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  • The difference between religion and faith
    180 Proof what I meant to say was: Honestly, how do you distinguish between a fantasy and a non-fantasy? — Raef Kandil
    "Fantasy" is subjective and "non-fantasy" is non-subjective: usually the latter can be corroborated with public evidence and the former cannot.

    180: You're welcome. Explaining other people is dirty work but somebody has to do it. — BC
    Thanks, BC. :up:

    ↪Wayfarer
    My epistemic position is consistent with both what classical atomists and (pre-sectarian) Buddhists have taught about our whence & wither, Wayf. As for your "documented ... thousands of cases" of "past life memories", those anecdotes are not, in any rigorous sense, compelling public evidence. :roll:
  • The difference between religion and faith
    From whence we come, wither we go. — Wayfarer
    All the compelling public evidence suggests: from nonbeing back to nonbeing (re: anatta, anicca, moksha ... the atomist's void).
  • Does God exist?
    Well if one is to discuss whether god "exists" or not, it would be good to start with a discussion of what one means by "God". The source of much talking past each other. — prothero
    :up: :up:

    Btw, Welcome back!
  • Yet I will try the last
    One of the reasons the character Al fascinates me is that he's a philosopher with bloody hands ... — green flag
    :cool: :up:

    Change ain't looking for friends. Change calls the tune we all dance to.

    In life you have to do a lot of things you don’t fucking want to do. Many times, that’s what the fuck life is… one vile fucking task after another.

    Don’t you think I don't understand. I mean, what can anyone of us ever really fuckin' hope for, huh? Except for a moment here and there with a person who doesn't want to rob, steal or murder us? At night, it may happen. Sun-up, one person against the fuckin' wall, the other may hop on the fuckin' bed trusting each other enough to tell half the fucking truth. Everybody needs that.

    I’d rather try touching the moon than take on a whore’s thinking.

    Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh.

    Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man… and give some back.

    Do they understand how most of what happens is people being drunk and stupid and trying to find something else to blame besides that that makes their lives totally fucked? No. They don't.

    Every fuckin’ beatin’ I’m grateful for. Every fuckin’ one of them. Get all the trust beat outta you. And you know what the fuckin’ world is.

    Truth is, as a base of operations, you cannot beat a fucking saloon.     — Thus Spoke Al Swearengen (a boss cocksucker of Deadwood of the Dakota territory)
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    Who says? — Eugen
    Everyone who knows what they're talking about on this topic. Make your case, Eugen, If you say different.
  • The difference between religion and faith
    How do you honestly distinguish between a fantasy and a non-fantasy. — Raef Kandil
    As opposed to 'dishonestly distinguish'... ? :roll:
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    As long as you reify "consciousness" (into a humuncular folk concept),
    — 180 Proof
    - where had I reified it before you mentioned ]th)at?     — Eugen
    A direct implication of your OP questions about emergence. Activities are not emergent and you assume that "consciousness" (I prefer minding, or mind) is something more concrete than an activity. Context matters, Eugen. Assumptions of questions (re: OP) matter. My recommended sources do not assume that mind(ing) is anything but an activity (i.e. what a sufficiently complex CNS interacting with its environment does), which probably is what's confusing you about them.

    I am referring to phenomenal consciousness, qualia, "what it is like to be"-ness. — Eugen

    ↪Eugen The "-ness" = reification — 180 Proof
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    your false accusation — Eugen
    What "false accusation" are you falsely accusing me of making?

    ↪Pantagruel
    I'm not engaged in a dispute about "emergence".
  • A challenge to rational theism. Only a defunct God is possible, not a presently existing one.
    ↪spirit-salamander
    Ask those who find the topic "sensical".
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    You said yes, and gave me two examples. I don't think they avoid weak emergence. — Eugen
    :ok: Maybe someone will else give you better examples or demonstrate to your satisfaction that weak emergence cannot be avoided.
  • Penrose & Hameroff Proto-consciousness
    Perhaps we are all bullshit generators... — green flag
    Perhaps. :sweat:
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    ↪180 Proof I cannot understand you. I'm not reifying anything here in my opinion. — Eugen
    :ok: Good luck with all that.
  • A challenge to rational theism. Only a defunct God is possible, not a presently existing one.
    What do you think of the “God has parts – God has no parts” discussion in the philosophy of religion? — spirit-salamander
    I think it's nonsensical. Just substitute "pants" for "parts" ...
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    ↪Eugen
    The "-ness" = reification.
  • What Are You Watching Right Now?
    ↪180 Proof I saw this some time ago - it's astonishing. Courage... Adorno... truth as a way of life... small 't' truth... you can't fully grasp the way the world is... philosophy needs to go to school with the musicians... Curtis Mayfield and Beethoven... - To paraphrase Marlene Dietrich on Orson Welles, after listening to this, I feel like a plant which has just been watered. — Tom Storm
    Yeeeeesssss! :clap:

    I was paid the high compliment that this post of mine had reminded @green flag of this video interview. :cool:
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    ↪Eugen
    As long as you reify "consciousness" (into a humuncular folk concept), you will miss the main points of my suggested references.
  • The difference between religion and faith
    Following Wayfarer's lead, I'll put my Zener cards on the Ouija board ...
    I'm a (modern) Gnostic in the following sense:

    "I don't want to believe. I want to know."
    — Carl Sagan

    "I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone."
    — Albert Camus

    Deus, sive natura naturans
    — Benedict Spinoza     — 180 Proof
    ... from an old thread post.

