Hitchens was wildly overrated as a thinker/debater

[ecco]

When young children hear a new word or phrase that they find interesting, they like to repeat it over and over and over.

This is even more true when the word might have, what they believe to be, naughty properties. Words like boobies and weenies. Even words and phrases that sound like naughty words and phrases. Maybe words like phallus and phallusies.

 

[Rise]

When young children hear a new word or phrase that they find interesting, they like to repeat it over and over and over.

This is even more true when the word might have, what they believe to be, naughty properties. Words like boobies and weenies. Even words and phrases that sound like naughty words and phrases. Maybe words like phallus and phallusies.

Logical fallacies, argument by assertion and ad hominem.

You cannot show any error with my pointing out your fallacies, therefore you cannot accuse doing so of being meaningless repetition of a phrase. Which then makes your accusation nothing more than an ad hominem fallacy.

Given that you are one of the few here guilty of arguing almost entirely with fallacies, it is not surprising that you would think it is meaningless to mention a fallacy. You did not show any development or learning throughout your attempts to debate me. It doesn't appear you understand what valid logic is or why it matters, which would explain why you don't understand the significance of using fallacious logic to argue for your claim. Which in turn would explain why you act as though to mention a logical fallacy is meaningless.

The real question that must be asked here is why are you repeatedly committing fallacies instead of making valid arguments?

Because if you can't show any fault with my calling out your fallacies then that means you have, in fact, committed them.

And the logical burden is therefore on you to correct your arguments to stop being fallacious.

The fact that you are unable and unwilling to correct your fallacious logic, but persist in using fallacious arguments even after knowing they are fallacious, says more about you than it does about the people you are trying to debate.

 

[sayak83]

You have completely failed to grasp the issue.

There are two fatal problems with what you are saying:

1. If you admit that the present state is casually linked in a chain of states/events preceding it then you are required to advance from any prior state up to the present in order for the present state to exist.
If these prior states go back to infinity then it is impossible for you to ever traverse through them all in order to arrive the present state.
You will spend an infinity stuck in prior states never arrive at the current state.

2. Your claim that there doesn't have to be a beginning is completely incoherent. Any casually linked chain of states/events cannot, by definition, have an infinite regress of causes because the casual system requires something to first set the chain of sequences in motion.


This is why you completely failed to understand that the only form of universe that could be eternal is one that never changed.

But you aren't advocating for a universe that never changes.

Which makes you subject to the impossibility of having an infinite regress of past states and/or causes.



You are committing the logical fallacy of argument by repetition.
You already tried saying that earlier and I refuted it. You never offered a counter argument but are merely repeating your original refuted argument as though it hasn't already been refuted.

I will repeat for you what I already said to refute your claim:

Time doesn't need to be a substance we physically move through in order for my arguments to stand. Your definition of time is a strawman that has no relevance to anything I argued.

My arguments are exactly the same even if you are just talking about a series of sequential state changes.

That's why I have long since change the verbage I use when communicating these ideas to you: to demonstrate it's exactly the same concept when you talk about sequential state changes or casual chains.



Your own link’s definition of entropy is consistent with the definition I gave.
I said:” Entropy is when energy based order/structure breaks down until everything reaches equilibrium.”

You did not understand the significance of what I said to understand why it is consistent with the link you posted.

Entropy:
· noun For a closed thermodynamic system, a quantitative measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work.
· noun A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.
· noun A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message.
· noun The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.
· noun Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.
entropy - definition and meaning

It is true to say the primary definition of entropy is energy loss.
But the consequence of energy loss is in reality is to see a dissolution of ordered systems and information which results in a state of disorder. Which is why the term is synonymous with such things happening.

Which is why I specified in my definition that entropy is when the order and structure caused by energy in a system starts to break down when energy leaves the system to reach equilibrium with everything else.


Your definition was flawed because it doesn’t even fit your link. You left out of your original definition the most critical feature of entropy. The feature which undermines your claims:

“Qualitatively, entropy is simply a measure how much the energy of atoms and molecules become more spread out”

Entropy is a thermodynamic quantity that is generally used to describe the course of a process,

By not talking about entropy as a fundamental issue of energy in a system, but merely talking about it as a statistical probability, you are avoiding the most serious problem with cyclical models: Where's the energy to power the cycling forever? If you can't power it forever then it can't be past eternal. You're destined to have successively smaller bounces until it eventually ceases.



You are committing the fallacy of “avoiding the issue”. You don’t get away from the infinite regress problem with the model you are advocating. It’s still a casually linked change based system that cannot be past eternal without it being impossible to arrive at the present state.

