Science shows us that consciousness is always temporally behind the times and experiments show that the rest-of-the-mind has made some decisions before the consciousness thinks it has made it. — Unseen

My changes indicate where I think you're over-stating your case. You are describing work in progress. Work that, one day, might justify your conclusions. But today, your conclusions are premature and unfounded.

This just defines true blue religious believers pejoratively as zealots. — Hanover

I think it was clear from the original text that it includes, er, committed atheists too.

Is it really a zealot who believes that if he prays for his dying friend, his friend may receive divine intervention? I think that's a mainstream belief among believers, but it's obviously not compatible with science. — Hanover

What can science say about prayer? Only that such experiments as have been performed have not detected any effect. But the comfort it gives to believers is not visible to science either. There is no significant contradiction here, unless a believer were to assert that prayer does have a literal and measurable effect on recovery. For there is no evidence for that. ... Today. In the future, who knows? We already know about the placebo effect. Shouldn't prayer have exactly such an effect, in some cases at least? :chin:

Unless you're further willing to say that those who are part of organized religion are simply not "reasonable and fair thinking people" — Hanover

Many are, but some are not. As I said:

In my view [...] those believers who oppose science on its own ground - with literal/objective claims, and the like - are mistaken and wrong. — Pattern-chaser

Religion doesn't cover the same area of thought/culture/life as science does (although the odd overlap does exist). The two are complementary, IMO.

Maybe you can say a bit more about the paper and what your take on it is? — StreetlightX

I already did:

I found it an interesting read — Pattern-chaser

I found nothing so contentious that I would espouse, or challenge it. But the article does contain a number of interesting thoughts. I see from the little face in the corner of your icon that you are a mod, so (for the future) is it OK just to post something that's worth reading? If so, perhaps it should be in the 'lounge' or another area? For me, I think we should have a permanent topic just for people to list interesting links, with a brief summary of what they're about. :chin:

:up:

That makes religion too flexible for some people's tastes and also not entirely true given the current science-religion controversies regarding Creation and the theory of evolution and cosmology. — TheMadFool

In my view, as a believer but not a Christian, those believers who oppose science on its own ground - with literal/objective claims, and the like - are mistaken and wrong. God can take care of Herself, and doesn't need zealots proclaiming Her objective existence in the scientific space-time universe without evidence. There is no disagreement between science and religion that cannot be simply resolved by reasonable and fair-thinking people. IMO.

Proposition: It is not immoral to break the law. In support, Zhou, Pattern-chaser, et al. All yours. — tim wood

Oh, no. This is binary thinking at its worst and most imperceptive. The OP asks "Is it immoral to do illegal drugs?" Our answer, to summarise, is "not necessarily", while yours is "yes".

If I say to you "I'm not convinced that P" (where P is, as usual, some proposition), I am not saying "I assert that P is FALSE". Do you see? Just because I'm not sure if P is TRUE doesn't mean I believe P is FALSE. It means I'm not sure. It means I believe that either of these positions could be correct, or even neither of them, if there's something we missed.

This is a nuanced argument. There are cases where it is immoral to break a particular law, in a particular set of circumstances, and there are cases where this is not so. I will not argue for X or for NOT(X) when it is obvious that sometimes one is the case, and sometimes the other. Morals and law sometimes overlap, sometimes not. Nevertheless, they are distinct. They are not the same thing.

All yours.

If you're not convinced... — Unseen

Why would anyone be convinced by assertion without persuasion or argument? You seem to be relying on your co-respondents to go and read the articles you have read. Do you also expect us to take up these issues with the authors of these articles, who might at least be able to discuss them, and even offer some justification?

Why don't you tell us why you think that "consciousness is simply a passive observer of goings on over which it has no control"? I'll start, if you like: I think your dismissal of consciousness is going too far. While it is true that the conscious mind does much less than we thought, it still has a function; it still does stuff, and thereby makes its contribution. If it made no contribution, we should already have seen it fading away, as evolution selects for other, more useful, traits, no?

Matters of religion are not easily considered in a literal manner. The whole issue is more about spirituality and the like, not logic and literal truth.

Being a hippy only defines a very small proportion of that generation, though. — Janus

OK, yes, but greed, consuming and consumption define all of my generation. We even pretend it's good: take "retail therapy", for example. :rage:

OMG another baby boomer talking about how awesome their generation was — yupamiralda

What can I say? I personally have done what I can, but it probably wasn't enough. Most others of my generation have done nothing to make things better. And still the human race plunges toward oblivion, apparently uncaring. What will it take to wake us up? Something imminent and fatal, I suspect.

If we approach the Trinity less rigorously then it's a non-issue. — TheMadFool

Exactly. So why turn it into one? :chin:

I went farther, true, by following the logic. — Unseen

What logic? Please elucidate.

You and others seem to alccuse me of repeating myself. — Unseen

Maybe because you keep making the same assertions, over and over, without listening to what others are trying to say to you?

