when feminists say that sex is a determined by society, they are right; — DiegoT

No, they aren't. Sex is determined by biology. The expected behavior of each sex is determined by society. No matter how hard they try, society can't make a man have a menstrual cycle, get pregnant, and have babies.

The argument from evil is an atheist argument that is based on the nature of god. — Rank Amateur

No, it is based on the theists' claims about the nature of god. What they are saying is that IF the theist claim is true, then...

The argument that started this thread is an atheist argument that is based on saying something about the nature of god — Rank Amateur

No, it was based on some theist's claims about the nature of god. What they are saying is that IF the theist claim is true, then...

My point is, that neither theist or atheist have any basis to say anything at all about the nature of god and any argument either makes that uses the nature of god as a proposition is outside reason and is faith based — Rank Amateur

My point is that only theists make claims about the nature of god.

Nature relies on environment to express phenotypes. In the human species, like in no other species including crows, Nature saved a good deal of pre-set guidelines that is info and occupies space in our DNA, by trusting the environment to complete our designs. — DiegoT

Nature doesn't have goals, like trusting the environment to complete our designs. You imply that nature has a mind.

As I already told Andrew, genes are part of the environment. The other members of your species are made up bags of genes. These bags of genes are part of your social environment.

The another great advantage, is that in that way the final product will be more adjusted to the actual, ever-changing ecological and social demands of a nomad and socially complex species. The pitfall is that what the snake gets from its blueprints, we need to take from the social womb; if the social womb is sick or poor, we do not mature well. We do not even learn to talk if the environment fails; that doesn´t happen to snakes, which hiss all the same whatever happens around them. — DiegoT

This is a great example of how both nature and nurture (the environment) have equal influence on what we are now.

So, how is intent shaped and formed to become a goal? — Wallows

Intent is a goal. What you intend is the goal you have in mind.

Your willpower would the magnitude of the goal in your mind and how it determines your actions over other actions for other goals that you have in mind.

Saying if god is x then god y. Is making a claim about the nature of god. Logical or not, it is a claim about the nature of god — Rank Amateur

And I already said that atheists don't make those types of claims or else they wouldn't be atheists.

My very simple question is what is your rationale argument that you or me or anyone for supporting that we can say anything at all about what god is or is not — Rank Amateur

Only theists make claims about the nature of god, so that would be a question you ask them, not an atheist.

I only attempted to say anything about god when I was a theist. Then, I started to question my beliefs, not make more claims. At that point, you could call me agnostic. I was no longer a theist making claims about the nature of god. I was questioning those claims.

Now, I'm an atheist because other theists couldn't answer my questions consistently. When the claims of theists are more consistent, that would give me good reason to take their claims seriously.

Your problem is that you think that atheists make claims about the nature of god. That is a contradiction.

Let us not equivocate. Unicorns as such do not exist. The idea of a unicorn is not a unicorn. — Dfpolis

As I already pointed out, it is you that is equivocating - using terms like, "matter", "ideas", "being" and "essences" without any clear explanation of what those things are.

Let's go back and read what I wrote:

unicorns do exist and have causal power. They exist as ideas, not as an animal and I wouldn't say that animals and ideas have different "essences" because I don't know what that is. — Harry Hindu

You basically repeated what I said.

Unicorns as such do not exist. — Dfpolis

is the same as saying unicorns don't exist as animals.

The idea of a unicorn is not a unicorn. — Dfpolis

Right, the effects are not the cause. A picture of a unicorn isn't a unicorn either. It is the effect of the idea of a unicorn.

So when you use the string of scribbles, "unicorn", what do those scribbles refer to? If it refers to your idea of a unicorn, then "unicorn" is an idea of a unicorn. If it doesn't refer to anything as such, then what do you mean when you use those scribbles?

As for animals and ideas, they have different essences because they can do different things. A goat can eat grass, but the idea of a goat can't. — Dfpolis

Then the grass would be a different essence than the goat. All you have done is redefine "thing" as "essence", and that throws a wrench into your explanation of "matter" and "ideas". Each idea does different things and would therefore be a different essence. How would you know that you have an idea of a horse as opposed to a unicorn, if those ideas didn't do different things?

Of course neural processes (as well as hormonal and other somatic processes) are also chemical! What led you to think I am denying that? Emotions are not models in the same sense as maps, descriptions or mathematical models are models; you are shifting the definition. This is easy to see, because emotions are not about or for the brain states they may be thought to be correlated with, they are about things in the world. Love is not for its antecedent neural state, but for the beloved, for example. — Janus

I'm not shifting anything. Emotions are symbols, just as color, sounds, tastes, smells, etc. are. They refer to some state of affairs. Emotions are special forms of tactile sensations, or symbols, that refer to your body's state, which just doesn't include the brain. Neural and chemical processes don't only exist in your brain. If they did, then you'd only feel your brain, and not anything else. Feelings of love tend to encompass the whole body. Pain is often felt in one place and only in the head when you have a head-ache.

