No, you are missing the point; any natural starting point for the Big Bang (with infinite time) implies infinite Big Bangs. So the Big Bang was not natural. — Devans99

You are still concluding it to be unnatural without being able to apply data on what is natural or not about it. I.e begging the question.

How on earth could a non-sentient creator create something like spacetime? It clearly requires intelligence. — Devans99

How can you draw that conclusion? You answer a question about something you have no idea about, where's the logic here? You make assumptions based on your belief here.
Begging the question

Plus all the signs of fine-tuning for life in the universe — Devans99

A flawed argument cannot support another flawed argument to enforce an assumed conclusion. It's like fallacy inception.

I do not assume causality to work before Big Bang. If causality does not apply before the Big Bang, that falls under the 'Can get something from nothing' axiom. — Devans99

No, because'Can get something from nothing' still implies that you can define exactly what was before. Can you disprove that the Big Bang wasn't a quantum probability within infinite time, therefore 100% probable to occur instantly? You can't disprove or disprove anything without data on what was before Big Bang. "Nothing" cannot be applied to the reasoning either since you need to define what "nothing" is based on nothing more than assumptions of how to define what was before Big Bang.

So my argument is free from 'cause and effect' as an axiom. — Devans99

No, because you don't know the properties of pre-Big Bag so you cannot define anything at all.

I think my argument is still sufficiently general to cover this; can you be more specific? — Devans99

No, it isn't. The specifics and my point is that every kind of definition of what was before Big Bang is pure speculation and even the properties of pre-Big Bang cannot be quantified into any kind of logic if you don't have knowledge and data of pre-Big Bang.

Your argument is equivalent of a scientist saying that he is certain of what was pre-Big Bang, no serious scientist would ever make such a claim before we have proper data and math to cover it, so why would you be certain of anything and how could you use that uncertainty as a premise in your argument? It's seriously flawed.

I understand the analogy and agree with it; the Christian God is very unlikely because we have evidence that (for example) omnipotence is very unlikely. I am not arguing for a Christian God. — Devans99

Then move on to John Wisdom's gardener analogy.
Then answer this:
If you have such an undefined definition of what God is that it could be considered "whatever", then the metaphorical interdimensional stone could be the God you are arguing for, then why call it God at all if not to apply you own belief to an object of no sentience?
Then:
If you have God as undefined, but sentient, you have defined it with at least one property, that of sentience, which has no support in the argument you are making. Therefore, you assume it to have sentience out of your belief and will that this is true, not out of any evidence for it.

There is no evidence at all if the evidence is an assumption based on flawed reasoning.

Your math sucks. I have a 1st class in math. — Devans99

Are you using yourself as the authority in an appeal to authority fallacy?
Nice narcissism there. You apply your own invented probability number and use it based on how you want it to work in the equation.

Yes but my point is; in the absence of evidence/data you assume a normal distribution. Your statistics sucks as well. — Devans99

You are drawing a true conclusion out of a probability value based on your own invented values of each points probability. With some points being "Big Bang 50%"; of what? God? It's flawed. Probability needs data on the outcome so that it can be quantified. Since we don't know anything about pre-Big Bang, you have no data to put into your calculation. Therefore you cannot calculate any type of probability for God.

It was 3 years ago. Maybe jamalrob will be open to a new vote now that we're a much bigger community with many more members. — Michael

I think it's possible to have a vote system again. Maybe just skip the "downvote" since that's seriously able to be abused. Voting someone up can only be done once and you can remove that vote if you want, but never downvote. Then if someone votes on someone as being a good dialectical sparring partner but then realize that person is misbehaving, later on, he/she can just remove the vote.

Through that, no one can just downvote someone because they don't like what they say, they can only vote positive on someone they think is behaving properly and if they change their mind, just remove the vote. The numbers apply to a "respected" scale, meaning, it's not about who is "the best at philosophy", but if you reach over a certain number of votes you become "respected" or "quality poster".

Might that work? Or are there any problems I'm not seeing with this?

The history of philosophy is not a straight line though. There is no equivalent to the scientific method that just builds on previous observations for philosophy as a whole. — Echarmion

Aren't we considering "how we make an argument" something that has been refined over the years? With a growing list of fallacies and biases to guide us past the flaws of human reasoning? Those things have been built upon past understandings of how to compose arguments.

This is an internet forum. Not everyone here has any formal education in philosophy. I don't. So not everyone will be able to follow complex terminology or logical constructions. I don't know if my arguments are in line with "current methods", but I think that I can nevertheless construct a rational argument if I try. — Echarmion

Yes, and I don't either, but I've been seriously autodidacting how to do arguments, how to try and avoid fallacies and biases. Even if no one has formal education, it's I think at least at a minimum required to understand basic philosophy on a philosophy forum. The guidelines even state that you need to apply proper arguments. And while I'm not saying I manage to be perfect in this sense, especially compared to those with academic philosophical training, I at least try and follow how things need to be done and if someone has a problem with how I write something or rationalize I try and listen in order to understand and evolve my argument, like a dialectic is supposed to.

The problem though, is that some don't even apply the basics and discuss just like they would on say, Facebook or other forums. Philosophy, at least in my opinion, requires at least to apply yourself to the basics of it and especially listen to counter-arguments properly, instead of spamming the same thing over and over again.

