(October 11, 2018 at 11:06 am)SteveII Wrote:

(October 11, 2018 at 10:51 am)Grandizer Wrote: Ok, I'll give one myself. Alexander the Great was conceived in a miraculous manner, according to this ~historical~ work:
http://www.livius.org/sources/content/pl...alexander/

Why should we not take this to be true?

Off the top of my head: Plutarch is not attesting to the events he writes about. In his defense it was 400 years earlier.

So...that's actually 401 reasons.

But if you check the work, he refers to first-hand testimonies surrounding Alexander the Great's birth.

Exactly how the authors of the Gospels referred to others' testimonies of Jesus' birth.

(October 11, 2018 at 11:10 am)Grandizer Wrote:

(October 11, 2018 at 11:06 am)SteveII Wrote: Off the top of my head: Plutarch is not attesting to the events he writes about. In his defense it was 400 years earlier.

So...that's actually 401 reasons.

But if you check the work, he refers to first-hand testimonies surrounding Alexander the Great's birth.

Exactly how the authors of the Gospels referred to others' testimonies of Jesus' birth.

And the evidence of Alexander id way freaking stronger then evidence for Jesus

(October 11, 2018 at 11:05 am)polymath257 Wrote: So, yes, all people are conscious

You can observe only your own consciousness yet claiming without scientific proof that everyone else is conscious.

Quote:Yes, it is irrational to think that a p-zombie will respond *identically* in every way to all stimuli as something conscious and NOT be conscious.

Why is it irrational?

Quote: In what way are they *not* conscious? Why would they do all of these things *unless* they are, in fact, conscious?

They don't experience qualia

(October 11, 2018 at 11:12 am)Tizheruk Wrote:

(October 11, 2018 at 11:10 am)Grandizer Wrote: But if you check the work, he refers to first-hand testimonies surrounding Alexander the Great's birth.

Exactly how the authors of the Gospels referred to others' testimonies of Jesus' birth.

And the evidence of Alexander id way freaking stronger then evidence for Jesus

We have hard evidence for Alex the Dick, unlike jebus the interminably vague.

ETA: When you think about it, dimitry's jebus is, by his definition, merely a construct of his mind and clearly applies to nobody else anyway. Thus we can all dismiss the Dimitry version of jebus since it is exclusive to his mind and nobody else's. None of us really exist at all, we are all p-zombies and entirely constructs of his mind. Thus, none of this is actually real. Not you, not me, not this forum not anything.

That begs the question...Why exactly did he sign up here anyway? Surely he could have signed up to an imaginary forum in his mind over which he had total mental control? But NO. He signed up here to attempt to "prove" his position. That alone demonstrates that he does not believe his own solipsist bollocks. Once again we arrive at the fact that solipsists act as though reality is real and simply engage in mental onanism.

It's a little sad.

Dmitry, you're taking a hell of a long time to get to the point. This endless flogging of the P-zombie thought experiment is nothing more than you (a theist of unknown vintage) providing a negative "case" for dualism. Forget that. What's your positive case for dualism?

(October 11, 2018 at 11:13 am)Dmitry1983 Wrote:

(October 11, 2018 at 11:05 am)polymath257 Wrote: So, yes, all people are conscious

You can observe only your own consciousness yet claiming without scientific proof that everyone else is conscious.

Quote:Yes, it is irrational to think that a p-zombie will respond *identically* in every way to all stimuli as something conscious and NOT be conscious.

Why is it irrational?

Quote: In what way are they *not* conscious? Why would they do all of these things *unless* they are, in fact, conscious?

They don't experience qualia

I disagree. if they are able to report experiencing qualia, discussing qualia in detail, etc, it is meaningless to say they don't experience qualia.

In essence, you are promoting a version of solipsism as being reasonable. Sorry, that doesn't work. The best, most predictive hypothesis about the real world is that other people are conscious: that they have internal states that are part of their decision making processes. And that is sufficient *from a scientific perspective* to say they are, in fact, conscious. Any definition that doesn't allow this is not a scientific one and is thereby immediately suspicious.

(October 10, 2018 at 8:36 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(October 10, 2018 at 8:07 pm)Peebo-Thuhlu Wrote: But "Mysterious ways!" KevinM1! It's the "Mysterious ways!" all the time.

*Sigh*

So... SteveII and/or RoadRunner79 have drifted past the whole "Something from nothing." and 'Uncaused cause." thing, then?

Not at work.

There are no example in this universe of something from nothing. It is simply impossible. 

QM indeterminate particles are not an example of something uncaused. RR posted previously:

Quantum mechanics merely describe what takes place at the quantum level.  It makes no reference to causes, but that does not imply that there are no causal entities involved.
Feser hypothesizes that perhaps Oerter understands the law of causality to refer to some sort of deterministic cause, and since quantum mechanics are supposedly indeterministic (a disputed interpretation), the law of causality could not apply.  Feser notes that “[t]he principle of causality doesn’t require that.  It requires only that a potency be actualized by something already actual; whether that something, whatever it is, actualizes potencies according some sort of pattern –deterministic or otherwise — is another matter altogether.”

The fact of the matter is that quantum mechanics has not identified causeless effects or invalidated the causal principle.  For any event to occur it must first have the potential to occur, and then have that potential actualized.  If that potential is actualized, it “must be actualized by something already actual,”[2] and that something is what we identify as the cause. https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2012/...principle/

Bad link. This may be Feser and Roadie's understanding but it is not that of science. There is a vanishingly small probability that local causes could yield a better prediction of events than quantum theory does, but it is so small as to be considered negligible. As such, the theory that these events are uncaused provides a better explanation of these events than any theory in which they are locally caused (i.e. actualized from an existing potential). So, no, it isn't simply that we don't know what the actual cause is, but rather that such a cause would yield a less accurate description of events than assuming no cause does. This effectively rules out local causes of the type to which you, Feser, and Roadie are referring. The exception to this is that it doesn't rule out non-local causes such as those in Bohmian mechanics, but in that case I would suggest that the burden is on the non-local advocate to demonstrate, at minimum, that such causes can coherently be described. I've read Bohm and don't find his arguments for a non-local causation compelling or well argued. If you have some other non-local theory, then I suggest you present it. Otherwise, the science seems to be that these events are uncaused. (I'll also note in passing that Roadie and Feser appear to be misusing the concept of potency, or, perhaps more accurately, using it as a buzzword without examining the content.)

(October 11, 2018 at 11:16 am)polymath257 Wrote:

(October 11, 2018 at 11:13 am)Dmitry1983 Wrote: You can observe only your own consciousness yet claiming without scientific proof that everyone else is conscious.

Why is it irrational?

They don't experience qualia

I disagree. if they are able to report experiencing qualia, discussing qualia in detail, etc, it is meaningless to say they don't experience qualia.

By definition p-zombie can talk about qualia without experiencing it. You can even teach computer to do that.

Quote:And that is sufficient *from a scientific perspective* to say they are, in fact, conscious.

What does science have to do with your personal opinion?

Holy hell  Feser  Steve is scrapping the bottom of the barrel now

(October 11, 2018 at 10:01 am)Dmitry1983 Wrote: Why? Can you prove it scientifically?

Science is not another word for math or whiskey; it does not prove, it merely shows us what the evidence indicates Evidence that our brains produce all of our mental states: all the evidence we have.