Hey everyone, I just bumped into this place, lets hope its not defunct now that I joined in

Anyway, I would like to challenge (for the sake of constructive discussion) some of the ideas you people seem to be debating over here. I can’t I disagree with most of what I read (not much so far, must admit), but I cant seem to fully agree either.

First of all I have a problem with what seems to be an over-catholic approach to the idea of god that you seem to portrait. Not everyone believes in god as an entity, much less of human form. Actually most people I see denying any possibility of a god-principle, actually have all sorts of “lesser gods” they blindly believe in. One of the most common is the god-of-science. It seems altogether too easy to believe that if god does not exist, then science is where all the answers lie (most so called sceptics behave like that).

Well, even if we humans had the potential to actually understand all the intricacies of the vast universe (which I seriously doubt), truth is we’ve been mostly adhering to what the current scientific trend seems to support, and believing (as in blind-faith-believing) that it is the absolute thruth. Not that there is anything wrong with science, but it changes, it evolves, it fails and tries again, and what was true yesterday is no more today. Science, from my perspective, is and will always be, incomplete, and flawed with errors, like an exponential curve that never quite reaches the limit.

And trying to find truth through science is mostly wishfull thinking, pretty much like stating that there is, or there isn’t a god.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not catholic (although I was raised like one), neither do I believe in catholic dogmas. I do believe, from reasonable convincing historical evidence, that a man named Jesus once lived, and that he was one of the kindest and purest persons to have ever lived. It took a really selfless person to have lived as he did. Can’t help but respect that. But I’m pretty sure he was born of a woman, though, and made of flesh and blood like us. I am also pretty convinced that his mother must have had sex with a man in order to get pregnant. And I also suspect that when his heart and brain stopped he was dead beyond hope. To me denying his godly nature does not diminish his value, on the contrary, it actually increases it, since how hard would it be for the son-of-god to be perfect? No, it’s the son-of-man that has to strive for perfection, and he must have had, relentlessly so. That, in my book, is meritorious.

But there have been many good and kind souls over the ages, Jesus just had a much bigger worldwide projection, but that does not prove that his message was *the* message, merely that he had better promoters (and the catholic church has proven how persuasive they can be on numerous historical occasions).

For instance, I’m a big fan of the Buddha’s view of reality, its as close as it gets to explaining the (human) world that I found. Not that I consider myself a Buddhist, either, but because he actually made a clear effort to explain the reality we observe, with all its paradoxes, not from a philosophical or idealistic point of view, but first and foremost from a practical and personal perspective, with the clear purpose of easing people’s suffering. What better motivation can there be?

But perhaps the Buddha’s ideas had been preserved more accurately over the centuries, where we know for sure that what the New Testament portraits is not the real Jesus message (whatever that might have been), but what the prevailing political powers have seen fit for us to believe. Perhaps the real message was too dangerous to fall into the hands of the people…

Anyway, I digress, so, to conclude, although the notion of an all-mighty entity with long beard and white gown is preposterous to me, I don’t believe either that the universe (a more scientific name for “god”) is purely mechanical and of a materialistic nature exclusive. The nature of reality is much more subtle.

Just dismissing the god idea as childish seems more like dogma than rationalism to me.
You see, more than actually discussing the existence of god, or the supernatural (btw, isn’t supernatural an oxymoron? how can anything fail to be natural, if nature is what brings forth everything?) or whatever, I would like to know whether *I* (myself) exist! (I’m not even concerned at this point whether *you* yourselves exist).

Because, when it comes to it, we have only ourselves, our personal experience to decide. You can have all sorts of people convince you (or not) of every conceivable idea. But how can I believe anyone, any book, any belief, if not by faith?

What I’m saying is, there are questions that can only be answered in the first person. Questions that won’t allow us to even *know* its answer, but that will only allow themselves to be lived.

Like Robert Adams (an interesting guy, Advaita flavour, I came across recently) would put it: the only real answer is SILENCE! Whatever thing you say, whatever object you can name, whatever form, idea you come up to: it ain’t it! How could it be? Are we humans endowed with omniscience? How presumptuous of our imperfect species to believe we can know everything… God could never become an object of our perception. That would kinda make us god, instead… (and consequently we would have to accept that we didn’t exist – duh!)

