Does God Exist?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Count Lucanor
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Count Lucanor »

Chili wrote:
Count Lucanor wrote: Subjectivism is usually a comfortable shelter to protect theism from rational inquiry. But this pretension is not sustainable against the backdrop of empirical knowledge. We're in constant state of awareness, we sense things all the time and we're always capable of testing the accuracy of those sensations against the subjective concepts we form, as well as the objective existence of the world we live as a cause of these sensations. The ideal theoretical scenario that you portray, where sensations are all fresh and new, simply doesn't exist. We don't get a sensation and then go to find out what's all about, we know it's originated in the world we sense, it comes along with it. Every time, sensations are unified with the thing being sensed as a real object of the world.
Quite the opposite of the incisive questions of Descartes, the original dystopian thinker who put a brain in a jar.

You seem to be relying on a lot of "common sense" rather than pure reasoning. Each moment's external sensation is indeed 100% fresh, and we compare it with memories which are also, for all we know, 100% fresh.
Experience is essentially accumulative, which means no sensation is new. Memory includes the accumulated experience of having sensed and also of its remembrance. I smell roses, then I remember the smell of roses, and then I remember having remembered the smell of roses.

-- Updated October 17th, 2017, 9:39 pm to add the following --
Dark Matter wrote:
Count Lucanor wrote:But what are the specific properties of a god?
This exemplifies why I get frustrated in these kind of discussions: skeptics jump right in without knowing what they are talking about except in the most superficial way.
Perhaps you're just one of those who confuse profoundness with Woo Woo. The more nonsensical Woo Woo, the better. There's people that actually believe Deepak Chopra is deep.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
Chili
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Chili »

Count Lucanor wrote: Experience is essentially accumulative, which means no sensation is new. Memory includes the accumulated experience of having sensed and also of its remembrance. I smell roses, then I remember the smell of roses, and then I remember having remembered the smell of roses.
Well that is clearly wrong in 2 different ways. There had to be a first time you smelled roses! One has a "first time" experiencing everything, and the recombinations make the gestalt new each time. Each slice of pizza tastes a little different - not simply remembered by *compared* with prior memories of pizza. And some perfume which one also smells at the same time, while the song plays - you've never heard it before.

Memory is something in the moment. When you remember something, the memory is tampered with somewhat. This has been demonstrated experimentally.
Dark Matter
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Dark Matter »

Count Lucanor wrote: Perhaps you're just one of those who confuse profoundness with Woo Woo. The more nonsensical Woo Woo, the better. There's people that actually believe Deepak Chopra is deep.
I'm not the one who said:
A friend asked me once what were the chances of I renouncing to atheism. I replied: what were the chances of him regaining his belief in the Tooth Fairy.
Now that's just plain silly. What has the "Tooth Fairy" (or pink unicorns or Santa) to do with classical theism?

Perhaps you don't know what classical theism is?
Steve3007
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Steve3007 »

Count Lucanor:
Subjectivism is usually a comfortable shelter to protect theism from rational inquiry.
I've not noticed any of the things I've said being exclusive to religious people. It's simply the recognition of the obvious fact that we create our model of the objective world via our subjective sensations. That's not the same as saying that the objective world does not exist. And it's not obvious to me how it would be used to "protect theism from rational inquiry".
But this pretension is not sustainable against the backdrop of empirical knowledge.
Empirical = based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.

Experiences and observations.
We're in constant state of awareness, we sense things all the time and we're always capable of testing the accuracy of those sensations against the subjective concepts we form, as well as the objective existence of the world we live as a cause of these sensations.
You say "as well as" here as if there are two separate processes going on: testing against "subjective concepts" and against "objective existence of the world". This is not true. As I described earlier with an example, we test our subjective experiences against other subjective experiences - our own experiences, other people's, and our own and other people's memories of previous experiences. We find patterns in them and propose that those patterns represent an objective physical world.
The ideal theoretical scenario that you portray, where sensations are all fresh and new, simply doesn't exist.
I said nothing about anything being "ideal" or "fresh and new".
We don't get a sensation and then go to find out what's all about, we know it's originated in the world we sense,
As I explained earlier using an example, this is simply not true. We don't know that it originated in the objective world. We think it more and more likely that it does the more it correlates with other subjective sensations.
it comes along with it. Every time, sensations are unified with the thing being sensed as a real object of the world.
They are unified with other sensations in patterns that suggest their cause as something existing in a real world.

