Comments

  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    Do you believe it? — Corvus

    Of course not. How could I believe something contrary?
    MoK

    Many things in life is contrary, but people believe them. Being contrary doesn't mean that you cannot believe it. Remember belief can be irrational, and psychological.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    I think you are talking about the conscience that the majority of people agree with it. The conscience is however not a fact.MoK
    Conscience is your psychological state of feeling guilt when doing morally wrong things.  It is not an agreement. Morality is based on the moral code.  Moral code is in the form of "Do this" or "Don't do this". 

    Morality is about whether an action is right or wrong. The point is that one needs a fact to realize this. There are however no facts when it comes to morality. Therefore, the morality is not objective.MoK
    Morality is a subject discussing what is morally right or wrong acts, principles, and the basis for the judgements of morally right and good actions of humans. You don't need facts. Maybe you need facts for the social science topics.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    I want to discuss two things: 1) Morality is not objectiveMoK
    There are definitely the objective morality for sure. For example, harming others is morally wrong. No one in any corner of the universe would agree that is morally right.

    2) Believing in god does not resolve moral conflicts.MoK
    Of course not. Believing itself has little do with morality. Morality is about your actions, not beliefs.

    However, there are many religious countries in the world, whose moral values are based on their God's teachings. They would say, X is morally right, because the God has said so.

    So it depends on which religion you are talking about. Even in Christian religion some of the biblical doctrines are still basis for morality such as love your neighbors, treat others as you want to get treated etc.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    I think all Christians believe that this verse is not a metaphor.MoK
    I am not sure who all the Christians are. And are all the Christians same in their beliefs? Are all the Christians the genuine Christians? There might be folks who claim to be the Christians but turn out to be some business minded folks trying to make money off the followers. Who knows? Are you a Christian yourself? What do you feel about this point?

    They believe that Jesus died on the Cross and rose from death.MoK
    Do you believe it?

    This verse together with other verses is paradoxical though.MoK
    Paradoxical is used for the puzzles or linguistic problems which have no rational explanation for its contradiction.  For example, this sentence is false.  It is true if it is false, and false if it is true.  

    Absurdity is the description for the inexplicable situation from reality.  It is difficult to understand, but it is still possible to make inference and assumptions on the matter.

     The situation in the Bible is absurd, but not paradoxical.  It can be interpreted and explained in some theological way, although it might not be rational as such, and it could be a metaphor.  Or maybe God had his own ideas of doing things which human reason cannot decipher.

    Due to the circumstantial situation of the stories in the Bible, no inference is right or wrong against them.  One can accept the interpretation as reasonable or unreasonable on the basis of one's point of view.  Does it make sense?
  • On religion and suffering
    Suffering, and its inherent sacrifice, insinuates itself between complacency and affirmation (I am reminded of Dickinson's poem I Heard a Fly Buzz), and one simply cannot ignore it any more. It now becomes a meta-suffering addressed by a meta-question of its existence. Religion takes its first step.Astrophel

    Isn't Religion supposed to ease the human suffering? Or is human suffering the part of or requirement for religion?
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    Again, God's intervention is not the subject of this thread.MoK

    OK, you are just wanting to discuss about the morality of humans i.e.
    humans can also know moral facts if there are any known by God.MoK
    :chin:

    Thanks for your clarification.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    Perhaps, He was experiencing the Father within Him. Most scholars think that this verse together with others is an indication that God is trion.MoK
    :ok:

    He said on the Cross: "My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?". How could He be abandoned if He and God are one?MoK
    Going back to the OP, I wonder if the saying was a metaphor for depicting the absurdity in life on earth.

    Not just for him, but all the lives facing the suffering of existence i.e. the inevitable old age, illness and death while living. Recall we are thrown into the world without our knowledge, agreement or desire by sheer absurdity according to Heidegger?

    Absurdity is also the critical concept in some Existentialism heralded by Kierkeggard, Heidegger and Camus for the beings.

