Hi all!
A while ago I made a post in which i made clear that i'm an extreme noob when it comes to philosophy.
While having bought a history of philosophy book, I still have a few questions that I don't see will be answered by myself anytime soon. So to the question; What is the problem with the arguments that attempt to prove God? The kalam, The five ways, fine tuning, moral argument, ...

The reason why I ask is because I cannot differentiate bad philosophy from good philosophy. Neither do I know all of the intricacies of the structure arguments should have. (modus ponens, valid and sound) While there are a whole lot of people pushing these arguments. And there are also a whole lot of people pushing against them. I can't help but feel that the majority of the discussions that happen about these arguments aren't well grounded. And I'm assuming that people here know a fair deal and are able to give me a clear idea of what's wrong.

I would like to suppose that the arguments all try to deal with a deistic or theistic god.

Let me also add a subquestion to that and ask to the atheist. If these arguments are all a failure. Is that part of the reason why you are atheist?

Thank you! — DoppyTheElv

I wasn't going to go into great detail about Pan-psychism but i believe in the Bible due to Pan-psychism. I believe God/Jesus Christ causes evil essentially and that we are all figments of his imagination. I believe he is 100% justified mainly due to the voices in his "head" which are similar to the accuser or the devil and he is essentially alone to deal with his loneliness and we are just his chess pieces that he moves around the board. I suppose he might be able to over time have happiness increase through out the universe and to produce a profit.

My evidence is based on the concept of feeling/awareness emergentism which supposedly occurs in evolution. Feeling or Awareness doesn't really seem like something that could just pop up from an arrangement of particles and i believe it would be irrational to say that feeling or awareness didn't always exist. Like alot of People on this forum i've seen miracles and minor miracles but those are a based on subjective evidence.

Red is frequency of light. There are different Reds with frequencies that approach purple which are higher frequencies and frequencies that approach IR light and those are lower frequencies. Cameras see your red as my red however i suppose its possible i see red as blue and you and a friend of yours sees red possibly as someone elses yellow. Basically the frequencies are consistent but the eye and brains interpretation might be different from person to person. I suppose this might be why there are color blind People.

Some time ago I watched a pretty good film, The King's Choice. In it is a short masterful scene, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ79i11JSnU

The history is that the Nazi invasion of Norway in WW2 included attempting to sneak an invading force by sea into Oslo harbour. And this happened! And the scene depicts it apparently with much accuracy. Turn on subtitles, increase volume. (And Youtube may also have listed a more-in-depth separate animation of the same events, also worth a watch.)

In the scene is a line that has stuck to me and grown. "No warning, no hesitation - these are enemies!" A model of clarity, simplicity, decisiveness.

Most people are not our enemies, but that they disagree with us on some matter, and we with them. And we talk through issues to resolve differences. At the same time it's clear - to those with eyes to see, who have taken the lesson and learned one way or another - that not all are friends with similar basic interests. Rather these are people who are already at war with us, already our enemies; already fighting against us, who observe no principle, scruple at nothing.

It's no great surprise that some other countries are enemies. Among friends there are always the benefits of friendship, and even between enemies there can be enlightened self-interest. The important point being that the players know who and what they are.

In country, however, we seem automatically to classify everyone as a friend - meaning we share basic common understandings and treat of each other civilly, decently, honestly, for both the common and greater good. Of course individuals fail of this, the failure often subject to criminal and civil penalty. In any case we seem always to presume.

Which, as the circumstance in the film makes clear, is a fundamental mistake. And it's a mistake that in the US is made hundreds of time each day by most of news media in that they treat Trump and his as "friends," while in fact they are enemies.

My point being that it's best to recognize who our enemies are, and that they are enemies. And being enemies, it is a mistake to treat them as if they weren't, because any such mistake, unless it accords with the enemy's self-interest, will just be something they can use as an enemy.

An example from today suffices: Obama remarked on Trump's abuse of the USPS. Jared Kushner was interviewed and asked to comment. The first words out of his mouth were that of course the president is doing everything in his power to support the Postal Service and give it everything it needs. With lies like this, if you regard the liar as any kind of friend at all, then you do not need enemies. In fact the big lie - and Kushner's is such a lie - is a calling card of an enemy.

