who believes in god

[Fossil Records]

AHHHHHHHH!!!

I so desperately want to ignore this but the falacies you present are unnerving.

You can see sight? Wrong. You can't because it's an abstract concept, and since believing in something relies on being able to see it, you therefore can't believe in it even if you say it's a fundamental principle.

Sight is not an abstract concept. Light, reflecting off of objects goes through the lens, is focused onto the retina, and is converted into a sense which is broken into hue, brightness, and contrast. Interpretation of the image is an abstract concept - it's square, it looks like it's made of cardboard, it must be a box. The only reason it's abstract is because we assign a name to a phenomena. Just like "a = 1" is an abstract.

I'm not asking you to explain what you do with your senses, I'm asking why they're fundamental truths. A statement like "they just are" is groundless and since being scientific is your nature, surely illogic like that doesn't appeal to you. If something is true, it must have a reason.

Oh, god... It is my belief that my senses experience sense. When molecules that match aromatic receptors enter my sinuses - I believe that I smell them.

Yes you trust them. Without reason other than that's what you've always known since you were born.

Yes. I trust them. The first time I got burned, I learned to avoid hot things.

I know that I think I see reality, and I know logic makes sense to me but I can't prove that I do see reality, or that the logic I think in applies to the universe, but I assume them both despite lack of proof. You say you trust your senses, but cannot produce proof that they are truths. That's faith.

It is your belief that you can't prove anything. Fine. I have no want to criticize your beliefs.

It is my belief that my senses are truth. I trust my senses because they have ALWAYS performed the functions experienced and described by almost everyone else. EVERY time I pick up ammonia and smell it - it essentially smells the same; EVERY time I taste strawberries - they essentially taste the same; EVERY time I get burned - it essentially feels the same; EVERY post I reply to is just as painful as the last.

 

[Korona]

With all due respect, you need a dictionary and to take some science and philosophy courses. Why would ANY respected philosopher work on providing a logical argument to some rational event? They guy would only be able to come up with an ILLOGICAL argument to the event - and that's not philosophy. It's (excuse the term) heresy. Science deals with Rational events; Philosophy, Irrational.

Philosophy literally means "love of wisdom"; any systematic investigation into knowledge can be catagerised as philosophy. Science always has been a part of philosophy, namely the systematic (and highly sucessful) attempt to explain the world of nature (the world of conscious human experiance). Scientific method is essentially practical empricism, and would find happy suppourters in philosophers such as Locke, whose work is specifically aimed at validating the work of Newton in his Principia. The stereotypical philosopher is a crazy old wizard bent over objects asking "is this really a leaf I see before me or is it something else?" (to be honest who knows, crazy old wizards have terrible eyesight). While it is indeed true that such questions are asked, the reason is not becasue of a serious concern about the nature of a leaf but rather because it gives us an oppertunity to understand what it is that goes on when such questions are asked. The perhaps supprising thing is not that seemingly 'meaningless' questions are asked, but that answers are given which give us insight into the nature of language, perception and indeed logic.

There is no great cleavage between philosphy and science. Science is a line of philosophical inquirely using a certain set of tools. Philosophy is a broad enough feild to cover every type of systamatic inquirely. Limiting yourself to only irrational events would be a somewhat foolish thing to do if you are interested in all forms of wisdom... wouldn't it?

Ahhhhh... therein lies the problem. I do refute #4. If I have sight, I believe in what I can see. Logic is not measureable - it is a technique used to explain (Logically True: "There is water falling from that cloud so it is raining."; Logically False: "There are clouds outside so it is raining."). If I have senses, I believe in them as well. Naturally, if I see something I don't comprehend, I will utilize (just because it's my nature) science to explain it. Some people will use philosophy to explain it.

I don't have faith in my senses, I trust my senses.

