Recent content by Gasket

Shhhh, no one plays with the 'realistic' settings enabled, they haven't cottoned on to this yet!

"but they're not yet "traditional enemies" - Of course they are, as an Englishman I would know. The rivalry between our peoples has been gradually erected over the course of a thousand years, the mockery, disputes and distaste for one and others cultures remains profound. The only difference is that now, as enemies, we don't invade one and other, but rather mock each others history and lifestyle.

"Anyway this is a civil war between the French from conquered England" - The Normans were not French, but the descendants of Germanic peoples from Scandinavia, and the soldiers responsible for crushing your people time and time again during the Hundred Years War were English through and through.

"After running away and with the big brother to watch your back?" - There's a difference between cowardice and insanity, strategic retreats are just another aspect of war, and our homeland was and remains more important to us than your own; obviously.

I've experienced this also, an irritating, if bearable, bug.

"i can play as a Pict, Irish or Welsh to wipe the Saxons, Jutes, Angles and Brigantes out of the map" - Keep dreaming Frenchie, I'll see you at Agincourt and Crecy, and then perhaps Normandy when you need your backside saving from the Germans.

FrisianDude said:

Magorian wasn't actually going for Agnostic = Atheist, he was going for the fact that the agnostic-gnostic scale is separate from the atheist-theist one. An agnostic atheist is someone who think there probably is not a good but doesn't think that can be proven conclusively either way. An agnostic theist thinks there probably is a god, but same issue with proof. And gnostic means you think it can be proven conclusively. Hence, fundamentalist religious people are often gnostic theist, but I dare say a lot of 'normal' religious people are agnostic theists, and most atheists are agnostic atheists with a minority being gnostic atheist; thinking that the non-existence of god can be proven. (And then there are atheist religious folks.)

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I'm aware of that, that's why it's wrong to assume that Neil deGrasse Tyson is a particular kind of agnostic, there are just so many positions that fall into the agnostic spectrum; he hasn't really revealed much of his own stance beyond that which is revealed in that video I brought up. I've no doubt that he's skeptical of revealed theology, but other than that everything is speculation. But from the line "He's also an atheist, if you actually understand the terms" I do think he's making reference to the alleged overlap between atheism and agnosticism.

Magorian Aximand said:

Papa Lazarou said:

What's brilliant about Tyson? He comes across as self-important to me, but he has a lot of fans so maybe I'm missing something.

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I can't really fathom how you got that impression. He's one of the most capable and eloquent scientists of our age. That, for me, qualifies him as brilliant. He also has important ideas about education. I don't hesitate to call him this generation's Carl Sagan.

Gasket said:

It's largely due to the fact that he became a meme no doubt, and goes for the whole "Trust me, I'm not boring, I'm cool" look. Although I find it odd he came up in this thread as he did; he's an agnostic.

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What? He was exceptionally popular well before the meme ever came into existence. Why would his being an agnostic make it unlikely he'd be mentioned? Why is agnosticism not worth mentioning? He's also an atheist, if you actually understand the terms, and he has spoken rather extensively against religion on his own and in collaboration with Richard Dawkins.

Dear lord...

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http://youtu.be/CzSMC5rWvos - No, no he's not. His words, his choice of label. If you want to go for the whole "Oh, all agnostics are atheists" I have to disagree. A fundamental issue concerning agnosticism that is overlooked is the question of interpreting evidence. The atheist, depending upon whether he is a soft or hard atheist, claims that there is too little or no evidence to suggest the existence of a deity. However, some agnostics simply feel that they are unable to forge an opinion based upon the arguments presented to them. They neither believe, nor disbelieve, some do not claim that "There is no evidence for a deity" but instead "I simply cannot know at the present time" claiming they lack the means to effectively interpret what's before them. Tyson never goes into notable detail, and therefore everything is speculation. We should merely respect the label he has chosen. Also, this video seems to dispell any talk of him being an 'anti-theist' http://youtu.be/JbvDYyoAv9k.

