Seems likely you're not a parent. — tim wood

Well I am, what makes you think I'm not?

If whether or not one believes in God affects the way that they behave, then the claim about God, which you say that science makes, that God doesn't actually effect the world that we experience, is blatantly false. That's the thing about beliefs, they clearly have effect on the way that we behave. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fair enough. That sounds an entirely reasonable way to define the existence of a concept and I agree that under that definition a concept can have a effect on the world through the way in which it steers a person's thinking. So every single God exists in all varieties that humans ever thought of. Unicorns, fairies, dragons all exist insofar as they affect people's behaviour (the concept certainly motivated fantasy authors who would behave differently without the concept). Aliens exist, the illuminati exist, lizard men in the centre of the earth exist. I'm quite happy with your definition, I think it eliminates a lot of semantic issues, but I think it's a far cry from the claim theologians are apt to make.

Science produces concepts, philosophy determines the objectivity of these concepts. — Metaphysician Undercover

I could agree with you here only to the extent that scientists do philosophy. Scientists certainly do not consult philosophers to check whether their results are objective. They already know whether their results are objective by the confirmation of others.

Well, I thought I'd try at least one reply, but you've descended into nonsense already so we'll leave it there.

So the things in concepts are non-existent? What about numbers and circles? — Metaphysician Undercover

I've been through this in my previous posts. I've not personally heard any scientist make claims about the non-existence of concepts, nor that science can prove its own axioms. I've asked for examples of scientists making these claims but have yet to hear any. Science does, quite justifiably claim that unicorns do not have any effect on the world. It makes the same claim about God, that it probably doesn't exist in such a way as to actually effect the world we collectively experience.

But what about the concepts themselves? How would one make a falsifiable theory concerning the existence of concepts? Or is it the case that some of us just take it for granted that they are real, and some take it for granted that they are not real? — Metaphysician Undercover

It depends what you mean by 'concept'. If you mean an idea of something that might exist (or might be the case) in someone's mind, then I don't see any other conclusion than that all concepts which have ever been conceived of self-evidently exist. How could a concept possibly not exist?

The scientific method could be considered an attempt to determine what concepts (by which I mean things which might exist or be the case) actually do exist or are the case in the world as we collectively experience it.

So concepts are neither wholly objective nor subjective. The job of science is to determine which are which. On end of the tasks of philosophy might be to prepare concepts for such a test by clarifying them and resolving semantic issues from physical ones.

Tell me, can science predict what I am going to do today? — Rich

You're going to breathe, your heart will pump blood round your body, your feels will continue to divide and grow, Microbiology can tell you a huge amount of what's going on in every single cell in your body.

Beyond the firm predictions, science can make some really tight predictions about the scope of your actions. You will not fly, you won't suddenly speak Japanese if you don't already know it.

Then we can get into some good estimates of liklihood from social sciences. You will more likely than not engage socially, you'll more likely than not be repulsed by a list of things and attracted to a list of thing common to most humans.

I could go on.

Now, how well does theology do at the same task?

Thereby subjugating every human attribute to adaptive necessity. — Wayfarer

Yes, we don't make the world into what we want it to be, we accept the world as it transpires to be.

Except for what matters about it. — Wayfarer

In what way does Buddha say anything about what matters. Who are you to be the arbiter of what matters?

So here, you’re basically saying that everything that is not measurable, not quantitative, is subjective. So ‘it’s your business what you believe, but don’t think for a minute it’s scientifically true’. — Wayfarer

Yes, that's pretty much the definition of 'objective' and 'subjective'

something which can be considered the basis for qualitative judgement — Wayfarer

There already is something which can be considered the basis for qualitative judgement, it is the sum total of all our biological and cultural influences which lead us to be of a certain opinion about a topic that is entirely subjective. You haven't explained what it is you find unsatisfactory about that such that some other basis is required.

All the bluff and bluster apart, that is what is at issue as far as I’m concerned. — Wayfarer

Your posts read as entirely 'bluff and bluster' you haven't said anything concrete yet on the matter.

