"I'm not afraid of anything"

Tony--I think I see the problem

Maybe now I see what you have against marijuana. I mean, if you took it through a syringe ... I can imagine why you don't like it.

Dude, you're supposed to smoke it.

It's okay, though. You're in good company. Mike Doonesbury once asked a guy in San Francisco if he and Zonk could smoke some acid with him.

When it hit me that your resentment toward one of God's most miraculous creations--Cannabis sativa--might be a matter of method, I must admit, I had the same look on my face that Z had on his all those years ago.

Thank you kindly for that Fourth-Frame moment.

--Tiassa

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death

deteriotated
energy
after
the
hell

 

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Likewise part 1

Man, I hope you don't expect me to requote the entirety of everything I'm answering.
The ellipsis was there to indicate the existence of deleted words.

What difference does the Catholic definition of "soul" make in a debate about Christianity?

They were your assumptions, not mine.

There is that teeny problem that your brain is located inside your skull, whereas the world you're observing is outside of your skull. Thus, some extensions of your brain have to exist to bring some of the outside data inside, e.g. eyes, etc.

You should consider reading up on the physiology of vision.

This is interesting.
You seem to be proposing that a computer will output unpredictable information in the presence of new data, even though most programmers work to a functional specification of a program.
Either programmers are failing to produce what they are contracted to do, or your assertion is false.
Your other proposal is that, while being programmed, computers may act unpredictably.

On the one hand, you appear to be arguing for the non-deterministic or "lifelike" behavior of computers and on the other, you appear to be arguing for the deterministic behavior of people.
You are using the same argument for both, so which is it, deterministic or non?

The validity of an assumption is dependent on the time relative to some other event?

I checked out that site some time ago and didn't jump to it again from your link.
Evolution is backed by plenty of assertion, assumption and quotations of quotations, but proof is at a premium.
Haldane's dilemma remains.
it is relatively easy to go from an insurmountable problem to a flurry of assertion, but that doesn't make the problem go away.

I don't think I've said logic cannot be applied to the real world.
My point is that few people observe whether their logical predicates mean anything. Many logical statements can be assembled using predicates that sound meaningful, yet the statements are nonsensical.
An example, "I believe that science will do more for man than a belief in God," "Science is knowledge" and "Belief is superstition."
Logically, a person could follow principles of logic and come up with, "I believe that knowledge will do more for man than superstition concerning God."
Many do this.
However, few observe the corollary to this...
"Superstition is that science will do more for man than belief in God will."

You are correct, Boolean algebra is only one aspect of logic. However, that does not make logic the all-encompassing framework for reality. As you say yourself, logic "derives" from reality, thus reality is the basis for logic, which is what I am saying.

I get that you are asserting that logic is supreme.
However, I believe, as do you, that logic "derives from" reality. This reality is supreme, and logic is subservient to reality.

So, you see my point.
I wasn't proposing an inadequate algorithm, I was giving an example of how logic would have to work in sense perception.
I know this kind of logic doesn't work, and you realize it, too.

My turn to be astonished.
You seem to be saying that sand can be potentially as sentient as a human being.

Since, you believe that logic is the basis for reality, that, too, is a matter of flipping switches.
Where we appear to differ is that I believe that I can flip my own switches, whereas you appear to be stuck with whatever way your switches were flipped.

Sorry, no. I've just been running on what I remember from various psych courses.

There would be, except for that massive difference in world-view.
I am not perceptually driven.
My perceptions are very handy for determining what others' perceptions are, among other things.

Thus, you establish the weakness of logic.
More people are context-bound, when there is really no reason to be that way.
For example, even within your selected context, the first two things in my list are still applicable.

There seems to be a denial of the fact that many people over thousands of years have looked for things prior to observing them. In your philosophy, such people were looking for imaginary things.

Your prior assumption here is that the set S is somehow to be defined by your perceptions, but is to be applied to me by you. Otherwise, I agree with the literal wording, except for your definition of "current presumption."
It is easy to demonstrate how unperceived things might be relevant to our existence.
Take the earthquake in Seattle as an example. Prior to the earthquake, no one had perceived it, yet it is relevant to the existence of residents of Seattle and many others.

You bring up an interesting point here.
If the progression is obvious, what is not obvious is the state of present knowledge.
I propose that it is much closer to zero than you do.
You propose that it is much closer to infinity than I do.
Thus, you are unwilling to admit to the possibility of great increases in knowledge since you feel that such increases have already taken place.

It sounds like what you mean by "complete knowledge" is actually "partial knowledge."

You have an interesting definition of infinity.
There is an infinity of mathematical points in a line segment of length, say, one inch.
Thus, infinity can exist while completely bounded.
OTOH, the extrapolation process introduces the unobserved, thus you end up contradicting yourself, in that while you say only what is observed is relevant to our existence, yet the unobserved qualifies as observed thanks to the process of extrapolation.
However, extrapolation fails without some idea of scale. Infinity, by definition, is absent scale.
For example, if I am acting in the context of my own arm's length, and I see two dots in a row where the first two dots are joined by a line segment, I can extrapolate the line in either direction for a limited distance and be sure that the line segment is observably straight.
I can't extrapolate the line segment into infinity and observe that it will be straight, though.
I might make the prior assumption that we live in a linear universe, and then assume that my extrapolated line is straight on that basis, but I might be wrong.

It's not really another issue, since one significant facet of your world-view is infinite existence, by nature of the concept of "persistence" or "memory."

Given that memory is defined in terms of time, partial memory would be defined as persistence which has either an observable beginning, and observable end or both. IOW, orthogonality is not required. Discontinuous linearity may be required of the entity possessing partial memory.
Thus, the entity with partial memory can be defined to exist for a limited time.
And, the entity, or entities, with non-partial memory can observe that the entity with partial memory either existed then ceased to exist or came into existence and continues to exist or came into existence then ceased to exist.

We need to establish a World Council of Wisdom, Knowledge, Intelligence and a Grasp of the Obvious with you as its head.

Absence of something for a limited time pretty much assumes presence of same for the remainder of time, and vice versa.
Your worldview assumes infinite persistence, thus any lack of infinity is a counterexample.

You apparently define "persistent" as "transient."
Some would consider these two words to be almost contradictory in meaning.

time, perhaps?

This is interesting in that you appear to be saying that the absence of something on a larger scale of time proves the presence of same on a smaller scale of time.
As a test of this, I propose to analyze your existence.
A century before you were born, you didn't exist, i.e. you were absent.
However, just that fact alone proves that you did exist, i.e. that you were present one nanosecond after another, a century earlier?
Perhaps, what you are saying is that while the collection of atoms which now constitutes you only has partial memory, the individual atoms express a more complete memory, and the most basic subatomic particles forming those atoms express a more complete memory.
And, last but not least, the medium that forms those basic particles has infinite persistence.

This, of course, is what the Bible says, although using slightly different terminology.
I'll leave the self-admitted paradox and the "structurelessness" of the unobserved universe for another time.

Again, what the Bible says.

God's name is I Am.

You see how reason does lead to the existence of God.
You have just presented a proof that God does, and must, exist.

Sorry, I missed it.
I was working on a different concept, the one you presented with your 2-part proof above.
I assume that you mean a complete absence of either memory or time. I would be all ears to hear of such an existence myself.
However, complete absence is not required, only partial absence, thus my earlier point.

So, my point is actually your point, but because it is my point, it is ridiculous?
This is a unique, though humorous, approach to debate.

In our present state of knowledge, I do agree with you.
I do allow for future increase in knowledge which from the current perspective may be incomprehensible.

Of course, the limiting factor would be the limited human mind.
Having had a little experience such as this, I can say that it is a unique type of experience, but pretty much impossible to maintain in a limited human mind.

In using the term "flow," you appear to be attempting to define a concept beyond your understanding in terms within your understanding.
Acceptable, given the circumstances, but not necessarily accurate.

I am not attacking your philosophy. My point is to get you to understand what your conclusions really mean.
You have reached conclusions that prove the existence of God, yet you decided a priori there is no God.
Thus, it is you that are ignoring your own inevitable conclusions.

This sounds a lot like...
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
(Ecclesiastes 1:9, KJV).

Time is the context within which persistence and interaction exist.

