The problem knowledge poses to atheism

[FBM]

either: will, power and knowledge exist
or: will, power and knowledge do not exist.

False dilemma, black-and-white thinking, etc etc. Typical of the religious mindset.

Do you know of a third way?

Glad you asked. You see, I researced a lot of this before making a decision about it, rather than the other way 'round.

To start with, you lumped your three fave concepts together and then invited us to either accept or reject them all together. They're not necessarily ontologically bound, that is, the existence of one in no way implicates the existence of the others. Yet you want us to make a blanket assertion on the whole group. Black-and-white, either-or thinking, and damn the details, it seems.

Will. I presume you mean 'free will' in the conventional usage? If you read up on the topic, you'd be aware that there are several non-black-and-white alternatives to choose among. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compa ... atibilism, is a good place to start. (I'd recommend bookmarking the Stanford page. A lot of good info there that could keep you from repeating these mistakes. )

Powah! What power? The power to move my body around? The sense of ownership of my actions? Here are some good places to look for alternatives to the either-or assumption: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11 ... .2112.html (Just an abstract, but you get the picture.) Something with more detail: http://home.uchicago.edu/decety/publica ... tyNN01.pdf
You see? There are lots of people out there doing real research and basing their conclusions on empirical evidence, rather than wistful daydreams and pseudo-intellectual, ad hoc rationalizations.

Knowledge! Distinguish, please, between knowledge and information. Are you using those words synonymously? In what way is knowledge distinct from information? Is muscle memory 'knowledge'? Muscle memory doesn't require conscious awareness of the content of the knowledge, and yet it dominates our daily lives. It's kinda knowledge, but kinda not. You see, even a cursory examination of your position yeilds an abundance of grey areas that you seem to conveniently ignore. For more on the possibility of knowledge, try Hume's Problem of Induction. If you approach it without preconceived, preferred conclusions, you'll find that there is quite a lot of grey area to be considered.

[spinoza99]

To start with, you lumped your three fave concepts together and then invited us to either accept or reject them all together.

if I say ABC exist and you say AB exist, then you just take the or statement.

Will. I presume you mean 'free will' in the conventional usage?

So you believe that all human actions are the result of blind obedience to physical laws? Explain how the product of, say, Tolstoy's War and Peace could be the result of blind obedience to physical laws.

Powah! What power? The power to move my body around?

As I said power is the ability to move a body to the location you desire. Do you believe that power does not exist? If it doesn't then how does your brain coordinate 100 billion neurons?

Knowledge! Distinguish, please, between knowledge and information.

Knowledge is knowing what objects to move and where in order to achieve a result.

Information is the sequencing of objects so that results occur that would not be possible otherwise. In other words, bodies have properties. Information is the change of those properties when those bodies link with other bodies. For example, oxygen has a property, but when it links with hydrogen it has another property. Information is the description of that property. Second example, the nucleic acids T G A C have properties, if you sequence them into a correct 600,000 sequence, the odds of which are roughly one in ten raised to the 3000th power, you will get an organism. Knowledge is knowing which sequence to put the amino acids in. Information is the fact that T G A C have different properties when sequenced in such a way. Knowledge is what a being has, information refers to the properties of objects.


Are you using those words synonymously? In what way is knowledge distinct from information? Is muscle memory 'knowledge'? Muscle memory doesn't require conscious awareness of the content of the knowledge, and yet it dominates our daily lives. It's kinda knowledge, but kinda not. You see, even a cursory examination of your position yeilds an abundance of grey areas that you seem to conveniently ignore. For more on the possibility of knowledge, try Hume's Problem of Induction. If you approach it without preconceived, preferred conclusions, you'll find that there is quite a lot of grey area to be considered.[/quote]

[Ronja]

either: will, power and knowledge exist
or: will, power and knowledge do not exist.

False dilemma, black-and-white thinking, etc etc. Typical of the religious mindset.

FBM beat me to it.

Spinoza: you cannot have an even remotely sane or productive discussion before you stop throwing about these dichotomies that you have, in essence, pulled out of a hat.

[FBM]

To start with, you lumped your three fave concepts together and then invited us to either accept or reject them all together.

if I say ABC exist and you say AB exist, then you just take the or statement.

What? That sentence looks like English, but it doesn't make sense the way most English does.

Will. I presume you mean 'free will' in the conventional usage?

So you believe that all human actions are the result of blind obedience to physical laws? Explain how the product of, say, Tolstoy's War and Peace could be the result of blind obedience to physical laws.

No, I don't believe anything. You, apparently, do. I make observation and necessary inference and leave the speculation up to others. Oh, and thanks for offering the red herring, but no thanks. Red herring gives me the shits.

Powah! What power? The power to move my body around?

As I said power is the ability to move a body to the location you desire. Do you believe that power does not exist? If it doesn't then how does your brain coordinate 100 billion neurons?

"Power is the ability". Working on a tautology there. Again, no thanks on the red herring. I did what I said I would do, viz, demonstrate that there is a range of alternatives with many more choices and nuances than your simplistic black-and-white thinking would prefer.

Knowledge! Distinguish, please, between knowledge and information.

Knowledge is knowing what objects to move and where in order to achieve a result.

"Knowledge is knowing". Please. That's like saying respiration is breathing. Enough with the tautologies. Produce something.