The point at issue, is the extent to which science does or doesn’t say anything meaningful about questions of quality. — Wayfarer

This is what I'm sure you'd like the point at issue to be, but science does not have any comment on matters of quality, other than to say that no other approach can say anything meaningful on the matter either. That's what you really take issue with. You're never advocating a Wittgensteinian “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” approach to metaphysics, but always beneath the surface is the idea, not just that science cannot say anything meaningful about quality, but that theology can.

Science can talk meaningfully about an increasingly wide range of subjects because it can demonstrate the remarkable predictive power of its theories, and thereby show a remarkable justification for it's metaphysical presumptions in terms of utility.

Theology can say nothing meaningful about anything because its purview is entirely subjective. Nothing objectively verified in the world we share supports a theological view. That's not to say that no-one can believe in God, or fairies or solipsism, insofar as they come up with some theory as to how such beliefs fit with the sense-experiences we all share, but it is to say that such theories have no authority, they are qualitative, like artwork, no right, no wrong, just opinion.

Many serious people claim it regularly.

the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is the worldview given to us by science. — Steve Pinker — Wayfarer

Not that I wouldn't rather cut my own arm off than agree with anything Steven Pinker says, but he specifically says here that science guides moral and spiritual values, not 'all that there is'. He's claiming that science can provide us with a method of obtaining morals and of determining what have traditionally been called 'spiritual' values. That is a far cry from your claim that it tries to be "the arbiter of what ought to be considered meaningful and important."

Nothing in what Pinker says tells you what you 'ought' to find meaningful or important. You might find opera to be meaningful and important, science makes no judgement on that. You might find that the intricacies of particle physics mean nothing to you and are totally unimportant. The scientific worldview (such as there is one) makes no comment on that.

You're trying to conflate 'meaningful and important' with 'true'. The scientific worldview has a massive amount to say on how we can talk about things being 'true' or likely, and with a huge amount of evidence to support it's right to do so. That's completely different to making claims about what's 'important, or meaningful' in a subjective sense, about which it makes little comment.

The only place science could intervene on what is meaningful is in evolutionary biology, psychology, or neuroscience. For example, It is a good hypothesis that we all evolved by a process of natural selection, it is a good simple hypothesis that all our features are therefore determined by this process, it is a good hypothesis that features which appear to serve no purpose in this regard might be better explained some other way.

Like most mystics, you're trying to subtly make the jump from "science is based on axioms which science itself cannot prove" to "we might as well consult Buddha as Churchland on the problem of conciousness. You cannot make that leap. Churchland 'knows' an vast amount more about conciousness than Buddha did, by any common meaning of the term 'knows'.

Absolutely, well said. If a 16 year old can't make at least a reasonably sound decision about their own body then it's us as parents that have failed, not biology.

Consciousness mediates data by adding the ability to act on account of believing in different ways. — Janus

So, lay out for me exactly how conciousness does this. Lets simplify things and take a simple man, John. John has only three beliefs - that it is cold, that putting coats on alleviates cold, and that he does not like being cold. A computer would take these propositions and lead directly to putting a coat on by IF(it is cold) THEN(do the thing that alleviates cold), considering it holds the data - it is cold, and the thing that alleviates cold is putting a coat on.

So, if John has only those three belief (the if-then belief about what he ought to do, the belief that it's cold and the belief that coast are the thing that alleviate cold), how does conciousness do anything meaningful to his belief, his actions, or in fact, anything meaningful at all?

In other words, if you're claiming "the nature of those acts is not mechanically determined", by what are they determined?

Isn't this the point in the lecture where you bring up flying spaghetti monsters? — T Clark

I think that's in Revelations isn't it, or was that a baked-bean monster, I can never remember?

It's something that moves us, gets into our hearts. — T Clark

That's what "like" means, isn't it?

