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Science and Religion, a comparative study [W:222]

blarg said:
how do you separate whats right from what you consider to be good?
Click to expand...

You can't demarcate in that way for something that is situational.

That is why rigid morality codes fail, because they pretend to be universal in a World that throws up endlessly complex interactions. Did anyone say black and white versus shades of grey?

Did you notice your statement switched from absolute to subjective in the space of 13 words; from 'what is right' to 'consider to be good'.
 
Angel said:
No, my point had to do with subjectivity, and subjectivity alone.
But as to the question of fiction, it's all fiction -- novels, biography, science text, religious texts, poetry, journalism. As soon as we put an experience into words, we fictionalize it.

As you can see from the second line of the post you quote --

-- I am pursuing the proof which your question earlier in the thread inspired. The argument gets clearer to me every day. I believe I shall soon have the logic worked out sufficiently to present the argument with a fanfare. Subjectivity is the linchpin, but the argument will be made in logic. Messrs Rea and Rodeo have so far failed to see where this is going, but I suspect blarg of an intuition of the goal. This accounts for his skittishness over the morality business. :)
Click to expand...

No, you don't get to hand wave away justified belief without challenge.

Demonstrate that it is not justified to accept assertions that approximate with reality.

My assumptions...

1. Reality exists
2. We can learn about it
3. We can model reality to make useful predicitons

Your assumptions...

1. Woo
 
"The famous physicist Richard Feynman once said if you really want to show you understand how something works, build it. And it is here that we can clearly identify the limits of our knowledge regarding consciousness ... because no one knows how to engineer the flow of information into emergent states of first person experience (i.e., sentience). The engineering problem of consciousness remains a great mystery."
-- Gregg Henriques Ph.D., What Is the Mind?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201112/what-is-the-mind

sRQUQ45.jpg



What is a mind?

One of the great mysteries of our time

“What is a mind?” is an extremely important question. For what are you if not your mind?

The source of the difficulty is the fact that the mind is not an object;
it is not something out there in the world that you can point to and say: “That is a mind; that thing over there is what I call ‘the mind’.”

The mind is invisible.

But it is not invisible in the same way that gravity and electricity are.

The difference is that the mind can also be perceived directly. It feels like something to be a mind.

So the mind can be perceived, no less than planets and atoms, but this kind of perception – perceiving things like memories, thoughts and feelings – is something subjective.

Therefore, you can only ever experience your own mind.

This is the nub of the problem. You cannot experience minds in general. That makes it very difficult to have a science of the mind. For science, of course, aspires to objectivity – to generalizability. We go to great lengths to exclude the subjective from science.

As a result, throughout the history of psychology, there have been serious attempts to exclude the mind from science. We were told by the Behaviourists (who dominated 20th century psychology), for example, that the mind does not really exist. Only its responses exist – its behaviours.

Today, in the era of Neuroscience, we face a similar problem. We are told that the mind is really just the brain. It is an elaborate illusion produced by the brain.

So what if I told you that you – your subjective experience – will cease to exist from tomorrow, but that you shouldn’t worry because I will keep your brain alive?

The fact that your brain will be alive but devoid of experiences will be cold comfort to you.

Because you – your beloved self – will no longer be there.

This simple fact seems to prove that your mind is not identical with your brain.​

https://about.futurelearn.com/blog/what-is-a-mind
 
William Rea said:
You can't demarcate in that way for something that is situational.

That is why rigid morality codes fail, because they pretend to be universal in a World that throws up endlessly complex interactions. Did anyone say black and white versus shades of grey?

Did you notice your statement switched from absolute to subjective in the space of 13 words; from 'what is right' to 'consider to be good'.
Click to expand...

your right both seem to only be what you consider
 
Angel said:
"The famous physicist Richard Feynman once said if you really want to show you understand how something works, build it. And it is here that we can clearly identify the limits of our knowledge regarding consciousness ... because no one knows how to engineer the flow of information into emergent states of first person experience (i.e., sentience). The engineering problem of consciousness remains a great mystery."
-- Gregg Henriques Ph.D., What Is the Mind?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201112/what-is-the-mind

sRQUQ45.jpg



What is a mind?

