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Author Topic:   Delusions of Grandeur?
AZPaul3
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Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 27 of 82 (698711)
05-09-2013 2:17 AM
Reply to: Message 17 by Spiritual Anarchist
05-06-2013 9:45 PM


Re: The God Hypothesis Revisited
Dennet has his book Consciousness Explained and Dawkins has The God Delusion. So there is no further reason to look into the nature of reality or God or ask about a soul because Science and Atheism and Materialism covers anything and everything you could or would want to know.
Then you totally misunderstand the issue being addressed. There are major problems in this world, in this species, and superstition has not, will not, can not, solve them. Indeed superstition is a major cause of many of these problems and, as we have seen, any solutions based upon the tenants of superstition not only fail to address the problems but exacerbate them even more.
Doing away with errant analysis by superstition leaves only one other choice: reason from objective reality.
No one ever said atheism solves everything. No one. No one ever said there is no further reason to look into the nature of reality or that atheism and materialism covers anything and everything you could or would want to know. No one.
Except you.
What they did say is that if we want real solutions to our real problems then superstition, be it monotheist, polytheist or pantheist must go away. Reason by objective reality must rule. Anything else, as we have sadly experienced for the last 5,000 years, results in abject failure.
I suggest you re-read both Dawkins and Dennett more carefully.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-06-2013 9:45 PM Spiritual Anarchist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-09-2013 6:35 PM AZPaul3 has replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 30 of 82 (698836)
05-09-2013 10:34 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Spiritual Anarchist
05-09-2013 6:35 PM


Re: The God Hypothesis Revisited
I understand quite well the degrees of pantheistic thought and your own views as expressed in this and other threads.
You mention Einstein as if he were a defense of your pantheistic views. I have read almost all of Einstein's available letters on the subject and I believe I know as well as any his beliefs as he himself states them and, regardless of his invoking Spinoza at some points, he carries on at length in a decidedly non-Spinozan fashion.
Spinoza had more of a theistic nature to his philosophy than Einstein. Einstein invoked Spinoza to emphasize to those pushing him that he had no beliefs in any type of personal anthropomorphic god. This led to the thought that Einstein was a pantheist in the same way as Spinoza (sorta) with a transcendent god with infinite attributes of which Thought and Extension permeate our universe and the human soul a manifestation of its immanence. The same as you describe for your pantheism with your ideas on the soul. Einstein could not bring himself to invoke atheism, though it most definitely fit. He, instead, invoked the public miss-understanding of Spinoza as god-is-nature and nature-is-god. But he definitely rejected Spinoza's transcendent entity of thought and immanence of soul. Einstein believed in nature. The wonder. The beauty of a nature wholly contained by the physical laws with nothing supernatural or transcendent over anything. Very like Spinoza in some ways but very different to Spinoza, and your expressed beliefs, in other major ways.
I would like to know why you lump Pantheism in with monotheism and polytheism?
Your own views, like Spinoza's, contain elements of supernatural processes not evidenced in our world.
quote:
The only reason that my Pantheism has any inclination towards the Pantheism of Spinoza is because I believe that the soul has more validity then any God Concept.
You will call it a principle of philosophy. I call it an unnecessary intrusion by your incredulity and emotional-based wishful thinking. Such a person is not basing their philosophy, their personal decisions or their decisions in regard to others on reason by objective reality alone. Further, given this shallow level of critical thinking, such a person, given the right emotional stimulus, might be brought to believe in any number of other questionable ideas.
In my view your expression of belief belongs with the other classifications of theism.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-09-2013 6:35 PM Spiritual Anarchist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-11-2013 8:15 PM AZPaul3 has replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 34 of 82 (698975)
05-11-2013 10:35 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Spiritual Anarchist
05-11-2013 8:15 PM


Re: The God Hypothesis Revisited
... then why do Atheist feel the need to emphasize their incredulity of any theory that isn't pure materialism?
That is not incredulity. That is a lack of evidence.
I may be a staunch materialist but evidence is the key.
Quantum Theory has no lack of evidence, observation (direct and indirect) for all the strange, seemingly inexplicable actions it entails from superposition, tunneling, to entanglement. Spooky action at a distance. It may defy common sense in a strictly classical materialistic way, but the evidence is there and cannot be dismissed.
What equal quality of evidence do you have for your soul? Can you take some measure of it? Is there any discernible repeatable effect of the soul on anything in this world? Is there some attribute of energy/light/force movement/mass/time that manifests when a soul is present and absent when one is not? You know quantum field theory? What is the force particle of soul? What are the quantum values for this boson? What is its spin value?
Is there any separate discernible repeatable evidence at all that shows a realistic possibility that such a thing as soul can exist?
This is not incredulity. This is a total, glaring, lack of the most simple standards of evidence.
In your mind you hold your philosophy as "evidence"? In your mind you hold the logic of your training as "evidence"? Your philosophy, training, logic tells you there must be a soul?
Incredulity. Wishful thinking. Supernatural bullshit. Rejected.
Go stand in the corner with the theists.
But the nature of reality is deeper then WYSIWYG of Naive Realism.
And your evidence for this is ...
Remember, the S "seeing" takes many forms direct and indirect, aided and unaided. The one thing that "seeing" is not is that which is strictly in your, or your guru's, head.
Atheist may not use their incredulity at anything spiritual being real as proof of materialism ...but they have no shame in using incredulity as an emotional attack or as an attack of character on anyone arguing against their case.
No, Spiritual Anarchist, no incredulity. Such a glaring lack of the most basic simple forms of evidence is all that is needed to reject bullshit.
Edited by AZPaul3, : I wanted to.
Edited by AZPaul3, : goof
Edited by AZPaul3, : Covering up one of my most glaring and egregious errors.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-11-2013 8:15 PM Spiritual Anarchist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-12-2013 1:31 PM AZPaul3 has seen this message but not replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


(1)
Message 38 of 82 (698990)
05-12-2013 4:16 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Spiritual Anarchist
05-12-2013 2:39 PM


Re: Wishful Thinking?
So could we please drop the wishful thinking arguments and arguments of super naturalism ?
Much, much too late for that.
As I recently told another poster I do not go into these things unarmed. I know about your silly Noetic Boondoggle Institute and Hameroff’s Center for Consciousness Woo-Woo. I live here in Arizona. I was researching the buzz on Penrose-Hameroff back in the 90’s. And I’m not at all surprised to find that there is still no evidence of this quantum consciousness.
If anything ever comes of it I will convert but with all the major problems with Orch OR I’m not surprised it’s now in the hands of woo specialists and cranks. Hell, even Hameroff’s own list of predictions for Orch OR have fallen one-by-one. Are there any left yet to salvage? Probably, but the damage to the hypothesis has been done.
If you’re waiting for Noetic or Hameroff to definitively announce the evidence of the discovery of real consciousness then I wouldn’t hold my breath. And even if by some magic of serendipitous karma they should happen to find something approximating a consciousness mechanism that still will not evidence your soul.
Two entire word-salad-woo-filled tomes, complete with a biology lessen that proves my point about the need and efficacy of evidence, and a plea that you have some efficacy and yet, in sum, you still have nothing to show.
I bring this up because apparently Atheist also believe there is no evidence that consciousness or the hard problem can be resolved in relation to QM or that there is room for a soul or freewill.
Please pay attention, SA. No one said consciousness cannot be resolved by invoking the mechanisms of QFT. It appears doubtful at this point, but the issue on the table is that it has not been done. And it would take many additional steps to get from there to something approximating the mechanism of a soul.
[crux]
And yet you run around here preaching the gospel of QM Consciousness and a supernatural Universal Transcendent Soul like they were real entities to be embraced by all of science and society. These are products of your want/need that they haveta/must be. Incredulity. Wishful thinking. Superstition. Bullshit.
[/crux]
Because this whole debate between Materialism and Theology is an exercise in political agendas of The Union of Concerned Scientist and The Discovery Institute and wishful thinking of Moral Nihilist and Religious Absolutist .
Excellent. Now we have the conspiricy theory like the religionists.
You are lumped in with the theists because you act and think as they do, believing without, not just adequate, but, any damn evidence at all. This is precisely the irrational dangerous ineffective thought process Dennent and Dawkins were talking about. This type of thinking will not solve our real major problems, will deepen those problems even more and must be abandoned.
Despite what you may believe about yourself, your thinking is part of the problem, not the solution.
So, yes, go back to your corner with the theists.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-12-2013 2:39 PM Spiritual Anarchist has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 41 by New Cat's Eye, posted 05-14-2013 12:16 PM AZPaul3 has replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 45 of 82 (699099)
05-14-2013 12:43 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by New Cat's Eye
05-14-2013 12:16 PM


Re: Wishful Thinking?
Fuuuck... what's next? Do we have to sit in the back of the bus?
Of course. Haven't you been back there for the last 150+-years already? You didn't sneak up front again did you?

