For those who don’t think there’s anything at stake in this debate, this letter to the Salon editor gave me the willies.
Mengele, shmengele. The writers talks about fighting ignorance with reason. What’s wrong with that?
Googling gives one lots of sites. Here’s one:
**Probability calculated by logically examining existing information.
A priori probabilities are most often used within the counting method of calculating probability. This is because you must use logic to determine what outcomes of an event are possible in order to determine the number of ways these outcomes can occur.**
I haven’t independently discovered any difference–I already understood the concept–nor do I think the examples I gave are matters of probability.
I don’t agree. There are several different ways of looking at “probability” and more than one definition. Whether a coin ends up heads or tails is a contingent matter. 2 + 2 = 4 is an absolute truth and not contingent upon anything. While it is true that assigning a probability of 1 to that statement is not going to be problematic in many/most/all mathematical systems, doing so is much different from assigning a proability of 1 to the chances of picking a red ball from a bag that only contains red balls. In the latter situation, we still recognize that the situation could be otherwise and can imagine a bag full of blue balls or half blue and half red. We cannot imagine 2 + 2 = 5. It is not a matter of chance; it is not contingent.
This is a different case. Whether I look at the card or not is indeed contingent on my eternal state and probably on a lot of other things, but it is not something that can be calculated. To say that the probability is between 0 and 1 is merely to assert that either I did or I didn’t–which is undeniably true but also without insight.
There are many contingent events for which a probability cannot be calculated. Chaos theory demonstrates this with mathematical rigor: there is a certain point of complexity at which no model is possible because the model would have to be completely congruent with the unique chaotic event (in other words, the model would be just as complicated as the event it attempts to define, and thus of no use).
God is defined as a being that is not contingent on anything. Nor is there a model that can be built to test whether He exists or not. God’s existence is not a matter of probability, QED.
Whats the probability that your definition is correct?
What’s wrong is that he equivocates religion with ignorance.
No, he’s equating the subordination of science to religion with ignorance. But whatever your prespective, he isn’t calling for hauling religious people off to concentrations camps and performing medical experiments on them.
He equates the subordination of science to religion with ignorance. He speaks as if the subordination of science is a necessary property of religion. Put the two together and you get …
Agreed. I don’t think the comparison to Mengele is justified.
I fail to see anything remotely resembling a call to persecute the religious in that statement, unless you equate “vocal disagreement” with persecution. Really, what on Earth are you getting at here? This line of objection is so shrill and hyperbolic you’re approaching parody. I’m afraid the religious are not entitled to having their views respected, only tolerated insofar as they don’t trod on civil rights and free thought. Then and only then would free thinkers of Dawkins’ ilk act, and only in self-defense, legally, and ethically. It is not unethical to call religious faith a load of rubbish and a disease. It is not persecution to be treated dismissively. The religious have no recourse to fact or empirical evidence to support their faith, and hence have no cause to complain when it intrudes on disciplines which rely completely on such evidence. The fact they do complain, often and loudly, is indicative of nothing but their own intolerance of dissent.
No one in this debate wants force anthing on the religious, except acceptance that alternate views should not themselves be repressed, especially in the underhanded and mendacious manner so often employed. No evolutionist would or should care if some of the faithful were simply content with virtual hegemony, but apparently that’s not enough. How anyone gets from this sorry state of affairs to nonsense like this most attrocious example of Godwinization gone amuck is astonishing, and shameful.
- Wrong! When I look up delusional I find several definitions, and one or two would agree with what you say here but those are qualified as psychological or psychiatric. If Dawkins was speaking as a psychologist or psychiatrist you would have a point here, but he wasn’t so there is no point assuming he was speaking as a specialist when he used that word.
Although, I do concede that I may be getting whooshed here.
- I agree!
Ignoring Mr. Godwin for a moment . . .
You think, therefore God exists? In that case, I would suggest that God is all in your head.
