What are you on about? I have no idea.

A proponent of the problem of evil must believe this disjunctive moral principle is true:

1. Either remove the evils from the world before subjecting innocent persons to live in it, or do not subject innocent persons to live in it.

EricH can't understand why this is, but that's why he has to eat everything with a plastic spoon.

Now, in respect of us this premise is also true:

2. We are unable to remove the evils from the world before subjecting innocent persons to live in it

From which it follows:

3. Therefore do not subject innocent persons to live in it.

Now totally ignore the argument and say some stuff that occurred to you while you looked at it. That seems to be the policy of most around here.

It's a highly significant argument. Why? Because loads and loads of philosophers - probably the bulk - would agree that the problem of evil is a significant problem for the existence of God.

Yet none of them have noticed that this commits them to affirming antinatalism.

One could run the argument in the other direction of course. One could argue that as it is clearly morally permissible for us to procreate despite our inability to rid the world of its evils, then it is not wrong for God to subject innocents to life in it either.

But either way, we have something of an earthquake: either most philosophers have to accept that the strongest objection to theism fails, or most philosophers have to accept that antinatalism is true.

Ok, so you admit, you are just defining the term to suit your purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, how did I admit that? I am using the term to refer to someone who is extremely good at philosophy. If you're using it more loosely to refer to anyone who tries to do philosophy, regardless of how well or badly, then 'being a philosopher' wouldn't carry any status.

Before we can proceed with this inquiry, we must determine the truths and falsities concerning what "conservation of energy", and "dualism" mean. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you mean that we need to understand what A and B are?

You think that's not clear in the OP? The conservation of energy principle says that the level of energy in the material world will remain constant. Resist the temptation to say that you think the principle is false- that's philosophically inept.

Dualism, as explained in the OP, is the view that our minds are immaterial things that are causally interacting with the material world (the latter is interactionism - strictly speaking one could be a dualist and deny it - but by hypothesis that is not the case with the kind of dualism under consideration).

There: now you know - and quite why you didn't already, given if was abundantly clear in the OP - what A and B are.

Are they compatible? I have argued that they are. Entirely pointlessly, it would seem

I am using the term 'philosopher' to refer to someone who is employed to teach philosophy in a university and who has a track record of publishing in philosophy in peer review journals.

Now, again, when someone argues that A is compatible with B, a philosopher considers whether that is true. Are they compatible?

Is evil compatible with God? You're philosophically inept if you reply "God doesn't exist!" or "evil doesn't exist". You are not addressing the question. You'd get a bad mark.

Is free will compatible with determinism? Again, you haven't really understood the question if you reply "determinsim isn't true!!!" or "free will doesn't exist!!!!"

Now, is the principle of the conservation of energy compatible with dualism? My answer, which i have defended, is 'yes'. But what the rest of you are doing is not even addressing the question but questioning whether A or B is true. It's just inept.

Focus on the actual question: is A compatible with B? That's the question. Not, note, 'is A true' or 'is B true'. Are they compatible?

Are you a philosopher?

No, right - for no philosopher would ever say what you just said.

I am and you're completely wrong. You assess the compatibility claim.

It's how we can tell if someone is good at philosophy or not. Do they assess the compatibility claim or are they instantly distracted by whether A or B is true.

Anyway, black is white and up is down.

It's been most revealing. — EricH

It has revealed that you do not understand the problem of evil. Or how to reason.

You think that there is no inconsistency in thinking that God could have introduced innocent life into this world without removing any of its evils and not thereby have done anything wrong and also thinking that God would not introduce innocent life into a world like this without first removing some or all of its evils as that'd be wrong. That's quite something. Good job! What an excellent thinker you are.

Again: someone who thinks that the problem of evil is a problem is someone who thinks that principle is true:

Either remove the evils from the world before subjecting innocent persons to live in it, or do not subject innocent persons to live in it. — Bartricks

You can't see why. That's somewhat astonishing, given how blindingly obvious it is. But it doesn't affect the matter.

But that 'wow' was a condescending 'wow', yes? So you were expressing an insult, correct? No philosohical content. Just an insult. Me smells a giant pile of hypocrite. Anyway, why don't you have a great night. Go on. Go great night yourself.

I think that compatibilism involves necessarily a misunderstanding of either free will, determinism, or both. And assessing the credibility of compatibilism necessarily involves determining the truth concerning free will and determinism. I mean, one could easily define "free will", and "determinism" such that these are compatible, but there is absolutely no point to this. So your example does nothing for me — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I would have predicted that. Needless to say, you'd get a C in an essay on compatibilism for having singularly failed to understand the issue.

If someone says A is compatible with B, then you should focus on whether that's true - that is, you should focus on the compatibility claim - not on whether A or B is actually true.

Glenny, oh Glenny- you told me to go F-myself, did you not? I had not insulted you, but you nevertheless decided to tell me to go F-myself. So you're an incredibly rude little man who can't take what he deals out, yes?
Now get off your pedestal and engage with the OP or, you know, do to yourself what you'd have me do to me.

I would like to offer my rival 'bakery' theory of consciousness.

Bakers make bread and study how to make bread and various bread products. It is ancient. And over time lots of different bread-based products have been developed.

But what is the relationship between bread and consciousness? Well, bread is consciously seen and consciously enjoyed. But how does consciousness arise out of bread? Enjoyment is a conscious state. I am conscious I am enjoying the croissant. So, here we have consciousness of a conscious state. But what is the relation between the conscious state and the croissant?

Here we must turn to bakers for insight. Bakers study bread and bread has a relation to conscious states - note, my state of enjoyment is bread-directed: I am enjoying the croissant. So bread enters as the content of that conscious state. Now I am going to say some stuff about a bread type thing so that you are impressed at my level of bakery knowledge as, provided you are dumb enough, that will make you think I know what I am talking about when it comes to consciousness, even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with it. But like I say, some conscious states have bread in their content.

Now as bakery has taught us. a croissant is made of pastry and butter and was invented in Venice and designed to be a pastry insult to Muslim invaders, though the French somehow now get the credit for it. However, in my view the nicest are still to be found in Italy (the nicest croissants are in Verona).

Following the tradition of using pastry to insult people, the English sausage roll has its origins in the croissant. Developed as a crude pastry insult to the French during the Napoleonic wars (an English butcher started putting sausages in croissants and selling them as pastry expressions of the English raping the French), this joke product turned out to be very tasty and evolved into the sausage roll. Note how the concept of an insult - which can't exist apart from conscious states, for only a consciousness can be insulted - is 'baked into' the concept of a croissant and, indeed, the sausage roll, the former being designed as insults to Muslim invaders and the latter being designed as insults to French invaders. (To this day in England sausage rolls are sometimes called 'pastry rapes' and there are periodic calls for them to be banned due to their - excuse the pun - unsavory origin).

But eating a sausage roll, though it is to eat a cousin of the croissant, typically produces a distinct conscious state from that produced by eating a croissant. In fact, we're becoming increasingly aware of the complex range of conscious states associated with each bakery product.

BAM machines (bread answer machines) - which force bread products into people's mouths and then ask them how they make them feel - have shown that every bread product that is forced into a person's mouth makes that person feel something. BAM imaging, then, has demonstrated that there is an undeniable relation between bread and consciousness. Hence why bakery will solve the problem of consciousness, which is definitely a real problem and not just the word 'problem' put in front of 'consciousness' for no good reason whatsoever. The more we study bread, the more we understand consciousness. Indeed, if we start calling conscious states associated with eating a croissant 'croissant type states' and those associated with eating a Belgian bun 'Belgian bun type states' we will have made great progress. For now we can see even more clearly how bakery will solve the problem of consciousness. For the more we do this, the more we can see that bakery is really about consciousness and that if we just listen more carefully to what bakers say about their bakery items, we will find that eventually there will be no problem of consciousness anymore. There will just be bread-states that conscious states can be said to breadovene upon.

