'flexibility of thought and vocabulary'
The key to passing through the dogma wall... — Amity

Now let's not get carried away! :smile: Flexibility of thought helps specifically when we're seeking for something new or different. And it needs to be followed with some more rigorous consideration, or we can end up with half-thought-out nonsense for our trouble. :wink: So it's not a key (IMO), or a secret weapon against dogma ... but it might help. :up:

Is that a pet theory ? — Amity

No, I rather think it's a very bad joke, yes? :wink:

Are you still banging on about "like" signalling a comparison? :roll:

"‘Like’ isn’t a lazy linguistic filler – the English language snobs need to, like, pipe down"

Like has many uses, listed in many dictionaries. Look here, and see how many different uses the Cambridge English dictionary lists.

I may be autistic, but I am pretty convinced you're just being awkward because you misunderstood a simple and common English idiom, and you're embarrassed, and this has made you annoyed. :chin:

But, but...lift doors can still look or function like a wall, when closed.
There needs to be a button, a knob or a key to open any such 'wall'.
— Amity

I like this, instead of expanding the point, you've redefined one of the main elements of the question. And that, my friends, is what we call "philosophy." — T Clark


Really ? :yikes:
I didn't know that...
Well...thank you, I think :chin: — Amity

I think there's room here to understand - and defend? :chin: - flexibility of thought and vocabulary. It's not a crime or a sin, as far as I know. It can even be useful, on occasion. :up:

It's not really redefining anything to portray a door as a wall (in some circumstances). That's just being flexible, and saying 'let's just see where this goes...'. :up:

In fact I'd say it's full of counter evidence. — TheMadFool

Not you as well? :gasp:

Is this "evidence" of a standard that scientists or philosophers would consider acceptable? Or is it more of the 'there's no evidence for, so it must be false' type of (logically fallacious) reasoning? :chin:

the very word I queried the meaning of isn't even necessary to the sentence you've given as an example of its use. — Isaac

<yawn>

What words would you use to answer "what is it like to be conscious?" — Isaac

I would love to have words to answer that question. So would many other philosophers. We've been trying to answer this since at least Hume, if not before. :chin:

Drug companies have a huge financial interest in promoting their drug, it's not the same thing as research scientists who have no interest other than knowledge acquisition. — Isaac

And who pays the wages of these pure and unbiased scientists? Oil companies; tobacco companies; pharmaceutical companies...? Do you think they would carry on paying if the results (of the scientists' work) went against their capitalistic needs? :chin:

Yes, and "what it's like" there is doing the job of "similar but not necessarily identical". — Isaac

Sorry, I don't think it is. I know I didn't use it to convey that meaning. :razz:

know what it is (like) to
to be familiar with how it feels to be or do something — Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus

Full dictionary entry here.

each one of us personally defined our human nature from scratch — PoeticUniverse

For real? [As Americans say.] We each defined ourselves? That would be the best bootstrapping trick I've ever seen or heard of. If it was correct. :chin:

will it give us any understanding at all of what it's like to be a conscious human being? — Pattern-chaser


You're presuming it's 'like' anything at all. In my lexicon, 'like' means similar to, but you're using differently here to mean, what exactly? — Isaac

This is what it's like to be a philosopher?

You're claiming ignorance of a well-known English idiom. Perhaps you're American? :razz:

Yes, from outside. If other people are conscious then we can examine their consciousness from outside of it. — Isaac

Wow! Yes, we can do what you say, of course. But what, and how much, will we learn? Your approach will give us what an alien (say Mr Data) could learn if they observed us carefully, in the long term. But will it give us any understanding at all of what it's like to be a conscious human being? What can we learn "from outside", when consciousness is an 'inside' phenomenon? :chin:

The god doesn't want anything to do with us. Not cowardice, but contempt. — Bartricks

...or maybe She's just busy looking after the rest of the Universe? It's a big place...?

