I’ll nitpick this by Wilson:
He seems to get the basic concept wrong. Being in bliss means being content. If you’re bored after 5,000 years, you’re not in bliss, which contradicts the premise of eternal bliss. You’re not content due to the bliss; being contented is what bliss is.
Then your previous post is a strawman characterization of my position, not SM’s. I have enormous respect for Wilson, but have not taken the position against which you claim to be bucking.
Oh, I’m sure there are flaws. Aeschines’ clumsy approach has failed to demonstrate them, though. Someone with a less obvious bias and tendency to invoke unprovable concepts as evidence might do a better job.
See, that’s what isn’t fair. Yes, I know that life isn’t fair, but still. If Wilson gets to make gratuitous assertions about Christ and religion and other things unscientific, then everybody, including Aeschines, gets to deny them gratuituously. Case in point: what evidence did Wilson give that the possible god he acknowledged would not likely “resemble anything of the Judeo-Christian variety”? Why do you give him a pass on that obvious bias? How does he raise the unprovable concept of a possible god with impunity, while you make those exact demands of Aeschines?
He was simply answering a question during an interview, not writing a treastise on the subject, or engaging in an online debate, for that matter. We don’t even know if the interviewer edited his comments-- which is pretty likely to have been the case. I don’t know that anyone is giving Wilson a pass, but it’s hardly comparable to the situation here, where **Aeschines **can respond to questions.
I disagree with that. Wilson’s points may be gratuitous, but if you want to demonstrate that, your points need to be valid and substantial. If Wilson’s arguments are weak, the way to prove that is with strong arguments, not with a different set of weak ones.
I not saying or implying Aeschines doesn’t have the right to critique Wilson; I’m just saying he did so in a particularly lame and unconvincing fashion. I don’t see what’s so terrible about Wilson’s comments, nor that Aeschines has any reason (though he certainly has the right) to throw a lot of sneering in his direction. Actually, I find Wilson comes off far better in this interview than Aeschines ever has in his threads, but that at least partly due to a bias I have against Aeschines; one I admit freely.
Because the JudeoChristian concept of God is rife with begged questions and contradictions. If Wilson believes that these make such a creature unlikely… well, more power to him, I guess. Arguing the relative merits of unprovable hypotheses is at best an intellectual exercise.
I’m not demanding a single thing from Aeschines. I’m exercising my right to critique his statements, as he has done so with Wilson. I’m not sure if “impunity” is the right word, though. Why should Wilson fear punishment (even if he arrogantly does not) and from whom, by raising the idea that the JudeoChristian concept of God makes no sense?
Forgive my absence. I’ve been working like a dog (I lick my balls for a living).
I guess we’ll just have to rerun EOW’s quote again:
No, you don’t have to choose. I believe that souls and every other element of the human species has arisen through evolution and other natural processes, and I consider my view “scientific,” but I am NOT a materialist.
You ask what a pattern is of, but you are going to run into the exact same problem with your physicalism. Something is a “configuration of a field,” but what is a field? Moving charges. OK, what are charges? You are going to end up defining everything in terms of something else.
Math ought to give you a clue. In geometry you have “undefined terms”–point, line, plane. Undefined! These things must be intuited directly, and just about any 10-year-old can do so. They are patterns, relationships. So, ultimately are your matter and your fields.
You are dumbing down physics. There is a hell of a lot that is not detected directly but is deduced. Or is suspected because of simplicity or aesthetics. Further, per Heisenberg, you cannot know both the position and momentum of a particle. Not just “we don’t have the technology to do it,” but cannot. ever.
If you “detect” one, the other becomes “undetectable.”
Further, there is the blindingly obvious point that X rays were undetectable before the 19th century but still existed. Etc. etc. Also obvious: You can’t “detect” the thoughts of another person, but they can be communicated.
Your “detectibility principle” is nothing but your own ad hoc formulation. Try to cite something similar by any “real” scientiest, materialst, physicalist, or otherwise.
“Idealism” is so wide a category for philosophical thought that you’ll end up “crapping on” just about anything except–ta da!–your own physicalist perspective. Label and dismiss.
Of course there have been “peer-reviewed” journals that have come to the conclusion that ghosts and psi and all manner of things you dismiss exist. They’re just not the peers you respect, however.
Like the majority of the population, I’ve perceived directly something you don’t believe in (ghosts, psi, humor in GD). We’ve seen it, you’ve got your thumbs in ears and nya-nya-can’t-hear-you thing going. Your loss.
That is correct, actually.
As I said, I’m not hooked on any term or terms. Nor is there any real scientific definition (or understanding) of “mind,” so using that word hardly clarifies things.
C’mon his position is totally toolish. He’s got atheism with some really flabby and unattractive logic-handles crudely attached and flapping in the wind.