We don’t even need to get into the major problems with wildly speculative bounce models and why they aren’t viable (lack of mechanisms to explain the collapse behavior, inability to explain where the necessary physics fine tuning would come from to make the system cycle, an eventual breakdown of the system into equilibrium, etc) because they don’t solve your problem of avoiding the past eternity problem even if they were true.

Even if we were to grant you the wild speculative fantasy of a bounce model that had some unknown magic forces to cycle the system forever without regards to entropy, and just granted you the a priori fine tuning necessary to run the system, without any prior explanation for where this system came from, you still run headfirst into the wall of logical impossibility when you try to claim this system could be past eternal.

If this system can't get around the infinite regress problem then it doesn't matter if you could explain away all those physics problems with the model. It would be a logical impossibility.

Therefore, the system wold have to have a beginning point.

And any cosmological system that has a beginning point falls under the kalaam cosmological argument.

Firstly I do not believe in causation at all. It is a old classical idea that has no role in modern physics. That is where you missed Carrol's opening argument. There is no such thing called cause and effect in physics today. There are certain functional relationships that exist between different states that exist independently of each other. It is completely wrong to day "A exists because B had existed in the past". More correct is " B exists and the properties of B are related in certain mathematical ways to another local space-time state A". The existence of each state is not dependent on the existence on any "prior" state. Classical causality is wrong, hence your argument is also wrong. Instead of causation you should think of the dependence as CORRELATION.
Could we explain the world without cause and effect? | Aeon Essays

Next, what I defined is the ONLY correct definition of entropy and the ONLY one used in science. The other definitions are simply ways to communicate a little bit of the flavour of entropy to nonscientific audience. You should not use such incorrect definitions in your arguments. The only mathematical model for entropy used anywhere in science is the statistical model. S = k Log(W) where W is the probality.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Firstly I do not believe in causation at all. It is a old classical idea that has no role in modern physics. That is where you missed Carrol's opening argument. There is no such thing called cause and effect in physics today. There are certain functional relationships that exist between different states that exist independently of each other. It is completely wrong to day "A exists because B had existed in the past". More correct is " B exists and the properties of B are related in certain mathematical ways to another local space-time state A". The existence of each state is not dependent on the existence on any "prior" state. Classical causality is wrong, hence your argument is also wrong. Instead of causation you should think of the dependence as CORRELATION.

Next, what I defined is the ONLY correct definition of entropy and the ONLY one used in science. The other definitions are simply ways to communicate a little bit of the flavour of entropy to nonscientific audience. You should not use such incorrect definitions in your arguments. The only mathematical model for entropy used anywhere in science is the statistical model. S = k Log(W) where W is the probality.

I don't think that he watched the video at all. He does not appear to want a serious discussion. He only seems to want to use the phrases that he has demonstrated that he does not understand. And if he did watch it it is rather clear that he did not understand it. It has been a while since I watched it, but if I remember correctly a huge part of it was Carroll trying to school Craig on the physics that he clearly did not understand. Unfortunately Craig's smugness is impenetrable. He makes the same sorts of errors when it comes to evolution. He "refutes it" by relying on strawman arguments. The only real talent that Craig has is a nice line of patter and a sureness that allows the ignorant to believe that he has a real argument.

 

[Moonjuice]

These posts look very strange with all the quotes removed

 

[ecco]

When young children hear a new word or phrase that they find interesting, they like to repeat it over and over and over.

This is even more true when the word might have, what they believe to be, naughty properties. Words like boobies and weenies. Even words and phrases that sound like naughty words and phrases. Maybe words like phallus and phallusies.

Logical fallacies, argument by assertion and ad hominem.

You cannot show any error with my pointing out your fallacies, therefore you cannot accuse doing so of being meaningless repetition of a phrase. Which then makes your accusation nothing more than an ad hominem fallacy.

Given that you are one of the few here guilty of arguing almost entirely with fallacies, it is not surprising that you would think it is meaningless to mention a fallacy. You did not show any development or learning throughout your attempts to debate me. It doesn't appear you understand what valid logic is or why it matters, which would explain why you don't understand the significance of using fallacious logic to argue for your claim. Which in turn would explain why you act as though to mention a logical fallacy is meaningless.

The real question that must be asked here is why are you repeatedly committing fallacies instead of making valid arguments?

Because if you can't show any fault with my calling out your fallacies then that means you have, in fact, committed them.

And the logical burden is therefore on you to correct your arguments to stop being fallacious.

The fact that you are unable and unwilling to correct your fallacious logic, but persist in using fallacious arguments even after knowing they are fallacious, says more about you than it does about the people you are trying to debate.

