Why did this body generate my consciousness. — Yohan

That is an unanswerable question. You can only appeal to spirituality and not to science, to philosophy or to reason to answer it for you. And the answer spiritualists will give you (priests, soothsayers, the Bible, etc.) is completely unreliable.

Okay, I see "apparent". So the observer sees organisms' purpose if he argues enough about it. I see it now, thanks.

the quality of apparent purposefulness and goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by the exercise, augmentation, and, improvement of reasoning. — Shushi

I am incredibly sorry, @Sushi, but I still don't get it. Purpose in an ant, for instance, or in a maple-tree, or in a mosquito-larva, is brought about in it by argumentation and improvement of reasoning?

The theist, by contrast, faces no such obstacle because he grounds moral values in a concrete object, namely, God, and so is not committed to a realm of abstract objects.[6]

Who says god is a concrete object? The biggest, falsest, most mistaken premis I have ever read in an argument.

Nobody has ever seen, heard of, touched, smelled, or tasted god. It is a completely imaginary object, there is nothing concrete about it.

What a rube. Where did you get this argument from, @Sushi?

5. I am a secularist / atheist, but I don't know what "Teleonomical" means, or what you mean by it, so I can't answer your question.

But I sure hain't failed the Is/Ought Dilemma. I got a B- on it.

“Something” just means “not nothing”; “everything” just means “nothing not” — Pfhorrest

You guys like to think to your guns, do you.

"Not nothing" can be something, and it can be everything. But something is not necessary everything.

For instance:

Not nothing is the user God must be atheist.

Not nothing can be the entire universe, including all matter and stuff in infinite directions everywhere, which is the only satisfactory fulfilment for the meaning of "everthing".

Yet God must be something is not infinity with matter included in all directions within infinite distance.

So clearly "something" is not "everything".

You are stuck in that groove, @Themadfool, and can't get out of there.

I invite you all to look at the fifth post on this thread. I predicted there that this nonsense will go on for a long time, with smart and learned people arguing about something that is dead wrong.

But then again, arguing about something that is nonsensical and horribly wrong, beats staring out the window at the great beyond on a Christmas day when you got no family, no friends, no nuffin', and you are too old to play with yourself, and too poor to afford any kind of recreational drugs.

What's the Ape-Iron theory? In my estimate Anaximander lived in the Bronze age, and had no knowledge of iron; and definitely no knowledge of the classification of animal species in which a class or order or family or whatever is called Ape.

So I am still baffled, because the Opening Post promised to open up the way to show how the existence of atoms proves the Ape-Iron theory, which theory was actually not mentioned, or the proof, or what Ape-Iron actually is.

This was a let down, a disappointment, but I'll live.

Current thought is, I see it in so many places, that the spirit or soul or "I" does not exist.

Sure it does.

It is not a physical thing, but it dies with the physical body. It gets developed when the physical brain gets developed, and it dies with the dead brain.

The "I" is not physical, much like thoughts, feelings, etc. are not physical, although their presence can be derived and pointed out by physical devices. That is only so because the "I" somehow (don't ask me how) connects with the physical body.

Many say "I" is only an illusion. No. If there were no mind of an "I" there, there could be no illusion. Illusion is very much the function of the "I" via the brain manifestation of the mind.

Things go in trends. Current trend is to think there is no "I". I oppose that trend, and I want it on the record. (-:

The Dresden bombing was ordered by President Eisenhower, because intelligence suggested there were weapons of mass distructions hidden there. (I'm bullsitting and I'm the first to admit it. I still think Prez Bush the younger should face a court for the crimes he had committed against humanity. Lest we forget.)

I applaud you for being a person who gets his information from scientific journals, but I'm pretty sure most people become acquainted with current events through television and the internet. — staticphoton

This completely discounts the fact that it is scientists who have discovered global warming, and it is media's job to deliver the scientific findings to the people.

You somehow proved to yourself that it is the media that discovered global warming, and predicts its dire effects.

The political agendas are there in the Internet and other media, but NEWS reporting is in there, too.

I really can't tell you how you misplaced the importance of scientific discovery and washed it down to being mere Internet noise. Why did you do that? Just to win an argument? I hope you see the error of your ways.

The Internet and other media could not report the global warming and climate change, without there being a global warming and climate change. And it is not Greta and not politicians who first discovered the phenomenon, but scientists. The Internet and the media is just a news reporting vehicle in this instance. Why are you fighting that, and why are you trying to distort the truth, denouncing scientific work and denouncing the importance of it?

Alcontali, the post you posted makes no sense to me. I am not putting you down; maybe your intellect is much higher than mine, and that's why. But your claims to me make no sense,and the connections and conclusions drawn make no sense.

