Is atheism a belief?

[The Grand Nudger]

That's all any of our explanations for anything are, but okay. Searching for a level of certainty that doesn't exist in a manner that depends on rejecting those things we do know is pointless.

[bennyboy]

That's all any of our explanations for anything are, but okay.  Searching for a level of certainty that doesn't exist in a manner that depends on rejecting those things we do know is pointless.

It seems you may have skipped Grandizer's comment and you were responding to mine?

If so, then I'd agree with you.  That's why I say "I don't know" rather than "I don't know yet," and why my belief in a panpsychic Universe-god will probably never go beyond a state of conditional superposition.

[The Grand Nudger]

By the metric of impossible certainty you don't know anything.

[Belacqua]

Atheism is not a belief, positive or negative. Just like someone who knows that the earth is round does not merely believe that the earth is round.

Well, the shape of the earth is pretty hard for reasonable people to deny. (Though I know that there are currently unreasonable people who do so.) 

As so often in discussions like these, we end up getting fuzzy about what "belief" and "knowledge" mean. 

So for example, a Christian can say he knows that there is a God, because as far as he's concerned there is indisputable evidence. (revelation, authority, tradition, logical arguments in natural theology and metaphysics) 

You and I would say he merely believes there is a God, because we think his evidence is bad. 

But you see the problem here: the words end up being defined by what we think constitutes good evidence. 

That's why in philosophy the standard definition of knowledge is as a subset of belief. A belief is anything we hold to be true, and knowledge is stuff we hold to be true that are also justified and (really are) true. 

It may well be that things we are well justified in believing turn out in the long run not to be true. For example, for a long time doctors had good reason to say that stomach ulcers are caused by stress. Then somebody discovered h. pylori, or whatever that bug is called, and it turned out that what they thought was knowledge was actually belief. They believed it entirely in good faith, but oops, they had to change their minds. 

Naturally, we are very very well justified in believing certain things (e.g the shape of the earth, evolution) and I have no hesitation in calling them knowledge. But they are still that subset of things I believe which are also (I'm quite sure) true. 

I might take a look at some claim made by theologians, such as the idea that the Christian God is much like the Platonic Form of the Good. After some thought, I might conclude that this claim is silly. I would then believe that it's not a persuasive claim, and may be dismissed--to me, I think I know that. A better philosopher than I, however (not difficult to find one) might follow the argument better, and conclude that my reasoning is wrong and what I hold to be knowledge is really belief. And then we would have to fight it out. 

So I guess I'm just not comfortable making this clear distinction between belief and knowledge as if they were wholly different. 

(And for all the picky people out there, I know there are also Gettier cases.)

[bennyboy]

By the metric of impossible certainty you don't know anything.

You have the brain, and its function is experienced by consciousness.  Okay.  What about the brain makes a person with it experience consciousness?

As I said, some things about the brain are unique only to it.  Some things about the brain are ubiquitous throughout the universe.  Saying the brain is the mechanism of human consciousness doesn't help us to resolve my question: at what level of organization does the essence of mind supervene?

This doesn't impose an unreasonable metric.  I ask people who say that know what consciousness to tell me unambiguously what it is and to demonstrate with evidence that they are correct.  Do you know what it is about the brain that allows for consciousness?  Go ahead, and claim your prize.  Until then, you are probably safest not pretending that an unknown thing is anything more than a mystery.

So far, nobody has gone beyond some weak attempt at an evolutionary narrative: "Of COURSE it's the brain. The brain evolved, and of course consciousness gave us an advantage in genetic fitness." Nice story, but it doesn't actually answer the question.

[The Grand Nudger]

You asked why it experienced subjectivity....but the subjectivity part is actually the easiest part to explain.  Your brain is connected to your eyes, not mine.  You know better than to ask me at what level of ability consciousness arises. I'm willing to posit that plants are conscious, even if they aren;t conscious the way that we are. They engage in self aware behavior, after all, which is what we take to be indicative of consciousness in ourselves....objectively.

Still..since you reject the things we know and insist on the unknowable, by your own metrics, you can know nothing.

[Fake Messiah]

Atheism is not a belief, positive or negative. Just like someone who knows that the earth is round does not merely believe that the earth is round.

Well, the shape of the earth is pretty hard for reasonable people to deny. (Though I know that there are currently unreasonable people who do so.) 

As so often in discussions like these, we end up getting fuzzy about what "belief" and "knowledge" mean. 

It is more a thing of a simple observation than a knowledge - just like with round Earth: for instance I observe that there are many highly religious nations with horrible infant mortality rates. Meanwhile, highly secular nations with large percentages of atheists in their populations have very low infant mortality rates. And what is more sincere than a mother's prayer for the health of her baby? You see it's a simple observation.

[Belacqua]

You see it's a simple observation.

