Originally posted by Anomaly
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Cogito ergo sum
Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!
Forum Rules: Here
Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!
Forum Rules: Here
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When does proving one's truth claims come to an end?
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Originally posted by Tassman View PostA certain type of reality or a conceptual notion is meaningless without being empirically tested. It is merely an unsubstantiated belief system e.g. Aristotles notion of celestial spheres. This too was a certain type of reality, but Aristotles conceptual notion of the universe was completely wrong. It took empirical science to understand the reality of a heliocentric solar system.
No, your 'dual-aspect' theories and 'emergence theory' etc are no more than fanciful guesses on a par with Aristotles celestial spheres.
The argument for irreducible complexity is wrong. Just because certain things in nature appear very complicated there is no good reason to assume that the explanatory gap will never be bridged.
Chalmers' "Hard Problem" states : How and why is the performance of any given function(s) associated with consciousness? No matter how complete the set of physical correlates in the brain and nervous system that neuro-science can identify, the question can still be asked, "Why do those states give rise to conscious experiences?" There is no conceivable theoretical framework using physical concepts that could close that explanatory gap. No other empirical gap in all of science exhibits this explanatory gap. How do you account for consciousness's uniqueness? This uniqueness and its challenge to conceivability strongly points to the need for a new theoretical framework, not more empirical data.
Conscious states would be the byproduct of brain states NOT the actual brain state itself
You do not have a substantive alternative other than wishful-thinking dressed up as an academic argument.
It is reasonable to assume that such a condition for consciousness would be an essential quality of a robot with consciousness just as it is for all sentient biological life-forms such as us
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Originally posted by seer View PostJim where does pain exist apart from a personal subjective experience? How is it a property? The color red would exist in nature even if there were no minds to experience it. How does that work with pain? And yes there could be societies that enslave or exploit the minority without breaking down into incoherence, so coherence or lack of can not be the standard. And moral values are helpful for human flourishing, but that would be just as true if relativism was the case.
You didn't address my point that there IS at least one moral value for which the standard clearly is coherence, namely truth-telling. And if I can demonstrate that this value is the foundational value on which all the others depend, then my work is done. And I believe I've already done that above. There have been societies that enslave and exploit minorities, just as there are societies like the Mafia that thrive on murder and threats of murder, but those societies are internally unstable and eventually collapse from internal contradiction. Think of a society of thieves in which they were all cheating each other. How long would it last. Its longevity would be directly proportionate to how 'morally' the members treated each other!
My point was that humans have given needs. There's a given human nature, so there are severe constraints on what could count as 'moral' in the normative sense. It would have to fit with what the basic menu of human needs and aspirations. A dictator cannot just impose is own brutal capricious 'moral code' on his subjects. It wouldn't last very long.
We're bogged down here. Why don't we move on to the other stuff?
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Originally posted by Anomaly View PostYou're failing to make Chalmers' distinction of the 'hard problem' of consciousness, which is what Jim is talking about. Any physical property that can be measured is a 'third person' perspective. Experiencing redness subjectively is a first person experience. Third person measurements are great for certain things like learning how to block pain so surgeons can operate. But third person physical measurements run into a brick wall explanatorily when it gets down to the "what it's like to experience x".
I equate being and existence with information. All empiric information is valid, but that's not all the information there is.
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Originally posted by Jim B. View PostYou seem to have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. Aristotle's celestial spheres weren't a 'conceptual notion' of reality. For that, you would have to consult his "Metaphysics.' His celestial spheres was an empirical notion which happened to be wrong. Bigfoot is an empirical notion which is (likely) wrong, but the argument for irreducibility is conceptual, like the notion of what the concept of 'physical' entails. That cannot be empirical, because you already have to have some such concept, at least implicitly, in order to be able to conduct an empirical investigation.
You're getting things confused. First of all, those theories are conceptual, not empirical, as I just mentioned. Secondly, they are theories about what the place of consciousness in the natural order might be.No other empirical gap in all of science exhibits this explanatory gap. How do you account for consciousness's uniqueness? This uniqueness and its challenge to conceivability strongly points to the need for a new theoretical framework, not more empirical data.
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Originally posted by Jim B. View PostGod is 'bound' by logic and the parameters of His own nature, but I would prefer to use the word 'defined,' because 'bound' implies force and coercion. God 'cannot' cease to be, become vicious or create a rock so heavy He cannot lift it. But these are not real limitations on His powers or His freedom. They are only logical limits, ie propositional limits. So I would say likewise that with morality it's a logical priority. It's only a conceptual distinction, not an actual one and no actual impediment to His freedom. God's nature has been actually indistinguishable from the morally good for eternity.
