[PERMANENTLY CLOSED] A problem at the bottom of reason

Chriliman said:

Wouldn't it become very relevant if we could actually tell when a fetus became conscious? If you could pin point the exact moment a fetus became conscious then you could say with certainty that existence must come before consciousness, so it would become very relevant to your argument. So saying its irrelevant to your argument actually exposes your ignorance of the problem we are talking about right now. So stop saying its irrelevant, because it is very relevant.



Thats the problem, your argument is not sound and is not valid, as I just showed in my above paragraph. So from now on when you say you have proven that the Christian God does not exist, you are actually severely deceiving yourself because your ignoring the real problem that consciousness cannot be proven to actually come after existence.

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The argument easily takes a conditional stance on consciousness, "If there is such a thing as consciousness, then it must be proceeded by existence." There does not need to be any actual consciousnesses for the argument to be valid; True Scotsman's primacy of existence still holds true if everyone is a philosophical zombie. All he has to say is a rather weaker claim than the one you are subscribing to him.

To restate:

1) Consciousness is the state of awareness of external objects.

2) If a subject is conscious, it is conscious of something outside of itself; saying "it is aware of it's own consciousness" is nonsensical because consciousness is a state, not a subject.

Therefore:

3) If a subject is conscious, there must be some objects outside itself.

The idea of a fetus gaining consciousness requires external objects. It does not matter when a fetus gains consciousness, or even if it ever does. No matter what stage of development, the fetus is always brought into a world full of external objects. There is always an object for the fetus to be aware of, so one cannot make an argument about when it gains consciousness because the conditions for the fetus are the same no matter what: there always is an external object.

Chriliman said:

Wouldn't it become very relevant if we could actually tell when a fetus became conscious? If you could pin point the exact moment a fetus became conscious then you could say with certainty that existence must come before consciousness, so it would become very relevant to your argument. So saying its irrelevant to your argument actually exposes your ignorance of the problem we are talking about right now. So stop saying its irrelevant, because it is very relevant.



Thats the problem, your argument is not sound and is not valid, as I just showed in my above paragraph. So from now on when you say you have proven that the Christian God does not exist, you are actually severely deceiving yourself because your ignoring the real problem that consciousness cannot be proven to actually come after existence.



I believe God exists independent of my consciousness, but He is also capable of existing within me and expressing Himself through me. This is at the very core of Christianity.



You also make use of the primacy of existence principle when you claim that God does not exist. Your also saying this primacy of existence is the answer to all knowledge, when in fact this is impossible because we humans do not know everything there is to know so even though we've come up with this primacy of existence principle it does not mean it answers all of life's questions. I've clearly shown there are more questions to be answered, you just choose to ignore the questions.




Question: Which came first knowledge or this primacy of existence principle? If knowledge came before the principle then shouldn't the principle be changed to primacy of knowledge principle? But consciousness is required to have knowledge so then shouldn't it be changed to the primacy of consciousness principle, but you have to exist in order to be conscious, so then it should be changed to primacy of existence, but knowledge came before the principle so it should be changed to primacy of knowledge principle and so on...

If knowledge came before the understanding of this principle couldn't that show that knowledge existence and consciousness could all possibly be infinite and timeless? Since we can't actually prove whether existence came before consciousness and if consciousness came before knowledge. What if we need to stop looking at these things in restrictions of time, what if they are all infinitely timeless?

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From premise 2 of the argument I presented: existence has metaphysical primacy over consciousness.

All of your objections to premise two above are invalid for four reasons.

1. They commit the fallacy of True Scotsman doesn't like them.

2. There's no such thing as disagreement. How could there be since there's nothing to disagree about? After all nothing exists.

3. People are not conscious beings able to hold ideas at all so how could there be such a thing as disagreement.

4. And why should it be a problem for two people to hold opposing views on the same point. I don't see why they can't both be equally, objectively right.

Chriliman said:

I understand what your saying completely. However, when we apply this thinking to a fetus in the womb, there is no way to determine when the fetus becomes a conscious human. Therefore, it is impossible to determine if consciousness comes before conception or after conception. When you're able to determine this then your point of existence having to come before consciousness can be validated. Unfortunately, consciousness is one of those things that can't be proven because it is not a physical thing, you can't refute this fact, if you try to refute it, you're just being unreasonable.