    I suppose to try and articulate my own stance a little better [ ... ] Not just as a matter of belief or faith, although they may be instrumental in coming to understand it. But that in some sense, humanity is part of the unfolding of the cosmos - the way I put it is, that through sentient beings, the Universe comes to understand itself. — Wayfarer
    And so the eye says to the brain, "I see things and you understand yourself in part by me seeing them, but I cannot see you or myself so you cannot understand yourself completely and, like me, brain, you have to make up X-of-the-gaps fantasies about me and yourself. Of course, we cannot honestly believe those fantasies are true no matter what we tell ourselves ..."

    But I have no personal intuitions of any of what you describe, despite years of exposure to everything from Alan Watts, Suzuki, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Jung and Gnosticism and many other old favourites. — Tom Storm
    Same here. :100: :up:

    Besides, to paraphrase Camus: what can 'Perennialism' mean to – what existential role can (the) 'ultimate unity' play in – the ephemeral lives of discrete metacognitives like us, Wayfarer? Just give up metacognition as much as possible (aka "one hand clapping" & "mantras")? Become, in effect, satisfied swine rather than sad Socratics (or, more likely, stupified sophists/apologists)?
  • Yet I will try the last
    ↪green flag
    :up:
    You can't cut the throat of every cocksucker whose character it would improve. — Al Swearengen to Mr. Wu
  • What Are You Watching Right Now?
    I miss riding down B'way in Manhattan and BSing in a taxi like Brutha Cornel with an everyday philosopher who's driving a hack on her third shift... :death: :flower:

    (2008)


    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/791990
  • Yet I will try the last
    ↪180 Proof
    Your talk of blues reminds me of a great Cornel West interview : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfD3X3f5C_w     — green flag
    :cool: Thank you.

    Plato says 'Philosophy is a meditation on and a preparation for death.' — Cornel West (2008)
    My brutha! A philosopher reflectively practices how to die while living; how to think for oneself; how to cultivate courage; reflectively practices change, creativity (sense-making), defeasibility, (in)finitude, contingency, struggle (funk), agency, love-in-spite-of, ... ek-stasis. :fire:


    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/791991
  • The difference between religion and faith
    I know as much as I will ever need to know about your pathological aversion to all things religious, 180. — Wayfarer
    Yes, Wayf, my mind is highly allergic to pathogens such as the "religious" (aka the superstitious, the mystifying (stupifying), the anti-naturalist, the merely anecdotal, the inexplicable (unintelligible), the eschatological, the totalitarian ...) and, as a matter of intellectual integrity and metacognitive hygiene, it's my (our) duty, whenever possible, to proffer public reminders of alternative discursive practices which encourage existential fitness and lucidity. :mask:
  • The difference between religion and faith
    No, fideism is not the same as faith. — Wayfarer
    Only, I think, in this regard: in practice, "faith" is a-rational (i.e. unsound) whereas "fideism" is ir-rational (i.e. invalid).
  • Yet I will try the last
    For blues folk, "fears & hopes" are nothing but shadows on the skull's wall; only courage like Sisyphus' defiance matters to us. :death: :flower:
  • A challenge to rational theism. Only a defunct God is possible, not a presently existing one.
    B 2. However, the transformation of a transcendent substance into mundane things is possible. — spirit-salamander
    This statement resonates with my thinking (unlike the rest of your demonstration) as the point of departure of my own speculative (Spinozist sub specie durationis) pandeism:
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718054
  • Can we avoid emergence?
    Q1. Is it possible to build a theory that starts with fundamental non-consciousness and reaches consciousness without going through the classic weak emergent or strong emergent? — Eugen
    Yes. Thomas Metzinger's
    self-model theory of subjectivity     seems to do the trick. Also, an extrapolation from Metzinger's work is R. Scott Bakker's scientifically-grounded, speculative Blind Brain hypothesis.

    Q2. Does any of the above theories (virtualism, computationalism, functionalism, etc.) manage to bypass emergence (weak or strong)?
    I think "functionalism" (e.g. a tangled hierarchy) comes closest.
  • Is indirect realism self undermining?
    Ontology and epistemology are usually joined at the hip I think. — frank
    Only in idealism.
  • Is indirect realism self undermining?
    Indirect realism is probably the most prevalent ontological view in the world today. — frank
    I think you're mistaken, frank. "Indirect realism" is an epistemological view (i.e. representationalism).

