Even allowing for the fact that there could be a trillion or more sustainable life forms that could come from reaching a chain of 160,000 pairs. The end result is it will take many orders of magnitude more time than the 14 billion years old the universe is currently estimated to be for life to originate from a pre life environment. — Barry Z

This estimate is wrong, by its being random. You don't know how random works; random is not "let's exhaust all possibilities before we reach one that works." Random can happen on the 10^199 millionth attempt, but it is RANDOM, so it can occur on the first attempt, as well as on the second, or not even until the 10^333333th attempt is reached.

You are misrepresenting the math, that's all, or you have been lead astray by someone else who also does not understand the power and actual meaning of RANDOM.

I probably should have been more precise. Deism and God are part of a larger set of concepts that may better be called simply a force, of some kind . Maybe a natural force, or cosmic force? Would you accept an explanation that is more than simply life arising from physical matter? If so perhaps we can reach agreement? If not I am happy to engage in that debate. — Barry Z

I am on the firm stance that life can happen by combining elements in a random fashion. I have no need for god in my world view. I accept that it is not impossible for god to exist, but if it does, it has shown no sign, no information on its own self to man. Consequently, all beliefs are equally valid, with regard to god, but no belief is more than simply belief, without any substantiation whatsoever.

This is a given, I shan't be deterred from believing what I wrote is true, unless a convincing argument comes along, which has nevertheless so far never been forthcoming.

ta, Fdrake.

The man said "it's airy", meaning, a bit windy.

The woman, who probably was of lower classes, had been wont of pronouncing "hairy" as "airy".

So the rest you have to fill in with your power of directed imagination, I'm afraid, as it is not fit for printed words in a PG13 website.

Well, this topic that you’ve started shows your favorable interest in Bartrix, and it actually did cross my mind prior to reading this topic that you might be the same person, so I might be becoming a believer. — praxis

Your argument that purportedly supports your belief in the law of attraction is very weak. It is infinitesimally weak. It is so weak a five-year-old could point it out to you. So please don't insult my intelligence by asking me to show it to you how weak it is.

Some of your criticism may have been valid but nevertheless accompanied by mockery. — praxis

Can you point out the mockery? If not, then take this back. Also take back the accusation that I mocked Dr. Pigliucci.

And you are definitely not Stoic about it. You just said something in response, but you agree that you are not Stoic. And you are biassed for Stoicism... makes sense. Bias is support for an unfounded cause or unfounded opinion. Your bias for Stoicism is unfounded, because you are not Stoic. If you were, you would not be biassed. But you necessarily are, because you support Stoicism, yet you are not Stoic.

So... you are not only biassed, you are also hypocritical.

And that’s bad? — praxis

Bias is not bad? What do you think? Eh, you've already shown that when you show bias, it's good, according to yourself.

Here in Canada, I play cards with many different groups of players. One includes a British immigrant from Dorchester. It's now a constant gentle joke, jostling-like, that when someone declares Hearts to be the trump suit, we no longer pronounce the H which is otherwise customary around here, and we no longer pronounce the R either, much like the immigrant from Dorchester, who is, incidentally, a likeable, very gorgeous woman. (Married. Happily. Not to me.)

So when we declare HHHearrrrts to be the trump suit, we say now, in that group, something that "oughts" would sound if pronounced phonetically. (??)

The immigrant does not take this as an insult, as it is not meant to be one at all.

The way I learned it, when I was leaning English, is that 'an' is correct, in British English, before a word beginning with 'h', if the accent lies on any syllable other than the first. — Virgo Avalytikh

A gentleman in London, England, walks to work a boisterous day. He encounters a young woman. A sudden whiff of air lifts her skirt. The gentleman, such as he is, attempts to diffuse the potential of the otherwise embarrassing situation. He says, "A bit airy, isn't it?" The young woman answers, "Well, what did you expect, feathers?"

Needless to say, the two spake British English.

How is solipsism, specifically the part where you deny the existence of other minds, tenable when cogito ergo sum can be used to confirm the existence of all thinking beings? — TheMadFool

Cogito ergo sum only confirms the mind of the thinker. Other thinkers and their minds do not necessarily exist. Your opinion is an invalid inference of Cogito Ergo Sum.

The problem here lies in the law of attraction — praxis

No serious thinker believes in the law of attraction. You do.

mocked Massimo Pigliucci‘s work on stoicism — praxis

You are not very Stoic about my valid criticism of Stoicism; you are not Stoic about it at all.

You just proved my case.