Sensory impressions aren't just about what is out there. It is about the relationship between what is out there and what is in here. Colors are about the relationship of the object, reflected light and your visual sensory system interacting. Love is just the feeling of attachment and ownership. Feeling love is just a symbol of that attachment - the relationship between you and what you love.

Some kinds of processes can be mechanically (propositionally or logically) modeled, others can only be descriptively (metaphorically or analogically) modeled.

You are simply presupposing that animal instinct is analogous to the programming of a robot. This is unargued and far too simplistic, in my view. — Janus

Why? Natural selection programmed the built-in behaviors of animals (instincts). Humans programmed the built-in behaviors of computers. Instincts are built-in behaviors - behaviors that arise as a result of your nature. In this sense, everything behaves instinctively in some way.

It is when we try to cross that boundary between instinctive behaviors and learned behaviors that we actually start to get at the differences between animals and robots.

What I am seeking to show is that you can make a valid distinction between nature and nurture without it been an oversimplification. — Andrew4Handel

It's the opposite. Your distinction is an unnecessary complication.

I think you would have to be a determinism to believe nature could not be overcome. — Andrew4Handel

I am a determinist. I also believe that nature and nurture are one. So that makes me also believe that nurture can't be overcome either. You can't overcome BOTH your genetics or your upbringing. It makes you who you are. If not, you'd be something else.

think we are talking past each other - you are either missing my point, or answering the question you want to answer and not the one asked - let me try to be clearer with a classic example.

The Atheist claims - If God is the 3 O's - then God should not permit evil - therefor there is no God

My point is that neither the Atheist making the argument, or the theist attacking the argument - have any basis at all to make any proposition at all about the nature of God - All such propositions from both the theist and the atheist have no basis in reason - and are all propositions based on faith. — Rank Amateur

This is ridiculous. Jake's posts are even more ridiculous.

"The Atheist claims - If God is the 3 O's - then God should not permit evil - therefor there is no God"
isn't a statement of faith. It is a statement of logic.

Atheists don't make claims about God. If they did, they wouldn't be atheists!

Someone makes a claim. Other people ask questions about the claim because the claim isn't coherent on it's face. When the person making the claim can't answer the questions, or can't be consistent, then why would faith be the reason the other is rejecting the claim?

What you and Jake are saying is that everything - all knowledge - is faith-based. If that is the case, then there is no such thing as reason or logic, as those would just be forms of faith. If faith is all there is, then why are you on this forum trying to be reasonable? Just make your claims and leave, or don't make any claims at all. Everyone will believe their own subjective things based on faith and you won't be able to reason with anyone.

"Normative" in this usage is another word for "shoulds." It's not denoting statistical norms. "People should ideally agree with things that are true or that are factual" doesn't imply that they in fact do agree. The idea is just that ideally, they should. — Terrapin Station

"Shoulds" fall into that category of value judgements. They relate to objective existence of goals. If your goal is to survive, then you should agree with things that are factual.

I agree with that up to the "would be an objective fact" part. But I'm using a different definition of subjective/objective than you're using.. — Terrapin Station

Have you ever used the terms in a way to refer to someone's biases and implied that the biased view is an inaccurate view, as opposed a more objective (accurate) view? An objective view would be a view from everywhere, while a subjective view is one from somewhere.

One thing that's unusual about divvying up the terms that way is that usually something being a fact and/or being true is seen as normative, in the sense that people should ideally agree with things that are true or that are factual. — Terrapin Station

But this contradicts the objective fact that mass delusions exist and that large groups of people can take fiction as fact. Take the belief that the Earth was flat and the center of the universe, for instance. What is factual isn't what is normative. What is factual is that norms exist and can be maintained for a long period until more efficient norms are established.

On your view, where subjectivity is a subset of objectivity, which is the same as truth/fact, a comment like "Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart" is thus objective, is true and is a fact. — Terrapin Station

You could circumvent this, though, by simply saying that "Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart" always has an implied "<Harry feels that> Frank Zappa was a better composer than Mozart," and I'd agree with that idea--there's always an implied <so-and-so feels that> with statements like that. — Terrapin Station

Yes, that is how I would circumvent that. Value statements (statements that use "better", "worse", "good", "bad", etc.) are statements about your conscious state, not about something that exists independent of your conscious state. "Goodness" and "betterness" are not things that exist independent of your mind. But that isn't to say that they aren't part of the world. Your mind is part of the world and anything your feel would be an objective fact. Mistaking your conscious state as the state of the world would be making a category mistake.

