[LordMelvin]

No, it isn't. It makes "total skepticism" possible, but this possibility is also meaningless to me, since I was never interested in the "absolute truth" in the first place. We live in our empirical reality and we form our theories in this world, about it and nothing else.

Like it or not, not everyone is an instrumentalist or pragmatist, and those who aren't, aren't all as stupid and delusional as you make them out to be.

Idealism is great. I love it. I love the sheer chaos that it usually brings, the smell of revolution in the morning.

Yet, all that is poetry in action. If you are willing to concede that God is a poetic character, then we will be alright. If however you are on to proclaim the truth of his existence as a fact, as something that even trasncends reality as we are here describing it, I must say that you are indeed delusional, although not stupid (since I've seen amazingly intelligent people falling into the same trap, it mustn't be a question of intelligence).

To me God has always been a teleological moral dream, like the ultimate muse. It need not to exist in any other place than in men's hearts as a "call". It's the ultimate romantical figure that "saves us" from our "materialistic doom", from death. It tries to do this by inspiring a supernatural way of thinking. A way of thinking that trasncends the egotistical genes and the "fake" altruism that abounds in us.

It is a revolutionary way of thinking. And I don't mind that bit at all. Like I said, I love idealism, it shatters the world and crushes all status quos.

For instance, I myself am an idealistic anti-theist. I really do believe that we cannot base our romantic bursts with bronze age myths with its obsolete moralities and barbaric tropes, and what I see in the middle east happening with the population, specially the women and the kids is like a punch to the stomach. I hate it. With all my heart.

I am not referring to idealism. I am referring to scientific realism. The belief that the fact that the sun has come up every day at a set interval depending on the season for a very long time means that you can be absolutely certain that it will continue to do so (after taking into account like the earth's slowing rotation and the like). That true knowledge is possible, that a theory need not be an approximation. As in, anti-total-skepticism. I wasn't referring to God or that all's right in the world. That's that strawmaning I talked about. Like I said, I am an atheist (certainly in regards to the idea of God taking on personal characteristics). I am also not a materialist or an empiricist. The anti-god arguments you all throw out are born from radical empiricism, the kind Hume advocated. I think these arguments are bad ones. I agree with one particular conclusion of yours, just not the reasoning that led you there.

Watisname, you can detect neutrinos by getting them to collide with hydrogen in water, causing a flash. You gain knowledge of their existence by sensory means.

That was exactly the point I was making, good job.  Now you've expanded your description of sensory means from the five senses you used originally.

You see the flash by sight. Use of one of the five senses is still required.

Sure, this is valid if we consider any form detection of EM waves, despite the type of detector, as an extension of one of our five senses, namely vision.  However, if we go with that then what makes thought any different?  Despite our limited understanding of the details of cognition, we can decipher quite a lot about thought through the use of fMRI and the like.

There is also still the option of defining 'what is real' to be anything that can affect or be affected by other things in detectable ways.  Herra mentioned this, too.  This definition is nice because it works for neutrinos just as much as it does for thought, and it also provides an effective criterion for determining if various 'supernatural' phenomenon are 'real' or not.

So you are designating the production of thoughts in the mind, be they images, recalls, or abstract, as falling under the category of something that is "sensed". A sixth sense, apparently. I am challenging this. At least on a surface level, thoughts cannot be classified as sensory data. Any material object, no matter how far removed from ordinary experience, still has to involve some use of the five senses to be detected. UV light can be sensed by looking at photographic plate, or by feeling the affect of a sunburn, but still one of the five is involved regardless. Can you say the same for thoughts? The very obvious answer is no. You need a better argument to convince me otherwise.

And as for the correlation argument you use with MRI scans, that the scans correlate with thought is irrelevant. That they correlate does not mean that they are the same. I do not understand why you place senses on a pedastal, and ignore internal thoughts, when they are equally real. Even an ultra empiricist like Hume criticized correlation arguments.

And I never used the word supernatural.

By that logic quantum particles don't exist for you either... I guess. I mean, brain activity is actually measurable... while several quantum particles exist in theory, but can not be reliably measured at all lol.

Seriously... measuring brain activity isn't even the bleeding edge anymore as far as physics go...  I mean heck... we're already seeing the first gadgets that can be controlled by concentrated thought.... so with respect.... uh: Pfffffft!?

I just said that there IS a correlation between thought and brain activity. Are you all completely incapable of representing my position correctly? Correlation does not even imply causation, let alone that the activity and the thought are one in the same, let alone that you can it's even possible to reduce the thought (if I have to use the term thing in itself, I will) to sensory data anyway. That there is interaction does not prove materialism. It might prove monism, but not materialism.

Correlation surely implies causation, in absence of credible alternative explanations (compatible with Occams Razor), and in the absence of evidence to the contrary. In fact, when you think about it, all we can observe in the world are correlations. So while correlation does not prove causation with 100% certainty (nothing can be proven with 100% certainty), it sure is a good hint.

epic quote muhahahahaha

Isn't it great? I mean, seriously!

[Luis Dias]

Eventually, we will have a good theory about consciousness.

I do believe you have just conceded defeat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvdf5n-zI14

Two cavemen watching a lighning storm.

"HEY dude, that's awessooooome. PROOF OF GOD! That's no natural **** right there, Can't be!

"No it isn't you dumbass. We will eventually understand lightnings, it's just that we don't right now. There's no good reason to goo woooish on this ****, despite it being fancy and stuff

"AH! You just said you *don't* understand lightnings! You HAVE CONCEDED DEFEAT!

"Wait wat? DoubliuteeEEff? What did you smoke? I want that ****.

[Luis Dias]

once again another page of unintelligible gibberish.

Come on, there is no need to advertize your incapabilities so clearly...

And there is no need to question why people call you a troll .

Heeeey he started it!!!!

[NGTM-1R]

My head is deeply and truly up my ass.

At what point did Vega argue it was completely unexplainable, as opposed to you cannot explain it now so it might as well be magic for us?

[Mr. Vega]

I was going more for skepticism than unexplainability. The issues I raised are going to leave room for some doubt regardless. I certainly never claimed that the actual scientific observations spoke of were wrong. Of course evolution occurred, a brain is composed of neurons bouncing electrical pulses back and forth, etc. Reality has to be consistent, after all, regardless of what it is "made of". I went after the philosophical interpretation of these findings, that he can't go as far with them as he thinks he can. I prefer reconciliation over anything else. Like I said, I'm a tolerant atheist.

And Nuke was frankly right. There was way too much rhetoric in that debate. I should have gone for simplicity and simply said something like "that empirical analysis is dependent upon sensory input means you start running into problems when you apply it to the physical structures associated with said sensory input, especially the ones associated with sensory processing, and that these problems don't just go way if you make more detailed and precise empirical observations". There, I don't need to say any more.

[Luis Dias]

My head is deeply and truly up my ass.

At what point did Vega argue it was completely unexplainable, as opposed to you cannot explain it now so it might as well be magic for us?

And at what point did I concede? Of course if you start substituting what I say with your shenanigans, then everything's possible. In some forums, for example, even outright banning.

So unless you want a troll fest with back and forths of silly retarded shots that fly entirely past the points raised, I'd suggest you actually made a point.

The real issue here is one of absolutism (or objectivism, etc) vs relativism (or subjectivism, etc.). Mr Vega, while being a self-professed atheist is still thinking in Descartian terms, he is still thinking in absolutist terms. For mr Vega, the Thing-In-Itself is something that is not only Real, but tangible and should be "explained" by someone.  Perhaps religion? Doubtful, since he's an atheist, but surely "not science!"

Mind you, I had skipped this reply from mr Vega, among all the sillyness here (because apparently a conversation is "boring" without trolling....), which clarifies this difference:

I am not referring to idealism. I am referring to scientific realism. The belief that the fact that the sun has come up every day at a set interval depending on the season for a very long time means that you can be absolutely certain that it will continue to do so (after taking into account like the earth's slowing rotation and the like). That true knowledge is possible, that a theory need not be an approximation

Exactly. This is the crux of the problem, and for sure, Mr. Vega is still trapped in this absolutist way of thinking, this idea that the Truth with capital T is attainable with science (or anything for that matter). Of course, it's all rubbish. Induction is not a sufficient means to reach truth (known since Hume), and all the deductions one can write on the screen (like, say, that the sun will come up tomorrow is deducible from Earth's rotation) always depend upon the assumption of many more premises which are turtles all the way down, and most of them are quite ellusive, illusory, and certainly not totally and absolutely true.

