(Today at 5:46 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(Today at 3:46 am)Jal Wrote: I freely admit that some processes (for example if I line up some dominos) are highly deterministic when free agents don't interfere.

But such a domino effect doesn't make for a first motion/ first mover that gets the ball rolling. And as I mentioned earlier, please don't speak to me about an "immaterial force" known as gravity, as even Newton didn't accept that kind of immaterial nonsense. 

SOMETHING must be self-moving (something got the ball rolling), which leaves us with either (A) self-movement  by free will or (B) random chaotic movement unexplained/ unpredictable.  Clearly choice A is the more rational choice and aligns better with human experience.

So, Plato was a 'rascal', but Aristotle was yer man? Got it.

Boru

Edit: Almost forgot - panpsychism is utter rubbish. Carry on.

"Almost forgot - panpsychism is utter rubbish. Carry on."   Sheer assertion. From a Christian standpoint, it affords a foundation for easily unraveling puzzles such as regeneration, the Incarnation, resurrection, sanctification, miracles, Problem of Evil, and sacramentalism, and original sin.

From a christian standpoint, it's heresy. Now that's obviously not a problem for me, but it does make me wonder why you would lock yourself into other bog standard christian stupidity - like this nonsense about natural selection. I guess the one thing god cant do is make a world that works the way it looks like it does.

(10 hours ago)Jal Wrote:

(Today at 5:46 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: So, Plato was a 'rascal', but Aristotle was yer man? Got it.

Boru

Edit: Almost forgot - panpsychism is utter rubbish. Carry on.

"Almost forgot - panpsychism is utter rubbish. Carry on."   Sheer assertion. From a Christian standpoint, it affords a foundation for easily unraveling puzzles such as regeneration, the Incarnation, resurrection, sanctification, miracles, Problem of Evil, and sacramentalism, and original sin.

Of COURSE it’s an assertion - most statements about philosophy are.

I’m sure it does all that ‘from a Christian standpoint’, but so smegging what? Christianity is particularly notorious for dragging in any old rubbish that support its own assertions.

Boru

(10 hours ago)The Grand Nudger Wrote: From a christian standpoint, it's heresy.  Now that's obviously not a problem for me, but it does make me wonder why you would lock yourself into other bog standard christian stupidity - like this nonsense about natural selection.  I guess the one thing god cant do is make a world that works the way it looks like it does.

Heresy in God's eyes? Heresy with respect to biblical truth? I think not. The real heretics are the historic church, having ingested the insidious doctrines of the pagan philosopher Plato.

The Platonic God is total nonsense. Supposedly this God, from eternity, dwelled in a timeless eternity - doing what? And then at some point stepped into time? Complete gibberish. Time is merely a count of motions, in my view.  Thus the Totality's first current of movement/thought is the beginning of time.

@BrianSoddingBoru4,

You think I'm an Aristotelian? Aristotle was a panpsychist? I don't think he was. Although I don't much care.

You’re asking that question to an atheist, lol…I don’t think anything is heresy in gods eyes because there are no gods.

Still, it is interesting, in its own right, in a way your particular beliefs are not. If you’re a person that doesn’t feel compelled to assume the baggage of christian ignorance about so much else, why saddle yourself with this? Why come up with equally risible theodicies for this apparent contradiction with reality, instead of those? Why trade one set of problems for another?

There are, after all, people who believe in gods and also have no problem with fitness effecting survival and reproduction rates in breeding populations.

(Today at 2:13 am)Jal Wrote: SOMETHING must be self-moving in principle, to get the ball rolling.

If matter can always have existed then why can't it always have been in motion. This is characteristic of your whole philosophy. Where you need a boundary, you arbitrarily declare one. Where there appear natural boundaries such as in degrees of sentience, you arbitrarily declare there are none. You want people to be reasonable up until the point that reason delivers something you don't like such as non-Euclidean spacetime. This isn't argument. This is a bunch of arbitrary assumptions, old outdated theological arguments, and wishful thinking dressed up as philosophical argument. You may not like that your entire OP is premised upon a non sequitur but that is a fact. As a result, your conclusions simply do not follow.



Have you deductively shown the things in your OP are implausible? No you have not. Therefore hinging your argument on your incredulity is a classic argument from ignorance.

Your incredulity about evolution or Einsteinian spacetime are not arguments. They are just you committing a fallacy by appealing to your incredullity.

(9 hours ago)The Grand Nudger Wrote: You’re asking that question to an atheist, lol…I don’t think anything is heresy in gods eyes because there are no gods.

Still, it is interesting, in its own right, in a way your particular beliefs are not.  If you’re a person that doesn’t feel compelled to assume the baggage of christian ignorance about so much else, why saddle yourself with this?  Why come up with equally risible theodicies for this apparent contradiction with reality, instead of those?  Why trade one set of problems for another?

There are, after all, people who believe in gods and also have no problem with fitness effecting survival and reproduction rates in breeding populations.

Apparent contradictions are only a problem if no resolution is accessible. I am  not aware of any unresolved contradictions in my stance. 

Also, reductionistic evolution seems improbable. Here they will say, "Your incredulity is not an argument." Bullshit.  That's a copout. Suppose a bank employee opens the vault and find it empty. Three possibilities enter his mind.
(1) A human thief invaded the vault.
(2) An alien from outer space invaded the vault.
(3) A naturalistic explanation (some weird accident of Nature) emptied the vault.

