Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Maybe we are designed by advanced aliens.
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exchemist
Veteran Member
Yes. More background to his remarks here: Claim: "Nobel laureate Brian Josephson supports Intelligent Design" • Skeptical Science
It seems Josephson has a record of slightly eccentric views, on a variety of topics outside his area of expertise. This is far from uncommon in elderly scientists, cf. Linus Pauling and Vitamin C, Schrödinger's views on consciousness, etc.
I hit 5000 posts my first day here.
joe1776
Well-Known Member
Josephson's reputation is trashed by self-proclaimed "skeptics" because of his views on paranormal science. He was in his 30s when he and other scientists who think like him were ostracized by mainstream science for their views.
I agree with his position that telepathy and precognition are possible. In fact I know he's right because I had one experience with each -- for me extraordinary evidence -- unreliable anecdotal evidence for anyone else.
Mainstream scientists are biased against the paranormal because its existence contradicts commonly-held beliefs and their philosophy of materialism. IMO, they raise the bar for proof to an unreasonable level.
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Heyo
Veteran Member
The YEC are special breed and they deserve their own FAQ.
The argument from design has little to do with YEC. It's an argument for the existence of god. (A.k.a. "Look at the trees", a.k.a. Paley's Watchmaker, a.k.a. "the universe couldn't have created itself".)
exchemist
Veteran Member
I'm not talking about YECs particularly, but creationists in general, including YECs, OECs and ID artists.
Yes, if and only if we grant certain assumptions.
It might be tempting to call the necessity of assumptions a problem, but given it is unavoidable, I feel like that's being too cynical. What it presents is an opportunity to understand that under different sets of assumptions, different conclusions follow and are well-reasoned or make sense where those assumptions are granted. To me the problem is that assumptions are often unstated or so culturally foundational we may not be able to articulate them or identify them well. When we encounter a culture with different assumptions, we will often simply conclude they are wrong because their perspectives are so foreign to our own.
Heyo
Veteran Member
Yep. No logical system without axioms. But axioms are often called "intuitively true" and unnecessary to prove for a reason. In our every day life we all accept that reality is real (and those who don't are or are going to be inhabitants of closed facilities). In debates we may challenge our basic assumption as an exercise but people here are doing it mostly to be contrary.
Like for the Moon Hoaxers?
I agree with that.
I agree with that.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Okay, now I am not going to be nice and I will call you out. You don't have any version of Objective Authority over me as for your "we" and I don't believe in your religion. So stop claiming authority to speak for a "we", that is not there and stop considering your individual belief system as true for all humans.
So how is "reality is real" a religious claim? Well, it is simple. It is a supernatural claim, because it is a claim about the universe or everyday world, which is not observable as a part of the universe, yet considered true or a fact of the universe. I.e. it is: Of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe.
How? Well, I can't see reality nor can I see real. "Reality is real" is not different than "God is real". All 3 words have no observable properties and thus objective referent. None of them are a result of external sensory experience and both reality and God are used to judge other humans by some humans.
How? Well, you claim that you speak for all normal humans in that I must believe in "reality is real" like you do or I am in a closed facility.
So let us make a reductio ad absurdum on that. I am sitting in my rubber cell totally catatonic and I have been so for over 20 years. In that time I imagine I am on the Internet part of the time and as a skeptic, I have been told, that I am not really in contact with reality, because those in reality, keep telling me that I can't doubt that "reality is real". But I can. I doubt that just as I doubt other religious claim and they, including you, keep telling me, that I am not in contact with reality.
So here is the joke: How can you as group of believers in "reality is real" and you as a part of reality in reality, keep telling me, when I am not in reality, when you do that from reality? How do you as in reality communicate with me, when I am not in reality?
Yeah, you as an individual are in effect a dogmatic fundamentalist, because we are not allowed to doubt "reality is real" and figure out that it is a supernatural claim, which is not true of the everyday world.
In effect you apparently as an individual only accept doubt that confirms your subjective, individual and in effect religious world view. At least for now.
So back to the OP. Yes, we should doubt any religious reasoning and that includes your "reality is real". I was taught too well and have learned too well to doubt any claim, that I treat your sub-culture of in effect rational skepticism as just another belief system and your in effect subjective insistence to this effect: "... But axioms are often called "intuitively true" and unnecessary to prove for a reason. ..." That is all well and good. The problem is that there are no objective, universal reasons, because all reasons are in effect temporal, local and subjective.
I.e. that you with your brain make sense in a certain way as with reasons, doesn't mean, I can't do it differently.
So yes, again. We ought to doubt all religious reasoning and that includes yours.
So here is the reason that I go off on you. I am a "card carrying member" of the sub-group humans, you use as a moral/evaluative negative. I am just so lucky, that my medication works, that I have a wife, that takes care of me and that a part of my brain can compensate for the part that is crazy. But if that was not the case, I would probably in effect be one of those you called out.
Now as crazy I have had to learn that I can't be like you and that in effect means that I believe differently than you. Yet I am still apart of the everyday world, though I don't believe "reality is real" like you do.
So now you can report me, if you have to. But in effect you belittle a group of humans and made them in effect a "non-we". But you know what? I don't need your "we". I am doing good enough as me and I don't need your subjective reasons for how you make sense of the everyday world. I can do that on my own.
So as a religious person I have to do, what I always have to do for most debates. Call out other religious humans for claiming an authority, they don't have. And that includes you.
Mikkel
Koldo
Outstanding Member
Okay, now I am not going to be nice and I will call you out. You don't have any version of Objective Authority over me as for your "we" and I don't believe in your religion. So stop claiming authority to speak for a "we", that is not there and stop considering your individual belief system as true for all humans.
So how is "reality is real" a religious claim? Well, it is simple. It is a supernatural claim, because it is a claim about the universe or everyday world, which is not observable as a part of the universe, yet considered true or a fact of the universe. I.e. it is: Of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe.
How? Well, I can't see reality nor can I see real. "Reality is real" is not different than "God is real". All 3 words have no observable properties and thus objective referent. None of them are a result of external sensory experience and both reality and God are used to judge other humans by some humans.
How? Well, you claim that you speak for all normal humans in that I must believe in "reality is real" like you do or I am in a closed facility.
So let us make a reductio ad absurdum on that. I am sitting in my rubber cell totally catatonic and I have been so for over 20 years. In that time I imagine I am on the Internet part of the time and as a skeptic, I have been told, that I am not really in contact with reality, because those in reality, keep telling me that I can't doubt that "reality is real". But I can. I doubt that just as I doubt other religious claim and they, including you, keep telling me, that I am not in contact with reality.
So here is the joke: How can you as group of believers in "reality is real" and you as a part of reality in reality, keep telling me, when I am not in reality, when you do that from reality? How do you as in reality communicate with me, when I am not in reality?
Yeah, you as an individual are in effect a dogmatic fundamentalist, because we are not allowed to doubt "reality is real" and figure out that it is a supernatural claim, which is not true of the everyday world.
In effect you apparently as an individual only accept doubt that confirms your subjective, individual and in effect religious world view. At least for now.
So back to the OP. Yes, we should doubt any religious reasoning and that includes your "reality is real". I was taught too well and have learned too well to doubt any claim, that I treat your sub-culture of in effect rational skepticism as just another belief system and your in effect subjective insistence to this effect: "... But axioms are often called "intuitively true" and unnecessary to prove for a reason. ..." That is all well and good. The problem is that there are no objective, universal reasons, because all reasons are in effect temporal, local and subjective.
I.e. that you with your brain make sense in a certain way as with reasons, doesn't mean, I can't do it differently.
So yes, again. We ought to doubt all religious reasoning and that includes yours.
So here is the reason that I go off on you. I am a "card carrying member" of the sub-group humans, you use as a moral/evaluative negative. I am just so lucky, that my medication works, that I have a wife, that takes care of me and that a part of my brain can compensate for the part that is crazy. But if that was not the case, I would probably in effect be one of those you called out.
Now as crazy I have had to learn that I can't be like you and that in effect means that I believe differently than you. Yet I am still apart of the everyday world, though I don't believe "reality is real" like you do.
So now you can report me, if you have to. But in effect you belittle a group of humans and made them in effect a "non-we". But you know what? I don't need your "we". I am doing good enough as me and I don't need your subjective reasons for how you make sense of the everyday world. I can do that on my own.
So as a religious person I have to do, what I always have to do for most debates. Call out other religious humans for claiming an authority, they don't have. And that includes you.
Mikkel
What do you understand by 'reality is real'? And what would it mean for reality not to be real?
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
It is too simple. The universe/the world/everything/reality is not a single universal factor. And that includes the factor of being real.
Real is in effect an embedded context word, which switches depending on usage.
Now imagine a pond, a small body of water. This pond is not real, but it is real, that you can imagine it. In the pond are 2 ducks, one real duck and an unreal duck, since it is a decoy duck. But it is a real decoy duck.
In other words, real just like God have no objective referent. It is in the mind of the person using it and you don't have to use "real" nor "God" to have an everyday life.
In everyday life I use in some contexts "real" as a marker for what I believe in and that is all.
So "reality is real" and "reality is not real" are both too simple, because in effect reality as beliefs consists of both. That which I consider real or unreal. But both are cognitive assessments in me.
Heyo
Veteran Member
Why should I?
Nothing offensive in your post. Just a possibly different opinion.
Possibly because there is a potential misunderstanding.
With "in everyday life" I mean that most people behave as if reality was real, objective, persistent, knowable.
What did you have for breakfast? Did you question the reality of your bread? Did you check your chair for existence and stability before having a seat?
When we (= most sane people) are not in a debate about existentialism, we live an a shared reality. We can ask questions about objects and assume that if we perceived the object, the other did also.
Reality doesn't require our consciousness, it is the default operation mode. Reality only becomes questionable when we try to think about it.[/QUOTE]
Koldo
Outstanding Member
Honestly, I don't see much of a difference between your position and the average Joe's position so far. What difference do you see?
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Then it is unknowable, because you can only know through your consciousness.
Reality is an unknowable known, yet knowable know, because it can be known without consciousness, yet being known requires consciousness. That is a contradiction in effect.
You believe in a self-referring self-refuting contradiction, that is in effect no different than some version of God.
I can unpack how you in effect "misuse" all of the words, as if they ("real, objective, persistent, knowable") were independent of the mind. None of them are in effect usable without minds. There is in effect no reality without minds. To speak of a reality without minds, is utter nonsense, because it requires minds to speak of it. It is a performance contradiction in effect, because you speak of something that you can't speak of, as if you can speak of it.
If you want the philosophy behind it, it is Kant and that is meaningless and in effect irrational to speak of objective reality as knowable, because if objective reality is independent of the mind, it is unknowable.
Reality is always, what it is to you. That is so, because it is an idea in your mind, which you believe and trust in. It is, as absurd as it goes, itself an idealistic or notional idea: Reality as "the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them" is, if you unpack where those words, for where they end, then they are in your mind and nowhere else. Reality is an idealistic or notional idea just like God.
So here is more than in effect 2000 years of Western knowledge as of what reality is in practice. What works for you!
So for this:
"When we (= most sane people) are not in a debate about existentialism, we live an a shared reality. We can ask questions about objects and assume that if we perceived the object, the other did also."
Well, we are in a debate about existentialism and I do it differently. I don't believe in your subjective reasoning, because I don't have to share your subjective reasoning to have my own. And so in reverse.
So here is the absurd part of your world view. For the correct closed institutions, which can manage insane people, some of them are in effect happy enough. Not all, but some of them are thus also more happy than some sane people on the outside.
So stop playing sane. You are in effect judging other humans based on your subjective individual standard and treating that as "universal".
I am in effect insane in a limited sense for parts of my brain, yet for others I am more sane that some "normal" people. How? Well, some of us insane are so lucky, that we know we are insane for parts of our brains, yet we can manage that "better" than some normal sane people manage their sane brains.
BTW Sane has no objective referent. It is a subjective standard and not hard/natural science.
In effect you went existentialism for the subjective meaning, management and usefulness of life, the universe and all the rest assuming that you are without beliefs. You are not. You are a religious believer. You just believe in natural world.
What is Religion?
religion | Definition, Types, & List of Religions
So if we are to play your game of avoiding mistakes in doing religion, then you are doing the mistake, that you are without religion. You are not.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Read my post below yours.
I don't believe in reality as in effect independent of the mind. To me that is utterly meaningless as to some people God is meaningless.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
Let me try to further understand: Is your wife's existence dependent on your mind?
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
No, you are operating with a duality of 2 factors, which cancel each other out.
Reality is neither objective nor subjective. Reality is in effect both, because you can't logically reduce reality down to one factor only.
Someone for any X: Reality is X.
Me: Non-X.
As long as you do reality as a duality of 2 factors, when only one is true, you will end up with me simply taking the false one and run with it.
The world is a set of apparently interconnected factors/processes, but nobody have been to reduce that down to one factor or a set of only positive factors, because the unreal is in effect real, otherwise we couldn't speak of it and act on it.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
This is more and more looking like just a matter of terminology. You just seem to use the word 'reality' in a different way, but it doesn't seem like you hold distinct views about the ontology of objects. Your main contention seems to deal with epistemological matters, as in acatalepsy.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yes!
I don't do any version of a positive privileged metaphysics or ontology, because to me that is in effect a contradiction.
I do a weird version of methodological solipsism, anti-realistic phenomenology, coherence as truth, pragmatism and so on.
I don't believe in any version of strong objectivity for the world. In effect I am a limited cognitive, cultural, moral and subjective relativist. Though as former professional soldier I can be a deadpan realist, when it comes to *UBAR in the everyday world.