MonDie

Response to PeterJ, To "define" is to set forth some criteria for determining what is or isn't an instance of the thing defined. A fact is an accurate description of what is. The adjective "factual" merely associates the noun with the category: facts. How can I know what you mean if it's not clear that you mean anything at all? Wittgenstein thought it was impossible for one to define a word without referencing public phenomena. Explicit definition inevitably reduces, for example, 'red' to something like 'the way our eyes and brains process 400-500 THz light'. Thereafter, qualities, relationships, comparisons, etc. for 'red' only need to be logically consistent with that definition of 'red'. Back on point, what is meant by 'consciousness'? You statement seemed to imply that 'consciousness' isn't something that has been shown to arise from matter. Can you define it in such a way that is consistent with that claim about it? Of course, there's always option two. If you do not know how to define it, how are we to speculate about it at all?

What is "God"? If you haven't assigned any meaning to the word, this statement is meaningless.

It's the one piece of music Daedalus CAN'T analyze.

What do you mean by "consciousness"? As Wittgenstein showed us, you must define your terms before your statement can make a factual claim.

I meant the OPUS cartoon. It starts off roughly the same, but nobody takes a poop.

Moontanman's here with the dignifiedly appealing equivalent of my cartoon.

Assuming that you're claim is true, the relevant question would be: Can scientific data contradict it? Many verificationists rejected metapysics as claims that are untestable or even meaningless.

A color-blind person could still read the basic single-set scheme. The single-set scheme would be useful in instances where a single set contains roughly half of the elements.

I let you take care of the recording. A few or several years ago, as a child, I seemed set to become a musician. I quit trying because, in the long run, your talents die with you. Plus, I took two music theory courses and decided theory was lame. Now I just play free-style recreationally. Sometimes it improves my mood.

I don't usually read music, so I have to ask. In measure 19, B gets flatted. Am I supposed to remain in that key until the end of the piece?

Didn't you kiss your mother too? and where would you see men french kissing in public? Maybe it's just because I live in the uptight U.S., but I've never seen people french kiss in public.

In highschool, my psychology teacher got angry and said I have selective hearing. I misread your post.

Although I didn't know it when I came up with my username, the "Die" is actually the singular of dice, not the verb to die.

I should point out that the term "set capacity" is totally made up and informal. As always, you can alter and/or repost my images, and you don't need to give credit because they aren't copyrighted. I learned about Venn diagrams recently. When I attempted to make a 4-set diagram, I realized that the classic intersecting circle approach didn't cut it. Where A and C are opposite circles in the diagram below, A and C don't have an intersecting region that doesn't also intersect B or D. According to Wikipedia, this is actually a Euler diagram. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram#Extensions_to_higher_numbers_of_sets Wikipedia gives some alternatives for drawing 4, 5, or 6 set Venn diagrams. However, those diagrams are so confusing that, instead, I added a color dimension to increase the capacity of the simpler, 3-set diagram. The image below (Figures 1 to 3) shows the process of converting a spacially-denoted set into a color-denoted set. Where an element is a dot placed somewhere in Figure 1, the element's memberships are denoted solely by its position on the diagram. Figure 2 loses the upper region, but it still gives just as much information. The upper region was actually exchanged for a color scheme in which elements belonging to the set are blue. Now, an element's memberships are denoted by its position and color. In Figure 3, the various colors present in a region are combined into a overall region color (or shading). Regions with blue or red elements become blue or red, and regions with both become purple, the color obtained when you mix blue and red paints. Although I was doubtful about performing operations with this scheme, I think it will be quite easy. For example, imagine that A and B are spacially-denoted sets, and membership in C is denoted by blue color. A ∩ C would simply mean: disregard all elements except the blue elements in A. A ∪ C would be read as: disregard all elements that are neither blue nor within A. Things get more compicated when you want a color scheme that denotes 1< sets. I have given some suggestions in the image below. Both pictures outline color schemes based on the primary colors of light. The first scheme (top) increases the set capacity by 2. The single set regions are red and blue, and the intersection is green. When these colors are combined to determine the shading of a spacial region, they mix easily (red + green = yellow; red + blue = violet; green + blue = cyan). The elements that fall outside all color-denoted sets are gray, and they might effect a region's shading by lightening or darkening it. The second scheme (bottom) is a color scheme for three sets. Right now, you're thinking it will be simpler than the prior scheme, but you're WRONG. When you mix these variously colored elements to determine a region's shading, it's difficult to avoid redundancy. For example, white might denote that there are only white elements, or white might denote the presence of all primary colors. Also, how do you denote the presence of both black and white elements? Do you dim the color toward gray? Of course, you could bypass this problem altogether by leaving the colors separate, but this may be harder to remember, and it may not look so pretty. Feel free to introduce new terms or phrases. If similar ideas have been outlined elsewhere, I would like to see how others did it.

It doesn't matter since (irreligious) atheism doesn't depend on credibility. When people arrive at atheism, it isn't atheism for the sake of atheism. They are usually brought to atheism by analytical thought. Analytical thinkers reject such fallacies as 'poisoning the well', 'Ad Hominem', and 'hasty generalization'. Whereas a Catholic who comes to distrust their church leaders may stop identifying as Catholic or stop believing in Catholic doctrine, an atheist who comes to distrust atheistic figures will probably remain an atheist. Although we may wish for Dawkins to be more sensitive, sensitivity and gentleness aren't of central importance for the role he plays. Besides, if an atheist would stop identifying as such because the well has been poisoned, they never really embraced the freedom of thought that should be our ultimate goal. EDIT: Plus, making an effort to appear nice isn't necessarily the same as having benevolent actions. For what it's worth, Dawkins does have a charity, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

The truth of scientific theories does not depend on the truth of any particular notion regarding causality. AFAIK, you can remove the assumption from modern science, and modern science will remain scientific (i.e. informative).

Who said ethics was supposed to be useful? Ethics can be a way of defining usefulness, but it isn't useful itself.

Ahh, I was itnerested, but "intrinsic probability" wasn't an easy Googling. Could you link me? Is this right? Justification can be found in instances where the competing concepts vary in their level of complexity. This bypasses my proposed labeling problem (e.g. in each trial, the simpler is A and the less simple is B). Then, if there is a direct relation between relative simplicity and relative probability, the relation could be assumed to apply even when simplicity does not vary. I feel stupid for not thinking of that...

Yes, I can see their ethical significance from different angles. The Bible isn't a credible source anyway.

About a year ago, I met a girl who had a strong opposition to all forms of eugenics or genetic discrimination. She described it saying, "so there's this battle between good and evil going on..." But I never heard her mention religion.

I'm going to challenge this. How is probability applicable when there is no repeatable experimental basis for it? For example, if I play out the Monty Hall problem over and over again, even through a simulation, I have an experimental basis for the values assigned to each door. Or with quantum mechanics, there is an experimental basis for each value assigned to each position in space. In this instance, with "intrinsic probabilities," you appear to be giving various possibilities equal values only because you have no good information to go off of. Unless you give me some experimental basis for assigning certain values to certain possibilities, I don't believe it. There must be some general rule of probabilty that has been derived from prior observations. I doubt that there could be an experimental basis. If the prior trials involved other sets of competing hypotheses, how could the hypothesis be given common labels across trials? It is not immediately obvious which should be A and which should be B. Rather than assign source idealism and source physicalism equal values, I would not assign any values. Thus the greatly disproportionate image below is equally valid from my perspective. Indeed, this image greatly exaggerates the probability of there being a god, but I could have made the opposite, one in which "theism" is only a teeny-tiny speck. I may have exaggerated it merely for the sake of swimming against the tide.

I wasn't expecting such a quick reply as I was editing. Oh well.

As far as I know, logical absurdity can only be one of two things, a lack of coherence or a lack of meaning. A scientific theory is a description of reality. A description that is incoherent or meaningless isn't a description at all. An incoherent description is nonsense, an improper use of language. It's like saying A=B and B=C, but A≠C. That's just bad math. I don't see what 'logical absurdity' could be beyond this linguistic description of it.

Tee hee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_geometry#Bridge_of_Asses

My suggestion is that much religious language is meaningless, and its meaninglessness is why it is not verifiable. Thus the use of religious language is comparable to the babblings of a schizophrenic. If I'm a physicist or chemist, putting "God" into my hypothesis will have no effect on the predictions of the hypothesis whatsoever. To say we cannot test for God's existence is superficial. We cannot test for his existence because "God" is not part of the language we use to describe the objective world, not because God may exist in some world that is inaccessible to us.