Comments

  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    Probably because whether you dream or not has very little impact on yours and other's lives. — Philosophim
    This mirrors @lll explanation as to why belief in god is special and unlike dreams and pains and all other things we claim without requiring proof. And again, I ask, why is the experience of god -- sensation of the holy ghost, or whatever it is one experiences with god --as a private sensation like dream or pain, something to be proven? Our dear lll said because belief in god had led to war, deaths and whatnot. Then, I say are we not misplacing the problem here?

    Because such a belief has a fundamental way of altering that person, and other people's lives. — Philosophim
    And you repeated it here.

    When you have divine guidance, there is no possibility of thinking, amending, or improving. If "Gays are evil" for example, you can't have a rational discussion with that person, as they feel like they are divinely correct, thus your mortal arguments are against God, ignorant, and sinful. This stunts people's growth and makes them emotional animals. Satisfying for the person, but can potentially be terrible for themselves and society. — Philosophim
    I never said that belief in god frees one from responsibility. Hate against a group because god told you so is a responsibility that one has to answer to. The same way a person would act on a dream of end of the world -- this person has to answer to some authority if he acted badly.

    The illegality of one's action is not excused because he is allowed a belief in god. And if I may say so, what would you gain by asking a person, who acted badly based on belief in god, to produce proof of his god. Does that lessen his irrational behavior if he could somehow produce proof of god?

    Of course no one walks around with the kind of equipment needed to spot floaters :wink: - and - this does not affect your larger point. — EricH

    :up:
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    Ok, sorry about the crossed wires, I don't think our positions are changed by your update. — universeness
    :ok:
  • Freedom Revisited
    ↪Agent Smith
    Yes, deliberating the future is freedom in thinking as you're supposing things that haven't happened yet. No one can accuse you of making a decision that's already determined. Of course, they're gonna try to say, all future things are already determined. Then ask them, then predict something bad that's gonna happen in the future and let's avoid it. Or, try to predict some nuclear war in the far future, and let's change the course of our action. The future is not determined. We have the freedom to think how to shape the future.

    Non-action, as Schopenhauer indicated, is also a decision.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    ↪EugeneW
    But I'm asking you, what's the logic of your asking if I'm awake? There are things we could ask and doubt, but you asking me if I'm awake is not one of those. Why ask me at all if you're doubting my state of awakeness? You sound like the atheists who continue to request for proof, after making a claim that god does not exist.
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    With all due respect, you need to read a response more carefully.

    If every human alive stated that god exists then I would not be calling it a fable, because I would believe it too. — universeness     — universeness
    No. The below is what I quoted from your post. If I didn't see that, then that's not what I responded to originally. Please see below. I'm paralleling your post below.
    You were saying something about dreams.


    If each human you meet, confirms to you (if you ask them) that in their opinion, humans dream, then that is proof enough.

    — universeness

    So anecdotal account can serve as proof. What if every human you meet confirms to you that god exists, would you accept that as proof of god?     — L'éléphant
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    And why should one proof dreams? — EugeneW
    I did not even imply that in any of my posts. Back at ya -- why should I prove to you that I'm awake?
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    You might say you are awake but what if I say that I don't believe you? — EugeneW
    That's the thing -- I don't need to prove to you I'm awake.
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    So atheism is logical as long as God is fictional ? Isn't that exactly what atheists say? — Hanover
    Incorrect. Atheists say god does not exist. Which is different than saying god is fictional. I just said that about bigfoot and company.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    Do you have proof you are awake? You mean that you can never proof pain? — EugeneW
    I don't need to prove to myself I'm awake. But the question is, do you want me to prove to you I'm awake right now? So, my rebuttal is, why? What is your reason for asking? If I told you I had a dream last night and you responded by saying you don't believe me, the conversation stops right there.
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    The existence of the universe is proof of gods. — EugeneW
    You know you can make a case about that. If physicists can make a case about the big bang by pointing to things present in our universe, you could also do the same with god. They call those things evidence that the big bang happened -- but mind you, those evidence could also be present without the big bang happening. It's not if and only if those things exists, that big bang happened.
  • Freedom Revisited
    ↪Constance

