I'm not quite sure what you mean. If I'm understanding the question right, I would say that no, it being dark does not allow you to 'see-through' the object at the world behind it. In both the cases of it being light or dark, you would still be seeing an image on the surface of the clear object. You would just be seeing a really dark image on the surface of the clear object. — dukkha

Only if there was a limited amount of light could you see anything. I'm talking about utter darkness. No light at all. Have you ever hear of the phrase, "it's so dark I cant see the hand in front of my face"? I'm talking about that dark.

Why is it that you can't see anything, transparent or not, when there is NO light and why you see such vividness and detail when there is plenty of light? Why does the level of detail and vividness seem to correlate with the level of light in the environment?

On the contrary, you're missing the very important point; that is if we do not have direct (meaning undistorted) access to the physical world via perception, then the theories of evolution and natural selection fare no better than the scientific theory of perception; they would also be based on distortions. — John

You seem to think that distorted means completely and utterly inaccurate. I see accuracy in degrees, not a simply black and white, accurate and inaccurate. I simply point to the fact that you are alive right now as evidence that you know enough truths about the world to not just survive in it but to procreate, communicate, make predictions, travel about, find things you've lost. You can function in this world for a long period of time. Try doing that without any knowledge or knowledge so distorted that there is no correlation between what you experience and what is out there. I point to the fact that we can communicate and understand each other even though we have never met each other and have different backgrounds as evidence that we both hear and see very similar things and engender very similar meanings from these written symbols.

I don't see why life would be worth living for some and not for others. How did you come to that conclusion? — Kazuma

Because I see life as worth living and others commit suicide.

Pain makes us feel mortal, while without pain we don't have to think about our own mortality. What happens after death, I don't know. The idea of a peaceful realm might be constructed just to make us feel better about something we know nothing about. — Kazuma

We can be in pain and not dying. So pain isn't something that informs us of our mortality. Seeing others die informs us of our mortality. Pain informs us of damage to our body which could be life-threatening or it might not.

Does that mean that suicide is just the matter of choice? Isn't it the matter of whether life is or is not worth living? Because you seem to state that we live because we are afraid to make a change, to die. — Kazuma

I said that we are afraid of making an irreversible change that we might not like.

That fact seems to go in my favor, for if there is no one without a brain at all how can they say what it is like to not have a brain and be dead? — intrapersona

There is no "if" about it. There are known medical cases of hydranencephaly. Most of the brain never forms and 90% of babies self-abort when this is the case. If they make it out of the womb they die within a few years even with all the help and medical support they get and is required just to keep them alive that long. So imagine what it would be like if they didn't have any brain at all.

If you dob't think there is debate about what consciousness is and if it is synonymous with brain states you can read this thread and if you are right you will find that everyone shares the same opinion to you, if you are wrong you will find that I am right in that there is a debate about such things. I just created it for you to blabber mouth your unvalidated opinion in — intrapersona

LOL. You're giving me a link to a philosophy thread. How about a link to a scientific thread that shows that it is still under debate. Your pathetic attempts at insulting me just show me that I'm wasting my time with a loser. The list of reasonable people on these forums is shrinking.

It lies on both of our shoulders if we want to assert anything beyond what we see in the physical world. Just because they don't come back doesn't mean they don't exist somewhere else, you can't claim that. All you can claim is that they are no longer in the physical world, whatever the physical world even fricken is! which you don't know either! — intrapersona

Yep. I'm wasting my time.

Firstly if all we know is representations of objects and not objects themselves then there is an unbridgeable gulf between the object and what is represented; the objects becomes infinitely distant from us. This leads to an inescapable radical skepticism. — John

This depends on what you mean by "know". Knowledge isn't the object, it is about the object. We know about objects by their representations. Knowledge itself is composed of sensory impressions.

