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Cogito ergo sum

Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!

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When does proving one's truth claims come to an end?

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  • Originally posted by seer View Post
    Jim I don't seer agent-neutral reasons here, I see you offering reasons for an opinion you hold. In other words as far as I understand the term this does not seem agent-neutral, but rather very much agent dependent. I said this earlier - it is a leap to go from my personal distaste for suffering to - I should therefore alleviate the suffering of others - especially if their suffering gains me wealth, power or pleasure.
    But what I've been trying to argue is that we are all just offering our opinions. It's not fair of you to automatically assume a God-like position relative to all of your opponents and say "All of you are merely offering the musings of men while I am representing eternal, absolute truth." That's a case of begging the question; you're assuming that you're right and that God is the source of morality and identical to the Good. You've got to argue for it and not assume it's so.

    I'm a rational agent interacting with others. If I suffer and know this is bad, I know that it is bad for others too. If I am rational, I can model myself and others and think modally and hypothetically about possibilities. This leads to thinking in modes like 'would' should' etc. It leads to thinking about 'oneself' in abstraction as opposed to myself as a concrete actual person. Badness and goodness become understood as qualities that are generalizable to all sentient, ie conscious beings. These abilities lead to moral thought in terms of general principles that can be overridden. I come to see myself and my needs and desires from the outside to a large extent, in terms of abstract universalizable principles under ideally rational conditions.

    Tell me how exactly does God make something right? How does God make something good? Why should I do X merely because God commands it? Because He is the biggest, strongest Guy around? Or because He's going to lay some hurt down on me if I don't? Are those proper motivations to be moral? Or do I do what's right because of the moral law written on the heart? But if it's written on the heart, then it's an intrinsic part of the process of rational moral deliberation, and if this is the case, why do we need God as the source of morality? God could still exhort us, be an example, forgive us, embody goodness, etc....

    Comment


    • Tell me how exactly does God make something right? How does God make something good? Why should I do X merely because God commands it? Because He is the biggest, strongest Guy around? Or because He's going to lay some hurt down on me if I don't? Are those proper motivations to be moral? Or do I do what's right because of the moral law written on the heart? But if it's written on the heart, then it's an intrinsic part of the process of rational moral deliberation, and if this is the case, why do we need God as the source of morality? God could still exhort us, be an example, forgive us, embody goodness, etc....
      What makes something good and right is whether or not something reflects God's nature. God does not arbitrarily call something good. In addition, God does not randomly call something good. Moreover, there is no standard of goodness that is higher than God. God is the ultimate standard.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Hornet View Post
        What makes something good and right is whether or not something reflects God's nature. God does not arbitrarily call something good. In addition, God does not randomly call something good. Moreover, there is no standard of goodness that is higher than God. God is the ultimate standard.
        It is God's Creation, and yes God is the ultimate standard, but you will have extreme difficulty you will have justifying this in the inconsistent nature of humanity, and our physical existence, because the evidence indicates that the Natural Laws and natural process are the standard, and it is obvious that the inconsistent history of Christianity and Judaism is not the standard.

        How can you justify the claim of absolute standard of God's nature as reflected in reality?
        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

        go with the flow the river knows . . .

        Frank

        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Jim B. View Post

          Your argument goes like this:

          1) Everything about the mind must be explicable in terms of current physics, neuro-science, etc.
          2) Physics, neuro-science and the like tell us only about structure and function.
          3) Therefore, everything worth explaining about the mind must be explicable in terms of structure and function.
          Not quite. My argument goes that there is no good reason to think that our knowledge about the natural world, including the workings of our mind and subjective experiences, cannot ultimately be explained via scientific methodology.

          I hope you can see the circularity of this argument.
          There is no circularity.

          Science is a specific rigorous methodology and epistemological approach, with corresponding techniques and underlying assumptions. It tells us about certain aspects of reality but it is frankly naive to uncritically assume that it is this conduit for the unmediated transmission for ALL of reality.
          What is this “ALL of reality” to which you refer given that we have no verifiable evidence of anything other than the natural and physical universe – and this is the realm of science.

          That is bordering more on a quasi-religious belief in science. It doesn't just "deal with the natural world," whatever that might mean. You failed to respond to what I wrote about the appearance/reality distinction, which is crucial to science. It starts with the appearance of the color 'red', for instance, and discovers that this quale or experience is actually being caused by the physical phenomena of a certain range of photon emissions. The quale is dispensed with other than as a pointer toward the underlying causal forces.
          The appearance/reality distinction is a metaphysical argument not a scientific one. And “The underlying causal forces” are determined by science, not metaphysics.

