Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Free Willy on July 19, 2016, 06:04:31 PM
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What do I think?
Laws is saying that God is not logical.
However the vehicle he uses to get us to this....an article called going nuclear doesn't actually reach the destination....which is really a vaguer point with mock station signs put up.
There you go Hillside....derail that.
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Actually, isn't the idea more about people with irrational beliefs and their only debating weapon? After all the first example he gives is of a new-ager, and they don't necessarily believe in gods - just lots of other nonsense.
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Actually, isn't the idea more about people with irrational beliefs and their only debating weapon? After all the first example he gives is of a new-ager, and they don't necessarily believe in gods - just lots of other nonsense.
Such a setting up of straw men and begging of questions, a bit of a boullabaise piss take don't you think though?
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Actually, isn't the idea more about people with irrational beliefs and their only debating weapon? After all the first example he gives is of a new-ager, and they don't necessarily believe in gods - just lots of other nonsense.
Yep. That's the conclusion you, I and every other person who has ever read SL's article came to.
But Chunsty? Like the Ship's Captain Blackadder hires who insists that his ships don't need a crew by stating, "Opinion is divided on the matter. All the others say you do, I say you don't. "
Chunsty knows better.
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Vlad,
What do I think?
Laws is saying that God is not logical.
However the vehicle he uses to get us to this....an article called going nuclear doesn't actually reach the destination....which is really a vaguer point with mock station signs put up.
There you go Hillside....derail that.
Actually I'll just correct rather than derail it if that's OK.
Stephen Law does no such thing. What he actually does is to take just one argument - ie "going nuclear" - and dismantle it. There may or may not be perfectly good but different arguments for "God", but all the essay is about is an argument that faith believers of various stripes sometimes attempt: "OK, I may be guessing but so are you so we're evens". It fails for the same reason that jumping out of the 20th floor window and taking the lift do not have equal value in probabilisitic truth terms.
Why you felt the need to throw so much incomprehension and/or dishonesty at it is your business, but it stands perfectly well nonetheless in achieving what it set out to achieve - the rebuttal of an argument and of that argument alone.
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Such a setting up of straw men and begging of questions, a bit of a boullabaise piss take don't you think though?
Yes how dare Steven Laws write an article about a different subject to the one you wanted.
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Yes how dare Steven Laws write an article about a different subject to the one you wanted.
I think Steven Laws wrote an article about a different subject to the one HE wanted.
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I think David Hume made a joke about this, well, sort of a joke, when he said that although he was fairly skeptical, he would still leave a room by the door, not the window. I suppose he is saying that 100% skepticism may be interesting in theory, but in actuality, is useless. But this is only one type of going nuclear, I think. Of course, you might leave a room by the window in certain conditions, e.g. fire, or your girl-friend's husband is coming in the front door.
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Vlad,
I think Steven Laws wrote an article about a different subject to the one HE wanted.
Then, as so often, you think wrongly. He set out to address the "going nuclear" argument and he did so effectively. The preamble to it and the various (wrong by the way) accusations you made about that preamble are entirely irrelevant. Either he falsified "going nuclear" or he did not: absent a counter-argument from you or from anyone else about that, then he did.
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I think David Hume made a joke about this, well, sort of a joke, when he said that although he was fairly skeptical, he would still leave a room by the door, not the window.
Scepticism - at least as applied to me by me - does not entail dogmatically refusing to believe anything. If there's evidence for a hypothesis then it's OK to accept the hypothesis. The evidence is that it is easier to leave a building by the door, there is no need to climb over the sill and there is more likely to be a floor, rather than a drop on the other side. Therefore I accept the "door is the best way to live the room" hypothesis.
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Wiigs,
I think David Hume made a joke about this, well, sort of a joke, when he said that although he was fairly skeptical, he would still leave a room by the door, not the window. I suppose he is saying that 100% skepticism may be interesting in theory, but in actuality, is useless. But this is only one type of going nuclear, I think. Of course, you might leave a room by the window in certain conditions, e.g. fire, or your girl-friend's husband is coming in the front door.