Did you think I was referring to you? Hmm.

 

[Moonjuice]

Ahhh, nevermind. I just realized what happens when you ignore someone. All their comments removed from a thread, which makes posts look strange when they are referring to comments you will not see.

 

[Rise]

Firstly I do not believe in causation at all. It is a old classical idea that has no role in modern physics. That is where you missed Carrol's opening argument. There is no such thing called cause and effect in physics today

There are two fatal flaws with your claim:

1. Your belief in no causation is logically incoherent and untenable as a position.

If you push a ball it moves. There was a cause to the effect.

A child can run an experiment to verify the principle that the concept of causes for effects exists.

There is no way to logically justify the claim that causes don't exist.

Anyone advocating such a position is therefore pushing a logically incoherent viewpoint.


2. It doesn't refute what I argued.
Because what I argued doesn't even require asserting a direct casual relationship between one state and another in order for my conclusion to be true.

Any sequence of states, one following after another, cannot logically be past infinite otherwise you would never be able to arrive at the current state.

So use a noncasual but sequential math analogy: If you go back on the negative number line to a point of infinity negative numbers, and try to count forward from an infinity of negative numbers, you can never reach zero.

Reaching zero by counting forwards requires a finite number of negative numbers to traverse through sequentially to reach zero. An infinity means it is, by definition, impossible to reach zero.

So even if reality were nothing but a random non-casual fluctuation, it's still situation of sequential states that changes from one to another.

If there was an actual sequence of states one following another then there is a denominated list of states following a certain order.

This list of order cannot be traversed from any infinite past state to the current state because it could never be arrived at by definition.

There is no need for either space-time or causation for the problem of infinity to apply to any claim that the universe could be eternal and changing.

There are certain functional relationships that exist between different states that exist independently of each other. It is completely wrong to day "A exists because B had existed in the past". More correct is " B exists and the properties of B are related in certain mathematical ways to another local space-time state A".

You just described a casual relationship, you just changed the name of it to "functional relationship".

It is a a relationship where the state of one thing influences the state of another.

That is fundamentally the same as a casual relationship. The behavior of one thing influences the behavior of another
The absence of that influence would result in a different behavior.

The existence of each state is not dependent on the existence on any "prior" state.

I suspect you have some hidden definition behind what you mean by "prior" which makes you think your statement makes sense. So it's not entirely clear what you are trying to imply.

But it doesn't really matter, because the fact is:
The ball being at point B depends on a push that happened at point A.

The current state of ball does depend something that happened in a previous state to make the current state have the form that it does.

Classical causality is wrong, hence your argument is also wrong. Instead of causation you should think of the dependence as CORRELATION.
Could we explain the world without cause and effect? | Aeon Essays

It doesn't matter how you want to change the verbage because the concepts remain the same.
The state of one thing influences the state of another to be different than it otherwise would be.

Trying to change terms doesn't solve your infinity problem anyway, as I pointed out above.

Next, what I defined is the ONLY correct definition of entropy and the ONLY one used in science. The other definitions are simply ways to communicate a little bit of the flavour of entropy to nonscientific audience. You should not use such incorrect definitions in your arguments. The only mathematical model for entropy used anywhere in science is the statistical model. S = k Log(W) where W is the probality.

Your statement doesn't refute anything I said to you, which was:
1. You failed to mention a critical part of the entropy definition, as found at the start of your own link, which states entropy is the energy lost in a system.

How you measure that, be it statistics or otherwise, is not relevant to the conceptual fact that entropy involves energy leaving something.

Which is why your cyclical models have an entropy problem. How do you cycle the system without inputing new energy so that it truly could run for infinity instead of only running for a really really long time before finally falling apart?


2. Therefore, my definition was accurate. As I started with the statement of entropy as energy loss and then described the practical consequences of that (breakdown of order in systems and energy equilibrium).


3. That the answer to that question isn't even relevant in the sense that it doesn't solve your infinity problem because you have a changing universe that cannot have an infinite number of prior states and reach the current state.

 

[Rise]

I don't think that he watched the video at all.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.
You cannot give a single reason why you would be justified in believing that.

I can tell you ahead of time that any error you tried to show in my post as evidence of your claim would be refuted and only demonstrate your own ignorance on this issue.

He does not appear to want a serious discussion.

This is ironic coming from you because you have not even tried to meet the burden of proof for your claims.

A serious discussion would involve someone who took their claims seriously enough to meet the burden of proof for their claims.