In response to Jhessasil, I anticipated the invoking of Daniel Dennett; a man who claims that free-will, the self and consciousness are complete illusions and who has received considerable criticisms from philosophers and scientists alike. I also notice, that you have little respect for philosophy, like many 'hard' atheists of today. For a start, Daniel Dennett is a philosopher, his works concern matters as of yet not available to the scientific method. The mere notion of science, and employing it for human betterment is a philosophical principle and not a scientific one. We don't hope to cure cancer merely reduce treatment costs, but rather to reduce suffering and misery. Dennett's most famous book, 'Consciousness Explained' has even received criticism from other materialists, such as John Searle who instead proposes biological naturalism, and points out very clearly the absurdity of functionalism. Finally, if you agree with Dennett's views, you must accept that 'you' as in your most base self doesn't exist, and that your opinions and world views, as well as my own, are purely the result of misfiring neurons and vague sense data. Your complete rejection of the hard problem is probably due to the fact that you're intellectually lazy, are you seriously suggesting that an expert of eye function and the nature of light won't have learned anything if he or she experiences actual colour for the first time; the raw sense data?! The rejection of qualia, it to reject the existence of something as evident as physical pain, it's simply absurd.

I'll leave finish with a quote from Erwin Schrodinger “I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity". No doubt you'll think little of what he says, but you can't be blamed, because you don't exist after all.

It's interesting that naturalism makes the flaws of the human condition so perfectly clear to us, but that the arch-skeptics don't for a mere second doubt the human capacity, that is the capacity of the fleshy things we call our brains, to determine the greatest truths of reality.

Papa Lazarou said:

Magorian Aximand said:

I don't think it was actually an argument. It certainly was a little lame to bring the thread back for two general statements that everyone has already heard, brilliant though Tyson may be.

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What's brilliant about Tyson? He comes across as self-important to me, but he has a lot of fans so maybe I'm missing something.

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It's largely due to the fact that he became a meme no doubt, and goes for the whole "Trust me, I'm not boring, I'm cool" look. Although I find it odd he came up in this thread as he did; he's an agnostic.

rebelsquirrell said:

Gasket said:

Kobrag said:

Frankly, neither party has any right to declare what is hogwash.
All theologial arguments are mere hypothesis'

Which is why my own predudicies are mostly based on the actions and not beliefs of diffeerent religious individuals and institutions.

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Didn't you say you were a Christian at some point? By very definition that would make you a substance dualist. Philosophy of mind is not a religious question, it's just that religion and theology have invested interests in its conclusions.

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Negative, you can be a Christian Monist. However Christianity does tend toward dualism in many cases.

The Doctrine of conditional mortality is compatible with monism. Theistic Idealism and neutral monism is also compatible with Christianity.

There's even people who hold materialism to be true and define the soul as some immaterial wish washy stuff.

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Yes, but realistically, out of the some 2.2 billion Christians in the world, the vast majority will be substance dualists if they abide by one of the 'mainstream' denominations. If one considers the teachings of Christ, it's clear that he propagated a traditional dualistic understanding; monistic philosophies are relatively modern in comparison. So, I wonder whether a Christian can really be consistant in their beleifs whilst being a monist. Christianity strongly maintains the Creator-creature distinction as fundamental, many Christians maintain that God created the universe ex nihilo and not somehow within himself.

Kobrag said:

Frankly, neither party has any right to declare what is hogwash.
All theologial arguments are mere hypothesis'

Which is why my own predudicies are mostly based on the actions and not beliefs of diffeerent religious individuals and institutions.

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Didn't you say you were a Christian at some point? By very definition that would make you a substance dualist. Philosophy of mind is not a religious question, it's just that religion and theology have invested interests in its conclusions.

Kobrag said:

I did once have to sit through a lecture similar when I was writing my dissertation in one of the universities computer rooms.
Something about the human consciousness and mind being separate from the body and being like a giant shared cloud.

I didn't get the specifics, but I found it laughable at the time.

Maybe that 'cloud' is what we call God.
A creation of our own shared experiences and lifetimes.


Still sound pretty ridiculous.

