Berkeley shows that we cannot know material without a material object, force without something being forced, space without something occupying it and time without some agent passing through it. — Jamesk

In short, I can't perceive anything if I'm not around.
But that does not entail that anything isn't around.
Conflating epistemics and ontology (which, I think, has been pointed out plenty over time).
Similarly ...

We don't experience another's self-awareness — jorndoe

... even when around, hence ...

Berkeley shows that we cannot know — Jamesk

... another's self-awareness, which would then prompt Berkeley to deny existence (except by special pleading).
Solipsism by Berkeley's own line of thinking.
In fact, as indicated by the image above, knowing someone else's self-awareness is even harder than knowing the existence of their (object-like) hands, for example.
We encounter other people's "physical" bodies before their minds, we encounter their minds via their bodily goings-and-doings.

No you are not an idea, you are a mind / spirit. — Jamesk

Spirits dull or impair the mind. :)

Anyway, Berkeley conjured up his deity as a coat hanger for his world, a mental monism, like others have come up with whatever other things.
But it's the justification that matters.

I guess it's impossible to get things wrong, there's nothing more to things than the experience, there's no difference between hallucination and perception, for example?



We don't perceive and learn when unconscious.
We don't experience another's self-awareness.

There are few odd things by subjective idealism on its own, a kind of solipsism.

Terrapin Station Rocks are just ideas, man~

No one better give me grief about this — MindForged

Excuse me, I'm not just an idea of yours. How rude. :D

Then it's defined wrong. There is no value of x for which 1/x = 0. — Devans99

So? That's not what it means. Check the link, or some of the other online resources. — jorndoe

@Devans99, it seems like you're not reading (or understanding) the mathematics and/or definitions. There are reasonably good online resources, though it may take a bit of reading if you're new to this stuff.

That's impossible I'm afraid. Actual Infinity does not exist so negative Actual Infinity does not exist so past eternity does not exist (same structure). — Devans99

If it's impossible, then derive the contradiction.
After all, simply saying so doesn't make it so.
I tried (the former rendition) and failed (as shown with the latter rendition).

Are you saying the equal sign means 'arbitrary close' rather than 'equals'? — Devans99

No. The lim, as defined, is zero.

Then t1 is the first moment and the universe is temporally finite. — Devans99

No. The premise was "the universe was temporally infinite", "no 1^st moment".

Is this the sort of argument you're promoting, @Devans99?

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there was no 1^st moment
2. if there was no 1^st moment, then there was no 2^nd moment
3. if there was no 2^nd moment, then there was no 3^rd moment
4. ... and so on and so forth ...
5. if there was no 2^nd last moment, then there would be no now
6. since now exists, we started out wrong, i.e. the universe is not temporally infinite

Here's a more elaborate version:

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there was no 1^st moment, but just some moment, t₁
2. if there was no 1^st moment, then there was no 2^nd moment, but just some moment, t₂
3. if there was no 2^nd moment, then there was no 3^rd moment, but just some moment, t₃
4. ... and so on and so forth ...
5. there was a 2^nd last moment, t_{now - 1 moment}
6. there is a now, t_now

Notice how 4 masks a switch from non-indexical to indexical? Bad. :)
t₁ could be any past moment, and the duration between any definite t₁ and now is finite, there were just infinitely many past ts instead.
The former rendition misses the latter rendition, hence showing that 1 does not imply a contradiction.

But arbitrarily close to zero is not zero and is never zero. — Devans99

So? That's not what it means. Check the link, or some of the other online resources.

As an aside, these sorts of things are used all the time in physics and other areas (derivatives, integration, etc).
I can only guess how much throughout the cool InSight project - congratz to the team.

How about fractals with an infinite circumference and a finite area? :)

,

$\mathop {\lim} \limits_{x \to \infty} \frac{1}{x} = 0$

has a concise meaning, defined in terms of the universal (∀) and existential (∃) quantifiers for x ≠ 0:

$\forall \epsilon \in \mathbb{R} \gt 0 \hspace{8pt} \exists \delta \in \mathbb{R} \hspace{8pt} \left| x \right| \gt \delta \Rightarrow \left| \frac{1}{x} \right| \lt \epsilon$

"We can always squeeze the fraction arbitrarily close to zero."

Check (ε, δ)-definition of limit (Wikipedia)

The former is just a different, perhaps more intuitive way, of writing it.

What's the difference between consciousness and simulated consciousness anyway?
Simulated suggests crafted intentionally by someone else.
If that's the only difference, then "simulated" has little bearing on consciousness itself, just the circumstances.

