tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post6512356630942519265..comments2024-03-28T13:39:03.094-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Rediscovering Human BeingsEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger267125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-14870816892426107202023-07-12T23:12:27.593-07:002023-07-12T23:12:27.593-07:00Links are down. Can't find this article on goo...Links are down. Can't find this article on google.SourMouthwashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00115473879880513876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-73578099698794031182012-08-24T09:10:12.104-07:002012-08-24T09:10:12.104-07:00Touchstone: Catholics pride themselves in resistin...Touchstone: <i>Catholics pride themselves in resisting, historically, "voodoo" and other "occult" practices - combatting superstition. [...] It's just hypocrisy, bristling at the idea they apply to others being applied to them in the same way.</i><br /><br />I'm guessing that was supposed to be funny, but if you were serious, then (given your own claims) I have a serious question: which one are you — superstitious or hypocritical?<br /><br /><br />Also, perhaps it got lost in the shuffle, but we're waiting for you to defend a couple of claims you made earlier:<br /><br /><b>Curiously, I've never seen a Thomist explain his position that way. Perhaps you can provide a citation to support <a href="http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/08/rediscovering-human-beings.html?showComment=1345635342624#c6013185566977945197" rel="nofollow">this peculiar claim of yours.</a></b><br /><br />And:<br /><br /><b><a href="http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/08/rediscovering-human-beings.html?showComment=1345430240513#c8455315839737095382" rel="nofollow">That is indeed a bad argument,</a> but what I meant was, can you cite where Behe or Fuller or Nelson or Johnson actually say that?</b>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-21289007222534304362012-08-24T08:34:17.829-07:002012-08-24T08:34:17.829-07:00@jindra
After an inane assertion like that no won...@jindra<br /><br /><i>After an inane assertion like that no wonder you want to remain anonymous.</i><br /><br />Instead of typing up such empty nonsense, explain to us how pragmatism is not a form of relativism.<br /><br />If it's anything like the garbage you post on your blog I think we're in for a good laugh watching you publicly embarrass yourself.<br /><br />Are you the same guy that was whining because Feser banned him for being a troll some time ago? ;-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-84657280230683495482012-08-24T08:08:35.994-07:002012-08-24T08:08:35.994-07:00Anon,
"You’re appealing to pragmatism, which...Anon,<br /><br /><i>"You’re appealing to pragmatism, which is just another form of relativism."</i><br /><br />After an inane assertion like that no wonder you want to remain anonymous.Don Jindrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05550378223563435764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-34103810312746549592012-08-24T06:23:59.027-07:002012-08-24T06:23:59.027-07:00Eduardo said...
"Please don't feed the tr...Eduardo said...<br />"Please don't feed the trolls. <br /><br />The anon that was an ex-materialist is just right. Touchstone is here to give a show, turn your back to him and the clown will stop laughing."<br /><br />Hear, hear! Some of what TS is indeed interesting, but the majority of it is deaf to the claims and questions of his 'interlocutors'. Time to put him to bed and leave off this pointless interaction.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-52282418513648254692012-08-23T11:14:18.900-07:002012-08-23T11:14:18.900-07:00*Apologies for the grammatical and spelling errors...*Apologies for the grammatical and spelling errors. Was a bit in a rush.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-51228061445846331082012-08-23T10:20:19.911-07:002012-08-23T10:20:19.911-07:00the imago dei breaks with this reliance on effecti...<i>the imago dei breaks with this reliance on effective causal powers</i><br />On the contrary, it’s reinforced since proportionate causality is what must be appealed to in the first place in order to avoid materialistic superstitions. The problem is that you don’t understand a damn thing about Aristotle and Aquinas and simply talking out of ignorance. This takes us back to your self-imposed box/dungeon of sophistry. More than any of my specific arguments, the fact that you completely miss the essence of the metaphysical system you claim to criticize (as being pointed out to you by myself and other repeatedly), while trying to make irrelevant arguments and strawman fallacies show just how empty your words are. To put it as simply as I can, your arguments (if you can even call them that) are not against A-T but again a figment of your imagination that you simply label as A-T. <br /><br /><i>It's not qualitatively different than "wetness" obtaining in water, where it wasn't present in H or O. It's just a much more complex phenomena. That stance, even if you think it's mistaken, is the apotheosis of anti-superstition, which is what makes this such a fatiguing conversation to have, over and over, with magical thinkers, (not to mention Dr. Feser's TLS a spectacular bit of irony in choosing a title... or would be if I didn't suspect that's precisely his reason for choosing it).