You might, but probably not from a window on the 20th floor. The two truth propositions here are:
1. Taking the lift will get you to the street safely
2. Jumping out of the window will get you to the street safely
Both propositions rely on axioms of various descriptions, but probabilistically they do not have equal truth value and we know that from intersubjective experience. That's not to say that either proposition is categorically true - once in a while the lift cable may snap; once in a while some quantum event may cause you to float gently to the ground – but it is to enable us to apply the labels "true (enough)" and "not true (enough)" and thereby to have a model to function in the world.
What Vlad's attempted on various threads is going nuclear - i.e., "OK, my beliefs are based on axioms but so are yours so we're both guessing, therefore we're evens" which is plainly nonsense once you realise that "truth" is about probables, not absolutes.
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Wiigs,
You might, but probably not from a window on the 20th floor. The two truth propositions here are:
1. Taking the lift will get you to the street safely
2. Jumping out of the window will get you to the street safely
Both propositions rely on axioms of various descriptions, but probabilistically they do not have equal truth value and we know that from intersubjective experience. That's not to say that either proposition is categorically true - once in a while the lift cable may snap; once in a while some quantum event may cause you to float gently to the ground – but it is to enable us to apply the labels "true (enough)" and "not true (enough)" and thereby to have a model to function in the world.
What Vlad's attempted on various threads is going nuclear - i.e., "OK, my beliefs are based on axioms but so are yours so we're both guessing, therefore we're evens" which is plainly nonsense once you realise that "truth" is about probables, not absolutes.
No, No, No all I do is to draw your attention to the leap of faith required to declare the universe probably God free. Yes folks naturalism requires a step of faith.
Mind you if you also think a probably God free universe is more logical.....i'd like to see that demonstrated.
What is the probability of a God free universe Blue. Show your working out.
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No, No, No all I do is to draw your attention to the leap of faith required to declare the universe probably God free. Yes folks naturalism requires a step of faith.
Mind you if you also think a probably God free universe is more logical.....i'd like to see that demonstrated.
What is the probability of a God free universe Blue. Show your working out.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
All that was being shown is that we can assess the probability of either jumping out of a window or taking a lift, and can put a confidence interval on it. So we might be wrong in our assessment, BUT we have at least made an assessment of the probabilities (to be revised when further data is available).
Theists on the other hand offer no means/methodology to assign a probability that God exists.
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Vlad,
No, No, No all I do is to draw your attention to the leap of faith required to declare the universe probably God free. Yes folks naturalism requires a step of faith.
Oh dear. Look, it's simple enough: for epistemological purposes either you treat all un-defined, un-argued, un-evidenced conjectures the same way or you collapse into special pleading for the one you happen to prefer over the rest. And if you do treat them the same way, then the universe probably is god-free for just the same reason that it's probably pixie-free, or probably tap-dancing unicorns on Alpha Centauri-free, or... etc.
You can't have it both ways - either you think that all of them are more probably true than not, or that none of them are.
Mind you if you also think a probably God free universe is more logical.....i'd like to see that demonstrated.
You just did.
What is the probability of a God free universe Blue. Show your working out.
It's logic, not a mathematical equation. There's enough intersubjective experience of, say, gravity for it to be "true (enough)"; there's not enough intersubjective experience of "God" (or of pixies, or of unicorns) for it to be "true (enough)", so it's "not true (enough)".
That the arguments theists attempt to demonstrate "God" are logically hopeless doesn't help them much either by the way, though that of itself is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the "probably god-free" position.
Oh, and none of this by the way has anything to do with why you crashed and burned so badly re the Stephen Law argument - i.e., the topic of this thread you started - and your attempts at the going nuclear argument.
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Vlad,
Just to pick up on Stephen's post and your faux naive "what's a methodology then?" thread, that's your problem. I can use a method to test the lift vs defenestration conjectures and, after sufficient attempts at each, I can assign probabilistic truth values to each one. And then I can say with reasonable confidence that "the lift is safer than the window" is probabilistically true (enough), whereas the "window is safer than the lift" is probabilistically not true (enough).
What method then would you propose to test your conjecture "God"?