One of the great mysteries of our time

“What is a mind?” is an extremely important question. For what are you if not your mind?

The source of the difficulty is the fact that the mind is not an object;
it is not something out there in the world that you can point to and say: “That is a mind; that thing over there is what I call ‘the mind’.”

The mind is invisible.

But it is not invisible in the same way that gravity and electricity are.

The difference is that the mind can also be perceived directly. It feels like something to be a mind.

So the mind can be perceived, no less than planets and atoms, but this kind of perception – perceiving things like memories, thoughts and feelings – is something subjective.

Therefore, you can only ever experience your own mind.

This is the nub of the problem. You cannot experience minds in general. That makes it very difficult to have a science of the mind. For science, of course, aspires to objectivity – to generalizability. We go to great lengths to exclude the subjective from science.

As a result, throughout the history of psychology, there have been serious attempts to exclude the mind from science. We were told by the Behaviourists (who dominated 20th century psychology), for example, that the mind does not really exist. Only its responses exist – its behaviours.

Today, in the era of Neuroscience, we face a similar problem. We are told that the mind is really just the brain. It is an elaborate illusion produced by the brain.

So what if I told you that you – your subjective experience – will cease to exist from tomorrow, but that you shouldn’t worry because I will keep your brain alive?

The fact that your brain will be alive but devoid of experiences will be cold comfort to you.

Because you – your beloved self – will no longer be there.

This simple fact seems to prove that your mind is not identical with your brain.​

https://about.futurelearn.com/blog/what-is-a-mind
Click to expand...

Demonstrate that it is not just a physical experience.
 
William Rea said:
I disagree, numbers do exist even though they are abstract and describe a relationship they are definitely not metaphysical.

Cue further spamming of the thread with mystical numbers woo.
Click to expand...

They are not physical. You can not show me a number.. You can use a number as part of a description.. but you can not show me a number.

By saying they exist but are abstract, you are calling them 'an abstract object', which is a metaphysical concept.
 
Last edited:
blarg said:
how do you separate whats right from what you consider to be good?
Click to expand...

I asked if you meant that morality is based on what is good/bad for you as an individual.
What is right/good is not necessarily what is good for me. For instance stealing money from someone if there is no chance of being caught would be good for the individual stealing but I hope you would agree that it is not the right or good thing to do.
Not only are morals subjective they are rather murky at times. If someone has a strict moral code of never lying and never saying anything to hurt others what would the morally correct thing to do in the following scenario?
There is a car crash the driver is very badly injured and obviously near death, the passenger was thrown from the car and decapitated. The driver knows they are dying and pleads to know the fate of the passenger. Do they tell them the truth and let them die with the added pain of knowing their accident killed their friend/lover/child/whoever or do you lie and say the passenger is going to be OK and let them die without the added burden?
 
Angel said:
No, my point had to do with subjectivity, and subjectivity alone.
But as to the question of fiction, it's all fiction -- novels, biography, science text, religious texts, poetry, journalism. As soon as we put an experience into words, we fictionalize it.
Click to expand...
The definitions of fiction, non-fiction disagree with your statement
writing or cinema that is about facts and real events •He prefers to read nonfiction rather than novels.
Click to expand...
1
a : something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically
: an invented story
•… I'd found out that the story of the ailing son was pure fiction. — Andrew A. Rooney

b : fictitious literature (such as novels or short stories) •was renowned as a writer of fiction
c : a work of fiction; especially
: novel •Her latest work is a fiction set during the Civil War.
Click to expand...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonfiction
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiction

As you can see from the second line of the post you quote --

-- I am pursuing the proof which your question earlier in the thread inspired. The argument gets clearer to me every day. I believe I shall soon have the logic worked out sufficiently to present the argument with a fanfare. Subjectivity is the linchpin, but the argument will be made in logic. Messrs Rea and Rodeo have so far failed to see where this is going, but I suspect blarg of an intuition of the goal. This accounts for his skittishness over the morality business. :)
Click to expand...

