To trust life or to take it into your own hands is a hard decision. Do you trust the wind or do you want to be the tornado? — Some guy on Quora

The problem is that transcendental arguments only work if you grant intelligibility on the front end because a transcendental argument is an argument for the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of experience. But this presents a problem for him [the pressup], if he doesn’t grant intelligibility he can’t reason transcendentally but if he grants intelligibility he grants autonomous reasoning which is an implicit denial of his conception of the Christian worldview.

This topic has been discussed in this The Necessity of Genetic Components in Personal Identity and Reasons for believing in the permanence of the soul threads. I would recommend taking a look and then editing your OP so the discussion does not start from 0 again. :grin: — Lionino

But it should, in principle, be possible to make a complete copy (à la Thomas Riker), who feels, thinks.. exactly the same as Will Riker.
But suppose that right after the copy is made, I kill Will Riker. Did I really kill him of is he still alive as Thomas Riker? — Walter

I have a friend who works for one of the biggest tech companies in the world. And, they want to know what his essence is. He tells me they have regular meeting about how him and his staff feel about themselves and the company. Are they asking if the essence of the company is alligning to the essence of the employee? He thinks they are. This companies mission statment is, the essence of the company. And employees are expected to not just agree with it, but to own the same essence to correctly align themselves to their priorities. — Rob J Kennedy

Why would a rational God present us with the Bible - especially the Old Testament - as its book? I could go on, but it might become monotonous and repetitive. — Ludwig V

Though aren't some experiences - "bad trips" - paranoid fantasies, which may be life-changing, but not in a good way — Ludwig V

Mainly because, as you say, they're ingenious. Quite a stunt to take reason (the skeptic's prized tool against 'superstition') and use the very possibility of rationality as proof for god. But they can also be monotonous and repetitive. — Tom Storm

but he really did say something when he noticed that he existed — Fire Ologist

"If he doubts, he understands that he doubts; if he doubts, he wants to be certain; if he doubts, he thinks; if he doubts, he knows that he doesn't know; if he doubts, he thinks that he shouldn't agree rashly. Even if you doubt other things, you shouldn't doubt that you doubt. Since if it didn't exist, it would be impossible to doubt anything," — Saint Augustine

Vous m'avez obligé de m'avertir du passage de saint Augustin, auquel mon Je pense, donc je suis a quelque rapport; je l’ay esté lire aujourd’huy en la Biblioteque de cette Ville, et je trouve veritablement qu’il s’en sert pour prouver la certitude de nostre estre, et en suite pour faire voir qu’il y a en nous quelque image de La Trinité, en ce que nous sommes, nous sçavons que nous sommes, et nous aymons cét estre et cette science qui est en nous; au lieu que je m’en sers pour faire connoistre que ce moy, qui pense, est une substance immaterielle, et qui n’a rien de corporel; qui sont deux choses fort differentes. Et c’est une chose qui de soy est si simple et si naturelle à inferer, qu’on est, de ce qu’on doute, qu’elle auroit pû tomber sous la plume de qui que ce soit; mais je ne laisse pas d’estre bien aise d’avoir rencontré avec saint Augustin, quand ce ne seroit que pour fermer la bouche aux petits esprits qui ont tasché de regabeler sur ce principe. — Descartes to Colvius

Very simply, can you imagine a scenario where you have evidence for X being true, while unbeknownst to you, X is actually false? Can you imagine any scenario at all like that? If yes, what is it? — flannel jesus

Unfortunately for your opinion, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, alas. — LuckyR

Those numbers have exponentially increased in recent years as Biden has opened the borders to human trafficking, drugs and more guns. — Steven P Clum

cience on the other hand was refuted by Hume and Plato long before this forum started. — Gregory

Then, they both(Bob and the dumb kids) know what a butterfly is, and the other pieces of information (in one case, it's appearance, in the other, its origin) don't seem to bear on the respective knowledge claims. It doesn't seem to follow that the opposite (in each case) is required to bring the information to the level of 'knowledge'.

