Perhaps this is the "mainstream" view primarily among those already inclined not to believe in God, who are in fact, not actually the mainstream?

I would agree that evolution debunks a childlike Santa's workshop vision of God, which perhaps was prevalent among uneducated peasants of yesteryear. Beyond that, to me evolution seems a point in favor of an intelligent source to reality given that evolution is a self regulating mechanism. Not proof of God, just a point scored for the theist team.

However, that said, I remain persuaded that the theist vs. atheist paradigm is probably so hopelessly flawed as to be largely useless, and that whatever the reality is it likely bears little resemblance to that debate. Generally speaking, my sense is that that debate persists because it's like a familiar card game where everyone knows the rules and thus can be comfortable and generally lazy in playing their preferred cards — Hippyhead

Perhaps we live in a world where originality has taken a long holiday, likely to be extended for some (unknown) reason. I'm trying to work within the system for two reasons: 1. this is where the action takes place and 2. I too am not an original thinker myself.

Coming to the matter of the best approach to the issue of god-evolution, I suppose the whole issue needs to be given a long overdue overhaul - you know, the back-to-the-drawing-board kind of reevaluation. For certain, I'm not among the ones capable of such a feat but I have developed, for better of worse, over the years, a Morpheus of the Matrix trilogy attitude - I'm biding my time waiting for The One who will, if only by crashing the entire edifice of reality we're so familiar with, bring light, so to speak, into the world. I wait patiently but I don't know how long I can hold out. Perhaps you'll be luckier than me...

@KerimF A religion without rules!

A system without rules!

Not any system but one that's a religion!

While the thought of the Egyptian god of chaos, Set, did cross my mind, something less obvious (to me) grabbed my attention. What exactly? You might ask. Well, don't get fooled by looking for one religion, instead take a step back and look at the entire landscape that is religion and we see, much to my dismay, Buddhism here, Islam there, Christianity at one location, Judaism at another, the same goes for all religions dead or alive, big or small.

Then take note of the fact that all these religions, at some point, contradict each other. For instance, Hinduism says many gods while Abrahamic faiths pray to one; Buddhism and Hinduism has reincarnation, other religions don't; Pork is forbidden in Islam (and Judaism?) and beef is a big no-no in Hinduism.

It appears that for every rule that either mandates/prohibits an act in one religion, there's another rule that does the exact opposite in another religion. If we take all religions together, under one banner, as so many with nothing but good intentions have attempted to do, I'm afraid they'll cancel each other out and we'll be left with nothing! Exactly what you're looking for.

Funny thing is I don't consider minds to be easy to generalize, yet that occurs very often. — Mayor of Simpleton

And...?

Taking it for granted that minds are not treated as differently as they perhaps should be, be that due to age, geographical location, time in which one lives, social norms, conflicts with norms, comfort in norms... the list goes on and on... ( — Mayor of Simpleton

You're talking about content but a mind's age relates more to the processes - logic for example - that go into creating the content.

By the way, if the process of 'trial and error' doesn't belong to a very intelligent algorithm(s), I personally wouldn't be one of the fruits (humans), even after zillions of years of evolution on earth (if not the first living cells on earth came from somewhere in outer space).
Now 'trial and error' is used in what is known as 'Artificial Intelligence'. And I personally use it in some products I design. — KerimF

Fantastic!. If you have the time and the computing power, no one will hold it against you that you solved a problem using trial and error. Could god be a some kind of a super computer then? My main worry is that there's randomness in the universe and if one can't control it the best technique is trial and error. It's weird in every sense of the word - the simplest problem solving method is the best approach given extreme complexity as when there's randomness involved. That there's randomness suggests god was/is unable to control all the forces that go into making the universe, implying he isn't as intelligent as we'd like faer to be but then fae solved the problem in the most ingenious way possible, with trial and error.

I am not sure that the fact that bodily age and mental age do not match is an argument in favour of dualism. This is because it only suggests that the brain is not always affected by bodily aging, This could equally be applied to other aspects of developmental aging. For example, while many people develop high blood pressure in later life not everyone does.

