Can Consciousness Best Be Explained by God's Existence?
March 30, 2014 at 10:45 pm
(This post was last modified: March 30, 2014 at 10:50 pm by Rampant.A.I..)
(March 30, 2014 at 10:22 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:(March 30, 2014 at 4:45 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: God has all the explanatory power of a shrug of the shoulders.You and others like you seem to be quite confused. There is a very big difference between ontological and methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism has proven enormously useful for understanding the natural world. It only makes sense that if you want to study natural things you focus exclusively on natural causes and effects. You would have everyone take a leap of faith, and it is exactly that, and ignore the parts of reality that don’t fit neatly into the self-imposed limits of your own bias.
Which parts?
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(March 30, 2014 at 4:45 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: Your position is that everything true must be subject to empirical testing. Apply that to your own philosophy. The fact of the matter is that ontological naturalism doesn’t have any explanatory power. There is no way to falsify your stance.
Straw man. No one here is making claims that are unfalsifiable except yourself.
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(March 30, 2014 at 4:45 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: The test of an overarching philosophy is its ability to draw together a wide range of phenomena within a single paradigm.
Dear god, you write like someone who's read too much Derrida critiquing Kant. Subtract the woo from your posts and all that's left is unsupported assertion.
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(March 30, 2014 at 4:45 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: As per the video and the OP, ontological naturalism has no place for intentionality. Any philosophy that leaves half of reality on the table, the inner world of subjective experience, is a failed philosophy.
There's that claim again. Care to support it? What is this half of reality you speak of? Can you quantify it as half? How? What does it consist of?
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(March 30, 2014 at 4:45 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: You can issue as many promissory notes about “someday, maybe” science will solve the hard problem, but they’re just that, promises.
You mistake "withhold judgement due to a lack of evidence" for claims of fact. What's being advanced is the historical domino effect of science removing the necessity to ascribe previously unexplained phenomena to the supernatural replacing it with knowledge of natural processes.
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(March 30, 2014 at 4:45 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: As far as that goes, you don’t even need to be a theist to consider consciousness fundamental in the same way that energy is.
Animists consider consciousness fundamental. There is growing catalogued evidence and support for the obvious consciousness of "lower" animals, a claim that theology previously would not hear of, and Cartesians continued the tradition of elevating man's simple animal consciousness and lowering animals to mere automatons.
Instead of pointing that out, you go for the low hanging fruit of slipping "therefore God" under "consciousness isn't unique to man," and asserting your primary conclusion without support.
So which is it? Are we to assume methodological naturalism in all pursuits of knowledge, or assume methodological naturalism is flawed and incapable of attaining knowledge?
Or should we obtain the methodology when it comes to obtaining demonstrable knowledge about the world, and reject it when we believe we have knowledge that isn't falsifiable?
What qualifies that as knowledge, and not self-delusion?
Others holding the same delusion? You're standing on a weak epistemic tightrope, hurling insults at the onlookers about how they have nothing to hold them up, all the while flailing wildly, struggling to maintain your balance.
It's a ludicrous, farcical display that convinces no one, because you keep resorting to the above claims about reality and never backing them up with anything but more assertions!