-- Updated Wed Oct 18, 2017 8:20 am to add the following --

Me:
"Pointing at" something simply means inviting somebody to experience another subjective sensation to add to the collection.
Count Lucanor:
Subjectivism. No, it means inviting somebody to assess the objective existence of something we have identified ourselves.
As many people do, you appear to be getting hung up on a label here. In this case the label you've chosen to use is "Subjectivism". Simply stating "Your are a Subjectivist. Subjectivists are wrong. Therefore you are wrong." is not sufficient to form a valid argument.

"Pointing at" means inviting somebody to use their subjective sensations to assess my proposition, based on my subjective sensations, that I have identified something that is the common cause of both sets of subjective sensations.

If you disagree, can you give me an example of an act of "pointing to something" that does not use sensations or observations in this way.
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Dark Matter »

The axiom “No physical event regarding man can have a higher cause” is unfortunate and likely to promote a fundamental superficiality.
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Steve3007 »

Me (to Count Lucanor):
As I said, the thing which exists can be the thing of which those singular proclaimed entities are imperfect reflections.
Count Lucanor:
So, I will be driving an automobile that is the result of the integration of all car models in the world, including the VW Beetle, the Ford T-Model, Porsche Cayenne, Toyota RAV4, Dodge Star, Lincoln Cadillac, etc., no matter whether they are sedans, SUV's, military vehicles, etc., because they are just imperfect reflections of this singular all-encompassing, perfect, ideal automobile I'm driving.
Suppose instead various car owners described their cars. Would you be able to take those descriptions and figure out the essential characteristics shared by all cars?

The standard thing to do at this point is bring in the "blind men and the elephant" analogy:

"A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. In the case of the first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said, "elephant is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear."

This analogy has been used to illustrate such things as wave-particle duality in physics, for obvious reasons.

In the context of religion: Various cultures use the word "God" in various ways. The thing they all appear to have in common is sentience/consciousness/purpose/will. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that these are the key things to consider when thinking about whether this God thing might exist.

Is there any reason to think that this common factor of sentience/consciousness/purpose/will turns up in God concepts because these things exist outside of living things such as humans? Or does this common thread of belief instead suggest something about a human need to project our own consciousness into the world?
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Count Lucanor
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Count Lucanor »

Chili wrote:Well that is clearly wrong in 2 different ways. There had to be a first time you smelled roses! One has a "first time" experiencing everything, and the recombinations make the gestalt new each time. Each slice of pizza tastes a little different - not simply remembered by *compared* with prior memories of pizza. And some perfume which one also smells at the same time, while the song plays - you've never heard it before.

Memory is something in the moment. When you remember something, the memory is tampered with somewhat. This has been demonstrated experimentally.
Your radical empiricism implies that the limits of possible integers are discovered one at a time: just after you reach 999,999 you'll find out there's one million. And then you have to start over if you're planning to find out there's a bigger number.

There may be a first time one smells roses, sees the ocean, etc. But in those present or future instances, we are applying the previous experiences of smelling, seeing, touching, etc. We know each one is a particular different experience, but to realize they are different implies contrasting the current experience with the memory of previous ones. That's why they are never fresh and new.

Through all those experiences, we have formed concepts as categories or classes, assimilating the information in a unified form. We not only see the object tree, but see the object as a tree, even though there's every reason to suspect that no such object called "tree" (or "pizza") is identical. We see many different trees, but the unifying faculty of our minds tells us they are members of the class "tree". We have access to this concept every time we sense a new tree and things in general.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
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Chili
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Chili »

Count Lucanor wrote:
Chili wrote:Well that is clearly wrong in 2 different ways. There had to be a first time you smelled roses! One has a "first time" experiencing everything, and the recombinations make the gestalt new each time. Each slice of pizza tastes a little different - not simply remembered by *compared* with prior memories of pizza. And some perfume which one also smells at the same time, while the song plays - you've never heard it before.

