(Yesterday at 8:54 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 8:47 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Yep.
Nope.

Plants are sentient as we? I don't think you really believe that. Potentially as sentient? Yes. Actually as sentient? I'm pretty sure No.

I'm sorry if that's a problem for you.  I have a pretty long history of commenting on this subject. I guess it's just one more thing where you came "prepared" to argue aginst people or viewpoints x y or z and atheism et al stymied you?

(Yesterday at 8:49 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Hunger isn't all things.  It's just one thing.  One pretty explicable thing......with no need of gods or panpsychism.

Again, "explaining" hunger is not the main focus here. For the millionth time.  But truth be told, I don't think you can explain it without recourse to panpsychism because dead particles, by definition, won't be self-aware hence will not feel hunger.

(Yesterday at 8:46 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 8:29 pm)Angrboda Wrote: As to rocks being partially conscious, once you empty out the set of qualities a paradigm case of consciousness possesses, self-awareness, ability to reason, experience, memory, and so forth, it becomes clear that you're just applying the word consciousness to things regardless of whether they display the traits and qualities of consciousness.  You want to inherit the larger set of traits where you have evidence, and assume a minimum supposed set where the traits are absent.  This is using the word consciousness in different cases within the same argument as if they referred to the same thing, the same qualities, and the same processes when they clearly do not refer to the same phenomenon.  This is basic equivocation.  Consciousness means one thing when applied to a human, and something else when applied to a rock or a potato, or to undifferentiated matter.  This is the fallacy that grounds most panpsychism: the problem that the word and concept of consciousness is being used inconsistently, and therefore much of the claims are simply unsound.  Whatever it is that I am doing is definitely not the same thing that the rock is doing.  The only way around this is to assert it without evidence, that the rock and I share something even if you have no evidence for the claim that we do.

I am not getting your point here. You don't believe in differing degrees of self-awareness? Do you believe that plants are alive?
(A) Are plants as sentient as we are?
(B) Are plants the same as rocks in terms of sentiene?

You may disagree with my beliefs about sentience, but you haven't shown them illogical, implausible, or impossible. You just don't like my beliefs.  But I'm not sure why you think that your dislike of my beliefs is relevant to this debate.

I'm pointing to a structural deficiency in the way you are applying the concept of consciousness. It means different things at different times. That's equivocation, and until it's fixed, your words aren't worth anything. It has nothing to do with whether I like your ideas or not. It has to do with a problem in trying to stretch the one word to all these different things. At the end of the day, the word doesn't mean anything in your mouth because you've applied it to things for which the only evidence that your claim is valid is your say so. Panpsychism is neither here nor there with me. I simply don't find it coherent for the reason stated. Nor do I find ipse dixit arguments that a rock has some properties in common with me toward which the label consciousness can be meaningfully applied persuasive. There's a reason such arguments are considered fallacious. And to repeat a complaint which has already been lodged, it isn't my job to show that your ideas are implausible or impossible. I have shown that they are illogical. And your responses to that have been enlightening.

(Yesterday at 8:55 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 8:52 pm)Ravenshire Wrote: Twisting my words, misrepresenting what I said, and speaking for me. Yet I'm the one putting on a show?

What I said is very simple. If you don't understand a subject (which you obviously do not), you cannot intelligently comment on that subject. Whether you believe (using evolution strictly as an example) that we evolved from apes has fucking nothing to do with understanding evolution well enough to refute it, agree with it, or base an argument (for or against) on it's tenets.

You seem to want to double down on ignorance as a base for argumentation so we're again reduced to pointing and laughing, with you as the only target.

You seem to want to double down on creating a facade instead of addressing the arguments.

And you seem to think you've made an argument that isn't self refuting due to ignorance.

(Yesterday at 8:58 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 8:49 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Hunger isn't all things.  It's just one thing.  One pretty explicable thing......with no need of gods or panpsychism.

Again, "explaining" hunger is not the main focus here. For the millionth time.  But truth be told, I don't think you can explain it without recourse to panpsychism because dead particles, by definition, won't be self-aware hence will not feel hunger.

You made it pretty crucial when you said a particular viewpoint couldn't explain it and that was why that viewpoint was wrong or implausible.  Turns out that viewpoint can explain it and you cant. Not only can you not explain hunger, you don't even attempt to. Not only can you not explain hunger, and don't attempt to, you can't even differentiate between a world of your non explanation and others peoples world of explanation.

So what should that mean...according to you?

