All of the state’s institutions are directed towards preserving its own life, increasing its own power, and enlarging the scope of its own activity. — NOS4A2

So according to your...

There are two ways by which one can acquire the means for his survival: through the products of his own labor or by appropriating the products and labor of others. I prefer the former — NOS4A2

... the government are fully entitled to the products of all that labour.

why we have to enforce it by laws? Why is not innate sharing our benefits to others as human behaviour? Probably because most of the people would avoid paying taxes? — javi2541997

We live in large enough societies that your actions will affect people you don't even know and will probably never meet.

Most of what government does is resolve disputes between parties who have an interest but who do not know each other (or perhaps don't like each other) sufficiently well to arrive easily at a mutually beneficial agreement. It's much easier, given the sheer scale of such potential disagreements in a country of several million, to have such settlements prepared in advance.

Google's algorithm isn't helping me find the particular study, but here's a related study: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm — Dharmi

That study shows that humans might be predisposed toward belief in gods and afterlife. It makes no mention of children at all.

And like, I don't know how you can expect me to have all of the scientific studies ever published ready on the spot, that's a very unreasonable standard of evidence. — Dharmi

If you assert something to be the case you should have the evidence to hand to back up that assertion. Otherwise, don't assert it, enquire instead. It's of no interest what you just happen to reckon. Why would anyone want to know what you think there might be studies of, we're not compiling your autobiography.

So, no studies then?

That's also false. Children are believers in gods, angels, demons, entities like that, until society socially conditions them out of it. — Dharmi

So? Do the children concerned believe that these gods, angels, and demons are material objects ideas? Believing something exists which, it turns out, doesn't is not a measure of one's commitment or otherwise to physicalism.

That's been studied. — Dharmi

Great. Let's have the citations then.

And Idealism doesn't say "the world is all in my mind" it says the world is constituted of mental/spiritual/conscious stuff. It doesn't have to be in any particular person's mind. — Dharmi

Fair enough. So the studies which demonstrate that children believe this to be the case...

Are we really free with the money/income we earn each month? Because if we do not pay taxes the government will enforce us to do it. So we are not free at all. — javi2541997

You're perfectly free to spend the money you own in whatever way you see fit. 20% (or whatever) of the money in your wage packet is not yours, it's the government's. So obviously you're not free to spend that however you see fit, it doesn't belong to you. Why would you think you could spend money that doesn't belong to you?

An assumption takes place in the head of the assumer. If an individual wants to make assumptions about my reaction to them taking my property, then I am the subject and not the actor.

In the case of taxation, the government is clearly the actor and overtly threatens with violence. — Tzeentch

I was talking about the government. It's illegal to steal cars. The government makes the overt threat that you will be forcibly imprisoned if to take a car you don't own. It makes the same overt threat if you take money you don't own. I'm not seeing the difference. Are you saying that the government should protect your property but not it's own, or that it shouldn't protect your property either?

That's a different matter altogether. Not liking what a government is doing and not liking governments are two very different positions. — Isaac


Sure. But I think it is relevant. — Tzeentch

I do too, but I suspect not in the same way. I think it's relevant because most arguments starting "I don't think governments should be allowed to..." end up as "I don't like it when governments...". If you want government, but only to do the things you want it to do, then you're either advocating a retreat from democracy, or you're just being hypocritical, which is a much less persuasive argument.

Again, this just assumes the threat of violence is required. when you work for someone, they're required to pay you by threat of violence. So how do you avoid that? — Isaac


This is not an action I am undertaking or even voluntarily a part of. It is not my responsibility to avoid it, though I can voice my displeasure at this state of affairs as I am doing now. — Tzeentch

You mean you don't work for anyone?

Beyond protecting people from physical violence and overt threats thereof (in a more general sense: protection citizens' constitutional rights), I don't see much a role for government in the arbitration of moral conflicts. Let people figure it out for themselves. — Tzeentch

Except that's not what you're saying is it? Because people did figure it out for themselves. They gathered together, selected candidates, asked others to vote, ceded power to those individuals to make decisions for the benefit of the group and enforce those decisions against those who disagreed. You're now saying they got that wrong. So it's not "Let people figure it out for themselves" at all. It's "People need to do what I want them to do"

Edit - just noticed @tim wood beat me to it.

