on 9/9/01 9:27 PM, Dan Minette at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Too much for me to reply to all at once, so this post will probably have a
sequel...
>> Here you go muddling things up again.
>
> Sounds like you are close to quoting Ronald Reagan's famous debate line from
> 1980. I don't necessarily use the exact same categories and pattern
> recognition that you do. That doesn't make my pattern recognition wrong.
> For what its worth, I get paid for pattern recognition and I think I've done
> a decent job of it over the years. You may not agree with the categories I
> use, but I think that, at the very least, they are a valid alternative means
> of organizing things.
For the purposes of debate of a philosophical nature, if a hair can be
split, all parties have to acknowledge that a distinction between issues has
been made. One view's important distinction is another's irrelevancy. If I
don't agree with the categories you use that implies you don't agree with
the categories I use. Until we can expand our terms to be mutually
acceptable we will only be talking at cross purposes.
[aside: as a long-time observer of the ai debate I feel I'm probably correct
in thinking that the qualia issue is the only substantive philosophical
issue remaining. Everything else was addressed by Turing in his 'Imitation
Game' paper. People who are still dragging Godel into the debate have lost
the plot.]
>
>> Atheism is about the question of
>> whether claims about the *supernatural* are literally true or not. An
>> atheist doesn't believe in ghosts, spirits, gods, angels, afterlives or
>> other supernatural things. Atheism has no more to say about ethics than
>> geometry has to say about ethics because the subjects are *not related.*
>>
>
> Well, that's a straight line if ever I heard one. :-)
>> To borrow (without endorsing) your terminology, atheism has nothing to say
>> about the transcendent.
>
> Well, I agree that atheists do try to do that. But, most atheists I know
> end up making statements about the transcendent when they talk about the
> foundations of their ethics.
? As I just said, atheism is neutral on the transcendant. It is as relevant
to talk about the 'atheist position on the transcendant' as it is to talk
about 'the Ford driver's position on the transcendant'. Atheism is about the
supernatural. One's position in regard to the supernatural has no logical
connection to one's position on the transcendant. You are mistaken in trying
to conflate these issues. Mathematicians often have quite remarkably
transcendant ideas without recourse to the supernatural. Cantor, Godel,
Church, and of course Turing all contributed to mind-boggling 'transcendant'
ideas without any recourse to the supernatural.
>
>>
>> Of course it is a contingent historical fact that a society's ethics have
>> been bundled into a package with its religion, but this is an accidental
>> not a logical connection.
>
> Well, it is curious that accidental coincidences are repeated, don't you
> think? As someone trained in pattern recognition, its hard for me to accept
> that a pattern that crosses cultures is accidental.
Correlation isn't causation. What is the null hypothesis? Remember that the
entire divergence of human cultures across the world is a jink in the
graph...
> I think the problem here is that you are looking at the surface of religion,
> while denying its core.
There is only surface available to nonbelievers. The 'core' only exists for
believers, who have surrendered objectivity to faith. I don't deny the core
of religion - it just doesn't mean anything to me. Any more than the
astrology column in the daily paper. Not relevant.
And time for bed...
--
William T Goodall
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
