Nice try! Much appreciated by myself, but wooists gonna woo.

Not first thing in the morning — frank

No energy until coffee.

The modern period is defined by the success of applying mathematics to the world, and over time Plato gets inverted. Now there is no problem with the world, it exemplifies perfect mathematical beauty, but with the the mind. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Perhaps a relevant aspect of the inversion - I'd say contra Plato's anamnesis, that we are all born ignorant and we are all going to die only somewhat less ignorant.

(Not that I know much about Plato's thinking that hasn't come from secondary and tertiary sources.)
@Fooloso4

Why not let things as they are? The forum works well, and most of the threads are active. — javi2541997

:100:

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

To me it seems the argument comes to a dead halt with "Define "God"", why would we be able to define god? I am not a believer but if a god were to exist outside of our world, it would seem utterly hopeless to try to define it. — mentos987

There are a lot of Christians out there, who interpret Romans 1:18-20 as saying that everyone actually knows God exists.

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. - [NIV]

Such Christians tend to interpret requests that they define God as an indication of dishonesty on the part of atheists.

metaphysically impossible, but actually and logically possible. — Bob Ross

What does 'actually possible' mean? I would have thought that metaphysical impossibility precludes actual possibility.

Meh, I was not impressed. — mentos987

Yeah, there's some esoteric knowledge required to get the joke.

Wonderer Neurological Argument, of course.

For those poor atheists, bereft of a positive argument, I present this thread from another forum:

Re: Atheist contrivances used to avoid presenting the case for their beliefs

In that thread you will find the WNA which will provide what you lack.

And yes, I am a bit jaded. :razz:

...a puzzle piece but a lot more is going on. — Mark Nyquist

Sure. There is lots more to look into, and our technology is crude next to the complexity to be understood.

Something that is important to physicalism is the question of how does the brain hold some specific item of subject matter. One mobel could be than it is somehow encoded directly into specific brain matter but I don't think that is how it works. Help me out if you know more. — Mark Nyquist

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebbian_theory

Then you aren't certain, you just have a high degree of confidence. — Hallucinogen

So atheists have a high degree of confidence that God doesn't exist. The label "atheist" is useful to convey that. Do you see a problem with people using the word that way?

Maybe He just wants you to think you are… — AmadeusD

Do you think that is the case with all people who believe themselves to be autistic?

Anyway, don't answer. I've threadjacked too much already.

From God's perspective, prior to creation, it was what is "necessary" in the sense of needed or wanted. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you think God wanted me to be autistic, or needed me to be autistic?

Newton 'stands on the shoulders of giants'. That constitutes authority... — Wayfarer

I think you misinterpret. I read that statement as an expression of humility, and recognizing the role of earlier thinkers in Newton being able to achieve what he did. I've never heard anyone suggest it is a claim to authority.

It is difficult to disentangle from scientism, the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion or marginalization of any other perspective. — Wayfarer

I'd suggest replacing "authoritative" with "reliable". Authority doesn't really have anything to do with it.

The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba' is taken to mean 'take nobody's word for it'. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.
https://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/

It about being able to talk about the same thing at two different levels of abstraction, what is viewed as the emergent level and the pre-emergent level.
— wonderer1

Maybe.

I think a supervenience relationship of A upon B is a bit weaker than being able to talk about some A phenomenon/property in terms of some distinct set of B phenomenon/properties. All you need to say that A supervenes upon B is that there can be no A difference without a B difference - you don't need to know a correspondence between A and B, just provide an existential guarantee.

How you flesh out the "cannot" in "There cannot be an A difference without a B difference" is also very important. Since, say, if cannot means "physically impossible", it could still be logically possible that there can be an A difference without a B difference. So an established supervenience relationship in terms of physical possibility could still allow a failure of supervenience relationship in terms of logical possibility between the same A and B to fail. — fdrake

For me supervenience is an epistemic tool I typically use in what I'll call a visuo-intuitive sort of way, without seeing a need for a logically rigorous definition. It is more an essential perspective in the high accuracy measurment instrument design that I do, that involves cognitively zooming in and out between a closer to fundamental physics perspective and higher level design concept perspective.

