Fictional things don't exist, but fictions do. — unenlightened

That's roughly along the lines of how I use the words.
Say, Superman exists, but just isn't real.

But, exists is not a primary predicate. — Owen

Right.

(Y) I'll go with that.

In brief, something like:

• existence is not a logical predicate (∃ is not just another φ)
• existence can be used as a linguistic predicate

Let's be clear that "My freedom ends at the tip of your nose" is an injunction, not an observation. — Banno

Also nicely expressed by The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789:

Article IV – Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law.

And I'm sorry to say, but I think JornDoe has you pretty well nailed. It's only that I do detect an element of actual philosophical insight, that causes me to bother persisting with you. — Wayfarer

My spider-sense gave me the impression of an "any means to my end" sentiment. Agustino would possibly go for some specific theocracy over democracy.

:D @Agustino, for some reason I picture you as some combination of opportunist, evolution-denier, anti-vaxxer, geocentrist, young Earth creationist, flat Earth'er, Moon-landing-denier, conspiracy theorist, proud supernaturalist, wannabe rebel, arrogant troll, misogynist, non-empathetic mental barbarian, with imaginary friends in higher places.

@Michael, deductively alone? No, it's:

• limited option: there is unwarranted suffering — evident (Y)
• comprehensive option: all suffering is warranted — justified? justifiable? (N)

But of course it can easily get more complicated. According to some there is indeed such a heaven, except it extends to humans only, well, and if that's Jesus' hangout, then he supposedly suffered, or so their story goes, ... And some always want to get into the semantics, sometimes warranted means deserved, sometimes unwarranted means useless or just preventable, ...

suffering ... is ... just a fact of life — Michael Ossipoff

(Y) Could perhaps even be accounted for in terms of biological evolution. Maybe the rest is overthinking it, or a kind of reification.

Anyway, tossing 1 out renders the remainder a different inquiry altogether. No given warrant of any kind, just what's found by (empathetic) humans.

How does 6 follow from 2, 3, and 5? — Michael

Observation tells us what's already considered unwarranted suffering. Don't think you'll find many doctors claiming that "the child missing out and suffering due to cancer" is warranted, or that all suffering is warranted. What's considered warranted suffering could, for example, be a kid having uncomfortable dental work done. Is it justifiable that all suffering is warranted?

What is "heaven"? Or do you mean that heaven is equivalent to freedom from suffering? — Cavacava

In this context, heaven could be anything free of suffering.
Of course there's an implicit assumption that such a heaven exists, which (to me) seems like the weakest part of the argument.

One variety of vicious infinite regress could be when trying to justify some proposition, p, and justifying p is done with (or requires) a different proposition, p₁, which, in turn, depends on p₂, ..., ad infinitum, where p_n diverges.
Divergence could, for example, mean never approaching anything in particular (which also has a specific technical meaning in mathematics).
If explaining a claim is deferred to explaining a larger claim, which, in turn, is deferred to explaining an even larger claim, ad infinitum, then you've likely hit a vicious infinite regress, i.e. a non-explanation to begin with.

On the other hand, if all propositions/claims can be shown to collapse into one (like p_n+1 = p_n), for example, then it's not a vicious infinite regress.

The body runs itself. — Michael Ossipoff

Sure. Consciousness occurring is a kind of "running", to use your terminology. If you're out, unconscious, have been put under by anesthetic or whatever, then that kind of "running" isn't occurring. You may come to, though, as long as the body has retained sufficient (structural) integrity.

The separate “consciousness” is Spiritualist fiction. — Michael Ossipoff

I don't think my take presumed or implied anything supernatural or spiritual in particular. At least I don't think there's any requirement to invoke such things, even though we don't self-comprehend exhaustively.

rational autonomy — Brian A

(Y)

We generally like freedom and dislike harm (including other animals), and that can, and do, inform judging actions in terms of morality.
Which hardly are matters of arbitrary, ad hoc opinion, not mere whims of the moment; who ever called liking freedom or disliking harm random or discretionary anyway?
If you require myths and commands to understand that, then there's a good chance you're a bit scary. :)
The objective versus subjective thing is misleading from the get-go.

