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Author
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Topic: DHA's Wager
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Define God
PecosGeorge writes: It's possible that God exists, eh? That depends entirely on how you define God. If you define God in such a way as to be logically inconsist, then it is not possible that God exists. Please define God.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 83 by PecosGeorge, posted 03-15-2005 12:16 PM | | PecosGeorge has replied |
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Re: Define God
PecosGeorge writes: God is the creator of the universe and all that is in it. Then either God is in the universe and therefore must have created himself, or he is outside the universe, which calls into question what we mean by 'the universe'. Both positions are logically inconsistent.
PecosGeorge writes: It is very much so possible that this God exists. Why "very much so"? Is "very much so possible" somehow better than just plain "possible"? I think it's bias that makes you say this.
PecosGeorge writes: There are more urgent needs than proof of god's existence. Right? Of course there are. But I didn't ask for proof. I asked for a definition.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Re: Define God
PecosGeorge writes: Everyone has idionsyncracies of speech. Indeed. But they should not become a functional part of a logical argument, and that is what happened, or so it seemed.
PecosGeorge writes: I strayed off the subject. Pardon. That's ok. We all do, sometimes.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 93 by PecosGeorge, posted 03-17-2005 9:35 AM | | PecosGeorge has not replied |
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Message 114 of 200 (192264)
03-18-2005 5:57 AM
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Reply to: Message 113 by kongstad
03-18-2005 5:03 AM
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Re: the forest on the hill
kongstad writes: Secondly it is impssible to prove a universal negative. RAZD writes: And that is why the scientific, logical answer is always uncertainty when such a circumstance is encountered. kongstad writes: OK - then please address my point. By your reasoning the truth of the statement "RAZD currently has a goat sitting on his left shoulder" cannot be known! The proposition "RAZD currently has a goat sitting on his left shoulder" is neither negative nor universal.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 113 by kongstad, posted 03-18-2005 5:03 AM | | kongstad has not replied |
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Impossible unicorn
It has always eluded me how a unicorn can be invisible AND pink.
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Message 119 of 200 (192271)
03-18-2005 7:36 AM
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Reply to: Message 111 by Rrhain
03-18-2005 12:10 AM
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Absence of evidence
Rrhain writes: The Michelson-Morley experiment would have shown a difference in the motion of photons due to the interaction of the earth with the ether. But since there was no difference, since the evidence was absent, the only conclusion was that there was no luminiferous ether. Absence of evidence was evidence of absence. Couldn't the luminiferous ether have had some other unknown properties that would have canceled the expected effect? I don't think that the absence of the luminiferous ether was the only possible conclusion. The simplest, maybe, but not the only one.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 111 by Rrhain, posted 03-18-2005 12:10 AM | | Rrhain has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 178 by Rrhain, posted 03-27-2005 12:59 AM | | Parasomnium has replied |
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Re: Impossible unicorn
contracyle writes: he does not lose all colour, he becomes invisible. How is that not the same? Colours are only properties of things because they are visible. Admins: Contracycle assures me that this is off-topic AND to the point.
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Re: Impossible unicorn
contracycle writes: A thing can still reflect light, and that light not fall on your retina. It will therefore have colour, and also be invisible. No. Or, as you might say: nope. Light that does not fall on a retina has no colour, or better: does not give rise to colour sensations in the observer's mind. Let me be more precise in what I said earlier: "Colours are only properties of the observer's internal representations of things because they are visible." Outside observers' minds, colours do not exist.
contracycle writes: Its easier to reconcile than the trinity, at any rate. I wouldn't know, I'm not in the habit of reconciling trinities. As long as this post is not seen by admins, it is not off-topic for them.
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Re: Impossible unicorn
contracyle writes: Colour is a frequency Closer, but still wrong. Colour is the sensation in the mind of light of a certain frequency falling on the retina. Different frequency: different colour. There is a correlation between frequency and colour, but not an identity. Consider colour blindness: with the light that falls on their respective retinas having the same frequency, people who are colour blind experience a different colour than people who are not. Topic blindness may lead admins to see this as on-topic. { edited to soften the harshness of "Wrong."} This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 18-Mar-2005 03:18 PM
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Re: Impossible unicorn
contracycle writes: I don't know why you are now playing word-games about colour - we went through all this on sundry topics about qualia previously. Virtually every other topic has been debated ad nauseam as well. But that doesn't make it less fun. (Well, apart from the vomiting, of course.) Besides, you and I disagree about it and you keep coming back with arguments I think I can refute. If you want me to stop, I'll stop. In the meantime...