This message is a reply to:
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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 47 of 82 (699109)
05-14-2013 1:28 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by Spiritual Anarchist
05-14-2013 12:05 PM


Re: Atheism of The Gaps?
I give you Noetic Science and The Center for Concsciousness and your response is that the research hasn't definitely settled the questtions relating to the hard problems of consciousness then that some how invalidates all their research? That's your argument?
No, no, no, SA. Forgodsake try to pay attention.
While both those organizations have deserved and received much less than a modicum of respect from the rest of the scientific world it is not their present state of research that is today's problem in this here thread!
The problem SA ...
Are you paying attention now? Got your ears on?
The problem SA is YOU. All throughout this thread you have insisted, nay, demanded, that the problem of consciousness is inextricably tied to QFT. YOU CANNOT SAY THIS BECAUSE YOU CANNOT SHOW THIS. The research is still being done, SA. Your "conclusion" that there is a connection is way too god damn early.
Second, you go on about this self-aware universe, maybe energy is awareness itself, and
quote:
I do not need any of these to understand myself or the nature of reality but I use them all to make clear to my ego the underlying depth of the nature of reality and to achieve clarity for my mind. Philosophy to me is an attempt to erase ego boundaries so that my soul will become self evident to my mind and higher levels of enlightenment will be attainable.
The problem is not the QFT woo, the consciousness woo or the soul woo. These are just the symptoms. The problem SA is the YOU WOO!
You keep talking the QFT woo, the consciousness woo and the soul woo. These are in your thoughts, your beliefs. You believe them, unevidenced as they are, just as strongly as any theist believes in his woo. The thoughts, SA. The beliefs, SA. Unevidenced but insisted upon regardless.
If you insist on pitching woo, SA, then we will consider you a woo-pitcher and place you in the corner with all the other woo-pitchers.
Edited by AZPaul3, : changes, additions, deletions and like that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-14-2013 12:05 PM Spiritual Anarchist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 48 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-14-2013 6:32 PM AZPaul3 has replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


(5)
Message 50 of 82 (699147)
05-15-2013 12:18 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by Spiritual Anarchist
05-14-2013 6:32 PM


