Comments

  • Arche
    ↪Agent Smith
    (My) arche :point:
    ↪180 Proof
    :fire:
  • Arche
    Bur what is the word? — Agent Smith
    The koine greek translation of the Gospel of John employs 'logos' which is an Attic /Ionian concept used by philosophers to denote 'rational account'. I suspect the gospel scribe meant, given the scriptural context, 'story' – In the beginning was th(is) Story – which is 'divinely revealed' rather than a 'mȳthos' written by (fallen / saved) mortals.

    As for the arche, it seems beyond our event horizon. — Agent Smith
    Perhap 'the arche' is our – reason's – horizon ...
  • The case for scientific reductionism
    ↪180 Proof The 'subject of experience' is the being to whom experiences occur. — Wayfarer
    So this "being" is any living, complex organism? (à la e.g. panpsychism, Berkeleyan idealism, etc)

    The 'problems of philosophy' are (for example) the kinds of problems about the nature of mind, nature of universals, number, ontology, metaphysics and so on.
    Do they have definite (testable) solutions like math problems, logic problems & scientific problems? If not, I think 'speculative puzzles (aporia) or questions (gedankenexperiments)' are more accurately used in philosophical discourses than "problems".

    The problem of reductionism arises in the attempt to apply the quantitative approach of the sciences to the qualitative problems of philosophy.
    Both are conceptual approaches – especially insofar as the latter is applied to the former – so this "quantitative-qualitative" distinction seems to make only a trivial difference.

    Anyway, thanks for clarifying, Wayfarer. :cool:

    ... physics, the be-all-and-end-all of science, can be reduced to mathematics ... — Agent Smith
    Maybe metaphysically, but not scientifically.

    Materialism reduced ... to im-materialism.
    Embodied X "reduced ... to" dis-embodied Y. :roll:
  • The case for scientific reductionism
    That they're 'unclear to you' is not an argument against it. — Wayfarer
    I didn't propose an argument, Wayf. I wonder if you can clarify those phrases – what you mean by those terms.
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    What is Christian faith supposed to be about, in philosophical terms? I would put it like this: it is about realising one's identity as a being directly related to the intelligence that underlies the Cosmos, a direct familial relationship, not as abstract philosophical idea. — Wayfarer
    :roll:

    ... many of the arguments about 'theism' are based on very confused accounts of what really is at issue.
    No doubt this is the case with the so-called "New Atheists" (except Victor Stenger or Rebecca Goldstein) which is why I consider their arguments (those of e.g. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett) to be irreligious humanist polemics instead of philosophical critiques of theism or theology.
  • The case for scientific reductionism
    Reductionism as an approach has been astoundingly successful. But difficulties arise when it is applied to philosophical problems, because these are problems that concern subject of experience, not objects which can be quantified. — Wayfarer
    It's unclear to me what kind of things are "philosophical problems" or a "subject of experience". Also, the only object of scientific reduction is what Descartes, Galileo and Locke called "primary qualities", and therefore the criticism that reductionism cannot address or account for anything else is a category mistake (i.e. playing one language-game in terms of another). Thomas Nagel's idealist – mysterian – objection to modern physics is, I think, patently incoherent and amounts to an argument from incredulity.
  • Arche
    ↪Agent Smith
    You've lost me again.
  • Arche
    Schopenhauer's The Will? — Agent Smith
    ???
  • Arche
    Any guesses as to what the first word was that issued forth from God's lips? — Agent Smith
    אֶהְיֶה‎ (’Ehyeh).
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    Pascal's wager — Agent Smith
    I suspect no one has ever believed in g/G because of a Pascal's Wager who wasn't already riding the fence up his sacramentally Confirmed keester. Pascal, the mathematical rationalist, was a religious fideist and proposed the wager as a prophylactic against promiscuous doubt rather than as "a reason to believe".

    So what other non-reason reason you got, Smith?
  • Emergence
    ↪Agent Smith
    Spinoza was a Jew, not a Christian. More to the point: an 'anthropomorphic, anthropocentric, supernatural and teleological deity' like the God of Abraham didn't make any sense to him during rabbinical studies by his late teens, and vocalizing this 'theistic skepticism' eventually got Spinoza excommunicated (cherem) from the very insular, observant Sephardic community (ghetto) of Amsterdam. Reason – freethought – "motivated" Spinoza. :fire:
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    ↪Agent Smith
    No.
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    I'm under the impression that we may have "reasons" other than a good argument to believe. — Agent Smith
    Such as ...
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    A chilling wind blew across Manhattan that afternoon as they wheeled Malcolm out of the Audubon strapped atop a stretcher. A delay held up the departure of the ambulance for long minutes as little Chuey inched through the milling crowd up to the great man now supine. 'I’m not dead,' he told the pop-eyed boy. Was his smile charming the frigid air? Heck. Only the red film covering his teeth suggested anything amiss. 'You believe me, son?' 'Ain’t got not beliefs,' snorted Chuey. The eyes of the annointed started slowly closing, a calming peace now spreading across his face. 'Best answer. Receive my blessing. Assalamu Alaikum.' Something made Chuey speak. 'Wa alaikum assalam.' Loud banging sounds as the stretcher collapsed into the speeding-away ambulance. 'Ain’t got no beliefs,' Chuey repeated. And then, 'but now I got reason to act like I do.' — ucarr
    :death: :flower:
  • Emergence
    ↪Agent Smith
    ↪universeness
    ↪Gnomon