Dementia is more of an illustration against dualism because in this condition there are clear signs of brain abnormalities which can be observed on CT scans. In the case of precocious developers it may that certain areas are activated by certain neurotransmitters. Of course, there is one strange conditions, like people who can do identify what day of the week someone was born at an instant, after being told their date of birth. I even met someone who could do this. However, unusual abilities or disabilities simply point to complexities of the way in which the brain translates into consciousness.

Even if you say that the mind does not age while the body does, while a human being is alive the mind and body are still connected through the brain rather than separate. So the only way to know that they can be independent would be after all bodily functions have ceased entirely — Jack Cummins

I'm aware of the facts that you mentioned. In fact I have a better example if I may say so: Liver and kidney functions, for instance, don't show changes even into the fag end of people's lives. However, the difference between livers, kidneys and brains is that the former is physical and the latter is not entirely certain to be all physical. Also, the decline in kidney and liver functions will show if we use equipment sensitive enough to detect small changes in them that, I suppose, correlate with physical age. The same can't be said of the mind though - using logical ability as the parameter of interest, there's hardly any decline in logical thinking ability between the ages of 20 and 80.

Excellent point! However, there are confounding factors in your cute study of chess players. Competition, especially high-stakes ones like chess tournaments, are physically stressful and if your body has aged some parts of it will likely malfunction under the pressure causing, if I may say so, a decline in mental performance. It's not that the mind is malfunctioning or that it's showing signs of age but that the body it's linked to is failing to keep it at peak performance. I'm not blind to the fact that this smacks of some degree/level of physicalism. After all, if the mind is affected by the physical then it suggests that the mind too is physical. All I can do to deny this is to offer the analogy of a human in a car. If there's something wrong with the car then the driver's performance will be affected even if fae is the best driver in the world but that doesn't mean there's no difference between the car and the driver. For one, the car is dead and the driver is a living organism. I don't think it gets more different than that.

I'm a bit less interested in the exceptions here (dementia or preciousness in children), but more so in the normal situations — Mayor of Simpleton

The normal state of affairs is not to treat the mind of a 20-something person as different from a mind of an 80 year old. This is what I find odd!

You're looking at it from a different angle. You speak from a position that acknowledges our ignorance, vast as the empty space populated by galaxies. I speak from the standpoint of what is known to us, from the existing framework of knowledge at our disposal.

My issue is with inherency for it implies the existence of proclivities, tendencies, inclinations and the like, things that, well, determine our actions. In effect, if we are inherently anything, we're, for certain, not free.

The only way for god to grant us free will, given the dualistic nature of reality, the interplay of opposites, is to make us both as likely to be bad as good. The attraction felt toward all opposing pairs of the dualistic paradigm must be equal. Randomness? Reminds me of Buridan's ass.

I didn't doubt for a second that you count among the blessed as I described it :smile:

The same, alas, can't be said of my life. :sad:

A couple of things to consider:

1. I'm not entirely sure why I did what I did - treat evolution as god's handiwork. The usual thing to do is to treat evolution as a counterpoint against god. I suppose most people are under the impression that if god created the universe, every object, including living organisms, must've come into existence fully formed i.e. there shouldn't be simpler forms preceding the current incarnations of organisms like Darwinian evolutionary stages. In other words the mainstream view seems to be that evolution disproves god and to incorporate evolution as part of god's creative act is a contradictio in terminis.

However, this - divine evolution (god was behind evolution) - is a contradictio in terminis only if evolution is, in fact, a simple process. I did try and make the case that it is by pointing out that the underlying mechanism in Darwin's theory of life is trial and error, an extremely simple problem solving technique which bespeaks a novice tinkering around in faers garage rather than an expert creating faers magnum opus in a state-of-the-art workshop.

Is evolution really a simple process based on trial and error? I recall making a point of mentioning that a trial and error technique maybe the best if there's an element of randomness in the environment as is the case to my reckoning. In other words, trial and error may actually be a sign of superior intelligence rather than an inferior one.

