Ontological Disproof of God

[emjay]

I understand your perspective, and if you're right then as I said I'll accept ragging for all time afterwards, and learn a valuable lesson from it, but I just see too much that makes me think otherwise;

You will garner no ragging from me. And I doubt anyone else.

Firstly I have experience with people who are complete technophobes... my mum and others.... so that mindset does exist in some people; where every time they use the computer, I have to explain the same things over and over again... simple things like how to search or close a page. It simply isn't retained... or if it is it's only in procedural form such that if that procedure goes wrong, they're completely lost about what do next. And since they don't use the computer enough, they never learn any the underlying principles of what they're doing, so never learn rules of thumb to rely on in the future, and are thus essentially stuck with whatever procedures are provided for them. This situation feels a lot like that to me.

I hate myself for it, but the fallacy of sunk cost is a real thing. Took me  quite some time to admit it.

I'm not dissing you whatsoever for reaching the limits of your own patience, nor saying you didn't try to help - you most certainly did, but as I said, it does usually take me a lot longer to realise that, if at all.

Secondly, I feel like progress has has been made, albeit slowly. And as I said, I think my mum would have taken just as long to get to the same level, if not longer.

Mine died ten years ago. But I know exactly what her response would be to negatio's posts.

Okay, but that doesn't change what I said; my mum is still a complete technophobe even if yours wasn't. So the technophobic mindset does exist in some older people, even if others would laugh it off as someone taking the piss.

Thirdly, his difficulty with context reminds me of me. If I'm reading a book and it names and defines x on one page, then proceeds to continue talking about that thing for several pages afterwards but only referring back to it with 'it' or 'that' or 'this' etc, rather than the name, then I start to get lost and not sure what it's talking about anymore, so I look forward to the next time it uses the full name, just to make sure I'm figuratively speaking, on the same page. I find it a big problem with books heavy on description, because the longer it goes on, the more I'm likely to forget or lose track of what it's supposed to be describing.

And there is a problem. Nobody else experiences the tragic hurdles that he claims. Nobody. Just him and him alone. Does not that give you pause? In the case of my own long dead mother, I had only to explain anything once. Then she had an "Aha" moment and it was never raised again. And I raised up thread my ancient friend. And the simple fact is that it is always possible to dumb things down so that anyone can understand them right up until one reaches the nether depths of dumb.

As I said, though your mum might 'aha' about computing, mine wouldn't... or if she did, she'd forget it the next time she had to do it, since she didn't practice enough to properly learn it. And as for the depths of dumb, if someone does not understand the basic concepts/axioms of a subject then no amount of dumbing down will necessarily make sense.

In my own case, that difficulty with context... which is a big thing for me... is potentially ascribable to Asperger's Syndrome. That is, someone I've known most of my life, who's well placed to make such a judgement, since she has a son who is Aspergers, is absolutely convinced that I am also, just 'high functioning'. And I do indeed have a lot in common with her son, and several other 'Aspies' I know. Negatio took it offensively when I suggested he may also be Aspergers, but it's nothing about intelligence, just different ways of thinking and processing the world. He says he overthinks things... like Texas Holdem... so do I; overthink is my middle name. But whether he is or not, or whether I am or not, nonetheless I understand that problem with context in his case because I share it.

Think about that. Do any of those double down? Or do they not? Do any of those strive to be better? Or do they not?

To me it is very simple. Why is our protagonist actually here? The options are very limited.

A. He actually thinks he has a killer onto-bonko argument against god. Who cares? We are mostly godless heathens anyway. And certainly all of the participants in this thread are.
B. He wants to test the logic of his argument against fellow atheists. I dismiss this since he clearly has no interest in so doing.
C. Troll. Sorta looks possible but the jury is out.
D. Loon. The eight ball has things to say there.
E. Something the hell else.

My guess is B with modifications; that the original intent was just to share his theory on a philosophy forum and debate it. But since that went down like a lead balloon, partly because of the size and style of the OP and partly because of his technical incompetence with the site, it just became an onslaught of information and suspicion coming from all directions. I'm not the best teacher... Kevin's a much better... much more concise teacher than me; so you've got Kevin saying one thing, in his style, me saying it in another style, you saying it in another style etc... it would be easy to be overwhelmed with too much information and no idea where to start. I know that feeling well. So that on top of suspicion of ulterior motives coming from every corner, would be an understandably unpleasant, frustrating, and angering experience if you really were a total newbie to forums, and all you wanted to do was share your theories for discussion for the first time.

OP is singularly uninterested in fixing up the OP but spends all available time being trenchant. OP has threatened to re-write the OP several times but refuses to do so. I and others have expended a lot of time and effort both in thread and via PM to no avail. Where does one draw the line on the sunk cost? Never?

He has rewritten parts of it. But the fact of the matter is, if you asked me to reduce my theories on neural networks to a few lines, I simply could not do it; it is a subject that involves a lot of technical language and no way to simplify it... or at least not for me. And as I said, I already have that trouble with writing anyway... like my mafia OPs; finding the right balance between exhaustive and concise has always been hard for me, in part because of my problems with context. Like Kevin did a beautifully concise post above about nesting tags etc, and I'd give anything to be able to write like that consistently. But I sent negatio a PM explaining the same concepts as Kevin did, but mine was several times as many words used, and nowhere near as concise. And since I'm guessing that he has similar problems with context as I do, then it would make sense for him to have similar difficulties with making complicated ideas concise or simple.

I will freely admit that I was initially harsh. Then I relented and provided a swathe of information as did many others. All of us had it hurled right back at us in continuous fits of pique. Let us be clear. This was not a oneoff tantrum. It is still happening.

Way back up thread when anyone granted some leeway, the question was asked about platforms. What platform are you using. We all thought this might offer an insight into whether or not it was a technical issue. Well that was an exercise in extracting blood from a stone. Crank #1 dodged like a pro.

Maybe a good solution then, and a show of good faith from negatio would be a truce as it were... if we all just took a time out from this thread for a long while. That way he could study all the technical advice that's been given in and out of thread and let it sink in at his own pace, without the pressure of a constantly moving thread. Then as soon as he was ready, could come back in. I've already told him by PM that it's possible to practice BBCode and laying out posts in a draft PM with no recipient that you just constantly edit, preview, and save. Doing that would allow him to practice and experiment, but without clogging up the forum with the results of that experimentation. What say you negatio?

Tell you what. Go read the thread from the start. Then venture an opinion.

I've read as much as I want to or am capable of for the moment thanks; the thread remains an eyesore, even with the mod corrections, and more than I can parse even on a good day. There's a reason I don't usually hang around the philosophy forum and that's because I don't have the energy for it.