:up: :up:

:up: :wink:

Now I'm sure some good work has been done to stich together "the God that draws the crowds" and "the God that wins internet arguments" and I don't want to sell that short, but fundamentally that is what I take it to be: reconciling two very different ideas of God created for two very different purposes. — goremand

You are right to recognize the distinction

To me it seems like equivocation between the God described cataphatically during uncritical in group discussions amongst believers, and the vagueness of the God described apophatically when faced with skeptics.

I'm not seeing the "good work" though. Can you explain?

:up:

I was simply asking that we consider evidence in regard to the difference between faith and belief. — Tom Storm

I took a glance at the SEP entry on the epistemology of religion. I haven't read far, but it certainly opens with a discussion of the relevance of evidence to religious faith:

Evidentialism implies that full religious belief is justified only if there is conclusive evidence for it. It follows that if the arguments for there being a God, including any arguments from religious experience, are at best probable ones, no one would be justified in having a full belief that there is a God. And the same holds for other religious beliefs, such as the belief that God is not just good in a utilitarian fashion but loving, or the belief that there is an afterlife. Likewise it would be unjustified to believe even with less than full confidence that, say, Krishna is divine or that Mohammed is the last and most authoritative of the prophets, unless a good case can be made for these claims from the evidence.

Evidentialism, then, sets rather high standards for justification, standards that the majority do not, it would seem, meet when it comes to religious beliefs, where many rely on “faith”, which is more like the forecaster’s hunch about the weather than the argument from past climate records. Many others take some body of scripture, such as the Bible or the Koran as of special authority, contrary to the evidentialist treatment of these as just like any other books making various claims. Are these standards too high?

I agree that Plato was mistaken in his hypothesis. I don't see that as contradictory to what I said. Still I have to give him credit for recognizing something important in our thinking, and taking a stab at making sense of it.

Of course fly bottles are an issue.

I say the problem is in trying to come to grips with the sense in which such concepts exist. — Wayfarer

I'd say the best way to work on such a coming to grips, is by developing an understanding of the sort of information processing that goes on in our brains.

There's a lot more information available to enable the development of such underanding than there was in Plato day (or Russell's). It seems a shame to not be take advantage of such educational information.

The abstract notion of a triangle is a recognition of a simple pattern. Our brains are to a substantial degree, pattern recognition engines that develop models of the world.

Forms sure sound to me like Plato's offering of a cognitive science hypothesis. Without a, doubt it's a very insightful hypothesis. There is something there to be explained, which Plato is pointing at with the notion of forms. I'd suggest the reification of forms mentioned by @Banno amounts to looking at the finger that is pointing, and missing out on learning about what Plato was pointing towards.

Welcome to the forum.

This is a topic I am very interested in. Thanks for the links.

I think the need to provide public justification for private beliefs is still very strong, at least in the U.S. (though it may be fading fast), and that's a good thing. — J

Seems to me a characteristic one would want an engineer to have (the engineer who designed the plane you are going to be flying in, for example) is an appreciation for the value often found in the consideration of justifications for private beliefs.

Doing so plays an important role in social primates, such as we are, having the ability to think synergistically and learn from each other.

What is a good thing?

:up: :wink:

So it seems you prefer to use the word "signs" where many other people are inclined to use the word "information". E.g. instead of someone saying that she is going to "gather information", you would prefer that she say she is going to "gather signs"?

I'm curious to hear, where you want to go with this?

The link to Lewis' paper that you originally posted is dead. In case you want to update the OP, this link works:

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://joelvelasco.net/teaching/hum9/lewis%2520-%2520divine%2520evil.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjGj5S8ot-MAxVgHNAFHdqgJAEQFnoECAEQAg&usg=AOvVaw1CBUmYf6iWzju7jHvBjD70

Life is the necessary condition for value. — James Dean Conroy

Ignoring possible ambiguities to "life"...

It seems to me that replacing "value" with "valuing" results in less likelihood of reification.

I suggest you consider the possibility that your perspective is self contradictory. How do you know anything about chemicals?
— wonderer1

Does it matter? — Darkneos

Does it matter to you, whether your thinking is incoherent or not? Your thinking about the answer to my question might help you see that at present your thinking isn't coherent.

Doesn't change [...] how they are the reason we feel what we feel. — Darkneos

Again, you are looking at things in an overly simplistic way. The reasons we feel what we feel are quite complicated. You certainly aren't going to find any scientific backing for 'it's just chemicals'.