Which part is you becoming aware of the signals? — Luke

The re-signalling of the (filtered set of) neurons associated with the original signal. But you don't think that's what they are. Hence my earlier discussion about the empiricism in determining the object of awareness. You can be wrong about what it is you're aware of.

Do I need to be thinking about a "What am I feeling right now" type of question in order to become aware of the signals? — Luke

Yes. What you think of as your awareness of physiological and sensory data is actually a post hoc narrative constructed in response to triggers from the hippocampus - in other words, you 'wondering what's happening'.

Surely you've driven safely somewhere and later thought 'I didn't pay any attention at all to that journey'? You may even have no recollection of it. That's because (for one reason or another) that secondary circuit was not engaged and your brain just did all that was required of driving without compiling any of it into an awareness narrative.

the re-signalling of "those centres" feels to me like an awareness of [/]the signals[/i]? Is that it? — Luke

No, it feels to you like an awareness of your arm. But it isn't.

Please point out the part where you said you become aware of the signals. — Luke

Here...

When you think about a "What am I feeling right now" type of question in any of it's many guises, your hippocampus enables a return to the working memory of a filtered selection of these signals - ie they re-signal those centres. That, to you, feels like 'awareness of...' — Isaac

You'll have to be more clear about what you think is missing.

We don’t think in terms the scientists use to tell us how we think. You’re asking a stonemason how he would plumb a bidet when all he knows how to use is a trowel and mud.

Thankfully, you know that as well as I do. — Mww

I don't see how this follows at all. I've been quite clear with Luke that I'm translating into technical terms what's going on with awareness, but he's claiming that it is not a mere translation, that something is missing from the account.

You've given a metaphor in terms of asking an expert in one field to approach a problem in another. I don't see how that applies. What are the two fields of expertise you're suggesting they equate to. Presumably one is neuroscience, the other...?

It's like you're suggesting that; just as someone's introspection of their own mind could not render an account in neuroscientific terms, the neuroscientist would similarly be unable to render an account via introspection of their mind. Well, like it or not, one may or may not have expertise in neuroscience...but everyone does have a mind, I've had one for 55 years, just like you have, just like Luke.

We are not at all like the plumber and the stonemason, each only aware of their own field and ill versed in the other. There's no body of facts about 'how minds work' in the colloquial, ordinary language sense Luke is using that I'm not aware of because all of that information has been derived by introspection of minds. Something to which I've had 55 years of unfettered access. Neuroscience, however, has a body of facts which one is not necessarily aware of unless one has done either the research or the reading.

It is. Therefore, the threat is clearly stated and no assumption needs to be made. — Tzeentch

I don't see what difference that makes.

What happens when all-benevolent loaf-of-bread-sharing governments turns into something else? — Tzeentch

That's a different matter altogether. Not liking what a government is doing and not liking governments are two very different positions.

What it comes down to, is governments forcing their inhabitants to act in accordance with subjective moral viewpoints through threats of violence.

That I may or may not agree with said moral viewpoints is, as far as I am concerned, not relevant; the means are unjust. — Tzeentch

Again, this just assumes the threat of violence is required. when you work for someone, they're required to pay you by threat of violence. So how do you avoid that?

What do you suggest we do (in cases of moral conflict) to resolve those conflicts other than use democratically elected governments to decide which course of action to take and enforce it if necessary?

So, how do you become aware of the signals? — Luke

I just answered that.

That's just not the case. The vast majority of premodern societies were idealistic, spiritistic, animistic. It's just plainly false that physicalism is the default. It's a culturally, socially constructed deviation from the vast majority of people in the vast majority of historical time.

To say nothing about modern idealism, like British Platonism, Berkley's Idealism, German Idealism etc. — Dharmi

I was talking about child development - as I thought should have been clear. The cultural affectations that adults later see value in appropriating are irrelevant.

No child acts as if the world were one of ideas, or all in their mind. They act as if there is a physical outside world which obeys rules that can be discovered by repeated testing. They are surprised when things behave outside of those rules (even at six months), they test objects in a deliberate fashion to establish these rules... they treat the world in every way as if it were external to them and obeyed the same rules for them as it does for others.

