I think you can still do good philosophy without providing a definition for literally everything, but when controversial terms and issues come up, then yes everyone could benefit from trying to clarify their thoughts by coming up with definitions. — Uber

So should it be compulsory for an OP to provide his/her definition of a word used in his/her opening statements when requested? And if so, would it be benificial to add such a rule to the site guidelines?

Rather than argue over the meaning of "animal", we can just argue over whether animals have rights -- just to use your example you opened with. And we can clarify exactly what we mean by said terms as we go along, just as we would have to even when setting out our terms from the start. — Moliere

My point is that you can't argue sensibly over wether animals have rights, as long as it's not clear what the word animals refers to. In said example I wasn't arguing over the meaning of the word 'animal', I was asking what the OP meant by it, and even after 30 pages of comments he still hasn't answered me.

In a sense it doesn't matter what the definition of a word is as long as it is understood. The only point in providing or asking for meaning is to clarify usage, and once that is understood then the other possible uses a word can be put to are not relevant. — Moliere

Agree, but if I don't know what the speakers definition is, and I ask for it, he/she should provide it, rather than talk over it. I merely argued that the way he used the word 'animal' was indicative enoug for me to conclude that he was applieng a different definition on the word, than the definition I'm familiar with, hence I asked for his definition, wich to my frustration he/she refuses to provide. Wich is why i started this thread, since that wasn't the only occasion where someone refused to provide a definition for a word he/she used in a statement when I asked for one since I didn't know what definition was intended.

In the animal utopia farm, there's no decision any animal could make that would allow them to live longer. They would all die whenever they become useless to the person exploiting them for food. Such as, a hen that can not longer lay eggs. That hen becomes useless, so off she goes to get her throat slit. — chatterbears

Nonsense, in the animal utopia farm I could also choose to wait with killing and eating the animal till it reaches old age, and it starts suffering from worn out joints. By killing the animal then I prevent it suffering alot of pain from walking about with worn out joints. You are conflating current practices you've witnessed with the suggested idea.

It is not considered part of the plant. That is why it is called a fruit, as it does no harm to the plant if picked properly. It is not advisable for teenagers and younger children to have strictly adhere to a fruit diet, but it is definitely doable and sustainable for everyone else. Fruits contain enough sugar and fats to survive. Why would I need to plant all of them? All I need to do is ensure the survival of some of the seeds and the plants lineage is unharmed. Not all plants are guaranteed reproduction now and every seed doesn't need to germinate. Just as not every human gamete is protected or guaranteed reproductive success. — yatagarasu

Following this logic it would also be ok to eat eggs, especially when unfertillized. Most fruits hardly contain any fat or protein apart from the seeds. And we should just let young childred die or what are they supposed to eat? Any idea how much fruit one has to eat in order to get to those 5000 kcal a day? 1 kg of apples has about 540 kcal. So one needs to eat almost 5 kg of apples a day to just get the calories needed. However 1kg of apples only has 4 gram protein, so even when eat 5 kg, you only consumed 20 gram protein, where you need at least 50 gram a day in a 1500 kcal diet.
Humans need about 2,2 gram protein per kg fatfree bodymass a day. So a 110 kg guy with 10% fat tissue needs about 220 gram protein a day. If only eat apples he needs to consume about 50 kg apples a day. but then one would have 10 times the calory intake needed. So what fruit diet are you suggesting?

None of them are okay to kill for food. They have a right to live. Accidents are accidents. (see deer example), that is not intentional killing, which is the moral dilemma here. By sessile I assume you mean like sponges and coral? If that is the case then I would say they fit into the same category as other animals. If it lives, you shouldn't kill it to eat it, unless it is unavoidable (see bacterium/fungi). — yatagarasu

Sponges and coral are sessile, however they still are multicelled organisms. I was talking about single celled sessile animals like the Vorticellidae.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorticella),
Gametes are living too, they just happen to be the haploid lifephase of a haplo/diplont organism. The 'if it lives, you shouldn't kill it to eat it" applies to eating fruit as well if you don't take out all the seeds and plant them. One can only prevent killing for food when scavenging, wich just means you let someone/something else do the killing for you, quite likely more brutal to the killed individue than had you killed it yourself.

