Comments

  • Do science and religion contradict
    ↪Hanover


    It’s the characterization of ‘weakness’ that I don’t follow. How does fundamentalism in religious belief lack power or strength compared to religious liberalism, or however you contrast fundamentalism?
  • Currently Reading
    ↪Jamal


    None of the characters were particularly interesting, or novel anyway, if you’re familiar with Murakami’s work. They’re very similar to characters in some of his other books, and in fact the character of Ushikawa is in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

    I think there’s some truth to the idea that a person can get stuck in an alternate world or a cat town and it takes some kind of ordeal to escape.
  • Do science and religion contradict
    ↪Hanover


    Personally, I don’t appreciate lies whatever camp they come from. Not sure what you mean by fundamentalism being weakest form of theism. Not important though, just curious.
  • Currently Reading
    I have things to say about [1Q84] — Jamal

    Oh?
  • Do science and religion contradict
    They aren't synonymous — Hanover

    I appreciate your honesty, not that it was a big ask. I don't appreciate the claim that some atheists are as bad as religious fundamentalists and then put words in their mouths to indicate that that is in fact the case. I'm not a new atheist fan, by the way, I'm just partial to truth.
  • Do science and religion contradict
    ↪Hanover


    Do you believe those two statements are synonymous?
  • Bannings
    We recently chatted in Clark's AI art topic and he seemed fine to me, but then I swim in the low-quality end of the pool myself. Good thing I'm not a prolific topic starter. :grimace:
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    This is not as bad as the NFT bubble crap though so kinda refreshing. — simplyG

    Actually, I understand that a lot of the NFT crap was AI generated. It helped to provide a new plaything for the rich and contributed to a big waste of energy
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    ↪T Clark


    I said it was interesting. I didn't say it was better or that I even liked it. It's mildly interesting in how it kind of lost the plot and confused the 3d impasto technique with the still-life elements.

    Should I have expressed fear and loathing to be more in the cool kid camp? :snicker:
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    I don't interrogate Van Gogh every time my spirits are lifted by sunflowers; I don't take Yeats to task each time I read a poem. Something of them passes to me, by however indirect a route, that simply doesn't happen with computer generated art; those images never get past my eyeballs. — Vera Mont

    I looked up the expression 'get past my eyeballs' and apparently it has something to do with vitreous detachment and floaters. I didn't know AI had that effect. Anyway, just for fun I wanted to see how Midjourney might forge some Van Gogh sunflowers. Some renderings were much closer but the following is interesting. Looks like impasto painting over a 3D sculpture.

    Click the reveal button at your own risk of eye damage.
    Reveal
    van-gogh.jpg
  • Do science and religion contradict
    ↪Leontiskos


    Science undermines religion and the belief in God.

    Science disproves God.

    Do you guys actually think these two claims are the same?

    It's easy to intuit that science may tend to undermine religion. How can science disprove the existence of God? No one says that, other than believers fallaciously trying to invalidate atheist arguments.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    How good are you at thinking paradoxically? — Athena

    The only thinking I’m good at is not thinking.
  • Do science and religion contradict
    ↪simplyG


    New atheists like Dawkins claim there is evidence, like natural selection, that explains phenomena that were previously undertaken by religion, yes.

    I could only find religious believers saying that Dawkins claims ‘science disproves God’. Dawkins himself says thing like:

    I believe, but I cannot prove, that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all design anywhere in the universe is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection.

    That’s a far cry from claiming that science disproves God. But then believers are not known for their honesty.
  • Do science and religion contradict
    There's a great deal of pseudo-scientific nonsense spouted by the 'new atheists' such as Dawkins, Dennett and Sam Harris who all mistakenly believe that 'science disproves God' or some such, leading none other than Peter Higgs (of Higgs Boson fame), no believer himself, to describe Richard Dawkins as a 'secular fundamentalist'. — Wayfarer

    Some claim that Dawkins and crew believe that science disproves God but when you try to find them saying some such it’s not easy to find. What do they call that, a strawman argument?
  • Do science and religion contradict
    Salvation — Isaiasb

    The theological definition of salvation is the deliverance from sin and its consequences.