How do you become aware of these signals? — Luke

Your working memory rehearses the connection between these signals and various areas of the brain dealing with sematic content of one sort or another. When you think about a "What am I feeling right now" type of question in any of it's many guises, your hippocampus enables a return to the working memory of a filtered selection of these signals - ie they re-signal those centres. That, to you, feels like 'awarenss of...'

There are two ways by which one can acquire the means for his survival: through the products of his own labor or by appropriating the products and labor of others. I prefer the former and repudiate the latter. — NOS4A2

Those two are the same thing as you've still not answered the question about how to establish rightful ownership of property without law.

Nothing is the product of your own labour alone, you cannot produce even so much as a grain of flour by your own labour alone. You need a field, some seed, sunlight, air, water and nutrients. did you acquire those by your labour alone? No.

Organising a government, maintaining an armed force and setting up a system of taxation using that threat - that's all very much the government's own labour. So why are the taxes thus gained not the product of their own labour?

You see all "products of [one's] own labour" involve "appropriating the products and labor of others" - the field, the seed, the clean air, the good soil, the clean water, the open ground... All the products and labour of others. and that's just to grow a grain of wheat. Multiply that by a thousand for your computer, your fridge, your car...

Intersubjectivity which includes attribution of mental content to others. I know my own conscious experiences and assume other people have similar ones. Mirror neurons play a role in this, allowing us to simulate what others probably feel. — Marchesk

I've seen no support for the assertion that you know your own conscious experiences, nor have you even suggested a mechanism by which you could (without public linguistic conventions).

I am right now having a whole stream of dynamic, multi-threaded conscious experiences. My thoughts flit from the computer here, to the frosted lawn, the Robin at the window makes me smile, my (still unfinished) report nags to be done though, I'm rehearsing the words I type as I type them, as if I were speaking, there's an annoying hum coming from the screen and I wonder if it might be broken...

Which of all that (and the several hundred more) is 'happiness'?

When people say "I'm happy", what are they doing with the word? Pointing to a chunk of this stream of experience that has a label on it saying 'happiness'?

Infer them from what? — Luke

Signals from your nociception system. I've already been through this.

Similary, my awareness of my arm being at location A is without question, but the fact of my arm being at location A is not without question. — Luke

This is not how 'awareness' is ordinarily used and I see no reason given for the special case.

"Are you aware of the works of Shakespeare?" - "Yes, 'Paradise Lost' is my favourite" - "No I'm talking about Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest..." - "Never heard of them" - "Oh, then it turns out you are not aware of the works of Shakespeare"

"Are you aware of what speed you're doing Sir?" - "Yes, my speedometer say 30mph" - "Well, you were clocked at 45" - "I wasn't aware of that, my speedometer must be broken" - Defence Lawyer: "My client was not aware of what speed he was doing, owing to a broken speedometer"

Doctor: "How's the recovery from that brain damage coming along?" - Patient: "Still not recovered, I'm not even aware of the location of my own hand yet"

And so on...

In all cases we treat the X in "I'm aware of X" as a public object amenable to empirical investigation. It can, in all cases, turn out that despite thinking you're aware of X, you are , in fact, not aware of X at all.

That you were aware of something is not in question (the works of Milton, the reading on the broken speedometer, the false signals from the cerebellum...) What is in question in each case is the matter that you are aware of.

Only if you adopt a certain philosophical position that makes it impossible. — Marchesk

Well yes, but it's not as if such a position is adopted on a whim. It is (has been) exhaustively argued for. What is your alternative by which we could carve up the sensed world by private means and yet still tell each other what we'd done?

Because the people who believe in it haven't thought through how facile it is. Not because it's some sort of neutral position. — Dharmi

I never claimed it was neutral. It is, however, the default. You're born a physicalist (or at least you are one by six months, which is the furthest back any meaningful investigation goes). By three you've already assumed other minds. By five you're expecting complex physical and social rules to be consistent across separate events.

Any later adoption of idealism or even (arguably) dualism is in rejection of that which you assumed at least up to late teenage years.

So, without good cause to reject that which has served you up to that point, your adoption is just a pretence.

believe one has a right to his property — NOS4A2

At issue is not the right, but what constitutes your property. Is everything you acquire by any means yours simply by virtue of having laboured for it?

If so, then spoils of war and theft both result in rightful property.

As does tax. The government must undergo some work to acquire tax, no?

