The suggestion that an abstract¹ – "not concrete" – being has a causal property, or causal relation to anything concrete (e.g. is "a first cause"), is a reification fallacy and thereby a misconception of an abstract (i.e. "not concrete") being.[C]omposed beings that are concrete are either composed of an infinite regress of concrete things or there must be a first cause which is not concrete. — Bob Ross
:100:I don't think it [AI, LLMs] does raise any questions about intelligence or consciousness at all. — Manuel
Arbitrary doesn't imply 'unconditioned' so your point, sir, is a red herring / strawman. My point: a 'consistent relativist' forfeits all standards for deciding between competing or incommensurable truth-claims, ergo her preference is arbitrary.The choice can never be arbitrary, precisely because our attitudes, values and actions must always conditioned [...] — Joshs
So then your conclusion ...... the OP is only targeting concretely existent objects. — Bob Ross
... means that "God" is a "concretely existing object", which contradicts both theistic and deistic conceptions (Aristotle, B. Pascal, P. Tillich).41. The composed beings must subsist through an absolutely simple and actual being.
42. Therefore, God exists. — Bob Ross
• Carter-Mondale's Legacy –
Reagan (& Bush), 1981-1993
• Clinton-Gore's Legacy –
"Dubya", 2001-2009
• Obama-Biden's Legacy –
Trump The Clown, 2017-2021
• Biden-Harris' Legacy –
Trump The Convict, 2025-TBD — nails in the republic's coffin
A surface without edges.What is an unbound surface? — Bob Ross
Earth.Can you give a concrete example of that?
Consider this article ...What is a fractal? Ditto.
None of the premises of your argument refer to "concrete entities" – goal post-shifting fallacy, Bob. Here's what I'm addressing that you've repeatedly referred to:Real number series are not concrete entities,so they are not a valid rejoinder to the argument from the composition of concrete entities.
Numbers¹ are "composed beings" (i.e. sets²1. Composed beings ... — Bob Ross
False (e.g. negative integers, fractals).[A]n infinite regress of contingent beings is actuallyimpossible.
Impermanence, flow (i.e. flux), becoming, transformation, energy (i.e. activity) ...How would you define change?
By causality³ I understand non-random (i.e. conditional-constrained) sequential patterns of events (i.e. effects).How would you define causality?
Yes.You're some variety of a naturalist or a physicalist, right? — Astrophel
:sweat: It doesn't.So, brain here, tree there: how does the latter get into the former as a knowledge claim?
Well, then that would be a certainty.But what if no certainties can be assumed?
Thus, a certainty ...Becausethis is a structural feature of our existence.
i.e. another certainty, no?When any and all standards of certainty are of no avail, we face metaphysics, ...
In contrast to 'unreal' (fake) metaphysics?...real metaphysics.
Ergo a certainty – a conclusion which contradicts (invalidates) the premise of your 'argument'. Another wtf are you talking about post, Astro?! :shade:It is an absolute, inviolable.
I don't understand what you don't understand about how I use "about" in that sentence.I don't understand what you mean by "about". — Astrophel
I don't understand the question or its relevance.... how do "natural" objects get into knowledge claims when causality, the naturalist's bottom line (just ask Quine) for everything, has nothing epistemic about it?
I have no idea what you are talking about, Astro.Or, if you prefer, how does any thing "get into" a brain thing such that the what is in the brain is "about" that thing?
A community of ritualized reenactments of an epic myth (i.e. folk anti-anxiety placebo-fetish aka "magic show") ... no doubt based on "bad metaphysics". :sparkle: :pray:But what is religion apart from the bad metaphysics?
Uncertainty.And what is NOT a "denial of reality" and that is the true ground of religion?
Useless hope (i.e. attachments) ...You mention suffering, but what is this?
Like real numbers series (i.e. continuum), like unbounded surfaces, like fractals ...... an infinite series of beings ... — Bob Ross
"Exist" is not a predicate of any subject but instead is merely a property (indicative) of existence like wet is a property (indicative) of water (such that whatever is in contact with water is also wet). Aristotle's notion of "contingency" (accident) fallaciously reifies predication, or conflates his abstract map(making) with concrete terrains.... lack the power to exist (i.e., are contingent)
Okay, and yet another anachronistic metaphysical generalization abstracted from pseudo-physics – of no bearing on contemporary (philosophical) usage of "causality" ...By cause, I mean it in the standard Aristotelian sense of that which actualized the potentiality.
Again, conflating (a) map(making) with a terrain further confuses the issue. :roll:... spatiotemporalityimplies[affords] divisibility.
Principally because the AristotleanCertainly, the Thomist "Five Proofs" are not sound.
— 180 Proof
Why not? What false premises do they contain, if they are not sound? — Arcane Sandwich
...from an old thread concerning Thomistic sophistry:
[ ... ]
And [another] excerpt from an old post objecting to the soundness, etc of "the cosmological argument": — 180 Proof
Plato says as much in his dialogue Euthyphro.Thus, believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts. — MoK
:fire: À la natura naturans ...Higher being lies in the future.
The Ground-Of-Determination', G.O.D., underlies all, but it isn't a God Being. — PoeticUniverse
Certainly, the Thomist "Five Proofs" are not sound.That doesn't mean that they're not valid or sound. — Arcane Sandwich
:up: :up:34. The purely simple and actual being is the ultimate cause of all actualization of potentials.
But deism
42. Therefore, God exists."
False. Thomism is inferior philosophy — Gregory
Love is Joy, accompanied by the idea of an external cause ... [and] ... All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love. — Benny Spinoza
:smirk:Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he/she incurred the disorder. — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Reifiication / misplaced concreteness fallacy is implied in your assumption, Astro. "Propositions" are only truth-bearing ways of talking about aspects or features of "existence" and not the sort of things which can be "removed from" or "discovered in" "existence". Unlike sophists (or essentialists & idealists), most philosophers do not confuse their maps (or mapmaking) with the terrain.Propositions can never to removed from the existence in which they are discovered in the "first" place. . — Astrophel
Why not?5. An infinite series of composed beings (viz., of parts which are also, in turn, composed) would not have the power to exist on their own. — Bob Ross
This statement does not follow (e.g. numbers are infinite and each is an infinite composite). Besides, classical atomists argue otherwise.6.Therefore, an infinite series of composed beings is impossible.
"Cause" here is undefined, which invalidates this premise; but even so, this idea corresponds in conception to atoms in void.7.Therefore, a series of composed beings must have, ultimately, uncomposed partsas its first cause. (6 & 3)
i.e. Democritus' void.8. An uncomposed being (such as an uncomposed part) is purely simple, since it lacks any parts.
Insofar as "two beings" lack identical properties and/or relationships, and if by "exist" what's meant is .. spatiotemporal, then such non-identical "beings" – even if both "lack parts" they do not occupy the same positions simultaneously in space and time – necessarily "exist separately".9. Two beings can only exist separately if they are distinguishable in their parts.
This statement does not make sense since there are "two" which implies differentiation by more than just internal composition. "Parts" (i.e. internal compositions) are a necessary but not sufficient condition either for describing or of existing (see my reply to #9 above).10. Two purely simple beings do not have any different parts (since they have none).
This statement does not follow (see my reply to #10 above).11.Therefore, only one purely simple being can exist.
Caveat: though I've not bothered to read past premise #11, it is abundantly clear to me, Bob, that the conclusion presented here in #42 does not follow from undefined, incoherent or false premises (e.g.) #5, 6, 10 & 11 above.42.Therefore, God exists.
