I'm saying that we wouldn't be able to use the donkey logic at all, but we reliably can, and that would indicate that our logic is not faulty. If the logic is faulty then why would one be able to use that logic to come to correct conclusions? And if you are saying faulty logic would have no effect on our ability to form arguments then why would there be an issue for the arguments applied to God? — ToothyMaw

Just because we use the donkey logic, and it makes sense to us, doesn't mean it is correct. We could still use a broken system and happily accept the broken conclusions. One would not be able to use logic to come to the current conclusion - that is my point.

If God is able to make contradictions happen, then our logic system is not fit for purpose to be used to analyses him, as it is not a system that can cope with contradictions.

But I feel like we both are going round in circles here.

But our system of logic cannot cope with contradictions. See my above post with an example.

True that scenario could happen. Or indeed some mechanism where the ignorance is time limited.

A question I have would be, can anyone else in the position of the God-who-is-for-now-human, also go through the same learning process and gain the same powers? I.e is there still a fundamental difference between that God-who-is-for-now-human and other normal humans, that allows him to regain those powers after learning, while other human cannot no matter how hard they try.

Perhaps a Buddhist might be able to chime in - is this not what Buddhist teaches to an extent? Any one who reaches a certain level of knowledge can become enlightened. Admittedly I don't know much detail about said teaching, so may be off here.

Here is an example of a piece of logic.

Premise 1: I get letters if and only if the postman visited
Premise 2: I got letters today

Conclusion: The postman visited

If the two premises are true, then logically the conclusions must be true as we understand it.

Now what about if contradictory things can happen? "I get letters if and only if the postman visited" and "I got letter without the postman visiting" can both be true in such a world. The two premises no longer logically result that the conclusion must be true.

But if we can confirm that the appropriate application of logic always leads to correct outcomes, or almost always, then why do we have reason to doubt its integrity? — ToothyMaw

We would not know they are the correct outcomes, as the system we are using to understand and evaluate it is faulty. I.E what you or I think is the correct outcome, may not be the correct outcome, as the system we are using is faulty.

Does anyone else have any input on this? IF contradictions could happen, I think our current logical system would have problems. Is there something I am missing?

If the logic still can be used to describe reality, is it even faulty? — ToothyMaw

But a world in which contradictory things can happen, is not the world described by logic. So if contradictory things can really happen, then there is reason to suspect the world painted by logic.

No I'm saying the system would be faulty. Using a faulty system, you can get results that looks correct in the system, but are not actually correct.

If the logic didn't work, we wouldn't be able to combine the separate statements that donkeys are both small and gray to describe a donkey. The logic is just as necessary to the donkey example as the fact that they are indeed observably small and gray. If God had changed the rules of logic in such a way as to make the combined statement about donkeys false, we would not be able to use the donkey logic to come to any conclusions about donkeys or other things at all. But we can - merely with the premises that donkeys are small and gray.

If I'm wrong on this one, someone who knows more about logic correct me, please. — ToothyMaw

It would just mean that our logic system is faulty. What we use as a logical system, is a flawed system.

I don't think our current logic system can survive if it is possible for contradictory things to happen. But I too am happy to be corrected by someone with a better understanding of logic.

For instance, if we can verify the claim that donkeys are small separately from the claim that they are gray to come to the conclusion that they are indeed both small and gray, then we know that the statements "donkeys are small", and "donkeys are gray" are non-contradictory.

That might seem pretty basic, but it demonstrates that we have a means of knowing if God has made two logical statements contradictory. — ToothyMaw

But if we take that God can make contradictory things happen,

Then that we see "donkeys are grey" and "donkeys are small" can both happen at the same time, does not mean they are non-contradictory. I.e if it is possible that contradictory things can happen, then the very basis of logic that we use everyday would be suspect.

We assume it is impossible for contradictory things to happen, and that assumption is also inbuilt in your above logic about donkeys. You are assuming that if "donkeys are small" and "donkeys are gray" are contradictory, then "small grey donkeys" would not happen. But this assumption does not apply to a God who can make contradictory things happen.

Sounds sort of fun. To live powerless for a while and allow others have the power and then resume control when needed - for example when there is too much abuse of his/her power and to restore the natural balance of things — Benj96

But in this scenario, God is not really powerless, is he? For he has the power to take back his all encompassing powers, otherwise he will be stuck forevermore as a mere human.

To use an analogy - if Bill Gates went to live on the streets in a shanty town in Ghana, but still had the ability to resume his old wealth any time he wanted to, then he would not really be poor would he? He would get first hand experience of poverty for a while, but it would not be the same as real poverty as he can exit the situation any time he chooses - something the real poor in that shanty town in Ghana would not be able to do. It would be a form of playing poor for a while, rather than real poverty.

