No-one knows what happens to us when we die: both the belief that we will survive, and the belief that we will not, are unsupported by any evidence. For all we know, therefore, it is entirely possible that we will survive death, and that what we will experience thereafter will be unpleasant. A degree of anxiety when contemplating one's own death is therefore both natural and reasonable. To quote the poet Yeats:
“Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all.”

Having said that, dwelling on that anxiety when one is still healthy and active is a total waste of time and energy. Luckily for me, most of the time I am far too busy to make that mistake.

So, IMO, the best way to overcome the anxiety is to be busy - preferably with something one finds of such absorbing interest that while it is going on, one simply forgets that one is mortal.

This continues to be the case. But it does not mean that science is atheistic; rather, that science is agnostic.
— Herg

Wikipedia/atheism describes atheism to broadly mean lack of belief in deities. It's only when you get to the narrow definition where there is a positive claim about deities' inexistence.

The OP concerns the broad definition of atheism, and as science grew, it had long assumed or ignored belief in deities. — VoidDetector

I'm making an early New Year resolution, which is to avoid the use of the word 'atheist' altogether, on the grounds that it's hopelessly ambiguous. Henceforth I shall try to restrict myself to the two words 'anti-theist' and 'agnostic', which are unambiguous and jointly exhaust the possible meanings of 'atheist'.

The Argument from the Scientific Test of Reality
1. If science cannot verify the existence of X, then the best evidence tells us that X does not exist.
2. Science cannot verify the existence of objective moral values.
3. Therefore, the best evidence tells us that objective moral values do not exist. — vulcanlogician

Try substituting 'subjective sensations e.g. of pain, colour or emotion' for 'objective moral values':
1. If science cannot verify the existence of X, then the best evidence tells us that X does not exist.
2. Science cannot verify the existence of subjective sensations e.g. of pain, colour or emotion.
3. Therefore, the best evidence tells us that subjective sensations e.g. of pain, colour or emotion do not exist.

In the amended argument, premise 2 is true (science can only verify the existence of physical analogues of these sensations, not the existence of the sensations themselves), and the argument is valid; yet the conclusion is false. So premise 1 must be false, and since premise 1 also appears in the original argument, the original argument cannot be sound.

The best evidence for subjective sensations is not science, it is our experiencing of those sensations. Similarly, the best evidence for the existence of objective moral values is not science, but something else - perhaps the similarity of moral values, within certain limits, across the world and throughout history. Whether this or any other evidence is strong enough to make the existence of objective moral values plausible is another matter.

"Napoleon: You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe.
Laplace: Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis. "

This continues to be the case. But it does not mean that science is atheistic; rather, that science is agnostic.

The "it" in "it is raining" cannot syntactically refer to the weather in the trivial way the "it" does in "it is sunny" because the syntax differs. This is made obvious when you consider that "a sunny day" is a correct form but "a raining day" isn't. The day can be "sunny" but the day cannot be "raining". Rather, it can be rainy. — Baden

But you have changed 'weather' to 'day' here, and so you're attacking a straw man.

the most straightforward and commonly accepted logical analysis of the former is the non-indexical dummy pronoun angle, — Baden

To me this seems rather less straightforward than the view that "it" in "it is raining" refers to something. I suggest that what has actually happened here is that what it refers to (the weather) is no longer overtly mentioned because it is almost always the weather, and nothing else, that is raining, and so there's usually no need to mention the weather explicitly.

Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rain) offers three definitions of 'rain' as an intransitive verb:
"1 : to send down rain
2 : to fall as water in drops from the clouds
3 : to fall like rain"

In the exchange I offered, because "it is raining" is given as an answer to the question "what's the weather doing?", the appropriate definition is 1, i.e:
A: What's the weather doing?
B: It's raining (= sending down rain).

It is also possible to have this exchange:
A: What's the rain doing?
B: It's raining.
B has uttered a trivial truth. A may be annoyed with B for uttering it, but then A has only himself to blame for asking such a silly question (what would the rain be doing, after all?). In this exchange, the relevant definition of 'rain' from Merriam-Webster is 2, i.e.;
A: What's the rain doing?
B: It's raining (= falling as water in drops from the clouds).
This is also the sense of the verb in unenlightened's quoted verse by Charles Bowen ("The rain it raineth on the just") and also, incidentally, by Shakespeare, in the Fool's song from 'Twelfth Night' ("For the rain it raineth every day").

