Res Ipsa wrote:Thor is a process that occurs in human brains. That a process in the human brain can affect other processes in the human brain is neither magical nor mysterious. We give labels to these processes like Thor, Santa, and God and treat them as if the labels are real things, equating them to my coffee table, which exists regardless of brain processes. Confusing the two is not some deep insight. It’s just confusion.
Hey Res. I should say I don't really agree with this, either, to be fair. I don't think it's exactly correct to claim Thor or some other definition is a process in our brains in a way that "coffee table" isn't. I would argue the difference is how we develop the understanding of what it means for something to be a coffee table compared to something to be Thor. I can learn about coffee tables by running across one and observing it with no direct human explanation or even really needing to observe people using one. I can't do that with the concept of Thor. It takes people to tell us about Thor, associate this concept with other concepts and sensory stimuli, etc., for us to develop a generally comparable understanding of what the concept of Thor might be that we can then share and derive cultural benefits from if that were our thing. It becomes a mental process only when certain mental processes are stimulated by sensory inputs that trigger "Thor" or "coffee table". What happens in our brains with the two is much more similar, which provides folks like SPG the basis for the woo-woo of the Deepak variety: "Eternal stillness co creates unbridled balance" . That was what the internet gave me to enlighten my mind when I clicked here: http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/
Simply put, the woo-woo comes from real issues with the mind and how we create reality through those processes but then confuse this with the different means of informing those processes. in my opinion, anyway.
Thanks, Honor. Actually we agree. You just expressed more clearly and elegantly than I did.
Not the first time and it won’t be the last.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
SPG, if you can’t know that you you are looking at a dog, how in the world can you know your self? How can you know that there is a self to know? After all, the brain constructs the self out of the same kinds of chemical and electrical signals out of which it constructs the dog.
Perhaps the Deus ex Machina of special pleading?
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Res Ipsa wrote:SPG, if you can’t know that you you are looking at a dog, how in the world can you know your self? How can you know that there is a self to know? After all, the brain constructs the self out of the same kinds of chemical and electrical signals out of which it constructs the dog.
Perhaps the Deus ex Machina of special pleading?
Maybe, but unexpected solution in this case is merely ignorance the most observe aspect of the seeing and that is history we have with dogs. What we see as dog is the results of 50,000 years of intense relationship. Even so, we all see the dog differently. A friend to one, a monster to another. Is the dog really a monster or is that just my interpretation? The dog has its own mental processes going on, but who you are to it, is really up to it and something you can't directly control.
Last edited by Guest on Fri Mar 29, 2019 6:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Res Ipsa wrote:SPG, if you can’t know that you you are looking at a dog, how in the world can you know your self? How can you know that there is a self to know? After all, the brain constructs the self out of the same kinds of chemical and electrical signals out of which it constructs the dog.
Perhaps the Deus ex Machina of special pleading?
Maybe, but unexpected solution in this case is merely ignorance the most observe aspect of the seeing and that is history we have with dogs. What we see as dog has results of 50,000 years of intense relationship. Even so, we all see the dog differently. A friend to one, a monster to another. Is the dog really a monster or is that just my interpretation? The dog has its own mental processes going on, but who you are to it, is really up to it and something you can directly control.
So, special pleading it is.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
But this is where I take exception to the so called fallacies.
Why is adding meta data to an object not a valid solution. We do it all the time. Like gold. Until the discovery of electricity it had very little practical use. But we called it "valuable" and suddenly it's a solution.
To nature or other life forms, gold is completely worthless. But we give it special pleading. We make it something it isn't.
I don't like that someone gets to define what something is and anything else is fallacy. Well, in truth, they can't but they try.
I'm trying to understand this thread. SPG, what is it that you're driving at? You seem to be posting contradicting statements.
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
honorentheos wrote:Historians have made strong arguments that the rise of Christianity in Roman and it's spread throughout Europe had a decaying effect rather than expansive effect. The renaissance is what it is in large measure for the accompanying enlightenment that involved coming up out of the smothering influence of extreme God-belief.
This was another bad argument that a little bit of rigor and inquiry would have helped prevent.
I'm not sure how the power of Christian religion vs Chinese religion applies to this. I agree that the Chinese have been the cultural and political power for the dominate part of human history.
But we have been talking about "influence" of Gods. Christians are really just pagans that wanted in on the promise of the Hebrew god. We were to be adopted in because salvation was based on being of the seed of Abraham.
The Chinese had gods of their own. They have Buddhism, but they came only 500 before Christ. They were great in their own way, but they also suffered from, and still suffer from, major political corruption.
The Chinese gods were more about power, blessings, ideals. The Christian god was largely about guilt and the management of it.
In the End, it was European Christians that influenced much of the modern world. Are we better, or are our gods stronger? The Chinese people are stronger in many ways, but we still dominate.
You miss the point. You have presented zero evidence that the Gods folks worshipped had any causal relationship with the "strength" of their culture, whatever that means.
You know, when presented with facts that you find inconvenient to your point of view, you go all postmodern, claiming facts are made up stories. But you turn right around and try to support your position with ..... facts. At least what you claim are facts. You make these sweeping statements about the nature of reality, but your own words show that you don't really believe them.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
But this is where I take exception to the so called fallacies.
Why is adding meta data to an object not a valid solution. We do it all the time. Like gold. Until the discovery of electricity it had very little practical use. But we called it "valuable" and suddenly it's a solution.
To nature or other life forms, gold is completely worthless. But we give it special pleading. We make it something it isn't.
I don't like that someone gets to define what something is and anything else is fallacy. Well, in truth, they can't but they try.
Well, of course you take exception. That's the whole point: you are smarter than people who study things like logic and argumentation. In fact, you discard any school of thought that you find inconvenient. At least you properly recognize what you do as arrogant.
And out of that arrogance flows an ignorance of why we label something as a fallacy. That gold has a value to humans but gold has no value to a fern has zero to do with special pleading. Special pleading is asserting a general rule and then asserting the opposite for a specific case without justification. But you think it's okay to reason this way because you know better and otherwise it makes you feel bad.
With a wave of a hand you declare the entire universe is unknowable, and with a wave of the other hand declare that you are knowable to yourself. No attempt at any sort of principled explanation. No evidence. You just declare one thing and then a completely inconsistent other thing, then merrily bound off to talking about gold and electricity.
What you like and don't like has no relevance to what constitutes good reasoning.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Res Ipsa wrote:With a wave of a hand you declare the entire universe is unknowable, and with a wave of the other hand declare that you are knowable to yourself.
What you like and don't like has no relevance to what constitutes good reasoning.
Welllll, I don't know if I exerted so much effort as to wave my hand. And while I am super arrogant, I would not waste such arrogance on rejecting someone else's reasoning. It is not that I think I am smarter or have better reasoning skills.
This is a matter of defiance. I see a different way and I will not submit to the groupthink and the sheep mentality the masses.
I do make a claim, with my arrogance. I have seen death, been there on the other side. The world is not as it seems. There is life, stuff, on the inside. There is stuff, that logic doesn't see or explain. It takes consciousness outside of logic to see the deeper layers of reality.
