Agnostics a subset of atheists? Re: By Their Fruits Oct 2012

[pnyikos]

On Oct 25, 9:48 pm, "Glenn" <glennshel...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "pnyikos" <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote in messagenews:8df2cd7b-acdc-4076...@r6g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
> > On Oct 18, 1:03 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:58:28 -0700 (PDT), Frank J <f...@verizon.net>
> > > wrote:
> > > >On 15 Oct, 13:29, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >> On Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:49:29 +0100, Ernest Major
>
> > > >> <{$t...@meden.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > > >> >In message
> > > >> ><3b31210a-2cd8-49c9-8dd0-af50feff2...@4g2000yql.googlegroups.com>,
> > > >> >pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> writes
> > > >> >>On Oct 14, 7:34 am, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > >> >>> On 9 Oct, 20:44, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > >> >>> > FWIW Ron O. isn't the only one who calls him a creationist. IIUC so
> > > >> >>> > does Mark Isaak.
>
> > > >> >>> Yes, I know many do.
>
> > > >> >>"many"? In that case, many have been talking behind my back, because
> > > >> >>of late, I've only seen Ron O falsely claiming that I am lying when I
> > > >> >>say that I am not even a creationist in the sense of believing that
> > > >> >>supernatural creation plays a role in our universe, and O'Shea with a
> > > >> >>crazy "definition" of "creationist" that even includes atheist Francis
> > > >> >>Crick.
>
> > > >> >I'm puzzled. If your not a creationist in the sense of believing that
> > > >> >supernatural creation plays a role in our universe why were you pushing
> > > >> >the "fine tuning" argument?
>
> > Somewhere along the line my answer to this was snipped.
>
> > The answer is that the fine-tuning is the most important reason I am
> > an agnostic rather than an atheist.
>
> Then you are an atheist.

I take it you include "agnostics" as a subset of "atheists."

Or are just being your usual cryptic self?

Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

"pnyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:43efc5ab-d2e4-478b...@4g2000yql.googlegroups.com...

Not necessarily, theists can be agnostic. If you rely on knowledge as the most important reason for not being an atheist, then you are not basing your position of "not-atheist" on belief, or if you wish, faith. Knowledge and belief are separate concepts. Atheists either "do not believe in" or "believe there is no". Their reasons can be knowledge or lack of knowledge, but knowledge is not required of faith or belief. If knowledge is more important to you than faith and is the reason you claim to not be an atheist, then you are an atheist.

[pnyikos]

On Oct 26, 1:03 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> >On Oct 18, 1:03?am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:58:28 -0700 (PDT), Frank J <f...@verizon.net>
> >> wrote:
> >> >On 15 Oct, 13:29, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >> >> On Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:49:29 +0100, Ernest Major wrote:


> >> >> >I'm puzzled. If your not a creationist in the sense of believing that
> >> >> >supernatural creation plays a role in our universe why were you pushing
> >> >> >the "fine tuning" argument?
>
> >Somewhere along the line my answer to this was snipped.
> >The answer is that the fine-tuning is the most important reason I am
> >an agnostic rather than an atheist.
>

> [rest snipped]
>
> It is hard to imagine life existing in a universe that was
> not tuned for it.

My point precisely: if the only universes that existed were not fine
tuned for life, life would never have existed in any universe.

And the real reason for that point is that Carl Sagan's idea that our
little cosmos is all there is or was or will be becomes absolutely
incredible, given just how delicate that fine-tuning had to be.

Have you been fooled by blatant assertions that our universe isn't all
that fine tuned? Just look at ONE of the six constants Martin Rees
wrote about:

_________________________
Another number, Є, whose value is 0.007, defines how firmly atomic
nuclei bind together and how all the atoms on Earth were made. Its
value controls the power from the Sun and, more sensitively, how stars
transmute hydrogen into all the atoms of the periodic table. Carbon
and oxygen are common, whereas gold and uranium are rare, because of
what happens in the stars. If Є were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not
exist.
===============
http://www.ichthus.info/BigBang/Docs/Just6num.pdf

And here is something you may have learned in grade school: all
electrons are identical in their properties, ditto protons and
neutrons, and all ordinary matter is made up of these three
ingredients.

But in a truly random universe, one could hardly expect any two of the
ordinary building blocks to be exactly alike, with the result that
reproduction of even a simple organism like a bacterium would be a
great rarity, and billions of years of evolution culminating in an
intelligent species such as ourselves would be essentially impossible.

> The question really is:  given that life exists, what is the
> probability that the universe is tuned so that life exists.

Naturally you like that question: it allows you to complacently cling
to your atheism and never have to reconsider it.

Does everything that you consider to be "really the question"
similarly leave your atheism completely unchallenged?


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

[pnyikos]

On Oct 25, 11:13�pm, "Glenn" <glennshel...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "pnyikos" <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote in messagenews:43efc5ab-d2e4-478b...@4g2000yql.googlegroups.com...

You seem to be misapplying the (obvious) distinction between belief
and knowledge. My agnosticism is a *belief* that is BASED on a
mountain of knowledge that I've accumulated over the decades. If the
contents of my knowledge were radically different from what they are,
I might still be a theist, or I might have gone over to atheism.

> Knowledge and belief are separate concepts.

Well, duh.

> Atheists either "do not believe in" or "believe there is no".

I don't count someone as an atheist unless he is convinced that there
is no deity. Nor do I count someone as a theist unless he is
convinced that there is a deity

Obviously, since I have no window into people's minds (even though
some people here expect me to behave as though I could read some of
their thoughts), I can never be sure that what looks like complete
conviction mirrors the actual beliefs of the person.

But, for example, I count Gans as an atheist because he seems secure
in the "knowledge" that there is no God, and Martinez as a theist for
the analogous reason.

>Their reasons can be knowledge or lack of knowledge, but knowledge is not required of faith
> or belief. If knowledge is more important to you than faith and is the reason
> you claim to not be an atheist, then you are an atheist.

Knowledge is more important to me than blind faith.

You are welcome to your private definitions of "faith" and "knowledge"
and "atheist" and "theist" and "agnostic," but I have my own, and I am
sticking to them.

Peter Nyikos

[Jim T.]

Are you agnostic about leprechauns and unicorns? Are you agnostic
about each and every one of the tens of thousands of deities people
have believed in?

[Eugene Willow]

Yes.

> Are you agnostic
> about each and every one of the tens of thousands of deities people
> have believed in?

It can be proved that there is no god, because such definition would
be circuler.

[pnyikos]

Of course not, bozo. I have no evidence for leprechauns that is one-
trillionth as strong as the fine tuning of the physical constants is
for a creator of our universe.

And even that evidence gives me no more than a probabilty of 1%,
perhaps a lot less, for there being a creator.

As to the red herring of tens of thousands of deities: the ones that
have the deity as creator are the only ones I bother with. And the
differences between them are far less significant than this one thing
they have in common. Lesser deiites like the Greek gods and almost all
the Hindu gods seem to have no more evidence for them than
leprechauns.

Now tell me, do you have anything to ask me that isn't standard
"village atheist" boilerplate?

[pnyikos]

That's "circular". Anyway, I'd like to know what bizarre mental
process underlies your claim.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 11/6/12 12:11 PM, pnyikos wrote:

> And even that evidence gives me no more than a probabilty of 1%,
> perhaps a lot less, for there being a creator.

I'm curious as to how you arrived at that probability.

[Glenn]

"John Harshman" <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:FKSdncD1ubs...@giganews.com...

He seems to be trying to define "knowledge" to his own satisfaction.

[Burkhard]

Having looked at 100 universes from an unbiased sample, only one
contained a creator.

[John Harshman]

No, that would mean that 1% is the maximum likelihood estimator of P,
not its upper bound.

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Tue, 6 Nov 2012 15:23:14 -0500, John Harshman wrote
(in article <FKSdncD1ubs...@giganews.com>):

Same way he gets all his numbers: out of his ass.

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

[Glenn]

"John Harshman" <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:cO-dnXFvufr...@giganews.com...

Fishing in the bay again?

[John S. Wilkins]

I thought you only needed a sample size of 20 universes for a valid
sample.
--
John S. Wilkins, Associate, Philosophy, University of Sydney
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre

[Ron O]

On Nov 7, 1:42 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > On 11/6/12 1:12 PM, Burkhard wrote:
> > > On 6 Nov, 20:27, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>  wrote:
> > >> On 11/6/12 12:11 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > >>> And even that evidence gives me no more than a probabilty of 1%,
> > >>> perhaps a lot less, for there being a creator.
>
> > >> I'm curious as to how you arrived at that probability.
>
> > > Having looked at 100 universes from an unbiased sample, only one
> > > contained a creator.
>
> > No, that would mean that 1% is the maximum likelihood estimator of P, not
> > its upper bound.
>
> I thought you only needed a sample size of 20 universes for a valid
> sample.

Probably not. If you are looking at a binomial distribution of
events, no. If 5% of the universes held a creator, just looking at 20
universes would give you a false null result around 36% of such
trials. If the distribution is not yes or no all bets are off. For
example, one alternative might be the existence of an undetectable
creator and then an infinite number of universes could be tested with
only null results.

In genetics we do get an estimate of the distribution of variation
using small data sets such as 20, but the accuracy of the estimate is
low. You would not estimate an allele frequency of 1% using a
population sample size of 20, but you could estimate how many alleles
of 1% frequency in the population that you would detect in a sample
size of 20.

Ron Okimoto

> --
> John S. Wilkins, Associate, Philosophy, University of Sydneyhttp://evolvingthoughts.net

[pnyikos]

Note the qualifiers around it. It's a nice round number, is all there
is to it. As to why it isn't a lot closer to zero: if our
fantastically un-random universe happened, perhaps a multi-universe
also happened in which ours is an infinitesimal part, and perhaps some
mighty intelligence also happened within it that was able to either
create ours or to manipulate the stuff of the multiverse to produce
our universe.

We've been through this before. You displayed no more surprise at the
idea of our little universe being all there is or can be, than the
average kid has of the existence of popcorn at movie theaters, so
perhaps the idea of such a mighty being would also occasion no
particular surprise in you.

[pnyikos]

On Nov 6, 4:02 pm, "Glenn" <glennshel...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "John Harshman" <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote in messagenews:FKSdncD1ubs...@giganews.com...

> > On 11/6/12 12:11 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > > And even that evidence gives me no more than a probabilty of 1%,
> > > perhaps a lot less, for there being a creator.
>
> > I'm curious as to how you arrived at that probability.

He's been told already. In my reply to him of a few minutes ago, I'm
just summarizing a lot of what we went over earlier in my replies to
him on this subject, with a slightly altered wording.

If you missed that earlier exchange, I'll be glad to give you a link.

> He seems to be trying to define "knowledge" to his own satisfaction.

Nah. I use the standard idea.

I told John just now why I don't make it a lot smaller. As to why I
don't make it any bigger, well, although the existence of a universe
like ours is fantastically improbable, it can be explained as
commonplace if there is an actual infinity of universes, either a
multiveers

[pnyikos]

Burkhard has me killfiled, and his silly ignoring of my qualifiers
suggests one possible reason.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Nov 7, 2:42 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > On 11/6/12 1:12 PM, Burkhard wrote:
> > > On 6 Nov, 20:27, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>  wrote:
> > >> On 11/6/12 12:11 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > >>> And even that evidence gives me no more than a probabilty of 1%,
> > >>> perhaps a lot less, for there being a creator.
>
> > >> I'm curious as to how you arrived at that probability.
>
> > > Having looked at 100 universes from an unbiased sample, only one
> > > contained a creator.
>
> > No, that would mean that 1% is the maximum likelihood estimator of P, not
> > its upper bound.
>
> I thought you only needed a sample size of 20 universes for a valid
> sample.

We only have a sample of one, but if you think ours is a typical
universe, you've got a lot to learn about the anthropic principle.

True story: when I first read about the anthropic principle as a
college student (maybe on the graduate level, I forget) in _Scientific
American_, I thought it was a fine example of "stealth theism," people
cleverly writing articles and whole books on the Argument from Design
without ever mentioning God or letting the word "design" slip onto the
printed page.

Well, if it was that, I think the originators took their "stealth"
with them to the grave, or will if some of them are still alive.

[John Harshman]

On 11/7/12 10:22 AM, pnyikos wrote:
> On Nov 6, 3:27 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> On 11/6/12 12:11 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>>> And even that evidence gives me no more than a probabilty of 1%,
>>> perhaps a lot less, for there being a creator.
>>
>> I'm curious as to how you arrived at that probability.
>
> Note the qualifiers around it. It's a nice round number, is all there
> is to it.

So you made it up. Do you have any reason to suppose that it's 1%
instead of 10%, 50%, or 99%?

> As to why it isn't a lot closer to zero: if our
> fantastically un-random universe happened, perhaps a multi-universe
> also happened in which ours is an infinitesimal part, and perhaps some
> mighty intelligence also happened within it that was able to either
> create ours or to manipulate the stuff of the multiverse to produce
> our universe.

This doesn't explain why it isn't closer to zero, or anything else.
Perhapses without estimates of probability, much less justifications,
are worth nothing. Face it: you can't quantify this in any way, and
putting any number on it grossly exaggerates your knowledge.

> We've been through this before. You displayed no more surprise at the
> idea of our little universe being all there is or can be, than the
> average kid has of the existence of popcorn at movie theaters, so
> perhaps the idea of such a mighty being would also occasion no
> particular surprise in you.

This is the only universe we know of. I don't know why I should be
surprised at the idea that there is no other, since we lack any evidence
of another. I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of them either. I
would be surprised if there were such a mighty being, since we have no
evidence of one and it seems to me that if there were, we should.

But you have answered my question: you arrived at that probability by
making it up based on nothing. Thanks.

[John S. Wilkins]

Thanks. I don't do universal statistics - metaphysicist, you see...

[pnyikos]

I've long suspected that you have a special meaning that you atttach
to the word "nothing," and this seems to confirm it.

Bookies have a better grasp of probability as it plays out in the real
world, than you do.

You might begin your re-education by taking another look at Pascal's
Wager.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

You have presented no reasons for your estimate. I call no reasons
"nothing". What would you call it?

> Bookies have a better grasp of probability as it plays out in the real
> world, than you do.
>
> You might begin your re-education by taking another look at Pascal's
> Wager.

How so? What is there about Pascal's wager that is illuminating about
probabilities? It says nothing about such things, only that if there is
potential benefit to accepting a proposition but no potential downside,
it's advantageous to accept it even if it's unlikely. That's not at all
what you're saying here. And anyway, Pascal's premise is wrong; there is
in fact a potential downside, which many people have pointed out.

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Thu, 8 Nov 2012 11:01:56 -0500, John Harshman wrote
(in article <nYadnVtwMIX...@giganews.com>):

I call it Peter Der Gross being Peter Der Gross.

>
>> Bookies have a better grasp of probability as it plays out in the real
>> world, than you do.
>>
>> You might begin your re-education by taking another look at Pascal's
>> Wager.
>
> How so? What is there about Pascal's wager that is illuminating about
> probabilities?

Nothing.

> It says nothing about such things, only that if there is
> potential benefit to accepting a proposition but no potential downside,
> it's advantageous to accept it even if it's unlikely. That's not at all
> what you're saying here. And anyway, Pascal's premise is wrong; there is
> in fact a potential downside, which many people have pointed out.

Not least Homer Simpson.

[pnyikos]

I had in mind betting on horse races, or football games. There's a
lot more involved than just the won-lost records of the football teams
[when I was a kid, tie games were still allowed, paradoxically] and
where the horse placed in its earlier races. Calculating odds is not
an exact science, and probably never will be.

I should add that bookies generally don't have to do the estimating
themselves, but the people placing the bets (including "place" as in
"win, place and show") have to be good at estimating them.

> > You might begin your re-education by taking another look at Pascal's
> > Wager.
>
> How so? What is there about Pascal's wager that is illuminating about
> probabilities?

Are you familiar with the expression "expected value"? That's a good
place to start. Let's put the value of heaven, not at infinity, but
at a huge number, and the value of getting what you realistically can
in this world a lot smaller, then your perceived odds on the existence
of God may make a huge difference in the expected value of either
accepting Pascal's conclusion or rejecting it.

Once we get on the same page here, we can go back to that 1% figure.

> It says nothing about such things, only that if there is
> potential benefit to accepting a proposition but no potential downside,
> it's advantageous to accept it even if it's unlikely. That's not at all
> what you're saying here. And anyway, Pascal's premise is wrong; there is
> in fact a potential downside, which many people have pointed out.

I didn't mean Pascal's original formulation, I meant the way people
NOW perceive it, with the benefit of the thinking of philosophers,
etc. ("many people") that came before us.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

Yet it's not just a question of making up whatever you like, either.
There is a method to it. But not, apparently, to your estimate.

> I should add that bookies generally don't have to do the estimating
> themselves, but the people placing the bets (including "place" as in
> "win, place and show") have to be good at estimating them.

No, in fact they don't. Where did you get that idea?

>>> You might begin your re-education by taking another look at Pascal's
>>> Wager.
>>
>> How so? What is there about Pascal's wager that is illuminating about
>> probabilities?
>
> Are you familiar with the expression "expected value"?

Of course I am. Don't patronize me. But you seem to be using it in a
non-standard way, so perhaps the question was warranted.

> That's a good
> place to start. Let's put the value of heaven, not at infinity, but
> at a huge number, and the value of getting what you realistically can
> in this world a lot smaller, then your perceived odds on the existence
> of God may make a huge difference in the expected value of either
> accepting Pascal's conclusion or rejecting it.

This is quite different from Pascal's wager, in fact. Remember that not
only is there a huge payoff (and perhaps "expected payoff is the better
term here) if god exists and you accept him, there's also a huge penalty
if he exists and you deny him. There is of course no penalty or payoff
if he doesn't exist. (But of course Pascal's wager assumes a binary
question, which is wrong.)

