Gees

It was a great movie, wasn't it? Captain Sully had worked in investigations before, so he knew the ropes and knew how to get his case heard. He watched the simulations and then noted that there was no time allotted for decision making. The engines failed and the simulation pilot immediately returned to the airport, which is unrealistic. One needs to assess, analyze, and make a decision, which takes some time. The investigators agreed and added 35 seconds to the flight simulator's time for decision, which caused crash after crash. Just 35 seconds between life and death. It should be noted that at some point, the airlines are going to look at the 35 seconds and the million? billion? dollars worth of airplane. Then they are going to decide that human error is expensive. In truth the original simulations were invalid because no one is going to turn a plane around before they even know what is wrong and decide to turn the plane around. It made me wonder how many pilots in prior cases were judged to make a "pilot error" because of unrealistic simulations. Anyone can view the Captain's defense in a 20 minute short on YouTube under Sully / A Captain's Defense. Gee Truthiness and factiness are not two different teams in competition with each other. Anyone who does not know that is really dumb. Both truths and facts are required in philosophy, but maybe you don't think so. Tell my why. Gee

Spoken like a true science guy. Yes, facts are dependent on their truth value, but are truths dependent on facts? No. Instead of arguing this forever, I will give you an example so you can understand my position. You walk into a room and see me standing over a dead body. A man has been shot and I am standing there with a gun in my hand. Worse yet, the dead body is from a man that I despise and everyone knows it. Six months later, it is a fact that I am a convicted murdered, and it is the truth that I have never killed anyone. I picked up the gun off of the floor because I was stupid with shock, but instinctively I knew that guns are dangerous and there are children about. Facts require truth in order to be facts, but truths do not require facts in order to be true. This is why science has been called a child of philosophy, but philosophy has never been called a child of science. Gee

Actually, I don't think it does. I used that word because I was responding to Ken Fabian, who used that word. In law and in philosophy (which are both relevant in this thread), the word, opinion, is often used to name the conclusion that is reached, so Fabian was not really wrong in using it. But you are also correct in questioning the use of the word, opinion, by something that does not have a subjective conclusion. IMO Gee Agreed -- AI is too vague of a description. I tend to see simulations, AI, and LLM chatboxes, as different levels of the same thing. Simulations are kindergartners, AI is school age, and LLM chatboxes are working toward a degree. Since you are a detail person, I am sure that you can produce reams of information showing how they are different, but don't bother unless you can show me that they are not objective. As that is where I am drawing the line in this thread. I don't like to see any kind of manufactured conclusions working their way into law and the Courts. Gee

I agree. Right now, AI is not so much a problem in the Courts as it is in making policy and procedure IMO. It is surprising to see how many people do not really differentiate between policy/procedure in business and what is law, and there is a huge difference. All businesses, whether private or government, have policies and procedures that regulate everyday work, and AI is beginning to be the go to expert that defines these policies and procedures. Then media reinforces the belief that AI is expert, which lays the foundation for AI to infiltrate law. A lot of people have explained that AI is being trained and learning to be better at its work, but I think there is more to this. I think we are also being trained, or maybe you could say that we are being groomed, to accept AI as expert. This made me smile. Generally speaking, the purpose of cross examination is to ferret out the lies, but AI does not actually lie, so this seems pretty meaningless. I started to envision a Disney type movie where AI would cross examine AI and it was a lot of fun in my mind, but I am not sure how that could really work in reality. In order to come up with different 'testimony' from different AI opinions, I believe that different statistics, or additional information, would have to be fed into some of the AI programs. Otherwise the 'testimony' would be the same. Have you had the opportunity to see the movie, "Sully"? It is a true story that addresses this AI expert opinion problem. In the movie, Sully, Captain Sullenberger, is a commercial airline pilot with over 40 years of flying experience, who takes off from the airport and within minutes loses his engines. He manages to land his plane in the Hudson river saving all passengers, but losing the plane. Air traffic control wanted him to turn the plane around and return to the airport, and AI confirmed that that was the best solution, but Sully argued that his experience told him that he would never make it and everyone would have died. Tom Hanks plays Captain Sully and Clint Eastwood directs this true story. I remember reading about it in the paper when it happened 20 or so years ago and remember that Captain Sully almost lost his job, but his experience knew something that AI had not considered, which won his case. Gee Although I enjoy philosophy, I rarely post in the Ethics subforum. Thank you for writing an interesting thread. But statistics have everything to do with AI, and how AI affects legal matters is what this thread is about. To my mind, this means that statistics have a great deal to do with this thread and its legal matters. That would be because I am dealing in truths; whereas, Swansont is dealing in facts. Although facts can help one find truth, fact is not truth. Did you ever hear of a Court of law asking for, "The whole fact and nothing but the facts?" If you tell a lie one time or a thousand times, does that make a difference in the veracity of the lie? Does the number make a difference in the veracity of truth? I seem to remember a quote, "If you tell a lie long enough and loud enough, people will begin to believe it." Does that make the lie a truth? Maybe it makes the lie a fact? Which "legal responsibility"? When you started this thread, you appeared to be considering how a Court would judge AI, but it now appears that you are talking about writing laws. Although both have "legal responsibilities", they are very different considerations and processes. When creating law, one must consider a large populace, and so, they often look to facts and large sample sizes so the law will be best for most of the populace. In a Court of law, it is the singular truths that are being judged about an individual or circumstance. Very different. No matter which responsibility you are considering, truth is required to consider it. Why? Because wisdom is required and wisdom is an advanced level of truth. It is not an advanced level of facts -- that would be statistics. That is about control and how we use AI to regulate the citizens; and therefore, what responsibility AI companies have to the citizenry. Gee