The discussion with Massimo Pigliucci's work and my criticism of it is not the topic here. Please start a topic on that, if you wish to discuss that. Please don't try to hijack this thread for your own trivial and vengeful little purpose.

I believe you have an agenda and you're trying to egg me on. You are bitter because I put in straightforward, irrefutable arguments about the relationship between man and man's believed god. If you wish to address that, please open a new discussion on that.

You have been following my posts and responding with insults.

I counted three insults in succession:

mocked Massimo Pigliucci‘s work on stoicism — praxis

(You, @praxis obviously can't tell the difference between thought-out critical analysis and mockery; your bias for your favourite philosophical trends and your bias against me is clear here)

I thought he was you, mostly because for both of you truth doesn’t appear to be high on you list of values. — praxis

(You have no clue on my values and on Bartrick's values. Appearances give no clue to truth or to motivation.)

And this is why you fit the role of the forum clown so well. — praxis

(I like to joke around, but I resent being called a clown.)

I ask you to please stop following me, and stop hurtling insults at me.

This is so cool; we now have our own unique micro-conspiracy theories. — Noble Dust

(Fasten your seat belts, long sentence for the next five lines!)

Is it true what I heard (from my cat, confirmed by an independent source, my radiator), that @Jamalrob is only a figurehead, a spokesperson, a non-existent virtual Big Brother; and it is in fact the Syndicate, lead momentarily by Dr. No, who is struggling to straddle the organization alternating with his archrival, Dr. Evil, who is running this site?

1. My mother's side is Jewish, my dad's, RC. Not only did we always celebrate Christmas, but so did my mom's side of the family before the war. (Then after that most of the family was murdered in Auschwitz and burnt in the crematoria. My mother was spared for slave labour.)

I am sure we will burn in hellfire for a very long time for faithlessly celebrating Christmas. Because, basically, none of us three children believe in a god at all whatsoever.

2. Visibility of parts: You can always tell if a guy is single or married. Married guys wear ironed pants, blotchless shirts, matching sox, and their car is clean inside and out. Single guys (save for the pedantic) live in a pig-sty, don't shave on week ends, and call on their mothers only when they need a good-old-fashioned home cooked meal.

Your wive's behaviour is normal. So is yours. The human species is a two-species species within the species.

This has evolutionary roots. Men go out and hunt and / or battle; come home with wounds; women heal them. And women, long before any male doctor or medical researcher in the early 1800 formalized their findings (Pasteur, Semmelweiss), have long known about the health benefit of cleanliness, and the psychological benefits of orderliness.

I cried for days. — god must be atheist

That little piece of rock was the only thing that had ever shown any affection for me.

Don't anyone ever tell me that rocks have a heart of stone.

I would bet that no one would trust you with their pet rock. — Noah Te Stroete

I once lent my pet rock to my best friend, in grade 2, and he ate it.

I cried for days.

You did not beat him up because he did your friend's or wive's gf. You beat him up in self-defence. There is nothing wrong with that. You can't get convicted for that. You can't even get charged for that.

If I were you, I would stop serving up the story that you beat him up and put him in the hospital because he made sex to a strange woman in her sleep.

I don't know about the harrassment, but the surveillance is not a bad thing. They protect you as much as they keep an eye on you.

Similarly to the adage, "the best accident prevention device is a cop car in your rear-view mirror." All of a sudden you stop cutting corners: you come to a full stop at each stop sign, you never make illegal turns, etc. etc.

I think everyone ought to have police surveillance. Especially the high-rolling politicians, businessmen and -women, and athletic coaches, priests, and the like.

I think Deism comes to mind immediately when exploring a philosophy of organism, though other conceptions of God are not all excluded. The idea of organism on a cosmic scale and its relation to organisms familiar to us on a microcosmic scale was explored by Plato and studied widely through the Middle Ages. Do not know why this line of inquiry was abandoned, but Whitehead picked up on it again in the late 1920’s. — Barry Z

Deism and god does not come to my mind at all. Maybe yours, and I shan't deny that, I mean, how could I. But please accept, BarryZ, that alternate explanations exist, which have no room for the god concept in them. And people tend to believe these godless alternate theories more and more; there is wider and wider acceptance of them in the world because of their superior utility value to deism and god-worship.

Every philosophical position has it's own strength and weaknesses and even if l argue for a certain idea in philosophy. l have an overwhelming feeling of being wrong or uncertain at best. — Wittgenstein

Interesting. I've never had that problem. I think it's because in my worldview some philosophies are replete with errors (spiritual worldviews), and some are not (scientific, reason-based world views, determinism, the theory of evolution, the rejection of supernatural and the rejection of absolute belief in the truth as served up by religions texts and scriptures, and such-like.)

