Philosophy Now Forum

Nick_A wrote: It seems perfectly normal to believe in evolution or the process of evolving into a higher more unified quality of being. However have you noticed that the opposing process of devolution or involution is ignored simply because the beginning of the process assumes the dreaded G word so it is best ignored. What is the process that created the basis (yin) for the evolution of this marvelous living machine called life on earth which eats itself and reproduces in order to serve its purpose? What creates the blueprint for evolution? The blind denier will call it an accident. But the probability against such an accident is beyond comprehension. Involution or the process of elemental forces involving into creation (lawful unity into diversity) is far more plausible. But contemplating it leads to the initial source of ONE involving into three and so on down the line into creation. So to avoid the dreaded G word blind believers use ad hom attacks. A good example of the devolution of philosophy.

This is my favourite.
Evolution (obviously and persistently mischaracterized) apparently comes with an opposing process that has never been observed or described, but that's not why we ignore it. No, we ignore something that we cannot see taking place, only because its not happening begins in God. Which is as good a reason, I guess. Involution??

I wonder why they pretend to ask about atheists, when all they want to do is tell us what we think and why.

FlashDangerpants wrote:

Walker wrote: If something does not exist
And then it exists
It has been created

If something does not exist, and then it exists. It now exists.

You don’t infer your own existence, however your knowledge of the existence of anything other than yourself is an inference based on interpretation of sensory input and imagination inclusive of reasoning.

Nick_A wrote:Walker have you noticed that blind deniers reason only up to a point and then devolve into emotional ad homs?

Tribal tendencies rooted in biology. Shake any belief tree and see what falls out.

Nicks A's and Walkers? Just guessing.

Walker wrote:

FlashDangerpants wrote:

Walker wrote: If something does not exist
And then it exists
It has been created

If something does not exist, and then it exists. It now exists.

You don’t infer your own existence, however your knowledge of the existence of anything other than yourself is an inference based on interpretation of sensory input and imagination inclusive of reasoning.

And the purpose of that non sequitur is?

Nick_A wrote:

Uwot wrote: The different ways of thinking can be summed up like this:
There is evidence that god doesn't exist.
There is no evidence that god exists.
The first is not true, while the second is; unless you believe, like Walker, that everything that exists has to have been 'created', and that therefore, there is a 'creator'.

What evidence is there that God doesn’t exist? ?

What do you mean "God"?

FlashDangerpants wrote:If something does not exist, and then it exists. It now exists.

Walker wrote:You don’t infer your own existence, however your knowledge of the existence of anything other than yourself is an inference based on interpretation of sensory input and imagination inclusive of reasoning.

FlashDangerpants wrote:And the purpose of that non sequitur is?

It's so sequitur you should frame it.

Right now your next posting has not been created. Therefore your next posting does not exist.

No need to even look around for it. Your next posting does not exist.

You can infer with high probability that after the creation of your next posting it will exist.

Therefore the intermediary action that separates non-existence from existence is creation, despite loopy beliefs falling out the trees like balloon animals.

Hobbes wrote: What do you mean "God"?

The conscious source of creation within which the process of existence takes place.

Nick_A wrote:The conscious source of creation within which the process of existence takes place.

What do you mean by 'conscious'?

Nick_A wrote:

Hobbes wrote: What do you mean "God"?

The conscious source of creation within which the process of existence takes place.

And what business is that of yours? That's gotta be taking place, like, seven magnitudes beyond your ken.

Arising_uk wrote: What do you mean by 'conscious'?

Plato spoke of three basic levels of reality. The first is incomprehensible for us but it contains the world of forms within the eternal unchanging. Conscious ideas exist here. As you know, ideas require consciousness. So this quality of consciousness beyond the limits of time and space which contains the ideas of all things cannot be believed or denied logically but just have to accept it as a hypothesis worthy of impartial contemplation.

The second level is what our senses can witness where everything is in constant change. It is the level of actualized ideas. This is the domain of science.

The third level is actually nothing. Where the first level is no-thing or the source of conscious potential, the second level consists of actualized potentials and the third level is the devolution into nothing or the domain void of potential for either evolution or involution.

God is the first level. Obviously as creatures within time and space, the source outside the limits of time and space is beyond our comprehension. The real question IMO is what we are and our conscious potentials within this structure.

Walker wrote:

FlashDangerpants wrote:If something does not exist, and then it exists. It now exists.

Walker wrote:You don’t infer your own existence, however your knowledge of the existence of anything other than yourself is an inference based on interpretation of sensory input and imagination inclusive of reasoning.

FlashDangerpants wrote:And the purpose of that non sequitur is?