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I'm not referring to that 'collective consciousness' hogwash, with any field you'll get some odd characters and absurd theories that feed off of the imagination of the uneducated masses. However, the origins of our subjective 'self' are far from clear, and materialistic models have made very little progress for some time; after all they can only establish correlation and not causation.

Jhessail said:

Gasket knows nothing about evolution; news at 11. 

Start with this book, please:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Evolution-Stephen-Stearns/dp/0199255636

Then continue with this:
http://www.amazon.com/Human-Evolution-An-Illustrated-Introduction/dp/1405103787

So far, you have merely repeated the old Creationist bull**** claims that have been debunked by biologists so many times already. SO. MANY. TIMES.

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I have no idea where this came from, all that I said concerned the philosophy of mind, a matter that is far from resolved. Look up the 'Hard Problem of Consciousness'.

Edit: Oh, I see! You've all been prompted by your liberal instincts to believe that I'm denying evolution! That's not what I'm doing at all, instead I'm considering the relationship of mind to brain, and the orgins of consciousness as human beings understand it. Considering 'consciousness' has been jointly labelled as the "One question science doesn't even know how to ask" jointly by very eminent neuroscientists any foaming from the mouth materialistic philosophy is premature. I would, in response to your patronising recommendations, implore you to familiarise yourself with the Hard Problem, and some relevant philsophers such as David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel and the concept of 'qualia'.

"It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does" - David Chalmers.

Jhessail said:

Sir Alekzandr said:

Papa Lazarou said:

What makes you think that the causes of altruism in humans are any different from the causes in animals?

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Well, perhaps we are biologically predisposed towards altruism, but that doesn't rule out a spiritual cause of it.

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It's been pretty much proven that biology rewards altruism from the view point of the genes. There's no need to add spirituality into the mix.

Edit: and not only from the POV of genes but from POV of individual beings and small communities/herds/tribes.

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The mere fact that human beings can resist their primal urges, caused by genes, is notable in itself. There are certain forms of termite that will rupture a gland containing toxins in order to defend their colonies against attack; this of course kills the termite in the process. Now I imagine that these termites can't actually think about the process, or consider the consequences; they probably never develop a sense of self or a personality. A human being on the other hand, is perfectly aware of its environment and of itself and the various apparent implications of death. We can sacrifice ourselves for our pets, children we've never met before, strangers and so on. We can also choose to take our own lives; suicide. From an evolutionary point of view, it'd be far better and efficient for us all to be philosophical zombies, with no dispositions, no emotions and ultimately no self-awareness. Instead we'd merely be computers, we wouldn't avoid predators out of fear, but instead because our 'programming' desired for us to survive so that we may reproduce. Instead, we've some how reached a state of affairs were we love, hate, become depressed and abuse our own bodies via poor diets and intoxicants.

When you try to reduce everything about us to blind evolutionary forces as we understand them, you face difficulties in explaining why fleshy matter, the brain, has yielded things like Mozart's Requiem and the Statue of Liberty. Just how consciousness first came about is a true mystery, you can't have half a consciousness after all . . .

Mage246 said:

Gasket said:

Mage246 said:

You think there's just a "few" differences between you and someone from 200 years ago? Women's equality? Universal suffrage? True participatory democracy? Social welfare programs? Devolution?

You wouldn't just be strange to them, you'd be denounced as a dangerous traitor to the Crown and executed or locked away in the nuthouse.

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What have abstract concepts got to do with a phyiscal people? Man's nature is eternal, it doesn't change. Keep trying though. Also organic change is natural for a culture, it doesn't mean anything that we've made progress.

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Physical qualities of a group of humans is easily one of the least important aspects of that group. If the beliefs, practices and customs of a group are not relevant, nothing is.the only thing you believe in is "Englishness". Are you so delusional as to believe that is enough to have in common with someone? English people have killed each other, insulted each other, robbed each other, etc, for as long as there have been people who have called themselves English.

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Wait, you mean to say cultures aren't perfect? REVEL****INGLATION.

Cookie Eating Huskarl said:

How witty. I feel like I'm trying to explain dead baby jokes to a dead baby.

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Have a taste of your own medicine champ.