DARWIN's DOUBT - The End of Darwinistic Materialism

[The Atheist]

So you don't have an interest in the "hard problem of consciousness".

Not lacking interest, just not seeing it as too much of a problem.

Which parts don't you understand?

Also, surely any such fundamental questions about the mind are worth asking?

They sure are, but if you study the subject a little I bet you'd find that many of the questions have been answered satisfactorily. Even to the extent that we can now tap directly into the brain to command another person's brain: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology...ectid=11118093

[The Atheist]

You're basically just exalting our ignorance and saying that we can't make any probabilistic inferences based on what is known combined with some hypothetical conditionals about how things might be if they were one way or another, and this is just false.

No. GIGO is not an answer and that's what you get if you try to work out any probability using unknowns.

The best example is Spinosa's deist god. You cannot pick a single hypothetical that can give you probability of that one, since it doesn't interact with the physical universe, hence any expression is simply GIGO.

Ok, but if you encountered strong evidence for a being that suspended the laws of physics, biology, chemistry, and math, how would that evidence NOT be extraordinary?

The result would be extraordinary, but the evidence would be quite ordinary - something that could be measured & tested, just like all other evidence.

... it would be the very first time in our existence that such things happened!

So, the first time Pythagoras figured out the square on the hypotenuse it was an extraordinary event?

No, I'm not trying to access the probability of something occurring, I'm merely showing that because those things which would provide evidence for something like God don't occur, we can make certain ill-defined probabilistic arguments against God's existence.

The bolded bit answers your own assertion.

Further, we can show that if those things were to occur, they would be probabilistically unlikely, ergo extraordinary.

So,because the vast majority of triangles are not right-angled, Pythagoras' theory is extraordinary?

I don't know what you mean by "gambling probabilities." What makes "gambling probabilities" any different than "real world probabilities?*"

I did point it out already, but I'll repeat it: gambling probabilities deal with a finite number of inputs & outcomes, real-world probabilities often do not.

Plus, proof that such things do work in the real world is here:

I'm not denying the probabilities work the same way, it's just that the two aren't compatible, as you'll find when comparing any finite number to infinity.

Falsifiability doesn't mean something was proven false, it means something is capable of being falsified:

I know that, I was making a semantically correct joke that fell over.

Would you not say we had good evidence for thinking the Earth was flat until we discovered evidence that it wasn't?

No. There wasn't any evidence at all that the earth was flat - it was pure supposition based on a lack of evidence.

[Ecurb]

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The result would be extraordinary, but the evidence would be quite ordinary - something that could be measured & tested, just like all other evidence.

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Not all evidence can be measured and tested. Eye witness testimony has not yet been excluded from the Court Room, for example. Are you suggesting that it should be?

[The Atheist]

Not all evidence can be measured and tested. Eye witness testimony has not yet been excluded from the Court Room, for example. Are you suggesting that it should be?

See above:

Sensible people just ignore them entirely; pity the courts don't take that approach.

[Ecurb]

See above:Sensible people just ignore them entirely; pity the courts don't take that approach.

So if 500 witnesses see someone shoot and kill another person, and if all of them swear they witnessed the shooting in court, “sensible people” (and the courts) should” ignore them entirely”? That seems to me to be lacking in good sense. It also opens up a can of worms about scientific evidence, which, after all, involves the eye witness testimony of the scientists who did the testing and measuring.

[The Atheist]

[Ecurb]

That’s a reasonable position, Atheist, but change the ten to ten thousand and (given the imperfection of ANY human Justice system) nobody would be punished. Again, it’s reasonable to oppose all state-imposed punishments. I’m just curious if that’s what you are suggesting.

[mal4mac]

That’s a reasonable position, Atheist, but change the ten to ten thousand and (given the imperfection of ANY human Justice system) nobody would be punished. Again, it’s reasonable to oppose all state-imposed punishments. I’m just curious if that’s what you are suggesting.

Is there is any way of calculating the actual number that would lead to the happiest outcome, overall? If ten murderers go free and two murder again isn't it better for those ten to go to prison, along with that one unfortunate innocent?

Need people suffer in prison? They achieve the Epicurean minimum of food and shelter. I guess the neighbours are a problem, finding friends might be difficult, and the surroundings aren't great. Maybe the potentially innocent could be sent to "garden prisons", with less nasty neighbours? Or Montaigne's tower?

[Nick Capozzoli]

That’s a reasonable position, Atheist, but change the ten to ten thousand and (given the imperfection of ANY human Justice system) nobody would be punished. Again, it’s reasonable to oppose all state-imposed punishments. I’m just curious if that’s what you are suggesting.

This is a very old problem. The Talmud (which is basically a collection of opinions by Jewish scholars about what the Torah means vis-à-vis God's behavioral commandments) has a lot to say about how religious judges should go about dispensing "justice" in criminal and civil matters. One very noteworthy thing about Talmudic law is that it is very difficult to impose severe (e.g. capital) punishment. For example, conclusive evidence of a criminal's"intent" was required, a "supermajority" of the judges was required, and there was even a rule that a judge who initially voted to "acquit" could not change his opinion, but a judge who initially voted to "convict" could change his opinion... all of which set pretty high standards for imposing severe penalties. So much so that a Talmudic court that imposed just one death sentence in a seven year period was considered a "hanging court"...

Talmudic scholars recognized that this state of affairs could leave society defenseless against the acts of malicious criminals. One way they got out of this bind was by allowing for a parallel "secular" justice system, which in those days was "the law of the king."

The trial of Jesus Christ is perhaps the best-known historical example of how this religious/secular justice conflict worked out in practice, at least in one famous case.