The point about the eliminativists generally, is that they're falling into exactly the trap that Schopenhauer describes: “Materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself.” — Wayfarer

You neglect, though, that the 'metaphysical subject' is itself a mere invention/convention, just as is the 'physical' that's simultaneously invented as its mediated blindspot. Or it seems just as knee-jerk to me to take one as an absolute starting point as the other, especially after so much great philosophy has taught us alternatives.

Materialism is also too complex for such reductions. Ludwig 'You Are What You Eat' Feuerbach emphasized sensation and emotion.

What puts atheism on this higher ground that they may challenge the beliefs of others, that's while holding no belief in our origins themselves. — Gregory A

Can't speak for others, but some of us are not afraid to admit we just don't fucking know. Upon a little reflection (though against the grain of attachment), the noisemark 'God' is revealed as a piece of machinery that don't even work, that don't explain shit, but only replaces a complex thing that needs explaining with a yet more complex and inscrutable entity. It's like explaining a knock knock joke with fake vomit. There is no there there, just a smily face drawn on a darkness, a transparently phony attempt to paint a daddy on the blue that we came out of and the black that we go into.

The following QUOTE may be helpful in making sense of the mound haunting mutter and mutter hunting mound.
===
As Anatole France say in The Garden of Epicurus, we may imagine rubbing and polishing the coins of different countries until all inscriptions on them are erased. In this way, the coins are extracted from space and time, they would have inestimable value and their circulation could continue ad infinitum. This takes us from the world of our senses to the realm of metaphysics: knowing safely what the coins have lost, we do not know what they have gained. Of course, this is a mere dream, but does it have philosophical implications?
...
Wearing out of our words makes us metaphysicians. Metaphysics chooses worn-out words, such as the absolute, infinite, nonexistence, which do not display a trace of original coinage. These concepts have a negative form.
...
What is the relation between metaphorization which covers up itself and the negative form of concepts? The function of these concepts is to sever the links of our thought with the sense of any concrete existence. In Aristotle’s work, metaphysics comes after nature (physis). A metaphysical sentence is always symbolical and mythical. The sentence “The soul owns God to the extent, in which it takes share of the Absolute.” does not contain any signs, only symbols whose colourfulness and evocative power were erased. With some phantasy it can be said instead: “The breath is seated on the shining one” (God) “in the bushel” (to the extent) “of the part it takes” (in which it takes share) “in what is already loosed (the Absolute),” and elaborate it metaphorically even more: “He whose breath is a sign of life, man, that is, will find a place in the divine fire, source and home of life, and this place will be meted out to him according to the virtue that has been given him of sending abroad this warm breath, this little invisible soul, across the free expanse.” Even at this point we would not arrive at the original figures of speech, though our fantasy would read as an old Vedic hymn. From this, says France, follows that metaphysicians rub the colours from the old myths and fables, and are their collectors. They cultivate white (colourless) [clear] mythology.
...
First and foremost, there are no originary concepts. All of them are tropes, starting with the word archē – origin and principle, that is, governing rule, control. The value of the “basis”, “base”, “ground” corresponds to our wish to stand on a firm ground.
...
The words for comprehending and conceiving (fassen, begreifen), says Hegel, have a totally sensuous contents that is substituted by spiritual meaning. The sensuous words are becoming spiritual in the process of their use.

===
The last fragment addresses the historical accumulation of meaning that seems to make a relatively abstract realm possible (simultaneously providing a relatively concrete realm 'left behind.') This touches again on the impossibility of summarizing a philosophy. The words get their 'meaning' from within the conversation that employs them, via relationships to still other words in that conversation, as if they were characters in a novel who are delineated by how they treat one another.

So lovers of wisdom hate loving wisdom? — Tom Storm

I think it's better unelaborated, having first given it a try.

Hence you have a which-came-first dilemma : the mental idea or the material actualization of the design? — Gnomon

Which came first, the left hand or the right hand ? the East or the West ? the head or the body ?

But already after one sentence (about liquidity) it became clear! — EugeneW

@lll just suds their with cheers born fume is ice. Or there sad @lll with jeers porn out a size.

Pour pour @lll just soot there with far in a sighs.

Lick wet he did wither !

A mouth a mouth for river you are...