On 1/20/2026 at 3:14 PM, Gees said: (In response to Swansont's belief that seatbelts save lives.) Maybe. I have driven all over the United States, in Europe, on the right side of the road and on the other side, in cars, trucks, rental vehicles, and on motorcycles. I have towed cars, trailers, boats, and campers, but I do not wear seatbelts and have not for most of my life. Yet, I am not dead. It is possible that statistically speaking, seatbelts are not good for me. 😁 I know that you are intelligent. Maybe that is why I am forever giving you more credit than is apparently warranted. I will try to explain my "crappy" argument. The things listed above are not only about me, they are circumstances that have been researched and found to contribute to accidents -- statistically speaking. Driving on different terrains, like a Michigan flatlander driving down Franklin mountain to meet Highway 10 in El Paso, Texas, with snow on the road (which generally causes a pile up of cars). Or crossing the Rockies pulling a camper, especially after turning onto steep side roads. Or driving in Ireland on the other side of the road, and having the steering wheel on the other side of the car, and using the gear shift with the left hand because it is also backward, then trying to avoid the stone walls that closely edge many of the roads. Of course, driving in downtown Rome at night when they turned all the stop lights into blinking yellow lights both ways was interesting. It took a while to figure out how to cross the streets without hitting another car. Of course, towing a car or backing a boat into the water requires additional skills. Riding a motorcycle requires constant vigilance and specific skills. Car rental companies will tell you that changing vehicles requires extra caution. I have done all of these things without accidents. About the only other things that I could do to encourage accidents -- statistically speaking -- is to drive drunk, which I don't do, or to drive for a living, which I have only occasionally done. Now you can argue that you are not aware of the research and statistical information that applies to the above, so I have to look up each statistic to prove that this is true. But if you say as much, I will not believe you. True, and I didn't state otherwise. If you look at my response above, you will see that I stated, "It is possible that statistically speaking, seatbelts are not good for me." You see that word, "me"? On the other hand, if seatbelts are not good for me, then it is possible that they are not good for some others, as well. We will never know because no one is going to collect data that considers this idea. This is much like the problem of the helmet laws for motorcyclists, which required bikers to wear helmets for years and years, even though helmets were killing people. Many people believed that helmets saved lives -- they did not. But finally the laws changed. One of the problems with statistics is the same as the problem that science has -- confirmation bias. You get answers to questions that you ask -- simple truth. If your premise is faulty and you don't ask the right questions, then you get crap. Yes, all events that apply to that subject, and the subject of that argument was me. That is exactly what I did in my "crappy argument" by listing all of the experiences that were part of my driving record, which should have caused accidents -- statistically speaking. But in truth, statistical arguments do not look at the "total effect", they just look to answer the questions asked. On 1/20/2026 at 3:14 PM, Gees said: Yes it is a statistical argument, and statistics are made up of facts -- not truths. The reality is that facts, therefore statistics, are easy to cherry pick, manipulate, and cause an invalid perception. Just look at what comes out of Washington if you want evidence of that truth. I have a lot of issues with statistics and don't trust them. Oh, I don't know about that. You used it to great effect the last time we argued and got three up votes for it. On 1/20/2026 at 3:14 PM, Gees said: In the first place, I worked as a temp in many offices in different capacities for years, and watched clerical workers gathering information (statistics) for bosses, insurance purposes, government agencies, etc. Most workers did not give two sh*ts about the information and saw it as an added, unpaid, responsibility. Would some/many of them fudge the information if it made the job easier? Absolutely. I suspect that your assumption that the workers were "lazy" or "dishonest" is because they are clerical workers. Would you jump to the same conclusions if they were scientists? I think I was about 15 years old when I first began to doubt statistics. I was reading an article about heart disease in a magazine and how it caused so much death. My Mother and Grandmother were at the dining room table enjoying tea, when I told them about the article. I don't remember the terminology that I used, but they looked at me then at each other then burst out laughing. I didn't see what was so damned funny and said so, but every time one of them tried to explain, they looked at each other and burst out laughing again. Finally my Mother asked, "What happens when you die?", and my Grandmother replied, "Your heart stops.", then they burst into laughter again. Once they got themselves under control, I learned that in the 45+ years between them that they had worked as nurses, they had witnessed many deaths and knew that heart disease/attack was often used as an explanation for death whether it was causal or not. Of course, that was over 60 years ago and medicine has been much improved since, so that does not happen anymore -- or does it? Twenty years ago, my husband died of cancer. Everyone knows that he died of cancer, but his Death Certificate states that congestive heart failure contributed to his death, which is not really true. I remember when they diagnosed him with congestive heart failure about six months before he died. I was quite surprised as he was no couch potato; he was very active, had no problems with blood pressure or his cholesterol levels. It made no sense to me. It made no sense to one of the younger doctors either, as he noted that the blood work did not support the diagnosis. My husband was sent home to die and Hospice was ordered for him. The Hospice doctor immediately took him off the cholesterol medication as my husband's bloodwork confirmed that it was not needed. His congestive heart failure was not caused by his blood. It was caused by the large tumor growing out of the main artery by his spine, which caused so much pressure on his spine that he could not feel his feet. After the surgery, when they tried to remove the tumor (but only got part of it), he was so pleased because he could feel his feet for the first time in a year. He died a few months later. The Hospice doctor was the one who filled out the Death Certificate, so why did he put congestive heart failure on it? He knew that my husband did not suffer from congestive heart failure, as the enlarged heart was due to the tumor; not cholesterol, high blood pressure, or bad diet/living habits. I would like to suggest that he put it on the certificate because of the rules, regulations, and facts that were required with regard to explaining the death. Much like the clerical workers, who were guided by policy and procedure rather than truth. So the people gathering statistics and the people studying them will add another lie to their knowledge. Was the doctor "lazy" or "dishonest"? He knew full well that the information would imply a false narrative, but he did it anyway. Would you call that "fudging" the truth so that he would not have to complicate the information? Should he have explained that the congestive heart failure was caused by a tumor? Is there a box for that information on the Certificate? Do the people, who are gathering statistics, want that much information? No. Truth can be simple; truth can be complex. It can be whole and it can be partial; such as, more true than not, or mostly true, or even occasionally true, or true now, or true from a specific perspective. Truth is rarely easy, which is why we need philosophers to help us find it. If it were easy, we could give it to scientists, they could make up an experiment, test it, and we could all know the truth. But the reality is that in order to fit truth into the little box that defines fact, we will have to corrupt truth. AI is not about intelligence or truth, it is about assimilating information and statistics. Using statistics to make judgements is like gambling, it is playing the odds. If people want to do that they can, but AI does not belong in a Court of law as it has nothing to do with justice or truth. Gee