So, before I leave (sigh), let me just ask a question, and please, don’t answer that it is the side effect, or some kind of perverse distortion of our normal (physical and materialistic) operation. That may be a cool power trip for scientists on denial, but it explains nothing (I’d rather embrace the creationist model, then, and state that since I have no clue as to how all this works … god must have done it).

The question is this: whenever we focus on an object on our awareness, we can easily distinguish that there is an object (whatever it my be), and a subject (I). Both have to be there (and mostly they are), for any of them to exist. But this subject, that is the *I*, can itself be a subject of our awareness? In other words, can the “observer” be observed by itself? And why?

Ok, I’ll answer

If we try to observe the observer, the actual observer recedes, and we end up observing an idea of an observer, but not the observer itself. The eye, cannot see itself and the further you try to grab it, the further it recedes away… into what?

So what I’m driving at is this: what is this observational quality that we call consciousness, or awareness? Where does it come from, and why does it seem to be the only thing that I can safely assume that exists, not based on faith, or other peoples opinions, but on my own (and everyone’s, I’m assuming) self experience?

Could perhaps this consciousness be the fabric of reality? Could perhaps this observer of mine, that I know so well (even if not at all), be the same observer that is in every other people’s heads? (again, I’m assuming)

Could that be that this ineffable observer is (dare I say the G-word?) … (gulp)… god? (no, not the white bearded old man, I mean the other)

Ok, I’ll rest now. Hope I’m not banned for overly lengthy ramblings, cause I haven’t even started!

Wish you all the best, and thanks for putting with me this far.


I mean, you read this far, right?

Right?

Hello??

Anybody there?

Anyone?

As soon as you try to redefine the notion of a "god" such that it includes science and critical thought, you have abandoned the notion of a god entirely, else made the entire process meaningless. Even the claim that for some science is a god is necessarily nonsensical in the literal meaning of the term.

There is a set of claims which will be very difficult if not impossible to demonstrate to be the case. Certainly it would be rash of us to simply blindly accept these contrary to reality claims as true.

This misses the core of what constitutes science and instead diminishes science to merely a few of the predictions which came to be shown to be false through science. Sciece is the child of philosophy. It is the application of critical thought to specific arenas. As a result predictions are made, experiements are done, and conclusions are drawn. But these are tangential to science, as they are the result of science, not science qua science. The use of critical thought, and critical observation are the practice of science.

Truth is correspondence to reality. This means that in order to know truth one must employ rational thought, critical thought, and critical observation. This is not wishful thinking as you call it, but rather sound methodology. To compare this methodology with religion/faith is simply absurd. Religion/faith starts with the desired conclusion then simply emotes to try to get others to bow down to it. Science and philosophy begin with reality and seek to see where this leads us so that we might learn. The conlcusion is not predetermined, but rather because of this careful methodology is necessitated.

First off again we see the bastardization of the language in an effort to put forth a desired conclusion. This should be a huge red flag that there is something inherently and fatally wrong with the conclusion. Secondly, your assumption/conclusion is purely a matter of contrary to reality faith (yes I realize that is redundant but the redundancy helps make the point).

If one were like the religious and lead off with a conclusion then perhaps this would have merit, but as it stands this suggestion is at best a strawman since the position does not begin with the conclusion but rather begins with observation, critical thought, and reason, which necessarily lead to the conclusion that the arguments for the existence of a magical mystery being called "god" are fatally flawed on a very basic level. Remember that one of the hallmarks of the pro-god arguments is the abandonment of all reason and all evidence, particularly the abandonment of the law of non-contradiction which is the description of the fact that X and Not X cannot both be true at the same time. Since the god arguments necessitate contradictions, and since contradictions cannot coexist, the arguments must necessarily be fatally flawed, and the conclusions, to borrow your turn of phrase, dogmatic wishful thinking.

This assumes a false claim. Namely that in order to know anything we must know everything. Need we point out counter-examples to this notion? Do you know your favorite shirt? Do you know yourself? The fact is that we can know a great deal without any requirement to know everything.