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Vlad,
Just to pick up on Stephen's post and your faux naive "what's a methodology then?" thread, that's your problem. I can use a method to test the lift vs defenestration conjectures and, after sufficient attempts at each, I can assign probabilistic truth values to each one. And then I can say with reasonable confidence that "the lift is safer than the window" is probabilistically true (enough), whereas the "window is safer than the lift" is probabilistically not true (enough).
What method then would you propose to test your conjecture "God"?
I think it is something along the lines of. I had an experience, it was an unpleasant experience that challenged my ego. It fit with the narrative of the Christian God. Therefore, the Christian God exists.
Well if that doesn't prove it what does?
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Stephen,
I think it is something along the lines of. I had an experience, it was an unpleasant experience that challenged my ego. It fit with the narrative of the Christian God. Therefore, the Christian God exists.
Well if that doesn't prove it what does?
While I agree with the sentiment, my sense is rather that his "experience" played straight into his ego: "A universe-creating god took time out to visit little old me? How special must I be then - unlike the rest of you schmucks!" type of thing.
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Vlad,
Oh dear. Look, it's simple enough: for epistemological purposes either you treat all un-defined, un-argued, un-evidenced conjectures the same way or you collapse into special pleading for the one you happen to prefer over the rest. And if you do treat them the same way, then the universe probably is god-free for just the same reason that it's probably pixie-free, or probably tap-dancing unicorns on Alpha Centauri-free, or... etc.
Yes and what is/are that/those probability/probabilities.....show your working out.
I wouldn't like to take odds that the universe is pixie free...it's a big place.
Unicorns and tap dancing on alpha centuari? The probability of equines and tap dancing within a few light years of earth is low due to the proximity of alpha centauri.
What though is the probability of God. Show your working out.
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Stephen,
While I agree with the sentiment, my sense is rather that his "experience" played straight into his ego: "A universe-creating god took time out to visit little old me? How special must I be then - unlike the rest of you schmucks!" type of thing.
What a peculiar post. I don't recognise that experience and it contradicts your previous complaints that I am trying to say that God is true for you too Blue.
A basic atheist mistake accusing religious people of exclusivity AND trying to share God with you.
My sense is that you have made a faux up.
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What though is the probability of God. Show your working out.
It's probability can't be calculated (well I am yet to see such a method for doing so) so it doesn't get consideration. A very low probability of something beats that of one for which a probability can't be computed i.e. it doesn't even merit consideration unless you can propose a different method to asses it's likely truth value.
You are the one that claims a God. What is your p value and how did you determine it?
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I think it is something along the lines of. I had an experience, it was an unpleasant experience that challenged my ego. It fit with the narrative of the Christian God. Therefore, the Christian God exists.
Well if that doesn't prove it what does?
I am sure there are perfectly genuine Christians who might be as secure in that probability as Bluehillside is in the one he believes in.
Bluehillside is extremely vague though in his beliefs and his probabilities whereas Christians often have been more convinced that their conversion is as opposed to atheist wooliness, a crowning experience.
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Vlad,
Just to pick up on Stephen's post and your faux naive "what's a methodology then?" thread, that's your problem. I can use a method to test the lift vs defenestration conjectures and, after sufficient attempts at each, I can assign probabilistic truth values to each one. And then I can say with reasonable confidence that "the lift is safer than the window" is probabilistically true (enough), whereas the "window is safer than the lift" is probabilistically not true (enough).
What method then would you propose to test your conjecture "God"?
I have no problem with the probability of material things within limits.......But there is a difference between the probability of stuff doing stuff and the probability of,say, Godfree.
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I am sure there are perfectly genuine Christians who might be as secure in that probability as Bluehillside is in the one he believes in.
Bluehillside is extremely vague though in his beliefs and his probabilities whereas Christians often have been more convinced that their conversion is as opposed to atheist wooliness, a crowning experience.
And the probability is?
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I have no problem with the probability of material things within limits.......But there is a difference between the probability of stuff doing stuff and the probability of,say, Godfree.
And the probability of God doing stuff is?
Godfree isi the default by the way. Have you ever heard of a null hypothesis?
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It's probability can't be calculated (well I am yet to see such a method for doing so) so it doesn't get consideration. A very low probability of something beats that of one for which a probability can't be computed i.e. it doesn't even merit consideration unless you can propose a different method to asses it's likely truth value.
