Imo if a theist had a level of intelligence to understand this, he/she would not be a theist. This is obviously not 100% true but I think it would apply to many people.

The atheist debaters like Krauss and Dawkins are speaking at level 10 but their opponent and audience are thinking at level 1 or 2. In the end, nobody learns anything. If any of them (atheist debaters) said that it is not a 100% certainty that humans need water, the theist would think they were mad.

I understand that it is inaccurate to say something with 100% certainty. However you could also say that Dawkins scale of 6.9 out of 7 is inaccurate (or dishonest) because he is assigning a value to an unknown.

In the end theists will continue to donate billions of dollars in the name of something not proven to exist.

Holy ****balls! It's just a silly gambling meme. "Either it will or it won't" Nothing more.

I was just poking fun at him. At any rate, taken as a state of mind ‘certainty’ entails an absence of doubt, so it seems redundant to say “absolute certainty,” since we either have doubt or we don’t.

Speaking of my state of mind, I have no doubt that unicorns and pantheon gods don’t exist, that is, I’m certain they don’t. That’s not to say that I can’t or don’t grant them logical or metaphysical possibility; just that their mere possibility doesn’t impact or influence my state of mind. Maybe scientists don’t think in such a heuristic manner, but more likely is that they’re generally in environments where precision in communication is paramount and they tend to import that precision into areas where it’s not required. So if an atheist really doesn’t doubt the non-existence of God, I don’t have an issue with him saying he’s certain God doesn’t exist, or defining himself as an anti-theist. I think he’s just being honest in regard to his state of mind.

no yes

DS has already answered this but I would point out that the lottery case is not a binary question. The coin case is an example of a binary question and is 50:50.

Some philosophers are trying to grapple with what they see as the underlying issue.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...nd-and-cosmos/
The Core of ‘Mind and Cosmos’ by THOMAS NAGEL
This is a brief statement of positions defended more fully in my book “Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False,”
[snip]
This means that the scientific outlook, if it aspires to a more complete understanding of nature, must expand to include theories capable of explaining the appearance in the universe of mental phenomena and the subjective points of view in which they occur – theories of a different type from any we have seen so far.

That Nagel book is embarrassingly bad.

No, it hasn't. The probability of there being a human species who is forever incapable of determining the naturalistic explanation for these three things has increased for the time being. (Consciousness probably doesn't deserve to be lumped in with the other two here, because it would seem to be much more easily solvable than the other two)

There's no definition/an infinite number of definitions of god, therefore the entire conversation is a non-starter. I'm with Piers on that.

The premise is certainly embarrassingly bad...I know nothing (nor do I care to know) about what arguments he attempted to mount in defense of an indefensible premise

People (atheists, mostly) who assign arbitrary percentages to their confidence in their lack of belief in god are giving far too much credence to the old "you can't prove a negative" truism. Incidentally, Dawkins' "6.9 out of 7" is leaving a margin of error greater than 1%, which is much much higher than the typical .00000000001% one typically encounters in the context of these discussions. Anyway, these "estimates" are all equally meaningless. "You can't prove a negative" is entirely contingent on definitions. There are negatives that can be proved. There are negatives that can't be proved. And then there are negatives that aren't even compatible with logical discourse and empirical inquiry (which in my view makes them not even a "negative", given that a "negative" assumes a comprehensible definition of the thing being rejected).

Taking any position on god is like dividing by zero...

Basically, in order to have ANY idea of what we might be talking about, we'd have to first solve Sklansky's mentioned three major unsolved problems, as well as everything else that remains uncertain (to the extent that solutions are possible...theoretically there should be a way of at least minimizing the built-in uncertainties that exist today). See where we stand then (collectively insane, most likely). Other unintended answers would reveal themselves in the course of progressing regarding the intended targets, as they always do.

Then at the juncture of somehow understanding everything about the universe/multiverse (which, even if theoretically feasible (extremely unlikely) will most likely forever remain hypothetical, as I can't see humans getting there without first experiencing extinction in this, the most daring and unprecedented Promethean expedition yet), we can listen to latter-day Sklanskys saying "well, the probability of a god who wanted us to first figure out every aspect of His creation before He then chose to reveal Himself has just increased...slightly."

(2078.6) 195:7.3 The inconsistency of the modern mechanist is: If this were merely a material universe and man only a machine, such a man would be wholly unable to recognize himself as such a machine, and likewise would such a machine-man be wholly unconscious of the fact of the existence of such a material universe. The materialistic dismay and despair of a mechanistic science has failed to recognize the fact of the spirit-indwelt mind of the scientist whose very supermaterial insight formulates these mistaken and self-contradictory concepts of a materialistic universe.

(2079.6) 195:7.11 If the universe were only material and man only a machine, there would be no science to embolden the scientist to postulate this mechanization of the universe. Machines cannot measure, classify, nor evaluate themselves. Such a scientific piece of work could be executed only by some entity of supermachine status.