Science is always contingent upon many assumptions, and that's fine. Science does not and should not deal with the Truth with capital T because that kind of Truth is nonsense, and this is inferred since Kant himself, and demonstrated beautifully by Nietzsche himself in almost all of his writings.

Thing is, all this kind of thought stems directly from religion, and it's a relic from it. That mr. Vega proclaims himself as an atheist, while endorsing this kind of thought is a contradiction, and he probably knows it as well (his hints to the probable acception of lesser "personal gods" come to mind - deism? pantheism?). All these "isms" suffer from the same cognitive problem. There is no Truth, and that's the truth!

[Luis Dias]

And Nuke was frankly right. There was way too much rhetoric in that debate. I should have gone for simplicity and simply said something like "that empirical analysis is dependent upon sensory input means you start running into problems when you apply it to the physical structures associated with said sensory input, especially the ones associated with sensory processing, and that these problems don't just go way if you make more detailed and precise empirical observations". There, I don't need to say any more.

Rubbish - this is the old "the brain can't ever understand itself" silly retort that I can't believe you sir as an intelligent person could ever endorse. It's childish, "superman vs batman" level of childish.

[Mr. Vega]

Not even the most abstract kind of truth? 2+2=4?

[Ghostavo]

Some would say mathematics is not a science, and doesn't have the same limitations.

Others would point out Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

Pick your poison.

[Mr. Vega]

And Nuke was frankly right. There was way too much rhetoric in that debate. I should have gone for simplicity and simply said something like "that empirical analysis is dependent upon sensory input means you start running into problems when you apply it to the physical structures associated with said sensory input, especially the ones associated with sensory processing, and that these problems don't just go way if you make more detailed and precise empirical observations". There, I don't need to say any more.

Rubbish - this is the old "the brain can't ever understand itself" silly retort that I can't believe you sir as an intelligent person could ever endorse. It's childish, "superman vs batman" level of childish.

And you were actually treating me respectfully for two seconds. I never said understanding is impossible. Just not the kind according to your taste. If I leave the door open to two interpretations of the same empirical theory, why do you care? If all you care about is empiricism, then why not allow me to be deluded about things that don't concern you, in your opinion? You've clearly been extremely offended.

[Mr. Vega]

Some would say mathematics is not a science, and doesn't have the same limitations.

Others would point out Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

Pick your poison.

Wait, you're saying that something might fall outside the bounds of science?!! WHAT?!!!!!

Luis Dias might then immediately go for the "mathematics are abstractions derived from observing nature" theory that Hume would approve of. Which I would retort with a poverty of the stimulus argument if I wasn't lazy by this point.

Edit - Actually I take that back. That he loves Hume doesn't mean he still thinks Tabula Rasa is a valid theory. Nevermind.

[Ghostavo]

Wait, you're saying that something might fall outside the bounds of science?!! WHAT?!!!!!

I've always thought of it as Science studying the universe while Mathematics studies the abstract.

One can think of mathematics as one of science's axioms I guess...

[Mr. Vega]

Well, they correlate, for sure. Which one runs according to the others rules is a matter of debate.

[Mr. Vega]

Exactly. This is the crux of the problem, and for sure, Mr. Vega is still trapped in this absolutist way of thinking, this idea that the Truth with capital T is attainable with science (or anything for that matter). Of course, it's all rubbish. Induction is not a sufficient means to reach truth (known since Hume), and all the deductions one can write on the screen (like, say, that the sun will come up tomorrow is deducible from Earth's rotation) always depend upon the assumption of many more premises which are turtles all the way down, and most of them are quite ellusive, illusory, and certainly not totally and absolutely true.

All you can say it that is at least a coincidence, whereas I am willing to go further and say that there's nothing wrong with deciding that it really is a set pattern. And you used the word childish to describe this kind of thinking? I would have reserved that phrase for an actual five year old, but hey! To each his own.

[Mongoose]

There is no Truth, and that's the truth!

So if the truth is that there's no Truth, how do we declare the lack of Truth as truth?

(yo dawg i herd u like truths)

[Nuke]

thats it. this thread is getting old