I’m not interested in debating climate deniers who pretend to be doing this. — Mikie

Cool.

So is this an argument against process philosophy? — Darkneos

If someone could concisely define “process philosophy” and show it to be essentially (yes essentially, which is my first point here) different than “philosophy”, I have a feeling I would argue against them having defined anything clearly at all, so there would not yet be something to argue against.

If someone thought advocating process philosophy meant motion and change refute all permanence and refute all philosophies containing anything fixed, such as “truth” or “essence” or “knowledge” or “objective meaning”, I would not argue with them. I would say “I disagree” and ask them how can they possibly know what to say in response to that, when what I am saying now will be consumed by process before it reaches their ears let alone is “understood” in order to prompt an appropriate response? So instead of arguing to refute them, I would ask them to speak, and thereby prompt them to see if they would refute themselves by showing my essential wrongness in disagreeing with them.

But because of the ubiquity of change and process, the metaphysical and ontological reality of motion, my ultimate point is not that process philosophy is wrong and needs to be argued against. It is merely incomplete, and does not account for enough to satisfy any honest question.

Process reveals essentially different things as much as the essentially different things reveal process. There is no prior or post between them. One is not actual where the other is illusion.

So, no, I’m not trying to argue against process philosophy. I’m saying, like Heraclitus said, “the barley-drink stands, only while stirring.” I’m saying there is no need to speak of process (nor is there an ability to do so) if process is all there is to say. There’s more, or if not, there is nothing more to say.

But policing truth deniers and enforcing banning and deletions of ideas,
— Fire Ologist

I’m not advocating that. — Mikie

Ok good. So this should be a moment of agreement where we can continue a conversation. We both basically seem to think the same thing: policing and banning and deletions are not to be advocated for the sake of staying on topic.

There is such a thing as staying on topic. The topic isn’t to debate whether climate change is happening. That should be a separate thread. Just as a thread about evolution shouldn’t include debates about creationism. — Mikie

I agree that a thread about X shouldn’t be spammed with discussions about Z or Q, and I happen to agree that creationism is theology whereas evolution is empirical science.

But climate change is empirical science so it is full of fact gathering that must be evaluated, analysis that begs further development, conclusions subject to logical scrutiny, hypotheses that prompt the whole process of fact gathering, analysis and conclusion again…. To say a hint of distrust of the soundness of a conclusion, or the counter example to some fact means the person has gone off topic - seems weak to me.

I feel your pain - I spend most of my time on the forum restating what I already said because people are taking it in the wrong direction, or just misinterpreting me.

But, I think, we have to remain willing to steer the conversations where we think they should go and cannot make a rule that would be able to be applied in any just, equitable, functional manner to keep conversations from veering off topic. People make metaphysical points all of the time here and others only want to talk about language and logic in refutation of the metaphysics. There is no rule to prevent this.

People say “”the black cat is on the red mat” as a basis for an optics conversation, or a physics conversation, or an epistemological conversation, or a metaphysical conversation, or an ontological conversation, or as an example for a linguistic conversation. If I want to stay epistemological about it, great, but I can’t imagine a rule that would help steer people away from saying something about optics or metaphysics or linguistics.

Next time a thread is started on Kant, I’ll start talking about Donald Trump. How’s that sound? — Mikie

Do you really think that is what I meant? I know my thoughts were subject to the extreme interpretation that I am advocating for no rules at all. I’m not.

But what is the rule you want? How would you frame the specific words of the rule?

A rule for this issue is at best “stay on topic, and don’t be an asshole.” And I give the moderators full discretion at determining what is beyond the limits of “on topic” and who is being “an asshole.” That’s not up to me because it’s not my forum, and this vague rule gives me an opportunity to speak my mind despite anything anyone else says, and I don’t want that to change. So we don’t need any more rules.

If you post about X, and someone goes utterly off topic and carries the whole post in another direction, I’d say, tell the mods and let them delete or not delete as they see fit, and if it’s not enough, try to start your post again. Reword it and try again. I’m sure some sort of targeted trolling or spamming or ignorance would be addressed by the mods.

We don’t need a rule. I wouldn’t know how to frame it. Saying a topic like evolution that prompts a reply about creationism should somehow be prohibited seems utterly impossible to codify into a general rule.

Like I said, talking with people sucks. Most of us don’t know what we are talking about or how to say it best, or both. TPF is where we get to test and improve our own thoughts and writing - let the rest of the trolls have at it.

Nietzsche makes it exciting to rethink everything.

He was a necessary correction to the rigidity of human aspirations.

He took the table that propped up everything the history of western philosophy and culture had to say and soundly flipped it over, shaking anything loose that deserved no ground.

I disagree with what he thought was left on the table as he turned it back over. But he was good at tearing down (in many cases), and good at writing, at his art, at what he built in witness to the torn.

He gave us the tuning fork and the hammer. (Not just he hammer)

He gave us the image of the tightrope walker (the precariousness of the “truth seeker”).

He gave us the gay science, the most honest approach to philosophy and truth.

He gave birth to post modernism, but I believe he would disown this offspring as a bastardization and simplification of what he actually said.

As a critic of his fellow man, he was as hypocritical as all of those he railed against. As a critic of morality, he yielded a priesthood, repleat with dogma and sins.

He exaggerated (lied) in order to unmask hidden truth.