Usually when someone says "it is raining", they intend to be informative, and not merely utter a trivial truth. What they intend to inform us about is the weather, so I think it is reasonable to conclude that the "it" in "it is raining" usually refers to the weather, and that the relevant definition of the verb is Merriam-Webster's 1.

A: What's the bumble bee doing?
B: It's raining.

So "it" refers to the bumble bee.

The conversation makes no sense, but the syntactic connection is sound. In your conversation "it" refers to the weather; in mine to the bumble bee. But it's a question of syntax, not semantics.

Does it matter that your conversation makes sense and mine doesn't, for determining reference? — Dawnstorm

There are two possible readings of your "B: It's raining.", as follows:
1. 'It' refers to the bumble bee. In this case, since a bumble bee can't rain, the speaker is uttering nonsense.
2. (much more likely in real life) 'It' refers to the weather, and B is not answering A at all.

So semantics matters. You can't simply assume that in 'it's raining', 'it' refers to the subject of the most recent sentence uttered. As Terrapin Station has said, 'it' is indexical, and in any sentence about the weather, suich as 'it is raining' or 'it is sunny', 'it' refers to the weather.

Maybe this conversation will help:

A: What's the weather doing?
B: It's raining.

So 'it' refers to the weather.

BTW, this is the funniest thread I've ever read in a philosophy forum. Thanks to everyone for making me laugh.

I didnt mean hallucinations, I meant that you arent getting sensory data in the tank, and was interested in how you think that might contrast or factor in with your view here — DingoJones

I would think it must be similar to dreaming, in that not much if any information is coming in through the senses, and so the brain can only use its own stored information.

What about when you are awake and in a sensory deprivation tank? Would you say that is the same as dreaming (as far as where your brain is being fed from, memory or “current sensory input)? — DingoJones

I assume you're talking about hallucinations. According to Wikipedia, "the hallucinations are caused by the brain misidentifying the source of what it is currently experiencing, a phenomenon called faulty source monitoring." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_deprivation)

So the hallucinations are a case of consciousness receiving stuff accompanied by a "tag" from the brain wrongly identifying the source. The stuff plus the tag is the input to consciousness, so I think once again this is a case where there is no difference in consciousness itself, but rather in what one is conscious of.

In describing it like this I am using quasi-dualist language, as if the brain and consciousness were two separate things, but that's just a limitation of language; my view is that consciousness is an attribute of the brain itself, so I suppose what we're really talking about here is one function of the brain (the gathering of information from sensory input and/or memory and tagging it with its source) talking to another function of the brain (the creation of conscious experience from this tagged information).

If anyone reading this is an expert on the brain, they are more than welcome to correct me if I'm getting this wrong.

In my view we're conscious of dreams if we're dreaming. — Terrapin Station

I would agree with this. The difference between dream sleep and full consciousness is not that consciousness itself is different, but that what we are conscious of is different, because the brain is feeding consciousness with stuff mainly from stored memories instead of mainly from current sensory input.

The First Law of Philosophy: For every philosopher, there exists an equal and opposite philosopher.
The Second Law of Philosophy: They're both wrong.

Your phrase 'something other than "time"' is empty of meaning, unless you can suggest some of the properties of this supposed 'something'.
— Herg

I do not agree with this. To say "X is something other than Y" is not to say something devoid of meaning, as it distinguishes X from Y. I agree that it says very little about what X is, but it may be considered as a start, and therefore not devoid of meaning. — Metaphysician Undercover

The problem is that if all you can say about X is that it is not Y, you are attributing only a negative property to X, and nothing real can have only negative properties.

Why can't the fact that there is something rather than nothing simply be a brute fact?
— Herg

Because 'Something' is so non-Occam's razor; the simplest model is 'Nothing' and with that model, nothing requires explanation. — Devans99

I don't think Occam's razor applies here, because it only applies where you are seeking an explanation for how things are, and that is not the case here.

A deity no doubt had the motive, and may arguably have had the opportunity, but what was the means?
— Herg

I am a fan of the explanation that the universe is merely a giant game of Conway's Game of Life which God initiated through the big bang. The stars provide the energy for life and the planets provide the living surfaces. — Devans99

This sounds tongue in cheek, but in case it isn't, I will point out that the stars and planets weren't available for God to use as a means when initiating the Big Bang.