It seems to me that skill at using such an epistemic tool develops mostly subconsciously in people who consider systems in an indepth manner, due to the limits of human cognitive faculties that simply aren't capable of considering the workings of a complex system in fundamental physics terms. I'd think that most who have developed such cognitive skills have never heard the word "supervenience" and wouldn't see much value in a rigorous definition of something they do intuitively.

Anyway, logical possibilities are for marketing. Engineers get stuck with disabusing the marketing people of their logically possible fantasies, and designing within the vastly more restrictive realm of the physically possible.

Cartesian desert-based approaches , which are assumed to arise from the deliberately willed actions of an autonomous, morally responsible subject, are harsher and more ‘blameful' in their views of justice than deterministic , non-desert based modernist approaches and postmodern accounts, which rest on shaping influences (bodily-affective and social) outside of an agent's control. — Joshs

I'm seeing more clealy where the :100: :smile: came from. :wink:

Extraordinarily well stated.

How is what I said a reification of physicalism? What could that mean? — Banno

I'll leave you to think about it.

Banno embodies a jester. Once you realize that his posts are easily understood. — Philosophim

Well, a fucking brilliant jester, and I enjoy a lot of what he has to say. So I'll leave that there. :wink:

LOL

I'm an eye witness, and you are a gaslighter.

Hmm. What is it you are disagreeing with?

What I did was to suggest that we cold simplify the issue of what "physicalism" is by sticking to physics. — Banno

I think reifying "physicalism" as you seem to be doing is kind of silly. The word "physicalism" is a label people use for a set of perspectives some people have.

You seem intent on setting up a strawman, rather than deal with the perspectives of individuals who find it to be a useful label.

By punished I mean disqualified from the ballot. Do you think someone should be disqualified from the ballot for a crime he has not been proven to commit? — NOS4A2

The Constitution lays out the criteria for being disqualified. I already pointed this out.

He incited insurrection. That you are unable to recognize that seems to be a problem you have, but I've spent more than enough time on your sophistry for today.

More like
...being able to talk about the same thing at two different levels of abstraction,
— wonderer1
...removing the unnecessary emergent stuff. Physics does not make substantive use of the notion of substance... (see what I did there?) — Banno

:lol:
Yeah, I see what you did there on multiple levels. However, the person you quoted looks at things at various level including physics, chemistry, biology neuroscience, psychology, etc. So unfortunately you still haven't come up with a quote to support your claim. Care to try again?

But due process, right to a fair trial, and free speech are. And justice demands that one ought not be punished for something he didn’t do. — NOS4A2

Due process is ongoing.

And punished? He is raising money on his notoriety.

The suggestion cuts out the interminable fluff of substance versus materialism versus naturalism and so on seen here.The stuff found in physics texts serves to tie down the term"physicalism". — Banno

So are you saying it's a rhetorical ploy? Attempting to manipulate people into seeing things as you wish?

Feel free to explain, but I'll take that as a, "No.", to my question "Can you quote anyone calling herself a physicalist saying anything remotely like that?"

Don't some philosophers suggest that this comes down to the distinction between philosophical naturalism or methodological naturalism? — Tom Storm

I've mostly seen the distinction come up in the context of scientists saying they practice methodological naturalism as scientists but are not metaphysical naturalists. I'm not in a position to speak very exhaustively about what some philosophers may say. :wink:

Why do you ask?

So you're saying I can't run for President? Damn that Constitution, how dare it tell me what I can and can't do! — Michael

Yeah, it's unfortunate. I'd probably vote for you, considering the likely alternatives.

At this point I'm hoping The Rock runs. Sucks that Schwarzenegger is disqualified.

It is immoral and unjust to punish someone for something they have not done. In doing so she has violated basic human rights. — NOS4A2

It is not a basic human right to be on the ballot for POTUS. There are criteria spelled out in the constitution. Not having engaged in insurrection is one of those criteria.

The simplest and cleanest way to understand physicalism is as the idea that only the stuff described in physics texts is true. — Banno

Can you quote anyone calling herself a physicalist saying anything remotely like that?

Why would brains be any less shaped by evolution than other biological organs? So "What could be wrong with that?", aside from your dislike of the idea?
— wonderer1

Because evolutionary biology is not philosophy, per se, and never set out to address issues of epistemology and metaphysics. — Wayfarer

That's a non-sequitur. How about a more substantive response? Why would brains be any less shaped by evolution than other biological organs?

Philosophy doesn't need to be the sort of anti-intellectual activity you would have it be.

Also because of the role that evolutionary biology occupies in culture as a kind of secular religion. — Wayfarer

Quoting from your link:

So, what does our history tell us? Three things. First, if the claim is that all contemporary evolutionism is merely an excuse to promote moral and societal norms, this is simply false. Today's professional evolutionism is no more a secular religion than is industrial chemistry...

I am asking a scientific question. The only religion involved, is the religion you bring to the question and the only times you object to science being brought up on TPF is when it challenges your religious beliefs. Can you put your religion aside and suggest a scientific answer?

It is relevant to the fact that for you...

This is very counterintuitive. — JuanZu

But I'm happy to drop it if you aren't interested.

Maybe. I just don't see how physicalism differentiates itself from the wider umbrella of naturalism... — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't see much distinction between physicalism and naturalism, other than in usage. My impression is that "physicalism" is just the word more commonly used in the context of discussing philosophy of mind. For example, the question on the 2020 Philpapers survey is, "Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?". If "physicalism" was replaced with "naturalism" would it make a difference?

Physicalism, consequently, when put into practice, restricts us from knowing many things and knowing many truths about the world. In this sense I think it can be said that physicalism is scientifically false. — JuanZu

Can you support this?

So maybe physicalism has never been an explanation. — frank

I'd say something more along the lines of physicalism is a label suggesting recognition of the sort of explanations that seem likely to be reliable. You might tell me that the only reason that you don't jump over tall buildings is that your witch doctor told you not to. I'm going to go on respecting the reliability of physics for an explanation.

In any case, physicalism is a philosophical label not an explanation.

Maybe it represents a certain mindset? A way of problem solving? — frank

There is something to that. I'd say it does require developing a rather nontraditional conceptual framework in order to consider things from a physicalist perpective.

I don't think it's about dependency. It's just that two things that track together: "There cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference." — frank

:up:

It about being able to talk about the same thing at two different levels of abstraction, what is viewed as the emergent level and the pre-emergent level.

I'll leave it to @Walter.

It's pretty clear isn't it? Evolutionary biology replaced the Biblical creation mythology, but it also elbowed aside a great deal of philosophy which had become attached to it as part of the cultural milieu. So it seems obvious to anyone here that mind evolves as part of the same overall process through which everything else evolves. And it's then easy to take the step that the human mind is a product of evolutionary processes in just the same way as are claws and teeth. Easy! What could be wrong with that? (That's why I'm an advocate of 'the argument from reason', although it's about as popular on this forum as a parachute in a submarine.) — Wayfarer

It's a matter of facing the way things are in reality as compared to being in denial. Brains are a somewhat important aspect of our biology. Why would brains be any less shaped by evolution than other biological organs? So "What could be wrong with that?", aside from your dislike of the idea?

Do you have a scientific explanation as to why minds/brains would somehow be excluded from the effects of natural selection, sexual selection, etc?

There's an element of that, it's hard to think so otherwise, but even taking this to account, I don't see how this expands to objects being "disassociated boundaries", with people you could say that, but I don't see how this entails creates Kastrup's idealism. — Manuel

No, I don't see it as supporting Kastrup's idealism, however I can see how Kastrup's view could be an expression of his recognition of the distributed nature of evolving human understanding, in terms that make sense to him. I think Kastrup engages in magical thinking, but in an attempt to explain something real that he observes.