So in that sense it makes sense to say that God's nature is "defined" by logic, in the sense that any description of God's nature that is even in the realm of possibility can only be constructed of statements that are meaningful (i.e devoid of internal contradictions) and when joined together do not contradict each other.
Morality however, doesn't seem to be prior to God's nature in the same way logic (which as I see it is in it's basest form simply the distinction between "meaningful" and "nonsensical" states of/statements about existence, or sets of statements about existence) is. It's impossible to me to speak coherently or meaningfully about God's nature in any way that is not logical, or in a way that is contrary to logic, but it does seem to me to be possible to speak about God's nature in a way that is completely devoid of moral language. It is perfectly possible to take any moral statement about God's nature and actions and rewrite them in such a way that they are stripped of any reference or inference to moral value judgements/propositions, and you're still left with a perfectly coherent description of God's nature and dealings with the universe. In short, it doesn't seem to me like moral values/statements/propositions define/bind/constrain (or whatever word you prefer) God's nature in even remotely the same sort of way that logic does.
Originally posted by Jim B. View PostI don't believe that God has any moral obligation at all, since He is morally perfect. "Ought" does not apply to Him, IMO. It only applies to finite, imperfect beings such as ourselves. God is in perfect alignment with what is good. As for why God mirrors this standard, God is perfection, which would entail moral perfection. Why is God perfection? The "Why's" have to end at some point. The only question is how satisfying is the end-point of the "why-asking process"? I could ask you why is God the good? That is also ultimately inexplicable. All either of us can offer is that God is necessary, and that we can derive goodness somehow from the fact of being or existence. But ultimately, I would submit you have no easier job in terms of the explicability of God's goodness than I do. You might, in fact, have a harder one.
As to why God is perfect, I would posit that it is because God is the greatest conceivable Being, or greatest possible Being, and a perfect Being is greater than a being who is not perfect. And as to why what we call God's moral nature consists of the exact attributes that it does (i.e those attributes that make God act in a way that we call moral), I would simply say that it is because a Being who has those attributes is greater than a being who does not have them, or a being that only has them to a certain degree. I.e, God's moral nature is a consequence of Him being the greatest possible Being, and none of his moral attributes need to be explained by reference to a moral standard independent of God. In fact, if such a moral standard does exist (and to me such as standard seems unnecessary to explain any facet of reality), God's nature is perfectly explainable without any inference to such a standard.
Originally posted by Jim B. View PostYes, I agree with everything you say about it being part of God's nature, but what I'm wondering is "Does it make sense to wonder WHY is it part of God's nature?" This goes to the discussion I'm having with seer now about the nature of pain.
Originally posted by Jim B. View PostI'm not committed to a 'Platonic standard' of the Good. I'm not even sure if 'the good' is a proper noun at all. It may just be a functional noun for whatever is commendable, desirable or praiseworthy. Like saying "the Tall." What's good can only exist with the valuation of a personal entity, I agree. All values have to be realized by valuers. The same is true for numbers, I would argue. Numbers exist only potentially until a person or some personal entity realizes them. Values are synergistic entities, like colors. Values need valuers just as colors need beings with optical systems and the right physical conditions. But that doesn't mean the values or the colors are 'subjective' or just the product of invention. They're really there.
Originally posted by Jim B. View PostThe Good doesn't have to exist apart as a separate Platonic standard. What is good doesn't have to be different in kind from what makes a triangle or the fact that God 'cannot' cease to exist. They might be logical, propositional limits only. God is still omnipotent even if He 'cannot' commit self-contradiction.
If God's goodness has to be logically prior to anything that could possibly make it good, then that goodness is a blank with no features at all. Here's an article I posted earlier that goes into that:
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/koonsj.../Euthyphro.pdfLast edited by JonathanL; 02-28-2020, 09:06 AM.
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Originally posted by Jim B. View PostI frankly don't see why this is so hard for you to see. 'Where' is pain? Pain is in the world, it's a general property shared by all sentient creatures that experience it, like vision, hearing, digestion, intelligence. Is consciousness a property? No, pain wouldn't exist if there were no minds, but why does that matter? A property does not have to be able to exist mind-independently in order to be a property. Why should it? Again, is consciousness a property? Is thought?