          If the phenomena in question are the appearances, as in the quale of red I referred to above, then they are lost and not merely reconfigured.
          How lost? Metaphysics can continue speculating on the nature of the natural world, as it has always done. But it cannot uncover new facts about the natural, physical world. Nor is there good reason to assume the existence of a non- natural, physical world as a separate sort of reality.
          “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
            I do not believe that the nature of being human is an argument for or against the existence of God. Yes, humans would experience the world in the 'exact' same way regardless if God actually exists or not.
            I'm not using it as an argument for the existence of God.

            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
            The problem is there is no 'objective verifiable evidence' that could distinguish between what humans would be like in world with God, and a world without God.
            If that's true, it contradicts what you wrote in post #136:

            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
            The nature of being human is not robotic regardless of whether God exists or not.
            If there is no 'objective verifiable evidence' that can distinguish between the two alternatives then there's no way for you to know how the experience of being human would differ for each possibility/alternate reality.

            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
            Then in reality as I said you cannot distinguish the two worlds.
            Neither can you claim any similarities.

            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
            Then apparently you do not: "Unless you've experienced both the possibility in which God exists and the possibility in which God doesn't exist, how would you know that the nature of being human is the same in both possibilities?"

            Rewording your statement does not change the above you original statement.
            I can't parse this last part, so I have no idea how to respond.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
              Not quite. My argument goes that there is no good reason to think that our knowledge about the natural world, including the workings of our mind and subjective experiences, cannot ultimately be explained via scientific methodology.
              Science has a track record of consistently discovering and explaining certain aspects of reality which lends itself well to being studied using the scientific methodology. There is no indication that the scientific methodology will ever be expanded to cover further aspects of reality (as opposed to continuing to study and widening our knowledge about the aspects that it already covers). The qualia of subjective experiences has properties that puts it squarely outside of the aspects of reality that the scientific methodology is currently equipped to handle, and since there is no reason to assume that the scientific methodology will ever be expanded to the point where it can handle studying qualia, there is no reason to assume qualia will ever be explained by science.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                Science has a track record of consistently discovering and explaining certain aspects of reality which lends itself well to being studied using the scientific methodology. There is no indication that the scientific methodology will ever be expanded to cover further aspects of reality (as opposed to continuing to study and widening our knowledge about the aspects that it already covers). The qualia of subjective experiences has properties that puts it squarely outside of the aspects of reality that the scientific methodology is currently equipped to handle, and since there is no reason to assume that the scientific methodology will ever be expanded to the point where it can handle studying qualia, there is no reason to assume qualia will ever be explained by science.
                This is an 'argument from ignorance'. There is no reason to assume that the scientific methodology will never be expanded to the point where it can handle studying qualia and underlying mechanisms of consciousness.
                “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                  This is an 'argument from ignorance'. There is no reason to assume that the scientific methodology will never be expanded to the point where it can handle studying qualia and underlying mechanisms of consciousness.
                  It's not an argument from ignorance, it's an argument from past experience. In the past, and up until this point the scientific methodology has never been equipped to study anything other than phenomena with a specific set of properties and this range of (types of) phenomena has never been expanded upon.

                  Seeing as this limitation is likely inherent in the methodology itself there's little to no reason to believe it ever will. Science (which I'll use as a shorthand for the scientific methodology from now on since I can't be bothered to type out the complete terminology every time), is only equipped to handle empirical evidence, i.e evidence gathered through our senses, but qualia, or our subjective experiences is the only way we can gather the empirical evidence that science requires to work. So in order for us to study qualia, or subjective experiences, we would have to use subjective experience to study subjective experience. It would be like trying to use a yardstick to measure it's own length, or a scale to measure it's own weight.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                    I'm not using it as an argument for the existence of God.


                    If that's true, it contradicts what you wrote in post #136:
                    I did not do so in post #136, nor any where in this thread.

                    Post#136. "The nature of being human is not robotic regardless of whether God exists or not."



                    If there is no 'objective verifiable evidence' that can distinguish between the two alternatives then there's no way for you to know how the experience of being human would differ for each possibility/alternate reality.
                    I do not attempt to. The bottom line humans are not robotic.

