Any materialists have the support to debate 1:1?

[1137]

Only "evidence" in the sense that I have evidence that God exists--from my own personal experience. If I have faith in my own personal experience, then I can determine facts about the real world--but I cannot know the real world directly, only through the filter of personal experience. And personal experience is notoriously untrustworthy, so that sort of thing doesn't usually count as "evidence" in the court of rational inquiry.

If your point here is that we "know" all things secondary to our own consciousness then I'm in total agreement.

 

[Axe Elf]

If your point here is that we "know" all things secondary to our own consciousness then I'm in total agreement.

I suppose you could say it that way. The only thing we can know directly is our own existence--our own consciousness (cogito, ergo sum); everything else requires faith in...

1) ...at a minimum, the existence of a real world outside of our own heads, and that at least some of our perceptions and sensations are reflective of that reality.
2) ...the testimony of others regarding their own experiences, for that knowledge we have not perceived ourselves.
3) ...the axioms of formal systems of reasoning, in the case of mathematical or logical knowledge.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You haven't added substantively to what I addressed in my previous post--to the extent that your faith (that at least some of your perceptions and sensations are reflective of a "real world" that exists outside of your own head) "works" for you, then that faith is justified; to the extent that your faith in those perceptions does not "work" (i.e., you fall victim to an optical illusion), then that faith is not justified--but the facts you have determined from your faith are still based in that faith.

To the extent that we ARE actually brains in a vat being stimulated by electrodes, then, as you say, life goes on pretty much as it does now--but you are no longer asserting anything about the real world (what we would normally consider to be a "fact"); you are merely asserting things about your internal states--opinions, as it were, as opposed to facts.

You're discussing things that aren't meaningful to me. What is meaningful is accumulating useful knowledge over a lifetime which ideas comprise a mental map that can be used to navigate life and shape experience, fostering pleasant ones and avoiding unpleasant ones as much as possible.

If the ideas do that, they are justified beliefs. Unjustified belief, which is what I mean by faith, doesn't do that for me. They never did

It is my personal policy that these ideas should not be accepted, and if one is found that crept in before the ability to think critically matured, it should be discarded if identified.

This is my pragmatic approach to life, which has no need for ideas like truth, the real world, or objective reality - just what works in the manner described in the previous post about belief B, action A, and desired result D. No unjustified beliefs (faith)are involved in repeating acts that consistently work.

I think people make this matter unnecessarily complicated. Find a worldview that works, and there is no more that needs be done in that area. We don't need to confuse ourselves with metaphysical musings or questions that cannot be answered or for which answers would add nothing.

I read about people searching in these threads, but I wonder why. What are they looking for? Why haven't they found their answers yet? Haven't they been testing their ideas to see which work annd which to modify or discard? How long does that take?

I went through a decade of searching in my thirties, but found a set of ideas that have served me well.

Likewise, many years ago, I needed a different house, I searched for one, found one that met my needs, bought it and moved in and now no longer look at available houses.

 

[1137]

I suppose you could say it that way. The only thing we can know directly is our own existence--our own consciousness (cogito, ergo sum); everything else requires faith in...

1) ...at a minimum, the existence of a real world outside of our own heads, and that at least some of our perceptions and sensations are reflective of that reality.
2) ...the testimony of others regarding their own experiences, for that knowledge we have not perceived ourselves.
3) ...the axioms of formal systems of reasoning, in the case of mathematical or logical knowledge.

I agree then, my bad.

 

[Axe Elf]

You're discussing things that aren't meaningful to me. What is meaningful is accumulating useful knowledge over a lifetime which ideas comprise a mental map that can be used to navigate life and shape experience, fostering pleasant ones and avoiding unpleasant ones as much as possible.

If the ideas do that, they are justified beliefs. Unjustified belief, which is what I mean by faith, doesn't do that for me. They never did

It is my personal policy that these ideas should not be accepted, and if one is found that crept in before the ability to think critically matured, it should be discarded if identified.

This is my pragmatic approach to life, which has no need for ideas like truth, the real world, or objective reality - just what works in the manner described in the previous post about belief B, action A, and desired result D. No unjustified beliefs (faith)are involved in repeating acts that consistently work.