contracycle writes: if a fully sighted person looks at the thing, the real colour will be correctly observed. You cannot challenge a phenomenon by conducting a test with faulty apparatus. There is no such thing as "the real colour", just like there is no such thing as a "real" bitter taste. Let me explain. There is a substance called phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC, that tastes bitter to most people but is tasteless to a large minority. The difference is genetic in origin. Would you call the non-tasters, for the most part normal people, "faulty"? How about if we breed a population of mostly non-tasters with a minority of tasters, who is faulty then? More importantly, what is the "real" taste of PTC? Back to colour.
contracycle writes: The frequency reflected by an object is constant, consistent, and independently verifiable. I think "constant" and "consistent" are debatable - though I won't challenge you on that now - but I'll grant you "independently verifiable". However, frequency, as I've made clear before, isn't the same as colour. You realise this, so that's why you say:
It can be said to have that colour {italics mine} Colour, like taste, is a subjective experience, not a property of things. Supposing you could talk to an octopus, which has a brain and eyes that have developed along evolutionary paths very different from ours, do you think you would agree on the colour of things? This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 18-Mar-2005 08:42 PM
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Message 149 of 200 (192953)
03-21-2005 2:46 AM
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Reply to: Message 148 by Trae
03-21-2005 2:19 AM
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Re: Impossible unicorn
Trae writes: quote:
It has always eluded me how a unicorn can be invisible AND pink.
Of course, it eludes us, we are but mere mortals who cannot perceive the IPU in all of (insert correct pronoun) glory. I'm not sure if I'm interested so much in the correct pronoun. I think contemplating some appropriate adjectives would be more enlightening. One that springs to mind is 'illogical'.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 148 by Trae, posted 03-21-2005 2:19 AM | | Trae has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 157 by Trae, posted 03-22-2005 2:06 PM | | Parasomnium has replied |
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Re: Impossible unicorn
contracycle writes: [...] a plate of film will respond consistently to the frequency, and thus to the observer. A plate of film just delays the same frequencies hitting your retina. They are still just frequencies and, in my opinion, the colour problem persists: frequencies are only correlated to colours in your brain.
contracycle writes: They { octopuses, P.} and I will consistently be able to separate green from red. We will both agree that the green is green, and thus like grass, and that red is red, like blood. You are right there, of course. After I wrote my post, I realised that this would be your answer, and it would be mine as well. My mistake was to fail to realize that you and the octopus can agree on a mapping for your subjective colour experiences, such as a word ('green') or a comparison ('like grass'), without the experiences themselves necessarily being the same. I should have asked my question differently. What I should have asked is: if you could have the octopus's experience and you could compare it to your own, would you then notice a difference? I realise this is still tricky, because it isn't very clear what "to have the octopus's experience" actually means and whether it is at all possible, even in theory. (Are "being you" and "having the octopus's experience" compatible?) Neverteless, I think the question of whether the experiences are different is legitimate. You didn't adress the taste example. Just out of interest: what do you think the "real" taste of PTC is? And do you think the PTC phenomenon has consequences for the colour question? If not, why not?
contracycle writes: It does not matter what subjective experience the subject has - only that the respond correctly to the external phenomenon. It makes more sense to see colours for what they are - just frequencies. If all one wants is to be practical about it, then that would be a workable viewpoint, I guess.
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Goodbye.
contracycle writes: I am now losing patience... Fucking finally... philosophical masturbation. As I said earlier, if you want me to stop, I'll stop. Since this is your attitude, I am stopping this discussion right now.
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Message 159 of 200 (193493)
03-22-2005 5:38 PM
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Reply to: Message 157 by Trae
03-22-2005 2:06 PM
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Re: Impossible unicorn
Trae writes: Ah, but the IPU makes the wisdom of the wise -- foolish. The IPU’s colorness is a matter of dogma and faith and as such is something beyond the comprehension of those who have not given their lives over to the IPU. OK... let me see what springs to mind now... ah, how refreshing: 'irrational'.
Trae writes: Edited to remove extra word. Riddles, eh? Well, how about this one: I have finally solved the riddle of how something can have a colour AND be invisible. Seek and ye shall find... the answer. This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 22-Mar-2005 10:41 PM
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 157 by Trae, posted 03-22-2005 2:06 PM | | Trae has seen this message but not replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 160 by jar, posted 03-22-2005 5:44 PM | | Parasomnium has replied |
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Parasomnium
Member Posts: 2224 Joined: 07-15-2003
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Message 161 of 200 (193499)
03-22-2005 5:54 PM
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Reply to: Message 160 by jar
03-22-2005 5:44 PM
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Re: Impossible unicorn
Damn Jar, I said "Seek and ye shall find...", I didn't say "within ten seconds", did I?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 160 by jar, posted 03-22-2005 5:44 PM | | jar has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 162 by jar, posted 03-22-2005 6:04 PM | | Parasomnium has not replied |
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