Things do not have overlapping definitions because they both exist. The basis of definition is not existence, for we can define things with no existence, like unicorns, but what they are (essences). — Dfpolis

Oh boy - where to start?

First, I never said that the overlapping definition was that they both exist. I said the overlapping definition was that they both have causal power.

Second, unicorns do exist and have causal power. They exist as ideas, not as an animal and I wouldn't say that animals and ideas have different "essences" because I don't know what that is. Animals and ideas both have causal power though, so you have yet to get at the distinction between "matter" and "ideas". All you have done is replace one string of scribbles with another - "matter" and "ideas" with "essences". What do those scribbles refer to? What do they mean?

Following Brentano, intentions are characterized by aboutness and matter is not. — Dfpolis

How could there be pictures of unicorns if the idea of unicorns didn't have any causal power? Pictures aren't ideas. They are arrangements of matter that refer to their cause (the idea of a unicorn), just as a computer screen filled with scribbles refer to their cause (your idea and intent to communicate it). Tree rings are arrangements of matter that are the result of how the tree grows throughout the year (the cause). Tree rings mean the age of the tree through it's causal relationship. Both things (pictures of unicorns and tree rings) are effects that carry information, or mean, their causes. So there is an aboutness to matter as much as to minds.

You also left this part of out of what you were replying to:

Intent is to you as color is to the apple — Harry Hindu

What I am contrasting is materiality, as characterized by physics, and intentionality, which is characterized by "aboutness" -- by referring to something beyond itself, as a referent, target of action or desire and so on. — Dfpolis

And effects refer to something beyond itself - the cause. Causes refer to their effects. Your "aboutness" is the same thing as a causal relationship.

Of course it is a continuation of the causal chain. The question is: is the final step, the received, encoded intelligibility becoming actually known describable by physics? Clearly, it is not because physics lacks a concept of awareness (because of the Fundamental Abstraction). So, no physics-based argument can conclude: "And so Harry is aware of the tree." — Dfpolis

What do you mean "final" step? The "received, encoded intelligibility becoming" becomes the cause of the next effect. For what reason would you be aware in the first place? Isn't it to react (the effect), which then becomes another cause for another effect, which can refer all the way back to your "encoded intelligibility becoming"? "Becoming" is another one of those philosophical buzz-words that have no meaning.

We need to distinguish between what I call "the laws of physics," which are approximate human descriptions and the "laws of nature" which operate in nature and are what the laws of physics attempt to describe. If their we no reality described by the laws of physics, physics would be a work of fiction. It is not. Instead, we discover the laws in nature and do our best to describe them accurately. If they did not exist in nature, we would have no reason to observe nature to discover them. So, there are laws in nature, that instantiate Brentano's aboutness criterion (being about determinate outcomes), and so are properly called "intentional." — Dfpolis

Well, being that you have yet to make that clear distinction between "intent" and "matter", (they both have an "aboutness" (causal relationship)) determinate outcomes could just as well be material and intentional.

You're missing the point which is that physical processes can be mechanically modeled; whereas volitional processes, whether emotional or instinctive, cannot. You could never even say precisely what neural process caused what behavior, let alone determine precisely what neural process is correlated with what emotion. — Janus

It's not just neural processes that are involved with emotions. There are also chemical processes. This combination is what correlates to your model (the emotion you feel) of those processes. Emotions model those processes. The emotion you feel is a model, just as the color you see.

Notice that I didn't use the term, "physical" processes. They are just processes. Why would one kind of process (mechanical) be modeled, when another kind of process (volitional) cannot?

Instinctive processes are simply built-in behaviors that occur without any intent. Those are modeled with any robot that behaves based upon it's built-in programming.

I don't see how My Joile example supports your point and I definitely do not think it is a tightly woven process. Some cancers are only caused because of an environmental factor and some are only caused because of a genetic disposition.

I think your reference to genes is vague and you can't actually specify any particular gene complex that you can claim caused a behavior or outcome. — Andrew4Handel

The Jolie example supports my argument because there are two reasons (nature and nurture) why someone would want to remove their breasts. You basically showed that both can be the case, but ignored one over the other for no reason. You basically made a circular argument. You gave no evidence why one is more important than the other. Remember, my argument isn't that nature is more powerful than nurture. My argument is that they are equal. I think you are arguing against a position that I haven't taken. You want to see it as black and white. I see it as one color - grey.