This is a truly amazing concept.
It seems that any definition of either persistence or time would start out something like this...
Persistence is... or time is...

To borrow from the great philosopher Bill Clinton, I guess it depends on what your definition of is is.
To say that neither persistence nor time is defined in terms of existence seems to be missing a major concept. Otherwise, you end up attempting to define that which has no existence, which is just another way of saying a = not a.

For a person to whom logic is all-important, this same logic seems peculiarly absent from this particular point.

For years, I'd been wondering why the entire universe blinks in and out of existence every time an ostrich sticks its head in the sand, i.e. yes, I get that.

One would hope that this is obvious.

Let's look at the concept of division by zero.
It is not currently defined.
It appears that it cannot be defined in principle either.
In your world, division by zero "does not exist," in mine, it does.

 

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Likewise part 2

You may admit to interest on the part of observers while observing, but the general direction of your philosophy is that it doesn't matter what one observes, since that is all there is.

I feel your pain.
The brick wall is what I'm talking about.
Once you reach that brick wall, whether in principle or in fact, you need to make a decision.
If all observation leads to that brick wall and no farther, then all the mickey mouse observation, science, pragmatism and experience amounts to disinterest.
In other words, who cares if, with observation, you can reach this brick wall in fact, when we've already reached it in principle?
At some point we need to move beyond the brick wall.

You appear to have noticed a certain "variability of scale" in my comments.
I speak in the same grand terms you do, then I switch to a smaller scale, and back, and forth.
This is to alert you to the fact that some philosophical concepts look very grandiose indeed if one were to live forever, but one needs to have a philosophy that takes into consideration the fact that one might die.

I guess tornado warnings are a meaningless concept to you.

"a" lacks meaning for you, therefore "a" does not exist?
Your philosophy has some very unexpected twists and turns in it.

Don't you read, or at least write, your own posts?

Now, you're pulling a tiassa on me.

Sorry, I based the question on your ealier statement. If you can't understand your own earlier statement, then I can't provide more clarity.

I see you missed the paradox.
You say "being" is "doing."
It looks like your definition of "is" is "do."
I say "being" is "being" and "doing" is "doing."

OTOH, you could be doomed to misinterpret the entire universe with this "deeper" meaning of logic which is actually redefinition, or more accurately, "dedefinition."
Saying "logic is semantics" and "semantics is logic" is exactly the same as saying "a=b" and "b=a," with zero attention being paid to what the words actually mean.
Using the same kind of "semantics," I could say "Boris is nuts" and "nuts is Boris" and be totally, completely accurate on the same basis.

A "logical" conclusion to jump to.
However, a CPU can't map to a brain anymore than a light switch can map to a brain.
Having billions of switches in an arbitrary pattern is exactly like having a single switch in some arbitrary pattern, in principle.
Just as a light switch requires a real brain to operate it via some mechanism, so does a CPU, which is a collection of switches, require a real brain to operate it.

OK, show me, in fact or in principle, the sequence of events required to believe in God, or, if you wish, to not believe something which exists, but which you yourself do not have sufficient proof for.

If I pull the plug, it becomes rather useless compared to an abacus.
On the other hand, try building an "autonomous" robot, without any human input in the form of programming.

In any programmed device, be it a computer or a robot, the ultimate value of any such thing is directly based on the human input that is programming.

Something can be true without ever being observed.

Before astronomers "discovered" that the courses of planets were predictable, people thought they weren't.
This is called "being wrong."

Your philosophy dosen't allow for the concept of being wrong, since observation is just observation and carries no value in and of itself.
"Based on observed experience" is another way of saying "jumped to a conclusion," although the jump may be very small.
Thus, this conclusion may be at variance with reality, although your philosophy claims that the conclusion is reality.

At some point then, in principle, an absolute truth is reached. The way to this truth is littered with discarded misinterpretations of observations, which misinterpretations, in turn, are reached by means of logic.

Thus, you refute your own original point and prove mine.
This is the weakness of logic I've been referring to in various posts, but it is nice to see someone else irrefutably prove my point, particularly one who is, ostensibly at least, opposing it.

I would expect no less.
A self-defined definition of correctness is a definite help in a debate since, by definition, any contradictory definition would be, by definition, incorrect.

One would think that a dissenting viewpoint would be paradoxical, by definition, particularly if the definition immediately invalidates its negation.
The question, of course, would be: is the original definition correct?

I can see that you've created an interesting world here.
It is apparent that you realize the importance of coherence, or non-self-contradiction, in a philosophy.
Of course, if a person redefines the words in each portion of a debate, then that coherence is simulated rather than real.

Let's look at the word "evolve."
On the one hand, if a person increases the quantity of perceived data, there is the possibility that the person would know more. Similarly, if the person does know more, there is the possibility that the person could be considered to have "evolved."
On the other hand, to extend the meaning of the word to include a change in DNA, based merely on the idea that the person has command of an additional fact, is simply introducing major incoherence into your position.

Again, it depends on what your definition of is is.
One would think that existence is being.
You are presenting the idea that existence is being, but dependent on a certain combination of time, persistence and interaction.
Unless, of course, you are presenting the idea that being is doing, which you do from time to time.

I wouldn't dispute such an assertion since I make that particular assertion myself.
You seem to unaware of the fact that you are making contradictory assertions.
Your earlier assertion is "Perception is reality" and your later assertion is "Perception is the only connection between reality and sentience."
Using a principle of logic ( if a=b and a=c then b=c), I can reformulate your two comments into one, namely, "Reality is only the connection between reality and sentience."

Well, how exactly would one provide a counterexample to a contradiction where one of the contradictory statements is true?

Again, the contradictory nature of the italicized statement makes it difficult to pursue the logic.
On one hand, you say we decide we know nothing a priori, yet on the other hand, "at the outset" (which is what 'a priori' means) you say we decide we know nothing at all.

Again, which is it?
Do we decide that we know or don't know anything, or do we decide that we know nothing?

Allow me to requote the circle, "Perception is reality and reality is perception."

So far, so good.
However, you want me to agree that all unobserved things that are real, while observable in principle, are already observed in fact.
For example, you want me to think that God is not observable in principle only because you have not observed him in fact.

What observations???!!!
Who observed the beginning of the universe??

The last nanosecond theory sounds interesting, but what, other than a random thought, do you have to suggest that it might be so?
There is no information to base a 5-billion-year-old earth on other than some fairly recent observations extrapolated backward about 4.9999999 billion years.
There is no information to base a nanosecond-old earth on.
There is a claim made that the earth is about 6000 years old.

I'm thinking, "am I going to bet my life on some guy making the right assumption about what he thought he saw?"
Particularly, if said guy may have gone to school with me and got lower marks than I did, and whose idea of going to school may have been, "Let's partyyyy."
Now this guy, or girl, has gotten all his/her priorities straight, can't remember everything they studied because of the alcoholic, or other, haze, but can "verify" that the earth is 5 billion years old.

Riiiiiiiight.

Again, a proof for the existence of God.

To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace;
Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.
(Hebrews 7:2,3, KJV).

?

Isn't cosmology a somewhat significant concept?
Yet you use it as an example of an artifact of POV thus demonstrating my point.

I've underestimated your powers of observation.
I've had litlle luck tasting, smelling and feeling things as close as Alpha Centauri.
My hat is off to you.

Of course, ridiculous does not mean "incorrect," it usually means "difficult to deal with."

Of course not. Haldane's dilemma is difficult enough to deal with even if you do know your subject.

Microevolution differs from macroevolution in kind as well as degree.
Mutations are not necessarily evolution, just as change is not necessarily progress.

OK.
Of course, I've "learned" all of this stuff earlier. It's pretty hard to go to school without having the theory of evolution presented as fact.

?
I wasn't attacking you.
I wasn't even attacking scientific claims as such.

True, but it might fit under the revolutionary <u>claim</u> portion of it.

I'd agree with this if it weren't for the fact that my tax dollars are currently going to support every other religion under the sun.
IOW, I'd gladly forego any official tax support for Christianity, if the tradeoff resulted in no tax dollars going to support any other religion, including humanism and scientism.