Sometimes an argument just goes in circles between a few people saying the same thing over and over, other people shake their heads and leaves the discussion to those people and the thread just dies. Just because people aren't even applying anything close to a dialectic.

I think there should be an addition to the top of the forum beside guidelines, which have some tips on how to form an argument, a list of fallacies and biases and a note on the importance of reading and understanding someone's counter-argument before answering. It would be helpful for everyone who has little to no knowledge of philosophy when registering on this forum.

Then where did the stone come from? — Devans99

You are missing the point, I'm saying that there might be something outside of spacetime that isn't a sentient creator. A starting point or a point that always was; that is dead as a stone and just as irrational as calling a real stone, creator or God. The essential thing is that you assume causality to work before Big Bang, but we have nothing that proves or disproves if there even was causality before. This assumption makes any causality/first-cause-argument flawed. It's ignorant of scientific theories and ignorant of rationality and logic.

concludes that the cause of any such stone must be non-natural. Its a very simple argument: if creation was natural and time was infinite then there would be infinite creations; there is only one creation. That rules out stones. That means a creator. — Devans99

The stone was a metaphorical idea of an interdimensional stone that does not apply to our universe physical laws. Have you ever conceptualized a tesseract? Now imagine beyond that level of complexity with unknown properties of something that we might not even define as matter, but still not sentient.

The "time has a start" argument assumes causality to be exactly the same after Big Bang as before it. It's an assumption not proved by the argument. That's it. You need to provide real scientific data on what was before Big Bang in order to support a conclusion that demands causality and laws of nature functioning as spacetime before Big Bang. If not, it could just as well be circular; space reaches a stretching point and inflate/collapse into a small point and then explodes again into Big Bang, infinite iterations without a starting point, circular. The point being, you cannot assume things when making a conclusion, therefore you are only doing assumptions and guesses, i.e fallacies.

No because we have evidence that teapots do not fly and you are allowing for that in your probability estimate the full calculation is: — Devans99

No, you don't, please read Russel's analogy and understand it before posting. It's frustrating when you don't understand the fallacies your making or haven't read why the fallacies are fallacies and why they render your arguments wrong.

1. What is the probability of an object flying?
2. Start at 50% for an unknown boolean proposition for which we have admitted no evidence
3. First piece of evidence: object is a teapot
4. Revised probability calculation: 50% x 0% = 0% — Devans99

How is that even a logical calculation? You're just making these calculations up. Stop the pseudoscience nonsense.

Was the big bang natural or non-natural event? Without taking any further evidence, you would start at 50% yes, 50% no. — Devans99

No, you have no probability of either since you have no idea how to define the framing of the question since you don't know what was before. Probability needs data and you have none.

Then we look at the very unnatural way that space is expanding; this is no ordinary explosion; there is something unnnatural about it. — Devans99

What? You cannot define it as unnatural based on not understanding physics or know anything about the questions unanswered. You are doing assumptions all over the place to fit your narrative.

Then we further consider then universe had very close to zero entropy at the Big Bang... highly unnatural. — Devans99

How so? You need to know what came before and what's beyond our current dimensions, you need to solve the unification theory, you need to know how entropy behaves at heat death, you need to know what enabled zero entropy. You cannot brand it as unnatural in the way you do just because you believe it to be.

So actually the chances the Big Bang were unnatural, IE a creator, are probably much higher than 50% — Devans99

No, it doesn't. You don't even care to apply yourself, you are making fallacies all over the place.

I'm listening to your counterarguments its just they are not convincing... — Devans99

And you are not even making sense. There's no logic to your calculations, there's no rational understanding of how to verify or falsify your argument and you are writing fallacy after fallacy.

Do you truly understand burden of proof? Do you truly understand begging the question? Do you truly understand false cause? I can go on.

You are not even trying to take these fallacies into consideration, you are just spamming the same thing over and over. Apply verification/falsification, actual logic and apply more effort into understanding the counter-arguments before writing. And stop the tu quoque fallacy and apply yourself.

What was the reason? I understand that this could be abused and get out of hand, but maybe a form that would is different would work. But if there are good reasons/experiences not to, I understand.

They conclude that there is a creator and that is my basic definition of God. If you can point out any specific example of a fallacy in my argument, I'd be happy to discuss it. — Devans99

None of them conclude there to be a creator. They could just as well point to an interdimensional stone that hit another interdimensional stone and the blast resulted in our four-dimensional spacetime through Big Bang. It's been stated over and over throughout many threads of discussion why it's flawed to assume the truth of the conclusion when doing the premises, that's begging the question. And all the post-rationalization when burden of proof is asked for falls under any of the others I mentioned.

The truth is, you cannot conclude there to be a creator/God out of any such arguments since that is about attaching an assumption to that conclusion that has no relation to the actual premises. No flawed logic or ambiguity fallacy can save arguments from that fact.

If you want to prove the existence of God you can only use those argument's conclusions as part of the premises for a new argument. The problem with this is that there are no new arguments that hold up to the current knowledge in science and/or logical calculations so there is no way to present an argument with premises that makes logic and rational sense to the conclusion that there is a creator/God. They all fall flat which is stated over and over when they pop up on this forum. You cannot state that the existence of God is true, at closest you can state probability, but even there your numbers are way off.

