I can say “It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table” but this adds nothing to the proposition ‛There are a hundred thalers on the table’. — J

Basically, yes.

I can say “A hundred thalers exist” but this adds nothing to the concept ‛a hundred thalers’; — J

This is a bit different, as the latter possesses a conceptual existence which the former surpasses by asserting a super-conceptual existence, at least according to common language. As far as I can see things can only be true or false in one way, whereas things can exist in multiple ways. The domain of the former is propositions whereas the domain of the latter is ontological realities, and ontological realities are more variegated and complicated.

I’m looking for some source help — J

Aristotle's claim in the Metaphysics that to speak truth is to say of what is that it is or of what is not that it is not is very close to the truth predication question. I think the existence predication question is much more controversial, for reasons just noted. Much of that literature seems to revolve around Anselm's ontological argument. It is also related to your thread on Sider and univocal vs. analogical conceptions of being.

I see it more as sowing seeds. — wonderer1

Sowing seeds has an inferential purpose.

If someone claims that they have said something on a philosophy forum for no reason at all, I would suggest that they simply lack self-knowledge. Folks hereabout keep mentioning that Christians are disputatious, and I assure you that it is not for no reason at all. They do it because they think it proves a point. It's only when one points out that the putative point is fallacious that they fall back on the idea that they made the statement for no reason at all. But that's icing on the cake in a thread like this.

One cannot do philosophy without giving due consideration to the language with which one does philosophy. — Banno

Yes, and I don't grant the others that this is a uniquely or idiosyncratically Witgenstenian truth.

-

- Thanks. You as well.

So I am offering two arguments — schopenhauer1

I see the first as the only real argument.

1) Suffering in Pinprick World isn't "suffering" as we know it — schopenhauer1

Okay, and I assessed this argument <here>.

2) Since there is no one to miss out on the "good", no obligation was intendent on the missed opportunity. In other words, your world could be COMPLETELY all BLISS.. and if you did not create someone into that world, you are still NOT in the wrong by preventing that birth. — schopenhauer1

Put differently, "If we omit the pinprick from (1) then (3) does not follow from (2)." I agree and I have not said otherwise.

The antinatalist will always say that in the case of future people, we have no obligation to add happiness for them, but ALL the obligation to prevent the harm. — schopenhauer1

Yes, and because of this the "balancing suffering with other considerations" evaporates into thin air and you are placed into the same quandary where you began. If the pinprick is acceptable for posterity in the pinprick world then it cannot be true that one has "all the obligation to prevent the (future) harm," for if one had "all the obligation" in this sense then there could be no balance between suffering and other considerations for posterity.

I think you're overlooking the simple fact that premise (1) was already about posterity. If mitigation and balancing considerations can only be applied to the current generation and not to posterity, then Benatar's argument succumbs once again to the reductio.

I think this is more-or-less the discussion ANs have — AmadeusD

I can't remember who I have all spoken to about antinatalism on this forum (and therefore who has shaped my understanding of it), but I can say that schopenhauer1 has been my primary interlocutor, and that I have not seen him engaging in this discussion of balancing suffering with other considerations. Perhaps there are different approaches than his.

it's the balance (ironic, given apokrisis' objections in the other thread) between suffering and other considerations — AmadeusD

Because I see @apokrisis' objections as apt I see it as inevitable that questions of balance must emerge.

The position is that suffering always wins out — AmadeusD

The position of antinatalism? If the position of antinatalism is that suffering always wins out then how could there ever be a balance between suffering and other considerations?

If so, none of that resembles the NATURE OF SUFFERING as it pertains to this world. — schopenhauer1

So you have at last provided a shadow of a counter-argument. You are effectively claiming that an equivocation is occurring such that the "pinprick of pain" in premise (1) is an equivocation on the suffering in Benatar's (2). Your argument requires that the pinprick of pain is not a legitimate instance of Benatar's "presence of pain" or the "suffering" that you say one is morally obligated to prevent. You are saying, "Ah, but that pinprick isn't the sort of suffering that Benatar and I think need be prevented." Thus you deny that premises (1) and (2) imply conclusion (3).

Congratulations on finally making a counterargument, though I'm not sure it is a very good one. It certainly opens the can of worms as to which sorts of suffering need to be prevented and which sorts don't, and that is a can of worms that antinatalists take many precautions to keep closed.