    I don't think you're agreeing with Schopenhauer. The freedom is in thinking, according to him. Our actions then becomes caused by our thinking. So, what conclusion could you form about this? The necessity is in our action, but freedom is in our thinking. Determinism is misplaced here. The ocean example is to point to you that one could think about an action, but chooses not to act on it.
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    By the same token, can you proof to me that you are awake and not dreaming? — EugeneW
    Why would you ask that? Is that even intellectually honest? That's the thing -- this is not about JTB. This is about requiring someone to produce proof of his or her belief in god. What utter nonsense!
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    If each human you meet, confirms to you (if you ask them) that in their opinion, humans dream, then that is proof enough. — universeness
    So anecdotal account can serve as proof. What if every human you meet confirms to you that god exists, would you accept that as proof of god?
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    What about the denial of Bigfoot, ghosts, or aliens? Can one logically deny those? — Hanover
    Hah! Good one. I guess the statement "There are no bigfoot, ghosts, and aliens" could logically trip you off. But in fiction, we could be at liberty to talk about them. So, the proper way to deflect this type of inquiry is, bigfoot, ghosts, and aliens exist in fiction.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    ↪L'éléphant
    Just a minor point of correction here. Floaters are real.     — EricH
    They are real. I think my OP implied that. We do accept them as true. What we can't really show the floaters to others. Only accounts of people who've experienced them.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    5. That my wife is right. — Benkei
    haha! Good one! That does not require proof!

    How is this not proof? If I stated, "When I sleep, I have experiences", then if I others say, "Oh yeah, I have that too", that's proof/evidence. If not one but one person in the world had experiences when they slept, then I think you would be right. Even then, brains have been scanned during sleep, and a lot of activity is found in there.To be fair to your argument, perhaps what you meant was more along the lines of "What we specifically dreamed of". — Philosophim
    That's what I'm saying -- my justification for the truth of my dream is your own experience, and vice versa. Are you not seeing the issue with this? There is no group of anti-dreams who calls us out on our bullshit dreams. No one.

    Why can't belief in god work the same way? Many people claim they have experienced the divinity or holy ghost. But we do not readily accept their account.
    Further, we have medication that eases pain. If we didn't have evidence or proof of pain, then pain medication would be no better than a placebo.

    Perhaps again, we don't have proof of your personal experience of what pain feels like. But that doesn't negate the proof that pain exists in people, and has very real physical impact on the brain and body.     — Philosophim
    This is not a proof. Doctors could only infer from our reports of pain -- but there's no thing that is called pain. It's not like a tumor, where there is concrete evidence of it. Medications work on pain, through trials and studies of subjects who report which pain medication eases their pain the best. Evidence is what you're thinking of. Trial and error is not proof. And so on.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    Well, I guess an idealist would argue that everything we see, we take for granted as real when it is actually a product of mind. Does that count?

    When we see people walking down the road, we take it for granted that they are real. What if only 50% of them are real and the rest spectres?

    For me the question sometimes might be: what is it we have reason to doubt? Not so much what is it we don't have proof for.     — Tom Storm
    Good points!

    Dreams, pain, and fear are especial because they are never out there for others to witness. When I'm dreaming, you can't see or know what I'm dreaming. Simple as that.
    People walking down the road is external to us. Multiple people could witness those people -- they're not just in my mind or your mind. This kind of scrutiny is the JTB, which is not the issue here. The issue that I've been trying to point out is that I really do accept your dream as true when you tell it to me, even though I or others could not witness your dream.

    Now doubt -- we don't even doubt someone recounting his dream. That's the issue here. We don't doubt fear or pain when other things are present which we associate with fear and pain, even though those other things could also be associated with things that are not fear or pain.

    If you hear people talking in their sleep you have proof of the dreaming. Likewise for animals. You might even put me under a brain-scanning machine. Then you could see if I dream when asleep. What proof do you need more? Are you a solipsist? — EugeneW
    That's not proof.
    No, I'm not a solipsist.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    What I wanted to say but didn't now becomes relevant. A person has a religious experience and tells himself he had a one-to-one with God. The religious experience itself can't be denied, it is true and there's no need for proof.