We have, then, enemies. But what to do? For most of us, to vote. For many, political activism. But what we can all do is recognize the enemy, and call him or her out, "no warning, no hesitation." Anything less is to open our homes to destructive vermin - which we have done.

In the film, the correct response was 11-inch guns and torpedoes. The founding fathers gave us the 2d amendment as an equivalent remedy. Some people think it may - could - come to that. Now is the time to think about it. — tim wood

I'm certainly not stating that violence is never the answer depending on how you interpret the Bible, however one way to bless and curse your enemy at the same time is to pray to god xyz that they become alot smarter or astronomically smarter. I don't feel that if our enemies outmaneuver us that that is the worst thing that can happen. This is certainly not a hard and fast rule, however intelligent People tend to doubt themselves more. Some one might say that intelligent People aren't always nice but the thing to remember is there are alot of poor People who limit themselves due to their excessive observational skills. I'm not saying its neccessarily beneficial to society for People to be depressed but when everyone is trying to see things from others perspectives, things often go more smoothly for more People. If our enemies outmaneuver us due to their intelligence, i would argue that this can benefit us due to the fact that it is better to be defeated quickly than to die a very slow death. I believe in a particular god largely due to pan-psychism and i believe we are all figments of that god's imagination. I believe that god is 100% justified in his depression and he is simply trying to make the best of things with nothing really to other than imagine scenarios for all eternity.

Definitely.

Yes; but then you are going back to quantum phenomena to produce randomness.

What we in the article though is indeterminism in a classical system without reliance on quantum phenomena.

The salient point is that determinism is not found in classical physics but assumed. The article goes some way to showing that the assumption might be removed without cost.

If that is the case it is a point worth making, especialy given the number of threads involving causal chains hereabouts:

turkeyMan's Evolution & Growing Awareness
@substantivalism's Infinite casual chains and the beginning of time?
@PhilosophyNewbie's Kalam cosmological argument
@Pippen's Refutation of a creatio ex nihilo
@Samuel Lacrampe's Simple Argument for the Soul from Free Will
@Benj96's Why does the universe have rules?


Much hinges here. We ought be clear about it. — Banno

We are just trying to approach this objectively. Many of us want to feel in control.

"And consciousness, however small, is an illegitimate birth in
any philosophy that starts without it and yet professes to explain all facts by continuous evolution._______________________________________________________________________ If evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness in some
shape must have been present at the very origins of things." -William James

William James believed in Pan-psychism just as many modern scientists believe in Pan-psychism.

Are there any flaws in the logic of this quote? — turkeyMan


Why do you think consciousness is different from nearly all other properties such that it cannot reasonably be emergent? — bert1

Feeling and Awareness are different from all other properties. All other properties in the universe actually stem from feeling and awareness. How do we accurately measure which particle collisions or wave collisions cause feeling or awareness. Even solid objects are essentially and relatively slow moving particle collisions or wave collisions. It is a huge mistake to assume that feeling and awareness isn't drastically different than nuclear fusion or nuclear fission. There is nothing in the universe stranger than feeling and awareness. Why would you say otherwise?

f consciousness is a private somethingness (some beetle in the box), then we can't even check whether we have the same (private) meaning 'in mind' when we use the word 'consciousness.'

If meaning is private, conversation is pointless.

If meaning (a kind of somethingness) is private and yet we are uncritically confident that mental experiences are the same for all, why is that?

Is it because other humans also have human faces? Because our public doings are carefully synchronized? Because humans respond complexly to their environment?

Is a dandelion "not conscious" because we have checked (forgetting for a moment that we can't even know what agreement would mean here, giving the assumptions being challenged)?

Or just because it doesn't respond to its environment (including other dandelions) in a sufficiently complex way?

But what if we zoom in and consider the complicated coding of its DNA? Aren't individual cells staggeringly complex?

I'm not claiming that plants are conscious (or that they aren't).

