Faith is necessary for Science to function

[mnemonicTonic]

...Yes, which is inconsistent with your previous post:
If you were to perceive with your mind, you would essentially be the dreamer not the dream. The dreamer would be necessary for the dreams to exist.

The dreamer is very necessary for the dream to exist, but not all things are our dreams. (If you wanted to be very poetic, you could call them the universe's dreams, but that gets confusing quickly.)

We conceive reality not percieve it. If we concieve reality, everything we experience is a part of the dream. Both our conceived-reality and conceived-dream states are a part of the dream.

 

[riley2112]

Atheism is a religion. A religion that voids an absolutely necessary entity with limited plausible knowledge.

What would make you think that?

 

[mnemonicTonic]

What would make you think that?

I have already discussed this numerous times. Regress a few posts.

 

[riley2112]

I have already discussed this numerous times. Regress a few posts.

ok, I will go through it again, but it looks to me like you are using a lot of words and saying very little. But hey , that could just be me.

 

[mnemonicTonic]

ok, I will go through it again, but it looks to me like you are using a lot of words and saying very little. But hey , that could just be me.

Here you go, since you are lazy to scan the debate before making a post.

Atheism: A belief that there is no [absolutely-necessary-entity] and everything in reality is universally sufficient. It makes this assumption without attaining absolute-knowledge, and the limited knowledge it possess is plausible if not universally subjective because we can only conceive reality, not perceive it.

 

[riley2112]

Here you go, since you are lazy to scan the debate before making a post.

Atheism: A belief that there is no [absolutely-necessary-entity] and everything in reality is universally sufficient. It makes this assumption without attaining absolute-knowledge, and the limited knowledge it possess is plausible if not universally subjective because we can only conceive reality, not perceive it.

It is not that I am lazy, well, ok, maybe I am, However I think you are putting to much into in, all Atheism is really is just lack of belief in deities.
That's all.
EDIT: Note that "lack of belief" is not the same as "belief in non-existence".

 

[mnemonicTonic]

It is not that I am lazy, well, ok, maybe I am, However I think you are putting to much into in, all Atheism is really is just lack of belief in deities.
That's all.
EDIT: Note that "lack of belief" is not the same as "belief in non-existence".

Then why waste your time and effort? Please don't say deities. Say universally sufficient entities.

 

[McBell]

Then why waste your time and effort? Please don't say deities. Say universally sufficient entities.

I am going to take a guess and say that it is because of people who have to add all manner of baggage to the definition of atheist in order to support their fallacious arguments.

 

[riley2112]

Then why waste your time and effort? Please don't say deities. Say universally sufficient entities.

Why would you think that it would be a waste of my time and why would I not say deities?

 

[riley2112]

I was just don't see atheism as a religion and most of the atheist I know don't really see it that way either. just saying

 

[mnemonicTonic]

I am going to take a guess and say that it is because of people who have to add all manner of baggage to the definition of atheist in order to support their fallacious arguments.

You are mistaken. To prevent a semantic dispute, one need not incite a misnomer. We are talking about a God-entity, not a universally sufficient entity.

Necessary and sufficient condition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[mnemonicTonic]

Why would you think that it would be a waste of my time and why would I not say deities?

If you have a lack of belief why even express it? Answered the latter part of your question in my previous post.

 

[riley2112]

What would make you think that I have a lack of belief, it would seem that you assume many things which you do not know to be fact or even investigate to find out the true information. May I ask what your beliefs are concerning God.

 

[mnemonicTonic]

What would make you think that I have a lack of belief, it would seem that you assume many things which you do not know to be fact or even investigate to find out the true information. May I ask what your beliefs are concerning God.

I was expressing a point, and did not make an assumption on your belief. It would seem that you assume many things which you do not know to be fact or even investigate to find out the true information. :tuna:

The lack of belief position becomes a belief once you are introduced to an idea. After that you cannot stay neutral about it. You always make a judgment about an idea once it has been introduced to you. You can brush it off as absurdity, remain undecided, or accept it. But you cannot return to a lack of belief position.

