@tim wood

"Ok, but here's the question: critical thinking is the name of an attitude taken toward a subject matter. In application it consists in asking questions."

Exactly, questioning the concepts a person is exposed to is important. Not just The Bible, but everything. Your favorite political candidate, the price of a loaf of bread, whether or not milk is good for you. My point is only that Religion is both very good at discouraging critical thinking and has an inherent interest in doing so. The specific questions are not relevant, only that questions are allowed, better yet encouraged, to be asked.

Its not that I want people to be skeptical of everything, only that I think it is important to have the critical thinking skills that skepticism develops. Most people are not contemplating the ultimate question but being able to analyse day to day questions critically is important to building a better society.
I agree: all authority is subjugation. Nevertheless indoctrinating a population into never questioning authority is quite different from laying out a set of agreed upon laws to protect the population's rights. Not everyone can be at the top, so we have to look out for those at the bottom.

My only issue with religion is that it has a tendency to perpetuate a cult-like mentality and denounces rational inquiries based on empirical evidence. To that end it is extremely good at subjugating a population into unquestioning loyalty which, in my opinion, is a terrible thing.

Well, I agree that we all have free speech, and if someone was offended, then they have the right to say so, but their right doesn't trump someone else's rights. Being offended, or having you feelings hurt should never trump logic and reason. If you don't like what someone said, use logic and reason to counter it, not claim that your feelings are hurt as if that somehow disqualifies a logical and reasonable statement someone had made.

Agreed, however I think these rights should be valued equally in context of the law and wider society. People getting offended is not necessarily an argument against the logic and reason of a position, it may merely serve as a way gauge the public's thoughts on the matter. If you espouse an opinion and it offends lots of people, you can use that information to restructure your argument so it is more palatable for the general public and thus better educate them on the core principles of your position.

As a matter of fact, that is why people resort to "I'm offended." - because they don't have any logical or reasonable argument to make, so they resort to trying to shut the other person up by claiming their feelings are hurt. Again, one's feelings have no bearing on what is true or not.

I am not sure this is true in all cases. Some? Definitely. Most? Probably, but there are a lot of people out there that are simply not eloquent enough to properly formulate their thought process into an appropriate argument and so they resort to "offence" as a reflex. They may have a valid argument, but are simply unable to or are not smart enough to take on a formidable debate opponent. .

This is exactly what I've tried to explain - that different people can be offended by something that someone else isn't offended by. We need to explain why this is the case BEFORE we just start giving people rights that can override one of our other, more fundamental, rights - free speech.

I think you may be misunderstanding this part slightly. Some people are going to get offended and some people are not, true, but my argument here is that being offended on behalf of someone else is completely asinine and counter productive to the point of "being offended" in the context of social discourse. Otherwise, I agree.

Indeed, and I think it is a sorely understated difference in the kind of discourse you're referring to.

I think the right to be, and not be, offended is an important part of political and social discourse. However I don't think it should be a criminal offence if you do offend someone.

Not matter what you say, someone somewhere may be offended. It is completely outside the control of a speaker to prevent this. For example: even if a speaker was to tone down their language in order to placate the dissenters of his/her opinion, the fact that he/she is "sugarcoating" his/her speech can upset the people that wanted to hear him/her speak in the first place. No matter what you say, someone will take offence.
So I don't think it is fair to hold a person accountable if he/she offends someone.

However it is important for members of a society to express themselves when they take offence. This process, I believe, helps a society at large determine whether an idea is "good" or not and build a moral system that can be agreed upon. I see offence as a mechanism people can use to show their disapproval regardless of how eloquent they are and if lots of people are finding a particular idea offensive, we, as a society, have a duty to explore why. Of course, this only works if there is no capital punishment for offending someone; an idea that is offensive is not inherently wrong, and radical, progressive ideas tend to offend a large number of the populous. In this case, it is the responsibility of the speaker to be eloquent enough to convince people not to be offended.

Lastly, I also support the right to not be offended. Personally, someone will find it very, very difficult to offend me with words alone. For example: I'm black and therefore I have been called some interesting and creative racial slurs. I have never been bothered by this and racism has never negatively affected my life. I actually encourage my partners to call me a N****r to desensitize them from the word and prevent them from being offended on my behalf. Which brings me to my point. People should have the right to not be offended so people like me, who just want to get on with life, do not have to worry about our lives being affected by people who are being offended on our behalf. Without the right to not be offended, I feel this could not happen and will cause even more political and social divisiveness then the people that espouse socially objectionable ideas.

Sorry, rambled a bit there.....

Your argument relies on the assumption that God exists in either our imagination or reality, or both.

If god existed only in our imaginations, he wouldn't be the greatest thing that we can think of, because God in reality would be better.
Therefore, God must exist in reality!

God existing in our imaginations would still be the greatest thing we can think of since we are still the ones thinking of it. Therefore, you are no closer to proving the existence of God.

I don't see that as something particularly significant, not in the grand scheme of things. Our abilities to interpret, ponder on and understand information may seem impressive to some, but that is only because we don't have a frame of reference apart from ourselves. It is safe to assume, I believe, that the universe is full of mysteries we are so far unable to even detect.
Nevertheless, having a CPU, not having a CPU and the processing power of that CPU provides a good indication of whether an event/entity/arbitrary mass of exponential probability has intelligence/conciseness/self awareness.

Apparently, quantum fields must exist in order for something to come from Krauss's 'nothing', in Albert's pov.

Actually, they don't. Krauss's thesis is that nothingness is unstable. Since he is restrained by our pesky mortal existence, testing this is impossible. However, we can measure the closest thing to absolute nothingness, a complete vacuum, and his predictions seem accurate. His conclusions are derived from this experiment and then, when applied to absolute nothingness, can explain a universe from nothing. Remember, his thesis is that this is plausible, not definitive.

This argument comes from not being able to fully conceptualize Kruass's conclusions. Understandably so, the English language is too crude and clumsy to accurately describe how I, at least, envision the state of absolute nothingness.

Ah yes, that bit. My first "reply" to the article was aimed at this.

I don't actually...... Strange.

I'll look it up.

As for George Ellis's critique, this is a popular argument against this thesis in the scientific community. I'll summarize: there is not, and cannot be, any evidence for or against what was and what was not before the universe.

The Big Bang model suggests there was nothing before the universe, so it stands to reason that there will be no evidence of what was before the universe. This concept begs the question: is a lack of evidence evidence for a lack of anything? If yes, then since Krauss's thesis suggests that nothing is unstable, the infinite nothingness before the universe, evident by the lack of evidence, would inevitably break down into something that it is not, id est, something.
Kruass's conclusions are derived from mathematical models, true, however this is currently the best, if not only, way for us to measure mechanisms at the quantum level due to lacking technology. They are also based on an experiment that reproduced these conditions at a micro scale, solidifying his conclusion. However, to suggest that Kruass's thesis suggests anything more then a universe from nothing is plausible is to grossly misrepresent his work.

I actually agree that Kruass should engage this topic on a philosophical level. I fancy myself a philosopher and would love to see him do so.

Hmm doesn't seem to cover anyone called Albert? Are you referring to Albert Einstein and/or do you have another link for me?

Sure, I'm on George Ellis. I'll be there soon enough, hopefully.

Ok, i managed to get as far as his first, legitimate criticism. I'll summarize it as follows: Classical Physics follows a set of rules, so Quantum Physics must follow the same rules.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of Quantum Physics. The entire point behind Quantum Physics being so strange and wonderful is that it does not follow what we thought were the physical rules of the universe as we perceived them. There is no reason to believe that they should other then that is how our limited perspective up until now has shown us. However, our perspective is just that, limited. Scientific pursuit is all about expanding that perspective and if we discover things that do not conform to our predictions, all the better. To summarize: just because it doesn't do what we think it should do, doesn't mean its not doing it. There is plenty of evidence showing us that it operates in a different way to Classical Physics.

So far all the author of this article has done is make arguments from ignorance. I hope this improves.

Awesome, thank you. I don't have time to read it right now but I will at my earliest convenience.
Based on the title, however, I think it reflects some of my own reservations that I had about Krauss's work before I read his book. He convinced me.

However, the key difference between us and plants/single celled organisms is that we do understand the information we come into contact with, at least we think we do/are able to ponder upon it.
I would argue that plants etc are not able to interpret the information, merely act on chemically fueled instincts but I'm not so sure that is true anymore.

Actually, i agree with that to some extent. Concepts like this have been rattling around my noodle for awhile now. I just haven't really fleshed out or explored the concepts in-depth. I also think this might be a requirement of the definition for life.

The only concept of God that I agree could exist is a kind of "sentient" universe. However, even if that is true, then it does not explain how the universe came to be, self aware or no. Nevertheless, the Big Bang Model and current advances in our understanding of quantum and classical physics suggest that the universe does indeed come from nothing. This does not disprove the existence of God, but it does stimulate within me the concept of sentience outside what we call the universe or space-time: if the universe indeed came from nothing, then what is the nature of nothing? More importantly, is it still there?

Simple:

If you stub your toe, it hurts. Then if you bang someone else's toe, you feel empathy because you know it hurts and feel guilt.

Yeah, I agree with that almost entirely. The term "indoctrination" gets pretty bad publicity but I don't think it is inherently immoral (mostly because i don't thing anything is inherently immoral). I do think that in order for a society to function this "mild indoctrination" that you speak of is important for maintaining coherence in the social contract and I agree that it is the parents responsibility to find that perfect balance.

However, I don't think we should underestimate our ability to form an albeit basic understanding of morality and its role in shaping our development. If we did not have it, no amount of punishment nor reward would be substantial enough to stop us doing whatever, we would simply turn on our parents for being "cruel" to us (note: even mild punishment might seem cruel if you are a sociopath or psychopath).

So do you think this form of mildly indoctrinating children into fearing guilt and punishment is the best, or only, way to teach morals in children? Or do you think children are capable of developing their own morals through experiencing guilt from empathy or other means?