So, conscious states breadovene upon bread states; note this is not to say that conscious states are made of bread, it is rather to say that the subbreadovening base is bread. Conscious states have bread bases.

If you have a philosophical criticism of the OP, by all means try and make it.

In this case, does it not take energy for the mind to be activated? — Down The Rabbit Hole

No. Why would it?

The conservation of energy principle concerns the behaviour of the material world.

The point I have made is that dualism - interactionist dualism - does not violate it.

You have failed. Like I say, you're a bad faith interlocutor and then there's the IQ thing

if you can't understand why a proponent of the problem of evil has to accept this principle

Either remove the evils from the world before subjecting innocent persons to live in it, or do not subject innocent persons to live in it. — Bartricks

Then I'm afraid I consider you the intellectual equal of the crow that is currently strutting about on the lawn outside. I think you're just trying to be annoying.

You can't begin to explain, can you, why you think a proponent of the problem of evil does not have to endorse that principle? Like I say, you haven't a clue - not a clue - what you're talking about. You don't understand the problem of evil or anything I have said. It's just noise, yes?

Because that is what this OP is about.

It is not about whether the conservation principle is true.

It is about whether it is compatible with dualism.

I constantly tell my students that compatibilism about free will is not the thesis that determinism is true. Nor is it the thesis that we have free will. It is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. And yet every year about 90% don't get this and proceed to tell me how either determinism is false or that we do not have free will, totally oblivious to the fact they're doing nothing whatever in terms of assessing the credibility of compatibilism.

So, once more: the claim I have defended is not that the principle of c is true, or that dualism is true. The claim I have defended is that they are compatible. That is the claim that needs assessing.

It's a good test of basic philosophical competence. When someone says thesis x is compatible with thesis y, the person with good philosophical instincts will wonder whether the claim is true; whereas the c-grader will wonder whether x is true or whether y is true.

God is compatible with evil. Philosophically promising student - is that true? If God exists, could evil exist too? Philosophically hopeless student "but God doesn't exist!" Or "what is evil? There is no evil. Who's to say what's right and wrong".

Now again: the claim I have defended is that the c principle is compatible with dualism.

So do not question whether the c principle is true or whether dualism is true. Ask 'are they compatible?'

That was not the homework, was it!? Go back and answer the question set, not one of your own invention.

Write out hundred times: I will answer the question set and not an easy one of my own invention.

Then answer the actual question. You are not a promising student.

Stub toe - material event - causes pain - mental event - shout out in agony - material event. The example doesn't add anything to my case, however. It just means that now some will think this is about stubbing one's toe and will talk about how this never happens; others will now deny that pain is real; and some will question begging redescribe the scenario in purely materialist terms.

Can immaterial events occur without material events as their causes - yes, I do not see why not.

Perhaps you should explain your reasoning.

Premise 1 of my argument states:

Either remove the evils from the world before subjecting innocent persons to live in it, or do not subject innocent persons to live in it.

Now, my claim is that a defender of the problem of evil - so, someone who thinks the evils of the world imply God's non-existence - has to endorse premise 1.

If you think they don't, explain why.

And here's where you are just not making any sense. In the absence of omnibenevolence there are no constraints on the actions of your person. There is no aught for such a person. Your person is free to do whatever she pleases. — EricH

I don't understand your reasoning. I think you are confusing descriptive claims with normative ones.

Moral constraints do not prevent you from doing things. If it is immoral for me to do X, that doesn't mean I am being somehow prevented from doing it.

Now, again, try and understand the point: if an omnipotent, omniscient person 'ought' to do x, then an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenvolent person 'would' do x. Not because they have do, but because they're omnibenevolent.

So, if an omnipotent, omniscient person ought not to introduce innocent life into a dangerous world without first removing the dangers, then that's what an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person would do.

It really doesn't matter if an omnipotent, omniscient person will, by dint of being omnipotent, also be omnibenevolent, for the same point would apply

Anyway, you seem very confused to me.