Of course, I'd disagree. Scientific claims are consistently ignored because they are false.
A preliminary list...
phlogiston
aether
thalidomide
DDT
"safe" nuclear power
toxic waste

You talk as though that is a bad thing.
If the entrepreneurial spirit can harness physical labor, why not mental labor as well?
Or are you a Luddite when it comes to mental labor?

What developed world is that? I take part in debates like this worldwide. The undeveloped world where access to the Internet is limited, is where debates like this rarely take place.

You've lost sight of the big picture.
The religious "horseshit" as you call it, is what brought down the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union.
Communism failed to prove that religion was the opiate of the people, just as you will fail to do so.

Could it be that you misunderstand what is happening?
You think I'm presenting Christianity as an option for you to believe in.
But I'm not.
I'm presenting it as your only viable choice.
In addition, the more I present it to you, the harder it is for you to choose it later if you reject it now.
Thus, you cannot sit on any fences, at the end of time you are either for God or against God, with no gray area.

Now, if only you learned to recognize that Communism lost because it is against God, then you could perhaps begin to appreciate the importance of that particular social dynamic for human civilization.

I have only one thing to say to this...
Goo, goo.

Powerful statement.
Except for the fact that you will die, this sounds very powerful, indeed.
How will you administer this judgment from the grave?

Nope, the author of the Bible.

Why would you say perception is reality and reality is perception earlier, and deny it here?

Is this sarcasm?
Of course, you seem to overlook the fact that as the percentage of Christians increases in a country, so does the standard of living, historically and in the present day.
Or have you not noticed your tendency to decry the number of Christians in the US, while at the same time enjoying the wealth and technology.
Open your eyes.

 

I think I see the problem

Oh oh, I've been assuming that your IQ is in the 120-125 range. I may have been wrong.

I don't resent the stuff, I just don't use it.
After seeing the effects of its use on-line, courtesy of you, I have to admit I am glad I don't use it.

Sure, no problem.

 

Fair enough, Tony

After all, you are yet another example why and how Christ failed.

--Tiassa

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Re: Fair enough, Tony

Now, I know for sure you are channeling.
He said he'd raise himself out of the grave and he did.
That is success far beyond what you can understand.
It is so far beyond you that it looks like failure to you.

You're like the race car driver who thinks he's winning when the leader is behind him about to lap him.

 

Can you even see the target?

Wow, a whole bunch of cliches to terminate the issue!

Gee, Tony, you're sounding desperate. That looks like panic-fire.

I've gotten fortune cookies before that would make more relevant sense.

--Tiassa

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Of course, if you could get your hands on some really good weed, yams would make those fortune cookies look stupid.

 

Consider (2): you have written a calculator program. Can you predict its output without knowing what the input was?

Consider (3): you have had program X installed and functioning well. Now you've just installed an update to X, X'. Does X' necessarily produce the same output as X?

With respect to (1), I am perfectly aware that perceptual information is filtered and partially preprocessed at the sensory organs before it enters the brain; however it is still perceptual information entering the brain, and it is the brain that is doing all the cognition one would consider significant (e.g. consciousness, or even so much as attending to a particular percept.)

Finally, (4) comes pretty close to getting the point. Structurally and algorithmically, both humans and computers are deterministic. However, their response to independent input from the environment is a function of that input. If you treat the environment as nondeterministic (i.e. you don't attempt to predict the sensory input), then the output of algorithms performing nontrivial transformations of the input will be nondeterministic also, as far as you are concerned. The matter of the brain is, however, further complicated because it is not a stateless information processor. To predict the output of the brain, you must know not only the sensory input, but also the internal state of the brain at the moment the input arrives. If you knew both the complete internal state of the brain at some point in time, and all the sensory input from that point in time onward, you would be able to perfectly predict what the brain will do. So the brain is, fundamentally, deterministic -- as, of course, is anything material.

That's quite a breakthrough. It's essentially what I've been trying to convince you of. Logic is a practical tool, and as a tool it must be used properly to achieve fruitful effect. Proper use of logic demands a firm grounding in observation. Meaning itself is ultimately a function of observation. Of course any tool can be abused, but that does not detract from its intent.

A good example. But bad premises. You keep forgetting about the connection between science and observation. Instead of "Science is knowledge", it should be "Science is practical knowledge derived from observation." Instead of "Belief is superstition", it should be "Belief is groundless and useless superstition". The conclusion would be "I believe that practical knowledge derived from observation will do more for man than groundless and useless superstition concerning God." The corollary then vanishes, because science is not groundless or useless superstition, and belief in a god is not practical knowledge derived from observation.

But you <u>were</u> giving an inadequate example. While logic is pervasive in cognition, it is involved on many levels from dynamic high-level algorithms to the static structure of the sensory organs. And of course, even in "simple" fish the actual sensorium does not follow the rules you gave as an example.

The key is the pattern. Obviously, "arbitrary" patterns are pretty pointless. On the other hand, the "sand" of a modern CPU is structured in a very non-arbitrary way -- and so is the web of neurons that composes the functional portion of your brain.

Let me explain what I mean by "perceptually driven". You are relying on your senses to navigate your world. You are relying on your senses to tell you the position and state of your various body parts. You are <u>communicating</u> with me, which is fundamentally a perception-oriented activity. You have learned all the words in your language(s) by the virtue of perception. You have indeed learned everything you've learned through perception, direct or indirect (indirect referring to perceiving someone else's accounts of what that someone alleges to have perceived.) You wouldn't even know what a point or a line was if you weren't capable of perceiving representations of such. In fact, were it not for perception the brain in your skull would never have developed into a functioning organ, and you would have never existed as a sentient individual in the first place. Your senses tell you when you are hungry, when you are cold, when it's time to sleep or to wake up. Your senses tell you when you are happy, sad, comfortable, or disinterested (introspection is, too, a sense of sorts.) And indeed such things as happiness or sadness can be evoked readily by sensory stimulation (e.g. watching a good movie.) You probably enjoy or even perform art of some sort. You probably do some kind of sports. You know how to walk, drive, type, and brush your teeth. All of those things are driven by perception. I could go on listing examples for pages and pages, but hopefully it's pretty clear by now what I mean by "perceptually driven".

Context is not a weakness, it is a strength. Without context there is no meaning.

At least the earthquake in Seattle can be perceived in principle. That is what makes it relevant: it <u>interacts</u> with us. On the other hand, the Washington earthquake did not exist until it happened. And it wasn't really an entity so much as it was a process (the relevant entity being the planet Earth.) Earthquakes are one of the ways that our planet interacts with us.

Well, you certainly do not know what I think about current knowledge, so I fail to see how you can propose something relative to what I have proposed before I actually make my proposal. For the record, I have no doubt that the collective knowledge of humanity is primitive. It is not even an arbitrary belief, since I know for sure that a myriad things in this universe alone remain unexplained -- and I can be quite certain based on history that a good fraction of current theories and conclusions are inaccurate or inadequate. As a matter of fact, I personally study cognition and I am painfully aware of the infancy of my field.

With regard to the progression, I would assert that today humanity knows more than it ever did before. And obviously I believe we know enough to make educated discource on the nature of such things as cognition, knowledge or life -- and things like religion and myth, philosophy and logic, or the reasons why U.S. really is so well-off compared to the former Soviet Union.

This is not partial memory. Persistence is not a property of a particular object so much as it is the property of that object's context and subtrate (the persistence of the object then follows.) "Composite" entities may come into existence and then disintegrate, but that does not describe a universe with partial persistence because the constituent entities of which the "composites" are made are either the substrate with total persistence or are in turn transient entities composed of yet more fundamental entities -- and so on. Thus the universe exhibits total persistence, but its fundamental entities can give rise to transient composites. So you see, there really is no conflict between persistence and transience.

For a concrete example, consider atoms and humans. Humans are built from atoms, and are transient entities. However, since the atoms are a more fundamental substrate they exist as a set of entities at least as long as the human whose makeup they constitute. The atoms in turn are transient entities built up of yet more fundamental entities, and so on and on. However, the persistence at the human level derives from the persistence at the atomic level, while persistence at the atomic level derives from persistence at the subatomic and so on. The hierarchy of complexity does not necessarily need to obey the heuristic of reduction to smaller size at more fundamental levels (indeed, the very aspect of size or more generally dimension must ultimately be supplied by some fundamental entity deep down at the roots of perceived reality.) However, the persistence (and generally existence) at the upper levels derives from existence at more fundamental levels. The universe as a whole can be completely described merely in terms of its most fundamental level of existence (if there is such a thing); all higher levels follow as corollaries. Thus, fundamentally the universe is not partially but totally persistent.