Of course my argument does not apply to a God who has the omni powers, and who can make contradictory things happen at the same time. I don't think I can formulate any argument that applies to such a God.

He could make any two contradictory things possible at the same time if he so desires. — ToothyMaw

The issue I have with any arguments that attribute these kind for characteristics to God, is that those very characteristics then render moot any following arrangement you or I may give.

I don't think you can make a logical argument against a being that can make two contradictory things possible at the same time, as such a being would be able to invalidate the most perfect piece of human logic.

This is the problem with any being who we attribute as having the omnis or the above. They are superior even to logic. If I start with a being who can make the impossible (by human understanding) happen, it is meaningless to apply human logic to them.

I can imagine a scenario wherein my thoughts are not mine — Tom Storm

And this is not as science fiction as one might think at first.

They did some experiments where they artificially stimulated mice brains to give them artificial memories. These mice then changed their behavior due to these memories. See here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-successful-artificial-memory-has-been-created/

If I manipulate the electrical activity of your brain such that you get thoughts of wanting a pineapple topped pizza right now, are those your thoughts? The though would be indistinguishable from any other thought you had.

We may soon have the technology to take what were once theoretical philosophical questions, and turn them into very practical ones.

It makes sense to explore scenarios, sure. What I have explored has not led to any reason to believe in a God, but who knows if I may one day find something.

You are right.

As it is, this is all an academic discussion for me, so I can afford to ignore the bitterness of the pill. However if I did believe in an omniscient God, perhaps the bitterness would be visceral and I would avoid the arguments I was making. Funny that.

Not really, unless God were threatening me with death, or an eternity of damnation for defying him. — ToothyMaw

What I am saying is that if you are starting off with an omniscient God (as you did mention in your OP), then by the very attribute you ascribed to God, he has a superior understanding of what is just than you. In fact, by the very attribute you ascribe to God, he cannot be wrong in what he finds just.

The issue, as far as i can see, is the attribution of omniscience and omnipotence to God.

Then we have to accept that God is an insane asshole that actually believes that serial rapists should not be punished except when caught? — ToothyMaw

In that framework, we would have to assume that your and my understanding of who is an asshole is wrong compared to God's superior omniscient understanding of who is an asshole.

Then everything ethical and just is absolutely arbitrary. Or we don't need God. Read this for clarification.

Or that everything ethical or just is what god understands as ethical and just, regardless of whether you or I understand it as ethical or just. Our understanding is never superior to an omniscient God's understanding (by the very definition of omniscient).

Your opening post would only work for a non-omnipotent, non-oniscient God.

But from my point of view, this is all moot as I see no reason to believe an omniscient God in the first place. Or any God for that matter.

I am well outside my comfort zone on religious philosophy and I am not even arguing for my own view. But I will give it my best shot.

If god is omniscient then he/she would be the ultimate truth. And by extension what God thinks is just, is truly just. So it makes no sense for me to suggest that God is unjust.

If I find God to be unjust by my understanding of justness - this means my understanding of what is just and God's understanding of what is just differ. As God cannot be wrong in his understanding of anything, it is my understanding of justness that is wrong.

I am not religious. But to play devils advocate (in a post about God!), if you take God to be omniscient then God has a better understanding of what is just than you do (as your knowledge is not perfect, God's is). And as such it make no sense for you to judge God's actions as unjust, this is merely your limited human mind not being able to comprehend true Godly justness.

I obviously do not subscribe to that. But it is one of the fundamental problems I see in a religious framework where God is seen to have far superior knowledge and understanding than we do - it results in the conclusion that the most sensible thing is to simply follow what God teaches, in the way the most sensible thing for a 3 year old child to do is to simply follow their more intellectually capable parents, even if the 3 year old thinks they are wrong. The 3 year old may think his parents are unjust, but that is probably because the 3 year old's understanding of justness is lacking compared to their parents.

It is better than the alternate - rule by the few that control the best army.

At least we have rule of the few who have to be selected in a ballot by the many.

And we learnt from history and have democratic government, as least in some places.

But I also reject your notion that history does not look kindly on those who took things by force. Many of the kings of yore, that are legendary, did exactly that. And were rewarded for it through the perpetuation of their legend.

And if you were to look at history, it is pretty clear that there are plenty of people out there who would be happy to take over your home, by hook or by crook. Same is true even if you look at today's society, there are plenty around who would be more than happy to relieve you of your home.

So yes, I would say your assumptions are wrong and would lead to dominance of the the ones who can enforce there dominance.