    Religious beliefs would only be upgraded into faith when one leaps into the unseen and unknown abyss into God which is beyond rational knowledge in the religious existentialism.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    Yes, there is a verse in the Bible. John 14:11: Believe me, when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.MoK

    Cool. How did he know the Father was in him, and what does it mean by the Father was in him?
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    I am arguing that humans can also know moral facts if there are any known by God.MoK
    You are still maintaining God's involvement in morality after claiming it was not your main point.

    Anyhow I think God if we accept Him as a moral agent would care to intervene in human affairs.MoK
    Here as well. I am sure there are many sayings by God, which speaks on morality in the Bible. I am not familiar with the Bible, but just inferring.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    That is not the point of my discussion in this thread.MoK

    You started the OP with "
    God is believed to be omniscient. This means that God knows all moral facts (by moral facts I mean a set of facts that rightness and wrongness of an action can be derived from) if there are any.MoK
    , hence it sounded like God's intervention on morality was highly significant factor in the thread.
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    God is believed to be omniscient. This means that God knows all moral facts (by moral facts I mean a set of facts that rightness and wrongness of an action can be derived from) if there are any.MoK

    Even if we presume God is omniscient and know all the moral facts, but does he care or intervene on every human affairs and events happenings in the world?
  • Can we record human experience?
    Now, if we actually are able to parameterize the experience, we might just be able to recreate and capture the human experience. Essentially, you will be able to step-in your past, re-experience those moments. We might just be able to time travel in the past, only to observe though.

    Do you think this is possible?
    Ayush Jain

    It wouldn't be possible in reality. Maybe it could be recorded in films, and virtual reality settings, and one could try to replicate a certain experience of someone or yours, but it would still not be the lived experience of actual reality. The hard fact in reality is that no one can go back to the past.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    How could He be abandoned if He and God are one?MoK

    Maybe he was not aware of the possibility that he and God were one? Is there any saying in the Bible that he knew that he and God are one?

    What does it mean by "are one"? That sounds a bit unclear.
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    Of course some math are found from the already established axioms and theorems via deduction.
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    To abstract means to 'take from'; to lift the math from the reality.EnPassant

    It seems the other way around i.e. from the reality, math is found, and applied back to the reality for the descriptions.
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    What about Combinatorics, Group theory, Set theory, Boolean algebra etc.?
    The world is exactly the way these disciplines describe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorics
    EnPassant

    All these are the theories of Math. Theory means human abstract thinking on the world phenomenon, objects and events.

    The world has been existing long and far before the first appearance of life on earth, and any of the theories were invented by the human abstract thinking.
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    When matter and anti matter collide they are transformed into pure energy.EnPassant
    "collide" is motion.

    It is only possible to do this if reality is intrinsically mathematical.EnPassant
    They could have divided it by other numbers, and it would have worked fine. Reality is describable with mathematics, but reality is not mathematical. Mathe is a language, which numbers, formulas and equations are its alphabets, words and sentences.
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    Thanks mate. My point was that methodology of your knowledge and claims are as important as the knowledge itself. No worries. Hope we can continue discussions in some other topics in the future. All the best.
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    I am talking with MoK, not with Google. I know exactly what MoK has been saying on every points. I don't need to go to Google. I just pointed on some points which are not clear which MoK was addressing, and asked how "MoK" thinks on them, not what Google thinks, or the article says.
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    I am not talking about Google but scientific articles published that you can find using Googling. Do you believe in science?MoK

    Remember you asked me to Google? That's why I gave you the reason why I don't Google.

    Well, Science. Of course I do believe in Science, but only the parts which is reasonable and making sense. If it is not reasonable or shady in their claims, then it must be put onto the table of the philosophical investigations, before accepting it.

    You shouldn't believe in science as a whole, just because it says "science". That would be then religious beliefs you are having. Bear in mind, in the ancient times, science and religion were one subject.

    I am not interested in what the popular media services saying unless they were really assisting in solving critical problems. I would be rather more interested in what each individual as a person thinks on the issues with his / her own mind. I believe that is the philosophical methodology and principle.
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    If you spent a little time googling then you could find many scientific articles on the topic.MoK

    Sure, but I try to think on them by myself reading the classic philosophical books. Google and A.I. parrots can be ok at times for finding best price for things or catching up with the news and weather forecasts.

