There is nothing paradoxical in anything I have said. It is straightforward. It's just bewildering you, because you are so convinced there are problems here. Open your eyes!!

I present arguments. You say I haven't. I present explanations. You say I haven't. You just don't have a clue.

Yes, God can kill himself. And yes, it'd be wrong for him to do so. For he disapproves of himself doing so, else he would have done it.
Of course, were he to do it, he would approve of it - for he is not going to do something he does not want to do - and so at that point it would be right for him to do it.

In this way one can see how God can do anything, and anything he does will be right.

Yes, good people don't want to control every aspect of other people's lives. Good people let others make their own choices and will offer advice, not restrain and restrict. And good people also do not want to know everything someone is up to. Good people prize free will in others and want to allow them to exercise it and admire the dignity that comes from doing things one's own way.

There are exceptions, of course. Such as when someone is about to do something that will significantly harm an innocent other. And good people also intervene when someone is going to harm themselves through ignorance (a paternalistic attitude towards children is, for instance, appropriate).

But we can use our intuitions about what it is good for us to do to gain insight into why God allows the immorality, ignorance and suffering gs of the world. There's a limit to that, for those intuitions are for us, and so in using them to gain insight into God, their source, we are using them for a purpose for which they were not primarily designed. But they can still give clues, I think.

Again: why is this apparent message not a message if I am a bot?

Look, why don't you read what I say? It's beautifully argued. I literally just explained how omnipotence implies omnibenevolence. Read it and weap.

No, my argument is testable. It will be falsified if you can show a fallacy in the reasoning or show a premise to be false.

Omnibenevolence is a misleading term as it suggests 'all benevolent', when in fact it means 'all good'. So in defining God as omnibenevolent one is not making her a utilitarian, just 'all good' (which might involve being a utilitarian but probably not).

As for whether the immoral deeds and sufferings and ignorance that pervades this world is incompatible with the existence of God, there is near universal agreement that they are compatible. We can imagine circumstances under which an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being would permit suffering and wrongdoing. And that's sufficient to establish their compatibility.

I would admit that such suffering and wrongdoing provides some reason to think God does not exist if other things are equal.

But once we are clear that God has been proved, then the immorality and suffering and ignorance of the world becomes a puzzle, not a problem. For example, I have excellent evidence my phone enables me to post messages here. It is doing so right now. But it is a puzzle to me how. Nevertheless, that I cannot resolve the puzzle is not evidence that my phone is not enabling me to post messages here.

I've done so numerous times.

1. Moral imperatives are imperatives of Reason.
2. All imperatives have an imperator
3. The imperatives of Reason have a single imperator: Reason
4. Thus, moral imperatives are the imperatives of a single imperator

That imperator will be God. Why? Because they'll be a mind. If you think something mindless can issue imperatives you are insane.
And that mind will be able to do anything because she won't be bound by the imperatives of Reason.
So, omnipotent.

And I have just explained that an omnipotent being will also be omnibenevolent.

And she'll be the arbiter of knowledge too, so omniscient.

An omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent mind is also referred to as God.

Now stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Two Planks.

What are you on about? Omnipotence implies omnibenevolence, as I have explained numerous times.

If you are omnipotent you are the arbiter of moral goodness (and all normative and evaluative properties - thus she will be Reason). Moral goodness will be constitutively determined by your attitudes. Will an omnipotent being fully approve of herself? Yes, because she's omnipotent and so if she disapproves of anything about herself then she can change it. Being fully approved of by Reason is what being omnibenevolent involves. Thus, if omnipotent, omnibenevolent too.

I don't see any problem at all - someone who is sometimes wrathful can sometimes be forgiving.

An omnipotent god could make another omnipotent god. So there can be two omnipotent gods. There isn't- there's one. But if there's one, it is possible for there to be more.

People routinely underestimate what an omnipotent being can do.

If most of the greatest reasoners arrived at the conclusion that there is one god who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, then I think one is well justified in taking very seriously that there is such a being.

And there is. All you have to do is reason carefully and not decide what's what in advance (which most are totally incapable of doing) and God will be discovered.

Most contemporary philosophers do not believe in God. But most of them are hacks (is there a Plato or descartes among them?). And they don't argue against God, they just take it for granted that God does not exist. It's like the soul. They don't argue against the soul, they just assume no soul exists and then wonder how to fit the mind into their naturalist ontology.

