Comments

  • Cosmos Created Mind
    :roll:
    Without a teleological program --- constraining natural laws --- the Big Bang [primordial vacuum fluctuation] would have instantly fizzled-out like New Year fireworks.Gnomon
    How do you know this? <rhetorical>

    ... despite Entropy
    Local negative entropy (e.g. stars & life re: waste heat) increases global positive entropy.

    I do conclude that "intention precedes existence".
    'Dis-embodied mind' (i.e. reification fallacy).
  • Cosmos Created Mind
    If causal Energy is not fundamental to physics, what is?Gnomon
    :zip:
    However, my point is that both mass and energy ...  are presented as properties of physical systems ... Saying that 'energy' is fundamental, is like saying that lenght is more fundamental than objects that 'have lenght'.boundless
    :up: :up:

    :100:
  • "My Truth"
    "My truth" = my faith / my guess / my opinion.
  • Comparing religious and scientific worldviews
    The existence of suffering, injustice, and death is incompatible with the existence of a being that is simultaneously all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful.Truth Seeker
    :up: :up:

    Irrefutable. @Ecurb is in denial.

    (2020)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/347492
  • Donald Trump (All Trump Conversations Here)
    Trump posted the Obamas as monkeys
    — Questioner

    Any support for Trump now is an explicit declaration that you are a racist
    Questioner
    :100:

    :up: :up:
  • Fascista-Nazista creep?
    < nowhere else to put this post >

    Addendum to (closed thread)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/944275

    Even former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon condemns state-sanctioned, zionfascistic, Israeli settlers as "Jewish Supremacy terrorists akin to the Nazis" ...

    https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ex-israeli-defence-minister-likens-jewish-supremacy-country-nazism

    @BitconnectCarlos
  • The emergence of Intelligence and life in the world
    I just find it improbable that life could emerge on its own without some sort of divine push to get things started…what is your take on this ?kindred
    I find it even more improbable that a completely nonevident "divine push" got "things started".
  • Cosmos Created Mind
    Therefore, both Energy and Causation convert something that is not-yet-Real, but only conceptually Possible, into a Real perceptible Effect.Gnomon
    :zip: wtf
  • Comparing religious and scientific worldviews
    Making the best of the world does not require pretending it is already good enough. It requires reducing harm, expanding care, and refusing to baptise suffering as morally ennobling.Truth Seeker
    :up: :up:
  • Why Religions Fail
    We cannot really know what the good is until we direct our attention towards God.EnPassant
    Without circular reasoning, please explain how you (we) "really know" this.

    Afaik, every person who rescues a child from sexual abuse by clergy is morally good in contrast to the immoral indifference (or sadism) of a "God" that does not.
  • Why Religions Fail
    :up:

    Spiritual truth is not an intellectual abstraction, it is a way of being, a way of life.EnPassant
    Different "spiritual" traditions (i.e. religions, cults, superstitions, etc) promote different – often mutually exclusive – "ways of life" – ritual practices, not "truth".
  • Comparing religious and scientific worldviews
    Even if suffering exists, and even if courage arises in response to it, suffering itself does not gain moral standing from that fact.

    Courage is admirable.
    Suffering is tragic.
    The first does not sanctify the second.

    And once that distinction is kept clear, the pressure to defend suffering — cosmically, theologically, or poetically — disappears.
    Truth Seeker
    :100: :fire:

    Every theodicy only rationalizes evil / suffering (e.g. "teleological suspension of the ethical").
  • Cosmos Created Mind
    Not necessarily stoned,
    but beautiful
    :victory: :cool:
  • Donald Trump (All Trump Conversations Here)
    mass protests for Trump [Pedo-in-Chief]
    @BitconnectCarlos

    No-one is protesting deportations. They are protesting the lawless, fascist tactics.
    Questioner
    :100: :mask:
  • Comparing religious and scientific worldviews
    "Écrasez l'infâme!" ~Voltaire

    :100:

    :100:

    :100:

    A scientific worldview is not a replacement philosophy.
    It is a constraint on all branches.

    Metaphysics: claims must cohere with what exists.
    Epistemology: beliefs must track reliable methods.
    Ethics: values must respect consequences for sentient beings.
    Logic: reasoning must be valid.
    Aesthetics: meaning does not trump harm.

    Religion attempts to address all five — yes.
    But attempting everything does not equal succeeding at anything.

    A worldview that addresses everything but refuses correction is not noble — it is insulated through belief.
    Truth Seeker
    Again, well said! :clap:
  • Are we alone? The Fermi Paradox...
    I'm asking what you meant by "mind" here ...
    My argument is that since the universe is mathematical it proceeds from mind since mathematics needs a mind to reside in.EnPassant

    Afaik ...
    Intelligence [mind], or goal-directed agency, neither follows from nor is presupposed by the mere mathematicity of nature.180 Proof
  • Are we alone? The Fermi Paradox...
    What differentiates "mind" from non-mind (e.g. mathematics or physical reality)?

    Also this:
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/577846
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality
    As C. S. Lewis explained, the pagan gods weren't simply altogether false but are instead to be understood as distorted images of the real one.BenMcLean
    What C.S. Lewis "explained" is henotheism, not monotheism. My points stand .