The simple observation, if it's remembered and known as a data point, is knowledge or belief. 

I observe that there are many highly religious nations with horrible infant mortality rates.

To connect these two things -- to say that lots of religion is the cause of high infant mortality -- requires analysis and the application of some theory. So while simple observation may be enough to see A and B, determining the extent to which A is the cause of B is more than observation. 

For example, it may be that a low level of education is the cause of both high levels of religion and high infant mortality. So to blame religion based merely on the observation that those two things occur together may be too hasty.

[Fake Messiah]

to say that lots of religion is the cause of high infant mortality -- requires analysis and the application of some theory. So while simple observation may be enough to see A and B, determining the extent to which A is the cause of B is more than observation. 

It's not blaming religion but seeing that religion/ God doesn't work.

[Bucky Ball]

Irrelevant. You have no proof for "mind". Despite your blathering on about what is irrelevant, you have actually addressed not one of the salient points. 

You should note two things, though:
1)  I've never argued that the brain, its structure, its functions, our experiences and our behaviors as human beings aren't very much linked.  The philosophical question is at what level of material organization the most essential elements of mind emerge.  You think you know the answer to that, but you cannot demonstrate it to be true, and nobody else has demonstrated it to be true.  And I myself never asserted panpsychism to be true-- I said IF it is true, then I'd be well-disposed to those who would call the Universe the mind and body of God.  If.

Irrelevant. What you  "should note" is that is if I need advice I'll be sure and ask. That brains and experiences are linked is an obvious childish tautology, and not even a question. That might be YOUR question. You don't get to tell others how they think and tell them what their questions are. You are not here to teach anyone. Just because you happen to be a patronizing asshole doesn't mean you have to be taken seriously. 

2)  While you are very certain of material monism, there's a problem: literally every "objective" observation made by people, ever, in all history, has been done through subjective agency: looking at a ruler, poking the brain with an electrode, looking at fMRI machines, listening to your professors, watching this Youtube video.  100%.  In other words, if the human species has evolved to be born with the blue pill in its mouth, you'd never know it from your observations.

Irrelevant. Humans COMPARE and measure their experiences and use machines and various objective measures to do their measuring. There are ways to verify what you claim are all subjective experiences. You talk like you are a child just having discovered solipsism. LOL. In fact your statement actually means that for you there is nothing objective. No wonder you believe in the god in a box.

3)  There's still, after about 100 years of the field of psychology, no good description of how any material system could allow for subjective experience.  There's an increasing body of neural correlates-- "When X brain function is observed, people report Y experience, when XX brain system is damaged, people's behavior changes in YY ways."  What there isn't, however, is any understanding at all of how subjective experience arises rather than not, in ANY physical system including the brain.

So you ignorantly keep stomping your little impotent feet about. Yes there is, you are just too ignorant to know what that explanation is. 
I have given you one and even if I hadn't, there are explanations out there. You don't want there to be, as then your entire world paradigm would get upset.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Kandel

4)  You've made an explicit appeal to this man's authority, i.e. via his credentials.  However, he doesn't claim to be an expert on the philosophy of mind.  It's not surprising that a neuroscientist is going to talk about interesting things he knows about the brain-- but if he had explained why there is subjective experience rather than a lack of it in the Universe, you could have added "Nobel prize winner" to his credentials.

Total non-sequitur. I never said or claimed he wa s a philosopher of mind. I could care less of he was or wasn't. There is no mind, ... why would I care if he was a philosopher of mind ?
You really are stuck on your position of ignorance. 

Let's give a different question, so I can explain in what way you and I are not on the same page.  Let's say I asked why a plane flies.  You could point to the wings, and show that damage to them causes a plane to fly badly or not at all.  You could show all the wires or electronic systems which control the ailerons are all needed-- you could perhaps give a few formulae for fluid dynamics showing how speed over a curved surface reduces pressure.

In the end, though, the real question of flying isn't ultimately about that-- it comes down to an interaction among forces, ultimately tracing back to the 4 universal forces.  A good physicist could tell you how those forces interact to create the pressure differential that allows a dense object to maintain its elevation in a fluid of lower density.  But a good brain scientist cannot point to any such thing-- all they can do (as the man in this video has done) is wave toward the brain and discuss interesting correlations between structure and behavior.  All he can do, in other words, is point to wings and jet engines in a more entertaining way than you or I could.

Let's not. You can stop telling us how and what to think any time.
Pathetic fallacy of the false analogy. You do in fact really know NOTHING about neuro-science and about how humans experience what they do and how they learn.
It is NOT a "tracing back to 4 universal forces".

A good physicist could tell you how those forces interact to create the pressure differential that allows a dense object to maintain its elevation in a fluid of lower density.

Are you fucking kidding me ? What a pathetic bozo. 
https://www.healthline.com/health/chemic...n#symptoms