I think people make this matter unnecessarily complicated. Find a worldview that works, and there is no more that needs be done in that area. We don't need to confuse ourselves with metaphysical musings or questions that cannot be answered or for which answers would add nothing.

I read about people searching in these threads, but I wonder why. What are they looking for? Why haven't they found their answers yet? Haven't they been testing their ideas to see which work annd which to modify or discard? How long does that take?

I went through a decade of searching in my thirties, but found a set of ideas that have served me well.

Likewise, many years ago, I needed a different house, I searched for one, found one that met my needs, bought it and moved in and now no longer look at available houses.

Ok, so you don't care that everything you call a "justified belief" is based in what you call "unjustified beliefs." It's not meaningful to you, so you don't concern yourself with it.

Fair enough; I would guess that is how about 97% of the general populace conducts themselves. It's only the weirdos like me and David Hume and a few others that bother to shine a light on the epistemological underpinnings of knowledge.

 

[Axe Elf]

I agree then, my bad.

No bad at all, on anyone's part; in fact, I commend us both for communicating so effectively as to eventually understand what each other was saying.

Well done.

 

[Phantasman]

That's nice but do you have anything to back any of this up? Is there more to your beliefs than simply your desire to believe it?

It comes from much reading, studying, experiences and seeking. In my 68 years anyway.

Of course even an old dog can learn new tricks. My mind is always open to improvement.

 

[Phantasman]

Originate through the functioning of the physical brain until evidence can be presented to the contrary.

In your opinion. Not mine.

If the mind lives on, so do emotions. When the brain rots to dust, is there a place the mind still operates, thinks, loves? The Christian teaching is that we are within the spirit (Aeon) and it is in us and all around us. Only the mind is in it. The physical is far below it. Not as up and down, bit realm in realm.

The brain keeps the body alive. The mind is fed by conscious thought and spiritual thought. Each of two realms. We know when the brain dies, the physical body dies. But does the mind still exist in the spirit?

You put a lot of faith in that mushy thing between the ears. I put more in the spark of life that the spiritual Christians were taught by the Spirit.

 

[JustWondering]

It comes from much reading, studying, experiences and seeking. In my 68 years anyway.

Of course even an old dog can learn new tricks. My mind is always open to improvement.

I'm sure such beliefs give you comfort but I can't believe in something unless I have good reason to. So you don't have anything more to provide than that you believe that spirits exist? How did you first develop this belief?

 

[JustWondering]

In your opinion. Not mine.

If the mind lives on, so do emotions. When the brain rots to dust, is there a place the mind still operates, thinks, loves? The Christian teaching is that we are within the spirit (Aeon) and it is in us and all around us. Only the mind is in it. The physical is far below it. Not as up and down, bit realm in realm.

The brain keeps the body alive. The mind is fed by conscious thought and spiritual thought. Each of two realms. We know when the brain dies, the physical body dies. But does the mind still exist in the spirit?

You put a lot of faith in that mushy thing between the ears. I put more in the spark of life that the spiritual Christians were taught by the Spirit.

How do you KNOW (not believe) that spirits exist? I can't turn off my analytical, rational mind to believe in invisible entities and spirits. I need something more substantial to take such things seriously. There are tons of religions that have and do make claims of the supernatural variety that have the same amount of credible evidence backing them up as yours. So how do you KNOW Christianity is really legit? I do know that the physical world exists. Physical objects can be observed, touched, measured, and so on. I have yet to see any credible evidence to support spirits.

 

[sayak83]

Ok, so you don't care that everything you call a "justified belief" is based in what you call "unjustified beliefs." It's not meaningful to you, so you don't concern yourself with it.

Fair enough; I would guess that is how about 97% of the general populace conducts themselves. It's only the weirdos like me and David Hume and a few others that bother to shine a light on the epistemological underpinnings of knowledge.

Actually this philosophy is the pragmatic philosophy of James, Pierce and Dewey. Their idea of truth and reality is connected with utility.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/pragmati/
I agree with this way of thinking as well.