Re: Atheism of The Gaps?
Ok then you can not say that natural selection is the main process of Evolution because although there is research supporting natural selection it is too god damn early .
No. Natural selection is a fact and every scientist familiar with the subject knows it.
Try again.
Woo is a nice word meaning nothing . I never said I had evidence the soul existed and this has nothing to do with my original post. And if it is too early in the research that does not prove this absurd notion of woo.
Ah, yes. Your OP. Ignored it. Too much woo.
Where I came in was your message 17:
quote:
Dennet has his book Consciousness Explained and Dawkins has The God Delusion. So there is no further reason to look into the nature of reality or God or ask about a soul because Science and Atheism and Materialism covers anything and everything you could or would want to know. There are no questions left to ask except questions in details. That is the Delusion of Grandeur I am talking about.
I pointed out your failure to comprehend the major focus of these men's books.
Me:
What they did say is that if we want real solutions to our real problems then superstition, be it monotheist, polytheist or pantheist must go away. Reason by objective reality must rule. Anything else, as we have sadly experienced for the last 5,000 years, results in abject failure.
And we've been going round and round ever since.
The problem I have been addressing has nothing to do with QFT or consciousness or soul but your willingness, your blindness, to believe in unevidenced things like a universal consciousness and some transcendent soul.
I never said QFT was irrelevant or that the consciousness problem was irrelevant or that you need to prove the existence of anything. I never called you any names or cast any aspersions on your character or your intellect.
Let me repeat that:
quote:
I never said QFT was irrelevant or that the consciousness problem was irrelevant or that you need to prove the existence of anything. I never called you any names or cast any aspersions on your character or your intellect.
Excuse me, I did call you a woo-pitcher. But when the shoe fits
From your own words (none that I manufactured for you or took out of context) you believe:
Because I do not see our Universe as Intelligently Designed but as a self aware work in progress attempting to grow spiritually by waking us up in the process of becoming aware through us and other sentient beings.
The only reason that my Pantheism has any inclination towards the Pantheism of Spinoza is because I believe that the soul has more validity then any God Concept.
I use Shamanism in my practice of understanding my soul and the energies of the Universe.
And this is fine. You are more than welcome to your beliefs.
My point:
You have no evidence of a Universe as a self aware work in progress attempting to grow spiritually by waking us up in the process of becoming aware through us and other sentient beings.
You have no evidence that the soul has more validity then (I doesn't matter) and yet you practice Shamanism to understand this unevidenced thing you believe is your soul. You believe the soul has validity though presently there is no evidence that a soul of any description does or can exist. Again, this is fine. You are entitled.
You believe these things as a matter of philosophy. A philosophy that personally appeals to you. And there is nothing wrong with this.
If I could prove with all the necessary evidence that the soul in fact does exist I would win the Noble Prize.
Indeed you would and I would send you a heartfelt telegram of congratulations. But you haven't the evidence to show any level of efficacy let alone proof.
So what is the basis of this belief? It is philosophically comforting to you.
Dennett and Dawkins were saying that reason by objective reality must rule.
This means that belief in unevidenced things or processes can no longer be allowed to decide the fate of this species and this world.
Again, you are entitled to your beliefs, but honest reality requires the acknowledgment that your unevidenced beliefs are articles of faith stemming from your philosophy just as the theist's articles of faith stem from their religions.
Wishful thinking, not evidenced reality.
You exhibit the very problem in thinking that these men were pointing out.
This is the entirety of my participation in this thread.
Except maybe:
Me:
While both those organizations have deserved and received much less than a modicum of respect from the rest of the scientific world it is not their present state of research that is today's problem in this here thread!
You:
Now you say they have a modicum of respect. Earlier there were post here saying that they do not represent real science.
Make up your mind
First you turned less than a modicum of respect into a modicum of respect. Totally different from what I said. They are not viewed with a modicum of respect but something less. Reading comprehension problem? Bad form. Don't do that.
Second I never said your two favored organizations do not represent real science.
I certainly hinted at it, though. So let me say it officially.
Both of these organizations border on the edge of pseudoscience and do not represent the best of the discipline. Their science is questionable at best. Hameroff may have gone over the edge with some of his new articles. And Quackwatch notes Noetic on its with considerable distrust list. As I stated before - My opinion: both organizations are now in the hands of woo specialists and cranks.
Science and Philosophy must mix or what you describing is not reality but simply measurements and observations in order to make predictions.
Really. Look at your discipline. Get a hundred theists in a room and you have a hundred different competing conceptions about gods. Get a hundred philosophers in a room and you have a hundred different competing conceptions about everything!. You have as many sects and cults as any set of religions.
Each philosopher calls the others inaccurate, incomplete and wrong. No one agrees with anyone. Each has their own school and their own logic and their own truths and principles for knowing. Your discipline is a god-awful scattered mess. Just like religions.
Science is a rather contentious sport with calm intellectual consideration sandwiched between scratching, pissing and backstabbing that can go on for decades. But we do not have biologists telling astrophysicists they are inaccurate, incomplete and wrong about their work. We do not have chemists telling paleontologists they are inaccurate, incomplete and wrong about their work.
Hell we don't even have experimentalists telling theorists they are inaccurate, incomplete and wrong anymore the way we used to.
But when the evidence is finally in and the final analysis is complete every scientist worth his degree understands the reality revealed (subject to change).
Your thousands of philosophies cannot agree or determine TruthTM about anything. You are as worthless at reality, truth and "ways of knowing" as a skinhead at a Passover Seder.
Science and Philosophy must mix
My ass!
Understand, in this thread I do not give a flying flip about the problem of consciousness or whether it can be related to QFT or not. I do not give a flying flip whether you or I or anyone else has or doesn't have a soul. I do not care if they exist or not.
You believe in unevidenced items as a matter of faith in your philosophy. This is superstition. This is woo. And it is this kind of shallow critical thinking that has caused too many problems in this world. It needs to be changed.
This is the only point I have been making in my entire list of messages on this thread. Do you now understand?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-14-2013 6:32 PM Spiritual Anarchist has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 51 by Dogmafood, posted 05-15-2013 8:21 AM AZPaul3 has replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 53 of 82 (699175)
05-15-2013 1:28 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by Dogmafood
05-15-2013 8:21 AM