As I said before, there is the fact of processes tending to determinate ends, and there is the conclusion that tending to a determinate implies a mind intending that end. There is a tendency to confuse these, but they are separate issues. Clearly, there are ends in nature: physical processes tend to well-defined final states; grains of wheat sprout wheat stalks, not oaks; spiders build webs to catch insects. These processes are part of nature, even if they point beyond nature. — Dfpolis

:roll:

... teleology ... "ends in nature" "final states" ruled by the lonely photon in deep cold, for unfathomable amounts of time (even compared to 14 billion years). Heat death, where perhaps even black holes have "evaporated".

Life, as we know it, has a window, somewhere between formation of solar systems and the beginning of the degenerate era, with ever ongoing energy dispersion, marching towards heat death.

I think we can both reason by analogy and make strict deductions leading us to an understanding of the existence and general character of God. Of course, a finite mind can't know an infinite being in any proportionate way. — Dfpolis

Cart before the horse?
One day it's "greatest", another "infinite", the next "simplest", the day after that "triune", ... One for each occasion. What gives?
How'd you came up with "infinite being" anyway?
"Simplest" is typically an assertion in response to an infinite regress (sometimes humorously called "simpleton").
It's almost like anything goes.
Personification fallacy.

Anyone see the verbiage used about Trump, and he's alive? :)
Anyone is free to defend Muhammad (and Trump), using the same thing: free speech.
Jerks can be ignored or told off with more of the same still.

As an aside, I know some lovely Muslims personally, though I suppose they're fairly moderate.
As another aside, my angle is European, and from a heavily freedom of expression oriented region; it's not a homogeneous sentiment throughout.

I was criticized on this forum several years back because [...] — Wayfarer

Most can be criticized one way or another (weaker or stronger or whatever).
It's more free speech. ;)

Not really about Anselm's ontological argument... — jorndoe

As an example of knowledge versus freedom (albeit somewhat distasteful according to some), consider:

1. if Trump knows that he'll run for president again, then Trump will run for president again (traditional definition of knowledge, knowledge implies truth)
2. Trump knows that he'll run for president again ((omni)science assumption)
3. therefore Trump will run for president again (1 and 2)

^{(yes yes, I know, Trump is not all-knowing, and distasteful was mentioned, but you get the gist) :)}

Trivial syllogism, no modal reasoning involved here for example.
We can make it more specific by year, or next election, or whatever, doesn't matter in this context.
We can also replace "run for president" with "not run for president", and the resulting syllogism holds.
Surely he will either run for president again or not (and not both).
Now we may ask: what does that entail in terms of Trump's freedom? ^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

4. does that then mean that Trump has lost the freedom to postpone a decision, the freedom to make up his mind later?

they say that one should never do today what may be put off till tomorrow — someone

As an aside, Trump may harbor justified belief, which may be true or false. For true it's knowledge. That's the ontological condition, truth.
Also, "free will" is a can of worms all by itself, so I'm trying to avoid that and just go by "freedom" in some sense.

^{(no no, I'm not trolling by mentioning Trump) :)}

Sorry, yes, I hadn't gone through the motions (and it's a bit old).
It's just that, among the things having come out of the White House, it seemed like yet another medieval'ification.

Not really about Anselm's ontological argument...

I guess, in this case, omniscience is not so much about causation as it's about truth.

1. suppose, for the sake of argument, that here in 2018 I know exactly how 2020 will unfold
2. knowledge implies truth, cannot be false, non-negotiable
3. come 2020, my foreknowledge can then not fail to occur, regardless of whatever else, everything must then occur as foreknown
4. everyone's goings and doings, my own included, are not free to diverge in any way, even if I had told everyone what would occur, since then my foreknowledge would be false
5. absence of freedom is seemingly contrary to free choice, including my own, throughout 2020

No particular dependence on causation, only on truth, as per the foreknowledge.

Stochastic terrorism as characterized by the Rolling Stone article below:

1. a public figure with access to the airwaves or pulpit demonizes a person or group of persons
2. with repetition, the targeted person or group is gradually dehumanized, depicted as loathsome and dangerous—arousing a combustible combination of fear and moral disgust
3. violent images and metaphors, jokes about violence, analogies to past ‘purges’ against reviled groups, use of righteous religious language—all of these typically stop just short of an explicit call to arms
4. when violence erupts, the public figures who have incited the violence condemn it—claiming no one could possibly have foreseen the ‘tragedy’

Not quite identical to hate speech I guess, but close.
Looking back, I don’t recall Obama having gotten into this territory, but Trump on the other hand...
More importantly, what do you think?