Harry the discussion starts with an If - then statement - concerning the nature of God. These are quite normal - If God is X then God cant be Y - therefore there is no God. It is a very fair question to all of these arguments for someone to ask those making the claim to support the basis for their proposition they can say anything at all about the nature of God. — Rank Amateur

Right. So, it is up to the claimant to define what it is their term refers too. What does the string of symbols, "god", refer to? Some religions call the universe, "god". If this is the case, then we don't have a disagreement about the nature of "god", we have a disagreement about the term we use to refer to it. Why would one use "god" when we have "universe"?

Ah, I see, we're supposed to believe in the qualifications of your chosen authority on faith. Like you do. Hmm, that sure sounds familiar... — Jake

It's the same qualifications you have, I'm sure, or else you'd have a lot of contradictory ideas floating around in that head of yours.

All unfalsifiable claims have the same amount of evidence - none. Therefore, they should all be given the same amount of weight - none. I'm sure you don't just go believing in every claim made by some human being. What makes one claim by one human (or several), that has no evidence to support it, better or more believable than another claim that has no evidence to support it? Isn't evidence that makes one claim better than another?

I haven't claimed there is a God. Thus, I take no responsibility to prove any of that. — Jake

So, you're arguing my point. I haven't claimed there is a God either, so why is it my responsibility to prove anything if it isn't also your responsibility? :brow:

Things all share being, but they differ in how they share being. As matter and ideas have non-overlapping definitions, they are different. — Dfpolis

They do have overlapping definitions. They both have causal power. I said that and you agreed, right?

Yes. I am what has changed. One intent ended. Another came to be. I remained. The point in contention was whether there was continuity in the intent rather than in the intending subject. — Dfpolis

Right. So, like I said, intent is to you as color is to the apple. You still have yet to make a clear, coherent distinction between what is "matter" and what is "intent".

I don't understand your use of "intent" anyway. Most people use terms like, "ideas" and "mind" as opposite notions of "matter". In my mind, "intent" is "goal". Goal-oriented behavior is intentional behavior. Intent is your goal in mind that caused the action.

How is any of this an argument against my claim that matter has parts outside of parts? — Dfpolis

You said:

If there were no parts outside of parts in reality, the mind would have no reason to separate them in thought. — Dfpolis

If this were the case, then for what reason does the mind bend a straw that isn't bent, or create a pool of water where there isn't one?

Information surely has causes, many of which are material. In my message example, the transmission process is described by physics, but the apprehension of information is not. Nothing described by physics involves awareness per se. — Dfpolis

It seems to me that the apprehension would be just a continuation of the causal sequence. Tree rings still carry information about the age of the tree independent of any mind coming along and being affected by their existence (like becoming aware of their existence). If awareness isn't a form of knowledge about the world, then what is it and why still call it "awareness" if it doesn't fit the definition of "awareness" we already have?

I did not notice this. There is no reason to think that everything with causal power is material in any commonly accepted sense. The laws of nature are unextended and appear to be unchanging, so they have none of the characteristics thought to define material objects. Still they cause physical phenomena to operate as they do.

The common word for anything that can act is "being." — Dfpolis

The "laws of nature" is a human invention. There is just how things are, and then our explanations of how things are (laws of nature). Nature doesn't have laws. Humans have laws. Nature just is. Nature is deterministic if that is what you mean. It is logical.

Also, I haven't used the term, "matter" unless it was to quote you. I don't know what "matter" is, or would be. Everything interacts causally, so I don't understand the distinction being made between "matter" and "intent"/"ideas".

Effects carry information about their causes. Your post is an effect of your idea and your intent to communicate it. My reading it is another causal relationship being established. My response is then another effect of your initial idea's existence, etc., and it all takes time.

It is objectively true that emotions motivate behavior; I have not denied that at all. But we cannot determine objectively precisely what emotion motivated precisely what behavior at some specific time and place. We cannot determine that in any way that could be inter-subjectively confirmed by observation, and I am even skeptical that we could determine such a thing precisely even in relation to our own behavior.

This is true even with ethology; we can only approximate even with observations of animal behavior and how much more is this true of human behavior? There is thus a subjective element even in some of the sciences (not to mention the subjective element in all the sciences due to the fact that they are human practices; which is a different subject again). — Janus

This is akin to saying that we cannot determine objectively what causes nuclear bombs to explode. We don't see atoms. We see objects. We don't see minds. We see bodies. If we can get at the existence of atoms through the behavior of macro-sized objects, then why can't we get at the existence of minds and their contents through the behavior of other bodies?

We can only approximate anything using whatever method we choose - science or any other. That's not a limitation of science. It's a limitation of our own perceptions and assumptions. What separates science is that it tries to unite ALL views into a coherent ONE.

So is "objective" the same as "fact" and/or "truth" on your view? — Terrapin Station

Well yeah. What are you talking about when you make any claim about how things are?

If you were to type "I feel happy.", do those scribbles refer to a real state-of-affairs, like your emotional state, that I can glean accurate information about some state-of-affairs independent of my own mind? If they do, then you are speaking objectively. If not then your are speaking fiction, or lying. What is subjective is your arrangement of sensory data that makes up your conscious state (working memory). Your view is subjective because it is unique. The world (objectivity, truth, the way things are) is made up of subjectivities in a sense, which is why I said they are subsets of objectivity.

If you were to type, "Harry Hindu is wrong.", do those scribbles refer to a real state-of-affairs, like me actually misinterpreting my sensory data, your intent, etc. where my mental representation of the world isn't accurate, or truthful? Another word for my worldview would be "fictional", maybe even "delusional".

But I think in reality some things are genes and "nature" and somethings are nurture/environment in a real sense.

Take cancer for example. Angelina Jolie had both her breast removed because she had an increased risk of breast cancer in her family.

However some people have developed cancer through the workplace being exposed to toxic substances like asbestos or lead. So it wouldn't make sense for Jolie to have a double mastectomy if her relatives died in a work related incident.

The debates people have are based on evidence. — Andrew4Handel

But your parents are bags of genes and how they behave (raise you) is a result of their genes and their own upbringing (adopting the behavioral norms of ancestral bags of genes). It's a process so tightly woven that it's difficult to say that it's two separate things.

Your Angelina Jolie example and comparison is one that supports my argument, not yours. It's both nature and nurture.

Please prove that human logic has anything to do with phenomena the scale of gods. Thank you. — Jake

I don't have to prove anything. It is your responsibility to prove that God exists in the first place to then go on to say that we can never understand a god. How you can prove the existence of something for which you claim we can never understand - I have no idea, but good luck.

Maybe I should clarify myself here. By nurture I mean parenting and some social factors. The term nature is problematic in some sense because it does not refer to anything is specific but is like a concept someone times contrasted with the artificial or supernatural. — Andrew4Handel

I seems like you've lost interest in reading other people's post and are set on just restating your claim over and over.

I already said that the artificial/supernatural vs. natural is a false dichotomy. You're using antiquated terms based on an incorrect idea that humans are separate from nature.

So in a trivial way everything is nature but in the context of these debates nature equals biology and genes and sometimes ecological environment (as opposed to artificial environs) — Andrew4Handel

I'm not interested in discussing debates. I'm interested in discussing reality. Reality is nature. Nature is reality. If it makes you feel better to use the term "reality" then that's fine. "Reality" is what makes you "you". You're making it more difficult on yourself by dividing reality into "nature" and "nurture".

On the other hand nurturing is quite well defend as upbringing of offspring and it can refer to the environment you deliberately create or expose the offspring to.

Nature as in life in general on this planet is not really concerned with outcomes and many species go extinct and use a wide variety of strategies to achieve goals with mixed results and fluctuating systems. I am not arguing that we should make children in harmony with nature and their genes but that nurture can help the best traits of a person flourish.

i am not optimistic either way but I think nurture and parental responsibility is very important. — Andrew4Handel

I think it is important too. I often say that most of our problems are the result of bad, or a lack of, parenting. But nature is just as important. Mental disorders can be a daunting, sometimes impossible, hurdle for any good parent to overcome.

I highlight that God is claimed to be omnipotent, meaning that he can do anything logically possible, and since there does not seem to be anything illogical about changing from one state to another, then God should be able to enter into time and become temporal; thus, if God can do this, then we are still left with a question as to why God does not enter into time? — Walter Pound

Changing from one state to another is a changing entity! What is illogical is no change causing change.

In a kind of 'absolute' sense I can see where you are coming from, though: the feeling I had this morning actually happened, it was real, it really felt like whatever it felt like, and in that sense you might say it was objective. But 'on the ground', so to speak, what is objective is what is available for inter-subjective scrutiny and confirmation. — Janus

Did your emotional state cause you to behave a certain way? Close friends and family can read you better than you can sometimes. Having a more objective perspective of someone can give you an insight into that person that that person doesn't have of themselves, because people have a habit of fooling themselves.

We can only see the "surface" of anything, rocks, trees, water, people, etc. It's how our minds model the world. We use scientific experiments to explain the behavior of these "surfaced objects".

I think the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness plays a pivotal role in the confusion surrounding quantum theory, but explaining this would take us far afield. An outline of my position is at https://www.researchgate.net/project/A-Manifest-Varaibles-Approach-to-Quanum-Theory, and I have explained a lot of points in comments to my YouTube videos on quantum topics. (Dfpolis channel) — Dfpolis

The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness loses its power when "physical" things are simply described as things that have causal power, and both "matter" and "ideas" have causal power. The Fallacy is in thinking that ideas and matter are different types of things.