> Once we get on the same page here, we can go back to that 1% figure.

I agree that one can get a useful number by multiplying expected payoff
by probability of truth. So what's your point?

>> It says nothing about such things, only that if there is
>> potential benefit to accepting a proposition but no potential downside,
>> it's advantageous to accept it even if it's unlikely. That's not at all
>> what you're saying here. And anyway, Pascal's premise is wrong; there is
>> in fact a potential downside, which many people have pointed out.
>
> I didn't mean Pascal's original formulation, I meant the way people
> NOW perceive it, with the benefit of the thinking of philosophers,
> etc. ("many people") that came before us.

Perhaps you should explain, then.

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<7971e6bf-3eda-49e0...@b6g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> I had in mind betting on horse races, or football games. There's a
> lot more involved than just the won-lost records of the football teams
> [when I was a kid, tie games were still allowed, paradoxically] and
> where the horse placed in its earlier races. Calculating odds is not
> an exact science, and probably never will be.
>
> I should add that bookies generally don't have to do the estimating
> themselves, but the people placing the bets (including "place" as in
> "win, place and show") have to be good at estimating them.

Correct, the bookie, *as bookie*, should not have a position, that is
the goal is to have all bets covered by other bets, so that the bookie
just takes the vigorish. IOW, psychology plays a major role. For
example, when the (American) football Giants lost seven games last
year, some bookies offered very high odds against the Giants winning
the Superbowl and had to pay and some apparently lost big. However,
they should have and the skillful ones did hedge with bets on the
other teams. Improbable events do happen.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[pnyikos]

Apologies for the delay in answering; I was very busy on some other
threads, exclusive to talk.origins.

On Nov 10, 10:07 am, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article
> <7971e6bf-3eda-49e0-a318-1bb3caed3...@b6g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,

>
>  pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > I had in mind betting on horse races, or football games.  There's a
> > lot more involved than just the won-lost records of the football teams
> > [when I was a kid, tie games were still allowed, paradoxically] and
> > where the horse placed in its earlier races.  Calculating odds is not
> > an exact science, and probably never will be.

The "paradoxically" is there because since I was a kid, there has been
a lot of "advances" making young people feel good about themselves,
including handing out ribbons for just participating and emphasizing
cooperative games in addition to competitive ones.

The no-ties paradox is probably explained by the phrase, "the almighty
dollar."

> > I should add that bookies generally don't have to do the estimating
> > themselves, but the people placing the bets (including "place" as in
> > "win, place and show") have to be good at estimating them.
>
> Correct, the bookie, *as bookie*, should not have a position, that is
> the goal is to have all bets covered by other bets, so that the bookie
> just takes the vigorish. IOW, psychology plays a major role. For
> example, when the (American) football Giants lost seven games last
> year, some bookies offered very high odds against the Giants winning
> the Superbowl and had to pay and some apparently lost big. However,
> they should have and the skillful ones did hedge with bets on the
> other teams. Improbable events do happen.

After the initial things I said about bookies [already deleted above],
I went to the opposite extreme in my thoughts.

I got to thinking that the bookies simply counted the cash that had
come in, took a percentage of it for themselves, and split the balance
among the winning bettors based on the total percentage of the cash
contributed by all of them.

I learn something new every day.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

In my first reply to this post, I was short on time and couldn't
address any except the last bit [deleted here]. Again I apologize for
the delay.

On Nov 7, 4:07 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 11/7/12 10:22 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > On Nov 6, 3:27 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>  wrote:
> >> On 11/6/12 12:11 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>> And even that evidence gives me no more than a probabilty of 1%,
> >>> perhaps a lot less, for there being a creator.
>
> >> I'm curious as to how you arrived at that probability.
>
> > Note the qualifiers around it.  It's a nice round number, is all there
> > is to it.
>
> So you made it up. Do you have any reason to suppose that it's 1%
> instead of 10%, 50%, or 99%?

Yes. The idea of there being infinitely many universes seems much
more plausible than the idea of a creator of a universe as intricate
and magnificent as this one. FWIW, the Astronomer Royal of England,
Martin Rees, seems to agree in a book he wrote about the fine-tuning.
See here:

http://www.ichthus.info/BigBang/Docs/Just6num.pdf


I explained why it isn't less earlier:

> > As to why it isn't a lot closer to zero: if our
> > fantastically un-random universe happened, perhaps a multi-universe
> > also happened in which ours is an infinitesimal part, and perhaps some
> > mighty intelligence also happened within it that was able to either
> > create ours or to manipulate the stuff of the multiverse to produce
> > our universe.
>
> This doesn't explain why it isn't closer to zero, or anything else.

Do you claim this because you have allowed your sense of surprise to
atrophy? More on this later.

> Perhapses without estimates of probability, much less justifications,
> are worth nothing. Face it: you can't quantify this in any way, and
> putting any number on it grossly exaggerates your knowledge.

It would if I had not added the qualifier "perhaps a lot less".

And, by your criteria, your atheism is worth nothing too.

> > We've been through this before.  You displayed no more surprise at the
> > idea of  our little  universe being all there is or can be,  than the
> > average kid has of the existence of  popcorn at movie theaters, so
> > perhaps the idea of such a mighty being would also occasion no
> > particular surprise in you.
>
> This is the only universe we know of. I don't know why I should be
> surprised at the idea that there is no other, since we lack any evidence
> of another.

Looks like you have really allowed your sense of surprise to atrophy,
and I don't see how we can profitably discuss this issue until you've
re-awakened a bit of it.

Have you ever raised children of your own?

I ask this because my first child greatly expanded my sense of
surprise, in three respects. One, she was surprised by a great many
things that I had taken for granted, and so helped me to see them in a
fresh light. Two, she surprised me by saying and doing things I had
never expected anyone, or at least not a child of her age, to do.

And three, I was surprised to find several things out about myself.
One is that I was able to laugh for sheer joy at some of the things I
saw her do. If I ever laughed for sheer joy myself before, it was so
long ago that I totally lost all memory of it.

Another came earlier, right when she emerged from the womb in the
delivery room. I was amazed at the intensity of the bonding that
emerged in me towards her during the next hour; it was as intense a
feeling as falling in love.

Adding to the amazement was the fact that when I had seen my first
nephew [I have no nieces by blood] shortly after he was born, I felt
detached and felt no bonding towards him whatsoever.

> I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of them either. I
> would be surprised if there were such a mighty being, since we have no
> evidence of one and it seems to me that if there were, we should.

But if you were to see a miracle that convinces you there is one, I
think that very soon after the surprise wore off, you would take it as
much in stride as you do the very fact that you exist. Just as the
huge majority of "cradle Catholics" do already in the first grade.

G.K. Chesterton wrote _The Everlasting Man_ partly to shake this huge
majority out of their complacency. Here is something he wrote at the
end of the chapter, "The Riddles of the Gospel."

"What should we feel at the first whisper of a certain suggestion
about a certain man? Certainly it is not for us to blame anybody who
should find that first wild whisper merely impious and insane. On the
contrary, stumbling on that rock of scandal is the first step. Stark
staring incredulity is a far more loyal tribute to that truth than a
modernist metaphysic would make it out merely a matter of degree. It
were better to rend our robes with a great cry against blasphemy, like
Caiaphas in the judgment, or to lay hold of the man as a maniac
possessed of devils like the kinsmen and the crowd, than to stand
stupidly debating fine shades of pantheism in the presence of so
catastrophic a claim."

Interlude: pantheism was quite fashionable in the British circles in
which Chesterton and C.S. Lewis moved, and was popularized in the
1960's by J. A. T. Robinson's _Honest to God_.

Robinson claimed that he wasn't preaching pantheism, but panentheism.
I do believe this comes under Chesterton's rubric, "debating fine
shades of pantheism."

To continue where I left off:
"There is more of the wisdom that is one with surprise in any simple
person full of the sensitiveness of simplicity, who should expect the
grass to wither and the birds to drop dead out of the air when a
strolling carpenter's apprentice said calmly and almost carelessly
like one looking over his shoulder: 'Before Abraham was, I am.'"

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part2c2.htm

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 11/15/12 7:39 AM, pnyikos wrote:
> In my first reply to this post, I was short on time and couldn't
> address any except the last bit [deleted here]. Again I apologize for
> the delay.
>
> On Nov 7, 4:07 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> On 11/7/12 10:22 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>>> On Nov 6, 3:27 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>> On 11/6/12 12:11 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>>>>> And even that evidence gives me no more than a probabilty of 1%,
>>>>> perhaps a lot less, for there being a creator.
>>
>>>> I'm curious as to how you arrived at that probability.
>>
>>> Note the qualifiers around it. It's a nice round number, is all there
>>> is to it.
>>
>> So you made it up. Do you have any reason to suppose that it's 1%
>> instead of 10%, 50%, or 99%?
>
> Yes. The idea of there being infinitely many universes seems much
> more plausible than the idea of a creator of a universe as intricate
> and magnificent as this one. FWIW, the Astronomer Royal of England,
> Martin Rees, seems to agree in a book he wrote about the fine-tuning.
> See here:
>
> http://www.ichthus.info/BigBang/Docs/Just6num.pdf

So your reasons are 1) it seems that way to you and 2) somebody else
said so too, and he's an astronomer. But even given that irrefutable
evidence, how do you get from "much more" to "1%"?

> I explained why it isn't less earlier:
>
>>> As to why it isn't a lot closer to zero: if our
>>> fantastically un-random universe happened, perhaps a multi-universe
>>> also happened in which ours is an infinitesimal part, and perhaps some
>>> mighty intelligence also happened within it that was able to either
>>> create ours or to manipulate the stuff of the multiverse to produce
>>> our universe.
>>
>> This doesn't explain why it isn't closer to zero, or anything else.
>
> Do you claim this because you have allowed your sense of surprise to
> atrophy? More on this later.

No. I claim this because there is nothing other than baseless and
unquantified speculation in that claim. There's nothing in any way
related to probability.

>> Perhapses without estimates of probability, much less justifications,
>> are worth nothing. Face it: you can't quantify this in any way, and
>> putting any number on it grossly exaggerates your knowledge.
>
> It would if I had not added the qualifier "perhaps a lot less".

It does anyway. The absence of a lower bound doesn't affect the upper
bound, which is what's under discussion.

> And, by your criteria, your atheism is worth nothing too.

I disagree. But we could discuss it if you like.

>>> We've been through this before. You displayed no more surprise at the
>>> idea of our little universe being all there is or can be, than the
>>> average kid has of the existence of popcorn at movie theaters, so
>>> perhaps the idea of such a mighty being would also occasion no
>>> particular surprise in you.
>>
>> This is the only universe we know of. I don't know why I should be
>> surprised at the idea that there is no other, since we lack any evidence
>> of another.
>
> Looks like you have really allowed your sense of surprise to atrophy,
> and I don't see how we can profitably discuss this issue until you've
> re-awakened a bit of it.
>
> Have you ever raised children of your own?

Not that it's any of your business, but yes. It did not, however, awaken
my ability to believe baseless bullshit, which is what you seem to be
advocating. I suppose it's just because I'm dead inside.

> I ask this because my first child greatly expanded my sense of
> surprise, in three respects. One, she was surprised by a great many
> things that I had taken for granted, and so helped me to see them in a
> fresh light. Two, she surprised me by saying and doing things I had
> never expected anyone, or at least not a child of her age, to do.
>
> And three, I was surprised to find several things out about myself.
> One is that I was able to laugh for sheer joy at some of the things I
> saw her do. If I ever laughed for sheer joy myself before, it was so
> long ago that I totally lost all memory of it.
>
> Another came earlier, right when she emerged from the womb in the
> delivery room. I was amazed at the intensity of the bonding that
> emerged in me towards her during the next hour; it was as intense a
> feeling as falling in love.
>
> Adding to the amazement was the fact that when I had seen my first
> nephew [I have no nieces by blood] shortly after he was born, I felt
> detached and felt no bonding towards him whatsoever.

All very nice, but I'm so dead inside that I see no relevance to
anything we're talking about.

You will have to explain why any of this verbiage is relevant to our
discussion.

> To continue where I left off:
> "There is more of the wisdom that is one with surprise in any simple
> person full of the sensitiveness of simplicity, who should expect the
> grass to wither and the birds to drop dead out of the air when a
> strolling carpenter's apprentice said calmly and almost carelessly
> like one looking over his shoulder: 'Before Abraham was, I am.'"
>
> http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part2c2.htm

I really have no idea what you're trying to say here, doubtless because
I'm dead inside and all. Was that an attempt at some kind of argument?
Can you explain it in terms understandable by the spiritually challenged?

[pnyikos]

On Nov 15, 11:17 am, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 11/15/12 7:39 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > In my first reply to this post, I was short on time and couldn't
> > address any except the last bit [deleted here].  Again I apologize for
> > the delay.
>
> > On Nov 7, 4:07 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>  wrote:
> >> On 11/7/12 10:22 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>> On Nov 6, 3:27 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>    wrote:
> >>>> On 11/6/12 12:11 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>>>> And even that evidence gives me no more than a probabilty of 1%,
> >>>>> perhaps a lot less, for there being a creator.
>
> >>>> I'm curious as to how you arrived at that probability.
>
> >>> Note the qualifiers around it.  It's a nice round number, is all there
> >>> is to it.
>
> >> So you made it up. Do you have any reason to suppose that it's 1%
> >> instead of 10%, 50%, or 99%?
>
> > Yes.  The idea of there being infinitely many universes seems much
> > more plausible than the idea of a creator of a universe as intricate
> > and magnificent as this one.  FWIW, the Astronomer Royal of England,
> > Martin Rees, seems to agree in a book he wrote about the fine-tuning.
> > See here:
>
> >http://www.ichthus.info/BigBang/Docs/Just6num.pdf
>
> So your reasons are 1) it seems that way to you and 2) somebody else
> said so too, and he's an astronomer.

Also a Professor of physics at the University of Cambridge.
Professorships are FAR harder to come by in England than here, maybe
even harder than endowed chairs.

> But even given that irrefutable
> evidence, how do you get from "much more" to "1%"?

I don't. I get from it to "1%, perhaps a lot less". It is only
because of the next thing I say that I didn't put the upper bound way,
way further down.

> > I explained why it isn't less earlier:
>
> >>> As to why it isn't a lot closer to zero: if our
> >>> fantastically un-random universe happened, perhaps a multi-universe
> >>> also happened in which ours is an infinitesimal part, and perhaps some
> >>> mighty intelligence also happened within it that was able to either
> >>> create ours or to manipulate the stuff of the multiverse to produce
> >>> our universe.
>
> >> This doesn't explain why it isn't closer to zero, or anything else.
>
> > Do you claim this because you have  allowed your sense of surprise to
> > atrophy?  More on this later.

As you have done several times now, you give a peculiar meaning to
"nothing":

> No. I claim this because there is nothing other than baseless and
> unquantified speculation in that claim.

So there is even MORE "nothing but baseless and unquantified
speculation" in Dawkins's recent estimate of *his* percentage for
God's existence, which was an exact figure rather than an initial
segment, [0, 0.1], of [0, 1], the way I qualified mine.

As to why Dawkins doesn't call himself an agnostic for having given a
nonzero estimate (not much less than 1%, maybe somewhat more, I
forget), that's his business, but I suspect it is out of solidarity
with other people who call themselves atheists.

> There's nothing in any way
> related to probability.

So I'm thinking like someone betting on the horses, who either doesn't
bet or decides on what to bet.

You have decided to bet everything on the probability being zero,
haven't you?

> >> Perhapses without estimates of probability, much less justifications,
> >> are worth nothing. Face it: you can't quantify this in any way, and
> >> putting any number on it grossly exaggerates your knowledge.
>
> > It would if I had not added the qualifier "perhaps a lot less".
>
> It does anyway. The absence of a lower bound doesn't affect the upper
> bound, which is what's under discussion.
>
> > And, by your criteria, your atheism is worth nothing too.
>
> I disagree. But we could discuss it if you like.

Excellent. Let's begin with the question I asked just now.

> >>> We've been through this before.  You displayed no more surprise at the
> >>> idea of  our little  universe being all there is or can be,  than the
> >>> average kid has of the existence of  popcorn at movie theaters, so
> >>> perhaps the idea of such a mighty being would also occasion no
> >>> particular surprise in you.
>
> >> This is the only universe we know of. I don't know why I should be
> >> surprised at the idea that there is no other, since we lack any evidence
> >> of another.
>
> > Looks like you have really allowed your sense of surprise to atrophy,
> > and I don't see how we can profitably discuss this issue until you've
> > re-awakened a bit of it.
>
> > Have you ever raised children of your own?
>
> Not that it's any of your business, but yes. It did not, however, awaken
> my ability to believe baseless bullshit, which is what you seem to be
> advocating. I suppose it's just because I'm dead inside.

Cut the histrionics, Harshman. The sarcastic histrionics that you did
a mere week after I returned to talk.origins (after an absence of
almost a decade) were already more than a man of your stature should
indulge in. See:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/22243816c9a80db3

I've snipped the histrionics in the excerpt I repost here, because of
its relevance to what I said just now:

_____________________________________

pnyikos wrote:
> On Dec 14, 1:31 am, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> pnyikos wrote:
>>> On Dec 13, 4:57 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>> pnyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Dec 13, 3:45 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>>>> pnyikos wrote:
>>>>>>> All the hard evidence I have seen is compatible with the assertion
>>>>>>> that "intelligent life as we know it" can only be expected to arise
>>>>>>> once in a google of universes the same size as the observable
>>>>>>> universe, with all the physical laws and fundamental constants exactly
>>>>>>> what they are in ours.
> [...]

>>>>>>> Given that, what is more likely: that we are that one lucky life form,
>>>>>>> or that some lucky life form beat us to it and is responsible for our
>>>>>>> being here?
> [...]
>>>>>>> I postulate that any intelligent technologically advanced
>>>>>>> species, realizing that they are alone in the known universe, would
>>>>>>> seed a million or more worlds, and if so the odds would seem to favor
>>>>>>> the latter answer.