Memory is something in the moment. When you remember something, the memory is tampered with somewhat. This has been demonstrated experimentally.
Your radical empiricism implies that the limits of possible integers are discovered one at a time: just after you reach 999,999 you'll find out there's one million. And then you have to start over if you're planning to find out there's a bigger number.

There may be a first time one smells roses, sees the ocean, etc. But in those present or future instances, we are applying the previous experiences of smelling, seeing, touching, etc. We know each one is a particular different experience, but to realize they are different implies contrasting the current experience with the memory of previous ones. That's why they are never fresh and new.

Through all those experiences, we have formed concepts as categories or classes, assimilating the information in a unified form. We not only see the object tree, but see the object as a tree, even though there's every reason to suspect that no such object called "tree" (or "pizza") is identical. We see many different trees, but the unifying faculty of our minds tells us they are members of the class "tree". We have access to this concept every time we sense a new tree and things in general.
Most of that is obviously clearly wrong, but I'm too busy for this until later. Happy if others want to take a crack ;)
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Steve3007 »

TO be honest, chilli, that last post of the Count's seems ok to me, despite the fact that I've been arguing with him for a while now.

What's wrong with it? (in summry).
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Chili »

Count Lucanor wrote: Your radical empiricism implies that the limits of possible integers are discovered one at a time: just after you reach 999,999 you'll find out there's one million. And then you have to start over if you're planning to find out there's a bigger number.


No, integers are not sensory experiences. They are abstractions. Or possibly memories of abstractions. Certainly some people with synesthesia experience particular number to have peculiar personalities, qualities, colors. In this integers are like smells. Of course some objects have no smell to anyone.


(Nested quote removed.)


"Know" is a prejudiced word. Let's say "conclude". Or imperfect personal conclusions are related to our abstractions, or memories, and our sensory experiences.
Also you seem to be saying that because I have smelled *anything* before, that no smell could ever be fresh. Huh? I mean, how "fresh" does fresh have to be before you'll concede that it is truly Fresh ? A baby's first smell period?


(Nested quote removed.)



Concepts and generalizations form, eventually. Most of that process is automatic and unconscious.


(Nested quote removed.)



It depends on how much attention one is paying. To some people, a rose is a rose and a pizza is a pizza. Abstractions lump smells together, and if one rose smell is close enough to a category we have defined as "rose smell" then we lump them together. But then there is always an uncanny valley where wine may smell of oak and chocolate and - do I smell some rose in there?


(Nested quote removed.)
You say faculty. I say habit. Keeps my analysis fresh. All sensory experiences - and other subjective experiences - get sorted into buckets, some more than others, depending upon how often we experience them, how similar they are, and how much one is paying attention.
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Count Lucanor
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Count Lucanor »

Dark Matter wrote:
Count Lucanor wrote: Perhaps you're just one of those who confuse profoundness with Woo Woo. The more nonsensical Woo Woo, the better. There's people that actually believe Deepak Chopra is deep.
I'm not the one who said:
A friend asked me once what were the chances of I renouncing to atheism. I replied: what were the chances of him regaining his belief in the Tooth Fairy.
Now that's just plain silly. What has the "Tooth Fairy" (or pink unicorns or Santa) to do with classical theism?

Perhaps you don't know what classical theism is?
Perhaps you have not noticed that the claim of a god entity is no different than the claim of a tooth fairy entity. Both infantile and yes, of course, silly.

-- Updated October 18th, 2017, 9:54 pm to add the following --
Chili wrote:
Count Lucanor wrote: Your radical empiricism implies that the limits of possible integers are discovered one at a time: just after you reach 999,999 you'll find out there's one million. And then you have to start over if you're planning to find out there's a bigger number.


No, integers are not sensory experiences. They are abstractions. Or possibly memories of abstractions. Certainly some people with synesthesia experience particular number to have peculiar personalities, qualities, colors. In this integers are like smells. Of course some objects have no smell to anyone.

Whether you take or not a position against the empirical aspects of mathematics is irrelevant now, since you actually acknowledge the point being made. Yes, there are memories of abstractions, of the instances when the stimulus of senses are placed in a conceptual framework that recognizes things as what they are, what we call experience. Experiencing something presented to us by the senses is becoming aware of its presence and grabbing its unity of being, as a thing in itself. A camera can capture images, perhaps better than an eye, but yet a camera cannot "see" a dog, the way any of us sees a dog.

-- Updated October 18th, 2017, 10:18 pm to add the following --
Burning ghost wrote:Count -
You should have noticed that those already engaged aren't taking it seriously and are pretty dismissive themselves towards other views, don't they? If theist are going to be completely open and honest on their opponents, why wouldn't atheist be open and honest, too? And being completely honest, religions and the idea of supernatural entities are a collection of primitive legends, childish superstitions of ignorant folks.
This is a fair comment and a common one too. Regardless why is it that these views exist? If people believe in this or that idea of "god" or have this or that sense of "spirituality", then how can you account for it?

Are we talking about only a socially created system or a progression of individual ideas and a potential neurobiology? Or a little of this and a little of that?

If they are "childish" what makes a child believe what they believe? Then there is the use of language and social interactions, traditions and emotional contents. The natural inclination for humans to view "things" as having "individuality" (by this I loosely mean we tend to look at objects in the world as possessing some "intent", much like we do. This is a common theory for religious attitudes toward the idea of deities being part of our anthropomorphism.)

It may be worthwhile to discuss argumentation for and against anthropomorphism in regard to concepts of "god" and/or "deities"? I for one would be very interested in hearing how people here could argue against their own particular views on this matter (or even if they could!)
In general, without going into details, I do think superstitions have a place in our natural tendencies, as well as in the primitive forms of culture. For the same causes, it is reasonable to expect that children will embrace myths and fantasies effortlessly. But then, educated adults, supposedly civilized, living in the 21st century, have no excuse for embracing primitive superstitions and falling for fantasy tales of imaginary entities as enthusiastically as any impressionable child.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
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Dark Matter
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Dark Matter »

Count Lucanor wrote:
Dark Matter wrote: (Nested quote removed.)

I'm not the one who said:

(Nested quote removed.)

Now that's just plain silly. What has the "Tooth Fairy" (or pink unicorns or Santa) to do with classical theism?

Perhaps you don't know what classical theism is?
Perhaps you have not noticed that the claim of a god entity is no different than the claim of a tooth fairy entity. Both infantile and yes, of course, silly.
:lol: You just proved you don't know what you are talking about.
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Count Lucanor »

Steve3007 wrote:
Count Lucanor wrote:
(Nested quote removed.)


I've not noticed any of the things I've said being exclusive to religious people. It's simply the recognition of the obvious fact that we create our model of the objective world via our subjective sensations. That's not the same as saying that the objective world does not exist. And it's not obvious to me how it would be used to "protect theism from rational inquiry".
I can understand it might not be so obvious to you if you have never debated a solipsist. Putting aside some wording, I generally agree with this statement, as indeed objective knowledge arises from our individual experiences as subjective agents. In the context of our previous discussion, this particular statement of yours appeared to resort to solipsism:

"The only way we can ever know of the existence of this horse is via our subjective sensations."

The "only way" seemed to imply that nothing else but our subjective mind is involved in the experience that leads to our knowledge of things. It appeared as if you were minimizing the physical reality of the senses and the things of the world in themselves. Maybe that's not what you intended to say or I jumped too far into an interpretation, but let's see...
Steve3007 wrote:

(Nested quote removed.)


You say "as well as" here as if there are two separate processes going on: testing against "subjective concepts" and against "objective existence of the world". This is not true. As I described earlier with an example, we test our subjective experiences against other subjective experiences - our own experiences, other people's, and our own and other people's memories of previous experiences. We find patterns in them and propose that those patterns represent an objective physical world.
You are contradicting yourself here. When you say that "we test our subjective experiences against other subjective experiences...other people's...and other people's memories", you cannot pretend to treat these experiences as "subjective", as they are not yours. You have found them existing independent of yourself, in the form of speech acts, text, or whatever physical support there is for the descriptions of those experiences, which you will asign as objectively belonging to said people.
Steve3007 wrote:

(Nested quote removed.)


I said nothing about anything being "ideal" or "fresh and new".
I never said that you said it literally, but that you portrayed it that way. I stand by that perception.
Steve3007 wrote:

(Nested quote removed.)


