701. Fleabytes

Comment #137862 by Quine on March 3, 2008 at 2:35 pm

kaiserkriss, Sounds like straight-up theology to me. Also remember that both Hitler and Stalin supported this round earth 'theory' in their plans for 'global' domination.

702. Fleabytes

Comment #137721 by Quine on March 3, 2008 at 11:56 am

Steve, I do agree with your observation; my point is that the debate format goes against the rationalists because it, supposedly, excludes the introduction of irrational arguments, and yet, that is exactly what the whole theist side is going to be. I think we get our best mileage in print, presentation, and interview (backed up by satire, of course).

703. Fleabytes

Comment #137700 by Quine on March 3, 2008 at 11:13 am

It is interesting to contrast the public 'debates' over religion we saw last year with the political events we see today. When political candidates get up and do this they are using the same kind of language and tricks on each other, and understand the way it works. The public, more or less, does also and uses this knowledge for at least some of the evaluation.

However, when the subject is religion, something else is happening. The rationalist side gets up and starts talking about reasonable conclusions drawn from verifiable evidence, and then the religious side gets up and makes faithiness noises while radiating a glow of beatific wholesomeness. These ships are so far off the same latitude that they do not even see each other as they pass in the night. The public splits into the small fraction who are practiced at logical thought and the, much larger, portion who (as if listening to pop songs in dead languages) like the musical sound of the faithiness noises.

704. Fleabytes

Comment #137185 by Quine on March 2, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Here is a big "THANK YOU" going out from me to all my pre-sentient ancestors, who weren't smart enough to realize their lives were pointless. Couldn'ta done it without you!!!

[P.S. That goes for everything/one they ate as well.]

705. Fleabytes

Comment #137082 by Quine on March 2, 2008 at 10:26 am

Sorry, but that last part seemed like mockery.

Didn't sound like mockery to me, else I or someone from the Zombie Anti-Defamation League would have objected. It is not so easy going along without an inner life, even when the illusion of having one is so strong and readily available.

706. Fleabytes

Comment #136881 by Quine on March 1, 2008 at 11:36 pm

In the general case, eliminative materialism is about taking out something it looked like we needed in an explanation, when that thing is not actually needed. As an example, before Newton it was suggested that the planets went around the sun in their orbits because angels were assigned the duty of pushing them around. Also, many forms of mental illness were attributed to the action of evil spirits taking up residence in someone's head. Both of these causes are no longer felt to be needed.

It has been going on for a long time, but has not been called this until recently when it is mostly (but not exclusively) used to refer to the idea that mental states aren't any more real than those evil spirits, even though people usually report experiencing them. (The notion that you are not really having the mental states that you experience having is, by its very nature, massively counterintuitive, so I can't help you on that part.)

[Edit: There is a great moment in the movie TRON when Flynn gets embodied as computer code, and looks around and says, "This isn't happening, it just thinks it's happening."]

707. Fleabytes

Comment #136729 by Quine on March 1, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Sorry, mikejswalker, but in less than 10 posts the folks watching the debate will say "that's not my God they are talking about" because their idea of a deity would not, logically, withstand MPhil's first post.

708. Fleabytes

Comment #136705 by Quine on March 1, 2008 at 3:36 pm

Brian, do you count self delusion as lies?

Part of basic human nature, when faced with the negation of a treasured belief, is to add complexity and obfuscation until it is no longer clear why it is bogus, even to you (and thus, not lost). Whereas, scientists have to fight against this all the time to make valid progress, theologians use it to stay in business. (Or as Dennett says "take in each other's wash.")

709. Fleabytes

Comment #136692 by Quine on March 1, 2008 at 3:13 pm

Yes, there are going to be exchanges, but generally not on these basic ontological points (theology from so called first principals) which have been put to bed or are (drum roll here) waiting for evidence.

As for "taking them on," sure, from time to time, you just can no longer suffer fools gladly, and have to let them have it. If you know of any theological tract of the last half of the 20th century that had any hope of standing on logical legs, I would like to hear about it.

710. Fleabytes

Comment #136680 by Quine on March 1, 2008 at 2:51 pm

Thanks MPhil. Philosophers stopped debating theologians well over a hundred years ago because it is like asking mathematicians to debate some cult members who "just know" 2 plus 2 = 5. But, somehow, the public seems to buy the idea that unless we get up every day and tell them that 2 plus 2 = 4, we must really know it doesn't and are hiding that fact from them.

711. Fleabytes

Comment #136656 by Quine on March 1, 2008 at 2:23 pm

I am going to have to hold myself out of this one, as I have been criticized so often for dismissing Buffyology without having studied it.