Maybe my ineptitude, not yours. Or maybe it's the other way around? I am no judge of that. (But I am a judge of that for the sake of forming my own opinion.)

Orange was judged as being sufficiently terrible to count as severe harassment, they had a responsibility for their workers' welfare, and these two things together make an enforceable claim that they contributed (bore responsibility) to workers' deaths. — fdrake

I agree. Furthermore, to preempt any arguments why the bosses should not be responsible and expected to not be horribly abusive: this belongs in the area of tort law, which deals with the required care of each individual for their fellow humans. Under the auspices of the consideration of tort law issues, if you see a man drowning in a lake, and you have a means to pull him to safety, you HAVE to do it; if you fail, you can be charged with neglect of a person in need.

This is the law, all over the civilized world. You can't really let a man die or get injured because you are neglectful or intentionally not helping when you could.

There are a lot of these cases coming out of police arrests and custody, as well as from jails, where the inmates or people taken into custody are beaten to death not only by the jail keepers, but by their cell mates.The police and the jail keepers have the responsibility and they must act within its dictates, to save the fellow humans from unnecessary, accidental, deaths, or from other forms of avoidable harm.

There are other cases coming out of familial neglect; a dying family member dies because care needed is not provided by the family. The fact he or she, the dying person, is hateful, unbearably bad, abusive, etc. is not a condition for refusing to provide care.

And of course, there are the baby killers, who take their ill children to untrained healers, such as to charlatans, and the child dies.

And of course there is the clash between fundamentalist christian sects and the secular law, who, when certain illness strikes, could save their children, family, brethren, but don't due to religious considerations. These cases may for instance involve a life-saving blood transfusion which the religious think is evil and against the will of their god.

The case of the bosses driving workers to suicide can be argued to have contravened the tort law, which requires to give enough care to save people from harm or death.

I may be totally off the target, but in my opinion the BIV has no sensations; no ways of taking in impulses from the physical world, due to its lack of skin, sight, hearing, touch, and smell and taste.

So it is so alone, that it has no way of knowing it is alone by itself.

It can't have any idea that there is a physical world, therefore it can't have any motivation to communicate with the world.

Therefore his motivation lacking, he has no intention of anything, let alone intention to represent itself.

Furthermore, it may not even have a concept that it, itself is something. Not in a coma, but nevertheless completely devoid of any structural instructions ever, it may not realize its own self.

Long story short: the idea of self-identity is very much contingent upon the views by the self, which views the separation of the self from the outside world generates for the self along with a number of corollaries and considerations. The brain in the vat has no capacity for noticing this separation.

It is a psychological term you calim. But isn't there a philosophy of psychology? Of family? Darwinism? Of social bonding, of family ties, of blood being thicker than water?

You may want to look at undonditional love as a psychological issue, I won't stand in your way. But I refuse to limit philosophy to limit itself by excluding this psychological issue from its scope of examination. It would be similar to excluding all religious considerations, since they are religion, a matter of fraith, not of philosophy; or excluding all scientific findings form the scrutiny of philosophy since they are science, not thoughts on metaphysical levels.

I just talked to a Jewish friend of mine whose parents are Modern Orthodox. He said that those who observe the laws and live according to them, will resurrect when the Messiah comes. I said, will it be like a blissful life, or the same old grind after resurrection that we experience today? He was unsure, but he opined it will be the same old grind. I asked him if people will live forever, those who are resurrected, or will they die again eventually? Again, he was unsure.

So resurrection is not the bed of roses one might suspect it could be. Just a second chance at this shitty, fucking grind we call life.

So the Jews really love their god unconditionally, because they don't expect anything in return from him, by ways of rewards such as: candy, a new set of dishes, or rides on His back.

Anarchy means, literally, "no rule". It is not democratic, but it is egalitarian.

Nobody rules over anyone else.

---------------------

Monarchy - mono archy, or one rules over all.

Oligarchy - Oligs rule (I don't know what an olig is.)

Plutarchy - rule by many (I think... now I wish I never skipped those Ancient Greek Language classes)

Patriarchy - rule by a male originator of the klan

Matriarchy - rule by a female originator of the Klan

Anarchy - rule by nobody (an- is a prefix that negates a noun's meaning.)

To prove that the system of math, the system of the universe, or anything empirical is impossible to prove because of the need to use parts of the system in axioms or premises, is not possible, for if it were possible, then we could describe the system precisely without the knowledge of axioms, and unfortunately axioms are required for the proof. Without axioms, there are no premises, so there is no thing to prove or to disprove.

And while you are at it, maybe you could give a brief (one or two paragraphs, no longer than 80 words each) summary of what Goedel's incompleteness theorem states.