That’s the illusion, it’s really just the chemicals. It is that simple and our stories making it to be more than what it really is.

Without those chemicals it doesn’t matter what the information is. — Darkneos

I suggest you consider the possibility that your perspective is self contradictory. How do you know anything about chemicals?

Meaningful experiences don't tend to be about something else, it only seems that way due to the chemicals in us. — Darkneos

Nah, you are looking at things far too simplistically. There is a whole lot of structure to how those chemical are arranged. That structuring results in information processing occurring. That information processing is about things.

:up:

Let's think of a USB memory stick. If we open it we do not find any information, we only find an electronic and physical layout. To obtain information we must have a suitable device, a USB reader. I wonder if the expression "to obtain information" is the correct way to refer to the case. Since the information, this is my theory, does not exist inside the USB stick. — JuanZu

The information does exist in the USB stick, in the form of variations in electrical charge in different regions of a flash memory chip. This is why the device works as a memory.

It doesn't appear to me that you are formulating a very useful theory.

:100: :up:

You're not intelligent because of the properties alone of the chemicals in your body. You can't skip the middle step. You're intelligent because of the processes that that specific arrangement of chemicals allows to happen. And those processes AREN'T in all the particles. Those processes aren't in any individual particle at all. — flannel jesus

:up:

Our ability to communicate in this way also requires an understanding of EM fields, which are universal and not "composed of electrons" (rather electrons are the activity of the field, at least on many understandings). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, our understanding that those understandings are required for deeper understanding of our environment, has been greatly informed by people looking at things from a smallist perspective. Perhaps, as a pragmatic matter, it is wise to recognize the value of such an epistemological perspective?

Sounds like "smallism" to me. The problem is, there is no prima facie reason for smallism to be true — Count Timothy von Icarus

There is the fact that our communicating as we are is rather dependent on our ability to build computers based on understanding the way small things (e.g. transistors) can be interconnected to result in the behavior of bigger things (e.g. computers). We can see similar things in all sorts of fields, e.g medicine.

Macro things cannot be explained by properties the building blocks do not possess. — Patterner

Macro things are regularly explained by properties that the building blocks do not possess. For example bits of iron don't float on water, yet iron (as steel) is regularly formed into ships that float on water.

Perhaps the fallacy of division is more apropos to panpsychist thinking than the fallacy of composition?

No. I'm suggesting that they might be about the same things, under two different descriptions.
— Banno
I like the idea, but don't see how it can be. Can you explain? I suspect you have been doing that, but, if so, I haven't caught on. I am but an egg. — Patterner

Suppose the psychological language we use in talking about intentionality consists of metaphors which map roughly to different sorts of physical activity occurring in our brains.

I see it as rather analogous to seeing the elements of C++ as metaphors for what goes on phyiscally in the hardware of a machine running C++ code. (In case that helps.)

Sure. I'll take the option of not engaging in what I expect would be a tedious discussion. (I.e. there is a reason I choose this option.)

You can still have choices, it's just that your choices follow from... well, follow from YOU, follow from the state of you. — flannel jesus

:up:

Until then it’s just a blizzard of lies and conspiracy theories, and it’s activating violent psychos to take it upon themselves to take matters into their own hands outside the democratic process. — NOS4A2

Haven't you insisted that such influence on people is impossible?

The reductio conclusion for one who disbelieves in free is that they don't believe in free will because they are determined not to. They'd be similarly forced to accept a believer believes because he must. — Hanover

The believer believes as he does at present, because he must due to the history that shaped the way he believes at present. However we can contribute to what will be the history that shaped the way the believer believes in the future, by interacting with the believer now.

If that's the case, we argue not to persuade or effectuate our opponents to choose our way of thinking, but because we simply must argue and bend as programmed. — Hanover

That we can change each others thinking isn't particularly problematic on a determinist view.

Does anyone else here feel that determinism, in its full intricacy, actually leaves room for more mystery rather than less? Or do you see it differently? — Matripsa

I largely agree with you, although I wouldn't use "predetermined" and instead I would use something like "interactively determined". I don't have any clear picture of how one might quantify mystery though.

As you point out the complexity of causal interactions results in plenty of mystery, particularly with respect to the functioning of our minds/brains.

A friend of mine drew my attention on a conversation Richard Dawkins has had with ChatGPT on the topic of AI consciousness. — Pierre-Normand

I heard about Dawkins' article through Jerry Coyne's website:

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/02/18/richard-dawkins-chats-with-ai-about-consciousness/

I left a comment there, referring readers of Coyne's website to a couple of your threads here. (No idea whether anyone from there might have followed the links, but Dawkins himself made several comments there.)