2. In continuation, therefore, the alleged simplicity of Darwnian evolution - it being trial and error - is questionable to say the least. This is probably why I, unwittingly but not erroneously, treated evolution as god's handiwork - there is no contradiction in doing so.

This, nonetheless, doesn't help me in my attempt to prove god's simplicity. In fact, by proving the complexity in evolution and then ascribing it to god, I've essentially shot myself in the foot [or so it seems].

It's time to revisit the element of randomness I talked about for it's the only thing that makes trial and error a mark of intelligence rather than idiocy. Why does randomness exist and what is its relationship with god's omniscience? Or, most intriguing of all, is randomness an illusion?

If randomness is an illusion or is god-created in the sense god has control over it, why have a trial and error method [for life]?

It seems we're forced to conclude that the randomness in the universe is not under god's control and thus the intelligent solution for life - trial and error.

But, why is randomness something beyond god's control? I'll leave you with one question: could it be that god is not playing with a full deck?

What is the logic applied to impermanence that answers the question of how to live well? And, btw, the question is ‘how to end suffering?’ and not ‘how to live well?’ — praxis

Not to be rude or anything but isn't it obvious?

I'm not a hermitologist, if there's such a thing at all, but the proverbial hermit's cave is usually located in the vicinity of human settlements. That however seems to miss the point i.e. to infer that hermits too depend on other people amounts to either failing to understand or misunderstanding the philosophy of hermithood.

Why can’t we say this about any religion? — praxis

I made a point of mentioning logic. I guess it slipped under your radar. I didn't expand on the role rationality plays in Buddhism. So if you missed it, it's not your fault.

Indeed. 'tis paradoxical. So far as bad examples go, the more useless you become, the better. — Banno

Ah! But it's not so simple. The less of a bad example one is, the more of a good example one becomes. One gives up a position in Bad Inc. only to fill one in Good Inc. To make the long story short, one hasn't been able to break free from being perceived as nothing more than an object of utility, some utility.

What a coincidence. I watched this video too not a while ago. I also didn't get it but the takeaway for me was that the pattern doesn't repeat. I suppose it means that no matter how you cut it (in a mathematical sense), a given configuration of tiles will not be found in a different location in the tiling even if you extend the tiling to infinity in all directions. By the way, the guy in the video doesn't actually make an effort to explain why this is the case.

I'm just curious, how does one know that the tiling is patternless?

Is old age a blessing or a curse for the elderly? — David Mo

Blessed are the one with young bodies and old minds.

Cursed are the ones with old bodies and young minds.

One might always serve as a bad example... — Banno

That's being useful :smile:

It appears that before we can answer the question of whether Buddhism is a philosophy or religion, we need to first get a handle on what these three are. Duh! The question assumes from the get go an essentialist point of view - the view that things have defining essences and that these essences can be utilized to differentiate philosophy from religion and decide Buddhism's membership.

For my money, Buddhism in its present state - with its pantheon of deities - is not the right place to start. As I already mentioned, Buddhism has had a long relationship with Hinduism which shows if you know what I mean.

I suggest, therefore, we go back to the very beginning, to the birth of Buddhism as it were. This only so that we don't get sidetracked by theistic elements that Buddhism began to soak up through its encounters with primarily Hinduism and secondarily other animistic religions existing then.

Buddhism begins with one single, all-important axiom - the doctrine of impermance that change is an inevitable and undeniable aspect of our reality - and brings logic to bear on it to build a system of recommended practices which is, at its core, an answer to the question that greek philosophers were grappling with, to wit, how to live well?. Buddhism, ergo, is a success story in philosophy; in other words it is a philosophy.

Addendum

I would like you to explore the self-refuting nature of the statement, N = never say never, never say always, because N does exactly what it says shouldn't be done.

I am afraid that it does exist, in my life in the least.