Maybe. I have driven all over the United States, in Europe, on the right side of the road and on the other side, in cars, trucks, rental vehicles, and on motorcycles. I have towed cars, trailers, boats, and campers, but I do not wear seatbelts and have not for most of my life. Yet, I am not dead. It is possible that statistically speaking, seatbelts are not good for me. 😁 Yes it is a statistical argument, and statistics are made up of facts -- not truths. The reality is that facts, therefore statistics, are easy to cherry pick, manipulate, and cause an invalid perception. Just look at what comes out of Washington if you want evidence of that truth. I have a lot of issues with statistics and don't trust them. In the first place, I worked as a temp in many offices in different capacities for years, and watched clerical workers gathering information (statistics) for bosses, insurance purposes, government agencies, etc. Most workers did not give two sh*ts about the information and saw it as an added, unpaid, responsibility. Would some/many of them fudge the information if it made the job easier? Absolutely. In this age of computers, anyone who can access information can gather statistics and thinks they are as good as an actuary -- they are not. Then you have to look at the motivations for the gathering of the statistics. A statistical argument has the same flaws as science, in that they can both lose truth to confirmation bias. Yes, details matter. In the OP, I believe that AI was supposed to be used to ensure the safety of people in vehicles. So does that mean that once the problems are identified, AI would make recommendations? Maybe suggest drivers training to individuals? Point out dangerous activities? Give advice to the drivers/passengers? Ha Ha! I was laughing so hard, I fell off my chair. Or maybe the government agency is going to fine the drivers -- after all, they need to get their money back for purchasing AI. Yep, that is what they are going to do. It's a win win situation. The government will make money on the fines and save money because they don't have to clean up so many bodies. As for the people, yes, it may save some lives, but it will also cost them. How will that cost affect them? We don't know and I don't see anyone gathering statistics to find out. Motivation is very much a part of gathering statistics and selecting what is gathered -- which is part of why I don't trust statistics. As to other responses, some posters thought that a person would be necessary to oversee the infractions and regulate what was fined and what was not. That would be short lived, IMO, as AI would not be cost efficient if it had to be overseen, so it would eventually be on its own, or it would be discarded. Another poster thought that the evidence gathered by AI would be sent to the driver with the ticket, so that he could see what the problem was. This is also not likely. That evidence belongs to the prosecution/plaintiff and would not be sent to the defendant by the Court. That evidence could be solicited by the defendant though a Discovery Motion in an attempt to discover what plaintiff's evidence is, so that a defense/rebuttal could be made -- IF discovery is allowed in the case. Sometimes Discovery is not allowed between a city and a defendant. You just have to go to Court and find out what the evidence is. This is all a matter of Civil Procedures and is regulated by local laws. For example, while working in a law office in Wayne County (Detroit, Michigan) I talked to a New York attorney, who was having problems getting a child support case on the Wayne County Court docket. He had been working on it for six months and getting nowhere, so I asked him what he had Filed. After listening, I explained that we can not put a child support case on a Judge's Court docket, a Referee does that, so he needed to resend all of his information, and send second copies of everything to the Friend of the Court Referee, and be sure to include a yellow Praecipe, because without a yellow Praecipe, it would never get on the Friend of the Court docket. It would just sit in a pile of papers till the end of time. So I faxed him all the information and a month later I got an "I love New York" coffee cup in the mail. Gee

I am sorry swansont. If you had asked for a citation twenty-some years ago, I could have accommodated you, you know, before MS stole so many of my abilities including the ability to work, where I would have had access to a law library -- the kind with books -- but all I have now is the internet and have no idea of how to look things up. I tried, really I did. I was surprised to find that there are still a lot of cases regarding seat belts right up to 2025, but I don't know how to narrow the search. The original case that I had mentioned was not about whether or not we should use seat belts -- it was already law that we were required to use them -- it was about advertising the seat belts. Stating that "seat belts save lives" was inaccurate, a lie, because seat belts sometimes saved lives, sometimes killed people, and sometimes damaged people unnecessarily. A friend of mine, who had moved down south, had a son (in his twenties) who drove down to see his mother around the time of this court case and had a bad accident. He was driving on a two lane divided highway in a seriously dense fog when a semi truck hit him head on. Apparently the driver of the semi was new and in an unfamiliar area and thought that the road was a regular highway, not a divided one way. He didn't see the car until the last minute. He swerved, but still hit my friend's son's car and totaled it, destroying the passenger's side. The police told my friend's son that he was locked into place by his seat belt, which saved his life and prevented him being thrown into the damaged side of the car, but they also stated that his passenger and friend was saved because he was not wearing a seat belt. If he had been locked into the passenger's side, he would probably be dead. As you can imagine, this event caused a lot of debate about luck, fate, and guardian angels, which is why I remembered it. I did find the following in Google, which reinforces the idea that seat belts were not the end all solution and were sometimes dangerous. "Seat belts became mandatory with the first federal law taking effect on January 1, 1968, requiring all new cars to be equipped with seat belts. However, it wasn't until the 1980s that the use of seat belts became widely mandated and enforced, with New York being the first state to require vehicle occupants to wear them in 1984. Additionally, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act passed in 1966 laid the groundwork for these regulations." "Airbags were first introduced in the US in 1970 but became a standard safety device in cars in 1998. The first car to include factory-installed airbags was the 1973 Oldsmobile Toronado. The U.S. government mandated airbags in all new passenger vehicles by 1990, emphasizing their critical role in reducing crash-related injuries and fatalities." Less than ten years after mandating and enforcing the use of seat belts, we were looking for better ways to reduce crash-related injuries and fatalities. Airbags mitigated some of the damage caused by seat belts. Gee

