…How to have a conversation, (comments open).

I see out good friend whose real name shall not be used despite he himself perpetually linking to it on his website, KirosFocus, has written another copypasta filled FYI / FTR:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/atheism/fyi-ftr-part-6-what-about-howtwerdun-and-whodunit-the-id-case-has-no-hypothesis-about-what-the-designer-was-trying-to-do-how-she-was-doing-it-what-her-capacities-were-etc/

Look, KF, You’re clearly reading TSZ and would like to participate. You can have Admin privileges and start threads. The only thing you can’t do it edit, moderate them or delete them for reasons other than listed in the site. (It is better if moderators don’t moderate their own threads, IMHO).

It is my opinion that your FYI / FTR posts are a bad idea. Here’s why:

• By not allowing criticism to be directly attached to them you are not proceeding in the most intellectually honest way.
• You keep relinking to them so criticisms have to be redrafted after every ‘reboot’
• You post on a blog that censors, edits and even DISSAPEARS whole commenters.
• No rationale or many times even acknowledgement is given by the moderators.
• The above are hallmarks of dogma, not honest inquiry.

If your ideas are good, they’ll hold up under scrutiny. Exposing them to pointed criticism may help you refine them. A quick check shows non constitutional crises in a certain island that shall not be named, so it’s a great time to take the plunge, with a hearty “BYDAND!”

[title truncated by Lizzie]

A few years ago, there was an article in New Scientist by Dan Jones,entitled, Grand delusions: Why we’re determined to be free.  It began:

IT IS the year 2500. Physicists have long had a Grand Unified Theory of Everything and neuroscientists now know precisely how the hardware of the brain runs the software of the mind and dictates behaviour. Lately, reports have begun to emerge that computer engineers at the Institute for Advanced Behavioural Prediction have built a quantum supercomputer that draws on these advances to predict the future, including what people will do and when. Trusted sources say that IABP researchers have secretly run thousands of predictions about citizens’ behaviour – and they have never been wrong.

Suddenly, deep philosophical questions are making headlines as commentators sound the death knell for free will. On the face of it, the consequences of proving all our actions are predetermined look bleak. Psychological experiments have shown that undermining people’s sense of free will leads them to behave more dishonestly, more selfishly and more aggressively. But perhaps there is no need to panic. Some philosophers have found that our sense of free will is less threatened by determinism than the commentators suppose – so even faced with incontrovertible evidence that behaviour is predetermined, we still see ourselves as free and responsible for our own actions. Nothing will change.

Who is correct? Will the public buy this reassuring message? Or will the manifest truth of determinism kill off belief in free will, taking down notions of moral culpability and punishment with it? Will nihilism, moral disintegration and anarchy follow?

I composed a response, which I ended up not sending, but sent to Daniel Dennett instead, from whom I received a very nice reply, in which he attached a relevant article he’d recently written, Some Observations on the Psychology of Thinking About Free Will.  Here is the draft of my own response to New Scientist:

Continue reading →

…- A Sign of Unintelligent Design

In a recent thread here at TSZ William J. Murray brought up the subject of semiosis, to which Allan Miller responded:

Allan Miller: Nice to see WJM has absorbed UB’s ‘semiotic’ nomenclature though. Published nowhere, of course…

Continue reading →

Let’s try this again.

In a recent post here at TSZ Elizabeth Liddle made the following statement:

What undermines the “case for design” chiefly, is that there isn’t a case for a designer.

HERE

Odd, I thought. Surely she knows better. All that time spent over at UD and never a case for a designer? Is this claim believable? I thought not.

Continue reading →

In a recent post here at TSZ Elizabeth Liddle made the following statement:

What undermines the “case for design” chiefly, is that there isn’t a case for a designer.

Odd, I thought. Surely she knows better. All that time spent over at UD and never a case for a designer?

This was later followed by yet another comment from Elizabeth:

I haven’t really taken to the “atheist” label, much although I don’t reject it – but it [the atheist label] implies that my non-belief in god or gods is something categorically different from my non-belief in unicorns or toothfairies, or in the proverbial orbiting teapot.

It’s not, of course, Elizabeth would say. But it is categorically different. For example, no one believes orbiting teapots design anything, and an orbiting teapot would be an instance of design, not an instance of a designer.

As this has now become a topic of discussion in the original thread I think it deserves it’s own thread. Well, not just that, I also think Elizabeth is being dishonest [EDIT: but not deliberately misleading: dishonest, defn. not worthy of trust or belief].

Continue reading →

…Church Was On the Wrong Side, As Usual

http://www.theguardian.com/global/live/2015/may/23/counting-underway-for-irelands-referendum-on-marriage-equality

Ireland becomes first country to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote

[title shortened by Lizzie]

A little fun, where you can unleash you inner crank / woomeister. Do you think there is anything we’ll discover in the future that will radically change things? Examples include but not limited to:

Life on Mars, Signals from ET, FTL travel,  PSI phenomena, Limitless energy, Immortality, Message from God, Real AI, Crashed UFO, Atlantis, Decent country music,  etc.

Have some fun with this. No-one is judging*

*Probably not true.

to recent discussions here at TSZ:

---

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you’re tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

A thread at UD that was just beginning to get interesting was unfortunately cut short when Elizabeth departed.