Secondly, the scientific analysis of perception that indirect/representational realism is based upon must be assumed to give us accurate information about the physical world or else indirect realism cannot be, and indeed no theory at all can be, justifiably based upon it. That the analysis of perception does give us accurate information about the physical world and its objects relies on the assumption that we perceive the physical world and its objects as they are. We have direct access to the world, in other words, and this is direct realism. The scientific analysis of perception, if it is believed to be accurate, can support only direct realism; if it is not believed to be accurate it can support nothing. — John

You're missing something very important: Natural selection. Through the process of natural selection, more accurate interpretations of sensory impressions are favored over less accurate ones, which builds up exponentially to the detail and accuracy we humans experience with our sense of vision and other animals experience with their sense of hearing or smell.

You seem to think that "allowing light to travel through the object" is synonymous with "being able to see the objects behind the physically transparent object". — dukkha

If the lights were out, then could we see through the object? Does the quality that allows the object to interact with light the way it does, if light were in the environment, change when there is no light in the environment?

I don't believe this election was a shift to the right. It seems more like a shift away from political correctness, the assault on free speech, and the corruption and double standard by the elites. This seems more like a shift away from the elitist establishment in Washington D.C. thinking that they are smarter than all us citizens and know what is better for us, rather than toward or away from any political idea.

Correlation is not causation, there is still huge debate over whether the brain gives rise to conscious state. Don't act as if your position is fact when it is not. I have a good understand of neurology and modern science, my point was about you believing in fairytales that you can't prove. Don't say there is a fire-breathing dragon in the ukraine when you can't prove it. Don't say what exists after death when you can't 100% prove it. If any position out of the two of ours adapts the scientific method the most it is mine, have a fun time trying to write a hypothesis about how you can PROVE what happens at death. — intrapersona

You obviously don't know what you are talking about. How could there be a "huge debate" over whether the brain gives rise to consciousness when we don't have one single case of a person without a brain being conscious, and when every person with a perfectly functioning brain are conscious.

It is you who believe in fairy tales of "spirits" and the "supernatural" (theories that can't be falsified) having the same explanatory power that scientific theories (theories that can be falsified) have. If there were a fire-breathing dragon in Ukraine, you and I could both prove or disprove it by going there and finding evidence of it's existence if not see it directly. That would be a falsifiable claim. Theories about the existence of some supernatural domain aren't.

My proof comes from the fact that every person who dies their body decomposes and they never come back. If you are saying that you are more than your body, then the burden of proof lies on your shoulders, not mine.

The mind and brain are not correlations. They are different aspects of the same thing. When we look at other people, we don't see their minds, we see their brains. Our minds are representations of the world, which means that what we experience is a model of the world, not the actual world. This means that when you look at someone, you are experiencing a representation of them. Brains are mental representations of others' mental activity. Lungs are representations of others' respiratory activity. Mental activity is all about making representations of the world. It's similar to how a computer program can represent the inner workings of the computer on a monitor. The images are not the inner workings. They are representations of those inner workings caused by other processes that are not the process being represented because it would redundant and useless to know how it's being represented when all you want to know is what is being represented.

The left has deliberately conflated border security with xenophobia and rule of law with racism. "Illegal immigrants" and "radical Islamic terrorists" are not races, they are classes of criminals. The left lost because they didn't realize this obvious difference.

Are you sure of that? How do you know you weren't an mystical energy being who at the time of transference had all of it's memories temporarily disabled.

My point is that you can't know that for certain. I am so sick of foolish people inferring concrete absolutes about states they know NOTHING of, your as bad as a christian ffs. You don't KNOW what it was like before death, therefor don't say it was nothing... all you can say about it is that you don't know and you don't remember, but it could be something and it could be nothing. — intrapersona

And here we have another "philosopher" who doesn't bother educating themselves in modern science, or more specifically, modern neurology and psychology - who doesn't bother integrating knowledge from all areas of investigation in to a consistent whole and who thinks that unfalsifiable theories are just as powerful as falsifiable ones.

We have scientific evidence that when a certain area of the brain is damaged, we lose the ability to speak, or to remember faces, etc. You seem to think that when the whole brain is damaged that we retain these abilities. If there is an afterlife then that diminishes the value of this life.

Can anyone suggest any critique on Camus':

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.”