I'm surprised you find it so offensive. It's connected to 'folk science,' I'd think, along with 'folk art' and 'folk music.' I'm pretty sure you think that progress in philosophy requires time and seriousness, and I think the same is true for psychology, hence the contrast with what everybody already 'knows' (like the folk metaphysics of man-on-the-street realism.)

Folk science describes ways of understanding and predicting the natural and social world, without the use of rigorous methodologies (see Scientific method). One could label all understanding of nature predating the Greeks as "folk science".

Folk science is often accepted as "common wisdom" in a given culture, and gets passed on as memes. According to some evolutionary psychologists, it may also reflect the output of evolved cognitive processes of the human mind which have been adapted in the course of human evolution.

Is it not the case that spiritual traditions violate the expectations of 'common sense' ? Is the self not an illusion ? The world not an illusion ? I think you're being biased here.

Keep on tuned, for the final revelation! — EugeneW

Beautiful sentence, friend. 'Keep on tuned' indeed.

Hey, Joe. I'm sorry if I was too rude or taunting. You did sorta ask for it, but I really don't want an ugly vibe. So good luck on your future endeavors! I'll leave you to it.

while these classes don't get into ontology, the abstract systems of physicalism are generally presented as being "what there is." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed ! Because perhaps it flatters the physicist to assume so, or there's just no time to' indulge' in such 'useless' chatter. I know a mathematician who hates philosophy. I told him that he can't hate it as much as philosophers do.

Science and physicalism also get conflated, the ontology for the epistemology, an interpretation of the results for the results themselves. — Count Timothy von Icarus

100%

I teach math to college students, and part of the work is cutting against the grain of an implicit metaphysics. To see the formalism as such is no small accomplishment.

Well played.

can blithely string together offbeat arguments such as :"These tour in the path dump chew gather." Comprende? — Gnomon

That's not an argument, and it's spine is 'these two are in the bath tub together.' The bath tub is also a path dump, since language is a system of inherited/discarded token-dealing habits, squirts of the tribal mammary glance. 'Chew gather' emphasizes the materiality orphysically of our signal system. 'I made it out of a mouthful of air.' We chew the air, promise-and-everything-else crammed. 'Gather' stresses semantic holism, for 'a talk links its runes' and a dog licks it wounds, for it's our rational duty and itch for coherence that has us do what we can to assimilate the offensively inscrutable or surprising. 'Tour' emphasizes the time of reading, the way that meaning gathers to erupt at the and of the sentence (the now is not a point but more like a splatter of paint.) This necessarily-incomplete unpacking cannot be canonical, however, for I don't 'own' the effect of my token string, which must function in my absence as a machine or a virus, a suggestive irritant that goads an ungovernable-by-me assimilation within a new context which I cannot anticipate. I can never gnaw just what I'll meme or even what I just mount. (I can't know exactly what I will mean or have meant, for the very tail of the homunculus is slippery when rat.)

A fairly accurate description of love in my opinion. — universeness

I dig the humor, though I'm 25 years deep into my first real relationship. We evolved together, paid some serious dues, and now it's a fairly smooth ride.

After reading some of this, I thought it supported a panpsychist position, then I thought it was more duelist, and finally, I thought it may actually be in support of naturalism.
Is my thinking anywhere near what it is actually saying? — universeness

He was the 'you are what you eat' materialist guy, so beneath all the flowers is very much the soil of mortal flesh. When we think though, we participate in an inherited culture which is basically the operating system of our flesh. Before I can be a fascinating individual, I have to learn how to talk (welcome to the jingle!), and if I want to be 'logical' or 'rational' then I have to go 'where the thoughts lead me' and be 'coherent' and 'consistent.' The norm of rationality is understood to be universally binding. For instance, I don't get to make up a definition for 'atheist.' I can do that, but then I'm drifting away from the norm of individual-independent knowledge. To participate in philosophy is (ideally) to think without bias, to think 'from' or 'as' the point-at-infinity 'universal mind.' In my opinion, there's no need at all for the supernatural in this. It's just that language is so near us that we tend to ignore how freaky it is (ontically near is ontologically far), along with the implications of simple concepts like 'rational' and 'universal' and 'objective.' Wittgenstein's 'form of life' is (as I see it) basically the same thing. 'Spirit' is the fancy version for philosophers who were transforming a (pessimistic) Christian theology into an optimistic humanism, hoping no one who'd get mad would notice.