How about an absurdly simple example of this occuring on a daily basis for millions of people all over the world.. Shaving and applying makeup. The observer is observed necessarily for both of these actions. So clearly yes this is quite possible since it occurs with such great frequency.

As for the observer receeding (whatever that is supposed to mean in this context) I would point out that this appears to be a baseless assertion. There is nothing about me which receeds when I contemplate or observe myself. Why would there need be?

I too find Bishop Berkeley mildly entertaining since his a priori system is quite nifty, but recall that the postulation that a god must exist to perceive things is a baseless claim for which there is no need nor evidence.

"If we try to observe the observer, the actual observer recedes, and we end up observing an idea of an observer, but not the observer itself."

What do you mean by this?

I'm sure some folks will say that conciouseness is a work of the brain. I can only come to have the opinnion that conciouseness is an observation of ones self IN RELATION to the rest of the world at said time. It would be a part of yourself that insists that you are in fact there because the world around you is reacting to you.
Other than that, I've got nothin'.

Hey TXStorm, thanks for your comments

Come on, what god? What process?

OK, perhaps I should start by understanding how you’re defining God. Are you saying that God and science are incompatible in the sense that God must be some irrational belief and science as such is completely rational?
In my humble opinion you’d be wrong on both accounts… (depending on our definitions, of course)

So we may (must) be talking of different gods.

Actually, for the sake of clarity, what I consider god is pretty much all that is (the universe, now try to deny that), but all that is, for me, is an emanation of mind or that consciousness principle that I referred to at the end of my first post. God is another name for the first cause, for all the vast enormity of things we don’t (and possibly can’t) know, much less understand.

What does your god look like?

Well I think that pretty much ranks you in the god-is-science creed, then
You seem to imply that science is flawless. Mathematics, for instance, should be even flawlesser, but some guy named Godel pretty much showed we can’t simply put god on an equation.

But don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe in god the way you seem to define it. I just know there is an awful lot I don’t understand.

I cannot but agree with you. I define myself as a scientist, albeit an unconventional one, since I have always been biased into thinking that it ain’t just physical matter (and actually some scientists have the same belief, they just call it fancy names like dark energy, or whatever – how different is that?)

And although, as you say, it is the application of critical thought to specific arenas, I must say I’m not so convinced of the critical thought’s infallibility.

And why not use critical thought to analyse the so called paranormal questions? As I’m sure you know there are a large number of scientists (real ones) doing consciousness research. The “hard problem” remains hard, but it’s just a matter of time that they give up looking for purely materialistic explanations.

There are things that cannot be observed accurately. Say, the electron’s position and speed at the the same time. So that coerces critical thought to the analysis of macro phenomena. It’s just like Newton stating the laws of gravity in coarse detail, and that worked fine, most of the times, but then came this Einstein chap, and showed that there was more to it. If you want to go deep down to truth, then, I dare say that, at some point science, and pretty much all conceptual thought, is more of a hindrance than of any benefit.

It is the sound methodology that has worked so far. Or not worked, since all the major flaws of our world remain unsolved. Perhaps for a small percentage of the world population (the ones that aren’t starving) this is acceptable, since they (we) now have all this great technology that all-mighty science has provided them with, thanks to human’s pristeen intellect and reasoning capabilities (sorry if I'm being bitter, nothing personal, I’m just coming to a particularly dispassionate view of our current modern society)

Well, that can be said of some science also. Einstein never got to see some of his “hints” confirmed during his lifetime. Some of his conclusions simply were not supported by any known evidence at the time. It was simply a leap of faith. Some of the better science was reached like that. Perhaps the best.
But don't equate god with religion. It's not the same. Religion is some powerful politics trying to use something they don't understand (god) for their own benefit.

Contrary to reality faith? Are you saying this is your reality, and you wont let me play with it? Why is your reality more real than mine?

Yea, but you too are assuming that god (whatever it might be) is just like “anything”. Perhaps some things are bigger than our minds… I’m sure ants, for instance, don’t believe in mankind,

I didn’t mean like observing yourself in the mirror When you are observing yourself in the mirror (or merely thinking about yourself, or even thinking “I…this or that”), the “you” becomes an object of your own subjective awareness.
I meant observing our awareness itself. Is it possible? Why? (or Why not?)