Also, any opinions on why this is or is not the most serious philosophical problem? — Kazuma

I would ask why are there only two alternatives (life and death). I would also want to know why life is worth living for some and not for others. Why does death often come with the experience of pain that precedes death to the point that we have created a whole industry (hospice) to avoid that pain? Why would a bad experience precede something that some claim to be peaceful? Does the pain before death mean something about where you are headed?

Suicide is one of those choices that you can't change. You can often change your choices in life. Maybe it's the fear of making the wrong choice that keeps us from committing suicide. Many people refuse to make choices for fear of the outcome and then the decision is eventually taken out of their hands.

What is the point of an adventure if it has no point?

In other words, who wants to go to the north pole just to walk around aimlessly on an ice sheet? You go travelling on holiday to experience the different cultures, take in new sights,smells etc. all of which contribute tothe purpose of travelling.

Philosophizing about life's purpose on a bigger scale than that doesn't map down to those same categories unfortunately, and is more akin to walking around the north pole aimlessly.

Effectively your argument is "live life to experience it" but that really doesn't make sense. It is like saying cary 1000 buckets of water just because you can bro! It isn't self-validating and can not be. — intrapersona

That is not at all what I meant or said. I never used the word adventure. I said that life is interesting. The North Pole isn't. That's why I'm not there.


Being alive is more interesting than being dead. — Harry Hindu

What the hell does that even mean?

How could you even guage or calculate with approximation if it would be more appealing if you have no idea what it is like to be dead?

That is like asking which pocket you want to choose from, in the right... would you like this plastic banana that is electrified at 250v? or in the left... would you like this something a rather with a superduper wizz bang thingamajig.

Yeah harry hindu, being alive is more interesting that being a something a rather with a superduper wizz bang thingamajig... makes total sense :-} — intrapersona

Death is no different from what I experienced before being alive - nothing. Death is simply non-existence after you existed. You didn't exist before you came into being, and that "experience" of not existing would be the same as after you existed. That is boring compared to existence. There is a much better chance that death isn't what you claim it to be - a superduper wizz bang thingamajig (and you are asking what the hell I mean?! Go figure.) I could see you excitedly running through that door labeled "Death" and then drop screaming into a void.

Happiness is an extension of the human experience much like my right pinky toe is too. Claiming happiness is a purpose for life is absurd. You might here a great many people claim "The very sole purpose of my existence is to experience happiness" but this makes as much sense as to say "the very sole purpose of my existence is to experience my right pinky toe". — intrapersona

I live for the experience of being alive - the drama, the sadness and the happiness, because one cannot be without the other. Being alive is more interesting than being dead.

If you think "turning the other cheek" is equivilent to unzipping your pants and bending over for the rapist, then I can't really say that you're on the right track with understanding Jesus' words. As with Benkei, there's honestly far too much literal interpretation in this thread of a man that almost exclusively spoke in parables and metaphor, :-} — Heister Eggcart

Then the man wasn't intelligent enough to understand that others wouldn't agree on what he said - that there would be arguments about his meaning. He sure wasn't a god because a god would have made it understandable to all cultures in all time periods if he was really the god of all people.

Turning the other cheek isn't equivalent to unzipping your pants for the "rapist". Maybe if you stopped comparing apples to oranges we could actually get somewhere with this conversation.

Back to intentions, here. Say someone bumped into you on the street, is your immediate reaction going to be, "FUCK, I just got mistreated! *shove*"? If yes, then perhaps you should look at the consequences of doing that, as well, because I doubt they'll be very positive in your regard. — Heister Eggcart

If the person didn't say, "I'm sorry." or "Excuse me." then I would think they did it on purpose, and then I'd have a right to react, and I'm sure you'd feel the same. Think about your example situations before you propose them because that one was just too easy.

Bullshit. Jesus mentions the "golden rule" ending his point that we shouldn't retaliate against others. If someone steals, don't steal back. If someone hits you turn the other cheek. Then he goes on, after the golden rule, how we should do good and that a person who does good only to those who do good to him are less praiseworthy than those that do good because it's the right thing to do. I'm not even fucking religious but read the damn book of you're going to opine on the matter. — Benkei

Jesus wasn't a psychologist. He didn't seem to realize the concept of consequences for your actions. He was a hypocrite as he said things like what you said but also said to kill unruly kids.