As is oh so typical over at UD, those silly IDiots were appealing to obvious truths and the primacy of logical reasoning. Elizabeth, in contrast, was championing her empirical methodology.

During the exchange, Elizabeth made the following statements:

Continue reading →

Barry Arrington writes:

For years I have been bemused by the website called The Skeptical Zone.  Every few months I go over there and peruse the posts.  And I think to myself, if they are so skeptical, why does practically everything they say line up with the received dogmas and conventional wisdom of the early 21^st century Western intelligentsia?

Do they not know what the word “skeptical” means?  Are they going for ironical?

But in a flash of insight today, I finally figured it out.  The key is in the quote from Cromwell at the top of their homepage that serves as the motto for the site:

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.

All of this time I mistakenly thought that they were using the aphorism the way Cromwell intended as in “We should bear in mind that each of us is fallible; it follows that each of us should always allow for the possibility that even his most intensely-held beliefs might possibly be mistaken.”

Yes, Barry, that is precisely what I intended it to mean.

No, that is not it.  It all becomes clear when you realize that they mean their motto quite literally and when they think of it they think of it this way:

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that YOU may be mistaken.

 

The YOU refers to all those who read the words,  including the owner of the blog.

There you have it.  They are skeptical all right.  They are skeptical of everyone’s views but their own, which they hold with a breathtakingly dogmatic tenacity.  It all makes sense to me now

Well, we all tend to think that people who seem unable to see our point of view are holding that view “with a breathtaking dogmatic tenacity”.  After all, if we thought we were wrong, we’d change our minds, wouldn’t we?  It’s intrinsic to the nature of disagreement that we think the other guy is wrong, and greater the clarity with which we think we are seeing the truth, the more dogmatically tenacious the other guy seems to be for not seeing it.  Which simply goes to show that one [wo]man’s obvious is another [wo]man’s nonsense.

So: Just to remind everyone: No, the motto is neither ironical,  nor addressed to a subset of the world.  It is addressed to everyone, unironically, including me.  And of course Barry, should he come over, which I hope he will. Please regard it as the Primary Rule of this site.

Thanks 🙂

Edited to, I hope, avoid copyright violation.

Commenter ‘fifthmonarchyman’ from UD has joined us and has some thoughts on active information.

I’ll cross-post his comment from the Ewert thread below.

Barry ‘Banny’ Arrington has a new, rather confused post at UD:

On Invoking Non-Physical Mental States to “Solve the Problem” of Consciousness

Many of us are banned at UD, and those who aren’t banned are in danger of having their comments purged at any moment. Let’s avoid that cesspit and respond here at TSZ, where open discussion is encouraged and Arringtonian censorship is anathema.

…tries transparent rhetorical gambit

Details here:

Uncommon Descent

Will Barry be brave enough to leave his pillow fort to discuss this?

But I say to you who are hearing, Love your enemies, do good to those hating you, bless those cursing you, and pray for those accusing you falsely; and to him smiting thee upon the cheek, give also the other, and from him taking away from thee the mantle, also the coat thou mayest not keep back. And to every one who is asking of thee, be giving; and from him who is taking away thy goods, be not asking again; and as ye wish that men may do to you, do ye also to them in like manner; and — if ye love those loving you, what grace have ye? for also the sinful love those loving them; and if ye do good to those doing good to you, what grace have ye? for also the sinful do the same; and if ye lend to those of whom ye hope to receive back, what grace have ye? for also the sinful lend to sinners — that they may receive again as much. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward will be great, and ye shall be sons of the Highest, because He is kind unto the ungracious and evil; be ye therefore merciful, as also your Father is merciful. And judge not, and ye may not be judged; condemn not, and ye may not be condemned; release, and ye shall be released. Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed, and shaken, and running over, they shall give into your bosom; for with that measure with which ye measure, it shall be measured to you again.

– Some weird dude named Jesus. No wonder they killed Him.

Because no Christian organization  has spoken out against Matt McLaughlin’s hate-filled initiative proposal “The Sodomite Suppression Act”.

It’s better known as the Kill the Gays Act. It begins with:

“The People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.”

Look, anyone with the $200 filing fee and access to a typewriter or computer can submit an initiative proposal, so it’s not surprising that some dangerously deranged people start the process.

What’s surprising is that no christian leader, no christian-oriented news source, no official church spokesperson that I’ve heard, has repudiated McLaughlin’s despicable proposal.

Nor can they claim that they haven’t responded to it merely because it’s too minor to make the news.  Kill the Gays has made all the major papers in the state.  It is significant enough that it might trigger the CA state legislature to overhaul (finally!) the corruptible voter-initiative system.  Also, it’s already involved in a court case with the state AG tying to pre-empt placing this clearly-unconstitutional initiative on the state ballot.

So,  Christians, why are you silent?  What would your beloved Jesus say if he witnessed you silently accepting MM’s murderous desire?

Petrushka writes:

There’s a rumor that all of aurelio smith’s posts at UD have disappeared. Big win for Winston Ewert.

I looked, and sure enough, Smith’s comments are all gone — even from his guest thread.

UD has sunk to a new low.

Is there such a thing as a fair die?

Angels Glow Bacterium
Continue reading →