can not deny the presence of good and evil.SpaceDweller

    -Τhis poetic remark is irrelevant to my comment. I asked you if you can demonstrate the existence of the entity you promote independent of the fact that good and bad things are part of our lives.
    Can you provide Objective and independently verifiable evidence that such an entity exists?

    The point being, it's up to you (or anyone) to choose their side, not up to God\devil or good\evil.SpaceDweller
    No no, its up to you do demonstrate that such malicious agents like god and devil exist.

    -"That's the whole point of freedom or free will or the story of garden of Eden. "
    Again you need to demonstrate that such things exist...not just assume them.
    We already know what you believe in. The important question is Why. Why modern people with access to education still access iron age entities as real without evidence.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    In science, evidence is very important.Hillary
    Evidence is essential for every single belief claim...only if you don't care to be reasonable you are willing to accept claims without evidence...
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    Hillary...its hard for you to put a sentence with three words together without including a logical fallacy.....we already know that it is hard for you to admit anything.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    Except God didn't made people sick, he gave them free will (freedom) and they made their choice to trust the snake right?SpaceDweller
    Well you better prove first that such entities are real and then you can make up as many excuses you like for their screw ups.....as if "free will" in a biological organisms with tones of urges and drives and environmental influences could ever stick.
    Its like listening to an auto company blaming a system in their cars for bad performance... they are the responsible factory and your god is responsible for adding a system that could be responsible for eternal suffering. That only makes you god a moral Thug that enjoys laying traps and see humans fall for them.
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    Belief is a term I try to use carefully. I consider posits. Many worlds is a posit I personally consider to have a higher credence to the 0.1% credence I assign to the god posit.universeness
    You are coming up with percentages on claims that have never been proven possible.
    Probability is a mathematical concept that demands a verified sample from a total number of cases.
    As far as we can tell non of the ideas you do compare have ever been supported by Objective evidence..
    How can you ever talk about probabilities when you don't have a single verified case proving its possible nature?
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    You are serious? Even with caoital M: Multiverse...What's the evidence of a multiverse? There are simpler explanations for QM. Occam's shaving gel tells us to shave of the superfluous fantasies.Hillary

    lol mr Hillary is asking evidence for a claim......the irony!
  • Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better
    Welcome to the Epicurean Philosophy were Happiness is the only thing one can own!
  • I'd like some help with approaching the statement "It is better to live than to never exist."
    Wow! I didn't know we could do that, sir/ma'am! You're the very soul of clarity as far as I'm concerned.

    The rest of your post, superb! Isn't it better to stop arguing about, sensu lato, noumena and just focus our scarce supply of energy on the phenomena.
    Agent Smith

    -Well for me the important question is not if we can do that (be rational and reserve belief....thus reject all metaphysical worldviews until one can meet its burden) but why more of us don't see how reasonable this is.

    All these metaphysical ideas (Philosophical Naturalism, Physicalism, idealism,supernaturalism, occasionalism, solipsism etc etc) are part of our system of beliefs for ages. We have observed zero advances in their supportive facts or our arguments.
    People should allow them to be part of the History of Philosophy but they need to stop dragging them in our Philosophy.
  • I'd like some help with approaching the statement "It is better to live than to never exist."
    Well it is simple because we can not include all the scenarios in a generalization.
    I believe that we can both agree human imagination can produce amazing things, superpowers, aliens, creatures of horrors, con artists, scams, car design, Hollywood movies etc etc
    The only reason why we are able to demarcate fantasy from real life (and not everyone...check Hillary's picture of reality) is our ability to constantly compare the picture we receive from reality with the picture and the ideas our imagination produces.
    If your argument is that without imagination and creativity our conscious states would never be so advanced....I am going to agree with that. My point is that "reality check" under specific principles allows us to see which imaginative ideas of ours has epistemic value and which is part of a "different scenario".
    Listen, I am an interior designer and 3d artist. So I make my living by "exploiting" my imagination. I am doing this for 27 years.
    Part of my job is also CAD design, meaning that along with my fancy ideas and renders I need to provide the technical designs that will allow those ideas to be realized in the Physical world.
    So every day I can see economic budgets, static regulations, temporal regulations(dead lines),material properties, structural limitations taking a toll on the end product of my imagination.
    Sure If I didn't have the ability to imagine things I wouldn't be in the business, but a more important ability is to conform your imagination to the rules of reality.
    I knew we weren't far off but its hard work to present a position accurately and even harder to overcome the other side's preconceptions ( i include my self too).
  • I'd like some help with approaching the statement "It is better to live than to never exist."
    Well you are not wrong. Many subjects do fall beyond our current epistemology so miscellaneous would be a fair description.
    Metaphysics as a term informs us for their currently unknown nature of those things.
    Meta in Greek means After and physics (physika/modern epistimi/scientia thus science) so the etymology of the word does tell us what the term is all about.(not to be confused with the term Supernatural/what lies beyond the Natural).
    Since we are unable to have answer about first principles or the ultimate foundations of reality, I always avoid to use Metaphysical assumptions in my philosophy.
    I.e. I acknowledge that our claims often enjoy objective verification but I won't take the step and say that Reality is Objective. What we can say is that all our interactions with the world register Empirical Regularity and that allows us to do science, make descriptions produce predictions and technical applications through objectively demonstrable frameworks.