Exactly, more or less

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. Of course, I don't really agree with the terminology of "partial" vs. "complete" persistence, but that's splitting hairs at this point. What I said immediately above should cement the interpretation of your suggestion.

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So now perhaps you can start to see that those "deep" truths of the Bible are products of human thought. One aspect of my efforts here is to demonstrate that the Bible is not authored by God but is merely a human artifact. After all, if I can arrive at such truths by reason alone, many before me could have and indeed have had.

It's funny you should put it that way. I will indeed agree that your god is a product of human reasoning (same goes for all other gods.) Bad reasoning for sure, but reasoning nonetheless.

On the other hand, nothing I wrote here could even suggest, much less prove, that any particular godhead is for real, God included. This is where your reasoning is faulty. If you want to explain why existence of your God follows inevitably from my philosophy, you are welcome to.

As far as I understand, what I have presented makes a pretty good case for an eternal and completely mechanical universe. The most fundamental level of existence is the simplest level; all other levels of existence constitute emergent complexity through agglomeration. This implies that human beings are built out of the fundamental entities or entity and are therefore more complex -- not the other way around.

There are two extremely questionable ways to retrieve the judaic god from that:

1) assume that God is the fundamental entity of existence, in which case everything else is literally part of God because everything else is made from God, so to speak. This makes for an exception to my assumed heuristic that succeeding levels of reality can only form through agglomeration, because here in fact the fundamental entity is being fractured into a great many parts. (I actually do not see how that could possibly be self-consistent, because then the whole becomes just a name for the sum of the parts and it's the parts that are fundamental.) Anyway, in this case, for example, you and me having a conversation is one part of God talking to another. It becomes even more perverse when you consider the many religions in existence. Generally, a concept that is very screwed up on astonishingly many levels.

2) assume that God is not the fundamental entity of existence, but rather that there is the true fundamental level which is not God, and God derives from it. An interesting assumption, but what does it gain us philosophically? Moreover, in this case why is it even necessary for God to exist? (as in "proof that God does, and must, exist")?

So, methinks you've got some explaining to do regarding your claims of proof.

Are you being sarcastic? Sounds like the opposite to me!

Is it the case that your Bible quote is saying that there cannot be such things "under the sun" that have not previously existed or been observed? In which case, our very electronic conversation seems to be a counterexample (i.e. computers, internet, etc.)

On the other hand, if it is saying that all new things must be built out of things that existed previously, I'm fine with that. But such an interpretation sounds like quite a stretch from the original text; the more natural interpretation is that of "history repeats itself" -- which is an allegorical observation at best, since for example there has never before been a space age on Earth.

Cute, but what does that say about time? What are the properties of time? How would we define such properties? (remember, persistence and interaction are not defined at this point yet; time's properties must be completely self-sufficient, as you proposed.) For example, time encompasses such things as interval and directionality (beginning-end, past-future). How do you define all of these things without persistence and interaction? And if you can't, then what good is your "definition" if it does not fully describe the thing it is supposed to define? Moreover, how can the context of time in itself exist? Wouldn't that require an existence without persistence or interaction? How do you define such an existence?

Face it man, time is intervoven with persistence and interaction; you cannot completely separate the three -- they are parts of the same thing, and each borrows from the others.

Oh, it exists allright -- as an inconsistent combination of other concepts in my mind and in yours, or in other words as a set of bit strings. But in no other way.

When I (and I thought you) talk about existence, I generally mean that which has an identity outside of the mind of the observer. The various combinations of symbols that the mind can create can be said to exist -- but only as part of the mind's state. In other words, such things have the mind as the fundamental substrate of their reality -- as opposed to the things which are more fundamental than the mind (i.e. from which the mind and everything independent from the mind derives.)

I do not see how my philosophy does not take into consideration the fact that I "might" die. I'm certainly a human, and it is an established fact that humans die. Doesn't seem like such a stretch of logic to conclude that I will die too. I'd prefer not to, but desiring something doesn't make it come true. Should I reach a situation where I'm dying a predictable and slow death, I'll probably arrange for preservation with implication of future uploading. On the other hand, if I end up as a thin film on a highway, then that would obviously be the ultimate end of yours truly.

Except you can't be without doing (even if doing nothing in some contexts; to "be" you have to be at least capable of interaction), and you certainly cannot do without being. Which is why in general I have the following system of "equations", where "<=>" reads "is mutually entangled with":

1) existence<=>time
2) existence<=>interaction
3) existence<=>persistence

From which the corollaries are:

1) time<=>interaction
2) time<=>persistence
3) interaction<=>persistence

You can't talk about either T, I or P outside the context of the other two -- nor outside the context of existence -- which is basically how I arrive at the "equations". You can think of T, I and P as three interdependent facets of a singular concept. (Incidentally, perhaps that clears up your confusion about the meaning of "is".)

A crucial thing I now realize I forgot to ever mention in this debate, is that TIP is not necessarily the only valid definition of existence. For example, it is conceivable that other concepts can be defined that include the facets of T, I and P in various combinations and together still add up to existence. It is even possible that T, I and P themselves can each be constructed out of yet some other concepts, so that the set of those other concepts also adds up to existence. I never meant to claim that my definition of existence was the only valid one, nor the most detailed or useful one possible (indeed either would have been quite unforgivably delusional of me.) Rather, I concider it a very good working draft, being confident that its derivation is as solid as the "I am, thus I persist, etc." -- and moreover, I find the three fundamental (to my definition) units of TIP to be very convenient and powerful concepts to work with.

Except that "logic" carries a whole great deal more meaning that "a", and "semantics" a lot more than "b". In case you missed it, I spent a whole paragraph exploring what the words actually mean. Semantics (or meaning) is a web of connections and implications; logic is the essense of implication, and logic is the consistency of meaning and indeed of the very substrate that encodes meaning.

Now you are asking me to speculate on the cognitive processes that remain enigmatic. If I could give you an answer good enough to fully describe the "sequence of events" that actually happens in the human brain as a belief is formed, then I would have written an entire library's worth and earned every single scientific accolade in existence. Yes indeed, some questions really are not simple.

In principle, then, consider a complex neural architecture where information is encoded in at least the strength of synapses (but also in many other ways such as conductance, inductance and length of axons and dendrites or particular branches thereof, or in the chemical nature of particular neurotransmitters emitted by a particular presynaptic neuron or how the postsynaptic neuron is tuned to react to them, or in the physical or chemical properties of the particular neuron's cell body, or any of the above and more applied to concentrated or distributed collections of neurons where overall cluster topology begins to matter in terms of timing and phasing) -- synapses, of which there are on the order of 1 quadrillion (average 100 billion neurons x 10,000 synapses per neuron.) Individual synapses (and perhaps even individual neurons) are probably not very important; instead, information is likely encoded in entire populations of neurons, superimposed upon previously-encoded information according to some interference-minimizing algorithm or set of algorithms that has yet to be discovered -- so the entire storage medium is holographic as opposed to linear in nature. The storage medium also happens to be the processing medium (one of those simultaneous combinations that you so dislike), although there exist dedicated sections of it that either mostly process or mostly store. But generally speaking, storing in this medium alters its physical structure, which recursively affects its processing -- so the data and the architecture are intertwined and interdependent; how the architecture retains its overall processing capability (i.e. how the contradictory demands of storage and processing are balanced), and not only retains it but is capable of improving it or even constructing entire new processing pathways -- remains unexplained. But you can imagine at some moment in time a particular pattern of processing activity within certain relevant parts of the architecture, which corresponds to what is commonly described as forming a belief. This processing activity leaves a mark on the brain in its wake (maybe in the same place where it occurs, or maybe somewhere else, or both), and thus the "belief" is encoded to persistent storage. The peculiar nature of the stored belief is that it is more than just information; it interacts and becomes integrated with the other data, and furthermore it strongly affects both processing and storage of subsequent data; indeed, it is as much stored data as a modification to the architecture itself.