[snip]


> Look. Suppose prokaryotes can be expected to give rise to a species
> capable of a technological civilization in 4 billion years on the
> average of 1 out of 1000 planets with as good initial conditions as
> ours, and my other assumptions above are satisfied, then the odds are
> 1000 to 1 that we are the result of panspermy rather than the species
> on which it falls to either be alone in the galaxy, or to set events
> in motion to produce others.

That's a very bad way to compute the odds. But of course there is no
way
to compute the odds, so one bad way might be as good as another.
=============== end of excerpts

[The things I snipped included a prelude to the histrionics, and a bit
of the histrionics themselves.]

My computations and reasoning from the initial hypotheses were
impeccable, so saying "that's a bad way to compute the odds" misled me
in my later talk about the expansion of the Drake equation.

The figures I gave in the excerpt were just for illustrative purposes--
I could easily have done the whole thing with algebra, but I thought
illustrative figures would make the reasoning easier to follow.

And so, I thought you wouldn't be interested in algebraic
manipulations of the extra factors into which I broke down the Drake
equation factor of "fraction of planets where life begins that evolve
a technological species capable of interstellar communication".

But then Mark Isaak provided some which I could have provided any
time, but didn't because of what you wrote at the end of the above
excerpt-- and you pronounced it as being just the thing you had been
wanting ME to do.

So you can see what effect even mild words like "bad way to compute
the odds" have on me when a man of your stature, for whom I had more
respect than for any other talk.origins regular back when Mark Isaak
did his algebra, utters them.

> > I ask this because my first child greatly expanded my sense of
> > surprise, in three respects.  One, she was surprised by a great many
> > things that I had taken for granted, and so helped me to see them in a
> > fresh light. Two, she surprised me by saying and doing things I had
> > never expected anyone, or at least not a child of her age, to do.
>
> > And three, I was surprised to find several things out about myself.
> > One is that I was able to laugh for sheer joy at some of the things I
> > saw her do.  If I ever laughed for sheer joy myself before, it was so
> > long ago that I totally lost all memory of it.
>
> > Another came earlier,  right when she emerged from the womb in the
> > delivery room.  I was amazed at the intensity of the bonding that
> > emerged in me towards her during the next hour; it was as intense a
> > feeling as falling in love.
>
> > Adding to the amazement was the fact that when I had seen my first
> > nephew [I have no nieces by blood] shortly after he was born, I felt
> > detached and felt no bonding towards him whatsoever.
>
> All very nice, but I'm so dead inside that I see no relevance to
> anything we're talking about.

There you go again. Re-read the following and get back to me about it,
OK:

> > Looks like you have really allowed your sense of surprise to atrophy,
> > and I don't see how we can profitably discuss this issue until you've
> > re-awakened a bit of it.

> >> I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of them either. I
> >> would be surprised if there were such a mighty being, since we have no
> >> evidence of one and it seems to me that if there were, we should.
>
> > But if you were to see a miracle that convinces you there is one, I
> > think that very soon after the surprise wore off,

And I think the surprise would wear off a matter of minutes, the way
you carry on above and below.

> > you would take it as
> > much in stride as you do the very fact that you exist.  Just as the
> > huge majority of "cradle Catholics" do already in the first grade.
> > G.K. Chesterton wrote _The Everlasting Man_ partly to shake this huge
> > majority out of their complacency.  Here is something he wrote at the
> > end of the chapter, "The Riddles of the Gospel."
>
> > "What should we feel at the first whisper of a certain suggestion
> > about a certain man? Certainly it is not for us to blame anybody who
> > should find that first wild whisper merely impious and insane. On the
> > contrary, stumbling on that rock of scandal is the first step. Stark
> > staring incredulity is a far more loyal tribute to that truth than a
> > modernist metaphysic would make it out merely a matter of degree. It
> > were better to rend our robes with a great cry against blasphemy, like
> > Caiaphas in the judgment, or to lay hold of the man as a maniac
> > possessed of devils like the kinsmen and the crowd, than to stand
> > stupidly debating fine shades of pantheism in the presence of so
> > catastrophic a claim."

[verbiage by me that you considered to be superfluous, snipped]

> > To continue where I left off:
> >   "There is more of the wisdom that is one with surprise in any simple
> > person full of the sensitiveness of simplicity, who should expect the
> > grass to wither and the birds to drop dead out of the air when a
> > strolling carpenter's apprentice said calmly and almost carelessly
> > like one looking over his shoulder: 'Before Abraham was, I am.'"
>
> >http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part2c2.htm
>
> I really have no idea what you're trying to say here, doubtless because
> I'm dead inside and all. Was that an attempt at some kind of argument?
> Can you explain it in terms understandable by the spiritually challenged?

"The heart has reasons, that the reason knows not" is one translation
of another famous saying of Pascal.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

Do you really think that's an argument?

>> But even given that irrefutable
>> evidence, how do you get from "much more" to "1%"?
>
> I don't. I get from it to "1%, perhaps a lot less". It is only
> because of the next thing I say that I didn't put the upper bound way,
> way further down.

Not the point. The question is how you managed to define an upper bound.
You are ignoring that question.

>>> I explained why it isn't less earlier:
>>
>>>>> As to why it isn't a lot closer to zero: if our
>>>>> fantastically un-random universe happened, perhaps a multi-universe
>>>>> also happened in which ours is an infinitesimal part, and perhaps some
>>>>> mighty intelligence also happened within it that was able to either
>>>>> create ours or to manipulate the stuff of the multiverse to produce
>>>>> our universe.
>>
>>>> This doesn't explain why it isn't closer to zero, or anything else.
>>
>>> Do you claim this because you have allowed your sense of surprise to
>>> atrophy? More on this later.
>
> As you have done several times now, you give a peculiar meaning to
> "nothing":
>
>> No. I claim this because there is nothing other than baseless and
>> unquantified speculation in that claim.
>
> So there is even MORE "nothing but baseless and unquantified
> speculation" in Dawkins's recent estimate of *his* percentage for
> God's existence, which was an exact figure rather than an initial
> segment, [0, 0.1], of [0, 1], the way I qualified mine.

> As to why Dawkins doesn't call himself an agnostic for having given a
> nonzero estimate (not much less than 1%, maybe somewhat more, I
> forget), that's his business, but I suspect it is out of solidarity
> with other people who call themselves atheists.

None of this is relevant. I don't choose to argue Dawkins' estimate for
him, and even if his estimate is baseless, that doesn't argue that yours
is not baseless. Nor are your suspicions about his motives relevant (and
you know that you are very bad at assigning motives anyway).

>> There's nothing in any way
>> related to probability.
>
> So I'm thinking like someone betting on the horses, who either doesn't
> bet or decides on what to bet.

In which case, your assignment of probabilities is meaningless. Just say
that your bet is that there is no creator.

> You have decided to bet everything on the probability being zero,
> haven't you?

Here you confuse a bet that x is or is not true with a bet on the
probability of x being true. I am not betting, and if I were estimating
a probability I would not put it at zero.

>>>> Perhapses without estimates of probability, much less justifications,
>>>> are worth nothing. Face it: you can't quantify this in any way, and
>>>> putting any number on it grossly exaggerates your knowledge.
>>
>>> It would if I had not added the qualifier "perhaps a lot less".
>>
>> It does anyway. The absence of a lower bound doesn't affect the upper
>> bound, which is what's under discussion.
>>
>>> And, by your criteria, your atheism is worth nothing too.
>>
>> I disagree. But we could discuss it if you like.
>
> Excellent. Let's begin with the question I asked just now.

What question? There are no questions in your recent post. There are two
questions in your quoted posts, one of which I answered and one of which
I won't answer because it's insulting.

>>>>> We've been through this before. You displayed no more surprise at the
>>>>> idea of our little universe being all there is or can be, than the
>>>>> average kid has of the existence of popcorn at movie theaters, so
>>>>> perhaps the idea of such a mighty being would also occasion no
>>>>> particular surprise in you.
>>
>>>> This is the only universe we know of. I don't know why I should be
>>>> surprised at the idea that there is no other, since we lack any evidence
>>>> of another.
>>
>>> Looks like you have really allowed your sense of surprise to atrophy,
>>> and I don't see how we can profitably discuss this issue until you've
>>> re-awakened a bit of it.
>>
>>> Have you ever raised children of your own?
>>
>> Not that it's any of your business, but yes. It did not, however, awaken
>> my ability to believe baseless bullshit, which is what you seem to be
>> advocating. I suppose it's just because I'm dead inside.
>
> Cut the histrionics, Harshman. The sarcastic histrionics that you did
> a mere week after I returned to talk.origins (after an absence of
> almost a decade) were already more than a man of your stature should
> indulge in. See:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/22243816c9a80db3
>
> I've snipped the histrionics in the excerpt I repost here, because of
> its relevance to what I said just now:

[pointless repost snipped]

> My computations and reasoning from the initial hypotheses were
> impeccable, so saying "that's a bad way to compute the odds" misled me
> in my later talk about the expansion of the Drake equation.
>
> The figures I gave in the excerpt were just for illustrative purposes--
> I could easily have done the whole thing with algebra, but I thought
> illustrative figures would make the reasoning easier to follow.
>
> And so, I thought you wouldn't be interested in algebraic
> manipulations of the extra factors into which I broke down the Drake
> equation factor of "fraction of planets where life begins that evolve
> a technological species capable of interstellar communication".
>
> But then Mark Isaak provided some which I could have provided any
> time, but didn't because of what you wrote at the end of the above
> excerpt-- and you pronounced it as being just the thing you had been
> wanting ME to do.
>
> So you can see what effect even mild words like "bad way to compute
> the odds" have on me when a man of your stature, for whom I had more
> respect than for any other talk.origins regular back when Mark Isaak
> did his algebra, utters them.

I presume by the past tense that your respect for me has changed. Ah,
well; every idol eventually falls. But you really need to make some kind
of point, and do so explicitly, or I will lose interest soon.

>>> I ask this because my first child greatly expanded my sense of
>>> surprise, in three respects. One, she was surprised by a great many
>>> things that I had taken for granted, and so helped me to see them in a
>>> fresh light. Two, she surprised me by saying and doing things I had
>>> never expected anyone, or at least not a child of her age, to do.
>>
>>> And three, I was surprised to find several things out about myself.
>>> One is that I was able to laugh for sheer joy at some of the things I
>>> saw her do. If I ever laughed for sheer joy myself before, it was so
>>> long ago that I totally lost all memory of it.
>>
>>> Another came earlier, right when she emerged from the womb in the
>>> delivery room. I was amazed at the intensity of the bonding that
>>> emerged in me towards her during the next hour; it was as intense a
>>> feeling as falling in love.
>>
>>> Adding to the amazement was the fact that when I had seen my first
>>> nephew [I have no nieces by blood] shortly after he was born, I felt
>>> detached and felt no bonding towards him whatsoever.
>>
>> All very nice, but I'm so dead inside that I see no relevance to
>> anything we're talking about.
>
> There you go again. Re-read the following and get back to me about it,
> OK:
>
>>> Looks like you have really allowed your sense of surprise to atrophy,
>>> and I don't see how we can profitably discuss this issue until you've
>>> re-awakened a bit of it.

I reject your claim. If you're trying to re-awaken my sense of surprise,
please stop. Please return to some attempt at a rational argument.

>>>> I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of them either. I
>>>> would be surprised if there were such a mighty being, since we have no
>>>> evidence of one and it seems to me that if there were, we should.
>>
>>> But if you were to see a miracle that convinces you there is one, I
>>> think that very soon after the surprise wore off,
>
> And I think the surprise would wear off a matter of minutes, the way
> you carry on above and below.

I really don't care. Doubtless this is a sign of some sort of pathology,
but I don't care about that either. Nor does this seem to be making any
kind of point, unless you're saying that I should try very hard to
believe things you say.

Rather than give me obscure hints at what your point might be, how about
actually telling me your point? Wouldn't that aid communication?

[Mitchell Coffey]

I think he needs us to clap our hands and declare our belief in fairies.

Mitchell

[pnyikos]

No, but I'm hoping that, unlike with me, you WILL give a damn as to
what Rees thinks.

> >> But even given that irrefutable
> >> evidence, how do you get from "much more" to "1%"?
>
> > I don't.  I get from it to "1%, perhaps a lot less".  It is only
> > because of the next thing I say that I didn't put the upper bound way,
> > way further down.
>
> Not the point. The question is how you managed to define an upper bound.
> You are ignoring that question.

No, I'm not. See here:

> >>> I explained why it isn't less earlier:
>
> >>>>> As to why it isn't a lot closer to zero: if our
> >>>>> fantastically un-random universe happened, perhaps a multi-universe
> >>>>> also happened in which ours is an infinitesimal part, and perhaps some
> >>>>> mighty intelligence also happened within it that was able to either
> >>>>> create ours or to manipulate the stuff of the multiverse to produce
> >>>>> our universe.
>
> >>>> This doesn't explain why it isn't closer to zero, or anything else.

I think it does, but since you don't give a damn as to what I think,
I'll move on to a different argument for it.

[snip you leaving the door open to caring what Dawkins thinks]

[snip mind-reading attempt by you about me supposedly knowing
something I don't]

[snip you leaving the door open to calling yourself an agnostic]

[snip false claim that I added no new questions, whereas the last snip
was of you answering just such a question by me]

> >>>>> We've been through this before.  You displayed no more surprise at the
> >>>>> idea of  our little  universe being all there is or can be,  than the
> >>>>> average kid has of the existence of  popcorn at movie theaters, so
> >>>>> perhaps the idea of such a mighty being would also occasion no
> >>>>> particular surprise in you.
>
> >>>> This is the only universe we know of. I don't know why I should be
> >>>> surprised at the idea that there is no other, since we lack any evidence
> >>>> of another.

Now we are really getting to the heart of the matter. We'll be right
back after a brief interlude.

[snip long preamble to interlude]

> > So you can see what effect even mild words like "bad way to compute
> > the odds" have on me when a man of your stature, for whom I had more
> > respect than for any other talk.origins regular back when Mark Isaak
> > did his algebra, utters them.
>
> I presume by the past tense that your respect for me has changed.

Very slightly. What's most relevant is that I have developed a higher
degree of respect for Richard Norman than I ever had for you--or for
anyone else in t.o. except "el cid" [and Keith Robison, in the olden
days].

[snip to end interlude]

> > Re-read the following and get back to me about it,
> > OK:
>
> >>> Looks like you have really allowed your sense of surprise to atrophy,
> >>> and I don't see how we can profitably discuss this issue until you've
> >>> re-awakened a bit of it.
>
> I reject your claim. If you're trying to re-awaken my sense of surprise,
> please stop. Please return to some attempt at a rational argument.

Ignoring the insult embedded in that last sentence, here I go with
something that involves us in probability estimates of the kind you
may have some respect for.

Back when I was about 7 years old, the following satori occurred to
me: "How lucky I am! there are far more ants in this world than human
beings, yet *I* am a human being!"

In other words, the probability that I would be a human being rather
than an ant or some other lowly creature is way below even 1%.

Of course, everyone who is not a zombie and is reasonably intelligent
can say the same thing with justice. Perhaps you can see why this is
true where YOU are concerned.

Unfortunately, atheistic materialism and monism have progressed to the
point where sophomoric "philosophers" can claim that my satori is
meaningless: I am who I am and I could not have been anyone or
anything else. Hindus, of course, would strongly disagree with that.

Anyway, back to the probabilities that you are most interested in.

The proportion of basic physical constants that are compatible with
intelligent beings like us evolving in a universe with them, to the
ones that are incompatible, is astronomically small. Rees takes a
whole book to talk about them.

If all possibilities are realized in some universe somewhere, then any
intelligent creature in such a universe -- for instance, OUR universe
-- can think of how lucky he is, just as I did back when I was 7.
Innumerable other universes support life no more complicated than that
of ants, and even those are a minuscule fraction of the total number
of universes, almost all of which are such garbage that no life form
could reasonably be expected to ever emerge. This is Rees's
conclusion also.

And so, the probability of there being a universe (or "multiverse")
that gives rise to a godlike being must be even smaller, much smaller,
but I've put an upper bound of 1% and not some much smaller figure
just so that no one in talk.origins can reasonably claim that it is
greater.

> >>>> I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of them either. I
> >>>> would be surprised if there were such a mighty being, since we have no
> >>>> evidence of one and it seems to me that if there were, we should.

There are plenty of eyewitness accounts, some attested to by reputable
physicians, like many of the cures at Lourdes, but your peculiar
definition of "nothing" encompasses a peculiar definition of "no
evidence," and so I will pass to the first of your three lines above.

It, and what it is comparing itself to via "either," makes you look
like a person who assigns 50-50 probabilities to things where there is
no evidence one way or another as to what the probabilities are. The
stock example is that there is a 50-50 chance that there are
intelligent aliens on Mars.

But if you were able to follow what i said about physical constants
above, then you may understand me when I say that if our ca. 13
billion year old cosmos is the only universe in the whole of reality,
then we (and even ants!) are incredibly lucky to be here at all,
because of the super-astronomical odds against the one universe being
so well tuned to life that not only it, but an advanced technological
civilization has come to be.

The only way you could escape this conclusion is to believe, with a
blind faith that makes even the blind faith of fundies seem
reasonable, that there is something in the very essence of reality
that made our universe and ONLY our universe inevitable, even without
any super-being to create it.

And if you have THAT kind of faith, you may be very vulnerable to the
kind of thought that occurred to that famous atheist, Bertrand
Russell, for just a few seconds:

"Great scott! The ontological argument for the existence of God is
sound!!"

[pnyikos]

On Nov 16, 12:17 am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchelldotcof...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 11/15/2012 6:59 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>
> > On 11/15/12 12:20 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>> On Nov 15, 11:17 am, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>> On 11/15/12 7:39 AM, pnyikos wrote:

[gargantuan snip]

> >>>> To continue where I left off:
> >>>>    "There is more of the wisdom that is one with surprise in any simple
> >>>> person full of the sensitiveness of simplicity, who should expect the
> >>>> grass to wither and the birds to drop dead out of the air when a
> >>>> strolling carpenter's apprentice said calmly and almost carelessly
> >>>> like one looking over his shoulder: 'Before Abraham was, I am.'"
>
> >>>>http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part2c2.htm
>
> >>> I really have no idea what you're trying to say here, doubtless because
> >>> I'm dead inside and all. Was that an attempt at some kind of argument?
> >>> Can you explain it in terms understandable by the spiritually
> >>> challenged?
>
> >> "The heart has reasons, that the reason knows not" is one translation
> >> of another famous saying of Pascal.
>
> > Rather than give me obscure hints at what your point might be, how about
> > actually telling me your point? Wouldn't that aid communication?
>
> I think he needs us to clap our hands and declare our belief in fairies.
>
> Mitchell

Nah, just your belief that we aren't zombies. See mention of zombies
in my own (long!) reply to this same post of Harshman, whom I strongly
believe is NOT a zombie.

You, on the other hand, ... :-) :-)

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

I don't give a damn about what anyone thinks. I may give a damn about
why he thinks it, though. Does he offer an argument?

>>>> But even given that irrefutable
>>>> evidence, how do you get from "much more" to "1%"?
>>
>>> I don't. I get from it to "1%, perhaps a lot less". It is only
>>> because of the next thing I say that I didn't put the upper bound way,
>>> way further down.
>>
>> Not the point. The question is how you managed to define an upper bound.
>> You are ignoring that question.
>
> No, I'm not. See here:

I meant an upper bound to your estimate of probability; that would
involve reasons why it isn't greater than 1%.

Do you have an ordered list?

> [snip to end interlude]
>
>>> Re-read the following and get back to me about it,
>>> OK:
>>
>>>>> Looks like you have really allowed your sense of surprise to atrophy,
>>>>> and I don't see how we can profitably discuss this issue until you've
>>>>> re-awakened a bit of it.
>>
>> I reject your claim. If you're trying to re-awaken my sense of surprise,
>> please stop. Please return to some attempt at a rational argument.
>
> Ignoring the insult embedded in that last sentence, here I go with
> something that involves us in probability estimates of the kind you
> may have some respect for.
>
> Back when I was about 7 years old, the following satori occurred to
> me: "How lucky I am! there are far more ants in this world than human
> beings, yet *I* am a human being!"
>
> In other words, the probability that I would be a human being rather
> than an ant or some other lowly creature is way below even 1%.
>
> Of course, everyone who is not a zombie and is reasonably intelligent
> can say the same thing with justice. Perhaps you can see why this is
> true where YOU are concerned.

Sorry, don't know what "this" was supposed to be. But I consider your
probability calculation to be senseless. It assumes that identities are
randomly assigned among species, for some pre-existing entity (soul?).
You are who you are. Someone else, including an ant, is someone else.
Your musing was quite advanced for a 7-year-old, but would be risible in
a college sophomore.

> Unfortunately, atheistic materialism and monism have progressed to the
> point where sophomoric "philosophers" can claim that my satori is
> meaningless: I am who I am and I could not have been anyone or
> anything else. Hindus, of course, would strongly disagree with that.

They would, because they have a philosophical framework of
transmigration of souls. Are you postulating transmigration of souls?
Because I think the concept is silly. Sorry, any hindus reading this.

Was this intended as an argument?

> Anyway, back to the probabilities that you are most interested in.
>
> The proportion of basic physical constants that are compatible with
> intelligent beings like us evolving in a universe with them, to the
> ones that are incompatible, is astronomically small. Rees takes a
> whole book to talk about them.

How does Rees determine what the potential distribution of constants is?
I assume we agree that values that could not have existed should be
excluded from consideration. So what values could have existed?

> If all possibilities are realized in some universe somewhere, then any
> intelligent creature in such a universe -- for instance, OUR universe
> -- can think of how lucky he is, just as I did back when I was 7.
> Innumerable other universes support life no more complicated than that
> of ants, and even those are a minuscule fraction of the total number
> of universes, almost all of which are such garbage that no life form
> could reasonably be expected to ever emerge. This is Rees's
> conclusion also.

If. And even if, you are assuming that you have been randomly
distributed among universes instead of being found only in a universe in
which you can exist. Anthropic principle, y'know.

> And so, the probability of there being a universe (or "multiverse")
> that gives rise to a godlike being must be even smaller, much smaller,
> but I've put an upper bound of 1% and not some much smaller figure
> just so that no one in talk.origins can reasonably claim that it is
> greater.

Your "and so" doesn't follow, unless you somehow know the parameter
space for such a being, and that it's smaller than the space for life.
This still boils down to you pulling a number out of nowhere. I can't
claim it's greater, and I can't claim it's less. Nor can you.

>>>>>> I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of them either. I
>>>>>> would be surprised if there were such a mighty being, since we have no
>>>>>> evidence of one and it seems to me that if there were, we should.
>
> There are plenty of eyewitness accounts, some attested to by reputable
> physicians, like many of the cures at Lourdes, but your peculiar
> definition of "nothing" encompasses a peculiar definition of "no
> evidence," and so I will pass to the first of your three lines above.

You may suppose my definitions are peculiar, but I don't think it's so
if you look. Eyewitness accounts are notoriously poor as evidence.
Perhaps I should have said "no credible evidence".

> It, and what it is comparing itself to via "either," makes you look
> like a person who assigns 50-50 probabilities to things where there is
> no evidence one way or another as to what the probabilities are. The
> stock example is that there is a 50-50 chance that there are
> intelligent aliens on Mars.

That may be what it looks like to you, but I do not assign any such
probabilities. I have no basis to assign a probability to there being
one or more than one universe.

> But if you were able to follow what i said about physical constants
> above, then you may understand me when I say that if our ca. 13
> billion year old cosmos is the only universe in the whole of reality,
> then we (and even ants!) are incredibly lucky to be here at all,
> because of the super-astronomical odds against the one universe being
> so well tuned to life that not only it, but an advanced technological
> civilization has come to be.

This argument requires the assumption of fine-tuning, which I don't
admit. But assuming that, your argument can be turned into something
that makes sense. If we suppose that in the origin of the universe
physical constants were independently drawn from a hat, and have the
potential ranges you posit, then we are in a very tiny tail of the
probability distribution of universes. If that's the null model, we
should reject the null model. But exactly how the null model is wrong is
a matter for conjecture. You assume either intelligent intervention or a
huge number of universes. You could also assume that you have
misunderstood the possible distribution. How can you reject that
explanation?

I also, by the way, find it odd that you claim this universe is
fine-tuned to create intelligent life, and also that life is vanishingly
unlikely in this universe.

> The only way you could escape this conclusion is to believe, with a
> blind faith that makes even the blind faith of fundies seem
> reasonable, that there is something in the very essence of reality
> that made our universe and ONLY our universe inevitable, even without
> any super-being to create it.

Well, that's an extreme way to state it, but if you strip it down to a
more rational statement, yes. One possibility is that you don't know the
true distribution of possible constants, or that they aren't independent
of each other, or some combination of both. How do you reject that
possibility?

> And if you have THAT kind of faith, you may be very vulnerable to the
> kind of thought that occurred to that famous atheist, Bertrand
> Russell, for just a few seconds:
>
> "Great scott! The ontological argument for the existence of God is
> sound!!"

I haven't had that problem so far. And faith doesn't enter into it.

[John Harshman]

I note that your response seems to have abandoned any attempt at
whatever point you were trying to make right there. Is it because you
think the point is ineffable?

[Robert Camp]

On Nov 27, 1:00 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Nov 15, 7:02 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > On 11/15/12 12:20 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > > On Nov 15, 11:17 am, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > >> On 11/15/12 7:39 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > >>> In my first reply to this post, I was short on time and couldn't
> > >>> address any except the last bit [deleted here]. Again I apologize for
> > >>> the delay.
>
> > >>> On Nov 7, 4:07 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > >>>> On 11/7/12 10:22 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > >>>>> On Nov 6, 3:27 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > >>>>>> On 11/6/12 12:11 PM, pnyikos wrote:

<snip>

> > >>> Looks like you have really allowed your sense of surprise to atrophy,
> > >>> and I don't see how we can profitably discuss this issue until you've
> > >>> re-awakened a bit of it.
>
> > I reject your claim. If you're trying to re-awaken my sense of surprise,
> > please stop. Please return to some attempt at a rational argument.
>
> Ignoring the insult embedded in that last sentence, here I go with
> something that involves us in probability estimates of the kind you
> may have some respect for.
>
> Back when I was about 7 years old, the following satori occurred to
> me: "How lucky I am!  there are far more ants in this world than human
> beings, yet *I* am a human being!"
>
> In other words, the probability that I would be a human being rather
> than an ant or some other lowly creature is way below even 1%.
>
> Of course, everyone who is not a zombie and is reasonably intelligent
> can say the same thing with justice.  Perhaps you can see why this is
> true where YOU are concerned.
>
> Unfortunately, atheistic materialism and monism have progressed to the
> point where sophomoric "philosophers" can claim that my satori is
> meaningless: I am who I am and I could not have been anyone or
> anything else.  Hindus, of course, would strongly disagree with that.

And they would be just as wrong as anyone else who assumes some sort
of inevitable truth underlies their own existence.

Such a realization as the one you describe is perhaps justifiably
called a "satori" when the one to whom it occurs is seven years old.
Any older, and it is deserving only of being called "begging the
question." The likelihood that you would be a human being is virtually
1, considering that the combination of your parents DNA could hardly
have produced another species. You could not have been an ant, you
could not have been a raven or a writing desk.

To even pose the revelation as you do presumes that there had to be a
"you" as you know yourself, that there was some sort of existential
"you" awaiting the opportunity to exist, and that when the time came
the universal sorting hat went ahead and handed you the brass ring
(you, out of untold billions, you lucky dog), leaving so many
unfortunate souls to live out their lives as ants, or dolphins, or
harpy eagles. This kind of musing is okay for sitting around a dorm-
room bong, or for seven year olds, but it's empty navel-gazing if
offered as profundity. And it's, unfortunately, the kind of
anthropocentrism that leads people to find some deep, ontological
meaning in universal constants.

It also promotes some to deliver such monumental projection as,

"Unfortunately, atheistic materialism and monism have progressed to
the point where sophomoric "philosophers" can claim that my satori is

meaningless..."

Or was that just your way of saying you are anxious to move on from
being a freshman "philosopher?"

RLC

<snip>

[John S. Wilkins]

Peter is ignoring the obvious alternative: we are all zombies. Nothing
is conscious...

--
John S. Wilkins, Associate, Philosophy, University of Sydney

Honorary Fellow, University of Melbourne
- http://evolvingthoughts.net

[Robert Camp]

On Nov 27, 2:25 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:

Ah, so that's what it's like to be a bat.

RLC (I have this strange craving for brains...)

[pnyikos]

To you, it may seem that way. But since others have weighed in on
this thread, I'll see what they have to say before returning to you.

Which won't be at least until tomorrow. Too many loose ends in too
many other threads.

> Is it because you
> think the point is ineffable?

A question with a contrary to fact premise. HANE.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

I presume that means you don't think the point is ineffable, though I
have no idea what HANE means. So if it isn't ineffable, why don't you
just say what you mean?

[John Harshman]

The sad thing is that those most in need lack any such craving.

[pnyikos]

The inevitable truth about MY existence is that I have a phenomenal
world all my own, and so does everyone who isn't a zombie.

Where does that leave you? ;-)

> Such a realization as the one you describe is perhaps justifiably
> called a "satori" when the one to whom it occurs is seven years old.

I never tried to imply anything beyond that.

> Any older, and it is deserving only of being called "begging the
> question." The likelihood that you would be a human being is virtually
> 1, considering that the combination of your parents DNA could hardly
> have produced another species.

Not so fast, bub. It could easily have produced another individual,
if a different sperm had fertilized that egg.

Here's something for you to chew on: when a certain sperm fertilized a
certain egg, was that YOUR one and only chance ever to exist?

And I don't mean "Robert Camp" -- the people who turned out to be
your parents might have called the resulting person THAT, or maybe
"Roberta Camp" if the "lucky" sperm had had an X chromosome. I mean
YOU, the entity that is looking out at the world through the eyes of
the man known to us here in talk.origins as Robert Camp.

> You could not have been an ant, you
> could not have been a raven or a writing desk.

Not a writing desk. There is no "there" there. [Now, who was it that
first said "There is no `there' there"? I forget.]

Or as someone once said, there is "nobody home" in a writing desk.

Ravens and ants are a different matter altogether. Descartes believed
that neither are conscious. Hume believed that at least the ravens
were.

> To even pose the revelation as you do presumes that there had to be a
> "you" as you know yourself, that there was some sort of existential
> "you" awaiting the opportunity to exist,

Absolutely not. It is an assumption, one I made when I was 7.

I made it again when I was 9, when I started to wonder why it was that
I always woke up with the same body I had when I went to sleep. [I
was aware, you see, that I had become unconscious at some points.] I
wondered why I never woke up as in the body of one of my
classmates.]

And again when I was 11, when I wondered why I existed in the 20th
century rather than, say, at the time of Attila the Hun.

I knew that, *logically speaking*, there is no reason why *I* should
be somehow attached to this one body out of all the bodies that ever
existed. Yet, until I was 19, I never really questioned the
assumption that I had to exist, simply because I was a Roman Catholic
and had been told that my soul (which I believed to be the basis of my
conscious self) was created separately by God before I was born.

> and that when the time came
> the universal sorting hat went ahead and handed you the brass ring
> (you, out of untold billions, you lucky dog),

Not any more. I am astonishingly lucky to have existed at all, and
even more so to exist as a human being with a long rich life.
[Sometimes a "hard knock life", as the song goes, but very rewarding
on the whole.]

> leaving so many
> unfortunate souls to live out their lives as ants, or dolphins, or
> harpy eagles. This kind of musing is okay for sitting around a dorm-
> room bong, or for seven year olds, but it's empty navel-gazing if
> offered as profundity. And it's, unfortunately, the kind of
> anthropocentrism that leads people to find some deep, ontological
> meaning in universal constants.

I see you are not only not anthropocentric, you aren't even conscious
species centric. You go even beyond Peter Singer and his condemnation
of speciesism, since he still gives mammals more rights than he gives
writing desks.

All of which goes nicely with you being an arch-polemicist.

> It also promotes some to deliver such monumental projection as,
> "Unfortunately, atheistic materialism and monism have progressed to
> the point where sophomoric "philosophers" can claim that my satori is
> meaningless..."

Anyone can accuse anyone else of projection. The trick is to back it
up with anything other than the Truth by Blatant Assertion which you
are weilding here, and which is one of your big weapons that makes you
an arch-polemicist.

> Or was that just your way of saying you are anxious to move on from
> being a freshman "philosopher?"

Smart-alecky wisecracks like this, OTOH, only go with being a middle
school polemicist. Try to be a little more creative next time.

[pnyikos]

On Nov 27, 5:25 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:

> Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On Nov 27, 1:00 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > On Nov 15, 7:02 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > > > On 11/15/12 12:20 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > > > > On Nov 15, 11:17 am, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > > > >> On 11/15/12 7:39 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > > > >>> In my first reply to this post, I was short on time and couldn't
> > > > >>> address any except the last bit [deleted here]. Again I apologize for
> > > > >>> the delay.
>
> > > > >>> On Nov 7, 4:07 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > > > >>>> On 11/7/12 10:22 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > > Back when I was about 7 years old, the following satori occurred to
> > > me: "How lucky I am!  there are far more ants in this world than human
> > > beings, yet *I* am a human being!"
>
> > > In other words, the probability that I would be a human being rather
> > > than an ant or some other lowly creature is way below even 1%.
>
> > > Of course, everyone who is not a zombie and is reasonably intelligent
> > > can say the same thing with justice.  Perhaps you can see why this is
> > > true where YOU are concerned.
>
> > > Unfortunately, atheistic materialism and monism have progressed to the
> > > point where sophomoric "philosophers" can claim that my satori is
> > > meaningless: I am who I am and I could not have been anyone or
> > > anything else.  Hindus, of course, would strongly disagree with that.

[snip stuff from Camp to which I have already replied]

> > To even pose the revelation as you do presumes that there had to be a
> > "you" as you know yourself,
> > that there was some sort of existential
> > "you" awaiting the opportunity to exist,
> > and that when the time came
> > the universal sorting hat went ahead and handed you the brass ring
> > (you, out of untold billions, you lucky dog),

I replied to the above too, but now comes something to which it is a
preamble and to which I didn't reply:

> > leaving so many
> > unfortunate souls to live out their lives as ants, or dolphins, or
> > harpy eagles.

Ah, but we have Descartes to contend with. And so perhaps my satori
at 7 was based on incorrect premises. It assumed that ants have
conscious selves, and that is debatable, even without the more
sweeping claims of Descartes.

> > This kind of musing is okay for sitting around a dorm-
> > room bong, or for seven year olds, but it's empty navel-gazing if
> > offered as profundity.

It sure beats the unexamined life, which Socrates said was not worth
living.

And I agree with Socrates, although Joseph Wood Krutch and millions of
hedonists (who would have been happier as cestodes, if cestodes are
conscious) might disagree.

I also agree with John Stuart Mill [or was it someone else who said
it?], in that I would rather be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied.

<snip polemics by Camp, also replied to>

> Peter is ignoring the obvious alternative: we are all zombies. Nothing
> is conscious...

That's because it is false. I know I am conscious. Descartes has
never been refuted, and smart-alecky comebacks like "I think,
therefore I am -- I think" miss the point.