    Have you been delivered from sin and its consequences? If not, do you know anyone who has been?
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    But think about all those poor guys who make motel room and doctor's office art. They need to work too. — T Clark

    One of the first jobs I had was working in a painting factory that would mass-produce crap for hotels and the like. It was piecework, doing batches of around 20 canvases simultaneously. Talk about starving artists. :cry:

    For me, "aesthetic experience" is an act of communication between two people. What happens when there is only one person there? — T Clark

    One person viewing a pretty sunset is like :starstruck:
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    Art is a creative process but sometimes it’s a destructive one too. Destructive in terms of destroying our deepest held convictions about the world and creative via romantic ideals or impressionism. Whatever the style may be beauty is mostly universal if it’s expressed elegantly enough and transcends time by being timeless and says something no matter how much society changes through the centuries. — simplyG

    Seeing beauty in what's normally regarded as ugly via aesthetic experience can be rather depatterning, if you asked me. Anyway, it's not like revolutionary art comes before the impulse to revolt.

    Once again we're talking about the utility of art, I note.

    The question is what distinguishes human creativity from machine creativity as the latter is merely a program which produces results via input whereas human creativity stems from something different altogether such as emotion which machines are incapable of feeling. — simplyG

    So far, AI doesn't identify creative problems or possess the impulse to express itself. Nor does it explore, play, or innovate of its own accord. I guess the impulse to express oneself requires consciousness, but I think the rest could be developed without it, and that's just around the corner.
  • Do science and religion contradict
    Because that’s not religions goal. — Isaiasb

    What is religion's goal?
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    Whilst aesthetics is an important part of art it’s not the be all end end all of art... — simplyG

    I agree, and like I said it's not enough. I'm wondering what it would be like if it were enough. If it were maybe there would be no need for AI art.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    ↪Athena


    Notice how you defer to religious authority. That's being religious. That's not being spiritual.
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    ... the question pertinent is that of originality which is what real art should bring to the table... — simplyG

    People have various criteria for art, such that it should be original, authentic, true, meaningful, reflect the values of society, or whatever else. I wonder if aesthetic experience is taken for granted or if it's practically an afterthought in our materialistic society and it is not enough.
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    ↪simplyG


    I’m not referring to pop art. I mean what I said, art that is cheap and produced in mass. There will always be a place (market) for it in a capitalist/materialist society. AI just makes production more efficient. The fact is that modern society (all of us) loves efficiency and predictability.
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    Reading through this topic you might think there was no such thing as cheap mass produced art before AI came along. :lol:
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    It’s not much of a threat to graphic design yet, even for low-end work. It’s output if far too generic and it can’t really do typography. That may change in the near future though. Currently the worst hit must be to stock photography and illustration. Last week I used Midjourney for a bunch of magazine ads instead of stock images. It’s cheaper, and it’s a lot quicker and more convenient to type some prompts than doing image searches and reviewing hundreds of images.
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    ↪simplyG
    ↪javi2541997


    Midjourney AI. It has a feature where you can upload an image and the AI will generate a prompt from it. In this case it generated the prompt: A painting of trees by tim liu, in the style of california plein air, vibrant color fields, gari melchers, light brown and purple, bold colors, strong lines, dramatic skies, jeff danziger --ar 5:4

    I used that prompt to generate the image above.

    For what it's worth, it looks like a lot of the stuff on Midjourney. — T Clark

    Good guess. :smirk:
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    What is important is not what we find, but what we are looking for. — Angelo Cannata

    I'm looking for an aesthetic experience. Technically that can be found anywhere and anytime, though it's usually much easier to find in art, who or whatever produces it.
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    Human or AI?

    ai-art.jpg
  • Currently Reading
    Finished 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I liked it. Always been a sucker for a drawn-out love story. Only skipped a bit toward the end. Could have skipped a lot because so much is drawn out and recounted but for some reason I just like his writing. About halfway through I read 1984 because it was mentioned a few times in the story and I thought it might deepen the aesthetic or offer some insight. Not necessary, I think.
  • Art Created by Artificial Intelligence
    No pornography, although a bare breast from time to time. I don’t know whether this is because the program has limits built in or if sexually explicit images are not selected. — T Clark

    It claims to be a PG-13 rating but I would class it at G. For example, if you make a prompt for Michelangelo's Statue of David it will only produce ones fully clothed. If you specify 'nude' it will refuse.