The issue is figuring out what we are even talking about. — Yellow Horse

You make it sound like some people don't have consciessness.

brb

Sure, like I said, depending on how broadly the terms are defined here the proposition can be fairly uncontroversial: "awareness", if defined as the ability to react to (i.e. be "aware" of) external stimuli is part of the biological definition of life and so common to all living organisms, presumably even the very first ones. If that's all that's meant- no problem. But not much interesting follows from this, as it is trivial/tautologous (true as a matter of definition, rather than as a matter of fact), and it certainly doesn't entail that pan-psychism in any robust sense is true. On the other hand, a far stronger concept- i.e. of "consciousness", as normally defined in the philosophy of mind- renders the OP's proposition (that consciousness was present "in some shape from the very origin of things") false as a matter of fact: the earliest organisms lacked many traits and abilities, including consciousness no less than flight or sight or bipedalism or plenty of other things besides (so far as the evidence tells us, at any rate).

For what its worth, I'm "open" to pan-psychism in the sense that I don't reject it out of hand and that I'd always be willing to consider new evidence or arguments in its favor.. I just think that the OP's isn't a good or sound argument for it, since its either trivial (and its conclusion non-sequitur) or just wrong about how evolution works. — Enai De A Lukal

Here is what a facebook user said on the issue and then i have some follow up things to consider:

"I have been intellectually invested heavily in pantheism for about 4 years now, and I would argue that the correlation does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the chemical activity in the brain creates consciousness in it’s entirety. That presumption lies under a hidden premise, that premise is that the electrochemical mechanisms of the brain are fundamental to the supposed “essence” of consciousness. Who’s to say it’s not the opposite? What if the causal arrow is pointed the wrong way and consciousness creates reality, in the most literal sense possible. Of course I am not referring to the limited notion of consciousness that denotes individual psyches but rather a fundamental code like source of consciousness and matter based reality, some people call it pure consciousness or pan-consciousness, some people call it the program to our simulation. It’s really a matter of first principles because even if you rely on the premise that electrochemical activity is fundamental, you have to determine what is fundamental to that, what drives the engine of creation that is our universe? Pantheistic ontologies would suggest that the universe itself is a complex adaptive system that expresses itself through both physical reality and organically confined fragments of individuated consciousness."

Also you should consider that if lower forms of life (lower than humans), don't have feeling or awareness, then what motivates them to reproduce and survive?

Why wouldn't a bacteria have motivation to reproduce and survive? Why does dna do what it does? Same for viruses? If something reacts to stimuli, we should be open to it possibly having feeling or awareness. I kill cockroaches because im not a cockroach and i could go down a long list of other reasons why including they eat each other. I don't kill humans because i'm a human and i have faith.

i don't have a great answer for you right now. Perhaps i'll get to this some other day.

Looks more like you were equivocating and that the argument in the OP falls apart if required to define its terms and then stick to them. Either the proposition is trivial and uninformative, or just factually incorrect as to how evolution works (i.e. its ability to generate and select for novel traits and abilities). — Enai De A Lukal

i guess.

Ofcourse Windows 7 was a decent operating system. — turkeyMan


The plastic bottle to my left is partially Windows 7? I don't think so brah.

If panpsychism logic is true, follows that the components and materials of computer hardware must themselves have desktop interfaces. — dex

i guess.

Would you say every particle in the universe is at least slightly Windows 7 ? — dex

Ofcourse Windows 7 was a decent operating system.

Yes, really, and these things being related (as they obviously are) isn't the same thing as them being synonymous and interchangeable, such that you can swap them out as needed to help your argument. So again, if you are only talking about e.g. the ability to respond to external stimuli, then the proposition is true but trivial/tautologous, but if you are talking about consciousness in a more robust sense, something like the sense we mean in the philosophy of mind, then there's absolutely no reason to think it must have existed "in some shape since the very origin of things" and that it did not emerge at some point like other traits that are lacking in earlier life-forms. — Enai De A Lukal

Like it or not we are both making assumptions at this point.