Tricky issue. A lot of solutions to problems like the Ontological Argument are really just word games, it is true. But then Ayer et al. came along and say, Philosophy is just one big word game! There is no such thing as “being”; that’s just a gerund formed from “to be,” nothing more. Etc. I admire their work a lot. But at the end of the day, the problems (which we intuit a lot better than we are capable of expressing in words) don’t go away.
Oh, so everthing’s been solved and no more arbitrariness exists! I must have missed that issue of Scientific American.
Or are you saying that IF we know everything about the universe we would see that, in fact, nothing IS arbitrary?
No you can’t. You can say it but you can’t imagine it.
No, we intuit that they couldn’t be otherwise. Answer me this: Could this universe of ours be exactly the same as it is EXCEPT that pi would be an even 3.15? If you answer “no” (as you must), then you will recognize that there is at least some law of pattern/number that IS absolute.
Quit being so hyperbolic.
OK, but accepting even your physicalist principles, if we humans perceive a purpose in it, who is to tell us we’re wrong? There is no abolute Truth or God to set us straight. To be in error is the same as being correct, since even math and logic are nothing more than our opinions. Presumably, a person who believes in evolution is no more correct or lovable than a mouth-frothing Bible thumper.
Except politically, cuz that’s what seems to be operative here. I make logical arguments about the fluff and crap EOW was spewing and you and Ekers (pardon, not that you two are to be placed in the same category, if you know what I mean), just say, “Nuh uh! What he says is cool with me. That guy’s smart!”
Liberal points out EOW’s gratuitous assertions, and it’s just, “Nuh uh!”
It’s lame-ass my-sidism, nothing more.
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In that case, can you tell me something that is not? Again, it sounds like you wish to contort the word “natural” beyond even the most generously elastic of limits, such that it’s not worth using it at all.
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I don’t believe in a “God” or any beings that break the natural order arbitrarily, so there is no definition of “supernatural” that can have any validity for me.
It’s clear that you don’t understand the concept of “gratuitous assertion.”
I feel incredibly vindicated just now.
What experiment do you suggest to test your hypothesis about souls?
That is, of course, the danger of using words: the definition of every word comprises a bunch of other words. It’s a closed system; there’s no word whose definition is made of jellybeans, white dwarfs, or a swift kick to the shins.
However, this isn’t much of a danger. Who cares if you end up defining terms with other terms? The magic of human linguistic ability is that we can understand your meaning nonetheless: something in our brains gives us a way to break into this closed system.
So this means that you need to answer the question: what’s the soul a pattern of?
In the end, you’d do well to read some EO Wilson directly. Hell, so would I: I’m currently reading Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, a book heavily predicated on Wilson’s work, and while I disagree with plenty of specifics in it, the central thesis is overwhelmingly convincing.
Daniel
Pointing out the fact that a gratuitous assertion is gratuitous IS a strong argument. That can be done simply by denying it. If I say that the Nazis never killed a Jew, then you are not beholden to prove otherwise since the burden of proof was on me. If you still disagree, then I assert that God exists. Unless you can show otherwise with valid and substantial argument, I guess I win by default, right?
I appreciate that admission.
One in which he was heavily engaged. (And so are you and I.) Your views with respect to “the JudeoChristian concept of God” reveal at least as deep a bias against Christianity as the one you’ve already admitted that you have against Aeschines. So may we just cut to the chase and stipulate that you are defending Wilson for little reason other than the fact that his philosophy coincides with your own?
If that means you’re admitting to having no answer, then I commend you for your honesty. If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that you will defend Wilson no matter what and will attack Aeschines no matter what.
There are no experiments that can prove the philosophical, mathematical, etc. There is no experiment that can prove, for example, 1 + 1 = 2.
Experiments can only investigate the contingent.
No joke, we simply intuit the truth, as when we see that 1 + 1 = 2.
Dude, you’ve attained ultimate confusion here. First, Sentient asked what a pattern is of, but you’ve just told me (and therefore also him), that having things defined in terms of other things is no problem. Second, I already cited Aristotle who said that the soul is the form of the body.
Are skeptics as a rule thus philosophically challenged? Sheesh.
No doubt. I know it’s hard for you to comprehend, but we New Agers understand and respect science just as much as you skeptics do. We believe in evolution and all that good stuff.
The difference is that our minds our open to progress in science that contradicts the atheist-materialst viewpoint.
IN what sense, then, do you mean that this is a scientific belief on your part?
First, I dont’ think you’re the one to judge other folks’ ultimate confusion, to put it mildly.
Yes, you can define things in terms of other things; that’s no problem. What you’re doing is refusing to define things in terms of other things.
The soul is the form of the body? In plain English, this means that when the body is destroyed, the soul also is destroyed. It means that when I clip my nails, my soul is altered. When I turn my neck, I twist my soul. Is this the meaning you intend? If not, you need to elaborate. In what sense is the claim that the soul is the form of the body an interesting claim?
