When does proving one's truth claims come to an end?

[Jim B.]

You're begging the question, because we're debating whether or not conscious experience is physical.



Yes. I used the word 'seems' hoping you'd get the point that we shouldn't assume our respective positions going in, but rather try to present 'arguments' and evidence to support our positions.

Scientific progress has been a steady dismantling of presumptions of non-scientific phenomena where those phenomena met the scientific pattern of reduction. Scientific research rests on a certain type of reduction; it's not an all-encompassing epistemic approach to all of reality.

[Jim B.]

Jim all you are saying is that you don't agree with the Maoist's goals. That his reason are not justifiable. But they are justifiable as applied to his goals. So we are back, merely, to moral disagreement.

But his goals are unjustifiable. This is the same debate I had with Carp, under a slightly different guise. Moral disagreement doesn't lead to moral relativism. Just tacking God onto your moral justification-system doesn't help you if God as the Good is an incoherent idea.

That is fine, your theory is normative realism, but why adopt normative realism? That too is a subjective take. It mean nothing, has no weight, for a person who adopts a different position.

And the atheist can ask "Why adopt theism? That's your subjective take every bit as much as mine is." I'm saying that the object of my belief, agent-neutral reasons for action, is objectively real. You're saying the object of your belief, God as the source of morality, is objectively real. The means by which we come to our beliefs are unavoidably subjective. All we have are our finite minds and our five senses. All we have are evidence and arguments.

[Jim B.]

No Jim, I'm saying it fails and must fail in the moral realm. You could never have all the facts at hand as an omniscient God would. You would always be making decisions through degrees of ignorance. Look at it this way, say unbelieving men are consigned to eternal conscious torment - by your lights, presently, that would not be just. Would you then say that God is not good? Or would you agree that you don't have enough information to make that claim? And that is my point, using our reasoning abilities to judge the acts, or law, of God, always fall short because we are not privy to all the relevant facts.

Yes, I agree that we could never judge God because we could never have all the relevant facts. But that limitation applies to specific acts of God. We were talking about God as the source of morality, and whether or not "God is the Good" as a strict identity statement makes sense.

[seer]

But his goals are unjustifiable. This is the same debate I had with Carp, under a slightly different guise. Moral disagreement doesn't lead to moral relativism. Just tacking God onto your moral justification-system doesn't help you if God as the Good is an incoherent idea.

Jim let's focus here - why are the Maoist's goals unjustifiable - exactly?

[Tassman]

You're begging the question, because we're debating whether or not conscious experience is physical.

Yes. I used the word 'seems' hoping you'd get the point that we shouldn't assume our respective positions going in, but rather try to present 'arguments' and evidence to support our positions.

Scientific progress has been a steady dismantling of presumptions of non-scientific phenomena where those phenomena met the scientific pattern of reduction. Scientific research rests on a certain type of reduction; it's not an all-encompassing epistemic approach to all of reality.

Why would you assume that any phenomena do not meet the scientific pattern of reduction?

[seer]

Yes, I agree that we could never judge God because we could never have all the relevant facts. But that limitation applies to specific acts of God. We were talking about God as the source of morality, and whether or not "God is the Good" as a strict identity statement makes sense.

Again Jim, if God isn't the source or ground of good what is? Please explain, clearly.

[Jim B.]

Jim let's focus here - why are the Maoist's goals unjustifiable - exactly?

Please try to focus on what I've been writing for the last ten days. They are unjustifiable for the reasons I've been citing. I'm sorry if it's not a simple entity like you demand it must be, such as God or a person. Sometimes answers are different from what we expect. Even if you believe those answers are wrong, you ought to try to engage with them as they are and not try to fit them into the pre-conceived box you assume the answer must fit into.

[Jim B.]

What ancient non-scientific notion are you referring to? This has nothing to do with religion or supernatural beliefs.

Why would you assume that any phenomena do not meet the scientific pattern of reduction?

Because science deals with the appearance/reality distinction. Scientists take appearances as their primary data but only as the starting point of their investigation: from there they try to get behind the appearances to the true causes of those appearances. That pattern of reduction doesn't work when the thing under investigation is constituted of appearances. Conscious experiences just are seemings. Neuro-scientists, psychologists, etc can get behind those seemings at the causal mechanisms giving rise to those seemings but then the essential attributes of those phenomena are lost. They've then reduced them to something else.

[Jim B.]

Again Jim, if God isn't the source or ground of good what is? Please explain, clearly.

There are real reasons for doing things, agent-neutral reasons. That means that not only do I as Jim B have a psychological motivation to stop my own pointless suffering but that I as a person, as any subject whatsoever, have a good reason to stop pointless suffering, all things considered. Reasons for action do not reside metaphysically as the exclusive domain of a supernatural being. If they did, God as the Good would be emptied of meaning. Simple reflection and moral autonomy suggest otherwise.

God could be the "source" of morality in other ways, however, just like He is the source of rationality, without going so far as to say He is the source of the number one. It's not even clear what that could mean, especially if God is simple and unitary in His eternal nature.