More to the point, what was the raw material God used to make the Big Bang, how could an immaterial being manipulate the raw material, and where did the material come from in the first place? Or is he supposed to have simply willed the universe into existence? (A neat trick if you can do it.)

I used the words "we are free to choose either L1 or L2." You used the words "L1 and L2 are equally in our power." Your words and mine mean exactly the same.
— Herg

No, they mean something quite different. I can choose a Maserati over a Fiat, but that does not mean it is in my power to buy a Maserati. — Dfpolis

If you can't buy the Maserati, what sense does it make to say that you are choosing it? You must be choosing it for something, or you can't truthfully be said to be choosing it at all. 'I choose the Maserati, but not for anything in particular,' doesn't make sense. In the context of our discussion, choosing L1 means choosing L1 in order to execute L1, and the presumption is that you have the power to execute L1, because if you don't, you cannot truthfully be said to be choosing L1 at all.

The relevant point is not what seems to be true, but your unargued claim that it only seems to be true. — Dfpolis

We agree that it seems that executing L1 rather than L2 is in your power; the burden of proof is on you, not on me, to prove that both L1 and L2 actually are in your power. As for 'unargued', what do you imagine I have been doing since we started this conversation?

So, the question is: how do we know what is possible? There are two ways. First, whatever actually happens must be possible, or it could not happen. The second way is knowledge by analogy, which is how science makes its predictions. For example, in previous cases, mixing vinegar and baking soda has produced carbon dioxide. Even though the present case differs slightly from previous cases, I know, by analogy that, if I have vinegar and baking soda I have the potential to produce carbon dioxide. I know this for a fact, whether or not I actually mix them to produce carbon dioxide.

So, you can choose to say that we only "seem" to have potentials that are not actualised, but in doing so, you reject the structure of science, and specifically, its ability to make reliable predictions. — Dfpolis

What an odd argument. Science is able to make reliable predictions precisely because, in cases such as the vinegar and baking soda case, there is no free will; the vinegar and the baking soda, when mixed together, have to make carbon dioxide because they have no choice in the matter. That is how we know that making carbon dioxide in such a situation is possible. So what would be the parallel situation when you are contemplating whether to stay at home or go to the store? It would have to be that we can only predict that you will go to the store, and therefore know that going to the store is possible for you, if you, like the vinegar and the baking soda, have no free will. So your parallel with science is apposite only if you take my side of the argument and hold that humans, like vinegar and baking soda, have no free will.

What feature(s) of your past experience do you believe give you this knowledge? I don't believe there are any such features.
— Herg

The fact that I have gone to the store and stayed at home previously, and have not suffered any relevant disability since. — Dfpolis

I rather thought you might say this, but of course I did not want to presume that you would, because no philosopher should ever put words into another philosopher's mouth.
You are in effect arguing like this:
Premiss: On some previous occasions I have gone to the store, and on other previous occasions I have stayed at home.
Conclusion: Therefore on this occasion I have it in my power to either go to the store or stay at home.
This is an invalid argument. In order to have free will it is not sufficient for there to be some occasions when a potential action (e.g. going to the store) is actualised; it has to be the case that you have the power to realise the potential action in some particular case. In effect, you are confusing a type of action (going to the store) with a token action (going to the store on this occasion).

But, that has been established by previous analogous cases. There is no question begging, as I have shown how we know unrealised potentials, and that schema applies here. The ball is in your court to show why it applies to mixing vinegar and baking soda, but not to going to the store. — Dfpolis

I do maintain that what applies to mixing vinegar and baking soda also applies to humans, in that given a certain potential for human action, it is simply a matter of physical law whether the potential is actualised.

Actually, quantum theory says that all unobserved physical processes are fully deterministic. Unpredictability enters only when quantum systems are observed. — Dfpolis

Since this directly contradicts everything I have ever read about quantum physics, I have no comment to make, and I shall not raise quantum physics with you in the future.