It is an uncomfortable thought that I have been strongly affected by someone whose motives are suspect or worse. — T Clark

This, I think, is circular. It is possible that it's only an uncomfortable thought because you are committed to the idea that something about that artist directly caused the art. If, on the other hand, you are of the opinion, as I am, that great art is tapping into something inside the mind of the receiver, rather than extracting something from the mind of the artist, then the nature of the person who actually put together those brush strokes, those characters, that dialogue etc becomes irrelevant. The aesthetic of that particular combination was already in my head, anyone could have stumbled across it, it just happened to be that particular artist.

I've not heard it so much with paintings, but lots of great storyteller talk about the story being "out there" already and they just find it. I think all art is like that, the personality of the one who 'finds it' is irrelevant.

Meaningful things, such as God and the supernatural, are asserted by most of those who hold the scientific worldview, to be non-existent. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, and magic flying unicorns are asserted by the scientific worldview to be non-existent too. That's what the scientific worldview does and one of the reasons why it has been so successful for the last few hundred years.

A theory is developed which is as simple as possible, inventing a few new concepts as it can and which is falsifiable. That theory is tested and whilst it remains unfalsified, it is held to be a currently good approximation to the truth.

The theory that there is no God is a simple theory - it avoids having to create a new concept not already demonstrated to be 'true' (by the standards set out above). Every event, with the exception of the creation of the universe, can currently be explained without God.

The theory that there is no God (in the Abrahamic sense) is falsifiable - the Bible, the Torah and the Koran are all littered with examples of their God making manifest appearances and affecting the world in way which are obviously divine, so the theory that there isn't a God is perfectly falsifiable, any time "I Am Real" appears in the night sky by rearranging the stars, that would pretty soundly falsify the theory.

So it's entirely within the realms of science to posit a theory that there isn't a God (in the Abrahamic sense), and so far as that theory has not been falsified (nothing has happened that can't be explained by some other valid theory we already have), then it is entirely reasonable for scientists to say that God probably doesn't exists, which is all they've ever said.

Even the Arch atheist himself Richard Dawkins only ever said that God "probably" didn't' exist.

it actually decides what "is" meaningful and important, and denies the existence of that which it deems as not meaningful and important. — Metaphysician Undercover

So this is also a misrepresentation. No-one is denying the existence of anything which is outside of a falsifiable theory. The creation of the universe for example is an "all bets are on" scenario. What science does is simply say that we have no way conducting objective knowledge-seeking discourse about things which are entirely subjective.

That's why dualism is required, as you implied in your earlier post. Without dualism these features of the human being cannot be understood. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, we've reach a point where we fundamentally disagree on axiomatic grounds so I don't see we can go any further. You seem to be so unwilling to question your idea of what a human is that you have to invent a magical realm with it's own laws of physics and mess with the obvious determinacy of our own macro world, just to maintain your belief.

Personally, I think ten thousand years of presuming the world is deterministic and having that presumption work is pretty good evidence that it is, in fact, deterministic (at least at the scale we're looking at). Rather than invent magical realms, I'd rather first explore the far simpler possibility that what we think it is to be a human being is maybe wrong.

the person holds the seemingly contradictory beliefs, "I am going to the store", and "I am not going to the store (right now)" — Metaphysician Undercover

No, the person could be said to hold the entirety complementary beliefs 'I am not going to the store right now' and 'I am going to the store at some point in the future'. As soon as the belief 'I am not going to the store right now' is removed or replaced as a direct consequence of external or internal stimuli, then they go to the store.

The person is all ready to go to the store, and chooses a time to leave, randomly.. . — Metaphysician Undercover

So how do they do that? Have they got a random number generator in their brain? Where does the random element come from?

What's more, if there is a truly random element (say quantum uncertainty) then that's not free-will is it. We're no more in charge of the randomness than we are of the causal chain.

they do not posses the same cognitive capacity to transcend to a level of autonomy that human beings can — TimeLine

How do you know this?

They are not aware of themselves because they do not have consciousness — TimeLine

How do you know this?

[language is] necessary to attain any sense of moral consciousness — TimeLine

How are you deriving this?

what gives us 'humanity' or a 'soul' is our ability to love — TimeLine

How do you know animals are incapable of love?