I find it hard to believe that you can re-formulate The Problem of Evil without omnibenevolence, but I keep an open mind. Maybe you have some unique approach. But in the absence of any explanation your argument fails. — EricH

Again, you're just saying stuff. You have not explained why my argument fails. You have just stated that it does, though you admit that you don't actually understand what I am saying. You don't understasnd why premise 1 of my argument is a premise that any proponent of the problem of evil must endorse, do you?

Now, do you think I don't know what I am talking about? Just out of interest. Do you think I know a lot about the problem of evil, or not much at all?

So, er, you're a troll, yes? You have nothing to say, but you enjoy Bartricks baiting. That is, you enjoy being scolded by me. Did you mummy not give you enough hugs as a child or something? Go away.

Yeah, er, that made no sense. I suggest you go away and stop Bartricks baiting, you boring little twerp.

But you are asserting that your person/being is NOT omnibenevolent.
Why do you think I asked about an omnipotent and omniscient person and left off omnibenevolent?

Do you think it was a mistake? It wasn't.
— Bartricks

I have been trying to work within your conceptual framework - to figure out what exactly you are saying. Up to now I have not succeeded at this task. — EricH

I think the problem here is twofold; a) you are a bad faith interlocutor and b) IQ

If we reflect on what an omnipotent, omniscient person ought to do in circumstances X, we then learn what an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person would do in those circumstances.

Stop giving me advice. This is not an advice forum. And the pupil shouldn't advise the teacher.

Has anyone given a decent response to your question? — EricH

No. It wasn't a genuine question: I was defending a view and asking 'why' rhetorically - it was an invitation to those who think differently to defend their view against me.

So go out to a Christian forum. — EricH

It's a philosophical issue you....

Meanwhile - you still haven't responded to my last post on the AN thread. I'm really curious to see how you re-frame the Problem of Evil when your person is not omnibenevolent. — EricH

What?

I never said anything that implied - sorry, entailed - we are friends.

And you can refer to me as Dr Bartricks.

Correlation, let's remember, does imply causation.

It doesn't entail it.

It does imply it.

Normal problem here: inability of others to focus on the topic. Ooo a squirrel.

In the OP I argued that dualism does not violate the principle of the conservation of energy.

So, to assess the claim, for those who don't know, you need to assume the principle of conservation of energy is true, and then see if what I have said is correct.

The issue, then, is not whether the principle of the conservation of energy is true.

The issue is whether the conservation principle is consistent with dualism.

Again: the issue is not whether the conservation principle is true. Assume it is.

Is it compatible with dualism?

I have argued that it is.

If you disagree, then you need to address the argument I gave.

Here's the rule: when someone argues that A is compatible with B, what you do is assess whether that's true - so, if A is true, can B be as well? What you don't do is say "A isn't true" or 'B isn't true". That's to ignore entirely the claim that is being defended. See?

I think a more important question is "What are philosophy is true are?"

To 'solve' the problem of consciousness - a problem that only confronts the materialist becasue it is wholly a product of being one - one would need to find self-evident truths of reason that imply material substances can be conscious and/or one would have to try and debunk those apparent self-evident truths of reason that imply no material thing can be conscious.

If, for instance, one could explain all of those rational intuitions that represent the mind to be immaterial to be the product of clandestine manipulation, then they would be debunked and would no longer count for anything.

And once one has done that - once one has knocked out all of those representations of reason that tell us our minds are immaterial (and there are lots) - then and only then could one argue on grounds of simplicity that our minds are material substances (assuming materialism is even coherent, of course, which it isn't) and then and only then could one stipulate that it just must be a brute fact about material substances - or some of them, such as those made of meat and that are above a certain level of complexity and have electricity running through them - are conscious. Not becuase there is any positive support for that view - there isn't (beyond the fact that we are conscious and we now have no grounds for supposing us to be anything more than our bodies) - but just because all the countervailing evidence has been reduced to rubble and this is the only option left.

That's how one solves the problem of consciousness.