When I was rather young, I had to join the military service for about 2 years. Being an engineer, I do it as an officer though of the lowest rank.
In the first training session on guns, I refused holding one.
They: "You have to know how to use a gun. This helps you defend yourself in case you will be attacked by an enemy".
Me: "But I have no enemies in my life"
They: "You may not have enemies now, but your country may be attacked by enemies anytime".
Me: "Please, what do enemies mean, in your opinion?"
They: "Our enemies are those who will impose their will on us".
Me: "Don't you mean they will do as you are doing to me now?”
They laughed while going away... and I wasn't asked anymore to attend such training.

By the way, my occupation in that period of time was teaching electronics in a military academy. — KerimF

:lol: Fantabulous!

This is only a problem because you worship the idol of utility, believing that usefulness is the highest good.

I'd aim for purpose over use.

Sisyphus is use without purpose. The fact that he is used to roll a rock for eternity might distinguish him from you because you believe yourself to be entirely useless, but why would you prefer his plight to yours?

So, you can rephrase the OP to ask what is your purpose, which would place you in the existential crisis as the rest of the godless, but you'd at least be relieved of the angst caused by your concerns over your uselessness. — Hanover

Thanks! If I may I'd like to pick your brain on the difference between purpose and use. As for what I think, using Sisyphus as a case in point, Sisyphus' use is that of a person who must roll a rock up a hill for eternity but he doesn't have purpose because it's not that he was created for that specific task, it just so happens that Sisyphus' life can be interpreted as such.

As another example to check if I catch your drift, I remember not finding a saucer to place my cup of tea on so, I simply placed my cup on a book that was close by. The saucer's purpose contrasts with the book's use insofar as my tea was concerned.

Can you elaborate a bit more about these two concepts, purpose and use? What differentiates them? What they entail, and so on?

I used to wonder that until I stopped wondering it and that seems to make it go away. That seems to be the solution for most “philosophical angst”. I used to get periods where I’d be super anxious about how the world could be deterministic and nothing I do matters once every 3 months on the dot. Then I’d spend one month exactly to try to resolve the issue which either ends in me reaching a new conclusion or giving up. Funnily enough, both outcomes had the same effect, until 3 months later.

It seems to me that doing philosophy is the worst way to get rid of philosophical angst. Occasionally you get a complete shift in thought which will settle your issues for a while but it’s very rare. Best thing to do is to just do something practical for a while and actually do philosophy when there is no emotional charge behind it. I find the most of the time you try to untangle philosophical angst by doing philosophy you only make it worse but when you ignore it for a while and approach the subject when you’re not emotionally attached that leads to actual shifts in thought. — khaled

Thanks! :up:

:ok: :up:

1) Is science a generally reliable method of generating new knowledge? I'm guessing we'd all agree the answer is yes. — Hippyhead

I'm not too sure. The methodology - observational repeatability, experimentation - is undeniably the best but there are a lot of steps/stages between observation and a robust theory that explains the observations and there's no guarantee that errors won't creep into the process of developing a good scientific hypotheis/theory.

2) Can human beings successfully manage any amount of new knowledge delivered at any rate? It seems essential to seek an answer to this question, because the knowledge explosion feeds back upon itself, leading to an ever accelerating development of new knowledge. — Hippyhead

I don't know what you're talking about.

What do you mean by "chaos manifests"? I reiterate again that the neural networks exhibit chaotic dynamics, this has a precise mathematical formulation which is quite different than how you are using the term chaos. Also, chaotic dynamics in neural networks doesnot mean any output is possible. The outputs have a state space over which they vary. What this means is that although our neural networks may exhibit chaotic dynamics we suddenly won't be able hear megahertz frequency sounds or see x-rays. — debd

My issue with your theory of "chaotic dynamics" in re the brain is very simple. Your chaotic brain idea explains the differences. In fact it's express purpose is to demonstrate how two brains, despite being exposed to the same enviroment in a broad sense, will diverge in mental qualities such as beliefs, attitudes, desires, likes and dislikes, etc. for the reason that brains are sensitive to tiny differences in the environment. In essence, your theory is meant to explain differences between individuals. How can you use a theory that's primary objective is to account for differences as a explanatory basis for similarities? It's like using using Darwin's theory to explain Creation science. It makes zero sense [to me].

long the rule doesn't contradict my unconditional free-will love/care towards all others; friends, strangers and enemies. — KerimF

Rules and free-will can't coexist. Either one precludes/negates the other.

