Wouldn’t ethics be most suitable? — praxis

I don't understand your question, can you elaborate a bit?

When we speak of direct activity we are not talking about street protests, we are talking about polemics: direct intellectual engagement with the intelligentsia.

If intellectuals are irresponsible as you claim, and/or inept as I claim, what is the argument for engaging them? Before we consider such engagement to be productive action, don't we need some evidence that it will be successful in reaching some of the goals you have outlined?

Yes. That is what the points continue to show. Each point follows, and eventually does define what a God is within the framework of logical understanding. — Philosophim

What if frameworks of logical understanding are not capable of commenting usefully on such large topics?

As example, you can sit your dog down in front of the Internet, and he'll be able to see and hear it. But, even if he is the smartest dog who ever lived, he'll never be able to understand it. Dogs simply aren't able to grasp the level of abstraction necessary to understand the Internet.

Lets start with point one. Is there anything in point one that you disagree with? — Philosophim

Yes. It's based upon an unproven assumption. :-)

If this was the reason your thread was moved, that is disappointing — JerseyFlight

Not a big deal, just a friendly warning, this thread may meet the same fate. If this thread vanishes from the home page listings, that will probably be why. If that happens, you can probably find the thread in The Lounge section.

And status is a rare and limited resource. As such, there are barriers to it. Those who have obtained it have worked much harder and had greater skill than those around them. — Philosophim

Status and authority are most often accumulated by those with a talent for accumulating status and authority. This talent may have little to nothing to do with the performance of their duties. Case in point, Donald Trump.

I found an article on JerseyFlight's blog which may further reveal his reasoning on these topics.

http://jerseyflight.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-point-of-thought-is-to-change-world.html

What I am after is getting intellectuals to engage culture precisely to make human existence better. — JerseyFlight

In the referenced thread I defined philosophy as "the application of disciplined thought to the enhancement of human welfare". This is apparently judged to be a low quality proposal, so they moved the thread to the lounge. Wouldn't be surprised to meet you there soon. :-)

I don't attack intellectuals because I have been psychologically burned by them, but because I see the loss of so much valuable energy wasted, unfocused, misplaced. — JerseyFlight

Yes, that's it, a tragic waste of a valuable resource. The thing is though, attacking intellectuals accomplishes nothing. They have their salaries, positions and offices, and are content with that, so they'll just ignore inconvenient challenges.

Intellectual responsibility isn't missing any more now than in the past. — Bitter Crank

Ok, but it can be said that the need is greater now. You know, modern civilization can now be destroyed, perhaps by mistake, in just a few minutes.

In the thread I linked to above, I'm making a case related to, but different than, intellectual responsibility. I sense the problem is that intellectual elites lack the ability to focus on what matters. And so they get sucked in to the intellectual games which Jersey referred to.

Intellectual responsibility is not a matter of being good at playing philosophical games, it's largely a matter of focus, courage and concern for the well being of the species. — JerseyFlight

You may be interested in this thread, which is making a similar point.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8990/are-philosophers-qualified-to-determine-what-quality-content-is

I moved this thread to the Lounge btw. — fdrake

Yes, that's normal behavior here which I've come to expect and accept. No problem, your forum, your rules.

I will state publicly, that Reason is relevant to philosophical god-questions — Gnomon

Ok then, so you have a methodology which you believe to be qualified, and therefore aren't in the market for an alternative.

The specific nature of that unseen implicit Creator is debatable though, so on this forum we discuss the various logical alternatives. — Gnomon

Yes, this process has been going on for thousands of years in one form or another, has been led by some of the greatest minds among us on all sides, and has proven exactly nothing.

At what point do you feel it would be reasonable to question the usefulness of this process? Another thousand years perhaps? Something else?

See Hippy, I never make a biblical argument even once. — Philosophim

I said "because it's in the Bible type argument".

My proof that we can reason about a God is in points 1 - 12. — Philosophim

Your logical points 1-12 are built upon the assumption that logic is relevant to subjects the scale of gods. As example, your point #1:

1. Either all things have a prior cause for their existence, or there is at least one first cause of existence from which all others follow.