I meant to write "you no longer have the same intent." I have edited the post to correct this. — Dfpolis

You simply changed the lowest common denominator from "intent" to "you". Okay, so now it's "you" that has an intent that changes, just as an apple has a color that changes.

No, it would not be the same intention. In a physical change, the material in the initial state, which is an aspect of that state, is found, in different form, in the final state. In a change of intention, what is the same is not part of the original intention, but the intending subject. We simply stop believing in Santa, and start not believing in Santa. The Principle of Excluded Middle forbids a continuous transformation as in the physical case. Even though the weight of evidence may accumulate slowly, the change of intent is discontinuous. — Dfpolis

Yes, but WHY did you believe in Santa in the first place, and now why do you not? For no reason at all? For no cause at all?

If there were no parts outside of parts in reality, the mind would have no reason to separate them in thought. — Dfpolis

The mind is just another process of reality and functions at a certain frequency relative to the other processes in reality. Time speeds up and slows down based upon your mental state, just as lethargic lizards need to warm up in order to speed up their mental processing to become more aware of those fast-moving predators. Your relative location in space/time relative to the size and speed of everything will influence the minds perception of everything. Slow processes appear as stable solid objects, while fast processes appear as blurs, or popping in and out of existence.

I am not denying the role of cause and effect. I am saying that matter is logically orthogonal to intent.

Information surely has causes, many of which are material. In my message example, the transmission process is described by physics, but the apprehension of information is not. Nothing described by physics involves awareness per se. — Dfpolis

I think a good explanation of awareness will link QM and Classical Physics.

What is your take on evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind?

Fiction.

Thus it is logically impossible for natural science, as limited by its Fundamental Abstraction, to explain the act of awareness. 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

Do you think this is why we have the current break between Classical Physics and Quantum Mechanics and the strangeness of QM?

If you change your intent, you no longer the same intention, but a different intention. — Dfpolis

What do you mean by "no longer the same intention"? Wouldn't it just be the same intention that changed, just like everything else does, like "matter"? Everything changes. Change is the essence of time.

Matter's appearance of having parts outside of parts is a result of how our minds categorize space.

4. Intentional realities are information based. What we know, will, desire, etc. is specified by actual, not potential, information. By definition, information is the reduction of (logical) possibility. If a message is transmitted, but not yet fully received, then it is not physical possibility that is reduced in the course of its reception, but logical possibility. As each bit is received, the logical possibility that it could be other than it is, is reduced.

The explanatory invariant of information is not physical. The same information can be encoded in a panoply of physical forms that have only increased in number with the advance of technology. Thus, information is not physically invariant. So, we have to look beyond physicality to understand information, and so the intentional realities that are essentially dependent on information. — Dfpolis

A transmission takes time. You are talking about a causal relationship. All effects carry information about their causes. The tree rings in a tree stump still refers to the age of the tree even if no one is there to look at it. Information is the relationship between cause and effect.

If we substitute "fear" for "desire," the result is the claim that to fear is always to fear something. Yet angst is usually understood as a kind of fear that is the fear of nothing in particular - 'though I accept the proposition that in this context the "nothing" is indeed a something. Not an argument, just a thought. — tim wood

Angst could be the fear of the unknown.

In the nature nurture debate I believe they are referring to human nature not how nature effects humans. — Andrew4Handel

But humans are part of nature - the environment - your social environment.

One thing I do not believe like some thinkers argue is that genes determine a child's outcomes. Also one thing about human society is that it is deeply artificial. So our genes are not a created to negotiate modern society. Only in a truly primitive state can our genes beside to be fulfilling a truly biological niche in my opinion. — Andrew4Handel

I forgot to mention this last time. Modern society is just a new environment that a species has to adapt to. That is what species have been doing since life came about. Environments change. Species adapt or die out. Sometimes as species can wreck havoc on their own environment and threaten their own existence, but species are part of the environment just as an earthquake or a hurricane is. Predators are part of the environment (natural selection) that puts pressure on their prey to adapt. Humans aren't any different. The environment is chaotic. Sometimes there are times of stability, but that is a result of our subjective view of time.

I think it is a chicken and egg thing with genes but the theory is that genes arose in a primeval soup not that genes preexisted their environment which to me does not favor genes. — Andrew4Handel

The chicken and egg thing isn't a paradox any more. We now know that the egg came before the chicken. Egg-laying is a method of procreating that was adopted by the chicken from their ancestors.