---

For reference:

1. Suppose every living human being is guaranteed a pinprick of pain followed by 80 years of pure happiness.
2. [Insert Benatar's antinatalist argument here]
3. Therefore, we should never procreate — Leontiskos

And I hold that Christianity purports to be an universal religion. What it excludes is hatred, Some folks have not heard the Good News, others have not Yet accepted it, but none are excluded. — unenlightened

What does this have to do with the topic at hand? The Christian who says that a Mormon is not a Christian is not saying that the person is excluded from abandoning Mormonism and accepting Christianity. It would be incorrect to say that because some people are not Christians therefore they are excluded from ever becoming Christian. The first step in becoming a Christian is recognizing you are not a Christian. This holds for anything, not just Christianity.

Again, I see a lot of non sequitur in relation to this question of whether Mormons are Christians, and the force is coming from pluralistic culture rather than from any special Christian premise.

Do you see a downside to divisiveness in religions? For example, dividing people into Brahman/Dalit or Muslim/dhimmi?

Is "sheep" vs "goats" any less divisive? — wonderer1

Do you truly not recognize that you are making an argument here? That you are attempting to get the interlocutor to infer a conclusion?

But that is the basic difference I would say. A dualism of transcendence or a triadicism of immanence. — apokrisis

Okay, fair enough. This is something we should revisit at a later date, preferably in a more apt thread.

Then don't make that argument, and don't accuse me of making it. — unenlightened

So then what were you doing with it? Is this supposed to be another example of saying something with no rhyme or reason?

No I am reciting a creed, not The creed. We can discuss, as long as you do not have exclusive rights to the truth. — unenlightened

Everyone who holds things believes they are true, and if "Christianity" is to mean anything at all then it must exclude some stories. The level of inclusivity that many desire is simply not compatible with sensible speech. Not everyone who claims to be a thing is necessarily that thing, on pain of absurdity.

It's not an argument indeed. It is a piece of history; the plain fact of the matter is that the term "Christian" has always been disputed from its inception and such identity labels nearly always are disputed. — unenlightened

"The term 'Christian' has often been disputed; therefore it is not possible or permissible to exclude the LDS from Christianity."

That's an argument, but it's not a good one.

Thanks. I wouldn't call myself a Christian, but I appreciate the story, and hate it when people wilfully distort the meaning or claim the copyright on interpretation. We are surely all God's people, and none are excluded - that's the story. — unenlightened

Your last sentence seems to represent a copyrighted interpretation, no?

We know a song about that. — unenlightened

I'm glad you mentioned this, and Dylan's version is also highly appropriate. Why were Jesus and Stephen killed? Because two versions of the story collided and neither party was willing to budge. Both sides refused the relativism which claims that it's all for naught and there are no right answers. Dylan sees the wisdom and inevitability in this.

as I have answered you about the stabbing that reanimates — schopenhauer1

No you haven't. You haven't answered <the most recent post> on the so-called "stabbing counterargument." You just pointed to Benatar's book hopefully without engaging any of the points.

Also to add, yet again, when I mentioned Benatar, [...] It wasn't to introduce Benatar simpliciter. — schopenhauer1

Well it sounds like you were not talking about Benatar simpliciter and I was not talking about Benatar simpliciter. So we can stop talking about Benatar simpliciter and instead talk about the determinate and static argument that we have associated with him.

My "thesis," to use your term, is that the Creed starts with the words, "We believe...." As such, I'm satisfied it's not just a throw-away line at the beginning of a prayer, but instead a much thought out and carefully weighed expression of how they thought Christians ought to profess their - their what? - their faith. Nor would I call this a "thesis," it is a fact. — tim wood

No, your thesis is that Christians who believe in God's existence do not necessarily affirm that it is true that God exists. Given that you aren't honest enough to admit this after so many posts, I think we can be done. I don't like talking to folk who rely on evasion, equivocation, and ambiguity to avoid engaging in real philosophy.

No. I wasn't making any such argument. I was just pointing out what is easily recognized with sufficient knowledge of history. — wonderer1

So you were just pointing something out for no reason and with no point or purpose or argument? This is highly unlikely.

Well, I think it is ambiguous and I didn't recognize that. However, because he says the "the many" are not fit to rule and therefore implies that some, but not all, are fit to rule, I should have realized that your interpretation is correct. So you are right. — Ludwig V

Okay, thanks for that.