But instead of resetting things in academia, he became reified himself despite all his resistance to reification.

He is misunderstood and misapplied by many.

He was a metaphysician (of the Apollonian and the Dionysian), a truth seeker, a new type of moralist.

But he was a horrible judge of others (Christ, Kant, Hegel, Socrates, Napoleon, etc). He would not deny his own biases, and he let them color all he made of Christianity, of morality, of science and of most other philosophers. So he was a bad judge of himself as well.

He was a genius at identifying facade and delusion. He was impoverished at identifying beauty and good.

He will forever be read. And justifiably so.

He is among the most important philosophic thinkers and writers in history, these being Plato/Socrates, Aristotle, and Kant along with him. (Pretty much everyone else said less than these).

But Nietzsche would not have been Nietzsche without there first being all of the institutions and ideas he tore down. So he should have been more humble and grateful towards them. He gave himself too much credit and them, too little.

But I love the guy for things like this:
“In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the haughtiest and most mendacious minute of “world history” -yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.
One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened.”

-Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-moral Sense

Why resist such a clear thinker and engrossing writer as one of the great ones?

But no need to believe everything he said just as well.

Echo chambers aren't helpful, and are essentially anti-philosophical in terms of enquiry. Having an extremely intense emotional reaction to someone's input is not a problem of the thread title LMAO. Even when you're 'correct' as to why. — AmadeusD

Basically what I said, only with your typical pith.

And we probably disagree with each other 75% of the time, which proves the rule that this forum doesn’t need a rule that would limit speech to echos, even if they are too wordy like mine.

If someone tries to say something that denies reality, like “unicorns are shy”, there is a simple solution - ignore it. No need to respond about unicorns or their shyness.

If you think someone’s post is utterly delusional, don’t respond. Or better, humbly educate and clarify, and when the troll continues to miss the point or deny clear reality, stop responding.

But policing truth deniers and enforcing banning and deletions of ideas, in a forum whose sole currency is words and the ideas those words are about? Sounds antithetical to the methods of science and mission of philosophers.

Shut people up with truth. This isn’t a classroom where only the loud ones are heard over the noise - we get to carefully, thoughtfully say exactly what we want to say every time in TPF.

Basically, it sucks to have to explain oneself to people who disagree. People suck, but once in a while we learn from them, or they agree with us, and restate what we were trying to say only better.

So, to me, learning and stating things with clarity is worth all the endless, childish, pains of dialoging with you people. :lol:

So I totally disagree with the notion that there is no place on a climate change thread for the concept “not climate change”. It’s the same subject.

We are all too quick to judge each other. A “denier” is “a mindless simpleton” is a “sub-human” - by default, everyone who posts here is equally human so whatever we adjudge of the others, we risk adjudging of ourselves.

Be humble, tell them they are a good person but their arguments and words are shit, explain why, and move on.

It’s the only way to have a true philosophy forum like this if you ask me. Rules (law, reality, truth) and police (ethical action, necessity) are questions here, so we should resist using them to narrow the dialogue.

At no point in any discussion (or act of thinking) will we ever not refer to substance undergoing process. “There” means “it” and “it” means “is”, once we say anything. Plato and Aristotle were wrong if they really said otherwise; and Wittgenstein and post-modernism were wrong when they quite frankly spoke at all.

So, as far as I have experienced, if one truly only sees the process (which would be indiscernible without a substance, but ok), then you cannot possibly have anything to say about “it”, about “process” or “process philosophy.” You can’t say what the essence of process means, is, or is used for in a sentence that uses other words besides “process.” You cannot say anything else beyond “process” as every question is every answer and every thing is nothing but process. You need substance to speak as much as you need a substance to measure out (to experience, to observe) a changing process. You need relata as much as relations. To say “in between” requires two more that stake the changing field between or among “them.”

Our 3,000 year frustration with discerning something of substance has become the post-modern frustration with trying to speak anymore.

opponents are often politically divided into either/or categories : e.g. Good vs Evil ; Realistic vs Fanciful ; Smart vs Stupid ; Knowledgeable vs Ignorant. Such a simplistic analysis is convenient because it eliminates philosophical subtleties, and allows the politically dominant group to haughtily look down their noses upon the others, as know-nothing losers. — Gnomon

That sums up where many posts on this forum end up. Shame on all of us who claim to seek clarity about our thinking, about being human.

systems should be understood as interconnected wholes rather than isolated parts, meaning the behavior of a system cannot be fully explained by examining its individual components alone; this contrasts with the traditional reductionist approach in classical physics where parts are considered separately. — Gnomon

Interconnected wholes has as much to do with parts (substance, identity, essence) as it does with wholes, for what is a part without its being a whole part - always we are making distinctions, building the lines that look inward at the thing-in-itself towards "essence" or "Identity", or outward, towards context and the dialectical process of unifying what was previously thought to be merely a separate "part."

pre-Kantian thought often assumed a more direct access to the world "as it is" without considering the limitations imposed by our cognitive faculties. — Gnomon

Kant made the point most precisely and most clearly. But the chains on the man in Plato's cave presenting only shadows can be understood as the structure of the mind constructing of all experience the "appearance" that is not "reality" recognizes the same disconnected nature of human experience. When Thales said "see that tree over there? Well it's not a tree. It's water." He was aware of the disconnect between what there is and what we know about it.