Adults are like children in that they need consequences to change their behavior. If there are no consequences, then they don't change. Doing nothing in response is the same as condoning that behavior.

Speaking from experience, when someone mistreats me, and I return the favor, they don't do it again. On top of that, they respect me as someone who doesn't lay down and let others walk over me. In order to change behavior (which is what we are trying to do here, not take some non-existent moral ground), you must supply a healthy dose of negative consequences. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil was that good men should do nothing".

But an action that one would find disagreeable another might not. Wouldn't a better rule be "do unto others what you can reasonably estimate they don't mind having done to them (by (in order of importance) knowledge of the person, asking them, assuming they have same opinions as majority, assuming they have same as oneself (shouldn't this be the last resort?))" — Ovaloid

So then you're following the "Golden Rule" by doing what you would like have done to you - you're informing yourself of the likes and dislikes of someone before interacting with them, just as you would like done for you.

The other side of the coin is "Do unto others as they do to you". In this sense, karma/consequences becomes how others mirror how you treat others.

It from bit? — Marchesk

Actually, the dichotomy between matter and mind isn't the dichotomy I was trying to emphasize. By definition, matter can exist without mind. The same cannot be said about subjectivity. As subjectivity is defined as being a limited and/or skewed view of all there is (the objective, or reality), then subjectivity is dependent upon the existence of an a priori objective reality.

If subjectivity isn't defined as a limited and/or skewed view of the objective, then subjectivity becomes all there is (the objective), and there is no subjectivity.

How do hallucinations make use of light? When you claim to see a giant spider, where is this reflected light coming from that cause the brain to create an image of a giant spider? — Harry Hindu


If I'm looking at the wall, and hallucinating a giant spider on the wall, I am still seeing the wall, and making use of light to see the wall.

If we don't see light, then explain how we don't see anything (except the color black) when the lights are out? — Harry Hindu


Black is not a colour, so it is not the case that we see black, we see nothing. But seeing nothing, when there is an absence of light doesn't mean that we see light. What is the case is that we see objects, but we only see them if they are lit up with light. A laser could shine through the air in front of your eyes, and so long as air is perfectly clear, you wouldn't see it. If you look at the source of the laser light, you see it.

We are capable of hallucinating even when there are no lights, just as we can hear voices even when there are no sounds. When we are deprived of any sensory input for a length of time we begin to hallucinate and dreaming is simply hallucinating while sleeping. The images don't come from light. They come from our imagination and memories. — Harry Hindu


I know, but in these cases we aren't seeing, nor are we hearing. You don't see while you're dreaming, nor are you hearing when you imagine sounds. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your response is just plain ignorance.

Which is the dependent, mind or matter? Which can be reduced or explained in terms of the other? — Marchesk

Both are categories, and categories are created by the mind. I'm a monist, so I believe that there is only one primary substance and because we already have meanings for "matter" and "mind", then I say we use a different term for the primary substance - say "information". So, mind and matter are both dependent upon information.

Nope. If you pour water onto a piece of blotting paper it is absorbed and then after a delay to reach saturation point it is re-emitted. The mechanism is not identical but this is exactly what happens in refraction of light. The photon is momentarily absorbed by a molecule and then re-emitted. It may emerge modified in wavelength or frequency but it is still the same photon. The delay this causes affects the speed of passage of a stream of photons from one surface of a medium to the other. It is an utterly different process from reflection which involves elastic collisions. — Barry Etheridge

Me thinks you need a refresher course on the behavior of light:
http://scienceprimer.com/reflection-refraction

Clearly that's false. Hallucinating still makes use of light, it is a misuse perhaps, but we still see depite the fact that we are hallucinating as well. Classing dreaming and hallucinating together as opposed to seeing, is a dreadful classification, totally unacceptable. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do hallucinations make use of light? When you claim to see a giant spider, where is this reflected light coming from that cause the brain to create an image of a giant spider?

If we don't see light, then explain how we don't see anything (except the color black) when the lights are out?