But they do at the same time take the 'Christ' out of their doodle leading up to and including Dec.25 their own atheism on display, and a show of solidarity with the Left. — Gregory A

This sounds like Tucker talk, bought to your buy these sponsors, the rich that prey the poor against the poor with their bunk which deserves a snore. The real left is or could be the solidarity of folks that work for a living. The talking heads, actually rich and famous and privileged, are 'anti-elitist' because they gripe about Mexicans and Starbucks cups and pronouns and pledge the legions and skull prayer and a portion and sport the troops. Shrill whiny petty indignation, a mirror image of the participation trophy snowflake Left they obsess over. That's the Coyote's cardboard windmill. A man'll course his own shadow for a traitor, don't you know? Show me your bogey and I'll show you what you tamp down to fretlessly strut across this great strange of fools.

Yours is an appeal to popular usage and if accepted why then the title of this thread 'The Invalidity of Atheism'. — Gregory A

Oh, so we get to make up our own meanings ? My girl soak inky. I appreciate this weeps mail over potty. A roach beep some witch? A go sinner claws it ?

For get a boot out ! Its shelf help noses same stew me. Spore me your plops and puns and your both dump flu of has it. Go brick to pet. (But hairy back !)

How much time did it take you? — Agent Smith

I think it was around my third semester, with my schedule full of math and physics all the way there, that I got the 'main idea' of differential equations. You can start with numbers as the basic objects and climb (in one direction) to where functions are the basic objects.

It's so late here that it's early again, so I gotta get to bed soon!

Does it help if I tell you I have a nice big quad HD monitor and not a smartphone, and I used that instead?

Here's one more answer to your question about what makes you you and me me. Also touches on qualia, I guess. All this seems very pre-Wittgensteinian to me. It's just that analytics shit their pants at the name of Hegel perhaps, so it took the mathy smelling guy to tell them.

It is by means of Empfindung or sense experience that sentient beings are able to distinguish individuals from one another, including, in some instances, individuals that share the same essence. The form of experience is temporality, which is to say that whatever is directly experienced occurs “now”, or at the moment in time to which we refer as “the present”. Experience, in other words, is essentially fleeting and transitory, and its contents are incommunicable. What we experience are the perceivable features of individual objects. It is through the act of thinking that we are able to identify those features through the possession of which different individuals belong to the same species, with the other members of which they share these essential features in common.

Unlike sense experience, thought is essentially communicable. Thinking is not an activity performed by the individual person qua individual. It is the activity of spirit, to which Hegel famously referred in the Phenomenology as “‘I’ that is ‘We’ and ‘We’ that is ‘I’” (Hegel [1807] 1977: 110). Pure spirit is nothing but this thinking activity, in which the individual thinker participates without himself (or herself) being the principal thinking agent. That thoughts present themselves to the consciousness of individual thinking subjects in temporal succession is due, not to the nature of thought itself, but to the nature of individuality, and to the fact that individual thinking subjects, while able to participate in the life of spirit, do not cease in doing so to exist as corporeally distinct entities who remain part of nature, and are thus not pure spirit.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/

Not anything unexpected.

Sounds like a pretty well-balanced approach to me, although I think the influences are from more ancient storytelling as all the Christian stories are rehashed from earlier ones. — universeness

I'll just drop one link, 'cause it's well written and suggests what some might call an atheistic mysticism, though it's not mysticism in my book but just insight into language in the jargon of its time. I pretty much agree with Feuerbach as presented below, though the last line pushes it.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/

A sample, which others on this thread might weave into their thoughts on God even.

It is by means of Empfindung or sense experience that sentient beings are able to distinguish individuals from one another, including, in some instances, individuals that share the same essence. The form of experience is temporality, which is to say that whatever is directly experienced occurs “now”, or at the moment in time to which we refer as “the present”. Experience, in other words, is essentially fleeting and transitory, and its contents are incommunicable. What we experience are the perceivable features of individual objects. It is through the act of thinking that we are able to identify those features through the possession of which different individuals belong to the same species, with the other members of which they share these essential features in common.