You didn't reply to me but since you attacked me and my knowledge then I challenge you! — MoK

I'm not surprised that you interpreted my comments as an attack, but no one can be an expert on everything. So I'd say it is more like I pointed out that you are human and your misconceptions are understandable.

Couldn't you wonder that it could be you who doesn't have the proper knowledge to comprehend the MoK's argument? — MoK

Sure I can wonder, but you demonstrate throughout this thread that you don't have much understanding of phyisical causality. I, on the other hand, am a 62 year old electrical engineer making my living on the basis of my expertise in understanding physical causality.

Can you provide any reason for me to think that your intuitions regarding this topic are better than mine?

The reality is that you simply can't imagine how physicalism could account for awareness and m-experience. You're committing the fallacy argument from incredulity, also referred to as "argument from lack of imagination". — Relativist

It seem worth noting that a scientifically informed physicalism explains MoK's incredulity.

With the understanding that MoK's intuitions are a function of the training of the neural networks in MoK's brain, and that MoK clearly hasn't done any deep investigation into physical causality, it is unsurprising that MoK's intutions result in incredulity as they do.

Humans cannot make objective judgments, and subjective judgements are meaninglesss — RussellA

It seems to me that subjective human judgements can be quite meaningful to humans. For example if someone's society judges them to not be fit to participate in that society and subsequently banishes or imprisons that person, I'd expect that person to find society's judgement to be meaningful.

So I'm not sure what you mean by "meaningless" in the quote above.

P2) Experience is due to the existence of physical and the change in the state of physical is due to the existence of an experience — MoK

Why think that all physical changes are due to experience? Consider the possibility that astronomers today observe a supernova which occurred a billion years ago in a distant galaxy. What role did experience play in causing the supernova?

You bolded that portion yourself in your
, I simply formatted the quote in order to respect that. Because unlike you, I am indeed being charitable towards your intentions. e I will sense the
— previous comment — Arcane Sandwich

I don't know what you are trying to say there, or who you are suggesting that you were quoting.

By assuming ignorance on my part, you're not willing to give me a fair reading as your interlocutor. — Arcane Sandwich

I provided you with an opportunity to show that you weren't ignorant in relevant ways with my first response to you. Unfortunately it seems that you weren't able to take advantage of the opportunity.

If you accuse me of strawmannig, then you're accusing me of charlatanry, hence sophistry, and therefore you are assuming ill intent on my behalf... — Arcane Sandwich

No I'm not assuming ill intent. Ignorance on your part seems a simple enough explanation.

False. You do not sense the force of attraction in that case, you simply feel an increasingly solid sensation, in a tactile sense. — Arcane Sandwich

The bolded portion seems an odd way of expressing whatever you may be trying to express. Have you actually done the experiment?

In any case, yes I have a tactile sensation of the attraction between the magnet and the iron.

It seems to me it would be more productive for you to actually address my points than to whine to the moderators, but whatever floats your boat.

(AE1) If Empiricism is true, then magnetism can be perceived by human beings. — Arcane Sandwich

1. You seem to be attacking an archaic/straw version of empiricism, by stipulating that some sort of 'direct sensing' of properties must be available to humans for empiricism to stand up to scrutiny.

2. I have many ways of detecting the presence of a magnetic field. A simple one is just to hold a magnet near a piece of iron, in which case I will sense the force of attraction between the magnet and the iron.

The thread became entangled in animal intelligence, a garden path, to my eye.
— Banno
Yes. There are those who cannot conceive of a non-human animal that truly shares any concepts with human beings and those who are quite sure that all animals in this world share that world, to a greater or lesser extent. Never the twain shall meet. Looks like two incommensurable conceptual schemes to me. — Ludwig V

To further entangle the thread with animal intelligence...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/02/250203163756.htm

To get treats, apes eagerly pointed them out to humans who didn't know where they were, a seemingly simple experiment that demonstrated for the first time that apes will communicate unknown information in the name of teamwork. The study also provides the clearest evidence to date that apes can intuit another's ignorance, an ability thought to be uniquely human.

It appears bonobos are capable of sharing our ability to conceive of others as knowledgeable or ignorant of some fact.

Thanks for all your posts. Will come back with more of my replies on the rest of your posts in due course. — Corvus

"in due course"?

At a later time?