Can you name any such thing? — Wayfarer

You're suggesting one. God or the source of order in your view. If there is such a thing, then that thing exists and not all existents have parts, etc.

What I'm trying to explain is that the 'God' that atheism says doesn't exist, really doesn't exist, but that this doesn't validate atheism. Mainly it’s a straw god argument with which Internet forums abound. — Wayfarer

So then you'd need to explain what you think is the non-straw man version of god(s) . . . and of course that will probably lead to new issues and new doubts or denials as above.

Accordingly, this source of order cannot be said to be something that exists, because existing things (1) have a beginning and an end in time and (2) are composed of parts. — Wayfarer

It would seem to me that if there is a source of order, and the source of order does not have a beginning or end in time, and it's not composed of parts, then existent things do not necessarily have a beginning or end in time and are not necessarily composed of parts. Ditto for contingency versus necessity.

Or in other words, this seems like a type of special pleading.

And note how the above makes a claim about science's standard view's ontological position on determinism, and yet you say below..... — Coben

The instrumental approach is explicitly not thoroughly deterministic. If you were to look up a definition of "stochastic processes," you'd find content such as "A stochastic or random process can be defined as a collection of random variables that is indexed by some mathematical set, meaning that each random variable of the stochastic process is uniquely associated with an element in the set."

As I've explained, it's an instrumental approach, one that doesn't make philosophical, ontological commitments. But what is the instrumental approach in question? It's explicitly that not everything is treated deterministically (a random process isn't deterministic). Hence science isn't strongly deterministic and hasn't been for over 150 years, so one can't appeal to the sciences being strongly deterministic.

Of course, you want to say that it's instrumentally non-deterministic while science "really buys" a thoroughgoing strong determinism, but there's no support for that.

Oh, are you an Aspie? — Coben

No, but you clearly are, which is why you think I'm forwarding contradictions, and it's why I have to explain any of this so laboriously to you, to try to "Aspie-proof" it to your satisfaction, because you can't grok it without that . . . although it usually seems like a futile pursuit. Not being an Aspie, it's difficult for me to anticipate all of the problems that are going to emerge from their "literal" readings, especially because the notion of "literal" is ambiguous due to the fact that meaning is relative and subjective.

Well, see, that was me pointing out your behavior. It was not me making an argument, — Coben

How could you not tell that I was responding sarcastically? Oh, right. Because you're clearly an Aspie just like Isaac.

My experience is that you can't concede anything, — Coben

Conceding requires something cogent and insightful to make a concession to. Not offended, bickering, reading comprehension problems stemming from not liking someone.

Of course, that you even want others to concede things is part of the problem in my view. It would be nice if we could be interested in others views as their views, where we ask questions because we want to better understand their views, as their views, and/or as an aid to them developing their views as their views, because in general we're interested in other people as unique individuals.

he has, of late, taken a really snotty ad hom turn. — Coben

I think it's important to realize that the idea that academic pursuits can be strongly separated from personality facts, personal issues, personal dispositions, personal biases, etc. is bullshit.

I'm afraid I have lost interest in trying to get you to notice your contradictions — Coben

If this implies that you're going to stop being such a yippy-dog like pest, then praise the Lord. (Note that I'm not literally praising the Lord, so don't take that as contradicting my atheism.)

Are you sure. — 3017amen

Yeah, positive. We could put money on it. If you can find a logic textbook that talks about burden of proof or "needing to defend" certain claims, you win. If you can't find one after a certain period of time, I win.

It's far from describing the nature of consciousness viz. why human's have purpose and goals like Love or music or mathematics or anything of higher consciousness. — 3017amen

It's not though. The only reason that those things exist is because it's stuff that brains can do, and natural processes can and did result in the formation of brains as they are. There's no additional "why" to it aside from that.

Dennett is an eliminative materialist by the way. I'm not an eliminativist.

Per the rules of a priori formal logic or propositional logic if you prefer. — 3017amen

The conventions of logic don't actually have anything to do with ideas of "needing to defend" anything.

I just ate some kielbasa.

As soon as you make a proposition about a God's existence, you put yourself in a position of defending it. — 3017amen

Per what?

You're still in the dark. Why do I have goals? — 3017amen

It's properties of your brain--ways that your brain works. The brain structure and function that amount to properties in question arose because of genetic mutations.

Of course not. I established my criteria of epistemic adequacy and cumulative knowledge already. You're statement is just...flippant. — Pantagruel

Religious claims are no more sensible or plausible then what I proposed.

The whole debate hinges not on the actual existence of God, only the possible existence of God. — Pantagruel

Same thing with the whole debate about the oranges growing inside of toothpick crystals etc.?

You still haven't supported your view of why humans do/don't have purpose. — 3017amen

Purposes are ways that we think about things. It's thinking about something in a goal-directed way, where we have motivations for action related to goals we set.