</i><br /><br />You’re equating the reality of the intellect to that of wetness and saying that it’s qualitatively identical is laughable. Apart from that claim being refuted I think Moreland and Searle both did it if my memory serves me right (not that one would need an analysis of such preposterous and simplistic assertions) you’re still appealing to emergence, which either appeals to the presence of potentiality resistant to reduction, hence materialism is refuted, or you’re merely engaging in obfuscation by talking about “complex phenomena” which obscure our understanding (i.e. appeals to ignorance). The apotheosis of anti-superstition come in the realization just how intellectually bankrupt materialism actually is. Once it’s divorces from science (since materialism is nothing but a parasite on science). But I agree, it’s tiring and boring interacting with you, trying to take you seriously and being let down every step of the way. You hide your magical thinking behind the word (not the practice) science and parade around as if what you’ve been saying throughout this entire discussion is not one giant self-refuting claim. <br /><br />Feser was spot on with his title and it has been demonstrated to you in 200+ post on this thread and hundred’s of other in others.<br /><br />My advice to you, look at your beliefs and try to understand your hidden and unconscious assumptions about reality without acting as a cancer on science but tarnishing it by conflating it with materialism. Only honesty towards oneself and clear reflection can rid you of this superstition. I know, because I lived through it myself. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-40179791141180122022012-08-23T10:19:44.825-07:002012-08-23T10:19:44.825-07:00@touchstone
An "immaterial intellect" i...@touchstone<br /><br /><i>An "immaterial intellect" is just a frivolous, superflous addition to any performative model we have</i><br /><br />If you haven’t noticed by now most people here are realists and are interested in understanding reality not in operationalizing ideas into technology production. You’re appealing to pragmatism, which is just another form of relativism. Good luck making sense of reality using that. I’m not going to get into the banalities of relativism.<br /><br /><i>Imagining "chance" adds nothing to our knowledge of the universe and models of its creation</i><br />Another parody for you. Enjoy.<br /><br /><i>You cannot imagine the emergence of meta-representational cognition through impersonal natural processes, ergo it can't happen! We don't have a testable model (in detail anyway) of it happened, but it's plausible on our knowledge of natural processes.</i><br /><br />You have no right to appeal to notions of emergence as a reductionist. Again, I’ve explained this to you before. Either emergence is latent reality with a formal structure and dispositions (in violent contradiction to materialistic reductionism) or it is. The former takes you to Aristotle and again you’re appealing to our metaphysic in order to try and make sense of the world (irony) or you’re back into epistemological obscurity. <br /><br />It’s you that is arguing from ignorance because you don’t even understand the nature of my argument and simply appeal to some wishful future-to-come models. The problems is, as I have already explained, is that said model can be interpreted in many different ways. If said model were to be interpreted materialistically it would implode into incoherence. So even if we did have a model it would still not help you. If anything, creating some form of artificial intelligence would vindicate the centrality of intellect and undermine superstitions of chance, since it’s a product of intellect.<br /><br /><i> we are still appealing to known, observable, intelligible causal processes</i><br />And all that is not only compatible with A-T but presupposes it. In other words, one must have a robust causal structure (as per A-T) in order for your statement to obtain. That is not something materialism can offer as I have explained so you must resort in hijacking intelligible causal structures from our metaphysic. You’re only proving my point for me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-7940914465534358622012-08-23T10:07:50.651-07:002012-08-23T10:07:50.651-07:00@touchstone