I have a response to this but it is quite complicated, please bear with it and tell me what you think:

I would question what it is that makes such statements true and false. It does not require some truth about the world, rather it merely requires an ahderance to the rules of the "game" of logic and of our language. In English we can say "there is water falling from the sky" or we can say "its raining". All that is shown here is something simmilar to saying "1+1=2", if it doesnt then you arent playing the "game" of maths. Likewise if "water falling from the sky" and "rain" are not equivalent then you aren't speaking English. What is shown by giving examples of such tautologies?
Trust in sense data is something different, and it depends very much on what exactly is being expressed by saying "I believe what my senses are telling me".
This is because strictly speaking your senses are devoid of content, content is added by the interpretation by the mind of the flashes, noises, smells and other sensations that are given to it. Do you have faith in the flashes or the ordered structured world that the mind creates? (That is to say, the world of temporality, of cause and effect, of objects, of every other category of our understanding)

"There are only two ways in which we can account for a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects: either experience makes these concepts possible or these concepts make experience possible."

It better damn well be the latter because as Kant hints rather unsubtly (I dont want to claim the credit) the concepts, the structured order given to our sense impressions by the mind is a prerequisite for conscious rational experience. The world seems ordered not becasue it posseses this order on some etherial and fundamental plane but because our mind creates this order so as to allow it to be presented and understood by a conscious rational mind.
There is no way we can speak meaningfully of the world as it is in itself devoid of our percieving it, ordering it and in a very important way CREATING it for such a world would be very different from what we can imagine (literally!!!) Therefore "trusting your senses" is never really an option. It isnt like you could choose to percieve the world differently. However just because it is ordered in this way to us does not mean we have any view of anthing fundamental. What science is addressing is the world as we percieve it and that is dependant upon its being created by our minds.

 

[Fossil Records]

There is no great cleavage between philosphy and science. Science is a line of philosophical inquirely using a certain set of tools. Philosophy is a broad enough feild to cover every type of systamatic inquirely. Limiting yourself to only irrational events would be a somewhat foolish thing to do if you are interested in all forms of wisdom... wouldn't it?

Classically, you are 100% correct. In fact, scientists are still given PhDs (Doctor of PHILOSOPHY) because the traditional definition you provide is true. However, in the modern sense (and in the way we are using it in this argument), Philosophical pursuits have been more towards the conception and contemplation of phenomena and topics that Science doesn't pursue.

 

[kazahana]

AHHHHHHHH!!!

I so desperately want to ignore this but the falacies you present are unnerving.

Right back at you.

Sight is not an abstract concept.
<long winded scientific definition highlighting kazahana's lack of knowledge about something irrelevant ignoring his actual point>

I don't care how sight works, and I admit I mistermed it an abstract concept. I mean you can't prove that's truly how it works, especially given you rely on sight observations to establish that.

It is your belief that you can't prove anything.

I'd go further and suggest it's a law. Can't prove it of course

It is my belief that my senses are truth. I trust my senses because they have ALWAYS performed the functions experienced and described by almost everyone else. EVERY time I pick up ammonia and smell it - it essentially smells the same; EVERY time I taste strawberries - they essentially taste the same; EVERY time I get burned - it essentially feels the same; EVERY post I reply to is just as painful as the last.

Yes, but you can't prove any of that. All you can do is make an assumption based on past experiences. You can't account for all future occurrences. That's not truth, it's an approximation of truth no matter how likely it is, and any other conclusion is illogical. You claim to be logical. You also claim that this approximation of truth is in fact truth. You can't have both. Take faith in truth or believe in approximation to truth.

If my posts are painful to respond to, read Korona's post. It seems to be far more explanatory than what I write.

 

[Korona]

Philosophy may persue things that fall outside of science, but the rigour is the same. As has been already stated processes like itterative investigation (the Scientific Method) are tools for approaching a problem. Not all philosophical questions are appropriate for scientific analysis and so the approaches and tools used in their investigation are different but the rigour and systematic approach is the same. Properly understood Science is a type of Philsosophy.
The areas of Philosophic inquirey in the West for the last 100 or so years have been analytic, concerned primarily with logic and language (not the paranormal by any means!). Continental Philosophy (existentialism etc.) is perhaps more like this but only superficially. At its core it is the same rigourious process.