The dance between them is what truly lasts,
While substance slips away without a trace. — PoeticUniverse

Again, here is my issue with rejecting substance, rejecting essence. "The dance" although a living, moving, becoming process, has an essence, an identity, distinct from "the sleep" for instance. We cannot speak without objectifying, and no one will ever understand a word we say if those objects we speak of never appear similar to the listener (actual mind-independence).

We may not know much of things-in-themselves, but saying we should abandon any references to a distinct multiplicity of many things that distinguish themselves from each other, independent of minds, for the sake of acknowledging the fluctuations and motions that truly exist, puts us in a position where we can say nothing about any "thing".

Once we realize that motion alone is the only lasting moment (which is ironic if not paradoxical), and that may be the case, it is the end of all speaking, the end of all science, as there is one answer for every question: "becoming consumes it." For speaking is to speak about, and if we can only say "the dance between them is what truly lasts" then we are without "them" lasting long enough to say anything more about "them" than the dance will go on and they never really came to be.

It isn't wrong to focus on process. Process is truth. But you can't recognize process, nor can there be a process, without a thing that undergoes this process, this change. So it isn't wrong to focus on things, essences, substances just as well. This is a metaphysical claim, as well as a physical claim, as well as an ontological claim. And has ramifications in epistemology.

I submit that we are not just full of shit all the time. We are mostly full of shit, because process is relentless, and we are over-confident in our ability to find food and shelter so easily (so we might as well point out the eternal truth just as skillfully). But sometimes, we actually say something that can only be said and that can truthfully be said about some thing, some process, some part, some whole, some change measured, observable on changing occasions.

"It rests from change." - Heraclitus, the OG of process)

I also am sorry to go. I don't want to! — fdrake

I could submit the command to remove my own admin privileges — fdrake

Even in your exit you leave us with with a philosophical dilemma to ponder - the self-determined command defining your own identity, versus some other determiner defeating what "I want" once again.

Thanks for your time, insights and just for sharing a bit of who you are. Look forward to hearing from you again.

:up: :strong:

that there is more going on that what we can be conscious of directly sensing, from which it would seem to follow that there is more to objects than just a bunch of perceived qualities. — Janus

True, but I don’t see magnetism as a good example of more going on. It’s perceptible. So Arcane’s argument supporting the assertion that there is more going on than just a bunch of perceptible properties based on a distinction between seeing apples and (somehow not explained in the post) distinguishing magnetism doesn’t work.

I think that's not quite correct. — Janus

It maybe too simplistic for me to say "all we ever see is light" as an observation of optics, so point taken. But my general point is that, just like we don't directly see magnetism, we don't directly sense anything. So drawing a distinction between seeing an apple versus not-seeing magnetism when two magnets are operating on each other, doesn't work.

I see this argument to be using an empirical observation to refute empiricism.

2. I have many ways of detecting the presence of a magnetic field. A simple one is just to hold a magnet near a piece of iron, in which case I will sense the force of attraction between the magnet and the iron. — wonderer1

I was going to say the same thing. But I've already been reported for trolling and for assuming ill-intent. Welcome to the club!

I disagree that "Magnetism cannot be perceived by human beings."

It's kind of too late - we perceived something empirical enough to distinguish "magnetism".

I'm referring to the phenomena of attraction and repulsion involving two ordinary magnets. — Arcane Sandwich

What isn't empirical about the above reference?

We need light to see objects attract and repulse - all we ever see is light, we never see anything else. But we can still distinguish magnetic attractions and repulsions from kinetic ones.

When magnets are placed near each other, we see them move. We can rule out all kinds of movers, and we are left with the visual perception of magnetic forces.

We can close our eyes and hold two magnets near each other we feel the force of magnetism. Arcane, you called this "increasingly solid sensation" - why not call this magnetism that is being perceived, as opposed to "increasingly solid sensation?"

We could let two magnets collide and probably measure something repeatable about the forces by using the sound of the collision. Certain decibels equate to certain size objects of certain types of materials at certain distances apart and we can might estimate magnetic fields ... or call it increasingly loud collisions.

Yet magnetism is real. Therefore, magnetism is both real and non-empirical. This being the case, the existence of magnets are a counter-example to Empiricism, which means that Empiricism is false. — Arcane Sandwich

Are you saying that because we can't sense it, it is not empirical, but because we somehow know about it, it is still "real"? Shouldn't you make it more clear what you mean by "real magnetism" versus "empirical piece of iron" in order to clarify how "empiricism is false"?

P1) God exists and is the creator of the creation from nothing
P2) If so, then there is a situation in which only God exists
P3) If so, then God is in an undecided state about the act of creation when only God exists
P4) If so, then the act of creation is only possible if God goes from an undecided state to a decided state
P5) If so, then the act of creation requires a change in God
P6) If so, then God changes
C) So, God changes — MoK

I like it, but I still don’t see how P2 necessarily follows from P1.

God exists, and created things only exist after God creates them, but how does it logically follow that the situation before God creates created thing is a situation where only God exists? We can assert “God exists” and we can assert “nothing else but God exists before God created,” but I don’t see that only God existing has to follow. The “if so, then” need not be so in P2.

Just like we don’t know God exists and have to assert it to get going here, and just like we don’t know God creates from nothing and have to assert it, we don’t know from these two assertions that God was the only thing that existed before God created from nothing. “If P1, then P2” is not logically necessary. There could be other uncreated things.