But anyway, your request hardly comes off as an objection against the proposal that if a complete human brain were to somehow be scanned into a computer at the atomic level of detail, and then simulated at that level replete with sensory input, it would not <u>functionally</u> be a complete replica of the original. Furthermore, continuing with the sci-fi scenario, such a brain could be, after a while, reconstructed later atom by atom from the computer simulation -- thus generating a new biochemical instance of the individual that has gone through new experiences while "being in the computer". So...do you object or not?

Well, the brain doesn't exactly start out as a tabula rasa either. There is a great deal of biochemically-encoded structure in the fetal brain -- structure geared toward future fruitful development and assimilation of the surrounding enviroment. Indeed, at that rate the entire human being is encoded in the DNA and sundry cellular organelles of two gametes -- that is the original program; once set off it will proceed along the prescribed path, with the only variability from complete predictability being supplied by its interactions with the unpredictable environment (plus, of course, the variability present in its initial state.)

And while humans weren't designed the way robots are designed, the "value" of a human is indeed "directly based on the input that is programming" -- in our case a program that evolved from humble yet crucially functional beginnings.

You're funny. Of course my philosophy allows for the concept of being wrong. Observation and conclusions are two different things. When an observation is made, the immediate <u>fact</u> of the observation is reality. When an effect is detected, <u>it came from somewhere</u>. This is what I mean when I say something to the effect that observation is the only interface to reality.

Interpretation of observations, on the other hand, is where other observations and logic come in. Bad logic or inadequate observational background, or both, can lead to misinterpretation of the observed effect. As a simple example, consider the ancient belief that it is the sun that moves while the earth stands still (in that particular case, nothing wrong with logic but woefully lacking background.)

It is usually the case that interpretations entail more than they explain, and these additional entailments can be tested with further observation. So it is that observation also serves as the ultimate judge of correctness.

I do not see a weakness. In fact, I see strength because ultimately, "in principle, an absolute truth is reached." The real weakness lies not in logic, nor in the scientific approach -- but in basic ignorance, the state in which traditionally all new sentience enters existence. Learning is an arduous process, but it has to be done if one ever hopes to really understand. And I do not see which original point I allegedly refuted.

Good, coherence is an important point I was dancing around in my original post on the philosophy. How's the below for "A Tractate on Boris' Philosophy":

Consistency, deriving from persistence and interaction, is intrinsic to existence; it also happens to be the essense of logic. Generally speaking, the shorthand of "logic" stands for a methodology of consistent relationships. While the relationships themselves (and the entities they relate) derive from observation and evolve, consistency remains the canvas upon which such entities and relationships operate. Logic is the language of existence, its semantics fueled by observation, ascending through time on wings of memory. It is the language of existence because it epitomizes and weaves together the TIP. Yet it is also the language of existence in another way, namely that its operational domain is of that which exists. Logic is the fundamental language behind all languages, it is that common substrate that enables us to translate from one language into another.

Thanks again for helping me refine that portion of my argument.

It's funny how much one could say without ever meaning to say it. My original usage of "evolve" in the italicized quotation was in the dictionary sense of "undergo change over time", i.e. "unfold". I was trying to convey the obsrevation that as I perceive, I am aware of the flow of time. In other words, the quotation is the old E<=>[T|I|P] set of equations. I'm going to be careful in the future to use "unfold" instead of "evolve" in this context, since the latter apparently confuses people.

Of course, now that you mention it, it does occur to me that "evolve" in that context also carries the connotation of evolving knowledge/awareness. That's pretty cool, but it's not what I was trying to say there. Of course, the implication of biological evolution is also pretty cool, since ultimately evolution is driven by interaction (which is somewhat close to "perception", but without the implication of the conscious observer) -- but in the larger context of the sentence the biological interpretation simply does not fly since the sentence is talking about me (or you, or anybody who reads it) as an individual.

Ok, so I have been known to wax poetic every now and then. Sure, "perception is reality" is a mouthful and leaves its interpretation in the air. To a naive observer, though, perception <u>is</u> reality. The observer may be suffering from illusions or whatnot, but that doesn't detract from the fact that the observer has no reasonable choice but to believe what he or she perceives -- unless there is cause to doubt, but such cause itself can only come directly or indirectly from prior observation. The latter "assertion" you quoted addresses perception more properly within a context of an audience who has lost at least some of the original naivete. Together, the two assertions form a kind of progression: you start with total ignorance and absolute trust in the percepts, and progress to ever more refined models of the percepts that could later reveal ways to detect illusion. At any rate, that's what I was trying to say -- even if it didn't come out very coherently.

?? I thought I said we <u>don't</u> (as in "do not") decide, and yet you are confused as to what we decide? At the outset, we simply know nothing -- and cannot decide anything because one must at least know what one is trying to decide, as well as how to go about deciding.

What I want you to think, is that until your God is observed in fact you cannot even know whether it exists or not, not to mention what its nature is or what it wants from you. And chances overwhelmingly are, it doesn't exist to begin with.

Let's see... I've already mentioned the element abundance measurements (from spectral studies) that tell us the universe is of finite age and therefore did at some point emerge. There is further evidence that galaxies further away appear structurally and elementally younger than galaxies close by (deep field studies). The sky is not infinitely hot (Olbers' paradox). The universe is not at thermal equilibrium. I'm actually not a professional astronomer so that about exhausts my personal list (a long time ago I did take an introductory astronomy class...) But at least that much already makes for quite a convincing case, don't you think?

When you see a thing, you are not seeing the thing but the light emitted by the thing. Based on the light you perceive, you make conclusions about the thing. It's fundamentally no different in the case of astronomy, only by now it's more rigorous.

Wrong, and on altogether too many levels. You're correct about one thing: you shouldn't just take people's word for things, especially where large investments are concerned (such as your life.) You should go and see for yourself if it makes any sense. And any scientist who has done so will tell you that.

I can't believe you're a young-Earth creationist.

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You sounded too intelligent (if in a rather perverse way) for that. You're far-gone indeed. As for the 5 billion year age (4.5 actually), there's an excellent section on(guess which website?) talkorigins.org: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-youngearth.html
A particular (and quite nontechnical) paper you must definitely read, is here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geohist.html
It details how, starting in the 1600's and up to the present day, it was realized that the age of the Earth is not 6,000 years, and how the age was refined to its modern figure. Until you read that paper (it is not even all that long), I'm not going to say one more word on the issue.

On the other hand, a "claim made" about the 6000 year old Earth is no different from a claim that he earth is a nanosecond old. It's equally ridiculous, in view of the <u>evidence</u> (see the paper above).

The first excerpt above betrays lack of understanding concerning the very definition of biological evolution. Biological evolution is not progress. And there is no difference in kind between micro- and macroevolution, only in degree. That document I referenced in the previous post, and which you so handily dismissed, actually goes to great lengths to establish what evolution is and is not.

With respect to the second excerpt, if you only learned about evolution in school -- and that wasn't even the subject that interested you -- then you have a pitiful grasp of the subject indeed. I know; I started my education in Russia (up to 8th grade) and then moved to U.S. where I ended up immediately in 10th grade (and even then I already knew most of the science material that was to be taught over the remaining 3 years) -- and where in particular I had to go through that poor excuse for a course called AP Biology, where an attempt is made to cram into one year what a Russian education exposed thoughtfully and in detail from 5th grade and on all the way to graduation. American education emphasizes rote memorization instead of comprehension. No wonder you do not understand even what little you managed to retain.

When it comes to explaining fire, the phlogiston beats God's magic hands down. When it comes to modeling electromagnetism and understanding its behavior and capabilities, aether is indispensible (and it could yet make a comeback, believe it or not.) The rest are more the fault of market economy than anything else. And then of course, we should not forget who it is that proves that one or another claim made by another scientist is false. (hint: it's certainly not Jesus) Then again, it's all too convenient to ignore the achievements of science when technology "just works" and it's nobody's business how.

That's not the point. The "entrepreneurial spirit" is now spreading to the rest of the world. In a couple of decades U.S. will have nothing to offer the mental laborers that the rest of the world will not have. If anything, should the current relapse into Puritanism (which by the way is closer to communism than to entrepreneurial spirit) continue in this country unabated, it will actually see a flight of intellect to Europe and Asia.

