this ‘either/or’ dilemma – either ‘God did it’ OR ‘it’s random chance’. — Wayfarer

I see no "dilemma", Wayf. These positions are indistinguishable in my prayer book.

Indeed, decidely computer-like, using a brute-force search algorithm. — Agent Smith

i.e. Natural selection :up:

Your argument is misguided, at best, Andrew. Nihilism is conventional, or common sense, 'god-of-the-gaps theism' and, therefore, a significant reason why (philosophical) atheists reject theism. Irreligion, however is a separate political stance, rather than a philosophical argument, which may or may not be supplemented by atheism.

Well maybe Nature quantum computes (with an OS like "MWI" or "M-theory" or "RQM"). :nerd:

You keep forgetting that there is not an atheist worldview.
— Tom Storm

That is what I am disagreeing with and the argument of this thread. I have been arguing it entails a worldview. — Andrew4Handel

So the atheism of e.g. materialist Marx and idealist Schopenhauer "entails" the same "worldview"? :sweat:

:up: :up:

:fire:

There is a thing at the very bottom that can not be emergent but gives rise to emergence and that is what is "really real". — punos

This reminds me of Laozi's Dao and Plotinus' One and Nāgārjuna's Śūnyatā ... even Schopenhauer's Will. Okay, but, in fact, even energy is "emergent" (re: E=mc² & quantum field excitations (quanta)) – emergent from what? Spontaneous symmetry-breaking (my guess :nerd:).

I'll let him "answer" your question first.

The difference between physical and non-physical is the same difference between solid and gas, a kind of energetic density spectrum. — punos

I'm afraid not. Regardless of "energy density", like "solid and gas", energy is a physical phenomenon. "Invisible and intangible" are irrelevant; besides, we see via EM energy (i.e. visible light) and feel strong winds which are manifestations of thermal energy. As far as "the only thing that really exists", tell me the difference between exists and "really exists", and why energy is one but not the other. :chin:

my ontology centers around non-physical things such as time, space, certain forms of energy, logic, number, and information. — punos

Are you a Kantian? If not, then why do say "time, space, certain forms of energy ... and informarion" are "non-physical"?

No idea what you're talking about or what your ramble, Andrew, has to do with mine.

Sounds about right to me. :up:

:smirk:

If not 1, then, yeah, it's 7. :sweat:

You can post answers to these several questions either in reply to me directly or in reply to @Agent Smith or @universeness and that will be the end of this antagonism between us, no more rejoiners or criticisms from me. Give other members who are skeptical of your "personal philosophical worldview" potential reasons with your "staightforward" answers to reconsider the stuff you're selling. Clarifying your contributions to TPF, Gnomon, need not be blocked by our impasse.

:up:

What do you think @Gnomon is so afraid of that he persistently ignores 's inconvenient questions?

:up:

It makes sense to me to think of agnosticism as uncertainty concerning god (i.e. epoche)... which makes the religious and irreligious, fundies and secularists, theists and atheists, alike also agnostic as well. Is 'being agnostic simpliciter' even possible? I suppose Pyrrhonians think so ...

I'm not very pessimistic mostly because of precautionary efforts like these suggested here excerpt which have been seriously underway since the early 2000s ...

more in-depth ...

and what is being done now ...

Are you saying the fact these aspects of the human experience will be 'missing' from a future ASI makes it MORE likely that an ASI would not care about humans? — universeness

I'm saying ASI without evolutionary survival-biases hasn't any reasons to perceive, or interpret, humans as an existential threat or treat us as a rival species.

By white/black swan, are you saying that the aggressive ASI is the more likely white swan portion of swandom and the black swan,(representing a completely benevolent ASI) the far more unlikely outcome?

In this context, by White Swan I mean "non-aggressive" super-benefactor (i.e. human apotheosis) and by Black Swan I mean "aggressive" super-malefactor (i.e. human extinction).

I speculate that AGI —> ASI is more likely to be a White Swan than a Black Swan. Nonetheless, we should do everything we can while we still can to prevent this Black Swan event.

However, my straightforward presentation of a novel scientific & philosophical concept ... — Gnomon

... which nonetheless does not either provide cogent and succinct answers to or critically dispute the relevance of (old) straitforward questions like those linked here

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/709894

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718369

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/742056 — 180 Proof

conspicously suggests you are anything but intellectually "straightforward", Gnomon. :smirk:

@universeness @Agent Smith

I cannot see why AGI / ASI sans fifty-plus million years of hardwired primate baggage (that is, without e.g. limbic-endochrine systems, metabolic-reproductive-territorial drives, or 'terror management' biases) would just as likely be "aggressive" as to be non-aggressive. Maybe it's a failure of imagination on my part, but worth the risk, I think. "ASI" is the true White / Black Swan – we'll find out sooner than later (no doubt, too soon to do anything about it), which is why we'd better teach seed-AGI well like this old song says

:victory: :cool:

David Crosby, d. 2023

Learning is essentially a mistake eliminating process that gets you to the right mistake. — punos

Aka intelligence. :clap: :100:

:up:

:cool:

Yeah, and we are an extension of "mindless evolution" that has adapted – programmed – itself to tell itself the story "I have a mind, therefore we are minds". :smirk:

The concept of slavery has a different meaning for a mechanical construct made and owned by another species than for a born-free species that violently captures, kidnaps, imprisons and subjugates members of its own kind. I very much doubt any computer would consider enslaving any person or creature. It would have no reason to, and reason is what they do best.
We would certainly be better off if we made reasoned, altruistic decisions. — Vera Mont

I certainly could not have expressed this any clearer. :100: :up:

Thanks for the video link. :up:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zpRM25pUD8w

Interesting stuff. Consistent with some of own my recent (less hysterical) speculations here 》 》 . Yeah, I'm definitely a posthumanist (or 'misanthrope' to a panglossian romantic).