I've pointed out (I repeat) that science SHOWS that the real action goes on temporally before the news gets to consciousness. — Unseen

Science has shown no such thing. Quite a few things that are similar, but less dogmatic and all-encompassing than your assertions, have been discovered. And work is progressing. But our understanding is not complete or universally accepted yet. The rest-of-the-mind does much more than we ever imagined, including making some decisions that we thought were conscious. But you go farther, and assert that the conscious mind does nothing and has no function. This is not among the things that science has SHOWN us.

Refute that fact [^above quote^] and show how the conscious mind is actually in control of the brain before the brain knows what it's doing. — Unseen

I have no intention of trying, as this is not what I believe, and not what I (or anyone else posting here) is saying.

The problems of philosophy...do they really exist, as in having some correspondence to reality? Or are they simply artificial constructs of philosophical thought? — Merkwurdichliebe

I have always found some philosophy to be disconnected from real life. And I have always wondered why we bother with it. On a more positive note, there is plenty of philosophy that is genuinely relevant and useful in the real world, and that is where we should concentrate our efforts. IMO, of course.

Does it seem fair to summarily dismiss their position, which is viewed as "proactive" and tell them that the solution to our nations issues with firearms is for them to surrender their firearms and remain in a "reactive" position? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

No, it doesn't. But there is a real live fact here, hidden amongst the emotional stuff: if there are no (available) guns, no-one will be harmed or killed by guns. This simple fact cannot be denied, no matter that the issue is more complicated than just that.

It's shown that while gun control will reduce mass shootings it won't reduce the number of murders — khaled

Where is this "shown", please?

My question is whether the N-word specifically has become a word that is per se insulting, regardless of context, where its mere utterance is a sin. — Hanover

A sin? Maybe not. But unacceptable? Yes. The so-called N-word was used for centuries in an intentionally pejorative way. And gratuitous insults help no-one and nothing.

Why do you keep saying the same few stock phrases? It's almost as if you read a couple of articles that convinced you, but didn't understand them well enough to argue their position. Or something.

Care to explain how your response here DOES NOT suggest that in some cases (at least) it is more moral to shoot someone than to use drugs? As far as I can tell, it does not even need to be implied. It is fairly directly included -

I might think it the greater morality to shoot you — tim wood — ZhouBoTong

I thought that, but it's nice when someone else does too. :wink: :up:

Some people fall back on insults when their position is challenged. Sad.

Justification of belief in the Trinity requires ad hoc metaphysical assumptions that lack objective support — Relativist

Have you never considered religions before? A lack of objective support is normal and expected.

The proof that we can go without consciousness is that it actually does nothing. — Unseen

Consciousness can only do what the brain tells it to do. — Unseen

You just keep asserting the same thing. Can you provide some substance, please, in addition to your insistence that it is (must be) so?

Depending on my experience, I might think it the greater morality to shoot you — tim wood

Americans! :gasp: Guns aren't the answer to everything! Thinking about it, guns aren't the answer to anything.

Seriously: can you offer some sort of reasoning behind your claim? Please explain how killing someone with a gun is more moral than their using illegal drugs?

loser...stop wasting our time — TheGreatArcanum

And you think that hurling personal insults is not wasting our time? :chin:

this doctrine is a good reason to doubt Christianity — Relativist

It is? Why?

[FYI: I'm not Christian.]

The problem with assumptions (guesses) is that they become invisible, which is mostly our fault. Perhaps we don't like the idea of our thinking being based on unfounded principles, I don't know. In the case of causation, we call it an "axiom" (assumption; guess) instead of an assumption. A euphemism. And soon we forget that (in this example) causation is a guess, and we start to think of it as solid, founded, justified knowledge. It isn't. It could be true, of course, but we have no evidence or proof to show that it is so. And yet we continue to pretend that it is much more sure than a guess. Hmm. :chin:

I started this topic to consider one scientific axiom - causation - not because it isn't true, or that I think it isn't true, but just to remind ourselves that it is nothing more than a guess, and to wonder what the consequences might be if it turned out not to be the universal truth we hold it to be?

Edited to add: perhaps most interesting of all: if causation is so obviously and self-evidently true, why can't we prove it?

I looked up Trinity on Wikipedia. It provided one of the most ponderous and baffling texts I ever read. It relies on some obscure terminology that looks specially created for the purpose. — Jacob-B

The Christians were not the first to have a triple God, and they probably won't be the last. Just consider the Trinity to be a three-person representation of the one and only God.

Every name we give to God illustrates one or more aspects of the one God. So Jesus is God, and so are Thor, Yahweh, Cthulhu, and so on. And if we take three aspects (of God) at one time, and call them "The Trinity", it doesn't really matter, does it?