For the same reason you observe whatever you do. That's what we do.
My point was that if you look at your own awareness, you come to realise that you are looking not at the awareness itself but at an object that you just made of your “awareness” (that jumping off from object into subject was what I meant as receding… am I making any sense? Sorry, I’m very tired and it is only the passion for the subject matter that is keeping me awake)

Don’t know that Berkeley fella (gotta google it) but perhaps we could debate this question further, later on, now that I have somewhat clarified what I meant? would like that

Hey Kren

Well, I tried to explain it a little better in my reply to TXStorm. Does it make any sense? I'm talking of something mental, its rather simple when you look at it, or perhaps it is something incredibly misterious, but we've grown so used to it we don't even notice how miraculous it is anymore

I won't. But if you reverse that order, I might.

Hum... I feel ya. That's what I meant by the subject and object needing to both exist, or none would. There can be no objectless subject, unless dualistic thinking has ceased.

or perhaps the world is ther cause it reacts to me. Or neither are here. or both. or whatever..

cool, I must make bolder claims then

cheers!

"or perhaps the world is ther cause it reacts to me. Or neither are here. or both. or whatever"

Although I can understand that line of thought, I believe that all are actually there. You can think that things exist because you percieve them as existing, however they also exist if you don't. Other people can also percieve a bus that you are not looking at.
Things exist, the reason for existance at all? I have no idea. They just do. But our perception of them existing wavers, in no way, by our perception. Our UNDERSTANDING of things will waver as long as we keep learning.

Yes, but is there a bus if nobody perceives it? What is a bus to start with? A human concept, that would perhaps make the same sense to an alien (or a bee, for that matter) as any other random natural formation. So a "bus" only exists because we humans had that thought and gave it that meaning. In the absence of thought there is no bus, no me and no you. I cannot say that I (this material being I see reflected in the mirror when I shave) exist, if there is no thought in my head about myself (not even the body-thought).
But even in the absence of the “me” thought in all its ramifications, there is a “basal” awareness, that is more self-defining than any me-thought I can come up with. That residual-me, that is perhaps just a focus of attention, never changes, it is just there, constantly, whereas my me-thoughts (the set of all thoughts and perceptions that I have that define my personality), keep changing all the time, and I can’t say that I’m ever really the same. The truth should be perpetually constant, or else how would it qualify as the truth?
To me this seems to bring the inevitable conclusion that the real truth about the nature of life, cannot be found in the realm of thought, which is to say, the realm of conceptual reason. It can be hinted from there, but it cannot be fully reached (you know, the finger and the moon thing). In other words, the truth cannot be understood intellectually, it can only be lived. You cannot think about it, but you can be (thoughtlessly) aware of it.

You say “our perception”… It is just our perception that makes them as we see them. In no way are they really as we perceive them (and this is just physics). So it can be said that things (as we perceive them) do not exist.

That’s for sure

Ok, I see what you mean, but I am not a subjective idealist (in the philosophical sense), much less an objective one. Maybe more of a monistic idealist, if you twist my arm into settling for one of the factions (I don’t believe materialism is all of reality, so I guess that makes me an idealist; and I believe ultimately there is only one mind, hence monistic).
But then I don’t believe that thoughts and mind are the ultimate reality, either. They are also perceptions, and there is something more essential, let me call it consciousness (actually even consciousness may be a result of something, not the primary stuff, although it may well be as close to the source as we can get).

Of course I fully agree that there is no need to call God to this one consciousness. Why, we can call it Joe.

You ask Kren if there is a bus if no one perceives it, the answer to which is of course the bus exists regardless of your perception or mine. It is the height of arrogance to assume that reality rests upon the perception of any individual, or even to place perception above that which is perceived. Furthermore it requires adding an enormous degree of complexity where there is no reason to suspect that this complexity exists. Naturally Occham's Razor comes into play here.

You seem to be confusing the word with the object which the word describes. What you say about a bus is only true about the word "bus" and even then only trivially conditionally true since there could exist other intelligent entities which happen to use the word.