You disappoint me, Wilkins. I was hoping for some meaty philosophical
stuff from you which would move this discussion to a higher plane.
Just look at how much I was able to expound on just in reply to a mean-
spirited arch-polemicist like Camp. Do read what I wrote to him, and
try to comment sagely on it, please.

Oh...wait...are you still in barely bearable pain? That would explain
the brevity of your reply, of course, and if so, please disregard my
salvo at the beginning of the preceding paragraph: under such
circumstances, you do NOT disappoint me.

Best wishes,

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

How very, very sad it is that Nagel lost his thread of thought and
never speculated on the possibility that the conscious experience bats
have of ultrasound echoes is something utterly alien to our
experience.

I wonder also about the infrared sensors of pit vipers, and the
lateral line of fishes.

As a result, the sophomoric Hofstadter never even thought of such
things in his commentary on Nagel's essay in _The Mind's Eye_ and even
asked such idiotic questions as what it is like to be a baseball bat
(about like being a writing desk, I say) and asked stupid questions
like "what would satisfy him? Perhaps nothing" based on the idiotic
premise that even experiencing what a bat experiences would not
satisfy Nagel.

Peter Nyikos

[Robert Camp]

Wondering if you have some relevant point to make.

> > Such a realization as the one you describe is perhaps justifiably
> > called a "satori" when the one to whom it occurs is seven years old.
>
> I never tried to imply anything beyond that.
>
> > Any older, and it is deserving only of being called "begging the
> > question." The likelihood that you would be a human being is virtually
> > 1, considering that the combination of your parents DNA could hardly
> > have produced another species.
>
> Not so fast, bub.  It could easily have produced another individual,
> if a different sperm had fertilized that egg.
>
> Here's something for you to chew on: when a certain sperm fertilized a
> certain egg, was that YOUR one and only chance ever to exist?

Depends on how you define "me."

> And I don't mean "Robert Camp"  -- the people who turned out to be
> your parents  might have called the resulting person THAT, or maybe
> "Roberta Camp" if the "lucky" sperm had had an X chromosome.  I mean
> YOU, the entity that is looking out at the world through the eyes of
> the man known to us here in talk.origins as Robert Camp.

There's really nothing, beyond airy speculation, to chew on. The only
reason any of that could have ontological import is if there was a
"me" that cannot be, or is not, comprehensively defined simply by the
combination of factors and events that lead to the entity that is
looking out at the world through my eyes.

As it happens, there was an event prior to my life that may help us
reflect on that definition. Before I was born my parents conceived a
male child, one they were going to name Robert, who was stillborn at
eight months. Would that child have been "me?" Of course not. It
doesn't matter that he was a male and would have had my name. It
wouldn't have mattered, had he lived, that another male might have
been conceived just as I was. None of them would have been "me"
because the accumulated contingencies leading to me would have been
different.

It's possible much of my life might have still turned out as it has.
It's even possible someone very similar to me might be writing this
post, but it wouldn't have been "me." "I" am nothing more and nothing
less than the sum total of the circumstances of my existence. And I
don't need to imbue those circumstances with any kind of inevitability
in order to appreciate that existence.

> > You could not have been an ant, you
> > could not have been a raven or a writing desk.
>
> Not a writing desk.  There is no "there" there.  [Now, who was it that
> first said "There is no `there' there"?  I forget.]
>
> Or as someone once said, there is "nobody home" in a writing desk.
>
> Ravens and ants are a different matter altogether.  Descartes believed
> that neither are conscious.  Hume believed that at least the ravens
> were.

The empty notion that they might have won an existential lottery and
become human (but didn't) in no way follows from the possibility of
their consciousness.

> > To even pose the revelation as you do presumes that there had to be a
> > "you" as you know yourself, that there was some sort of existential
> > "you" awaiting the opportunity to exist,
>
> Absolutely not.  It is an assumption, one I made when I was 7.
>
> I made it again when I was 9, when I started to wonder why it was that
> I always woke up with the same body I had when I went to sleep.  [I
> was aware, you see, that I had become unconscious at some points.] I
> wondered why I never woke up as in the body of one of my
> classmates.]
>
> And again when I was 11, when I wondered why I existed in the 20th
> century rather than, say, at the time of Attila the Hun.
>
>  I knew that, *logically speaking*, there is no reason why *I* should
> be somehow attached to this one body out of all the bodies that ever
> existed.

But of course there is a reason, logically speaking, why "you" could,
must, be attached to your body - the fact that your body and its
operation are the source of "you." The only path to thinking otherwise
is the inability, or unwillingness, to relinquish those ill-considered
assumptions that apparently informed much of your early speculation.

> Yet, until I was 19, I never really questioned the
> assumption that I had to exist, simply because I was a Roman Catholic
> and had been told that my soul (which I believed to be the basis of my
> conscious self) was created separately by God before I was born.
>
> > and that when the time came
> > the universal sorting hat went ahead and handed you the brass ring
> > (you, out of untold billions, you lucky dog),
>
> Not any more.   I am astonishingly lucky to have existed at all, and
> even more so to exist as a human being with a long rich life.
> [Sometimes a "hard knock life", as the song goes, but very rewarding
> on the whole.]
>
> >  leaving so many
> > unfortunate souls to live out their lives as ants, or dolphins, or
> > harpy eagles. This kind of musing is okay for sitting around a dorm-
> > room bong, or for seven year olds, but it's empty navel-gazing if
> > offered as profundity. And it's, unfortunately, the kind of
> > anthropocentrism that leads people to find some deep, ontological
> > meaning in universal constants.
>
> I see you are not only not anthropocentric, you aren't even conscious
> species centric.  You go even beyond Peter Singer and his condemnation
> of speciesism, since he still gives mammals more rights than he gives
> writing desks.

Irrelevant and immaterial. I'm back to wondering if you really have
this much difficulty following the arc of discussion, or whether you
intentionally digress in order to evade the issue.

RLC

[Roger Shrubber]

On Nov 28, 9:53 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:


> You disappoint me, Wilkins.  I was hoping for some meaty philosophical
> stuff from you which would move this discussion to a higher plane.
> Just look at how much I was able to expound on just in reply to a mean-
> spirited arch-polemicist like Camp.  Do read what I wrote to him, and
> try to comment sagely on it, please.
>
> Oh...wait...are you still in barely bearable pain?  That would explain
> the brevity of your reply, of course, and if so, please disregard my
> salvo at the beginning of the preceding paragraph: under such
> circumstances, you do NOT disappoint me.

If he wasn't in barely bearable pain, perhaps he is now.

[Mitchell Coffey]

On Nov 27, 5:25 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:

I know it's true about me. I've just gotten *very* good at acting as
if I were conscious, such that no one can tell that I'm not. How did I
get so good? Dr. Turing taught me, while sitting in his Chinese room.

Mitchell

[Paul J Gans]

Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Nov 27, 5:25?pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
>> Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Nov 27, 1:00 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> > > On Nov 15, 7:02 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>
>> > > > On 11/15/12 12:20 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>> > > > > On Nov 15, 11:17 am, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> > > > >> On 11/15/12 7:39 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>> > > > >>> In my first reply to this post, I was short on time and couldn't
>> > > > >>> address any except the last bit [deleted here]. Again I apologize for
>> > > > >>> the delay.
>>
>> > > > >>> On Nov 7, 4:07 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> > > > >>>> On 11/7/12 10:22 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>> > > > >>>>> On Nov 6, 3:27 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> > > > >>>>>> On 11/6/12 12:11 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>> > <snip>
>>
>> > > > >>> Looks like you have really allowed your sense of surprise to atrophy,
>> > > > >>> and I don't see how we can profitably discuss this issue until you've
>> > > > >>> re-awakened a bit of it.
>>
>> > > > I reject your claim. If you're trying to re-awaken my sense of surprise,
>> > > > please stop. Please return to some attempt at a rational argument.
>>
>> > > Ignoring the insult embedded in that last sentence, here I go with
>> > > something that involves us in probability estimates of the kind you
>> > > may have some respect for.
>>
>> > > Back when I was about 7 years old, the following satori occurred to

>> > > me: "How lucky I am! ?there are far more ants in this world than human

>> > > beings, yet *I* am a human being!"
>>
>> > > In other words, the probability that I would be a human being rather
>> > > than an ant or some other lowly creature is way below even 1%.
>>
>> > > Of course, everyone who is not a zombie and is reasonably intelligent

>> > > can say the same thing with justice. ?Perhaps you can see why this is

>> > > true where YOU are concerned.
>>
>> > > Unfortunately, atheistic materialism and monism have progressed to the
>> > > point where sophomoric "philosophers" can claim that my satori is
>> > > meaningless: I am who I am and I could not have been anyone or

>> > > anything else. ?Hindus, of course, would strongly disagree with that.

Unfortunately his tape broke and he ran right off the end of it.
Sad really...

To expand the consciousness question, I don't think I believe in
free will, but as anyone who has had much contact with children
will agree, I certainly find that free won't exists.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[John S. Wilkins]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> That's because it is false. I know I am conscious. Descartes has
> never been refuted, and smart-alecky comebacks like "I think,
> therefore I am -- I think" miss the point.

Well you *assert* that you are conscious. But whether or not there is
anything more to it than your physical state is precisely what is at
issue. If to be conscious is to be a system of a certain kind and
complexity, then we are conscious, but not Conscious.

>
> You disappoint me, Wilkins. I was hoping for some meaty philosophical
> stuff from you which would move this discussion to a higher plane.
> Just look at how much I was able to expound on just in reply to a mean-
> spirited arch-polemicist like Camp. Do read what I wrote to him, and
> try to comment sagely on it, please.

No, I find these arguments tedious, and besides I have said my piece on
my blog from time to time. I'm here to make bad jokes and bibliography
bomb.

>
> Oh...wait...are you still in barely bearable pain? That would explain
> the brevity of your reply, of course, and if so, please disregard my
> salvo at the beginning of the preceding paragraph: under such
> circumstances, you do NOT disappoint me.

My pain reports are diminishing. My lack of patience and desire to argue
first and second year philosophy on t.o has permanently increased...

[John S. Wilkins]

Heh, I haven't read Hofstadter in 30 years...

Another alternative: to be a bat (or Peter Nyikos) is just to *be* a bat
(or Peter Nyikos)...

I once posted a blog entry on what it is like to be a digital camera.

[pnyikos]

On Nov 28, 12:10 am, Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 27, 3:42 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> > On Nov 27, 5:11 pm, Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Short on time, I respond only to the end and leave the rest for later.

> > > and that when the time came
> > > the universal sorting hat went ahead and handed you the brass ring
> > > (you, out of untold billions, you lucky dog),
>
> > Not any more. I am astonishingly lucky to have existed at all, and
> > even more so to exist as a human being with a long rich life.
> > [Sometimes a "hard knock life", as the song goes, but very rewarding
> > on the whole.]
>
> > > leaving so many
> > > unfortunate souls to live out their lives as ants, or dolphins, or
> > > harpy eagles. This kind of musing is okay for sitting around a dorm-
> > > room bong, or for seven year olds, but it's empty navel-gazing if
> > > offered as profundity. And it's, unfortunately, the kind of
> > > anthropocentrism that leads people to find some deep, ontological
> > > meaning in universal constants.
>
> > I see you are not only not anthropocentric, you aren't even conscious
> > species centric. You go even beyond Peter Singer and his condemnation
> > of speciesism, since he still gives mammals more rights than he gives
> > writing desks.
>
> Irrelevant and immaterial.

It is absolutely relevant to your baseless put-down of universal
constants. Even Singer can appreciate the fantastic fine-tuning to
which Martin Rees devoted a whole book.

Your words about them made it seem like you think there is no
difference between a garbage universe in which no sentient creature
could exist (or existing, have any kind of meaningful sense
impressions) and a universe where something at least on the level of a
fish, and maybe even a dinosaur or a therapsid, could have a great
time.

> I'm back to wondering if you really have
> this much difficulty following the arc of discussion, or whether you
> intentionally digress in order to evade the issue.

Don't you ever tire of sterile polemical put-downs?

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Nov 29, 3:46 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:

> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > That's because it is false.   I know I am conscious.  Descartes has
> > never been refuted, and smart-alecky comebacks like "I think,
> > therefore I am -- I think" miss the point.
>
> Well you *assert* that you are conscious.

I didn't expect you to be convinced by my "assertion". And maybe you
lack the motivation to do enough introspection to verify that YOU are
conscious. Otherwise, the claim of yours to which I was replying and
you snipped would collapse all around you.

> But whether or not there is
> anything more to it than your physical state is precisely what is at
> issue.

Only in part. There is also the intelligibility of what I've been
posting involved.

The *concept* of me waking up in another body is highly intelligible
to most people. Karl Heim writes in _Christian Faith and Natural
Science_ about a very popular fictional depiction of someone thinking
that happened to him.

[At least, it was popular in Europe. He wrote in German, and I've
given you the title of the English translation.]

Something similar happens in an episode of the original "Star Trek."
A woman switches the essence of her personality with that of Captain
Kirk. Most viewers naturally take the subsequent events to mean that
the "self" of Captain Kirk "woke up" in the body of the woman, and her
"self" in his.

The same sort of thing happened in a very early issue of the comic
book, _The Fantastic Four_, with Doctor Doom switching his self with
that of Mr. Fantastic.

> If to be conscious is to be a system of a certain kind and
> complexity, then we are conscious, but not Conscious.

I reject the premise and also the conclusion. I have a thickly
annotated copy of _The Mind's Eye_ where your premise is taken apart
bit by bit, sometimes in an anthologized essay, sometimes by my
marginal notes.

> > You disappoint me, Wilkins.  I was hoping for some meaty philosophical
> > stuff from you which would move this discussion to a higher plane.
> > Just look at how much I was able to expound on just in reply to a mean-
> > spirited arch-polemicist like Camp.  Do read what I wrote to him, and
> > try to comment sagely on it, please.
>
> No, I find these arguments tedious, and besides I have said my piece on
> my blog from time to time. I'm here to make bad jokes and bibliography
> bomb.
>
>
>
> > Oh...wait...are you still in barely bearable pain?  That would explain
> > the brevity of your reply, of course, and if so, please disregard my
> > salvo at the beginning of the preceding paragraph: under such
> > circumstances, you do NOT disappoint me.
>
> My pain reports are diminishing.

I'm glad, even though it makes your claim that we are all zombies
easier to support. Back when you were in excruciating pain, it would
have seemed quite incongruous.

> My lack of patience and desire to argue
> first and second year philosophy on t.o has permanently increased...

Too bad most philosophy students and "philosophers" go off on sterile
tangents instead of going on to the natural continuation of these
early arguments, like Heim's book, the essays of William James, and
Hans Jonas's magnificent _The Phenomenon of Life_.

[Robert Camp]

And this is further evidence that you don't understand the issues
under discussion. My words only "make it seem" like that to someone
incapable of examining his own assumptions. The point wasn't about
whether there was a difference between those universes, of course
there is. The point was about whether there is justification in taking
any meaning from the fact of that supposed "fine-tuning" beyond what a
puddle of water takes from the facts of its fit to the hole in which
it finds itself.

RLC

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<f529f875-cf83-499a...@g6g2000vbk.googlegroups.com>,

Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I know it's true about me. I've just gotten *very* good at acting as
> if I were conscious, such that no one can tell that I'm not. How did I
> get so good? Dr. Turing taught me, while sitting in his Chinese room.
>
> Mitchell

If we are all zombies how would anyone know how a conscious being
would act?

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<a0632459-14e8-4f63...@l7g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> I made it again when I was 9, when I started to wonder why it was that
> I always woke up with the same body I had when I went to sleep. [I
> was aware, you see, that I had become unconscious at some points.] I
> wondered why I never woke up as in the body of one of my
> classmates.]

How do you know you didn't? If you awoke in the body of someone else
with their memories and none of your own and vice versa to the person
your body you were in, then how in the world would you know the switch
had been made? In fact in such a case, what would it mean to assert a
switch had been made.

[Paul J Gans]

I dunno. I never met one of them contencious beings.

[John S. Wilkins]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> On Nov 29, 3:46 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > That's because it is false. I know I am conscious. Descartes has
> > > never been refuted, and smart-alecky comebacks like "I think,
> > > therefore I am -- I think" miss the point.
> >
> > Well you *assert* that you are conscious.
>
> I didn't expect you to be convinced by my "assertion". And maybe you
> lack the motivation to do enough introspection to verify that YOU are
> conscious. Otherwise, the claim of yours to which I was replying and
> you snipped would collapse all around you.

Too fast. Let's put it this way: there is conscious, which is what you
and I are. It has to do with re-entrant loops of neural networks
allowing brains to monitor their own state. This is not Hard; although
it takes a lot of computation and is ordinarily hard.

So I do not deny that you and I are conscious.

But then there's Conscious. This mythical state has seemings that cannot
be reduced, internal states that are not physical, and a Cartesian ego.
This is Hard to explain physically because it is set up to be. It
presumes nonphysical aspects and properties as the explandum. This begs
the question.

When you ask why Consciousness is the explanandum, and not just
consciousness, the retort is almost always "introspect, introspect,
introspect", but scientific evidence indicates that the Cartesian ego is
nonexistent. So the onus is placed unfairly on the physicalist when it
should be placed on the dualist.

>
> > But whether or not there is
> > anything more to it than your physical state is precisely what is at
> > issue.
>
> Only in part. There is also the intelligibility of what I've been
> posting involved.
>
> The *concept* of me waking up in another body is highly intelligible
> to most people. Karl Heim writes in _Christian Faith and Natural
> Science_ about a very popular fictional depiction of someone thinking
> that happened to him.

Words do not determine the world.