I'm in a bit of a quandary here. There are two conclusions in this argument. One is about leaders. I don't have any violent objection to that argument. I think it's false, but I'm not sure that I can be bothered to refute it. In practice, it wouldn't make any difference. The other is about slaves, and I cannot accept that it is right, or even all right, to enslave any human being. — Ludwig V

The two arguments come together insofar as masters/rulers and slaves/servants are two sides of the same coin. If one is fit to rule then they are not fit to be a slave, and if one is fit to be a slave then they are not fit to rule. This maps to a proficiency with the mind vs. a proficiency with the body, "Hence natural slaves will be those from whom the best work one can get is the use of the body" (Simpson, 5).

If we can identify characteristics that make someone fit to rule, then it follows that people who do not possess those characteristics are not fit to rule; it does not follow that they are slaves, or fit to be slaves. We could, instead, characterize them as natural followers or maybe natural independents (compare Simpson on tame and wild animals p.4) — Ludwig V

For Aristotle a slave is a natural dependent in that they require the economia of a master to flourish. To take a bit of a contrived example, the worker on the early Ford assembly line requires Henry Ford's ingenuity in order to have a wage, and Henry Ford's ingenuity requires manual laborers in order to come to completion. The difference is that Henry Ford is capable of performing the manual laborer's job whereas the manual laborer is not capable of performing Henry Ford's job, and because of this the dependency is not entirely symmetrical.

B. You may be mistaken, however, to think that "the rational are more fit rulers than the irrational" is empirical. I may be wrong, but I think that, for Aristotle at least, reason is the faculty that enables us to get things right. A leader needs to decide the best thing to do and how to do it; so, by definition leaders need to be rational. — Ludwig V

I see it as a truth that could be confirmed empirically, but need not be.

If slavery comes naturally to some people, why is it necessary to enslave them? — Ludwig V

Simpson's point in the quote you provide is that it is not necessary to enslave them (nor to not-enslave them).

A natural slave would accept slavery when it was offered. Voluntary slavery is a contradiction in terms. — Ludwig V

Voluntary slavery is not a contradiction if we attend to Aristotle's terms. Indeed, it is not clear that voluntary slavery of any kind is an analytical contradiction.

That's a most confusing sense of "nature". In the real world, disease is entirely natural. That's why we take many artificial measures to restore us to health.
We are in two minds about nature. Sometimes we consider that what is natural is good. Sometimes we consider that it is bad. It depends on the case. No general evaluation can stand up to the facts. — Ludwig V

A disease is contrary to human nature. That is the point. If it were not contrary to human nature then the human will and immune system would not oppose it. It is not being said that disease is contrary to Nature in some absolute sense.

So this is why we shouldn't debate Benatar's full position here without actually having Benatar's full positions available to us. — schopenhauer1

Whenever we are considering a position on TPF we are considering a determinate and static position. Thus "Benatar's position" within our conversation denotes the argument you attributed to Benatar early in our conversation (link). You used a Wikipedia article and a personal gloss to represent the argument. That is what I am referring to.

Now it seems that you recognize that his argument cannot meet my objection, and the logical thing for you to do is to say, "Okay, I see the problem. I will have to get back to you on this. Maybe I will look at my Benatar books and see if he has anything to say to this."

It is not a legitimate move to say, "No, that objection doesn't count because you haven't read his book(s) on the topic." If we had to read a book on TPF every time we made an argument there would only be a few posts each week. You presented a version of Benatar's argument, I responded to it, and now the onus is on you to respond in your own words. Take your time and review Benatar's books if you like, but don't say that my objection is null because I haven't read a book. Besides, the first you've spoken about his books addressing this objection was yesterday.

@schopenhauer1

Last night I had a dream that I was back in elementary school and on this day we were taking standardized tests. There was an oppressive seriousness and nervousness about the whole thing, as if 5th graders were sitting for the SAT. On top of this, due to some sort of funding problem the test questions were poorly written and the test booklets included copy errors and print deficiencies, which added a deciphering element to the testing. In the grand scheme of things the whole endeavor was a bit ridiculous, and there was the sense that if one of the 5th graders had started giggling the whole room would have broken out in laughter, popping the bubble of faux seriousness.