712. Fleabytes

Comment #136555 by Quine on March 1, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Incidentally, with regards to charity in general I notice that there are two types of people.

I am not the type of person to divide the world into two types of people; I leave that to the other type.

713. Fleabytes

Comment #136495 by Quine on March 1, 2008 at 10:35 am

clearthinker

I am only interested in Jesus Christ - to coin a phrase - he is my magnificent obcession.

Were you actually coining here, or just referencing Lloyd C. Douglas?

714. Fleabytes

Comment #136214 by Quine on February 29, 2008 at 2:24 pm

I am beginning to get annoyed at this site, as it is using up so much of my credit cards on Amazon.

Good idea to go get a couple of new bookshelves now so you will not have to try to put them in after the place is stacked up. I am enjoying the relatively new one from Dennett, Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness in which he updates many of the key arguments of the last ten years.

715. Fleabytes

Comment #136026 by Quine on February 29, 2008 at 12:28 pm

I have noticed that people seem to be drawn to a deity that can be made the designated smiter of those you were not able to get even with in this life. A difficult step for many believers to "get over" is that those who got a much better deal in life (or took 'unfair' advantage of you), are not, somehow, going to have to pay for it after death.

716. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #135308 by Quine on February 28, 2008 at 8:02 pm

Section 9 has you after the Puppetmaster?

Perhaps Aramaki assigned him to 'dive' the RD site.

717. Taking evidence seriously

Comment #135127 by Quine on February 28, 2008 at 2:55 pm

"I ordered your product to help treat a mild cold that I was experiencing and that evening I began to feel much better. By the time your product arrived I was nearly fully cured. I cannot recommend this enough, thank you FairDeal Homeopathy."

Thank you, ianmkz

718. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #134509 by Quine on February 27, 2008 at 11:12 pm

I always want to ask these guys how many lives would have been saved if only Stalin had been a worshiper of Baal instead of being an Atheist?

719. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133210 by Quine on February 25, 2008 at 9:25 pm

Thanks pkruger, I figured they would not hold still for another one from me.

720. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133101 by Quine on February 25, 2008 at 3:45 pm

My question is, do you think the gospel writers, Matthew and Luke, were lying -- intentionally trying to deceive people?

No. They were writing down what was an oral tradition by that time, an oral tradition that had already mutated past historical objectivity.

I suggest reading Bart D. Ehrman's excellent textbook on the history of the New Testament.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/0195322592

For the "natural law" issues, start by reading Matt Ridley:
http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Virtue-Instincts-Evolution-Cooperation/dp/0140264450
It's older, but an easy start. You can read the recent stuff after that.

Or, you can just wait for Steve to Socratic Method you into a helpless corner.

721. A match made on RichardDawkins.net?

Comment #132521 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 11:10 pm

Congrats V&Y!!!!

Best wishes for happiness to you both. Good work, Josh.

-Q

722. Evidence can't shake your faith if your faith excludes it as evidence

Comment #132467 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 7:37 pm

Okay, I will just pick one of so many. His foundational quote is:

"No believer will find his faith shaken by evidence that is evidence only in the light of assumptions he does not share and considers flatly wrong."

As counterexamples to this we have many testimonials from former believers who heard evidence (from Prof. Dawkins and others) that they considered flatly wrong, but subsequently thought it over and had the scales fall from their eyes. There is a wonderful part in the PBS Evolution series where students from a Christian College are taken out to a dig where they can see the fossils coming out of the ground. The expression on the face of one of the students when she realizes that the paleontology grad students (digging this big hole around her with paint brushes) are neither devils nor liars, is priceless.

Edit: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/ (see last part titled: "Religion")

723. Evidence can't shake your faith if your faith excludes it as evidence

Comment #132440 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 6:48 pm

A giant pile of nits; if I started picking these off, when would I ever stop?

724. Physicist Neil Turok: Big Bang Wasn't the Beginning

Comment #132284 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 2:50 pm

Quine,

Stop the pedantic nitpicking, would you?

It's a dirty job; but somebody has to do it.

--this may actually be a health hazard because it may lead to beating in some circles

Good thing I am, also, a martial arts instructor.

725. Physicist Neil Turok: Big Bang Wasn't the Beginning

Comment #132271 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 2:32 pm

However, I feel that the main role for these scenarios of the early universe is to stimulate our thinking. I don't necessarily believe any of them. The most important thing is that the only intellectually honest way to study such questions of cosmology is to make the most precise model you can. I think of the whole thing as a giant intellectual exercise, a stimulating exercise, to make us better appreciate the universe.