Trump’s Assassination Dog Whistle Was Even Scarier Than You Think
Republican nominee engaged in so-called stochastic terrorism with his remarks about “Second Amendment people” and Clinton
David S Cohen
Rolling Stone
Aug 2016

How about telepathy, telekinesis and black magic? :D

List of prizes for evidence of the paranormal.

"Supernatural" could just be advanced technology. Advanced technology can appear to contradict the laws of physics as we understand them. What would the essence of a supernatural thing be that distinguishes it from natural things? — Harry Hindu

Right, Clarke's 3rd law: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
I'd probably bet on tech.

If this is true, then this is not — Mariner

I know dreams and hallucinations and such, like this discussion.
We already have verbiage like imaginary/fictional versus real, and the likes of that mentioned in the post above.
I'd have to say it works better than "being" versus "existence", but maybe that's just me.

I don't know of any purely deductive argument.

Wittgenstein's language argument is pretty good though.
Novelties indicate a larger world.
I'm not omniscient, since otherwise I'd know that I were (by definition).
A moral person will have to consider others real, cannot act as if others aren't living.

Whatever considerations like these point in one direction.

We have a non-sensorial property that allows us to distinguish between dream and non-dream, between hallucination and non-hallucination. — Mariner

Well, I can generally differentiate dream and awake when I wake up (☕ time).
I don't hallucinate often (I think) :) in some cases I can probably reason it out; in general, not so sure.

Anyway, I'd just call them more phenomenological (mind, self, occurrences).



Could perhaps be contrasted by extra-selves (empirical, perception involves phenomenologicals).
And maybe abstracts (numbers, Platonia, inert, lifeless, ideals).

Where dreams and hallucinations are imaginary/fictional, I guess non-dream and non-hallucination are intended to be real (in this context)?

The "being" versus "existence" thing just seems to add confusion.

Are you hearing them? Are you seeing them? Are hearing and seeing, sensations? Why assume anything more than what is clearly the truth? — Metaphysician Undercover

Solipsism isn't "clearly the truth", more like radical parsimony, haphazard reduction.

there's no distinction to be made there. Philosophers agree. — Metaphysician Undercover

They do not; your sentiment is towards the bottom.



Dead end.

We're talking about reality here, not your fantasy world. In reality, the word "neighbour" above just refers to some possibility you've created. — Metaphysician Undercover

Huh?
I chat with my neighbors all the time.
Why on Earth would they just be my sensations? :o

What does "the physical" refer to other than the interpretations of our sensations — Metaphysician Undercover

The sensed?
It's how I know about our neighbor.
Would be a bit rude if I walked over and said "Hi neighbor, you're just my sensations".



red marks conundrum (to some)

I think the fundamental issue in Western culture has been the role of dogmatic authority in religion. The way it has been formulated, you were told either ‘believe and be saved’ - or you were outcaste and damned. — Wayfarer

Hmm well, if someone was about to jump off a tall building, then I'd try to stop them.

Welcome to, @Dexter.

Teaching children is among the most important parts of civilized societies.
(And, recalling how I was at that age, what a rough job.) :D

Important moral stuff to teach... Good question.
Responsibility, that others (not just humans by the way) are much like you (don't harm them), but different also (diversity is excellent), that your own dislike for harm and liking freedom extends equally to others, empathy, sympathy, decency, respect and acceptance, self-ownership, ...
I'm not a school teacher by education, don't know much about the details.

A priest teaches a peasant about God.
Peasant: “If I did not know about God and did not worship, would I go to hell?”
Priest: “No, not if you honestly did not know.”
Peasant: “Then why did you tell me?!” — Samuel Lacrampe

Just FYI, the dialogue is (adapted) from Annie Dillard.



Eskimos weren't/aren't particularly bad as far as I know...? :)

What strikes me about ancient stories is that people thought they could talk to the sun and ask it for help. — frank

Sometimes by means of sacrifice I guess (even human).

We aren't quite born a tabula rasa, and we aren't exactly perfect.
We're subject to a rather tedious list of well-documented cognitive biases, like personification or agent detection, for example, which also is related to apophenia, pareidolia, and patternicity.
Introspection illusions, hysteria, the reiteration effect, autosuggestion, ...
Makes you wonder how much we have actually learned. :)

Need good epistemic standards.

A being whose existence is not contingent on anything, and whose existence is necessary for everything. — Rank Amateur

Well, does "being" (implicitly) include abstracts (in particular), relations, processes, things that are conserved, ...?
Or, conversely, does "being" implicitly exclude anything?
I'm asking because we can reason about necessities, which is what modal logic is about.