This seems reflective of antinatalism. It is Harry Potter exorcising the Boggart with the charge, "Riddikulus!" That is the correct response to Benatar, and the reductio is meant to aid one in seeing it. The entire paradigm is warped and corrupted, and the argument is bizarrely indifferent to the very moral nuances that it ought to be self-consciously attentive to. Such an argument is like a necessitarian Magic 8-Ball with only one response, "Therefore, antinatalism," which response is given regardless of the circumstances.

A lot of this comes back to the wisdom of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. A key to unlocking that text is the idea that the foundation of practical ethics is identifying and emulating the virtuous man. Much of Aristotle text is just drawing out what we already know about the virtuous man, and part of this is the fact that the virtuous man possesses liberality or generousness. When we simply set the generous man alongside the stingy man we know indubitably that the generous man is to be emulated and the stingy man is ridiculous. The virtue of liberality has to do with one's fundamental orientation towards life, and this is inevitably related to one's fundamental orientation towards posterity.

When a child cuts their finger and collapses into hysteria the witty parent will take them in their lap, study the finger carefully and seriously, and then pronounce the judgment, "There's nothing for it. We need to amputate!" The child cannot help but laugh, and in laughing their whole demeanor is changed. The parent's playful humor makes the child generous and overcomes their stinginess and self-centered gravity.

In fact I was recently at my cousin's wedding, and the food at our table was extremely late, arriving about 90 minutes after dinner was supposed to begin. At about 30 minutes into the dinner my nephew received his kid's meal: chicken strips, mac and cheese, and cauliflower. Everyone was gratified to see that at least someone had received their meal, and it looked to be the ideal meal for a hungry toddler. But to everyone's surprise he lost his shit and had a complete meltdown. This caused the whole table to erupt in laughter and festivity. We later learned that his mother had been misinforming him for weeks that the wedding would be wonderful and he would have a delicious meal of chicken strips and French fries - oops! I don't know that he even prefers French fries to mac and cheese, but the expectation threw him. It was a teaching moment for him where he learned that life is bigger than his misplaced French fries, and in time he will learn that life is bigger than many other disappointments, too. As Eichendorff said, "Thou art He who gently breaks about our heads what we build, so that we can see the sky—therefore I have no complaint." (The irony here is that children solve the problem of antinatalism, for it is hard to believe that anyone with the task of parenting a child could subscribe to antinatalism.)

It seems that all the opposed are agreed that antinatalism will not be cured by more of the overly serious, self-centered gravity of analytical argument. Such is not its cause and such is not its cure. What the antinatalist lacks is the subtle virtuous demeanor that Aristotle attempts to paint, and such a thing cannot be bought and sold with mere arguments. The cure for the ridiculousness of antinatalism is laughter, for like the child on the parent's lap we cannot help but laugh at the prognosis. You need only join in and we will be laughing with you and not at you. :wink:

It's just an aspect of the inherent divisiveness of Christianity. — wonderer1

This is a good example of the non sequitur I referred to earlier. "Christians are divisive, therefore Mormons are Christians." The conclusion does not follow. The argument could only plausibly function as some variety of ad hominem.

Not at all.. If one is reanimated when stabbed, that changes the very conditions of the world itself. — schopenhauer1

Why should I believe 3a or 4a?

The other problem here is that most 2a's presuppose the falsity of 1a, whereas 2 does not presuppose the falsity of 1. Or in other words, Benatar's argument contains no implicit logical clause, "...Unless the world is situated such that happiness far outweighs suffering for all." That's the very problem with his argument that is being highlighted.

Contrariwise, prohibitions against stabbing are premised on pain, injury, and mortality, and therefore the sort of world you suggest logically invalidates the prohibitions (and hence 3a). This is completely different from Benatar's argument, for the case I gave clearly does not invalidate his prohibition. That's why, in a fit of honesty, you told me that the question may need to be reconsidered in light of such new circumstances. So if you want to pull your head out of the sand you will answer the question: What would you say to Benatar in that scenario? Why trust an argument in our world that you would not trust in that world? The argument by its very nature cannot be invalidated by the minimization of suffering, and yet this is what you are committed to.