I think you misunderstand what is mea...@touchstone<br /><br /><i>I think you misunderstand what is meant by chance ther</i><br />No, it’s YOU that doesn’t understand what is meant by chance. The word chance in a metaphysical context the assumption of effect without a cause. It’s a reification of an abstraction derived from real entities and then assumed to have independent ontological status. The problem arises when people like you confused probabilities, commit the fallacy of equivocation and then assign real “powers” to chance. In metaphysics, chance is nothing more than the “god” of the atheist. In Ancient Greece, the distinction was made between Logos and Chaos (the word chaos in Greek translates into emptiness or nothingness). So the superstition of all superstition is what lies behind materialism and this notion that effects arise devoid of cause (another contradictio in adjecto). This renders of course your entire treatment of the notion of chance worthless, since as per usual you’re on your own irrelevant tangent.<br />What is ironic is that probabilities obtain based on a rational a causal structure and a natural order that exists as a core feature of the world. This is something materialism is in conflict with… It simply cannot account for this and you’re just taking it for granted much like the act of reasoning. There is no reason given chance and materialism that we should observe such a world. None. So you’re back into your superstitions trying to magically fabricate aspects of reality to make thing intelligible. Without realizing it you’re hijacking aspects of other metaphysical systems in order to make sense of your own (even even that doesn’t help you). You can always claim the impossible that Chaos creates Logos in which case you’ve reduced yourself to the level of the sophist. <br />By the way Aristotle was one of the first to address probability in nature. That’s another thing you should learn. <br /><br /><i>Meaning obtains. It's just obtains *within* the system</i><br />We’ve already explained to you about a dozen times how incoherent your materialistic claims to meaning are. Just listen to derrida and stop beating on that dead horse. It’s getting boring.<br /><br /><i>No, it's an observed fact of nature.</i><br />This as a response to the fact that materialism would be devoid of reason shows just how poor your understanding of the objection is. Reason is not something that you can verify empirically. Reason is pre-empirical and a requirement for there to even be a category labeled as empirical in the first place. This touches a bit on common sense as I expressed it in my initial posts today and obviously alludes you completely. There has never been a coherent account of materialistic “reason”, while the notion has been refuted time and time again. There is an abundance of literature that show how inept materialism is in this regard, just to mention a few thinkers, Searle, Lewis, Dreyfus, Reppert and Nagel (look into Nagel’s new book, it should be devastating to materialism and much of the neo-darwinian babble is my guess). Of course to even get to reason you need meaning, which you can’t have, so it’s a lost cause regardless. ;-)<br /><br /><i>we treat some notions as unsupportable by reasoning</i><br />Then why do you continue to claim that materialism is in anyway coherent after being shown repeatedly that it’s not?<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-310165037213085192012-08-23T09:11:36.275-07:002012-08-23T09:11:36.275-07:00@touchstone
Now you are overloading "natural...@touchstone<br /><br /><i>Now you are overloading "natural" in a superstitous way -- works beyond the ken of sense-experience, testing, model incorporation, or falsification</i><br /><br />By your definition of natural half of reality is annihilated. All you’re doing is imposing methodology on ontology. It’s like imposing a tiny little box on reality and telling it that anything that doesn’t fit inside is simply “superstition”. That is not in line with the scientific or the philosophical spirit. That is a form of neuroticism that has no place in science but only in superstitious materialism.<br />Popper refuted this line of argument by the way, I already told you that. Stop trying to propagate unwarranted nonsense. <br /><br /><i>I'm fine with that distinction. That implicates "immaterial intellect" as well as Black Cat Bad Luck, and the like.</i><br /><br />No, it does not implicate the intellect but rather it implicates materialistic sophistries in regard to mindless matter somehow magically creating intellect. You either don’t understand or simply refuse to understand. <br /><br />As far as categorizing the intellect with a black cat I think that’s rather comical. Again rhetorical “loudness” does not a good argument make. ;-)<br /><br /><i>: a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation</i><br /><br />This definition from the dictionary that you provided actually makes my point for me. Ignorance, chance, trust in magic and causal inadequacy are all central to the superstition of materialism as I have already explained them. You’ve essentially proved my point. Thanks.<br /><br />Once you demarcate empirical knowledge from the superstition of materialism then you might understand what everyone has been trying to tell you. So long as you remain in your little box you’ll be unable to understand. <br /><br /><i>one who thinks their superstitions are *true* will not find them "irrational", but the understanding in the usage is that magical appeals (<b>materialistic reductionism and chance</b>) fit squarely in that concept</i><br />I fixed your statement for you. ;-)<br />No surprise then that you don’t see the blatant superstition behind your irrational beliefs.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-39532615129274025202012-08-23T09:07:57.863-07:002012-08-23T09:07:57.863-07:00Please don't feed the trolls.