We are free if we are not constrained. We are constrained when we want to do A, but are prevented. This happens many times, so we know how to recognise constraints when we see them. For example, yesterday I wanted to go 70mph or more on the I-15, but traffic constrained me from going more than 0-20 mph. When I decide whether or not to go to the store, I experience no such constraint. So, I am free to choose either. — Dfpolis

This appears to be compatibilism, and if that is your position, then we have been arguing at cross purposes. I am not a compatibilist. My understanding of free will is that it requires the ability to do otherwise than one actually does.

Free will is necessary to explain the reality of moral responsibility -- which happens in the world. People know that they are responsible for actions they freely choose, — Dfpolis

No, they don't know this. They believe it, but belief is not knowledge, and therefore there is nothing requiring explanation.

Determinism means that choices are fully immanent in the state of the world before the agent exists. For there to be no middle ground, the Principle of Excluded Middle requires indeterminism to be the strict contradiction of determinism: that choices are not fully immanent in the state of the world before the agent exists. That differs from "mere randomness," which is mindless, for it does not consider the determining operation of the agent's mind.

So, there is a middle ground between fully determined and mindlessly random, viz. the result of mindful action on the part of a free agent. — Dfpolis

This is just speculation, because you have not established grounds for believing that minds complete the determination of actions.
The point is that to the extent that any event is undetermined, it is random.

the hypothetical "if we're to go by experience", or the categorical "experience gives us good reason to believe that". Dfpolis has now said this:
— Herg

I don't agree that it's at all clear that there's a difference there. — Terrapin Station

The second interpretation asserts that there is good reason to believe what experience is telling us; the first does not.

If time is defined in relation to physical change, then it is necessary for physical change to be occurring in order for time to be passing, hence a universe is required for time, and it makes no sense to talk about anything "before" the universe. If God creates this universe, God is outside of time, and timeless. This is not incoherent, it just requires referring to something other than "time" to account for God's actions, God being non-physical and time being constrained to physical existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your phrase 'something other than "time"' is empty of meaning, unless you can suggest some of the properties of this supposed 'something'.

In fact I did not use the word "physical" in my post, and I see no reason to define time in terms of the physical, unless we can say for sure that there is no non-physical form of existence, which I don't believe we can. Even the physicist John Wheeler didn't define time in terms of the physical; he defined it as "what prevents everything from happening at once", which I think is a very good definition.

But if time is defined in some other way, such that time can be passing without any physical change occurring, then there is no need for a physical universe for there to be time, and talk of a time before the universe would be coherent. This allows that God's actions occur in time, therefore God is not timeless in this conception, but God's actions are at a time when there is no physical existence — Metaphysician Undercover

Better.

There should logically be nothing. — Devans99

I don't think this is correct. If it were, the proposition "something came from nothing" should contain a logical error: but if so, what is the error?

To suppose that the fact that there is something rather than nothing requires explanation seems to me to be a mere assumption. Why can't the fact that there is something rather than nothing simply be a brute fact?

Somehow I cannot imagine the universe in all its magnificence always existing without any involvement from god. — Devans99

This is a statement about you, not about the universe (or indeed about god). Why should reality be constrained by the limits of your (or anyone's) imagination?


For myself, I do not regard a deity as any kind of explanation for the universe. To explain how the universe comes to exist, it is not enough to say who created it; one also needs to say how it was created. The situation is analogous to a murder; to convict someone of murder, you need to establish means, motive and opportunity. A deity no doubt had the motive, and may arguably have had the opportunity, but what was the means?

This would all depend on how one defines "time". — Metaphysician Undercover

Why would it?

But for some reason the God Of Philosophy has put humans in charge — hks

Ah, the God of Philosophy. I believe his name is Loki, otherwise known as the Trickster...;)

But what exactly is a timeless god, how could he do anything? — Devans99

Good question. He would at the very least have to change from not yet having created the universe to having created the universe, which implies that he is a god who changes; and since change requires time, a god who changes is not a timeless god. I infer that the notion of a timeless creator god is incoherent. However, a god who changes within his own time but sees all of our time at once is not incoherent. Having said which, I personally see no evidence for any kind of god.

I have come to the conclusion that we can be certain of nothing.

It appears that I'm posting on this forum.
I may not be and cannot be certain that I am. — Kranky

There are a few things you can be certain of.

1. You can be certain that it appears to you that you are posting here; and since it could not appear to you that you are if you did not exist, because there would be no-one for it to appear to, you can be certain that you exist.