Information is the sequencing of objects so that results occur that would not be possible otherwise. In other words, bodies have properties. Information is the change of those properties when those bodies link with other bodies. For example, oxygen has a property, but when it links with hydrogen it has another property. Information is the description of that property. Second example, the nucleic acids T G A C have properties, if you sequence them into a correct 600,000 sequence, the odds of which are roughly one in ten raised to the 3000th power, you will get an organism. Knowledge is knowing which sequence to put the amino acids in. Information is the fact that T G A C have different properties when sequenced in such a way. Knowledge is what a being has, information refers to the properties of objects.

Wow. This is sad. You, sir, are beyond my help. I recommend a professional who has the authority to write prescriptions. This is all over the map. Can you not distinguish between the properties of an object and the brain's neuronal representation of them?

Are you using those words synonymously? In what way is knowledge distinct from information? Is muscle memory 'knowledge'? Muscle memory doesn't require conscious awareness of the content of the knowledge, and yet it dominates our daily lives. It's kinda knowledge, but kinda not. You see, even a cursory examination of your position yeilds an abundance of grey areas that you seem to conveniently ignore. For more on the possibility of knowledge, try Hume's Problem of Induction. If you approach it without preconceived, preferred conclusions, you'll find that there is quite a lot of grey area to be considered.

[spinoza99]

So you believe that all human actions are the result of blind obedience to physical laws? Explain how the product of, say, Tolstoy's War and Peace could be the result of blind obedience to physical laws.

No, I don't believe anything. I make observation and necessary inference and leave the speculation up to others.

State where you stand on the issue of whether or not humans choose their actions or if all their actions are the result of an inevitable obedience to physical laws.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So you believe that all human actions are the result of blind obedience to physical laws? Explain how the product of, say, Tolstoy's War and Peace could be the result of blind obedience to physical laws.

No, I don't believe anything. I make observation and necessary inference and leave the speculation up to others.

State where you stand on the issue of whether or not humans choose their actions or if all their actions are the result of an inevitable obedience to physical laws.

Why do think it's binary? Either/Or scenarios routinely leave out the possibility of other options. In other words, your statement is worthless. I'm surprised.

[spinoza99]

Gawdzilla,
If you can think of a 3rd way, I would be happy to hear it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Gawdzilla,
If you can think of a 3rd way, I would be happy to hear it.

Simply a combination of both.

Was that so hard?

Not claiming that's right, just showing you where you failed. As usual.

[FBM]

So you believe that all human actions are the result of blind obedience to physical laws? Explain how the product of, say, Tolstoy's War and Peace could be the result of blind obedience to physical laws.

No, I don't believe anything. I make observation and necessary inference and leave the speculation up to others.

State where you stand on the issue of whether or not humans choose their actions or if all their actions are the result of an inevitable obedience to physical laws.

No, thanks. I don't give a shit about all that. I was just pointing out your false dichotomy fallacy by demonstrating that there are various shades of grey between that you've failed to recognize, perhaps due to your blind certainty bias that you're right regardless of what anybody else says. I'm suggesting that you beef up your awareness of fallacious errors in reasoning. If you do that, you'll be able to find your own errors before publishing them to the public for everyone else to snicker at. Once that happens, you have a few choices. You may recant your original claim, admitting your error, and try to resolve the fallacious elements before re-posting, or you can stick stubbornly to your original claim, ignoring the fallacies, and use further fallacies in an effort to cover up the first ones. Or you could just admit that you're way out in left field, staking your house on lottery tickets, grasping at straws, high on woo, etc.

[spinoza99]

Gawdzilla,
If you can think of a 3rd way, I would be happy to hear it.

Simply a combination of both.

Gawdzilla if you believe that some human actions are not a blind obedience to physical laws, then you admit that an immaterial thing such as will exists. You're not a hard-core atheist. Once you admit that will exists and you admit that an immaterial force has hegemony over material then you've virtually accepted theism.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Gawdzilla,
If you can think of a 3rd way, I would be happy to hear it.

Simply a combination of both.

Gawdzilla if you believe that some human actions are not a blind obedience to physical laws, then you admit that an immaterial thing such as will exists.

No, I don't.

[spinoza99]

Gawdzilla,

what happened to the wonderful avatar? I liked the last one better.

Anyway if you believe humans have free will, how do they exercise this? If they are just blindly obeying physical laws like a rock does gravity then they have no free will. So, is this choice located in a material object?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Gawdzilla,

what happened to the wonderful avatar? I liked the last one better.

Anyway if you believe humans have free will, how do they exercise this? If they are just blindly obeying physical laws like a rock does gravity then they have no free will. So, is this choice located in a material object?

Humans have nothing BUT free will until you demonstrate otherwise.

[Ronja]

Spinoza - please shut up while you read "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" by Daniel C. Dennett. It explains both the historical / philosophical need for and the psychological lure of the illusion of a "non-material" will/soul and how modern brain research has zeroed in on what that illusion really is built of. Laws of physics do, indeed, play a very important role in our brain + nervous system functions.

Don't pester forum members for answers that are readily available elsewhere - that is not nice.

[spinoza99]

Humans have nothing BUT free will until you demonstrate otherwise.

Free will and atheism are not compatible. If you believe there is an immaterial force which can choose to move our bodies in a certain way, then it's very easy to believe that we humans are not the only ones with this power. God also has the power to choose to move bodies in a certain way, though on a much larger scale.