This is only true in the most general sense. What I mean is that the truth is always and necessarily correspondence with reality and this is clearly constant. But since the world around us changes (it is day at one point, night at another) particular claims about reality can have variable truth values. "It is raining" is only true when it is actually raining. So the truth of this claim is clearly not constant, but that does not change the nature of truth one whit.

This does not follow from your (already shown to be false) premises. In fact I strongly doubt that even a weak case can be made for this, assuming that you can make sense of it one way or another. ONce you deny reality, as you have done, you deny truth as well. In denying truth you deny even the possibility of "living truth" whatever that is supposed to mean.

Several problems here. 1. The claims are patently false. 2. The reasoning is fatally flawed (you assume that perception exists a priori to that which is perceived, as well as arguing that since there exist characteristics of which we are not immediately aware with the naked eye, we perceive nothing at all, and finally that since we perceive something but not everything then nothing exists) 3. (Really a subset of 2) You employ circular reasoning by assuming your conclusion as the primary (if not only) premise of your argument.

As for what to call your suggested "one consciousness" rather than search for a name, why not start with actually determining if such a thing could exist, then demonstrating that in fact it does exist? You have put the cart before the horse in assuming that your conclusion must be true then jumping to naming it, without ever allowing reality (recall reality? That thing that alone determines truth?) to enter into the picture whatsoever.

Prove it Notice I said in the absence of any observer, not just me and you (why then Kren would spot it).
When humans are extinct will busses still be busses? This is more of a philosophical question than a physical one.

Not any individual, but all of them. And then it must be the same "height of arrogance" that makes statements like the Copenhagen interpretation.

Occam's razor says that the simplest solution that explains something is usually the true one, but notice my emphasis: in my opinion your explanation (materialism) fails to explain reality in full, so Occam has no business here.
Besides I could argue that idealism is even simpler than materialism.

And you seem to be confusing a pile of metal with a bus.

aiight... klingons?

I told you already that reasoning has its limitations, and so, there is only a partial adherence of reality to truth. I think reality, in the sense of physical reality which you seem to be using it, is a parcel of truth, but by no means the whole of it.

I’m not referring to conventional truths when I speak of the truth. Perhaps I should start capitalizing it for clarity. The Truth with a big T, the inner rules that govern everything, is not dependent on the observer. All the rest is.

Hahaha, that was funny, man. You gonna be playing that game of you know better again? Sorry, can I see some credentials?

Oh well. I can’t really talk you into separating (material) reality from (transcendental) truth, can I?

There are other ways of understanding, besides from conceptual thinking. That’s what I mean by it.
Still clueless?

At least I try to back up my opinions. Its much easier to just look down and say that its false. Whatever makes your day…

And it doesn’t?

That’s not what I said, but I guess distorting it like that you make a more dramatic effect.

I’m starting to wander if you did read my comments, or merely skimmed them for easy catch-phrases you could make fun of. Anyway, its nice to be of assistance.

What’s with you and circular reasoning? I’m not gonna take you very seriously if you start paternizing me.

Even if I did as you say (I always include some “could’s” and “maybe’s” along, cause I don’t pretend to know the Truth, but I guess these small words never get to your awareness), what difference is there to what YOU are doing? You decided before hand that it couldn’t be like that. That there could be nothing beyond our reasoning capabilities, that could be nothing outside this universe, that could be nothing outside matter… Heck, I bet you rather be deprived of consciouness than be proven wrong.
Well, if all is matter, then we must all be robots. If there was something called a big bang, and matter flew in all directions governed by immutable laws, then in principle it should be possible to discover these laws and calculate the trajectory of every single cell in the universe since the beginning of times. So could you be so kind to explain how you seem to govern the motion of your body's particles, since they have been pre-ordained since the beginning of times?

Actually, there are many scientists (real scientists on the cutting edge of modern investigation) that are studying consciousness. And not all of them believe it’s a product of the brain.

Besides I thought all scientists start by asking whether something might be true (not deciding it must be true, like you accuse me of, but then I realise how easy it is to project our own flaws onto others and pretend they’re the ones to blame), and then go test it to see what they can conclude. I thought that was called the scientific method, but you must know better.

"Prove it Notice I said in the absence of any observer, not just me and you (why then Kren would spot it).
When humans are extinct will busses still be busses? This is more of a philosophical question than a physical one."