Genes just didn't just pop into existence. They evolved from complex organic molecular interactions (that soup that your talking about). Nature and nurture are the same. You are arguing a false dichotomy.

Important social policy and psychological theory hinges on this. The issue is that people who favor genes or personality as most powerful advocate different policies, ideologies and therapies but people who advocate nurture and environment are more likely to advocate changing societal and family dynamics.

I do think genes are important but they are important in context of nurture. For example you raise your child based on what is best for his or her genes or simply preferences and dispositions. But people like Plomin and Caplan will argue that parental intervention has limited effect which is implausible. One notable statistic is that people most often share their parents religion. — Andrew4Handel

If the idea is that we should have equal outcomes for all, you can't achieve that by just taking children from their parents and letting the State raise them as one. You'd have to genetically engineer humans AND let the State raise them as one.

Mutations are what has driven the long-term existence of life. If genes didn't have the potential to make changes when they copy themselves, then life couldn't evolve and would have died out long ago. Mutations are what allow us to adapt to those environmental changes.

How would it make any sense to say that subjective/subjectivity refers to or necessarily implies "not the way things are"?

I've said this a ton of times, but when I use the terms subjectve/objective, I'm using them as simple synonyms for "mental" versus "extramental," and ultimately, I'm using those as terms for two different sorts of locations (brains versus everything else). Applying one term versus another to various things is like asking whether something goes in a cabinet or not. "Peanut butter?" "Yeah in the cabinet." "The couch?" "No, not in the cabinet." Etc.

Why does the location matter? Simply because if something is only a mental phenomenon, then it's not something that one can get right or wrong in the sense that one can get right or wrong what the chemical composition of, say, a volume of seawater is, It's simply a fact that people have the mental content that they do. — Terrapin Station

Typical TS - responding to something I never said because they didn't take the time to read the whole post.

I never said, nor implied, that subjectivity is the opposite of objectivity. I said it is a subset of objectivity.

I think I actually said something like what you said. Illusions exist and are real. What they are interpreted to be about, doesn't exist and isn't real (that's what an illusion is - a misinterpretation of sensory data). That would be the subjective part that you are referring to - the way it appears, but isn't the way it is.

When I say that subjectivity is a subset, I'm saying that it is just a unique area in space/time, just like most areas of space/time. That rock is just as unique as this rock and your view is to my view. Views exist and are real. A view is located where you are located, and where I am located, and where every sensory-processing system is located. Rocks don't have a sensory-processing system, so there is no view located at the rock.

I don't know what Berkeley would say to that; according to the logic of his thinking (based on what I recall) I think there would still be a real difference and hence a valid distinction between what is, what is experienced by us and the subjective feelings that arise on account of what we experience, with the former two being objective and the latter subjective. — Janus

If we can use feelings as explanations for peoples' behaviors, then aren't feelings objective? Anytime that you talk about the way things are, which includes peoples' emotional state, you are speaking objectively.

The subjective is a subset of the objective. Your feelings are part of reality as much as the waves of the ocean are. They are effects and causes.

Well, I figure that this is how they will respond to your objection: God's thoughts are eternal and unchanging and therefore timeless; all of God's thoughts are not occurring in time in the way our thoughts occur, but instead they have always been.

However, even this response doesn't make sense if God is the creator of time. The very act of creating space and time, ex nihilo, is a change; even if God is eternally creating time and space, then God should be described not as unchanging, but as eternally changing. — Walter Pound

Exactly. How does an unchanging thing cause change?

However, this objection would not explain why God chooses to remain timeless as opposed to entering in time. It doesn't sound like a logical contradiction to say that a timeless being can enter into time so if God is omnipotent, then the issue remains: why is God timeless instead of temporal? — Walter Pound

That last question doesn't make sense.

A changeless thing would be like numbers in mathematical Platonism. Numbers literally do nothing and thus are timeless in the fullest sense of the word, but God is not timeless in the way numbers are in mathematical Platonism so it is a weird description to call God changeless if God is eternally creating time and space. — Walter Pound

Which number? There are an infinite amount of numbers (infinite change).

The way you get to discover potential genetic causes is by trying to give two things an identical environment. However the environment equals nurture. — Andrew4Handel

No. The environment is Nature. Isn't another name for the environment, "Mother Nature" and "Natural"?

I am obviously not denying people don't have different genetic outcomes but these occur embedded in environment/nurture. — Andrew4Handel

Again, it's environment/nature.

It seems the genes only act after they are in an environment and being nurtured. — Andrew4Handel

It seems to me that the environment has nothing to act on if genes didn't make copies of themselves with the potential for "mistakes", or mutations (nature). It's called, NATURAL selection, not Nurturing selection.

