If you loose your sense, never had past experiences of your reality but maintain your own awareness does reality still exist? — SteveMinjares

It may or not still exist, you would have no way of knowing. The reality you could confirm would be your experience of your own mind which requires no experience or senses to detect.

What role would logic, knowledge, faith and wisdom play to bring meaning? — SteveMinjares

Bring meaning to what?

Sure but opposites existing isn’t the same as “an equal amount of good and bad in everything”.
Even if you want to claim there is some good and some bad in everything, how did you determine that the amounts are equal?
What is the equal amount of good to the bad in the Holocaust for example?
Even if you want to change your claim to just a general one about good and bad existing in a ying/yang sense as opposed to a specific thing like the Holocaust then you still need to explain how you can draw the conclusion that the amounts are equal.

Really? How so?

Totalitarianism is always coming, will always be coming. The herald for its arrival is people thinking it’s not just around the corner, lurking.
We will know it has arrived in full force when what's around the corner is called by another name, disguised as benevolence.

True, though I would call that misinformation rather than ignorance. That there are bad actors trying to keep people ignorant is a whole other can.

I don’t think people are getting more ignorant, I think people seem more ignorant because the breadth of human knowledge is so much greater than an individual can know. Its not that ignorance of things is growing so much as the knowledge of things is growing. It’s the contrast of the individual humans ability to know things vs the breadth of the knowledge humans have breached as a species/civilisation.
Take technology for example...its advancing much faster than people are able to adapt to so there are huge gaps in peoples technological knowledge and expertise. I think other knowledge (facilitated by technology/internet) is like this too. There are so many frontiers of knowledge, so many areas of knowledge that humans seem to know so much less.
Basically human knowledge is leaving the individual behind.

:100:

Right, or any number of other examples. Good point.
Ok so say in Ireland then. You don’t think the hate was useful? I think it helped motivate, helped justify and helped the general fight. You could probably say the same of both sides, that hate had it’s uses.

I always thought that (the war) was more fear based. I agree hatred and fear often show up together or lead to each other...maybe those are two ends of a spectrum.

Hmmm, not sure. Having an active hatred isn’t the same as recognising evil so maybe not. You could just be a good person (recognising Hitler as evil) who doesn’t spend enough energy thinking about Hitler that they could be said to “hate” Hitler.

Was that hate or fear?

I think you’re overthinking it. Whats significant about hate is the reasons for it. Most people have recognise it’s ok or good to hate Hitler. Most people couldn’t care less if you hate the taste of Milk.
It’s the basis of hatred that is significant or not, most of the time.

I’m not trying to win, just asking a question and didn’t see where you really answered it. You avoided directly answering. Also, You don’t find discussing things fun?
Anyway, sure take a good mental note of my name and you can avoid wasting both our time in the future.

:chin: Some people believe science can be applied to the god question and some do not. But certainly, we can apply philosophy to the god question. — Athena

Basic logic and critical thinking, haven’t come across a god concept that passes even that simple test let alone a scientific one.

Now, what boundaries do you think we should set for the god question and why? Or, instead of boundaries, should we expand our understanding of the god question? Does not it begin with a desire to understand all of life? I certainly prefer expanding our understanding of the god question. I absolutely what to avoid the futile argument of if god exists or not because that is so repetitive and boring after several years of the same arguments again and again. — Athena

Well the right answer is always going to be boring and repetitive, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the right answer and make one up instead.
Also, the “does god exist question” isn’t futile. It’s actually really easy to answer. What might be futile is trying to get someone committed to the idea after a lifetime of indoctrination to listen but even that I dont agree with because people reason their way put of that delusion all the time. I couldn't call it futile for those reasons.
Again, you aren’t really answering my question. You want to talk about understanding all life and what that might mean then great but why call that a god question? Just make it the “life” question... that conversation doesn’t require “god” at all but you keep wanting to put “god” in there. Why?

I want new arguments. What is the unified force? — Athena

Is there a unified force? How do you know?

Ok, but I’m not asking why someone might use the term “god”. I’m being more specific, I want to know why you, a person who recognises that the term “god” is being used to describe not the usual characteristics of “god” but to describe something else for which we already have a name for yet instead of using that name still insist on calling it “god”.

I would say the shirt.

A complex series of variable repetitions. The way the thread is not the shirt.

Science isn’t about patterns it’s about repeatability, at least in the context you’re using. That’s an important distinction to your argument. Once you swap out “patterns” for “repeatability” your question doesn’t need to be asked anymore.
It would preclude the part of your argument that depends on 100% certainty as well, as science is concerned only with repeatability not certainty.

Thanks for correct me. :lol: I feel like an idiot for that mistake. Maybe I need to check my medication? — Athena

Lol, no problem.

I understand you want to drop the religious mumbo jumbo and think about god in those other terms, but I’ve never understood why some folks keep the term “god”. Why define god so differently that it no longer resembles the religious god at all? Why not just let go of the label and talk about whatever it is you were trying to redefine god to be? (Like love or mystery or the universe...just talk about love, mystery or the universe! Lol)

Why use the word "god"? To avoid the dead-end conflict of if there is a god or not. I hate that argument because it is the same over and over again. — Athena

I don’t see how that would end the conflict of whether god exists or not. Using the term “god” when what you really mean is the universe or mystery of the universe only confuses the matter. How would it end the conflict?