You are the one that claims a God. What is your p value and how did you determine it?
But like the unconscious universe manages to act as observer you unconsciously claim Godfree.......What is YOUR p value and how do you determine it.
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And the probability of God doing stuff is?
Godfree isi the default by the way. Have you ever heard of a null hypothesis?
Not sure it is the null hypothesis though since God is proposed as creating the universe.
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But like the unconscious universe manages to act as observer you unconsciously claim Godfree.......What is YOUR p value and how do you determine it.
he asked first. Are you unable to answer?
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he asked first.
So what................. his question and my question exist equally as platonic forms. Order has nothing to do with it.
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So what................. his question and my question exist equally as platonic forms. Order has nothing to do with it.
your debating skills are shit.
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Vlad,
Yes and what is/are that/those probability/probabilities.....show your working out.
It would help if you read what's been said to you rather than keep asking the same meaningless question. You're in "not even wrong" territory - the "working out" is the simple logic that you offer nothing about which a probability - the p value - can be calculated.
Nor do I offer such a value for pixies or for unicorns by the way, so those conjectures are not even wrong too. Do you propose that we treat all of them as more probably true than not, or none of them?
Why?
I wouldn't like to take odds that the universe is pixie free...it's a big place.
No-one has said that it necessarily is. Try reading my posts again for the difference between probable and absolute.
Unicorns and tap dancing on alpha centuari? The probability of equines and tap dancing within a few light years of earth is low due to the proximity of alpha centauri.
Gibberish. The proximity makes no difference.
What though is the probability of God. Show your working out.
Again with the meaningless question? Why?
The probability is precisely that of any other "not even wrong" conjecture. And it's "not even wrongness" is a function of your inability to offer a meaningful hypothesis, not of the inability of others to calculate the odds against it.
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Vlad,
What a peculiar post. I don't recognise that experience and it contradicts your previous complaints that I am trying to say that God is true for you too Blue.
That you don't recognise it doesn't mean that your thinking that a god has visited you doesn't make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and of course it doesn't contradict it: in your head, "God" is a truth for me only I haven't been selected to be one of his special helpers like little old you have.
A basic atheist mistake accusing religious people of exclusivity AND trying to share God with you.
The mistake is all yours. See above.
My sense is that you have made a faux up.
Then as so often here, your "sense" has let you down. Badly.
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Vlad,
I am sure there are perfectly genuine Christians who might be as secure in that probability as Bluehillside is in the one he believes in.
Bluehillside is extremely vague though in his beliefs and his probabilities whereas Christians often have been more convinced that their conversion is as opposed to atheist wooliness, a crowning experience.
Please stop lying about me - it's tiresome. My "belief" is clear enough: it's that the tools of reason and logic are more reliable guides to working truths than is just guessing about stuff, even (or especially) when that just guessing is gussied up with the term "faith".
Clear now?
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Vlad,
I have no problem with the probability of material things within limits.......But there is a difference between the probability of stuff doing stuff and the probability of,say, Godfree.
Wearily - it's "God probably free", (for the same reason that it's "pixies probably free") and if you want to invoke the supposedly non-material then you have all your work ahead of you to demonstrate it before we concern ourselves with which methods we should use to investigate it.
No-one else has ever managed it, but good luck with it nonetheless.
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Vlad,
Not sure it is the null hypothesis though since God is proposed as creating the universe.
You need to look up the meaning of "null hypothesis" if you intend not to make yourself look foolish again when trying to discuss it.
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Not sure it is the null hypothesis though since God is proposed as creating the universe.
Ehhh????
WTF????
Proposed yes! It remains only a proposal though until you demonstrate it to be the case.
This is very very basic stuff.
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Ehhh????
WTF????
Proposed yes! It remains only a proposal though until you demonstrate it to be the case.
This is very very basic stuff.
Yes but the universe creating itself also remains a proposal so neither is the null hypothesis.......they are alternative hypotheses.
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Vlad,
Yes but the universe creating itself also remains a proposal so neither is the null hypothesis.......they are alternative hypotheses.
Still you don't understand "null hypothesis", and it's only an "alternative hypothesis" if you think that turtles all the way down is an alternative hypothesis too and for that matter that "y778537t4a7" is an alternative hypothesis.