It's a category error to project that mental phenomenon onto the world at large, as if things other than brains-functioning-as-minds think about things in a purpose-oriented way, too.

Great response. Why do we hope, is there survival value to Faith, Hope and Love? — 3017amen

He just won't stop the misconception that traits only arise and persist if there's a survival value to them.

If someone were to say, "Oranges grow to full size inside pure energy crystals made out of toothpicks, where the crystals are 1,000 times smaller than the oranges that grow to full size inside, then massless, invisible pink aliens from Grobuflax use mind control to teleport the oranges from inside the crystals to your local grocery store, but only after they eat them first," you wouldn't need to withhold judgment about it, you wouldn't need to say, "Well, I can't say that's not how it works--I need to consider it as a possibility," etc.

Religious claims are at least as ridiculous as what I made up above--they're equally insane-sounding nonsense. It's just that they're so entrenched in our culture historically that people give them more consideration.

Atheists must assert that they currently possess adequate knowledge to be able to comprehend everything that is possibly knowable right now, before declaring that God does not exist. Which is of course absurd! — Pantagruel

Nah, all you have to do is admit that folks (on theistic side) are positing incoherent, insane-sounding nonsense.

Also, for them to be making a positive claim about it, we can't be saying that it's unknowable.

But there's no reason to reserve judgment about it when it's incoherent nonsense.

Can you see the quantum universe? — 3017amen

There are existent things that we can't directly sense. I'm not saying anything about that when I say that the idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent. That's not anything about whether we directly sense something.

Of course you have to be kidding me right? — 3017amen

No, not at all. Teleology is goofy nonsense, precipitated by projecting the way we think about things onto the world at large. That's a common problem--projecting mental stuff into the world, although it was more common historically than it is now, but it's still a problem with many things.

Great. How do you know that for sure? — 3017amen

I'll go part by part.

The first part? Because the notion of nonphysical existents is incoherent.

As to your statement, it depends on what you mean by “god”. Generally my answer would be “I do not know”, but that might change depending on how you define “god”. — DingoJones

Yeah, it could change with a different definition, but unless someone explains that they're using some goofy definition, I assume they're using standard senses. So if someone asks me, "True or false: there are Fender Stratocasters made in 1846" I'm going to say false. It might turn out that they're using "Fender Stratocaster" to refer to horseshoes, but I'm going to assume they're using the term normally until they tell me they're using it to refer to horseshoes.

I'll get to your other concerns TC, but we are talking over each other. I am asking why we have those traits. — 3017amen

If you're asking why in the sense of looking for a purpose, there is none. The world in general has no purposes.

1. God does not exist.

True or false? — 3017amen

True, of course.

While I'm in agreement with your description of how the survival mechanism of evolution happens, I do think there has to be positive survival value to higher cognition. — Artemis

Yeah, I think that, too. But 3017amen has the common misconception that a trait can't arise unless it's evolutionarily advantageous, so it's important to get him to realize that that's a misconception.

Assuming you're an atheist, you consider there is no mystery in the world, — 3017amen

Again, that's not at all the case. I think it's interesting for theists to try to argue in support for theism. I don't think it's interesting when they do that by arguing against atheism where they're completely misrepresenting what atheism even is. Atheism doesn't imply a belief that evolutionary theory is correct, it doesn't imply a belief that there is no mystery in the world, etc. What you're doing is akin to someone saying, "I'm going to demonstrate that the Beatles aren't the best band: first, the Beatles were leprechauns from another planet . . . "

Please Tell me what Love is?

Examples could be: subjective truth, objective truth, phenomena of some sort, or... ? — 3017amen

Love is the name for a set of brain states, the set of states that amount to an intense feeling of deep affection, caring, romantic attachment, etc.

therefore you must use logic to explain human existence. Therefore, please explain that human phenomenon using logic. — 3017amen

That's a category error that, like suggesting that the Beatles were leprechauns from another planet, suggests that you're not very familiar with what logic is. Logic isn't an "explanation tool." Logic is the way we think about implicational and inferential relations.

I explained everything I'm explaining here in the other thread. But you're just repeating the same misconceptions. You need to acknowledge and either present objections to what I'm saying or reflect that you agree and understand what I'm saying.

Okay. then how do you explain why we have that ability? — 3017amen

First, note that holding any particular stance doesn't actually require that one explain particular things. One can be an atheist and think that we have no idea how to explain various things--we're still figuring it out.

At any rate, I do buy evolutionary theory, and on a broad level, the reason that we have every single ability that we have is that it was a possible property of the materials that comprise our bodies, in the wake of a progression of genetic mutations over a huge period of time. The abilities that persisted were those that were genetically transmitted, and that weren't enough of a liability to make it not possible for the species to continue breeding.

So are you saying the ability of mathematical computation is by chance? — 3017amen

No.