>
> [At least, it was popular in Europe. He wrote in German, and I've
> given you the title of the English translation.]
>
> Something similar happens in an episode of the original "Star Trek."
> A woman switches the essence of her personality with that of Captain
> Kirk. Most viewers naturally take the subsequent events to mean that
> the "self" of Captain Kirk "woke up" in the body of the woman, and her
> "self" in his.
>
> The same sort of thing happened in a very early issue of the comic
> book, _The Fantastic Four_, with Doctor Doom switching his self with
> that of Mr. Fantastic.
>
> > If to be conscious is to be a system of a certain kind and
> > complexity, then we are conscious, but not Conscious.
>
> I reject the premise and also the conclusion. I have a thickly
> annotated copy of _The Mind's Eye_ where your premise is taken apart
> bit by bit, sometimes in an anthologized essay, sometimes by my
> marginal notes.

Well howdy. That must be davastating for me if only I had read your
marginal notes, and not the last 40 years of the technical literature on
the subject.

>
> > > You disappoint me, Wilkins. I was hoping for some meaty philosophical
> > > stuff from you which would move this discussion to a higher plane.
> > > Just look at how much I was able to expound on just in reply to a mean-
> > > spirited arch-polemicist like Camp. Do read what I wrote to him, and
> > > try to comment sagely on it, please.
> >
> > No, I find these arguments tedious, and besides I have said my piece on
> > my blog from time to time. I'm here to make bad jokes and bibliography
> > bomb.
> >
> >
> >
> > > Oh...wait...are you still in barely bearable pain? That would explain
> > > the brevity of your reply, of course, and if so, please disregard my
> > > salvo at the beginning of the preceding paragraph: under such
> > > circumstances, you do NOT disappoint me.
> >
> > My pain reports are diminishing.
>
> I'm glad, even though it makes your claim that we are all zombies
> easier to support. Back when you were in excruciating pain, it would
> have seemed quite incongruous.

You miss the point. The joke here is that pain = pain reports on a
certain kind of central state materialism. Oh never mind.

>
> > My lack of patience and desire to argue
> > first and second year philosophy on t.o has permanently increased...
>
> Too bad most philosophy students and "philosophers" go off on sterile
> tangents instead of going on to the natural continuation of these
> early arguments, like Heim's book, the essays of William James, and
> Hans Jonas's magnificent _The Phenomenon of Life_.

If they were known to be sterile tangents ahead of time, nobody would.
But you can't gerrymander the field to suit your a priori prejudices -
in philosophy, anyway.

And I read James as a child. Still do. Stop being condescending about my
own field. I don't do it to yours.

[pnyikos]

On Dec 1, 3:23 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> >In article

> ><f529f875-cf83-499a-bf53-cf5f709cd...@g6g2000vbk.googlegroups.com>,

> > Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I know it's true about me. I've just gotten *very* good at acting as
> >> if I were conscious, such that no one can tell that I'm not. How did I
> >> get so good? Dr. Turing taught me, while sitting in his Chinese room.

Dr. Turing cheated big-time when faced with the issue of whether
"thinking" machines [by his abysmally mis-stated "Turing test"] are
conscious.

He confused the common-sense fact of *epistemology*, that no one can
KNOW that anyone but himself is conscious, with the *ontological*
claim of solipsism.

[While thinking about ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny is on the wane
these days, I see no sign of the confusion between ontology and
epistemology abating.]

Turing then completed his grand sweep-under-the-rug by breezily
claiming that no one wanted to support solipsism and so the objection
from consciousness was moot.

Evidently he had never read Mark Twain's _The Mysterious Stranger_
nor, more relevantly, the episode in the life of Thomas Carlyle when
he was in such a clinically depressive state that the whole world
seemed to him to be inhabited by zombies.

This episode is recounted by Aldous Huxley in _Heaven and Hell_:

In *Sartor Resartus* Carlyle has left what (in _Mr Carlyle, my
Patient_) his psychosomatic biographer, Dr
James Halliday, calls 'an amazing description of a psychotic state of
mind, largely depressive, but partly
schizophrenic".

'The men and women around me,' writes Carlyle, 'even speaking with me,
were but Figures; I had
practically forgotten that they were alive, that they were not merely
automata. Friendship was but an
incredible tradition. In the midst of their crowded streets and
assemblages I walked solitary; and (except
that it was my own heart, not another's, that I kept devouring) savage
also as the tiger in the jungle. .. . To
me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of
Hostility; it was one huge, dead
immeasurable steam-engine, rolling on in its dead indifference, to
grind me limb from limb.. .. Having no
hope, neither had I any definite fear, were it of Man or of Devil. And
yet, strangely enough, I lived in a
continual, indefinite, pining fear, tremulous, pusillanimous,
apprehensive of I knew not what; it seemed
as if all things in the Heavens above and the Earth beneath, would
hurt me; as if the Heavens and the
Earth were but the boundless jaws of a devouring Monster, wherein I,
palpitating, waited to be devoured.'
Renee and the idolater of heroes are evidently describing the same
experience. Infinity is apprehended by
both, but in the form of 'the System', the 'immeasurable Steam-
Engine'. To both, again, all is significant,
but .negatively significant, so that every event is utterly pointless,
every object intensely unreal, every
self-styled human being a clockwork dummy,

> >> Mitchell
> >If we are all zombies how would anyone know how a conscious being
> >would act?
>
> I dunno.  I never met one of them contencious beings.

Hmmm.... does Carlyle's state in that episode mirror your own?

Or were you just doing a pun on "contentious"? Somehow, that doesn't
seem likely, unless you were joking.

[pnyikos]

On Dec 1, 5:48 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > On Nov 29, 3:46 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > > That's because it is false.   I know I am conscious.  Descartes has
> > > > never been refuted, and smart-alecky comebacks like "I think,
> > > > therefore I am -- I think" miss the point.
>
> > > Well you *assert* that you are conscious.
>
> > I didn't expect you to be convinced by my "assertion".  And maybe you
> > lack the motivation to do enough introspection to verify that YOU are
> > conscious.  Otherwise, the claim of yours to which I was replying and
> > you snipped would collapse all around you.
>
> Too fast. Let's put it this way: there is conscious, which is what you
> and I are. It has to do with re-entrant loops of neural networks
> allowing brains to monitor their own state. This is not Hard; although
> it takes a lot of computation and is ordinarily hard.

If you had written "is nothing more than" instead of "has to do with,"
I would have a pretty good idea of where you draw the line between
"conscious" and "Conscious". As it is, the gray area is enormous.

> So I do not deny that you and I are conscious.
>
> But then there's Conscious. This mythical state has seemings that cannot
> be reduced,

My perception of a pure blue sky filling my field of vision would seem
to qualify.

> internal states that are not physical, and a Cartesian ego.

What do you mean by "Cartesian ego"? Keep in mind that Freud also
used the word "ego" and also talked about "the conscious".

> This is Hard to explain physically because it is set up to be. It
> presumes nonphysical aspects and properties as the explandum. This begs
> the question.
>
> When you ask why Consciousness is the explanandum, and not just
> consciousness, the retort is almost always "introspect, introspect,
> introspect", but scientific evidence indicates that the Cartesian ego is
> nonexistent.

What evidence would that be? Maybe in stating it, you would also
clarify what you mean by "the Cartesian ego."

> So the onus is placed unfairly on the physicalist when it
> should be placed on the dualist.

Not completely. If materialists do not want their dispute with
dualists to become analoguous to a draw by repetition of moves (chess
concept) or by perpetual check but no checkmate, they need to shoulder
some of the burden of explaining the psychical qualities they
attribute to matter. Hans Jonas made the case for that quite cogently
in a long appendix to "Cybernetics and Purpose: a Critique" titled,
"Materialism, Determinism and the Mind".

Both are anthologized in _The Phenomenon of Life_. If you don't have
access to a copy, I can either scan them for you and e-mail you the
PDF, or photocopy them and send them by snail mail.

> > > But whether or not there is
> > > anything more to it than your physical state is precisely what is at
> > > issue.
>
> > Only in part.  There is also the intelligibility of what I've been
> > posting involved.
>
> > The *concept* of me waking up in another body is highly intelligible
> > to most people.  Karl Heim writes in _Christian Faith and Natural
> > Science_ about a very popular fictional depiction of someone thinking
> > that happened to him.
>
> Words do not determine the world.

Gosh, I would have loved to have said that to Norman Malcolm [see
below] and Gilbert "Ghost in the Machine" Ryle. But rest assured,
concepts are not mere words, and it is of concepts that I speak here.
[descriptions of similar things in "Star Trek" and "The Fantastic
Four" snipped]

> > > If to be conscious is to be a system of a certain kind and
> > > complexity, then we are conscious, but not Conscious.
>
> > I reject the premise and also the conclusion.  I have a thickly
> > annotated copy of _The Mind's Eye_ where your premise is taken apart
> > bit by bit, sometimes in an anthologized essay, sometimes by my
> > marginal notes.
>
> Well howdy. That must be davastating for me if only I had read your
> marginal notes, and not the last 40 years of the technical literature on
> the subject.

You are being sarcastic, but I am sincere when I say I wish we could
have met forty years ago and had a freewheeling, no-holds-barred
[mentally speaking] encounter. We might have had many a joint paper
by now.

> > > > You disappoint me, Wilkins.  I was hoping for some meaty philosophical
> > > > stuff from you which would move this discussion to a higher plane.
> > > > Just look at how much I was able to expound on just in reply to a mean-
> > > > spirited arch-polemicist like Camp.  Do read what I wrote to him, and
> > > > try to comment sagely on it, please.
>
> > > No, I find these arguments tedious, and besides I have said my piece on
> > > my blog from time to time. I'm here to make bad jokes and bibliography
> > > bomb.

Can you pinpoint those parts of your blog that look especially
relevant?

> > > > Oh...wait...are you still in barely bearable pain?  That would explain
> > > > the brevity of your reply, of course, and if so, please disregard my
> > > > salvo at the beginning of the preceding paragraph: under such
> > > > circumstances, you do NOT disappoint me.
>
> > > My pain reports are diminishing.
>
> > I'm glad, even though it makes your claim that we are all zombies
> > easier to support.  Back when you were in excruciating pain, it would
> > have seemed quite incongruous.
>
> You miss the point. The joke here is that pain = pain reports on a
> certain kind of central state materialism.

I hope you *are* joking and don't mean it literally. Your last
sentence reads to me like a burlesque on the philosophy of
Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein had a genius for skating to the very brink of falsehood
without plunging in. You don't seem to have mastered the knack for
that--unless you *were* joking.

Your unequivocal equation reminds me of an essay by Norman Malcolm,
"Dreaming and Skepticism" [ _The Philosophical Review_ Vol. 65, pp.
14-37], later expanded into a book. Specifically, I am reminded of
the following passage:

One would like to object here that
a person who is telling a dream speaks
in the past tense *because* he is
reporting something that took place
in the past while he slept, namely, his
dream. The objection rests on the idea
that his report corresponds to his dream
in the same way that my report of yesterday's
events correponds to them. This is wrong.

It is senseless to suppose that his dream
differed from his report of it unless this
means that he might change, add to, or
contradict his report. No one knows what it
means to "verify" his report. Others use his
report as their criterion of what his dream was.

This is utterly ridiculous. I sometimes have very vivid dreams, and
after recounting them I sometimes recall other events in the dream
which I add in my later recounting. Occasionally it also happens that
I recall that an event I recounted actually occurred in a version of
the ("recurring") dream that I had had on a previous occasion.

Malcolm was a disciple of Wittgenstein, and he even quotes
Wittgenstein on the same page, but Wittgenstein doesn't even come
close to supporting Malcolm's unequivocal equation.

> Oh never mind.

Too late. Now the fat is in the fire.

[Concluded in next post.]

[pnyikos]

On Dec 1, 5:48 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > On Nov 29, 3:46 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

Picking up where I left off:

> > > My lack of patience and desire to argue
> > > first and second year philosophy on t.o has permanently increased...
>
> > Too bad most philosophy students and "philosophers" go off on sterile
> > tangents

I should have qualified this by saying "English-language" and adding
"on the mind-body problem" at the end.

I once sat in on a course at the University of Illinois on the
philosophy of mind where we went through an anthology which was
nothing but a bunch of sterile tangents. Near the end of the course
the Assistant Professor who was teaching it expressed his
disillusionment with the book and wondered out loud to the class
whether we had wasted our time on it.

> > instead of going on to the natural continuation of these
> > early arguments, like Heim's book, the essays of William James, and
> > Hans Jonas's magnificent _The Phenomenon of Life_.
>
> If they were known to be sterile tangents ahead of time, nobody would.

Overly sanguine, IMO. The sterile tangent of Turing on consciousness
is still fooling people worldwide, isn't it? [See my reply to Paul
Gans.]

Gilbert Ryle's book, _The Concept of Mind_, was another sterile
tangent as far as coming to grips with dualism was concerned. The
book's value is almost exclusively in its relevance to what I call
"The Other Mind-Body Problem," which has to do with the proper extent
to which activities should be consciously directed, and which ones
should be instinctive.

[Another instance: Zen is an antidote in Japan for a cultural
tendency towards being overly self conscious, according to Arthur
Koestler in _The Lotus and the Robot_.]

As far as the core tenets of Cartesian dualism go, Ryle beats around
the bush for almost half the book and then cheats at the crucial
moment by talking as though there were only one meaning for the word
"know" that is relevant to the mind-body problem. [In my copy, this
is on page 161]

Wittgenstein, whose native language was German, would never have made
such an elementary blunder. He would have known that the appropriate
German word in that context was "kennen" rather than "wissen." Ryle
only treats the "wissen" meaning at that point in the book, and so he
cheats his readers as thoroughly as Turing cheated his readers at the
critical juncture in his essay. [See my reply to Gans again.]

> But you can't gerrymander the field to suit your a priori prejudices -
> in philosophy, anyway.
>
> And I read James as a child. Still do.

What about Hans Jonas? He updated a lot of what James did, taking
into account later developments.

> Stop being condescending about my
> own field. I don't do it to yours.

It ain't the whole field, as I indicated above.

And I certainly didn't mean to include you in the "most". However,
that may change if you were NOT joking when you wrote what you did
about pain reports. [See my first reply to this post of yours.]

[pnyikos]

Now you seem to miss my point as thoroughly as anyone could possibly
miss it.

> And this is further evidence that you don't understand the issues
> under discussion.

...glass houses...stones.

> My words only "make it seem" like that to someone
> incapable of examining his own assumptions.

I've examined mine carefully; too bad you haven't done the same, or
are completely incompetent at doing it.

> The point wasn't about
> whether there was a difference between those universes, of course
> there is. The point was about whether there is justification in taking
> any meaning from the fact of that supposed "fine-tuning" beyond what a
> puddle of water takes from the facts of its fit to the hole in which
> it finds itself.

That's EXACTLY what I've been talking about all along, bozo. Did the
words "and have a great time" go completely over your head?

Or have you missed all my posts where I say that the most likely
explanation for the fine tuning is that there is a staggering, perhaps
an infinite, number of universes, most of which are pure garbage,
totally unsuited for evolution of intelligent life? and that we are
in one of the exceptions?

If the answer to these questions is NO, then it seems to me like the
only way you can get out of this corner into which you've painted
yourself is by adopting something close to Descartes's radical
assertion that only human beings are conscious.

You seem to have already disqualified therapsids and dinosaurs. Would
you like to disqualify all non-primates? All non-anthropoids?

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 12/3/12 12:26 PM, pnyikos wrote:

> You seem to have already disqualified therapsids and dinosaurs. Would
> you like to disqualify all non-primates? All non-anthropoids?

If he's disqualified therapsids, he's already disqualified all
non-primate and non-anthropoid mammals, and primates too, including
humans. Clades, you know.

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<aaf4d988-e442-42db...@17g2000vba.googlegroups.com>,

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> What evidence would that be? Maybe in stating it, you would also
> clarify what you mean by "the Cartesian ego."

Can the Cartesian ego be by a simply changing the coordinate system be
transformed into a polar ego or a bipolar ego?

[John S. Wilkins]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> On Dec 1, 3:23 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> > Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> > >In article
> > ><f529f875-cf83-499a-bf53-cf5f709cd...@g6g2000vbk.googlegroups.com>,
> > > Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> I know it's true about me. I've just gotten *very* good at acting as
> > >> if I were conscious, such that no one can tell that I'm not. How did I
> > >> get so good? Dr. Turing taught me, while sitting in his Chinese room.
>
> Dr. Turing cheated big-time when faced with the issue of whether
> "thinking" machines [by his abysmally mis-stated "Turing test"] are
> conscious.
>
> He confused the common-sense fact of *epistemology*, that no one can
> KNOW that anyone but himself is conscious, with the *ontological*
> claim of solipsism.

Solipsism? Where the hell did that come from?

Turing's 1950 paper is a marvel of concision. Read it.

[John S. Wilkins]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> On Dec 1, 5:48 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > On Nov 29, 3:46 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > > > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > > > That's because it is false. I know I am conscious. Descartes has
> > > > > never been refuted, and smart-alecky comebacks like "I think,
> > > > > therefore I am -- I think" miss the point.
> >
> > > > Well you *assert* that you are conscious.
> >
> > > I didn't expect you to be convinced by my "assertion". And maybe you
> > > lack the motivation to do enough introspection to verify that YOU are
> > > conscious. Otherwise, the claim of yours to which I was replying and
> > > you snipped would collapse all around you.
> >
> > Too fast. Let's put it this way: there is conscious, which is what you
> > and I are. It has to do with re-entrant loops of neural networks
> > allowing brains to monitor their own state. This is not Hard; although
> > it takes a lot of computation and is ordinarily hard.
>
> If you had written "is nothing more than" instead of "has to do with,"
> I would have a pretty good idea of where you draw the line between
> "conscious" and "Conscious". As it is, the gray area is enormous.

You want rigidly demarcated areas of competence <spot the ref>, but they
aren't available. If you want certainty, consult a mathematician (oh,
right). In philosophy we try (or say we try) to find conclusions well
supported in a non-question begging fashion and stick with that.

Here I believe that consciousness is sufficiently explained by neural
network properties in a purely physical manner. The evidence leads that
way. There is no reason I have to include spooky immaterial properties.
But neither may I assert without proof (even a reductio) that there is
nothing but the physical. So, you get grey areas. It's annoying, but
whatayagonnado?