If you don't want to explain how you arrived at your beliefs, that's fine we'll just leave it there, but what you've provided here is not an argument it's just a series of unfounded assertions.

I understand what it is you believe, I'm trying to get at why you believe it in spite of what seems to me to be overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

If rational consideration lead to some conclusion that instinctive drives never reached, then we would have an argument that rationality was necessarily involved in moral action, but that is not what we see.

Every behaviour we think of as moral - helping those in need, defending what is just, sacrificing our own well-being for the benefit of others... These are all behaviours which can be seen in the animal kingdom and so, presumably, all behaviours which derive from instinctive drives.

What I'm confused about is why, in the face of such evidence, you feel our own moral behaviour, which looks identical to that found in the animal kingdom, requires some special explanation. We are animals, animals have instinctively motivated behaviours which 'look' moral, why the need to invoke anything other than the simplest explanation that our morals derive from the same place?

I thought it was quite a simple question. You said that our instinctual drives contain nothing of substance morally and yet those same drives in animals seem to produce all the behaviours we consider moral. We do not carry out any behaviour labelled 'moral' that is not carried out by some species of animal driven, presumably, by those same instinctual drives you've dismissed as empty. I was just wondering how you explained the coincidence.

being moral cannot be performed without consciousness, that our instinctual drives or impluses contain nothing of substance — TimeLine

Then how do you explain the fact that literally every act we consider moral has a parallel in the animal kingdom? Are you suggesting this is just coincidence?

do not see how any honest, rational person can accept the latter. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Because the police do generally protect us, being human beings, and any rational person acts on the basis of what they actually have evidence for not on the basis of the exact legal terminology in some obscure court cases.

Wouldn't it make more sense to either genetically or technologically get rid of emotions instead of doing nothing more than pushing the boulder from the Myth of Sisyphus to attain some fleeting sense of happiness that serves no real purpose other than increasing the probability that our genes get passed on? — MonfortS26

Why would we do such a thing? What possible motivation could we have if happiness is not good enough because it's too fleeting?

The problem I have is more like science as the arbiter of what ought to be considered meaningful and important. — Wayfarer

This is where I think you're going wrong. I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that science is the arbiter of what is meaningful and important. What those who espouse a scientific worldview are saying is that the scientific method is the only way of claiming any objective knowledge about what is meaningful or important. This is very important distinction.

If you feel like there's a god, for example, then no one of a scientific worldview is seriously claiming that you may not have that belief, but if you claim, in the public domain, that there is a God, based on the fact that you think there is, there are people who will, quite fairly, argue that this is not a useful way to further public knowledge.

The strawman I think you're making is to conflate this view about the practicality of methods for arriving at public knowledge, with assumptions about the axioms that are required by any epistemological approach.

The claim that is being made by the scientific world view is that it is successful, that it makes useful prediction which could not be accounted for by chance. No-one to my knowledge, is claiming that such a system is not founded on axioms that must simply be taken as brute fact. They are claiming that such axioms are useful ones to adhere to because of the empirically proven utility of the system they allow.

We might all be brains in a vat, we might all be figment of my imagination, logic might not be justified, causality might be wrong, but presuming these things to be true has yielded no demonstrably useful epistemology. Assuming they are not has given us physics, sociology, psychology, biology and a whole host of useful information about ourselves and the world.

Of course if the axioms it is all based on turn out to be wrong, the whole thing comes crashing down, but what use is that knowledge if there's nothing more useful to replace it with?

It is quite usual to believe, nowadays, that 'science knows' or 'science proves' many things that science neither knows nor proves. I am engaged in trying to draw that out, and will continue to do so. — Wayfarer

What is it exactly that people believe science 'knows' or 'proves' that it doesn't? Who are these people and what evidence do you have that they believe this?

If you want to argue that modern science is deeply flawed I'm all with you, our system of funding and publication is appallingly biased and allows some shockingly inaccurate theories to appear valid.

But if you want to argue that most people believe science as a method claims to be able to prove things that it actually cannot, then you'll need to provide some evidence, because I can't think of a single example from the published philosophical literature.

