MonkeyFire
Well-Known Member
If your saying God doesnt hate gay people then I agree.
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God as defined using science.
- Thread starter mikkel_the_dane
- Start date
If your saying God doesnt hate gay people then I agree.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
The bold one is, where we disagree. I don't know that my experiences are about the world in itself in that my experiences about something for which it is so, that something is the same in itself, as it is to me as through my experiences.
That is the combination of the evil demon and the problem of the thing in itself.
To me it is an unprovable assumption that correspondence truth means that the monitor in front of you is there as the monitor in itself as the monitor itself.
That is what made me religious. I completely trust that assumption and act with complete trust and confidence towards objective reality as if it is fair(Descartes' God).
I am of philosophy, so I try to tell it as it appears to work. And that is how your truth works. It is an unprovable assumption that the world is fair and that we have knowledge about the world as such.
So that is where we disagree. Apparently you can with truth know, what the world is. I can't. I have tried to replicate your belief system and it doesn't work for me, because I am not a naive realist. In the end you appear so to me.
Once if we agree that it has not to do with truth, because it is not true. It is a set of beliefs, which appear to work, we can tackle what we can say about the world based on the assumptions that the worlds is fair and thus knowable. But we haven't agreed on if the world is natural or what that means.
Regards
Mikkel
Just so.
But by your definition, God would not have the option of disliking someone, yes?
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well, if God is all love, then yes, no dislike. But that doesn't tell you how God would treat different behaviors.
MonkeyFire
Well-Known Member
He chooses not to dislike things, and if he does dislike a thing forgiveness is on the table, but yes this is true.
A being who intends to deceive our sense perceptions utterly and is totally successful? That, like the proposition that we and our reality are in fact dreams in the brain of a superbeing, or that we're all elements in a superTron game, or that we all sprang into existence, memories and universe complete, last Thursday, is unfalsifiable, and therefore the propositions are not meaningful in scientific terms.
Nor does it worry me that I might be perfectly deluded by a superbeing, by my status as an entity in someone's dream, or game, or experiment, or that I didn't exist last Wednesday. Until there's evidence, until the propositions are expressed falsifiably, they needn't concern me, and they don't.
The alternative is worrying helplessly and impotently about something that is entirely unsupported by evidence anyway. That would be just another form of free-floating anxiety finding an outlet, wouldn't it? Nothing requires me to do that, and I don't.
Yes. That's why it's an assumption. But once assumed, no impediment emerges. Instead you and I converse exactly as though all three assumptions are correct.
If in future we find a problem with any of the assumptions, we can deal with it then. Meanwhile there's no problem.
I know the world ISN'T fair. When now and then I'm in a position to put some fairness into it, I try to do. I support the level playing field, equal opportunity, equal education, economic justice and so on; but they don't occur automatically. Indeed, often enough they don't occur at all.
Not quite. As I think I've mentioned, in my view all scientific conclusions about reality are tentative because they're based on empiricism and induction ─ meaning they're wholly unprotected from a counterexample we may find tomorrow, or never find, or which indeed may not exist.
The final test for all science is, does it work? And the best available answer is, Yup, as far as we can presently see, it works. Thus we put men on the moon and rovers on Mars, devise vaccines for Covid, map the brain and its functions, make new computer games, devise new materials, and so on. Science builds on its past achievements, keeps checking those past achievements for errors and marches on. Since the alternative is not to, what they're doing seems like a very good idea.
I don't think we naive realists are in practice as naive as the name suggests. As I keep saying, the assumptions are on the table where you can see them. If a problem arises, it may be they'll have to be changed. Until then, they don't.
There are various definitions of 'truth' and as you know the only one I find meaningful is the correspondence method, by which truth must answer to a standard as objective as we can make it.
What's the alternative definition?
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Thanks for the clarification.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
I already did, multiple times, and you handwaved it away for no apparant reason.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
What I find meaningful. Namely that we stop claiming truth and talk about what is this about, namely what makes sense and what is meaningful and that is always about humans.
In effect we are doing the 2nd version: The rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of the fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience.
And that always ends in meaningful, makes sense, good and what not.
The joke is that "I find meaningful" is not true according to your rule, but that is what guides you. Not truth, but what is meaningful.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Tell me what useful looks like, how you see it? You know external sensory observation as a part of science. Further list its measurements according to the scientific measurement standards and what instruments are used to measure it. Then explain what theories within science cover it.
See, you can't. Useful is not objective as per evidence. It is subjective, i.e. it has no objective referent. You do know what a referent is, right?
You are like some religious people, who don't understand that their claims to objective evidence and proof are subjective.
For you it is not God. It is, that you don't understand, that just because you say, something has evidence, doesn't mean, that it has evidence. That is not unique to religious people. Non religious people can also do that and you are one of them.