I don't think that's a counter as much as a parallel. They both know what a butterfly is under different criteria. — AmadeusD

Bob knows merely that a butterfly comes from a cocoon — AmadeusD

This seems to go the President example pretty squarely - I'm of the view that we can know Bob will become President, regardless of whether we know what a President is. — AmadeusD

I was just testing out my hypothesis, that you really didn't know what you were talking about when you said: — wonderer1

Thanks for playing. :lol: — wonderer1

Even for those people, the butterfly is the thing that comes out of the cocoon — AmadeusD

the result is called, by tradition (or perhaps he knows the etymology, but not to what it refers), a butterfly, — AmadeusD

but i have no idea what the person drew — AmadeusD

I dont think one needs to know what a President is before being told Bob will become one/it to know that Bob will become one/it. — AmadeusD

Where the term 'cause' carries a completely different meaning to physical causation..... — Wayfarer

Interesting point. Why do you think mind is same substance as matter? — Corvus

Purely physical processes do not inherently possess meaning or reference, and so can't account for the intentional nature of mental acts. — Wayfarer

Mind causes matter to change, move and work. A simple evidence? I am typing this text with my hands caused by my mind. If my mind didn't cause the hands to type, then this text would have not been typed at all. — Corvus

Saying ‘Z ^ Znot’ is metaphysically impossible shifts the focus to a different proposition, X, which would have to be evaluated relative to a specified metaphysical theory, N. — Bob Ross

It has “knowledge” only in the sense that LLM’s have “knowledge”. It isn’t conscious. It is simply capable of processing input and reacting accordingly, whether that be with movement or speech. — Michael

Still seems to accommodate unconscious beliefs. — hypericin

I mean it to refer to the information processing capacity of the brain — hypericin

because there are clear evidences that it is not — Corvus

It's you that said one is more relevant than the other, not me. I'd say "relevance" of a definition comes down to popularity and history. — Hallucinogen

As a way of debunking what the OP is aimed at debunking - the idea that definitions prove what things are. — Hallucinogen

All you've succeeded in doing is making the grammatical point that if there is something then there is not nothing. — Banno

Hume wrote in his Treaties, “If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” — Corvus

I know I was being facetiou — Vaskane

I'm sorry that polysemy is proving such a challenge — Pantagruel

To suppose that one word, in whatever context it appears, ought to mean one thing and no more, argues not an exceptionally high standard of logical accuracy but an exceptional ignorance as to the nature of language — Pantagruel

The phenomena which form the basis of the operations of science — Pantagruel

exceed the dimensions — Pantagruel

scientific study — Pantagruel

It's a similar argument to Nietzsche's — Vaskane

↪Lionino Well, I guess be careful not to reference yourself then? :sweat: — Vaskane

More to the point, science investigates that with respect to the chosen dimensions of the change, which was what I was emphasizing. Science is always an abstract and in some sense restricted perspective on what it knows (since it formalizes the abstraction process) to be a more comprehensive reality. So science should always be skeptically self-aware (at which point it becomes history, and finally philosophy, if you follow Collingwood's reasoning). — Pantagruel

My point is simply that the Crusades were holy wars waged in the name of God, like jihad, and the crusaders were promised heaven if they died while waging war, as it seems jihadists are promised. — Ciceronianus

Scientists study the effects that they are able to cause. — Pantagruel

Urban II called for the freeing of the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels, and offered the remission of sins to those who died while partipating in the Crusades. That sounds rather like a holy war to me. — Ciceronianus

No doubt other factors played a part in fostering the crusades But if you think jihad is motivated solely by the desire to kill Christians, I think you're mistaken. — Ciceronianus

Not bandits, but the entire army of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople instead of proceeding to Jeusalem, together with the fleet of Venice. Those Crusaders backed a rival of the emperor ruling at that time, who it was hoped would be more cooperative and would pay a large sum to the Crusading army. It was also hoped that the Eastern Church would acknowledge the Pope as the head of the Christian Church. Payment wasn't forthcoming and there was no unification of the Churches.The sack was so violent and destructive Constantinople never recovered, and was eventually conquered by the Ottomans. — Ciceronianus

Yes, Europe definitely has a better transportation system — schopenhauer1