A serious discussion would involve someone who took the issue seriously enough to give valid reasons and evidence for what they claim and not just keep making fallacies of assertion throughout each post.

You have not attempted to meet the burden of proof for the original 4 claims you made that I identified, and you keep committing a slew of fallacious arguments by assertion in every post you make.

You're in no position to accuse anyone of not being serious about having a discussion.


What you are doing is an attempt at merely saving face to hide the fact that you can't justify your 4 claims about the debates.

You are trying to pretend you have reason to bow out without conceding that you are unable justify your claims.

You are engaging in a dishonest rhetorical tactic to avoid admitting you have lost the debate by being unable to defend your claims.

He only seems to want to use the phrases that he has demonstrated that he does not understand. And if he did watch it it is rather clear that he did not understand it.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion

You cannot demonstrate any error in the anything I have said.

Merely asserting it doesn't make it true just because you assert it.

It has been a while since I watched it, but if I remember correctly a huge part of it was Carroll trying to school Craig on the physics that he clearly did not understand.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot quote a single thing Craig argued and give any specific reason that would prove Craig didn't understand it.

Unfortunately Craig's smugness is impenetrable.

If you can't even point to a single thing Craig said and prove why it's supposedly wrong, then your opinion about his attitude is not relevant to anything even if it were true.

He makes the same sorts of errors when it comes to evolution.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot quote a single thing Craig argued about evolution and give specific reasons why it would supposedly be wrong.

He "refutes it" by relying on strawman arguments.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot quote a single specific thing Craig argued and give any specific reasons why it qualifies as a supposed strawman fallacy.

The only real talent that Craig has is a nice line of patter and a sureness that allows the ignorant to believe that he has a real argument.

You haven't given a single specific reason why any specific thing Craig argued would be false or invalid in any post you've made here so far.

Assertions are not arguments.

Arguments require valid logic and evidence

Your assertions without evidence or logic backing them up are nothing more than your opinion.

And your opinion is of no value for determining what is true.

If you think your opinion carries weight then you don't believe in science as a method.

You need to prove your opinion is truth if you want to be able to claim it's true.

You can't just demand people accept your assertions as true just because you believe they are.

Go try and publish a scientific paper full of nothing but assertions without any logical arguments or evidence to back up your claim and see how far you get.

Calling the peer reviewers names isn't going to make them accept your opinion as fact.

 

[Secret Chief]

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.
Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.
Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

What a incredibly annoying way to have a discussion.

You've already annoyed the **** out of me.

 

[Rise]

​

Did you think I was referring to you? Hmm.

Logical fallacy, failure of the burden of rejoinder.

You have conceded the points by being unwilling and unable to offer a counter argument against them.

 

[Rise]

Ahhh, nevermind. I just realized what happens when you ignore someone. All their comments removed from a thread, which makes posts look strange when they are referring to comments you will not see.

You have failed to meet your burden of rejoinder.
As such, you have tacitly conceded your attempted arguments were invalid and my counter arguments were correct.
Therefore, with nothing left to offer, you have conceded the debate.

 

[Rise]

You've already annoyed the **** out of me.

Are you annoyed when people make assertions about what is true without evidence and valid logic to justify why their conclusion should be regarded as true?

If not, then you don't really care about having a debate or finding out what is true. You just want to sling opinions back and forth.

Slinging opinions back and forth is all well and good in a discussion forum - but this is specifically labeled a debate forum.

And, as a debate forum, there are different expectations for a debate.

Nobody has to accept your opinion as truth just because you believe it is. You need valid reasons and evidence to establish the truth of our claims.

If you aren't willing to do that, then you can go cloister yourself in a safe space discussion forum where nobody will challenge your beliefs.

But don't come into a debate forum, do nothing but sling your baseless opinions around, and then pretend you're actually debating. You obviously don't know what the defining features of a debate are.

 

[Secret Chief]

If you aren't willing to do that, then you can go cloister yourself in a safe space discussion forum

I got news for you bub, this is a public forum and I can post where I like. I don't normally respond to your tedious screeds. Save yourself the time and don't bother responding to this with another of your endless "fallacy of" posts. We all know what your posts will say before you've typed them.

 

[Moonjuice]

I got news for you bub, this is a public forum and I can post where I like. I don't normally respond to your tedious screeds. Save yourself the time and don't bother responding to this with another of your endless "fallacy of" posts. We all know what your posts will say before you've typed them.

I am willing to bet its going to be "Logical fallacy, argument by assertion"

 

[Secret Chief]

I am willing to bet its going to be "Logical fallacy, argument by assertion"

Ooh bit of a long shot that.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.
You cannot give a single reason why you would be justified in believing that.