I'm saying that it doesn't need to have positive or even neutral survival value, and there doesn't have to be a need for it. That doesn't imply that we're talking about random phenomena. Something with slightly negative survival value can arise, via a genetic mutation, via processes that are not random.

Note that this isn't saying anything about the survival value of mathematical abilities. It's just a general truth about evolution.

Exactly. It strikes me that a lot of it is simply about folks feeling better/more confident and secure about their own view. If they can support it in a way that seems satisfactorily "intellectual" to them, they're more comfortable holding it than they would be otherwise.

the probability of a Deity — 3017amen

I don't at all buy Bayesian probability, by the way. I only buy frequentist probability, and even that has problems in my view.

What survival value does math hold? — 3017amen

So starting with that again, regardless of whether mathematics has survival value, traits are not required to have positive survival value, or necessity, to persist. All that's required is that traits do not have a significant enough negative survival value to end up making that species go extinct.

So when you're wondering why some trait exists, assuming that it must have positive survival value to exist, or that it must be necessary, is a misconception.

Again, this is regardless of whether any particular trait has positive, neutral or negative survival value.

By the way, atheism has zero connection to evolutionary theory.

Nice to see when people are confident enough about the claims they're making that they'll put money behind them.

So one, you're reading "always" like an Aspie. When people write "always" in sentences like that, they're not literally saying that in 100% of cases, with no exceptions, such and such is the case.

I can understand that that's a reading comprehension problem linked to a bigger issue, but it's still a reading comprehension problem.

So here's this post's first reading comprehension problem:

"a belief that science has a Laplacean, strongly deterministic view of the world"

Isn't saying something about limiting supposed ontological claims (don't miss or misread "supposed") only to comments about how the brain functions.

it still wouldn't help his position — Coben

My position was "You can't use a belief that science has a Laplacean, strongly deterministic view of the world as a support for determinism." And I was mocking the fact that people approach it that way, despite the fact that it would imply that they're at least 150 years out of date.

I had already told you above that it's not an ontological claim, which doesn't imply that science is really positing a Laplacean view. That ("it's really Laplacean") would be an ontological claim that isn't being made, which is just my point.

Stochastic processes are a modelling method, no-one is claiming that they actually are random — Isaac

Again, a reading comprehension problem, as I already addressed this.

The sciences do not make an ontological commitment to "what's really the case ontologically behind stochastic processes." This means that it is not the standard view in the sciences that stochastic processes are really strongly deterministic. The sciences treat stochastic processes instrumentally instead.

The passage I quoted showed that the scientific opinion on the brain is that it acts as a classical (non-stochastic) system. — Isaac

That comment was irrelevant to what I'd said, where the irrelevance was addressing a reading comprehension misunderstanding.

What's an example of your last statement? — Unlimiter

For example, you can't experience a view of the Earth from the surface of the Earth, where that's your entire field of vision, and from the moon, where that's your entire field of vision, at the same time.

Re the first question, it's just a different experience. There's no way to experience "everything, from every perspective in every regard" because some things exclude others.

I think our senses normally tell us what (external) reality is actually like, with respect to our senses. So in other words, and for example, it tells us what things actually sound like, within the frequencies, volumes, etc. we can hear.

Technology can give us info about what external reality is like at frequencies we can't hear, electromagnetic radiation frequencies we can't see, etc.

Fine, if the best you've got by way of intelligent discussion is just to label every disagreement as a reading comprehension issue — Isaac

Not even remotely what I'm doing. Hence, another example of the problem.

Yes, this whole sub-discussion started when I asked you to support that assertion, and why you proceed with it (despite the complete absence of any unbiased evidence) — Isaac

Which is why I'm now focusing my posts on pointing out your reading comprehension and reasoning gaffes as they occur.

o, if your only evidence that someone lacks comprehension or reasoning skills is that they question the coherence or consistency of what you say, — Isaac

Nope. And here's another reading comprehension and reasoning gaffe. I'll keep pointing them out for you.

What if Trump wins the next election and declares himself President for Life? If he is allowed to defy Congress on this matter, then what is going to stop him? . . . . I'm not talking about a military coup. I'm talking about Trump defying the Constitution and getting away with it. And it's happening right before your eyes. Trump's lawyers have basically declared that he ought to be immune from prosecution, even though the complaint that has been filed against him is clear and so-far unchallenged evidence of criminal acts. — Wayfarer

People can claim whatever they want, but it would be settled in the courts. It wouldn't be Trump's decision.

If you read the actual facts about Trump's character, career, history and politics, there is no way you could support him, but of course, neither he nor his supporters read anything much — Wayfarer

Yeah, I didn't read anything about him. All I knew about him when I voted for him was gained from TV and radio during the campaign, and then prior to that, most of my info about him came from his appearances on Howard Stern.

Surely a right is something no-one can prevent? — iolo

Natural rights can be prevented, including legally, but it's seen as morally wrong to prevent them.

Legal rights can be prevented--physically, for example, but it's illegal to prevent them.