With the absence of humans, things would still exist. This is proven by dinosaur bones.
With NO entity percieving things, IMO they would still exist, but it wouldn't matter.



"Well, if all is matter, then we must all be robots. If there was something called a big bang, and matter flew in all directions governed by immutable laws, then in principle it should be possible to discover these laws and calculate the trajectory of every single cell in the universe since the beginning of times."

Not really.Since gravity changes the trajectory of even light, any large sun, planet, masses of "dark matter", and black holes would have been changing the trajectories of every single cell in the universe for a long, long time. It doesn't stop there either, the planets, suns, "dark matter" and black holes would also be changing the trajectory of eachother, so in order to track anythings' trajectory back to where it originated, we would have to effectively go back in time.

Well put
I am not 100% idealist either, and I do believe the moon is still there when I'm not looking. I was merely trying to evidence the relativity of it all (certainly I never believed human's had special powers or some kind of privileged status; I feel we're mostly like my avatar, with less fur).

Yes, but imagine that even all those factors would be taken into account. Imagine a gigantic computer that could be programmed (I program from a living, btw) with complete information of all this factors, whatever they may be. A virtual model of the universe, so to speak. Wouldn't that computer be able to calculate precisely each state of the Universe, or in other words, the position of every single particle of the universe, in any arbitrary moment of time?

If the laws governing matter are immutable, that mental experience is not so absurd.

My point is that if those laws are absolute, then there is no way to account for human will (or any other species, inter or extra terrestrial's will, for that matter), because everything in the universe was set in motion by the big bang, the only real cause that ever was, and everything else just results, by an enormous chain of simple action-reaction events, in only one possible position for each and every little particle of the universe, at any specific point in time. No particle could have gone astray from the model, because the laws of physics forced it to behave in a precise, definite manner.

There was only one “causeless cause”, that triggered the big-bang, which incidentally hasn’t ended yet. The cycles set in motion then, are the same cycles that are going on right now, they merely evolved into more complex ones, by their interference with each other, like ripples on the water stirred by a rock thrown to a pond... Matter has never ceased moving...

So, either we believe that we somehow have the power to shape the laws of physics (quantum indeterminacy may play a role here), or we don't have much to say as to the way matter moves around. We are not needed to explain any of it (any more than god, except for the first cause, but even then I agree its better to not to try to explain it at all - see, I’m an atheist as well). We are matter just like the rest, and so there must be equations ruling all our behaviours.

So to put it simply: I cannot move my arm, if that was not already the motion that the particles composing my arm would take, as consequence of all the other interplays of particles since the big-bang that arrived at my arm (the particles that compose it) being here, now.

Or does our intention affect matter in ways that are not inevitable,, that are not just a consequence of the chain of actions and reactions that the first cause set in motion? Now if that isn’t “human supremacy” arrogance, I don’t know what would be.

"Wouldn't that computer be able to calculate precisely each state of the Universe, or in other words, the position of every single particle of the universe, in any arbitrary moment of time?"

Not if that computer gave lots of little tiny inner computers the will to do as they please.


"So to put it simply: I cannot move my arm, if that was not already the motion that the particles composing my arm would take, as consequence of all the other interplays of particles since the big-bang that arrived at my arm (the particles that compose it) being here, now."

This one confuses me a bit, if you mean that you cannot move your arm in any direction other than away from the big bang, sure... but in a way Speed is relevant. So it doesn't matter too much.

If you mean that without all of those particles strangely being at the correct place and time for you to take the action of moving it, I think that doesn't matter.
Here's why:

As beings, in this case animals, our bodies consist of particles minerals blah blah blah. This is because as cells we've allocated the correct particles and moved them around and changed them to form said arm, as well as every muscle/nerve needed for the energy to do so. We've taken control of the particles and forced them to work for us as a species. As difficult as a task it was (IE: taking a long time) it's become quite popular.

So you’re saying god (for lack of a better name to give to this super-computer) may have granted us special powers that allow us to not to adhere to the laws of matter. Are we not matter, then? And I thought you didn’t believe in god, sorry, super-computers.

Now I’m confused. Don’t really know what you mean by speed being relevant. I can assure you my super-computer computes speed in every possible detail. So its not like it doesn’t “know” the laws of speed, or any other laws for that matter.