This is a logical statement, right? Logic is an invention of human beings, right? Human beings are indescribably small in comparison to the reality which is being discussed, right? Can you present any proof that something as small and half insane as human beings can generate useful logical statements about the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere (scope of god claims), a realm we can't define in even the most basic manner?

You wish for us to engage your logical points one by one, much in the same way a Bible believer might wish for us to engage their scriptural analysis. But until the Bible believer can demonstrate that the Bible is a qualified authority on the subjects at hand, there is no point in going through their scriptural analysis one by one by one.

The problem we're having is that you believe in the infinite reach of human reason so deeply that you don't realize it's an experience of faith. And thus you're baffled when anyone challenges your faith, because you don't know that you have faith. This is very very common, especially on philosophy forums.

Like the Bible believer, you want us to accept your faith and not challenge it, so that we can proceed immediately to the thing you think you're good at, reason. But if you were good at reason, you'd be challenging the foundation you are attempting to build on before you started construction.

Non-conformity nearly always seems to come at a social price. — JerseyFlight

Human being tend to move in herds. It seems the most valid role for a philosopher is to serve as a kind of court jester who continually tests and challenges the herd group consensus. Kind of hard to do that when the herd is paying your mortgage.

The problem with professional intellectuals is that they get paid. Imagine you are 52 years old, too established in your career to turn back, and trying to put 3 kids through college. You can't afford to rock the academic community group consensus boat. You are probably quite skilled at presenting an image of authority, but you can't actually do philosophy.

As example, imagine an academic writing a series of articles challenging the current mad panic consensus for diversity. Imagine your head on a pike, a pink slip in your hand, while you fill out an application for a delivery driver job. :-) Nah, too scary, better just salute the flag and keep your head down.

Philosophy pros are irrational because they don’t focus enough on existential threats. — praxis

Perhaps it's helpful to add that it's entirely possible to discuss nuclear weapons in a manner which would be familiar to philosophers. Nuclear weapons arise out of our relationship with knowledge, surely a suitable topic for philosophers, right?

I thought it was about the pragmatic distinction between theory and praxis rather than the theoretical one. — fdrake

This thread was inspired by discussion among the mods in the banning thread regarding which posters were producing low quality content. I'm happy to leave that discussion and decisions to the mods. Not my job, not the point of this thread.

I'm not a mod, but a poster, and my job is to make a good faith effort to contribute content which is worth a reader's time. And so in that role I'm attempting to elevate a local management discussion on to a larger stage by evaluating the ability of the philosophy world as a whole to determine what quality content is.

and to accuse them of irrationality without a comprehensive address of those is premature. — Atlas

If your house catches on fire while you're writing your next philosophy post, which would be more rational? Continuing to write? Or dealing with the fire? I don't see why we need a comprehensive review when common sense seems sufficient.

Could you develop, in some detail, what you take rationality to be and why? — Atlas

Good question, thanks. The definition of philosophy which I offered above is perhaps a good place to start. "The application of disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare."

Disciplined thought which has no bearing on human welfare could be labeled rational in the absence of any compelling threat to human welfare. But if the philosophy club meeting hall catches on fire during the meeting, ignoring the fire so as to continue an abstract discussion doesn't seem rational, to me. I doubt it would seem rational to most people.

This point of view is admittedly based on the premise that the purpose of rational thought is to serve the thinkers in some manner. I agree this is an opinion and not a law of nature.

To the degree this principle is ignored it seems we'll see support for professional academic philosophy drying up, because those funding such departments would like to feel they are receiving something in return for their investment. It is often argued that the purpose of such departments is to teach young people how to think, which is indeed a noble cause. But if the teachers can not sustain an interest in a key existential threat to the entire civilization, are they qualified to be teaching young people how to think? That is, are they qualified to pass judgment on quality philosophy content?

Ok, so I'm probably creating more problems than I'm solving by being mysterious. Not all experiments are well conceived. So here it is then...

