Thank-you
Can’t speak for those guys, only myself
that's cool,
I believe you had asked me to explain the connection that I saw between atheism and nihilism and apathy.
generally speaking, I think there's a connection, though, being a generality, it won't apply to every person.
Well according to the definition you provided, personal experience and sensations are not allowed. So are you now saying there is no such a thing as objective meaning and objective purpose?
I believe that there is objective meaning and purpose to life, but I do not have objective evidence for it.
the evidence that I have for objective meaning and purpose is interior sensations.
Internal experiences and feelings.
well, we're on the same page there!
in my experience, many atheists regard evidence from interior sensation with a lot of suspicion.
I think that's because if interior sensation is allowed, then there is evidence for God.
(I welcome other people's input on that in case I misstated common atheist positions.)
My moral judgments on issues is based on the best information I have at the moment. Consider the scenario;
I believe moral issue “X” is good, you believe it is bad. (moral issue “x” could be any issue; capital punishment, death with dignity, use of nuclear weapons during war, etc)
Let’s say we have a conversation and you convince me you were right and I wrong concerning issue “x”. I will immediately abandon my previous position concerning moral issue x, and I will adopt your position on the issue and make it my own. IOW when I become aware of a moral position I consider superior to my own, I adopt that moral position as my own. At the moment I know of no other moral position that is superior to my own.
suppose two people are discussing capital punishment.
one person says it is right because they value retribution and payback.
the other person says it is wrong cuz they place a high value on human life.
both people's conclusions are based on interior sensations.
which one, then, is the superior moral position?
I’m just trying to get cha to check one box
didn't you say that there is no objective purpose or meaning to life?
I believe I posted the Wikipedia definition of nihilism in one of our first exchanges on this thread.
if I remember right, it speaks of moral nihilism as being a lack of objective morality.
However if that is your position, I would like to see how you came to that conclusion.
that's what I have been doing.
I'll try a different approach.
just looking at the people in this section of the forum who probably self identify as atheist, do you not see that they tend to say that morality is a matter of personal choice?
that's what most atheists that I've met to say.
in post 638 I believe you wrote,
"My life has meaning. But the meaning I bring to my life is subjective, not objective."
"...life is believed to be without objective meaning, purpose..."
Nihilism - Wikipedia
Of course it is a derogatory term.
I disagree that it's necessarily derogatory.
what positive term shall we use to refer to someone who says that life has no objective meaning or purpose?
Okay; forget about empirical evidence; let’s go with logical evidence.
we can forget about empirical evidence, but then that means we would also disregard the statement
"there is no empirical evidence that God exists",
which is commonly made by atheists, in my experience.
But I can produce logical and reasonable evidence that I am conscious
Cool! I'm not sure exactly what you mean by logical and reasonable evidence, but it sounds like the same kind of evidence I have for the existence of God.
perhaps you are not actually a nihilist, perhaps you are an outlier in the atheist world.
or not an atheist, which I think is something you said early on.
I asked you if you believe eternal Hell for a temporary bad was justified, you said you don’t believe in an eternal Hell.
that's correct, I don't believe in an eternal hell, but I could be wrong.
my evidence for a temporary hell is basically interior sensations.
But I understand my thoughts.
yes, as do I... what idea are you putting forward here?
okay, I believe the subject we were talking about at that point was how you knew that I, leaf473, am conscious.
I asked if you had objective evidence, your reply was yes.
please present it.
I have no reason to assume that.
You're probably already know that there are chat bots on the internet.
and that they grow more sophisticated every day.
literally day by day, since the neural net used for artificial intelligence today learns as it interacts with people.
here's a free one that I played with a bit
Mitsuku
if that's offered for free, imagine what national governments are doing.
or maybe Kuki is a product of the FBI!
several years ago, philosopher Daniel Dennett wrote that computers were conscious, we just didn't understand it yet.
If they are working right, they have the ability of consciousness
does everybody experience consciousness the same way?
is all consciousness of the same type?
if color blind people perceive, or experience, color differently than others, does it not seem reasonable that people would experience consciousness differently?
imo, the idea that all humans are "the same inside" comes from the Judeo Christian idea of all people being created with the same kind of soul or spirit.
not saying that's wrong, just saying I don't think it comes from science.
if our brains are the product of evolution, was there not a time when our ape ancestors were not conscious, and then at some point, they were?
but given that brain size grew over time, doesn't it seen reasonable that the consciousness of our ancestors half a million years ago was a different from what ours is today?
if the change occurred over thousands of generations, even if it could not be measured, it seems to me that the average consciousness of each generation would be slightly different than the one before.
were you able to test your hypothesis with experiments?