Options 2 and 3 might be LOGICALLY POSSIBLE but fill him with incredulity. So which theory is he going to present to the bank manager?
I'm not saying that incredulity is an argument always decisive and final. Pretty much all theories are tentative. But to dismiss it out of hand is just a copout conveniently availed of by evolutionists. 

In terms of reductionistic atheism, the human reproductive systems fill me with incredulity, specifically the gender disparity. I am really supposed to believe that male and female humans evolved their genitalia separately and concurrently? Such that, on the day that a man evolved his genitalia fully, it just so happens on that same day he found a female whose genitalia had separately evolved as a perfect match? I realize you could argue for a selective advantage, but it's really stretching my incredulity. That takes more faith than belief in a creator,  as far as I can see.

(9 hours ago)Angrboda Wrote:

(Today at 2:13 am)Jal Wrote: SOMETHING must be self-moving in principle, to get the ball rolling.

If matter can always have existed then why can't it always have been in motion.  This is characteristic of your whole philosophy.  Where you need a boundary, you arbitrarily declare one.  Where there appear natural boundaries such as in degrees of sentience, you arbitrarily declare there are none.  You want people to be reasonable up until the point that reason delivers something you don't like such as non-Euclidean spacetime.  This isn't argument.  This is a bunch of arbitrary assumptions, old outdated theological arguments, and wishful thinking dressed up as philosophical argument.  You may not like that your entire OP is premised upon a non sequitur but that is a fact.  As a result, your conclusions simply do not follow.



Have you deductively shown the things in your OP are implausible?  No you have not.  Therefore hinging your argument on your incredulity is a classic argument from ignorance.

"Your conclusions simply do not follow." Well duh. Nobody's conclusions "follow". Pretty much all conclusions are tentative. I can't give you an absolute proof of hardly anything. I can't even prove that you exist. You might be AI, for example. Not to mention solipsism. On the other hand I don't think my conclusions are arbitrary. 



"If matter can always have existed then why can't it always have been in motion." With no START for the motion? That heralds an infinite past with no beginning. Total gibberish. Total nonsense.  Just because I can't prove anything doesn't mean I must opt for those conclusions that strike me as least cogent and sound like gibberish. I don't care how many scholars endorse such solutions. I respect scholars but, at the end of the day, I have to decide for myself whether I agree with their conclusions.

(8 hours ago)Jal Wrote:

(9 hours ago)The Grand Nudger Wrote: You’re asking that question to an atheist, lol…I don’t think anything is heresy in gods eyes because there are no gods.

Still, it is interesting, in its own right, in a way your particular beliefs are not.  If you’re a person that doesn’t feel compelled to assume the baggage of christian ignorance about so much else, why saddle yourself with this?  Why come up with equally risible theodicies for this apparent contradiction with reality, instead of those?  Why trade one set of problems for another?

There are, after all, people who believe in gods and also have no problem with fitness effecting survival and reproduction rates in breeding populations.

Apparent contradictions are only a problem if no resolution is accessible. I am  not aware of any unresolved contradictions in my stance. 

Also, reductionistic evolution seems improbable. Here they will say, "Your incredulity is not an argument." Bullshit.  That's a copout. Suppose a bank employee opens the vault and find it empty. Three possibilities enter his mind.
(1) A human thief invaded the vault.
(2) An alien from outer space invaded the vault.
(3) A naturalistic explanation (some weird accident of Nature) emptied the vault.

Options 2 and 3 might be LOGICALLY POSSIBLE but fill him with incredulity. So which theory is he going to present to the bank manager?
I'm not saying that incredulity is an argument always decisive and final. Pretty much all theories are tentative. But to dismiss it out of hand is just a copout conveniently availed of by evolutionists. 

In terms of reductionistic atheism, the human reproductive systems fill me with incredulity, specifically the gender disparity. I am really supposed to believe that male and female humans evolved their genitalia separately and concurrently? Such that, on the day that a man evolved his genitalia fully, it just so happens on that same day he found a female whose genitalia had separately evolved as a perfect match? I realize you could argue for a selective advantage, but it's really stretching my incredulity. That takes more faith than belief in a creator,  as far as I can see.

Hume gave the relevant criteria for an analogy in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In as much as the analogy resembles that which it is considered analogous to, the analogy has force. Insofar as the analogized is removed in likeness from the analogy, the analogy enjoys less force, to the point that if the analogized is completely unlike, the analogy has no force. There are many ways the mysteries of the universe are unlike your bank vault example, but it is sufficient to point to two. Emptied bank vaults are repeatable events and thus can be informed by experience. Not so the mysteries of the universe, as things like quantum physics, relativity, and genetic drift present real phenomenon for which experience is not a satisfactory guide. The second is that in examining the bank analogy we are examining what is probable. If your answer to the mysteries of the universe is simply that you find it probable that determinism and evolution are untrue, then you are making a different argument than the one you have made that panpsychism is necessarily true. In the case of a bank vault, we have prior probabilities and background knowledge. In the case of the mysteries of the universe, we are lacking these things. Insofar as you are making an argument about probability, aka an argument to the most likely hypothesis, the consensus opinion is that things such as evolution, quantum mechanics, determinism, and Einstein's relativity are far more probable than an merely asserted axiom of universal consciousness. As probably true, I'm perfectly in my rights to examine your evidence and your judgment. As far as evidence, you basically have none. You have a lot of philosophical flim-flam and rhetoric. As to judgment, you dismiss Einstein because you don't understand his work. That's piss poor judgment. Until you show your work as to why your incredulity should be relied upon, I'm wholly justified in dismissing the incredulity of some internet rando who can't even manage the simple concept of curved spacetime.