The anon that ...Please don't feed the trolls. <br /><br />The anon that was an ex-materialist is just right. Touchstone is here to give a show, turn your back to him and the clown will stop laughing.Eduardonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-70206833613762789152012-08-23T08:28:56.336-07:002012-08-23T08:28:56.336-07:00@touchstone
It's a definition, not an argumen...@touchstone<br /><br /><i>It's a definition, not an argument, not a syllogism. A "circular definition" uses the term being defined in the definition of that term.</i><br /><br />One would think that after the word of Ayers and Wittgenstein and their insistence on analytic statements being tautologies one would have the aptitude not to engage in red herring fallacies such as here. Ergo, the term ‘circular definition’ as you refer to it is redundant. So naturally, the meaning behind what I am saying is that your argument is circular based on your self-serving definition (which you of course realized). However, being oblivious to the fact that ‘circular definition’ per se is redundant, you try to be a smart ass by fabricating a silly dichotomy and proceed to tell me that I am somehow confused in what I am saying. Cute, real cute. But when you don’t have a good argument you will resort to such pedantic gimmicks. ;-) <br /><br /><i>propositions that are science-problematic.</i><br />All pre-scientific propositions are science-problematic according to your pseudo-intellectual dichotomies. You’ve already been through it. Your claims taken to their logical conclusion would render science undoable. You’re trying to bring the ghost of positivism back again. You’re grasping at straws.<br /><br /><i>I just punched it into Wikipedia when it came up a couple days ago here, and boom! the first paragraph their jibes nicely with my understanding of the term</i><br />With Wikipedia as your source no wonder you’re so terrible at constructing a coherent argument. But hey, you’ve mastered the petitio principia so far. Keep at it.<br /><br /><i>Words mean whatever we agree they should mean, and this is one with wide and consistent agreement, in my experience</i><br /><br />Appealing to conventions as the court of appeal in regards to my objection concerning your empty rhetoric pertaining to superstition isn’t going to help you.<br /><br /><i>it's a clean separator between thinking that relies on natural knowledge and thinking that identifies agency and activity in a supernatural realm.</i><br />You’ve been told time and time again that the intellect is natural according to A-T just not materialistic. This is sheer dishonesty and ignorance on your part and yet another strawman. <br /><br /><br /><i>But then the go watch the priest conjure a cracker or piece of bread into the body of Christ. And then bristle at being labeled "superstitious". It's just hypocrisy, bristling at the idea they apply to others being applied to them in the same way.</i><br /><br />This right here can only be described as stupidity. If you’re unable to recognize symbolism in religion then you’re in no place to even comment on it. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-58913617950641178512012-08-23T08:05:01.540-07:002012-08-23T08:05:01.540-07:00"Intuitionists" get annoyed at the arrog...<i>"Intuitionists" get annoyed at the arrogance of science, but this is hubris and conceit, the dogmatic clinging to the intuition as invincible, our vulgar sensibilities as the magic 8 ball for the remotest mysteries and hardest questions. </i><br /><br />If one intuition is undermined via empirical investigation, its opposite intuition is therefore strengthened. Nice try, but you failed again.<br /><br /><i>And all just inside a subjective box, the isolated mind incorrigible by objective models.</i><br />That is a perfect description of yourself given your nominalism, materialism and scientism. Sitting in your dungeon of epistemological nihilism “pleasuring” yourself. ;-)<br /><br /><br /><i>I think it's true for those who claim their box is inescapable -- if you think you "simply can't escape it", I'm inclined to agree with you.</i><br />That’s ironic seeing how despite the fact that we’ve shown your worldview and epistemology to be incoherent time and time again, you still insist in clinching to it so fervently to it. You simply can’t escape the box you neatly folded and placed yourself in. But that has nothing to do with what I said about common sense. Right now we’re in touchstone la-la land on a completely different topic. <br /><br />*My point about common sense however has nothing to do with that as I have already explained.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-12293637848505611512012-08-23T07:54:30.755-07:002012-08-23T07:54:30.755-07:00as we move outward from our immediate experience, ... <i> as we move outward from our immediate experience, our common sense breaks down more and more, and the acid solvent reveals the inadequacy and self-deceiving capabilities of our common sense. </i><br /><br />As we move outward from our immediate experience, we utilize a different forms of language (e.g. mathematics in the case of QM)and extreme abstractions that do not have any relationship to reality but instead are used for instrumental purposes (e.g. 9+ dimensions in string hypothesizing, multiverses etc), this creates the illusion that common sense has been undermined. Once these models are construed realistically (as opposed to nominalistically) they break down more and more into empty imagination. Reason and the correct philosophical principles are the solvents that reveal the inadequacy and self-deceiving capabilities of materialistic dogmas masquerading as science.<br />There’s your parody. Enjoy it.<br /><i>JBS Haldane observed that "the universe is not just queerer than we suppose, it's queerer than we CAN suppose". </i><br />Sounds like superstition talk according to your definition. ;-)<br />The irony is I use this quote when talking with narrow-minded materialists who think they can investigate reality in its totality using science. I think you just shot yourself in the foot. You just admitted than a huge part reality cannot be subjected to scientific inquiry and even more importantly to human methodology like falsificationism. The degree to which you are refuting your own views is incredible.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-56862422399794932912012-08-23T07:54:03.290-07:002012-08-23T07:54:03.290-07:00@touchstone
What is sad is your inability to unde...@touchstone<br /><br />What is sad is your inability to understand this and your vacuous claims that somehow science’s role is to undermine human common sense. That is the delusion of scientific “objectivity”. Science does not exist in suspended animation. It’s a human construct and a specific method (to be honest a variety of incommensurable methods often contradictory – thanks Feyerabend) utilized to address a very limited number of questions whose origin lies in human experience (not devoid of it as you so wishfully want to be the case), hence common sense. <br />What is even more troubling is that on one hand you’re arguing that everything, including percepts is interpretation and based on convention (a la derrida) and now you’re pretending that somehow the human subject (which is nothing but a materialistic automaton according to your worldview) can rise above that and entertain “objective” scientific knowledge. I honestly am baffled how you do not see the contradictions in your claims. Do you honestly hear yourself talk?<br /><br /><i>Why would we want to return to our starting point of inquiry? If we have to end up at our child-like impulses and crude intutions, why bother trying to detour into science at all? </i><br />I already explained that. <br />Quotes such as these is why people don’t take you seriously any more. Once again you lack the understanding regarding common sense and what it entails in classical philosophy and simply parading around to your misconceptions. If you do not return to common sense language then you never address human experience.<br /><br /><i> Look around. There is knowledge that performs and is grounded in overwhelming amounts of empirical evidence, uncountable series of real-world tests.</i> <br />All of that is based on common sense as the ground and starting point. Once you abandon the delusion that common sense is the opposite of empirical investigation you’ll see it more clearly. Instead of forgetting Heisenberg I’d advise you to read his work. Hopefully with an open mind, otherwise you’re just wasting your time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-28287923874544336022012-08-23T07:46:40.217-07:002012-08-23T07:46:40.217-07:00It’s been shown to be relative, inconsistent, cont...It’s been shown to be relative, inconsistent, contradictory and in many cases sheer sophistry as seen with many materialistic cosmological models today. In fact, the real question is whether there is such a thing called science stands apart from other forms of inquiry. The answer to that is a categorical no. Even data has been shown to be theory-ladden. The synthetic analytic distinction is dead following quine’s work and Popper tells us that science cannot be demarcated from metaphysics. You can continue to believe in the myth of scientific “objectivity”, but it doesn’t make it any less of a myth. <br /><br />Finally, much of the ephemeral conflict that you perceive between science and daily experience is due to language not reality. Unless that language is grounded it’s just arbitrary abstract models correlated to data. So