I can use the same idea, while still believing it within myself to be true of my character, and alter the sentence thus: "A minimum of two people involved in a discussion should at least agree on the definition of certain words before heading too far into a conversation, of maybe a particular matter", or, "A minimum of two people involved in a discussion should at least agree on the definition of certain words before heading too far into the discussion."

Does this change anything with regard to your response? — Dalai Dahmer

Yes, as these two are formulated, the discussion doesn't seem to change into a debate. To me there is a great difference between the two, Discussion means people are talking to each other, debate means people don't talk to each other but rather to their shared audience in order to get the more of the audience on their hands.
Logical fallacies are very common in debates (see election debates for this if you don't believe me) but have no place in discussions. resulting in that discussions are about truth finding, where debates are about popularity. I hate logica fallacies being made in debates in order to become more popular to a crowd. And the worst thing is, many in the crowd accept such arguments as a valid logical argument while they are obviously fallacious. Resulting in those people having more problems participating in actual discussions.

Hmm. I thought those things were implied. For any discussion, participants need to agree on the definitions of the terms used. Philosophical discussions are different from other types of discussions in the terms that are used and how they are defined. Philosophy itself is about questioning what we take for granted, which could be the definitions we use. — Harry Hindu

They were implied as you thought, however, in order to excell I should have been more explicit about them in my opening statement, since it wasn't that obvious to everyone. Apart from that we are in agreement.

Not if you plant the seeds. It is possible to survive on fruit alone, it is just more difficult ( and not advisable for young people ). — yatagarasu

My main point is you still eat (part of) the plant, so it's not possible to survive without eating plants as you previously stated. It may be possible to live on fruit alone for a while, but not for a full human life. especially not if living in colder climates or doing hard labor requiring over 5000 kcal a day.
Besides, when is the last time you picked off all seeds of a strawberry and planted them? It may be possible, but even for most vegans too unpractical to be practicing all the time.

Huh. Thought about this for a while. Consulted vegan friends and they, including myself, couldn't find anything wrong with eating an animal that died of natural causes or was killed unintentionally. I guess it's okay, you would just be hard pressed to find a lot of meat this way, not to mention that eating animals at old age is pretty unappetizing (from what I've heard). — yatagarasu

Glad we can at least agree on that part. So it's not wether the act of eating meat that is immoral but it's about wether the act of killing an animal in order to eat it is immoral. Seeing you are sensible about this one, perhaps you can come up with an answer on where to draw the line between wich animals are okay kill for food and wich aren't. Assuming you have no problem with killing single celled sessile animals that is. They don't provide meat, but they can still be quite nutricious, and will be killed in the process of digesting. (if you do have a problem with digesting single celled animals, I wonder how you prevent yourself from doing so, since they can't be seen without using a microscope)

You can avoid eating plants or animals but still survive if you wanted to — yatagarasu

I never claimed that. I said humans can survive on fruit. — yatagarasu

If you eat fruit you eat plant. You may not be killing the plant for it (though you are 'killing' the plants offspring in the fruit). Even if it were possible for humans to survive on eating fruit alone.

No, because eating the deer is intentional making it wrong. — yatagarasu

Why is eating the deer wrong if it doesn't cause any additional suffering for the deer? I should let the flies eat it instead because that's the moral thing to do? why is letting the flies eat it more moral than eating it myself?

If i eat fruit the eating of it is intentional as well, following that logic, eating fruit is just as immoral.

Every single one of these threads I have made someone jumps out and goes, "Oh it is not a paradox, therefore paradox resolved." It gets old and I get tired of going back and forth on that point. I mean it is actually moot whether it is officially a paradox or not, the conundrum doesn't fade away just because someone decided not to call it a paradox. So it is easier just to tell people it widely recognized as a paradox, or something along those lines and I am not lying, these are well known paradoxes.

So call it an appeal to authority if you like. I don't really think it falls as neatly in those lines as you do, but either way it is an effective approach to move the discussion off a moot line of discussion. — Jeremiah

I can understand your frustration about this, but please don't box me into that group on forehand. The fact that I disagreed with an argument used doesn't nessesarily mean I disagree with it's conclusion. If I disagree with a conclusion, I'll provide an argument leading to a different conclusion.

I can also understand why you do it. However in my opinion this is a debating tactic, wich has no place in discussions. On the other hand, it's quite possible that the persons you usually use this tactic on made a comment that has no place in a discussion either, so I can understand why you choose to do so.
If you can get away with it, it's usually a sign the person you used it to wasn't discussing either, but instead was debating. So I would say that its effective in a debate, but has no place in a discussion. Though of course, when having people in your discussion that don't know how to discuss and are debating instead, it can be an easy tool to get rid of them.
Personally I prefer to stick to the argument, as long as they don't provide actual counter arguments, but come up with a fallacy instead, I merely point out the fallacy rather than trump it with another fallacy. But again, if it works for you, fine, just don't try it on me, I resent debates, I love discussions.

Now lets get back to the barber paradox. The way you formulated it, it seems to have a backdoor.

The town barber, who is a man, shaves exactly every man in the town who does not shave himself.

Does the barber shave himself? — Jeremiah

The backdoor lies in that it's not clear wether the 'in the town' part refers to that the shaving happens in town, or that it refers to the men living in the town. So to close it, i suggest either a formulation like :

"The town barber, who is a man who never leaves town, shaves exactly every man in the town who does not shave himself."

or

"The town barber, who is a man, shaves exactly every man living in the town who does not shave himself."

Otherwise "the barber shaves himself when out of town" seems to be a valid solution. The second formulation isn't airtight either though, since the town barber could be someone living in another town.

What occurs to me is that in a given discussion, there's no immediate need to pursue definitions ad infinitum. You define until you reach agreement. If what you agreed on later raises issues, you define again.

A few different ways to look at this:
(a) there must be common ground to have a discussion at all;
(b) to explain your position to someone, you must put it in terms they understand;
(c) to convince someone of the <correctness, usefulness, whateverness> of your position, you must give them reasons and reasoning they'll accept. — Srap Tasmaner

agreed

Excellent OP and thread, Tom. — Harry Hindu

Thanks for the compliment, though if it was really excellent, I ought to have included what Srap Tasmaner pointed out here.

A minimum of two people involved in a discussion should at least agree on the definition of certain words before heading too far into a debate. — Dalai Dahmer

I agree that both parties should agree on the definition of certain words, wich is the main point for starting this thread. However, I dislike discussions derailing into debates.

Bizarrely, I understood that question without the need of you providing any definitions. What does that tell you?

Sure, sometimes certain key words could do with being given a definition if they're likely to cause a problem. But there's no need to take it to extremes. I found it pretty funny that you provided a definition for "discussing" and "definition".

Also, I think you unfairly dismissed unenlightened, who had a few good points. — Sapientia

It tells me you were already familiar enough with the words to be able to understand it without me providing the definitions of the words used.

Of course you are right that I may have overdone it abit, Though the point is, that if definitions are not given, and you get a comment to an OP's start asking to define a certain word since the commenter claims it's not clear to him/her what the OP meant by it, I consider it quite compulsory to provide the definition when asked for it.

unenlightened might have had a few good points. The problem is he/she starts out with stating he/she doesn't believe me. If there is no basic trust, there is no point in discussing anything. Now had he/she given a reasonable motivation on why he/she didn't believe me, we could have discussed that, but it was merely an unsubstanciated accusation, wich to me just equals slander, usually used in an attempt to poison the well. A fallacy common in debates, but wich has no place in discussions.
Secondly he/she was hijacking the topic, as I told him/her, further discussions on the subject of the eating animals thread belong there, not in this thread.
So what do you think was unfair about me dismissing him/her? Just the fact that he/she, next to at least two disingenious tactics, might have something of value to bring into the discussion? Possibly i missed out on some valuable insights, but I consider others here who keep their arguments void of slander attempts to be more deserving of my time.

