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Is religious fundamentalism a disease of the mind?
Topic Started: Apr 7 2007, 12:38 AM (5,019 Views)
Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Jeffrey
Apr 9 2007, 06:10 PM
Dewey: "The mere fact that I can ask "why" means that there is a "why" to explain."

This is a logical fallacy. The antecedent of your argument (a) ("I can ask 'why'") does not imply the consequent (b) ("there is a 'why' to explain"). Just because you can ask a question, does not imply that there is an answer to the question, or even that the question makes sense or has meaning.

You could also ask the questions "Why does green fall in love?" or "What is the purpose of the Buddha-state?" These questions are also ill-formed or have no answer.

No, Jeffrey. Your example of "why does green fall in love?" would be an example your latter possibility, that of a question making no sense or having any meaning.

However, the question that I pose, "Why does the cosmos exist?" doesn't suffer the same handicap. It doesn't contain an inherent grammatical or logical inconsistency as does the green example. Every question so correctly framed does indeed have an answer, even if the answer is not to my, or your, liking. The answer to a question of why the cosmos exists may be "because God willed it to be so." Conversely, the answer might be, "there is no reason or ultimate purpose to explain the cosmos' existence; it merely happened and exists." But in either case, there is an answer to any question so framed.

"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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ivorythumper
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so much easier to hook your train to Jon's question than to address mine to you, huh?

even so you miss the point on so many levels.
Quote:
 
The implication of this in the context of a reply to jon's question is that you think that the statement "God does not exist" is false by definition. Assuming you meant the logical implication of your "square circle" refusal to entertain jon's question, do you also grant to other religions and viewpoints the right the declare their positions true by definition, or does this right apply only to your view??


Wrong. That is not the implication (the statement "God does not exist" is false by definition.). Jon's statement first predicates God, then existence predicated on God, then removes God from the equation. It is a nonsequitur. Which is my "square circle" question is appropriate.

Quote:
 
Again, nothing you have said above indicates why you think, in a purely material world, love, dignity, morality etc. would not exist. They would, as jon's question shows, be exactly the same as they are now. Please explain why, if god did not exist love etc. would also not exist. You have never done so, although this point seems central to your worldview.


I never said in a material world they would not or could not exist -- and perhaps the fact that you are falsely attributing that to me shows why you are so dense to the problem. Of course they "exist" -- but it seems as only as particular sequences of electrochemical activity in autonomous, sentient, self aware biomachines. If so, these physical reactions are not intrinsically any more important (apart from our saying so) than digestion, which is another physical reaction. In fact, for the continuation of the autonomous biomachine, digestion is an exponentially more important physical process than love or morality. ;)

The electrochemical reactions of one autonomous biomachine does not seem to have any *necessary* bearings on another autonomous biomachine. Now such a reaction might be somewhat programmable due to proximity or relationship, but since there are many cases whereby parents don't love their children, spouses don't continue the pattern, people are not altruistic, then we must suspect that ethics is a purely *voluntary* endeavor, or "ethical people" have particular chemistry that forces them to be so.

Of course, even volition at this point is suspect -- how can one override strictly chemical processes that we conventionally call "free will'?

And if ethics is just the manifestation of particular sequences of electrochemical activity that we call "ethical behavior", then sure "ethics exists" but so what? it is a study for the neurochemist, not the philosopher.

It is your challenge to show that there is any sort of moral imperative in autonomous biomachines in a purely material world. To do so, you would have to show some sort of measurable or demonstrable mechanism for you to make the "scientific" claim of ethics. You have never done anything of the sort -- all you have ever done is asserted it to be so.
Quote:
 
I will expand a bit. I can think of 4 distinct phenomena that we call love: (1) Romantic Love (2) Partner Love (3) Parental Love (4) Altruistic Love. We actually understand the chemical basis of many of these quite well now. Romantic or Infatuation love triggers the same sort of chemicals as addiction. The evolutionary basis for this seems to be to encourage pair bonding for long enough for a child to be born, and it does not last long. New mothers have oxytocin released to help bond with the child, and there is a clear reason for this. Partner Love is not an emotion at all, but a long-standing pattern of behavior, and probably has no clear or narrow set of chemical releases attached to it. Studies of Tantric Monks who meditate on altruism and practice it, show more active production of serotonin and other "positive" chemicals in their brains, which underly the good feelings we get when altruistic.

While these issues are only partly understood, learning the brain chemistry of love does not make love into "not-love" or love into a rock-state. It simply explains the biological basis for this emotion/behavior pattern. Nothing else is needed (or if you think there is, state what that something else is).


So you are making my case for me. Thank you. Someday we will also learn what chemicals cause hatred or jealous or lying or cheating on your taxes or pacifism, and we will be able to tweak the biomachines so that they no longer are capable of acting outside of whatever it is that the State demands. There is no human dignity to that, Jeffrey. The biomachine will be manipulated to the agenda of those other biomachines who learn to control it. There is no ethic either -- there is no ability to choose, it is all chemical reactions -- we are just not yet advanced enough to understand the mechanism to figure out what levers to pull.

You cannot even appeal to "ethics" to constrain the impulse of one autonomous biomachine to not seek to control another biomachine -- since as we see above, unless you can argue for some sort of objective and transcendental ethic (as opposed to the immanance of the particular electrochemical reactions in the autonomous biomachine), there is no necessary moral imperative.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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John D'Oh
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ivorythumper
Apr 9 2007, 04:59 AM

Pretend for the sake of argument that there was a square circle -- what shape would it be?

I think the answer to your question is 'twurgalagon'. Not a very nice shape, but a very satisfying word, I think you'll agree.

I gave my love a twurgalagon, that had no end
I gave my love a goom-bag, that would not bend.

Don't ask me what a goom-bag is. I will say that it's illegal in 24 states, not to mention Minneapolis, although strangely enough it's considered sacred in some parts of Southern France.


People read my posts, and still claim there's a God?
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
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The reason we learn that 2+2 is four, is not that our minds commune with the order of the universe, but what when little we add two crackers to two crackers and then wind up eating 4 crackers. Works every time.


Whether crackers or anything else, we still need a framework for understanding that still returns to the concept of the undergirding Logos. Even if we understand what "four" is as "two two's", we still need a common reference point to understand the "two" that we're using as a building block to formulate more advanced quantities and concepts.

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Where is quantum physics or evolution in the Logos of the universe?? What about non-Euclidian geometry?


Are you suggesting that quantum physics, evolution, and non-Euclidian geometry are not rational or reasonable concepts? I wouldn't. As such, they still fall under the structure of the ultimate Reason/Logos. I don't believe that the Creator of the universe wouldn't be able to pass a college geometry course.

The only way that we can understand these things is because we're studying an order, and tapping into a manner of understanding, established by the Creator in a reasonable, predictable way, and instilled in us, that we might understand it.

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The theory given does not requre empirical evidence for knowledge, and assumes that the way we naturally think mirrors the way the universe is. This is some sort of anthropomorphic fallacy.


Actually, the theory does not deny or minimize the importance of empirical evidence at all. Neither does the theory lock itself into the way we "naturally" think at any specific time - as we develop more complex comprehension of processes, we're merely understanding the workings of the Logos in greater detail.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
John D'Oh
Apr 9 2007, 06:41 PM
ivorythumper
Apr 9 2007, 04:59 AM

Pretend for the sake of argument that there was a square circle -- what shape would it be?

I think the answer to your question is 'twurgalagon'. Not a very nice shape, but a very satisfying word, I think you'll agree.

I gave my love a twurgalagon, that had no end
I gave my love a goom-bag, that would not bend.

Don't ask me what a goom-bag is. I will say that it's illegal in 24 states, not to mention Minneapolis, although strangely enough it's considered sacred in some parts of Southern France.


People read my posts, and still claim there's a God?

Well, you've obviously shown the shoddiness of your scholarship here. How anyone could make such an elementary error is beyond me, but I'll lower myself to your pea-brained level, if just long enough to point out how mistaken you are.

The correct answer is most definitely not "twurgalagon." It's actually "twergilagon." Even a gnat with a lobotomy wouldn't make such a sophomoric mistake. :rolleyes2:
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Jeffrey
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IT: "Wrong. That is not the implication (the statement "God does not exist" is false by definition.). Jon's statement first predicates God, then existence predicated on God, then removes God from the equation. It is a nonsequitur. Which is my "square circle" question is appropriate. "

So let's try again. Imagine that the material world is exactly in every respect as it currently is, and then explain why love, morality etc. do not exist in this world.

"Of course they "exist" -- but it seems as only as particular sequences of electrochemical activity"

Why the word "only" and why the brackets around 'exist'? How is love any different if it is "only" a set of behavior patterns and chemicals in the brain? What else would it be?

" If so, these physical reactions are not intrinsically any more important (apart from our saying so) than digestion"

Why would conscious human beings making conscious actions (like moral choice) important, not be "intrinsic"? Why is our "saying so" not relevant? Except to "us" these things are not important. Rocks and stars don't really care.

"Someday we will also learn what chemicals cause hatred or jealous or lying or cheating on your taxes or pacifism, and we will be able to tweak the biomachines so that they no longer are capable of acting outside of whatever it is that the State demands."

An odd argument since State Power has used religion to manipulate, coerce and kill people far more than anything else.

P.S. Somewhere above you say that I now use the word "soul". I cannot recall one single place I have done so in my own words. I did ridicule the yoga argument for the immortality and separation of the soul based on lucid dreaming, but that was merely reporting the (bad) argument of another religion, not using the terms of that religion in my own voice.
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ivorythumper
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Jeffrey
Apr 9 2007, 05:00 PM


An odd argument since State Power has used religion to manipulate, coerce and kill people far more than anything else. 

No Jeffery, it used guns and prisons and brute force. Mao did not use religion, Pol Pot did not use religion. Stalin did not use religion. And millions more died at their hands than from any "religion" conventionally understood.

Do you really want to give the State another weapon -- biochemistry -- to render everyone compliant?

You are not arguing against my point, you are only setting up a red herring to discuss something other than the point at hand that if human activity is all chemicals, then it is also chemically manipulatible. And there is no ground for claiming an ethic to not do so. You *do* want to argue that, don't you?
:shrug:
Quote:
 

P.S. Somewhere above you say that I now use the word "soul".  I cannot recall one single place I have done so in my own words.  I did ridicule the yoga argument for the immortality and separation of the soul based on lucid dreaming, but that was merely reporting the (bad) argument of another religion, not using the terms of that religion in my own voice.

In the thread where FrankW was discussing out of body experiences, you spoke supportively of eastern techniques regarding the soul/inner or true self. Nothing ridiculing about it.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Jeffrey
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IT: "And there is no ground for claiming an ethic to not do so."

Good lord, Steve. There would be all the normal reasons to argue against it. This has been my point all along. You are the one who keeps claiming there are no normal moral reasons, in a materialist universe. As the Inquisition shows, religion gives people extra bonus reasons to coerce and compel others.

"In the thread where FrankW was discussing out of body experiences, you spoke supportively of eastern techniques regarding the soul/inner or true self. Nothing ridiculing about it."

Don't know what to tell you. As usual you can't read what I (or perhaps anyone else) write. The yoga techniques can, in fact, produce lucid dreaming (I know this from experience), and the Tantric medication practices do, in fact, increase one's sense of well being (as proven in higher serotonin outputs in Tibetan monks, more so in monks with more experience than younger monks). None of this is evidence that Buddhist metaphysics (soul, immortality, etc.) are correct. As I said in the previous thread, and against FrankW, the yoga argument for immortality based on lucid dreaming is typical of fallacious arguments for religion based on "personal experience". You can go back and quote my entire contribution if you wish, it was only a few days ago.
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ivorythumper
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I wanted to toss off the above reply, since it was so tangential, and did not want it to detract from the meat of the issue. The rest of the response is here.

Quote:
 
IT: "Wrong. That is not the implication (the statement "God does not exist" is false by definition.). Jon's statement first predicates God, then existence predicated on God, then removes God from the equation. It is a nonsequitur. Which is my "square circle" question is appropriate. "

So let's try again. Imagine that the material world is exactly in every respect as it currently is, and then explain why love, morality etc. do not exist in this world.


I am not following you. I do not need to imagine the material world exactly as it is, since I perceive it and experience it. And I know that love and morality do exist in it.

From your Dawkins reading, explain why love and morality are anything more than memes. Is justice a meme? (the point here, is that religion is dismissed as a meme complex in this line of thinking -- yet how can anything withstand that?)

Quote:
 
"Of course they "exist" -- but it seems as only as particular sequences of electrochemical activity"

Why the word "only" and why the brackets around 'exist'? How is love any different if it is "only" a set of behavior patterns and chemicals in the brain? What else would it be?


OK, they exist as particular sequences of electrochemical activity. Full Stop.

What then is the basis for ethics? The Jeffrey Biomachine® has one set of electrochemical reactions that produces X in response to Y stimulus. The Ivorythumper Biomachine® has another set of electrochemical reactions that produces Z in response to Y stimulus. Eight other randomly sampled biomachines give D different responses.

Which one is "right"? -- the question is meaningless since physics just are.

Which one is better for other biomachines? -- the question is meaningless since even that question is predicated on other electrochemical reactions, and you have the same problem.

So what are you going to base ethics on? A series of electrochemical reactions? But those are completely immanent to particular, autonomous, sentient, self aware biomachines. There is no necessary connection for any one biomachine to make a moral or ethical claim on another biomachine. Either that biomachine has the "proper" (and you must allow these quotes) sequence of chemicals to arrive at the "ethical" response, or it does not. No culpability, just chemistry.

What is "human dignity"? Another series of electrochemical reactions completely immanent to an autonomous biomachine. Either the electrochemical activity is there to produce "human dignity" or it is not. Human dignity is not resident in the human person, it can only be ascribed, or denied, by other biomachines.

Quote:
 

" If so, these physical reactions are not intrinsically any more important (apart from our saying so) than digestion"

Why would conscious human beings making conscious actions (like moral choice) important, not be "intrinsic"? Why is our "saying so" not relevant? Except to "us" these things are not important. Rocks and stars don't really care.


Reread the statement. I did not say they were not intrinsic. I said they are not intrinsically any more important than digestion. Unless you can appreciate the difference in these two sentences, I'll have to assume some sort of problem with the electrochemical functioning of the Jeffrey Biomachine®. :)


The dogma lives loudly within me.
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ivorythumper
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Jeffrey
Apr 9 2007, 05:26 PM
IT: "And there is no ground for claiming an ethic to not do so."

Good lord, Steve.  There would be all the normal reasons to argue against it.  This has been my point all along.  You are the one who keeps claiming there are no normal moral reasons, in a materialist universe.  As the Inquisition shows, religion gives people extra bonus reasons to coerce and compel others.

"All the normal reasons" are particular sequences of electrochemical response to stimuli in immanent autonomous biomachines. You still haven't gotten to ethics. You are in an infinite loop, and can never step out of it.

I have no idea why you keep bringing up the Inquisition. other than you must have been infected with an Inquisition meme than has corrupted your biomachine. :lol:
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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ivorythumper
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Jeffrey
Apr 9 2007, 05:26 PM

"In the thread where FrankW was discussing out of body experiences, you spoke supportively of eastern techniques regarding the soul/inner or true self. Nothing ridiculing about it."

Don't know what to tell you.  As usual you can't read what I (or perhaps anyone else) write.

I went back and saw that since I asked the question you responded. It was not that I could not read what you read, I did not see your response. Your response to my question clarifies it, but your original post that I based the above on was in no measure ridiculing of the tradition as you claim it to be,

Jeffrey
Apr 3 2007, 06:15 PM
Ax - Several yogi meditation techniques teach one to have lucid dreams (dreams under one's conscious control).  It is not difficult to do this.  The yogi tradition claims that lucid dreaming is evidence that one's true self/soul is separate from the material body.

The plain reading is that you were offering Ax an example, as a matter of fact, without critique or ridicule.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Jeffrey
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IT: "Which one is "right"? -- the question is meaningless since physics just are."

This seems to be the source of your problem. There is no "is-ought" gap. Somethings (love, choice, etc) both "just are" physical facts comprised of chemicals etc. and at the same time morally important. Just because love is chemicals, doesn't make it any less love. This is your fallacy.

You seem to think that because sentient feelings and choices are important because we, as sentient beings, deem them so, they are not "really" (in the fabric of the universe or something) important. But it is just our deeming that makes some things important, and nothing else. Except for our valuing them, love and choice isn't more important than digestion. From the "standpoint of the universe" (if that phrase makes any sense), they are not more important. If we were not here to value such things, such things would not have value. This doesn't make our choices arbitrary, we chose to value what we do because of how we are made. I am in no "infinite loop" since there is no circle to escape from. Love and choice are important to us because and only because we deem them so. We deem them so because of how our brains work chemically and electrically. That's all there is to it. Love is still love even if it is made up of chemicals and electrical impulses, and it is important to us because of how our chemicals and electrical impulses cause us to value things.
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Jeffrey
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IT: "The plain reading is that you were offering Ax an example, as a matter of fact, without critique or ridicule. "