[seer]

Please try to focus on what I've been writing for the last ten days. They are unjustifiable for the reasons I've been citing. I'm sorry if it's not a simple entity like you demand it must be, such as God or a person. Sometimes answers are different from what we expect. Even if you believe those answers are wrong, you ought to try to engage with them as they are and not try to fit them into the pre-conceived box you assume the answer must fit into.

Jim, I'm sorry I do not find your answers clear or any more than assertions. Perhaps because we covered too much. This is why I would like to focus here. So again, why exactly are the Maoist's goals unjustifiable?

[seer]

There are real reasons for doing things, agent-neutral reasons. That means that not only do I as Jim B have a psychological motivation to stop my own pointless suffering but that I as a person, as any subject whatsoever, have a good reason to stop pointless suffering, all things considered. Reasons for action do not reside metaphysically as the exclusive domain of a supernatural being. If they did, God as the Good would be emptied of meaning. Simple reflection and moral autonomy suggest otherwise.

God could be the "source" of morality in other ways, however, just like He is the source of rationality, without going so far as to say He is the source of the number one. It's not even clear what that could mean, especially if God is simple and unitary in His eternal nature.

Jim I don't seer agent-neutral reasons here, I see you offering reasons for an opinion you hold. In other words as far as I understand the term this does not seem agent-neutral, but rather very much agent dependent. I said this earlier - it is a leap to go from my personal distaste for suffering to - I should therefore alleviate the suffering of others - especially if their suffering gains me wealth, power or pleasure.

[shunyadragon]

Regarding the bolded above, that was not how you initially put it, what you wrote was:

Which would indicate you believe that humans would experience the world in the exact same way regardless if God actually exists or not, and that you weren't simply speaking about whether you believe God exists or not.

I do not believe that the nature of being human is an argument for or against the existence of God. Yes, humans would experience the world in the 'exact' same way regardless if God actually exists or not.

The problem is there is no 'objective verifiable evidence' that could distinguish between what humans would be like in world with God, and a world without God.

Also, my statement about "experiencing the possibility that God does not exist and the possibility that God exists." was not a statement about considering both possibilities, but a statement about actually existing in a reality where God exists, and one in which God doesn't exist, in order to compare how you would experience the world in both realities.

Then in reality as I said you cannot distinguish the two worlds.

In the way I described above, no, I don't think I do.

Then apparently you do not: "Unless you've experienced both the possibility in which God exists and the possibility in which God doesn't exist, how would you know that the nature of being human is the same in both possibilities?"

Rewording your statement does not change the above you original statement.

[Tassman]

What ancient non-scientific notion are you referring to? This has nothing to do with religion or supernatural beliefs.

other than natural and physical.

Because science deals with the appearance/reality distinction.

Scientists take appearances as their primary data but only as the starting point of their investigation: from there they try to get behind the appearances to the true causes of those appearances. That pattern of reduction doesn't work when the thing under investigation is constituted of appearances. Conscious experiences just are seemings. Neuro-scientists, psychologists, etc can get behind those seemings at the causal mechanisms giving rise to those seemings but then the essential attributes of those phenomena are lost. They've then reduced them to something else.

The are not , merely reconfigured.

[seer]

I do not believe that the nature of being human is an argument for or against the existence of God. Yes, humans would experience the world in the 'exact' same way regardless if God actually exists or not.

The problem is there is no 'objective verifiable evidence' that could distinguish between what humans would be like in world with God, and a world without God.

That is not what your Religion teaches Shuny. That human beings were created in the image of God and have a God given spiritual and intellectual quality that the lower animals do not. So you are wrong, listen to your religion.

[Jim B.]

other than natural and physical.

So because you think an argument bears a resemblance to "pre-scientific thinking" in some way, it should be rejected because of that resemblance, and because "pre-scientific thinking"=BAD and "scientific thinking"=GOOD.

Your argument goes like this:

1) Everything about the mind must be explicable in terms of current physics, neuro-science, etc.
2) Physics, neuro-science and the like tell us only about structure and function.
3) Therefore, everything worth explaining about the mind must be explicable in terms of structure and function.

I hope you can see the circularity of this argument.



Science is a specific rigorous methodology and epistemological approach, with corresponding techniques and underlying assumptions. It tells us about certain aspects of reality but it is frankly naive to uncritically assume that it is this conduit for the unmediated transmission for ALL of reality. That is bordering more on a quasi-religious belief in science. It doesn't just "deal with the natural world," whatever that might mean. You failed to respond to what I wrote about the appearance/reality distinction, which is crucial to science. It starts with the appearance of the color 'red', for instance, and discovers that this quale or experience is actually being caused by the physical phenomena of a certain range of photon emissions. The quale is dispensed with other than as a pointer toward the underlying causal forces.

The are not , merely reconfigured.

If the phenomena in question are the appearances, as in the quale of red I referred to above, then they are lost and not merely reconfigured.