I fail to see you making any headway in this endeavor so far.
You seem to be claiming that everything is subjective and that somehow that equates to evidence of the supernatural.
You have not come close to proving either point
 
Q #1284

And this is primarily a text medium.

Those that can't make a comprehensible if not persuasive argument in a short declarative sentence are out of their element in these fora.
 
RAMOSS said:
They are not physical. You can not show me a number.. You can use a number as part of a description.. but you can not show me a number.

By saying they exist but are abstract, you are calling them 'an abstract object', which is a metaphysical concept.
Click to expand...

They are abstract in terms of what they are used to represent and how we use them, not in terms of their existence as a means of representing a quantity or their basis in reality.
 
Quag said:
Sorry I dont watch YouTube videos for debate purposes. Personal rule stemming from the CT section where shills try to increase the views of nonsense videos so scumbags can make $$ by lying about tragedies such as 911 and Sandy Hook
Click to expand...

It's fine, no need to watch if you don't want to, I just put them out there for Angel really.
 
Quag said:
I asked if you meant that morality is based on what is good/bad for you as an individual.
What is right/good is not necessarily what is good for me. For instance stealing money from someone if there is no chance of being caught would be good for the individual stealing but I hope you would agree that it is not the right or good thing to do.
Not only are morals subjective they are rather murky at times. If someone has a strict moral code of never lying and never saying anything to hurt others what would the morally correct thing to do in the following scenario?
There is a car crash the driver is very badly injured and obviously near death, the passenger was thrown from the car and decapitated. The driver knows they are dying and pleads to know the fate of the passenger. Do they tell them the truth and let them die with the added pain of knowing their accident killed their friend/lover/child/whoever or do you lie and say the passenger is going to be OK and let them die without the added burden?
Click to expand...

id say it is based on whats good or bad to you as an individual but caring for other people can be a part of that
 
blarg said:
id say it is based on whats good or bad to you as an individual but caring for other people can be a part of that
Click to expand...

Id say its what is right regardless of whether it is good or bad for you as an individual.
 
Angel said:
Correlation is not identity. Nor is causation. Collect all the physical data of brain activity during the violin sonata, and all of it together would not be identical to the experienced sonata. Human subjectivity eludes physical reduction. We are not only bodies; we are conscious bodies. Physical monism does not tell the whole story.
Click to expand...

We are only conscious bodies while our physical bodies and brains live. Once they die, so does consciousness. That is the story, even if some aren't satisfied with that story. Only the living get to even contemplate these things. I have yet to hear anything from the dead or from those yet to be conceived.
 
devildavid said:
"We are only conscious bodies while our physical bodies and brains live. Once they die, so does consciousness. That is the story, even if some aren't satisfied with that story. Only the living get to even contemplate these things. I have yet to hear anything from the dead or from those yet to be conceived." dd #1290
Click to expand...
a) From the outset I should declare that you and I are apparently of the same opinion here. Thus:

b) I'm not advocating the opposing view, merely explaining it.

"We are only conscious bodies while our physical bodies and brains live. Once they die, so does consciousness." dd

Right.
You're overlooking the concept of the "soul".

b1) There's no evidence that a soul in that sense exists.

b2) Experiment has been reported of a dying body being carefully weighed, to see if shortly after expiration, the body loses weight. The reported answer is: it does not.
Some concluded from this that the soul does not exist. For if the soul departs the body after death, the weight reduction could be measured.

BUT !!

b3) That assumption presumes the soul has weight.
Does the mind have weight?

We KNOW the BRAIN has weight. That's not in dispute. Does the mind, does consciousness have weight?
Does a smart person weigh more than a stupid person?
And if the smart person's intelligence is suddenly removed, do they get lighter?

I doubt it.
"I have yet to hear anything from the dead or from those yet to be conceived."
Click to expand...
Are you aware that there's more than one possible explanation for this?

Or has your own prejudice so crippled your thought process that you are unable to imagine more than one explanation for this?
 
sear said:
a) From the outset I should declare that you and I are apparently of the same opinion here. Thus:

b) I'm not advocating the opposing view, merely explaining it.