    "Einstein's God" is Spinoza's natura naturans (i.e attributes of substance aka (modal) "laws of nature"). :fire:
  • Arche
    What is the word? — Agent Smith
    Apparently, whatever G_d says ...
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    ↪Agent Smith
    ... in chess and in the road. :wink:
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    I dunno but Mr. Anderson, Morpheus, and Trinity are looking for The Keymaker. — Agent Smith
    Another one of The Architect's macguffins. Remember, Smith: "There is no spoon" (i.e. there is no Matrix). :smirk:
  • Mind, Soul, Spirit and Self: To What Extent Are These Concepts Useful or Not Philosophically?
    Life is the dialectic. Bliss plus torment produces awareness. Again and again; more and more. Take the heroin and ease the pain at the cost of your life. — unenlightened
    :death: :flower:
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    Do you believe: vulnerability = vulnerable, soul = souls? — ucarr
    No.

    Do you categorically reject common sense?
    No.

    The question: Is there a key that unlocks all doors? — Agent Smith
    Are "all doors" actually locked?
  • Arche
    ↪Agent Smith
    As a philosophical naturalist I exclude non-natural 'first principles'.
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    ↪Vera Mont
    :fire:
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    Why do you surround vulnerable and soul with quotation marks? — ucarr
    I quoted your words.

    Common sense.
    It's also "common sense" that the Earth is flat and the Sun rises and sets, all swans are white and hammers always fall faster than feathers, etc.
  • Arche
    ↪Agent Smith
    My candidates for arche:
    dao, or atomist void, or natura naturans ... :fire:
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    do they believe in God because of blind faith? ... or do they need an empirical evidence? — javi2541997
    ... or delusion? ... or whichever is cognitively-socially easier? ... or???

    ↪Tom Storm
    :up: :up:
  • Emergence
    .
    . a statement that I didn't understand.     — Agent Smith
    All I mean is that "religious apologists" posit a first cause and call it "god" though they, in every case I'm aware of, fail to show that it's the same deity referred to in the Bible or Quran or any "sacred scripture" which folk actually worshipped. At most, the cosmological apologetics of theists paradoxically gets them only as far as deism (or god-of-the-gaps like e.g. @Gnomon's "enformer").

    ↪universeness
    :up: :up:

    ↪universeness
    :fire:

    [W]e are only lab rats, if god exists. — universeness
    :smirk:
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    ↪Agent Smith
    We always have a choice whether or not to hold rational (dis)beliefs.
  • Mind-body problem
    ↪Agent Smith
    Google any of the bolded names in the first paragraph or the video lecture at the bottom.
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/582454
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    ↪Agent Smith
    :up: No "lack of belief" here, just active disbelief.
  • Mind-body problem
    None exist for consciousness. — Agent Smith
    Explain.
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    ↪Agent Smith
    :ok:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/463672 (follow the links ... or not)
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    So you believe paramecia – perhaps the most "vulnerable" life forms – have "souls" too?
    — 180 Proof

    Yes.     — ucarr
    Panpsychism?
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    No one has either proved/disproved the existence of god. All that has been accomplished is refutations of mainly theistic arguments, that they're unsound. — Agent Smith
    Well, that's good enough to demonstrate that disbelief in theistic g/G is more reasonable than theistic g/G-beliefs. From a recent post ...

    ↪Agent Smith These semantic muddles are why I prefer the more probative question of Is theism true or not true? rather than merely "Does g/G exist?" If theism is not true (i.e. antitheism), then atheism (i.e. every theistic g/G is a fiction) follows; however, whether or not "g/G exists" does not entail either belief or disbelief in g/G ... — 180 Proof
    Also (same thread):
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/774753 :fire:
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    ↪ucarr
    So you believe paramecia – perhaps the most "vulnerable" life forms – have "souls" too?
  • Emergence
    ↪Agent Smith
    Yeah but not the "god of religion" ...
  • Can you prove solipsism true?
    ↪Banno
    :smirk:
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    ↪Thund3r
    I'm not here to make the case for theism, but saying there's no evidence is just not true. — T Clark
    Well, there certaintly isn't any corroborable, non-anecdotal, public evidence of or sound arguments for "theism" (e.g. the existence of any "theistic" g/G). No doubt I could be wrong about this ... :smirk:
  • Can you prove solipsism true?
    ↪Banno
    :smirk:
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    I'm seeking your thoughts on my four statements. — ucarr
    What are those statements (link)?

    ↪RussellA

    As I see it, our conversation, an interview in which you answer questions, has to date distilled five big questions:     — ucarr
    Interesting exchange. How do you answer those questions?
  • Emergence
    ↪Gnomon
    I differ with you on two of your main projections.
    1. No first cause is necessary.
    2. No mind with intent is necessary in the creation of the universe    .     — universeness
    :100: :up:

    @Agent Smith
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