2. Since it appears to you that you live in a world that is stable and obeys fixed rules (e.g. the law of gravity, the fact that objects stay in their places and don't suddenly vanish or change into other objects), you can be certain that there is something real that is causing that appearance of stability.

3. You can be certain that whatever is real and is causing the appearance of stability is not you, because if it was you, you would know (this is why solipsism is false). So you can be certain that there is something real and external to you that causes your world to appear stable.

4. You cannot be certain what this external real thing is: a realist would say it was the objects around you, Kant would say it was noumena, Berkeley would say it was God. This is all interesting speculation, but it doesn't actually matter to you which of them is right, because you do not live among these underlying real objects, you live among the appearances. Since the appearances are always stable, it follows that whatever is real and is causing them must also be stable; so you can be certain that there is something real and stable underlying the appearances, even though you can't be certain what it is.

One more thing: if philosophy makes you unhappy, give it up and find something that makes you happy. A lot of philosophy gets done, but hardly any of it is of any importance to anyone but other philosophers; mostly it's just a game, the thinking person's Sudoku. If it makes you depressed or worried, give it up and find something that doesn't.

Conclusion: Therefore the choice between L1 and L2 was not pre-determined, and we could have chosen L2.
— Herg

I don't think he was saying this conclusion. "Experience tells us" is another way of saying "per experience," or "phenomenally, if we're to go by experience," etc.

Your conclusion is written from a perspective outside of experience per se. But the sentence is "experience tells us," The sentence isn't presented as a perspective from outside of experience. — Terrapin Station

I think Dfpolis' sentence was ambiguous. "Experience tells us" could be taken either as the hypothetical "if we're to go by experience", or the categorical "experience gives us good reason to believe that". Dfpolis has now said this:

I experience tells us more than this. It additionally tells us, in many cases, that L1 and L2 are equally in our power. It is equally in my power, for example, to go to the store to buy an ingredient for dinner or to stay home a while longer to discuss philosophy. I know both are equally in my power on the basis of my past experience. — Dfpolis

I think this makes it clear that Dfpolis is making the categorical claim, not the hypothetical claim.

This isn't true. All that experience tells us is that:
a) approaching a choice, we are aware of more than one new line of action (let's call these lines L1 and L2)
(b) it seems to us that we are free to choose either L1 or L2
(c) after we have chosen (say) L1, it seems to us that we could have chosen L2 instead.
— Herg

I experience tells us more than this. It additionally tells us, in many cases, that L1 and L2 are equally in our power. — Dfpolis

I used the words "we are free to choose either L1 or L2." You used the words "L1 and L2 are equally in our power." Your words and mine mean exactly the same. So in my (b) I could have written "it seems to us that L1 and L2 are equally in our power", and that would have meant the same as what I actually wrote (and would also be true).

It is equally in my power, for example, to go to the store to buy an ingredient for dinner or to stay home a while longer to discuss philosophy. I know both are equally in my power on the basis of my past experience.

What feature(s) of your past experience do you believe give you this knowledge? I don't believe there are any such features.

This awareness of alternatives being equally in my power, and not "I could have chosen otherwise," is what I mean by free will.

You are not entitled to describe your state of mind as "awareness of alternatives being equally in my power" until it is established that these alternatives actually are equally in your power; and since this is precisely the issue between us, you are begging the question.

Purely physical systems (as opposed to physical systems with intellect and will) have only one immanent line of action -- that determined by its present state and the laws of nature.

This is almost certainly not true of our universe. Nature is probabilistic rather than deterministic at the quantum level, and quantum superposition means that there is usually more than one line of action leading from the present state.

Intentional systems, such as humans, are essentially different in that we can have multiple lines of actions immanent before we commit to one. The difference in the number of immanent lines of action is critical, for it means that we differ from purely physical systems. So any analogy to their deterministic nature fails.

Since, as I have just stated, our universe is almost certainly not deterministic, and there are multiple lines of action in purely physical systems, humans having multiple lines of action does not imply that humans are not purely physical systems. But even if the universe is deterministic, and purely physical systems only have one line of action leading from the present state, while humans see multiple lines of action before them, you still have not shown that we are free to choose between those multiple lines of action.