    I can certainly see why it frightens graphic artists. — T Clark

    :snicker: Yes it puts another dent in the industry, but we're accustomed to taking hits. Outsourcing, online templates, crowdsourcing... the devaluation is endless, or rather it's getting much closer to the end. I adopted it right away and it's a useful tool for GD, also for generating subject matter to paint. I prefer to paint from life but having any image that you can instantly generate and view from a monitor is very very handy. It takes time and effort to set up a still-life or find a good landscape or seascape.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    I am running out of time and this might not help but logos is universal law. It happens this way because that is how the laws of the universe make it. This can be completely mechanical. Creativity can try new things and if the new thing isn't compatible it becomes extinct. We can call that chaos but we don't have to judge it as a bad thing. However, I am fascinated by the Egyptian and Aztec efforts to use math to understand the order of things and live in harmony with that order. — Athena

    God is both logos and pathos, or rather, order and chaos then? When you have time.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    The way to apply science to superstitious notions is to think in terms of a prime mover, logos, universal laws, and nature. — Athena

    There isn't a way to apply science to superstitious notions because, if for no other reason, they cannot be measured in any way. Ghosts cannot be measured, for instance. I suppose that neural pathways could be measured and that could prove the existence of such notions, but no one is denying that such notions exist.

    Anyway, there's something that bothers me about your idea of God. You seem to basically be saying that God is order (logos) and nature. The thing that doesn't make sense to me is that nature is order AND chaos, so if God is nature then God is both order and chaos. To put it in Nietzschean terms, God is both the Apollonian (similar to logos) and the Dionysian (similar to pathos). If God is only logos then what is pathos? The devil? :naughty:
  • Culture is critical
    I think anyone who is excessively wealthy must be scrutinised by that domain. That is my version of 'big brother is watching you.' Big brother would become a label for the mass of the population of the planet. This is the way a good 'big brother,' was always supposed to be, in a human family. A guy who helped protect the family from nefarious b*******. — universeness

    I think if Orwell could have imagined an artificial general intelligence in 1949 his book 1984 would have been a bit different. Can you imagine the power of media manipulation and surveillance it could have? We appear to be rapidly approaching AGI and those who develop it, the excessively wealthy, will be in control.
  • Culture is critical
    What was the point? — Vera Mont

    This...
    I think the bottom line here is that sapiens are not rational beings and therefore suggesting that morality is essentially rational, that it "is a matter of cause & effect" is false and misguided. Morality involves personal and shared values, identity, and intuitions that we may not even be consciously aware of. — praxis
  • Culture is critical
    ↪Vera Mont


    I’m pro-choice, by the way, in case that wasn’t clear and it matters at all, and I wasn’t arguing for or against abortion because that wasn’t the point.
  • Culture is critical
    Fine. I didn't say a word about morality. But now it's here... — Vera Mont

    It was there from the start. It was the entire focus, actually, and abortion was merely an example. I could have used many other examples. I guess it was too good an example, you getting so caught up in it that the point was lost.
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    God is a manifestation of thought - meaning we think it and it becomes a shared notion. Atheists can not argue against the existence of God without sharing the same notion of a God that they argue does not exist. — Athena

    The basic difference is that believers are 'bonded' in their shared belief system, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Atheists may be somewhat bonded in their shared beliefs but it barely compares with religious adherence. There may be authority figures for atheists, such as Dawkins or whoever, but they're not regarded as ultimate authorities who have special insight into the nature of reality. What they know anyone can know. Nothing needs to be taken on faith. This is a significant difference. There are other important differences that I won't bother to go into at this point.

    By a nonhuman god, I mean the prime mover and logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe. The gods that are worshipped are made in the image of man. That is not so for the prime mover or logos. I do not mean a jealous, revengeful, punishing God is an inhuman God. :lol: — Athena

    I know what you meant. I just couldn't resist the irony. Nature is infinitely more cruel than any human could be. :smirk:

    Abrahamic religions most certainly do not have a concept that would lead to scientific thinking. they do not have a concept of a Prime Mover or logos. Their brains have zero thought patterns for thinking in such terms. — Athena

    You're quite wrong about this. Most scientific and technical innovations prior to the scientific revolution were achieved by societies organized by religious traditions. Ancient pagan, Islamic, and Christian scholars pioneered individual elements of the scientific method. Historically, Christianity has been and still is a patron of sciences.