                    Neither can you claim any similarities.
                    The point is the difference cannot be objectively determined.

                    I can't parse this last part, so I have no idea how to respond.
                    It is your statement you have failed to parse.

                    "Unless you've experienced both the possibility in which God exists and the possibility in which God doesn't exist, how would you know that the nature of being human is the same in both possibilities?"
                    Last edited by shunyadragon; 02-05-2020, 05:43 AM.
                    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                    go with the flow the river knows . . .

                    Frank

                    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
                      But what I've been trying to argue is that we are all just offering our opinions. It's not fair of you to automatically assume a God-like position relative to all of your opponents and say "All of you are merely offering the musings of men while I am representing eternal, absolute truth." That's a case of begging the question; you're assuming that you're right and that God is the source of morality and identical to the Good. You've got to argue for it and not assume it's so.
                      It is about differing views. I don't believe that universal moral truths can exist apart from God, and without God moral relativism is the default or most rational position.

                      I'm a rational agent interacting with others. If I suffer and know this is bad, I know that it is bad for others too. If I am rational, I can model myself and others and think modally and hypothetically about possibilities. This leads to thinking in modes like 'would' should' etc. It leads to thinking about 'oneself' in abstraction as opposed to myself as a concrete actual person. Badness and goodness become understood as qualities that are generalizable to all sentient, ie conscious beings. These abilities lead to moral thought in terms of general principles that can be overridden. I come to see myself and my needs and desires from the outside to a large extent, in terms of abstract universalizable principles under ideally rational conditions.
                      Are you channeling Kant now? But again, this all sounds nice but has little to do with reality. I know that suffering is bad for me therefore I should not cause the suffering of others. That is a moral leap. It is a non sequitur. Expecially if the suffering of other benefits me or alleviates my suffering.

                      Tell me how exactly does God make something right? How does God make something good? Why should I do X merely because God commands it? Because He is the biggest, strongest Guy around? Or because He's going to lay some hurt down on me if I don't? Are those proper motivations to be moral? Or do I do what's right because of the moral law written on the heart? But if it's written on the heart, then it's an intrinsic part of the process of rational moral deliberation, and if this is the case, why do we need God as the source of morality? God could still exhort us, be an example, forgive us, embody goodness, etc....
                      Are you suggesting that God needs reasons for His goodness or that His acts need to conform to your criterion to be justified?
                      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Hornet View Post
                        What makes something good and right is whether or not something reflects God's nature. God does not arbitrarily call something good. In addition, God does not randomly call something good. Moreover, there is no standard of goodness that is higher than God. God is the ultimate standard.
                        If God does not arbitrarily call something good, then the good must be based upon something logically independent of God's nature. If God is His own standard, then you're expressing a tautology, ie something to the effect of "God is as God is." There would be no way to independently evaluate the meaning of the expression "God is the Good."

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                          Not quite. My argument goes that there is no good reason to think that our knowledge about the natural world, including the workings of our mind and subjective experiences, cannot ultimately be explained via scientific methodology.
                          That's exactly what I said, expressed a little less dogmatically. Your premise, that there is no good reason to think that everything about the mind cannot be explained in terms of current science, contains within it the conclusion, namely that everything about the mind is explicable in terms of structure and function. It cannot conceivably be disproven. It is absolutely immune to all manner of disproof. It's a case of begging the question.



                          There is no circularity.
                          See above.


                          What is this “ALL of reality” to which you refer given that we have no verifiable evidence of anything other than the natural and physical universe – and this is the realm of science.
                          But with all due respect, I think this is part of your confusion. One the one hand, you seem to be saying that "ALL of reality" metaphysically just is the natural and physical universe because that is what science can explore. But on the other hand, you seem to be defining all of reality epistemically as that which science has access to.



                          The appearance/reality distinction is a metaphysical argument not a scientific one. And “The underlying causal forces” are determined by science, not metaphysics.
                          It's not a metaphysical distinction. It's a working methodological distinction in the sciences. Does physics have a concept for the quale of "red" or of "now" or the smell of coffee? Those concepts are relegated to subjective experiences by the various sciences that then try to discover the 'reality' behind them.



