Frankly, I find Craig’s response incomprehensible. It seems he believes in LFW because he wants to, not because he is following logic.

God is the eternal, omniscient creator. As an eternal Being, He is outside time. He sees all of time as an eternal Present. So, He knows all of time as present to Him. He also created all of time, as time is just the fourth dimension of our universe. So, He created your past, present, and future.

You don’t get it.

But He creates you KNOWING what you would do. He didn’t create you without omniscience.

Also, God is the Creator. So not only does He know what you will do, but He also created you knowing what you will do. So, He created what you will do.

Forgive me. I’m thick. I’m but a child at your knee.

I think the causality can run in either direction. As the placebo effect shows, what we think can affect our physical health. As neurophysical processing affects the contents we are aware of, defective processing can lead to defective thinking. — Dfpolis

How does one make sense of this? A causes B and B causes A?

Basically, I am able to think logically about abstractions. However, when it comes to the personal and interpersonal, I am told I have false beliefs and make faulty inferences. So, I have been told that I am mentally ill, but I have never been told that I have mental retardation.

That’s not what I meant. I mean does your view of intentionality separate it out from the external stimuli that may have caused it?

I think I addressed the difference between the metaphysical and epistemic terms in my previous posts.

As far as if some characteristic is necessary or contingent of Nixon, Kripke is asking us if we can rationally and coherently speak or conceive of Nixon as having a certain characteristic in all possible worlds. I think that his having the two biological parents he did is a necessary truth. That he was president at all is a contingent truth.

Where are we confused? What was his point? I studied this book in college. Perhaps I can help (or perhaps not) if you will let me.

That’s why I said “with context”. Point me to a page where he says “contingent necessity”. I’m trying to help you.

AJ Ayer called the necessary truths knowable a priori ‘analytic truths’. He called the contingent truths knowable a posteriori ‘synthetic truths’. Kripke is arguing that there are also two more categories of truths. The contingent a priori and the necessary a posteriori.

Give me one example with context in which he says “contingent necessity”.

Good example.

Could you show me the quote?

I’m seeing some confusion in here. There is no such thing as a contingent necessity. ‘Contingency’ and ‘necessity’ are metaphysical terms that are mutually exclusive. The terms ‘a priori’ and ‘a posteriori’ are epistemic terms. “A meter is one hundred centimeters” is a contingent truth knowable a priori. It is contingent because the standard meter stick can vary in length due to the temperature of the physical stick. It is knowable a priori because of the meaning of the terms used. ‘Meter’ means ‘one hundred centimeters’. Hope this clears up some confusion.

We know that one of the main causes of depression is neurochemical -- problems with the balance of our neurotransmitters. I'm thinking angst may be similar. — Dfpolis

On your view of LFW and intentionality, wouldn’t you say that the depressive thoughts cause a neurochemical imbalance?

Are you separating intentionality from the rest of experience (outside stimuli specifically)? Wouldn’t that be a fallacy?

Forgetting this is a prime example of Whitehead's Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness (thinking what exists only in abstraction is the concrete reality in its fullness). — Dfpolis

Could you explain Whitehead’s Fallacy? I’m not familiar with it.

Also, could you explain what you mean by “information is not physically invariant”?

Thanks.

I like that.

I’m afraid I am not thinking clearly. I didn’t sleep last night.

So you are saying that blue is a quality, and that it is directly apprehended? What explanatory power does that have? What kind of knowledge is that?

Also the color blue. Is what we experience of blue anything like the model of it being a particular frequency of electromagnetic wave?

So, we say that sound is the compression of air waves. Is what you experience as sound anything like the model of sound as the compression of air waves?

Perhaps that was a bad example. Sound to the mind has a particular quality. Sound as a model in the mind is air wave compressions.

Re apparent size, that's simply a perspectival difference. And again, how would that suggest that we don't have direct apprehension of the physical world? — Terrapin Station

Because the way things appear to the senses changes, when the physical world postulate should be constant. Our senses don’t reflect our models of reality. So, our apprehension of reality is not direct.

Plug your ears. Did the volume change?

Push in the side of your eye a little. Did your experience change?

Why do we only experience visible light through sight, and not the other frequencies of electromagnetic waves? Why do we see things that are far away as being smaller than things up close?

Neuroscience, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind. I’m sure you’re familiar with the theories put forth by these disciplines.

Why would we only be interested in ourselves? — Terrapin Station

You’re not getting what I’m saying. Life forms give meaning to the physical world. Without life forms, especially ones with consciousness, the physical world is irrelevant.

No. That was just my coherent belief about the truth condition. My belief in the physical world is an abductive argument which I thought I had put to rest.

The truth condition refers to states of affairs as interpreted sense data. The truth condition does not refer to states of mind-independent reality. All knowledge occurs in minds, but I have my reason for believing in a physical world independent of minds. What it is like without a mind observing it through the senses is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with us.

Do you deny that we have five senses?

Philosophy is fun. That’s the primary reason why I do it. I have no illusions about changing the world. As a secondary reason, I think as long as I am at least open to others’ well thought out arguments and worldviews, then that makes me a better person.

I know this. I'm asking you on what grounds do you believe this, given your views? — Terrapin Station

I believe a physical world is the best possible explanation for the variety of our sense data, the fact that they are able to be communicated intersubjectively and that they seem to come from without. Furthermore, it is impossible to communicate solely in the language of sense data without using outside world language to give it context.

Our minds interpret sense data. We do not have direct apprehension of the physical world. It is filtered through the senses and interpreted by the mind. So if that is the case, we model the physical world in our minds through sense data and our order-seeking circuitry. In that case, there are no mind-independent facts.

Of course brains encode the contents we are aware of, but neither contents nor the processing of contents entails awareness of contents.

I am not sure how the brain encoding relates to whether norms have a basis in extramental reality, which was the point we were discussing. — Dfpolis

I was trying to make the point that brain encoding, an objective phenomenon, gives rise to mental states as an emergent property. Normatives are thus objective as being encoded in the brain, and the emergent property of consciousness makes us aware of them. At least that’s what I think I was trying to say.

I was further discussing the objective fact that brains and their emergent mental states model reality through sense data, giving order to the chaotic natural world. Normatives are also an attempt to order human conduct, also a part of the natural world.

Gotta go now. Be back later.

In other words, it’s our minds which make sense of the sense data. Sense data isn’t things-in-themselves.