    The problem with Philosophical forums is that most of their participants usually subscribe to the extremes. We have philosophical naturalists and objectivists that go all the way in to the metaphysical realm and make absolute statements about the Ultimate nature of reality and Idealists/supernaturalists that pull the rope all the way to the other side.
    I prefer to remain a Methodological Naturalist (what we can describe objectively) and acknowledge that our Methods and Observations are limited, tentative, they could be wrong but its the only steady foundation and metric we currently have to evaluate our claims to a specific standard.

    This is the only reason why I point out to that Objective Observation and Verification/Falsification is our foundations without underplaying the value of imagination in the construction of Hypothesis. Objectivity in our Observations is how we put in check our imagination (reality check) or reasoning our assumptions, how we evaluate different competing claims and how we recognize knowledge from arbitrary opinions.
  • I'd like some help with approaching the statement "It is better to live than to never exist."

    Metaphysical means that a claim lies beyond our current knowledge.
    So the truth value of it is unknown. So no its not wrong.
    In my comment I explain that , in order to avoid all metaphysical assumptions we will have to accept Objectivity as an observer dependent term based on the regular nature of reality that our methods and senses detect , register and verify.
    Do you agree with that statement?
  • I'd like some help with approaching the statement "It is better to live than to never exist."
    No, because empirical observation does not come out of nowehere. One needs concepts and categories to give meaning to observation. Therefore, instead of your linear approach, from observation to conceptualization, I hold on to a circular, hermeneutic appproach.Tobias
    I am not arguing for a linear approach. I only argue for an order of importance of Objective verification in the process of justifying our Descriptions. Sure a theoretical quantity is always necessary.
    This is why toddlers do not have the way to communicate concepts. They lack the theory but they also lack the observations that will allow the emergence of concepts.
    Those depend on each other as you said..but your argument was not about the importance of theory, but on how fundamental imagination is.
    We are off topic again.

    I do not think your linear model points out 'the correct order of things'.Tobias
    I think I addressed this. Nothing is linear in real life or in science...a constant feedback is in action all the time.(this is why we don't have A scientific method but many methodologies). What we can say though Empirical interaction and theory can produce concepts. Imagination as a secondary quality can advance our concepts.

    To see if I can do it, or to explain it to you? The second is not necessary and the first is uncalled for. I do not need to prove anything to you. As for the second, read Hume and then Kant for the solution.Tobias
    -You misunderstood me. It wasn't a personal attack!!!My comment was based on the fact that no critique fully understands the value of induction.
    The main argument and correct me if I am wrong rests on the claim that induction introduces a risk in all our conclusions....and my answer is of course it does!!!!!And this is what makes Induction far more valuable compared to all Deductive Tautologies!
    IT's the risks that renders our conclusions capable to produce predictions and knowledge that we previously ignored,
    Who even bothers with tautologies when we can introduce risk in our syllogisms and elevate the value of our conclusions thus allowing them to rise at a Knowledge Status!