My argument is:

1. Approaching the choice, we are aware that incompatible lines of action, L1, L2, ..., are equally in our power.
2. To have free will means that we have incompatible lines of action equally in our power.
3. Therefore, we have free will.

You could deny premise 1, but only dogmatically. — Dfpolis

Your premise 1 begs the question by describing our state of mind as "we are aware that...", as I have already noted.

First, I know what is and what is not in my power from my experience as a human in the world. It is in my power to walk to the store it is not in my power to walk to the moon.

The sense of "in my power" that you use here will not deliver what you need to establish free will. What you mean here is that there are facts about the physical world - such as the gravitational attraction between your body and the earth, and the lack of any surface between the earth and moon on which you could walk - that prevent you walking to the moon, but that do not prevent you walking to the store. That sense of "in my power" is all about the limitations physical laws place upon a body like yours; it has nothing at all to do with free will.

Second, being in my power is a real state, with well-defined truth conditions.

The truth conditions are that you should be free to choose between alternatives; but you are not entitled to say that this is a real state unless we have established that those truth conditions obtain, and since this is precisely the issue between us, you are once again begging the question.

Staying home ceases to be in my power once I am on my way to the store.

Of course. But you cannot validly infer from this that staying home was in your power before you set off to the store.

There is, in fact, not the slightest reason to think that we have free will. We can always only make one choice, and there are never any grounds for thinking that we could have made a different one. If we chose L1 instead of L2, then the only way we could have grounds for thinking that we had the power to choose L2 would be to have actually chosen L2, and of course that was prevented by our choosing L1.

There are two other reasons for denying free will. The first is that we do not need it to explain anything that happens in the world; and the second is that the notion of free will is incoherent, because it requires there to be a third possibility between determinism and indeterminism (which is mere randomness), and there is no such third possibility.

Why does beauty give us pleasure? — Purple Pond

That's putting the cart before the horse. We apply the word "beautiful" to all and only those things the contemplation of which gives us a certain kind of pleasure.

As Strawson admits before giving his argument, experience tells us that being a free agent is part of "the way we are." To be a free agent is to be the radical source of new lines of action, where "radical source" means that the new line of action is not fully immanent (pre-determined) before the agent chooses. — Dfpolis

Putting your two sentences together, we get the assertion: experience tells us that being the source of new lines of action that are not fully pre-determined before we choose is part of "the way we are".

This isn't true. All that experience tells us is that:
a) approaching a choice, we are aware of more than one new line of action (let's call these lines L1 and L2)
(b) it seems to us that we are free to choose either L1 or L2
(c) after we have chosen (say) L1, it seems to us that we could have chosen L2 instead.

If we lay this out as a logical argument intended to prove that we could in fact have chosen another line of action, it fails:
Premise 1: Approaching the choice, we are aware of L1 and L2.
Premise 2: Approaching the choice, it seems to us that are free to choose between L1 and L2.
Premise 3: After choosing L1, it seems to us that we could have chosen L2 instead.
Conclusion: Therefore the choice between L1 and L2 was not pre-determined, and we could have chosen L2.

Clearly the conclusion does not follow from the premisses. So in fact experience does not tell us what is stated in the conclusion, and therefore experience does not tell us that being a free agent is part of the way we are; it only tells us that seeming to ourselves to be a free agent is part of the way we are.

I'm sitting watching a sunset.
I think "wow this is pretty"
I then remember I cannot be certain I'm actually watching this beautiful sunset, as it may not even be happening.

How could I then continue to enjoy it? — Kranky

When you watch a movie, does the fact that what you are watching is not actually happening stop you enjoying it?

No?

Then why should the fact that the sunset may not actually be happening stop you enjoying it?

In short, your 'reality' is just the virtual entities that are economical. And that also suggests (seems to me) some kind of Platonism. — macrosoft

I'm not a Platonist, I'm a nominalist. Across the board, and to my bones.

You're still accusing me of confusing the model with the reality. And once again, I do not.

I'm sitting on a chair. It's a real chair, not a virtual chair. If it were a virtual chair, I would need some other explanation than the existence of the chair for the fact that I feel a chair under me. I don't.

Science tells me that the chair consists of a lot of rather extraordinary stuff that I can't see or feel. But science also tells me exactly how that stuff explains why I see and feel the chair. So it is rational to accept that the real external chair consists of this real external extraordinary stuff. Science's model is a model of reality. But the model is not the reality of which it is a model.

