Villain

Don't we have that as a default? It's like asking if gravity didn't exist how we'd all avoid floating off the planet. I also wonder why it appears you are conflating metaphysics with conscious awareness.

Not if we want to consciously question our otherwise accepted and unreasoned assumptions, by concious awareness I mean the position that we find ourselves at our most basic. Not a concious mind that is the sum of the brain or any other cause, purely our self as presented as is. From such a being we form ideas and notions of reality by reason and choice.

 

 

If no testable predictions are possible what use is metaphysics beyond blind speculation?

Well, what is your starting point to get to testable predictions in the first place, if not from concious awareness?

This need for testable metaphysical predictions is, in itself, a fault with your metaphysical position.

IMO It explains the saying, "Do not confuse me with the facts." For example, why the phenomenon of split brains is not significant to religious people.

I'd be surprised if many people have heard of it, regardless of their religious status.

Are you saying that they're more likely to feel than think?

Thinking is harder than feeling, it requires more of our energy reserves. Moreover, feelings can be addictive, not so for thinking. Convincing a feeling addict to adopt thinking instead is harder than convincing a heroin addict to get clean.

How is this relevant?

you shoot yourself in the head with a shotgun, if this is a dream then you are ok, if not then well you no longer exist...

I feel like you're missing the point.

So baseless speculation is what we are talking about? The shotgun test falsifies this but it is quite permanent...

I'm not familiar with this 'shotgun test', could you link something or describe it please.

Actually yes but it goes deeper than that. dreams make no sense, have no constants or rules. If I step in front of a bus while dreaming i wake up uninjured, if i dream of falling I wake up whole and not pancaked on the ground, it seems to be a reasonable test...

Ok, but in this 'dream' reality we are either still dreaming in which case we would still be injured or not dreaming, likewise this 'dream' reality has no obligation to act the same as our current idea of a dream.

No, I can be sure i am not in a dream at the moment because I can permanently injure myself, in a dream any such problems disappear when i wake up... seriously you can't tell a dream from reality?

So when you wake, you can tell that you have been dreaming because you're no longer injured?

To be fair it's the only possibility we have empirical evidence for...

Empirical evidence is subject to your metaphysical position.

I'm sure you don't consider the 'empirical evidence' that occurs in your dreams to be empirical and I'm sure you could imagine the reality that you're in now as a dream.

This makes no sense to me, how can materialism not be the most probable explanation for reality? Ever hear of the shotgun test?

What would you base the probability on?

True, and completely irrelevant to what I was saying. One difference is that science must be compared to the world around us and made to agree. Philosophy is free from that restriction.

I see I have misunderstood your last post. I am saying that in order to progress to science one first has to address philosophy, otherwise science is merely another form of mythology.

I take it then that you're in the "science is philosophy" camp. So studying science necessarily means studying philosophy. By definition.

 

Ok, then. Nothing to discuss.

No, science is not necessary to philosophy.

If you consider science to be philosophy then the question is moot. If you consider that science has separated itself from philosophy and they are distinct subjects, then it is not.

Science and the scientific method wouldn't and can't exist without philosophy.

Knowing why (or that) science works doesn't require you to study philosophy.

Yeah, you certainly don't need to study philosophy to do philosophy.

And yet a scientist may know nothing about philosophy but is still somehow able to do science. Doesn't that say something about the value of philosophy?

Are you talking about the history of philosophy? Or are you saying that one can do science without knowing why one holds belief in science or have I missed your point completely?

Every view or stance you take is essentially philosophical. Philosophy is not about randomness. In the opposite, it's the critique of all your assumptions, truth-values, standards and behaviour.

 

You don't need to be an educated person to ask that question. It's quite arrogant, and I think along with Socrates one could say it shows an ignorance of your essentially human and personal ignorance in all things, in a sense making you less knowledgeable and more limited than someone having a lack of knowledge but admitting to it. A scientist knowing nothing about philosophy and talking about the value of philosophy is exactly an example of such double ignorance forbidding you even to get knowledge about what you're talking about.

 

A scientist constantly has to be philosophical in his own way. Critique of method, theory and the "nature" of your subject of inquiry is part of philosophy and subject to constant change, adaption. Same in other fields, that are not just natural sciences or homgeneous with other natural sciences. They often have to "take a step back" and see what they're doing. It's a basic human trait, one could say.

Nice post, there seems to be a worrying lack of philosophical understanding in people who have an interest in science. How they got to science in the first place is anyone's guess.

ho ho ha ha...

 

It seems that the people who most object to these books are the people who have no interest in reading them, Nice to meet a fellow non-reader.

 

I think you have put my objection to this author much better than I have done so far. 'All fur coat and no knickers' is what they would say around here.