I don’t think you need God to be the only thing that exists to make your argument.

You need God to create from nothing, but you don’t need there to be nothing else besides God before creation from nothing, you just need God not to use anything else to cause the creation.

We can change the argument slightly and still follows that God has to change to create other things. — MoK

I guess maybe you see my point then. I agree you can still likely make the argument without establishing God is the only thing that exists before God created creation.

I think you need to assert somewhere that created things exist. It may be implicit in P1, but P1 makes God’s existence explicit, so the argument seems to beg we make the existence of created things just as explicit.

We all assume it, but it is missing from the argument. Maybe right before the conclusion:

…P5) If so, then the act of creation requires a change in God
New P6) Created things exist.
P7) If so, then God changes.
C) so, God changes.

Here, I am not going to discuss the Christian God. — MoK

I am sort of Nietzschean when it comes to the God of the philosopher - everyone sort of makes up their own placeholders when they mean "God" in a philosophical argument. So if reference to "Father" not moving, "Son moved" as one and the same thing called "God" is off-putting because it admittedly sounds Christian, then all that was poor choice of words that didn't help me describe what I'm trying to say to you.

First of all, I agree, God, itself, changes, is moving. If someone else, like Aquinas or anyone thinks God can't move, or doesn't change at all, I am suspicious of what they mean if they mean an agent can create without moving; even creation from nothing doesn't mean an agent has not moved to effect something new, and therefore this agent has changed. So I agree with your ultimate conclusion.

And I agree that if you accept the premises of your argument, the conclusion follows.

When I talk about "God", since I am a believer, I am talking about something I think I know, in my case, as a Catholic, about some one I think I know. So whether God changes or does not change has the meaning to me of getting to know God himself. Just to digress from the logic and metaphysics to let you know I am not merely playing here. (We are all playing here, but I, to myself, am not merely playing, even when I say "God".)

So it's an interesting question - we Catholics learn that God is eternally perfect, unmoved, and never changing, not deprived of anything ever that would beg something be moved. He could not move as he is already where he would move to. Etc., etc.

Yet, God must have moved in order for his creation from nothing to have been first not created, and then by God's movement, created. Without God changing, nothing would have been created. Nothing itself would have changed, if God were not changing nothing to something. And since nothing did change to something (because now is something), and only God could do it, God had to do, had to move, has to change.

I like the use of "undecided state" to represent before nothing was changed into creation, because it makes an agent out of God, which makes sense for a creator God. Agents need hands to move things, even if those things are nothing into somethings. So agents, are moving, changing things, changing their hand from here, to now there, holding something, from what was nothing in hand.

But, if I am going to analyze not the validity of your argument, but whether I think you've created a proof for the motion of God who is creator, I think P2 is not necessary, and so C1 would not necessarily follow.

I think somehow, this argument could be shortened.

P1) God exists and is the creator of the creation from nothing
P2) If so, then there is a situation in which only God exists
C1) So, there is a situation in which only God exists
P3) If so, then God is in an undecided state about the act of creation when only God exists
P4) If so, then the act of creation is only possible if God goes from an undecided state to a decided state
C2) So, the act of creation is only possible if God goes from an undecided state to a decided state
P5) If so, then the act of creation requires a change in God
P6) If so, then God changes
C3) So, God changes — MoK

P1. God is the creator of creation from nothing. And this God exists. No reason to differ here and we are off to the races.

P2. If God exists and is the creator of creation from nothing, then there is a situation in which only God exists.

Although I understand why you are referring to a situation before creation as a situation in which God only exists; before anything else existed, there was nothing, but God, and if God created creation from nothing, then all that needed to be was God for there to be creation. I get it. Before many things were created, there was only one creator only, so "only God exists."

But couldn't God create all of creation from nothing, and yet not be the only thing that exists while he is doing it? Like this: before creation, there was God and a blob of X (imagine anything, in a blob or a heap if you will, shaped in some limited way, and imagine whatever you imagine as "God" next it, and imagine absolutely nothing else).

So P1 works still in the God plus blob pre-created situation; God can exist and be the creator of the creation from nothing, as long as God doesn't create anything using that blob of X. The problem with P2 (for me) is the "If so, then".

If God is the creator of the creation from nothing, it does not follow that, if so, then there is a situation in which only God exists. It could be otherwise.

Now we can assert P2 anyway and, like P1, just assert: 1, there exists a creator God, and 2, the God, before creation, was the only thing that existed.

But now C1 is not a logical conclusion from P1 plus P2, but is instead a restated of P2.

But let's move on anyway.

Let's assume, for the sake of arguing whether God as we conceive of it is changing or not, we have established that God exists, is a creator from nothing, and that prior to any such creation, "there is a situation in which God only exists."

P3 and the rest of the argument follow without any issues I can see.

I like the term "undecided state" because it requires both a Decider (presumably God), and a new state after a decision has been made. It works.

But it includes time, which may be fine, and necessary (as any change seems to require time be spent changing), but if time can be eliminated, maybe the point about God changing, even outside of time, would be made sharper.

At P3 you said:
If so, then God is in an undecided state about the act of creation when only God exists.

How about:
If so, God exists in relation to nothing (as only God exists from P2).

And then P4 would be:
If so, then, by creating, God exists in relation to the created things, (no longer in relation to nothing).