@Mongrel, sorry, Michael Ossipoff and I may have gone off topic here. :)

No, that's Dualism. — Michael Ossipoff

Not substance dualism, though. Unless you think of space/objects and time/processes as substances? I just think of them as different aspects of the same world, perhaps like memories, inertia, gravity, what-have-you, are aspects of the world that we can differentiate, but not in an incommensurate fashion. The rock in the driveway isn't conscious. My neighbor is (for the most part, at least when I run into them).

, you found us! Welcome to. And what the heck took you so long? :)

As I was saying before, you're using Dualism with a different meaning. You're using it to mean the absence of one-ness with our surroundings.

...whereas the academic Western Dualists use "Dualism" to mean a dissection of the person (the animal) into body and Mind, two distinct substances or entities. ...a belief in Mind as something separate from the body. — Michael Ossipoff

Sorry, my bad for being unclear, I didn't mean to describe old-school substance dualism à la Descartes — supposedly independent, real "substances" — res cogitans (thinking substance, mental) versus res extensa (extended substance, material).

Rather, I meant to account for the apparent dualism monistically, e.g. self versus other, as simply being due to (self)identity, while still taking Levine's explanatory gap serious.

All the self stuff together already is what our cognition is — our self-awareness, 1^st person experiences, thinking, etc (when occurring) — and is ontologically bound by (self)identity, which sets out mentioned partitioning. We're still integral parts of the world like whatever else, interacting, changing, albeit also individuated.

So, cutting more or less everything up into fluffy mental stuff and other material stuff is misleading from the get-go; monism of some sort is just fine, and perhaps a better categorization is that mind is something body can do, and body is moved by mind, alike, which (in synthesis) is what we are as individuals. Whatever it all is.

@noAxioms, you're right, I was thinking more generally in terms of those uhm "larger-world" hypotheses. Something like ...

• modal realism (possible worlds)
• many worlds (quantum mechanics)
• multiverse (e.g. ensemble, M-theory, brane collisions)

... or whatever they all are.

But I’m not mixing separate things. I’m just not unnecessarily separating, dissecting, the animal (including us humans) into artificially separate body and Consciousness. — Michael Ossipoff

That was the point (sort of). :)
What choice do we have but the usual local 1^st person perspective? There's no self-escape, no becoming whatever else. We're already, always bound by identity, which sets the stage for "dualistic" (or "partitioned") thinking, like this one:

• self: mind, consciousness, self-awareness, feelings, map-making, ...
• other: the perceived, the modeled, the encountered, the territories, ...

Hence Levine's explanatory gap. The troubles begin when taking this to mean substance dualism:

Watch. I decide consciously to raise my arm, and the damn thing goes up. (Laughter) Furthermore, notice this: We do not say, "Well, it's a bit like the weather in Geneva. Some days it goes up and some days it doesn't go up." No. It goes up whenever I damn well want it to. — Searle

• Source: Our shared condition — consciousness, John Searle, TEDxCERN

How is this hypothesis backed up? Because if the other universes are undetectable, then I am guessing that it was not brought up from empirical data. Then was it deduced somehow? — Samuel Lacrampe

It apparently fell out of some interpretations of quantum mechanics, and later some string theories.
Quantum mechanics is well-established, string theories aren't.

Our thinking is already "dualistic", as expressed ontologically by all things being just themselves, and not anything else, including our (individuated) selves versus whatever else.

As mentioned by , there's nothing contradictory in that, except when messing up anything with anything else, self with other, ...

Maybe "'partitioning' thinking" is better wording, e.g. self-awareness versus not-self/other.

We're still part of the same world, along with whatever else, though.

Bare-bones definitions could be something like:

• atheism is absence of theism, or disbelief therein, hence the leading 'a'
• an atheist is a human that can be characterized by atheism

Of course most or all humans harbor beliefs of whatever kind.
In the case of atheists, I guess that could then be anything but theism.

I just tend to get a bit suspicious when discussions like this come up, because often enough they're attempts to shift the burden of proof.

Quote seemed relevant to the thread, e.g.