So the butcher, the baker, the cobbler, the culter, the chef...don't have an aesthetic? — Cavacava

Ask the question in french and it's obvious they are more alike than different from each other.
artiste ou artisan? (artist or craftsman?)

I think this is only possible if force of these works reaches certain objective truths about the world that — Cavacava

I don't think art is mainly about objective truths, I think it's more about transcendent subjective truths.

I could. But I chose to respond here, because you used it as an example, and I think it is an example that plays against you. Arguing about what a vegan diet is would be a derailment of that thread. There is a history of usage in the context, that you ignore in favour of dictionary rigidity. And now you get all huffy. Ok dude, have your well defied discussion without me. — unenlightened

Thanks for admitting your attempt at hijacking my topic and confirming your attempts at poisoning the well, rather than responding to me in the propor thread.
Sure you can think whatever you want, but if you are too cowardly or not articulate enough to provide the argument on why you think that, I rather not hear from you at all.
I'm interested in well formulated compelling arguments, not in people shouting out their thoughts without being able to substanciate them with a reasonable argument. Especially not if they do so while attempting to hijack a topic. So I'm glad to hear you will stay out of them in the future.

(don't be surprised other people might get huffy too if you accuse them without providing any evidence for your probably false accusation, like you did here)

But the meaning of those terms has keep philosophers in heated debate for thousands of years. What is of value, how can value be measured, is value objective or subjective? Are ideas objects? Is what is rational anything other than a public language (like ethics and aesthetics)? The whole area of how a word can 'mean' anything objectively is, in some sense, what the whole of Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations' is about.

Anyway, the discussion I'm referring to is on the Math and Motive thread, though you'll have to get several pages in, it's really just a side-track. — Pseudonym

In general each of those words could be a thread of it's own of course. But you seemed to have understood what I meant with them in this thread clearly enoug. I took your asking for a definition on all those words as an example to demonstrate the conundrum we can get into if we don't share enough common ground. Did I misunderstood and were you instead making an actual request for the definition on all of those words?


(thanks for mentioning the title of the thread, I'll look into it later, too busy slapping trolls now)

I simply don't believe you are confused about the definition of 'animal' in relation to a vegan diet. — unenlightened

Nonsense, you could have responded in the propor thread to me asking for a definition on this, and I made a reasonable argument for asking so. You , nor the OP did any of such kind, nor express any unbelief to the validity or honest intend of the question in that thread. The thread is not closed, you can still do so.. but seeing you waited over 30 pages of comments to do so, I doubt you will, in wich case you actually proove my suspicions that you are just attempting to poison the well.

Secondly I did provide an argument on why I disbelieved pseudonym in that specific case, and you seem to be merely parroting my words while taking them out of context, without providing a reasonable context to replace it. You are being disingenious at best.

I may have been off on appeal to authority, but that is not a reason to sweep aside 100 years of history, especially when we are talking about language, if people have been calling it a paradox for over 100 years, guess what it is a paradox. — Jeremiah

I didn't object to the conclusion, I objected to the type of argument used. It's rather irrelevant how long people perceive something to be the case or not, what is relevant are the arguments used for or opposed. Now your first paradox we don't disagree on I think. The barber paradox could be more accurately formulated.

Also you forgot the link to the OED, which provided the definition of a paradox. Try reading it, as it turns out contradictions can be paradoxes. Is that the argument I made that you cut out? Was that what I was trying to say with the link? Because it is an authority. Appeal to authority, is not a reason to shrug off an valid authority. — Jeremiah

I didn't even question the authority in this case, so I didn't see any merits in adressing this, but it seemed someone else might have. Hence I objected to the appeal to authority, not it's conclusion. You were doing great untill you made this argument. I saw it as weakening your case, hence I objected.

I don't accept your authority on the argument of authority, guess that means you are wrong. — Jeremiah

Lol, you troll (at least for your sake I hope you were trolling). You are trying to substanciate your appeal to authority by refuting your unwarrented assumption of my appeal to authority. Now even if I made such an appeal, you still couldn't use your refusal of that to substanciate your appeal to authority. Two wrongs doesn't make a right.

Now I could provide the actual argument on why you shouldn't be appealing to authority, especially when said authority is questioned. But I think you already know (if I'm wrong about this, please say so and I'll provide the actual argument), you seem smart and educated enough on most instances, you are just abit sloppy/lazy on occasion, wich I like to point out when it happens, since you also seem to have the capabilities to understand me correctly. Perhaps I overestimated you though, time will tell.

Secondly you are conflating the conclusion with the type of argument used. I objected to the argument you used there, not to it's conclusion. It's most unfortunate you have this tendency, since otherwise you could have benefitted from my remarks to your posts to improve the formulations of your positions, instead of picking a fight with an ally.

So my advice, stop guessing, you have demonstrated your logic has more merits than your guesses.

You do realize argument from authority is only wrong if the authority is wrong. I think over 100 years of history is a very strong authority. — Jeremiah

Nonsense, argument from authority is wrong as long as one of the participants doesn't accept the authority of claimed authority by other(s). You ought to provide the actual argument, not appeal to the authority, especially if the authority gets questioned.

Having said that, personally I'm not fighting your paradox other than in my other post, wich if you read correctly substanciates the perceived paradox, but attempts to force you to improve on its formulation, not questions said authority.

You do realize this has been a recognized paradox since 1901? — Jeremiah

Argument from authority? really?

The town barber, who is a man, shaves exactly every man in the town who does not shave himself.

Does the barber shave himself? — Jeremiah

The barber either has a beard, or leaves town in order to get shaven wether or not he does it himself or visits a collegue, for sure he doesn't shave himself when in town.

I have to raise my hands in the air and admit I am guilty of same and will apply more caution with vague terms. — Marcus de Brun

As all of us have been at some point in our life, and probably will be again. We can only try to do better, and as a result we usually will do better, but I don't think any of us will ever reach perfection, since if we did, we wouldn't have anything left to strive for and then our lives would be meaningless. (I better stop here before I start hijacking my own topic)

What is your concept of the non-physical? — johnpetrovic

Anything that is not within the defintion of the physical, irrelevant to how you define the physical.
Perhaps "what is the most usefull definition of the physical?" would have been a more usefull question to ask.

Ah, to my surprise an honest attempt to actually make this into a philosophical discussion.

I agree we have a conundrum here. One that is clearly demonstrated by children at about 5 years old who keep asking 'why?' on any answer given to the previous question 'why?'.
But of course when considering adults, I assume the rational approach of only asking such questions if genuinly interested in the answer, rather than merely to frustrate the adult in order to find out where the limits of the patience of said adult is.

Now to adress your example

Define 'value', define 'ideas', define 'goal', define 'understanding', define 'better formulated', define 'rational', define 'meaning'. — Pseudonym

I simply don't believe you actually are confused about all definitions you asked for here, since you seemed to have understood my post too well for that in order to be so. In a rational discussion one only asks for definitions one genuinly may suspect that could lead to confusion.
(Like in the example I gave about the eating animals discussion, where it's clear the OP was sloppy and could have prevented much confusion, by stating 'vertebrates' rather than 'animals'. Of wich alot could have been prevented by simply stating "oh I didn't mean animals, but i meant vertebrates" when I asked him for his definition on 'animals' rather than refraining from giving his definition for 38 pages of comments. I'm still not sure wether he means vertebrates.)