One thing I do not believe like some thinkers argue is that genes determine a child's outcomes. Also one thing about human society is that it is deeply artificial. So our genes are not a created to negotiate modern society. Only in a truly primitive state can our genes beside to be fulfilling a truly biological niche in my opinion. — Andrew4Handel

Then raising a dog and a human together in the same environment would result in equal outcomes (nurture). That obviously isn't the case. One's nature is a powerful influence on how you can be nurtured and how you can behave or respond to the environment.

Also, human society is natural. If humans are natural outcomes of natural processes, then our skyscrapers are as natural as a beehive. "Artificial" is a term that people who still think that humans are separate from nature use.

Nature and Nurture. It's time to think of them on equal footing. They are one and the same.

So now your complaint is that you are a bee when you want to be a god-bee.

Won't being a god-bee influence how you perceive the world, too?

I favor nurture over nature if I was being totally honest. This might illustrate the reason. if you have two genetically identical seeds and you plant one in good soil and water it it will flourish but if its twin is planted in bad soil and infrequently watered it will be poorly and struggle. — Andrew4Handel

And give the same amount of water and soil to different seeds and the difference in genes will cause different outcomes in how they grow. It seems like an equal influence from both.

Note: Instinctive behaviors (genetic knowledge) are a product of nature. Learned behaviors (learned knowledge) are a product of nurture.

That's a good point. It's an interesting project, considering how 'matter' became 'conscious' (or however one wants to frame it.)

We seem to have two origins. We can use language to contemplate the origin of language. Then the origin of language would exist for or within language. A Mobius strip comes to mind. — sign

Loops often come to my mind when thinking about reality. Self-awareness is like a camera pointing at it's monitor and creates a visual feedback loop of a "infinite" corridor. Natural selection is basically environmental feedback - the environment shaping itself.

You have missed the point of the difference between logical entailment and physical determination. Even if you wanted to say they are the same that would be reliant on the assumption that rigid determinism obtains, which is itself not logically necessary and we don't and can't know empirically whether it does or does not obtain , and yet we can and do know what is logically entailed by premises. — Janus

No. It is you that has missing the point. I understand what you are trying to say. What I'm saying is that it is no different than what a materialist says. We are both saying the same thing (kind of). What you call a premise, I call a cause. A premise is a type of cause - a deterministic one - like all causes and their effects. What I call an effect, you call a conclusion. A conclusion is a type of effect - an effect of premises. But then conclusions are causes too. They cause action, or behavior, and so on. The causal relationships "cross" this "boundary" between causal relationships in the mind and the causal relationships that are not part of the mind (what people refer to as the external world). Thinking of them as separate sides is what dualism does. Monism says that they are one and the same. There is no "boundary". It's just an illusion.

What idealists are doing is simply using anthropomorphic terms to refer to reality. Saying everything is "ideas" or "mind" is making a category mistake. Ideas and minds exist in only one part of reality. They are a subset - a part of a larger group of related things (causation, or processes, or relationships).

If human beings are outcomes of natural processes, then it only makes sense to say that the things we've created are are natural as well. Separating human beings from nature would be an "anthropocentric activity". — Harry Hindu

Your meaning is clear; it isn't possible to escape the natural tempero-spatial order. There's always some displacement or other when technics are so dominant a part of human relations, usually into diminished mental health. However, is it not apparent our species is doing everything it can to supplant time and space with its own technological version of time and space? Mechanical clocks to transportation tech have subconsciously insinuated a belief that human order is indeed separate from the natural order.

Everyone must obey the technics, not time and space, when they scramble home for the holidays, experiencing immense stress of gridlock and the tightest schedule possible(never relaxing the moment). The speed of telecom creates a counterfeit sense of communion, which can be imagined as homologous to a seance (provided one puts zero value in face to face relations), and so on. Anyway, the convenience and speed of doing things doesn't really result in calmer, clearer, more peaceful, self-organized lives when we all are subject to the heteronomous, other-organization of technological determinism. — Anthony

Go back to what I said. Your reply is like a bee complaining about how the bee hive influences their perception of reality.

Again, if God has a mind, then God changes. If god doesn't have a mind, then why call it God? It would just be some mindless existant, no different than the universe itself.

If God has causal power then God is part of causation and exists in time. It can't exist outside of it because it operates within it.

So we assign traits to them such as "intelligent" because they can be made to appear "intelligent" and "engaging". Of course they are no such thing. They are containers and processors of data and programming. — Bitter Crank

You are a "container" and processor of sensory data based on your genetic and learned programming.

If human beings are outcomes of natural processes, then it only makes sense to say that the things we've created are are natural as well. Separating human beings from nature would be an "anthropocentric activity".