If you want to go further and suggest you have a better method to prove (or even argue meaningfully about) these things that science cannot, then you'll have to do a lot better in demonstrating how you arrived at that conclusion because its far from obvious as you have laid it out so far.

A thermostat cannot have a belief without a behavioral correlate because there's complete identity between the behavior and the belief in the thermostat. — Hanover

I've already explained how a broken thermostat can have a belief (hold data related to an action), that it is cold, but fail to act on it because it's switch is broken or (for a more complex thermostat) it has been wrongly programmed. How is that any different from your brain holding the data we're calling a 'belief' but due to some other data (presuming we're being deterministic about it) arrives at the net result that you will not go to the store.

The only way you can say that your not going to the store is not the direct and necessary consequence of some belief is if you invoke dualism to say that the notion of not going to the store arose spontaneously in your mind. Otherwise it must have come directly and with absolute certainty, from some previous brain sate ('belief')

All that is different in more complex devices such as the human brain/body is that we have to produce a net result from many, often competing, beliefs. The thermostat only has 'it is cold' and 'when it is cold the heating is to be switched on', so it's action derives predictably. A human might have 'it is cold', 'when it is cold I should put my coat on' and 'my coat makes me look foolish because it is not fashionable'. So whether the human puts the coat on is now a moot point determined by the fourth belief 'maintaining my temperature is more important than maintaining my fashion status'.

In reality, of course, there will be hundreds (if not thousands) of such beliefs in a human at any one time which is what makes them so fascinatingly unpredictable, but at no point in time do any of these 'belief' magically become something else in a human system to what they are in any other system which both holds and responds to data.

The significant difference between the thermostat and the human belief is that the thermostat necessitates action, and in the human being belief doesn't necessarily result in action. One may or may not act on a belief. That's free will. — Metaphysician Undercover

So explain to me how this works then. A human has a belief that it is cold and no other beliefs at all. The human 'decides' nonetheless to ignore the belief that they are cold and take off their jumper. Where did the thought to take off the jumper come from? Did it just magically appear in the brain?

If consciousness exists in belief(1) but not belief(2), they are different. — Hanover

So are you admitting that there is a distinction between my belief and the thermostat's, yet you just don't think it's relevant enough to warrant it having a different term attached to it? — Hanover

Yes, that is exactly what I'm doing. There is a distinction between my cat and my next door neighbour's cat but not a significant enough one that they are not both still cats. Their 'catness' is do to with necessary characteristics which distinguish them from other animals in a useful way not an arbitrary one. The fact that one has long fur and one has short fur might well be the most obvious difference between the two, but it has no meaning, they could still breed and produce offspring (presumably with medium length fur).

Conciousness is nothing but a CCTV camera of our brain, watching a selection of the activity therein. What I'm arguing is that a belief is just a particular type of data, one that determines what an action will be in certain circumstances. any device capable of holding this type of data can have a belief. The fact that in our data holding device there is a feature that watches some of the activity makes no meaningful difference to the function of that data. It does exactly the same thing as it does in any machine, it causes us to act in a certain way in response to certain stimuli.

So what difference does conciousness make to the holding of a belief?

Is a proposition a linguistic statement? Are you now saying the thermostat has an attitude toward a linguistic statement? As best I can tell, all the spring does is expand, and that's what you call an "attitude"? — Hanover

I thought it would have been obvious that we were discussing the philosophy of mind (seeing as that is what the whole topic is about) and as such I thought is self-evident that the term 'proposition' would be understood in that context where a proposition relates to the brain state equivalent to a truth. I'm using the terms we would normally apply to humans in describing the thermostat to highlight the fact that there are no meaningful differences other than volume of data. I've yet to hear an argument explaining how the differences between the 'belief' in a human mind and the state of some other data holding device relative to how it will then act actually cause any meaningfully different ontology.