AI does not actually lie, but neither does it tell the truth. We tend to associate intelligence with being smart, honest, truthful, etc., but it is not. Measured intelligence is simply a speed test in something's/someone's ability to assimilate information. So AI (artificial intelligence) is all about statistics and has nothing to do with smart, honest, or truthful. Courts, on the other hand, are all about truth, so what happens when you mix these two ideas -- intelligence and truth? Consider that forty or so years ago, the State of Michigan (USA) was all about trying to convince it's people to use seat belts, so there were signs everywhere stating, "Seat Belts Save Lives". It was on commercials on television, on radio, on billboard signs, everywhere -- then it stopped. I was surprised that the campaign stopped until I learned that the Michigan Supreme Court heard a case regarding seat belts and concluded that they did not in truth save lives and sometimes they killed people. In light of this new information, I expected the seat belt law to be retracted -- it was not. We still have to wear seatbelts. What I did not know, but learned later, was that seatbelts do not save lives, but they do save money. As far as injuries go, it progresses from minor injury, to major injury, to death, but as far as expense goes, it progresses from minor injury, to death, to major injury. Apparently a major injury is much more expensive than a death, and seatbelts prevent major injury -- wearing a seatbelt will protect you from major injury, or it will kill you. Much less expensive -- truth. Something to think about. Gee

Last weekend I was home doing nothing in particular when my phone rang, so I answered it, and became immediately furious. I couldn't believe that another a**hole robocaller was actually harassing me on a Sunday. Normally I get up to 25 phone calls a day from those jerks and have a land line which makes blocking calls difficult, so I don't answer unless I know the number. But not on Sundays -- never on Sundays. When I finally got a live person on the phone, I asked him if he had no manners at all -- calling on a Sunday. He denied that it was Sunday. I didn't believe him. After I cooled down, I considered that it may not have been a Sunday where he was, because he could have been anywhere around the world. He did not deny that calling on a Sunday was quite rude. Then I wondered if a right for privacy on Sunday is a global idea -- it is certainly a private and personal idea. Would this be considered "far reaching", because it certainly did not come from science. Gee

dimreepr; What are you talking about? And what do you think that someone is imagining? I didn't know what a "quantum reality" is, so I looked it up, but still don't understand your association. Gee sethoflagos; Equilibrium? Every time I read the word "homeostatic" it refers to the body or some other internal balancing system. Yet you seem to understand that it relates to "external influences". What are you trying to say? It sounds like you are agreeing with me, but you said, "No." Why is that? The only thing "anthropomorphic" is the language and the arrogance of mankind in the assumption that feelings and emotions belong solely to humans, and maybe animals, if they have a brain. You will have to forgive me for using human language, as I don't know any other way to describe these ideas. Instead of thinking of emotion/feeling as what we interpret them to be, i.e., love, hate, envy, joy, etc., consider what emotion and feelings actually are. They are forces that cause a want, much like a magnet they attract (love, joy, happiness) and/or repel (fear, anger, pain). All emotion and feelings either pull things together or push them apart. Then consider that all survival instincts, ALL of them, are activated by emotion/feeling as a result of attraction or repulsion. And all life, ALL of it, has survival instincts (this includes plants). This means that all life has access to the unconscious aspect of mind, so the unconscious is not in your head, it is not in your brain, logically it has to be part of reality. If it were not part of reality, then how would ecosystems exist? I would like to suggest that without what we call the unconscious (feeling/emotion) there would be no evolution. Gee Studiot; Again it looks like you are talking more about science than philosophy. My interpretation is that philosophy tries to discover what is real and true, but science tries to do something with the information--manipulate it. Yes? Gee