So, to preserve integrity, both atheists and theists would have to become agnostic, meaning simply "I can't know for sure." — PoeticUniverse

By Jove, he's got it! :smile:

OK. :up:

Are you saying it's illogical to guess?

We could, but the believers might suggest that God and His realm are invisible, along with that God operates just as nature does, such that they can't be told apart... — PoeticUniverse

They could. And as long as they "suggested" this, not asserted it as fact, they would be correct, for this is one possibility among ... God knows ( :smile: ) how many!

You have failed to offer evidence (of a suitable standard) against God's existence. I have already freely asserted that I know of no evidence for God's existence. — Pattern-chaser


Each are "maybe's" and neither can be honestly be taught as true. — PoeticUniverse

I think we can safely state that we have found no evidence at all concerning the existence of God, and we know of no way in which such evidence might be obtained. We could teach that, for what it's worth, couldn't we? :up:

If one doesn't want to sit on a fence, philosophical probabilities can be employed to estimate. — PoeticUniverse

:up: Absolutely they can! But let's be honest as well, and state clearly that we're guessing, without basis in logic or fact. I find it helps with mental hygiene to be clear and honest with myself, never mind anyone else!

:smile:

But we've come to running in circles, and I'm afraid you're fulfilling Singer's quote: "It is a distinctive characteristic of an ideology that it resists refutation. If the foundations of an ideological position are knocked out from under it, new foundations will be found, or else the ideological position will just hang there, defying the logical equivalent of the laws of gravity." — Artemis

I have stated clearly that mine is a faith position; I offer no foundation for it, because there is none that I am aware of. You're the one in denial here....

Finding the table empty of evidence for the apple and insisting we must remain agnostic and call our knowledge of ~apple "faith" is just silliness. — Artemis

No, it's logic.

Faith without facts is for fools. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Isn't faith often - or always, by definition? - without facts? :chin:

From www.logicallyfallacious.com:

Q: Surely Athiesm must be an argument from ignorance then. "There's no evidence for God. Therefore God does not exist"

A: That's not atheism. What you presented is a bad argument someone might give for atheism, and yes, that would be fallacious reasoning. Atheism is the disbelief in any gods - there is no reason included in the definition. Those atheists who insist that no god can possibly exist (rather than just stating that they don't believe in any gods) need to provide evidence to support that claim.

Taken from here.

Not quite sure what you're getting at ... but I can't see anything to argue with. :up:

At this point, the burden of proof rests on you and your ilk. Just like it would rest on any person purporting the existence of Nessie, Santa, elves, ents, and nymphs. — Artemis

[rant] "Burden of proof" is what people say when they want someone else to do the work. There is no burden of proof. There is only us, the topic we're discussing, and the ideas we have to contribute to that discussion. [/rant]

But you are wrong, I think. Things that might possibly exist, but for which there is no evidence at all, must logically remain in a sort of superposition of all possible conclusions. Why? Because we cannot logically advance to a conclusion without some foundation to rest it on, and that foundation is evidence.

We must refrain from concluding anything, and leave the matter undecided; up in the air, as it were. We can't even estimate probabilities, because our estimates also require evidence as grist for their mills. So we cannot even suggest that (for example) God's existence is vanishingly unlikely, because we have no basis on which to estimate any numerical value of probability.

You are a logical person; you've said so. So stick to your guns and your beliefs, and stop drawing conclusions where you have no evidence. It is illogical, Captain! :smile:

In the case of God, we don't know what She looks like, or where to look for her. Perhaps She only hangs around in sheds. Then we might see you emerge from the kitchen, proclaiming the absence of God, and we might wonder if you'd looked in the shed — Pattern-chaser


So basically, you're saying you believe in something you know nothing about, can't know anything about, and is unknowable generally. Gotcha. — Artemis

:smile: Not quite, but close. :wink: If you ask three believers to describe God, you'll get four contradictory answers, to mash up the old joke. Few believers are rash enough to list the specific attributes of God, because (as you say) we don't know. Nevertheless, we all believe in God because we find value and benefit in doing so.