    But most importantly, blindly accepting the information from the popular media services whatever they throw to folks, and presenting them as absolute truths is not a good way doing philosophy in principle.

    I am not saying "don't use them", but just saying, if you chose to use them, then back them up with concrete evidence. :)
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    There are no problems here. You can google it yourself.MoK
    Google, all the ChatBots and AI parrots are not good source for knowledge. Most of the times, they talk nonsense. I don't use them at all.

    Yes. It could be lighter or darker though.MoK
    Please show us the photo evidence of the different images in the cortex for lighter and darker reds which are from the electromagnetic stimulation, and the ones from the red rose.

    Yes.MoK
    With whom were the replicating experiments carried out? Please submit all the names and the details of the results which the experiments have been conducted to support your claims, from which the validity of the claims would be judged and accepted, or thrown out as unfounded claims.
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    Matter is energy. When energy 'condenses' into a particular pattern it forms an object; a hydrogen atom, a chair, a table.EnPassant
    Matter itself is not energy. Matter combined with motion is energy.

    Ultimately time is a mathematical system. All mathematical systems are time because they describe how mathematical objects behave. How does the graph of a cubic equation change? It changes according to the algebra of the cubic equation. Algebra is mathematical time.EnPassant
    When EnPassant is born, he is 0 year old. When he became 40 years old, he says he is 40 years old. What does it mean? It means that EnPassant has lived the duration of the Earth has rotated around the Sun for 40 times. That is all. That is what time is. They divided 1 year into 12 months, 1 months into 30 or 31 days, and 1 day into 24 hours so on. Math doesn't describe anything. Humans do using numbers and time.
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    The definition of time as change is not satisfactory.EnPassant
    My definition of time, if you asked me, is again an abstract concept.   
    There is no physical time in reality.  There are only motions and changes.  We apply the concept of time to measure the duration and intervals of the motions and changes.

    Think of the origin of time, where it came from.  It came from the cultural contract made of the idea and observation on the risings and settings of the sun.

    If the Earth stopped rotating the Sun, there would be no days, months and years.  There will be no hours and minutes and seconds without the days.

    The Chinese folks use the changing Moon as the criteria of measuring their time.  It is called the Moon Calendar.

    Outside of the Solar system, there is no time that you could measure or observe.  Perhaps you could carry some electronic device for measuring time, and tell time based on the Earth time system, if you were traveling into some galaxies.  But it is not some absolute time originated from the whole universe.  It would still be measurements of intervals and duration based on the time contract based on the solar rotation of the Earth around the Sun programmed into the electronic clock.

    That is, it is the logic of change. Relativity describes physical time. Change happens according to a certain mathematical pattern. This pattern is time. Mathematics is also a pattern and a time order. It is mathematical time or abstract time.EnPassant
    Could you elaborate further? What do you mean by "logic of change"? How does relativity describe physical time? What do you mean by mathematical pattern? Mathematical time? What are they in real life examples?
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    Oh ha ha! You made a little joke about my handle! No one ever did that before; I should have thought about that when I chose the label.unenlightened

    I am delighted that you got the joke. :nerd:
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    I already mentioned that one can create the hallucination of seeing red by stimulating a person's visual cortex with the electromagnetic field. Therefore, any visual experience is created in the visual cortex.MoK
    Sure you did. However, it doesn't quite explain why you want to say the rose looks red, when it is red.

    can create the hallucination of seeing red by stimulating a person's visual cortex with the electromagnetic field. Therefore, any visual experience is created in the visual cortex.MoK
    This sounds like some scientific experiment report, but it sounds mysterious and has some problems to clarify.

    Is the redness created by stimulating a person's visual cortex with the electromagnetic field, the same redness of the rose? Are all redness are the same redness? If the experimental creation of redness was possible to "a person", could the result be replicated with all other folks on earth? Or could it have been just one off event by chance?
  • Is the number 1 a cause of the number 2?
    Infinity is all numbers together. The whole set, be it Aleph Null or higher.
    Aleph Null is the natural numbers in an infinite set. Aleph One may be the set of real numbers, but see The Continuum Hypothesis.
    EnPassant

    Isn't Aleph Null inaccessible, which is an ambiguity? All numbers are concepts i.e. ideas in human mind. They don't exist in the reality. Well they could exist, but not in the same way as the chairs and tables exist.

    All events in the whole universe happens in time i.e. in order. But number operations don't happen in time order. They happen in the conceptual world, which is devoid of time.
    Hence 5+7 =12, 7+5=12, the order of the events don't matter coming to the answers or results.
    Even in the formal logic a ^ b = b ^ a

    But think of the real life events.
    1) Socrates drank the poison, and Socrates died.
    2) Socrates died, and Socrates drank the poison.

    2) doesn't make sense, and is not equivalent to 1) in the meaning.

    What does it tell you? Numbers are concepts, and math operations happen in the conceptual world, not in the real world. Infinity is a concept, which means it doesn't have end.
  • How can one know the ultimate truth about reality?
    Here is a good place to start for philosophical discussions about the concept of the Ultimate. It's not perfect, but it's something:

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-ultimates/
    Arcane Sandwich

    This seems to be a great article on the topic. The majority of the articles in the SEP seems to be high quality in its contents. I shall read it up, and get back to you if there are any points to clarify or discuss. Thank you for the link.
  • How do you know the Earth is round?
    So in the end, we could say that the theory of Earth being ellipsoid is far more useful to us than the theory that the Earth is flat. And since we can even prove that the Earth isn't flat, but an ellipsoid, the theory of it being flat can be said to be simply false.ssu

    For vast majority of the ordinary folks wouldn't care, if the Earth was round or flat. They are busy keep leading their daily lives I would imagine. It would only matter to the rocket sciences folks or world travelers, and the pilots ... really really fraction of the folks would care about the roundness of flatness of the Earth. Hence your claim above seems coming from prejudice and
    exaggeration.

    Again, the OP is a simple question. How do we know it is round? You don't need much scientific theories to explain the answers as you would on the radio waves, relativity theories or some QM topics.

    And most importantly, no one was claiming the Earth was flat in this thread I believe. I never claimed it is flat or round, hence it is odd to ciriticise or talk down on the folks who believe in the flat Earth.
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    Again your expression equivocates;unenlightened

    You must understand that the way we capture the meaning of the world is largely via semantic. If you didn't have semantic, then you will no longer understand the way world works and how it is structured. I was trying to clarify rather than equivocate, but obviously you seem to be unenlightened on the semantics.
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    This is already demonstrated to you.MoK

    Of course, but my question was why do you want to say the red rose looks red, instead of saying the rose is red? Isn't the reason that you say the rose looks red is because it is red?
  • p and "I think p"
    The problem is that Material Logic is an inductive logic, where the conclusion may be likely but not certain

    Premise 1: The sun has risen every day for the past thousand years.
    Conclusion: The sun will rise tomorrow.

    Formal vs. Material Logic: A Comparative Analysis


    Even Material Logic cannot tell us the truth about the world.
    RussellA

    I am not sure if that web site's articles are all high quality in its contents.  I have very little faith on most of the internet sites (not all !!) information supplied via the links.  Because anyone can go and set up internet sites like that, and write up whatever they feel like claiming what they imagine is true.

    For material logic, they are not all 100% inductive logic.  I will need to consult my logic book on the details, and will get back on that.

    For telling about the world, inductive logic is good enough.  It is not about the absolute truth, but it is about the probability of the truth, and you can see what is high probabilities and what are low probabilities of the truth, and they are good guidance for our knowledge.

    At the end of the day, there is no one in this world who can see the world 100%.  Most of them may see the world perhaps less than 1 or 2% in their life or even less than that.   Hence why worry about inductive logic cannot tell everything about the world?   
  • p and "I think p"
    A belief is true if it corresponds with what exists in a mind-independent world.
    The insurmountable problem is how can the mind know about a world that is independent of the mind.
    Therefore, truth about a mind-independent world is unknowable
    Therefore, knowledge about a mind-independent world is impossible.

    However, this is why we have axioms in logic, science and mathematics and hypotheses in general life.
    RussellA

    Ok, all seems a lot better making sense now. But formal logic cannot tell you truth about the world. Formal logic can only tell you if the axiomatic formulas are valid or not.

    For analysing truth of the world, you need to use material logic i.e. the logic which studies on the contents of the statement, propositions and terms rather than the movements of the inferences which formal logic is about.

    Remember validity is not truth. Validity just means the connected formulas (statements) are derived from the premises. Many folks here seem to misunderstand validity as truth, and go on about the formal logic for finding truth of the reality. It is always failure and misunderstanding in the results. Some of them also seem to think formal logic is the only logic there is to use. No, there are 100s of different alternative logics in use.

    Formal logic is made for mathematical problems, not the world problems.
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    Couldn't we agree that red rose is not red but it just looks red?MoK

    Yes, I am sure we can come to some agreement. But there are a few more points to clarify here. You say you want to say that the roses look red. But they are not red. I still don't agree.

    Why do you say they look red? What is the rational ground for saying the roses look red? Isn't it because they are the red roses? Why are they red roses? Isn't it because they have a set of properties which make them look red? Isn't that what redness means?
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    No, I would say the whole world looks brown, not the whole world is brown. You are equivocating here how things look and how things are, which is exactly what the language is distinguishing. :yikes:unenlightened

    It was your argument claiming that because the covid patients smell something burning when there is nothing burning, the burning smell must be in our nose.

    You seem to agree with the fact that there was nothing burning around the covid patients in reality. It was their damaged sensory organs causing the burning smell. The world is still intact with no changes in its smelling whether the covid folks can smell something burning or not.

    Likewise, the world exists with no colour changes, whether you wore brown sunglasses or not.

    The truth here is that the properties of the objects in the world remain the same, even if your sensory organs get damaged or malfunction. Would you not agree?
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    I think we are on the same page if you agree that a red rose is not red. By this, I mean that redness is not a property of a rose.MoK

    Our judgements and expressions are also based on the customs, traditions and linguistic phenomenon. We call red roses red, and it is the universally accepted truth, whether one agrees or not.
  • How can one know the ultimate truth about reality?
    ultimate truth? — Corvus


    Probably it is the Theory of Everything - The Basis of All. I'd say it is the quantum 'vacuum'.
    PoeticUniverse

    Why are they the ultimate truth?
  • Beauty and ugliness are intrinsic features of our experiences
    Yes, a red rose has a set of properties that make it look red.MoK

    Well, that is my point. Without that set of properties in the roses, red roses will not look red at all. Therefore it is not our brains, which construct the redness, but it is the roses which excite our brains to see the redness.
  • How do you know the Earth is round?
    Your vision can be deceiving. You aren't using the scientific method if you just assume what you see is true. This is the kind of thinking that actually empiricists like Bacon were against in the first place. Me with my bad eyesight cannot see all the stars in the sky, especially not any galaxies or black holes or what ever. It's not a scientific argument to say that what is in the night sky is only the things I myself can see.ssu

    Yes, there is possibility of deceiving in perception. You are right. However, on the issue of how the Earth looks, and how do you know it looks round, it is a straight process. The fact is that everyone is on the Earth somewhere, so it really depends how the folks see the Earth, and how it appears to them.

    It would be nonsense to say the Earth is actually shape of a banana, because of blah blah blah 1000 pages of so called scientific theories, and would be absurd to brand everyone who don't believe in that theory as dumb and idiots.

    When the question is how X looks, one can only answer in terms of how it appears to his / her vision directly from real time observations, and that is all one can do.

    Another point here is that, the question is not whether the Earth is round or flat, but it is asking how do we know it is round. In this case, it makes sense to explain how folks have arrived at their knowledge on the shape of the Earth, rather than screaming and shouting the Earth is round, and everyone who says otherwise are all dumb and mad. This claim is missing the point of the OP, and being too emotional on the trivial points for no reason, it seems.