Oh no not another free will thread.

[Edwardo Piet]

It seems thinking this way is generally part of being human. We all have certain guesses, hopes, intuitions, theories, etc, about reality, that aren't rooted in scientific evidence. An atheist may not believe in God, but chances are he will still believe in something that can't be proven through scientific testing.

This is my impression as well.  Just odd watching people do something they're incredibly critical of others doing with no self-awareness.

Such a strawman.

The claims about God is unparsimonious deism at best and it actually encroaches onto the realm of science as non-deistic theism at worst: but you can't give me one reason to think acausality outside of science and our experience of reality is any more plausible than causality on that front. Despite my asking you your stance on this repeatedly.

You know what this makes you? A hypocrite.

[possibletarian]

It seems thinking this way is generally part of being human. We all have certain guesses, hopes, intuitions, theories, etc, about reality, that aren't rooted in scientific evidence. An atheist may not believe in God, but chances are he will still believe in something that can't be proven through scientific testing.

Sure we do, we have all manner of unjustified unprovable beliefs. But lets say I believe something that you really don't or have not considered before, would you not look at it and if you can't see it as something you could at least consider true would you not ask for further knowledge or evidence about it?

And if my evidence amounted to little or nothing  (at least in you opinion) , what would you then do ?

[Silver]

And if my evidence amounted to little or nothing  (at least in you opinion) , what would you then do ?

That's it, though, isn't it?

They have no qualms dismissing other claims based on no evidence, but their claims are fine with no evidence.

[Catholic_Lady]

It seems thinking this way is generally part of being human. We all have certain guesses, hopes, intuitions, theories, etc, about reality, that aren't rooted in scientific evidence. An atheist may not believe in God, but chances are he will still believe in something that can't be proven through scientific testing.

Sure we do, we have all manner of unjustified unprovable beliefs. But lets say I believe something that you really don't or have not considered before, would you not look at it and if you can't see it as something you could at least consider true would you not ask for further knowledge or evidence about it?

And if my evidence amounted to little or nothing  (at least in you opinion) , what would you then do ?

I wouldn't agree with the person if their proposition made no logical sense to me.

[Edwardo Piet]

Your second level is nonsense.  Which is fine.  There's nothing wrong with pondering things.  But it carries 0 weight.  So you using it as an escape hatch to get out of a position you don't like is theistic.

Objective world outside of science?  Can you word the question more clearly.  What constitutes 'inside of science.'

Is it that you just don’t understand him?  Science is the most accurate tool that we presently have to build working models of the physical world as we experience it, but science is still contingent upon human experience.  There may be aspects of reality that we, as temporal and experiential beings, simply can never have access to.  

Example: It may be a fact that there is a difference between a rock, and the human experience of a rock.  But if there is, we have no way of knowing.  We can’t leave our subjective experience.

Hammy’s position (and mine) is simply the philosophical acknowledgement that science is objective within the frame work of subjective experience, and therefore we are limited in what we can know.  There is nothing supernatural or fantastical about that.  It’s actually the most intellectually honest position to take regarding epistemology, IMO.  And, it in no way undermines the value science. There are no mutually exclusive ideas here.  Science and philosophy can cooperate with one another.

I love your post so much I'm gonna put it in the hall of wit and epicness for expressing my views only much concisely and less rambley than I do.

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Objective world outside of science?  Can you word the question more clearly.  What constitutes 'inside of science.'

That which is actually testable, empirical and able to be experienced on some level.

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And if my evidence amounted to little or nothing  (at least in you opinion) , what would you then do ?

That's it, though, isn't it?

They have no qualms dismissing other claims based on no evidence, but their claims are fine with no evidence.

Whose?

[henryp]

This is my impression as well.  Just odd watching people do something they're incredibly critical of others doing with no self-awareness.

Such a strawman.

The claims about God is unparsimonious deism at best and it actually encroaches onto the realm of science as non-deistic theism at worst: but you can't give me one reason to think acausality outside of science and our experience of reality is any more plausible than causality on that front. Despite my asking you your stance on this repeatedly.

You know what this makes you? A hypocrite.

We can be done now.  I think I got what I wanted to out of our interaction.

[Edwardo Piet]

Such a strawman.

The claims about God is unparsimonious deism at best and it actually encroaches onto the realm of science as non-deistic theism at worst: but you can't give me one reason to think acausality outside of science and our experience of reality is any more plausible than causality on that front. Despite my asking you your stance on this repeatedly.

You know what this makes you? A hypocrite.

We can be done now.  I think I got what I wanted to out of our interaction.

Really?

So, you wanted to reveal that you are incapable of distinguishing between epistemology and ontology? And the world as we experience it and the possible world outside of our experience? And truth and knowledge?

So you wanted to reveal that you also can't differentiate between an unparsimonious belief in a deity outside the universe as we experience it and a completely neutral belief in causality that is no less unknowably probable than the only possible alternative? You wanted to reveal your own inability to answer my question about what your intuition is about acausality outside of reality as you experience it... betraying your hypocrisy?