So AGAIN, you ignore the answer I gave you? That is twice you ignored my answer. Why didn't you quote what I quoted you?? — schopenhauer1

Because your quote was a dodge. I asked you why you would reconsider in that world and you pulled the escape hatch and refused to answer, instead changing the subject. I answered your red herring in the thread:

It wouldn't be wrong in the same way as it is now. But your theoretical does not function as a reductio to any argument that I have offered, and that is the primary difference. — Leontiskos

Here is the argument:

The problem occurs if this is a valid argument:

1. Suppose every living human being is guaranteed a pinprick of pain followed by 80 years of pure happiness.
2. [Insert Benatar's antinatalist argument here]
3. Therefore, we should never procreate

Are you starting to see the reductio? The reductio has force because we know that any (2) that can get you from (1) to (3) is faulty argumentation. — Leontiskos

What is your parallel supposed to be?

1a. Suppose one is reanimated whenever they are stabbed.
2a. [Insert anti-stabbing argument here].
3a. Therefore, we should not stab.
4a. (Any 2a that can get you from 1a to 3a is faulty argumentation.)

This fails because we have no reason to believe either 3a or 4a. There is no parity between these two approaches. It's an ad hoc dodge.

This is rhetorical blather. First off, I DON"T EVEN USE Benatar wholesale. His asymmetry, if I do mention it, is a way to jump off but I have my own variations of it, which I have taken painstaking time to outline over the course of MANY threads over MANY years.. To have you pin me to one line of reasoning, like that is a subtle but malicious form of uncharitable reading.. But keep mistaking me for Benatar. — schopenhauer1

You are drawing up more escape hatches because you see your argument failing. You are the one who brought up Benatar, not me. It isn't courageous or rational to give your arguments conditionally, such that if they succeed then your position is vindicated but if they fail then you're none the worse for wear.

Funny you defend this ghettoizing of the topic of antinatalism (something you vociferously disagree with), and yet you bring up a topic we discussed way back.. Something which I can't easily look up BECAUSE of this ghettoization whereby EVERYTHING related to antinatalism, no matter what thread/topic is squished into one long thread. So perhaps it is the limitations of PlushForums, but I am proposing a way to give people the ability to create new threads on the topic, so that conversations can be logically viewed. — schopenhauer1

Use the link I already gave you, which makes it super easy to navigate the discussion. You can make such a search more precise by searching for "schopenhauer1" instead of "." In that case it will only display the posts of mine within this thread that include your username. You can also reverse the search to see a chronological list of your posts to me within this thread. Problem solved. :wink:

Oh fuck no, because I don't see this world as ever being just a pinprick. Did you find my response? — schopenhauer1

By burying your head in the sand in this way you prove yourself unserious.

Suppose we lived in that world. And suppose Benatar came along and gave the same argument you think is so great. What would you say to him? Would you "shh!" him and sweep him under the rug!? "Don't give that argument in this world! I like birth in this world! Arguments aren't about what's true, they are about what I want, and we don't talk about the arguments that don't suit what I want!"

You're doing the same basic thing when you bury your head in the sand. You recognize that the argument proves too much but you want to believe its conclusion so you refuse to address the objection. This is precisely the sort of irrational motive I spoke about in the other thread. It's like playing soccer with a guy who uses his hands whenever he starts losing. My solution is to find someone else, who is actually interested in playing soccer. Or find a game in which the person is not irrationally devoted to a predetermined outcome. For whatever reason you show yourself unable to play by the rules of rational argument when it comes to anti-natalism.

- To be fair, many of my posts in this thread were written with the awareness that they are vulnerable to imprecise objections, and deification represents one of those imprecise objections. Given that there is nothing precise happening in this thread, I don't find it useful to try to erect bastions against possible misinterpretation at each step. Still, my edited posts in this thread involve additions, not retractions.

Christians and Mormons are a bit like bees and wasps. The uninitiated is liable to confuse them but someone who understands their significant differences—their respective theologies and histories—will see them as very different animals. Of course if one doesn't care and only wants to avoid being stung, then one can think of bees and wasps as identical.

schopenhauer1 would seem proof this ain't so. :grin: — apokrisis

Yes, but it should go without saying that schopenhauer1 is the exception to that claim. :grin:

I enjoyed your recent posts, beginning on page 32. I suspect schopenhauer1 regrets pulling you into the thread.

- My two cents - I think the decision that was made was the right one. It's not ideal, but I don't see a better option given the current constraints of PlushForums.