When one cannot even express the notion that 'never' is useless, without using the term, it is a strong indication that one's thinking is off course — unenlightened

The thought did cross my mind but dive a bit deeper and the words "never" and "always" can never be used in the sense they're defined. The only usage that's "appropriate" is in the sentence N = "never say never, never say always". However, if one takes into account the self-referential aspect of N, the usage of "never" isn't justified; after all we're never to say "never" and N violates the very rule it states. Does that mean, the rule expressed by the sentence N is null and void and that it's permissible to use "never" and "always" sometimes? Like it or not, the answer to this question is a big NO! The reason is simple: Never and Always are temporal concepts, they're about time and we're more than familiar with the problem of induction, its essence being encapsulated in the statement that asserts that just because the sun has risen without fail up until now, it doesn't follow that it'll rise tomorrow. :chin:

composure — TheDude

Rocks have incredible, Zeno-level, composure.

Is this healthy? — TheDude

Do you think being a rock/Zeno is healthy?

There are no correct answers to the questions I've posed above.

greater good defense — jorndoe

My two cents:

The notion of the "greater good" taken to its logical conclusion would entail that nothing is good enough to be the greater good. To clarify, allow me to present a plausible but disturbing scenario: the greater good principle is essentially mathematical/quantitative as the word "greater" suggests. So, the good of 2 people is "greater" than the good of 1 person, the good of 3 people is "greater" than the good of 2 people, the good of 4 people is "greater" than the good of 3 people, the good of n+1 people is "greater" than the good of n people, so and so forth ad infinitum. In short, there will always be a greater good for any given number of people. Compared to an infinite number of people, any finite number of people would fall short of qualifying as a/the greater good. The greater good principle is deeply flawed for it implies there is no such thing.

So, Yahweh, being omniscient and all, can't be, shouldn't be, applying the principle of greater good for it's self-refuting. The children in St. Jude's Hospital are suffering and dying not because god wills it for the "greater" good but because of something else. What that something else is is anyone's guess but, for certain, it isn't for the "greater" good for the simple reason that there's no such thing as a/the "greater" good.

Firstly, I didn't offer you religion as a route to goodness. Quite the opposite, I only reminded you of the devil - veritably a religious figure albeit if only as an adversary - to show you that there's ample room in religion for what it is that you seek, a state of complete freedom from any and all rules.

By the way, technically speaking, if splitting hairs is your thing, no matter how hard you try to break free from the shackles of rules, you will never be able to succeed for that there are no rules is itself a rule. The devil, it seems, is in the details! Good luck!

omnipotent philosopher — Benj96

How about trying to answer your question by contrasting the omnipotent philosopher with an omnipotent non-philisopher?

Sadist or fiction or neutral. Imagine yourself to be a parent and you'll know how painful it is to take sides when your children get into a fight. You can't hurt either, so you can't aid either. Just to make it more dramatic, a good parent wouldn't mind being called all sorts names, including but not limited to sadist and fiction, if it meant not hurting faer children.

Jesus didn't impose any rules — KerimF

free-will — KerimF

if love is imposed by a law it cannot be true love — KerimF

Words dripping with wisdom! You've answered your own question.

However, one mustn't forget that religious rules do exist, those that prohibit one from turning to the dark side of the force, so to speak. There are no rules to make you good but there are rules to keep you from becoming bad.

I think you're confusing murder with nonexistence with death. That's all I could gather from your post.