What do you mean by scientific bias? I don't think research is supposed to be biased? — Athena

“Basis”, not “bias”.

Brilliant.

I’ve reached the limit of my willingness to explain it to you. It’s not remotely a strawman argument I’m making. I suspect you think that because you do not understand the logic of what you are saying so it seems like I’m creating a strawman but unfortunately for your “argument” the premiss and logic I’m using is yours. It’s just that it’s fallacious, as in logically fallacious. You haven’t actually addressed that at all.
Or you just don’t understand what a strawman actually is.

No, his good reasons for believing in “strong AI” are not thats it’s possible. There is an entire branch of science that give good reasons to think AI is possible contrasted by no such scientific field to source for good reasons god exists. All believing in god has is naked possibility, like any number of absurd possibilities I could name. You are making a false equivalence between a possibility (not a good reason to believe anything) and good scientific reasons. The former is all belief in god has going for it and the latter has both but more importantly it has a basis in science and rationality.
You have shown no self contradiction to what you have claimed Dennetts position is because your argument is fallacious...a false equivalence is a fallacy.

It’s fallacious as an argument against a position Dennett holds. You started by quoting Dennett, “good reason” being the two key words. You have not provided a “good reason” to believe...something being possible is not a good reason to believe in it. So your argument in no way refutes what Dennett said. Dennett isnt denying the possibility, he is denying that there are good reasons.

Ok, so you don’t seem to really be saying much at all then. You haven’t presented a “good reason” for believing, just acknowledging a possibility.
A - that is one possibility out of a virtual infinity of possibilities and demonstrates nothing.
B - it doesn’t refute anything you say Dennett claims.

I’m afraid your argument is still fallacious.

It doesn’t follow that because consciousness can be created by humans that human consciousness must be created too.
I can create ice by putting water in the freezer that doesn’t mean ice that I find outside in the winter is also created by someone.
The fact that something can be created doesn’t mean that it can only be created. Your argument is fallacious sir.

Ok, why would we want to call any of those things “god” instead of the names you just used for them? Why not call Logos, “logos”? Also, what you mentioned are a handful of possibilities not scientific definitions for god. That would require a scientific basis for making the connection between those things and god and I don’t see one.

What do you mean exactly? A scientific definition of god looks like what?

Well it depends on what you mean by “like” the universe.
If you mean god as just another name for universe then maybe not awful but still not good because it encourages magical, wishy washy thinking. Just call it the universe.

Well said sir.

Don’t you ever get tired of contributing useless negations? You are neither helpful nor entertaining so just save it.

I think it’s often both. Atheists think that there is no good reasons to think god exists but many also recognise how awful it would be if god actually did exist, especially if various horrifying content of the bible were true as well.
Google Christopher Hitchens on the celestial dictatorship. He explains the answer you are looking for quite well.

Ah, right. I phrased that poorly lol

Sadly not. — bongo fury

What do you mean? To me it’s sadder if it’s being done poorly , that means a bunch of people are out there making mistakes and creating confusion. Also, does that mean you think it’s being done well, in general?

I think that you’re describing a specific aspect to a problem most people already recognise: the problem of imprecise language. That is something that people try to address in everyday life and in philosophy to varying degrees of success and is combated mainly by being aware of the problem. It’s the same with the problem of bias or erroneous pattern recognition, perhaps inevitable or unavoidable in the end but none the less our best tool is awareness. Pitfalls of the human condition we best avoid by being aware and accounting for their existence.
So yes, philosophers should try to avoid what you describe and do indeed do them...maybe what you are noticing is how poorly it’s often done rather than a lack of inclination.

What if a vicious serial killer tripped on his way back from his most recent depravity and incurred a serious head injury. He is found and taken to the hospital where he lays in a coma for several months. When he awakes he has no memory of his past deeds. He recovers and spends the remainder of his life helping the poor and downtrodden. If evidence arises linking him to the crimes he committed should he be prosecuted. — Steve Leard

I think it depends on the nature of the head injury. If it’s only memory loss then I would say they are still morally responsible but there is lots of data now where brain injury can drastically alter someones personality. If the head i jury has done this to such a degree that the person cannot reasonably considered the same person then it becomes less clear what moral responsibility the person has for the actions of what is essentially another person.

Ya. There is a spectrum of takes on it, but seems like racism to me. The colour of her skin was an issue for some who didn’t think it was appropriate for royalty. Maybe I’m wrong but I’m drawing that conclusion based on more information than you’re drawing yours on at least.
I get where your coming from, the charge of racism has lost most of it’s meaning. Also, i didn’t mean to claim it was the institution. The source of the comments were individuals.
Anyway, a complete waste of my time but I got sucked in.

How do you know I haven’t listened to the other side?
Also, you are making your own assumption about it not being racism based on equally weak foundations.

Get real, like being “worried” about skin colour is just an innocent pondering. Please.
You got the non-story right though. Who cares.