Why I am an athiest

@FBM,

Quote:

The weight of first-hand experience would be relevant if I were setting out to provide evidence that something exists, which I'm not.

Since you mentioned the concepts of first-hand experience and first-hand knowledge, I assumed you consider these two things to exist... Hence my question about their weight. Apologies if neither knowledge or experience exist for you, but then, why did you mention them in the first place?

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@Olivier5,

You wrote,

Quote:

Since you mentioned the concepts of first-hand experience and first-hand knowledge, I assumed you consider these two things to exist...

He just doesn't "believe" in them. Mr. Green

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@FBM,

Quote:

I've got some sources from neuroscientists that suggest free will may be just another sense created by the brain.

My sources suggest neuroscience is just another stuff created by the brain.

Also, scientists have been proven to lack free will. Whatever they say is determined at the molecular level, and shouldn't be taken as science. Rather, any scientific theory is just the senseless humming of neurotransmitters.

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@cicerone imposter,

Or rather, he's not aware that he believes in them.

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I became an athiest because i can't speel proparley.

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@Olivier5,

His "awareness" is a bit confused and conflicted by his own statements. Mr. Green

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I became an atheist because I'm not good at heist...

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@timur,

Is that a "belief?"

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@cicerone imposter,

No, it's grand theft..

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@timur,

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@Olivier5,

Why is it necessary to believe in first-hand experience?

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@FBM,

You don't; it's obvious to most of us where you stand "on belief and first hand experience."

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@FBM,

Quote:

Why is it necessary to believe in first-hand experience?

It is not necessary, but you mentioned first-hand experience as the source for your knowledge, a source supposedly better than belief. You said "it's not belief if it is based on experience". But in order to base anything on experience, you must believe that experiences can be had (ergo that there is a self, a world, and senses to link those two), and that knowledge can be derived from said experience (another fairly tightly-packed assumption, which we can unpack another day).

I am getting a bit tired of stating the obvious here, and several times, but in a nutshell: no mental life can be have without a number of mental axioms, which everybody has to go by. Even if you don't believe in them (or to say it more precisely, even if you shroud them in a postulated haze of disbelief), you do in effect "go by" them. E.g. you say "I think", and even think "I think", before apologizing for using such simplistic language but you only do so because you can't come up with an alternative... And truly you can't. You can't operate without the axioms I mentioned up-thread and not become crazy.

In a smaller nutshell: beliefs are healthy to have and unavoidable. You might as well be upfront about the stuff and values you care about, and stand up for them. That will avoid you a lot of unnecessary paradoxes and relieve some highly uncomfortable philosophical posturing.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Well stated; I couldn't have said it better.
Without belief, there's no possibility he can even discuss past and current events. That he is involved on a2k in discussion on different issues, having no belief would be an oxymoron.

Without belief, he would have no opinion.

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If the brain receives stimuli from the environment via the senses and responds in a conditioned way, where does belief fit in? Neuroscientists have published experiments that suggest at least some of our behavior that we think we consciously choose is actually pre-decided upon in the subconscious.

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n5/abs/nn.2112.html

http://videolectures.net/eccs08_haynes_udofdithb/

Even single-celled organisms respond to environmental stimuli. Do they have beliefs? The human brain may be more complex, but that doesn't entail genuine free will.

1 Reply

@FBM,

You wrote,

Quote:

If the brain receives stimuli from the environment via the senses and responds in a conditioned way, where does belief fit in? Neuroscientists have published experiments that suggest at least some of our behavior that we think we consciously choose is actually pre-decided upon in the subconscious.

Even if it is "pre-decided," it's still our decision - based on some belief that the individual perceives as a choice from many.

Your trust in what Neuroscientists say is your weakness. Think for yourself; you're already contradicting your own statements about "belief."

Here.

Quote:

Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2006 September; 1(2): 75–86.
doi: 10.1093/scan/nsl013
PMCID: PMC1838571
NIHMSID: NIHMS16001
Why do beliefs about intelligence influence learning success? A social cognitive neuroscience model.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

You're not reading carefully. Wink

Where did I claim to believe what the neuroscientists say?

If you're not conscious of a decision, then how is that free will? The "our" part of you statement is just begging the question.

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@FBM,

You said,

Quote:

Even single-celled organisms respond to environmental stimuli. Do they have beliefs? The human brain may be more complex, but that doesn't entail genuine free will.

Are you trying to tell us that all the decisions you have made doesn't entail free will?

Prove it?

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@cicerone imposter,

From Newsweek/Washington Post.

Quote:

The fact that “true” beliefs are not casual and disconnected opinions points to the necessity that they must fit into belief systems. Belief systems are comprehensive. They are inherently logical. They are sufficient to answer any question whether personal or political or economic or religious. They have a reassuring, even comforting, quality. They are absent of mystery. Whatever is yet unknown can be known by the principles of its own philosophy, and its own science.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Do amoeba have free will? Animals with nervous systems of intermediate complexity? Chimpanzees?

No, I can't prove that there is no such thing as free will, and I have no intention of trying to because I'm not making that knowledge claim. All I'm doing is pointing out how it can reasonably be doubted, like just about any other belief I've ever encountered, if memory serves.

By failing to read carefully, you and others have jumped to various conclusions based on your beliefs. You've assumed that by denying beliefs that I've denied even my own existence. It seems to me that a lot of the confusion could be avoided if you just read more carefully. Smile

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