I believe I am the dream, and the dreamer status is still uncertain to me.

Music for anyone still there.

[youtube]ySXsFk3v-_E[/youtube]

[youtube]SmOGpHwUdzE[/youtube]

 

[Meow Mix]

Wait a moment before we jump the gun... You are obviously having a semantic misunderstanding. An introspective mind is not the same as a perceiving one.

Yeah, which is why introspection is a separate justifier from perception. The only reason we started talking about introspection is because you doubted my claim that knowledge is a special form a belief (e.g., justified and true belief). I brought up the cogito as an example. I was also drinking heavily yesterday, so I might have gotten side-tracked, but it was still fun

An introspective mind as we discussed before... is a mind that perceives itself within a conceived state. A perceiving mind is a true perceiving mind. A perceiving mind would not need to concieve a perceived state because it is already perceiving itself.

Not to get back into introspection, but introspection is direct -- not "within a conceived state." You'd be digging your own argument's grave (and your rationality's grave) if you attempted to undermine the directness of introspection, as I've thoroughly argued.

Why is it important for a mind to have a direct perception to you? Infallible perceptive justification isn't required to rationally accept the existence and general states of the universe.

No. It does not require introspection because their not the same.

Hmm, I'm not sure exactly what aspect of my argument you're rejecting here. I was in fact correct: you cannot make any form of argument at all unless you accept the directness of introspection and that it epistemically justifies certain beliefs.

If you wish to object to that somehow, you'll only self-refute; but if you want to make the attempt give me a little more understanding of what exactly you're objecting to and how you're objecting to it, because this tidbit doesn't give me much understanding of your position.

Faith in it's most simplistic form as mentioned before, is an intent or a motive driven by an absence of absolute knowledge. Whether absolute knowledge can exist or not, is not a concern for the sake of this argument. Faith is not necessary for a perceiving mind because it already possess absolute knowledge.

Ok, I get that -- but as I said before, absolute perceptive justification isn't required for a rational being to accept the findings of science. Some, in fact a majority, of our knowledge is tentative -- what's wrong with that? It's still rational if it's justified.

Maybe the reason people are objecting to this obvious truth is because it seemed from your post that you were conflating this sort of rational tentative belief (which can be loosely called "faith," though it's not helpful to do so) with the sort of "faith" used by some religionists to accept ontological propositions without or in spite of justification.

You seemed to be equivocating rational "faith" with irrational faith. Is that your intention, or are you just pointing out the obvious truth that much of our knowledge is tentative rather than absolute -- in which case, why point out something so obvious and accepted as if it's profound?

Congratulations! Your mind is conceiving a state where it thinks it is perceiving itself. You are still not perceiving yourself.

I'm not sure what meaning you're trying to impart when you mention this concept of "perceiving yourself."

 

[Meow Mix]

If you start with an original ship design, and with time change every piece of it to look like the original. Would it remain to be the same or a different ship?

Ideally, if you change out elements of a set with another iteration of the same element then you still have the same set. That's impractical with physical materials, but it's "close enough." More below.

Would changing one piece make it remain the same or different? Now apply this to ourselves. Every second of our existence, cells are formed from pre-existing cells by cell division. We constantly live in a state of regeneration. Eventually, even our memory rehashes such as that of a copy process between one storage medium to another. Would we then be considered different people every passing moment?

Theseus' Ship is an interesting excercise in the notions of identity, but for one, the neurons we die with are essentially the ones we're born with -- if we're speaking of the self that is our mind. Even if they weren't, it seems reasonable that if a transition is gradual it doesn't matter, since the mind is an emergent property -- emergent properties don't particularly "care" if the proverbial elements of the set that compose it are switched out with the same.

As a simplified example, consider a chess program -- a simple emergent thing with many analogues to a mind. Start switching out silicon chips in the computer and it doesn't really change what the program is, since part of what it means to be emergent is that it's based on the structure rather than the components -- so changing the components doesn't change what the emergent part is.

