Practical Consequences (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, November 06, 2009, 04:36 (5495 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: 
I apologize for taking so long to respond. There's alot going on scholastically... and I'm STILL waiting to hear about whether or not I will be accepted to grad school. (3 weeks my arse!) 
n what you mean by "evidence", but let's first test your logic on another example. In evolution, we create a null hypothesis: "transitional forms exist".
> Stuart A. Newman: ...the fossil record is deficient in transitional forms between organisms distinguished from one another by the presence or absence of major innovations.
> Matt: ...it is a simpler explanation to say that the lack of fossils in those "gaps" is due to the fact that we simply haven't found them.
> 
> According to your logic, however, if we analyse the statement and find there is no evidence, should we not conclude that there are no transitional forms? The argument that the evidence is there but hasn't yet been found could be used to justify any claim.
>-Here you raise a powerful challenge; but note the difference between God (no evidence) and transitional fossils "deficient in transitional forms..." I know you have blamed me in some instances of latching onto indirect meanings of words, but clearly "deficient" is not the same thing as "none." So that we're clear on the definition I'm using, "deficient" means "Insufficient," or "inadequate." To me, this means "we don't have enough," not "none," or "zero."-To me your argument of what constitutes evidence is a much stronger one; the threshold here is of course--open to debate. I freely admit mine is strict--but yours is too. Again... I *lean* towards one way, because as you have done before me--we agree on the lack of evidence for God, but the process of science accepts the *best* provisional explanation, and we don't have an alternative to abiogenesis. 
 
> Leaving aside the "logic", in the evolutionary example you make certain inferences, though of course inferences are not evidence. I could also make certain inferences concerning consciousness. Bearing in mind that nobody knows how it works, where it comes from, or even what it is, I could infer that it stems from a source beyond our comprehension, and that the long history of visions, mystic experiences, OBEs, NDEs, ESP, paranormal knowledge, religion etc., suggests that what is seen as lack of evidence constitutes a false definition of "evidence". We thus enter a highly subjective field, but the decision to discount it as evidence is also a subjective one. Greta Christian's assertion that consciousness is entirely biological may be correct, but in the light of present knowledge it remains no more than a subjective belief.
> -I challenge you on this. This was her most airtight claim. We have no evidence that rocks have consciousness; we have no evidence trees have consciousness; we have no evidence that atoms have consciousness--only people and *some* creatures that obviously meet some criterion of neurological ability. The claim of a "universal consciousness" has the burden of proof of how this consciousness operates; the only thing that permeates through the cosmos in a sufficient manner is light, and the properties of light have been thoroughly explored, and we can determine what light does. That doesn't speak independent action! -For me to be swayed here, you need to attack this consciousness idea much more thoroughly: It's not enough to say "We don't know what causes consciousness, therefore we can consider that the cosmos is conscious." --> Matt: If you accept science, then you accept naturalism. [..] Naturalism does not equal chance.
> You have yourself said categorically that we need to exercise a degree of scepticism towards science, since so many accepted scientific theories turn out later to be false. But of course I accept most of the findings of science and the naturalistic explanations of many phenomena. I acknowledge, however ... as you do yourself ... that science may not have all the answers. This applies especially to the crucial and unique context of the origin of life and of the mechanism that made evolution possible, in which naturalism does equal chance. That was and is the context I have been focusing on. 
> 
> As regards agnosticism and atheism, we need to find the right language. Forget the roots ... the terms have gone beyond their roots. My personal suggestion: An atheist believes there is no God; an agnostic does not believe there is a God and does not believe there isn't a God. Atheism makes a statement of committed disbelief; agnosticism makes a statement of uncommitted non-belief. Can we perhaps play around with that?-I know that this is what the terms have become... but sometimes logic leads me to "obvious" distinctions and my mind won't let them go. -I realize that my notion is an antique one, wishing to maintain the "purity" of language well past its prime. Privately, I'll still consider myself an "atheist" in this sense, because I can't escape "the trap." But I realize that's my own problem. Sometimes, I think I would have been better off being born in the 19th century, heh.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"