    We have to prove that some things need no proof. The reality of a sensation/experience doesn't need an argument, it needs no justification. How do we do that? Looks like the JTB theory of knowledge needs an overhaul. I have no idea how to do that.     — Agent Smith
    So then why is it often required of belief in god that a proof be produced, when we do have other claims, equally important, such pain and fear, which we don't need a proof? Is it because a belief in god is something taught to us? While pain and fear and dreams just come to us naturally since we're babies? What is it about belief in god, even sensation of holy ghost that is so out of this world that it requires proof?

    I like this -- we have to prove that some things need no proof. It seems that's the unwritten rule about dreams, pain, and fear. We just took it upon ourselves that what "I" experience is the same as what you or others experience when we talk about these things. So, my justification for the validity of your claim that you had a dream, is my own experience of dreams.

    Since when did philosophers allow that justification? Okay W said it should be good enough, no proof is needed. But in truth, we accept it because we experience it as well, not that they experienced it. Are you seeing the issue with this?

    That depends on how a particular society treats religion. — lll
    So I think this is the gist of the issue -- belief in god is tied with religion. It is necessary that religion is involved. That's why atheists want proof. Because belief in god can never be treated like how we treat self-evident pain, fear, and dreams.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    1. What if god is a sensation, like pain is? God's relationship with suffering is well-documented (heaven/hell) (vide religious experience)

    2. Is "I am in pain" = "God exists"? The former is private but the latter is not. My pain vs. Our God. Both are propositions in their own right.     — Agent Smith
    Excellent point.

    Belief in god could be both viewed as private or public (later about this) -- private like pain, as you said. In which case, nothing else is required except for the self-reported sensation of divination or other holy experience. But if we consider it as a public knowledge, such as what @lll touched on -- since belief in god had led to some grave consequences such as persecution, then should it be held at a higher standard than other private sensation such as dreams and pains? Should we require proof of god?

    And here the issue of belief in god becomes muddled when organized religions are involved. And to me, this is when the practice of religion is more at issue here than belief in god.

    Nonetheless, I gave an example of the big bang, which is comparable to the existence of god in magnitude? Or not. But I guess I'm trying to find a comparison big enough to make it balanced.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    Are you changing your tune or is it that I misunderstood you? That was quick. — Agent Smith
    I haven't changed my tune since I've written the OP. I can explain again. I said that there are things that we accept without requiring proof. I gave an example of pain. Then you quoted W for same idea that our experience is enough to claim its truth. I said okay, I agree with him. And we should really give the benefit of the doubt to the pain reporter, barring some wayward silly individuals who fake pain to get high on drugs.

    And the ending of my intro is that, we do accept certain things without proof. But belief in god seems to have not benefited from this leniency.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    And if we want to expand our search for accepted truths without proof -- how about the big bang theory? Here they really don't have a proof, per se. But what they claim is, it is testable, mainly by the presence of 3 things, among them CMB, cosmic microwave background, which they call evidence.

    So what's the difference between a proof and presence of evidence? A proof is the actual explosion that we witnessed or captured through some device. That's the proof. That's never gonna happen. Evidence is the background support for the plausibility of the big bang happening, evidence such as expansion of the universe, presence of CMB, and abundance of elements.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    ↪lll
    Going back to the issue you touched on earlier -- life and death situation as against other topics that others might simply dismissed as philosophical inquiry. So, you think since the god topic is an all important life situation that we must require proof, whereas, other things in life could pass as not requiring proof.

    And as I countered, in philosophically sound argument, we do not put importance on life and death situation. So I guess my question to you is, should we? Should we put hierarchy on issues when we're doing philosophy?

    ↪Agent Smith
    Please see above. I am agreeing with W as far as being content with our self-reporting habit of pain -- no proof required except our own account of it.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    These are important, but what about intermediate theories which remain blurry and plausible? — lll
    Okay we can also include those. But, again, my point is, we don't require proof for certain things we claim to be true or we accept from accounts of other people.