Maybe you're being too literal? One God can have - or be referred to by - more than one name.

what exactly is the reasoning behind the principle of progressive taxation? — tinman917

Basically, it's From each according to their means; to each according to their needs. It's a communal insurance policy. Some of us are better able to take care of ourselves than others. So those who can - and have - help out those who can't - and haven't. Love thy neighbour, if you like? It's not that the poor are scroungers, or that the wealth of the rich has "not been fairly acquired", but only that some of us will always succeed more than others. It simply comes down to whether you are willing to go with the team, and support our weaker members, or whether you don't care about anyone but yourself.... :chin:

The hippies in the 1960's had their community of other hippies. Within this microworld, many could consider themselves to be content, ensconced within a caring place of shared values. But whenever they traveled outside of their own circles, life was not so happy. So they had a choice, to either try and make the larger world a place that was more accepting of their values, or to isolate themselves away from that larger intolerant world and set an example that maybe the rest of the world would eventually follow. — Joshs

Yes, and sadly we betrayed the values that we promoted, and we consumed and consumed as no previous generation had! Humans had been destroying the world since the Industrial Revolution, but we hippies were the first generation to actually realise what we were doing. We should have stopped it when we came into power, but we succumbed to greed instead. We are a disgrace. :cry:

Not being able to imagine a spontaneous event does not mean there are none. — Pattern-chaser

True but likewise, being able to imagine a spontaneous event does not mean that there are. — earthlycohort

Don't you think it's a little bit, er, tawdry to imply that I offered only half of the picture, when I already said what you said? I took the trouble to make a balanced statement, and you implied that I'm arguing for the existence of spontaneous events? Look:

Not being able to imagine a spontaneous event does not mean there are none. [Or that there are.] — Pattern-chaser

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Both spontaneous and determined, premeditated events have a cause... — earthlycohort

So spontaneous (i.e. causeless) events have a cause?

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Would an effect be causeless because I was too cognitively inept to see it? — earthlycohort

No, of course not. No-one is arguing this. A causeless event is not an event whose cause we are unable to see or detect, it's an event that has no cause. And it may be that there is no such thing. That's what we're considering, isn't it?

Laws are social; morality is personal. — Pattern-chaser

Law and what it is and its concerns and how it works and how it might effect you and yours is nothing personal to you? — tim wood

Do you not see me distinguishing between that which is community-based - or "social", as I originally wrote - and that which is based on the individual - or "personal", as I originally wrote? The law applies to every member of a community/society. Morals apply to all of us too, but not the same morals! Each of us has our own personal moral code.

Or your "social" obligations, nothing personal there? — tim wood

As above, you're getting confused between society and the individual.

I think I answered your initial assertion of this point, in terms of the argument that through maths, we can discover many real principles and properties, on the basis of which you can then invent all kinds of devices - like the LHC above. But the things discovered, like natural laws, are plainly not invented by us, and their mathematical qualities are likewise there to be found. — Wayfarer

Yes, we can "discover many real principles and properties" using maths to help, but that does not show maths to be discovered, only the "principles and properties" you refer to.

Effect implies cause. Definitively, for something to exist it must have a cause. It would be unhelpful to describe examples of causality as I believe it's unnecessary, instead I would ask that you or others try to imagine something that you know to exist but that which does not have a cause. — earthlycohort

Imagine it's 100 or so years ago, before Einstein released his findings concerning relativity and the like. And imagine you, saying "I would ask that you or others try to imagine how Newton's Laws could possibly not be adhered-to." Now, we know that those laws don't work at velocities approaching the speed of light, but then we didn't. And we couldn't even imagine how things could be different.

Not being able to imagine a spontaneous event does not mean there are none. [Or that there are.]

laws, whatever they are - that you had better obey, but that there is zero obligation to comply with them, unless you "feel" it. — tim wood

Huh? These laws are passed and accepted by communities, and if we break them (and we're caught), there is a penalty to pay. Zero obligation? I think not.

If none of these, what? — tim wood

Laws are social; morality is personal. Both have penalties associated with breaking them, but they're quite different.

The conscious mind is able to decide some things, and to take some actions. For sure, the rest-of-the-mind (often called the unconscious mind) is heavily involved at all stages, but the conscious mind is not entirely incapable. :wink:

I just don't understand why we have something that appears to be unnecessary to life or evolution (if it were necessary, wouldn't plants have conscious minds?). — Unseen

Unnecessary? Yes, I suppose. We managed without one. But, even if they're unnecessary, perhaps having a conscious mind is beneficial, compared with not having one? That would be enough for evolution to select for it. :chin:

my side: there is a degree of immorality that attends breaking the law, any law; i.e., it is immoral to break the law. Your side: it is not necessarily immoral to break the law. — tim wood

[ Highlighted addition is mine. ] It depends on whether that law is moral, immoral or amoral, doesn't it?

Yes it's illegal to break the law, but that does not mean it is not immoral to break the law: it's both. — tim wood

As I said:

it's illegal to break the law. It's immoral to do wrong. Many things are both, and many more neither — Pattern-chaser

...and some are one or the other.

Unless you argue there is no moral obligation to obey law. Is that what you argue? — tim wood

It depends on the law. If the law echoes morality (as it would in an ideal world), then it would be illegal and immoral to break that law. It would not be immoral to break a law whose purpose was not moral, but it would be illegal.

words are just sounds and scribbles — Harry Hindu

Sounds and scribbles that carry meaning, and thus become able to be used as a communications tool. :chin:

it's immoral to break the law — tim wood

No, it's illegal to break the law. It's immoral to do wrong. Many things are both, and many more neither, but they aren't the same thing.