Sure, I know I'm conscious, but I have to believe that you are conscious and that you would still be conscious even if I became unconscious. We already went over this earlier.

Also, you guys seem to be moving the "goal post" from my point about the singularity to consciousness. I realize how you atheists feel when talking with theists who seem unreasonable. Although, I'm not one of those unreasonable theists, I'm a reasonable Christian with a very strong faith. I don't credit myself for my faith and reason, I only credit Jesus. I suspect your going to start meeting a lot more Christians like myself and your only defense is going to be to deny God. However, if you decide to accept that God is possible you will realize I've been right this whole time.

So, it seems we've uncovered several problems here. Atheists will ignore many problems in order to maintain their beliefs. So far you've ignored the problem at the bottom of reason and you've ignored the problem of an infinitely small singularity and now your ignoring the problem of consciousness not being physical and therefore unprovable. I suspect you'll continue ignoring more problems in the future in order to continue denying the existence of God. We haven't even touched the thought that a timeless conscious entity can solve the problem in quantum physics, but I suspect you'll ignore that as well.

True Scotsman saying he knows God does not exist and that he can prove it, is probably the silliest thing I've ever heard, but not surprising, I pray for your soul.

God bless!

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Well, that's certainly one way to look at it.

Chriliman said:

I feel lead to say to anyone who is interested or has questions about the concepts discussed in this forum to come to a humble place in your heart and mind and ask God to fill you with His wisdom and knowledge through the power of His son Jesus who was sacrificed for your sins. I have no idea how God will interact with you, He may give you peace in that moment or He may strongly convict you of your sins, either way rest assured there is great power in the name of Jesus and you can have access to that power if you accept Him. Amen!

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That's right. Don't look at the actual premises and try to understand them. Amazing! I think I have found the problem at the bottom of your reasoning.

Chriliman said:

This doesn't change the fact that its impossible to determine if a baby fetus became conscious before or after conception. Sure it seems more likely that it would become conscious after conception, but this is impossible to prove, thus True Scotsmen's argument is unprovable and therefore not valid, at best he can believe it proves something, but just because he believes it does not make it true.

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It is important to note that consciousness is not a thing, but a state of being. We would have to assume some type of neo-Platonism and Cartesian mind-body dualism for this to be true. And I don't know if Cartersian dualism is even possible, specifically because I cannot see how the mind is anything else but possessing consciousness- being aware of things other than the self. Thus Cartesian dualism assumes the consciousness is a thing when it is really just a state of being.

"There does not need to be any actual consciousnesses for the argument to be valid" think about that statement for a second... Don't you have to be conscious in order to make an argument about consciousness?

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I am saying that the primacy of existence principle would hold true regardless of whether there is any actual consciousness is reality. All True Scotsman has to say is the condition "if" statement I provided. Even if the antecedent is not fulfilled, the proposition would still be true.

True Scotsman has claimed to be able to prove that the Christian God does not exist, do you agree with him and accept his proof?

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I do not know where I stand on the issue, as there might be a potential way around it, as I hint at above with neo-Platonism. However, I personally believe certain "mainstream" conceptions of the Christian deity are internally contradictory and therefore false for other reasons. The other conceptions of the Christian deity fall short of any decent inductive reasoning process; so short that one need not really consider them. There are too many problems to list, though a big one is the problem of evil. Generally, any god of classical theism runs into that problem. Any conception of god that is indifferent might as well, for all pragmatic purposes, not exist.

1) Consciousness is the state of awareness of external objects. (not if consciousness and existence are infinitely timeless, it wouldn't matter which came first because they both infinitely exist in timelessness. <this concept requires belief just like "imaginary time" does by Stephen Hawking)

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What is consciousness? Please define it. Keep in mind that your definition must not include any reference to perceivable objects for you statement to be true. Even things like immaterial thoughts cannot count.

2) If a subject is conscious, it is conscious of something outside of itself; saying "it is aware of it's own consciousness" is nonsensical because consciousness is a state, not a subject. (So a baby human fetus can be considered not human, since we can't establish if they are conscious in the womb? Isn't self awareness the ability to know that the self is conscious?)

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Don't get into personhood in this thread. To note, however, there is a big difference between a person and a being with entirely human DNA.

Self-awareness, well, it really depends on your definition. If by "self-awareness", you mean the ability to see oneself as a unique agent that is distinct from others and the environment, then I'm going to say "no". What you are describing is the ability to be reflective. Many animals are aware of themselves as unique individuals; not many can recognize themselves as conscious agents. They simply just are.