I could have been more explicit about this in my opening statement, so thanks for pointing it out.

Interestingly I've only just been having a discussion about Wittgenstein's private language argument on another thread... — Pseudonym

What is the title of said thread? or even better, got a link?

Is objective morality imaginary? — Atheer

In order to get an accurate answer to this question please define:
1 objectivity
2 morality
3 imaginary

If you don't people will apply their own definitions, wich may not nessesarily be the same as the ones you intended. I don't think nr.3 'imaginary' will cause much problems, but the other two might.

I think it is objectively wrong to have differrent judgements on identical cases — Atheer

There are not 100% identical cases concerning human beings. Hence there is no different judgement on identical cases. There is only different judgement on identical represented cases.

There is no objective morality. We developed science in order to aproach objectivity by banning morality from it. For human beings the world starts subjective, only by a long period of intensive education into science they can learn to approach objectivity, and even then most of them seem only able to apply the methods to objectivity consistently within their specific field of study.

Racism is an ugly fruit of a natural plant. That's what I'm saying. The people who embrace it are not necessarily ugly at heart. One of the most important reasons for seeing this is that counter intolerance is just as ugly as the primary type. If we label racist people as vermin, we have dehumanized them and shut the door on them. We have failed to realize that people can change. — frank

Great, another topic started about a subject without a definition of the subject. How do you define racism?
I define racism as the misconception that the differences between races are greater than the differences between the individuals within a race. The fact that it's a misconception has been prooved by numerous research, wich clearly demonstrates that the differences within a group (in this case specific race) are greater than the differences between groups (in this case different races).
(as in that the differences between the averages of two groups is less than the standard deviations of the groups measured)
So we can get rid of this kind of racism by educating people to get to know and understand the research done, and to apply its conclusions consistently.

Next to rasism, there also is the human tendency to dislike/fear the unknown, wich is a completely different motivater, but wich could result in the same human behaviour. Hence it's not always that easy to distinguis actual racism from just the dislike/fear of that what's different/unknown.

A term often used to describe racists is "ignorant," which describes a lack of knowledge or understanding, implying education is the cure. — Hanover

Wich would be correct, since racists assume that the differences between racial groups are greater than the differences within a racial group, wich is demonstrably incorrect. The scientific data on this overwhelming. Though it's not uncommon that the people saying this fall into the same trap, and are just as ignorant about the underlying facts.

Why assume that they aren't?

They clearly are, otherwise they wouldn't neglect to speak about the ones they find damaging, and openly espouse the one's they find helpful... — creativesoul

Well, perhaps they are not totally irrelevant to a politicians, my remark was a reference to the tendency of a politicians to consider facts way less important than public opinion. So sure, if a fact influences or can influence public opinion, then it becomes important to a politicians. However, the point is, that if the fact has no possible influence on the public opinion (for instance when it's a secret, or too complicated to understand by most people, or just doesn't get attention from the public) a politicians usually doesn't seem interested in it at all.

Well first of all, it would have to be intentional. So that example wouldn't be. XD But, yeah. I meant it in a general sense. You can avoid eating plants or animals but still survive if you wanted to. — yatagarasu

So, if i accidently run over a deer with my car and then eat it, and since the killing wasn't intentional it's ok?
I doubt humans can survive on eating funghi and bacteria solely as you seem to be claiming, while not accidently eating plants and/or animals.

Plant and animal destruction for our livelihood can be avoided — yatagarasu

Not really, there are many single celled plants and animals that are undetectable with the naked human eye. Perhaps you meant to restrict it to plants and animals with a body mass over 100 gram orso. Otherwise how are you going to prevent a bug from flying in your mouth when you yawn while riding your bike?

