Philosophy Now Forum

Which outcome is more probable?

That answer requires a probability distribution!

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 3:27 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 3:26 pm NOT contraposition. I'm not taking a position on the question of whether or not you do have cancer. I'm saying that whether or not you do is unrelated to your knowledge.

Your logocentrism is sickening.

Mere pejorative. You'll have to forgive my lack of concern that a person who insists on typing words is trying to argue that words don't count.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 3:45 pm Mere pejorative. You'll have to forgive my lack of concern that a person who insists on typing words is trying to argue that words don't count.

As you are - here. Living. If you don't care about performative contradictions then by what RULES are you adjudicating this ?

Either way - I insisted on doing this with formal logic - you refused. And so we do this in English. Pretending as if you don't already understand that all deductive systems are fundamentally broken.

So one wonders why you continue in this fashion...

The JTB conception of knowledge is what we call expert systems in computer science. They don't work in practice. Or rather - they work. Until they stop working - when their knowledge becomes outdated. Which is - rapidly!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inference_engine

The knowledge-acquisition problem stands in your way.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 3:24 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 3:14 pm

uwot wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:40 am You are putting the cart before the horse, Mr Can. First you have to demonstrate your god's existence before you can recognise anything as its works.

Agreed. So far, theists haven't demonstrated the existence of a god, or anything supernatural.

It's not required yet. In regard to morality, we are only discussing what the rational implications of each worldview are, not proving one over the other.

Once the real implications of Atheism are clear, then it becomes quite obvious that the next question is the existence and nature of God. But we're not there yet. The OP is still hanging: we have to know if morality is even potentially objective, i.e. "what could make morality objective". And unless I miss my guess, you're still convinced that no conditions exist upon which it even potentially could be...right?

If you will specify terms upon which you do actually believe morality could be objective, then we can explore whether or not those terms are true or not. But if you would not be convinced even if God does exist, then what is the utility of trying to prove He does, yet?

As I pointed out, atheism isn't a worldview any more than rejecting belief in fairies is a worldview. Why didn't you quote or address that? Perhaps now that I've repeated it, you may feel it dishonest to ignore it again.

Atheism has no 'real implications' - and certainly no moral entailment - insist upon it as much as you like. If we reject the existence of a god, the existence and nature of a god is not 'the next question'. But since your argument rests on the claim that a god's existence could make morality objective, you have to show why that is true. As I've been asking you to do since we began this discussion.

Why does a god saying 'slavery is wrong' mean that slavery is wrong? After all, if the god said 'slavery is right', would that mean that slavery is right?

You have persistently dodged and deflected that question - because (I believe) you know that to answer it honestly would mean having to abandon your theistic moral objectivism. But please, show us all that I'm wrong.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:44 pm As I pointed out, atheism isn't a worldview any more than rejecting belief in fairies is a worldview.

If changing from theism to atheism results in a change in behavior - it's a world-view.
If changing from atheism to agnosticism results in change in behavior - it's a world-view.
If changing from theism to agnosticism results in change in behavior - it's a world-view.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:47 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:44 pm As I pointed out, atheism isn't a worldview any more than rejecting belief in fairies is a worldview.

If changing from theism to atheism results in a change in behavior - it's a world-view.
If changing from atheism to agnosticism results in change in behavior - it's a world-view.

Nonsense.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:50 pm Nonsense.

1. How did you assert that? (transparency please)
2. So how is it possible to have agnostics and atheists then ? (falsifier to your nonsense claim)

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:50 pm Nonsense.

You are guilty of a false dichotomy. Belief is not a boolean.

Belief is measured on a continuum. Disbelief, I-don't-know, belief

The reason that it's true is because you require a lot more evidence to be swayed away from some positions than others. You disbelieve some things more than you disbelieve others.

https://unvarnishedveritas.wordpress.co ... inference/

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:52 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:50 pm Nonsense.

1. How did you assert that? (transparency please)
2. So how is it possible to have agnostics and atheists then ? (falsifier to your nonsense claim)

Nonsense again. Make a clear and coherent point, or don't bother.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:58 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:50 pm Nonsense.

You are guilty of a false dichotomy. Belief is not a boolean.

Belief is measured on a continuum. Disbelief, I-don't-know, belief

The reason that it's true is because you require a lot more evidence to be swayed away from some positions than others. You disbelieve some things more than you disbelieve others.

https://unvarnishedveritas.wordpress.co ... inference/

More nonsense. What has this got to do with atheism being a worldview?

And you're wrong. Belief is an on-off switch. Knowledge is a separate issue. You're confusing them.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:52 pmSo how is it possible to have agnostics and atheists then ? (falsifier to your nonsense claim)

It depends on what you understand as agnostic. True, it is generally taken to mean 'I don't know' and theism is not a knowledge claim, but rather a belief. So you can believe something, without having to know it. But agnosticism more technically is the assertion that it is impossible to know; I was trying to explain it to Mr Can, again:

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Sep 20, 2018 2:29 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 20, 2018 2:04 pmThen you're an agnostic, not an Atheist. You admit you don't know, but rationality requires you to remain open to future positive demonstration.

Atheism qua the denial of the existence of God cannot be rationally defended at all. Even Dawkins admits that.

Ah, Mr Can; good to see that you are finally qualifying your definition of 'Atheism'. You clearly still don't understand agnosticism though, so here it is again from the man who invented the word:
"Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe. Consequently, agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of popular theology, but also the greater part of anti-theology. On the whole, the "bosh" of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy does not."
Thomas Huxley

Frankly, Mr Can will never accept that definition, because it isn't as easy to challenge as his straw man version.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 5:06 pm More nonsense. What has this got to do with atheism being a worldview?

A world-view is a set of beliefs: [ ]
Let beliefs be measured on a continuum: disbelief, don't know, belief [-1,0,1]
Leg G(x) be one's God-belief.
Let O be the set of all other beliefs one holds.

Here are three distinct world-views:

Theist = [ G(1), O ]
Atheist = [ G(-1), O ]
Agnostic = [ G(0), O ]

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 5:06 pm And you're wrong. Belief is an on-off switch. Knowledge is a separate issue. You're confusing them.

Lets go with the epistemologist on this one (me!) and say that you are wrong.

Beliefs feed into a decision-engine.

I see see an atheist and a theist arguing about God on the internet.
What shall I do?
Theist -> sides with Theist
Atheist -> Sides with Atheist
Agnostic -> goes against the Theist AND the atheist

Q.E.D

How does a binary (on-off) belief produce a trinary behavior?

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 5:11 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 5:06 pm And you're wrong. Belief is an on-off switch. Knowledge is a separate issue. You're confusing them.

Lets go with the epistemologist on this one (me!) and say that you are wrong.

Do you believe in Mr Can's god, or not? That is a separate issue from whether it exists, or not.

uwot wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 5:08 pm it is generally taken to mean 'I don't know' and theism is not a knowledge claim, but rather a belief.

I do not subscribe to this taxonomy. I do not differentiate between knowledge and belief because of the epistemic meta-problem I described in the other thread:

1. Foundationalism is flawed since no such thing as "justification" exists to meet the JTB criterion (regress problem)
2. How does the knower know whether they know or believe God's existence?

I don't know anything about anything. I only have various degrees of certainty about various things which makes me good at guessing.

Whether you choose to call a certain degree of certainty "knowledge" - you need to declare that threshold.