My point is how did we move those particles, if they were on the move already, and there are precise laws governing where they can move about, and none of those laws includes some human willing them to?
If they simply moved by themselves, in a way that supports evolution (I believe in Darwin's findings, btw), then still, we didn't move them ourselves, although we may think we did.

Note: I provided the Libet’s link as a possibility, not endorsment. But what Libet refers to as the 'power of veto' may be none other than the only remaining power I can see for us: to choose what we pay attention to! (don’t ask me to elaborate, or beware: I will! )

"So you’re saying god (for lack of a better name to give to this super-computer) may have granted us special powers that allow us to not to adhere to the laws of matter. Are we not matter, then? And I thought you didn’t believe in god, sorry, super-computers."

That's the thing, it actually disproves the notion that anything could have known every outcome. Once things are given free will, things tend to randomize. IE: people acting irrationally.
This doesn't change the course of the planet Earth, no. But in the future (Assuming our race multiplies among the cosmos) we may have the ability and reason to do just that.

"My point is how did we move those particles, if they were on the move already, and there are precise laws governing where they can move about, and none of those laws includes some human willing them to?"

HMMM... Now I'm even more confused. But let me try anyway.
Everything is moving, yet we move things.
As to how, well there are many different ways. I'm NOT an expert on RNA or DNA phenomena, but I'm sure that's probably a good place to start. Once beings got to a certain point, we used the particles and laws of the universe to build things that we COULD move by our will, in conjunction WITH those laws.

No it is not at all philosophical, it is nonsensical. That object which we call a bus will still be that object regardless of whether any human exists any more. Here again we see your confusion about the labels and the entities being described and pointed to by the label.

In this one statement you have defeated your position or any hope of your position. As soon as you allow that others exist, you have acknowledged reality exists beyond your own personal perception.

Since the only hint of anything at all to the effect of any lack of explanation is merely your own personal STIPULATION (which itself is your contrary to reality conclusion, therefore any introduction here makes your argument purely circular) there is no reasonable basis, no basis whatsoever actually for claiming that in fact there is any failure to explain. Remember that thus far your only complaint that itfails to explain fully is that it fails to match your a priori assertions about the nature of reality, or more accurately the non-existence of reality.

You must mean this as a general but not universal statement since no where here have you actually done this. In fact it is very strange that you would bring this up given the repeated sound refutations offered, as well as the citations of the inherent contradictions to your position. Surely citing fact, evidence, and reason are more than sufficient "backing up" of any such refutation.

Since this necessitates negating the meaning of the terms you use, yes I and in fact you as well are necessarily clueless as to what such meaningless utterances could mean. Can you offer something which retains the meaning of the terms and still somehow explains the points you seem to believe you have to make?

To make an analogy here, I can stipulate as you do here, that squares are round objects with no right angles, but in doing so I am uttering nonsense, just as you do when you claim that there is meaning and understanding beyond meaning and understanding.

Of course not. It necessarily cannot. If you are perceiving something there must exist somthing which is being perceived (else you are just imagining that you are perceiving something)

BTW your response indicates the use of your conclusion as axiomatic, prior to reality assumption which you do not allow can be falsified under any circumstance. THis of course will always prevent your argument from leading to a true conclusion, as well as prevent your argument from ever being sound, or ever discribe any aspect of reality. At most all you can do is refer back to your own notion, and leave it at that. This is commonly referred to as mental masturbation (though real masturbation usually has some element of reality in it, or at least outside inspiration, so in truth we are doing a disservice to masturbation with such references.)

This is what is immediately and obviously necessitated by your stipulations. The practice of showing  that your assumptions lead to false and absurd conclusions is the most common method for demonstrating that an argument form is invalid, therefore the conclusion is not supported.

There is no patronizing present. In honest intellectual discussion it is quite common to note where errors in the argument exist, including the well known fallacies such as circularity, and ad hominem. When the circularity is noted, you obviously have at least two choices. 1. You can choose to develop a new argument which avoids such fallacies, or 2. You can choose to lash out at the individual who happens to point out the fallacies. You choose the latter. Ask yourself why you might have chosen to avoid the former. Ask why you would react emotionally to simple statment of objective demonstrable fact, simply because these facts necesstiate that the idea you put forth must be false.

This is not merely false, but absurd. You are assuming that because you choose to set aside reality in order to declare your onw nifty scheme to be the only possibility that everyone else, or at least anyone who dares to disagree by referring to reason and evidence, must also be adopting this methodology. Start with the evidence, start with sound reasoning, start with observation, and from these then see where you are led. This allows truth to be discovered rather than stipulated. This is the methodology of ALL knowledge and all understanding, necessarily.

You seem to want to make the case that the universe of evidence and all of reason is identical to illusion, fantasy, deception, and falsehood, but of course that case simply cannot be made. The two are not identical. Recognizing this fact does not mean that someone has adopted your methodology, it means that they are simply being reasonable and not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Red herring, strawman, and clearly does not follow from anything I have stated. Since what you attribute to me is not my position and cannot be derived from anything I have said, I cannot defend your strawman, nor would I.

Whether I personally know better or not is irrelevant, it remains the case that you are in error in your assumption. Scientists begin with OBSERVATION, apply CRITICAL THOUGHT and CRITICAL EXAMINATION, and then USING REASON, come up with a hypothesis which is then tested (BY COMPARING the conclusions AGAINST REALITY). Notice that your approach contains none of the capped elements. You begin with your conclusion, stipulate that it is beyond any question or falsification, then declare that you personally must be correct.

A brief aside about ad hominem. Of course this is a fallacy, and of course it never has any place in any civil discussion, but on the practical level it merely serves to weaken your position, as well as reveal aspects of your character of which no respectable or reasonable person could possibly be proud. How about leaving off the personal attacks and focusing on the issues honestly and reasonably? If your argument had any merit do you think that you would need to sink to such tactics?

This post was last modified: 01-19-2007 10:45 AM by TXStorm.

Kren,

Quite true, and this of course gets to the heart of the matter. The best case ever made for idealism was made by its creator, Bishop Berkeley, and even Berkeley had to resort to creating this imaginary being for which there still exists not one iota of evidence, that "perceives" everthing even when the item is not being perceived. He had to add several layers of complication and baseless assumption in order to even get the notion of idealism off the ground in any fashion. Of course it got off the ground the same way that someone jumping off a cliff "flies"..

The only way to try to create the illusion of any meaningful discussion which assumes idealism is first to stipulate that idealism is "true" where "true" no longer means that the claim corresponds to reality. In other words one must first abandon reality in order to put forth this supposed explaination of reality.. This is a rather obvious problem for most folks.. Still there are some who are so enamored with their own ideas, or egos, that they are perfectly willing to place themselves above all others, and even above reality itself in order to declare the rest of the world, and all critical thinkers must be wrong since the truth does not match their nifty notions.. I for one cannot imagine how to go about developing such a high degree of arrogance, but then I am not a person of faith..

This post was last modified: 01-19-2007 10:52 AM by TXStorm.

well, that is down to personal belief, you cannot accept that there may a big enough super-computer to know everything, but it would only need to know a set of "simple" rules, and some starting conditions, to calculate all the subsequent states..

You seem to mean that free will allows us to do whatever we want, including disregarding the laws of physics and move about in ways there are "free" as in not subject to the laws that govern matter. Why can't we walk on water, then, cause we don't will it enough?

I'm sorry, but that is not very scientific. We cannot believe that the universe is mechanical and then deny that we are subject to the same mechanical laws that govern the motion of the earth, the stars and whatever else (although I've seen that type of reasoning many, many times).

Again, that is not coherent. We are part of everything, so as you state that "everything is moving" you cannot exclude us from being moving along. And then you say we move things, but you are assuming that we were not in the move already, along with the rest, and that we are able to trigger a cause, like we were independent from the rest of the universe, and able to start things by our own purposeful will, just like theists believe god initiated the world. That would make us mini-gods. Is that what you believe?

Usually whatever we don't understand at all is a good place to start

But the laws didn't start operating when we developed a will. They were operating from the very beginning. In fact, us developing a will MUST have been a consequence of the operation of those laws, just like all the rest.