(y)

Actually, instead of definitions, maybe just ensure we know what each other are talking about.
I've become wary of always insisting on definitions; it can become a whole unending thing all by itself.

By the way, per earlier (or was it a parallel thread?), I don't think a supposed necessity is the way to go.
Unless you want to get specific, and set out something necessary for our universe specifically perhaps.

My emphasis:

Gods have been with us since the beginning of time. There is no known culture without gods. This phenomenon is not dependent on the word "god", of course. — Mariner

In a very broad sense of the term "gods" perhaps, though I think that could be misleading.

Animism (Wikipedia)
Panpsychism (Wikipedia)
Pirahã (Wikipedia)

mean by god — Mariner

Wouldn't it be, say, Brahma, Ganesha, Yahweh, Quetzalcoatl, Allah, Jesus, Ridhu Bai, ...?
Those are some names used by adherents anyway.
I suppose the "god of the philosophers" might be listed as well, in a sense, though it's more of an intellectual exercise (abstract), not elaborate, no particular scriptures or temples or rituals or worship, and heaven, hell, karma, reincarnations, etc, are more extra additions.

"contradiction, noun, a combination of statements, ideas, or features which are opposed to one another." — Devans99

Or more formally put, for a proposition p, p ∨ ¬p is a contradiction.

A completely full hotel that can except infinity accept infinitely many new guests is definitely contradictory. — Devans99

If we're talking an ordinary full hotel, yes, which isn't the case here, hence the counter-intuitive nature of ∞.

(Some basic mathematics required.) — jorndoe

Appeal to ignorance is fine, while keeping in mind that not just anything goes.
People have vivid imaginations and can, and have, come up with a lot of ignorance.

In real life, childrens' heads are filled up with that, and that has real life consequences, both for them and for others.
I don't recall having heard of any pujaris priests imams etc ending their sessions with "oh, by the way, we don't know", though that would seem the moral thing to do.
Some folk are out to learn more about whatever is indeed the case, which involves a conscious effort to minimize all the known tedious shortcomings.

So, yes, it matters.

Here are two of the typical arguments against an infinite past, and why they don't hold up. (Some basic mathematics required.)

Last Thursdayism

• Assumption (towards reductio ad absurdum): infinite temporal past
• Let's enumerate past days up to and including last Wednesday as: {..., t, ..., -1, 0}
  That is, there exists a bijection among those past days (including Wednesday) and the non-positive integers
• Now come Thursday
• Observation: {..., t, ..., -1, 0} cannot accommodate Thursday
• Let's re-enumerate the same past days but including Thursday as: {..., t, ..., -1, 0}
  That is, there exists a bijection among those past days (including Thursday) and the non-positive integers
• Observation: {..., t, ..., -1, 0} can accommodate Thursday
• The two observations are contradictory
• {..., t, ..., -1, 0} both cannot and can accommodate Thursday
• Conclusion: the assumption is wrong, an infinite past is impossible

This argument could equally be applied to infinite causal chains, and nicely lends support to the Omphalos hypothesis (hence why I named it Last Thursdayism). Another thing to notice about the infinite set of integers: any two numbers are separated by a number. And this number is also a member of the integers. That is, the integers are closed under subtraction and addition. For the analogy with enumerating past days, this means any two events are separated by a number of days. Not infinite, but a particular number of (possibly fractional) days. That's any two events. To some folk this is counter-intuitive, but, anyway, there you have it.

The first observation is incorrect. Whether or not the set can accommodate Thursday (one more day), is not dependent on one specific bijection (the first selected), rather it is dependent on the existence of some (any such) bijection. A bijection also exists among {..., t, ..., -1, 0} and {..., t, ..., -1, 0, 1}, and the integers, for that matter.

Therefore, the argument is not valid.

The unnumbered now

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there was no 1^st moment
2. if there was no 1st moment (but just some moment), then there was no 2^nd moment
3. if there was no 2nd moment (but just some other moment), then there was no 3^rd moment
4. ... and so on and so forth ...
5. if there was no 2^nd last moment, then there would be no now
6. since now exists, we started out wrong, i.e. the universe is not temporally infinite

The argument shows that, on an infinite temporal past, the now doesn't have a definite, specific number, as per 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, ..., now. Yet, we already knew this in case of an infinite temporal past, so, by implicitly assuming otherwise, the argument can be charged with petitio principii.

Additionally, note that 1,2,3 refer to non-indexical "absolute" moments (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd), but 5 is indexical and contextual (2^nd last, now), which is masked by 4. We already know from elsewhere (originating in linguistics) that such reasoning is problematic.