AFIK, numbers are just part of human cognition. They aren't 'out there.' — macrosoft

They're neither of those. They're an aspect of reality. There are no numbers but there are things that can be numbered, and that would be true even if there were no humans to number them.

My gripe is that we don't have a non-controversial grasp on what numbers even are. — macrosoft

The controversy is entirely the fault of meddling philosophers like Plato. "We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see." (Berkeley. Somewhat ironic, since he was one of the greatest dust-raisers of all.)

You seem to be in this forum to make converts. You won't convert me, because your presentation of NOTA seems to me one-sided and utopian. But I don't want to waste either your time or mine, so I'm going to leave this discussion at this point.

And perhaps you should prove why you disagree with Aristotle on The Prime Mover and with Aquinas on The First Cause etc.! — hks

Why not start a thread in which you present and defend Aristotle's and Aquinas' arguments? Then we would all have something to get our teeth into. More interesting for the rest of us than this bickering about off-stage arguments.

Recently I've been wondering if consciousness is the primary substance that the material world gloms onto or adheres to.

What are your thoughts on this and what are the implications for free will? — Noah Te Stroete

Taking a dualist view of consciousness and the material world simply lands you with the unanswerable question that Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia put to Descartes: how could the two substances interact? If you add to that the fact that consciousness looks much more like something that happens in and to material brains than a substance in its own right, and the fact that when the brain dies consciousness appears to cease, the whole idea of consciousness as a substance starts to look very implausible.

As for free will, I think that's just an illusion. We feel as if we have free will, because we are often aware of more than one possible course of action, and feel that we could choose any one of them: but there's never any evidence that we are able to make any choice other than the one we actually make, and this would still be the case even if consciousness were a substance.

This is why philosophers should not take up boxing.

NOTA ensures your vote is not wasted. — romanv

Only if all the non-Tory candidates stand down, leaving just the Tory and NOTA on the ballot paper. Otherwise what you will most likely get is a split vote across the other candidates and NOTA, and thus no guarantee that the NOTA vote will be effective.

Now you can start to see at least some of your views being reflected in the winning candidate, as they will have to adjust their platform and/or candidate to get your consent. — romanv

I don't think so. People putting a cross in the NOTA box could have a variety of reasons for doing so: they might dislike all the candidates, they might dislike all the parties who are standing in their constituency, they might just be disenchanted with something about their country or locale. NOTA is inarticulate, and provides no reason for any party or candidate to change anything. Since the ballot is secret, the candidates will be unable to ask those who voted NOTA why they did it.

A voter should be guaranteed an acceptable outcome, otherwise they should choose NOTA. How can anyone give their consent to an election declaring a winner when there is a chance that they wont get adequate representation? — romanv

No system can ever guarantee an outcome acceptable to all voters. The most it can do is allow every voter to have an equal influence on the representative institutions, i.e. parliament.

Supposing the level of NOTA remains very high, then it makes a compelling case for voter led electoral reform, the most likely result is a PR system. — romanv

I think you are putting the cart before the horse. If we had PR, my vote would not be wasted. With NOTA, my vote will still be wasted unless enough non-Tories in my constituency cooperate in voting NOTA to outvote the Tories, which seems to me very unlikely.

PR first; then let's talk about NOTA.

Who decided that pain is something to avoid? — bizso09

As I said; evolution decided it, i.e. at an early stage of evolution, some genes caused organisms to experience pain when they did something that reduced their chances of passing on those genes, and those genes survived at the expense of genes that didn't do this. That's a perfectly clear account, and I don't see your problem with it.

Why can't the feeling of pain be neutral or maybe something to seek?

Because if it had been like that, it wouldn't have conferred an evolutionary advantage.

yeah, so now we're back to evolution, which is back to big bang and God. See my original post. — bizso09

Foregt God; God is not an explanation for anything.

The Big Bang is a pro tem explanation. Something probably caused it, but we currently have no information about what it was.

The irony in Herg's anti-idealism is that s/he takes a model (the idea of hydrogen) for the thing itself. — macrosoft

I have certainly never taken either a model of the hydrogen atom, or the idea of a hydrogen atom, to be the hydrogen atom itself. I never confuse a model or idea of a thing with the thing itself.