Professional philosophers, amateurs too, seem quite close to being completely uninterested in nuclear weapons, which as you know stand ready to erase modern civilization without warning in just a few minutes. The gun in the philosopher's mouth, which they almost always find too boring to discuss.

My argument is that any intellectual elite who can't or won't focus on an imminent existential threat to the entire civilization is not qualified to make credible determinations about quality philosophy content.
The exception would be that if we define philosophy as having nothing to do with human beings and life in general.

I'm aiming this charge primarily at intellectual elites, and particularly professional philosophers, as it would seem to be their job to focus on big picture topics.

For the average man and woman in the street, I could agree that their primary responsibility is to their children. So if they're working around the clock so they can get their kids in to college, and thus don't have the time or energy for such a large topic, ok, I can see the rational basis for that.

I don't see the argument for why ignoring nuclear weapons is evidence of a professional level understanding of reason.

Fortunately I don't have a gun, I just put my fist in my mouth — fdrake

Myself, I prefer my foot. It's bigger, and fills the cavity in a more efficient manner. Very rational!

Yea I recognize that the definition you gave is, let’s say, controversial – I wouldn’t use it to describe my goals when doing philosophy. — Atlas

Yes, it's my definition, not "the" definition, agreed.

I think that this is very relevant because it seems that, in order for us to swallow this definition of philosophy, we need to grant that human welfare is enhanced by abstract work like theories of truth/meaning/good et cetera (what else would motivate this conception of philosophy?)

Yes, human welfare can be enhanced through abstract theories as you suggest, but in order for the value to be extracted don't the theories have to be somehow translated in to practical action? So to edit the scenario again.....

If I have a sophisticated theory about death from which it follows that suicide is a mistake, but I am so focused on articulating my theory that I ignore the gun in your mouth which is in plain view, do I even believe my own theory? Am I rational?

And if this holds, it’s not obvious why it’s irrational for philosophers to focus on the subject matter of their discipline over other things.

If a meeting of philosophers were focused on the subject matter of their discipline, and the building caught on fire, and they failed to leave the building, are they rational?

I'm still a bit confused how you could contribute to the discussion with a gun in your mouth. It'd make your words a bit muffled, no? — fdrake

To make matters worse, my mouth is so big I could probably fit 7 guns in there. :-)

A September 2017 study by the Federal Reserve reported that the top 1% owned 38.5% of the country's wealth in 2016. — Wikipedia

https://jacobinmag.com/2017/10/wealth-inequality-united-states-federal-reserve

For the concept of "property" to exist, the only thing required is law — Ciceronianus the White

...and some mechanism for enforcing the law.

I think I'd try and turn the gun into a research program, rather than try and persuade you to take it out of your mouth. — fdrake

Ok, we might research why I have the gun in my mouth, and why my fellow philosophers generally don't wish to discuss the gun, and what such a lack of interest might say about one's ability to reason, and therefore evaluate quality content.

BTW, in case anyone is wondering, I don't own a gun. Just aiming for a colorful hypothetical, nothing more.

Could you elaborate a little on your reasoning towards the end? I’m not sure what I should be picking up from the scenario with the gun, and what bearing it has on whether philosophers are well equipped to judge quality content. — Atlas

I apologize for being somewhat mysterious. I'm attempting, however ineptly, to lure readers in to thinking this through for themselves to some degree. And perhaps a little puzzle will make this more entertaining? Not sure, we'll see how this goes.

To address your question, let's try editing the scenario a bit. Let's imagine that you show up for the philosophy club meeting with a gun in your mouth, and the rest of us barely notice and make little to no comment because we want to get on to the topic of the evening, Aristotle's views on something or another. How might a fly on the wall evaluate our ability to do philosophy, if that is defined as the application of disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare?

BTW, I do grant that nobody including me owns the definition of philosophy. So if someone were to define philosophy as the articulate expression of arcane abstractions which few people are interested in, :-) then I would have to come to a very different evaluation of professional philosophers. I do agree that how one evaluates the professional philosopher's ability to do philosophy depends a great deal on how one defines philosophy.

Back to your question, my claim is that professional philosopher's literally have a gun in their mouth which, generally speaking, they aren't rational enough to focus on. And thus, upon that conclusion, I further reason that they therefore wouldn't be qualified to determine what quality philosophy is, because by my definition, they aren't really doing that themselves.

Thanks for your interest and participation.

So much more can be said. In my humble opinion this is not a serious conversation. — JerseyFlight

It could perhaps be a serious conversation if you wished to challenge your own faith in reason in the same manner you asked the Christian author to do.

If Reason is irrelevant to God questions, what would you suggest — Gnomon

If you should conclude and publicly state that you sincerely feel that reason is irrelevant to God questions, I would be happy to present alternatives. But there's no point in presenting alternatives to those who are convinced that they already have a suitable methodology. If you would like to pursue the God debate for a couple thousand more years to see if anything new happens that hasn't already happened about a million billion times, ok, go for it, do the experiment, find out for yourself.

If you don't have a thousand years available :-) this forum can provide a useful sample. Have you noticed that there are about a zillion "does God exist" threads on this forum going back years, and that not a one of them has ever proven any position on the topic? What is the rational response to any methodology which has consistently failed to meet it's stated goals over a very long period? Should we keep on trying to pound the round peg in to the square hole, over and over and over again, for even more years? Would that be intelligent?

We don't need an alternative on the table to face the fact that what we're doing is going endlessly round in circles to nowhere like riding a children's merry-go-round.

I'm retired, so these forum speculations beyond reality are an affordable hobby for me. — Gnomon

Same here. For the better and the worse, forums randomly lump people of every age and every experience all in to one pot, and so the great geezer sages like us :-) are required to learn more about patience than perhaps we are capable of. Well, that's my situation in any case, don't mean to speak for anyone else on that.

No Hippy, you have to demonstrate how your argument applies to my argument. — Philosophim

Your argument is based upon the assumption that human reason is qualified to generate meaningful useful statements about gods. But you offer no proof. You're essentially making a "because it's in the Bible" type argument, where we are supposed to accept reason's qualifications for this job as a matter of faith just as you do. If we decline to adopt your faith position, then we are declared off topic, various dodge and weave tactics are deployed etc.

My argument applies to the foundation your logic dancing house is built upon. If that foundation is not solid, then there's no point in entering your house and following you around while you show off the furniture.

But you are not coming into the conversation as I have asked you to

I'm certainly in the conversation, just not on the terms that you demand. Sorry, but to my knowledge you don't own the forum, this thread, or anybody else's posts. If you don't enjoy a particular post or poster, free scroll bars are readily available on every page.

Are you actually a nice person who got a little carried away, and appreciates the reminder and starts their own thread? — Philosophim

No, I'm not a nice person, I'm a wannabe philosopher. :-) As such, my job is to present inconvenient reasoning where I am able, and accept in advance that doing so will not enhance my popularity.

"There's no way, we can even talk about anything". — Philosophim

I never said that. You're arguing against assertions of your own invention here. And as you might have noticed, I'm not having any trouble talking.

And I'm talking specifically to the topic highlighted in the thread title "Probability of God". You're asserting that we are in a position to make that calculation. I'm counter asserting that we are not. It's called debate. Philosophers do that sometimes.

There are two ways out of this box for you.

1) Ignore my challenge and continue to pretend that your faith based belief in the infinite scope of reason is an act of philosophy.

2) Meet the challenge, and explain to us why we should assume as a matter of faith that something as small and imperfect as human reason is qualified to calculate the probability of gods.

BTW, don't take this personally, I routinely present this challenge all over this and other philosophy forums, and it is routinely dodged or ignored, just as you are doing. Just another day in the office.

A reason could automatically be added to the thread by the mod who moved it. — Professor Death

Could works better than should.

My degree is in Biochemistry. If you are interested you can find me in Google Scholar. I'm the one with over 14,000 citations of my research. — Marco Colombini

This is a subject for another thread but briefly, for what it's worth, I don't accept science culture as a whole as being expert at reason. Science culture in general is determined to give the human race ever more power at an ever faster pace, willfully ignoring that human beings can not successfully manage unlimited power. Science culture is basically marching blindly towards it's own destruction.

Experts at science? Yes, agreed.

Experts at reason? No, certainly not.

I'm making this point in response to what seem to be your attempts to apply the cultural authority of science to the God topic.

Perhaps there is another (valid) example of something that both exists and does not exist. I'd be curious to hear about it. — Marco Colombini

Perhaps we could try this? Math is real, but it doesn't exist. I think space is like that.

We can define space as existing only by demolishing the definition of existence. If space is said to exist, then anything that has no mass, no weight, no shape or form, and is invisible to every observation could also be said to exist, and we would thus quickly enter looney land.

Evolution has trained our minds to think in simplistic dualistic terms, because that is what works at human scale. Watch out for the tiger, grab the food, find a mate, and your genes continue. I'm not objecting to such simplistic uses of "existence" in daily life.

The problem arises when we try to map these simplistic dualistic mind generated patterns, which are a VERY local phenomena, on to the very largest questions about everything everywhere, ie. the scope of god claims. That's what I'm objecting to.

I'm proposing that the phenomena of space illustrates that the question of existence is a lot more complicated than something existing or not. As a scientist who presumably bases a lot of your perspective on observation of reality, this would seem to matter to whatever claims you wish to make about God.

I'm not challenging whatever your beliefs about God might be. I'm challenging the "does God exist" question because, to me, the simplistic either/or, yes/no nature of that question doesn't seem to bear much resemblance to space, the vast majority of reality.

If the "does God exist" question is dethroned (and why shouldn't it be given that it's never led to proof of anything) the vast majority of God debate is swept off the table, which may open doors to other approaches which will prove more productive.

Was it Einstein who claimed that doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results is the definition of stupidity? That's how I view the "does God exist" debate. Thousands of years of claims and counter claims, never leading to proof of anyone's claim. Is it our intention to repeat this unproductive pattern forever?

That is well understood in many philosophies — Wayfarer

Agreed. I don't claim to be inventing anything new. You would understand the cultural references better than I do.

As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.' That reflects a lot of the confusion. — Wayfarer

Imho, a solution to the confusion is to shift the focus from explanations to experience, a shift available within both the religious and atheist perspective. You know, we don't have to get lost in all the confusion about metaphors etc, we can instead leap over the whole thing.

The issue in Western philosophy is that it really is at a fork in the road, and the roads don’t lead to the same destination. Scientific culture really is intent on re-defining mankind — Wayfarer

My guess is that this world view will collapse under it's own weight, just as religious culture is doing in many places. Science will give us ever more power at an ever faster rate until the inevitable moment when we lose control of the power and blow up science culture. This is another subject, but it is perhaps relevant that this future was basically predicted in the first book in the Bible. But as you correctly point out, the fairy tale story telling style of the Book of Genesis does more to obscure than reveal these days.

You're right in saying that the spiritual path is a hard path, something I'm all too aware of. — Wayfarer

Well, in the spirit of the thread, we might try doubting this too. Will welcome your thoughts if interested.

First, if we shift the focus from explanations to experience, it's no longer "the spiritual path". You know, for example, love and meditation aren't the property of either religious or secular culture, but are experiences available to anyone of any belief. It's the explanations realm that cause us to try to turn experience in to some kind of journey.

We have the choice to consider such activities as acts of routine maintenance. I'm going to eat dinner in an hour and won't conceive of that as some kind of path, but just attending to day to day human need business.

Experiences which shift our focus back towards the real might be compared to food. We can talk about tomatoes and bread all day long, but it's only in the actual eating that we obtain the needed nutrition.

End of day, tired, best I can do at the moment. Take it from there if you wish.

I'm not wishing I'll on the Russian or Chinese people. I want them to be rid of their dictators and corrupt governments. — Professor Death

Bravo!

Ridding the world of political gangsters will likely remain a centuries long process.

For Russia, the weakness seems to be the economy. Although the Russian people can be very intelligent, their economy is smaller than Canada, Italy, Brazil etc. I'm sure it doesn't help that Putin's kleptocracy is very busy sucking as much money out of the Russian people as possible and then hiding it overseas.

The Chinese communists have performed economic miracles, but this is a threat to them as well. As great masses of Chinese become more wealth and educated, the political choke hold is going to become ever less appealing. All dictatorships are inherently unstable, even the biggest one in human history.

What we in the west should keep clearly in mind is that actors like Putin aren't really politicians, but instead the smartest gangsters in the world. Why rob banks when you can be the bank, why worry about police when you can be the police etc. The smartest gangsters don't waste time stealing the little stuff, they steal countries. When we invite these mobsters to the U.N. and the White House etc we are handing them credibility which they don't deserve, thus feeding their very intelligent game.

Two-part documentary which deals with two of the deepest questions there are - what is everything, and what is nothing?

Space indeed exists. In the realm of science, there is no question that space exists. — Marco Colombini

Ah good, then you should be able to tell us how much a cubic mile of space weighs. But you can't, because space has no weight or mass, thus defying our definition of existence. But wait, there is some phenomena between the Earth and Moon or they would be one. So we can't say space doesn't exist either.

We want to shove space in to either the exists or not exists box, because that is how our minds work. But that is not how reality works.

Your argument, like almost all arguments for or against God, is built upon a simplistic dualistic either/or understanding of existence, whose validity is immediately brought in to question by an observation of the vast majority of reality, space.

Once this is understood, all supposedly clever arguments for or against the existence of God come crashing to the ground, and we are left with nothing. Which as it turns out, matches up with the vast majority of reality rather well.

God needs to be extremely intelligent to not only provide the right amount of matter/energy but also exactly the right parameters for the Universe to self-assemble as it did. — Marco Colombini

Here's another example of mapping human scale concepts on to infinite scale speculation, a very common theme which seems to infect god topics from top to bottom.

Our concept of intelligence is derived entirely from experience on one tiny planet in one of billions of galaxies. It's a useful concept for comparing humans to other creatures on this planet. How much relevance this very local phenomena has to the rest of the universe (vast beyond comprehension) let alone any gods is completely unknown. Declaring a god to be intelligent makes about as much sense as claiming god has a long white beard. If there is some source of reality which isn't purely mechanical, it's nature is most likely so far different than our own that we wouldn't have words to describe it.

God investigations based on attempts to generate knowledge have been going on for thousands of years, and have been led by some of the greatest minds among us on all sides, and all efforts to demonstrate the existence or non-existence of God have failed to prove anything at all. This should raise the question of how many more centuries do we intend to keep on doing the same thing over and over, while expecting this will somehow someday lead to different results.

Limiting our thoughts only to observations that can be explained by current settled science is insufficient. — Marco Colombini

Current settled science shows that the vast majority of reality at every scale is space, a phenomena which not be neatly filed in either the "exists" or "doesn't exist" categories, because it has properties of both existence and non-existence.

You are attempting to conduct yet another version of the same old God investigation that's already been endlessly repeated a billion times, based upon the assumption that a god either exists or not, yes or no, a simplistic paradigm which bears little resemblance to the complexity of reality as observed by science.

If the question being asked is fatally flawed, there's little chance a competing answers game will prove useful. But, nobody cares. All most "philosophers" wish to do is spew a bunch of fancy talk which they hope will make them look impressive, a purely emotional agenda.

The existence of God — Marco Colombini

Forget about the God part for a bit, and focus on the existence part. Instead of tying to prove or disprove any gods, try to prove or disprove that the "yes/no, exists or not" paradigm the God question is built upon is a valid useful paradigm which is aligned with observations of reality.

Forget about the competing answers for awhile, and focus instead on the question. If the question is fatally flawed, all the energy being invested in the competing answers contest may be for nothing.

As example, consider the question "what color is the sound of dog barking"? If we thought this was a useful valid question we might argue for centuries over whether the color was blue or red. If we just assumed the question was valid and didn't bother to examine and challenge it, we might wind up wasting a huge amount of time.