I simply refuse to accept the truth of badly constructed arguments that go against the views I hold.

↪god must be atheist Can something non-agential write a prescription? — Bartricks

Here's looking at you, Bartricks:

Can someone congenial prescribe a god to a non-believer? Can a proof be so shallow that ducks even won't wade in it? Can someone ask questions if he is only able to do that in lieu of coherent speech and thought?

My prof laughed at metaphysics. Although I proposed Leibniz's monads to him as a legitimate metaphysical actuality. I think it is. — jgill

My goodness gracious. I read this as follows:

My prof laughed at metaphysics. Although I proposed Leibniz's gonads to him as a legitimate metaphysical actuality. I think it is.

I had to look up what a monad was, and I got lost in the text.

I am coming slowly to the realization that all the great philosophers talked about one thing, and one thing only, and they gave that one thing different names, each their own creation of a name, and that's the only reason we think they are saying different things.

And Jesus said to him, "Again, it is written, 'You shall not test the Lord, your God.'"

Matthew 4:7 — praxis

What if you believe there is no god? Then would this directive not lose its punch?

If a man in a third world nation somewhere stood up to an oppressive military regime because of his belief in God — Pantagruel

Chances are the man would stand up to his oppressive regime because he does not fancy living in an oppressive regime. God has nothing to do with hating oppressive regimes. In fact, god will teach him (the scriptures, that is), that all authority derives from god. The person in the oppressed status in the other country will first obey the teachings of his scriptures or his inner voice that demands a fairer treatment. If he obeys the scriptures, he obeys god. But the scriptures say "obey your authority, for all authority derives from god." But the guy does not obey authority; hence, therefore, he is not obeying god.

Your entire simile failed. People don't rebel because of god. They rebel because they figure their lives sould be better.

It's not secret - I've made it on this forum before - it's just not on topic. But here it is boiled down to its basics:

1. Prescriptions of Reason exist — Bartricks

I see. Your doctor wrote you a prescription for you to become reasonable.

I have news for you. The prescription failed.

You equated "your true self" as "how you really are"
— god must be atheist

False. I tend to regard it as emptiness. — praxis

You are saying you regard yourself as emptiness.

That's actually right on the dot.

You omitted my option. Surely no one would deny the role of the unknown in stimulating discovery. — Pantagruel

I omitted your option on purpose. Nothing is good enough to replace god. God does nothing. It has no purpose, no action, no visible effect on the universe. So if you took nothing, and put it in god's place, you'd get the same world, absolutely unchanged.

All of them in a way but they all share a common feature.
Pretentiousness. That's what l always feel secretly when reading philosophy. — Wittgenstein

I feel pretentiousness in bad philosophy.

In good philosophy I feel there is a tiger.

Socrates was a good philosopher in this sense. I read the Republic and I was surprised by how easy a read it was. (Modern, good translation.) There are bad and good translations of everything.

Pretense comes from being hifolutin, from feeling important, or from feeling one rubs shoulders with the greats. I hope I don't come across as possessing any of these. I believe in independent thought, in freedom to explore, in fearlessness in the face of overwhelmning odds, and in the disrespect of authority.

Mind you, this applies to me in philosophical debate. If it came to street fighting, or staying in jail, fighting in an army as an involuntary recruit, or being employed by a bank, my attitude would be drastically different.

"Other". Reason stuff.

Philosophy is to be on the side of the reason, the reasonable, the most likelily believable, on the side of valid logical deducing, on the side of coming to logically sound, reasonable conclusions.

Everything else in philosophy is just variations on a theme.

And this has never been a-changing at any time in any point in the course of my long, varied, and tumultuous life.

I am not sure if it was Alfred N. Whitehead (ANW) who came up originally with the idea of "different motion type".

Atomic physics is based on quantum physics.

Chemistry is all based on atomic physics.

Biology is based on chemistry and macrophysics.

Economy and politics are based on humans.

These are identifiable and distinctly different movement types, that depend on each other, and do not negate or contradict the laws of the other movements, but each of these movements have their own laws; and the laws specific to a movement are INEXPLICABLE by the laws of the other movements.

Bartricks: the reason you argue there is no necessity for distinguishing between necessary truths and contingent truths can be struck down by a counter-reasoning using common language very nicely. The problem is not that we can't give you convincing arguments. The problem is we can't give you some brain power to understand, digest, and internalize those arguments.