 

[Axe Elf]

Actually this philosophy is the pragmatic philosophy of James, Pierce and Dewey. Their idea of truth and reality is connected with utility.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/pragmati/
I agree with this way of thinking as well.

And there we part ways.

If truth and reality are connected with utility, then truth and reality are whatever you say they are. For me, Truth and Reality (the capitalized essences) are objective and unchanging--though they are ultimately unknowable with complete certainty by human beings. So it is only our interpretations of truth and reality, as filtered through our perceptual and processing systems, that are individual and unique--not truth and reality themselves.

However, if truth and reality ARE really subject to one's own beliefs about them, then it seems inescapable that all facts must indeed be based in faith.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Ok, so you don't care that everything you call a "justified belief" is based in what you call "unjustified beliefs." It's not meaningful to you, so you don't concern yourself with it.

You're being dismissive and assuming an air of superiority that you haven't earned. Please don't speak for me when you haven't yet understood me. You're also not a prophet to me (you have claimed to be one a few times if I recall correctly).

Get over that. Here, you're just another anonymous Internet persona. Your credentials are the quality of your posting, not claims about yourself.

Let's put that behind us now. You'll do better in the future, I'm sure. Back to the matter at hand :

An unjustified belief can become a justified belief, as in a hypothetical shown to be correct. A scientific experiment is set up around a hypothesis belief in which would be unjustified before the experiment, but is perhaps confirmed by it.

You seem to consider axioms and intuitions dreams and stardust, and want to call conclusions derived from them ethereal or unfounded. But when those derived ideas work, they serve to justify belief in the assumptions underlying them.

People say repeatedly that we take the tenets of science on faith, but that is incorrect. Science's resounding success tells us that those tenets are valid and that confidence in them is justified.

 

[qaz]

This thread has kinda gotten away from me since I confused you here, but to set the record straight...

2+2 isn't a fact; neither is 10x10.

2+2=4 and 10x10=100 are facts that are based on faith in the axioms of mathematics.

"Germany and Japan were defeated in WWII" is a fact that is based on faith in the testimony of others (unless you were there to personally witness the surrender of Germany and Japan at the end of WWII, in which case it becomes a fact that is based on faith in the existence of a "real world" outside of your own head, and that at least some of your perceptions and sensations are reflective of that reality).

you can't choose to believe in axioms, as opposite to faiths. therefore we call these postulates "objective" , "universal", "primitive notions". if you substitute the words "reality" or "matter" with "objectivity" , nothing changes, in a materialist description of experience.

 

[sayak83]

And there we part ways.

If truth and reality are connected with utility, then truth and reality are whatever you say they are. For me, Truth and Reality (the capitalized essences) are objective and unchanging--though they are ultimately unknowable with complete certainty by human beings. So it is only our interpretations of truth and reality, as filtered through our perceptual and processing systems, that are individual and unique--not truth and reality themselves.

However, if truth and reality ARE really subject to one's own beliefs about them, then it seems inescapable that all facts must indeed be based in faith.

Yes we do. As far as I am concerned truth and reality are terms used for a net of organizing conceptions for experiences in various domains of life that provide the maximum generic utility to the people holding them. They are engineering constructions in the conceptual realm that aid us to most effectively navigate through our personal and communal experiences to get to our various goals. They are like ships that help us sail through the seas of our diverse experiences to the things we wish to have or experience and to avoid the things we don't want and to avoid suffering.

As we are social beings, it is extremely useful to have a system of common conceptual net (just like a common language or standardized threads and interchangeable parts) with which we navigate through our experiences such that cooperative action is possible. Greater the harmony, greater the cooperative potential... and hence the need for us to work towards the same conceptual framework and evolve it over time in synchrony. This is why the questions "what is true or real" assume importance in the public sphere of public interactions.

 

[Axe Elf]

You're being dismissive and assuming an air of superiority that you haven't earned. Please don't speak for me when you haven't yet understood me.

It's called "reflecting," where you repeat back to a person what you think you have heard, sometimes paraphrasing to be sure that the concepts, and not just the words, are accurate. It gives the other person a chance to clarify what they were trying to say, in case they weren't heard properly.

I reflected back to you what I was hearing you saying, in my own words.

You said, "You're discussing things that aren't meaningful to me. What is meaningful is accumulating useful knowledge over a lifetime which ideas comprise a mental map that can be used to navigate life and shape experience, fostering pleasant ones and avoiding unpleasant ones as much as possible. If the ideas do that, they are justified beliefs."

The knowledge you described there is commonly called "fact"--you called it "justified belief." You continued...

"Unjustified belief, which is what I mean by faith, doesn't do that for me." You referred to "faith" as "unjustified belief."

So I translated my initial position--all facts are based in faith--into your definitions of these concepts, and restated it as "all justified beliefs are based in unjustified beliefs," and further, I reiterated your claim that this discussion wasn't meaningful to you.

So again, I'm not trying to speak for you, I'm asking if I'm understanding you properly. If that wasn't what you were saying, feel free to clarify.

You're also not a prophet to me (you have claimed to be one a few times if I recall correctly).

Prophecy is but one of the gifts of the Spirit; it just happens to be mine. If you don't want to take advantage of it, that's fine too.

Your credentials are the quality of your posting, not claims about yourself.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

An unjustified belief can become a justified belief, as in a hypothetical shown to be correct.

And a justified belief can become an unjustified belief, merely by changing faith statements.

You seem to consider axioms and intuitions dreams and stardust, and want to call conclusions derived from them ethereal or unfounded.

Quite the opposite. I consider faith statements (axioms) to be the underlying substrate upon which all facts are based. All that we have in the way of fact--any fact you can name, every theorem that can be derived, every conclusion that can be deducted--is based on faith.

People say repeatedly that we take the tenets of science on faith, but that is incorrect. Science's resounding success tells us that those tenets are valid and that confidence in them is justified.

I agree with the second sentence, and if you replace the word "confidence" with the word "faith," then you can see why the first sentence is mistaken.

 

[Axe Elf]

you can't choose to believe in axioms, as opposite to faiths. therefore we call these postulates "objective" , "universal", "primitive notions". if you substitute the words "reality" or "matter" with "objectivity" , nothing changes, in a materialist description of experience.

Well of course you can choose to believe in axioms, despite all the subsequent nonsense.

"God exists" can be an axiom. So can "God does not exist." You get to choose. Or choose not to choose, and choose the axiom, "We can't know if God exists" instead.

 

[Axe Elf]

Yes we do. As far as I am concerned truth and reality are terms used for a net of organizing conceptions for experiences in various domains of life that provide the maximum generic utility to the people holding them. They are engineering constructions in the conceptual realm that aid us to most effectively navigate through our personal and communal experiences to get to our various goals. They are like ships that help us sail through the seas of our diverse experiences to the things we wish to have or experience and to avoid the things we don't want and to avoid suffering.

As we are social beings, it is extremely useful to have a system of common conceptual net (just like a common language or standardized threads and interchangeable parts) with which we navigate through our experiences such that cooperative action is possible. Greater the harmony, greater the cooperative potential... and hence the need for us to work towards the same conceptual framework and evolve it over time in synchrony. This is why the questions "what is true or real" assume importance in the public sphere of public interactions.

You say tomato, I say tomato. Hmm, that doesn't work so well online, does it?

Oh well, whether faith defines reality or reality guides faith, at least we seem to agree that all facts are based in faith.

 

[qaz]

Well of course you can choose to believe in axioms, despite all the subsequent nonsense.

"God exists" can be an axiom. So can "God does not exist." You get to choose. Or choose not to choose, and choose the axiom, "We can't know if God exists" instead.

that's a tautology. according to your argumentation this:
"hi, my name is qaz"
has the same meaning of this, "despite all the subsequent nonsense":
ahdjakfoeidjskckelakf @&wjdkek !!!!

indeed, you can't choose or not choose to believe in axioms AND claim meaning for what you say at the same time.


out of curiosity, do you "believe" in maths?

 

[sayak83]

You say tomato, I say tomato. Hmm, that doesn't work so well online, does it?

Oh well, whether faith defines reality or reality guides faith, at least we seem to agree that all facts are based in faith.

I don't know. In my worldview, all facts are based on how much utility they provide compared to alternate set of facts.