If it has to do something with the fact that the axioms of math are dependent in some way on the workings of math, yet they are the basic underlying principles of math, then I say that's true, but can't be proven without introducing some OTHER logical systems (such as what language is and how it works) that also suffer, so to speak, of the woes of the first, second, third, ... and nth incompleteness theorem.

In fact, the whole universe, if it indeed exists, can't be proven to exist, because the proof would need to pull in some systems that are built on axioms that are pulled from the physical universe, and used in the proof of the universe's existence.

In fact, this applies to any physical or other empirically observed phenomenon.

the undecidability of the halting problem — Wikipedia page

What is the undecidability of the halting problem? What is the halting problem? This is factual knowledge to gain before anyone can contribute to your thread in any meaningful way.

Why didn't this body become born without my consciousness. Why didn't I remain as nothing when this body came into being. — Yohan

Some might argue that a person's body was not born with the consciousness of the individual. It may have developed along with the developing mind of the body.

There is no memory of consciousness prior to young childhood. There is no empirical proof of the mind surviving the body.

I bet this is not very uplifting or helpful for you, but hey, I am not lying. My facts are verifiable by your own very experiences.

Thanks for the reply! As you no doubt realise I am sort of playing devil's advocate here... — Devans99

I get the feeling you play your god's advocate here, not your devil's... but never mind.

@Devans99, it's funny that we argue about this. I may win in logical terms, but you are devoted to a principle, from which you won't budge, and that principle stops you from accepting insight or logic that denies the truth of that principle.

There is no way I can convince you to abandon your principles. So there is really no reason to continue this discourse for me.

The lower you start, the more effective the regime is at maximising happiness over the long term (in a purely mathematical sense). — Devans99

Not really. You say if you go from -4, you can get a difference more than if you start at +4. That is not true. If the difference is 16, then you get to 12 form minus four, but you get to plus twenty from plus four with the same difference of 16. Your argument breaks down both on the psychological and on the mathematical argument fields.

But if any mind is a logic processor plus memory then even an omnipotent God can only create minds of a similar nature. Your point is similar to 'why can't God create square circles?' - an omnipotent God can only perform things that are logically possible. A mind without memory is not a mind as we know it and its the memory of evil that make the good times good. — Devans99

No. A mind without memory is not a mind, but a life without ANY suffering due to evil is a LIFE, and no memory of evil is needed to experience joy and life.

What you are trying to say is that suffering is necessary to experience joy, and that is a logical necessity, and you are trying to convince others that it is a logical necessity to the tune of 1 plus 1 equals two, not five.

Well, it is not. Suffering is an empirical event, and it is not an a priori truth that you need to suffer to experience joy and happiness and rapture.

But people would be happier still if they have had that initial exposure to evil (so that they have a way of measuring/quantifying good). My point is that, yes, there are many 'good' answers to the question, but the only optimal answer is that happiness is maximised in those who have already experienced evil. — Devans99

PTSD. People who have experienced pure evil suffer to the end of their lives. They never again experience joy in their lives, especially because of their suffering.

Is this what you meant by "optimum"?

It is only technology and science that can solve that problem, not votes.
— god must be atheist

That is rather naïve. Science will lay down the facts, but sadly it is the politicians who influence people to vote, not the facts. — staticphoton

Let's see if I had been naive.

I propose this question to you:

If all the politicians were employed in political ways to reverse or stop the global warming effects, but all scientists were forbidden to work on it, (as a hypothetical situation), how far would we get to solving the problem?

I put it to you that we would not get anywhere by talking about it, voting this way, voting that way, voting in any way. All we would accomplish, thanks to Greta, is finding a group to blame, then to hate, discriminate against, punish and eventually eliminate.

It is only technology and science that can solve that problem, not votes.
— god must be atheist

That is rather naïve. Science will lay down the facts, but sadly it is the politicians who influence people to vote, not the facts. — staticphoton

So... Greta is a politician?

It is not only the politician that makes people vote one way or another. it is the scientists who have given us the facts about global warming / climate change. It is not the politicians who've given us that insight.

The successful politician will check out a movement, a mass movement, and stand in front of them and pretend to have lead them there.

There is nothing a politician does but 1. serve the mandate s/he has been given, and 2. serve him- or herself.

A politician never discovered radium, the steam engine, the third law of thermodynamics, nothing.

A politician is an organizer, who is necessary to the betterment of a society, but a politician never actually does anything in the way of creating something tangible.

It has taken control over marriage and divorce and instituted legal rules that make the family and generational reproduction impossible. — alcontali

If that is true, that's a great invention to curb human population explosion.

I suggest we introduce democracy in all countries in the world, and then when we are down to a critical mass of minimum number to survive, we can reestablish communism.