And then we need a new P5:
Created things exist.

C2: So, God changes.

So my totally new argument, based on yours, but left on the stove probably too long, (and certainly an analytic mess but I'm just spit-balling about "God" and we can work out the logic later if useful):

P1) God exists, and created things exist from nothing.
P2) There is the situation in which created things do not exist (have not been created).
C1) So, since God exists, God is the creator of the creation from nothing.
P3) If so, absent creation, God exists in relation to nothing.
P4) If so, then, by creating, God exists in relation to the created things.
P5) Created things exist.
C2) So, God changes. (from creator in relation to nothing, to creator in relation to things.)

:up:

Space exits without measuring anything. — Corvus

But then, space is also no-thing, empty of things that could be said to exist. Things that take up space are the best approximation of "space exists". And things that take up space have to be measured to be identified.

I'm not in the habit of entertaining trolls. — Arcane Sandwich

Just berating them. Got it.

the tremendous virtual shit that you just took on my Thread. — Arcane Sandwich

I keep trying to be respectful anyway. (Really a “virtual shit”?)

If God exists, God is….Y.
God exists.
So God is….Y.

As I am trying to say, how does this necessitate “Y” be anything in particular?

If God exists, God is a ham sandwich.
God exists.
So, God is a ham sandwich.

Same, perfect logic. But nothing about God or ham sandwiches or Jesus illuminated - only logic 101 is illuminated.

Guess you are done with me.

The choice seems to be the result — noAxioms

A choice is what I call the result of choosing. Not any result of a calculating process. Choosing, if it exists, entails an agent who makes a free, deliberate selection among variables.

The program is not able to generate any other results, because it is not an agent capable of choosing which variable result to generate. There is always, only one move the program can make. So there is either no variables to select, or there is no agent. In the case of a program, there is no agent.

I still don’t see a distinction between what a choice is, and what a free choice is.
Of course. You chose your definition that way. — noAxioms

Or you didn’t explain the distinction you see well enough for my thick skull.

The word “choice”, to me, entails a free agent presented with variables who acts by selecting one variable. So saying “free” choice is redundant, as freedom is a necessary component of any choice.

Above where you defined choice and then defined free choice differently, your definition of a mere “choice” was, to me, the definition of a deterministic outcome (so not a choice at all). You didn’t define “choice” versus a “free choice”, you defined a deterministic outcome versus any choice (which always includes freedom, if choice exists at all.)

Thanks for announcing that on your thread.

My first post looks snarky to me now. Sorry it came off that way. Was honestly trying to prompt you to restate your position.

If God exists, God is identical to Jesus.
God exists.
So God is identical to Jesus.

The only thing that moves in that argument is God - he goes from maybe or maybe not existing, to “God exists.” You already defined Jesus as identical to this God thing in P1. So the conclusion “therefore God is Jesus” though valid in logical form, puts in modus ponens form the simple assertion, the simple definition, “God is Jesus.”

I don’t bother with all of the analysis if I see the end game already. If you are more interested in the personal chess match, I’m not your interlocutor.

I am interested in what do we learn from this argument? What is now known or made clearer?

We already knew modus ponens. (Or you did. I don’t know what an argument is as you said.). Thanks for the lesson about logic.

But what about God and Jesus - maybe you should define your terms. From an empirical perspective, it seems God and Jesus may be meaningless fictions. How can you even assert “God exists” and say you’ve said anything besides “x exists?” And if we don’t really know what a God is, how can we be sure Jesus (I guess who could NOT be God) is identical to God.

But you said you were an atheist - if you would rather not bother defining what God is before equating him with Jesus, I’d get it. But then I wouldn’t really understand anything more about your argument either.

I’ve answered your questions.
I’ve given you plenty of content to address that you would rather just dismiss.

I’ve ignored your attitude to respond to your content anyway.

And you give me “your nonsense” and the definition of “ad hominem.”

Like I said, you don’t seem to want to talk about your own argument.

I haven’t been assuming ill-intent. You said I’m trolling for trying my best to speak with you.

You started the post.

Putting the word “God” and “exist” in an argument with proper modus ponens form doesn’t prove anything actually exists. Like I said, Indont think anyone can use logic to jump to ontology. It’s why I disagree Anselm and Descartes succeeded in proving anything actually exists.

Last try. And you owe me an apology now if you want to rejoin a respectful dialogue.

If I had the genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences that you have, would I not have typed your post and vice versa? — Truth Seeker

That is the question.

I have those genes, environments, etc.

So is it the same question to ask myself “given all that has preceded me, would I do anything else besides type this post? Could I do anything else besides repeat your words “would I not have typed your post…?”

So since I am the same as me, does it help me to understand a moment when I choose? It doesn’t. I still don’t understand how I am free to choose, nor how these words here are determined. Neither are clear.

My current answer is that, somehow, our brains kick out an awareness of awareness - we are once removed from ourselves (which gives us the concept of “self” to look back on). We can reflect. This happens outside of the normal causal chain, and builds a space for choice. This is such a fragile happening, environments and nutrients etc are suspended with it, and so our choice comes from this new space outside of ourselves (from nowhere). So we build the free agent we are in the act of asserting a “choice” in the causal chain. We are not free to choose until we just choose.

Am I making sense? To you? Because I’m barely making sense to me.