As I explained earlier using an example, this is simply not true. We don't know that it originated in the objective world. We think it more and more likely that it does the more it correlates with other subjective sensations.
Again, you're not taking into account the accumulative effect of subjective experience, which through constant iterations since we are born, leads us to grasp the objective reality of the world.
Steve3007 wrote:

(Nested quote removed.)


They are unified with other sensations in patterns that suggest their cause as something existing in a real world.
Something unifies them and is not the sense organs themselves. Concepts arise from the stimulus provided by the sense organs, but they are not "built" by the sense organs.

Steve3007 wrote:

(Nested quote removed.)


As many people do, you appear to be getting hung up on a label here. In this case the label you've chosen to use is "Subjectivism". Simply stating "Your are a Subjectivist. Subjectivists are wrong. Therefore you are wrong." is not sufficient to form a valid argument.

"Pointing at" means inviting somebody to use their subjective sensations to assess my proposition, based on my subjective sensations, that I have identified something that is the common cause of both sets of subjective sensations.
I think I already dealt with most of this above.
Steve3007 wrote:If you disagree, can you give me an example of an act of "pointing to something" that does not use sensations or observations in this way.
You're just hypostatizing subjective experiences, "moving" them from the subject and putting them in the world as some "subjective thing". As I explained before, once you have invited someone to describe their own subjective experiences, their own senses functioning, these things will be occurring in a realm independent of one's own consciousness, for which they also will be part of one's assesment of the objective world. You cannot "point at something" introspectively, or at least it doesn't make sense.
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Steve3007 »

Count Lucanor:
I can understand it might not be so obvious to you if you have never debated a solipsist.
I've spoken to some people on here who have taken solipsistic positions. I've never noticed anyone doing it to defend religion. It usually just seems to be a bit of fun. An intellectual exercise.
In the context of our previous discussion, this particular statement of yours appeared to resort to solipsism:

"The only way we can ever know of the existence of this horse is via our subjective sensations."

The "only way" seemed to imply that nothing else but our subjective mind is involved in the experience that leads to our knowledge of things. It appeared as if you were minimizing the physical reality of the senses and the things of the world in themselves. Maybe that's not what you intended to say or I jumped too far into an interpretation
It would be solipsism if I had said:

"There is no horse. Only the sensations of a horse."

I didn't say that. Note: I said "know of the existence".
You are contradicting yourself here. When you say that "we test our subjective experiences against other subjective experiences...other people's...and other people's memories", you cannot pretend to treat these experiences as "subjective", as they are not yours.
They are the experiences of subjects. So they are subjective. The only way I know about them is by my subjective experience of them. So during my lifetime I have learned through numerous subjective experiences of other people how best to interpret my subjective experience of hearing them talk and watching them move. If I have the experience of hearing one of them say "there is a horse" along with the experience of seeing them point a finger and if those experiences correlate with my own experiences of seeing a horse then I am putting together various experiences to conclude that a horse objectively exists.

So I don't think there's a contradiction. I think it should be clear that we gain evidence of other people's alleged subjective experiences by our own subjective experiences of them.

Note again: I am not denying the existence of an objective world in any of this. I am saying that we infer the existence of that world via various experiences. Obviously this involves memories of past experiences and the ability to spot patterns, make logical deductions and use logical Induction.

Also note: Some of our reactions to the world are not based on any experiences that we have had during our own lifetimes. They are due to the way we're made; our DNA; our instincts. For example, (I think I'm right in saying) babies are born with a built-in ability in the brain's visual system to fixate on pairs of eyes. But even this ability must have evolved due to the collective subjective experiences of numerous generations of our ancestors.
I never said that you said it literally, but that you portrayed it that way. I stand by that perception.
OK. Fair enough. All I can say is that it wasn't the message that I intended. "Ideal" would to me be associated with "Idealism". I certainly wouldn't call myself an idealist. If any label was appropriate, maybe it would be pragmatist. And "fresh and new". Well I don't know what that means, but it seems to imply that I'm claiming our sensations are experienced like a new-born baby, without the benefit of (many) memories of previous experiences in a brain shaped by experiences. Clearly I don't think that. I don't claim that we have no memories.
Again, you're not taking into account the accumulative effect of subjective experience, which through constant iterations since we are born, leads us to grasp the objective reality of the world.
Yes, I explicitly am taking into account the accumulative effect of subjective experience in that sentence that you actually quoted. I said this:

"We think it more and more likely that it does the more it correlates with other subjective sensations."