Science, to me, is the one thing we can all agree on because its fundamental modus operandi is based wholly on what is demonstrable. Imagine if this simple methodology were abandoned for an alternative approach to knowledge. There would be utter chaos in the world of epistemology, right? How would we resolve disputes? We know everyone is entitled to an opinion but without science all such opinions would have to be taken as true. The "utter chaos" I referred to, in my humble opinion, will rear its ugly head in a multitude of contradictions. Our world would be reduced to an incomprehensible pile of paradoxes.

"Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." — Daniel Ramli

Between what is entailed by the above and god's omnibenevolence, Christians have a clear choice:

1. either believe that god wants us to "rule of the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground" and conclude that god isn't omnibenevolent

OR

2. god is omnibenevolent and the above statement is false

For my money, people, Christians too, would rather give up 1 than 2.

To my reckoning, all religions share the same theme - there's a benevolent being looking out for us - we call this being god - and in direct conflict with such a being is an adversary - the devil. In all cases of such pairing of opposites, god is the one who brings order and the devil is the one who brings disorder, and disorder is a state when there are no rules. In short, if you're looking for a religion with lawlessness as part of its central doctrine, you don't need to try too hard.

The content of the hard drives is analogous to mental content — your thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc. That stuff can and does change, which is the whole point here, accounting for origins of that change. The overall function of the brain though, like the overall function of the hard drive,remains the same; those big features are relatively fixed and not easily altered. — Pfhorrest

Ok, the contents of the hard drive are mental content. Changes in the fine structure of the hard drive alters the contents of the hard drive just like differences in the fine structure of the brain alters the mental content. What, in all of this is the "overall function of the brain" that has remained "relatively fixed"? If I alter one single bit on the hard drive, the content will change dramatically - this is the chaos you're referring to. I fail to see what has remained "relatively fixed"? Remember we're not discussing the function of the hard drive as a memory device. You were so kind to point out that "the contents of the hard drives is analogous to mental content - your thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc."

Someone else already gave a great illustration with regards to a hard drive earlier. The magnetization of individual bits on a hard drive can be completely different, but the whole structure of the hard drive remains that of a hard drive. The magnetization of individual bits can change drastically and unpredictably over time, like weather, but still the general overall structure of the drive remains the same, or only changes very slowly, like climate. — Pfhorrest

This analogy doesn't work for the simple reason that it doesn't include a functional aspect. The brain is the hard drive, ok. However, the brain has a function which is expressed in the form of thoughts and behavior. The analogy of the hard drive doesn't have a corresponding attribute. If we do attempt to complete the analogy, the content of the hard drive should stand for brain function but any changes in the fine structure of the hard drive will produce a corresponding change in the contents of the hard drive.

I think we are talking past each other. What do you mean when you say people should exhibit chaotic behavior? — debd

It is not a question of if, experiments have shown that neural networks exhibit chaotic dynamics. However, this does not mean it cannot be analyzed or predictions cannot be made. — debd

In keeping with your theory, the chaos manifests at the level of behavior (mental AND physical) but there are similarities at those levels which should be impossible (in your chaos theory).

Weather and climate again. — Pfhorrest

You mean to say you can predict the climate and not the weather? Any references to support your claim? Also, kindly explain the analogy in more detail. What aspect of our minds is the climate and what aspect of our mind is weather?

Chaotic systems are mathematically defined systems, it does not mean people will behave chaotically. You are confusing chaotic systems with the common use of the word chaos. — debd

I don't mean to be rude but you're trying to eat the cake and have it too. Firstly, you and some others are trying to explain differences between individuals, whether belonging to the same species or not, with chaos theory. Clearly, in such a theory, the input are the differences in environment, minute ones as per chaos theory, that's causing large variations in output. Put simply, the chaos is in the output - the mental and bodily aspects of a person. In other words, you're saying these very differences - mental and physical - are the chaos. Then you go on to deny this is so. :chin:.

However, what explains the similarities then? If chaos theory is applicable to brain-mind there should be absolutely zero similarities between individuals, same species or not. Yet, animals share a sizeable chunk of their biology with other animals.

:up: