Sandbox (4)

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Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.

I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.

5,860 thoughts on “Sandbox (4)”

  1. fifthmonarchyman: I do tend to get my hackles up when I come across folks who are passionate about proving or disproving God’s existence and when I do find folks engaged in that pursuit I will at times remind them that it is God’s existence that makes such foolishness on their part possible in the first place.

    So sayeth your worldview,otherwise that might qualify as a claim.

  2. newton: So sayeth your worldview,otherwise that might qualify as a claim.

    Yeah, as I said, it seems to me extremely argumentative. Fighting words.

  5. walto: I note, however, that the stuff about the xtian God making argument possible is both equivocal and, obviously, quite controversial. Those seem to me clearly ‘fighting words.’

    As I pointed out I think that treating God like his existence depends on the successful construction of an argument is idolatry.

    If you are familiar at all with the Bible you know that idolatry is bad.

    I’m sorry you find my words to be at times to be inflammatory but you should see them in that context. It’s nothing personal I just don’t appreciate folks treating God like he is just another philosophical proposition to be evaluated and perhaps granted if he pleases our intellectual fancy.

    Van Til described that sort of behavior as being like a small spoiled child who has to climb up on her father’s lap in order to slap his face.

    It’s really simple If you don’t want me to remind you what you look like don’t try to prove that God doesn’t exist using philosophical argument.

    We are all adults there should be all kinds of things that we can discuss here instead of silly arguments for or against God’s existence.

    peace

  7. newton: So sayeth your worldview,otherwise that might qualify as a claim.

    Yes we look at the world from radically different perspectives.
    I’m a Christian, my perspective begins with the Christian God. You are not a Christian you see the world differently that much is obvious.

    One of the things I’m very interested in is the worldviews that different folks adhere to. I think that examining our various presuppositions for constituency and utility is both important and highly interesting.

    As far as it being a claim that God makes argument possible, are you aware of anything else that can serve as a sufficient basis for philosophical argument. I’m all ears.

    peace

  8. walto: As long as you understand your entire position is question-begging

    What question am I beggging exactly?
    God’s existence is certainly not in question.

    peace

  9. fifth:

    …and when I do find folks engaged in that pursuit I will at times remind them that it is God’s existence that makes such foolishness on their part possible in the first place.

    Speaking of foolishness, do you remember what happened when you tried to support your claim that the Christian God is a prerequisite for knowledge? Time-traveling Mary-impregnating physical Jesus, anyone?

    Remind yourself of that the next time you get the urge to scold someone for making a philosophical argument against God’s existence.

  12. fifthmonarchyman: My mind is the only thing that I have access to, absent revelation.

    peace

    Thank “heavens” for that answer! [response 17B, I think]. I like that one. I was pretty sure you were going to CLAIM that everybody believes in god, regardless of what they think [4A]. That one is assholish.

  13. Of course you know that 4A is related to 17B.

    Revelation is reason I know that everyone knows God exists. Romans 1:19 to be specific.

    peace

  15. fifthmonarchyman:
    Of course you know that 4A is related to 17B.

    Revelation is reason I know that everyone knows God exists. Romans 1:19 to be specific.

    peace

    Yep, that’s the one. Assholish.

    Not only a claim and an assertion; not only an obviously false claim/assertion. But an obnoxious and obviously false claim/assertion.

    You better hope Patrick doesn’t reappear again.

  16. walto: Not only a claim and an assertion; not only an obviously false claim/assertion. But an obnoxious and obviously false claim/assertion.

    I’m not asserting it I’m merely sharing it with you.

    It might be a claim but it’s not my claim. It’s Paul’s and by extension God’s

    If you think it’s false and obnoxious you can take it up with him.

    walto: You better hope Patrick doesn’t reappear again.

    😉

  17. It’s lucky all the copies of that book were not lost at some point in history, like so many other books.

    Then that omnipotent god would have had no way of letting FMM know things about other people.

  19. Censorship sucks, even when the speaker isn’t much of a loss.

    I agree. They should have let him speak — and laughed at the appropriate moments.

  20. OMagain: It’s lucky all the copies of that book were not lost at some point in history, like so many other books.

    1) I would say it’s providential
    2) The unique structure of early Christianity insured that there are so many early copies that it is very highly unlikely that all would be lost.
    3) Even if every copy was somehow lost the text could be reconstructed from quotes in the writings of the early church fathers.

    Those sorts of redundancies are what you’d expect to see from an omnipotent God who was making sure that his word would not be lost.

    peace

  22. I interested in opinions

    Does omniscience entail certainty?

    If you know everything that can be known does that automatically mean you are certain of everything you know?

    Is omni-certainty better than omniscience?

    thanks in advance

    peace

  23. fifthmonarchyman:
    I interested in opinions

    Does omniscience entail certainty?

    If you know everything that can be known does that automatically mean you are certain of everything you know?

    Is omni-certainty better than omniscience?

    thanks in advance

    peace

    I wouldn’t want to have to make a knock-down argument for it, but my first thought is that knowing every single thing would be sufficient to secure certainty of every single thing. I mean, you’d know the truth or falsity of every possible reason that might be adduced for any proposition.

  24. walto: you’d know the truth or falsity of every possible reason that might be adduced for any propsition.

    Interesting

    Do you think that all reasons can be assigned a binary value as true or false? Couldn’t probable or improbable be as far as you could go on some propositions?

    For example

    Could an omniscient being know the outcome of a choice of an hypothetical individual with libertarian free will that lives in a hypothetical universe but not be certain until the choice actually happens?

    Or would you say that a choice of an individual with libertarian free will is a complete black box even for the omniscient?

    peace

  25. Well, even a probalistic reason is either true or false. So, e.g., that Jones has a 30% chance of committing a felony tonight is either true or false, and an omniscient person would know which.

  26. walto: that Jones has a 30% chance of committing a felony tonight is either true or false, and an omniscient person would know which.

    Your right of course.

    Suppose the probability was 99.9997%.

    Could the omniscient person be justified in saying that he knows Jones will commit a felony but is not certain?

    peace

  28. fifth,

    Could an omniscient being know the outcome of a choice of an hypothetical individual with libertarian free will that lives in a hypothetical universe but not be certain until the choice actually happens?

    Or would you say that a choice of an individual with libertarian free will is a complete black box even for the omniscient?

    Libertarian free will is incoherent and therefore cannot exist.

    If you set that rather serious problem aside, then I’d say that a timeless and omniscient God knows all our choices. The phrase you used — “until the choice actually happens” — doesn’t apply to a timeless God, who sees everything in one timeless cosmic “instant”.

  29. keiths:
    fifth,

    Libertarian free will is incoherent and therefore cannot exist.

    If you set that rather serious problem aside, then I’d say that a timeless and omniscient God knows all our choices.The phrase you used — “until the choice actually happens” — doesn’t apply to a timeless God, who sees everything in one timeless cosmic “instant”.

    Suppose it’s not “timeless” or even God: just omniscient.

  30. Someone could say that “Jones will commit a felony tomorrow” has a truth value today and that an omniscient being would have to know that truth-value.

    But it might also be claimed that (in a libertarian free choice world–an idea which isn’t congenial to me either) that statement doesn’t yet have a truth value. Do you think that In that case the probabalistic info with respect to the future might provide an omniscient person with knowledge, but not certain knowledge–in the event it turns out to be true?

  31. walto,

    Suppose it’s not “timeless” or even God: just omniscient.

    Then I’d say it depends on whether you’re an A-theorist or a B-theorist about time. If you’re an A-theorist, then the truth of a statement about a future choice is indeterminate and can’t be known, even by an omniscient being. If you’re a B-theorist, then the truth of the statement is determinate and thus presumably available to am omniscient being, though by God knows what mechanism.

  32. So, if we take the A-theory and suppose S believes that X will happen tomorrow because she knows that there’s a 99.999997% chance that it will; tomorrow, after X duly happens, we can’t agree with S’s assertion that she knew it would happen, even though she had better evidence for that claim yesterday than we have for most of the things that are commonly claimed to be known.

    That’s kind of interesting.

  33. walto,

    So, if we take the A-theory and suppose S believes that X will happen tomorrow because she knows that there’s a 99.999997% chance that it will; tomorrow, after X duly happens, we can’t agree with S’s assertion that she knew it would happen, even though she had better evidence for that claim than we have for most of the the things we claim to know.

    No, that reasoning is incorrect, because knowledge doesn’t depend on certainty.

    It’s perfectly coherent, under the A-theory, to say that you know so-and-so will resign tomorrow with 99.999997% confidence, but that you don’t know the truth value of the statement “So-and-so will resign tomorrow”. That’s for a very simple reason: under the A-theory, that statement doesn’t yet have a truth value!

    So you could justifiably say “I know what the truth value will be”, but you can’t justifiably say that you know what the truth value is. It doesn’t have a truth value yet.

  34. walto: (in a libertarian free choice world–an idea which isn’t congenial to me either)

    Me either, the question is not about libertarian free choice verses compatibilism or timelessness verses temporality.

    It’s about the nature of knowledge verses certainty and what it means to be omniscient.

    peace

  35. walto: That’s kind of interesting.

    I think I agree that it’s kind of interesting.

    Do you happen to know of a good book that explores the particular alley way of omniscience and knowledge?

    peace

  37. walto,

    Yep i think that is what I’m looking for.

    returning to the idea of knowledge verses certainty.

    My very tentative suggestion is that the ability to determine independently that 99.999997% certainty is knowledge and 99.96% certainty is just probability is what makes someone a person rather than an algorithm.

    I’d like to kick that idea around a bit but here but I’m afraid to start a thread for fear it will once again get bogged down into the same old ditch.

    check it out

    http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2018/02/wrestling-demon-physics-of-free-will.html

    peace

  38. fifthmonarchyman: My very tentative suggestion is that the ability to determine independently that 99.999997% certainty is knowledge and 99.96% certainty is just probability is what makes someone a person rather than an algorithm.

    I don’t know what that means.

    The link is interesting.

  39. walto: I don’t know what that means.

    It’s common with creationists of the presuppositional kind that they’ll make a mess out of the most basic concepts. Knowledge of a probability is, obviously, also knowledge.

  40. fifth:

    My very tentative suggestion is that the ability to determine independently that 99.999997% certainty is knowledge and 99.96% certainty is just probability is what makes someone a person rather than an algorithm.

    I’d like to kick that idea around a bit but here but I’m afraid to start a thread for fear it will once again get bogged down into the same old ditch.

    My suggestion would be to think about it some more, and to start the thread only if you can actually defend the idea.

  44. Entropy: It’s common with creationists of the presuppositional kind that they’ll make a mess out of the most basic concepts.

    This is the old ditch that I was referring to. It’s sad that some folks can’t even fathom a civil exchange of ideas with folks who have a different perspective.

    peace

  45. I would like to recommend this blog to be renamed from:
    The Sceptical Zone to

    The Speculative Zone
    just to capture the main spirit that has dominated this blog right from the beginning…

  48. stcordova:
    LATEX TEST 2

    success

    Hey Sal,

    Great job on Basener/Sanford follow up !
    I was just reviewing my stuff on QM and consciousness and came across this video. Have you seen it?

  49. J-Mac,

    I’m put off by “know” in the very first sentences. It’s not “know”. It’s *detect,* specifically by detection equipment. The “paradox” manifests because detection equipment interferes with the behavior of light. When you substitute *detect* with mere “know”, you get the weird conclusion that consciousness affects matter.

  50. Erik:
    J-Mac,

    I’m put off by “know” in the very first sentences. It’s not “know”. It’s *detect,* specifically by detection equipment. The “paradox” manifests because detection equipment interferes with the behavior of light. When you substitute *detect* with mere “know”, you get the weird conclusion that consciousness affects matter.

    I know of the “know”…Try to watch to the end.
    You can also contact the speaker of post you comment below the video…

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