When I first read your post, I thought it was about science because of the "feedback and feedforward" terminology, but you asked about philosophy. I am not a trained philosopher, so there is a great deal that I do not know, and not being a science person, I was not sure what you were asking regarding feedback/feedforward. Are you actually asking how philosophy addresses time and how some kinds of time displacement can affect logic and cause and effect? If so, I would say that there are philosophers who seem to think that physical reality is illusion, or not real, and therefore not always bound by the physical rules. Although I don't totally agree with that, I can see why some might think so. My thought is that physical reality is foundational and real, but I also see a layer of motion that physical reality evolves from, so the base foundation is actually motion and is also real. This reminds me of the mind's conscious/unconscious relationship and could explain the problems with logic. I study consciousness and noted that the similarities between the rational mind vs the unconscious aspect of mind -- and the similarities between physical reality vs base motion are very comparable. Both physical reality and the rational mind evolve from forces (motion/emotion). A lot of people seem to think that this means that one or the other is not real, that it is illusion, but I don't think so. I think that both are just as real, and that physical reality and thought are interpretations of motion/emotion. The conscious rational aspect of mind is much like physical reality in that it works with logic, cause and effect, works specifically within, uses digital thought, recognizes time, and is directed by us -- much like houses in physical reality are built by us. Or I could say that we can control it. The unconscious aspect of mind is nothing like that and is ruled by emotion. It is not rational, is not logical, works externally between things, is analogue, often changes and often ignores time; and therefore, ignores cause and effect. It is mostly emotion rather than thought, and is reactive rather than directed. We have little control over the unconscious and often do not even know that it reacted until we see the results -- as it is with instincts. So I can see where cause and effect, or even logic, may not always be relevant in some levels of mind and some levels of reality. When I read the "chicken and egg" thing, I was pretty sure that you were talking about philosophy. Consider that when we delve deeply into the unconscious, we find that the chicken/egg issue resolves itself because they are recognized by the unconscious as being the same -- time becomes irrelevant. The deeper levels of the unconscious categorizes things in sets, so the chicken is the egg and the egg is the chicken (as far as I can understand it). Blanco calls this bi-logic and explains this stating that in the deepest levels, if Mary is Jane's mother, then Jane is Mary's mother -- the relationship (mother) is relevant to this understanding, time is not. Maybe this is why emotion responds to bonding rather than logic, because without time, logic is unworkable. To understand this idea better, you can look up Blanco's work in Wiki. It is a one page read that explains this concept much better than I can. Apparently, Matt Blanco used math to break down the unconscious into five levels, then very successfully applied those levels to the study of consciousness and patients in psychiatry/psychology. I have no idea how he did it as my math skills are almost mediocre, but I can understand the results of his work. Does the motion, that physical reality evolves from, work much like the emotion in the unconscious aspect of mind, that the conscious rational mind evolves from? Which, if so, would make biogenesis a nonissue. If there is no time at that level, then cause and effect is a nonissue. Is this where Plato got the idea of forms? Was he actually talking about sets? I have no idea, but I know that Plato understood the unconscious and I know he was a genius, and way too far above my mental abilities. I should have started studying him 50 years ago, when I might have had some hope of understanding him. You can learn more about Blanco's understandings here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Matte_Blanco Or a plant that produces flowers and seed at the right time of year to produce offspring. Grass/weed that will flatten itself in order to protect its roots from too much sun/heat, or stretch/warp itself to get more sun? A tree that grows too close to a fast moving river, where the river erodes some of the roots will actually grow extra branches on the land side to keep it's balance and prevent it from falling in the river. I don't see how anyone can call all these things inborn reflexes, but they clearly are survival instincts, and all survival instincts work through feeling/emotion and the unconscious. The unconscious can ignore cause and effect and logic. I am beginning to suspect that the 'motion' that exists in all reality is much like the unconscious in life. Gee

npts2020; +1 Even though your statement is a little too true, thanks for the laugh. There is no such thing as a secular religion. Marxism is an ideology. Are you sure that Christianity was not used as a template? Kind of like what Trump is trying to do? Gee