Take metaethics. Does morality require God? Yes, of course it does. This has been known for centuries. But the view is dismissed out of hand by most contemporary philosophers on no better basis than the 'Euthyphro' combined with their conviction that no god exists (but that some things are right and others wrong). It's terrible. Contemporary metaethics is consequently a debate between those who think morality is a peice of cheese and those who think it is a kind of dance.

Well, I am giving you my perspective as someone who sets and marks student essays. But it seems such views are not allowed to be expressed here.

This is tedious. This isn't a message if I am a bot, right? Explain that without vindicating my argument

They're not 'word games'. Address the argument.

Relevance? First, why are you asking psychologists a philosophical question? Second, why are you asking questions when you've already decided the answer? Third, none of this is relevant to my argument.

Yes, a very lightweight opponent.

Well, my previous post was rather pointless, wasn't it!? There's no reasoning with some people. Okay. Whatever. Light. Retinas. Rods.

Well, if you agree that it is not telling me your weight, then you agree that it lacks representative content. It is not representing you to weigh, er, 1 stone.

If you had made those markings on the leaf with the intent thereby of conveying to someone that you weigh 1 stone, and I see the leaf and think "Nyquist weighs a stone" then I have been told your weight, yes?

I will assume you agree. So what's the difference? Why in one case am I not being told your weight, and the other I am? Is the light hitting my retinas in a different way in one case to the other? No. Are the squiggles different? No. Am I acquiring a different belief in one case and not the other? No. Is it that one set of squiggles is reliably linked to your weight and the other not? No. So what's the difference? Why is one conveying information to me, and the other not?

Because in one case you - a representer - are representing something to be the case by means of the leaf and the squiggles, whereas in the other there is no representer and thus no representing going on.

Now generalize that to all representations. And if you do that, you get my conclusion.

But I asked you a question: is the leaf telling me your weight?

Agreed but you might want to take a closer look at the appropriateness of the word "arbitrary" in your statement above. — TheMadFool

Er, I did. I was describing the Euthyphro challenge to DCT. Not making it. Describing it. I think the Euthyphro challenge fails. It fails precisely because God's edicts and attitudes will not be arbitrary. Why?

Because arbitrary means 'without reason'.

God is Reason. (Not God is morality - morality is a set of prescriptions and valuings, not an agent - God is Reason, the issuer of those prescriptions and the valuer).

So God's edicts and values are not 'without reason'. They define the content of reason. Thus they are the benchmark against which arbitrariness is measured.

As you can see, if one refuses to accept the absence of a moral formula in morality, we could justifiably say that the moral formula = reason/rationality itself; after all, we're endorsing the use of reason/rationality in all moral issues despite the fact that we agreed that each one of them be treated as unique enough to require a solution that's meant for it and it alone. — TheMadFool

I do not understand your meaning there.

The metaethics of virtue ethics states that the prime virtue is reason/rationality. God is the most virtuous being and so must be the perfection of reason/rationality i.e. God = Reason. Therefore, because Reason = Morality and God = Reason, God = Morality. Thus, against the backdrop of virtue ethics, the Divine Command Theory is validated - something is good because God (Reason itself, Morality itself) commands it. — TheMadFool

There is no such thing as a metaethics of virtue ethics. I've already explained that they are fundamentally different kinds of theory. You're just persisting in thinking they're two sides of the same coin. They're not.

If divine command theory is true, then virtue ethics may be true too. The point the Euthyphro makes is that virtue ethics - or whichever normative theory is actually true - would be true arbitrarily.

Virtue ethics may be true today. But tomorrow utilitarianism might be true. And the day after, deontology. And so on.

That's the Euthyphro problem.

It isn't a problem. But no matter how good the evidence may be that virtue ethics is true (and there isn't good evidence of this - it's false), it will not do anything to overcome the Euthyphro. For all you will have shown is that God approves of certain character traits and wants us to cultivate them and express them in our actions. To which the critic will simply say "so? the criticism I am making is that whichever normative theory is true today, it is true due to the arbitrary whims of God". Replying "yes, but virtue ethics is true" will not address their concern.