---

(from other thread)

At one point in our exchange you nearly stopped dodging my reductio. At that point you said:

Supposing only a pin-prick was the suffering, I guess the scenario could be reconsidered. — schopenhauer1

And I replied:

Reconsidered on what basis? — Leontiskos

To recap paraphrastically:

• Leontiskos: Benatar's argument for anti-natalism would hold good even in a world where everyone received a pinprick of pain followed by 80 years of pure happiness. Therefore the argument is not reasonable; it proves too much.
• Schopenhauer1: Supposing only a pin-prick was the suffering, I guess the question could be reconsidered.
• Leontiskos: Reconsidered in what way? If Benatar's argument is sound then it would hold good in that world. If it would not hold good in that world then it is not sound.

The fact that you admitted to reconsideration shows that you do see the force of the reductio, but you failed to follow through and actually do the hard work of reconsidering Benatar's argument and your position.

Where's yours? — schopenhauer1

Presumably where I left them, and whatever other threads you were then drawing anti-natalism into.

This thought experiment is highly unsophisticated and further, irrational. Suppose somehow? The somehow, or the 'in some way' would have to be explicitly stated and put forth, otherwise it's an exercise in futility. — Ray Liikanen

Yes, true.

It's a bit like asking, "If you left the United States, where would you be?" Well, it depends a great deal on where, when, and how one leaves the United States.

Or else, "If your car broke down, what parts and tools would you buy to fix it?" Erm..

But to be fair to the OP, it sets a suitable pace for what has been a remarkably silly thread.

Just for fun, here is a phenomenological discussion of why new car colours suddenly look so weird and wrong. — apokrisis

I haven't watched the video yet, but my guess is that it has something to do with them being nardo putty-looking ass whips.

- That post was never edited.

...And deification is an example of the Christian participatory metaphysic, not a counterexample against it.

- :up:

My sense is similar, namely that anti-natalism is a kind of second-order malady rather than a first-order thesis. It seems to stand on the circumstantial situation of the proponent rather than on its own intellectual legs, and my guess is that anyone who holds it on purely intellectual grounds could be dissuaded in time. It's hard to understand it any other way when the arguments are not sufficient to justify the conclusion, nor the tenacity with which the conclusion is held.

They believe they'll one day become Gods, no? — BitconnectCarlos

Sure, and because of that they might view Christianity the way Buddhists view Buddhism, namely as a vehicle that can be dispensed with once the destination is reached. But to make the Christian participatory metaphysic temporary and superable is already to have left Christianity behind.

Trying not to forget about this one:

My position argues from the point of view that even chaos can’t help but self-organise itself into some form or order. Chaos negates itself. Therefore order emerges. — apokrisis

Okay.

Yes. When learning about Peirce as a group of biologists and complexity theorists in the 1990s, the Peircean scholars making sense of his vast volume of unpublished work were mostly theology researchers. Deely was one. — apokrisis

That makes sense.

It depends how much information we have about the situation. If you know that the U(1) symmetry of electromagnetism is the simplest possible chiral form, then it is not a surprise that the Big Bang did not stop evolving until it arrived at that final simplicity.

If you know that the chemical reaction with the most bang for buck on the planet Earth is the redox reaction of carbon-oxygen bonds, then it is no surprise that life on Earth kept evolving until it not only could harness this reaction but even set up the planet to have its Gaian balance of oxygen and carbon.

So the basic entropic race drove the Cosmos towards an ultimate symmetry breaking simplicity, and Life, as the negentropic response, was driven towards its maximum negentropic advantage.

The goals existed in dialectical fashion. And they forced Nature through a whole set of unlikely hoops so as to arrive there. — apokrisis

Okay, good. This helps me understand your thermodynamic approach with a bit more resolution.

Science earnt its keep by being the epistemology that delivered a mechanised world. Teleology could take a back seat as technology was the pragmatic point. Humans existed to supply the point of a world of machines.

But when it comes to now incorporating telos into science, the mathematical inevitability of topological order or dissipative structure is how that is happening.

That could be seen as a thumbs up for Platonism, divine immanence, idealism, or whatever. Or it could be seen as the arrival of a structuralist understanding of Nature that rides on the back of stuff like Lie groups, thermodynamics, path integrals, and Darwinian selection. — apokrisis

What would you see as the adjudicating factors between the two conceptions?