You've given yourself bigger problems too: that the universe must have been "created" at all is a conjecture, as is the notion that time itself existed "before" the universe given that since Einstein we're known that time is a property of the universe. Speculating about what did the supposed creating is a second-order issue.
You've also incidentally relegated "God" to a hypothesis - or more correctly, a conjecture - and moreover at best you've given yourself a deistic god (one who started it all and then clocked off) rather than a theistic god (one who cares about and intervenes in human affairs). If that's the position you want to take now rather than your previous one of asserting "God" as fact, so be it.
And again, Stephen Law continues to undo you: all claims of fact do not have equivalent truth values, however much you may wish it otherwise. If you don't believe me, try taking the window route from the 20th floor and have your next of kin let me know how you got on.
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Yes but the universe creating itself also remains a proposal so neither is the null hypothesis.......they are alternative hypotheses.
One of these is a proposal of Theists. I am asking how you know it to be more than a proposal. That is all.
The other one is a proposal that might be made by some people. So what? It has no bearing on the proposal made by the theists. Their arguments stand and fall on their own merits.
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One of these is a proposal of Theists. I am asking how you know it to be more than a proposal. That is all.
The other one is a proposal that might be made by some people. So what? It has no bearing on the proposal made by the theists. Their arguments stand and fall on their own merits.
Yes but you are reflecting the dishonesty that naturalists aren't in the same boat as theists.
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Vlad,
Yes but you are reflecting the dishonesty that naturalists aren't in the same boat as theists.
There is no dishonesty about that. They're not even in the same ocean.
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Yes but you are reflecting the dishonesty that naturalists aren't in the same boat as theists.
What is dishonest about it? I think natural laws do manifest in the universe I am sure we both agree. I don't say that supernatural ones don't. That no one who proposes supernatural laws/effects has ever been able to demonstrate they do is not my problem.
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Vlad,
There is no dishonesty about that. They're not even in the same ocean.
How so?
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Vlad,
How so?
For the reason I've set out for you many times and you've just ignored, and that Stephen Law sets out in his essay.
Try dropping the irrelevant and misplaced dust you've thrown at it and just read the damned argument willya?
Are the "the lift is safer-ists" and the "the 20th floor window is safer-ists" in the same boat too?
When you can grasp why they're not, then perhaps you'll grasp why theists and naturalists aren't in the same boat either.
Or even in the same ocean.
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Vlad,
For the reason I've set out for you many times and you've just ignored, and that Stephen Law sets out in his essay.
Try dropping the irrelevant and misplaced dust you've thrown at it and just read the damned argument willya?
Are the "the lift is safer-ists" and the "the 20th floor window is safer-ists" in the same boat too?
When you can grasp why they're not, then perhaps you'll grasp why theists and naturalists aren't in the same boat either.
Or even in the same ocean.
Sheer Bulverism. Forgive me for not playing for a bit unfortunately according to my diary I'm watching TV tonight.
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Vlad,
Evasion noted.
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Vlad,
Still you don't understand "null hypothesis", and it's only an "alternative hypothesis" if you think that turtles all the way down is an alternative hypothesis too and for that matter that "y778537t4a7" is an alternative hypothesis.
You've given yourself bigger problems too: that the universe must have been "created" at all is a conjecture,
But the idea that the universe ''just is without creation'' is also conjecture.
If you are arguing ''but we know the universe is'' then I have to ask who are you arguing with because there is no dispute.
It does of course underline one of the basic problems with Laws ''Going Nuclear''. Nobody is arguing against him that, say, a dogmatic flat earther resorts to ''anything is possible and anyway, all our basic premises on what it's all about look like mere punting'.......' but to throw that shit at others who do not share your philosophy in the hope that some of it will stick is not worthy of a Heythrop professor of philosophy.
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What is dishonest about it? I think natural laws do manifest in the universe I am sure we both agree. I don't say that supernatural ones don't. That no one who proposes supernatural laws/effects has ever been able to demonstrate they do is not my problem.
Stephen
I am a methodological naturalist but I am not a philosophical naturalist.
If you are like me then we are not really arguing with each other.