Re: Atheism of The Gaps?
While I don't know what the 'growing spiritually' part means, I don't really see anything wrong with saying that the universe is conscious or sentient.
Actually a "we are all connected in all things" philosophy has a resonance even in me. I can agree that we are made of the same "stuff" as the rest of the universe and, thus, there is a connection. Consciousness as an emergent property of this universe cannot be denied because we are here, we are part of this universe and we are conscious. Life is an emergent property of the universe. It is a beautiful and comfortable feeling.
As far as emergent properties of the universe, so are stars, asteroids, stellar nucleogenesis, black holes, gravity, newspapers and everything else that exists. Where it falls off the rails is when we emotional humans think our consciousness (and thus us) are somehow special manifestations sought by the universe to achieve awareness. Our ethnocentrism has been a disease in our philosophies for millennia.
Other than to us and our philosophical musings there appears no reason for the property of consciousness to appear special in any way to the rest of the universe. And without some evidence that consciousness holds something special in the grand meaning of things there is no reason to broach the hypothesis in any manner whatsoever.
Might as well posit that newspapers are special manifestations sought by the universe so it can keep up with celebrity gossip and the daily horoscopes.
I am curious about how QM does impact consciousness. How does this backwards time travel brain maneuver work?
I think your best way to get an answer to this is to hear Hameroff himself describe it. I have dissed him in this thread, for good reason, but he does give a cogent, if unevidenced, explanation.
YouTube
Listen critically. He does get "over enthusiastic" in his thoughts at times.

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 Message 51 by Dogmafood, posted 05-15-2013 8:21 AM Dogmafood has seen this message but not replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 58 of 82 (699208)
05-15-2013 6:50 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Spiritual Anarchist
05-15-2013 6:29 PM


Re: Nothing Special
The Universe at least on the QM level (Or maybe deeper) is awareness. But awareness without anything to be aware of is deadly dull and pointless.
So I was right about the newspapers, celebrity gossip and the horoscopes. I wonder if it does the crossword?

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 Message 57 by Spiritual Anarchist, posted 05-15-2013 6:29 PM Spiritual Anarchist has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 59 by Straggler, posted 05-16-2013 10:14 AM AZPaul3 has replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 60 of 82 (699244)
05-16-2013 10:42 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by Straggler
05-16-2013 10:14 AM


Re: Nothing Special
God after all is a mathematician...
Oh. Here I thought he was one of them geek programmer types with a pocket protector full of pens and pencils. All that designing/programming stuff he does. Pop bottle bottom lenses. Cold HotPocket on a coding sheet on the corner of the desk. Misogynistic SOB because he can't get a girl because he doesn't bathe and stinks real bad.
Mathematicians are supposed to be enlightened and bathe regularly.
As I understand the stories the only nookie god ever got was when he raped that desert girl in the middle of the night.
You sure about this?
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Straggler, posted 05-16-2013 10:14 AM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by Straggler, posted 05-16-2013 11:23 AM AZPaul3 has replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 62 of 82 (699253)
05-16-2013 11:47 AM
Reply to: Message 61 by Straggler
05-16-2013 11:23 AM


Re: Nothing Special
Girl? What's a "girl".....?
Oh ... what you don't know!
(squirms to adjust himself)

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 Message 61 by Straggler, posted 05-16-2013 11:23 AM Straggler has not replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8491
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 65 of 82 (699316)
05-17-2013 12:12 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by Straggler
05-17-2013 11:41 AM


Re: Materialist Machinations
Omnes suus bullshit. Sed bene dixit.
Confusionem inimicis nostris!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Straggler, posted 05-17-2013 11:41 AM Straggler has not replied

  
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