That is an astonishingly naive and ignorant claim. The Cold War was not won by U.S. because the Soviet Union was hostile to religion. It was won because:
1) U.S. relies on money as the motivating factor for its populace and on market economy as the optimizer of efficiency, while the Soviet Union relied on ideology as a motivating factor (not unlike Christianity in that respect) and upon essentially unaudited bureaucracy to manage its economy and businesses, while the bureaucrats had absolutely nothing to gain from maximizing efficiency or net profits, other than a congratulations and a pat on the shoulder -- but had plenty to gain from pocketing bribes and overlooking utter chaos and failure.
2) U.S. has free press and public accountability; Soviet Union had repression of information, omnipresent propaganda, and pervasive corruption.
3) U.S. has a democratically elected and cyclically refreshed government with checks and balances; Soviet Union had a stale dictatorship without any checks and certainly without any sort of balance.
4) U.S. has 3 times more population than Soviet Union, and the population is more productive per person -- part of the reason why the Soviet Union ultimately bankrupted itself trying to match the U.S. spending.
5) U.S. has as its allies most of the developed countries in the world; the Soviet Union had mostly 3rd world allies.
6) U.S. engaged in extensive trade to stimulate its economy and technology; the Soviet Union isolated itself from the capitalist world.
7) Soviet Union lost its best and brightest repeatedly in waves of Stalinist purges over the 70 years that it existed, to labor camps, prisons, mass executions, and to emigration (not in a small part to U.S.)

The Soviet Union was not overcome because it was anti-religious or socialist, as our enlightened Republicans like to imagine. It was overcome because it was a bureaucratic dictatorship under a thin guise of presumed communism, and it would have disintegrated much sooner were it not for the second world war, which fed the Soviet propaganda machine for the next 45 years after it ended, before it finally ran out of steam with arrival of newer generations.

Nice deduction. I guess under that same logic, the Holy Roman Empire vanished into history because it was for God. Incidentally, a Holy Roman Empire is exactly what our beloved conservatives would like this country to become.

I suppose the increase in the percentage of Christians in Japan is what caused that tiny island to rival the mighty U.S. as an economic superpower. And I guess it's the increase in the percentage of Christians that makes China the prime source of goods and manufacturing for U.S. companies and increasingly for U.S. imports. Let's not forget India, which is another upcoming Asian superpower where quality of life has been improving exponentially of late. And I suppose Germany must be more Christian than any other European country, since it is outcompeting them all and returning to its former dominance over the continent, this time as a peaceful partner rather than dictator. Open <u>your</u> eyes.

 

"Oh oh, I've been assuming that your IQ is in the 120-125 range. I may have been wrong."

Yes you would be, I score a little over 150.

Now I repeat myself:
Must I continually ask you to make an actual point instead of rambling on to hide from actually debating?

" Of course, if you could get your hands on some really good weed, yams would make those fortune cookies look stupid."

I have to give you credit here, I got a laugh out of this one. Not relevant at all but funny. Sorry tiassa.

 

FA_Q2, I must admit

Argh! A touch! I confess ... and thus I must expire beneath the grandeur of heaven's dome.

Relevant or irrelevant, I tend to see it, metaphorically, as standing in a crowded bar and playing darts while blindfolded. If one throws enough darts in every direction one can think of, statistically one must hit the target eventually. And since hitting the board at all is so much more important than actually playing darts, one need not worry about the number of civilians bleeding from the eyes as they scream and try to pick the darts out.

I also feel compelled to admit that the zinger went right by me the first time. How many snowflakes should we count, as such?

I'm curious about your take on it, though ... despite its irrelevance, timing, and spitefulness, I must smile at least at "yams".

Hey, now that I think about it, I've scheduled several hours this weekend to scrape my brainpan. Not quite portabellas, but I simply must go get some yams and see what profound truths they whisper in the silence of cyanescent.

thanx,
Tiassa

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How unfortunate for you.

Now I understand why it is necessary for me to connect every single dot.

Luckily it wasn't intended as relevant or I'd have to be explaining it to you.
I just thought it would be funny.

No spitefulness at all, but about missing zingers, points, etc. you've missed a few.
I am thoroughly saddened, though.
That was about as low as I care to go, and suddenly everyone reacts.
I was hoping for more.

 

My gut hurts now ...

That was hilarious, man. And how big was that fish?

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--Tiassa

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Once again....

Once again tony, what exactly again is your point . Why not trying to debate.

More evading

 

Re: My gut hurts now ...

That's the stuff that gets your funny bone.
The really obvious stuff.

If you could read some of the less obvious stuff, you wouldn't spend so much time riled up at my posts.

This is more fun.

 

Actually, Tony ...

Actually, what cracks me up is when a Christian lies like you do. You're such a testament to the quality of life faith induces that your lies and evasions do much to reveal the damaging aspects of Christian faith.

Two notes about the less obvious stuff:

* Most of it isn't funny.
* Most of it is useless.

If you didn't deny, deny, deny like a child molester, I wouldn't care what the heck you preach. As far as I care, you are your own worst enemy in your evangelism, kind of like ISDA jumping the gun and defending child beating. (Note for any who still care: ISDA's retraction post is noted; nonetheless, I still maintain my initial response to that first post.)

What would prevent my responses, in general, would be if you respected the topics you set about to bruise, and let real debate take place. But, I always wonder, because here we see another stereotype at play, here. I'm well aware that it is merely stereotype that Christians prefer to avoid issues and assert authority instead. Why, sir, are you enacting this commonplace assumption that so many of your more legitimate brethren are working so hard to shed?

--Tiassa

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My oh my

Having a little tantrum, are we?

 

Response to "salvo" pt 1

I'd better, otherwise I'd have written a random number generator.

I'm hoping you're not asking me what the output would be for a single unknown input.

You may have missed the proviso "while being programmed."
Thus, while you are updating X, the computer may behave non-deterministically, but only because the program is changing while it runs.

How would you know this?
Have you ever run an experiment on yourself while, say, unconscious, to determine how much of your consciousness is processed elsewhere?

I note the proviso "as far as you are concerned."
Actually, that proviso is designed to conceal the earlier statement that both humans and computers are deterministic.

They aren't.
A non-failed computer is deterministic, but humans are not.
You have identified an area where huge numbers of people waste their lives because of a considerable amount of determinism.
However, at any time, a human being can choose to produce a different output for a given input. The fact that few choose to, does not mean that they cannot.

I tend to agree with you in that anything material probably is deterministic.
However, I wonder what proof or observation you have that thought, as an example, is material.
It may arise as a result of material processes, but that in itself does not mean that it is material.
Another example: time is not material, thus the corollary to your point would be that it is not deterministic.
If that is the case then your inverted pyramid of TIP, would be sagging at the 'T' corner.
Non-deterministic time would mean that persistence itself may be non-deterministic.
That could be a problem for your philosophy.

That's not much of a breakthrough, since I've believed that since I first understaood what logic was.
However, if you care to review your own posts, you were presenting a much broader function for logic, essentially as the foundation on which everything else rests.
As a tool, logic is hardly the "language of existence,"

Medical science would be a branch of science, would it not?
This science, along with its sister, pharmacology, actually bring your point from the sharp focus you intend to the blur that it is.
How much of what was considered superstitious by scientists, no less, is fully incorporated into medicine and pharmacology?
How much of what is considered science in these two fields is the most pathetic superstition?
Combine that with the efforts of psychologists to uncover how much of medicine is superstition and vice versa, and the picture becomes very blurry indeed.
I'll retract my point the minute psychologists cease to wonder whether medicine is medicine or superstition.

Of course, you still haven't explained how motion could be considered an element of logic, even though it is very important in the physiology of vision, i.e. no motion of the human eye equals no vision.

Of course, the arbitrary pattern I was referring to, isn't the pattern that creates the individual transistors. This would have to be a given, seeing that without it, the CPU really would be a pile of sand.
The pattern I was referring to, is the pattern of ones and zeroes, represented by transistors that are either on or off.
In neurons, the pattern may well be the meaning, whereas in a memory chip the pattern simply represents the meaning.
This is a big difference, not often quickly grasped by those who work with virtual reality on a regular basis.

You seem to have given a great description for "perceptually informed" but sure, let's use your definition.

"context-bound" can be considered as an analogy to "muscle-bound." Few would argue that a muscle-bound individual is weak, yet the person is limited by the very thing that creates his strength.
Thus in a very real way, the strength becomes a weakness.
Similarly, you spend a lot of time with computers, and your context tends to be defined in terms of silicon.
This limits you.
A broader context would allow you to see how limiting a silicon-based context is.

Here is where the rubber meets the road.
The Seattle residents take little solace in the fact that their earthquake was perceived before the fact, in principle.
They actually needed to know about it, in fact.

Well, I can tell you how.
Unless you feel that the current knowledge of man is exactly zero, I'm pretty sure I'm less optimistic about it than you are.
You appear to believe that cognition and sentience can be transferred to a machine.
Being much more pessimistic, I know it can't.

Yet you describe it as a "field."
My personal take on it is that we, as humans, have yet to define cognition, let alone call it a "field."

What is this?
You appear to be making the point that an object that does not exist does exist, courtesy of its context and substrate.
You also appear to be arguing that persistence is and is not a property of an object, at the same time.
You need to make a decision.

?
There are dictionaries extant that may have some difficulty reconciling those two concepts.

per·sist·ent (pr-sstnt, -zs-)
adj.

1. Refusing to give up or let go; persevering obstinately.
2. Insistently repetitive or continuous;
3. Existing or remaining in the same state for an indefinitely long time; enduring:

tran·sient (trnshnt, -zhnt, -z-nt)
adj.

1. Passing with time; transitory;
2. Remaining in a place only a brief time;
3. Physics. Decaying with time, especially as a simple exponential function of time.

Is your dictionary printed on rubber?

Flexibility aside, I think I'll go along with your definition, otherwise we could spend many moons on this.

In essence, you are claiming authorship of the Bible here, in principle.
However, one could argue that "deep" truths belong to the more arcane philosophies, and Bible truths are so simple even a child could understand them, which is why adults often take years to do so.

As you may surmise, one aspect of my efforts here is to demonstrate the Bible is authored by God, and is not a human artifact. After all, if you can arrive at such truths by reason alone, then perhaps the many before you who also believed in God, arrived at such a belief by taking halting steps such as the ones you are taking.

Funnier yet is the idea that you are "creating" God as you uncover that he must exist.
Other scientists in the past have described their work as discovery, yet you seem to hold the opinion that it is creation.
Better hold off on self-analysis. You could end up creating yourself, and in turn the reasons for creating your existence. At any point, you might forget some little detail and cause yourself to disappear.

That would be faulty reasoning.
I'd say that you are gradually realizing that there is a God because your philosophy has forced you to recognize bigger things than you could before.

I agree that it argues for eternity.
However, your definition for mechanical is at present limited to what you currently know as mechanical.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and assume that by "mechanical," you mean observably following observable, that is, knowable rules.

Hence, probably wrong.

This would be called begging the question.

Or, 3) The interaction between God and man is not, as you have supposed, real because it is observable.
It is observable because it is real.
Furthermore, the one additional rule that you have failed to take into account is that your assumptions form your observations, whereas you have a priori assumed that they are independent of your observations.
Heisenberg's principle with a twist, so to speak.

See above.

?
Your entire philosophy is based on the idea that more complex, less persistent things are made from less complex, more persistent things.
Thus, the concept of "new" is something that cannot exist under your philosophy, all things being persistent, therefore "old."

If you successfully argue this, then your philosophy collapses, also.
If persistence is not persistence, then where is your philosophy?

Define space age.

Given a series of questions such as this, I propose that nothing can be defined.
Proof is as close as the nearest dictionary in which you will find that every word is defined in terms of other words which, in turn, are defined by other words which, etc.
Thus, ultimately, every word in a dictionary is defined by itself, through a series of intermediate definitions of other words.

Of course, you argue in another place that reality is what is observed.
Thus you end up in a very tight circle here.
The symbols which represent, in your mind, the things you have observed have the mind as the more fundamental substrate. (They must be symbols since the actual observed objects cannot be located inside your mind.)
If this is true, then the reality which you derive from your observations must be less fundamental than your mind.
OTOH, if you are observing the components that make up your mind then the components that would otherwise be more fundamental, end up being less fundamental by virtue of having been observed by you.
This appears to be anoither untenable position, since things cannot be more fundamental and less fundamental at the same time.

Relax, they usually scrape you off and bag you before the "thin film" stage.
Cats, on the other hand, turn into amazing kite-like things through that process.

The way your philosophy fails to take your demise into account is that it simply does not take the change in persistence into consideration.
Your philosophy sounds great until you realize that it collapses when you do.
Since you claim that the symbols that the mind creates have the mind as their substrate, when the mind ceases to exist, so do the symbols, including the very complex one which is your philosophy.
A transient philosophy such as that could be said to be no philosophy at all, being a mere symbol.

Doing nothing is not equivalent to doing running.
You can run, but you can't "noth."
Doing nothing means the absence of doing something, not the presence of doing "noth."
In any case, the dictionary paradox applies here. Nothing is definable, or to avoid the "noth" thing, everything is undefinable.

But let us push forward, against the obstacle of indefinability.

It's not that crucial.
As I recall, I may have made that point for you.

However, that brings me to a question.
If your point is this flexible, what is it exactly?

There is that "I persist" thing again. This is how you fail to take into consideration that you might die.
Persistence would demand not dying, otherwise it would be transience.
Earlier, you argued that the two were the same, but I still don't agree, given that the definitions of the words are mutually exclusive.

 

Response to "salvo" pt 2

This point only makes a difference if you actually use the words as though they meant what they mean as opposed to using them as great space-fillers that look cool.

See point above.
One would think that logic would have something to do with "explication" as well.
Your point is now the sixth or seventh definition of logic that I've seen here.

You seemed very happy when I said logic was a tool, and now here you are defining it as the very essence of meaning itself.

Admittedly, it was asking a bit much.
However, you were mentioning something about a finite number of atoms in the brain (which I agree with), and a finite number of instructions to be executed (which I don't agree with).
This reveals your silicon-based, digital context.
I happen to see the functioning of the brain, along with other parts of the body, as partly analog, partly digital.
Why so?
Digital because of the ultimately stepwise nature of chemical and/or electrical processes, i.e. the unit of the reaction is either the atom or the electron.
Analog, because there is no indivisible unit of distance, which could play a part in the transmission of electrical impulses across synapses, for example.

If there is any analog element in any brain processes, then those processes cannot be recorded as digital patterns without some error.

This is something I'd forgotten about.

This is the crucial failure point for any mind-uploading venture, or for any accurate duplication of cognition or sentience for that matter.
The problem that arises with any holographic storage method is that you need to know how the information is stored prior to retrieval. This may seem trivially true, and is for practically any other type of storage, but not for holographic storage.
Since factors that you may not be aware of could encode the information, the problem is again one of never knowing whether you know enough.

Oh no, I don't dislike that at all.
I happen to think that that is a very efficient way to both store and process information.

I think you've got a pretty good handle on this.
As you might well suspect, you are describing why, for example, it is easy to start a habit, but difficult to break one.

You're right. A request is not an objection.

I object.
Here is why...
At some time, a human being is alive. At another time, a human being is dead.
In between those two times is the time of death.
A scan of a human body, including the brain, immediately before the TOD, compared to a scan immediately after the TOD would show no difference between the two, where immediately is defined as a duration sufficiently short to allow no difference.

Your thinking, and that of other mind uploading fans, is that a human is entirely material.
A human cannot be, because of the concept of death. Machines cannot die, humans can.
Therefore, a human cannot be machinelike.

The concept of death introduces an insurmountable problem into mind uploading, among other things.
A scan of a person, who is dead, will produce a complete replica of the original.
Upon reconstruction, you will have the dead individual.
It does not matter whether you are a materialist or not.
There is a difference between dead and alive that is not defined in material terms only.