By the time you finish your cogito ergo sum, you would have already transmuted multiple times from one entity to another. You cannot conceive yourself so you are but a subjective matter.

I disagree -- introspection is immediate and direct. There's no time between starting and finishing the cogito. Perhaps it takes time to elucidate what the cogito is (such as, say, Descartes writing a book!); but for the being, it's instantaneous.

We conceive reality not percieve it. If we concieve reality, everything we experience is a part of the dream. Both our conceived-reality and conceived-dream states are a part of the dream.

But this ignores that we have powerful justifications for the reality of non-dream states; and equally strong justification to believe the dream-states aren't real in the same sense as the waking world. It's rational to accept the waking world as real and the dreaming world as illusory. We don't require absolute sensory justification of the waking world to make that determination.

Atheism: A belief that there is no [absolutely-necessary-entity] and everything in reality is universally sufficient. It makes this assumption without attaining absolute-knowledge, and the limited knowledge it possess is plausible if not universally subjective because we can only conceive reality, not perceive it.

Then why waste your time and effort? Please don't say deities. Say universally sufficient entities.

What makes you think atheists lack belief in ontological necessity? Your definition of atheism is flat out incorrect -- as are your assumptions of atheists' ontologies. Just because ontologically necessary things exist doesn't mean that they're "God" in any meaningful sense of that term.

 

[Meow Mix]

If you have a lack of belief why even express it? Answered the latter part of your question in my previous post.

Suppose you were in a society where some 80% of the individuals believed in bumpfizzits. Politicians tried to pass laws based on beliefs about bumpfizzits, your community judges you based on your adherence (or failure to) to bumpfizzit taboos, and sometimes people even kill each other over bumpfizzits.

Do you think it would be useful to have a handy pre-determined word to denote skepticism of bumpfizzits?

 

[Meow Mix]

You can brush it off as absurdity, remain undecided, or accept it. But you cannot return to a lack of belief position.

Bold added for emphasis. "Remaining undecided" is essentially what is meant by lacking belief.

To believe is to assent to a proposition -- remaining undecided isn't a belief because it's not assenting to or outright denying the truth of either the positive proposition x or the negative proposition ¬x.

 

[mnemonicTonic]

Not to get back into introspection, but introspection is direct -- not "within a conceived state." You'd be digging your own argument's grave (and your rationality's grave) if you attempted to undermine the directness of introspection, as I've thoroughly argued.

Introspection is not direct, but redundant for a perceiving mind. A perceiving mind would not need to introspect to perceive. It already perceives!

Why is it important for a mind to have a direct perception to you? Infallible perceptive justification isn't required to rationally accept the existence and general states of the universe.

absolute perceptive justification isn't required for a rational being to accept the findings of science. Some, in fact a majority, of our knowledge is tentative -- what's wrong with that? It's still rational if it's justified.

Because that is real, and this is not. :unicorn:
Whatever we conceive in this state is a subjective matter, Even if we have strong justification for it to be real. In my dreams, I can astral travel amongst the stars and do all sorts of impossibilities with strong justification of it being real. In my dreams, I am unable to discern if I am dreaming or not.

Maybe the reason people are objecting to this obvious truth is because it seemed from your post that you were conflating this sort of rational tentative belief (which can be loosely called "faith," though it's not helpful to do so) with the sort of "faith" used by some religionists to accept ontological propositions without or in spite of justification.

You seemed to be equivocating rational "faith" with irrational faith. Is that your intention, or are you just pointing out the obvious truth that much of our knowledge is tentative rather than absolute -- in which case, why point out something so obvious and accepted as if it's profound?

My point was to address that the knowledge we pertain to is "subjective" because we conceive it.

I'm not sure what meaning you're trying to impart when you mention this concept of "perceiving yourself."

Being aware of reality.

 

[mnemonicTonic]

I will answer the other posts when I wake up.:snoopy: