On Hell and Forgiveness

[Amarok]

It's not really an issue of admission, though.  It's clear that he want's to express an answer in the affirmative.  I'm not saying that he can't or that there isn't a sufficient answer...only that an invocation of belief falls directly under the header of what jorg takes (and what can be sensibly described) as ontological subjectivity.  

The things that exist inside of our minds and pertain to our minds, not (necessarily) apart or outside of them.  Same as the figure-background distinction.  Which is which?  Well, you'd have to ask the designator.  There's nothing obvious about the universe that determines that.

Fair enough

[SteveII]

[The Grand Nudger]

Define physical? objects subject to the laws of nature (deterministic). Conscious reasoning and a decision to act seem the very opposite of deterministic.

Why?  What are logical forms and means of inference if not a description of deterministic relationships between knowledge statements?

If, then.  If, and if, then, therefore. If some x meets conditions a, and then meets condition b, then outcome c. If not, then not outcome c.

Non-physical consciousness is not only plausible, it is quite intuitive.

Is it?

We experience the thing every minute that you are denying.

Do we?

A computer program is a bad analogy because computer programs do not think about something and then decide something based on preference or altruism or aesthetics or moral concerns or moods or all of these or none of these. Your conclusion that there is nothing non-physical in the universe is not only unproven, but may actually be unlikely. 

Can you demonstrate that, or..conversely, can you demonstrate that we do those things a fundamentally or meaningfully different way than a computer does some other thing?

[Amarok]

I don't he can show it's different

[SteveII]

Define physical? objects subject to the laws of nature (deterministic). Conscious reasoning and a decision to act seem the very opposite of deterministic.

Why?  What are logical forms and means of inference if not a description of deterministic relationships between knowledge statements?

If, then.  If, and if, then, therefore.  If some x meets conditions a, and then meets condition b, then outcome c.  If not, then not outcome c.

What are you talking about? Logical forms are subject to the rules of logic--not nature. Gravity, conservation of energy, and weak nuclear forces have no effect on them. 

Non-physical consciousness is not only plausible, it is quite intuitive.

Is it?

We experience the thing every minute that you are denying.

Do we?

A computer program is a bad analogy because computer programs do not think about something and then decide something based on preference or altruism or aesthetics or moral concerns or moods or all of these or none of these. Your conclusion that there is nothing non-physical in the universe is not only unproven, but may actually be unlikely. 

Can you demonstrate that, or..conversely, can you demonstrate that we do those things a fundamentally or meaningfully different way than a computer does some other thing?

Yes. We hold people responsible for their actions and we don't hold computer programs responsible. We act like we are fundamentally different within our mind and in relation to one another. That meaningful enough for you?

[The Grand Nudger]

Why?  What are logical forms and means of inference if not a description of deterministic relationships between knowledge statements?

If, then.  If, and if, then, therefore.  If some x meets conditions a, and then meets condition b, then outcome c.  If not, then not outcome c.

What are you talking about? Logical forms are subject to the rules of logic--not nature. Gravity, conservation of energy, and weak nuclear forces have no effect on them. 

Irrelevant. You claimed that conscious reasoning seemed like the opposite of deterministic.

Is it?

Do we?

Can you demonstrate that, or..conversely, can you demonstrate that we do those things a fundamentally or meaningfully different way than a computer does some other thing?

Yes. We hold people responsible for their actions and we don't hold computer programs responsible.

If we couldn't identify which computer was responsible for some piece of work then we wouldn't know that this was your post, Steve.  If some computer does some terrible thing..we repair it, replace it, or destroy it. Amusingly, this is what we do with people who do the same. Look at the question above though.....

We act like we are fundamentally different within our mind and in relation to one another. That meaningful enough for you?

It was quite a bit short of what would be required. "We act like we're different"...well..no, not really, but even if we did act like we were different that wouldn't speak to us actually being different or doing things a different way. Not only did you fail to address the questions asked, you failed to present a meaningful difference in your irrelevant asides. There was nothing in your statements to support the claims I questioned, and I'm not sure that you even tried.

[polymath257]

[RoadRunner79]

My observation as an engineer, is that numbers are anything but subjective.  They represent something outside of the person, and are not dependent on the individual.  My Mexican friend may call them something else, but we both need to be referring to the same thing.  I often do unit conversions or in a programmable controllers it may simply be a count representation of a number (which is really just changing units).  One could argue that 25.4 mm equals 1 inch.   But those numbers are not merely abstractions, which can change based on the subject.   You can't have a different truth for you, than me, and be talking about reality.

   work with numbers all the time, and if they where subjective I couldn't do my job.  When working with numbers, there is also the matter of precision and accuracy.  So when talking about 4 vs 4.000 we are talking about precision.   The latter is more accurate, but they are equal. (you could also look at this as different units)   Perhaps this is different in academia, and they don't deal with reality.   However you can usually tell a green engineer, that has no experience outside of the class room.  Their stuff often doesn't work.   There is the argument, that any unit of measure is just a convention, an inch could refer to something else, and we agreed, to call an inch a certain distance defined by a standard. However when referring to a quantity of that standard length, it doesn't and cannot change from person to person. My Spanish speaking friend may call a pulgada; but, we are still talking about the same thing, that exists outside of either one of us. 

If I was teaching and someone was arguing for numbers being subjective, I would give them a failing grade, and watch how quickly they switch to arguing that numbers are objective, and that they didn't get the grade I gave them.     This reminds me of the Star Trek TNG episode, where part of the of the breaking down of Picard was to get him to say that there where a different number of lights, than their actually was.

[polymath257]

Let me put it this way. If everyone agrees what it is to be the number 4, what is it, precisely?

[RoadRunner79]

Let me put it this way. If everyone agrees what it is to be the number 4, what is it, precisely?

You seem to be talking about the nature of language here. If everyone agrees what a tree is, then what is it? It would seem ridiculous to say that trees don’t exist that they are subjective, because we agree to call them trees.