If we are approaching it from a purely scientific angle, then my hunch here is that Platonism requires at least some form of meaning- or explanation-recursion, and one which points in the direction of transcendence. This would be something like the Platonic rationale for rejecting a brute fact scheme. If such a thing is not present then I don't know where a scientific argument for Platonism would come from.

- Ah, well that unfortunately confirms my suspicions. It's good for you but bad for your cohort! :grimace:

Ultimately, for the Christian, what matters is who is in Christ. — BitconnectCarlos

Those who set themselves up as God are not in Christ.

- If you are going to continue to refuse to explain what your thesis is, then obviously I should stop wasting my time with you.

The point is that unicorns both exist and don't exist. That leaves the problem of defining "existence." Belief neatly sidesteps the problem. — tim wood

To say that something is and is not is a prima facie contradiction, and belief does not sidestep the problem in the least. What is required to solve the problem of the contradiction is a distinction:

• Unicorns exist as concepts in the human mind.
• Unicorns do not exist truly, in nature as primary substances.

Or:

• God exists as an immaterial being.
• God does not exist as a material being.

You can take it as a general rule of life that to say one believes X is to say that one believes X is true. I repeat:

What is the crux of the thesis you are proposing? It seems to me something like, <Christianity does not teach that God exists>, or else, <Christianity professes belief in God without in any way committing itself to God's existence>.

If this is not what you are saying, then what are you saying? — Leontiskos

Yet I'll take [X] over [Y]. — BitconnectCarlos

We are not discussing the question of who you "will take." We are discussing the question of whether Mormons are Christian.

- I have seen you do little more in this thread than make arguments from authority. The authorities you appeal to are SEP and "science," and you misinterpret them both. Each time you try to give actual arguments in your own words, the arguments fall to pieces, and this is no coincidence.

The convention "literally" has had to undergo a redefinition because of it's constant misuse. — AmadeusD

Yes, and as you seem to imply, this is a rather different claim than Michael's. It is the claim that we should stop thinking of redness as a property of pens, as opposed to the claim that red refers to a percept in common use.

'Red' is a word which does not refer to a percept.
If we like we can talk about red-qua-percept, and this is obviously to talk about a percept.
<We should redefine 'red' to mean red-qua-percept> is a claim, and it is a claim which I believe runs into rather significant problems.

We use language differently. Great! "red" conceptually is a percept (lets pretend) and "the red pen" or "the red percept" is a label which is conventionally used to cut-down the actual phrase "Items we use to write with, containing ink flowing to a nib, which reflects light in "such and such a range" so as to trigger, under normal circumstances, that percept referred to as "the colour red" as a property of the brain-generated image of the object viewed by the sensory organ". But we don't say that. We say "red pen". — AmadeusD

Look, pens and percepts are different kinds of realities, reflecting different categories. The categories are not interchangeable. And observe what happens when you try to interchange them:

• "the red pen" or "the red percept" is a label which is conventionally used to cut-down the actual phrase "Items we use to write with. . ."
  
  • 1. "the red pen" is a label which is conventionally used to cut-down the actual phrase "Items we use to write with. . ."
  • 2. "the red percept" is a label which is conventionally used to cut-down the actual phrase "Items we use to write with. . ."

Now I truncated your sentence for brevity, but note that (1) is true and (2) is false, and this is because pens and percepts are not interchangeable. A pen is an item we write with, whereas a percept is not. "Red pen" and "red percept" are two fundamentally different kinds of linguistic entities.

That the pen is red just is that it (ordinarily) appears red, and the word “red” in the phrase “appears red” does not refer to a mind-independent property of the pen but to the mental percept that looking at the pen (ordinarily) causes to occur. — Michael

This is another example of the category error conflation between an object-predication-intention and an efficient-cause-intention.

<"The pen appears red" does not refer to the pen but to a percept>

When we speak about the pen we are speaking about the pen, not about percepts. Pens and percepts are two different things. Maybe you (erroneously) think everyone should replace all of their color predications about pens with predications about percepts, but this in no way shows that when people talk about red pens they are doing nothing more than talking about percepts.

I don't plan to draw this out, but Banno's argument is worth affirming. I've had enough discussions with you to know that this conversation is going nowhere. In fact while having discussions with you in the past I received PMs from others, "Just be aware that conversations with Michael go nowhere. Don't inflate your expectations."