I have estimated the probability that each piece of evidence on its own points of a creator of the universe: — Devans99

You're just making these numbers up. You estimate without any real logic applied.

You start at 50% probability for the question 'is there a creator/god? - IE because no evidence for/against has been considered yet. The first step of the calculation then is: — Devans99

How can you even calculate this probability? Based on what? Is there a 50% probability that there is a teapot flying in space, just because it's unable to be confirmed? This is not how you calculate probability in any logical or reasonable way. Your other numbers are also pulled out of thin air based on your own belief, not any rational calculation.

And you can't stack up probability like that either, it's flawed math, Gambler's fallacy. Especially when some of the points don't even point to any probability of a creator/God, like Big Bang. How is that a 50% probability of the existence of a creator/God?

Apply a little more reason to all of this, it makes no sense whatsoever. Look into the fallacies and biases, look over your math. You're just spamming posts with the same calculation without really listening to the counter-arguments.

Yes, as evidenced by the many mistakes people, including very smart people, have made in the history of philosophy. — Echarmion

In history, it's understandable that there's been flawed thinking because as science evolved, so did how we do rational and reasonable arguments. The thing that I don't understand is why so many who discuss philosophy won't adhere to current methods of dialectics. It's like they ignore the last 150 years of development in how to do a rational argument and when they hear counter-arguments they don't evolve their argument, just point out that they are right because [insert fallacy here].

Human minds are not perfect reasoning machines. — Echarmion

Fallacy and bias-knowledge is extremely low within the general public and that's understandable, but on a philosophy forum, it's mind-boggling.

Mods should put a pin to the top of this forum with a list of fallacies and biases and prompt people to keep them in mind.

There is quite a lot of evidence for God: — Devans99

No evidence of any of these concludes that there is a God. That's an assumption made before the conclusion.Begging the question, Burden of proof, false cause, Texas sharpshooter, ambiguity, anecdotal, post-rationalize special pleading, composition/division - are all fallacies that needs to be avoided throughout all arguments. You can't ignore them. While confirmation bias, dunning-kruger, belief bias, the backfire effect, fundamental attribution error, anchoring are all biases to avoid.

There is no evidence against God that I'm aware of. — Devans99

Burden of proof applies to the one making the claim. Read Russel and stop ignoring counter-arguments.

I've assigned a probability that each of the above means the existence of God and then combined the probabilities: — Devans99

You cannot combine probabilities like that and how do you even calculate these probabilities, you are just pulling numbers out of the air to support your conclusion. I don't know how many fallacies this includes, but at least the Gambler's fallacy.

I think you are trying too hard to prove your conclusion without actually doing proper arguments for them.

The classic "born in the wrong body" idea of a trans person, for example, is built out of our social expectations regrading bodies and gender/sex. If one body's didn't matter to gender/sex, there would be no need for someone to switch identities because of their sense of body. A person with a penis and dysphoria, for example, could go through a body changes, have SRS, yet have no need to become "female." — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is why I think the discussion is important. I have a feeling that a lot of sex changes, surgeries etc. comes down to social constructs and norms about "what is normal". Even today, even in the most progressive nations of the world, the woman/male norm of identity is still so strict within the collective mind that even if all laws about your gender identity says that you can be whatever you want and judging you is considered close to hate speech, the individual who's confused about their gender will still be confused.

Laws and general public acceptance of people who view themselves like this are not enough to welcome people into the norm of society. And when media keep trying to include them as a normal part of society, it airs much more like broadcasted freakshows than inclusion. Like the parent with outdated norms who try to act normal when meeting their son's new boyfriend.

The last 20 years have been a great push to improve societies inclusion in order to make better norms that respect everyone. But there's been a backlash in the form of conservatives fighting back. It's as it is always when political movements move faster than expected; the backfire is more complicated because the norms of society move slower. I don't think that there's any question that the fast progressive movement of many nations around the world due to internet and social media has caused a large backlash from conservative views and that's why we've had growing populist, racist, anti-LGBT and hate crime problems.

It's also not healthy that we have an entire narcissistic selfie-generation who goes so far as to do plastic surgery in order to look like a snapchat-filter (true case). This focus on the body, perfection (according to media and porn preferences) is seriously damaging on kids, teens and especially those with a confusion of their gender.

I don't think there's any point to debate whether or not these things and issues exist, they do. The question is what to do about them, how to improve society in order to keep mental health issues down. Because those issues are on the rise due to all this pressure everyone has on them and especially if you don't "normally" fit in with societies norms, you are in serious risk of depression and harm.

Maybe this forum needs a scoring system? Don't know how that would look like, but if someone is writing proper posts, answers with respect to the argument and keep their fallacies down you could invisibly "like" their post. Even if that post is against your point, most people in here know when they get proper feedback/counterargument and when they get a nutcase on their tail.

With that, those with a higher score shows as "respected member" or "quality member" or something. I guess we could make a whole argument-discussion out of such a system, but it would help distinguish between those who time after time just rant nonsense and those who come here for a proper philosophical discussion.