I never claimed that all animals can feel pain. I stated that all sentient animals can feel pain, which is what the science supports. And the science all supports the idea that a life-form such as a plant or microorganism [such as bacteria], does not have a central-nervous system or a brain to process pain. If you want to state that you don't need a brain or a nervous system to process pain, then you need to provide scientific evidence to support that ridiculous claim. — chatterbears

Nonsense, in your first post you stated 'animals' not 'sentient animals'. Secondly it's still unclear where you draw the line. Are animals that have a central nervous system but no brain sentient?

Suggesting that I want to state that 'you don't need a brain or nervous system to process pain' is a disingenious strawman at best. I am pointing out you are making generalizations where you clearly intended to be more specific. And instead of becoming more specific by clearly stating where you draw the line between sentient and non sentient animals, you attempt to strawman my position by suggesting things I 'want' to say without me having said anything that could possibly validate that conclusion.

Again, as I said to Tomseltje, if you believe that plants can feel pain, please provide the scientific research to support that. — chatterbears

And this is the strawman. I never even suggested that, I stated that several animals don't differ from your description on plants, so if you claim for that reason plants can be eaten without moral objections, why can't those animals without nervous systems be eaten without moral objections? You may be able to see the direction the needle on the compas is pointing, but you confuse north with south.

I mainly want to know because I feel like "sentient beings are a no-no line of argument" to be very exclusive and does not respect life as much as it should. We are the arbiters of who lives and who dies. The plant says, "I'm alive too!" and gets shut down because it isn't "sentient" enough. — yatagarasu

You clearly demonstrated to have understood my critisism correctly. Where exaclty do we draw the line between 'sentient' and 'not sentient' when considering animals? clearly somewhere between single celled sessille animals without a nervous system and mammals, but where exactly? As long as that is not clearly defined it's impossible to have a sensible discussion about it. Since it's impossible to have a sensible discussion about anything as long it's not clear what exactly is discussed.

We're obviously talking about cows, pigs, chickens and other animals that are most commonly eaten--animals which have been proven to be highly intelligent and capable of feeling physical and emotional pain — NKBJ

I just want you guys to be clear about wich exact group of animals you are talking about. Just referring to them as 'animals' while you seem to mean only mammals seems quite disingenious. It's still not even clear if you just mean vertebrates, or just vertebrates humans sympathize with, or just cows, pigs, chickens and two specific other animals. Please clearly define the group you are discussing so we all know what you are talking about.

Why assume facts are of any relevance to a politicians?

That is demonstrably not true, though. It has been well-established that when in complete sensory-deprivation our brains are still very active. We hallucinate. We essentially create our own stimuli. — JustSomeGuy

This only goes for brains that were already exposed to numerous stimuli. mammals get brain stimuli even in the womb. It's a fact that even though you feed newborn mice, without physical touch, they die. So what demonstration is there of a brain never having received any stimuli that still shows brain activity? I'm not aware of any, you certainly didn't provide it.

In a moneyless society, what could motivate people to make goods for others? — GreenPhilosophy

The exact same motivations that motivate people to make goods in a society with money, Money is just a practical solution to trade. Without money the trade is still there, it's just harder to determine the exact value of something that's traded, and even harder harder than that to give change in return.

The only difference might be that people who are confused about what money is, and have money as a god, those will need to find another god. Most of them will probably go for hoarding something else of value that only slowly deminishes in value.

A plant cannot "want", as it doesn't have a brain to perceive anything. A plant "wants" to survive in the same way bacteria "wants" to survive, yet neither of them have a brain or central nervous system. Neither can feel pain, produce thoughts, have emotions, etc... A nervous system is only one part of the equation, as something also needs a brain to perceive pain or have thoughts and emotions. — chatterbears

Same goes for several species of animals.
You haven't adressed this fact, wich is an obvious flaw in your argument. Resulting from conflating three different questions and trying to answer them in one go. I understand it's easier to ignore my remarks and pretend I didn't make them to continue your preaching of veganism, but then I'll point out again, this is a philosophy forum, not a platform to preach your dogma's.