Good questions, but I am not sure I have answers because I don't actually study religions -- I study emotion. I suppose that most people would study the religions, then after a while would realize that each of these different religions serve the same purposes, then identify those purposes and recognize that emotion is at the heart of religion. I came at the idea backward because I study consciousness. It was decades ago when I realized that when science talks about consciousness, they are talking about the brain; when philosophy talks about consciousness, they are talking about thought and/or will; no one really studies emotion which is a major part, maybe the most important part of consciousness because emotion is self activating. That is why I turned to religion for information, as they do the most in-depth study of emotion. So what are the methodologies? Religions gather or group people regularly (like Sunday meetings). They use music, art, and sometimes dance, to promote feelings/emotions to enhance ideals. They designate moral codes and incorporate histories that hope to cause peace and comfort within a group -- which would be why religion has been referred to as "the glue that holds a society together". They will often provide methods to promote forgiveness or absolution from sin/bad behavior. They interpret "Gods". They instruct people on what to expect after death, but you know all this. The actually methodologies are created by interpretations and compliment the various cultures. None of this works through science as far as I can see, but it all helps to bond people. Of course you know what science can do, you studied philosophy of science. As a philosopher, you also know the value of a valid premise, and know that an invalid premise corrupts all the work that follows. By looking at your above statements/questions, it is clear to me that you have no idea of what religion actually gives us -- its value. Don't feel bad as most people don't recognize what the core of religion actually is. Even religious people, who promote religions see spirit as the main idea, and don't really know why religion is so important. Do you have a valid premise? Do you know what the value of religion actually is? Bonding, Eise! Religions study emotion and promote bonding and balance. Without emotion and bonding, all life would cease, not just human life, but ALL life. I think that is kind of important and worthy of a little study. "Rollover"? Are you talking about reincarnation? I was referring to the information Joigus provided. It is, yes, but it is also about much more than that. One thing that it is about is repairing the damage. Karma is not a Christian concept where we get a one-way ticket to hell if we damage ourselves. Karma is also about repairing the damage, it is about redemption, it is about balance. It is also about more than an individual's soul, as it is also about cultures, societies, species, ecosystems -- the balance in everything. Exactly. I have stated repeatedly in this thread that science does not understand religion, so scientific minds do not understand religions well enough to analyze them. No. Most science people that I know of have either a high average intellect, or a very high above average intellect. But this does not make them all knowing. Science people tend to attribute all things to a physical cause, which flies in the face of what religion teaches. This thinking creates a bias that few science people can get past. No thank you. As I stated earlier, I study emotion, not religion. Karma is an example of how emotion can work. Fine, but there is a point to the "cause and effect" and that point is balance. I suspect that the "masters" know this. Gee My apologies to Eise, Dimreepr, and Joigus for being so late with this response. If you respond to this post, do not expect an immediate answer from me. I am getting slower.

I never stated that Karma was/is a scientific concept. Please try to consider what I state, rather than what you think I mean. What I stated is that science people interpret karma as a kind of cause and effect concept, because that is as close as they can get to understanding it. They see Karma as being either cause and effect, or maybe mysticism/magic. Question: If you can carry karma from previous lives, how do you think "cause and effect" makes that happen? What causes the effect? How does that work? If there is no causation, then how can it be called cause and effect? My apologies. I thought you wanted answers. I didn't realize you just wanted to argue. If you want a link, you need go no further than this thread. If you look at, what I believe is, the first sentence in the original post, it states that the author "respects" religion, but wishes to "debate" the "beliefs". Did you not read the first post, or did you just skim it and miss those words? Gee