For example, someone who tries over and over again to present a valid argument against someone else, but keeps begging the question over and over again, without realising it, and even when this is identified and explained over and over again, and even though there is information available on the internet which explains this fallacy, the person is inescapably stuck in the pattern of behaviour of committing the fallacy over and over again. Maybe they even understand the fallacy, and could tell you what it is upon request. — S

Maybe because too many don't even have a basic understanding of philosophy or dialectic procedures? I do however find that for a forum that is open to all and that features discussions on religion and politics, it never really goes off into mindless-rant-closed-threads-directions. That's a positive thing I guess.

Personally, I find there to be a bit too much religious apologist-rants. Some believer who read Aquinas or Kalam-arguments only and then rants of without any logical reasoning at all. "First cause"-arguments keep popping up like weed and it doesn't matter how much you point out fallacies and flaws, they keep going, even though the likelihood of them "proving Gods existence" after thousands of years of philosophy, in an age of strict scientific methods, is close to zero, especially on a philosophy forum without any papers published at all.

I know there's nothing to be done about that, but it's clogging the system and you need to wade through them to reach other discussions.

Is there a way to block some sections off? Like, if I don't want to see threads posted in "Philosophy of religion" at the top? Also, all the "first cause" arguments should go into that section, Metaphysics/Epistemology is at the moment a dumping ground for first cause-arguments.

Another thing is that I think new members shouldn't be able to post subjects until they have at least 20-30 posts. I've seen this on other forums and it works great, it settles them into the forum and keeps trolls out.

the problem with "no-seeum" argument is an incredibly long line of
times they were wrong.

Until we find such a thing as a virus there is no reason to believe one exists -
Until we find such a thing as an atom there is no reason to believe one exists -
Until we find such a thing as a quark there is no reason to believe one exists
— Rank Amateur

Except no one believed any of them until they were conceived as viable hypotheses and when observed and tested, confirmed as true. You also Texas Sharpshot-picked things that were proven, while there's an even longer list of things that we today laugh at that people believed.

You cannot hypothesis God since no argument for any kind of God leads to a notion of specifically God as the end of that hypothesis. All of those had a clear hypothesis, but everything about God arguments is wild assumptions and individual concepts.

Burden of proof applies always. An argument that uses the "if you cannot disprove it, it's real" is a flawed argument and it's why Russel had such an impact on science to force it to stick to truths and not fantasies or pseudoscience.

Your post reads like a conspiracy theory rant, specifically because it's the argument they use. The conclusion of what you say; would mean we can just give up any kind of attempt at discussing the world and universe since everyone can neatly stick to their own world-view and beliefs. I see no room for such nonsense in philosophy.

Perhaps you might say that a criticism against anarcho-communism is that communism requires a state, and so the anarcho-communist is committed to a practical, if not theoretical, contradiction. I think much the same thing about anarcho-capitalists. — Moliere

Yes, anarcho-communism is a contradiction for me, it feels like communism is slapped onto anarchy in order to not frame it as pure anarchy, but it makes little sense. Anarcho-capitalists are down in the Ayn Rand objectivism, it's essentially Bioshock's Rapture.

That depends on what you believe people will be like without a state. — Moliere

I am too nihilistic to believe that a pure anarchy society can function in any way. It will most likely become an Ayn Rand nightmare. But it also has its roots in the sociological and psychological observations that groups of 12 are the maximum in which people can behave as a functional anarchy system, beyond that people start grouping together, form tribalism and if there is no over-arching authority someone will start calling the shots, demanding things from the other groups etc.

I think that sub-definitions of political forms doesn't really change the over-arching map. A scale of authority to liberal, collectivism to individualism is the most basic map we can define by and within it, we get those corners which makes sense according to the first scales. Central economy and capitalism forms naturally under them and slapping together different parts trying to create some combination are usually why they never work and become failed sub-category political movements. It's the "eat the cake and have it too" of politics. The only way to do that is to embrace Objectivism and take the cake, eat it and by gunpoint demand that the one who owned it makes more.

I disagree with you here. Without a state, even a minimal state, to back up private property claims you do not have private property. You may have warlords or gangsters, but you don't have a court system to enforce contracts over private property. — Moliere

True, but in anarchy, you are free to claim anything for yourself, but if you don't support the community you will be left alone and if you force yourself onto the community, they will bond together to get rid of you. Think a small village thousands of years ago with no attachment to any kingdom. Some African tribes used this anarchy type; where families came together to organize bigger things for the community, but no one was enforced by anyone other than other tribe-members, like when someone stopped helping within the community. Communism requires a state and authority, anarchy is anarchy.

In Objectivism, there is no community other than everyone's individually created one. If you want to find a place you need to take it or be a slave to masters. The only way to be happy is to embrace your own situation, become your own master, own your own slaves and create your own rules and laws within your property. It's essentially the kind of anarchy people usually think of because if society falls and we end up with nothing but survival, it's the kind of chaos and society that Mad Max represents, it's not anarchy, it's Ayn Rand. That's why the game Bioshock perfectly captures this; a society that bloomed because of Objectivism, but eventually fell due to its irrationality as a system in which power struggles between the powerful boils over and then end up with the type of Mad Max society people often mistake for anarchy.

I think you are confusing liberty with individual liberty -- as if this were the only thing under consideration. It's important to anarcho-communism, or libertarian communism, but not the whole story. — Moliere

You have the authoritarian-liberal scale and the collective-individualism scale on there.
What other scale of liberty are you referring to? You are either totally free or you are free in a community-form.

