Science could converge with theism in the case of a true discovery of the existence of god. Theism, however, cannot converge with science, because theism is not on a path towards better knowledge where it could converge with science (ie "scientific" ways of rephrasing that "god did it" does not qualify as being on a path towards better knowledge). So, a possible convergence could only go in one direction: from science to theism. It is this openness which makes science great, and the argument against theism so much more convincing.

There is no category mistake here. The claim has ben made that we cannot be mistaken concerning our present experiences. But if fundamental physics demonstrates to us that "the present" is just an illusion, then "present experience" is itself a mistaken concept. — Metaphysician Undercover

Look, an experience is not a phenomenon in fundamental physics but biology. Is there any benefit in interpreting biological phenomena in terms of fundamental physics? I don't think so. Concepts such as the present, the past, apples, experiences etc. might be of little interest or "mistaken" even in descriptions of fundamental physics. Yet they clearly make sense in biology, or in the logic of ordinary language in which statements about the past are logically distinguishable from statements about the present or the future. For an experience which relies on the present features of an object in your visual field it matters little whether their presence refers to some absolute point in time or not.

:-} What did I just write?

It is arguably a category mistake to exploit problems of fundamental physics or worse even metaphysics in order to dismiss notions such as the present. Fundamental physics is typically as irrrelevant in descriptions of biology and the philosophy of perception as perception and natural kinds are irrelevant in fundamental physics. One thing that sets experiences apart from descriptions is that experiences are indexical, they occur in the here and now. You can be wrong about your descriptions of your experiences, as descriptions are representational, but your experiences can be neither right nor wrong, since they're facts, not representations of facts.

An architectural model of a building, or an astronomical model of the solar system, are examples of three dimensional symbol systems. What they symbolise in three dimensions is usually easier and less ambiguously symbolised in words. But unlike words the models show what they describe: ie they exemplify certain relations, proportions and so on. They also lack the syntactic and semantic disjointness of verbal descriptions, ie a white wall does not only symbolise white but what it looks like in a continuum of various light conditions.

yes, youre very right. but again ou are not criticizing this article. he argues that the quran does contain logic which cannot be rejected — dan1

I'm obviously criticizing the article when I'm pointing out that its abstract contains a lie about Hume.

Furthermore, most factual or fictional statements contain logic which can't be rejected. For example, saying that I like tea and sandwiches contains logic which can't be rejected (i.e. that there are such things as tea and sandwiches).

Since the article shows disrespect for facts, and purports to "argue" for what is trivially true but pointless, I'd say like Hume: to the flames.

I don't think you see what I'm getting at. Consider, for instance, an individual or a community coming to regard the scientific method itself as authoritative. We might explain our former embrace of what now looks to us like superstition or prejudice in terms of wishful thinking or an irrational/natural trust of our parents or heritage. — R-13

It was neither wishful, superstitious, nor irrational, to believe that Pluto was a planet prior the formal definition of 'planet'.

..the move away from God is probably more related to human technology and the confidence and abundance that came with it (an "emotional" argument)... — R-13

What's emotional about concluding that sanitation technology is more efficient than prayer?

Essentially, I'm suggesting that human thinking is not cold calculation, although it includes cold calculation in pursuit of that which it desires. — R-13

But who suggests that human thinking would be cold calculation?

For emotional reasons we embraced now-questionable axioms or inferences. — R-13

That's an odd claim.

Pluto, for instance, used to be a now-questionable 'planet'. Not because of "emotional reasons" but a convention to call such celestial bodies planets. But in 2006 the term 'planet' was formally defined (which it wasn't previously). Pluto and the like were thus re-defined as 'dwarf-planets'.

few who identify with philosophy as a virtuous pursuit are eager to consciously "lie" to themselves or others. — R-13

To change one's opinion is not to lie.

bias is increased by the threat of humiliation or loss of status. — R-13

One effect of thought is that it tends to change one's opinion along the way, so I don't believe that bias is increased for a thinker to remain entrenched with his/her old opinions. But if you're a thinker at some authoritarian work place, a doctrinarian school, or group, then you typically risk being humiliated or losing your status. Bertrand knows why:

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. — Bertrand Russell (Why Men Fight, 1916)

But in my view, language (and reasoning) is (ultimately) necessarily circular. — numberjohnny5

That's weird. If language and reasoning would be circular, then words would be meaningless (e.g. 'food' would not refer to edible things in the world but only other words), and all reasoning would be invalid.

Regarding Quine and analyticity: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic-synthetic/

Science is overrated and religion is underestimated — TheMadFool

So what would be examples of medicine being overrated and prayer underestimated?

What's the heading or direction of the world when the distance between its galaxies is expanding?

... If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. — David Hume (Enquiry, 12)

That's a skeptic view of the content of some books or metaphysical claims, not reality.

Some people change opinion, philosophers even, when truth matters more than the appearance or reputation of being right. Entrenchment in public debates, however, is sociological, a matter of defending positions, without giving them the benefit of doubt, and regardless of whether they're true.

To believe in something is to believe, for example, that for every effect there must be a cause. But is that ietsism? Or is ietsism to be covertly religious/mystic?

Religious people refer to the alleged words of some authority, whose existence is unverifiable, whereas philosophers refer to the explanatory power of argument. Science additionally refers to tests or the best current explanations. There is little or no explanatory power in referring to the will or capacity of a god. That's a major difference.