[...] unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true — Sagan

The Demon-Haunted World

Sagan got it. :)

Heya creativesoul, hope all is well on your end.

Conclusion: Therefore, it is not possible for God to categorically not exist (existence is an essential property of God). — Brian A

It seems there are two separate issues here. The first is whether God exists. But the second is that supposing he does exist, is it possible for him to categorically not exist. And to this I say no, since existence is an essential property of God, in the same sense, perhaps, that "having a horn" is the essential property of a unicorn. — Brian A

Some of those snippets could be construed as misuse of language.

Existence is not a predicate
∃ and quiddity

Can't define stuff into existence.

Carl Sagan, 1995.

Need some counter-examples of causal closure.

every physical effect (i.e. caused event) has physical sufficient causes — http://philpapers.org/archive/VICOTC.pdf

Fishfry and, I expect most of the others that have responded to your thread, is/are perfectly familiar with Hilbert's Hotel, and why it is not an argument for any statement other than 'aren't infinities interesting?' Ditto for Aristotle's notions of potential and actual infinities. — andrewk

(Y)

Hilbert’s Hotel and Shandy’s Diary, for example, are what we call veridical paradoxes, and do not imply a contradiction, but they do show some counter-intuitive implications of infinites.

Some select objections from the trenches …

• even if sound, the argument does not suggest anything “divine”, sentient, conscious, thinking, caring, loving, warranting worship or prayer, so the argument requires more to be of particular relevance
• if gods/God can be atemporal (changeless, “outside of time”, or something), assuming that makes sense, then we might suppose any such “origin” of the universe
• if there was a definite earliest time (or “time zero”), then anything that existed at that time, began to exist at that time, and that includes any first causes, gods/God, or whatever else
• phrases like “before time” and “a cause of causation” are incoherent, violates identity (the 1^st law)
• by contemporary cosmology (e.g. Big Bang) spacetime is an aspect of the universe …
  
  • spatiality and temporality are aspects of the universe
  • causation is temporal
  • therefore causation is an aspect of the universe, not somehow “outside”
• dichotomistically …
  
  • if some God of theism could create something out of “nothing”, as it were, then nihil fit ex nihilo is already violated, and we might as well dispose of the principle, in which case said God is an extraneous hypothesis
  • if some God of theism created the universe from something already existing, then whatever comprise the universe “always” existed, perhaps “eternally” (to the extent that’s meaningful), and we might as well dispose of the extras, including said God
  • therefore God is neither implied nor necessary, and may be shaved off and flushed by parsimony
• there are viable alternatives to a definite earliest time, including an infinite past duration (which does not imply a contradiction however counter-intuitive), or a no-boundary, “edge-free” universe (which is not infinite in past duration)
• the 1^st premise may be questionable or ambiguous in light of virtual particle pairs, quantum fluctuations, radioactive decay, spacetime foam/turbulence, the “pressure” of vacuum energy, the Casimir effect, Fomin’s quantum cosmogenesis (and successors), etc
• God = not spatiotemporal incorporeal mind ⇒ such an “entity” would “be” no-where and no-when; thinking, decision making, acting, etc, would be impossible; such an entity could not be characterized as “free”
• a supposed supernatural “beyond” is like an explanation that isn’t really much of an explanation to begin with (gaps, creative inventions)

I still cling old-fashionedly to the notion of 'universe', 'uni' meaning 'one'. — Wayfarer

Hey hey, I don't want to be one with Stalin. Gross. :D

What do you mean by logical consistency? The principle of non-contradiction? — Thorongil

It was round up in the old The Bare Necessities thread. Possible worlds maintain standard logic by definition:

• identity, x = x, p ⇔ p
• non-contradiction, ¬(p ∧ ¬p)
• the excluded middle, p ∨ ¬p
• double negation (introduction at least), p ⇒ ¬¬p
• modus ponens/tollens

And necessities hold for every possible world (even simple ones), so what do they all have in common? Consistency.