One does not solve it by simply assuming materialism about the mind is true and then simply finding some arbitrary point at which to insist that 'here consciousness arises' or 'here consciousness is always present'. That is no solution to anything.

So it is not a solution, it is just a refusal to accept that there is a problem.

You can 'solve' any problem by saying 'it just is so'. One can do that with complicated lumps of electrified meat without having to suppose that anything else supports conscious states. So the panty person has no motivation for their wildly excessive use of this 'solution'.

Second, there are rules about when you can say 'it just is so'. You can say it about self-evident truths of reason, for all arguments have to come to a end somewhere and the name of the game is to ground one's case in self-evident truths of reason. There is, as Kant said, nothing higher than reason and so one has done what one can to show something to be the case when one has shown how things that reason has said entail it.

You can't just say it at your convenience. Now, is it self-evident that molecules are conscious? No, on the contrary, it is self-evident that they are not, for it is self-evident that extended things are not conscous.

Note, if it were not self-evident that extended things are not conscious no one would even recognize a problem here.

There is a problem of consciousness confronting the materailist. No one denies that. But the only explanation of why there is such a problem is that the thesis conflicts with some apparent self-evident truths of reason about the nature of conscious states.

So, what you're doing is stipulating in the face of self-evident truths of reason.

The problem is how consciousness could be a state of any extended thing. The proposal that our brains support conscious is just a particular version of this more general problem. But you do not solve that particular problem by just insisting that everything is conscious.

Neither addresses the person who is concerned to know how material things can be conscious.

It just denies that they have any legitimate concern, yes?

Yes, so it is a clear case of a category error. Consciousness is a state of something , not a 'function'.

The view makes no sense at all.

Yes, I think so — bert1

So it has no intuitive support whatsoever. A theory has to be coherent to have intuitive support, for one has to be able to represent it to one's reason for a verdict.

That is an option. It's one Chalmers considers in terms of strong emergentism. I think panpsychism is far more plausible. — bert1

Yes, it palpably isn't.

So, solution one to the 'problem of consciousness' = some material things are conscious.

Solution two - every material is conscious.

Er, how is ANY material thing conscious?

It's an explanation because that function just is consciousness. It's a reductive theory. — bert1

That, true, would be a theory about consciousness. But it is incoherent, isn't it?

My cup has a function. So, a function is a purpose something serves. It is not consciousness. It's like suggesting apples are numbers or sounds.

Yes it is — bert1

No it isn't. Like I said, it's a theory about what consciousness tracks. it's the idea that is supervenes on function.

Indeed. That's the whole point. Consciousness doesn't arise from anything. It's there already. — bert1

Why not restrict that to ham rather than extend it to molecules?

Sure. But I do think there is a strong intuitive appeal for functionalism of some kind or another, and that should be taken seriously by any theoretician, even if it is rejected upon consideration. — bert1

Functionalism is not a theory about how conscious states can arise from matter. It is, rather, a theory about when this happens. If we have two functionally isomorphic systems and one has conscious states, then the view is that the other has them as well.

Again, that doesn't solve anything for we simply have consciousness posited of one (so, problem solved!) and then a view about what consciousness tracks.

Me: how can ham be conscious? My reason tells me that extended things do not have conscious states.

Functionalist: this thing over here functions like ham. Ham is conscious. So this is too. Questionie answerdio.

Me: er, no.

It is analogous to confusing normative theories about ethics with metaethical theories, where the former are theories about what properties rightness and wrongness track, and the latter is a theory about what those properties are, in themselves.

Incidentally, functionalism does not have any intuitive support, for it seems clear to most that if there was an artificially created mechanism that nevertheless functioned in the same way as our brains do, it remains an open question whether the functionally isomorphic mechanism has conscious states.

It avoids the problem of explaining how consciousness is generated from non-conscious things. It introduces other problems, of course. — bert1

No it doesn't. You've just stipulated that everything is conscious. That doesn't explain how consciousness can arise from material substances. Again, you seem to think the problem of consciousness that confronts a materialist is how some things are conscious and others aren't.