God has no objective referent and useful has no objective referent.
So in your view, 'truth' means 'I like it'. You have no objective standard of truth. You reserve the right to dismiss any accurate statement about reality because you don't find it 'meaningful'. Sheesh!
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
I like how you argue using emotions as per "Sheesh!". You functionally make my point. I don't have to make a counter argument, because you made it for me. You don't like, how I use like, but that means that you use like as your standard.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
A general religious question, and ultimate existential question falls under meaning of life questions.
Meaning of life - Wikipedia
An alternative to reasoned enquiry is to explore the unknown to open one's mind to what wasn't previously considered so as to ask the best questions.
Intelligence seeks reasons and purposes. It looks for sense worthy properties in nature, and life. By nature intelligence discovers, identifies, orders, and processes information for many uses. The human body, and human mind exhibits intelligence. If intelligence does all these things then nature itself in order to create intellect must be of intellect itself because nature puts things in right places for purposeful uses.
I don't think nature is sentient. I do think nature is of sentience. The raw materials and energies of existence appear to be fine tuned for life to come about.
I do think there are non living intelligent systems in nature. Of course much of nature is brute fact and mindless but parts of it are not.
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mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
I get what you are saying, but since I use to be an atheist, I can answer as one.
The universe is not intelligent as such and intelligence is a result of non-intelligent biological processes.
I say "sheesh" to any definition of truth that doesn't at least attempt an objective standard, even though such a standard is available.
And you can hold that two contradictory statements are both true. I grant you it's a very flexible system you have.
The result is that you can test any statement I say is true, and I can't test any statement you say is true.
Something I'll bear in mind.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well, polymath257 made a thread about paraconsistent logic. E.g. some have use paraconsistent logic on theoretical physics.
So for the world you could get the result that the world is objective, intersubjective and subjective and accept that. I do, because I don't accept that the world is logical. That is the same with purpose, meaning and fairness. It is not in the world, right? Well, I hold the same position for logic. Logic is in the brains of humans.
That would mean "the meaning of life" was a feeling, not a reasoned case, no?
And as I said somewhere above, if you don't look at the question from the outside, where it might be possible to frame an answer on a more objective basis, then from the inside, the meaning of life is anything one likes to imagine it is.
I have a personal philosophy of life.It's emotionally satisfying for me most of the time. I like it when people agree with me.
Some of the parameters are built in: we're born with a need to belong, to associate, to find a mate; we have natural emotional reactions to birth, and success, and failure, and death.
But my point is that there's no single prescription of that kind.
I hope you're referring to humans and dogs ...
Questions about the world are however susceptible to reasoned enquiry, and with luck reasoned answers that work.
No doubt about it.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yes, maybe. But for what I know and I am prepared to change my POW, nobody that solved that one. I.e. with reason and logic to explain the world as such. That has been known for over 2000 years now and nobody have been able to do it. It is called Agrippa's trilemma and the last serious attempt was Descartes and he failed. Well, come to think of it - logical positivism also tried and that also failed. So that is 2000 years of trying and nobody have succeeded.
As related to biology, I doubt that there is a purpose in evolution and we are the end result in that we can understand the world with reason and logic. That doesn't seem to be how reason and logic work. They are a result of an evolutionary niche, that allows human to live using reason and logic. But to live in a biological sense is not the same as understanding all of the world with reason and logic.
There is a reason I am a skeptic. I have done this for over 20+ years now and I have always checked against what was already known. And no, there is a limit to reason and logic. But you are not alone. There is a lot of people, who believe like you.
Regards and love
Mikkel
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Well we can't work from reason if we don't have the best possible experiences. Reason alone without the best possible experiences and understandings to reason upon won't get anybody far. I'm pretty sure reasoning alone is an act of imagination, imagining things to reason upon. Reason needs justification.
I'm referring to humans, dogs, plants, animals, dirt, chemistry, perhaps space and time, matter, and energy are all intelligent systems. Not all intelligence is living in my view. There must be non living intelligent systems in nature. Non living intelligent systems can be operated on by minds and created by minds, and left alone they operate their programs for their purposes.
The non living intelligent systems in nature would have their own intrinsic alien code and alien language, alien intelligence, and not so obvious causes and effects.
There's no single prescription but intelligence itself is by nature about finding purposes, meanings of worth, identifying and defining phenomena, establishing importances, gaining understandings, and determining usefulness of things learned, and experiencing value. So whatever the philosophy is there is no escaping that that's what intelligence does.
The meaning of life is to find worth and value in living it. Not all worth and value is enjoyable. But ultimately the meaning of life is to enjoy it, and reduce and eliminate needless suffering.