(Yesterday at 8:43 pm)Angrboda Wrote:

(Yesterday at 8:35 pm)Jal Wrote: When Christians say, "God has a hidden purpose for creating this kind of dark world," atheists regard this as a copout.

Likewise I regard your post as a copout. You are basically saying, "Reductionism has some hidden tenets that would resolve it's apparent deficiencies."

That's not a reasonable position, because reductionism is what it is. It cannot be more than the deterministic reality that it defines itself as. Once you go beyond that boundary, you've plunged into panpysychism. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Whether you regard it as a copout is really immaterial to whether your argument is or isn't fatally flawed.  All you're basically doing is showing that you aren't arguing based on reason in good faith.

A simple example.  Before Darwin, theologists thought divine creation was a reasonable explanation because naturalism couldn't explain the diversity of life.  Then came Darwin.   It isn't the case that the theollogists were temporarily right, no, they were always wrong.   They were wrong before and after, no matter how much they might have declined to accept the consequences of simple logic, just as you do.

Misapplication of the law of the excluded middle is a fallacy, your fee fees notwithstanding.

It's a false dichotomy and/or a non-sequitir to insist,  "Naturalism is cogent hence creation is non-cogent." 

Furtheremore, reductionistic naturalism is not cogent, for reasons that I gave.  You seem to expect me to kiss up to scientists and science textbooks, even when they make seemingly ridiculous claims. All I've done on this thread is challenge science-minded people to address my arguments persuasively.  That has not happened.

(Yesterday at 8:23 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 7:34 pm)Ravenshire Wrote: It needed pointing out because you based part of your ideas on shit you simply don't understand, making them self refuting.

Let me put it this way. I know something about coding, mostly in AutoLISP for use in AutoCad and in Python. I know fuck-all about coding in C#. In other words I'm completely ignorant of how to code in C#. You will never find me on a coding forum spouting ideas that require an understanding of C#, but that's exactly what you've done here. If you wan't to base ideas on the sciences, or refute some part of them, you have to understand them first. You clearly don't. It's not an insult, it's an observation based on your own presentations.

Let's consider your C# example. Suppose a C# developer said that he was hardcoding all his settings directly in the code instead of a configuration file.  You could reasonably offer some advice here, I think?  Or suppose that, instead of writing a static method called from 50 different places, he duplicated the method 50 times.  Might you possibly have some helpful suggestions here?  (I'm not saying you're suggestions would be authoritative, but they would be worth listening to). 

I've seen briliiant, doctorate-level coders write code like this:
    var result = processThisID(strID)
I don't have to be a C# expert to tell them it's more clear to write it like this:
   Customer c = processThisID(strCustomerID)
Yes, a newbie can sometimes give excellent correction to an expert.

You have to consider the CONTENT of what the newbie is saying, not simply disregard him for his lack of credentials.

You'e comparing apples to oranges, coding strategies (apples) to coding a specific coding language (oranges). I could, perhaps, recommend a strategy, if i knew enough about C# to know if that strategy is possible. Since I don't, I'm not going to offer advice on the subject because I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH UNDERLYING UNDERSTANDING! Much like you in the sciences.

(Yesterday at 9:02 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote:

(Yesterday at 8:58 pm)Jal Wrote: Again, "explaining" hunger is not the main focus here. For the millionth time.  But truth be told, I don't think you can explain it without recourse to panpsychism because dead particles, by definition, won't be self-aware hence will not feel hunger.

You made it pretty crucial when you said a particular viewpoint couldn't explain it and that was why that viewpoint was wrong or implausible.  Turns out that viewpoint can explain it and you cant.

So what should that mean...according to you?

You seem to be equivocating again on that word "explain".

Hence I don't even know what your argument is here.

(Yesterday at 9:06 pm)Jal Wrote: I don't even know what your argument is here.

Color me unsurprised.

(Yesterday at 8:48 pm)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 8:43 pm)Angrboda Wrote: Whether you regard it as a copout is really immaterial to whether your argument is or isn't fatally flawed.  All you're basically doing is showing that you aren't arguing based on reason in good faith.

And your attitude seems to be, "All things are potentically explicable exhuastively by science even when simple reasoning suggests it is illogical to presume so."

No, my attitude is that we don't know what the explanation is, but that it is fatal to an argument to assume there isn't one. It's not about reductionism, it's basic logic. And you seem to have an issue with it. And now in addition to textbook argument from ignorance and textbook equivocation, you've added a strawman. Sinple reasoning according to the tenets of logic are that it is illogical to assume either way. But you have a problem with that, because your argument requires you to draw a conclusion in one direction, even though doing so is illogical.