Apparently many words only apply to humans and not anything else when doing the exact same thing. — noAxioms

No one can clearly state what they are doing when they claim to make a choice - it’s a few thousand year old debate. So how can anyone say this yet to be determined thing called “choosing” is “doing the exact same thing” as anything else?

In order for the program to make a move, it needs to have been given its programming; there need be no agent inserted into the program so that the chess pieces move. Once the program moves a piece, if you deconstructed the cause of that move, you could all the code and never see any agent influenced anything.

Maybe the same is true for people. But then there is no such thing as choosing (because there is no agency).

Calculating (pondering, whatever) is part of the process leading to the eventual choice. — noAxioms

Then you assert a dichotomy, a distinction, between calculating, which is a process before, and choice which would come after (eventually). So it’s not a false dichotomy by what you say. When a program is done calculating, it has no choice but to display the answer or make the move. Choice is something else than the calculations that might precede it.

The racists used the same tactic to imply that people not 'them' were inferior. — noAxioms

Why? Just why?

The OP doesn't mention the word 'free' at all, but does mention "could have done otherwise" which is an informal alternate definition of it. — noAxioms

I still don’t see a distinction between what a choice is, and what a free choice is. If something is determined by a prior physical state, it’s determined, so it can’t be the result of a choice.

Choice is a pickle. But if we have the ability to make a choice, we must be a free agent in some sense. Otherwise, we are playing word games to make ourselves think our choices (or programmatic choices) exist.

Time doesn't exist. Space does. — Corvus

I see space like time - they are like measurements and measuring sticks at once. They are bound up with each other, as well as mass.

You have a mass, you have its own extension in space over time.
You measure time, you move a mass through space to clock your measurement.
You measure space, you hold a mass still through time.
It’s always one thing being measured where someone says “time” or “space” or “mass”.

It's not logic's business to make converts. — Arcane Sandwich

You keep talking about something other than your own argument.

If God exists….[logic]…so Jesus is God.

And you then you say you reject the premise you asserted to make your own argument. All this is fodder for your point that people like Aquinas and Anselm (or any phislioher trying to prove God exists) should be proving God is Jesus (or Allah, etc).

I disagree. Proofs for the existence of God don’t work, either by their own terms, or by the ease with which one can reject a premise or two and leave the conclusion meaningless.

The existence of Jesus can be rejected too. So why bother to equate God, whose existence we can reject, with Jesus? Sounds like another dead end.

You haven’t shown me why equating God with some particular name for God is important for Aquinas or Avicenna or anyone who is trying to create proofs for God. You sound like you are hunting for bad arguments to shoot down.

Maybe Aquinas already meant “Jesus” when he said “God.” Kind of like you did: “if God exists, God is identical with Jesus.”

Maybe Aquinas thought it would be redundant in an argument about God to separate “God” from “Jesus” in order to assert that the two are “identical.” If such an argument could be made, if such an argument was missing from the vast stores of philosophical wisdom…

I wish someone could prove God exists and that Jesus is God. But using only logical form, based on premises that can be rejected, no one can prove a cat really is a cat, or on a mat. So, there’s that. I’m sure jumping to God instead of cats with mats to find some arguments that might actually say something will be easily rejected as well. But that’s just my take on the whole attempt to prove with logic anything about God’s existence or the identity of God.

I have never been impressed about arguments that demonstrate God’s existence is necessary.
— Fire Ologist

It's not logic's business to impress anyone, just as it's not math's business to impress anyone. — Arcane Sandwich

I meant persuaded, since you are being so precise. Is it logic’s business to persuade? Because the fact that God is all perfect and a possible God is less perfect than an actual God, therefore God must be actual, isn’t persuasive. It’s worth thinking about if asking whether there is a God or not, but I don’t see it as making any converts.

For example, a Muslim philosopher wouldn't try to refute Anselm's argument. Why would he? He believes in God just as much as Anselm does. It that sense, he would accept the argument in question. And so would a Jewish philosopher, and so would a monotheist Pagan philosopher.

If we don't specify who God is (Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, the Rainbow Serpent, etc.) then every theist can accept Anselm's argument, no matter what the details of their religion are. — Arcane Sandwich

Why is that a problem? For anyone who believes in God? Why would a Christian philosopher who believed they could prove the existence of God fall short if they didn’t show that the God they allegedly proved existed was named Jesus?

Aquinas called all of his writings straw. I would be happy to argue with Descartes and Anselm about the shortcomings of their arguments.

Although, I find the God of all the philosophers to be a hollow shell of a stick figure on a blackboard used to fill in a “x” in some attempt at a logical proposition. Maybe if they could take it far enough to give it some real flesh, as a proof that God who is Jesus exists, maybe I’d see God there at all for once.

I agree reason and faith are harmonious. A theologian is using reason. The theologian just has things like God and angels and sin and free agents as objects at his or her disposal.

But in philosophy proper, in the world based on observation, sensation, empirical evidence, the world of science, when we apply reasoning, I have never been impressed about arguments that demonstrate God’s existence is necessary.

From that definition, this doesn't follow:

If I “cannot make a different choice” then there is no choice.
— Fire Ologist
For example, a chess program has countless variables to ponder (at some length), and has (is) a deliberate agent whose action influences the outcome. If there was no chess program, the action would not be taken, so the influence is clearly there.