    Wittgenstein said (paraphrasing) "When you're in pain, you know you're in pain; uou don't justify/require proof that you are in pain." — Agent Smith
    Yes. And I don't disagree with W.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    ↪lll
    Okay, I misspoke when I said "philosophical proof". That needs explaining. What I meant was, proof that we accept as epistemologicaly sound-- so it could be empirical proof (which includes scientific proof) or logical proof. Heck, even induction is acceptable as philosophical argument.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    Our culture doesn't make much of dreams, so we don't care enough to challenge them. The God issue is connected to bloody wars and issues like abortion and assisted suicide. As one might expect, claims that 'God told me X' are held to far more scrutiny. — lll
    Fortunately, in a philosophical argument, we don't distinguish between life and death situation when requiring proof to back up our claims. I mean, just search for Descartes's cogito and see how much time and space was devoted to it just so we talk about existence and the self. In epistemology, we don't put hierarchy on topics.

    If I try to sell a cancer-curing concoction without making a case for its effectiveness, I might get a visit from the government. — lll
    And now we are venturing into the legality of it, which again fortunately for the purpose of this topic, is not a requirement. I just really meant philosophical proof.
  • Freedom Revisited
    ↪lll
    :up:

    Naturalism is grounded in the apodicticity of the principle of causality. — Constance
    Okay, you got one thing right -- causality. But did you read what Schopenhauer wrote (I posted a passage in this thread). See where the necessity lies -- not in the thinking.

    As to the definition of the naturalism as a philosophical view, please read up on the definition. I think you're missing the main point of naturalism. Yes, it is nature - but I want you to think in terms of philosophical argument.
  • Things That We Accept Without Proof
    The grammar of sensation and pain is a bit special. In general, we do not question or doubt such statements. One 'cannot be wrong' about 'appearance' or 'what things seem like.' This grammatical habit is too readily taken as some great logical principle or discovery. — lll
    I agree. And that is also true of the other 4 points I outlined. We give them the benefit of the doubt.

    We should note exceptions though. How many doctors have doubted claims of 'back pain' from claimants who clearly want opiates? — lll
    Yes, this happens but under a different circumstance that what I'm trying to say in the introduction. Of course there would be liars.

    If you tell me that you dreamed vividly of 'round squares' but refused to draw one for me, I might doubt you. — lll
    Might. But in general, we do not have strict requirements for reports of dreams.
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    No supernatural ability has ever stood up to scientific scrutiny, so I conclude that its just a product of human fear. Born from all the scary reptilian screeches we heard when we hid in caves at night because we were unable to fight in the dark! No natural night vision ability. You would think a benevolent god would have at least given us night vision when we lived in the caves, if it had then perhaps we would not have needed to develop the ability to sleep for 8 hours a day. — universeness
    You missed the point of my argument about the existence of dreams. And you totally did not get the dreams/dreaming exist. There's no doubt about it, people dream. My point of saying that while dreams exist, and people really do dream, we cannot show proof that we're dreaming. Yes, maybe a brain scan of a person dreaming might show some active parts of the brain through imaging, but the imaging wouldn't show the "dream" itself, only that the person's part of the brain is at the moment active.
  • Freedom Revisited
    If you ask me, those guys who stole the car, got drunk and killed ten people on the highway were anything but free in their actions. Even as they began their adventure of debauchery, and reviewed the law, the consequences, the danger, this was not sufficient for freedom, for the struggle to decide was a matter contained within the inner tensions between possible actions. Had their been more motivation on the side of care rather than carelessness, they wouldn't have done it. So why was there stronger motivation to do it? — Constance
    I don't think this is the "thinking" we're talking about in this thread. I gave examples of Descartes, Aristotle, and Schopenhauer's idea of freedom in thinking. It is rational thinking. And we don't always think rationally, of course, such as in your example above. The point of freedom in thinking is, we do have it at our disposal if we are so inclined. There is deliberation, there is decision, and there is future possibilities. That's what they mean.

    But in our daily affairs, when we stand in conscious wonder about what we do, who we are, why we exist and so on, we are free of motivation. Doe this make us a spontaneous cause? — Constance
    Yes, this is more like it. But spontaneity is not the idea here. We could be spontaneous and still be unthinking and undeliberative. We're after rational thinking.
  • Aristotle: Time Never Begins
    So if the universe changes from "no-time" to "time", that in of itself is a temporal process, making it necessary that "no-time" is actually time. So time never begins. — Kuro
    This bothers me. Time count begins when something changes. A void with no space-time has no time. Time starts at the mark of a change. "Universe and no-time" don't go together.
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    @EugeneW
    Could you be arsed to go outside of this thread and have a smoke outside the building? You're loitering.
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    ↪EugeneW
    Stop it. You don't understand what a proof is.
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    There is evidence people dream. I dream you dream, everyone dreams. My dreaming is proof of your dreaming. If you say you dreamt I believe you. — EugeneW
    This is not evidence! I knew you were gonna say this.
    Look, if I said I dreamed I was floating, I would not be able to produce proof of me floating. What is YOUR evidence of MY claim?
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    ↪EugeneW
    What about it?
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    Can anyone explain why we readily claim that we dream, or that we readily accept that this or that person had a dream, when we can't provide evidence of it? Why does everyone talk about the scenery in dreams when they can't produce proof of it?
    But if we do the same with the existence of god, people want evidence? If I can't produce proof that I dreamed I rode a sleigh pulled by reindeers, no one would say I didn't dream, or dreams don't exist.
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    L'elephant. The question should be: is there evidence they don't exist. No! So do they exist? Yes! — EugeneW
    Let's not use this. This is a fallacy.
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    Can we bring this thread back to the compound of sanity?

    What kind of evidence do atheists ask? Scientific? Then, no. There's no scientific proof for the existence of god.

    Funny. The existence of dreams works the same way -- you can't show scientifically what you dreamed of last night. If you dreamed of riding a giant quark, you couldn't show this scientifically, not in pictures, not in actuality. Yet, everyone on Earth had claimed at one time or another that they dreamed about something. And that dreams exist.

    So, if I demand that you show me the proof that you dreamed of something last night, I am acting like the atheists.
  • Typical reading speeds?
    I was never a voracious reader. My reading habits only developed when I studied philosophy. So, my reading habits is what you get when you read philosophical writings -- you read passages not the whole book, you jumped from one philosopher to the next, you jumped from one notion to another, you only really focus on one idea at a time, and you neglect to read fiction.
  • Does just war exist？
    There is no just war. (Do not start me with self-defense as it is a silly notion).
    War happens because diplomacy and agreement failed. Country A might have a compelling reason to invade country B, but a compelling reason (and it might even be necessary to invade) is not the same as just war. If country A is forced to declare war, A is doing it not because it is a just thing to do. A is doing it because it is the only thing left to do.
  • Freedom Revisited
    It is a good approach to an analysis of the self. The self is fashioned after a model of plurality, witnessed in the world of others. This idea has a history and I think it was Herbert Mead who is most famous for it. So when I observe myself, my behavior, feelings my own thoughts, I am working within a structure of social organized affairs: I AM the "other" of a conversation, as I witness myself. — Constance
    Yes, thanks for reference on Mead. I didn't know he wrote extensively on this subject -- the development of sense of self. So, to him, from my cursory reading about him, the development of the "I" came about when we developed language.

    The illusion? What do you mean? What question is begged? Not that I disagree, but how do you frame this? — Constance
    I made two posts in this thread about the critics who argue against the idea that we have freedom in thinking. The naturalists, or followers of naturalism, argue that we don't have freedom in thinking, like Descartes, Aristotle, and Schopenhauer implied or directly wrote about. Instead, it is only an illusion brought about by our biology, the nerves and cells and chemicals in our brain. When we think, we think in such a way that our thoughts are produced by the environmental stimuli acting on our nerves and cells and make us believe that it is our own voluntary thinking from which our thoughts are produced.

    And I said this is question begging coming from the naturalists because they started off by claiming because of our nerves, cells, and chemicals, our thoughts are only produced by nerves, cells, and chemicals.
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