It’s not that it’s a hard claim for me to comprehend: it’s just that it’s a hard claim for me to swallow. You’re not demonstrating an understanding or a respect for science in this thread, at least not science in the sense of rational, testable conclusions about the cosmos.
Daniel
I said, “There are no experiments that can prove the philosophical, mathematical, etc.” That’s not a “belief,” that’s a simple fact. OK, the “etc.” was a little vague, but I thought you’d get my drift.
I repeat: "There is no experiment that can prove or disprove 1 + 1 = 2, since the scientific method assumes that mathematics and logic are true.
I do judge, and I do so accurately. The people arguing against me in this thread are butt-ignorant of philsophy. They can’t even disagree with me effectively because they don’t understand philosophy enough to disagree with any particular perspective on it. Unfortunately, you are included.
Again, sorry, you just don’t know enough.
I repeat: See geometry, in which “point,” “line,” and “plane” are undefined terms.
Again, I was citing Aristotle as having done some interesting thinking on the matter. I am not necessarily endorsing (or disagreeing) with his claims. I think the nature of the soul/spirit/mind/all that is well beyond our current philosophical and scientific thinking and therefore make no claim to understand it/them at a fundamental level.
You don’t get it. I agree with Wilson’s science but am merely pointing out his childish and ignorant approach to philosophy. You and your buddies are proving yourselves to be equally ignorant–worse, because you have to time think before you respond but are still boldy blabbing.
To clarify, I am not including SentientMeat in the “butt-ignorant of philsophy” cateogory. Thanks.
Does it? Certainly there are contradictions within the concept of the JudeoChristian God, but I don’t see how acknowledging them displays a bias (and why only against Christianity? Jews had the idea first; Christianity is at best a philosophical offshoot). My bias against Aeschines stems from his repeated displays of jumping to bizarre conclusions based on pseudoscientific premises and takes the form of mistrusting by default anything he says on any subject. I suppose I could make a supreme effort to be fair and discard all preconceptions about Aeschines, but he just keeps gleefully reinforcing them so why bother?
Well, if you insist, but I’d never heard of Wilson before opening this thread. A more accurate description of what I’m doing in challenging Aeschines rather than defending Wilson. Wilson’s philosophy (as expressed in this brief and superficial interview - I haven’t read any of his books) does coincide with my own to a large degree on matters of skepticism, though the part about his “deist” beliefs reminded me more of Martin Gardner, who believes in God (while doubting that God has ever actually communicated His wishes to any of the historical ‘prophets’) because the belief is consoling on an emotional level. I respect Gardner, though I don’t share this view.
You clearly don’t understand me correctly. If Wilson’s interview had slid into a general criticism of the religious (as James Randi unfortunately has with all that “bright” crap), I certainly wouldn’t defend his remarks (though I would defend his right to make them). I can also imagine a situation where I’d defend Aeschines’s statements (as well as always defending his right to make them). There have been moments when he has posted statements with which I agree. These are relatively rare, though, at least in GD, and vastly outnumbered by his gratuitous shots like this:
SentientMeat can’t perceive “humor in GD” ? Where did that came from? Your interpretation suggests I would attack Aeschines as a matter of reflex, regardless of what he wrote. This is untrue, though Aeschines gives me so much ammunition (such as this example) that I can understand why it might seem that way.
I’ve seen Aeschines challenged on numerous occasions and his response is often the invoking of pseudoscience and mysticism with a sneer thrown in for the heck of it. In this particular case, Wilson “challenged” Aeschines without even knowing he existed and Aeschines responded in his typical style. And apparently, that has prompted me to respond in mine and you to respond in yours. Let the good times roll.
Nevertheless, we can construct representational models of points, lines and planes. A piece of paper is clearly not infinitely wide and long with a thickness of zero, a dot made on the paper with a pen is clearly not infinitesimally small with zero dimensions and a line drawn through that dot using a pen and a ruler is clearly not a one-dimensional construct, but with a piece of paper, a pen and a ruler, one can design the Pyramids. Using these crude models of idealized concepts like “point”, “line” and “plane”, we can begin a process of demonstrable accomplishment.
What simplified but useful model form of the undefined “soul” exists? I suppose if voodoo dolls were effective and one could create a miniaturized model of a person, and things done to the doll would translate to effects against that person, we’d have something to go on, but I’d like to hear your take on it because as far as I know, “undefined” does not mean “beyond understanding or description”.
Just out of curiosity, who is included is said category?
NDE’s are hallucinations, not actual “afterlife” experiences. Consciouness is purely a physical property of the brain and when the brain is broken, consciousness ceases. What part of consciousness do you think could survive without a brain?
It didn’t happen all at once. It was a progression from tribal henotheism, to montheistic Judaism (which was never evangelical) to Christianity and Islam. Your suggestion that evangelical monotheism sprang spontaneously from some sort of previously ecuminical melange of pagan polytheism is a gross oversimplification.