    The question is: does indirect realism undermine itself?
     I don't see how.
  • Penrose & Hameroff Proto-consciousness
    Far be it for me to take issue with a Nobel physicist's pseudo-philosophical confusions (e.g. Roger Penrose's X-of-the-gaps) but ...

    1. What is proto-consciousness? — Eugen
    A vague placeholder for a conceptual placeholder for a feature of our folk psychology (i.e. subjective intuition).

    2. How is proto-consciousness differentiated from matter?
    The latter corresponds to bodies and the former corresponds to the (vaguest) idea of bodies.

    3. What is the difference between consciousness and proto-consciousness?
    The latter is a vague (aka "proto") placeholder for the former conceptual placeholder.
  • The difference between religion and faith
    Is parsing out the difference between faith and religion in this way a kind of special pleading? You like faith, and dislike religion, so religion is responsible for bad things but not faith. — BC
    :up: :up:

    ↪Wayfarer
    Agreed. :eyes:
  • The difference between religion and faith
    ↪Wayfarer
    And my point is that Ms Armstrong's critique is misplaced for blaming "modern culture" (i.e. Enlightenment rationality) when the culprit, in fact, is the documented tenets of Pauline Christianity itself, beginning with Paul's letters (NT), then centuries of Patristic apologia which culminated in the Nicene Creed (381 CE). In this way, as she points out, Christianity is an aberration of dogmatic orthodoxy (re: pre-modern scholasticism, Eastern Orthodox theology, Thomism ... and then Reformed Protestantism, etc) among other Abrahamic as well as Dharmic religions (and most pagan / pantheonic cults).
  • Does God exist?
    If we take the premise "god = existence", then the question "does god exist" is redundant as its like saying "does existence exist?" — Benj96
    :up:
  • Deep Songs

    "Can't Outrun The Truth" (3:12)
    single, 2023
    Pete Townsend

    :death: :flower:
  • Does God exist?
    ↪Raef Kandil
    :halo:

    "God" is so badass "God" doesn't even have to exist. (pace Anselm)
  • Do we deserve to exist and be alive?
    ↪Sir2u
    :up:
  • The difference between religion and faith
    ↪Wayfarer
    Contra Karen Armstrong's revisionary insistance that Christianity is not a fundamentally creedal soteriology, consider
    Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. — Galatians 2:16, KJV
    (Emphasis is mine.)

    Here's a further exigesis: https://caseyjaywork.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/184/

    Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. — Romans 3:28, KJV
    (Emphasis is mine.)

    ⁸For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

    ⁹Not of works, lest any man should boast.     — Ephesians 2:8-9, KJV
    (Emphasis is mine.)

    Besides these excerpts from Paul's letters (c48, 57, 62 CE), there is the Protestant theological doctrine of Sola fide that is grounded in both Pauline scriptures as well as Patristic and Scholastic apologia. Not "an accident of history", or modernity. As much as I respect Karen Armstrong's writings on religion, I find their revisionary departures from scholarship undermine her credibility as a scholar (who pretends not to be latter day apologist). A former Catholic nun, Ms. Armstrong apparently ignores or dismisses the doctrinal substance of Protestant and pre-Catholic Christianity as if the devil in the historical details do not still matter.
  • The difference between religion and faith
    All I am saying is: religion and faith are totally different things. — Raef Kandil
    I suppose "religion" is the institutionalization of fetish-making/regulating/prohibiting (i.e. enforced dogma) whereas 'faith" is personal fetish-using (i.e. make-believe) such that the latter does not require the former – what you call "liberation", Raef – but the former very much depends on the latter.
  • What is the Challenge of Cultural Diversity and Philosophical Pluralism?
    ↪Jack Cummins
    We have different conceptions of philosophy, it seems; I don't think philosophy is "knowledge" even though it often concerns itself with how we can know and making explicit the (our) limits of knowing.

    I know that you got to the point of questioning while you were still at school when you gave up 'God' for lent. But, was the decision based simply on the basis of the rationality alone, or irrationally of the idea of God?
    After years of bible study, church history, and the history of the making of the bible as well as its uses in politics for over a millennia, I could not find anymore evidence for Christianity's claims than I could for those of Greco-Roman religious myths, for example, or could not distinguish rationally between "Jesus & Thor" or "Yahweh & Zeus". Perhaps it was, as the Church teaches, I'd simply lacked "grace" and realized that during my Jesuit high school years. :pray: Losing my religion, Jack, was certainly the catalyst for my life-long interest in philosophy (i.e. reflective reasoning & conduct) and not the other way around. :fire:
  • Do we deserve to exist and be alive?
    ... inherently superior to being a rock. — TiredThinker
    "To be a rock and not to roll ..." :smirk:
  • Does God exist?
    I have never considered a higher power at any point and never had a problem with death, I have no idea with you mean by 'fate' but if you mean 'whatever happens to us' then I 've never had an issue with that either. — Tom Storm
    :fire:
  • Does God exist?
    The word "God" refers to an anxiety rather than an entity.

    ↪Tom Storm
    :up:
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