:clap: :100:So we must start out by asking the question 'is this world more likely a product of intelligent design or chance'? Well, we are not allowed to start out by assuming a designer with a particular character. So, [to do] the calculation we must consider how many different plans and intentiosn a designer may have. And there's the problem: there are going to be a potential infinite number. Certainly the odds of there being a designer who wished to create a world such as this are going to be everybit as long as the odds that a world such as this arose by chance. And given that the latter is a simpler thesis than the former - it doesn't assume a designer - then the chance thesis is the more reasonable one, other things being equal. — Clearbury
If the truth shall kill them, let them die. — Immanuel Kant
:100: :up:The ground of a transcendental argument presupposes a given. Depending on the choice of definitions, to construct an a priori judgement in the form of a transcendental argument, but with transcendent conceptions, is always invalid, insofar as no transcendent conceptions are given, re: that, the negation of which, is impossible. — Mww
Not unless there is a metaphysical necessity – (transcendental) reason – 'why there is anything at all'. Only "X is ultimately necessary" (i e. absolute) precipates an infinite regrees of "whys" (or "laws").If I were to grant your point here, then, it seems like reality would have to have, assuming there are laws, an infinite regress of them—no? — Bob Ross
I think fundamental physics overwhelmingly suggests, though does/can not prove, that Order is (only) a phase-transition of Disorder such that the more cogent, self-consistent conception of this universe (of atomic event-patterns, or fields-excitations) is that it is a random 'non-zero' (CCC ~Penrose?) fluctuation of vacua. Perhaps this is an Everettian (per)version of Spinozist substance and/or Epicurean void ... Q. Meillassoux's metaphysical term for this sort of concept is 'hyper-chaos' (aka ... sunyata ... dao ... Heraclitus' logos ... ) :fire:If it’s contingent ‘all the way down’, then how is it not chaos? — Wayfarer
:up: :up:Christianity is pretty irrelevant to ethics.
The view on sex and marriage expressed in the OP is pretty patriarchal. — Banno
:100:Some other methodological Naturalists are so dogmaticthat I don't waste my time dialoging with them.
— Gnomon
Funny how those same naturalists see through your bullshit and don't hesitate to call you on it.
It's not dogmatism, it's just that there is so much evidence which proves that you spew bullshit, and I happen to know somewhat about such evidence. — wonderer1
:up:I think there is another, quite independent, way of undermining the argument from fine-tuning. — Clearbury
:roll: And 'mysterian¹ apologetics' gets us where?Thomas Nagel had this to say ... — Wayfarer
for fact-free, non-corroborative stories (rationalized with pseudo-philosophizing) rather than fact-based, corroborative stories (interpreted via critical philosophizing)belief in gods—or in any supernatural guiding principle—is more like a preference — Tom Storm
No doubt.There is no atheist worldview. — Tom Storm
Perhaps some emotionally need certitude, or an illusion of knowledge (i.e. severe allergy to admitting what (that) they don't know (e.g. woo-of-the-gaps)), whereas others do not have such an acute anxiety and even thrive from exploring intractable unknowns, indicative by their willingness to say "I/we don't know". The latter seems to me (I don't mean to stereotype / caricature) an artistic-philosophical-scientific disposition and the former more magical-mythic/cultic-mystical than not.It seems to me that some people need answers to certain quesions, others don't. I often wonder why that is. — Tom Storm
:up: e.g. Thales and the other Milesian as well as Ionian & atomist Pre-Socratics ...an alternative physicalist cosmology to the ones provided by mythologies
:fire: :death:The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. — FDR, as Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany, 1933
No. Yes. Re: the last sentence of my post that you left out of the quote:Do you think anything can be inferred from the cogito, whatsoever? Or is it entirely different from the philosophical subject, or are they one and the same and yet meaningless tautology? — Moliere
In other words, the latter [pathology] cannot be said and the former [tautology] need not be said: neither expresses a distinction that makes a[n ontological] difference. — 180 Proof
Circular reasoning & compositional fallacy.If we live in a simulation, it would also be the real world, because the simulation exists in the real world. — Hyper
So how do you designate the distinction between a copy / counterfeit and the original? or distinguish a fictional account from a nonfictional account?The term "fake" is misleading because everything exists in a sense.
:lol:Try living in a picture of a house for a week, and get back to us.
— unenlightened
Yo mamma was so fat, her picture weighed 10 pounds. — T Clark
Yes, "the subject" is what an object does and, as Spinoza suggests, a complementary way of attributing-describing an object's predicates. In other words, "for itself" is only a kind – phase transition – of "in itself" (pace Sartre).Descartes’ mistake: the subject isn’t as much a different substance than the object, as it is differently conditioned than an object.
Maybe. :smirk:Or... maybe I'm full of shit and we are all fucked. — Fooloso4
There isn't any significant anthropological evidence of "religion" before ca. 50-80,000 years ago (i.e. before the Upper Paleolithic era)¹ in a period – the Lower Paleolithic era – when "evolutionary" pressures might have still been at work on (modern)² H. sapiens, so your notion of "beneficial", Brendan, does not make sense in this context. Evolution has nothing to do with it insofar as "religion" has only been operative – manifest – via cultural development for about the last 2% of the entire existence of the Homo genus (2.8 million years).I meant "beneficial" in the evolutionary sense — Brendan Golledge
:roll: At best, sir, this premise does not make any sense (re: "common" therefore "beneficial"? like e.g. poor hygiene, bigotry, sex/child abuse, theft/fraud, bullshit/lies, ignorance, superstitions, scapegoating, conspiracy theories, war, poverty, etc) "Religion" is a cultural phenomenon, imo, symptomatic of human commons afflicted by both material scarcity & biological morbidity; my guess is 'post-scarcity¹, immorbid² persons' will not be in any recognizable (Bronze/Iron Age) sense "religious" (i.e. magical thinkers).Anything that's common must be good at existing in one way or another, or else it would not exist. So, since religion is common amongst humans, it must serve some beneficial purpose, ... — Brendan Golledge
e.g. Dune.Monarchy is a very robust form of government, even more so when linked to a state religion. We'll pretty much all go back to monarchies as climate change sets in. Democracy is just a tool. It's not a good in itself. — frank
Yes, magical thinking in performative forms of woo-of-the-gaps superstitions, immortality fantasies, folk/fairy tales, etc – no doubt the childhood of our species. :sparkle:religion's intrinsic, cultural, or existential significance — Wayfarer
:up:Biological men should not be in women's sports. — RogueAI
Same reason anyone wears "lipstick".Why 'lipstick'? With its female connotation?
:monkey:And into the china shop, walks the bull. — Wayfarer