Since everyone who cares to knows that I am a materialist, it would be clear that I was reporting a silly argument from the yogi tradition. Lucid dreaming is proof of nothing metaphysical. That some people think it is, is an example of the silly arguments from "personal experience" given for religion.
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JBryan
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It is amazing what lengths some people will go through to shut all doors against what they are certain does not exist.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Claude Ball
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Oops.
Dain bramage caused my peach imspediment.
Tooth? Tooth? You can't handle the tooth!
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Larry
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Jeffrey, if there is a man walking the face of the earth who does not deserve to call himself a Christian, I'm it. I'm a lot better now than I was when I was a younger man, but even though today I'm mostly just crude and rude, there was a time when I was filled with anger, had no use for God, no use for religion, and on a personal level, would have just as soon cut your throat as to look at you. I could charm you with my personality, amuse you with my wit, and turn into the devil himself at the drop of a hat. I would have probably agreed with just about every opinion you hold. I thought religious people were just a bunch of Kumbaya singing, emotionally retarded fools.

But then I had my *own* "personal experience, Jeffrey. The day before, I would have been right there beside you, laughing at the notion of a "personal experience" being anything more than just some emotional mental breakdown. The day after however, I was able to see just how blind I had been, how wrong I had been, and today, I can see just how wrong *you* are.

God *is* Jeffrey. No amount of intellectualizing and materialist arguing will change it. I *know* God is, Jeffrey, because as sorry of an excuse for a human being as I was, as unworthy as I was, God made his presence known to me in ways that science can't explain, I can't explain, but that was just as real as the monitor in your face that you're reading this on.

I won't tell you about that experience Jeffrey, simply because I already know that you'll simply ridicule it, dismiss it as some sort of emotional breakdown, or some other mental deficiency on my part. I'll simply tell you this - there are some things science cannot give you the answers to, Jeffrey. As poor a specimen of a Christian as I may be, I know beyond a shadow of doubt that God is.

My job is not to change your mind, Jeffrey. All I'm told to do is to tell you that God is, he loves you, and to tell you the good news, that he died to save your soul, and all you have to do is open your heart to him. If you choose to reject that, I am told to respect your opinion. I'm to shake the dust off my shoes, and move on. The rest is between you and God.

That's all I'm supposed to do, Jeffrey. I respect your right to refuse to believe a word of it. But please show me the same respect by not ridiculing my faith, and my God.
Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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ivorythumper
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Jeffrey
Apr 9 2007, 07:16 PM
IT: "Which one is "right"? -- the question is meaningless since physics just are."

This seems to be the source of your problem.  There is no "is-ought" gap.  Somethings (love, choice, etc) both "just are" physical facts comprised of chemicals etc. and at the same time morally important.  Just because love is chemicals, doesn't make it any less love.  This is your fallacy. 

You have not made any argument showing my position to be a fallacy -- you just claim it to be so. What precisely is the fallacy? You claim them to be "morally important" -- and for you perhaps they are. (they are obviously for me, but then my reality is not that of a biomachine aware that it is existing in a purely material universe). But on your own terms, you have not demonstrated any mechanism that allows for you to make any claim on any other biomachine. Each of us is an autonomous bag of chemicals. You can advance all sorts of pragmatic arguments for why X is "ethical", but no other biomachine needs obey that or pay attention to it if either they are strong enough to not be compelled or if their biochemistry does not produce the "ethical" response.

But since you think its a fallacy, then tell us 'What is ethics without an "ought""? How do you get an "ought" from an "is" (or why does an "is" have no bearing on an "ought"-- that to me seems to state that in purely material existence there is no such thing as ethics, which has been my contention all along)?

Quote:
 


You seem to think that because sentient feelings and choices are important because we, as sentient beings, deem them so, they are not "really" (in the fabric of the universe or something) important.  But it is just our deeming that makes some things important, and nothing else.  Except for our valuing them, love and choice isn't more important than digestion.

Precisely my point. Yet above you presumed to take me to task for equating morality and digestion.

Both digestion and morality can only be particular sequences of chemicals in an autonomous biomachine. At some times morality is more important, at some times digestion is more important. It all depends on what electrochemical reactions are occuring in the biomachine. Hardly anything to base a universal ethic upon.

BTW: I can show you that many people would consider digestion to be more important -- that they "value it more" -- than love or morality: how many geriatrics say "I'd kill to have a bowel movement". :) (j/k)
Quote:
 

From the "standpoint of the universe" (if that phrase makes any sense), they are not more important.  If we were not here to value such things, such things would not have value.  This doesn't make our choices arbitrary, we chose to value what we do because of how we are made. 
And here you miss the point. These things that you call "choices" in a materialistic universe must be anything but arbitrary -- they are nothing other than the manifestations of particular sequences of electrochemical activity. Physics governs everything -- no free will. No free will = no ethics.

Today we are beginning to understand this. In the past we had evolved certain memes -- such as morality, ethics, justice, human dignity, love, free will, etc -- that are every bit as problematic as the God meme.
Quote:
 
I am in no "infinite loop" since there is no circle to escape from.

Your infinite loop is that you think that there is ethics in a material universe. Ethics presupposes not only autonomy, but the ability to choose one thing over the other. So what in the human biomachine can possibly allow for this? The bottom line is that it is all chemicals, and all "choice" is just illusion.

If you are right about the material universe, it seems that you are holding on to the "free will meme" and the "ethics meme" much the way the religious person is holding on to the "God meme", or the "spirituality meme".
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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ivorythumper
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Jeffrey
Apr 9 2007, 07:19 PM
IT: "The plain reading is that you were offering Ax an example, as a matter of fact, without critique or ridicule. "

Since everyone who cares to knows that I am a materialist, it would be clear that I was reporting a silly argument from the yogi tradition.  Lucid dreaming is proof of nothing metaphysical.  That some people think it is, is an example of the silly arguments from "personal experience" given for religion.

Rather narcissistic of you to think that everyone else here would just know to frame your use of language as ridicule of the Buddhist tradition.

I can only wonder if Ax took it that way. :lol:
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Jeffrey
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IT: Why do you think in a materialist universe we do not choose one thing over another? Do you think that materialism implies billard-ball type determinism? Again, just because choice is a series of chemical and electrical actions in our brain, does not make it not-choice. You seem confused by the traditional free will/ determinism debate. It is the series of electrical impulses in our brain that we refer to as choice and free will that cause our actions and nothing else. If you think these choices are made by some non-material stuff, and not chemicals and electricity, then please explain how this non-material stuff interacts with the material stuff in our heads. I suspect you will be unable to do so, since no such method of interaction can be specified or has ever been observed.
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AlbertaCrude
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I am beginning to think that this endless bickering whether there is or is not a supreme being is a disease of the mind.

In any case I fail to see what any of it has to do with how fundamentalist interpretations of Scripture and alleged subsequent revelations affect the modern world.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Jeffrey
Apr 9 2007, 09:05 PM
IT: Why do you think in a materialist universe we do not choose one thing over another?  Do you think that materialism implies billard-ball type determinism?  Again, just because choice is a series of chemical and electrical actions in our brain, does not make it not-choice.  You seem confused by the traditional free will/ determinism debate.  It is the series of electrical impulses in our brain that we refer to as choice and free will that cause our actions and nothing else. 
You are special pleading, Jeff.

For some reason the chemicals in our biomachines don't act the same way as all the other chemicals in the universe? What can you actually prove through scientific experiments to demonstrate that? What is the physical mechanism that would allow for that? If you can't produce an experiment, it seems it would be a matter of unsubstantiated "faith" -- just some quaint holdover from the erroneous anthropology of the past.

Calling it "billiard ball type determinism" is not an argument that it is not some type of electrochemical process that we don't yet understand. You've even argued that love is chemically determined, so I see no reason to not be internally consistent here and assume that all things involving the human biomachine are not acting according to the same immutable laws of physics.

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If you think these choices are made by some non-material stuff, and not chemicals and electricity, then please explain how this non-material stuff interacts with the material stuff in our heads.  I suspect you will be unable to do so, since no such method of interaction can be specified or has ever been observed.


It's not my job to defend classical metaphysics. You've already told me that I have no soul, so I am just trying to understand what that really "means.'
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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jon-nyc
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Larry
Apr 9 2007, 11:04 PM
God *is* Jeffrey.