 

[Rose Immortal]

I'm afraid I can't really keep up with the pace of this. Still, I have been reading and I think I can help Kazahana along on the sight issue.

The best way that I can articulate this is, you'd have to simultaneous be in your familiar frame of reference--the one with which you now read these words--AND in an outside frame of reference where you could measure the process of sight occurring. In order for this to happen, to have absolute trust in your sight, you would have to simultaneously be the experiencer and the outside observer. Without such simultaneity, you would NOT have proof.

 

[Fossil Records]

I would question what it is that makes such statements true and false. It does not require some truth about the world, rather it merely requires an ahderance to the rules of the "game" of logic and of our language.

In order to discuss anything, adhering to the rules of logic and language are essential. If I say "BHIS" means "up" and "QURY" means "down" then, as long as we agree to these rules, we can converse. It's all about agreement to the applications of abstract definitions to observations.

In English we can say "there is water falling from the sky" or we can say "its raining".

Language-wise, these can be the same statement. In fact, "It's raining" can be an abstract for "there is water falling from the sky." Logically, they are different statements. If we agree that "It's raining" is defined as rain clouds producing precipitation, then "there is water falling from the sky" is too vague and could mean a flock of birds are peeing on us. Thus the logical difference.

Trust in sense data is something different, and it depends very much on what exactly is being expressed by saying "I believe what my senses are telling me".
This is because strictly speaking your senses are devoid of content, content is added by the interpretation by the mind of the flashes, noises, smells and other sensations that are given to it. Do you have faith in the flashes or the ordered structured world that the mind creates? (That is to say, the world of temporality, of cause and effect, of objects, of every other category of our understanding)

Actually both - since they are linked. I believe that the electromagnetic radiation bouncing off the objects in my office is really light bouncing off of objects in my office. I also believe that the abstracts assigned to these rays by my mind fulfill the requirements that have been taught to me by experience and teachers. "The lights going through my eyes that my brain is translating into a fuzzy little thing bouncing around my front yard is a 'cat'."

"There are only two ways in which we can account for a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects: either experience makes these concepts possible or these concepts make experience possible."

It better damn well be the latter because as Kant hints rather unsubtly (I dont want to claim the credit) the concepts, the structured order given to our sense impressions by the mind is a prerequisite for conscious rational experience. The world seems ordered not becasue it posseses this order on some etherial and fundamental plane but because our mind creates this order so as to allow it to be presented and understood by a conscious rational mind.

The only thing I would change is "a conscious rationally-oriented mind" so as to avoid confusion between rational as it's been defined above and the "rational thought" definition you intended.

There is no way we can speak meaningfully of the world as it is in itself devoid of our percieving it, ordering it and in a very important way CREATING it for such a world would be very different from what we can imagine (literally!!!) Therefore "trusting your senses" is never really an option. It isnt like you could choose to percieve the world differently. However just because it is ordered in this way to us does not mean we have any view of anthing fundamental. What science is addressing is the world as we percieve it and that is dependant upon its being created by our minds.

Yes. I can totally appreciate this. As we define what our senses are and what language is, we perceive and further interpret the world according to them. I have no problem, however, with people who want to approach it philosophically (modern definition, that is).

 

[Fossil Records]

The best way that I can articulate this is, you'd have to simultaneous be in your familiar frame of reference--the one with which you now read these words--AND in an outside frame of reference where you could measure the process of sight occurring. In order for this to happen, to have absolute trust in your sight, you would have to simultaneously be the experiencer and the outside observer. Without such simultaneity, you would NOT have proof.

Except for the fact that sight is an abstract definition to a phenomena. If we define "A=1" then A is equal to 1. Kazahana would have us believe that, even though we DEFINED A as 1, A doesn't have to be 1. Or that we can prove that we just defined A as 1.

With regard to sight, two people can experiment on each other to define what sight is and how it works.

 

[Fossil Records]

Philosophy may persue things that fall outside of science, but the rigour is the same.

Absolutely - no dispute.