Your 'proofs' include no evidence of a standard that would satisfy a scientist or a philosopher. Thus I conclude, pending the arrival of new evidence, that you cannot justify your beliefs, and simply assert them again and again, perhaps hoping I will tire? :wink: — Pattern-chaser


Most philosophers and scientists use these same ideas, so I'm not sure what you mean. They said gods were in the trees. We looked and there were none. They said they were on the mountains. We looked, there were none. They said gods were in the heavens, and again we looked and found nothing. The goalposts have been moved and moved by believers until the only things they can fall back on are some concepts of an "unknown unknowable," belief in which rests solely on faith. — Artemis

The last bit is spot on: ours is a faith position. The point in dispute is whether yours is too. But to the specifics of what you say: the evidence is that "we" looked for God, but found nothing. You don't mention how "we" decided where to look, nor what we thought we might use as a God-detector. I would've thought these would be quite important elements of "our" search? :chin:

Ah, you say, but I told you: the believers told us God is in the trees/mountains/heavens, so that's where we looked. I wonder if you misunderstood, because God is in the trees, mountains and heavens. But She is not a human person, who might easily be spotted in such places. I'm not going to hoist myself by my own petard, and tell you that God is invisible to the human eye, because I don't know if this is true or not. But I will say that I wouldn't necessarily expect God to be visible to me either.

You speak of God - in the context of searching for Her - as though She is a physical thing that you can simply look for and find. I agree with you that such searches in the past have come up with nothing, and I wouldn't expect this to change in the future. The physical-spacetime-universe-existence of God is questionable, at best, non-existent at worst. The importance and value of God is immaterial.

The only point we have to dispute about is whether your views are a faith position. You have failed to offer evidence (of a suitable standard) against God's existence. I have already freely asserted that I know of no evidence for God's existence. I believe there is no evidence at all, for, against or 'other', and you have failed to find any, so I think we should conclude (at least for now) that there is none.

So your position is that you actively assert the non-existence of God without any evidence at all on which to base your conclusion. Either you are offering an Argument from Ignorance, or your position is a faith position, like mine (if opposite in direction). Which is it?

Example

(1) No one has been able to disprove the existence of God.
Therefore:
(2) God exists.

This argument is fallacious because the non-existence of God is perfectly consistent with no one having been able to prove God’s non-existence.

Quote from here.

This example perfectly describes your position, but in reverse. It's valid both ways round, as expected. If there is no evidence - and there is not - no form of logical analysis or consideration can be performed. Therefore, logically, no conclusion may correctly be drawn. That's what AfI tells us here, and it's right.

We are both people of faith, my friend. I respect your faith. Let's move on. :up: :smile:

My (very limited!) knowledge of biology says that gases are too amorphous to maintain the physical structures of life, without them just breaking up as the gas moves naturally around. Too simple? :chin:

What I'm saying is that we've gone into the kitchen and found the kitchen table has a banana on it, but no apple. — Artemis

Yes, and I'm wondering:

• How did you know to look in the kitchen, on the table?
• How did you know you were looking for an apple?
• Is it an ordinary apple you're looking for, or does it have any special qualities that might make it difficult to discover?

We don't have "proof" of the absence of the apple other than there is no apple to be seen or felt or in any way discovered. It would be nonsensical therefore to continue insisting on the existence of the apple — Artemis

If your example is literal, we would already know quite a bit about the apple we were looking for. If the apple was invisible to the naked eye, for example, we would expect that, and maybe use our fingers to search, instead of our eyes. And so forth.