I hold to the working hypothesis that there is an externally existing world of objects that causes us to have perceptual and other experiences which in their turn cause us to evolve a model of said external world of objects. We can't be sure how fully or accurately we are modelling the external world of objects, partly because some of its properties may be causally inert in relation to our perceptions, and partly because a causal chain does not necessarily transfer information along its length with completeness or accuracy; but the working hypothesis that there is a world of objects that broadly matches our model of it is justified by the fact that it is by far the most economical explanation for our perceptions.

Nuclear weapons, climate change, species extinction, pollution of the seas... when you play Russian roulette with several guns at once, sooner or later you're going to get a bullet in the head.

Never mind. When we're gone, the few remaining animals will probably be a lot happier.

Primatologists Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal both stated that the child was at risk of being killed, if only because the gorilla was so immensely strong. There was, in their opinion (which is more to be trusted than any of ours) an imminent threat.
— Herg

That is their opinion, not conclusive evidence or indication. — Happiness

Are you seriously claiming that all opinions on such a subject are equally good? Of course they aren't. Goodall and de Waal are experts in primate behaviour; you, I assume, are not. Get real.

As for 'conclusive evidence', in order to get that, the zookeepers would have had to wait and see whether the gorilla injured the child. That would have been utterly immoral and irresponsible.

But without this moral obligation to specieshood, the killing of Harambe would be outrageously wrong, because the killing was done preemptively before any conclusive imminent threat. There was no conclusive evidence or indication that Harambe posed an imminent threat to the boy, and so the killing of Harambe is unjust. — Happiness

Primatologists Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal both stated that the child was at risk of being killed, if only because the gorilla was so immensely strong. There was, in their opinion (which is more to be trusted than any of ours) an imminent threat.

Is it moral to value human life over another species' life?

Unanswerable, because we don't know what it is like to be a member of another species.

I want to know How any kind of Neural Activity can result in the experience of the Redness of Red, for example, in the Conscious Mind. Mapping the Brain and Measuring the Neural Correlates of Consciousness for Red is the Easy Problem. I want to know the answer to the Hard Problem. That is, the Conscious experience of Redness itself.
— SteveKlinko

Why are you assuming that there's any difference? — Terrapin Station

There are two groups of people in the scientific and philosophical worlds: those who hold the view that there is an unsolved and probably insoluble hard problem, and those who hold the view that there isn't. It is impossible for either group to explain to the other group why they hold the view they hold.

Exactly. Again, it's a conflation of how we know about things, what we understand, etc. with what our knowing, etc. are about. — Terrapin Station

Yes.

And macrosoft's statement ("There is a big statue of Lincoln in DC") and mine ("The hydrogen atom has one proton and one electron") are not on a par. The statue, Lincoln, and DC are all external mind-independent objects, but describing them as a statue, Lincoln and DC requires knowledge of a particular culture and is therefore mind-dependent. My sentence about the hydrogen atom requires no knowledge of a particular culture, only knowledge of the structure of matter, which is not culture-dependent, and therefore not mind-dependent (unless one is an idealist, which macrosoft claims not to be).

To ignore that physics is grounded in a wider context that makes it intelligible is tempting but misleading, I think. — macrosoft

You seem to be reasoning as follows:
Premise: Physics is only intelligible in a wider context.
Inference: If the wider context is not present, what physics is describing cannot exist.

That is an invalid argument.

This, by contrast, would be a valid argument:
Premise: Physics is only intelligible in a wider context.
Inference: If the wider context is not present, physics is unintelligible.

You are also skating over the fact that 'intelligible' must mean 'intelligible to some person or persons'. If you remove the context in which we understand physics (i.e. our current civilisation and its scientific culture), that would make physics unintelligible to us, but it would not make it unintelligible to other civilisations who will have their own context in which to understand physics - and what they will understand, e.g. that a hydrogen atom has one proton and one electron, will be the same as what we understand, even though the context in which they understand it is different. Cultural relativism may have a place in ethics, but it has no place in science.

I am willing to do so. I think the best way is to ask you to say something about mind-independent reality. Then I will try to point out the contradictions. — macrosoft

"The hydrogen atom has one proton and one electron."

Over to you.