That is, 6 is a non sequitur, and could be expressed more accurately as:

5. if there was no 2^nd last moment with an absolute number, then there would be no now with an absolute number
6. since now exists, we started out wrong, i.e. any now does not have an absolute number


Hilbert's Hotel and Shandy's Diary, for example, are peripherally related, known veridical paradoxes, and do not imply a contradiction, but they do show some counter-intuitive implications of infinites.

However, completing an infinite process is not a matter of starting at a particular time that just happens to be infinitely far to the past and then stopping in the present. It’s to have always been doing something and then stopping. This point is illustrated by a possibly apocryphal story attributed to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Imagine meeting a woman in the street who says, “Five, one, four, one, dot, three! Finally finished!” When we ask what is finished, she tells us that she just finished counting down the infinite digits of pi backward. When we ask when she started, she tells us that she never started, she has always been doing it. The point of the story seems to be that impossibility of completing such an infinite process is an illusion created by our insistence that every process has a beginning. — James Harrington

• Time: A Philosophical Introduction

There is no logical or conceptual barrier to the notion of infinite past time.
In a lecture Wittgenstein told how he overheard a man saying '...5, 1, 4, 1, 3, finished'. He asked what the man had been doing.
'Reciting the digits of Pi backward' was the reply. 'When did you start?' Puzzled look. 'How could I start. That would mean beginning with the last digit, and there is no such digit. I never started. I've been counting down from all eternity'.
Strange, but not logically impossible. — Craig Skinner

• Pathways to Philosophy - Ask a Philosopher: Questions and Answers 47 (2^nd series), question 94

∞ does not derive a contradiction, rather, to learn more about our world, we'll have to go by evidence and try to piece things together.


_{Whitrow and Popper on the impossibility of an infinite past by William Lane Craig
Georg Cantor (1845-1918): The man who tamed infinity by Eric Schechter}

Hm.

start challenging atheism then — Jake

What is there to challenging atheism other than promoting theism?
Theism is the name of this game, exemplified by Vishnu Yahweh Allah Vedas Bible Quran etc, yes?

("promoting" may not be the right word here, Englitch is my 2^nd language)

, I'm going by the formal definitions. The formalities are in that other thread. Starts with ordinary logic (consistency), then extends with necessary and possible, and so on.
Say, in general, all that's necessary is consistency. Not sentience, for example. Which may rule out deities, depending on what those deities are supposed to be.
(I think Meillassoux argued similarly about contingency and necessity, except that was on a different angle altogether.)
Anyway, you can't necessitate deities into existence by such definitions; those definitions has then already implicitly defined your deities as something else.

, it's really not so much about a/theism as it's about general necessity.

I'll hypothesize that the only general necessity is consistency.
As shown, not sentience, green, soccer games, coffee ☕, etc.
But maybe that's not so surprising, since that's where we started out, modal logic being an extension of ordinary logic.

So, if you go ahead and define something as necessary in general, then that something may turn out to simply be consistency.
Kind of anti-climaxic if we were looking for something special.

As I will say it is reasonable to believe in a non contingent or necessary being is. — Rank Amateur

Old post: The Bare Necessities

1. anything necessary in general holds for all possible worlds
2. possible worlds are consistent, non-contradictory
3. a really simple world without sentience, green, soccer games, even coffee ☕, does not derive a contradiction and is therefore possible
4. anything necessary would also have to hold for such simple worlds
5. sentience, green, soccer games, even coffee ☕, etc, are not necessary
6. if your deity is defined as sentient, then your deity is not necessary
7. if your deity is defined as necessary, then your deity is not sentient

Swinburne concurs:

All explanation, consists in trying to find something simple and ultimate on which everything else depends. And I think that by rational inference what we can get to that’s simple and ultimate is God. But it’s not logically necessary that there should be a God. The supposition ‘there is no God’ contains no contradiction. — Richard Swinburne (2009)

The latter, 7, would be a rather impoverished definition if you ask me.
(Besides, if we have to resort to defining, then that in itself is suspect, not dismissible as such, but suspect. After all, we don't define things into existence, which is known as word magic.)

Just FYI, I'm unhappy about the coffee ☕ thing above. Not sure what to do about it. Can we make coffee ☕ necessary?

Indeed, Everything is a Goat (Bill Capra, Philosophy Now, 2009).

Furthermore, Nigeria police hold 'robber' goat (BBC, Jan 2009), and then there's Rick.

Compelling. Undeniable. (y)