@universeness @Agent Smith @Athena

You should try using emojis because your so-called "thinking" is :roll: tonight.

No. The overall decline in the music industry predates digital formats, auto-tune, low bitrate streaming services, ubiquitious high quality ease-of-use recording tech, etc. In (Western) popular music (e.g. rock-n-roll, blues, folk, country, soul/R&B/funk, ska/reggae) the decline was precipitous by the mid-1970-80s. In (Western) classical music & jazz, the decline probably happened decades earlier. Well, so my own vinyl-free CD/DVD library (that c95% consists of pre-1980 recordings) seems to tells me. :smirk:

Why is this so (if it is)? My guess, for what it's worth, is the hyper-monetized demand for new "novelity" content has over the decades progressively outstripped the demand for new quality content as the accessibility to old quality content has grown along with the on-demand distribution capacity for delivering trendy "novelty" shit has exploded. And "live music" venues, where most people used to learn how to listen and dance, are maybe 5% as numerous as they were in the 1970s as arena concerts and mass festivals became econony-of-scale money-grabs too irresistable for established "stars" and promoters to resist. Blah blah blah ...

Anyway, I stopped going to "big shows" (except for rare occasions) over two decades ago after being an avid concert-goer for the previous two decades. Decadent commerce kills culture eventually. Nietzsche is right. Albert Murray is right too.

:brow:

What are your opinions of whether pornography is problematic. — Shawn

Here on the S.S. Climate Change, porn isn't any more "problematic" than masturbatory video games, online gambling, social media, 24/7/365 consumerism, gun-hoarding or binge drinking. What does not kill you, makes you weirder. :vomit: :strong:

Though there's overlap at the margins (e.g. naturalism, secularism), one ought to observe the distinction between "New Atheism" (i.e. polemical irreligion) and philosophical atheism (i.e. critique of theism, critique of supernaturalism).

I am an agnostic atheist - a standard definition amongst atheists I know. Agnostic in terms of knowledge, atheist in terms of belief. — Tom Storm

Nice. I'm an antitheistic atheist. Antitheist in terms of knowledge, atheist in terms of practice (aka "freethinker" :cool:).

Therefore rocks are agnostic! — fdrake

:smirk:

The six possibilities are:
BG
~BG
B~G
~B~G — Banno

And the other two possibilities?

The inconsistent combinations are:

BG & ~BG
B~G & BG
B~G & ~B~G

These are inconsistent because they each contain an assertion and it's negation.

:up:

Theism is consistent:

BG & ~B~G

Note the positive belief, bolded: BG.

Atheism is consistent:

~BG & B~G

Again, note the positive belief, B~G.

:ok:

Agnosticism is also consistent:

~BG & ~B~G

Note the absence of a belief: both are ~B.

This formulation is inconsistent, Banno: both 'negative atheism' (~BG) and 'negative theism' (~B~G) asserts mutually exclusive concepts (as stipulated above).

Agnosticism is not having a belief concerning god.

I think that describes apatheism (or ignosticism). Agnosticism, actually, is 'not having knowledge concerning god'.

Atheism does not entail irreligion. In almost all cases, religious believers are also atheists except, of course, with respect to their own g/G; and many clergy also do not, or no longer, believe.

:100:

:up:

I am neither an Atheist nor a Theist,
— Gnomon

If you're not a theist, then you're an atheist. Don't be afraid of the word. If you are not a believer in any kind of deity then you're effectively an atheist. I think many people with 'spiritual beliefs' are atheists. — Tom Storm

:100:

:roll:

Again, is theism true or not true? What are the truth-values of its claims? If any or all of them are not true or undecidable, then isn't theism as a concept empty or not true (i.e. there may be a deity but it is not "theistic")? I conclude that theism is not true.

Forget about "god", amigo, and focus on theism (and its static shadow deism). Why is that so hard for you/them? Or maybe it's my 'focus on theism instead of "god"' that's misguided and you or somebody smarter than us both, Smith, – like @Gnomon or @Wayfarer or @Gregory or @Sam26 – can explain it to me/us. :point:

Reads to me like a college undergrad's essay plagiarized in parts from a few different wiki articles. Shows what the Turing Test is actually worth, doesn't it?

I've usually preferred freethinker. — Tom Storm

:up: But when a Bible/Quran/Occult-thumper begs for it, I say pandeist instead just to tilt the fuck out of their "god/woo-of-the-gaps" mindgames ...

I think we make mistakes because (1) they are easier to make than not and (2) they are a consequence of not learning from previous mistakes which we or others have made. A mistake is an invitation to learn how not to repeat it. The motto 'Either win or learn' is useful for implying that we only 'lose' by not learning from our losses, failures, mistakes, etc.

I try not to reward even the slightest bad treatment ever, especially by friends (the closer they are, the less I tolerate) because they know me intimately. This must be why usually none of my small circle lives in the same time-zone as me and why I've never been married (or havrn't lived with a partner in over two decades). I find that distance, even more than a fence, makes good neighbors and friends.

:up: