Meeting with Bishop: Faith is a Choice

[_Themis]

Certainly not irrelevant to the puruit of Truth

Truth is only about propositions.

Wrong. It is argued consistently on this board that if one can not empirically support a position then that position should be discounted.

You have been given evidence. That you don't want to accept ANYTHING as evidence in order to keep claiming some victory is your problem. Prove me wrong by telling us what you would accept as evidence.

Wrong. It is unreasonable to maintain that we have access to all of reality based on our perceptions or experiences alone. You've been unable to show otherwise, thus my position remains unchallenged.

Oh now it's ALL reality. Another argument no one is making. Keep it it hoops. :)

I've made my position clear several times. I will answer HEO shortly.

Themis

You want the spiritual to be on the same level, but it is not,

Hoops

fI've offered no such conclusion.

This came later supporting what I had already figured out

My position is this: Empiricists have no more access to what is real than spiritualists.

This is why you don't want to accept all the evidence presented as evidence, since it will undermine your position. You also have never really defined what you think spiritualism is. Another dodge.

[_Chap]

...

Kindly state your position on the epistemology of color vision clearly and unambiguously. That implies saying clearly and fully what the situation you are envisaging is, and then saying something definite about it. That you have so far failed to do.

Having got what appears to be a choice of answers to my request, I suppose it would be discourteous not to comment on them.

1.

Sure. I'm not talking about arbitrarily defining something as blue. We've identified the wavelengths that we perceive to be blue. But those wavelengths - or whatever causes our perciption to register as blue - do [Chap: 'not' omitted here?] necessarily equate to being blue. Is the cup blue independent of our perception of it? How do you know?

I can't make much sense of this. Is it a demand for a meaning for the claim 'that cup is blue' that means neither:
'that cup is reported to look blue by people with normal eyes viewing it under white light illumination'
nor
that cup 'preferentially reflects a certain range of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation'? See comments below.

2.

I'll try another way: the only way you can perceive a blue cup is with your internal mechanisms that tell you it's blue. Because all of us perceive the cup is blue does not mean it is in reality blue because we all have the same mechanism by which we interact with this thing. Until we can independently confirm this thing is blue, our seeing it as blue is meaningless.

Here we seem to be faced with the concept of 'being really blue'. In Hoops' view, it is apparently possible for an object not to be 'really blue' despite being perceived by 'all of us' as blue.

Now this would be meaningful if the universal perception of the object as blue is simply the result of it being illuminated in non-white light at the time it is viewed, and we define the 'real' color of an object is the color perceived when it is illuminated in white light - which is the way people do normally talk. If an object was 'really' white in that sense, and it was illuminated in blue light only, it would be perceived as blue by all viewing it.

But I don't think that is what Hoops means. She seems to think that there is some sense in which an object which does not come up as 'blue' however we evaluate its color is none the less 'really' blue. However, she fails to give us any idea what this could mean.

3.

Another: we all see the same way. We all internalize or perceive things using the same mechanisms. So of course we will come to the same conclusions. But employing these mechanisms do not necessarily mean we have access to all of reality. It's illogical to assume that we do.

I don't think any sane person would make the claim to 'have access to all of reality'. I don't think I have made that claim. I don't think any professional scientist would make that claim in a paper they hoped to get accepted by a refereed publication. I don't see what relevance this complaint by Hoops has to the discussion.

4.

Another: I'm not proposing anything yet. I'm simply stating that -- because you call something blue and the evidence you use to support this argument tells all of us that it is blue does not make it blue. The cup may indeed by yellow, but your mechanism tells you it's blue because of its wavelengths and the way these interact/or act upon your internal mechanism by which you determine blue-ness. Until you can independently determine that it is blue - independent of your mechanisms acting upon it - then you have no logical reason to assume it is blue.

Once more we meet the apparent concept of something 'really' having a particular color, despite that color being undetectable. The demand implicit in the phrase I have italicized seems to be that we should determine what color something is without interacting with it in any way.

There may be many ways to make sense of that demand, but the only one I can think of would be if one received a divine revelation of its color from a deity who says, in effect 'It's blue. Trust me on this one, I know, because I made it that way, even though I also made it blue in a way that none of you will ever be able to detect.'

Can Hoops give an alternative meaning to her claim?

[_Hoops]

Truth is only about propositions.

Hmmmmm.... support this please.

You have been given evidence. That you don't want to accept ANYTHING as evidence in order to keep claiming some victory is your problem. Prove me wrong by telling us what you would accept as evidence.

Prove that you have given me ANY evidence of reality that external to yourself.

Oh now it's ALL reality. Another argument no one is making. Keep it it hoops. :)

K. "Reality". What is real. That things exist apart from our experience.

This came later supporting what I had already figured out

Please cite the relevant post.

This is why you don't want to accept all the evidence presented as evidence, since it will undermine your position. You also have never really defined what you think spiritualism is. Another dodge.