I am, actually, rather glad to hear this part. One of the problems I have with all the speculation about the very early Universe is that it relies (necessarily) on the assumption that energy/matter and space/time interacted then as we see now (or can see near then by looking far away). In and of itself, that is not too much of a stretch, except that at very close to time zero we are out of fossil picture (background microwave) and just have to keep extrapolating physical laws that have not been tested at the energy levels or space/time curvature the math goes up to. Physicists recognize that they have a problem when the values go to infinity, but really don't know at what point they are in trouble on the approach.

This kind of thing has happened throughout the history of science. A good example is the problem with the precession of the orbit of the planet Mercury, which showed that Newton's gravity law (which worked so very well everywhere else) was not always true. It turned out that close to the sun the curvature of space/time was just enough to cause a difference that made a difference, requiring General Relativity. We have no way to know if there isn't another force in Nature that is many orders of magnitude weaker than gravity (we would not see it on our scale) that did interact when distances were very small and space/time curvature was very large. I am not presuming to propose any theory, I just want to remind everyone that models extrapolated into situations beyond conditions of experimental testing are not necessarily valid sources of prediction. I look forward to data from future attempts to increase the resolution of the picture of the fossil background microwave asymmetry, and of course, to gravitational wave telescopes.

726. Physicist Neil Turok: Big Bang Wasn't the Beginning

Comment #132234 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 1:50 pm

It's basically the only way you can make the equations consistent and avoid infinity.

Again, "only way" means "only way we have thought of so far." This is not in the same class of statement about what cannot be done as is something like the impossibility of squaring the circle. If he really thinks so, let's see the math steps of the proof.

727. Physicist Neil Turok: Big Bang Wasn't the Beginning

Comment #132222 by Quine on February 24, 2008 at 1:39 pm

So if we could measure the waves, we could see which theory is right.

No. With enough data you might be able to show that one or both are wrong. When he says "right" in this context, he (hopefully) means "is not inconsistent with what we are able to measure." That is not the same as what the public hears in "right" which leads to all kinds of conclusions from false analogy.

728. Fleabytes

Comment #130521 by Quine on February 20, 2008 at 7:05 pm

Stuff about AI and qualia, and also about Folk Psychology and Eliminative Materialism.

... and these are a few of my favorite things.

The quest for a third person description of first person subjectivity, slowly, grinds along.

729. Bart Ehrman, Questioning Religion on Why We Suffer

Comment #130327 by Quine on February 20, 2008 at 10:37 am

In line with the remarks by salon_1928 above, I also encourage people to read Ehrman's textbook on the NT. This was my first authoritative guide to where these writings came from, and with it I was able to come to a much clearer understanding of the origins of Christianity. Unfortunately, I am generally unable to get Christians to do the same.

730. Fleabytes

Comment #129931 by Quine on February 19, 2008 at 7:19 pm

If epsilon were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist.

A false premise implies any conclusion.

Not relevant.

Always relevant. It is the line that divides what can come from evidence (through a falsifiable hypothesis) from what must be taken on faith.

If it is not about a falsifiable hypothesis, it is not about physics. Physical models are not necessarily valid outside of the experimentally determined parameters. Changing the value of an experimentally determined parameter is outside that parameter (the map is not the territory), and puts the argument back over the line onto the faith side.

IMHO the "fine tuning" argument is a basic epistemological fallacy disguised as a physics problem. Even very well educated people will fall for this kind of misdirection.

731. Fleabytes

Comment #129874 by Quine on February 19, 2008 at 5:37 pm

If epsilon were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist.

A false premise implies any conclusion.

732. Fleabytes

Comment #129842 by Quine on February 19, 2008 at 4:22 pm

What became clear to me was that church services put words into their congregations' mouths all the time, and that congregations are lulled into not even noticing the fact.

One of the most insidious aspects of faith is the faith that if you recite the words long enough, you will get the faith.

Very well done, Paula.

733. Cutting Edge: Baby Bible Bashers

Comment #129261 by Quine on February 18, 2008 at 11:41 pm

Very sad.

734. Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Comment #128974 by Quine on February 18, 2008 at 11:47 am

Keep in mind that Turing's goal was to make a test that could establish the ability to think, without having to define "thought." As such, it is a one sided test, at best (passing the test may establish thought, but failing the test says nothing). One could imagine an AI who refuses to take part in the deception of the test, or does not pass because it understands the overall situation and tells you where to stick it.

Ref: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/

735. Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Comment #128793 by Quine on February 18, 2008 at 12:35 am

Is our present weirder than Homo erectus could have imagined? That was but an evolutional eyeblink ago.

736. Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Comment #128705 by Quine on February 17, 2008 at 5:56 pm

Suppose uploading is possible in the reasonably near future. Now suppose that a criminal who has done something very horrible is sentenced to 200 years in prison, but dies only 20 years into it. Should this person be uploaded into a cyber cell where the bits that now represent him/her can be "punished" for the next 180 years? And if so, is there some standard clock speed that would make the virtual 180 years run at 180 years of current human time, or is it okay to give the prisoner a 1% processor slice so that he/she experiences serving 180 years over an actual 18,000 years?

737. Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Comment #128654 by Quine on February 17, 2008 at 2:04 pm

Who will be we in 2033?

738. Battle of the Chambersburg billboards

Comment #124554 by Quine on February 9, 2008 at 8:02 pm

Perhaps it is time for the Church of the FSM to put up some good old faith based billboards.

Been touched?

739. Inventor Doesn't Dare Say 'Perpetual Motion Machine'

Comment #124119 by Quine on February 8, 2008 at 12:04 pm

It is the nature of some people to keep adding complexity to inventions, to keep pushing the realization that it just doesn't work, past their personal horizon of understanding.

740. The New Atheist Movement

Comment #123033 by Quine on February 6, 2008 at 11:38 am

Given that 75% are finding out that they were taught BS as children, heaping more BS on is not going to solve the problem.

741. Documents detail church coverup

Comment #120703 by Quine on February 2, 2008 at 10:54 am

Just the tip of the iceberg. See:
http://www.amazon.com/Deliver-Us-Evil-Thomas-Doyle/dp/B000NIVJH2/

742. Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues?

Comment #120327 by Quine on February 1, 2008 at 1:17 pm

When speaking to the public, one simple thing needs to be repeated in every address:

It is a fact that species evolved, as proven by the fossil record. How that happened is the subject of the theory of evolution.

Any gaps or flaws in the current theory (understanding the 'how') does not impact the fact that species evolved.

743. Pope says some science shatters human dignity

Comment #120134 by Quine on February 1, 2008 at 9:33 am

What the Pope will not mention is that, under natural conditions, only about one in four embryos will carry to birth. With a world birth rate of 120M/yr this gives us a rough estimate of 30 million embryos every month that do not make it to become "someone." Perhaps he should have a little talk with his deity about this problem.

744. Happy Birthday Josh Timonen!

Comment #119133 by Quine on January 31, 2008 at 10:40 am

Thanks for everything you do, Josh. Have a great day, just for you!

-Q

745. What should a scientist think about religion?

Comment #118163 by Quine on January 30, 2008 at 12:34 pm

The battle line is, as it has ever been, in biology.

Absolutely the case. As biology moves slowly into the explanation of thought itself, it will provide the basis for the understanding of belief, and why we have these susceptibilities to imaginary beings.

746. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110522 by Quine on January 11, 2008 at 12:28 pm

In other words, it might turn out to be that the constants of nature really couldn't have had any other values. I don't think that, if we discovered this to be the case, it would count as evidence against the existence of God, only because I don't think that our present understanding of these parameters counts as evidence in favor of God.

This is a very nice refutation of the so called "fine-tuning" argument. Even if it is the case that we cannot (now) account for the observations that we make, that is no evidence that something supernatural "made" them that way. The whole "fine-tuning" debate boils down to an argument from ignorance.

747. Two Ex-Jehovah Witnesses to Tell Why They Became Atheists

Comment #110020 by Quine on January 10, 2008 at 10:02 am

One of the most useful aspects of discussion on this site is the opportunity for the rest of us to hear the inside story of religious tactics to hold members. My admiration goes to all who must pay a family price to speak truth.

748. Richard Dawkins on 'Have Your Say'

Comment #105179 by Quine on December 30, 2007 at 8:29 pm

windweaver, here it is but I don't believe it will ever stand up to a double blind test.

P.S. I liked what the other caller had to say about not believing in the Loch Ness Monster, but I have to say that, given the supernatural requirements for deities, Atheists are orders of magnitude less likely to be found incorrect than are Anessieists.

749. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #105114 by Quine on December 30, 2007 at 3:31 pm

Billy, you are so clueless that you have no idea how deeply you have stepped in it. And, of all the folks around here to call uninformed, Steve was practically the worst choice.

750. Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

Comment #104774 by Quine on December 29, 2007 at 12:06 pm

Denials from the Vatican? Where is Father Guido Sarducci when we really need him for the inside story? (Also, if you need an education but have only $20 to spend, catch his 5 Minute University.)