One is reminded of a certain two-headed, three-armed ex-head honcho of the galaxy, who found out that he was, in fact, the most important person in the universe. Please don’t cease to think, Lib, lest the rest of us cease to exist.
We can explain how we do so (or at least, provide an explanation and leave it to each of us to personally output whether it is the explanation).
You understood it, then? Regardless, it is only one formulation of the Computational Theory of Mind, the alternatives to which are, frankly, as empty and ludicrous as intelligent design or vitalism. Can you not imagine that parallel sensory inputs continually filtered and sorted into memory might produce a subjective experience in the sensor-memoriser (even if human subjective experience requires far more elements)? I’m not here in this thread to provide a synopsis and Q&A of such a vast scientific field but I would suggest, just as I do to creationists, that you seek to understand what you are arguing against.
Then you fall prey to the oversimple sloganeering which Dennett expressly warns against.
The treatment of neurological disorders directly caused by physical damage or malformation to modules of the brain, such as temporal lobe epilepsy. If the physical brain did not cause these mental conditions, how could such treatments possibly work?
You see, this is the problem. People are so happy to snipe from the sidelines at evolution, cosmology or cognitive science without ever proposing testable alternatives. You say you rest your case, I say you flee the arena.
I am telling you my position. I will explain my reasoning for holding it over others upon request, citing my interpretations of Ockham’s Razor and Scientific Explanation.
If it proposes nonphysical entities, I will listen to their merits. But unless the arguments are radically different to those I have heard before, I will simply ask why we need them at all. Like I’m doing right now.
I state my position in a debate as convincingly as I can. It is my position that such content is unnecessary and uninteresting. Then you argue back as convincingly as you can, and the audience makes up their …heh heh… minds.
I try to avoid wasting time quibbling over such minutiae. My position vs. other position = debate.
Agreed. I don’t know anything, ultimately. My position is that which my Belief-O-Meter swings towards. It never touches 100% certainty.
Wrong thought. Ghosts could still be physical.
You are saying that there are definitely non-physical things. What are they?
Non-existent things don’t. I am saying God, ghosts and leprechauns are nonexistent.
It is a philosophical position which my cognitive apparatus outputs as being “most probable”, a configuration which ultimately “makes my brain happy”. If I thought another position was somehow superior, I’d hold it instead. Call it bad, or call it delusional - I don’t mind.
And I hope it makes you happy. Personally, I find that that position unimaginatively shoves God in various cognitive Gaps and has sadly inadequate explanatory power, so I’ll hold and defend mine in these debates instead, thanks.
Thanks, but I don’t think I have committed logical errors.
What are you suggesting it does “transcend” then?
If metaphysical entities existed. My working conclusion is that they don’t need to.
Like I said, by arbitrary criteria: that’s how brains work. I’m using shapes on a screen to communicate to you the output of mine.
Agreed, this being irrelevant: I (and Dawkins) assign low probabilities to both God/Descartes demon and the Matrix. You said that, on the contrary, you could disprove the latter.
The question is Are we in a simulation? That question has an answer. The fact that we might not ever find out that answer is irrelevant to the possibility that the answer is yes. The answer “Yes, but it’s moot” does not prove that the answer is “no”. Understand?
An owl made of DNA is different to an owl made of silicon. A brain made of DNA is different to a brain made of silicon. A cognitive apparatus receiving photons reflected from atoms in spacetime is different to a cognitive apparatus receiving photons directly to its visual processing modules. Just because we didn’t have the tools to hand to differentiate those owls, or brains, or cognitive environment systems is irrelevant to whether the owl, brain or CES is one or the other. You said you could prove that our CES isn’t the latter.
Ah, but you just said it is simulated. Yet again, you are embarking on a non sequitur in seeking to define “real” and “simulated” as being the same thing. Read back though the thread - the understanding we started out with is clearly that you could prove that we are not in a simulation. Why did you not say “OK, we are in a simulation, but that’s the same as reality anyway”? That is a different argument entirely, which I would have trivially ignored.
“I can prove we’re not in a simulation” is directly contradictory to “I can demonstrate that reality and simulations are the same thing”.
Why, then, should any of us seriously debate you if you willingly rely on such fallacies?
What? What state are they in, then?
No, they state their position, as the theist does theirs. Otherwise, is the very word “afterlife” not every bit as much of a ‘punch’ swung in the other direction?
But there is! The state of death is exactly the same as that for 13.7 billion years before life. It is the alternative to “eternal life” that we propose. Why can we not say this without afterlife-believers feeling insulted or threatened?
His viewpoint, as better set forth in that 1993 essay, was “dumbed down” a bit perhaps. Whether that was his fault or that of the journalists involved is undecided, IMO.
That’s the problem with epistemic modalities: it’s what you don’t know that’ll get you. Today’s impossibility is tomorrows SOP.
That said, I’m not as angry as you seem to think I am. I don’t use the term Mengelean with anger, but with mere contempt. Were I angy, I would use Jacksonian. But far more disturbing than anger in this instance is disinterest, especially for you atheists. If, as you say, the nation is overwhelmingly Christian and will be so into the far future, then Dawkins is doing you no favor. He is connecting the dots on an already established reputation that hard atheists have for being arrogant and emotive social nuisances. If you think I’m reacting angrily at this, just wait till you see the reactions from Pat Robertson’s people.
Did you, as you wrote, have any sense at all of the irony in your italicized exactly equal to phrases? I hope so because, otherwise, you unwittingly made “almost” and “exactly equal to” exactly equal.
Actually, you attributed someone else’s statement to me, but drew a non sequitur nonetheless. The OP made clear that the conceptual God was not a product of thought, but a product of existence imposing Itself.
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Well, I was attempting to characterize **Liberal’s ** position in an ironic way, but apparently (see post #73 below) he said “almost” rather than “is”. I still don’t see how he got from claiming someone has a delusion, to being a monster, simply on the strength of stringing a few “almosts” together. If you were being whooshed it was only because of my inability to make my point clearly.
I’ve been wondering whether it should properly be adopted as a philosophical position at all, or just a methodological preference. It seems to buy you into the whole metaphysical game unnecessarily.
Well, in that case, perhaps this is in the wrong encyclopaedia!
It is the position, the thesis, that whatever we currently consider ‘metaphysical’ is actually just as physical as things like rainstorms, bacteria and Sonic the Hedgehog, which very few amongst us would propose were not physical.
That’s the second time you’ve spoken about me rather than to me in response to others about statements I’ve made. Am I now both delusional and persona non grata? May I at least grab my coat before you toss me in the wagon?
[QUOTE]
Well there you go. I have never called you delusional or crazy, so you will need to find someone else to arrange your transportation.
I did speak of you rather than *to * you, which was rude, and for that I apologize, (although one of the references was flattering, in my opinion.)
To respond to your post concerning irony, it is my understanding that you used “almost” in reference to Mengele, which I did not comment upon in my post to Miller. I was attempting to use hyperbole for sarcastic effect, although apparently my effort went unnoticed. I still contend that you have drawn a straight line from “Dawkins says the God delusion possesses adults” to “Dawkins is a monster.” You support that by stating that the next step after calling someone delusional is institutionalization of that person, as if it were a necessary step, and then asserting that people in institutions are tortured, as if that were a necessary step. I suspect that I could spend eight hours a day doing nothing but calling everyone I meet delusional, without any of them ending up being tortured as a result.
Perhaps I have missed some caveat in your reasoning. If so, I apologize.
Actually, I stated quite plainly that it was a possible, not necessary, step. But the steps are merely consequential. He isn’t a monster because I might get put away in a mental institution by a judge who agrees with him. He’s a monster because he does what monsters do — he inspires “horror or disgust” (American Heritage). I’ve known delusional people. It is not a pretty picture. If he did not mean delusional, then he should have said what he meant. I believe that had Pat Robertson said atheists are delusional, we would be discussing this in the Pit rather than here, and the whole bunch of you would be flaming him.