it must be translated back to common sense language in order to be relevant as a description of reality. That is the point Heisenberg is making and had you read him you would know. But you didn’t, so you simply assume that which suits your agenda and launch the usual tirade. But yes, let’s forget about Heisenberg and listen to your babble instead. /yawn<br /><br />You accuse others trying to correct you, with being locked in a box, when in reality it’s you that is the one whose mindful scope is severely limited. Appealing to the religion of scientism (let’s call a spade a spade, because you’re not appealing to science here) is not going to impress anyone. I’ve shown you how problematic your positivism-meets-falsificationism garbage is several times. Give it a rest already.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-91590171857136663732012-08-23T07:45:59.424-07:002012-08-23T07:45:59.424-07:00@touchstone
Well, that's quaint coming from Aq...@touchstone<br /><i>Well, that's quaint coming from Aquinas, or Aristotle, given the tiny perimeter of science in their day, so little to demonstrate the limitations and misconceptions of common sense. But now, it's just a sad, self-imposed foot-locker sized cage to enclose one's mind in </i><br /><br />First, why do you insist on spewing such ignorant nonsense? <br /><br />Let’s see why I talked about common sense. I did so as a mean to juxtapose a specific notion of Aristotle and Aquinas that serves to unite sense perception in the apprehension of what a given substance. Something that is in stark opposition to the incomprehensible and self-refuting nominalism you follow. Not knowing anything about it of course, you start rumbling about something completely unrelated. This takes us back to the criticism that was laid before your several weeks ago where you could not respond even in principle as to how you know reality given your intellectually bankrupt epistemology. I proceed to unveil the usual intellectual masturbations that people who think like you engage with their arbitrary and self-referential sophistry as per anti-realism and materialism. Much like everything else it went right over your head.<br /><br />The result was a typical touchstone IRRELEVANT rant into a different tangent. You of course conveniently appeal to the notion that common sense is naivete in order to divert attention from the indefensibility of your dogma into the usual myths of scientism. Although it will unsettle you, common sense includes a plethora of realities that are pre-scientific and necessary to scientific inquiry. Science is not contra-common sense but <b>based on common sense</b>. You can’t do science without common sense assumptions about the nature of reality (e.g. its intrinsic intelligibility, which your worldview cannot account, hence would be absurd to maintain any form of scientific realism, which is the mother of all ironies given your obsession with science). You can’t do science without common sense notion that reality exhibits cause and effect relations. You can’t do science without common sense notions regarding our senses and their intimate relationship to the external word (teleology assumed). You cannot do science without necessary axioms that uphold the very foundations of science. You cannot do science without distinction. And so on and so on.<br /><br />The questions asked when human inquire into the word are first and foremost stated in common sense language. That’s what Heisenberg is saying and since science and the method of initial inquiry are based on common sense it needs to be translated back to the very form that the question that was asked initially. Science can only be allowed to stray for so long but eventually in needs to come back down to reality. That’s precisely why so much work has been done in the philosophy of science. At present, excepting the faithful of scientism such as yourself, science has been extremely deflated as compared to its mythological standing during the haydays of the so-called “enlightenment”. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-55758187603065754372012-08-23T06:54:23.729-07:002012-08-23T06:54:23.729-07:00Touchstone:We do we suppose a consecrated host is ...<b>Touchstone</b>:<i>We do we suppose a consecrated host is just the flour and water it was when it was made? Because we have no basis to suppose it's true, on all the evidence we have available. Such a belief goes against all available evidence.</i><br /><br />Perhaps you suppose that, but many of us do not. You already know that, though. You know that we think Catholicism can be shown to be true (and, therefore, the doctrine of the Real Presence is true). I am not sure why, then, you beg the question above and expect us to suppose with you that Transubstantiation has as much evidence as the black cat superstition.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-47714529678657946332012-08-23T06:35:12.732-07:002012-08-23T06:35:12.732-07:00@Touchstone (cont'd)
An "immaterial inte...@Touchstone (cont'd)<br /><br /><i>An "immaterial intellect" is just a frivolous, superflous addition to any performative model we have, for example.</i><br /><br />No, it's not; the existence of the immaterial intelect is strictly proved by reason, as Feser has shown and your talk of neural nets completely missed the point. I have a PhD in computer science and I do know something about neural nets and pattern recognition. Yes, they can behave as if doing classification, patter "recognition", clustering, something that to us looks like recognizing concrete, particular instances of triangles. But they still can not form a precise <b>concept</b> of triangle. We can. Case closed. To classify (or "classify") images is one thing, to form a precise concept - to know, understand, what triangle is - is another. So all your nerdy talk about neural nets and computational "intelligence" misses the point. So I repeat: case closed.<br /><br /><br /><i>We do we reject the Bad Cat Bad Luck superstition? We have no basis to suppose it's true, based on all the evidence we have available. Such a belief goes against all available evidence.</i><br /><br />Not only that we don't have basis to suppose it's true; we have positive basis to suppose it's not true. Black cat had crossed my way more than once, and nothing bad happened. Therefore, this belief is contrary to evidence; therefore it is superstition.<br /><br /><br /><i>We do we suppose a consecrated host is just the flour and water it was when it was made? Because we have no basis to suppose it's true, on all the evidence we have available. Such a belief goes against all available evidence. </i><br /><br />But we do have basis to suppose it's true: revelation. Tha fact of which is known by reason, but it's too long story for combox comments.<br />tnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-49932630552288663932012-08-23T06:34:42.321-07:002012-08-23T06:34:42.321-07:00@Touchstone
Superstition is a belief in supernatu...@Touchstone<br /><br /><i>Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any physical process linking the two events, such as astrology, omens, witchcraft, etc., that contradicts natural science.<br /><br />That's a razor that divides between natural causality and supernatural causality. If you think a superstition is *true*, it doesn't make it "un-superstitious", it just becomes a "superstition that is true".</i><br /><br />Well, that's certainly not the usual meaning of the word "superstition". Superstition is, as I and others have already explained to you, <b>irrational</b> belief or practice regarding the supernatural, resulting from <b>ignorance</b> and/or <b>contrary to evidence</b> (and, as Glenn rightly observes, "contrary" doesn't imply merely absence of confirmatory evidence, but presence of contrary evidence).<br /><br />On the other hand, the idea that you describe is better represented by words such as "supernaturalism" or even "non-physicalism". So why don't you use these terms instead? You chose to use the term "superstition" simply because it, in it's usual meaning, has negative connotations, i.e. it is offensive. But that is (1) semantically incorrect and (2) not in the interest of well-behaved discussion.<br /><br /><br /><i>Catholics pride themselves in resisting, historically, "voodoo" and other "occult" practices - combatting superstition. But then the go watch the priest conjure a cracker or piece of bread into the body of Christ. And then bristle at being labeled "superstitious". It's just hypocrisy, bristling at the idea they apply to others being applied to them in the same way.</i><br /><br />Not hypocrisy, but different (and correct, unlike yours) understanding of the term. Superstition is defined by St. Thomas (II-II:92:1) as "a vice opposed to religion by way of excess; not because in the worship of God it does more than true religion, but because it offers Divine worship to beings other than God or offers worship to God in an improper manner". But what is true and what is false religion, what is proper and what improper worship - that we know by reason (and revelation, the fact of which is also known by reason), so this definition is perfectly consistent with the one I gave earlyer: irrational attitude towards supernatural, resulting from ignorance and contrary to evidence. It is also perfectly consistent with the definition of anonymous: false belief about causal efficacy, because false religions attribute causal efficacy to non-existing powers/deities.<br /><br /><br /><i>Chance (probabilistic processes) and law are creative in impersonal fashion, as best we can conclude from reasoning on the evidence.