Yeah, that sounds quite likely. Although i feel empathy plays a part in the feeling of guilt as apposed to the behaviors resulting from guilt. You feel empathy for anything that you come into contact with that you would not wish on yourself, that is what empathy is. Unless, of course, you are a sociopath.

Yeah, that is a much better way of putting it.
Your welcome.

I think guilt is closely related to empathy, but more empathy resulting from a betrayal of one's morals/principles then inflicting any physical harm.

If you do something that you know is wrong or later find out/leads to something that is wrong, in accordance with your personal principles, then you feel empathy towards who/whatever the victim of your wrong doing is. This feeling is probably amplified if the "victim" is unaware that you have wronged them.
For example: if you were to cheat on your partner. You know it is wrong but for whatever reason you did it anyway. You will probably feel guilty about it because you know you would not like it if your partner cheated on you, regardless of whether they told you or you told them. Or, conversely, perhaps you feel your partner deserved it and did it because you felt justified. Guilt might still rear its head because it is a betrayal of your principles: no matter the circumstance, cheating is wrong.

That is just an example and you may not agree that cheating is inherently wrong but the point is that it is when you betray you own principles you feel guilt.

I don't consider just any interaction able to form a perspective. The interaction must have a consciousness behind it in order to interpret (note: interpret does not necessarily mean understand) the information and form a perspective. You also cannot assume all interactions are interpretations of information. If you put a rock on a table, the rock has no concept of what the table is or is not, only that it is counteracting gravity etc. This is an example of an interaction without interpretation. If you sat on a table you are not only prevented from falling or whatever, but you also know that it is a table or at least an object. You are taking in the information and interpreting it, coming to a conclusion that is your perspective.

Indeed, so we agree that there are different interpretations therefore we can now agree to disagree. It was a good discussion though, plenty of food for thought. :)

The quantum physics double-slit experiment suggests the very act of observation is indeed a significant interaction, although not necessarily "a part of the rock". However, I think we are merely arguing the definitions of "consciousness" and "perspective".

To simplify my definitions:
Consciousness is the ability to interpret information and then form a perspective.
Perspective is the result of interpreting information, and therefor needs consciousness to be formed.

If you agree with my definitions then perspective comes from consciousness, but is not necessarily a part of it.

I'm not sure "qualia" is the right word but yeah, i'd say your close enough. You see, i don't think you can equate perspective and interaction. If you were to observe a rock floating in space, you, as a conscious observer, can say that it is in front of you and this would be you forming a unique perspective. The rock, assuming it is conscious, might then say that you are behind it and that would be different perspective to yours. However, if the rock is not conscious, then the act of you observing it does not inherently form a perspective for the rock that is different from yours. What i think you are doing is applying your perspective as a point of reference and saying: "since i observe the rock, the rock's perspective is that I am nearby." Since the rock has no way of communicating that it is conscious of your presence, i don't think you should assume that it is either conscious nor forming a perspective, regardless of your interaction.

Ah, i see what your getting at. I'd argue that when you apply the term perspective in this way, the term is actually referring to your perspective as an observer. Id est, you are using your perspective and applying it to to something else rather then observing the formation of a separate, unique perspective. Whereas this does not necessarily prove the phenomenon is not forming a perspective, it also cannot suggest that it is. Unless the observed phenomenon is able to communicate its unique perspective, which would suggest consciousness, then there is no real way of knowing.

Interesting. I suppose the question is how to define consciousness then? If it can be defined as a spatio-temproal embodiment's ability to form a unique perspective, then consciousness would would need to be present prior to perspective in order to form said perspective.

The fabric of reality, by definition, is unchanging: it is the constant that defines existence. If memory can change, then it is not the fabric of reality. If memory is a recollection of the fabric of the reality, then it is open to interpretation and therefore can change, evolve, be created, be destroyed and be incorrect.

I would throw my own body in the way to stop the trolley.

The true paradox is that if Nothing is infinite, is Infinity also nothingness.

In Lawrence Krauss's book, A Universe From Nothing, he demonstrates Nothing to be unstable. If Nothing existed before the beginning of the universe, then there would be an infinite amount of Nothing and therefore an infinite probability that Nothing would destabilize into Something. The rest is history.

I agree, but the memory is not the same as information. Information is an arbitrary term used to conceptualize the fabric of reality. Memory, however, is the recollection of the fabric of reality and can be altered, created and destroyed.

And memory can cease, since anything that can exist can also be destroyed (cease to exist).

Saying "memory is embedded in the fabric of reality" is redundant since everything that exists is embedded in reality, otherwise we would not say it exists.
Memory is nothing more then a sequence of chemical and electrical signals the brain can recreate. Consciousness may collect memories but it is the initial information, and not necessarily the recalled information, that shapes our perspective: our interpretation of that information.

I guess when one is faced with new information that might change, or at least adjust, one's perspective, we might use memories as a reference to see if the new information aligns with one's current perspective and decide whether or not it needs amending. However, i would consider that a process after the fact of forming a perspective, and not a part of it.

Interesting, but I have to disagree with you. Since its not the topic of the thread however, perhaps we'll get the chance to discuss it another time.

It was a randomly generated email i got the first time i set up a hotmail account, years ago. I guess it just stuck.