"We are only conscious bodies while our physical bodies and brains live. Once they die, so does consciousness." dd

Right.
You're overlooking the concept of the "soul".

b1) There's no evidence that a soul in that sense exists.

b2) Experiment has been reported of a dying body being carefully weighed, to see if shortly after expiration, the body loses weight. The reported answer is: it does not.
Some concluded from this that the soul does not exist. For if the soul departs the body after death, the weight reduction could be measured.

BUT !!

b3) That assumption presumes the soul has weight.
Does the mind have weight?

We KNOW the BRAIN has weight. That's not in dispute. Does the mind, does consciousness have weight?
Does a smart person weigh more than a stupid person?
And if the smart person's intelligence is suddenly removed, do they get lighter?

I doubt it.

Are you aware that there's more than one possible explanation for this?

Or has your own prejudice so crippled your thought process that you are unable to imagine more than one explanation for this?
Click to expand...
Is there more than one explanation for why we have not found any leprechauns?
 
sear said:
a) From the outset I should declare that you and I are apparently of the same opinion here. Thus:

b) I'm not advocating the opposing view, merely explaining it.

"We are only conscious bodies while our physical bodies and brains live. Once they die, so does consciousness." dd

Right.
You're overlooking the concept of the "soul".

b1) There's no evidence that a soul in that sense exists.

b2) Experiment has been reported of a dying body being carefully weighed, to see if shortly after expiration, the body loses weight. The reported answer is: it does not.
Some concluded from this that the soul does not exist. For if the soul departs the body after death, the weight reduction could be measured.

BUT !!

b3) That assumption presumes the soul has weight.
Does the mind have weight?

We KNOW the BRAIN has weight. That's not in dispute. Does the mind, does consciousness have weight?
Does a smart person weigh more than a stupid person?
And if the smart person's intelligence is suddenly removed, do they get lighter?

I doubt it.

Are you aware that there's more than one possible explanation for this?

Or has your own prejudice so crippled your thought process that you are unable to imagine more than one explanation for this?
Click to expand...

What we call the mind is entirely dependent on the brain. The mind describes the effect we experience from using the brain. Using the words consciousness and mind doesn't change the fact that without the brain we can't even invent those concepts.
 
devildavid said:
What we call the mind is entirely dependent on the brain.
Click to expand...
That is the scientific opinion.
It may not be the only opinion.
I am not qualified to judge, as I am a scientist.

But I'm not so deluded, so overwhelmed by my own prejudice as to believe there isn't differing opinion.

I may not SHARE that differing opinion. But I don't deny that it exists.
devildavid said:
Using the words consciousness and mind doesn't change the fact that without the brain we can't even invent those concepts.
Click to expand...
I believe that to be true.

BUT !!

I'm aware that some others may not.

It hardly matters.

If which side of that issue one takes means a $20% difference in $Social $Security and $pension benefits, I might be coerced into taking the more remunerative position on it.

That is not the case.
So I think, AND ADVOCATE honestly, from my own perspective.
 
zyzygy said:
Reality.
Click to expand...
- ah -

So now you're asserting there's a specific defined word in our lexicon for something that doesn't exist.

If it doesn't exist, why is there a name for it?

Why would we have the word "god" if god didn't exist? That wood be stoopit!
 
sear said:
- ah -

So now you're asserting there's a specific defined word in our lexicon for something that doesn't exist.

If it doesn't exist, why is there a name for it?

Why would we have the word "god" if god didn't exist? That wood be stoopit!
Click to expand...

We have a word for Orcs but they don't exist.
 
sear said:
- ah -

So now you're asserting there's a specific defined word in our lexicon for something that doesn't exist.

If it doesn't exist, why is there a name for it?

Why would we have the word "god" if god didn't exist? That wood be stoopit!
Click to expand...

That has to be the absolute worst argument for God that I have ever heard.
 
"We have a word for Orcs but they don't exist." z #1298
Click to expand...
excellent

Prove it.
"That has to be the absolute worst argument for God that I have ever heard." Q #1299
Click to expand...
excellent

Please post the next worst.

Thanks in advance.
 
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