</i><br /><br />What is "chance"? Isn't it just a shorthand name for our ingnorance of true causes or behaviors of individual objects, too complex for us to know? But if so, than appeal to "chance" as an ultimate explanation is really appeal to ignorance, and the only difference from superstition in that case is that you don't claim you can magically change this statistical behavior. And if chance is not that, than <b>what</b>, precisely, this "chance" is? Some "misterious can't-say-what"? Than how do you, with your appeal to this magic-like chance, avoid your own accusation for superstition that you directed to thomists because of (what you falsly described as) the appeal to "misterious can't-say-what"?<br /><br />What is "law"? Is it (a) only a descriptive abstraction of the way things behave due to their natures/essences; or is it (b) some positively and independently existing reality that somehow permeats the universe and prescriptively affects things? If (a), than you are on your way to A-T metaphisics. If (b), prove it!<br />tnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-47388041101440475912012-08-22T21:58:21.137-07:002012-08-22T21:58:21.137-07:00So I guess you are saying that TS and Churchland a...<i>So I guess you are saying that TS and Churchland are basically making the very mistake that Ed explained in the piece -- given an intentionally-laden system (like a computer simulation), they ignore the intentional aspect and focus on the non-intentional aspects (like "distance"), and then they pretend that the explanation of the latter explains the former… i.e. they are "explaining" the meaning of a sentence by studying the ink and paper.</i><br /><br />Pretty much. And doing so necessarily leads them down a rabbit hole of absurdity, contradiction and epistemological nihilism, just like Derrida. Take away intentionality and everything collapses. Touchstone has and will continue to deny it, but it's the unavoidable consequence of his position.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-83080635481468278642012-08-22T21:28:35.967-07:002012-08-22T21:28:35.967-07:00rank sophist said... The "relationships"...<i>rank sophist said... The "relationships" to which Touchstone is referring are often cited by eliminative materialists as proof that things can be "objective" without having intentionality.</i><br /><br />OK, so maybe he just didn't explain it well, but if he really is referring to "meaning" in any normal sense, then it has to include some sort of intentionality -- same for the word "sign". Otherwise, it would be trying to have your cake and eat it too, simply by fiat. And that's how I took your arguments against that.<br /><br />But then distance as a relationship is not a meaning, a sign, or anything else of the sort. (And you still need intentionality to have any sort of scientific/natural system, at least at the bottom level, and then that leads to the Fifth Way, but I was glossing over that because I figured it would only add to the confusion.) So I guess you are saying that TS and Churchland are basically making the very mistake that Ed explained in the piece -- given an intentionally-laden system (like a computer simulation), they ignore the intentional aspect and focus on the non-intentional aspects (like "distance"), and then they pretend that the explanation of the latter explains the former… i.e. they are "explaining" the meaning of a sentence by studying the ink and paper.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-85657156976045251032012-08-22T20:47:47.804-07:002012-08-22T20:47:47.804-07:00Okay, one last quick one... I agree with what Josh...Okay, one last quick one... I agree with what Josh has to say just above.Glennnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-11360314764124173032012-08-22T20:44:58.565-07:002012-08-22T20:44:58.565-07:00Signing off for now, as flight leaves in a few hou...Signing off for now, as flight leaves in a few hours. Two human beings will be rediscovering Hawaii.<br /><br />Do try to behave yourself while I'm gone, Touchstone, eh? There's a good lad.Glennnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-82245087818473984562012-08-22T20:41:08.890-07:002012-08-22T20:41:08.890-07:00Earlier in the thread we saw the utter intellectua...Earlier in the thread we saw the utter intellectual/theoretical bankruptcy of Touchstone's ideas on meaning, and now he is so kind as to demonstrate its practical bankruptcy in his exposition of a loaded, question-begging use of a term, which has no real meaning or usefulness save to the one who wishes to abuse language and logic. We should really be thanking him, I think.Joshuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03854212736162113327noreply@blogger.com