This is a major fault of the website. I blame the website for our inability to increase the understanding of reason in your otherwise head. After all, I can't blame you, me, or any other user for this; so it must be a problem with the website.

Prove to me that the reason we can't teach you how to become a reasonable person is the fault of you, of me, or of any one or more of the other users including you or me or neither of us, and I shalt rescind the claim that it's the website's fault.

So replace god with ? — Pantagruel

1. A newt.
2. A two-headed snake.
3. Medusa.
4. Me. Me, me, me!!!!
5. Peter Goddard. (Not much adjustment in spelling is required.)
6. A piano.
7. Sticky glue.
8. Air.
9. Many people who believe in him.
10, Another god.

i was nodding off in front of the computer screen, and I had a dream.

A person wants to take the elevatore to the top floor of the building. But he is invisible. He can not exert force on the world, but he can hear, see, and smell the world. He can touch, but he can't exert force.

How is he going to go up to the top floor on the elevator, if he can't push the buttons?

His only chance is to ride up with someone who will push the button to the top floor.

He can't ask anyone to push it. He can't tell anyone anything, but he hears everyone talk, and he sees everyone.

A god-experience is a bit like that. It's fully experienced, fully realized, but it can't go outside the system of the experiencer. He will never be able to tell anyone "go to the top floor", even if god is waiting for them there. The inivisible man is jumping up and down in frustration, screaming at the top of his lungs, "push the friggin' button to the top floor" and nobody pays him any notice.

all things identical to god are things that exist. — TheMadFool

I think "things that exist" is not a predicate in a syllogistic sense.

But you can invoke other types of logical arguments.

However, when Kant said "existence is not a predicate", then he, in my opinion, meant syllogism.

If you want to use logic other than syllogism, be my guest. Or your own. Or anybody's.

I actually don't know what "categorical logic" means. I know syllogisms; I know reductio ad absurdum; I know formal logic exists, but I don't know its rules; Alcontali and PFHorrest seem to be experts at it.

There is the Venn diagram, that I understand; there is set theory, some of the rules of which I am familiar with. There are logical connectors, and corresponding truth tables that I fully understand.

But I can't help you to express in categorical logic an argument that reflects what you want to say.

How about the category E = things that exist? It's a valid category, isn't it? — TheMadFool

E is the predicate. "Things that exist." Each predicate is a clause, which may contain a subordinate clause. "Things that exist" is a predicate in language; but in syllogisms it is not a predicate.

Sometimes a person has to be extremely careful to be able to make fine and subtle distinctions between natural language and philosophical jargon (or any jargon.)

The problem must be that you don’t know yourself well enough, and that basically amounts to ignorance or the opposite of wisdom. — praxis

This does not negate the fact that we can and do give our true self because we don't need to hide it.

Whether our true self is the emotional content that governs us in expressions of philosophy, is actually true or not, is not debatable; we give our true self whether we know what it is or not.

In fact, most people here on the board, if not all of us, think of ourselves as the smartest, wittiest person. For one. We also think we are each always right. Obviously neither of these two statements are true for all of us. But our true self dictates that we think so.

So our true self... is not what the truth IS about our own personality and persona and reactions, but what WE perceive of our own selves of our persona.

This is a difficult concept and I accept if you can't see it. The "true" self is as used by you, @praxis and by me, are not the same concepts. You equated "your true self" as "how you really are"; I equate "your true self" more in a literary sense (not literally, but figuratively) to "do what your impulses dictate you to do without holding back".

I like to troll the authorities for their harassment of me. I put someone in the hospital once. — Noah Te Stroete

You harrassed him to first degree harm?

Or you are talking about your wife when she went into labour to bear your child.

Expert
Etymology
From Latin exspurtus.
ex: a has-been.
spurtus: big drip under pressure. — Galuchat

Nowadays this etimology only only apples to very old lady's breasts.

Was Jesus born without the original sin? I don't know. No stamp on forehead.

But was he sinful in life? According to himself, he was.

"Those who never committed the same sin, should throw the first stone."

Nobody threw a stone. They were all sinners.

Jesus ditto. If he REALLY was into law and order, and sinless, he would have thrown that cobblestone.

Did the Happy Hooker have a special interest in social services for the homeless? After all, wasn't she a high-end service provider? — Bitter Crank

Those who could afford her needed her the least; those who couldn't afford her, needed her the most.

Do you know, that on the average, how many times a street person gets laid on an annual basis? The answer is zero.