It's so sequitur you should frame it.

Right now your next posting has not been created. Therefore your next posting does not exist.

No need to even look around for it. Your next posting does not exist.

You can infer with high probability that after the creation of your next posting it will exist.

Therefore the intermediary action that separates non-existence from existence is creation, despite loopy beliefs falling out the trees like balloon animals.

Do you understand how the whole premise and conclusion arrangement is supposed to work?
Among your multiple problems is that you keep assuming a general case from a particular that cannot support it.
The existence of this post, which is a creation of me, is causally contained within the existing universe.
It does not give you a "therefore" for some extra-universal creator of the universe.

It also has absolutely nothing to do with that non sequitur you just threw in to make yourself seem more philosophical.

Nick_A wrote: Plato spoke of three basic levels of reality. The first is incomprehensible for us but it contains the world of forms within the eternal unchanging. Conscious ideas exist here.

Conscious ideas don't exist in that sense.

Arising_uk wrote: What do you mean by 'conscious'?

Nick_A wrote:Plato spoke of three basic levels of reality. The first is incomprehensible for us but it contains the world of forms within the eternal unchanging. Conscious ideas exist here. As you know, ideas require consciousness. So this quality of consciousness beyond the limits of time and space which contains the ideas of all things cannot be believed or denied logically but just have to accept it as a hypothesis worthy of impartial contemplation.

It would not be "consciousness" as we think of it that was present in whatever state pre-existed big bang. Consciousness is a controlled type of reactivity. What pre-existed the universe would be a different kind of reactivity. That reactivity would necessarily be wildly alien, yet it also must in some way be fundamentally fractally related to everything in the universe. Consciousness can be thought of as a narrow band of nature's reactions and responses, in much the same way as light is only a narrow band of the EM spectrum.

So AI could potentially achieve states that are as far beyond our consciousness as ours are beyond the minds of other animals. Human consciousness can comprehend the world from a single perspective, augmented significantly by the relatively sketchy second-hand perceptions shared with us by others. An advanced AI portal directly networked between billions of human minds and AI nodes would have an overarching consciousness that would seem a good candidate to be the next of nature's great innovations - as significant as abiogenesis, multicellularity and humanity.

While the above has nothing to do with atheism or theism, I think that horse hasn't just been flogged to death. It's corpse has been flogged to bits, and the bits have been flogged into their component atoms. Those tortured atoms too have been flogged until a nuclear cyber-holocaust fragmented the public conversation into cliches, slogans, character attacks and proselytising.

Surely there's a better way.

FlashDangerpants wrote:

Walker wrote:

FlashDangerpants wrote:If something does not exist, and then it exists. It now exists.

Walker wrote:You don’t infer your own existence, however your knowledge of the existence of anything other than yourself is an inference based on interpretation of sensory input and imagination inclusive of reasoning.

FlashDangerpants wrote:And the purpose of that non sequitur is?

It's so sequitur you should frame it.

Right now your next posting has not been created. Therefore your next posting does not exist.

No need to even look around for it. Your next posting does not exist.

You can infer with high probability that after the creation of your next posting it will exist.

Therefore the intermediary action that separates non-existence from existence is creation, despite loopy beliefs falling out the trees like balloon animals.

Do you understand how the whole premise and conclusion arrangement is supposed to work?
Among your multiple problems is that you keep assuming a general case from a particular that cannot support it.
The existence of this post, which is a creation of me, is causally contained within the existing universe.
It does not give you a "therefore" for some extra-universal creator of the universe.

It also has absolutely nothing to do with that non sequitur you just threw in to make yourself seem more philosophical.

See? Now your formerly non-existent next posting exists because it has been created, though your next posting has not yet been created. Remember to observe what happens in the transition.

By keeping up this simple activity of noticing such causal relationships you may begin to accept by osmosis what is, which is creation, since your denial obviously ain’t gettin it done in terms of rational discourse.

You’ve got a Creator-denial fixation that prevents you from admitting that you’re surrounded by creation. You’re walking around with your hands in front of your eyes.

Though it may seem terrible and dangerous when reality doesn’t fit into the box you’ve been taught, it really isn’t so bad.

Once you accept what is, that you’re surrounded by creation, you can address your hangup about how creation and your human tendency towards duality (e.g., conceptually dividing your existence and the existence of anything else into creator and creation) comes into being and interfaces. Then you can start working on that fixation with the tools of rationality that God gave you via evolution, natural law, whatever. (OMG look he used that word he’s one of them, activate the rote litany.)

Until then all you’re doing is repeating your assertions and conclusions, sans authority, sans reasoning, sans empiricism ... all stuff heard before.