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4th January 2018, 04:14 AM | #321 |
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A Boltzmann brain wasn't even very clever when it was thought up. There is no reason to think that a "disembodied" mind would somehow be "simpler" and therefore more "likely" than one arising from a physical process in humans, that's just an assumption.
It's the soul-seekers' equivalent of Anselm of Canterbury's ontological argument for god. |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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4th January 2018, 04:38 AM | #322 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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4th January 2018, 05:30 AM | #323 |
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Evidence that being happy is a scientific term?
What international scientific measurement standard is being happy measured in? What is the scientific theory of being happy? Hi ynot. You tricked your self into a trap. Religion, but not just religion, is about first person beliefs and feelings and emotions and religion can give no evidence for physical facts. It deals with the mental and not the physical. On the other hand you can't used the natural/hard science methodology for giving evidence for being happy. So you shot yourself in the foot, because you gave an example of the limitation of science. #1 Science is a limited methodology and only works on some aspects of the human condition. #2 It can be observed that most humans use feelings and emotions when giving reasons for what matters. Just as you did, i.e. e.g. life, death and happiness. #3 Feelings and emotions can be observed and explained using science, but feelings and emotions can't be done using science. This is the sub-forum for religion and philosophy. If you want to explain the physics of jumping out of a 20th floor window, go to the correct sub-forum. If you want to debate how life matters, then you can in general term explain that using science in the descriptive sense, but you can't do normative claims using science. That is religion and/or philosophy |
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4th January 2018, 05:32 AM | #324 |
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I don't believe in God and all the rest outside of methodological naturalism But I am a cognitive and ethical relativist/subjectivist and skeptic. #JeSuisAhmed |
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4th January 2018, 05:36 AM | #325 |
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And all of the apparent reality is not physical and objective, some of it is mental and subjective.
Or all of the apparent reality is not science, because science is not everything. Just as religion, philosophy, psychology and gravity are not everything on their own in an individual sense. |
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4th January 2018, 05:45 AM | #326 |
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So you have evidence for that fact that I am religious, i.e. a soul-seeker. Or have you run into the induction problem of white and black swans, but you are unable to understand that I am a black swan?
I can use a Boltzmann brain argument without being religious, unless you can give evidence for the fact that I am indeed religious. |
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4th January 2018, 05:48 AM | #327 |
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I don't believe in God and all the rest outside of methodological naturalism But I am a cognitive and ethical relativist/subjectivist and skeptic. #JeSuisAhmed |
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4th January 2018, 06:10 AM | #328 |
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See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatry for a good starting part in learning how science measures and evaluates and changes human behaviours. |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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4th January 2018, 06:12 AM | #329 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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4th January 2018, 06:16 AM | #330 |
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4th January 2018, 06:31 AM | #331 |
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4th January 2018, 06:32 AM | #332 |
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4th January 2018, 06:36 AM | #333 |
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Nonsense! Obviously the camera is looking into your mind when it creates an image. How else could it accurately identify, for instance, things that appear green, so as to represent them as parts of the photograph that also appear green, when the color green exists only in our minds and not in the real world? (Quantum mechanics says so!) All that makes perfect sense when you understand that the camera also exists only in your mind. And your sketch. And the historic building. And this post. |
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4th January 2018, 06:48 AM | #334 |
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4th January 2018, 07:12 AM | #335 |
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As I read it on Wikipedia (not the best source, but hey...) Boltzmann theorizes that disembodies self-aware brains that happen to pop into existence are more likely than evolved brains connected to sensory systems, because the former would require a smaller thermodynamic fluctuation.
Which doesn't make sense, because it does not mesh with what we observe about the world and how feedback systems emerge from organisation in living things, and because the thermodynamic cost of something in and of itself does not say much about the likeliness that that particular thing or process will come into existence. Hell, setting myself on fire would create less entropy than a star burning out, therefore it's more likely that I was completely reconstituted from ashes than that the Sun exists... No. |
4th January 2018, 08:13 AM | #336 |
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Can anyone tell me in what comment of this thread has been "consciousness" defined?
Thank you. |
4th January 2018, 08:26 AM | #337 |
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4th January 2018, 08:53 AM | #338 |
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The problem is that you can't determine the different probabilities between being in a "fair" reality and being a Boltzmann brain without running into Agrippa's trilemma. You are assuming that your experience can tell you something about the probability, i.e. your experiences are "fair", but then you are begging the question, because the question is: Are your experiences "fair" or that of a Boltzmann brain. And you can't start by assuming that reality is "fair", when you ask if reality is "fair"?