                          How lost? Metaphysics can continue speculating on the nature of the natural world, as it has always done. But it cannot uncover new facts about the natural, physical world. Nor is there good reason to assume the existence of a non- natural, physical world as a separate sort of reality.
                          Forget about 'metaphysics.' It's only confusing you. Conscious experience is constituted of appearances, phenomena, seemings. How the world seems to me or to you make up my or your subjective, conscious experiences. Science doesn't deal with seemings. It deals with what causes the seemings. The seemings get dispensed with.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by seer View Post
                            It is about differing views. I don't believe that universal moral truths can exist apart from God, and without God moral relativism is the default or most rational position.
                            So you dismiss all of moral realism as irrational?



                            Are you channeling Kant now? But again, this all sounds nice but has little to do with reality. I know that suffering is bad for me therefore I should not cause the suffering of others. That is a moral leap. It is a non sequitur. Expecially if the suffering of other benefits me or alleviates my suffering.
                            A little bit of Kant and others, but mostly channeling myself. Does it matter?

                            I know that suffering is bad for me but I'm not an animal. I can abstract to the fact that suffering itself is a bad thing. I can view myself and properties like suffering independent of my fears and desires. Anyone viewing the world objectively has reason to stop it. We don't just formulate fears and desires like rats, but formulate reasons so they can be viewed objectively, independent of the desires we actually have, which enables us to say what others have reasons to do and what we would have reasons to do if our desires were different. This is what sets us apart from dogs and rats.

                            If I'm severely burned, there's a reason for me to be given morphine independent of the fact that the pain is mine - namely that such burn pain itself is dreadful.

                            That pleasures are impersonally good and dreadful pains are impersonally bad are statement s that you'd have to have strong reasons to doubt.





                            Are you suggesting that God needs reasons for His goodness or that His acts need to conform to your criterion to be justified?
                            You're assuming once again that God IS the good, which is the point we're debating. If the statement 'God is the Good' isn't intelligible, then there is good reason to think it isn't so, as that article indicated that I posted a link to and that you never bothered to read.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Jim B. View Post
                              That's exactly what I said, expressed a little less dogmatically. Your premise, that there is no good reason to think that everything about the mind cannot be explained in terms of current science, contains within it the conclusion, namely that everything about the mind is explicable in terms of structure and function. It cannot conceivably be disproven. It is absolutely immune to all manner of disproof. It's a case of begging the question.UOTE]
                              It's not "begging the question". My argument is that there is “no good reason to think that our knowledge about the natural world, including subjective experiences, cannot ultimately be explained via scientific methodology”. How is metaphysics a viable alternative - especially given that empirical science always overturns metaphysical concepts when they conflict.

                              But with all due respect, I think this is part of your confusion. One the one hand, you seem to be saying that "ALL of reality" metaphysically just is the natural and physical universe because that is what science can explore. But on the other hand, you seem to be defining all of reality epistemically as that which science has access to.
                              There’s no “confusion”. Science and metaphysics are not mutually exclusive. The latter informs the former in many areas. This includes the notion of ‘metaphysical naturalism’ whereby that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences.

                              It's not a metaphysical distinction. It's a working methodological distinction in the sciences. Does physics have a concept for the quale of "red" or of "now" or the smell of coffee? Those concepts are relegated to subjective experiences by the various sciences that then try to discover the 'reality' behind them.
                              Does metaphysics have “a concept for the quale of "red" or of "now" or the smell of coffee”? Science is already making advances in the study of the neural correlates of consciousness and subjective experiences of all kinds including the perception of color and the function of the frontal lobe in awareness.

                              Forget about 'metaphysics.' It's only confusing you. Conscious experience is constituted of appearances, phenomena, seemings. How the world seems to me or to you make up my or your subjective, conscious experiences. Science doesn't deal with seemings. It deals with what causes the seemings. The seemings get dispensed with.
                              And how exactly does metaphysics deal with “the seemings” in a way that neuroscience cannot – at least potentially?
                              “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by seer View Post



                                Are you channeling Kant now? But again, this all sounds nice but has little to do with reality. I know that suffering is bad for me therefore I should not cause the suffering of others. That is a moral leap. It is a non sequitur. Especially if the suffering of other benefits me or alleviates my suffering.

                                It’s NOT a “moral leap” or a "non sequitur". It’s the product of evolution in that as it lends itself to our survival as a social species. We developed the capacity for empathy because recognizing the pain and hurt in others stops us, for the most part, from harming them. Unless our empathy is broken in some way, it helps us avoid killing each other and allows us to value life”. This is the basis of our moral rules.
                                “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

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