You keep pretending that all animals can feel pain, while plants can not and thus it's unethical to grow and kill animals for food but it's ok to do the same with plants and bacteria without providing any argument for this assumption. The biological evidence is clear and contradicting your assumptions on this, sure keep ignoring facts and pushing your dogmatic virtues, but please go to a preachers platform for that, If you want to make a philosophical argument, you ought to adress the objections I made rather than ignore them.

The fervor that people can have defending their views can only be described as fanatical and zealous. — darthbarracuda

I can think of various other descriptions, passionate, religiously or earnestly to name some.

Calling people's axioms "gods" is analogical, I think, and not appropriate as a literal interpretation, though. — darthbarracuda

I was talking about the sets of axioms people hold true enough to act upon. Why think it was analogical and not literal? Perhaps you were thinking of the strict mathematical interpretation of the word axiom? I was more referring to assumptions people hold to be true, even science is based upon such kind of assumptions. Why wouldn't it be appropriate as a literal interpretation?

The Abrahamic god is the one in the back of the minds of philosophers of religion. But I want to focus on the philosophical God — darthbarracuda

I'd consider the Abrahamic god a specific god, I don't think we have much difference of opinion on that as long as it's clear we are not talking about that specific god. Not sure what you mean by the 'philosophical' God. Perhaps you could elaborate on that.

Though if the question is "does god exists" in the most general way, I didn't see anyone come up with a more compelling definition on (a) god(s) that people believe in than the one I used, but perhaps I just missed it. In my opinion, with any question formulated as "does X exist?" it's is essential to start with defining X as precisely as possible.

↪Tomseltje


There are no such things as "scientific truths". This was already addressed in this thread, I suggest you actually read it. — Jeremiah

Firstly:
You merely posted your opionon that there are none before in this thread, That is not adressing, that is pushing your opinion.

Secondly:
You didn't check wether I intended the same as you did when mentioning "scientific truths"

Thirdly:
I stated "Only if one assumes only scientific truths are true.", clearly stating a requirement, wether the requirement is even possible is irrelevant, and thus wether 'scientific truths' exist is irrelevant to the validity of the requirment.

I suggest next to merely reading, you try think abit more on statements made in an attempt to understand what the other person was talking about, rather than dismissing statements based upon the use of a single term you happen not to agree with.

I think there is a great difference between asking about the existence of a god in general, and asking about the existence of a specific god.

When taking the general approach, what i consider to be a god in general refers to the set of axioms a person holds to be true enough to act upon. Since all people have a set of axioms they act upon, everyone has a god they serve. Of course this set can change over time by adopting new axioms, or letting go of old axioms. So in that regard, I don't believe atheists exist, the ones that call themselve atheist merely refuse to call their belief in their set of axioms a god.

Another route leading to the same conclusion on the general approach I found by looking into the origin of the word "god". Though it's unclear what the actual source was, there are several logical options, of wich the following stroke me as most usefull:
ghut- "that which is invoked" (source also of Old Church Slavonic zovo "to call," Sanskrit huta- "invoked," an epithet of Indra), from root *gheu(e)- "to call, invoke."
If we define god as "that wich is called upon", then as long as even a single human being is calling upon something, that would constitute the existence of god.

So far the general approach, wich like pascals wager doesn't tell you wich god to believe in.

Seeing the start of the topic, especially:

I think I would consider myself an agnostic with regards to the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, creator of the cosmos. — darthbarracuda

It seems darthbarracuda is more interested in the existence of a more specific god. I'm not sure where he got the 'creator of the cosmos' part from. Since I don't think this was a main concern of people living over 2000 years ago.
In my opinion genisis 1 isn't referring to the the cosmos when it states "in the beginning". I prefer to read it like "in the beginning of human conciousness" rather than 'In the beginning of the cosmos". It makes alot more sense to me that way.