You think God is the principle of non-contradiction? That is incoherent. — Thorongil

I don't think anything in particular, except that defining God as necessary seems to resign God to some sort of triviality, like consistency. Maybe that is incoherent (it's not my definition). As mentioned, it seems "safer" to assert that God is necessary for our world (and call it a day).

, well, are whatever aspects of our universe anything like a (dense) continuum?
If yes, then there might be infinitudes of different "almost alike" changes among, say, different expansions and/or contractions ('inbreathing and out-breathing of Brahma', as you put it).
Even finite (definite) constraints might allow infinite possibilities; over an infinite duration, no two identical "states" may ever have been.
Anyway, I think these considerations can easily become rather complicated.
Peripherally related: No-cloning theorem

@Thorongil:

1. if God exists, then he exists necessarily (cannot not exist) — Thorongil
2. if any x is (modally) necessary, then x is something like (logical) consistency — The Bare Necessities
3. therefore, if God exists, then God is something like (logical) consistency — 1 and 2

[...] which seems rather different from the more elaborate gods in theism. — jorndoe

@Brian A, @Thorongil, it seems "safer" to assert that God is necessary for our world.
Though of course we don't know exactly what our world is (for that matter, I doubt omniscience is attainable).

I don't think that's what he's doing, though. I've struggled with this too, but I think the claim is that if God exists, then he exists necessarily (cannot not exist). The "if" entails composing proofs, and giving a proof is different from merely stipulating a definition. — Thorongil

As per The Bare Necessities, if any x is (modally) necessary, then x is something like (logical) consistency.

Necessities, N, is the conjunction of possibilities for every consistent world:
$N = \bigcap_{w \in W} P(w)$
where P(w) is true propositions for w.

You could chain these together

• if God exists, then he exists necessarily (cannot not exist)
• if any x is (modally) necessary, then x is something like (logical) consistency

But this is just logic.
Things become significantly more complex if we move to nomological (or physical or whatever).

, I don't think so, at least not logically/mathematically.
Infinites require careful treatment; they're not numbers.
The non-positive integers, {..., -2, -1, 0}, for example, is infinite yet does not contain the number 1.

1. in an infinitude of numbers, there are every kinds of numbers
2. there are infinite whole positive numbers {1, 2, 3, ...}
3. therefore there are negative numbers among them
4. contradiction, 1 is wrong

But it goes further than that.
As it turns out, ∞ is ambiguous if you will; in fact, there are infinite different kinds of ∞, of all things.
Additionally, the rationals and the reals are dense; between any such two different numbers, there's a third number different from both.

On the other hand, if we're talking nomological (or physical), then who knows; things are suddenly much more complex.
Regardless, both an infinite past, and a definite earliest time, have counter-intuitive implications.


EDIT: I read this snippet roughly as "if the universe has an infinite temporal past [...]", which may have been a misinterpretation.

if the universe were eternal [...] — Wayfarer

, I think I'd have to agree.
Non-existence can be linguistic only.

This is a contradiction in terms, according to Aquinas' definition of God: ipsum esse subistens, or the subsistent act of being itself. — Brian A

I don't think you can define something into existence, as it were.

If you define G to be (modally) necessary, then G becomes reduced to something like (logical) consistency, which seems rather different from the more elaborate gods in theism.

The Bare Necessities (old thread on the logical modalities)

, as far as I can tell it just means that there's no purely logical argument either way, rather it comes down to evidence.

Sure, the evidence we have thus far, which Big Bang (mostly) is based on, suggests that (at least) the observable universe was significantly denser and "smaller" in the distant past, and has been expanding ever since. Supposing a non-infinite past, there are still some options. Whether or not it had a definite earliest time or not is speculation I guess.

The strongest intuitive argument against an infinite past I know of, is allegedly due to Wittgenstein:

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. — https://books.google.com/books?id=VXEuCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT197&pg=PT197#v=onepage&q=%22Five,%20one,%20four,%20one,%20dot,%20three!%20Finally%20finished!%22&f=false

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. — http://www.philosophypathways.com/questions/answers_47.html#94

There are also counter-intuitive implications of a definite earliest time.

Here are two arguments that an infinite past is logically impossible, and why they’re wrong.

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

Note, 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. 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:

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

Seems convincing at a glance?

In short, the argument (merely) shows that, on an infinite temporal past, the now cannot 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. That is, the latter (conclusion) is a non sequitur, and the latter two could be expressed more accurately as:

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

Additionally, note that 1,2,3 refer to non-indexical “absolute” moments (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd), but the following steps are indexical and contextual (2^nd last, now), which is masked by “... and so on and so forth ...”. We already know from elsewhere (originating in linguistics) that such reasoning is problematic.

Still no proof, as some of the religious apologists propose. :-|

I'm admittedly biased against the death penalty (possibly culturally), but tried to round up some pros and cons a while back.

Some pros:

• retribution
• an eye for an eye, punishment fits the crime
• deterrence (except for places where shown ineffective)
• cost (except for places where execution is actually more expensive than alternatives, depends on legal system)
• permanent incapacitation (e.g. prison escape and subsequent recurrence avoided)
• practical
• modern science grants higher certainties (DNA, genetics)
• everyone dies eventually in any case
• closure to victim's family and friends

Some cons:

• wrongful execution, seemingly faced with faceless/anonymous executioners (also see argument con below)
• finality (also see argument con below)
• consistency (also see argument con below)
• slippery slope; plus potentially setting dangerous precedence
• sending wrong messages (why kill people who kill people to show killing people is wrong?); two wrongs don't make a right
• human rights, value of human life, "inhumane" societal action, international trust/acceptance
• execution may be painful and accompanied by emotional anguish
• somewhat "barbaric", "brutal", a "primitive feel", or otherwise uncivilized (two wrongs don't make a right again)
• capital punishment makes it easier to ignore in-depth understanding, e.g. social causes
• edge cases (like mental illness)
• victims cannot be brought back to life in any case
• impact on convict's family and friends

Sample implementations of the death penalty:

• Saudi Arabia is a theocratic monarchy that has a special police force trained to weed out witchcraft and magic, for example. They have put people to death for protesting against the system, criticizing superstition, apostasy and whatever else, and here criticizing means speaking or writing. There's a (summary) process in place, by which "undesirable" elements can be "dealt with".
• Some states in the US has a much better implementation in place. Yet, here determining guilt falls back on a jury and a couple hired lawyers (of whichever experience/skills). An execution is irrevocable, with no uncertain finality. The determination of guilt is clearly less certain. And this discrepancy can put retentionists into the same category as those they may execute.

If we're talking morality and justice, where does that leave us? There are examples of abolitionist countries with relatively low crime rates. Might be worthwhile taking a look at their example?

Here's an argument con:

Determining guilt is less accurate, than execution is irreversible, and thus (morally) disproportionate. Hence, given the irrevocability, voters-gone-executioners-gone-killers ought be held accountable and responsible, and face their own music. By appeal to logical consistency:

• wrongful capital punishments are known to have occurred (including youngsters), so who's responsible?
• in such cases, those that endorsed death penalty have (knowingly by their decision) caused wrongful deaths, with the exact same effect as murder
• should those that endorse death penalty hide behind legalities as a means to justify death penalty, comfortably from their chairs?
• in case of wrongful capital punishment, the endorsers should be subject to their own sentiment ("an eye for an eye")
• are you (the retentionist) promptly willing to stake your own life thus?

If we're talking "an eye for an eye", then the retentionists put themselves in danger of execution, unless their method of determining guilt is error-free. That, at least, is the logical consequence.

Aren't we better than this?

Aren't Levine's explanatory gap / Chalmers' mind-body thing usually brought up to complain about this stuff?
It's worth noting, though, that the partitions of such a gap do not contradict, which would be a stronger argument.

I wasn't summing up SP. I was explaining the circumstances in which the denial of absolute space impacts truth aptness. — Mongrel

Right. Speaking of constant motion typically requires two objects, moving relative to one another. Acceleration does not, since one can determine a force, like gravity, while accelerating. The same holds for rotation.

There is nothing natural in quantum. — Rich

Natural is science's escape word when it can't explain something. — Rich

What are you trying to convey? Quantumatics isn't science? :o