Idealism should be the default starting position. — RogueAI

Irrelevant. Physicalism is the default starting position.

Questions are points now? Did you know you can make arguments in other ways? — NOS4A2

OK. I'll try...

Property is only defined legally, everything you own you own by the concession of the government who ensures you are protected from those stronger than you who would otherwise just take it. There's no 'natural right' to property. You did not acquire what you have solely by the sweat of your own brow but by standing on the shoulders of giants. It is nothing short of vile, self-serving hubris that you think you own anything that isn't jointly made with the co-operation of those among whom you live. The idea that the giving of some small recompense to reflect that is 'theft' is one a petulant teenager might give to exasperated parents, not one worthy of serious discussion.

Do you intend to answer any of my points, or just whinge?

We’re talking about taking the fruits of someone’s labor, their money, their property, which I’ve said countless times. — NOS4A2

Ah. So theft of inheritance is fine then?

People apparently need to be forced to care. I think that fact is as unfortunate as the coercion itself. — Tzeentch

Yes, I agree in principle, but remember, you've not made your case that people only pay taxes because they're forced to do so, you've only assumed it.

In addition, the violent reprisal to the would-be car thief is an assumption on the thief's part, whereas the intention of government to coerce one with violence is clearly stated in law. — Tzeentch

Is not police restraint and eventual imprisonment not a violent reprisal clearly stated in law?

I'd imagine that if the object to be stolen was a loaf of bread and the thief had some good reason for stealing it, there may not be any violent reprisals at all. — Tzeentch

I'd like to think so too. So the crux of the matter isn't anything to do with legal property, it's to do with the fairness of each person having their needs met. we'd allow the starving man that loaf, regardless of the means by which he acquired it, regardless of his legal rights to it, regardless of the fact that another has a claim on it...rather we'd allow him it entirely on the grounds that he should have it, that it would be inhuman to deny him it.

So how are taxes different, in essence?

If you want to say - I don't like the way the government spends my taxes - then you'd have an argument. But taxes sensu lato are just like the bread. It would be inhuman to let the poor starve so we organise a system of skimming off enough money from workers to help feed them.

The moral argument is that it is wrong to take something from another against his will. — NOS4A2

So if I take your car it's morally wrong for you to try and take it back if I don't want you to? God, it's like discussing with a three year old.

Oh, I suspect many of these people consider themselves self sufficient and self reliant and believe they will be entirely unaffected by such a change in society. — Benkei

You may be right.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43587224?seq=1

If many processes in life - and particularly within a cell - are shown not to be arbitrary or by chance — Gary Enfield

How would you show that?

We have to be given a process that can inevitably lead to every outcome - because that is how the laws of Physics and Chemistry are formulated - using traditional mathematics with just one outcome for every scenario. — Gary Enfield

In theory, yes. But a model which gives us six out of every ten is better than one which gives only five. Materialism only need show it's a better model than alternatives.

Even in concept, can you suggest any mechanism by which these molecules adapt their behaviour to different circumstances to produce the perfect, predictable, end outcome - such as a fully repaired section of DNA with a double break and pieces missing? — Gary Enfield

Yes, the biochemistry of the components seems capable.

When anyone is able to suggest any credible way... — Gary Enfield

Here's your issue. Like Wayfarer, you're confusing what you personally find satisfying with something that should count as evidence for others. Why would I revise any of my beliefs based on what you find credible. It's only what I find credible that matters.

There are too many examples which break materialist notions. — Gary Enfield

There are none. You've simply not understood mainstream materialist claims.

What would an explanation consist of that's missing from the materialist account?

Let's say (for the sake of argument alone) that the materialist explanation was "it just happened to turn out that way".

What's wrong there? Are you saying it's somehow impossible for things to just turn out some way? Because if not, then all the while there continues to be a complete absence of any indication to the contrary, "it just happened to turn out that way" is the best explanation we have.

it assumes the market automatically leads to just outcomes. It quite clearly doesn't because economic transactions are representative of relations of power, not moral worth. — Benkei

Absolutely, but not only that, it ignores that the market-valued income they currently enjoy is arrived at by a market which already assumes taxation exists. Companies in a no tax environment would have considerably more expenses and risk hedging to pay for and a much more desperate pool of potential employees. I can't see how that's going to end up with anything but a huge reduction in wages, certainly no better than net income now.