This is an antiquated view of determinism, but regardless, it's irrelevant whether the thermostat's reaction and the human reaction are pre-determined. I've not argued that beliefs arise from an other world miracle substance. — Hanover

It's only been five years since I left academia, but if in the meantime, some updated version of determinism has arisen other than the concept that all things have prior cause I'd love to hear it. If you are not arguing that the the relevant difference between the human's response to the cold and the thermostat's is that one can freely decide what to do about it and the other cannot, then what are you arguing is the difference?

To summarise - what difference is conciousness making to the properties of the data we're calling a 'belief'?

it's reasonable to argue that studies of the phenomenon of youth and childhood afford an objective (read: not just cultural) basis for some decision making. — tim wood

I doubt you'd have any trouble finding studies which show that unpleasant sexual relationships can be psychologically harmful. What I very much doubt is that you'd find any demonstrating that this is uniquely the case for under 18s but miraculously goes away after then, that's my point.

In hunter-gatherer societies children are given complete freedom, they are free to play with knives, poisons, fire, deep rivers, wild animals etc. What they learn from this is that they have to decide for themselves what is dangerous and what is not, they have to learn how to spot danger and avoid it. In the really deadly scenarios, and adult is always close by to step in, but other than that, they are allowed to make their own mistakes and learn from them. The result is some of the most psychologically well-adjusted young adults in the world.

In our culture we spend the whole of childhood being told what we can and can't do, we learn nothing but that someone else will tell us whether a thing is a danger or not. During the teenage years, we rebel against this authority in order to try and dictate our own person-hood, but having learnt absolutely no skills at all to help us spot danger. The result is a period in life where reckless behaviour is the norm.

How do you expect a child or young adult to learn what is good for them if you protect them from all and every harm? How do you think they magically know what to do on their 18th birthday having had absolutely no experience at all up to then.

We're failing our children badly by mollycoddling them until later and later ages, postponing their learning of vitally important life skills and teaching nothing but the fact their personal autonomy means nothing to us.

Parsifal was the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast last Saturday. I had a nice long nap during the opera and when I woke up it was still going. There are parts of his operas that everybody likes, and long stretches where you really need to be a fan. — Bitter Crank

Yes, try having them playing every other Sunday over dinner, even the parts everybody likes get a bit 'samey'.

Interesting concept though about art which is so much a part of the artist that it cannot really be separated from them. Quite apart from Wagner's views about Jewishness (which he wrote about quite candidly) his nationalism is so reflected in many of his works it would be hard to take them as works of art alone.

There are probably many better examples, but it seems to be particularly evident with nationalism for some reason.

Wagner died in 1883. It's more like Nazis were Wagnerian sympathizers. — Bitter Crank

Yes, sorry that's what I meant, the Nazi association. I've edited to save face. My father is actually something of a Wagner enthusiast, so more than a little embarrassing. Hope he never reads this.

Do you suppose thermostats have phenomenal states? — Hanover

No, but then I don't really hold with phenomenalism in humans either.

guess having an opinion bars one from discussing that opinion with someone who has an opposing view? — Hanover

I wasn't opposed to your coming to this discussion with an existing opinion (I certainly have), what I couldn't understand the purpose of was your arguing against my position simply by stating that it does not tally with yours. Either there are some steps wrong can take to ascertain which position is most tenable or we might as well be arguing about whether blue or green is the best colour.

If you wish to assert that "it's clear that something different is happening when I believe it's too hot and the thermostat switches on the furnace.". I'd like to hear an argument as to why you think that, I'm not going to just take your word for it.

I do think it is very clear that your claiming that a thermostat has a belief is not how the word belief is used among speakers of English. — Hanover

My use of the thermostat was never intended as an Ordinary Language proposition about how the word 'belief' is used (the single quotes are to indicate reference to the word as opposed to its accepted meaning, by the way). The example is to explore whether our restriction of the term 'belief' to conscious creatures is justified analytically. This is a philosophy forum, not a linguists forum, I'm not so interested in how the word is used so much as what we can learn from it. That's why I keep coming back to the question of whether there is any meaningful job being done by restricting the word belief to conscious creatures. What is it about consciousness that makes belief data different from any other data (such as that which is stored in the position of a bimetallic strip)?

