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RE: Sentience
December 19, 2010 at 9:46 am
Complexity is not a comparative quality any more then mass or weight is a comparative quality. They might be appreciated on a comparative basis, as when you say something is heavy. But heavy or light, it is 5 KG or 11 lbs.
I don't understand "quality require means". If cosmologists were to postulate an infinitely cycling universe without beginning or end, as several different theories do, will you still insist on causation?
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RE: Sentience
December 19, 2010 at 10:24 am
Thank you Void and Chuck. I'll have another think.
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
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RE: Sentience
December 22, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Basically, your argument is better as an inductive one rather than a deductive one, CS. As an inductive one, I think it's quite strong. J.L. Mackie says something similar in his epic (in both ways... actually, it's not that big, but still...) book 'The Miracle of Theism'. He says that a being who acts immaterially is so far from our experience as to be a priori improbable.
'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.' H.L. Mencken
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
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RE: Sentience
December 23, 2010 at 2:37 am
(December 22, 2010 at 7:57 pm)The Omnissiunt One Wrote: Basically, your argument is better as an inductive one rather than a deductive one, CS. As an inductive one, I think it's quite strong. J.L. Mackie says something similar in his epic (in both ways... actually, it's not that big, but still...) book 'The Miracle of Theism'. He says that a being who acts immaterially is so far from our experience as to be a priori improbable.
Yes I agree. However, thats too easy ain't it there must be a a myriad of such probablistic arguments. I more interested in exploring gods non-existence (I'll not give up on hard atheism)
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
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RE: Sentience
December 28, 2010 at 11:23 am
Probability from experience, I guess is always inductive. Except when it comes to the experience of one's own awareness, which is deductive because it =I think therefore I am.
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RE: Sentience
December 28, 2010 at 2:55 pm
(December 28, 2010 at 11:23 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Probability from experience, I guess is always inductive. Except when it comes to the experience of one's own awareness, which is deductive because it =I think therefore I am.
Welcome back!
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
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RE: Sentience
December 28, 2010 at 9:16 pm
God is not sentient... he is Omniscient
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RE: Sentience
December 29, 2010 at 7:51 am
What the fuck?! The two aren't mutually exclusive.
Besides, if you know something when you are aware of it, and you're ignorant of something when you're unaware of it, then doesn't omniscience also imply omni-sentience IF we also assume God also has emotions? (As supposedly man was created in his image).