Dude - I think you're missing a comma.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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jon-nyc
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ivorythumper
Apr 9 2007, 07:39 PM
Wrong. That is not the implication (the statement "God does not exist" is false by definition.).  Jon's statement first predicates God, then existence predicated on God, then removes God from the equation. It is a nonsequitur.  Which is my "square circle" question is appropriate.

No, it was a setup for a hypothetical.

If I say "suppose its raining, and you are outside without an umbrella" as an intro to a question would you call it a non-sequitor?

The purpose of my hypothetical was to demonstrate that dignity is a mental state.

I took your square-circle response to mean you viewed the non-existence of god (or god having the power to obliterate humself) as a logical contradiction. Otherwise it makes no sense, except perhaps as simple avoidance of the question.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Jeffrey
Senior Carp
IT: Love, free will etc. all work with the process of nature, not against it. You seem to assume that unless these value-concepts operate outside or even against the process of nature, they do not "really" exist. This is your fallacy. You also avoid answering not only jon's question, but mine: how does this non-material "stuff" you think is necessary for value-concepts to be real, interact with the material world?

Back to "fundementalism": when in Bruge, I went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood. It appears that in this Basilica there is a piece of cloth claimed to have the Holy Blood of Jesus from the Cross on it, all conveniently preserved for our veneration. You can pay a small, voluntary admission fee to touch it (inside a protective tube, of course), like an amusement park ride. Question for you, Steve: do you think this item is a fake, or is a real piece of cloth with the real blood of Jesus conveniently discovered on a Crusade a thousand years later?

Dewey: "It doesn't contain an inherent grammatical or logical inconsistency as does the green example. Every question so correctly framed does indeed have an answer, even if the answer is not to my, or your, liking. The answer to a question of why the cosmos exists may be "because God willed it to be so." Conversely, the answer might be, "there is no reason or ultimate purpose to explain the cosmos' existence; it merely happened and exists." But in either case, there is an answer to any question so framed."

To ask the purpose of something requires either an intentional creator to give meaning or purpose to the object, or it is to ask what role a smaller item plays in a larger part. Thus I can say "Houses are built to provide shelter" or "The purpose of that brick is to provide support to the wall". Purpose-questions do not have meaning outside of an intentional creator, or asking what role something plays in a larger whole. Thus the question 'What is the purpose of the Universe?" is a grammatical fallacy - it either presupposes a particular type of answer (an intentional creator) or is a mistake (since the universe is not a part of a larger whole). Between the answers (1) there is or (2) there is not a purpose of the universe, I suppose (2) is closer to being accurate, just as it is closer to say that "green does not fall in love" than to say that "greed does fall in love". But it is even more correct to say that the question is a error itself. The universe lacks nothing for being without an intentional creator, but the answer "The universe lacks a meaning or purpose" makes it seem like something is missing, as does the answer "green can't love". Nothing is missing from green because it can't love.
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Thus the question 'What is the purpose of the Universe?" is a grammatical fallacy - it either presupposes a particular type of answer (an intentional creator) or is a mistake (since the universe is not a part of a larger whole).


It does neither; it merely asks a question. For the question to have an answer requires neither an intentional creator, nor the value judgment that the universe is a "mistake." "The universe just is; it has no creator" is a valid, if, in my opinion, incorrect, answer, to the question. The question only becomes a grammatical fallacy by your presupposition that eliminates certain avenues for its answer.

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Purpose-questions do not have meaning outside of an intentional creator,...


And of course, this - that there is no intentional creator - is your faith-based presuppostion that I referenced above.

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The universe lacks nothing for being without an intentional creator, but the answer "The universe lacks a meaning or purpose" makes it seem like something is missing, as does the answer "green can't love". Nothing is missing from green because it can't love.


Similarly, if there is no intentional creator, then the universe also lacks nothing. On the other hand, if there is an intentional creator, and we refuse to acknowledge that creator and consider the implications of the creator's existence, then we, and the universe, are lacking something indeed.

The question of what purpose the universe may have can be asked without any presuppostion of an answer. Based on multiple faith-based presuppositions - mine, yours, or any number of others - there any number of possible answers, both with and without any moral or value-based implications. That makes the question itself valid.

Your answer to the question - or more accurately, your refusal to even acknowledge the validity of the question - is no less based on a predetermined tenet of your faith, than is my own answer to the question.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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