I have often read posts in the science forums that state a member "respects" some religion, but wants to "debate" the "beliefs" of said religion. This makes no sense to me. If a person respects the religion, then why would they wish to challenge and possibly damage the religious person's belief? Belief is a major component of religion. It would be like saying I respect your family, even though I know they are all lowlifes. What? Actually, the "germ theory" argument is just one small example and does not really explain the problem. The problem with a science person debating a religious idea is that religion and science study entirely different subjects, so they need to use entirely different methodologies. Science studies changes in the "now" and how this affects the physical, but religion studies the constant and the always of the spiritual. You can not use science to understand and answer questions in religion, any more than you can use religion to answer questions in science. I wouldn't even try. But then, I am not a science person. I like science. I like religion. I respect both and often learn from each of them, but it is my nature to be a philosopher. You know that science studies the physical, and the methodology that science uses supports that study. Most people do not know that religion actually studies emotion; spirit is just one interpretation of emotion. Using science's methodology to study emotion/spirit would be beyond ridiculous and a little foolhardy. People tend to see the superficial aspects of religion as the subject matter of religion, so they think that spirituality is the subject matter -- it is not. The base subject matter is emotion, which means that religion studies the unconscious aspect of mind. This is where the "metaphysical" and "supernatural" ideas come in to play -- as these ideas are interpretations, and often not physical. Consider that emotion does not work the same way as physical studies, so religion's methodology needs to support the study of emotion. I believe that the branch of science that can give the most information about religion would be psychology, as psychology studies the unconscious and emotion. Jung had some interesting ideas about "Gods" and whatnot. I think you are mostly right, but it is not about making "errors", it is about change. Science not only can, but it must, accept change in order to be accurate and to progress. Emotion, however, does not readily accept change and can be destructive if too much change is forced upon it. Remember that emotion causes bonding; a married couple that changes partners each day, or a child that is traded off every day, or a plant that is uprooted and replanted over and over will all be damaged, stunted, or even killed because of the lack of consistency and their bonds forfeit -- caused by too much change. Religion is very slow to change for these reasons. Beliefs must also be slow to change, or belief can be lost. Any knowledge that is not backed by emotion is not believed, so it becomes worthless. I bolded the above sentence, as you made a very good point and that is what I want to address. When people start thinking that "science is all there is" as to knowledge, they start endangering science. This can be a problem because if science is "all there is" to learning, then science is the beginning and end of knowledge. Or something can not actually be known unless it has been tested by science. It can be considered, hypothesized, guessed, speculated, etc., but it can not be known. Eventually this thinking will lead to beliefs in scientific revelations and as noted above, belief does not like to change. I have read posts in this forum where members complained that the "old guard" would not accept new ideas even when there is sufficient evidence to support those ideas. So practically, we can believe in science as a discipline, we can believe that the methodology is valid, but we can not believe that what science has uncovered is all there is, because that would make science an unchanging belief like religion -- which would limit science's ability to advance and endanger science's growth. I would not call the caste system right, but I would call it honest. I live in the US, and we don't have a "caste system". We don't even have the aristocracy and commoners, but we do have social divisions and we do have racism, and elitism, and misogynism, and perpetual immigrants because the paperwork is never ending making them second-class citizens, and we have the homeless and the poor and the disenfranchised -- BUT WE DO NOT LOCK PEOPLE INTO A CASTE SYSTEM. We just recognize that they are there and if people can not lift themselves up, it is because they are lazy/stupid -- or so say the liars. If you want to see the results of religion's adaptions to new knowledge, you are going to have to go back hundreds and thousands of years to see many of the changes. I always thought that George Carlin was a little brilliant, but he was a comedian and there is a difference between philosophy/theocracy and jokes. Gee Karma is NOT a word for cause and effect. Science people always misinterpret karma. Karma is about balance, not cause and effect. Is there a difference? Yes, and it is a huge difference. Balance affects everything. That would be because they are facts like gravity. Karma is about balance. What does not use balance? When I stated that people tend to see the "superficial" aspects of religion, this is what I was talking about. You are taking morality, probably ethics, justice, and cause/effect, and mixing these ideas with religion/emotion/spirituality. You can mix these ideas if you want, but you will never get anywhere in your debate regarding religion because you don't know what you are talking about. Your point has nothing to do with balance. Whether you are talking about Ancient Rome, or the Deep South in the United States a hundred and fifty years ago, killing a runaway slave was perfectly correct and moral. While reading arguments that supported slavery, I found one where a psychiatrist noted that a Negro, who would run away into the forest, rather than stay on the plantation where he had food, shelter, and work, was obviously mentally deranged and should be put down. You should read some of those arguments. They are mind blowing, but make it clear that people can justify anything. We are not talking cause and effect; we are talking about balance. What would you like to see? Gee