If you can't see that the evidence that has been presented does no such thing as supporting the idea that we have access to reality outside ourselves, then I can't help you. It's not that tough, so I can only presume that you choose to not see it.

[_Themis]

Hmmmmm.... support this please.

Propositions are either true or false. God exists is a proposition that is either true or false. That's it. If you think otherwise I am willing to listen to other ideas of what truth can be.

Prove that you have given me ANY evidence of reality that external to yourself.

I already said you won't accept anything as evidence. Unless you are willing to say what you would accept as evidence, you are just playing stupid as some dumb way you think you can win a debate. If you want a discussion in which people can learn from each other then put up or shut up. :)

K. "Reality". What is real. That things exist apart from our experience.

I am not going to keep repeating what I have already said, and I have never said we can know absolutely, which is really what you are arguing in order to try and win some supposed debate.

Please cite the relevant post.

http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21305&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=189

If you can't see that the evidence that has been presented does no such thing as supporting the idea that we have access to reality outside ourselves, then I can't help you. It's not that tough, so I can only presume that you choose to not see it.

You are correct that you choose not to see it because it undermines your position, and it's obvious you won't accept anything as evidence or you would at least say what you would accept. Good luck with those blinders.

[_Hoops]

Propositions are either true or false. God exists is a proposition that is either true or false. That's it. If you think otherwise I am willing to listen to other ideas of what truth can be.

I agree.

I already said you won't accept anything as evidence. Unless you are willing to say what you would accept as evidence, you are just playing stupid as some dumb way you think you can win a debate. If you want a discussion in which people can learn from each other then put up or shut up. :)

I see. So your position is that you presume that I won't accept any evidence, so you won't offer any? Even though I've repeatedly written that I will take ANY evidence that does not rely on your experience? Okay. I can't argue with that.

I am not going to keep repeating what I have already said, and I have never said we can know absolutely, which is really what you are arguing in order to try and win some supposed debate.

Then what are you saying? so far all you've offered is some nebulous treatise about "things working". Which I've shown you is meaningless.

You are correct that you choose not to see it because it undermines your position,

What position?

and it's obvious you won't accept anything as evidence or you would at least say what you would accept. Good luck with those blinders.

Try offering some and let's see.

[_Buffalo]

[_Themis]

I see. So your position is that you presume that I won't accept any evidence, so you won't offer any? Even though I've repeatedly written that I will take ANY evidence that does not rely on your experience? Okay. I can't argue with that.

No, my position is that evidence has already been given, which you already know. You just won't accept anything as evidence, which is why you are continuing to avoid what you would consider to be evidence.

Then what are you saying? so far all you've offered is some nebulous treatise about "things working". Which I've shown you is meaningless.

You haven't shown anything yet. Not meaningless at all. It shows why the 5 senses fair better then any spiritual sense. A discussion you so far want to avoid.

What position?

Playing dumb again. I already quoted it. Again I think you are being dishonest again.

Try offering some and let's see.

Already did, and I am not going to repeat anything for you until you start being honest and tell us what you would accept as evidence.

[_Buffalo]

I'm sure Hoops his having a laugh with his Jesus troll, but the thread comes entirely at the expense of his own credibility.

[_Hoops]

No, my position is that evidence has already been given, which you already know. You just won't accept anything as evidence, which is why you are continuing to avoid what you would consider to be evidence.

Funny thing about evidence... it actually has to refute or support a claim. Yours, apparently, supports your position that does not address my question.

You haven't shown anything yet. Not meaningless at all. It shows why the 5 senses fair better then any spiritual sense. A discussion you so far want to avoid.

Far better for WHAT!!
You just keep repeating that the five senses are far better than spiritual sense but you never say for what. Oh, you have some odd mantra about "things work better", but that isn't the question. I'll ask it one more time: what evidence do you have that your five senses are representative of actual reality? It's that simple. Either give me some evidence that addresses that specific, narrow question - or admit that you have none.

Playing dumb again. I already quoted it. Again I think you are being dishonest again.

Of course you do.

Already did, and I am not going to repeat anything for you until you start being honest and tell us what you would accept as evidence.

You have offered no evidence to show that your five sense give you access to reality. I'm not going to do your work for you. You are the one making the claim that your empiricism gives you some insight to reality, though it's difficult to understand what you're claim is, since you don't address the problem. And if that's not your claim, then what are you arguing? You seem to want to argue that appealing to our senses makes/ allows us to give our existence some order.If so, who is disagreeing with that? But the order or integrity of our societies is not the question. The question is ... well I've written it dozens of times. If you can't see the logical incoherence of your position after all this time, I don't know what to tell you. It's obvious to me. It should be to you as well.

[_Hoops]

I'm sure Hoops his having a laugh with his Jesus troll, but the thread comes entirely at the expense of his own credibility.

Says the guys doesn't have the guts to get involved. You watched from the sidelines a lot didn't you?