In the case of God, we don't know what She looks like, or where to look for her. Perhaps She only hangs around in sheds. Then we might see you emerge from the kitchen, proclaiming the absence of God, and we might wonder if you'd looked in the shed. :chin:

Your 'proofs' include no evidence of a standard that would satisfy a scientist or a philosopher. Thus I conclude, pending the arrival of new evidence, that you cannot justify your beliefs, and simply assert them again and again, perhaps hoping I will tire? :wink:

...I fear there's no hope for you — Artemis

:smile: Perhaps you're right. I hope there is hope for you, though...? :chin:

The AtI works only when you're appealing to ignorance in cases where there is equal lack of evidence for both sides. — Artemis

There is: none. :up:

I specifically said that God is illogical/impossible. — Artemis

You did, but an assertion is just that. Where's the justification; the evidence?

Though there is no evidence in favor of God, there is plenty against him. Most previous theories of how and where he exists have been disproven (not in the clouds or the heavens or in the trees or the seas) and for all things he is supposed to have done and created there are more plausible explanations that do have a lot of evidence in their favor. — Artemis

What is this evidence against the existence of God? You mention that some things God is said to have done were achieved by other means. So what? Maybe they were, or maybe She put those 'other means' in place. This kind of 'evidence' is little better than hearsay or rumour, and is not acceptable to a scientist or a philosopher. There is no evidence ... unless I am mistaken, and you can enlighten me? :chin:

If you have a theory of existence like the Big Bang that does have evidence, and another theory that has none and is absurd on the face of it like God, then the only rational conclusion is to follow the former and forget about the latter. — Artemis

If both explanations are possible, and fully account for all available evidence, logic dictates that we may not arbitrarily select one over the other to be the One True Explanation. You, a man devoted to logic and reason, are obviously aware of this. We can guess, of course, as we humans do so often. But let's be honest with ourselves, and call a guess a guess. Or we could apply Occam's Razor, with the admission that it's a rule of thumb only; it has no authority; it's a way of guessing.

P.S. your use of "absurd" is a giveaway: it's an emotional term, with no logical contribution to what you're saying. You're actually trying to belittle an argument by calling it names. :smile:

Anything more on offer more central to the OP, the philosophy of Software Engineering? :chin:

What is a mystic?
How does anything I have said lead you to the conclusion that I am presenting 'mysticism'? — Pattern-chaser


1. You said God endowed us with certain abilities. — Artemis

Ah yes, here's what I said:

Doublethink is not the ability to entertain to contradictory beliefs at the exact same time in the same experience. That's impossible. — Artemis


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Why do you think God gave us cognitive dissonance? :smile: — Pattern-chaser

That was a joke. You can see the :smile: emoji, telling you so. Sorry I wasn't clear enough. :meh:

I believe in God, and I'm as happy to call Him Jupiter or Jesus as any other name. All of them - yes, every one - represents one or more aspects of the one too-big-for-us-to-understand God. I think of Her as Gaia, but Cthulhu will do just as well, if that's your thing. God is God — Pattern-chaser


Of course, once you believe in an impossible and irrational idea like God, then you pave the way for all manner of silly and contradictory things and ideas. — Artemis

I am happy to admit that my beliefs are not based on evidence, for there is no evidence concerning the (non-)existence of God. So mine is a faith position. But this raises a point that bothers me; I'll restate the core of this: there is no evidence concerning the (non-)existence of God. And you describe yourself thus:

I've clearly stated both my atheism and my resistance to believing anything illogical, impossible, or fantastical, even for the sake of momentary immersion in a narrative. — Artemis

Being as you describe, you would actively avoid logical fallacies such as the Argument from Ignorance fallacy. And yet you describe God and belief thus:

...once you believe in an impossible and irrational idea like God, then you pave the way for all manner of silly and contradictory things and ideas. — Artemis

Although you don't say so in so many words, I interpret this as an assertion of the non-existence of God. [You can let me know if I've got this wrong.] And here is where cognitive dissonance hits me, and it's not a joke this time. Because your assertion of God's non-existence is based on an Argument from Ignorance, and yet you have described your "resistance to believing anything illogical". Perhaps you can resolve this apparent contradiction? Because, as it stands, it looks a lot like your belief (in God's non-existence) is a faith position, like mine. After all, there is no evidence at all, yes? :chin: :chin: :chin:

You have stopped responding constructively; we have nothing further to exchange, usefully, I don't think. — Pattern-chaser


I don't think we do either, but mostly because realism and mysticism don't mix. Talking to a mystic is like talking to a stone wall. Mysticism claims to be open-minded, etc, but then ironically dismisses all realist propositions as hopelessly naive. — Artemis

I was happy to leave off there, but this response deserves a reply. My core concerns are:

• What is a mystic?
• How does anything I have said lead you to the conclusion that I am presenting 'mysticism'?
• What is a realist, in the sense that you apply that description to yourself?
• Can we recognise your realism from what you have written here, and if so, how?

You live in an explicitly finite world, there is nothing that exists within it that is not finite — Marzipanmaddox

Infinity is an idea, not a physical thing. Just like seven is an idea, not a physical thing. Neither infinity nor seven exist, unless we count ideas as existing, as you do not. :chin:

Ah, dish it out but can't take it. I'm not surprised. — Artemis

'Dishing it out' adds what, exactly, to the discussion?

I don't know if you saw this?

Edited to add: * - If I have been overly abrupt, I'm sorry. My (autistic) judgement in these matters is close to random. :blush: — Pattern-chaser

You have stopped responding constructively; we have nothing further to exchange, usefully, I don't think.

I guess that's to be expected from someone who thinks they've got some mystical insight — Artemis

Your ad hominem approach - even if it is pretty mild, as these things go - achieves nothing*. I do not claim any special knowledge, other than that which we all have. I'm the one who's been pointing out how much we don't know, in case you hadn't noticed. :chin:

Look:

we are faced with something here that we understand only partly, if at all. — Pattern-chaser

Edited to add: * - If I have been overly abrupt, I'm sorry. My (autistic) judgement in these matters is close to random. :blush:

After all, optical illusions are what filmmakers specialise in. — Shamshir

Yes, and we should also remember that the audience are willing to immerse themselves in the fiction. They aren't cynical skeptics, they want to experience the story. We all co-operate to do so, story-tellers and story-hearers alike. And so we believe, for the duration of the story. :up:

Doublethink is not the ability to entertain to contradictory beliefs at the exact same time in the same experience. That's impossible. — Artemis

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Why do you think God gave us cognitive dissonance? :smile:

you cannot believe p and ~p at the same time. — Artemis

No? The arena here is the human mind; normal rules don't apply. :wink: Did you think doublethink was fictional? :chin:

That still doesn't explain why while in that state you wouldn't feel and react the exact same way you would irl if faced with the same creatures/situation/damage/whatever, if your belief is real/true/full/actual belief in the exact same way in both fictional and nonfictional encounters. — Artemis

The problem here, I think, is your over-riding need for precision, exactitude and certainty. We are discussing belief here. Not as the simple term that can be compared and contrasted with "truth", or preceded with "justified", but the human experience of belief. Your approach seems naive, when we are faced with something here that we understand only partly, if at all. We just do it, because we're humans, and so we can. But exact and clear understanding? Maybe one day.... :chin:

When we hear or watch any narrative, our brains go wholly into perceiving mode, turning off the systems for acting or planning to act, and with them go our systems for assessing reality.

[...]

Only when we stop perceiving to think about what we have seen or heard, only then do we assess its truth-value. If we are really "into" the fiction – "transported", in the psychologists' term – we are, as Immanuel Kant pointed out long ago, "disinterested". We respond aesthetically, without purpose. We don't judge the truth of what we're perceiving, even though if we stop being transported and think about it, we know quite well it's a fiction. — Wikipedia

For all practical purposes, we do believe. If the detailed psychology seems to differ, what does it matter? The thing we're discussing is an informal thing people do for pleasure. Interrogating those who claim belief seems to indicate a misunderstanding of the whole thing. :chin: