In my opinion (and experience), a direct encounter with the mystical is extremely powerful evidence in support of theism. — J

Have you ever tried LSD, as a basis for comparison of altered states that you can experience?

I can certainly understand mystical states of mind as having an intensity that can be surprising, and how people can easily be inclined to think a non-mundane explanation is needed. However, "powerful evidence"?

Quite agree. This seems to be coming to the fore - that there is no single way in which to be conscious. — Banno

:100: :up:

Computer information processing is simply a mechanical procedure --- one thing after another --- as envisioned by Shannon. And some people still expect those assembly-line mechanisms to soon become Conscious, emulating human Sentience, as the data through-put increases. — Gnomon

Your thinking is rather last decade. The systems that run modern AIs use many interconnected processors operating in parallel, and a complex ballet of distributed processing is a more accurate metaphor than an assembly line. Furthermore, neuromorphic hardware that will massively increase the degree of parallelism while also dramatically dropping the power consumption is around the corner.

People often call a NTS fallacy in situations where there is actually a genuine ambiguity at hand. As such, it's not a case of a fallacy at all. — baker

There being a genuine ambiguity at hand, is rather key to a no true Scotsman fallacy being a fallacy.

Because many people have been indoctrinated into believing a false account of human nature and don't want to accept a more accurate (less grandiose) understanding.
— wonderer1

Having high expectations isn't necessarily painful. It is painful if it comes from a position of weakness, of loss, of dependence. If it comes from a position of entitlement or strength, then having high expectations is not painful. — baker

I don't know how your response is supposed to relate to what I said.

Do you consider "grandiose understanding" synonymous with "high expectations"? I sure don't. I didn't say anything about "painful" either. You are jumping to conclusions.

Do you think that religious indoctrination doesn't result in many people believing a false account of human nature?

I also think that saying to an apostate, 'you were never a true Muslim or Christian' is an obvious and often false accusation religions use to defend their own weaknesses. — Tom Storm

Not to mention a no true Scotsman fallacy.

The topic has induced more interest than I thought it would... — Banno

Though I haven't had time to read the book, I've very much appreciated the discussion.

I’d love to hear your thought on how his arguments don’t hold up! — T4YLOR

I'm afraid I'm not that interested in the topic these days, but you can find plenty of people to discuss WLC's arguments with at:

https://knowwhyyoubelieve.org/groups/reasonable-faith-forum/

There are some truly remarkable works in philosophy of religion (especially Christianity). One of my current favorites is William Lane Craig, who is best know for his popularization of the Kalam cosmological argument, writes on the question "What is the bare minimum we need to believe in Christianity?" This does not mean that we discard what is improbable, rather, we should interpret it in a way that is meaningful and in alignment with necessary doctrines. — T4YLOR

Have you spent any time on WLC's forum? You might find WLC's arguments don't stand up so well.

In any case, what is the relevance of "the bare minimum we need to believe in Christianity"? That sounds like a criteria that someone who wants to cling to a belief would be concerned with.

I don't think so, but the question is obviously pressing. And why is it pressing? — Wayfarer

Yeah, the issue of misinformation is a pressing one.

It wouldn't be because those despised 'Intelligent Design' advocates, Michael Behe and others, have actually hit a nerve? Heaven forbid! — Wayfarer

It sounds like you are a cdesign-proponetsist. Perhaps you are fooling yourself about being on the side of the angels here?

Why don’t people change their expectations instead of being mad about human nature? — Skalidris

Because expectations are largely a function of intuitions, and changing intuitions isn't under our conscious control, and can take a long time.

Because many people have been indoctrinated into believing a false account of human nature and don't want to accept a more accurate (less grandiose) understanding.

Gnice...like a gnife to the gnuts... — Janus

:naughty:

So, I re-interpreted Shannon's definition of Information in terms of 1s & 0s, as a reference to Bookends, not the Books ; Carrier of meaning, not the Content. Unfortunately, my groping attempt to describe that unfamiliar & unconventional perspective may sound like "Gnonsense", because it is literally Unorthodox, Atypical, and Eccentric. Maybe, over time, I will be able to find a more Gnomeaningful way to express that contradiction. — Gnomon

I don't see how it means anything to say you have "re-interpreted" Shannon's definition of information, when you show no indication of having ever understood Shannon's definition of information in the first place. You've demonstrated over and over that you have no meaningful understanding of what is meant by "a bit". It is ludicrous to think that you have any meaningful degree of understanding of Shannon's theory, when you don't understand such a basic element of it.

And yet you won't stop pretending that you understand information theory...

It's not eccentric or unorthodox. What it is, is silly pretension to having expertise that you don't have.

For better or worse, I've had enough experience with people who think like you, to know the pattern pretty well.

What is interesting to me though as a non-drinker is the sociological reaction to the non-drinker. I think non-drinkers make drinkers uncomfortable. I'm not sure if they feel judged or something or if they feel guilty for doing something that they'd feel less guilty about if everyone around them were joining in. — Hanover

Yeah, it's interesting. I am not affected by alcohol the way a lot of people are, and I don't get the appeal myself. (Which is not to say I haven't had some great times while drinking socially.)

Perhaps for some people, who get more out of drinking, it is a matter of wanting to feel like others are on their "wavelength" or something like that? That is kind of the impression I've gotten, at least in some cases.

But doing the wrong thing based on what we think we know about global-warming/climate-change is a VERY expensive mistake. — Agree-to-Disagree

You aren't sufficiently informed, to speak with anywhere near the authority you pretend to. The VERY expensive mistake, of allowing the CO2 levels to continue to rise, has been ongoing for decades.

The notion of dumping sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere has been under consideration for a long time:

Mikhail Budyko is believed to have been the first, in 1974, to put forth the concept of artificial solar radiation management with stratospheric sulfate aerosols if global warming ever became a pressing issue.[150] Such controversial climate engineering proposals for global dimming have sometimes been called a "Budyko Blanket".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection#History

It's indicative of how bad we have let it get, that polluting the atmosphere in additional ways has to be considered as a possible option.

I agree there are many facts about perception, including scientific observations about how it works, but that wasn't my point: the point was that whether it is 'direct' or 'indirect' is a matter of looking at it from different perspectives, using different definitions of 'direct' and 'indirect'. Perhaps the terms 'mediate' and 'immediate' would be better alternatives. Phenomenologically speaking our perceptions certainly seem immediate. On the other hand. scientific analysis show perceptions to be highly mediated processes. Which is right? Well, they both are in their own ways. — Janus

Makes sense. Thanks for elaborating.

It is possible that more than one way of thinking about things is valid, in one way or another. But surely some sort of selection will be needed sooner or later. — Ludwig V

I'm inclined to see, thinking of things from a variety of perspectves as a matter of ongoing epistemic necessity. I couldn't do my job, without frequently changing the conceptual framework I am using to consider things. Why would some sort of selection be necessary?

...As I attempted to describe in a post above, Shannon bracketed the meaningful realm of Information mathematically, within a broad range of possibilities from [100% to 0% (White or Black pixels) ] (typically expressed as "1/0" {all or nothing})*1. But the meaningful information is limited to the [something] range between {99% and 1%} : shades of gray.

Those extreme (all or nothing) cases are completely meaningless {entropic} except to denote statistical probabilities. Hence, digital computer "bits" are inherently open & undefined, allowing them to communicate almost infinite expressions of meaning... — Gnomon

Gnonsense.

Many Scientist deny vaccines too because DNA is a fractal and splicing shit into and out of a fractal necessarily ruin said fractal unless developed specifically for that DNA. — Vaskane

Can you cite any articles in scientific journals saying anything like that?

My point was that, in thinking about perception in different ways, using different criteria for what would count as 'direct' and 'indirect', perception can be considered to be either direct or indirect.So my question is, given there is no fact of the matter regarding which is the case. what is the problem? — Janus

It makes more sense to me to think that there are a great many facts of the matter, only some of which we know, but some of those facts can be fairly well understood.

memory recall should be limited to that of a mortal lifespan whereby 7 or 8 decades-old memories are continually "overwritten" by new memories so that an "immortal" remains a psychologically human mortal — 180 Proof

Do these ex-mortals have to pay their way? There's going to be an energy requirement. Why think that humanity wouldn't shut you down, at some point in time, rather than pay the bill?

And we can see very clearly the mess many of them are making in god's name. — Tom Storm

Indeed. Global warming denial tends to be big among the religious.

Were any of the six fundamental constraints different in very small ways, matter would not form, 'the universe' would comprise plasma or something. — Wayfarer

Plasma or something is not nothing.

But that’s where the cosmological constants and fine-tuned universe arguments come into play - Martin Rees' 'six numbers'. They themselves might not amount to laws, but they're constraints in the absence of which nothing would exist... — Wayfarer

No, not constraints in the absence of which nothing would exist. Something would exist, we just wouldn't be a part of what exists.

What we see when we see the cup is not something separate from or independent from what we call it and what we use it for. — Fooloso4

Is that consistent with me using a cup to trap a spider?

People surely have the ability to see ways of using things, in ways no one has before. So surely what we 'see' is more than just previously recognized linguistic and usage associations?

Perhaps jgill had in mind, something along the lines of the following:

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/11/05/antisemitic-hatred-in-palestinian-schoolbooks/

...I can really see how eyes might roll at this presentation - particularly its bankrolling by the Templeton Foundation. — Wayfarer

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-the-money-behind-the-climate-denial-movement-180948204/

You basically can make the division between those that promote and love the polarization and then those old school people who care about getting things done. — ssu

:up:

It's a metaphor, yet at the same time central to the theory. I think this lives on in the popular mind where we speak of the 'wonders' of evolution, as if evolution itself were an agent, when in reality, the only agents in the frame are organisms themselves. — Wayfarer

As the Wikipedia I linked says: [My emphasis.]

Even if the reproductive advantage is very slight, over many generations any advantageous heritable trait becomes dominant in the population. In this way the natural environment of an organism "selects for" traits that confer a reproductive advantage, causing evolutionary change, as Darwin described.[58] This gives the appearance of purpose, but in natural selection there is no intentional choice.[a] Artificial selection is purposive where natural selection is not, though biologists often use teleological language to describe it.

It is mostly a matter of teleological language being more expedient for conveying things evolutionary. It is much more linguistically cumbersome to discuss natural selection ateliologically. Teleology isn't central to the theory, as the scare quotes around "selects for" indicate.

:up:

For philosophical purposes, I'm not bound to that physically focused meaning. — Gnomon

Then to be clear you ought to use distinct terminology. (I suggest "gnatural selection".) You wouldn't want anyone to get the impression that you are talking about the same thing as scientifically informed people are talking about.

But the notion of natural selection suggests some kind of universal teleological agency... — Gnomon

Only if one elects to remain ignorant as to what biologists mean by natural selection.

People who deny reality are usually people with mental problems... — Alkis Piskas

Or philosophers. :razz:

Adaption to the environment is a different thing to general intelligence. — Wayfarer

Yes, there are an enormous number of ways to be adapted to environments.

General intelligence may provide for greater versatility, but it saying that is all that it does rather sells it short. — Wayfarer

Did anyone say that in this thread? I'm fairly confident that nobody did.

Often before, I've seen a lot of the sort of straw manning you are doing here. I find it really tiresome. I'd appreciate if you could try to cut back on the habit.

I know evolutionary biology quite well... — Wayfarer

I suppose "quite well" is relative to one's own perspective. Your comments show that there is a lot of room for improvement.

Although you would have to have some appreciation of philosophy, as distinct from science, to appreciate that, I expect. — Wayfarer

That is quite a conceit.

I’ve always felt that the idea that life, or for that matter cosmic order, is a chance occurrence is a profoundly unscientific attitude. — Wayfarer

Fortunately for the theory of evolution, it is not "the idea that life, or for that matter cosmic order, is a chance occurrence". The theory of evolution is supported by an enormous amount of scientific evidence, which is being added to daily. I recommend giving that evidence some serious consideration if you want to know yourself better.

I’ve often felt like asking, is the idea that evolutionary biology tends towards higher levels of intelligence within the scope of evolutionary theory? — Wayfarer

Of course. Abilities like being able to outrun, outclimb, outhink... tend to be adaptive. Why would you think otherwise?

That you are now reading this sentence is true. Now it isn't. :wink: — Banno

Of course. :up:

"Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real." — Pantagruel

Old Niels seems to have been a bit hyperbolic on that one. Everything we call real cannot be regarded as understood, seems a bit more reasonable to me.

...the essential fact of telos... — Pantagruel

What is that?

The good news is that one can articulate all of the crap one doesn't believe in, and that will piss off everyone more than throwing a tantrum. — BC

:up: :lol:

I find that for many traditionally religious people, religious doctrines are something one either believes or doesn't believe, not something that would be subject to empirical study or experience. — baker

There is a pretty huge spectrum on that matter. Here in the US there is no shortage of Christians who believe that people should have Christian beliefs.

Then Trump again expanded his rhetoric.

“I will implement strong ideological screening of all immigrants,” he said, reading from the teleprompter. “If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel,” he continued, apparently ad-libbing, “if you don’t like our religion — which a lot of them don’t — if you sympathize with the jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country and you are not getting in. Right?” — Washington Post

LINK

This sort of rhetoric appeals to a high percentage of US Christians.