Setanta: Haha, you did write almost the same response to me, at the same time!
As for matter/energy, they are not necessarily the only things in existence and the only possible precursors: things unknown or forever beyond understanding could be there, and nothing about ignorance or awe-inspiring strangeness implies God (as I'm sure you know).
real life wrote:Setanta wrote:matter and energy of the universe could equally well be eternal
Except for the problem of entropy.
If matter/energy are eternal, why hasn't entropy taken the expected toll?
Setanta, I'm not trying to rebuke you when I say stuff like 'you're getting sucked in', but primarily pointing out 'real life''s apparent tactic in a more diverse way. He's doing it again - you mentioned a little bit about the veiled question he asked so he's running with it.
real life: so, how about that evidence? Can you state your own opinion or are you only capable of baiting others, criticizing, and then (most likely) implying that due to an asserted failing of others, you're right by default?
baddog1 wrote:Shirakawasuna wrote:baddog1 wrote:The issue of whether you and/or your Mom exists is a non sequitur.
Not really. Do you deny that love between family members is contingent upon them actually existing? It's an assumption we take for granted because it would be stupid to love something nonexistent, but it's fairly important to the thrust of your challenge.
Oh? So if your Mom passes on tomorrow [becomes nonexistent] - your position is that you no longer love her.
Meh, just a slight adjustment: recent past existence for which a relationship is established. You could love a rock too, of course, but we'd consider you delusional since love usually implies a relationship.
Going to get around to stating a positive opinion of your own and participate or are you, like 'real life', apparently only capable of pot shots?
baddog1 wrote:Shirakawasuna wrote:If you're asking about my feelings, we haven't yet determined an objective-ish way to determine that, but instead empathize with others as we know what caring is from personal experience, know the behaviors, and tend to believe people when they tell us such a mundane thing, giving them at least the benefit of the doubt. Some of those people are likely lying, too :/.
True about the lying. I'm intrigued by your thoughts on "feelings" and objectivity. Aren't "feelings" the driving force behind 'faith'?
Faith has many driving forces, but appeals to emotion and spirituality rank very high up there, with much of the rational arguments being cheap rationalizations that are absolutely terrible. That's the reason they are so bad, in my opinion - the people are convinced by other reasons. Sometimes this is known by the believer and they're fine with it, well-adjusted, etc. Sometimes it's a YEC who doesn't realize how bad their ideas are and will sacrifice all intellectual integrity for their beliefs...
A form of realism or almost reductionism tends to be one of the ways I look at feelings. Describe it as it is: others caring for one another, feeling jealousy (and all its behaviors), which leads to the forming of opinions, biases, etc. They are not true guides for objectivity, they are manifestations of our behavior which
sometimes is very accurate, and
sometimes makes massive errors. Like the person who loves the rock, or more realistically the person who convinces themselves of a superstition.
I was alone for a couple days (lady friend out of town) and last night thought I saw something moving in my bathroom as I got up for a little visit. As I have cats, I thought that was what it was - however, when I got there, I found nothing, and the cat definitely didn't have any options for hiding/escaping if it had been there.
So what did I see? A bit of my curly hair in my peripheral vision, confirmed by the fact that when I got to the door I thought I saw some similar movement in the edge of my vision again, in the bathroom.
What would a person all alone in the woods think, having similar hair? Would their brains play the same trick on them? Would the paranoia of being alone and in the dark increase the interpretations of what they saw, if they were with another person would the other person believe them and join in with the paranoia, straining to see objects in the dark that didn't exist? If this were in older times, or in a very rural area with less education and more supersitition, I think so. In fact, the local myth of the area might even pop up as the mysterious beast. The brain plays many tricks and we are lucky enough to have tools and modern education for understanding some of our delusions.
baddog1 wrote: The existence of your mother may make the possibility of 'evidence' easier, but you have still not provided the evidence of this love as you defined 'evidence'.
Of course I have, her existence is part of that evidence. The context itself provides evidence to the claim. If I claim the sky is blue, one should probably acknowledge that the sky actually exists for that argument to be made - put the scenario on an extrasolar planet and it becomes more obvious. Does the planet even exist? If not, how exactly am I going about describing the color of its sky?
I've also given evidence of the love in the form of behavioral interactions and communication, my personal feelings, etc, and the elimination of alternative hypotheses as unlikely or so convoluted and untestable as to be not worth bothering with.
baddog1 wrote: There is the double standard again. If your Mom has passed on; the context of evidence is different than if 'another entity' as you call it has passed. So my assertion of constantly customizing the definition of the word, 'evidence' so that it fits your whim is correct. (As did the original author of this thread and others.)
Uh, no. This other entity hasn't just passed, there's no reason to believe it exists, or it even doesn't exist in the example I provided. That's a pretty serious blow concerning relating its existence via 'love' or personal experiences, which I figured were following this line of questioning/criticism. No double standard.
When did I adapt the definition of the word? My feelings aren't empirical? Fine, we'll reduce it to my reported feelings, actions, general trend of honesty, the mundane nature of the claim due to the fact that the entities involved are well-established as existing/having existed, etc. Existence really is a pretty important contingency in general, and I suspect the evidence for 'feelings' would eventually wrap around to somehow showing existence, in which case I'd just say how silly that is. It is certainly conceivable that one could have feelings for nonexistent things.
Apparently FM was not amuuuused. 