We are capable of hallucinating even when there are no lights, just as we can hear voices even when there are no sounds. When we are deprived of any sensory input for a length of time we begin to hallucinate and dreaming is simply hallucinating while sleeping. The images don't come from light. They come from our imagination and memories.

I think you misuse the word "see". According to common usage, we see objects. We do not see the light which reaches our eyes, that's not a conventional use of the word "see". — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not. Seeing is when you are using light as a source of information about the world. Hallucinating or dreaming is when you aren't using light as a source of information about the world.

The common usage that laymen use doesn't take into account what we currently know about our visual systems.

I would argue that we don't see objects. We see shapes and colors, which are merely representations of objects. You may say that we experience shapes and colors, but the experience would only be a fraction of the process of seeing itself, as seeing involves light, objects, eyes and a brain. Experiencing seems to only involve the brain - of converting nerves signals generated by the optic nerve which itself was stimulated by EM radiation, into colors and shapes in consciousness.

According to what Bittercrank wrote though, it is not the same "lightwaves/photons" that touch the stick as which touch your eyes. The ones that leave the stick get absorbed into the water. Then the water releases new ones. If this is true, then this supports dukka's claim that what we are seeing is the water, not the stick. But the photons must also get absorbed into the air, and new ones released into your eyes, so really, you don't even see the water, you see the air. — Metaphysician Undercover

If photons are absorbed, then they aren't seen, nor are they re-emitted as a new set of photons. Light sources emit photons, everything else either absorbs, reflects or bends, or has no effect on the path of light (It is transparent).

Transparency is when photons aren't absorbed but pass through some medium. Reflection is when photons change direction after interacting with another object that is neither transparent, nor absorbing them. If all light is absorbed by a particular object, then you see the color black. If only particular wavelengths are absorbed, then you see particular colors that represent those wavelengths that were reflected, not absorbed.

We don't see water, nor sticks. We see light and our brains create a model of the world using this information in light and how it is either being absorbed or reflected by opaque objects, or passing through transparent objects.

The way you know is to define these terms (subjective and objective) clearly. What is subjective without the objective? Isn't the subjective a limited and/or skewed view of the objective? If this is the case, then subjective is dependent upon the objective, or is a constituent of the objective.

If this isn't the case, then there is no subjective view and the idealist/solipsist "view" is really an objective reality. — Harry Hindu

What are dreams without waking? What is inner dialog without dialog others can partake in? What is consciousness without lack of consciousness? What is mind without mind-independent?

You mean like that? I suppose you can turn that around. What is mind-independent without mind (something idealists love to ask realists)? — Marchesk

Again, we are simply talking about the correct and consistent use of terms.

Dreams without waking would be reality, not dreams. Inner dialog without dialog others can partake in is just gibberish (if you can even call it that), not dialog. Consciousness without a lack of it (I take this to mean what is consciousness without an external, non-conscious, reality, which is the same as asking what is the subjective without the objective?) is reality, not consciousness. Mind without that which isn't mind (which I take to mean the same thing as the previous sentence) is reality, not a mind.

What is the subjective without the objective? It is the objective and there is no subjective. Once you claim that some thing can exist without it's dependent, it is no longer the same thing. You are redefining it as the thing it is dependent on (reality or the objective), not as the dependent thing (mind or the subjective).

The way you know is to define these terms (subjective and objective) clearly. What is subjective without the objective? Isn't the subjective a limited and/or skewed view of the objective? If this is the case, then subjective is dependent upon the objective, or is a constituent of the objective.

If this isn't the case, then there is no subjective view and the idealist/solipsist "view" is really an objective reality.

There's an obvious misunderstanding of terms going on here. Seeing is a process that only occurs between light, eyes and a brain.

These objects are see-through because light passes through them (they are transparent) and into our eyes. Our brains use the light coming through our eyes to create a model of the world. This model is made up of visual symbols - of colors and shapes. When we say that they are "see-through" we are saying something about the relationship between the object, light, eyes and a brain. If there was just one part missing (no light, or no eyes, or no brains, or no object) then there would be no such thing as "see-through", or the visual experience of seeing through the air or a window. If there was only objects and light, then there would still be transparency, but no eyes-and-brain system to perceive this, or to complete the process, of being "see-through".

It's similar to colors. Objects aren't colorful. Colors are visual symbols that represent some quality or state of the object (like the yellow of a banana indicates it's ripeness and the black indicates it's rottenness). Colors only occur as a result of light, objects, eyes and brains interacting. Take out either of these things and colors don't occur.

So to say that things that we see through aren't actually see-through, is being contradictory.

No tactic like that will make me change my tactics. — Terrapin Station

If you thought that was my tactic then you aren't as experienced as you think.

Other human bodies are objects in the world around me. It makes no sense to locate another consciousness within the objects in the world around me (as in, "the people around me have conscious experiences). Because the world around me is constituted by my own perceptions/conscious experience. So I'd be locating a whole another conscious experience within my conscious experience. So for example, this would be like seeing someone in front of me and imagining a visual perception of a world being located in some way within that person (eg, within their head), or even in front of that person. Either way you're locating a visual field within a visual field. This makes no sense because my visual field would then be located within their visual field, which contradicts with my location of theirs within my own.

And so the people around me don't have conscious experiences? — dukkha

You're not locating a visual field in someone else's head. You're modeling a visual field that is in someone else's head inside your head. That is what your own visual field is: a model of the world made up of colors and shapes (visual symbols).

The world around you isn't constituted by your own perceptions. Your perceptions are only a small fraction of the constituents of the world that include my perceptions and every other process that exists (like fusion, photosynthesis, combustion, etc. a perception is a process).

If people around you didn't have conscious experiences, then the interactions with them would make no sense. Modeling others' experiences seems to be instinctive for humans - to the point that we project consciousness into inanimate objects - like cartoon figures, puppets and even the universe itself (God).

When your behavior to being treated unfairly ends up being similar to how others act when you treat them unfairly, then how do you account for those similarities?

Once you came into the world and you began your observations of it, why did you instinctively categorize other humans as being important and that you copy their behaviors? Why didn't you emulate the behavior of a dog, or a ball, or a car, or shoes? Out of all of these things in your experience, why did you instinctively emulate the behavior of humans out of all the other things? What made humans important to you from the get-go? I mean, if you aren't a human being with conscious experiences yourself, then what are you and why would humans be so important to you for you to categorize yourself as one of them and then emulate their behavior?

Nope. That wouldn't achieve what I'm interested in. Again, it's not as if I'm unexperienced at this. Also, it should be obvious--if part of what I'm trying to do is to get you to think through something on your own, holding you by the hand and babying you through it woudln't work. — Terrapin Station

I'm not unexperienced at interacting with people either and it's easy to tell when someone makes a statement and then doesn't have the balls to back it up.

No you're not. If you really were interested in that, then you'd explain yourself more clearly.

I'm not doing either. What happened in the 16th century that has some importance in the history of science? — Terrapin Station

Really? You're answering a question with a question? Why is it so difficult for you to back up your position of disagreement? The conversation can continue when you clarify your position. If you don't then that shows that you aren't interested.

I just had to come to the forums early this morning to see all the left-wingers whine.

I can't believe you're this happy when your country is basically a divided, polarized mess. :-| — Benkei

The country has been a divided, polarized mess before Trump got elected. You can think Obama for that.

Americans have show that they are united against govt. corruption - the lying, the cheating, the double standard in the judicial system for elites vs. the rest of us, and the silencing of millions of voters with Clinton being handed the nomination by the elitists in the Democratic party. It's good day.

There was an allusion to why I disagree in the rest of the comment. Why did I mention the date (range) that I did? — Terrapin Station

So you're saying that my statement is outdated? You've gone from pleading to the majority to the genetic fallacy. When someone on these forums mentions quotes from Plato, Socrates, or 16th century philosophers, do you have to check your calendar?

Aside from that, by the way, my aim in participating in message boards like this is to have a friendly, casual conversation with people who have an interest in academic philosophy, because I have a background in that milieu and my interest in it has never waned, but it's been decades since I've regularly interacted with many people who have such an interest. In a friendly conversational setting, I say things like "I don't agree with that" and so on.

Of course, my aim is often frustrated because most folks just seem to want to attend Monty Python's Argument Clinic, but I'm an "irrational optimist" with an incredible amount of patience and persistence, so I keep trying. ;-) — Terrapin Station

I'm simply trying to get you to explain why you disagree.

Apparently you misread my comment as implying that you're mistaken because others and I disagree. I said nothing like that. — Terrapin Station

Then you were wasting your time telling me something I already know - that others disagree. Great post. :-\

Apparently, I'm not going to receive a reason why you don't agree.

I sure don't agree with that, and I doubt many others would, either.

That is, unless it's still the first half of the 1500s or earlier.

<checks calendar to make sure> — Terrapin Station

Whether many others agree is irrelevant. That is simply pleading to the majority and we all know that the majority of people who thought the Earth was flat and the center of the universe were just wrong, and to prove them all wrong took making an observation that no one else ever made (like traveling to the other side of the world and going out in space and observing all the stuff). If you have something to point to show that I'm in error, other than "I and many others wouldn't agree with that", then do so. Why don't you agree?

The limits of science aren't due to the limits of the process itself, but due to the limits of our own senses and ability to reason in a consistent way. Philosophy is at the mercy of these same limitations because philosophy and science are one and the same. A conclusion from one domain of investigation cannot contradict the conclusion from another. All knowledge must be integrated. Science/philosophy is simply organized knowledge and all knowledge is composed of sensory impressions. We can only think and talk about the world in sensory symbols (language is simply sounds and visual symbols).

You don't seem to have the slightest familiarity with the discipline of philosophy, otherwise you would understand that the concept of 'uncreated creator' has been part of the subject for millennia. You will understand why I'm no longer going to reply to your posts. — Wayfarer

If that means that I won't have to read any more of your ad hoc hypotheses to prevent your failing explanations from being falsified, then good riddance.

How does one validate any idea except empirically? — Harry Hindu

From what I have read of your posts, you don't understand the distinction between empirical and a priori, which is philosophy 101. — Wayfarer

Actually, it's that you don't understand that one cannot exist without the other. The rationalist vs. empiricist shouldn't be arguing, they should be working together - just like our senses and our brains.

Like the "Complex Design" argument that says that complex designs require a designer, it creates an infinite regress — Harry Hindu

Not if the first cause is defined as an 'uncreated creator' - but you had better get your head around the other point first. — Wayfarer

In other words, you can just make stuff up that can't be falsified or validated and it should be accepted to be as valid as any other idea that has been falsified and validated.

Aquinas's theological proofs of God's existence were not intended as polemical devices to convert unbelievers, but as theological exercises for the faithful. Aquinas would always say that one must have faith at the outset.

I personally find the cosmological argument philosophically persuasive, but I would never suggest it amounts to an empirical hypothesis. How could it? How could you empirically validate such an idea? — Wayfarer

How does one validate any idea except empirically?

The cosmological argument has the same problem as any other God hypothesis. It doesn't explain why God isn't dependent on something else where everything else is. Like the "Complex Design" argument that says that complex designs require a designer, it creates an infinite regress that is halted in it's tracks by the existence of something that defies the logic that created the infinite regress in the first place (if everything has a designer then why doesn't God have a designer?).

Jim has a tabula rasa and Sue has innate ideas. They both believe the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. As we all know, Jim has a philosophical problem justifying his belief. Sue, equipped with innateness, doesn't suffer from this. Is this a bonus for nativism? I say no. All we've done is move the problem of justification upstream. — Mongrel

Jim refers to his experiences of the sun rising hundreds of times as the justification of his belief. Sue cannot refer to any experience, but simply "knows" that the sun will rise without knowing where the knowledge comes from - similar to "knowing" how to breath.

It seems that Sue is the one that has the problem for justifying her belief. Justification comes from experience. What does Sue point to as the justification of her belief? When asked this, all she can say is, "I don't know. I just know the sun will rise."

Not only that but without experiencing the sun, or it rising, how does she even know what the sun is, or what the sun rising looks like to even say she knows this, or that she even understands what she says when she says, "I know that the sun will rise tomorrow"?