My garden? Not because I say so, but because I can justify it. I built it, planted it, and tilled it. If you can justify why it is yours, perhaps you can have it. — NOS4A2

And what if I reject your justification? Well today we have a government, a court of law, a police to arbitrate between the two of us.

In you vision, it is a matter of whether I and my posse are strong enough to take your land from you if I reject your justification of owning it. And actually I quite fancy my chances there.

Never mind me, there are plenty of people around who will not care much for your justification that you should own your land. Good luck is all I can say.

I find language is often underestimated! Maths is good in its domain for sure, but I think true understanding only comes from the clarity of a well constructed sentence.

It is important, therefore , to analyse words like ‘to be’, ‘to cause’ and ‘to mean’ to see what they’re really getting up to! — invizzy

I would agree with this most of the time. It is well known among teaching circles that getting a student to explain their understanding of a concept (in a natural language of course) is the best way to know they do actually understand the concept. It certainly helps understanding to put concepts into words, in most instances.

The question I have is what about concepts that are completely unlike our experiences? In these instances does my above paragraph, or your quoted one still stand true? I'm not sure.

For example, if time is actually something completely other than what we experience it to be, then you might run into problems truly understanding what "cause" means. Meanwhile you may be able to mathematically formulate something that does not run into any such problems. And perhaps the meaning you seek is there in that mathematical formulation.

What's your take on how gravity work? Newton famously confessed his ignorance (hypothesis non fingo) in re how mass attracted mass. Albert Einstein came along, 3 centuries later, and explained the mechanism viz. that mass warps spacetime. — Agent Smith

Einstein's explanation is the best we have, but I'm not sure we have reached the most fundamental understanding of gravity yet.

the discovery of a mechanism of causation — Agent Smith

I have thought previously about what exactly comprises a mechanism of causation. And I keep finding that the mechanisms of causation are themselves claims of causation. And so you end up with nested claims of causation like:

I punch you and you flinch. In addition to the correlation I observed, I know punching you causes you to flinch because I know that the punch causes receptors in your skin to send a signal to the brain, which causes your muscle to move. But you see the mechanism of action that I used as a support for causation, is itself comprised of claims of causation. So what is my support for those claims of causation? More claims of causation?

I think it is impossible to describe a mechanism of action without stating a claim about causation (implicitly or explicitly).

Oui.

An analogy of one interpretation is to imagine a wave in a pond. It makes no sense to say the wave is at one particular location at coordinate (x,y). All of the troughs and crests are part of the wave, there is no exact location where it solely exists, it exists over an area.

However if you drop a buoy in the lake, you can now measure an amplitude for the wave at a specific location at coordinate (x,y). You have now interacted with the wave at a specific point, and are able to measure it there.

However this is just one interpretations. A lot of quantum physicists subscribe to the "just shut up and calculate" philosophy. They trust the math, they trust the experiments, but they do not trust their intuition in being able to understand what this all actually means.

Something I have wondering about recently is whether perhaps math is simply a better language to understand quantum mechanics than English, as English (and all other ordinary languages) are encumbered with too much normal macroscopic experiences and intuitions built into the way they are used. While math is, perhaps, a bit more aloof. Just a passing thought.

The electron cloud (?) represents, if anything, our ignorance. A particle can't be in two places at the same time, period! When someone's lost, his/her location is a fuzzy circle centered on his last known position, but that doesn't imply s/he is everywhere within that circle. Off-topic? The devil made me do it! — Agent Smith

I agree that it represents our ignorance, but I would say it is about our ignorance of what it means to be located in a place. Our macroscopic intuition about things always being in specific places is shaky at best when we get down to the quantum level, so I lean towards our intuition on location being the ignorance.

A number of experiments (such as the double slit experiments) have shown that it is not simply a case of electrons being in a particular location, but we don't know exactly where, thus we describe it as a probability distribution. Rather the uncertainty is a more fundamental thing than just us not knowing.

So I would suggest our ignorance is not about where exactly the electron is (like in your analogy), rather we are ignorant about what it means for the electron to be somewhere exactly.

Ok, maybe I misunderstood the argument you were making.

When you started with "Modern ethical principles," I took that to be the dominant ethical principals in today society. In which case modern ethical principals do not require veganism.

What I now think you are arguing is that modern ethical standards are wrong and your would like to change them. Is that correct? I'm not against that in this case.

I have explained why the ethical basis for the proposition is consistent with everyday human ethics and why we can make similar decisions about the things we do in this regard. — Graeme M

I guess the crux of this matter is to what extend everyday human ethics should also apply to animals. You take the position that it should apply almost completely (citing human rights), but I don't think that is the dominant ethical view in today's society. I would say the dominant view is that we owe some level of ethical responsibility to animals, but far short of the ethical responsibility we owe other humans.