If you are a philosophical naturalist then methodological naturalism provides no evidence for that philosophy.
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Vlad,
Are the "the lift is safer-ists" and the "the 20th floor window is safer-ists" in the same boat too?
What do you think this has to do with methodological naturalist evidence for philosophical naturalism being commensurate for any other philosophy which seeks to explain the nature and providence of the universe?
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Vlad,
But the idea that the universe ''just is without creation'' is also conjecture.
Yes it is, but the point was that that conjecture needs to be demonstrated before we engage with conjectures about how that "creation" happened. "God", "the man in the moon", "leprechauns" or an as yet not understood natural process etc are all for this purpose second order issues. If you want to confine your ambition to a deistic (rather than theistic) god only as a conjecture for which there's no evidence whatever then not many would argue with that. As Einstein said, "what you call "God" is what I call "the Universe".
If you are arguing ''but we know the universe is'' then I have to ask who are you arguing with because there is no dispute.
I'm not.
It does of course underline one of the basic problems with Laws ''Going Nuclear''. Nobody is arguing against him that, say, a dogmatic flat earther resorts to ''anything is possible and anyway, all our basic premises on what it's all about look like mere punting'.......' but to throw that shit at others who do not share your philosophy in the hope that some of it will stick is not worthy of a Heythrop professor of philosophy.
Your problem here is that "that shit" is exactly what you've attempted. You seem to think that "God" and "theology" should be given some special respect and privileged status by right over, say, "pixies" and "just guessing". You remind me of an Intelligence Squared debate when an exasperated Bishop said, "we're not talking about the Melanesian Tree Frog god here you know" only to be met with shouts of "why not"?
Epistemologically, your "God" is the flat earth, and your "theology" is flat earth-ism. Until you finally grasp that and figure out a way to engage with it then your going nuclear attempt will continue to fail for the same reason that it fails for the flat earther.
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Stephen,
Stephen
I am a methodological naturalist but I am not a philosophical naturalist.
If you are like me then we are not really arguing with each other.
If you are a philosophical naturalist then methodological naturalism provides no evidence for that philosophy.
Just to give you a heads up, Vlad either doesn't understand the term "philosophical naturalist" or he deliberately lies about it to suit his purpose. He needs it to mean "the material is all there is or can be" to suit his purpose, rather than its actual meaning of "the material is all we know of that's reliably accessible and investigable."
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Vlad,
What do you think this has to do with methodological naturalist evidence for philosophical naturalism being commensurate for any other philosophy which seeks to explain the nature and providence of the universe?
This is just alphabet soup, and will continue to be until and unless you finally sort out what these terms actually mean.
I've corrected you on it many times, and you've either ignored or lied about the corrections. I'm not doing it again - just look up any of the various times it's happened. In the meantime though, all you have is gibberish.
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Stephen,
Just to give you a heads up, Vlad either doesn't understand the term "philosophical naturalist" or he deliberately lies about it to suit his purpose. He needs it to mean "the material is all there is or can be" to suit his purpose, rather than its actual meaning of "the material is all we know of that's reliably accessible and investigable."
I think Stephen is old enough and ugly enough not to need you as a chaperone.
As I said with you Bulverism rides again.
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Vlad,
This is just alphabet soup, and will continue to be until and unless you finally sort out what these terms actually mean.
I've corrected you on it many times, and you've either ignored or lied about the corrections. I'm not doing it again - just look up any of the various times it's happened. In the meantime though, all you have is gibberish.
sorry for 'commensurate for' read 'commensurate with'.......My Bad.
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Your problem here is that "that shit" is exactly what you've attempted. You seem to think that "God" and "theology" should be given some special respect and privileged status by right over, say, "pixies" and "just guessing".
Oh yes ?....and when was just guessing ever proposed as a cause of the universe.
Mention of pixies is argumentum ad ridiculum....another Laws' error.
All calling God a pixie tells us is that you have chosen to call God a pixie.
Just like what Laws' wishes to get over ...........he thinks new age philosophy is unpicked
(we are never told how) and people who propose something he disagrees with are as dumb as aforementioned new agers who as we know have had their arguments unpicked
...........but Laws' hasn't bothered to tell us how.