I didn’t realize I was creating an inconsistency, — Pfhorrest

I don't mind your inconsistency. It is like the food I cook for my children... it has a certain uncertain flavour peppered with a consistency of indescribable inconsistency.

At least we are consistent about this.

I stand corrected. Thanks for spotting this error, Seagull.

Is there a flaw or a problem with this proof strategy? — alcontali

Yes, there is. I don't understand a word of it. That's a HUGE problem. (The strategy may be solid, though. I am no judge of that.)

Furthermore, "at least one" is not something; "at least one" is a definition of "some" in syllogisms, and in syllogisms only. In syllogisms you don't use "something".

This opening post rests on misguided understanding of the language, is my opinion.

I expect a long, elaborate and meaningful discussion by many participants who are full of opinions and have no real clue that the wrong definitions were used in the opening post, and who frightfully easily accept the wrong conclusions drawn in the opening post.

Be my guest. Go wild.

2. Not anything which I take to mean not everything — TheMadFool

This is wrong. Not everything can be negated by something as well as by nothing.

Your further analysis is meaningless because you started off with the wrong premis.

Our government doesn't do only exactly what elected officials run on. Who does those things that we don't vote for? — Eric Wintjen

This is absolutely true. But what you don't mention is that under tyranny by one tyrant or under anarchy, the people's wishes are completely ignored.

In democracy, at least SOME of the wishes are heard and adhered to. In the other two systems, they don't need to be, at all.

So this is why Chamberlain said, "Democracy is the worst possible system of government, except for all the others."

All these systems do is obfuscate who is to blame for what and who should be held accountable. — Eric Wintjen

They (beaurocracy) do many other things, but granted, they do obfuscate as well.

I agree with you, that we live under a tyranny. But the tyrant is the People. (In some countries.)

THIS is new. To have the tyrant be not one person, but many, and to have the tyrant rule its own self via proxy.

You're right, I completely agree with you: the system we live in is a tyranny. But I don't agree with your point that complexity makes us bewildered. We fit, each of us, into a cog in the complexity, and raise our families and propagate our DNAs. This is fostered by our system of tyranny, so people are satisfied not because they are blinded by the complexity, (although they definitely are blinded) but because their life goal is free to practice: fill your belly, make children, live well.

Message to some of the correspondents: Why are we trying to convince Frank of something that he won't be convinced of, based on his principles? It's cruel. Let him be.

A person's principles are bigger than himself, and definitely bigger than the opinions of anyone else.

People go to death because of their principles. A few philosophical arguments are child's play compared to death. If I were you, I'd leave it at that.

It's a choice. As a society we choose what we will put up with. Why should potential "efficiency gains" outweigh every other consideration? You could get efficiency gains by forcing kids to work, extending the working week to 60 hours, abolishing retirement. That would toughen us all up too. The question is why would we want that? — Baden

This is a million dollar question. We are a loving, caring society, the globe is with its people. In some areas. Not all.

But it used to be not like this for about two-three thousand years.

And before that, before agriculture and civilization, it used to be like that for a very long time.

So what makes or breaks goodness is on one hand economy, on the other hand survival advantage, and on the third, public wish-public opinion-public attitude-public zeitgeist.

I think you are moving the idea to nearly mathematical levels. Unconditional in this context means regardless of behavior, regardless of accomplishments, regardless of how the mother, for example, is treated by the child or how the child feels about her, she will love him or her. I think that is meaningful and true in many cases. — Coben

That's a lack of social constraints, but there are other constraints, and you can't completely ignore the other constraints, unless you declare a certain context that you wish to arbitrarily limit your scope to. But arbitrarily limiting your scope is just yet another constraint.

This occurred to me just now: I read a book, an anthology. On the contents page, there was the title of a piece (the anthology consisted of many short pieces), "Unconditional Love -- Unconditional Expectations".

I guffawed.

I wish I remembered what the author was trying to say.

I don't know much about Jewish religion, but I know they have not much of a concept of an afterlife in Heaven. So the only reason for Jews to love, obey, and service their god is due to... what? There is no stake if they don't. No matter what they do, the Jews, according to their religion (as far as I know, and I ain't no religious Jewish guy) only serve god because they want to, because it's the only thing to do.

True, there are the covenants, the contract with god... cut off the foreskin, get protection by god... stupid thing, and look at the Holocaust. Three million foreskinless males murdered after being tortured and kept as slaves.

So god does not provide much protection for the Jews, but the (religious) Jews still love their god like the Christians. Christians have a reason, a condition to fulfil there, they believe in Pascal's wager; but the Jews don't.

Go firgure. Unconditional love.