So you wanted to reveal that you're incapable of addressing my position and are repeatedly going to misunderstand it and call it "unscientific" when it doesn't even address matters of science as I made clear repeatedly all while ironically also displaying that you know less about the way in which science addresses the world than I do?

So you wanted to reveal that you wanted to spend most of your time during an argument about philosophical determinism rambling on about scientific quantum indeterminacy because you can't distinguish between that and philosophical indeterminism... despite me making the distinction right there in the OP?

You wanted to reveal all that? Then good job because you succeeded at that so well I think you deserve a gold star! Although unfortunately, as for your grade on philosophical thinking you get at best a D- for "denseness"... and that's being generous.

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Such a strawman.

The claims about God is unparsimonious deism at best and it actually encroaches onto the realm of science as non-deistic theism at worst: but you can't give me one reason to think acausality outside of science and our experience of reality is any more plausible than causality on that front. Despite my asking you your stance on this repeatedly.

You know what this makes you? A hypocrite.

We can be done now.  I think I got what I wanted to out of our interaction.

Sounds like an admittance of defeat (or trolling/baiting/provoking) to me. As you clearly have no good answer to that (mind you, you have no clear conception of what I have been actually saying either).

Did you just want to derail my thread with red herrings and strawmen and then quit the thread? Is that what you wanted?

Anyways, now that he's fucked off at least the rest of us can continue discussing the actual topic, free will, instead of wasting time on irrelevant bullshit and his own failure to make even the most basic philosophical distinctions.

[henryp]

That gap between who a person is and who they think they are. It might be the most interesting thing about people to me.

I find you to be a fascinating case. I think I got some more insight into that in this thread. That's really what I find interesting. Although, the implications of time travel on noncausal events is definitely an interesting hypothetical to bat around, but I don't think anyone here had much to add on that front.

[Edwardo Piet]

That gap between who a person is and who they think they are.  It might be the most interesting thing about people to me.  

I find you to be a fascinating case.  I think I got some more insight into that in this thread.  That's really what I find interesting.  Although, the implications of time travel on noncausal events is definitely an interesting hypothetical to bat around, but I don't think anyone here had much to add on that front.

I don't think time travel in the traditional sense of travelling to the past or future is possible. I don't think the past or future exists.

We could travel through space-time as we experience it so that from everyone else's perspectives they haven't seen us yet and we're seeing things a lot sooner so from our perspective we're in the future and their perspective we're in the past.... and we could perhaps 'time travel' as redefined in science (as science loves to redefine things... but that's not a criticism of science because as long as the model works it doesn't matter. It would be silly, for instance, if scientists had to change the label every time their understanding developed. i.e. after they split the atom which was a by definition unsplitable thing... if they then stopped calling it an atom.... the idea of having to keep revising the label every time science makes progress would be silly and it would impede progress. But nonetheless... it is still the case that when something is redefined what is now being talked about is something slightly different than what that word originally refereed to).... but not as normally defined.

I think my perception of myself is sure as hell a lot more accurate than yours is of me.

And furthermore, you speak as if intuitions are a problem... but it's just down to an intuition that you think you've gained insight about my own perception of myself.

Which is fine. I have my own intuitions too. And I sure as hell have the intuition that I understand myself better than you understand yours. For me, self-analysis and introspection is king. Improve your own faulty thinking and you can improve your own thinking about reality. Improve your own self-understanding and you can better apply yourself to the rest of the world.

You think you've made some kind of silly victory over me complaining about theists talking about a God outside of the universe but me doing the same about causality... but as I said that is a total and utter strawman because the only alternative to causality is acausality and to pick one is no less rational by default than picking the other or neither. Whereas God not only is highly unparsimonious and postulating a complex entity with many parts and abilities based on nothing... but in many cases it actually does interfere with science and claims about reality as we experience it... unlike what I said about causality.

So you just demonstrated your own false analogy and strawman there.

This thread is actually a testament to your red herrings, strawmen, equivocations and false analogies... and your inability to make some very basic philosophical distinctions on a thread about a philosophical matter.

But I fully expect that, and care little that, few people are capable of appreciating this so they'll take your easy answers and simplistic strawmen instead. That is completely unsurprising but what is right is right independent of what anyone thinks... and that's kind of my whole point. If I'm right I'm not right because I or anyone else thinks I'm right. I'm right because I'm saying stuff that is correct because a contradiction of what I say is demonstrably incorrect.

[LadyForCamus]

That gap between who a person is and who they think they are.  It might be the most interesting thing about people to me.  

I find you to be a fascinating case.  I think I got some more insight into that in this thread.  That's really what I find interesting.  Although, the implications of time travel on noncausal events is definitely an interesting hypothetical to bat around, but I don't think anyone here had much to add on that front.

I think this is a very passive-aggressive ad hominem.