Showing that God is Reason and thus arbiter of what is and what is not arbitrary, overcomes the problem. Not because it establishes 'reason' as a virtue (presumably that virtue being the virtue of listening to and following Reason). But because her attitudes constitutively determine what is and is not arbitrary. So whether something is arbitrary or not is in her gift. The buck stops with her.

No, why are you talking about neurons? Information is always information 'about' something - so it must reduce to thinking activity. But 'information' is not the issue. The point is that to perceive something, or become in some other way aware of it, you need to be in a mental state with representative contents. That isn't in dispute. And what I am arguing is that such states, to be 'representing', have to have been placed in us by an agent.

What you're doing is focussing on the content of the representation. What I am arguing about is what it takes for it to be a representation.

So, help yourself to whatever theory of information you like - it doesn't matter for my purposes here. Let's just say your weight is 25 stone. That's the information. Again, don't sweat what information is. That's not the issue. That's like asking "what is weight?". Now imagine that a leaf grows in my garden and it has a pattern on it that seems to say "Nyquist weighs 25 stone". And I form the belief that you weigh 25 stone accordingly. That leaf did not tell me your weight. Right? It didn't 'tell' me anything. It was not representing your weight. It was just a pattern that I mistook for words. It was not telling me your weight, yes? Tell me you can see this - you can see that it is NOT telling me your weight.

Yes, I made it up. So? Relations have relata, yes?

I will speed this up by answering for you: yes.

When it comes to a representative relation, what are the relata?

Well, there is normally going to be someone to whom the representation is being made. Let's call them the representee.

Then there is going to be the vehicle of representation. Let's call that the representation itself.

And then there is going to be the one doing the representing. Let's call them the representer.

The representer needs to be an agent.

Can there be desires without a desirer? No. Can there be thoughts without a thinker? No. Can there be precepts without a perceiver? No. Can there be representations without a representer? No.

And I illustrated with clear examples. Examples where a representer is absent, but everything else is in place. And bingo, no representation occurs.

States of awareness have representative contents. I am arguing that the only way a state can get to have representative contents is if there is a representer who is using it to represent something to be the case.

The issue is not to do with knowledge. It is to do with how mental states get to be said to represent something to be the case.

They can't by themselves, because they are just mental states. They can't tell you anything anymore than they can dance a jig. But if an agent is using the mental state to transmit information, then it can be said to be 'representing' (though in truth it is the agent and not the state that does the representing).

As we are aware of some things, we can conclude that our faculties are designed. And thus, our faculties are not products of unguided evolutionary forces

Phycisists are indeed talking about something other than time.

Here is a thought experiment that you can easily carry out in reality if you wish. Some cheese is placed in the fridge and some other cheese is placed on the side. After a day or two the cheese in the fridge has barely aged whereas the cheese on the side has aged a lot. Clearly then time slows down with temperature. Only it doesn't. But that's what a phycisist would conclude.

Well no, the evidence is that you don't know your stuff (yet are confident you do) and that you are not good at understanding what you read.
Now once more: how does the argument in the op assume that consciousness cannot arise from matter. Or can you not show that?

He had two for God and three for the soul. You really need to stop talking about Descartes - everything you say is wrong!

Let's remind ourselves: you said you read his 5 meditations. 5! There are 6.

You said he published it in 1642. It was 1641.

Then you said you meant the French translation. But that wasn't published until 1647.

Now you're saying he had one argument for the soul. He gave three.

Who else have you read recently? Plato's Re: Pubic. (His important work on how to organize pubic hair). Aristotle's Nicolodean Ethics? (A series of dreary moralizing cartoons on how to build character, made by animators who attended his lectures).

Again: don't tell me what you think I believe. You are the world's worst authority on what Bartricks thinks. And that's according to the world's undisputed authority on what Bartricks thinks: Bartricks. Show me how anything I have argued here presupposes that consciousness cannot arise from matter.

No I haven't (though christ only knows what you think Descartes argued). Descartes argued that our faculties are designed by God and on that basis we can trust them. But that's not what I have argued, is it?

Descartes: I think, therefore I am.

Gregory: so you're saying that you think it is 1am? But it isn't, it's the afternoon. But time, ontologically, is matter spliced with consciousness. I'm a catholic buddhist by the way, which definitely makes sense.

Descartes: no, I am pointing out that the thought 'I exist' has the interesting property of being true wherever and whenever it occurs.

Gregory: so you are saying that whatever you think is true and as you think it is 1am it is 1am? No one can know what time is, because time and truth and ontology and whizz and lalala we are all consciousness, buddha, buddha, buddha....jesus.

Now, back to me and you: explain to me how my argument in the OP amounts to the claim that matter cannot produce consciousness?

What you just said. Canyon. What I argued. And you followed that with a short sharp parp of gibberish.

Yeah, only that's not my argument. I mean, not in any way shape or form. There's what you think my argument is, and then there's this big canyon, and on the other side of it there's my actual argument.
My actual argument is original, to the best of my knowledge. I think it could be classified as a kind of disjunctivist view, though such classifications do not really matter and original views will often defy existing classificatory schemes.

No, what you are saying is confused. What you say in one sentence, you take back in the next.

Anyway, this should be about the Euthyphro challenge to DCT's credibility. And the challenge is that moral content will be arbitrary if it is constitutively determined by God's attitudes.

Craig's 'solution' does not begin to work.

There is no sensible way for the DCT to deny that the content of morality can vary if DCT is true.

My way of dealing with it is best and works. God is Reason and Reason is God. Therefore it is conceptually confused to think any change in morality's content could be arbitrary.

One does not, then, deny the possibility of content change - for God is all powerful and so of course he can make sadism a virtue or lying right if he so wished - one denies that such variation could ever correctly be described as arbitrary.

This leaves another challenge, closely related to the previous one - so much so that many conflate the two. And that is that moral truths appear to be necessary, whereas they would be contingent if DCT is true.

Again, the correct strategy here is not - pace most contemporary theists- to accept the necessary status of moral truths and attempt to ground this in some necessity pertaining to God. The correct strategy is to deny the reality of any metaphysical necessity, for no necessity is compatible with God, moral or otherwise.

It was a standard 'if p, then q' conditional. It wasn't 'nested and convoluted'. Anyway, why don't you just ignore what I said in defence of it and tell me once more about light hitting retinas?

You don't seem to get the point. If this is bot generated, it isn't a communication.

If your faculties are bot built, they aren't communication mechanisms.

When bot built faculties interact with a bot built world, they do not generate communications. That is, they do not generate mental states with representative contents - mental states that communicate something.

So 'there is a tree outside my window'. If that was bot generated, you were not just told there is a tree outside my window. That remains the case even if there is a tree outside my window and you now believe there is.

So, we are not perceiving the world if our sensible faculties are bot built. We just think we are, because the mental states they are generating in us are indistinguishable from genuine representations.

It goes all the way down. If our belief forming mechanisms are bot built, then they do not generate real beliefs, but imitation beliefs.

If our introspective faculty is bot built, then it too does not make us aware of anything.

Fake awareness will pervade us.

But, yeah, light and retinas and eyeballs.

Dunning kruger

Question begging. No there aren't

It is a profound and beautiful argument. I make Plantinga look like a total amateur

Well, you might have me there. I am not going to criticise dostoevsky.

No, that's not what you said. What I am saying and what you are saying are quite different.

Virtue ethics is a theory about how goodness is distributed - it is about what has it.

A metaethical theory is a theory about what goodness itself is - what the property of goodness reduces to, if anything.

This is a theory about where a cake is: there is a cake in my cupboard.

This is a theory about what a cake is made of: a cake is made of flour and eggs and sugar and shit (by which I mean, some other shit, not actual shit - unless it is a shit cake)

The latter is equivalent to a metaethical theory about goodness, the former a normative theory about where you find it.

Where are cakes? Aisle three.

What are cakes? Combinations of flour and eggs and sugar and shit.

Where is goodness found? Character traits

What is goodness? The valuing activity of God.

Metaethics question: What is good/bad in virtue ethics? In other words, how do virtue ethicists distinguish good from bad? — TheMadFool

No, that's not a question in metaethics. The metaethicist wants to know what goodness itself is - what's it made of. So, not what has it. But what it is made of.

The if, then form of your first premise contains a conclusion within the premise without giving the reasons for the conclusion. — Mark Nyquist

And what does the first line of the paragraph below that argument then say:

Here is my argument for the truth of the first premise — Bartricks