Unlike sense experience, thought is essentially communicable. Thinking is not an activity performed by the individual person qua individual. It is the activity of spirit, to which Hegel famously referred in the Phenomenology as “‘I’ that is ‘We’ and ‘We’ that is ‘I’” (Hegel [1807] 1977: 110). Pure spirit is nothing but this thinking activity, in which the individual thinker participates without himself (or herself) being the principal thinking agent. That thoughts present themselves to the consciousness of individual thinking subjects in temporal succession is due, not to the nature of thought itself, but to the nature of individuality, and to the fact that individual thinking subjects, while able to participate in the life of spirit, do not cease in doing so to exist as corporeally distinct entities who remain part of nature, and are thus not pure spirit.

A biological species is both identical with and distinct from the individual organisms that make it up. The species has no existence apart form these individual organisms, and yet the perpetuation of the species involves the perpetual generation and destruction of the particular individuals of which it is composed. Similarly, Spirit has no existence apart from the existence of individual self-conscious persons in whom Spirit becomes conscious of itself (i.e., constitutes itself as Spirit). Just as the life of a biological species only appears in the generation and destruction of individual organisms, so the life of Spirit involves the generation and destruction of these individual persons. Viewed in this light, the death of the individual is necessitated by the life of infinite Spirit.

We need a lot more than this max of around 100 years to work stuff out properly!! — universeness

Yes indeed. I'd like 1000 years, maybe a million. I want to know some languages, all of them maybe. Oh the list goes on and on. Don't get me started.

s it a coincidence a lot of talking and buzzing about gods, religion, good and evil, omni-everything, free will of God, determinism, elementary particles, (a)theism, JC, the bible, etc. to be heard? — EugeneW

That's actually not unusual.

Before not too long, the revelation the gods were finally able to communicate to me, in an almost incredible, unbelievably vivid and lucid dream, will be exclusively revealed, here on this forum. — EugeneW

I look forward to you sharing it, friend.

just the tentacles with suckers that mean business if you catch my drift. — Agent Smith

Caligula inside, but only a few of us know it ?

because I really can't see our squid's head, just the tentacles with suckers that mean business if you catch my drift. — Agent Smith

Our friendly conversation together is part of that head. We (with our individual brains) are like neurons linked together in by English into a larger and better 'abstract' brain without a definite location, something that can correct out the malfunctions and distribute the innovations of any particular mortal brain.

There are non-believers in a god/s and there are atheists, those that challenge theists. — Gregory A

That's not how the word is used by most. If you make up your own usages, you'll likely be misunderstood, especially if you are demonizing/misrepresenting folks. Here's what I got from googling 'atheist,' just to be sure of myself before pointing it out.

a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.

I don't think you are mentally ill Joe, just a little confused about 'what it's all about.' — universeness

You got a laugh out of me with that twist. Well done, sir.

May be I wasn't clear enough. Oh well! Your answer is, I'm certain, a notch above the rest. — Agent Smith

It takes some time to grok differential equations, so it was a bit of a fool's errand for me to even try to dish it out in a post (a fun one, though.) In a video game world, you can think of updating the position and the velocity and the acceleration of a pong ball at every tiny time step according to a rule that takes the current values of those attributes into account. Some might find that easier to understand. Imagine if your current acceleration is set to be equal to your current speed. That'd be quite a ride, if you start with a positive speed.

Yeah, I love the novel discovery part. I guess theoretical physicists are searching through the space of all possible video games for one that looks like ours (like the one we imagine behind the noise of our world, I should say.)

Have a good night!

These people are experts in theology as they now reject it. — universeness

Bruno Bauer is one of the people like this that interests me. He was a left Hegelian, and he was part of the attempt to transform Christianity into something modern and rational. David Strauss has some great passages too.

Just as a point of interest, have you read Caesar's Messiah by Joeseph Atwill, or Creating Christ by J Valliant and W Fahey. Both these books posit that Christianity was invented by the Romans as was Jesus etc. — universeness

Haven't read those guys, no, but I'm open to the hypothesis that there was no Jesus, or no particular Jesus (maybe a type of prophet/rebel who was conglomerated and/or decorated or outright fabricated.)
To me the main thing is the way the story lives on. Hamlet is 'fake' and Socrates is 'real,' but they both exist for me as talking 'ghosts' in books, just like Jesus...who almost certainly had words put in his avatar's mouth, if there was an original in the first place.