Such as the above "propositional truth" you're "chasing" (Gorgias laughs).Philosophers chasing after propositional truth (logos) is patently absurd. — Astrophel
Consider Kipling's 1899 imperialist paean ...The idea that western [greedy individualism]are superior toeastern [collectivist communality] in no way implies nor entails that the white "race" is superior to any other "race". — Bob Ross
:up:↪180 Proof Bob should know why you went there — ssu
Silly question – if a "God" exists that allegedly "created" a world full of animals devouring each other alive and gratuitously suffering human beings, then "God" is either a sadist (demon) or a fiction, both of which are not worthy of worship (e.g. a moral/spiritual ideal).Also also, does god actively give little kids inoperable brain cancer, or does he just let them get it and then sit back and watch while it slowly kills them? This isn’t rhetorical, I’m actually lookng for an answer. — an-salad
This Yukio Mishima quote reminds me ofTrue beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.
— @javi2541997
Can you makes sense of this one for me?
Those quotes sound like Nietzsche. — Tom Storm
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrible. — Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies
Well, I'm a 'cosmopolitan alter-globalist'...Why would you not be a Western supremacist? — Bob Ross
Like "whiteness", "the west" is a myth, and, as a scientifically and historically literate (postcolonial) freethinker, I'm engaged in praxes of support for both the abductive disenchanting of nature and dialectical demythifying of political economies.In Support ofWestern[ White ] Supremacy, Nationalism, and Imperialism
So duality is not an illusion – 'samsara is nirvana' is ignorance? :chin:‘saṃsāra has no beginning but it has an end. Nirvāṇa has a beginning but it has no end.’ — Wayfarer
... chasing its (fairy)tail.Religion takes its first step ... — Astrophel
"Object" presupposes (a) subject, or (an) actor of "the perceptual act", that is embodied (i.e. an aspect of nature). Mind is non/pre-mind-dependent (i.e. emergent-constrained by – entangled with – nature aka "non/pre-mind") and not the other way around as idealists (e.g. apophenia-biased¹ and/or egocentric-biased² and/or introspection-biased³ 'believers') et al assume.[W]hen an encounter with an object occurs, it is an event, and must be analyzed as such. What lies "outside" of this event requires a perspectiveunconditioned[presupposed] by the perceptual act ... — Astrophel
Apparently not.Does any of this erudite palaver have any bearing on religion and suffering? — Vera Mont
Mr. Smith: "F-U, Douchebag!"10Jan25
It's official:
DJT, Convicted Felon-in-Chief
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/trump-sentencing-hush-money-new-york-9f9282bc
Sometime in the next ten days the US DoJ, at the very least, should release the partial (or complete) Special Counsel's Report on DJT's January 6 Insurrection Indictment Case. The US AG should also release the Special Counsel's Report on DJT's Stolen National Security Documents and Obstruction of Justice Indictment Case and then receive an unconditional pardon from POTUS. History is watching, Mr Biden. TBD.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2025/01/09/trump-special-counsel-report-federal-appeals-smith/77549818007/ — 180 Proof
So 'only what is known is real (happens)?' – that's idealist-solipsist / antirealist nonsense (pace G. Berkeley ... pace N. Bohr et al).But this is due toyour failure to understand thatno event has ever occurred unless witnessed. Ontology and epistemology are analytically bound. — Astrophel
:fire:In my view the Eden myth referred to in the opening, was designed to express that humanity's desire for meaning is its downfall. — ENOAH
Strawman – I never claimed or implied that anything is (inherently) "meaningful".[W]hy do you think only good things are meaningful? — Astrophel
:100:Granted: anything may be meaningful to somebody to some extent in the context of some kinds of engagement... whatever that means. However, it does not indicate that meaning is in any way inherent in anything ... — Vera Mont
The victim of a fatal birth defect does not even have an "affective sense" of what's happens to her. Likewise, natural disasters do not happen because of our "pathos" (i.e. we want / don't want them to happen). Again, your equivocating (meaning with feeling) avoids ...Meaning, and of course, this is not the dictionary sense of meaning, but the affective sense, referring to the pathos of one's regard for something ... — Astrophel
random events ... are instances of 'meaninglessness' — 180 Proof