>
> > So I do not deny that you and I are conscious.
> >
> > But then there's Conscious. This mythical state has seemings that cannot
> > be reduced,
>
> My perception of a pure blue sky filling my field of vision would seem
> to qualify.

A digital camera has that.

>
> > internal states that are not physical, and a Cartesian ego.
>
> What do you mean by "Cartesian ego"? Keep in mind that Freud also
> used the word "ego" and also talked about "the conscious".

Leaving aside the questionable authority of Freud, so what? I also allow
consciousness, just not Consciousness. And Cartesian has a certain
traction in this debate, nu? Especially since among others you have
appealed to Descartes.

>
> > This is Hard to explain physically because it is set up to be. It
> > presumes nonphysical aspects and properties as the explandum. This begs
> > the question.
> >
> > When you ask why Consciousness is the explanandum, and not just
> > consciousness, the retort is almost always "introspect, introspect,
> > introspect", but scientific evidence indicates that the Cartesian ego is
> > nonexistent.
>
> What evidence would that be? Maybe in stating it, you would also
> clarify what you mean by "the Cartesian ego."

Well a brief read of most Oliver Sachs books would be a nice start, but
we have the Libet experiments and follow-ons, neurological
investigations into mind-blindness, and other involuntary sequestered
activities.

I mean by the Cartesian ego a central controlling and experiencing
agency in mind. What would *you* mean by it?

>
> > So the onus is placed unfairly on the physicalist when it
> > should be placed on the dualist.
>
> Not completely. If materialists do not want their dispute with
> dualists to become analoguous to a draw by repetition of moves (chess
> concept) or by perpetual check but no checkmate, they need to shoulder
> some of the burden of explaining the psychical qualities they
> attribute to matter. Hans Jonas made the case for that quite cogently
> in a long appendix to "Cybernetics and Purpose: a Critique" titled,
> "Materialism, Determinism and the Mind".
>
> Both are anthologized in _The Phenomenon of Life_. If you don't have
> access to a copy, I can either scan them for you and e-mail you the
> PDF, or photocopy them and send them by snail mail.

Unless it has to do with the history of the periodic table or the DSM,
right now I don't have time. Sorry.

>
> > > > But whether or not there is
> > > > anything more to it than your physical state is precisely what is at
> > > > issue.
> >
> > > Only in part. There is also the intelligibility of what I've been
> > > posting involved.
> >
> > > The *concept* of me waking up in another body is highly intelligible
> > > to most people. Karl Heim writes in _Christian Faith and Natural
> > > Science_ about a very popular fictional depiction of someone thinking
> > > that happened to him.
> >
> > Words do not determine the world.
>
> Gosh, I would have loved to have said that to Norman Malcolm [see
> below] and Gilbert "Ghost in the Machine" Ryle. But rest assured,
> concepts are not mere words, and it is of concepts that I speak here.
> [descriptions of similar things in "Star Trek" and "The Fantastic
> Four" snipped]

Ryle was wrong. Almost across the board. He is the very exemplar of
verbal determinism.

>
>
> > > > If to be conscious is to be a system of a certain kind and
> > > > complexity, then we are conscious, but not Conscious.
> >
> > > I reject the premise and also the conclusion. I have a thickly
> > > annotated copy of _The Mind's Eye_ where your premise is taken apart
> > > bit by bit, sometimes in an anthologized essay, sometimes by my
> > > marginal notes.
> >
> > Well howdy. That must be davastating for me if only I had read your
> > marginal notes, and not the last 40 years of the technical literature on
> > the subject.
>
> You are being sarcastic, but I am sincere when I say I wish we could
> have met forty years ago and had a freewheeling, no-holds-barred
> [mentally speaking] encounter. We might have had many a joint paper
> by now.

A dialogue, perhaps...

>
> > > > > You disappoint me, Wilkins. I was hoping for some meaty
> > > > > philosophical stuff from you which would move this discussion to a
> > > > > higher plane. Just look at how much I was able to expound on just
> > > > > in reply to a mean- spirited arch-polemicist like Camp. Do read
> > > > > what I wrote to him, and try to comment sagely on it, please.
> >
> > > > No, I find these arguments tedious, and besides I have said my piece
> > > > on my blog from time to time. I'm here to make bad jokes and
> > > > bibliography bomb.
>
> Can you pinpoint those parts of your blog that look especially
> relevant?

Since 2010:

http://evolvingthoughts.net/2010/05/p-angels/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2010/07/kinds-of-free-will/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2010/08/why-david-chalmers-is-wrong/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2010/12/what-it-is-like-to-be-a-digital-came
ra/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2010/12/the-mind-of-other-species/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/05/is-the-soul-something-we-should-be-a
gnostic-about/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/08/downward-causation/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/08/reduction-and-emergence/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/08/reduction-and-surprisal-or-why-water
-is-wet/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/08/a-sense-of-self/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/09/the-principle-of-charity-qualia-and-
philosophy/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/09/zombies-of-qualia-and-intentionality
/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/09/naturalism-and-investigating-the-unn
atural/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/10/the-mind-of-the-ecological-engineer/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2011/12/the-ongoing-question-of-whether-huma
ns-are-conscious-i-mean-drones/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2012/05/metaphysical-determinism/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2012/07/zombies-and-chocolate-what-it-is-lik
e-to-eat-a-block/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2012/09/pizza-reductionism-emergence-and-phe
nomena/
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2012/11/how-hard-is-the-hard-problem/

Warning. One or two of these might be humorous...

>
> > > > > Oh...wait...are you still in barely bearable pain? That would explain
> > > > > the brevity of your reply, of course, and if so, please disregard my
> > > > > salvo at the beginning of the preceding paragraph: under such
> > > > > circumstances, you do NOT disappoint me.
> >
> > > > My pain reports are diminishing.
> >
> > > I'm glad, even though it makes your claim that we are all zombies
> > > easier to support. Back when you were in excruciating pain, it would
> > > have seemed quite incongruous.
> >
> > You miss the point. The joke here is that pain = pain reports on a
> > certain kind of central state materialism.
>
> I hope you *are* joking and don't mean it literally. Your last
> sentence reads to me like a burlesque on the philosophy of
> Wittgenstein.

Well it's a burlesque on Jack Smart, who recently died.

>
> Wittgenstein had a genius for skating to the very brink of falsehood
> without plunging in. You don't seem to have mastered the knack for
> that--unless you *were* joking.

I always wonder how critics of Wittgenstein *know* he was doing such
things. Especially those who say he skated *into* falsehood. Do they
have independent access to truth? Oh, yes, intuitions...

I agree. Malcolm is Malcolm and not Wittgenstein. In other news...

>
> > Oh never mind.
>
> Too late. Now the fat is in the fire.
>
> [Concluded in next post.]
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
> nyikos @ math.sc.edu

[John S. Wilkins]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> On Dec 1, 5:48 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > On Nov 29, 3:46 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > > > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> Picking up where I left off:
>
> > > > My lack of patience and desire to argue
> > > > first and second year philosophy on t.o has permanently increased...
> >
> > > Too bad most philosophy students and "philosophers" go off on sterile
> > > tangents
>
> I should have qualified this by saying "English-language" and adding
> "on the mind-body problem" at the end.
>
> I once sat in on a course at the University of Illinois on the
> philosophy of mind where we went through an anthology which was
> nothing but a bunch of sterile tangents. Near the end of the course
> the Assistant Professor who was teaching it expressed his
> disillusionment with the book and wondered out loud to the class
> whether we had wasted our time on it.

I once taught a philosophy of mind class using a similar book not chosen
by me (I came in after the textbook had been ordered). I taught a fun
class anyway.

>
> > > instead of going on to the natural continuation of these
> > > early arguments, like Heim's book, the essays of William James, and
> > > Hans Jonas's magnificent _The Phenomenon of Life_.
> >
> > If they were known to be sterile tangents ahead of time, nobody would.
>
> Overly sanguine, IMO. The sterile tangent of Turing on consciousness
> is still fooling people worldwide, isn't it? [See my reply to Paul
> Gans.]

I know more than a few antiTuringians (they come from south of
Thuringia).

No. There's a limit to the extracurricula reading one can do, especially
if one is underemployed.

>
> > Stop being condescending about my
> > own field. I don't do it to yours.
>
> It ain't the whole field, as I indicated above.

Now.

>
> And I certainly didn't mean to include you in the "most". However,
> that may change if you were NOT joking when you wrote what you did
> about pain reports. [See my first reply to this post of yours.]
>

Dang, Peter. If I have to explain every joke and my motivations it ain't
funny. A joke explained is a joke destroyed.

[Steven L.]

On 12/1/2012 2:13 PM, Walter Bushell wrote:
> In article
> <a0632459-14e8-4f63...@l7g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,
> pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>> I made it again when I was 9, when I started to wonder why it was that
>> I always woke up with the same body I had when I went to sleep. [I
>> was aware, you see, that I had become unconscious at some points.] I
>> wondered why I never woke up as in the body of one of my
>> classmates.]
>
> How do you know you didn't?

In a sense, he didn't. None of us does.

Our bodies are constantly renewing themselves. You don't have the same
epidermis today that you had last month (and dust mites thank you for
that). Your skin completely renews itself about once a month. Meaning
that you shed about 1% of your skin while you sleep at night.

The human skeleton completely renews itself about once per decade.



--
Steven L.

[John S. Wilkins]

But can't you *extra* exclude subclades?

[John Harshman]

On 12/3/12 5:19 PM, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> John Harshman<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>> On 12/3/12 12:26 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>>> You seem to have already disqualified therapsids and dinosaurs. Would
>>> you like to disqualify all non-primates? All non-anthropoids?
>>
>> If he's disqualified therapsids, he's already disqualified all
>> non-primate and non-anthropoid mammals, and primates too, including
>> humans. Clades, you know.
>
> But can't you *extra* exclude subclades?

The most I can offer you is double-secret exclusion.

[John S. Wilkins]

Does it come with a decoder?

[Walter Bushell]

In article <1kukxq3.14u88o71cvgzkjN%jo...@wilkins.id.au>,

jo...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:

> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > On 12/3/12 5:19 PM, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> > > John Harshman<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >> On 12/3/12 12:26 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> You seem to have already disqualified therapsids and dinosaurs. Would
> > >>> you like to disqualify all non-primates? All non-anthropoids?
> > >>
> > >> If he's disqualified therapsids, he's already disqualified all
> > >> non-primate and non-anthropoid mammals, and primates too, including
> > >> humans. Clades, you know.
> > >
> > > But can't you *extra* exclude subclades?
> >
> > The most I can offer you is double-secret exclusion.
>
> Does it come with a decoder?

Do you know how much Ovaltine you have to drink to get that decoder???

[Michael Siemon]

In article <proto-17B0E2....@news.panix.com>,

You don't _drink_ the stuff, fergawdsakes! -- just pour it down the
drain. (Works better than Drano(tm), you know...). Reminds me of the
classic song of my youth:

"I hate Bosco,
it's bad for you and me;
Mommy puts it in my milk
to try to poison me!

I fooled Mommy;
I put it in her tea.
Now there's no more Mommy
to try and poison me!"

Ah, classical American culture...

[marc.t...@wanadoo.fr]

On Dec 4, 12:13 am, "Steven L." <sdlit...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On 12/1/2012 2:13 PM, Walter Bushell wrote:
>
> > In article

> > <a0632459-14e8-4f63-bd8a-ec55c1632...@l7g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,

> >   pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >> I made it again when I was 9, when I started to wonder why it was that
> >> I always woke up with the same body I had when I went to sleep.  [I
> >> was aware, you see, that I had become unconscious at some points.] I
> >> wondered why I never woke up as in the body of one of my
> >> classmates.]
>
> > How do you know you didn't?
>
> In a sense, he didn't.  None of us does.
>
> Our bodies are constantly renewing themselves.  You don't have the same
> epidermis today that you had last month (and dust mites thank you for
> that).  Your skin completely renews itself about once a month.  Meaning
> that you shed about 1% of your skin while you sleep at night.
>
> The human skeleton completely renews itself about once per decade.

This is the thermodynamic rule for all self-organizing systems.

[Steven L.]

Yes, that is true.

The one thing a self-organizing (e.g., living) system cannot be is static.

And animals (including us humans) evolved with the ability to tell the
difference.

That's why even animals can tell the difference between living creatures
and dead ones.


--
Steven L.

[pnyikos]

On Dec 3, 4:18 pm, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article

> <aaf4d988-e442-42db-b2cb-820371c44...@17g2000vba.googlegroups.com>,

>
>  pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > What evidence would that be?  Maybe in stating it, you would also
> > clarify what you mean by "the Cartesian ego."
>
> Can the Cartesian ego be by a simply changing the coordinate system be
> transformed into a polar ego or a bipolar ego?

I know you are making jokes, but in fact Karl Heim did talk about God
being an "suprapolar space" in connection with the fact that each of
our egos is inaccessible to the egos of others. This was in the
second (and shorter) half of _Christian Faith and Natural Science_.
The Wikipedia entry for him also gets to talking about his theory of
polarities.

See my reply to Paul Gans for how hard Thomas Carlyle, for one, was
hit by that inaccessibility of the egos of others.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

I wasn't interested in *support* at this point, I was just trying to
get you to define your terms.

When I was a high school debater, I thought going through a definition
of terms was a pointless, time-wasting formality. The older I get,
the more I see how communication breaks down again and again because
people don't bother to define (or even narrow down) their terms.

> Here I believe that consciousness is sufficiently explained by neural
> network properties in a purely physical manner.

I was trying to find out whether you believe that purely "by
definition of terms", and anything that has anything to do with
subjective experience talking about "Consciousness" instead.

Evidently the answer is no:

> The evidence leads that
> way. There is no reason I have to include spooky immaterial properties.
> But neither may I assert without proof (even a reductio) that there is
> nothing but the physical. So, you get grey areas. It's annoying, but
> whatayagonnado?

Well, duh. I wasn't asking about THAT.

>
>
> > > So I do not deny that you and I are conscious.
>
> > > But then there's Conscious. This mythical state has seemings that cannot
> > > be reduced,
>
> > My perception of a pure blue sky filling my field of vision would seem
> > to qualify.
>
> A digital camera has that.

No. A digital camera has a bunch of parts which are designed to take
lights of certain wavelengths, convert them into digital information
in a memory chip, and then to produce certain streams of electrons
which produce other light rays on a screen.

Input and output don't necessarily agree. In the Dolomites I came
across some pink forget-me-nots, the data from which the digital
camera converted into images of blue forget-me-nots no matter how I
adjusted the settings.

It reminded me of when I and a few of my fellow Army officers in
chemical branch school used fall camouflage on our helmets one day in
November, while the majority used the other side, which was
predominately green.

Then one of my fellow minority members told the rest of us that he had
just gotten the word from the people directing our field exercise:
"The woods out there are green BY DEFINITION."

Translation: everyone use the green side for the sake of uniformity.

> > > internal states that are not physical, and a Cartesian ego.
>
> > What do you mean by "Cartesian ego"?  Keep in mind that Freud also
> > used the word "ego"  and also talked about "the conscious".
>
> Leaving aside the questionable authority of Freud, so what? I also allow
> consciousness, just not Consciousness. And Cartesian has a certain
> traction in this debate, nu? Especially since among others you have
> appealed to Descartes.

Yes, I did put Descartes before de horseshit of Camp about puddles in
holes. Fighting fire with fire, y'know.

I tend to agree more with Hume than Descartes about which creatures
are conscious, for all that.

Oh, and I also used him to counter your zombie jokes. Coffey seemed
to get quite irate about me taking those jokes seriously enough to
rebut them.

> > > This is Hard to explain physically because it is set up to be. It
> > > presumes nonphysical aspects and properties as the explandum. This begs
> > > the question.
>
> > > When you ask why Consciousness is the explanandum, and not just
> > > consciousness, the retort is almost always "introspect, introspect,
> > > introspect", but scientific evidence indicates that the Cartesian ego is
> > > nonexistent.
>
> > What evidence would that be?  Maybe in stating it, you would also
> > clarify what you mean by "the Cartesian ego."
>
> Well a brief read of most Oliver Sachs books would be a nice start, but
> we have the Libet experiments and follow-ons, neurological
> investigations into mind-blindness, and other involuntary sequestered
> activities.

Sachs : me : : Jonas : you. Could you give me some page numbers to
narrow things down?

> I mean by the Cartesian ego a central controlling and experiencing
> agency in mind. What would *you* mean by it?

Sounds OK. Of course that agency could turn out to be purely
material.

>
>
> > > So the onus is placed unfairly on the physicalist when it
> > > should be placed on the dualist.
>
> > Not completely.  If materialists do not want their dispute with
> > dualists to become analoguous to a draw by repetition of moves (chess
> > concept) or by perpetual check but no checkmate, they need to shoulder
> > some of the burden of explaining the psychical qualities they
> > attribute to matter.  Hans Jonas made the case for that quite cogently
> > in a long appendix to "Cybernetics and Purpose: a Critique" titled,
> > "Materialism, Determinism and the Mind".
>
> > Both are anthologized in _The Phenomenon of Life_.  If you don't have
> > access to a copy, I can either scan them for you and e-mail you the
> > PDF, or photocopy them and send them by snail mail.

I only meant the essay and appendix. Even the appendix will do, and
it's less than ten pages long.

> Unless it has to do with the history of the periodic table or the DSM,
> right now I don't have time. Sorry.

So we can agree to disagree about this for the nonce, except that I'm
not sure you disagree.

Got to go now. Duty calls, as is usual this time of day and day of
week.

Will return this week, possibly tomorrow, to deal with the rest of
what you wrote here.

Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

"pnyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:e97111c3-d0be-43c7...@dg10g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...

Lego my ego.