Kropotkin is a pretty typical thinker when it comes to understanding anarcho-communism. — Moliere

But he is essentially describing anarchy. I think there are lots of people who miss that anarchy isn't "Mad Max", it's just a society in which everyone exists as a collective without authority given to anyone specific.

With Anarchy as an aim and as a means, Communism becomes possible. Without it, it necessarily becomes slavery and cannot exist.

And if people want freedom on such an individual level that no state exists, you end up down in objectivism and Ayn Rand.

But at the same time, individualistic freedom is at the bottom right. That's where organized individualistic freedom is positioned, the form where businesses have the power to create their own laws and rules within their bubble. The collective anarchy (regular) is bottom left, totalitarian state communism is top left. Are we placing anarcho-communism at the mid-left then? Even though some branches of it are individualistic?

But there was communist anarchy. — TheMadFool

Can't have communism without a state. I know the general Marxist idea is that the state disappears, but without a state that could organize the common ownership, there would be no communist society. Anarcho-communism is essentially anarchy and in some forms, it seems to move over to individual liberty which isn't really in the realm of the collectivism that communism is supposed to work under, so not only does the state absolve, the entire point of common ownership is absolved. Anarcho-communism is, in my view, for those who confuse their political views, who want capitalistic individualism but common ownership and absolvement of the state, try putting that on the above map.

If they arrested those who hired illegal immigrants, there wouldn't be any. — Hanover

Extremely simplified concept without basis in reality.

The wall is pretty much stupid, but I prefer it to another war. To those who think that's a false choice, like maybe we could choose something other than war or a wall, I say you're wrong. — Hanover

What war?

Why do you say that? Why is it more interesting? — TheMadFool

Because if the crime was committed before the copying, both are guilty since both have the same identity, memory of the murder, motivation etc. so it's essentially a coin toss who gets jail or both get it.

Let's say "B" gets murdered.

If A is copied into A1 and they both get separated for a day, A or A1 murders B that day, but the other didn't.

Essentially they both had the same psychology, motivation and thought process up until this point, but small variations between their experience during that day changed their line of thinking and act, having one of them kill B, while the other didn't.

Maybe A even had the idea to murder B before copying, but during the day after, either A or A1 murdered B and the other couldn't because he was already murdered. Who is guilty then? If they both had the same motivation and will to act?

Could God be a man-made concept? There is no definitive proof that god exists and different cultures portray gods differently, yet most people believe in some form of higher power. Could this be an idea created by people to give them a sense of purpose or is there really a higher power that we have just yet to fully discover? — Franklin

It's man-made. Study anthropology, history, psychology and sociology and it will show a very common pattern of human behavior. Until proven, we can't even be sure there is something outside of our reality that is a God but who don't interact or knows about us, which puts us in the John Wisdom gardener analogy. The commonalities among those who believe and rationalize that belief is that they don't have enough knowledge of how our brain process reality around us and therefore do not pay attention to when they fall victim of such behaviors and thoughts that would be considered delusional in any study of them and their psychology.

Any rational standpoint would at least start at this conclusion and work from there. Any other position results in a fallacy or bias-based line of arguments since any other conclusion relies on assumptions and belief itself.

I was just providing some detail to the question the TC asked, "Could it really prevent immigration?" The answer is "no," for the reasons I gave. — Terrapin Station

And I agreed with my kinda ironic description of why it is as you say.

It's already well-known that most illegal aliens don't enter the country illegally. They don't sneak across the border.

Even for those who do want to sneak in, are we forgetting about the huge bodies of water that aren't going to have any wall?--the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean? — Terrapin Station

You assume that common people and politicians trying to get votes from common people have enough knowledge to understand this. I always assume most people to be initially stupid and uneducated until proven otherwise, but that's just the nihilistic part of me :sweat:

I wasn't addressing the "overall point" of the thread. Just the one small bit that I quoted from your post (in relation to beliefs that are common among theists). — Terrapin Station

In that case, I would regard the points on what people believe outside causality arguments to be unethical, per my other thread.

People who believe these things DO believe that there are signs of interacting with God. It changes their lives in their view, changes their mental/emotional states, their relationships with others, etc. — Terrapin Station

Wasn't the point of this to evaluate what's the point if there was a God? And if there was a God, based on the common arguments that only points to a God that is so detached from us and our world, it becomes absurd to rely on that God or think we see causation where there is no correlation?

And as a side-note, I would argue that those people invite disaster, per my irrational belief argument in another thread. It breaks epistemic responsibility and is in my opinion unethical to apply to the world, since it only benefits the self, which, by almost all moral teaching equals immoral behavior. And even if God existed it would still be so, since it opens the door for murder in Gods name because of such irrational belief. Perhaps this thread may give me some thoughts on how to improve that argument since it actually is detached from any causality argument for God.

* We do interact with God regularly during our worldly lives; just not in ways that are detectable scientifically (and they believe that that is on purpose, because faith is important)

* Our faith in God enriches our lives in many different ways

* We interact with God after death

* How we interact with God after death depends on what our beliefs were during our Earthly life. — Terrapin Station

There are no signs at all of interacting with God, a cake enrich my life and it wasn't made by God, you cannot confirm that you will interact with God after death and how we interact is also not confirmed because of the first unconfirmed.