(2079.7) 195:7.12 If universe reality is only one vast machine, then man must be outside of the universe and apart from it in order to recognize such a fact and become conscious of the insight of such an evaluation.

(2079.8) 195:7.13 If man is only a machine, by what technique does this man come to believe or claim to know that he is only a machine? The experience of self-conscious evaluation of one’s self is never an attribute of a mere machine. A self-conscious and avowed mechanist is the best possible answer to mechanism. If materialism were a fact, there could be no self-conscious mechanist.

(2079.9) 195:7.14 The very claim of materialism implies a supermaterial consciousness of the mind which presumes to assert such dogmas. A mechanism might deteriorate, but it could never progress. Machines do not think, create, dream, aspire, idealize, hunger for truth, or thirst for righteousness. They do not motivate their lives with the passion to serve other machines and to choose as their goal of eternal progression the sublime task of finding God and striving to be like him. Machines are never intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, moral, or spiritual.

****, I somehow lost a great post. I guess I'm crossing that magic .07% BAC cognitive peak-threshold to where the clumsiness is now eclipsing the profundity. I don't think I'll attempt to rehash it. Luckily I think post #60 was decent enough in its own right.

yawn

I don't know if you're a Splendour-esque troll or not. I also don't know what the source of these 2079.X's is. Is it Nagel or something? All these things states are empty assertions that seem to rest on the assumption that man can be proved not to be a mere biological machine (but a RIDICULOUSLY complex one) by saying it's so. The major conundrum, from the perspective of attempting to maximize one's knowledge and awareness, is that every human can be demonstrated to rely to some extent on self-deceit for survival. Anything that's (directly or indirectly) an aphrodisiac is to some extent illusory...so given the fabric of life we can be sure that irrationality will exist as long as we do. This fact does not mesh well with the desire to understand the universe....

I don't think advanced is the right word. Complicated seems more appropriate. Here's why...

You could argue that intelligence is produced by evolutionary causes. Different levels of intelligence are quite common among the animal kingdom. You could also argue that self consciousness is a level of intelligence, albeit a very complicated form. One that has occurred just once in 4.5 billion years. Nevertheless, it is perfectly logical. At least it seems so to me.

I am not as awestruck by self consciousness as many seem to be. We have big brains that outgrew our basic survival needs on the ancestral plains. It seems natural that that we contemplate things like existence, art, and meaning, with leftover intelligence after basic needs are taken care of.

To OP: What's wrong with saying, I don't believe in gods, I don't think god exists, or I don't think there is a god? Why do do I have to specifically make the claim that god doesn't exist?

It may seem like splitting hairs, but if you make a claim you should be able to back it up. I cannot back up the claim that god does not exist. But I have no problem being opinionated on the matter.

No, that's not what's going on here. RLK is stating that for an unknown binary outcome, the probability is 50/50 *because* the observer does not have sufficient info to differentiate the 2 outcomes.
What I asked was why would you not consider the probability to be unknown, since...it is unknown?

Because this could just be RLK's intuitive position that is at odds with my intuition, I asked (repetitively now) if there was some other resource I could look at, since my brief searching has not confirmed RLK's position, only my own. I'm not particularly satisfied with these result though. If RLK is disinterested in helping, I'd be happy to be pointed at some resource by anyone.


See also this thread:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...y-god-1231509/

I am traveling with only limited Internet access. I will not be able to engage on this in any detail for a few days.

Consciousness is not just higher intelligence. Computers don't dream.

If they theoretically can be made conscious, won't this just imply some reusable code to make the dreaming version?

Its all basically the same thing.

If you can’t explain why organisms with little brains aren’t self-conscious, then you can’t explain why organisms with big brains are self-conscious. Asserting that those with little brains aren’t and those with big brains are, isn’t an explanation; it’s an observation.

To offer a scientific explanation for some phenomenon you need to do more than just tell us it occurs "when and if"; you need to tell us how it occurs. For example, even if we could build a computer as complex as the human brain, and even if we had good reason to suspect it is self-consciousness, that still wouldn’t suffice as an explanation for self-consciousness, since we don’t know how it occurred. It’s like saying babies are produced by intercourse: unless you tell us how babies are produced by intercourse, you're just making an observation.

The statements "God exists" and "God does not exist" have different ontologies, and to compare the two is not to compare like with like. The first cannot be falsified and so is unscientific. The second (ignoring reservations about the definition of "God") can, in principle, be falsified and so is scientific.

At least, according to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

Grunching. The hypothetical exchange in the OP could be changed as follows:

btw, that last line? What great logic that is: Not being able to prove something doesn't exist proves that it does exist.

there is a chance God exist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



we can call these kind of chances desperation chance n let them fool anyone they want to be fooled