But...

given 20 identical programs with the exact same initial state, each will typically do the exact same thing.
They have choice, but not free choice since they can consider, but not actually make a different move. — noAxioms

I never think we can clarify a human behavior at issue, like choosing, by analogizing this behavior with some other type of entity’s behavior (like a chess program). We try to make black and white clarity by mixing gray with gray.

I don’t see any substantial distinction between a choice and a free choice.

In your example of what the computer is doing before it makes a move, why call that a “choice” at all? It is operating on inputs to determine the only move it must make. It is not choosing, but calculating. You said yourself its next move is determined just as it is for the other 19 identical programs. There is no agent, so there are no variables, so there is no choice.

A really good chess player is effectively calculating just as well, and his or her moves may not be choices either.

I see calling what the program does “choosing” as personifying the program. And we don’t yet know what choosing is or if we ever get to choose ourselves, so how are we to judge the program properly anyway?

Can you clarify the difference between a choice and a free choice, and deterministic mo choice using only human behavior as an example?

If we couldn’t ever have made a different choice in the past, we didn’t ever make any choice at all.
— Fire Ologist
This also depends on definitions, but you seem to be using one that doesn't distinguish choice from free choice, rendering the adjective meaningless. — noAxioms

If I “cannot make a different choice” then there is no choice. A choice, by definition, has to involve multiple variables and a deliberative agent whose action influences the outcome among those variables. Take away the agent, and there are no longer any variables identifiable only in a deliberating agent; Take away the variables and there is no choice. So choice involves both a deliberative (free reflecting) agent, and variables.

How else can we define the moving parts of a “choice?” Maybe I have no choice but to finish this paragraph with the word “not.” Maybe the last word of this post has been predicable for ten thousand years. But it seems to me it is more likely a consequence of me and my free choices, that could go any way I am capable of bringing to effect. Maybe not.

Cool. Honest question.

Honest answer.

I don’t like any of the arguments for the existence of God. They all hit me as if they are rigging the conclusion by rigging the premises. They all contain elements that need not be accepted and so the conclusion that God exists need not be accepted and so it’s no proof for the existence of God.

Logical proof operates on metaphysics and epistemology. It’s about proving things that exist, or ontological entities exist; nothing can prove something else exists. Ontological objects are used to demonstrate metaphysical and epistemological proofs. It’s doesn’t work the other way. Sorry folks, faith and the grace of divine revelation are the only basis for the assertion that God exists.

So a further proof about Jesus being God - that would come after one asserted that God exists (based on faith), and then be a theological conversation where the additional premises would come from the Bible and the Church and one’s own experiences with other people. None of that conversation would be philosophic or scientifically measurable. Jesus is God because he said “I and the Father are one.” What use is that to a scientist as evidence for anything?

So basically, I should never have wasted your time if you, like Anselm, think we can discuss proofs of the existence of God and by extension, the nature of Jesus from logic.

If you are trying to talk about God and Jesus it looks to me you are saying that because God exists, God is Jesus, but God doesn’t exist.
— Fire Ologist

That sounds like nonsense to me, what you just said there. Could you elaborate on that point, specifically? — Arcane Sandwich

Me too.

You made your argument, then you say you deny the second premise because you are atheist.

So, in summation, you are saying if God exists, God is Jesus, but God doesn’t exist.

Which gets everyone as far as Larry Fine did when he was suggesting a breakfast menu.

So, to me, I’m having a conversation about logic using the terms God and Jesus with someone who could care less about what those terms mean because they don't mean anything that exists anyway. And the logical stuff is neat but, like math, is what it is and is not really that interesting, certainly not as interesting as God, if God existed. Or Jesus if he was identical to God.

Can you summarize your point again to see if this conversation can really go any further? Not my point (I don’t know what an argument is) - what is your point about Jesus again?

If we couldn’t ever have made a different choice in the past, we didn’t ever make any choice at all. So because of the semantics of the question, the answer has to be “yes”.

This is a good vehicle into the underlying question, do we ever “choose” our actions? Are we agents in our own story? Is there free will? Are we capable of halting the forces of necessity to deliberately influence our self-same lives?

I have to say yes because otherwise, I am not writing this post. If the forces of nature have led me to spell the word “led” without an “a” (as in “lead, both of which follow the laws of grammar), and if I should remove “me” from the equations of this sentence, it seems to me I wouldn’t have ever noticed a difference between nature and myself in the first place and would never have seen the choice between “led” and “lead”.

If all of science was completed and reported to everyone as from God, and this report said “all moves by determined necessity and there are no choices” I would still have to choose to believe this, or not, before the motion of this thread could go about its merry way.

You still don't get it. — Arcane Sandwich

So you are saying if we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs.

Got it.

If you want to talk about logical form, why bring up such a distraction as “God” and “Jesus” to do it?

If you are trying to talk about God and Jesus it looks to me you are saying that because God exists, God is Jesus, but God doesn’t exist.

Your point is you have no point, like speaking with me, someone who just doesn’t get it. I’m sensing a pattern.

So if I tell you that three apples plus two apples equals five apples, am I talking about numbers or apples? — Arcane Sandwich

Are you talking to tell me we have enough apples to feed five people who want apples to eat, or are you demonstrating math? If math, you don’t need to use apples. You could use rocks, or Gods to form your argument, so you are not talking about apples at all. If five people want to eat, then the apples may be of interest.