As has been already stated processes like itterative investigation (the Scientific Method) are tools for approaching a problem.

Just as an aside, the Scientific Method is a great teaching tool - but scientists don't actually use it. In fact, scientific progress is not proceeded by "Eureka!", but by "What the hell?" Fortunately, I've had plenty of "What the hell?" moments as my papers and patents can attest to.

 

[Fossil Records]

Right back at you.

Whether you want to admit it or not, they are truths as they are defined by man. And, since we are both men, those are the rules we are held to.

I don't care how sight works, and I admit I mistermed it an abstract concept. I mean you can't prove that's truly how it works, especially given you rely on sight observations to establish that.

Yes I can prove that's how it works. Be process of elimination. Take your eye out and sever the optic nerve and you've proven that you eye is reponsible for taking in sight (an abstract term, sure; but not an abstract concept). Keep going and you can prove, within the rules of language and logic, how "sight" works. Just like the people who proved it in your basic biology book.

Yes, but you can't prove any of that. All you can do is make an assumption based on past experiences. You can't account for all future occurrences. That's not truth, it's an approximation of truth no matter how likely it is, and any other conclusion is illogical. You claim to be logical. You also claim that this approximation of truth is in fact truth. You can't have both. Take faith in truth or believe in approximation to truth.

Um, again. Definitions. My belief - in other words my feelings of certainty that something exists or is true - is that. I can't account for all future occurances, but I can make hypotheses and theories to predict some occurances (which is exactly what I've been saying all along). I predict that if you push 30 mL of 1 Molar potassium cyanide into your veins - you WILL perish. Have I ever killed anyone with potassium cyanide? No. Have I ever killed myself with potassium cyanide? No. But I have belief in the science performed by past scientists (um, and assassins) and I can make a pretty good prediction.

I never claimed that an approximation of truth is truth. Measurements (which are always approximations - some more or less than others) are used to define truths (or quantify existing phenomena). Quit twisting my words - I am being as literal as possible.

I have no problem when you explain your beliefs, but quit telling me what I should/shouldn't believe. I don't tell you what your beliefs should be. I'd appreciate the same courtesy.

 

[Korona]

Actually both - since they are linked. I believe that the electromagnetic radiation bouncing off the objects in my office is really light bouncing off of objects in my office. I also believe that the abstracts assigned to these rays by my mind fulfill the requirements that have been taught to me by experience and teachers. "The lights going through my eyes that my brain is translating into a fuzzy little thing bouncing around my front yard is a 'cat'."

Ah yes, but, for the world to make sense (before anything is to be understood) it must be ordered, as was described, into a structured and coherent whole.

But this means that any impression we have of the content of this world is by virtue of this structuring and necesserily presented in terms of this structure. This means that the cat you see, and the photons of light reating with your retina that let you see it, are in themselves all "peices in the game" of the rationally structured worldview. (I hope that terminology makes sense, its a hard ides a to put across). Sadly it means that science and pretty much anything else that is concerned with the natural world is likewise biased in terms of this worldview.
Is this a problem? Well for the most part it isn't! We get by remarkably well seeing things in this way and even for the most part it works well for science too (quantum phyisics asside!). Indeed as science is attempting to explain the natural world it would be supprising if the structure of that world (necessary or not) was all that restrictive!

However there are questions that are restricted by the commitment to rational structuring. To answer questions about God is one such type of inquiery. Science necessarily is incompatible with religion, and attempts to bring the two together lead to catastropies like the Inteligent Design debate.

 

[Xtopher]

i agree, god sucks.

 

[Rose Immortal]

Congratulations, Xtopher, you are the first to ruin a formerly flame-free thread.

 

[kazahana]

I'm not going to bother quoting or responding to any specific points any more.

If you can do all of these things, I will accept that you rely on truth. If you can't (which I think highly likely), then no matter what you say, I will conclude you rely on faith. These questions are based on your claim that your senses and logic are unquestionably correct.



1. Explain how you know your senses reveal to you reality exactly as it is, WITHOUT reference to any observational data. Provide a proof that shows what you observe is reality.