Yes. Not completely the same, but I have an end of life plan which involves refusal of medical treatment and assisted suicide in the case of terminal illness. I don't think there's any dignity in clinging on to life by the fingernails at all costs. I do have kids, so my age variables are more than yours. For me it's not hedonic though. I'm lucky enough to pretty much live how I like anyway. I just don't think it's ethical for me to expect thousands of pounds to be spent on keeping me alive after a good innings when there's younger people who'd be better served by the money.

I can see what you mean though. I suppose in all honesty some of my decision is informed by the fact that I'll enjoy life less in those conditions that I would young and healthy, so there's less for me to weigh against the competing duty. I'd be more keen to have thousands spent on keeping me alive so I can hike Dartmoor with my family than having the same money spent so I can watch daytime TV and complain about my arthritis.

True of all property. — Isaac


Is it? — Tzeentch

Well, it would have been a bit silly of me to say so if an empty (rhetorical?) question were enough to counter it.

In a world where people would not pay taxes unless forced by threat of violence to do so, I can't see how those same people would refrain from just driving away in your car unless threat of violence prevented them. what is it about your car which makes it sacrosanct in the minds of the same people who would let children starve for want of a few pounds on their tax bill?

If you posit a world where people care as little as possible about the welfare of others unless forced by threat of violence to do more, I don't see ownership being anything other than a free-for-all with the strongest winning.

I don't think you know what I'm getting at, but regrettably having to explain a philosophical position to someone in order to show what is wrong with it never works out. — Wayfarer

Ah yes, a Wayfarer classic. "You don't agree with me, therefore there must be something you're not understanding". Have you even considered the possibility that it might be you who doesn't understand? That I cannot know what you're getting at because it is incoherent?

Science does not explain the order of nature. — Wayfarer

What would constitute an 'explanation', and why? That you personally don't find the explanation satisfactory does not mean science doesn't explain it.

Empiricism subjects everything to the tribunal of 'what can be sense and quantified'. What cannot be quantified is discounted a priori. — Wayfarer

Yes. As I just explained, this is not mindless dogma. There's a fundamental and very compelling reason why that's the case. It's because we're talking to one another, two humans. The thing we share is the material world. Anything else is not shared, so there's no fact of the matter about it to be discussed. You might feel there's a purpose to life. I might not. It's irrelevant to any discussion because there's no shared content. If you feel the cup is on the table and I don't, we can both reach for it and find out.

Obviously you don't need to make any inferences to have pain sensations, but you changed the subject to talk about brain signals and the third-person perspective - a perspective from which pain sensations disappear - instead. — Luke

I don't follow. You keep slipping in words like 'you' as if they referred to something other than the brain that I'm talking about. If 'you' is just, by definition, the bearer of conscious awareness, then obviously 'you' might infer pain sensations or 'you' might not. There's no fact of the matter for us to discuss because you've defined it as being the bearer of whatever your conscious awareness happens to be. One might feel one is inferring everything, or not. Or feel like one is the King of Arabia, or in contact with God...

It was your example. Your example was about my awareness. As you said: "You're aware of your arm movements aren't you?" — Luke

Yes, that was not particularly helpful. I was trying to show how your language can be translated to technical language, but I see now that it cannot and the problem runs deeper.

You keep conflating my awareness of the location of my arm with the location of my arm. All I can say is it's your own example: "you think your arm is doing one thing, but it's actually doing another." — Luke

No. This seems to be a running theme here. You cannot declare something to be an awareness of... as a subjective truth. The awareness bit is the subjective truth, you are having an experience of being aware. What you claim to be aware of is an object in the shared world. It's a mutual matter, amenable to empirical evidence, whether you are in fact aware of what you claim to be aware of. That you are aware is without question. The fact of the matter regarding what it is you are aware of is not without question. It is an objective, shared, fact about our mutual reality.

How many would pay taxes if there wasn't a punishment for not doing so?

Thus, governments take what they want under threat of violence. — Tzeentch

True of all property. So what's special about taxes?

What can better avoid an argument than quibbling and nitpicking about the choice of words? — NOS4A2

It's not nitpicking, it's central to the whole issue. What constitutes property is defined by law.