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<mlsiemon-98BD5D...@news.eternal-september.org>,

Michael Siemon <mlsi...@sonic.net> wrote:

> > Do you know how much Ovaltine you have to drink to get that decoder???
>
> You don't _drink_ the stuff, fergawdsakes! -- just pour it down the
> drain. (Works better than Drano(tm), you know...). Reminds me of the
> classic song of my youth:
>
> "I hate Bosco,
> it's bad for you and me;
> Mommy puts it in my milk
> to try to poison me!
>
> I fooled Mommy;
> I put it in her tea.
> Now there's no more Mommy
> to try and poison me!"
>
> Ah, classical American culture...

Yes, I heard that in 2nd grade or before. But I prefer, "Who Put the
Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?"

[John S. Wilkins]

Ciceronian definition can be useful, but it only ever clarifies the
terms used by the debaters. It never really explicates the nature of the
extralinguistic world. As Maynard Smith used to say of his graduate
students' debates, "Is this about words or the world? For if it is about
words, I will go, but if it is about the world I wil stay."

Descartes' Cogito is about words. It tells you that *if* the word
producer utters the words "I exist" then it exists. But we can
rationally conceive now, rather easily, of things that can utter words
without there being any consciousness underlying it, so Descartes might
very well have been an automaton. Or, as I call it, a p-zombie.

>
>
>
> > Here I believe that consciousness is sufficiently explained by neural
> > network properties in a purely physical manner.
>
> I was trying to find out whether you believe that purely "by
> definition of terms", and anything that has anything to do with
> subjective experience talking about "Consciousness" instead.
>
> Evidently the answer is no:
>
> > The evidence leads that
> > way. There is no reason I have to include spooky immaterial properties.
> > But neither may I assert without proof (even a reductio) that there is
> > nothing but the physical. So, you get grey areas. It's annoying, but
> > whatayagonnado?
>
> Well, duh. I wasn't asking about THAT.
>
> >
> >
> > > > So I do not deny that you and I are conscious.
> >
> > > > But then there's Conscious. This mythical state has seemings that cannot
> > > > be reduced,
> >
> > > My perception of a pure blue sky filling my field of vision would seem
> > > to qualify.
> >
> > A digital camera has that.
>
> No. A digital camera has a bunch of parts which are designed to take
> lights of certain wavelengths, convert them into digital information
> in a memory chip, and then to produce certain streams of electrons
> which produce other light rays on a screen.

A human eye and observer has a bunch of parts which convert light of
certain wavelengths into neural signals, and produce a stream of
electons which produce outputs of another kind. So?

>
> Input and output don't necessarily agree. In the Dolomites I came
> across some pink forget-me-nots, the data from which the digital
> camera converted into images of blue forget-me-nots no matter how I
> adjusted the settings.

That is because CCDs have a wider range of sensitivity to infrared and
ultraviolet than the human eye. It screws up the image when converted
back to human visible spectra.

If you are interested, read the entirety of The Man Who Mistook His Wife
for a Hat. But he's not the Authority, just a convenient popular
resource. Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error would have been references.
Alas, I have neither in my shelves so I cannot easily find the cites or
pages.

>
> > I mean by the Cartesian ego a central controlling and experiencing
> > agency in mind. What would *you* mean by it?
>
> Sounds OK. Of course that agency could turn out to be purely
> material.

Good point: there are two isses:

1. There is a central controller or governor of mental activity

2. Any mental controller is immaterial

Both seem licensed by Cartesian dualism. So contrary evidence to either
claim defeates Cartesian dualism.

If 1 survives, but not 2, I will have learned something but not be
worried. If 2 survives but not 1, I will be worried.

>
> >
> >
> > > > So the onus is placed unfairly on the physicalist when it
> > > > should be placed on the dualist.
> >
> > > Not completely. If materialists do not want their dispute with
> > > dualists to become analoguous to a draw by repetition of moves (chess
> > > concept) or by perpetual check but no checkmate, they need to shoulder
> > > some of the burden of explaining the psychical qualities they
> > > attribute to matter. Hans Jonas made the case for that quite cogently
> > > in a long appendix to "Cybernetics and Purpose: a Critique" titled,
> > > "Materialism, Determinism and the Mind".
> >
> > > Both are anthologized in _The Phenomenon of Life_. If you don't have
> > > access to a copy, I can either scan them for you and e-mail you the
> > > PDF, or photocopy them and send them by snail mail.
>
> I only meant the essay and appendix. Even the appendix will do, and
> it's less than ten pages long.
>
> > Unless it has to do with the history of the periodic table or the DSM,
> > right now I don't have time. Sorry.
>
> So we can agree to disagree about this for the nonce, except that I'm
> not sure you disagree.
>
> Got to go now. Duty calls, as is usual this time of day and day of
> week.
>
> Will return this week, possibly tomorrow, to deal with the rest of
> what you wrote here.
>

I have limited time myself.

[marc.t...@wanadoo.fr]

On Dec 4, 9:45 pm, "Steven L." <sdlit...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >> Our bodies are constantly renewing themselves.  You don't have the same
> >> epidermis today that you had last month (and dust mites thank you for
> >> that).  Your skin completely renews itself about once a month.  Meaning
> >> that you shed about 1% of your skin while you sleep at night.
> >> The human skeleton completely renews itself about once per decade.
> > This is the thermodynamic rule for all self-organizing systems.
> Yes, that is true.
> The one thing a self-organizing (e.g., living) system cannot be is static.
> And animals (including us humans) evolved with the ability to tell the
> difference.

Of which difference are you speaking? With what?

> That's why even animals can tell the difference between living creatures
> and dead ones.

I would say that a dead self-organizing system is a system which
doesn't work anymore: for instance if essential ingredients are no
more provided to the self-organizing system it will die (i.e., it will
stop functioning).

[Steven L.]

On 12/5/2012 4:43 AM, marc.t...@wanadoo.fr wrote:
> On Dec 4, 9:45 pm, "Steven L." <sdlit...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>> Our bodies are constantly renewing themselves. You don't have the same
>>>> epidermis today that you had last month (and dust mites thank you for
>>>> that). Your skin completely renews itself about once a month. Meaning
>>>> that you shed about 1% of your skin while you sleep at night.
>>>> The human skeleton completely renews itself about once per decade.
>>> This is the thermodynamic rule for all self-organizing systems.
>> Yes, that is true.
>> The one thing a self-organizing (e.g., living) system cannot be is static.
>> And animals (including us humans) evolved with the ability to tell the
>> difference.
>
> Of which difference are you speaking? With what?

Dynamic equilibrium.

No matter how hard you try, you cannot remain as motionless as a plaster
statue of yourself. Your balance is constantly being adjusted between
your two feet. Your eyelids are twitching slightly, your muscles are
tensing slightly.

The only time you become absolutely totally motionless is after you die.

Some animals that "play dead" to fool potential predators have had to
resort to other tricks, like oozing a secretion that smells like the
decay of death.



--
Steven L.

[marc.t...@wanadoo.fr]

On Dec 5, 7:37 pm, "Steven L." <sdlit...@earthlink.net> wrote:

Well, I agree but even for infinitely more simple self-organizing
systems (such as 'deterministic chaos' systems, e.g., the Belousov-
Zhabotinsky reaction) the thermodynamic equilibrium is dynamic too,
whatever the self-organizing system may be.

[Don Cates]

So, are all the microorganisms currently "resting?" in -80C freezers all
over the world alive or dead?
Or how about Erika Nordby or Anna Bågenholm
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_B%C3%A5genholm>? Were they alive or dead?

--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)

[marc.t...@wanadoo.fr]

On 6 déc, 04:12, Don Cates <caHORMEL...@mts.net> wrote:

> Or how about Erika Nordby or Anna B�genholm

> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_B%C3%A5genholm>? Were they alive or dead?

The fact that microorganisms (e.g., mechanism of the "endospore") or
alternatively vegetals are able to be in a dormant state doesn't mean
they lose their capacity to function again. Such a dormant state gives
them the possibility to keep far from their thermodynamic equilibrium
by slowing down the increase of their entropy considerably.

[pnyikos]

On Dec 3, 4:57 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > On Dec 1, 5:48 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

Picking up about where I left off in my first reply:

> > > > The *concept* of me waking up in another body is highly intelligible
> > > > to most people.  Karl Heim writes in _Christian Faith and Natural
> > > > Science_ about a very popular fictional depiction of someone thinking
> > > > that happened to him.
>
> > > Words do not determine the world.
>
> > Gosh, I would have loved to have said that to Norman Malcolm [see
> > below] and Gilbert "Ghost in the Machine" Ryle.  But rest assured,
> > concepts are not mere words, and it is of concepts that I speak here.
> > [descriptions of similar things in "Star Trek" and "The Fantastic
> > Four" snipped]
>
> Ryle was wrong. Almost across the board. He is the very exemplar of
> verbal determinism.

We are in full agreement here.

> > > > > If to be conscious is to be a system of a certain kind and
> > > > > complexity, then we are conscious, but not Conscious.
>
> > > > I reject the premise and also the conclusion.  I have a thickly
> > > > annotated copy of _The Mind's Eye_ where your premise is taken apart
> > > > bit by bit, sometimes in an anthologized essay, sometimes by my
> > > > marginal notes.
>
> > > Well howdy. That must be davastating for me if only I had read your
> > > marginal notes, and not the last 40 years of the technical literature on
> > > the subject.
>
> > You are being sarcastic, but I am sincere when I say I wish we could
> > have met forty years ago and had a freewheeling, no-holds-barred
> > [mentally speaking] encounter.  We might have had many a joint paper
> > by now.
>
> A dialogue, perhaps...

Yes, I'm pretty sure we could have come up with at least one
entertaining and informative, publishable dialogue.

Well, it's almost never too late. We're both terribly busy now, but
maybe in the not too distant future...

[snip lots of blog references; will get around to looking at these
before the end of the year]

> > > > > > Oh...wait...are you still in barely bearable pain?  That would explain
> > > > > > the brevity of your reply, of course, and if so, please disregard my
> > > > > > salvo at the beginning of the preceding paragraph: under such
> > > > > > circumstances, you do NOT disappoint me.
>
> > > > > My pain reports are diminishing.
>
> > > > I'm glad, even though it makes your claim that we are all zombies
> > > > easier to support.  Back when you were in excruciating pain, it would
> > > > have seemed quite incongruous.
>
> > > You miss the point. The joke here is that pain = pain reports on a
> > > certain kind of central state materialism.
>
> > I hope you *are* joking and don't mean it literally.  Your last
> > sentence reads to me like a burlesque on the philosophy of
> > Wittgenstein.
>
> Well it's a burlesque on Jack Smart, who recently died.
>
>
>
> > Wittgenstein had a genius for skating to the very brink of falsehood
> > without plunging in.  You don't seem to have mastered the knack for
> > that--unless you *were* joking.
>
> I always wonder how critics of Wittgenstein *know* he was doing such
> things.

Whether that was his intent or not, that's what he frequently did.
And several people following him fell in, as in the case of Flew ("Can
a Man Witness His Own Funeral?") and Malcolm.

> Especially those who say he skated *into* falsehood.

Not I.

> Do they
> have independent access to truth? Oh, yes, intuitions...

Like I do wrt Norman Malcolm below.

Anyway, I was gratified to see how the Wikipedia entry on Wittgenstein
says he complained about being misunderstood by everyone, even his
disciples.

To say the least.

Peter Nyikos

[Mike Painter]

On Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:31:56 -0500, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>
wrote:

My version which came much later in life was.

"I love Kelly,
she's the girl for me.
Momma puts her in my bed
for extra energy."

She lived with mom and grandparents and while mom didn't exactly put
me, she certainly approved.

[Earle Jones]

In article
<80944273-c1b0-4d0e...@3g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> On Nov 3, 11:38 am, "Jim T." <x...@y.z> wrote:
> > On Thu, 1 Nov 2012 11:55:54 -0700 (PDT), pnyikos
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > >On Oct 25, 11:13 pm, "Glenn" <glennshel...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> > >> "pnyikos" <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
> > >> messagenews:43efc5ab-d2e4-478b...@4g2000yql.googlegroups.c
> > >> om...
> > >> > On Oct 25, 9:48 pm, "Glenn" <glennshel...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> > >> > > "pnyikos" <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
> > >> > > messagenews:8df2cd7b-acdc-4076...@r6g2000yqd.googlegro
> > >> > > ups.com...
> > >> > > > On Oct 18, 1:03 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> > > > > On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:58:28 -0700 (PDT), Frank J
> > >> > > > > <f...@verizon.net>
> > >> > > > > wrote:
> > >> > > > > >On 15 Oct, 13:29, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> > > > > >> On Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:49:29 +0100, Ernest Major
> >
> > >> > > > > >> <{$t...@meden.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > >> > > > > >> >In message
> > >> > > > > >> ><3b31210a-2cd8-49c9-8dd0-af50feff2...@4g2000yql.googlegroups.
> > >> > > > > >> >com>,
> > >> > > > > >> >pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> writes
> > >> > > > > >> >>On Oct 14, 7:34 am, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > >> > > > > >> >>> On 9 Oct, 20:44, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >> > > > > >> >>> > FWIW Ron O. isn't the only one who calls him a
> > >> > > > > >> >>> > creationist. IIUC so
> > >> > > > > >> >>> > does Mark Isaak.
> >
> > >> > > > > >> >>> Yes, I know many do.
> >
> > >> > > > > >> >>"many"? In that case, many have been talking behind my
> > >> > > > > >> >>back, because
> > >> > > > > >> >>of late, I've only seen Ron O falsely claiming that I am
> > >> > > > > >> >>lying when I
> > >> > > > > >> >>say that I am not even a creationist in the sense of
> > >> > > > > >> >>believing that
> > >> > > > > >> >>supernatural creation plays a role in our universe, and
> > >> > > > > >> >>O'Shea with a
> > >> > > > > >> >>crazy "definition" of "creationist" that even includes
> > >> > > > > >> >>atheist Francis
> > >> > > > > >> >>Crick.
> >
> > >> > > > > >> >I'm puzzled. If your not a creationist in the sense of
> > >> > > > > >> >believing that
> > >> > > > > >> >supernatural creation plays a role in our universe why were
> > >> > > > > >> >you pushing
> > >> > > > > >> >the "fine tuning" argument?
> >
> > >> > > > Somewhere along the line my answer to this was snipped.
> >
> > >> > > > The answer is that the fine-tuning is the most important reason I
> > >> > > > am
> > >> > > > an agnostic rather than an atheist.
> >
> > >> > > Then you are an atheist.
> >
> > >> > I take it you include "agnostics" as a subset of "atheists."
> >
> > >> Not necessarily, theists can be agnostic. If you rely on knowledge as
> > >> the most important reason for not being an atheist, then you are not
> > >> basing your position of "not-atheist" on belief, or if you wish, faith.
> >
> > >You seem to be misapplying the (obvious) distinction between belief
> > >and knowledge.  My agnosticism is a *belief* that is BASED on a
> > >mountain of knowledge that I've accumulated over the decades.  If the
> > >contents of my knowledge were radically different from what they are,
> > >I might still be a theist, or I might have gone over to atheism.
> >
> > >> Knowledge and belief are separate concepts.
> >
> > >Well, duh.
> >
> > >> Atheists either "do not believe in" or "believe there is no".
> >
> > >I don't count someone as an atheist unless he is convinced that there
> > >is no deity.  Nor do I count someone as a theist unless he is
> > >convinced that there is a deity
> >
> > > Obviously, since I have no window into people's minds (even though
> > >some people here expect me to behave as though I could read some of
> > >their thoughts), I can never be sure that what looks like complete
> > >conviction mirrors the actual beliefs of the person.
> >
> > >But, for example, I count Gans as an atheist because he seems secure
> > >in the "knowledge" that there is no God, and Martinez as a theist for
> > >the analogous reason.
> >
> > >>Their reasons can be knowledge or lack of knowledge, but knowledge is not
> > >>required of faith
> > >> or belief. If knowledge is more important to you than faith and is the
> > >> reason
> > >> you claim to not be an atheist, then you are an atheist.
> >
> > >Knowledge is more important to me than blind faith.
> >
> > >You are welcome to your private definitions of "faith" and "knowledge"
> > >and "atheist" and "theist" and "agnostic," but I have my own, and I am
> > >sticking to them.
> >
> > >Peter Nyikos
> >
> > Are you agnostic about leprechauns and unicorns? Are you agnostic
> > about each and every one of the tens of thousands of deities people
> > have believed in?
>
> Of course not, bozo. I have no evidence for leprechauns that is one-
> trillionth as strong as the fine tuning of the physical constants is
> for a creator of our universe.
>
> And even that evidence gives me no more than a probabilty of 1%,
> perhaps a lot less, for there being a creator.
>
> As to the red herring of tens of thousands of deities: the ones that
> have the deity as creator are the only ones I bother with. And the
> differences between them are far less significant than this one thing
> they have in common. Lesser deiites like the Greek gods and almost all
> the Hindu gods seem to have no more evidence for them than
> leprechauns.
>
> Now tell me, do you have anything to ask me that isn't standard
> "village atheist" boilerplate?
>
> Peter Nyikos

*
Peter: Just a comment: If our world is "fine-tuned" for us, isn't it
even much more finely tuned for cockroaches and great white sharks?

earle
*

[pnyikos]

On Dec 16, 2:24 pm, Earle Jones <earle.jo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> In article
> <80944273-c1b0-4d0e-9ebd-9f42da46b...@3g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,

It's finely tuned for life of some sort to exist and evolve, with
adequate time for higher life to evolve once it gets started.

If you read more than that into what I write on the topic, it still
hasn't sunk in that I am not arguing for a god, much less the
Christian God, I am arguing for a near-infinity of universes, most of
which are pure garbage with no realistic prospects for life.

I do, however, allow some small probability for there being a universe
far grander than ours, containing a creator for our own little, young
(a mere 14 billion years or less) universe. It is only there that the
distinction between cockroaches and humans becomes relevant, and then
it becomes almost moot.