Apparently metal expanding and flipping a switch is a belief, so I'm not real clear why all physical reactions aren't beliefs. — Hanover

A belief is an attitude to a proposition in some way, I think perhaps we can all agree on that (although maybe not). The question is whether there is any need for the holder of that attitude to be aware they are holding it.

What differentiates a thermostat from the examples you give is that in the examples, there is no outside observer to whom the data is relevant. We're all quite comfortable with the idea that a computer hard drive contains data, it's all just diodes, but we call it data because the outcome is unpredictable to us. The ice in some way 'contains' the data that it's below freezing point, but that data was not unpredictable to us, the thermostat's data is.

I'm a determinist, so as far as I'm concerned, a person putting a coat on is a direct mechanistic consequence of the environment acting on their biological system. No different to the air temperature acting on the thermostat and causing it to switch the heating on. Yet at some point in time, we want to be able to say that the person 'believes' it is cold and it is this belief that causes them to put a coat on.

In order to be a cause, this belief must be a prior state of the biological system. More specifically it must be exactly that particular state which causes the coat putting on activity. If that state is what a belief is, then logically, that same prior state must also be a belief in the thermostat.

We all know that we are conscious, and we subjectively have no doubt about it. — Hanover

Not at all, there are many perfectly rational people (myself included) who consider consciousness to be an illusion, that we are distinguishable from thermostats only in the number of such computations we can carry out at any one time. In fact, I would go as far as to say that, if we allow for some phenomenal emergence, then actually most philosophers of mind agree that our brains work in this way. There is nothing ontological to distinguish us from thermostats other than volume of data processed.

It's just a misuse of language to say a thermostat believes, and it's clear that something different is happening when I believe it's too hot and the thermostat switches on the furnace. — Hanover

As I said, if you've already made up your mind as to what 'believe' should mean and what is apparently "clear" about the differences between the state of our brains when we believe something and the state of the bimetallic strip in a thermostat when is 'believes' it is cold, then what purpose is there to your involvement in this discussion?

Behavior is not what defines belief. It's just evidence of an internal state. If I'm shivering and exhibiting every sign of being cold, it is not necessary that I believe I'm cold. I might think I'm warm because I've become unable to distinguish cold from hot, or maybe I'm entirely numb, with no feeling at all and my body is reactively shivering. — Hanover

Indeed, and the thermostat, if broken, might turn the heating off despite 'beliving' that it is cold, but we would in both cases be equally able to judge that something has gone wrong. I'm still not hearing anything of this magical difference between humans and thermostats which actually makes any difference to the meaning and use of the term 'belief'.

We can figure out (just as we can when computers submit to a Turing Test) when an entity is mimicking conscious like behavior and when it is truly conscious. — Hanover

Firstly, no we can't figure it out, but that's an entirely different debate and unnecessary herebecause, secondly you're talking here about consciousness (which I agree it is easy to see the thermostat doesn't have). You have yet to establish why you think it necessary for belief to be linked to consciousness. What job does such a restriction do to the meaning and use of the word?

No, I do believe that cats and dogs have beliefs too, but not thermostats or waving trees. — Hanover

So what about insects, bacteria, unconscious people, philosophical zombies, AI... Where do you draw the line on what can have beliefs and why?

I'm using 'real' in the sense that you propose. In that sense scientists are about the most faithful group to the idea that maths is real and you're far more likely to get dissent from philosophers. I'm well aware of the history of philosophical thought with regards to mathematics. What I was questioning was your opposing modern science with ancient views on mathematics. I'm asking you to justify your assumption that modern science takes an opposing view of mathematics. You've still failed to quote a single modern scientist who believes that mathematics is not real.

Consider the way that paranormal scientific claims are treated - they're subjected to much higher standards of evidence than many other types of claims, — Wayfarer

Again these wildly inaccurate claims to try and justify your anti-science agenda. What paranormal claims have been subjected to "much higher" standards of evidence? Last time I checked any scientific journals, the standard of evidence expected of any new theory was pretty high. I've studied statistics to quite a high academic level and even then I can't always understand the high level of statistical rigour to which new theories are expected to rise. If you're suggesting that they get special treatment over some farmer who 'reckons' he's seen Jesus, then your either insane or disingenuous.