20% (or whatever) of your wages legally belongs to the government because it is defined by law that it does. That's absolutely no different to the way in which the remaining 80% belongs to you - because it is defined as such by law.

You want to claim one is 'robbery' but the other not when they are of no different status at all.

You're in a philosophy forum and you're seriously just going to outright say that some judgement which you know full-well is highly contested, by intelligent academics, is 'undeniable'? — Isaac


Sure, evolution is like a secular religion. No question. — Wayfarer

Oh right. No you've said it twice it's definitely a fact. Let me try that "I have a hundred pounds in my pocket ", "I have a hundred pounds in my pocket". Damn,..it doesn't seem to be working...am I not saying it right?

Materialism is simply 'the theory or belief that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.' Many people believe it, it is the de facto belief system in secular culture. — Wayfarer

Find me a quote claiming that from a prominent materialist.

But love is the important point. As it culturally manifests, it is thousands of things including rules and strictures and the like. — Wayfarer

What the hell has 'loving one's neighbour' got to do with not eating meat on a Friday? Or mutilating your own child's genitals?

when it comes to the question at hand, what would constitute evidence? — Wayfarer

Nothing. If by "question at hand" you mean something like your "why is there order in nature" then what counts as evidence is not yet defined. The question 'why' does not contain within it the definition of what constitutes and answer. It's one of the main tactics of sophistry used by woo merchants like yourself. "Ah, but that doesn't explain why..." as if 'why' had a defined answer.

The point you're missing is that we're talking to each other. Your personal beliefs about things are of no consequence to me whatsoever. All we can talk about is that which we share. The very act of language necessitates that.

It's not that materialism is all that anyone thinks. It's that it all we share. The table, the cup, you me, that fact that keys I'm hitting will make the words appear on your screen. So that is all we can talk about when it comes to matters we don't already all believe in. What you think is evidence of nothing other than what you think. that you 'feel' there's something more to life than just chemicals is fine and dandy, but it's not evidence of anything other than that your feel some way. It has not bearing on how I do or should feel.

Contrarily, how a shared object interacts with another shared object does relate to how I do or should feel. We share those objects. What I believe about them you also believe about them, we work to keep our beliefs similar enough to get on. Life just falls apart if you go about believing gravity causes objects to rise and I believe it causes them to fall. We need to check and agree.

Empirical evidence is not just 'one type of evidence among others' It is the only type of evidence we are compelled to agree on (as a class, not the specific evidence at hand). Any other types have no normative force at all, because we do not share a world made of them.

There's the bodily functions that produce your awareness, and then there's the stuff about which you are aware.
— Luke

Well then the stuff about which you are aware cannot have material form — Isaac


Why not? — Luke

Because material forms are shared-world objects. It's been unquestionably established that what you're aware of cannot be the material object (your awareness presents matters not as they they actually are in a shred material sense).

If you mistake the creaking of a tree for dog growling, then we cannot be forever searching for the dog. It isn't there.

I'm just trying to get you to acknowledge that we have first-person perspectives at all. Do you have pain sensations? — Luke

You've just defined, quite clearly, that my first person perspectives are not about anything we can between us refer to as 'pain sensations' The only object that we could both agree constituted a referent for 'pain sensations' is a public object. If you only want to talk about subjective experience as being about objects as they appear to you, never relating them to public object, then the one cannot ever reveal anything about the other, they're two different objects.

There are no subjects or subjectivity? That's one solution, I suppose. I guess the discussion on the topic can be closed now. — Luke

It's not about there being no subjects or subjectivity. It's about translating the objects of subjective experience into public objects so that they can be talked about.

If you maintain that what you're aware of is 'the location of my arm', then you've immediately rendered all conversation about it meaningless. I can't comment at all about 'the location of your arm' in that sense. I can't use the term, it has no referent I can identify. So what's it's purpose linguistically?

What do you mean by a "technical definition"? — Luke

Technical talk (pace David Lewis) - words used to describe something which do not form part of ordinary language and apply only to the subject or field under discussion.

There's the bodily functions that produce your awareness, and then there's the stuff about which you are aware. — Luke

Well then the stuff about which you are aware cannot have material form, otherwise you're claiming to be able to perform some magic trick, when really it's just grammar.