And, because of all that, John Wisdom's gardener-analogy applies, because Correlation does not equal causation - a common fallacy and one that believers make every day.

If we accept God as real, there are no signs of God, so the most logical conclusion is that if God existed, he's the gardener in the analogy. The only reason many people believe those things is because they were taught so, not by observing it. And if observing something they couldn't explain, they would get answers from religion based on other observations in history that also didn't get a rational explanation.

The only rational conclusion, if we were to accept God as existing, would be that God doesn't interfere or involve with us at all, which of course then leads us back to the gardener-analogy.

The world, especially the workplace, does not wait for your comfort, your convenience, punctuality is a pretty basic expectation. Tediousness and awkwardness?; welcome to life, and deadlines; someone’s paying you to do something in a timeframe. That’s what you’re paid for. — Brett

Absolutely, but we have to realize that a lot of the higher educations focus on jobs that as of now change their entire business strategy to make room for different personality types and the psychology of the employees. A lot of the old ways have been proven to work against the productivity of the companies today, so all of what you say depends entirely on what type of workplace that the education is actually aiming for.

deadlines; someone’s paying you to do something in a timeframe. That’s what you’re paid for. — Brett

Deadlines are deadlines, doesn't matter how you do the work, you deliver before the deadline. I'm working within this system and I plan out my days according to the needs, but always deliver before the deadline. Productivity is not the same as filling out the hours. You can't punch the clock, especially if the job focuses on high creativity activities, which will become far more common as we move into an age of high automation industries.

They do more than go through pedagogy classes. It takes more than charisma to teach. The problem is that we’re never sure what purpose education should serve. — Brett

I know that they do more, but what I'm referring to is the rapport towards the students, that has nothing to do with what is being taught or the purpose of the education after it ends, it has to do with opening the student's minds to actual learning instead of force-feeding information that never sticks.

Most people who went through education forget almost everything. The only thing they know after a few years of work is the actual work that they do and only hints, bits and pieces are left of what they learned during education. The only educations that need crucial focus on the information are educations similar to surgeon/medical educations with extreme esoteric terminology and high risk. Which is why these educations last far longer than everything else.

My point is still that actually getting someone to learn something that sticks requires good ability to establish rapport with the students, which is a very rare quality. Many students I've talked to always refer to a favorite teacher and every bit of information that they remember perfectly comes from those teachers classes, while the rest exists in a blur.

The knowledge about learning, the psychology of learning is rarely understood in many schools and higher education and this is a great problem.

The big question here is, what is most important? To learn the information you are there to learn or to learn how to be punctual? If many industries and workplaces, as of now, are moving into strategies more in line with how psychology maps the best performance in people and it's changing from the "punchclock"-way we've been doing it since the industrial revolution; and blue collar jobs start to disappear because of automation, what is the purpose of keeping a strict form of education to conform students to something that will probably not be true in the future?

To conform to a business way of doing their business, like being punctual and keeping a schedule, is something that is different between all types of industries and a new employee need to conform to those specific industries when they start working there. Do you really think that a person won't be able to conform to that because their education was more suited for learning instead of strict scheduling rules? If I ran a company, I'd rather have someone who might be 20 minutes late but really knows what they are doing. Who gets most done during a day? Someone who is competent with the knowledge or someone who just gets there in time and keeps the schedule. Especially in creative jobs it's irrelevant to be on time if you cannot use your mind.

And then when you graduate you go out into a world that is absolutely nothing like that. What you have is a formula for failure. — Brett

And regular classes and education forms are like the rest of the world? There's nothing in education that is like the real world so there's no form to actually shape them for it. This is why math is a failure for most nations since no one in the real world use math like you're taught in school. Only physics, high-level economy etc. use math in similar ways but if you choose a high education for those, then it's specific to that education.

The biggest problem with education is that schools don't know how kids actually learn or how anyone learns anything. They try to force-feed information to people and very little of it sticks. Those who are genuinely interested in the topic being taught will learn it. So the key is to find out how to create interest in the things taught. Primarily, very few teachers are actually good at teaching. They might have gone through pedagogy classes before becoming teachers but teaching has a lot to do with you as a human being, your personality. - If you cannot find rapport with your students, find a place where they listen with their mind and not just their ears, then you can teach.

I think that teachers should be paid A LOT more, but that the demands on them should be higher. Just like with surgeons and other high paid professions, a teacher needs a lot more than just force-feeding information.

If you look at online videos from some teachers who put their lectures online, what is different between those with low views and those with high views. Those with high views tend to have a teacher that is charismatic, who moves around, who jokes and talks in different rhythms. It's like a performance because that's how we communicate regularly.

If you want free education, move to Sweden, there are no compromises to the education form, but it's free. Except when it comes to material like books etc. However, there are many online classes as well.

I really don't understand why so few nations have free education. If politicians and the people had just a tiny bit of logical thinking and understanding of the causality involved with giving every citizen a high-quality education, they would not hesitate to make it free.

The problem, as I see it, is that regular people and politicians really don't understand long term consequences and opportunities of their decisions, they can only think short term.

A has experienced non-existence one might say. But what we've done to A and A1 seems very similar to sleep. — TheMadFool

It will only feel like sleep for the person you copied if you copied everything exactly. The person who died, died.

When we sleep we cease to exist mentally — TheMadFool

No we don't, our minds are very active during sleep, but I get your point.

So we could in fact say that a person dies in his sleep only to wake up as another. — TheMadFool

How can this be if you don't move the actual brain from A to A1? The mind isn't external to the neurons and nerve structure of A, so copying A to A1 would only make A1 feel like having slept from the point of being copied. The person who dies, dies and will not wake up.

The only thing that seems to ground our identity is memory - we remember what happened before we slept. Of course our physical appearance too doesn't change. — TheMadFool

Yes, there's nothing to suggest that our identity is more than our memories. However, personality relies on other things in our brain structure and body. You can even transplant gut bacteria from one person to another and that person might change some personality traits, like being angrier and eating more because the person those gut bacterias came from had those traits.

The identity is a mix of memories and physical/genetical programming that tune how we react and act out of those memories. It's why in psychology we've concluded the debate over nature or nurture to be over, it's both. Body and mind, genetics/physical (nature) and memories (nurture).

Therefore, it seems, based on the analysis above, that A1 is A (A has been cured of his fatal disease) and we can rightly call A1 as A. — TheMadFool

A1 is A if it's a perfect copy. If A were still alive, both A and A1 is A.
But after that point, both will have different experiences and will become two new identity-versions. A and A1 will have their own memories that will shape their future self.

A1, by analysis above, is A since he has the memory of the crime and is an exact copy of A. Yet, it seems intuitively wrong to punish A1 for A's crime. It's just that A1 has A's memories. He didn't actually commit the crime. — TheMadFool

We punish people who ordered crimes right? They don't do the crimes but their mind was part of it. The physical body doesn't matter, the intention does. If A1 is a perfect copy in every way, it will remember and react like A would have when charged with the crime.

It would be different if A1 committed a crime AFTER the copying. Would A also be guilty if A thought of doing the crime and A1 carried it out, but not A? That's a much more interesting thought experiment in my opinion.

Here we are. One point of view suggests A is A1 and another that suggests the opposite. — TheMadFool

I actually don't think it's overly complicated. An exact copy is a copy, it's the same person times two.

You might want to see the movie "The Prestige"
And if you really wanna fry your brain, play the game SOMA.

in this thread, God's existence is granted, being supposed herein to be at the least not any less real than Samuel Johnson's stone (that he kicked) - or for that matter any degree of real beyond that you care to make Him. — tim wood

As I might very well be the most atheist on this forum (at least from what I've read), looking at it as given that God exists, it reminded me of John Wisdom's Gardener tale, here modified by Antony Flew:

Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no gardener." So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. "But perhaps he is an invisible gardener." So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible, to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves. At last the Skeptic despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all? — John Wisdom

To the question:

But so what? — tim wood

I would answer, it is irrelevant. If God were proven to be, but not here, not able to interact with us and the world just follows the same physic rules as ever, having us through science and technology tame this nature and universe, without any interaction from that God, then who cares if God is real?

For me, it becomes a stone in the forest. You believe it's there, its form, you can describe it: it is pale, not black, it doesn't look like any stone and you know, in your deepest, that it is there. You one day go into the forest and you find the stone... now what?

I think it has to do with purity. We have a disgust center in our brain, the anterior insula which regulates emotional feedback on disgust. People range between a wide range of disgust and it's also part of why we have political left and right leanings. Being politically right might have some influences in higher disgust feedback while the left is more open to things outside of those parameters. There are hypotheses on how society works best by a pendulum between right and left politics; the left embracing progressive ideas, new ideas, creative ideas etc. while the right embrace stability, security, and order. Neither would lead to a functioning society, but the two together form an alliance that moves society forward with each step; one for progress and one for taking the new and form stability around it.

But everyone has feelings of disgust and it forces us to balance that feeling out with purity. If we see imperfections we want to correct them. Disgust is also about sex and relationships, we embrace purity, not just in virginity, but with how we look. We embrace symmetry. There is research that shows that we find symmetric faces more attractive for example. Foul smells and weird skin complexion makes us unsure of the partner's health and purity.

All of this affects how we view art and form. It's why we find some forms soothing and balanced, why most symmetrical forms feel calmer than those that aren't. If a Ming vase is imperfect, it's purity is tainted and the hunt for perfection in life gets replicated in the price drop of those Ming vases. It's like finding the perfect partner in love and sex who is absolutely pure in every conceivable aspect. It's like cooking the most well-balanced taste for a meal, that absolutely nails the purity of the tastes. We search for perfection every chance we get and a small crack in a Ming vase means that it is tainted, it's no longer perfection and we feel disgusted.

What if personalities are like that? — TheMadFool

Psychology primarily use the system 1 and system 2 for how we process and think about the world, and then the five-factor model for personality. If you want to include science, that's the models to use together with general IQ measurements.

That means, at some point in time, when all combinations of personality or even body types have actualized, repetitions will occur. A person exactly like Isaac Newton, Hitler, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, even you, will be born. — TheMadFool

That will never happen. You first have to factor in the possible variations of the above, then add genetical variations that will never be the same because of evolution, which in turn influence behavior, then add cultural nurture that forms the individual, environmental influences etc.

Is this reincarnation? — TheMadFool

So, no. Variations get far beyond just personality.

Even quantitative features — Moliere

Yes, but for this graph, it's more about the political coordination of political systems in relation to the people. Quantitative features have more to do with defining "the health" within the coordination on this graph.

One form I have in mind is the individual strength within this graph. Right now it only shows where you are if you place yourself somewhere, but not the strength of it. You might be a total supporter of dictatorship, a servent of that ruler, or you are someone at the outskirts of society, but still in support of that ruler. Which means the less you support something, the more centralized you get, but also less positioned. So that the 3D form of the graph is that of a pyramid, with the graph at the bottom and the point at zero interest or knowledge.

But this is a work in progress, nothing that I have thought through in its entirety yet.

I've been trying to complement that map, thinking about if there are other parameters.
Right now it's pretty solid in showing the collective, the individual ruler and their levels of having a state. But can we go in another direction? Just like a square becomes a cube with more dimensions, is there room for other variants of a political system that no one is really thinking about and do not fit the coordinates present at this time?

As per the map above.

While biological sex and gender identity are the same for most people, this isn't the case for everyone. For example, some people may have the anatomy of a man, but identify themselves as a woman, while others may not feel they're definitively either male or female. — NHS

I'm a bit confused by how this isn't obvious for everyone. Gender identity science is a real thing, there are tons to read about it, but I think people just ignore it because of their emotional response to the science. In essence; even at a philosophical forum people can't seem to separate their preprogrammed culture and lash out with every bias and fallacy there is.

What I find more interesting, as I don't see how the definitions can be disputed really, is why? Why does some children go through this? Is it nature or nurture? Is it a combination, like most things in psychology? More importantly, how does gender stereotypes in society and also, the active force against those stereotypes play into the nurture of kids? Where is the balance between upholding differences between genders and fighting stereotypes that influence destructive behavior on both the sense of identity and social interactions later in life?

There was already a tunnel under a segment of the wall. I think that says it all. It's a waste of money and resources.

And in what way would it help the situation? Prevent what? If people move over the border and won't get proper help to integrate into society, they will feed the socioeconomic problems with poverty etc.

What if the cost of the wall would be put on better relations with neighboring countries, with better help of integration for immigrants coming into the country? Problems by immigrated people do not come from them being "different", that is in essence racism. The problems come out of their socioeconomic situation and the lack of integration. It raises tribalism, segregation and hate within society and the consequences can be felt for decades after.

Name one country that has increased long term stability with force and locking borders in the past?
Name one country that has increased instability because of force and locking borders?

Communism has failed because of corruption both of the state and the ideas, it's not about scale.
Anarchy, however, cannot work because how we humans act in groups. Groups larger than 12 starts to break apart based on the nature of how our psychology works. We need structure to follow in order for larger groups to work.

You can also have anarchy under rules, close to the ideals of Ayn Rand. That we have rules and systems invented to be followed by lesser people and those who have the ability to control and prosper do so at their own will. This is pretty much the foundation of Cyberpunk dystopias in which corporations have taken over society and they control the rules and laws applied.

Essentially we have four corners of extreme political ideas on the


Meaning we have communism in the upper left, and upper right we have an autocracy, single ruler (dictatorship) both with low freedom because of the totalitarian rule. In the lower corners are total freedom, but based on community or individualism. So the normal view on Anarchy is still that you work together as a community, but you do not have rulers, the problem arises through tribalistic behavior between groups. And the bottom right is individual rule, in which you can become your own ruler if you have the power to do so.

Is anyone "better" than anyone?

If a person strives for the well-being of others and the self, combined; While holding knowledge and the pursuit for truth higher than the sum of their social projections and interactions - I would call that person better than those who do not strive for this.

To be better than someone else in a specific topic, a contest etc. is irrelevant, superficial and an illusion. To "win", or be "better than someone else" at something can lead to master/slave-situations where the better one get comfortable within their own confidence and the one who lost, grows by overcoming weaknesses and learn to combine new knowledge with a confidence that is more balanced and nuanced. There are no winners and losers in the end, no one is better than anyone else because identity and performance always flow and change.

To be better needs to be based on axioms of the human condition. What defines us, like: knowledge, emotions, communication. We can make people feel better, we can do it while at the same time maximizing that positivity within ourselves as well. We can strive to know more, gain knowledge in order to understand the complexities of life, we can value truth over what is comforting for our ego. It's hard to position the axis of these things under more complexity than good or bad about the human condition; Knowledge or no knowledge? There's no positive value in no knowledge. Truth or no truth? There's no positive value in no truth. Well-being or harm? There's no positive value in harm.

If we combine the axioms into a map over the human condition, we can more easily see what is good and bad within being human and striving for good, which in turn shows which someone is better than someone else. The key here is not to "be good", because that's undefinable and relies on a causality measurement that is far too complex for anyone to calculate in their day to day life for every choice they make. But striving for these axioms is pretty much guaranteed to make you a better person, ignoring them pretty much guarantees you to be a worse person.

no GA says entanglement can not happen, and it does, GA is wrong on this issue.

but no worries carry on — Rank Amateur

If you knew why they don't work together you would have already created a unification theory. Both have been proven to work, it's bridging between them into an over-arching theory that hasn't been solved. I suggest you read more about them. That one of them says the other is wrong is the problem, not the nature of the physics.