    They [atheists] shot themselves in the foot by refusing to use the word "God". That just proves all the religious people right because the Bible says there will be people who reject God and they are "evil" and reality is a fight of good over evil, and we are on the damn merry-go-round of arguing about God and no one can get off it. — Athena

    Religions deliberatly use heratics (e.g., "the Bible says there will be people who reject God and they are evil") to shore up group identity by defining what they are not. It is a very effective tactic and that's why it is so widely used. Indeed, it's such an effective tactic that no one can get off it.

    You just threw the prime mover and logos out the window and destroyed the reasoning of democracy. Can we discover the laws of the universe and base our laws on such knowledge? Isn't that fundamental to democracy? — Athena

    I have no idea of what you're talking about here.

    I suggest that you seriously consider what the actual purpose of religion is and why it exists. Also, consider if there's a difference between spirituality and religion.
  • Culture is critical
    Of course they do! Lots of women who can't give birth adopt babies from women who could and didn't want to, or children taken away from parents who could not or would not adequately rise to parenthood, or import one from a country too poor to care for all of its children, or commission a surrogate or buy one on the black market. All those children are available and negotiable. — Vera Mont

    We seem to have lost the plot here so I will ignore this part.

    I will say now that forcing parenthood on the unwilling will always have bad consequences, especially for the unwanted child. — Vera Mont

    Really? You can't even imagine parents who were initially unwilling but ended up with a good outcome for themselves and their initially unwanted child??? Personally, my wife and I chose not to have children but I can imagine that if we were unable to avoid it things could have turned out well.

    I did not identify the birth as the cause of a bad result, but rather the forcing of a child on unwilling parent(s). — Vera Mont

    That doesn't dismiss the question in any way. Forcing parenthood is only one cause out of literally countless causes that could be identified for a bad result.

    I think the bottom line here is that sapiens are not rational beings and therefore suggesting that morality is essentially rational, that it "is a matter of cause & effect" is false and misguided. Morality involves personal and shared values, identity, and intuitions that we may not even be consciously aware of.
  • Culture is critical
    Unwilling is not the same as unable. — Vera Mont

    There would seem to be no moral issue for women who are unable to give birth, given that there's no choice in the matter.

    Yes, some able but unwilling parents have 'risen to the occasion' in some ways. Usually by giving up what they wanted to do with their own lives for what they needed to to do for the child. However, many more able but unwilling parents either attempted to rise to the occasion and failed, having to give child up, willingly or more often by force, and some end up hurting or killing the child while some raise the child so badly that he or she becomes another liability to society. Overall, not a happy outcome for the people involved or for society. — Vera Mont

    You seem to be suggesting that forcing birth, or rather that making abortion illegal is immoral because in some cases it may result in bad consequences. Why are you identifying giving birth as the cause of the bad result? It would seem more reasonable to identify the raising of the child "so badly" as the cause of the bad result.

    Moral, is not a matter of cause and effect. It's a matter of intuition and culture, to put it broadly. It involves reason of course, though I don't know if it can be said to be rational, not strickly rational anyway.
  • Would a purely hedonistic society be a destructive one ?
    When we say ... that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice or wilful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul. — Epicurus
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I understand that maybe some of you do not understand why we care if we are not Americans. Well, I want to highlight my words again: The USA has a big impact on the world and this is why we are interested. My participation in this thread is not with bad faith nor silliness. And, if you do not mind, I will keep in touch on this topic, and see how this matter ends up. Respecting your nation, of course! — javi2541997

    I did not mean to suggest in any way your participation in this topic is inappropriate or whatever. Honestly, I value the perspective of people from other countries, and there is certainly no need to show respect for America on my account.

    I often feel a little embarrassed by how little I follow the politics of other countries when the world seems to pay so much attention to American politics.
Home » praxis