2. Describe the fundamental logical axioms you accept and why they don't require an explanation. Describe also, again WITHOUT reference to observational data how you know this, and how they apply to the universe.

3. Explain how inaccuracy of human senses is irrelevant given all science has at some point in its development (or the development of the machinery used to measure it, or the development of the machinery used to develop the machinery used to measure it, etc...), relied on human observation.




In previous arguments, you have explained your senses using data gathered using your senses. That's unsound logic, since it is your senses that are in question. You have not provided evidence for your trust in fundamental axioms aside from assertions that "a hot thing hurts, therefore all hot things hurt" which rely on observational data which is also in question. I also notice of late, you have started to metions likelihoods, where originally you insisted on absolutes.

The reason I care so much about this is because I claim to have faith on logic, that my senses show me reality and that science is fairly accurate, but relies on approximations. It is not logical to say that just because logic makes sense to me, that it necessarily applies to the universe at all and I certainly don't know this without relying on my observations. I also don't know that my observations even show me reality and I have no evidence to inherently suggest (again without relying on my senses which are in question) that my senses show me reality at all. Scientific inaccuracy means that all derived theories will remain theories, and a law is at best a heavily likely theory, not a statement of fact.

I'm not saying we won't find the truth. One day we might, but at the moment the only truth is that we cannot establish facts for certain. It's a fairly simple concept. All I wanted to do was clairfy this so neither theists nor atheists started claiming a proof or disproof for god based on currently available "facts."

 

[Thraxz]

If you say our senses are in question... how do you explain away your "perfect" sense of faith? It's merely another human made concept that's entirely fallible.

 

[kazahana]

If you say our senses are in question... how do you explain away your "perfect" sense of faith? It's merely another human made concept that's entirely fallible.

Faith isn't a sense - it's belief without reason, and we've long since established that it's entirely fallible.

That's not the point. Faith in our senses and logic is all we have, but they are not truths until they are proved to be. It is impossible to do that, so you have to take on faith that your senses and logic are correct.

 

[Korona]

If you say our senses are in question... how do you explain away your "perfect" sense of faith? It's merely another human made concept that's entirely fallible.

Falible in what respect? Once you realise that the world just IS the world of the senses it becomes meaningless to even Suggest that they could be "wrong". What do you even mean by wrong? That they fail to corespond to the world? How is that possible when the world is the systhesis of sense impressions and mental categorisation? A world can't fail to correspond to itself!

 

[Fossil Records]

Congratulations, Xtopher, you are the first to ruin a formerly flame-free thread.

And with only 4 words! That's an achievement!

 

[Fossil Records]

1. Explain how you know your senses reveal to you reality exactly as it is, WITHOUT reference to any observational data. Provide a proof that shows what you observe is reality.

2. Describe the fundamental logical axioms you accept and why they don't require an explanation. Describe also, again WITHOUT reference to observational data how you know this, and how they apply to the universe.

3. Explain how inaccuracy of human senses is irrelevant given all science has at some point in its development (or the development of the machinery used to measure it, or the development of the machinery used to develop the machinery used to measure it, etc...), relied on human observation.

Look, I told you I'm done with this. I'm not going to explain to you that I BELIEVE what my senses tell me. It is my belief and I'm sure as hell not going to PROVE (a piece of information which shows that something exists or is true - oh wait, you claim that senses are faulty so that information must be faulty so it must be impossible to PROVE PROOF!!) my BELIEFS (that which is accepted to be true) to you any more than a THEIST would have to. I have told you the way I built my system of beliefs and that BY DEFINITION my SENSES (regardless of WHAT it is they are SENSING) parlay information to my brain which is then put into categories and defined using pre-existing or adaptations of pre-existing information.

I've been more than accomodating in attempting to explain my beliefs for you even when you demand "prove that reality is real." Play this game with someone who believes in God and see how quickly they tell you to "piss off."

 

[jaimek]

Do you believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn that carries your soul over the rainbow when you die?