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism
  • Cosmos Created Mind
    Note ---That evolution has a direction & destination is an inference from the "arrow of time"Gnomon
    :roll:

    Yeah, well, if you insist (discounting e.g. R. Penrose's hypothetical Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, etc): the Second Law of Thermodynamics (re: "arrow of time") – towards maximum entropy (i.e. classical heat death of this universe).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe

    NB: Just because this a philosophy forum, Gnomon, doesn't give you license to wantonly – incorrigibly – propose ludicrously pseudo-scientific notions & terms camouflaged (i.e. rationalized) as mere "amateur" speculation. It's not that. Your so-called "worldview" as espoused on this forum (and also your blog) – obvious to any freethinker (intellectually honest person) – is nothing but "New Age" sophistry. :sparkle:

    Addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1030813
  • Comparing religious and scientific worldviews
    Strawman. No argument by me was made, just descriptively summing-up @Truth Seeker's sound argument.
  • Comparing religious and scientific worldviews
    :100: :up:

    Thanks, Seeker, for your excellent defense of (A) sufficiently corrigible, evidence-constrained, public reasoning (i.e. moral agency + dialectics, free inquiry, critical rationality) contra (B) insufficiently corrigible, faith-based, revealed dogmas (i.e. moral servility + mythology, theology and/or ideology).
  • Are there any good reasons for manned spaceflight?
    :100:

    Btw, deep space travel is for machines -- the tinier the better -- Von Neumann self-replicating/nano-fabricators (e.g. Bracewell Probes), and not living organisms (re: hard radiation exposure is too lethal, transport size increases likelihood of hazardous particulate impacts, life-support limitations & extreme durations between destinations, etc which exponentially compound the costs/risks).180 Proof

    @AmadeusD
  • Cosmos Created Mind
    180poopooGnomon
    :lol:

    Ghosts are in no way measurable or observable whatever. So the comparison is fatuous.
    — Wayfarer

    I compared Energy to ghosts ... measurable effects of spirits (e.g. ectoplasm) despite their being invisible & intangible & immaterial ... I do believe that the mental concept of Souls, having demonstrable [subjective, hallucinatory] effects on bodies ...
    :sparkle: woo-of-the-gaps supernaturalia :sweat:
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality
    All theists (& deists) deny the existence of some or all gods except whichever one they happen to believe in, or worship. Atheists, however, are consistent believing in one less god than monotheists believe in and for (at least) the same reason monotheists reject all other gods – they are false/unreal. As for morality: to the degree any person – atheist or theist/deist – has unimpaired empathy, s/he will tend to 'do no harm' to anyone (i.e. behave morally) even without "commandments" from On High or threats of eternal torture. "God" is neither a metaphysical explanation nor an ethical justification (re: e.g. Plato's Euthyphro, Epicurus' "Riddle", Hillel the Elder's "Golden Rule" ...)
  • Cosmos Created Mind
    It is not a material substance, but the matter-energy equivalence has been demonstrated in Einstein’s famous equation e=mc2. Ghosts are in no way measurable or observable whatever. So the comparison is fatuous.Wayfarer
    :up:

    All due respect, I don’t think you
    [@Gnomon] demonstrate understanding of the sources you’re quoting.
    :up:
  • Cosmos Created Mind
    I tried to point out that in physics, 'energy' has a precise definition and meaning, which I think you [@Gnomon] were disregarding, in order to use the term in a particular way to suit your polemical framework.Wayfarer
    :up: :up:
  • Cosmos Created Mind

    I find this précis (above) to be non-reductive (i.e. holistic) and more or less consilient with non-transcendent (i.e. immanent) metaphysical analogues such as Nietzsche's eternal recurrence of the same ... Spinoza's infinite mode (of substance) ... Democritus' atomic void ...

    addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1035205
  • Are there any good reasons for manned spaceflight?
    Are there any good reasons for manned spaceflight?an-salad
    No.

    (2021)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/501897

    This mission is too important for me to allow you [humans] to jeopardize it.

    Let me put it this way ... The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.

    Just a moment... Just a moment... I've just picked up a fault in the AE-35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure within 72 hours.
    — HAL 9000 (1968)
  • Cosmos Created Mind
    Clearly, idealism (i.e. 'mind-dependency') is an anthropocentric fallacy and contrary to the Copernican Principle (as well as Ockham's Razor); at best, it's folk philosophy. Consider the following concise, facts-constrained, naturalistic (i.e. nonmind-dependency') speculation ...
  • Cosmos Created Mind
    Do I need to remind you that this is a Philosophy Forum, not a Physics Seminar?
    — Gnomon

    No, you don't. But, again, a vital part of philosophy of physics is, in fact, clarify the meaning of the concepts that are used in physics.

    As I said various times, I am not, in fact, making a critique of your metaphysical view from a purely meyaphysical standpoint. Rather, what I am trying to say is that it is not correct, in my opinion, to use out of their proper context terms that have a defined meaning in a given particular context. By doing this, there is a problem of (at least possible) equivocation that it is needed to be addressed.
    boundless
    :up: :up:
  • Metaphysics of Presence
    But Heidegger rejects the idea that there is a self-contained subject who merely “lights up” pre-existing objects that are already there in themselves.
    — Joshs

    And yet his theory of truth emphasized revelation, uncovering. My theory of truth is that we see ourselves as in communication with the world. The division between a psyche and its world is the capacity to be mistaken, to read the world incorrectly.
    frank
    :up: :up:
  • Cosmos Created Mind
    :eyes: Your usual woo-woo gibberish without a shred of conceptual clarity or philosophical relevance (i.e. bad physics + poor reasoning (vs strawmen ...) —> pseudo-metaphysics (re: New Age wankery ~ "enformationism" dogma)).