Er, no. It's how anything that is material is conscious, for our reason represents conscious states positively NOT to be states of sensible things (and similarly, represents sensible things positively not to be conscious).

You haven't solved a thing, you've just generalized the problem. Furthermore, at extraordinary cost: for if anything is clear, it is that molecules are not conscious. Quite how you can, with a straight face, think that pantyschism is any kind of solution to anything is beyond me. Like I say, I think the allure resides entirtely in the fact it has a fancy name. If it was called 'solving problems by making them a gazillion times bigger' then it'd not be as attractive, methinks.

It just is. That's the answer wrt consciousness. It's a brute fact. — bert1

Oh brilliant. Well, if, at base, 'that' is the solution, then you can apply it to complicated lumps of meat alone and be done. It's just a brute fact that complex lumps of electrified meat have consciousness as one of their properties. Done. No matter that this conflicts with what our reason tells us. For we're not listening to reason when reason starts saying things that conflict with conventional views about the nature of reality. And at least by just supposing that complex electrified meat has conscious states but nothing else does you don't earn yourself a place in a mental asylum.

To be clear then: your solution to the problem of how a material thing can be conscious, is that it just is. And if that is your solution, then at least apply it sparingly and stick to supposing that electrified meat is conscious and not that molecules are. The molecules are conscious thesis adds precisely nothing.

Why do you think there is a problem of consciousness? There isn't, note, a problem for immaterialists about the mind. The problem is only one confronting materialists.

And why is there a problem? Wherein lies its source? That is, why does 'matter just is conscious' not fly as an answer (for note, if it did, then the problem doesn't get out of the starting blocks)?

It is for this reason: our reason represents extended stuff positively not to be conscious. That is why we put in padded cells those who think cheese thinks. And that applies as much to ham as it does to cheese. Yet 'ham is conscious' is what you think if you think brains are conscious, for brains are ham.

So, our reason represents the extended not to be conscious. And it represents conscious states positively not to be states of extended substances.

And there are about 10 other arguments - 10 other independent ways in which our reason says the same thing - for the immateriality of the mind.

Therein lies the problem: reason says our minds are not material. Conventional views in the academy say that only material stuff exists at base. Bingo: problem for the conventionalists who prefer to cleave to contemporary intellectual fashions than to follow reason.

But force is just as much immaterial as "mental event" is. So in any case, mental event or not, we still need dualism to account for energy transfer. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not sure about that, as I literally do not know what 'energy' means. If it is a curious stuff that is not empirically detectable, then yes, it too would constitute an immaterial substance. But then they could still insist upon the truth of the principle of the conservation of energy, it's just that now the principle would concern the behaviour of some immaterial stuff. That is, I do not think the concession that energy is immaterial would, in and of itself, serve to undermine the 'conservation of energy' criticism of substance dualism about the mind.

What an entirely predictable exchange this has been (although I thought you might go with something original, like Buttrips or Dumbprick). I am disappointed, though not surprised. In the future when i post an OP I will include one of these exchanges in advance so as to save you the trouble of creating one.

"Bitofshit, when you described the problem you were addressing did you mean token-type-type token tippy type tippy token dualism, or type-token-tippy-tip-truck-token-type dualism?" Ontological or gynecological?

Substance dualism.

"But why are you writing in English? What warrants the ontology of a pajama party? Do only the English eat figs? :zip: :rage: .

It's not my fault you can't focus on what the OP is about and need instead to find a way of regurgitating barely understood technical bilge from SEP.

You asked a question to which the answer was clear as a bell in the OP: substance dualism.

Now you're asking why I am assuming substance dualism. As any trained philosopher would know, that's an inept thing to do: :halo: :fear: :worry: :monkey: :shade: :starstruck: :naughty: :smile: :pray:

Again, read the OP.

I am assuming substance dualism. And then I am addressing a certain criticism that it has been exposed to and explaining why it is rubbish.

But you seem to be asking why I am assuming substance dualism. Focus.