    We can never verify if anything produces a result 'constantly'. 'Constantly' is obtained by a leap of faith, a generalization into the fuuture of past results. Next, one needs a kind of measure for credibility. The yardstick for credibility is never never free from authority, beliefs held in our current epoch etc.Tobias
    -So if I am correct you are using the example of our "uncertainty" for the Assumed Constant Regularity of our world.
    First of all our acceptance of that principle is not a matter of faith.
    Like all our principles and axioms, its an educated conclusion based on all available observations from the past and present and the success we get from our predictions. None of our faith based claims enjoys such epistemic foundations.
    Now the argument you represent refers to "absolute verification" which is more of a red herring than a real problem for induction.
    We can never offer an absolute verification (proof) but we can verify Regularity in Nature with every observation and quantification attempt. Sure the additional Dimension of Time adds extra risk but again the risk of a framework and its ability to deliver testable predictions is what makes its valuable.

    So both sides should avoid the extreme positions. Induction is not an absolute tool for risk free knowledge, but the risk is what elevates induction far above other approaches. To try to call principles products of induction....faith..I won't even bother addressing that factually wrong claim again.

    Yes, our criteria for evidence cannot be themselves based on evidence on pain of circularity. We need to accept a certain criterion an imagine it to be valid all the time. Look at the work of Lorraine Daston on how the 'laws' of evidence have been developed in eary modern Europe.Tobias
    We are addressing basic Principles and axioms not rules about concepts (laws of evidence). Those are two different things and we do need intelligence and creativity for such more complex mental structures.But even those rules need to be demonstrated objectively before we can accept them as laws.
    You can not dismiss a fact by declaring it circular.
    Objective verification yields results and that can be objectively validated.
    Subjective verification yields religions, superstitious beliefs and metaphysical worldviews...and that can objectively verify it.
    The fact that an empirical standard can be used to evaluate different standards of evaluation is something that we can not avoid doing!
    Our body of knowledge and the principles by which we do our evaluations are all based on the simple principle of Objectivism. How we arrived to them (by using imagination, critical thinking , defuse thing, intuition) is irreverent. The important thing is that they are all evaluated by that standard.

    Ohhh 'direct', now I get it... By magic they are directly transferred to our brain. Who believen in magic now?Tobias
    that was an uncalled strawman when I have already explain the direction of the source!
    Our empirical interactions and observations are the direct source of the information we need to identify the value of a practice(objective verification).
    We don't need to assume external systems... Even our imagination is shaped by our empirical experiences...Imagination doesn't create things magically out of thin air...right? we agreed on that.

    Indeed, but mostly because I have no idea what 'objective value' means. 'Objective' means pertaining to the object, so every claim about the world is in this sense objective. Most people use objective in a different way, pertaining to the world as it really really is. Inded I do not think we have unmediated access to this 'noumenal' world.Tobias

    -We need to see the word from its practical aspect in order to understand its meaning value and application.
    In oxford university-logic 101..Objective, subjective, true,knowledge etc are all evaluations terms that we use on claims. Only claims (Premises or arguments) can be True, wrong, Objective subjective etc.
    If we understand that simple fact then we can look out which characteristics render a claim objective or not.
    So if a claim is in agreement with facts that are accessible to everyone then we identify that claim as Objective.
    i.e. I can not run through solid brick walls. IF we don't distort the common usages of those words then all the facts available to us render this claim an objective one.
    Your angle projects this quality on the facts "'Objective' means pertaining to the object"...but again facts are neutral. The facts are what we evaluate to render the value of a claim.
    So objectivity is not an intrinsic feature of the world(Regularity is) but a value in the claims of the observer. When things and processes display regularity, that enables the value of objectivity for our claims.


    -" Inded I do not think we have unmediated access to this 'noumenal' world."
    I don't know how one can take either position. We don't know and we need to focus with what we can work with and see if everyone can verify the same picture by using the best methods available to us.
    Its more of a Pragmatic Necessity than a buffet of choice.
    We should use our inability to verify that as an argument from ignorance fallacy and dismiss principles that are far more successful than any other!

    No, because I do not hold empirical observation to be foundational. It is necessary yes, for every claim and argument, but not a fundament in the sense of an absolute standpoint from which to judge.Tobias
    -Fundamental does mean that. Fundamental refers to its role to feed facts for our hypotheses and to provide the facts necessary for their final or temporal verification.
    Fundamental from the aspect that NOT all mind properties are need for an thinking agent to survive,

    I am not disputing that it is important, in fact I think it is crucial. I do not think however, it does the work you want it to do, oferring a fundament from which you can judge all claims to knowledge.Tobias
    I am sure you didn't know the work I expect from induction but if you read my post...now you know.

Nickolasgaspar

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