Perhaps it's not explicit enough. What I mean by that is that we use such things as Inductive Reasoning (hence "more and more likely") to relate the results of all the subjective experiences. That includes the memories of past experiences and the experiences of others, as described earlier.
Something unifies them and is not the sense organs themselves. Concepts arise from the stimulus provided by the sense organs, but they are not "built" by the sense organs.
Yes, the thing that unifies them is the patterns in them, as interpreted by the capabilities of the brain. The patterns that link all of these present and past experiences causes our brains to conclude that by far the most likely explanation for those patterns is that the sensations are caused by an objectively existing world. It's so likely that, from a very early age, we don't just see it as likely. We see it as certain. That's Inductive Reasoning for you. That's why if this pattern is ever broken (by such things as ghostly floating daggers as in my earlier example) we are very surprised.

Incidentally, I think this approach is also essential when dealing with some of the experimental findings of modern physics. But perhaps more on that later.
You're just hypostatizing subjective experiences, "moving" them from the subject and putting them in the world as some "subjective thing".
I disagree that that is what I am doing. I'm simply describing how I think we make sense of the world.
As I explained before, once you have invited someone to describe their own subjective experiences,...
i.e. once you've decided that you want to have the experience of hearing them describe their experiences, to add to your own remembered stock of experiences.
...their own senses functioning, these things will be occurring in a realm independent of one's own consciousness, for which they also will be part of one's assesment of the objective world
Which things will be happening in that realm? Not sure I understand what this part means.
You cannot "point at something" introspectively, or at least it doesn't make sense.
I agree. I never said you could. When somebody points at something I experience them doing that, via my eyes, subjectively and, just like any other experience, I add it to my vast accumulated stock of memories of previous experiences and use my brain, trained by years of experience and some innate evolved abilities (as discussed above) to conclude that a real, objectively existing person is pointing at something. That seems to me by far the most likely explanation for what I'm seeing. So much so that I don't normally question it.
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Count Lucanor »

Steve3007 wrote: Suppose instead various car owners described their cars. Would you be able to take those descriptions and figure out the essential characteristics shared by all cars?
"Shared by all" just means common. The common factor. But essential and common are not the same. Essential implies necessary and sufficient conditions, while common describes both essential and non-essential properties:
1) In a group of cars I can find common characteristics: SOME painted red, for example. That doesn't make redness essential for belonging to the class "cars".
2) I could also find characteristics that would be present in ALL the items of this set of cars, but I cannot be sure to find them in all sets of cars. This set of cars being red still doesn't make redness essential for belonging to the class "cars".
3) I can also find properties shared by ALL items in this set and that are essential, in other words, sufficient and necessary to identify cars in ALL SETS of this class.
4) Having determined the essential features of ALL SETS of cars will not help anyone identify and verify the existence of a particular car in any given set of cars. At best, it will help identifying in a group of items as many instances as there can be of things belonging to the class "cars".

From this derives the fact that: a) not necessarily common features within A SET or ALL THE SETS of objects are essential to ALL THE SETS, but essential features will be common, b) you have to conceptualize each particular object as a whole to determine its essential qualities. c) there must be identifiable singular objects of which I can study their properties, to be able to generalize those characteristics that are essential (and common) to all sets of these objects.

The above means, in terms of our god problem, that:

d) From a given set of gods and their common features, you cannot infer the sufficient and necessary conditions in all sets of gods.

e) Even after determining the essential features of ALL SETS of gods will not help anyone identify and verify the existence of a particular god in any given set of gods. At best, it will help identifying in a group of items as many instances as there can be of things belonging to the class "gods".

Therefore, when asking "does god exist?", the particular god being talked about must be identified with its particular properties, both the essential and non-essential ones. Saying that you can work with a common factor among a set of gods only means that you're willing to accept that set of gods, not that you have identified and described a particular god, since this god could have features not present in the other gods.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
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