Furthermore ...
I can conceive of a synthetic mind-substrate extension of the organic mind-substrate whereby the continuity of self-aware personal identity (i.e. "consciousness") is, in effect, transferred from the latter to the former without being interrupted by – prior to – irreversible organic mind-substrate (brain)-death.
— 180 Proof — 180 Proof

Well, that's great, but I feel it's advisable to get the opinion of an immortal before we get all busy trying to upload our minds onto all kinds of stuff (the process began in earnest with paper). What if we succeed and someone comes up to us and says "Eternal life...not what you think!"? :chin:

Chaos theory is about sensitivity to initial conditions. Vary them a tiny bit and you might end up in Bakerstreet instead of Trafalgar Square — Haglund

You say it better than the mathematicians! :up:

I believe Descartes was one of the first to employ it.
— Agent Smith

Descartes was nevertheless solidly located in the Western philosophical tradition. It was Platonic epistemology which accorded a high status to dianoia and mathematical analysis. — Wayfarer

Nevertheless, a nifty move! Of course the problem doesn't go away. Even if F = ma, why should it it be that and not F = $\frac{m}{a}$? I suppose I'm seeing things in a manner of speaking. At the end of the day, the exact relationship is beside the point; that there is one is what's mind-blowing.

Coming to logical necessity, as Banno asserted, and I suppose this is the nub of the controversy, why should a billiard ball struck with a certain force, move with a certain velocity (speed + direction)?

Two important metaphysical topics converge in this OP: causality + necessity/possibility.

Questions that seem apposite (The bottom line: Causation is a pattern, synonymous with laws/rules)

1. Why should there be laws?

2. Why are the laws as they are?

Mayhaps, the multiverse is important to the question. There could be universes where causality is nonexistent (chaos or something else) or different (we have equations but they look different).

It just seemed a viable explanation. From a woman going "I like (other) women" to the same woman thinking "I'm a man!" is a highly plausible scenario in my humble opinion. Likewise for a man who likes (other) men.

The issue is perhaps whether modus ponens - and hence necessity - is the correct way of understanding, say, physics — Banno

I believe Wayfarer and unenlightened are on the right track, as suggested by them bringing up mathmematics (The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences). This is an old trick in the rationalist's playbook: I believe Descartes was one of the first to employ it. He tried to reduce or translate the empirical into math. Physical entities, for example, were to be only meaningful in terms of geometry and arithmetic; this is the current trend in science I believe). Once that was accomplished, necessity, mathematically speaking, is a natural corollary.

If causality isn't deduction-apt, explain how we land robotic rovers on Mars and how Russian missiles are laying waste to Ukrainian cities.

To Mathematicians

Is Chaos Theory (math) an admission that the calculations involved are too complex for humans and current top-of-the-line supercomputers (extremely difficult to predict) or is the claim that there's true randomness (unpredictability).

Note: There's a difference between computational complexity (difficult to prognosticate) and randomness (impossible to prognosticate)

How do we tell the difference between lesbians and trans men? This is only a hunch but I feel trans men conflate a (sexual) preference for women (lesbianism) with manhood! The same goes for male homosexuals and trans women. Wouldn't you agree?

It's quite convenient actually. You can do harm to Jesus and the Holy Ghost and you could still be in good terms with God (they aren't the same) and, get this, if you like Jesus and/or the Holy Ghost, you're actually in love with God (they're the same). What a mind job, oui? You can eat your cake and have it too. I don't think deals get better than that!

they didn't depend on a sign from God, but merely debated & voted, and the majority opinion became the "Truth" — Gnomon

Yep! That's it! Most of Christian doctrine were voted into "truths" (Councils).

A lot of time was spent/wasted on trying to then put these "truths" on a rational foundation much, much later. Unfortunately, those who were tasked to do this realized, to their dismay, that none of what made it through the numerous Councils made any sense.

This is a textbook case of backwards "reasoning" - first decide what one wants to believe in and, after that, justify 'em. Warped logic it is. Quite typical of faiths, won't you say?

But that uses induction - what would a deductive argument for cause look like? — Banno

Well, if what I said doesn't do the trick, I don't know what will. Maybe if we take induction in a mathematical sense (deductive), it'll help.

What woudl such a thing be like? Can you show us one? — Banno

Well, from classic definition of induction as an argument from particulars to generalities and back.

It's a non-starter because it assumes 'substance dualism' which is inconsistent with both the principle of causal closure and conservation laws. I think a more plausible conjecture is brain transplantation into a synthetic body or machine-system — 180 Proof

Très bien, mon ami!

Simple! To add, we may need to transplant our GI tract too. You know, to not lose our gut instincts! :grin:

With enough nous you can hang yourself. — Fooloso4

:lol: Yup, à la Socrates although his death was by hemlock. What's a hangman's rope anyway, a plant product after all. :chin: Plants...they have a way of doing things.

Hume only points out that one can't come up with an a priori deductive argument for causality.

However, a posteriori deductive arguments for causality are the stock-in-trade of science (re the laws of nature and induction).