You have the ability to cram a multitude of issues into a single statement.
<ol><li>The basis of eugenics is the same thought you just expressed</li><li>Your prior assumption is evolution</li><li>You're overlooking the difference between lifelessness and life</li><li>You're expecting me to believe that rock has a "functional" state that we "evolved" from</li></ol>

I stand corrected, provided I see that this is the actual result of your philosophy.
After all, a philosophy that allows for self-correction, in principle but not in practice, can be said to not allow for self-correction, due to the nature of observability.
If your philosophy cannot be observed to self-correct, then according to your philosophy, self-correction is not real.

You are displaying your own woeful use of logic here.
In the absence of knowledge of where the "sides" of the universe are, it is impossible to determine where the center is.
Thus, the center of the universe could be coincident with the center of the earth.
In the absence of any reference point external to the universe, it is impossible to determine if, or how, the entire universe is rotating.
Thus, the rotation of the universe could be such that the sun is rotating around the earth.

Your only available true logical statement is that you don't know where the center of the universe is, and you don't know how it rotates.

Assuming...
<ol><li>There are enough observers</li><li>They observe enough</li><li>They have enough time to make all of the necessary observations</li><li>They can tell the difference between illusion and reality</li><li>They can tell the difference between delusion and reality</li><li>No one in this entire process of observation ever makes an undetected mistake</li></ol>

This is strange.
Every observation of science, and the conclusions based on them, leads to a non-absolute truth.
A non-absolute truth is a falsehood.
Thus, the history of science is the history of falsehood, yet you see this as a strength.
The idea that you can reach an absolute truth through a series of falsehoods, at the very least, indicates that the process will take a long time.
My statement that "in principle, an absolute truth is reached," should be construed as the logical conclusion of your earlier statements, rather than my belief.

The refuted point is that logic is the basis for reality.
Given that logic appears to lead to more incorrect conclusions than correct conclusions, logic might better be described as the basis for error, rather than reality.

If consistency is the essence of logic, then logic cannot be the fundamental basis of anything.
Consistency would be that fundamental basis.
As you say yourself, "consistency remains the canvas."

There appears to be a certain indecisiveness, nay, incoherence, in your philosophy relative to what should be considered as the basis for other things.

I can see that you have limited experience in the field of linguistics.
The concept of the meme, as it is used in linguistics rather than pop philosophy, is something worth looking into, to assist you in refining this portion of your argument.
A meme can hardly be described as a discrete, logical unit.
Furthermore, if it were such a thing in one language, translation into another language would demonstrate that the meme in the second language is highly unlikely to be exactly coincident with that in the first.
Even if, in rare cases, some memes did exactly coincide, the vast majority do not.
For anyone who deals with multiple languages on a regular basis, logic is the one thing that languages are not based on.

I see that you have picked up on an otherwise overlooked issue.
You are correct in identifying that you said "do not decide what we do or do not know" whereas I changed it to "decide what we do or do not know."
Thus, it appears as if I have changed your assertion and then argued against the changed assertion.
However, the meaning of the word "decide" allows me to do that.
Any time you decide, say, between left and right, you choose one and reject the other.
On the one hand, you may use criteria that positively select for, say, the right, and then choose the right.
On the other hand, you may use criteria that negatively select against, say, the left, and then choose the right.
Thus, if you decide to positively select for one option, I can negatively select against its opposite, and arrive at the same result.
So, even though it looks like I turned your assertion around, I didn't because of your own choice of the word "decide."

The problem remains.
The failure to choose to know is in itself a choice to not know.
Even in infancy, an infant isn't at the point of not deciding that he does or doesn't know.
He simply knows what he knows and goes from there.
The fact that he knows very little influences him not at all, simply because that is one of things he does not know.

A side issue here: at the point of least knowledge, this infant is best prepared for the longest life.
Yet a wizened, gnarled 90-year-old on his deathbed, with a lifetime of experience, knowledge and education does not know enough to stay alive for another ten minutes.
Sort of anti-logical isn't it?

Needless to say.
What statistical data would you have for an assertion such as this?
Have you actually observed many universes, some of which have a God or gods, some of which don't, with the majority not having them?

Well, no.
Element abundance studies, and conclusions based on them, rely on a priori assumptions of what element distributions might be expected at any given point in time.
To get an idea what problems may arise, imagine doing an element abundance study in, say, downtown Hiroshima, without knowing a nuclear explosion had taken place there.

The deep field study concept should alert you to one of three things...
<ol><li>either we are at, or very close, to the center of the universe, or</li><li>the results of deep field study are an artifact of POV, or</li><li>a combination of both 1. and 2.</li></ol>

Olber's paradox is only a paradox if you reject creation, and assume an arbitrarily large age for the universe.

As valid as this may be for the level of rigor you're proposing, ultimately you are saying that reality is light-dependent, i.e. no light, no reality.

The thing you say I'm correct about is the point I was trying to make. How can it be wrong on so many levels, when it is correct on the intended level?

Whew! I guess I'm just lucky I read it then!

Evidence isn't evidence simply because it is stated to be so.
The fossil record is evidence of Noah's Flood among other things, yet to you it is evidence of the opposite.
One of us is wrong.
Thus, one claim for "evidence" is also wrong.
The basis for your belief is careful presentation of the information in such a way that you will tend to reach the wrong conclusion.
Your thinking is that there is simply evidence to carefully weighed.
My thinking is that there is evidence to be weighed, and motives for deception to be considered.

Thus, your position is inadequately covered.

If evolution is supposedly not progress, then why would anyone care about it so much?

Unfortunately, I didn't go through the American public school system, either.
I had a somewhat more "elitist" education.

Although, your reference to Russian education does explain how effective careful indoctrination is.
You are probably aware that Soviet education was designed to turn out materialists, and also materialists such as yourself who are prepared to argue communist propaganda from an "educated" perspective.
After all, communism was established primarily on the principle that God is not real, whether he is or not.
Communism also failed because God turned out to be real.

You seem fully convinced of the following from The Communist Manifesto...
"The basis of religious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being encamped outside the world. Man is the world of man, the state, society. This state, this society, produce religion, an inverted world-consciousness, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of that world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, its universal source of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realisation of the human essence because the human essence has no true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly a fight against the world of which religion is the spiritual aroma.

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears, the halo of which is religion."

And apparently you also agree with V. I. Lenin as he writes on June 17, 1909...
"The Social-Democrat Surkov, representing the workers' party and the working class, was the only person in the Duma to raise the debates to the truly high level of principle, and said without beating about the bush what the attitude of the proletariat is towards the Church and religion, and what should be the attitude in this matter of all consistent and vigorous democrats. "Religion is the opium of the people.... Not a farthing of the people's money to these murderous enemies of the people who are drugging the people's minds" this straightforward, bold and outspoken battle-cry of a socialist resounded like a challenge to the Black-Hundred Duma, and met with the response of millions of proletarians, who will spread it among the masses and who will know how to translate it into revolutionary action when the time comes. "

Of course, the question is: what revolutionary action are you to translate your attitude into?

You should consider doing some calculations on what will happen economically if the population of one nation alone, China, decides that it wishes to live like Americans.
Without God, chaos. With God, it is doable.
Of course, the Chinese, being as thoroughly materialistic as you are, and for the same reason, will choose to do it without God.
Thus, armageddon.
After all few nations will be able to muster a two hundred million man army as the Bible prophesies.

I presume you would rather see a change to dialectic materialism in the US?

OK, the Soviets didn't lose because they were hostile to religion; the US won because "In God We Trust."
All of the things you listed are things that God promised to people who obey him.
I'm guessing the US scores a little higher there than the Soviets did.

You seem to be arguing that the Soviets didn't have "true" communism, only "presumed" communism.
But isn't such a colossal error possibly due to not having God's guidance?

The HRE may have disappeared as a unit, but its component parts are there just as described in the Bible thousands of years earlier.

And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
(Daniel 7:24, KJV).

Perhaps, you are unaware that Christianless Japan was pretty close to being crisp toast in 1945.
The US built it up into what it is. Not only that, the number of Christians in Japan is higher now than in 1945.

Huge increases in Christians in recent years.

Again, huge increases in Christians in recent years.

And, what about South Korea, with the largest churches in the world, even not counting the Moonies?

This I don't know.
However, Luther, as I recall, did his thing in Germany. It apparently counts for something.

But your point?

Dialectic materialism is better than Christianity, although poorer in powers of observation?