Thus I argue and that today's ethical society does not require veganism in the way you suggest, as your extrapolation of human rights to animal rights is not the current ethical view of modern society. Today's standards treat the ethical responsibility to animals as lesser than that to other humans.

Maybe that will change over time, so if you were to write this post again in 2100, maybe then you would be correct about the modern ethical standards of 2100.

Causation is fiendishly difficult (or is it impossible?) to directly observe. Most (all?) of the time we observe causation in some process, what we are really observing is correlation. The stronger the correlation we observe, the more confidently we claim causation. But is it causation?

In addition to future generations possibly viewing us as savages for eating meat, future generations could possibly view us as savages for aborting fetuses (if public opinion will eventually take a sharply anti-abortion turn) or, alternatively, for refusing to give unwilling male parents a unilateral opt-out from paying child support. — Xanatos

Something that perks my curiosity, is the possibility (or is it a certainty?) that future generations may view us as savages for something that we cannot currently comprehend as immoral in today's society.

But that is a difficult nut to crack, as how can I have any hope of comprehending something that cannot currently be comprehended given my position in time and society?

Can one reach a place in which one can think without being constrained by the zeitgeist?

The idea is that physical sensation or matter is how consciousness seems when viewed from a particular perspective — Tom Storm

I get this. But how do I know other people are also not just an illusion simulated by my mind? For me experientially, it is only my consciousness that has a privileged position.

My experience of computers, Tom Storm and boulders are indistinguishable in that they are all part of this physical dashboard I experience. It makes no sense for me to privilege Tom Storm as a conscious entity over the rest. They are all just inputs in the dashboard I experience.

However It does make sense for me to privilege my own consciousness, as that is the consciousness that I inhabit and experience directly (a la the Descartes quote). Hence the resultant solipsism.

I lean towards a form of realism. But in these last few posts I'm not arguing either for solipsism or realism or idealism. Rather I am arguing that if one were to subscribe to idealism, that should necessarily lead to solipsism (though I subscribe to neither).

Also thanks for the references to read Kastrup and Hoffman, I'll check them out.

Yes my understanding of Descartes is similar to yours, though I too am by no means an expert on this.

I am not a solipsist in any way. However I am curious about those who doubt the realness of the material world yet accept the realness of other people's consciousness, given that the only interactions we have with other people's consciousnesses is via the material world. I see, hear, touch, etc other people - all material interactions. If I doubt those material interactions are real, surely it follows I must doubt other people are real?

My medium of interaction with other people is no different to my medium of interaction with boulders - material interactions like light, sound, etc. I do not tunnel directly into the consciousness of other people.

Blame Descartes. If the source of all certainty is "I think therefore I am", then all there is, is what I think. — Banno

Yes, If the source of all certainty is "I think therefore I am," then all there is, is what I think. But there is no reason for me to infer from that quote you or anyone else thinks at all, any more than a boulder thinks.

Hence the destination of solipsism.

If I doubt that computers are real, should I also not doubt Banno is real? I experience Banno through my computer after all. How can I infer that Banno is a real conscious entity, if I doubt the medium through which I experience him (or her)?

Those with whom I have discussed this issue suppose that one infers the existence of other minds from one's experience. But then, if we can do that, why not infer the existence of three-tonne boulders on that same basis? — Banno

Exactly. And I experience other people through the material world the same as I experience a boulder (light, sound, etc). If I doubt that material world, I should question the existence of both boulders and other people.

What I don't understand is why all idealists are not also solipsist.

My interaction with all other people is through the material world. I can't directly access the consciousness of anyone else. So if I doubt the material world, it is logical that I also doubt the existence of consciousness other than that which I directly experience.

Are you not saying (if you allow me to put it in my own words):

"Idealism is true ... to an extent! You really don't want to doubt the external reality because idealism is false."

If idealism is really true, you should be able to save yourself by simply stopping your perception of the boulder - no need to move out of its path.

Certainly, and given the title of the poem, I think that is what the author intended as well.

Mind you, the beauty of "No news is good news" is it can be interpreted in that way as well!

Is this poem not a more verbose way of saying:

"No news is good news"

I would have said a more poetic way, but I find the above proverb poetic in it's own right.

The reason why you think 0.9 is rational is because you believe it equals 1, which is indeed a rational number. — keystone

You are unnecessarily confusing yourself. 0.9... IS a rational number. It is not that I think it is, rather it is.

Any number that infinitely repeats a finite sequence after the decimal point is a rational number. 0.9... repeats the finite sequence "9" infinitely, so is a rational number.

Irrational numbers, like Pi or the roots, don't have finite sequences repeating infinitely.