I've been an atheist for about 20 years, so I feel pretty neutral on this issue. Maybe there was such a guy. Maybe not. Some of the words in the book are nice. Others not. I consider myself influenced by some Christian ideas, but I guess many of us must be.

If something is knowable a priori, then it's known independently of experience, so I don't see how the past comes into it. — Wayfarer

We could make up all kinds of mathematical models without data even. We could then transform them according to the grammar of math and call it a priori knowledge (though actually we did need the experience of the moving the symbols around, and the 'ideality' of math is its own issue.) The only reason to rely on a model, however, would seem to be that it summarized past experience and therefore, given the assumption of the uniformity of nature, should be good for predicting the future (like the path of a rocket.)

Not wrong. It's applicability is shown to be limited but with the range of applicability it's not wrong. — Wayfarer

Well now you're coming over to my filthy 'instrumentalist' camp which isn't so concerned with the really really real. From a realist perspective, and unless my rusty physics knowledge is betraying me (hopefully a physicist will jump in)... it's wrong, but the errors in its 'range of applicability' are so small that one can ignore them for practical purposes. Hence this range will itself be a function of how much precision is needed for a particular purpose. Recall also that measurement is always noisy. So folks back then didn't notice these errors and/or tried to explain away issues like the Mercury thing.

Has anyone ever reported that force equaled something other than mass times acceleration? — Wayfarer

That was taught to me as a definition of force, but not all teachers do that. The larger issue is maybe whether 'laws' are ever proven wrong, and we've already discussed that Newton's model was wrong, though successful enough to give many the sense that they had the source code that moved both the planets and the apples on their trees.

There's something other than inductive logic at work here isn't there? — Wayfarer

It seems clear to me that we are projecting the structure of the past onto the future. Inductive, yes? This is how I understand the assumption of 'the uniformity of nature' in the Humean context. I can't doubt it any more than Hume can outside his study. But I can't deduce it either. That's why it's so gloriously weird ! It's 'irrational' and yet rationality itself.

How do they 'refer to the past'? — Wayfarer

The measurements refer to the past, as indicated by the grammar, unless you know something about time that I don't. <no rudeness intended, just saying>

Differential equations, lll, are they part of load & stress equations in re bridges? Can you explain them to me, please? Simplify them, if you can or want to. — Agent Smith

I've never studied bridges in particular, unless it was a textbook problem. Definitely there are diffeqs 'in there' at some level of magnification. I spent more time with Maxwell's laws. But I won't dare to jump into vector calculus. Instead I'll give you the simplest example which is still beautiful.

In a differential equation, you are solving not for a number but for a function. They are 'differential' because the equation expresses relationships between the unknown function and its derivatives. A classic equation is $f = f'$. In other words, you are asked to find a function whose slope at x is equal to its height at x. This represents something whose growth rate is equal to its current size, which makes it (with some parameter sauce) a good model for things like a pile of germs in plenty of foodgoo. The solution is $f(x) = e^x$.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_function

So, a real bridge is following instructions like in a video game? — Agent Smith

If you believe that the laws of physics are correct models in a context of the uniformity of nature, then I think yes. That's why folks went crazy for Newton, I think. He found God's source code (differential equations.)

In what are we distinct, unqiue, one-of-a-kind thing? — Agent Smith

I'd say: our bodies and the way they are trained by unique histories with unique reactions within a biological and cultural range of possibility. Imagine the tribe as a squid and each of us as its tentacles. The nervous system of the squid is based on (among other things) electromagnetic radiation (so we can read one another's scribbles) and the vibration of air (so we can hear one another's words). Throw in some technology (which language will help us invent) and we can send messages through the fucking vacuum. For instance, Voice => Light => Voice. That's a robust nervous system.

And each tentacle has its own malleable local and imperfect 'version' or 'cell' of the operating system (in fact the whole operating system is distributed, without an official or complete version anywhere in some non-tentacle brain (so the analogy breaks down here a little.) ) This or that tentacle can use its local embodied OS to come up with some new trick that can be passed on over the 'wires' of language, until suddenly all the tentacles know that trick. Other tricks go out of fashion and die off. There's only so much room, for the microchip-tentacle-brains in this mixed analogy are finite in their capacity.

THE END