Does dna cause feeling/awareness? How complex does dna have to be to have feeling/awareness? — turkeyMan


This equates "causing awareness" with "having awareness", which is not valid.

If you and i don't 100% understand the math and lab results behind the scientific theory, right/wrong/or indifferent you and i are putting our faith in scientists. — turkeyMan


That is a choice, not a condition. Everyone is free to understand the maths and results.

Once again you and are making assumption about viruses and bacteria that react in a similar way to stimuli which is similar to robots. — turkeyMan


The major differences are a) bacteria are biological, and b) robots have function. Bacteria can have uses, but they have no function. A better comparison would be between bacteria and non-living organic chemicals, since both are at least organic and neither have function, even if they have uses.

Pan-psychism is the assumption that all things have or are part of a consciousness. A valid argument to support that assumption cannot be: well, that's just an assumption. — Kenosha Kid

Yet we are conscious, and rocks are not. If your point is that both emergentism and panpsychism assume some sort of hierarchy, which we might be able to do without, then we agree. — Banno


Hmm, not sure about hierarchy. In the idea that no level of experience is more privileged?

Anyways, it is more like mereological nihilism. Emergentism seems to be something that happens in epistemological contexts. Beyond that, there is no point of view that persists for things to emerge. Rather, it is some form of simples (e.g. strings, quarks, leptons, etc.) arranging themselves in various ways.

When things arise, they are arising into something. When experience arises, "where" is it arising? It's a process we can say, but that is just linguistic equivocating. Making something a process doesn't banish the phenomenon to just "another phenomenon" like the formation of sand dunes. This process is the context for all other phenomenon to arise in the first place.

Consider what schopenhauer1 said and then get back to me. Perhaps i didn't personally explain the OP well enough.

Does dna cause feeling/awareness? How complex does dna have to be to have feeling/awareness? — turkeyMan


This equates "causing awareness" with "having awareness", which is not valid.

If you and i don't 100% understand the math and lab results behind the scientific theory, right/wrong/or indifferent you and i are putting our faith in scientists. — turkeyMan


That is a choice, not a condition. Everyone is free to understand the maths and results.

Once again you and are making assumption about viruses and bacteria that react in a similar way to stimuli which is similar to robots. — turkeyMan


The major differences are a) bacteria are biological, and b) robots have function. Bacteria can have uses, but they have no function. A better comparison would be between bacteria and non-living organic chemicals, since both are at least organic and neither have function, even if they have uses.

Pan-psychism is the assumption that all things have or are part of a consciousness. A valid argument to support that assumption cannot be: well, that's just an assumption. — Kenosha Kid

You would have to see my earlier arguments. I can repost them if you like.

Are there any flaws in the logic of this quote?
Are you open to Pan-psychism? — turkeyMan


I answered the first question. Which question is the poll for?

The quote extends the irreducible complexity argument. One could take it as meaning that any sensitivity to environment (such as in bacteria and elementary particles) is consciousness, but from the name pan-psychism (is this a religion? A lot of people bang on about it here) that is clearly not the kind of consciousness meant. Therefore one has to conclude that the argument is that a conscious multi-celled organism cannot be the distance descendent of a non-conscious single-celled organism, which is patently false. — Kenosha Kid

Does dna cause feeling/awareness? How complex does dna have to be to have feeling/awareness?

Most or all bacteria has dna.

DNA is more complex than anything in the human body.

So you argument is that bacteria or viruses don't have feeling/awareness? Neither of us can prove either way. At this point in time i don't have enough evidence to walk away from Pan-psychism. Neither of us can claim the other is being irrational because we are both making assumptions about single celled organism that react to stimuli (the 7 traits of things with life). Belief in Pan-psychism is no more irrational than putting our faith in scientists. If you and i don't 100% understand the math and lab results behind the scientific theory, right/wrong/or indifferent you and i are putting our faith in scientists.

Once again you and are making assumption about viruses and bacteria that react in a similar way to stimuli which is similar to robots.

I'll see if that book is available on projectgutenberg.com

Are you familiar with Spinoza he was a jew rejected by the jews. — turkeyMan


Yes, somewhat, and also with thinkers influenced by Spinoza.