I'm showing how it can be rationally concluded that Jesus is God, … — Arcane Sandwich

No, you just assert it as a premise - “Jesus is identical to God.”

You said “if God exists, Jesus is identical to God.”

You could have said “if apples exist, Jesus is identical to God.” There is no logical connection between God existing and zGod being identical to Jesus. You just define God as identical to Jesus, create a condition “if God exists” then assert this condition is met and restate your definition. Great logical form - wholly unconvincing of what God or Jesus means or whether anyone should entertain whether God or Jesus exists.

If unicorns exist, unicorns are identical with single horned horses.
Unicorns exist.
Therefore unicorns are identical with single horned horses.

I think I have the modus ponens right here. But have I said anything at all about reality, about horses, about horns, about unicorns? Why would replacing unicorns with God, and single horned horse with Jesus would I think I’ve proven anything about anything, except how modus ponens works?

1) if unicorns exist, that single-horned horse is equal to a unicorn
2) that single-horned horse exists
3) therefore, unicorns exist.

And here is its structure:

1) If p, then q
2) q
3) Therefore, p

That's not an argument, that's a formal fallacy called affirming the consequent.

So I stand by what I said earlier: you don't seem to understand what an argument is. I say that as objectively and as respectfully as possible. — Arcane Sandwich

You are right.

I wasn’t careful enough and my unicorn “argument” fails.

That’s twice you said I don’t know what an argument is. Do you really think that? I mean, if I didn’t know what an argument was, how could I recognize that you are right about affirming the consequent, and I was wrong to try to equate that to your modus ponens form of argument?

Anyway, it seems like you are talking about logic and not about God or Jesus.

Anselm was trying to show how it can be rationally concluded that God exists. He was using logic to show an ontology. I love the effort, but all analysis of his arguments are discussions of logic, not about God. Like this discussion seems to be. Anselm would admit the proof for God’s existence may be interesting to us, but is not about God.

I don’t think you can use logic to demonstrate an ontology (except to yourself about yourself, as in “I conclude I exist in that act of concluding anything, or in sloppy logical form “I think, therefore, I am.”, and who else cares, or can confirm I’m right.)

Do you think you can conclude Jesus is God because of your argument?

If I was trying to rationally prove to you that my father exists, do you think you would know anything about my father?

So does this thread really have anything to do with God? Or Jesus?

1) If p, then q.
2) p.
3) Therefore, q. — Arcane Sandwich

So do you want to talk about logic, or about whether Jesus is God?

If you want to talk about logic, you could have said many other things for “p” and “q.” But since you said God and Jesus I assumed you wanted to talk about God.

If you want to talk about logic, then sure “if unicorns exist, that single-horned horse is equal to a unicorn; that single-horned horse exists; therefore, unicorns exist.”

But if you were trying to show what it who God or Jesus actually is, you didn’t argue them, you merely asserted and equated them, like I just did with a single-horned horse and a unicorn.

I am a Catholic. I love God, as Father, Jesus and their Holy Spirit.

But I am sure I won't be able to convince anyone about Jesus or God through argument.

You don't seem to understand what an argument is. — Arcane Sandwich

Way hot out of the gate. I didn't mean to insult you. Your argument basically just gave a definition "God is identical to Jesus." You don't move anywhere from that. You asserted that God exists, and asserted that God is identical to Jesus. Nothing else was operating in the argument to move from the assertions to some other conclusion. You basically just said "God is Jesus." So I said, that's not an argument.

Again, I love how people think about these things and post here. I'm not trying to discourage anything. But if you want a good conversation, on this forum, God is very often a non-starter.

Philosophers have a problem clarifying whether a cat on a matt is really two things, or a thing at all.
— Fire Ologist

I don't have that problem. It's a bit presumptuous of you to assume that I do. — Arcane Sandwich

I assume all people have this problem because it's the same conversation Heraclitus and Parmenides and Hume and Descartes and Hegel, and Kant, and Nietzsche and Quine, and people here today have been trying to address.

You jump way to hard and fast into the personal. I do that too sometimes. Always regret it. And what do you want me to say?

The animal is serving as a kind of "substitute" for our animal side in trying to separate out what makes human language different. — Moliere

That inquiry would be instructive, because we are animals. Contrast our own impulsive responses with our own deliberated, reasoned, chosen responses.

Or, on the other hand, it's a counter-example if we believe that the dog can refer or have true beliefs. — Moliere

I am just saying I can't tell how or why I refer or have true beliefs, so finding something instructive in a dog's behavior is unlikely, other than to highlight that thinking/knowing/believing may all be tied up in language (in all its complexity), and therefore, we are able to rule out that anything other than a person will help us figure out what is going on in this conversation.

(FTI1) If God exists, then God is identical to Jesus.
(FTI2) God exists.
(FTI3) So, God is identical to Jesus. — Arcane Sandwich

If.....God is identical to Jesus....God is identical to Jesus.

That's not an argument. Nothing to digest there.

"If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs." - Larry Fine.

That's a better argument, but similarly, leaves you hungry for something to actually digest.

Philosophers have a problem clarifying whether a cat on a matt is really two things, or a thing at all.

This post will go nowhere illuminating. I'm not picking on you, just sayin...

It is very difficult to discuss God in any empirical, critical, scientific manner, especially in a forum where many people have no inclination to entertain the notion of "God" seriously.