You didn't address my point that there IS at least one moral value for which the standard clearly is coherence, namely truth-telling. And if I can demonstrate that this value is the foundational value on which all the others depend, then my work is done. And I believe I've already done that above. There have been societies that enslave and exploit minorities, just as there are societies like the Mafia that thrive on murder and threats of murder, but those societies are internally unstable and eventually collapse from internal contradiction. Think of a society of thieves in which they were all cheating each other. How long would it last. Its longevity would be directly proportionate to how 'morally' the members treated each other!
My point was that humans have given needs. There's a given human nature, so there are severe constraints on what could count as 'moral' in the normative sense. It would have to fit with what the basic menu of human needs and aspirations. A dictator cannot just impose is own brutal capricious 'moral code' on his subjects. It wouldn't last very long.Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by Tassman View PostBut it is the only information that can be tested and shown to be factual. The rest is subjective, i.e. based on personal opinion, religious beliefs, interpretation, emotions and judgment. It is not suitable for fact-gathering. For that you need objective information which is fact-based, measurable and observable. In short scientific methodology.
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Originally posted by Tassman View PostIndeed. Virtually every argument and conclusion Aristotle made about physical science was wrong, because he did not have access to modern scientific methodology and metaphysics was misused repeatedly in lieu thereof. Just as you are misusing it IMHO.
The place of consciousness, like the place for intelligence or any other evolved quality is the same for all evolved phenomena, namely the enhanced survival of the species.
No, it does no such thing. One accounts for consciousness's uniqueness, the same way one accounts for all physical phenomena via empirical research. Yes, it is a hard problem, to echo Chalmers, but hard problems have been resolved before - by science.Last edited by Jim B.; 02-28-2020, 06:37 PM.
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Originally posted by seer View PostJim you were comparing pain to things like redness which is not mind dependent. No minds no property of pain.
First Jim, even in our culture people lie, about all kinds of things, a lot. Second, incoherence does not equal immoral. Many things are incoherent with no moral question attached. And no Jim, many cultures with slavery thrived. And they necessarily did not fall because of slavery - like the Roman empire.
I generally agree Jim, but this would be just as true if moral relativism was true.Last edited by Jim B.; 02-28-2020, 07:21 PM.
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Originally posted by Jim B. View PostSo much wasted time and energy directed at Shuny or Tassman. If it's not hard empirical data, it bounces off of their impermeable scientismic shield like bb's off of a brick wall.
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Originally posted by Jim B. View PostYes, his empirical hypotheses were mainly wrong. I'm not making empirical hypotheses. I'm making a philosophical argument. A philosophical argument cannot be refuted with empirical data. It can only be refuted with another philosophical argument.Your only philosophical argument so far boils down to an argument from authority and prestige, namely that of science. A particularly flimsy argument.You haven't established how that particular argument applies in this case to refute my argument,but I'm beginning to suspect that you don't know how it does because you don't understand my argument, and you don't understand my argument in large part because of your hidden assumption that the only true knowledge results from empirical research,
That would be at most the causal role it plays, not what it is ontologically. The works of Bach and Shakespeare, according to that analysis, would be a tool for the enhanced survival of the species. This is your 'evo psych' bias showing again, which is an extremely reductive and impoverished conception of culture and reality.No, like I said, there's been no 'hard problem' before. The conceptual part of the explanatory gap is the key. Every physical phenomenon resolves into physical micro-constituents that explain the macro-properties within a given theoretical structure. Structure and function at the micro scale yield only structure and function at the macro scale and vice versa. There is no conceivable way within the physical theoretical framework that could explain the dependence relation of macro-phenomenal properties on micro-properties analogous to the physical model of reduction.
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Originally posted by Tassman View PostYes exactly. And given that a philosophical argument has no means to establish a true premise it has no means of establishing a true conclusion as Aristotles successors discovered.
Philosophy can make factual assertions all the time. The one you made above and the one I made in response to it. The argument for irreducibility. The fact that not all paintings can be forgeries. That the empiricist thesis is self-refuting. That logical behaviorism was false. That type-identity was false. That we can never prove the veracity of our senses with absolute certainty. That the experience of pain is first-person access.
A scientific argument boils down to established verifiable facts via multiple testing an option not available to the purely academic argumentation of philosophy.
The only possible refutation for your argument is another philosophical argument as Ive said and philosophical arguments cannot be factually conclusive.