If we talk about being aware of 'the location of my arm' in the non-technical sense (the object of my mental awareness phenomenologically), then any conclusions drawn from that awareness are about that object - the phenomenological 'location of my arm'. At no point can any analysis done on the non-technical object of your awareness reveal anything at all about the technical 'location of my arm arm'.

If you want to maintain a non-technical sense of the objects of your awareness then that's entirely your lookout. But all the conclusions you draw from it remain in that realm. It cannot be said to be the case that these objects are private, or unique, or any other such universal. It can only be said that the seem to you to be private, or unique, or any other such, because the objects we're talking about are the mental representations as they sem to you.

I don't see how it's of any public interest how things happen to seem to you.

If someone can provide good evidence of just one robust example of a supernatural claim being true, let's hear it. I'd love to be wrong. — Tom Storm


I could - but from long experience, I bet it would become a 'coconut shy'. — Wayfarer

You do realise that being able to easily knock them down is pretty much the definition of not robust? So your answer is "No, I couldn't"

Tom Storms response doesn't recognise the argument it's responding to. — Wayfarer

As usual you're confusing 'agreeing with' with 'recognising'.

It is indeed the case that for many of the secular intelligentsia, science, and particularly evolutionary science, has become a secular religion. This is undeniable. — Wayfarer

Are you serious? You're in a philosophy forum and you're seriously just going to outright say that some judgement which you know full-well is highly contested, by intelligent academics, is 'undeniable'?

the materialist view is not more 'proven' than any other worldview. It can't be proven, because it is not a specific, testable claim about a specific thing, or class of things, but a claim about the nature of the world. — Wayfarer

As usual, you've deliberately misrepresented the claim of materialists. If you can find me a single quote from a single materialist claiming that their position is the 'way the world is' I'd be very surprised. It's certainly not a majority view. Materialism works better than other approaches. It's testable (so we can find common ground more easily) it give useful predictions (we all interact with matter) and it doesn't introduce more elements than are required (so, again maximising common ground).

The view that the theistic outlook 'lacks evidence' doesn't see what 'evidence' would be required to support such a view. For the religious, the order of nature *is* evidence. — Wayfarer

Thus misunderstanding what 'evidence' is. Evidence is that which convinces a person of a position they were not convinced of prior to seeing it (either by doubt or by being of an opposing conviction). If you have to already believe in a position in order to count matters as 'evidence', then the 'evidence' is not doing any work is it?

science itself has no explanation for that order. — Wayfarer

It has dozens. again you're confusing 'explanations I don't like/agree with' and 'lack of explanation'.

theistic belief necessarily explain the order of nature, but it *is not* a scientific hypothesis. In Christian terms, it is a command 'to love one another as I have loved you', etc. So the idea that this can be at odds with 'science' is actually something like a category mistake. — Wayfarer

Come on! That's bullshit and you know it. Theistic belief (in Christian term) is not a command to "love one another as I have loved you". It's a very specific and detailed set of instructions. It includes specific dates you can and can't eat meat for fuck's sake. when you can and can't have sex. Who you can marry.... It's a bullshit argument to try and whitewash all that with a vague "it's all about loving your neighbour"... people loved their neighbours to no lesser or greater degree before Christianity than they did after.

I maintain, and this is where I tend towards the religious end of the spectrum, that because all living beings exhibit in some sense intentionality, that this introduces a basic distinction, an ontological distinction, between the living and non-living realms. And where you have an ontological distinction, you have (at least) a duality, which undermines the argument that there is a single substance, namely, matter-energy. — Wayfarer

What you 'maintain' doesn't 'undermine' anything. The former is your personal belief, the latter is a public argument. You don't undermine a public argument by holding a belief that it isn't valid. The public argument doesn't give a shit about what you happen to reckon. That's why we use 'evidence' - because it's shared - it's something we all believe in.

If you claim there's three apples in the bowl, me 'maintaining' that there's two doesn't have any bearing on your argument at all, but If I upend the bowl and count them "one, two", it does. Why? Because you do not necessarily share that which I 'maintain', but you do share my object recognition and my methods of counting.

We all share materialism. You believe in physics, the billiard-ball predictability of macro-scale matter. So do I. So anything from that realm counts as 'evidence' between us. You might additionally believe in all sorts of woo, but that doesn't count as evidence between us in the same way because I don't.