Another point is that I think large corporations and their pet governments are much more concerned about a computer literate populous than an armed one. Warfare, come the apocalypse will be carried out on computer as much as the battlefield.

Because modern science insists that only what is sensible (sense-able) is real — Wayfarer

Show me a single scientist who doesn't think mathematics is real. They use it every day. You're just trying to set up scientists as some kind of cultists just so you can better justify your own brand of mysticism.

I don't know a single published scientist who denies the existence of non-material things like mathematics. I don't know a single published scientist who thinks that only what we can currently sense exists.

Either quote the people who's opinions you're arguing against or stop making strawman to knock down.

Firstly read 'Empty Ideas' by Peter Unger. If you still want to do a philosophy course, then I suggest Bertrand Russell 'A History of Western Philosophy'. Post 1945 you'll struggle to find a good introduction, but I suggest using the Internet rather than choosing one book. If you have a bit of common sense that can help you sift out the crap, you'll find an awful lot of good summaries like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which had some excellent articles and many linked references you can follow.

I don't understand why people can't separate art from artist. It's fundamentally hypocritical, and indicative of our hero-worship celebrity culture; the heroine falls; we spit on her. — Noble Dust

I agree entirely, but it works both ways and that's what I find maintains this unfortunate state.

If I like Wagner's ring cycle, then the fact that he was a Nazi idol should have no influence, but I then start harping on about what a 'genius' Wagner was for writing such a masterpiece, if I start trawling up every scrap of music he ever wrote as if I were panning for gold (as many do), then I am implicitly claiming that there was something about the man himself that was great, not just that he happened to write a piece of music I like.

This kind of thinking about artists (which is all too common), inevitably leads to erroneous ideas about the links between art and lifestyle. Maybe we need to allow one or two Nazis in society just to make sure we can still benefit from Wagner and Heidegger?

Good art is just something we like the sound of or look of, nothing more. It should not make villains, because it does not make heroes either.

I think consent laws are an effort to protect a class of people from exploitation and abuse. — tim wood

Agreed, so on what grounds are we deciding that a 17 year old requires protection from exploitation and abuse but an 18 year old does not?

there are child-labor laws and a host of other laws protecting both children and adults in "imbalanced" relationships. — tim wood

Yes, and they are all set at an entirely arbitrary and culturally determined age. Why shouldn't a 14 year old do healthy and rewarding work? Why shouldn't a responsible 15 year old be allowed a glass of wine with their meal?

Its not the existence of an age of consent I object to, its the cultural influence over what that age actually is. We cannot keep denying a young adult's right to choose what to do with their own body on the basis of some cultural notion of development with no objective basis.

And to restate my view, consent addresses inequality. I believe that same-age sex, without force or coercion and with mutual "consent," should be free from legal scrutiny. — tim wood

OK, so what is "same-age" - same year, same month, exactly the same birthday? Why is it you are so confident that age determines power with such accuracy?

If behavior were belief you could, but it's not. Belief references a conscious state, — Hanover

That's the whole point of my example. What are we defining if we insist that belief requires a concious state (a state which we cannot even reliably identify since no-one is agreed what conciousness is anyway)? I see little point in playing philosophy with our cups already full, to decide in advance what sort of thing we want belief to mean and then play this charade of pretending we're doing doing some meaningful investigation discovering exactly what we set out to 'discover'.

If you think a belief requires conciousness in order to define it, in order to separate it meaningfully from other similar states without conciousness, then what is the job that adding conciousness as a condition is doing for our definition? What error would we be making if we were to describe the thermostat as 'believing' it was cold on the basis of it's behaviour (turning the heating up) other than insulting your anthropocentric view that humans must have a whole series of special words to describe their states of being?

Right, so the 75% of philosophers who accept scientific Realism are not just mistaken, they're actually writing jibberish because such a view is not even defensible? That's quite a claim.