That theology i was speaking of is common to some Christians. I am a christian. — turkeyMan


I was raised Christian. Lots of the thinkers I have read have tried to transform Christianity into something new (more compatible with science and critical thinking, basically.)

This can be charitably described as taking the incarnation more seriously than more traditional Christians take it. (In other words, God is really and only down here with us -- as us.)

I am not trying to proselytize, and the philosophers who think this way will also emphasize that it's metaphorical or symbolic (perhaps also emphasizing that human cognition is largely metaphorical and symbolic.) — Yellow Horse

I'm just happy to deal with people open to Pan-psychism. Noah Harrari predicted there would be the rise of a new religion in the next 25 to 50 years based on premises in his books. He has great youtube videos. I don't think i'll be a fan of this new religion but i believe many people will us Pan-psychism as a jumping point into this new religion. I believe Pan-psychism is the bridge between naturalism and supernaturalism. However when i use the phrase supernaturalism in the context of Pan-psychism, there is no difference between Natural things and Super natural things because even miracles would be natural under Pan-psychism. This is one of the things i agree with that Spinoza said. I certainly don't agree with everything Spinoza said. I'm only familiar with popular articles about him. I'm very slowly reading this book ethica. I have a text version from projectgutenberg.com.

Well but your OP talks of "consciousness", not "feeling and awareness", so it depends on how these terms are defined. If by "feeling and awareness" you mean only the ability to detect and respond to external stimuli, then the statement is correct but trivial (as the ability to respond to stimuli is part of the biological definition of life, and therefore of necessity common to all forms of life past or present). If you mean "consciousness" in something more like the sense we typically use in the philosophy of mind, then the statement becomes highly problematic. — Enai De A Lukal

Not really. A fundamental part of Consciousness is feeling pain or feeling happiness or somewhere on that spectrum. A fundamental part of Consciousness is being aware of things around you whether tactile or one of the other 5 senses.

I think you are trying to separate these 3 things as though they don't have a relationship. You are way over simplifying things.

That is a fascinating theology that I haven't seen before.

Another view is just that we humans taken together in our environment are God, which would also explain God's justified depression.

People who have held this view liked to think that we (as God) were figuring out how to do better. God (through and as us) would be a work-in-progress, largely through our shared language.

From this perspective, both you and me would be little pieces of God, developing God's self-knowledge through conversations like these.

Personally I'm inclined to think that it's all here in this world.

At the same time, we don't know this world all that well yet. We might not know ourselves that well yet. — Yellow Horse

Are you familiar with Spinoza he was a jew rejected by the jews. He actually resembled the man in Isaiah chapter 53 KJV (not physically attractive at all). Some of his beliefs very much line up with the book of Job, in that we shouldn't assume God or Jesus wants our will but that very often God or Jesus's will is very contrary to what we want. That being said i do think Americans are in general overworked or that was the going trend prior to 6 months ago. That theology i was speaking of is common to some Christians. I am a christian.

This sort of argument strategy you are using, if it was taken serious by a court or an authority figure could basically make nothing matter in terms of right and wrong. — turkeyMan


Note that I am only trying to demonstrate the problems with precritical thinking about consciousness by showing what such thinking implies.

I don't think my own view implies a nihilism of some sort. Indeed, my view is that all speakers of English (for instance) are profoundly connected just by sharing that language.

The larger idea here is that society is primary, and that man is an especially social animal who is made possible as an interesting individual by his membership in a community.

As far as determinism goes, I don't think a scientific worldview implies philosophical determinism. From what I understand, there is still some controversy on this delicate issue.

Personally I am OK with determinism or its absence.

Even if my actions are all in principle determined, I do not know what I am going to do yet, and I am forced to live with the burden of decision whether or not it is illusory (forgetting for a moment all of the ambiguities here.) — Yellow Horse

People are let off the hook or punished not in unison with the norm all the time. We only have to live with our decisions only if society collectively decides that we have too. Then we have the issue of guilt. I believe people should forgive themselves as soon as possible. On a different note i believe self-doubt is equal to success but that we should avoid self doubt as much as possible because success isn't all that important. I believe there is a God and that sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't bring justice. Grace is a product of a lack of justice. God dwells in darkness and to some extent we are figments of his imagination. What he does to us is a product of his justified depression (not to say we usually benefit from his justified depression). If reality allowed God not to be depressed that would be great but i'm not God, so only time will tell.

whether we were drastically different, it wouldn't change the premise of William James's quote — turkeyMan


Let's extend the point I'm trying to make. If the meaning of the James quote was originally 'in' the 'mind' of William James, then neither you nor I could ever make it our own.

If meaning is private, then there's no necessary connection between what James meant and what you take him to have meant.

How are sentences supposed to connect to immaterial mind-stuff?

Instead of using mind-stuff to explain language, it might be better to consider language as an explanation for the questionable hypothesis of mind-stuff.

(I also added to the post above.) — Yellow Horse

This sort of argument strategy you are using, if it was taken serious by a court or an authority figure could basically make nothing matter in terms of right and wrong. Considering i believe in Scientific determinism, and thus all of our actions are the product of particle collisions, i'm not sure i can claim your view is any more defeating of purpose than my view.

Now that i admit that i've lost all motivation to defend my argument. Time to go do something else like perhaps play video games. Well any way have a good night. Perhaps i'll feel motivated to argue later.

Basically you would be arguing that one of us quite possibly has a drastically different degree of feeling or awareness? — turkeyMan


In a way, yes, but the issue is not so much whether in fact we are radically different on the inside but instead that we can in principle never know one way or the other.

The counter-intuitive idea I'm getting it is that linguistic conventions are 'prior' to so-called minds. Granting that we both have internal monologues, the temptation is to leap from this internal monologue to an immaterial substance.

At the same (just to be clear) I am also against the idea that the word is 'just physical.' I think that meaning exists, but I don't think meaning makes sense as some privately held substance. — Yellow Horse

One of the things i was saying earlier is regardless of whether hypothetically we were similar in feeling/awareness or whether we were drastically different, it wouldn't change the premise of William James's quote nor would it change my 2 additions to his quote that explained his quote in further detail. I feel authorized to explain William James's quote considering he is a Pan-psychist. I'm sure me and him disagree on alot of things but we probably agree on why alot of people embrace Pan-psychism.

I think people who are overworked tend to believe in freewill. I also believe (not in every case) that people who believe in free will are more likely to come up with creative solutions and sometimes work harder than people who embrace stuff such as Calvinism. However i believe Scientific determinism or Calvinism, once a person some how escapes the evils of this world (if they can), is the rational way of looking at things. Scientific determinism will actually lead to more humility not less, but people who are worked too hard will very often embrace freewill because Labor is Labor.

the problem with the quote isn't a logical one, but a factual one- the idea that a trait or ability "in some shape must have been present at the very origins of things" isn't how we understand evolution to work. Evolution can/does produce novelty: things that are new, things that were not present previously.

I mean, just replace "consciousness" in the quote with something else- say, flight, or sight. Is it true that flight or sight were present "at the very origin of things"? Of course not, the earliest organisms could not see nor fly. And they certainly were not bipedal or able to use tools, like humans. So the quote is just wrong on the facts, as far as how evolution actually works, and so is not a good or persuasive argument for pan-psychism (or anything else) for that reason. — Enai De A Lukal

Would you agree that feeling or awareness is astronomically more needed for life than flight or walking on 2 legs? If we can't agree on the basics, we'll never agree on the more complicated things.

In regards to the last question, if you and i have consciousness, that would prove right there that it is not a solipsistic theory. — turkeyMan


I think you are missing my point. How do you know what I even mean by 'consciousness'? If, that is, the meaning of the word is supposed to live 'in' a consciousness supposed private and inaccessible? — Yellow Horse

Basically you would be arguing that one of us quite possibly has a drastically different degree of feeling or awareness? Given the quote from the OP and also the stuff i said through out this forum topic regarding the OP's quote from William James, i don't think the difference in my feeling/awareness to your feeling/awareness would effect the argument i gave. I could repost the quotation along with my unpacking of the quotation if you would like?

Many modern scientists embrace pan-psychism — turkeyMan


How many? — jgill

123 or possibly 159. Not sure which but its definitely one of those. lol.

Great argument on your part, do i really have to find an article to answer that question as well as that question can possibly be answered? I can find some sort of article if you like.

if you and i have consciousness, that would prove right there that it is not a solipsistic theory. — turkeyMan


I realize you are already rethinking your position, but let me respond a little more here.

As far as I can tell, the usual conception of consciousness features it precisely as something undetectable, unverifiable--in principle.

It leads to an 'epistemological apocalypse.'

We tend to shrug off solipsists as too silly to bother with, but they are actually a useful symptom of an otherwise unnoticed useless man-in-the-street metaphysics. — Yellow Horse

To be fair, i would argue Solipsists is a common problem for people who rise to the top and for whatever reason lack alot of relationships. Perhaps there are other people with that problem. I don't know if i've said this but i don't believe i'm alone because i feel if i was alone i would choose to be alot happier. Assuming i'm the figment of someone else's imagination, i dont fault that person for limiting me to this pseudo happiness i have now. I believe the nature of reality is the chief warlord gets the best stuff. I'm certainly not the chief war lord.

actually i was thinking about what you said, and i believe that i need to put more thought into my argument. Perhaps (perhaps) we can continue this discussion at a later time.

wouldn't feeling/awareness be incremental all the way down to atleast the very basic forms of life such as bacteria and possibly viruses. — turkeyMan


Repetition is not constructing an argument...

Again, why should feeling/awareness be incremental all the way down? What feeling or awareness does a rock have?

I'm open to panpsychism... — Yellow Horse


And here I was beginning to like you... — Banno

If you agree that bacteria and viruses have feeling or awareness, at what point does the bacteria gain feeling or awareness given the fact that most if not all bacteria have dna? How complicated does dna have to be where it gains the ability to have feeling or awareness? What is it about dna or how complicated does dna have to be in order for it to have feeling or awareness?

I'm open to panpsychism, which I offer for context, and I don't think your feelings are hurt. In my experience, though, consciousness is a sensitive issue, connected as it is with religion and in generala hiding place from critical thinking.

Let's say that I grant that you are not a p-zombie or a bot, what does that mean? Even if I use those words, how could you know what those words mean to me in the privacy of my hypothetical mind?

Is consciousness an implicitly solipsistic theory? — Yellow Horse

In regards to the last question, if you and i have consciousness, that would prove right there that it is not a solipsistic theory. At this point in my life i wouldn't characterize myself as sad, but i'm confident there are other real (real) people out there because, i would probably choose to be extremely happy and essentially irrational if i thought i was the only being with feeling or awareness. You know you have feeling or awareness and i know that i have feeling or awareness. I believe that even productive (as opposed to unproductive) rationality requires faith.

In regards to the first things you said, i believe the irrationality of religion is apart of a universal desire among those greater than us, that there should be foolishness in the world. Soccer and football are foolishness but most people don't have a huge problem with that. I don't believe everyone who puts their faith in scientists are critical thinkers. If you or i don't 100% (not 99%) understand the math and the lab results behind a scientific theory, we are (right/wrong/or indifferent) putting our faith in scientists.

Why do you and i have feeling/awareness? Does a bacteria or virus have some form of feeling or awareness? Does a fish have some form of feeling or awareness?

You would agree you and i have feeling/awareness correct? Most philosophers would agree some animal below us that evolved from another animal, that the former has feeling/awareness. What the quote mentioned in the OP is saying, wouldn't feeling/awareness be incremental all the way down to atleast the very basic forms of life such as bacteria and possibly viruses. I would even go one step further that this is pretty good evidence that feeling/awareness is one and the same as existence. What do i mean by existence? A Universe or this universe is existence?

Now do you see what the OP means by feeling/awareness/consciousness?

wouldn't feeling/awareness be incremental all the way down to atleast the very basic forms of life such as bacteria and possibly viruses. — turkeyMan


Why?

The OP offers no support for this dubious contention.

We seem to have a rash of panpsychism on the forums; to which the best response remains the incredulous stare. — Banno

That was what the OP was implying. Did you see my previous posts or do you want me to repost them? Many modern scientists embrace pan-psychism for similar reasons that i embrace pan-psychism.

Perhaps the next step is to separate these two completely. For the child, God just is the supernatural. For the adult he cannot be. Yet not natural either. In fact he cannot be, in any ordinary sense. The sense that leaves is best explored in Kant's thinking, who finds God in reason. — tim wood

"And consciousness, however small, is an illegitimate birth in
any philosophy that starts without it and yet professes to explain all facts by continuous evolution._______________________________________________________________________ If evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness in some
shape must have been present at the very origins of things.

Are you sure about that?

The more philosophy I study, the more complicated the supposedly simple concept of consciousness becomes.

I suggest that instead of arguing from dimly understood concepts and our intuitions about them, we first or also figure out what we are even talking about.

Many people (without giving it much thought, which is the problem) vaguely conceive of consciousness in a way that makes it impossible --by effing definition -- to investigate said consciousness.

While I don't p-zombies seriously as a practical matter, I think the idea of the p-zombie is quite valuable in clarifying what is meant by consciousness -- or how confused we tend to be about it when it comes to serious, critical thinking.

If we do pretend to be philosophers and think critically, then we should maybe even expect our feelings to be hurt in the process. — Yellow Horse

You would agree you and i have feeling/awareness correct? Most philosophers would agree some animal below us that evolved from another animal, that the former has feeling/awareness. What the quote mentioned in the OP is saying, wouldn't feeling/awareness be incremental all the way down to atleast the very basic forms of life such as bacteria and possibly viruses. I would even go one step further that this is pretty good evidence that feeling/awareness is one and the same as existence. What do i mean by existence? A Universe or this universe is existence?

Now do you see what the OP means by feeling/awareness/consciousness?

Did my feelings get hurt?

I am not sure what Philosophy of Mind means, but I think this is the appropriate subsection.

I think free will works in this way: we always follow our strongest desire, but we are free in our choices. You are free to choose one way or another when a genuine choice is put before you, but it's infallibly certain which one you will choose if you are looking at it from the outside like Laplace's demon. The reason is that there is no reason to choose the weaker impulse! But I think we are free none the less to choose the lesser one and although we never will choose it, we will always consider it. This might seem
like a paradox, or it might seem perfectly clear. It probably depends where someone is in their
journey. I was wondering if I should post about this because I am not sure where I am in my journey,
or any of you.

The question of the nature of reality is involved in this topic as well. If some people never reach their full potential while others do, it is through their fault. HOWEVER, the universe is set up such that many will fail their destiny. So can we conclude that reality is not good? Yet it is still the fault of the people who fail that they trip themselves up.

Imagine you are God and you want you set up creation such that 3 fourths of everyone ends up in hell. You can tell yourself "so what, it was their fault at the end of the day" or you can say "I should have set it up so everyone goes to heaven because this is obviously the kind thing to do".

Ok, lot of angles in there. I basically want to know what you think about these ideas on the nature of free will, what determines our destinies, and whether reality is all good. Thanks — Gregory

I think people who believe in free will tend to be more creative in their solutions but i don't believe free will is logical.

I believe people who believe in scientific determinism which is a form of fate tend to be more forgiving in the objective sense or to put it in another way, they are more effective at being compassionate. These people tend to be less shallow.

I think you want to believe in free will. — turkeyMan


Why would you think that? What have I said that would lead to that conclusion? Or are you just making assumptions? — Banno

Ok. You might be playing games but as long as you claim not to believe in free will, i'll let it go. People should make good decisions because we are all animals, not because it will quickly propel them to some false god hood. Reality is extremely complex. I guess we do agree on some things.

I think you want to believe in free will. The only way free will exists is by some cosmic miracle. Free will is a desire of people who want pseudo-god hood and want to look down on people less fortunate than them.