So, if your PC does something weird, it could mean

1. Your a posteriori deductive argument for causality is an epic fail.

OR

2. The PC is acting up, it's kaput, it's malfunctioning (saving the phenomena)

:up: Good, even if somewhat idiosyncratic, definitions.



Well, it's definitely much better to maintain a flexible attitude when it comes to definitions; a word's meaning must keep up with the times (re panta rhei) - new ideas, novel discoveries, etc. should be taken into account. However, not at the expense of a loss in clarity. It's a tightrope walk: On one side the straitjacket of rigid, lifeless definitions and on the other side chaos/confusion; we can afford neither.

What about net ethical points as commensurable by means of positive and negative valences assigned to one's deeds? So I might've done +3 good and -2 bad, giving me an net ethical point of +1 and I get my ticket to paradise. Someone else who has -9 bad and +3 good on his file would have a net ethical point of -6 and goes to jahanam.

There 's no vagueness on this view. Every person will be reduced to net "charge" (positive/negative) and will be dealt accordingly. I wonder what happens to a person with a net ethical point of cipher/zero?

What you are doing is what is described in the history section of article in SEP. You are adopting the position attributed to Edward Herbert, then Edward Burnett Tylor, then William James. Each is eventually found wanting; But you would perhaps have us stay with Herbert, restricting the term to "idealized Protestant monotheism".

Sure, it's not a personal decision. It is still a stipulation. Sure it's based on the facts, but the facts are subject to change without prior notice. Insisting that everything that meets your criteria, and nothing that doesn't, is religion, is stipulation. — Banno

Ok, let's agree that the definition of the word "religion" is stipulative, but that's not anything to worry about is it? As long as you agree that words aren't defined in a whimsical, anything-goes, fashion, I don't see a problem. To drive home the point, suppose I pick up on a motif that unifies beliefs A, B, C (say that's x). I'm justified then to "stipulate", assuming this is what's going (I have my doubts), that A, B, C is to be given a category of its own with x as the membership-determining property. Let's call this category C. As is clear to you, the decision to create the category C is well-grounded (there's a shared feature viz. x). In other words a definition being stipulative isn't something we should get our knickers in a twist for.

As far as I can tell, this:

When we closely examine certain things, similarities and differences will be noticed. We can use the former to construct groups/categories. This isn't what I would call a personal decision - it's based on facts (shared objective features unify things under one class).

Once we've got a bead on a specific class, we can immediately infer what belongs or doesn't belong to that class. The only way we could goof up is if we don't apply the criteria for that class in the way it should be, sensu stricto. Demanding precision and accuracy vis-à-vis criteria isn't an act of stipulation.

Cries of pain are usually high-pitched (yelping dogs) and, from what I know, infants of most animals tend to vocalize in that acoustic frequency range. Why? Beats me! Are our cries meant to summon random (over)protective parents (mother bears/tigers/etc.) who're within earshot to our aid or to cause confusion in the predator's mind, opening up a window of opportunity for escape?

An interesting question.

In which case you are simply stipulating a definition, never to be countered.

that's fine, so long as you do not adopt the false notion that you have found out something fundamental; about religion, rather than just decided to use the word in only one particular way. — Banno

I must stress on the fact that we don't, as you seem to believe, stipulate definitions. We examine certain objects (physical/mental) and look for similarities that when found become the foundation of definitions. There's a rationale to definitions i.e. they're not someone's whim and fancy.

After we have a definition, we have to follow the rules, strictly, and clarity is assured.

Sure, all that. But address the example directly. IF your method is to observer a motif/pattern/commonality, you had best give an account of what you will do with new information. IF you set up your definition, then find a counter-instance, do you modify the definition or deny that the counter-instance is a religion? Falsification or ad hoc hypothesising? — Banno

If it were upto me, I'd not compromise with my definition, which as I said is based on observed shared features, for to do so would wreak havoc in philosophy. In my view, misuse of words isn't as much an indication of wooly thinking (a bug) as it is of pattern recognition (a feature) albeit flawed.

When you identify a category/class, you do so by observing a motif/pattern/commonality among the members of that category/class. i.e. this is not arbitrary or, as you put it, stipulation.

Once this is under our belts, we adhere to it sensu stricto and all will be well.

Most of the time we're careless in the way we use words - we've broken bent the rules of word application (I recall you mentioned how we replace conjunction with disjunction in re definitions) and hence the predicament we find ourselves in.

The word "woman" is as old as the hills. Perhaps we should look into what kinda data our ancestors were using to define "woman". My hunch is that to them a woman was simply someone with breasts, a vagina, and who was capable of bearing offspring. I'm sure there were trans-men back then too, but they probably flew under the radar and had only clandestine relationships to, you know, avoid persecution which seems a natural reaction to outliers which transsexuals are. Homosexualism, in its own way, also challenges gender identity.

Well, the truth is, we can develop a criterion for philosophy of religion and utilize it to guide threads and dicussions. It's just that questions that prima facie seem to have no relevance actually do have one; we just need to dig a little deeper to see it. That's all.