Unsurprisingly likes are wanted by those for whom the resposes of people are more interesting than the matters discussed, e.g. trolls and pop psychologists.

Yes. In the vein of Searle, who was a student of Austin.

A humean impression is the old version of sense-data. But sense-data is ad-hoc, it does not really exist.

Once you assume that perception would produce a percept or sense-datum the object of perception will certainly seem representational, just like a thought, belief or statement. Hence the need to quickly sweep the percept under the rug, it simply disappears and is replaced by a thought.

But the assumption is false, there exists no such thing as a percept, the idea is completely ad-hoc. See, for exmple, Austin's Sense and Sensibilia (1962) in which he pulls apart various sense-data theories. We can also compare some of the properties that set objects of perception apart from representative thoughts.

Unlike thoughts and beliefs about objects, perceived objects typically change in a continuous flow as they are being perceived. They're changing in the here and now, and the perceiver can't simply detach what s/he perceives, nor reinterpret it by will power. Moreover, objects of perception don't have the disjoint syntax of language, such as in statements or descriptions.

It seems fairly clear to me that perception is one counter example to the claim that the mind would be representational.

since the original percept itself is no longer present — aletheist

Hold it. Did you not see objects and states of affairs after all but some percept that disappears?

perceptual judgment, the involuntary (i.e., acritical) representation of the percept in thought — aletheist

It is not your judgements that you perceive but objects and states of affairs. Otherwise you would never see the latter, only your own figments of mind, which could then only "represent" eachother.

If the mind is required or constituitive for beliefs, statements, and perceptions, then it is just too selective and misleading to claim that the mind is representative. Perceptions are not representative, and therefore there is a part of the mind which is not representative. The experience of an object that one perceives does not represent or symbolize some other non-perceptible object; the experience is the presentation of the object that you perceive.

Only A1's death come with a hope. — Cavacava

Don't you mean consolation? Talk of hope or forgiveness seems to already assume a god, yet one may find consolation in a variety of ways: e.g. in knowledge, beauty, melancholy etc.. Religion does not have monopoly on consolation.

Whence the need to decide whether to blindly believe in god? Priests who exploit people's fear of death should be put in jail, imo.

if everything actually is futile, ... then it would be futile to ask "is it all futile?" — intrapersona

So the question is not genuine.

Peer pressure, politics etc. might increase the likelihood that people make judgements based on false beliefs (or opportunism regardless of the belief).

Inequity is wrong, because that's the meaning of inequity.

Merry xmas, believers, happy holidays, thinkers :))

Flying to somewhere in Africa, Central America, Nepal, Siberia, wherever, to drive around, camp, photograph, and so on isn't helping wild animals. — Bitter Crank

We should not selectively look at the flying, driving, and camping when the published films produce acquaintance, knowledge and empathy towards wild animals. If we'd only see Jaws, and other films that exploit our ignorance or selectively show wild animals as monsters, then the situation would be worse for the animals, and there would be little interest to fund organisations who work for animals' rights, preservation and so on. Urban populations would have no clue of the relation between their consumption and the fate of wild animals.

Nowadays we can see films of the lives of animals in their natural habitat, so the zoo has little reason to capture and lock up animals in cages just to show them to people. The zoo is, however, justified as an institution for education, research, and preservation.

It seems to me that an elementary particle is also a compound of the particle plus some property that it has. Or is that just a property of language imposed on the thing described?

'all things which have no matter are without qualification essentially unities.' Things with matter are however inescapably matter/form. — mcdoodle

Are there unities without parts?

The higher order reality has modified the lower order constituent. — Wayfarer

Interesting. So, could an elementary particle exist without having any real properties by itself but getting properties from other things?

Anything which is simple, not compound. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is an example of an existing object which is anything and simple, not compound?

What is an example of an existing object without parts?

Universals are properties and relations of things. For example, when you identify three things, you may also identify a fourth, such as the sum of the three, or a relation between them which has the shape of a triangle. That's not an approximation of some idea of a perfect triangle but a relation which exists independely of ideas. Its ontological status is that of the things: without three things there is neither their sum nor their relation.

We'd vote for a destroyer of the world if it meant more titties and beer prior destruction.

Applied logic made more sense to me than symbolic, but they're both formal. Informal logic seems to be a controversial term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_logic

Skepticism arises from the dubious assumption that we'd never see the real world, only our own impressions, ideas, or sensed "data". Too many thinkers have been taking that assumption for granted.

. . not logical in the sense of formal logic or deductive inference, but rather logical in the wider sense that it is something which can be understood by way of reasoning. — Moliere

What is there to understand, by way of reasoning, in the many unreasonable injustices which partly characterize the human condition?

I don't know whether the ability to recognise something requires intuition or insight. To intuit, or see, are modes of perception, and what sets the intentional features of the entailment relation that you intuit might just be the present brute reality of the relation. For example, a sea urchin hardly intuits anything (it has no brain), yet acts as if it would intuit the entailment of present predators (e.g. scoops up gravel to hide).

Well, I suppose one could identify entailment (say, as a recognizable pattern, possibility, or state of affairs) regardless of insight on what entails or why. An ability to identify the relation is sufficient.

Insight, or rhetorical reason, which precedes the argument that entails. Like a skill that one acquires which enables identification of entailment.