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Vlad,
I think Stephen is old enough and ugly enough not to need you as a chaperone.
But he could be forgiven for assuming that when you use a term like "philosophical naturalism" you do so correctly rather than according to your own personal re-definition. It'll save him time if he knows that.
As I said with you Bulverism rides again.
I'll add "bulverism" to the ever-growing list of words you attempt but don't understand then.
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Vlad,
Oh yes ?....and when was just guessing ever proposed as a cause of the universe.
Every time you've asserted "god did it".
Mention of pixies is argumentum ad ridiculum....another Laws' error.
Flat wrong. For epistemological purposes "pixies" is no more and no less ridiculous than "god". When you finally realise that "god" should not have some special, reserved status that differentiates it a priori from pixies (or from any other un-defined, un-argued, un-evidenced conjecture) then finally perhaps you'll comprehend the mountain you've given yourself to climb. And SL makes no error here - or indeed elsewhere in his essay that undoes you.
All calling God a pixie tells us is that you have chosen to call God a pixie.
It would do, yes but no-one has done that. What's actually happened is that the arguments you attempt for "god" have been shown to work just a well for pixies, and so they're probably bad arguments.
Just like what Laws' wishes to get over ...........he thinks new age philosophy is unpicked
(we are never told how) and people who propose something he disagrees with are as dumb as aforementioned new agers who as we know have had their arguments unpicked
Why bother lying again here when you're so easily found out? What he actually does is to explain why the going nuclear argument is a bad one - no more, no less. Why not finally engage with that rather than throw a small army of straw men at it?
...........but Laws' hasn't bothered to tell us how.
Yes he has - precisely so in fact in respect of the argument he confines himself to rebutting.
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Vlad,
Every time you've asserted "god did it".
Flat wrong. For epistemological purposes "pixies" is no more and no less ridiculous than "god".
Total Bollocks.
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It would do, yes but no-one has done that. What's actually happened is that the arguments you attempt for "god" have been shown to work just a well for pixies,
Only with Hillsidian category fuck.
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It would do, yes but no-one has done that. What's actually happened is that the arguments you attempt for "god" have been shown to work just a well for pixies, and so they're probably bad arguments.
The evolution of beings which are physically so like pixies that it would be unreasonable not to identify them such in the universe is a high probability. Also Clarks law indicates a high probability that they have a technology so more advanced than us that it appears as magic.
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Vlad,
Total Bollocks.
Ah, the unedifying sight of a (presumably) grown man spitting the dummy. So now you've capitulated completely would you mind helping stack the chairs and maybe running the hoover over to clear up all those crumbs from the Cheesy Wotsits?
Ta everso - just leave the key under the flowerpot by the front door too would you, there's a good chap.
Only with Hillsidian category fuck.
Oops, and there go the stickle brix too. Fair enough. Maybe one day when you're all grown up you'll finally realise that a category error doesn't mean the analogous subject has to be the same in every respect - just in the relevant one. Thus for example the arguments "you can't disprove god, therefore god is real" and "you can't disprove pixies, therefore pixies are real" are in the same category, even though the characteristics of god and pixies are different.
You've never understood this have you. Ah well.
Oh, and if you could just leave a note cancelling the milk tomorrow that'd be helpful too. Thanks.
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Total Bollocks.
At last, you mention the name of the punk group of which you, I believe, are the lead singer.
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Seb,
At last, you mention the name of the punk group of which you, I believe, are the lead singer.
Vlad and I are thinking of forming a singing duo called The Symbolics.
I'm Sym.
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Vlad,
Oh, and if you could just leave a note cancelling the milk tomorrow that'd be helpful too. Thanks.
What are you going to dunk your rusks in?
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Seb,
Vlad and I are thinking of forming a singing duo called The Symbolics.
I'm Sym.
Nah...... what about you, Seb and I forming a trio called the Mothers of Invention where you could accuse me of invention and I could accuse you of being Mothers.
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Seb,
Vlad and I are thinking of forming a singing duo called The Symbolics.
I'm Sym.
After you split up, you should release an album called Never Mind the Bolics
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Jeremy,
After you split up, you should release an album called Never Mind the Bolics
A great album title and good advice both.