RE: Atheism is a religion
January 8, 2012 at 4:18 pm
(This post was last modified: January 8, 2012 at 4:22 pm by amkerman.)
[quote='Ace Otana' pid='225583' dateline='1326052031']
[quote]Therefore, if you are confident the computer screen is real, you believe it is real.[/quote]
[quote]My senses detect a computer screen. Based on the data I'm receiving from my senses, it's there. No belief.[/quote]
Your senses are your perceptions. They are electrical impulses sent to your brain which inturn organizes the electrical information which your consciousness interprets enabling perception.
Take the sense of sight. You aren't actually "seeing" anytihng. Light is being reflected through your cornea, iris and lens in your eye onto your retina. the light causes the cones and rods on your retina to depolarize creating an electrical charge. Once a threshold is reached that electrical signal is fired and sent down your optic nerve to your occipital lobe in your brain. your occipital lobe organizes the electrical signals. Consciousness interprets the electrical signals into coherent visual information and you "see" the computer screen. To say that you are actually "seeing" is both ridiculous and obvious at the same time. Ridiculous because sight is not based on anything but electrical impulses, and obvious because we perceive that we see.
But we don't see/taste/smell/touch/ or hear electrical charges being organized in our brain and interpreted by our conscious mind. We form images, tastes, sounds, smells, and textures, which we perceive through consciousness. So what makes those perceptions real?
The answer is not your knowledge of them, you dont have any knowledge that what our senses detect and we perceive through consciousness actualy exists apart from our perception of them. We only have our conscious perception that they exist. If they exist beyond our perception of them, they are unknown.
[quote] (You do not "know" it is real, we have already established that we can't know if things are are, because by definition if they are real they exist beyond perception, and things that are beyond perception are unknown)[/quote]
[quote]How are they beyond our perception (senses) if they are real. That is my question.
[/quote]
Let's see. Can you see the planet neptune right now? Can you hear/smell/taste/or touch it? Of course not. Those are your senses. Yet Neptune exists. And it exists regardless of whether you are perceiving it using your senses or not. it exists beyone your perception of it. Even if the planet had never been discovered, it would still exist, because it exists within reality, and reality exists independently of our perception of it.
Now you are able to believe it exists because you perceive it. If you had never perceived it and held it in your consciousness you could never believe it exists because you would have absolutely no awareness of it.
However, someone who was aware of it, someone who had perceived it, could tell you about it. You would then be aware of Neptune as an idea. Because you would be aware of it, you would have beliefs about it. You would either believe it was real and that the person was telling the truth, or believe that it was a load of crap and the person was feeding you a line of bull. You could also be unsure. You would probably be a mixture of all three of those beliefs in different purportions. You could no longer not believe about Neptune though, because you were made aware of it by whoever had told you about it.
Either way though even with perception, we can only ever get 99% of the way there. We can't absolutely know things as you have stated. That extra 1% requires us to be confident that our perceptions are real. It takes "faith," or "belief"
[quote]Therefore, if you are confident the computer screen is real, you believe it is real.[/quote]
[quote]My senses detect a computer screen. Based on the data I'm receiving from my senses, it's there. No belief.[/quote]
Your senses are your perceptions. They are electrical impulses sent to your brain which inturn organizes the electrical information which your consciousness interprets enabling perception.
Take the sense of sight. You aren't actually "seeing" anytihng. Light is being reflected through your cornea, iris and lens in your eye onto your retina. the light causes the cones and rods on your retina to depolarize creating an electrical charge. Once a threshold is reached that electrical signal is fired and sent down your optic nerve to your occipital lobe in your brain. your occipital lobe organizes the electrical signals. Consciousness interprets the electrical signals into coherent visual information and you "see" the computer screen. To say that you are actually "seeing" is both ridiculous and obvious at the same time. Ridiculous because sight is not based on anything but electrical impulses, and obvious because we perceive that we see.
But we don't see/taste/smell/touch/ or hear electrical charges being organized in our brain and interpreted by our conscious mind. We form images, tastes, sounds, smells, and textures, which we perceive through consciousness. So what makes those perceptions real?
The answer is not your knowledge of them, you dont have any knowledge that what our senses detect and we perceive through consciousness actualy exists apart from our perception of them. We only have our conscious perception that they exist. If they exist beyond our perception of them, they are unknown.
[quote] (You do not "know" it is real, we have already established that we can't know if things are are, because by definition if they are real they exist beyond perception, and things that are beyond perception are unknown)[/quote]
[quote]How are they beyond our perception (senses) if they are real. That is my question.
[/quote]
Let's see. Can you see the planet neptune right now? Can you hear/smell/taste/or touch it? Of course not. Those are your senses. Yet Neptune exists. And it exists regardless of whether you are perceiving it using your senses or not. it exists beyone your perception of it. Even if the planet had never been discovered, it would still exist, because it exists within reality, and reality exists independently of our perception of it.
Now you are able to believe it exists because you perceive it. If you had never perceived it and held it in your consciousness you could never believe it exists because you would have absolutely no awareness of it.
However, someone who was aware of it, someone who had perceived it, could tell you about it. You would then be aware of Neptune as an idea. Because you would be aware of it, you would have beliefs about it. You would either believe it was real and that the person was telling the truth, or believe that it was a load of crap and the person was feeding you a line of bull. You could also be unsure. You would probably be a mixture of all three of those beliefs in different purportions. You could no longer not believe about Neptune though, because you were made aware of it by whoever had told you about it.
Either way though even with perception, we can only ever get 99% of the way there. We can't absolutely know things as you have stated. That extra 1% requires us to be confident that our perceptions are real. It takes "faith," or "belief"