No, my not-so-hidden assumption is that the only FACTUAL knowledge results from empirical research, not from academic metaphysical notions.
It is only an impoverished conception of culture and reality for those who yearn for reality to be more than it is in actuality - and this from someone who derives great pleasure from the performing arts.
So, you like to assume, but the advances of neuroscience in this are (as previously referenced) indicate that this is not the case. Just as we no longer attribute disease to evil demons nor the movement of the sun to Helios driving his chariot across the sky each day and all the other fictions such as an eternal soul, we have devised in our attempts to understand the world we inhabit.
Nothing to do with an eternal soul. Same old triumphalist scientistic self-congralulations.
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Originally posted by Jim B. View PostDo you claim that what you've just said is true? Is it directly verifiable scientifically? It's a philosophical conclusion drawn in part from observations, but the conclusion itself is not directly empirically verifiable.So your empiricist thesis is self-refuting.
Philosophy can make factual assertions all the time. The one you made above and the one I made in response to it. The argument for irreducibility.
That we can never prove the veracity of our senses with absolute certainty. That the experience of pain is first-person access."Facts" again are not these simple monolithic things. They stand in webs on meaningful relations to lots of other things that we already know.
Facts are relational. Logic and semantics and philosophical interpretation must be applied to them before they mean anything.
Sorry. Not nearly so simple as that. And I know that you use the word "academic" as a smear.Last I checked, science was every bit as "academic" as philosophy.
So you ARE claiming that the works of Shakespeare and Bach are actually as I characterized them? One doesn't have to believe in a substantial "reality" to believe that those works don't reduce to maximal adaptive advantage.You don't have a clue what I'm talking about, so why don't we drop this part of it? Or try to educate yourself a little bit about the very basics of it.
Nothing to do with an eternal soul.
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Originally posted by Tassman View PostThis is not the argument. Ive already acknowledged the value of metaphysics in science. And acknowledged that scientific methodology is directly dependent upon Metaphysical Naturalism and its correlate of Methodological Naturalism.
No, my not-so-hidden assumption is that the only FACTUAL knowledge results from empirical research.
We are both making philosophical points constantly, points that we each assume to be trueand factual, otherwise we wouldn't be making them. They cannot be 'proven' to be true with absolute certainty, just as you say that no scientific claim can be. But there are degrees of justifiability with philosophical conclusions just as there are with scientific conclusions. The most certain claims are not available to science but are directly present to the subject, such as "I am conscious," "I exist" "I experience pain." Science depends on a whole raft of assumptions about reality already having to be true whereas the claims I mention do not. They are directly present and irrefutable.
I'm not making the Logical Positivist argument.
Are you a disciple of Behe? You are assuming for no good reason that consciousness cannot be reduced to the workings of the brain when neuroscience says otherwise. Conscious minds are not separate from the physical world.
The problem we are having is that, ironically, as far as this question, you really don't seem to be 'scientific' in the broad sense of the term, ie in the sense of really being open to wanting to know new things, to try to look at things form a new perspective. You've never exhibited the slightest curiosity about my position. You seem to exhibit such easy confidence in your understanding of the terms you're using, such as 'reduced' and 'separate from,' 'dependent on,' etc. Your attitude has struck me as "This is anti-science, thus it equals witchcraft and astrology! I must squash and defend! It's not worthy of my efforts to even try to understand it!"
Science cannot prove anything with absolute certainty but, unlike philosophy, it can establish consistent facts via empirical testing which are de facto proven for all practical purposes.
Indeed. As in scientific theories.
Philosophical interpretations are useful in science only insomuch as they can ensure self-consistency and prevent errors of false inference. But, on its own, philosophical argumentation cannot generate new factual truths about the real world. Only science can do that.
Not a smear, merely a recognition of the limitations of purely academic argumentation
Why not try to argue the actual merits of the case rather than focus on extraneous issues? Could it be because you can't?
Unlike science, philosophy does not have the wherewithal to test its academic conclusions. They remain academic conclusions until another academic philosophical argument comes along.
There are no new Bach oratorios floating around in the ether subsequent to Bachs death or prior to his birth. All we have in existence are a direct consequence of Bachs physical brain and social conditioning whilst he was alive and composing. Neither his conscious mind nor his art was separate from the physical world.
Your arguments seem to function on the assumption that there exists something other than the material, physical world, to which this other cannot be reduced. What is this other surely you are not going all Thomistic on us with: and this we call god.
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