I can tell you ahead of time that any error you tried to show in my post as evidence of your claim would be refuted and only demonstrate your own ignorance on this issue.



This is ironic coming from you because you have not even tried to meet the burden of proof for your claims.

A serious discussion would involve someone who took their claims seriously enough to meet the burden of proof for their claims.

A serious discussion would involve someone who took the issue seriously enough to give valid reasons and evidence for what they claim and not just keep making fallacies of assertion throughout each post.

You have not attempted to meet the burden of proof for the original 4 claims you made that I identified, and you keep committing a slew of fallacious arguments by assertion in every post you make.

You're in no position to accuse anyone of not being serious about having a discussion.


What you are doing is an attempt at merely saving face to hide the fact that you can't justify your 4 claims about the debates.

You are trying to pretend you have reason to bow out without conceding that you are unable justify your claims.

You are engaging in a dishonest rhetorical tactic to avoid admitting you have lost the debate by being unable to defend your claims.




Logical fallacy, argument by assertion

You cannot demonstrate any error in the anything I have said.

Merely asserting it doesn't make it true just because you assert it.




Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot quote a single thing Craig argued and give any specific reason that would prove Craig didn't understand it.



If you can't even point to a single thing Craig said and prove why it's supposedly wrong, then your opinion about his attitude is not relevant to anything even if it were true.



Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot quote a single thing Craig argued about evolution and give specific reasons why it would supposedly be wrong.



Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.

You cannot quote a single specific thing Craig argued and give any specific reasons why it qualifies as a supposed strawman fallacy.



You haven't given a single specific reason why any specific thing Craig argued would be false or invalid in any post you've made here so far.

Assertions are not arguments.

Arguments require valid logic and evidence

Your assertions without evidence or logic backing them up are nothing more than your opinion.

And your opinion is of no value for determining what is true.

If you think your opinion carries weight then you don't believe in science as a method.

You need to prove your opinion is truth if you want to be able to claim it's true.

You can't just demand people accept your assertions as true just because you believe they are.

Go try and publish a scientific paper full of nothing but assertions without any logical arguments or evidence to back up your claim and see how far you get.

Calling the peer reviewers names isn't going to make them accept your opinion as fact.

I see that you still cannot enter into a discussion properly or even how to use logical fallacies. If you want to learn I will gladly help you. But trolling behavior is against the rules here. It is quite ironic that all of your claims supporting Craig here are all "logical fallacies by assertion". Once again I can explain this to you, but right now you are not worth my time.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Logical fallacy, failure of the burden of rejoinder.

You have conceded the points by being unwilling and unable to offer a counter argument against them.

Oh my! Your conclusion is a huge non sequitur. You do not get to assume that a person cannot refute you simply because they will not respond to trolling. Your posts tell us that you have been endlessly been beaten down by people pointing out your logical fallacies in the past. Now you are mistakenly claiming these fallacies of others while making endless logical fallacies of your own. It appears that you did not learn your lesson.

By the way, did you watch the video of the debate between Sean Carroll and WLC? If you can be polite we can discuss it. WLC looked like a fool in that debate.

 

[Regiomontanus]

Watch his debate with William Lane Craig.

You’ll notice that throughout the entire debate he really doesn't even attempt to present a real logical argument of his own that God doesn’t exist. He also never even tries to dispute Craig’s logical arguments for why God does exist.

So what does Hitchens fill all his time doing? Trying to slander God’s character by calling God’s behavior bad or pointing to bad things and blaming God for it. It’s the logical fallacy equivalent of an ad hominem. That makes up basically the entirety of Hitchens time. Which logically has nothing to do with disproving God’s existence even if you assumed the slander were true.

I think the only reason he had gotten away with that for so long and gained admiration for it is because the eloquent manner in which he speaks makes him sound far smarter and more poignant than what the logical substance of his argument actually is.

This exposes the root of what I have noticed with most militant atheists - their objection to God is not based on logic, but anger. Anger at God. They don’t want to believe He is real, not because the evidence is in their favor but because they don’t like Him or don’t like the implications of His reality being true.

Hitchens displays unbridled anger and resentment at God, but puts forth no logical arguments or counter arguments against the reality of His existence.

Hitchens was indeed overrated as a thinker. Much worse still are Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Why would people waste money on their books?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Hitchens was indeed overrated as a thinker. Much worse still are Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Why would people waste money on their books?

Because they are right?

No one is perfect of course. Dawkins has had a slip or two. But he still tends to shine compared to those that oppose him. Does the fact of evolution bother you?