 

I shall try not to mention this author or his books again in this thread.

 

But I'd be happy to discuss metaphysics if anyone is the least bit interested in it, even if it is off-topic.

Did you really expect a different response? It's like going to a Christian forum and critiquing Jesus.

As for Dawkins, how someone can make an argument for the non-existence of something and be taken seriously is beyond me, although from some of the posts in this thread I can see how he has an audience.

Read philosophy, I suggest you start with Plato's Dialogues.

Do you mean consciousness or the concept of a soul?

Consciousness by definition would imply life, while one could be alive and unconscious, you certainly couldn't be conscious and dead.

I'm not upset at all. In fact, what I'm hearing seems to confirm that faith is based not on happiness or sadness but more on a "gut feeling", a visceral emotional reaction that has little to do with rational thought.

 

So why is belief based on intuition often considered stronger than belief based on experience and reason? Do so many people consider their "gut feelings" to be stronger than a more reasoned approach?

The only position based on reason is skepticism, so unless you're advocating that we can know nothing, intuition is a given.

Well based on what you perceive is correct and true due to your need to feel good or bad about something, as in "I know god is real because it makes me feel so good to know god is real" or "I just feel like it has to be true" or I know unicorns are real because I like them so much such" personally i would like to "believe that serial killers are a demented fantasy" but belief does not equal knowledge...

Either this is merely your belief or you're being paradoxical, which one is it?

Emotions

So it's based on happiness or sadness etc. ?

He has been completely rational to me, what is it you don't get? Faith, the religious kind, which has no basis in reality to hang anything on but feelings, how could he be more clear?

What are feelings?

You know, I tried to set some parameters for this thread so it wouldn't just be more arguing about religion-yes/religion-no. I tried to offer definitions that would help posters reply to the specific topic I wanted to discuss. I really wanted to separate faith from other forms of belief and examine why so many people consider it to be the strongest form of belief.

 

tar, I mean no disrespect, but your style makes it difficult to pinpoint your arguments in a discussion like this. I'm certainly not asking you to bow out, but I would really appreciate it if you could be more focused and precise about your answers. I get the feeling you want to object when you feel faith is being attacked, but like many others, you have nothing tangible to argue so you start rambling about robots and magic and how brain cells grow in an infant. You get so passionate about your objections that you seem to forget what we're discussing and you just hop from one idea to another as it occurs to you.

 

It also seems clear that you realize what you're doing, because you sign off so many posts with your regards, and then proceed to add even more obfuscation in postscript. To me, this is a sign that you realize your answer will inevitably confuse, so you tack on what you think will help clarify, not realizing that at this point your readers have often given up after trying in vain to pluck some clear arguments out of what you've written.

 

Again, this isn't about you personally, it's about your style of argument. It has nothing to do with whether you're a theist or an atheist (though, like Iggy, I've known for some time that you're not the atheist you've claimed to be on so many occasions). I'm just telling you that it gets very tedious trying to separate the chaff from the wheat when reading your replies.

 

Sorry if this seems harsh. I just wanted to know why faith, with only feelings as a foundation, often overrides trust, with a foundation of experience and evidence, in the minds of religious followers. I would love to have you shoot down my arguments, but would really appreciate it if you would use a sniper rifle instead of a shotgun.

You're trying to convey a non-sensory experience with the words 'faith, with only feelings as a foundation' and are upset that the meaning is not getting across to others in the way that you expected?

If I were blind from birth and sceptical about this sense that I was told about - this so called sight - I could devise empirical tests that would allow me to investigate the phenomenon. We poor benighted souls without extra-sensory perception can test those who claim that they can perceive reality in alternative manners - I am sure you agree that at present none have managed to pass any well formed investigation into ESP. So how can you, as someone who claims extra knowledge/sensitivity/interaction with the world around us, provide any form of investigation the result of which would be objectively (read intersubjectively verifiable) agreed.

This claim is amazing, you honestly think that you could investigate an extra sensory experience by using the senses that you both have in common?

I see no difference between explaining faith and explaining psychic predictions. Both thrive on mystery, chance happenings and confirmation bias. And it's not language that fails to explain it, it's credibility.

 

I do find it interesting that people of faith describe it the way you do, like it's some kind of sense that unbelievers lack, like a poor blind man who can't see the light. I couldn't script a better swindle. It's the perfect setup for persuasion by deception. And when the mark starts to suspect something is wrong, people of faith get to shake their heads at the ignorant unbeliever who can't see the light. Or the invisible clothes. Or the magic sky fairy who's plan will somehow turn out best for everyone.

Sometimes we become so intent on being right that being right becomes more important than what is right.