As I pointed out, most religious threads seem to be on inconsistencies or plot holes and that's philosophy in my book: a quest for coherence in belief systems which religions are.

The OP provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the boundaries of religion. Much like how philosophers of science and scientists did with science (re the demarcation problem), we could also come up with some kind of criteria to distinguish philosophy of religion from pseudophilosophy of religion. However, I fear coming up with a set of conditions that must be fulfilled to qualify as genuine philosophy of religion isn't going to be a walk in the park. It's going to be an uphill task to decide whether or not a particular line of inquiry is relevant to religious philosophy. Sometimes the weirdest questions have unexpected philosophical significance, especially since they're usually on perceived inconsistencies in the central narrative of certain faiths.

I question this.

If I write down all my concepts, ideas, other information in a book, is that book now my mind? Is not the information processor also required to be added to the book, in order to even begin to consider it as a mind? — PhilosophyRunner

The information processor is, to my reckoning, generic i.e. nothing about it identifies an individual as distinct from another. If we all think logically, we assume we do, then inputting the same premises will lead to the same conclusion. In other words what distinguishes you from me is the content of our minds.

Omniscience?

Here's another way of approaching the Christian Trinity. I call it the credit/blame theory and it goes something like this:

If something good is Christ's doing or can be ascribed to the Holy Ghost, it can also be said to be God's benevolence in action. In short, God gets the credit for Jesus' and the Holy Spirit's kindness. The Father is the Son is the Holy Ghost.

However, if Jesus had flaws or the Holy Ghost slipped up, God can't be blamed because the Father is neither the Son, nor the Holy Spirit.

Sorry, I don't quite follow.

what is a book? Doesn't it amount to uploading one's thoughts onto the worldwide booknet? A mind is identified with its contents (ideas, weltanschauungs) and not with its function as a information processor, oui? As a thinker I'm no different from you, yourself one; however, I'm an agnostic, that's what defines me in the theological universe and you maybe a theist and that's who you are. A person's mind is the unique set of thoughts (concepts, ideas, other information) that they possess and so can be extracted, stored, accessed by a computer and that's, in my humble opinion, what mind uploading is essentially. :grin:

I recall making an argument that the fact that people think it's possible for reality as we know it to be an illusion (simulation) implies that the real McCoy (true reality) is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the copy (virtual reality). Why should anyone then try to, well, wake up from what we fear/suspect is only a dream? The doubt would only reappear even if it does so, now, at another level so to speak.

AI will only act in ways we program them to and so, if we find them obnoxious, overbearing, and unreasonable, threatening, and violent, we have only ourselves to blame: GIGO.

That is the fallacy of scientism. Making systematic guesses is science's job. But philosophy's "guesses" are thematically different. — Constance

Could you please elaborate on that claim.

Look to the fallibilists like Peirce, Dewey, Russell, Wittgenstein, Popper, Feyerabend, Haack, Deutsch, Taleb for how we (can) learn/know reliably. — 180 Proof

:up:

What mad man actually craves absolute liberation? — I like sushi

Good question? Clinically depressed individuals (Buddha may have been one) probably swing to the other extreme - from unbearable suffering to an unqenchable thirst for moksha. It's just the way it is although from a certain angle it makes absolutely no sense at all.

There is only so much one can carry on their back ;) — I like sushi

Indeed, although I must say how holocaust survivors keep their faith in a (benevolent) god is quite beyond me.

isn't even false — 180 Proof

we cannot perceive directly — 180 Proof

"beyond" human experience — 180 Proof

All that's left to do is make systematic guesses, oui? Without the possibility of ever knowing whether we go it right or no.

I think we’re roughly on the same page.

Regarding ‘happiness’ I can only say I managed to get into a certain state of consciousness (by fluke) and realised that to be ‘happy’ (as a goal) was kind of besides the point. It was like looking down on emotions as some weird facade but I don’t mean this in a non-feeling way (detached), I mean it in a ‘being happy is not important’ way because there is WAY more — I like sushi

It is possible (to transcend the hedonism trap); so, why not? People do it, at a much smaller scale, in the form of sacrificing short-term pleasure for long-term well-being. Whether it's a step in the right direction or not remains to be seen. However, it appears that we're kinda stuck with the way our brain's wired, the reward system and all that. It looks like our brain is, in a way, seeing through the ruse as it were or...not! This ain't cure against poison, it's poison against poison. No matter how we slice this cake, we're not gonna be able to, well, liberate ourselves. Then again, we got this far..recognizing that there's a problem is half the solution or thereabouts. :smile:

I'm not quite sure I follow.

There have been no reports of a feminine interpretation of texts nor of womanly solutions to problems. This could, of course, be a personal shortcoming rather than a fact - I'm not that bright. Maybe we should ask the fairer sex to comment on this matter.

Woman

1. Genetically: XX (normal woman) or XXX... (superwoman)

2. Bodily: Breasts, vagina, other secondary sexual characteristics.

3. Mentally: ??? No data or conflicting reports.