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4th January 2018, 09:01 AM | #339 |
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Yes, in an indirect manner you have a point, but not in the sense that you can observe a happy life. Happy is first person experience. Further you can't answer ynot's example as to whether it would be wrong to jump off the 20th floor of building or leave the floor through the window.
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4th January 2018, 09:05 AM | #340 |
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Nor can I observe an electron directly, but there are well-known techniques to detect them and study their properties. The fact that I don't know what it's like to experience being an electron is of no particular importance, and neither is the fact that I can't experience living someone else's happy life. Both are nevertheless amenable to study.
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4th January 2018, 09:07 AM | #341 |
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So it's solipsism approached from a different direction.
Yes, if we can't trust our senses, it is theoretically possible that only I/you/someone exist(s), that we are a brain in a vat, a thermodynamic anomaly, the dream of an extradimensional squid monster... How does Boltzmann's thermodynamic approach offer us a new perspective? And if we can't make any assumptions based on the feedback our minds receive from what appears to be the external world, then we have no reason to assume we even exist in the first place, and it all turns into infinitely regressing navelgazing. |
4th January 2018, 09:12 AM | #342 |
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Yes, I didn't answer that in a correct manner, because you pointed out in an indirect manner, what I left out. An electron is objective, a happy life is subjective.
A scientist look at a human saying - I have a happy life - isn't looking at something which is objective and the scientist can't replicate that using science. It gets worse with morality and ethics. |
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4th January 2018, 09:16 AM | #343 |
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I don't believe in God and all the rest outside of methodological naturalism But I am a cognitive and ethical relativist/subjectivist and skeptic. #JeSuisAhmed |
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4th January 2018, 09:18 AM | #344 |
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It's still possible in principle to measure happiness and to draw conclusions from variations in its level in specific demographics. It's not a particularly precise science, but your view of it as an imponderable that social scientists simply throw their hands up in despair at measuring is completely at odds with reality.
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4th January 2018, 09:18 AM | #345 |
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4th January 2018, 09:24 AM | #346 |
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Yes, you can do that on a large scale because we humans to a varying degree share similarities, but the moment it turns into morality and ethics, it goes puff. Science hasn't solve the it-ought problem.
Answer me this using science: Is it wrong to kill another human? Notice I didn't say murder. |
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4th January 2018, 09:28 AM | #347 |
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4th January 2018, 09:33 AM | #348 |
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4th January 2018, 09:45 AM | #349 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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4th January 2018, 09:45 AM | #350 |
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4th January 2018, 09:48 AM | #351 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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4th January 2018, 09:50 AM | #352 |
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This has got rather a long way from your original request for evidence that happiness is a scientific term, which has now been provided to you. I note that you don't seem to think that this new information you requested should inform your conclusions in any way at all, on which I feel there is no need for comment.
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4th January 2018, 09:54 AM | #353 |
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4th January 2018, 09:56 AM | #354 |
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4th January 2018, 09:58 AM | #355 |
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Happy is not a first person experience - it is both a public and private behaviour. I can tell when another person is happy, they can tell when I am happy.
(Had to rewrite the following several times to try and get the tone right.) If you think happiness is only a first person experience can I suggest you may have a consciousness that is different to the majority of other humans* as I'd say most of us have no problems in observing happiness in other people as well as in ourselves. *I really don't mean this in a demeaning way, it's just that since last year when I realised I experience an "inner" world quite differently to the majority of people I'm much more aware that some miscommunications may come about because we do have very different "internal" experiences. The only reason that "science" can't answer such a question is that the question although looking simple e.g. "Is it wrong for him to exit via the window" in fact contains a myriad of accepted assumptions. If we unpack such questions to expose the assumptions they become answerable by "science" i.e. in an objective manner. |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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4th January 2018, 09:58 AM | #356 |
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4th January 2018, 10:01 AM | #357 |
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4th January 2018, 10:01 AM | #358 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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4th January 2018, 10:02 AM | #359 |
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No; that means it's a linguistic concept. Religiosity, however, is a scientific concept, because we can study its demographics using similar tools to those with which we can study happiness.
Since I haven't actually proposed one, your question is meaningless. What you're engaged in here is what, I think, Argumemnon likes to describe as a Denial Of Knowledge attack. Please feel free to carry on, but I'm bored with it now. Dave |
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4th January 2018, 10:02 AM | #360 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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