Therefore:

3) If a subject is conscious, there must be some objects outside itself. (so when I'm unconscious and sleeping and have a dream of objects outside myself, but in my dream they seem real and I react to them, would I be considered conscious while sleeping?)

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Technically, yes. Your mind is conscious in that your mind is aware of imaginary objects. However, there is a distinction between being conscious of something and being conscious of something real. There is also the usual contextual differences in meaning for the word.

Chriliman said:

I realize consciousness is not a thing, I've said many times that consciousness is not physical. So any other consciousness I consider other than my own, requires me to believe it's actually real, since I can't physically prove that another being is conscious, nor can I prove that I'm conscious. Does this make sense to you?

If consciousness can be considered a state of being, that is not provable, thus requiring belief, then why can't God be considered a state of being that is infinite and timeless, that is not provable, thus requiring belief?

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I can prove to myself, as a conscious agent, that I am conscious. Also, there is a difference between the two terms "not provable". One is about something we have a lot of evidence for, but cannot deductively prove beyond the most far-off skeptical scenario; therefore, we can inductively prove it, but not deductively prove it beyond a slim chance of doubt. The other one is an entity of questionable metaphysics that is supported by questionable philosophical arguments and has a lot going against it in terms of evidence and philosophical arguments. God, especially the one of classical theism, is next to impossible to even make a good argument for. Even if I grant you the classic cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments, you get as far as a god of deism. No one can argue for a god of classical theism via these arguments.

Also, if God is a state of being, then he is not a thing. He is not supposed to be a state of being, but a thing that exists.

But what you're saying is actually a contradiction because if there actually was no consciousness in existence then there would be no primacy of existence principle. If there was no consciousness in existence, then existence would just be infinite and who are you to say what infinite existence is? I believe infinite existence is God.

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First, the serious stuff: principles and axioms are not things like a physical object; they are descriptions of reality. Let's consider a universe that is not expanding, completely frozen (no time passes within the universe), and has no conscious agents. The axiom of identity is still true in this finite universe- the planet is still a planet and the star is still a star. It is a description, so its existence does not depend on conscious agents to be true. The same goes for any valid principle.

Now, how does "There is no conscious agents in a world" lead to "infinite existence"?

We see the effects of evil everyday and the origins of evil require belief, just like every other unprovable concept. Free will is what is keeping us from the entire truth of God. Truth itself is not physical and therefore not evident, but what keeps truth from being evident? The answer is lies. Lies are the source of all evil, but lies are not physical either, but ultimately the entire truth will remove all lies. God's truth will destroy all evil. Seems pretty clear to me, however, it requires belief in the truth in order to understand, and the truth is Jesus. There I just explained Christianity in a way that you've probably never thought of. You accept that belief is involuntary, but you can choose to not assume God does not exist and instead accept the truth that He does exist.

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Define "evil". The definition of evil used in the problem of evil is "suffering". Therefore, everything you said is completely irrelevant to the problem of evil. I don't even feel like trying to talk about evil with you, as you seem to be playing the game with a very specific deck of cards I think make no sense, even from a theistic standpoint.

You keep on using "assume" as if I am flipping a coin and deciding on one belief. I assume God does not exist in the same sense I assume you are a conscious agent- it seems very, very unlikely to be the case and is completely rational to ignore.

Asking me to define consciousness would be like me asking you to define truth. I believe truth is infinite and timeless and I believe consciousness is infinite and timeless, both represent God. However, I believe my consciousness has a beginning, but no end, which is why I believe in eternal life and unfortunately eternal death.

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I forgot that many theists like to take words like "truth" and add words that make no sense because Neo-Platonism is a big thing within Christian circles because Plato was the only Greek philosopher whose concepts they stole early on (later it was Aristotle). What is an infinite truth? How can something that behaves as a label be infinite?

Also, here's a definition of truth: a label we put on propositions that are in accordance with the actual world or, in the case of imaginary and theoretical propositions, hypothetical possible worlds.

You can't prove any of what you just said, but you believe it, and I would agree. But how is it any different for me to claim I believe in God even though I can't prove it?

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I can collect evidence for my case based on observation and induction for that particular question. There are very good reasons that are hard to argue against without resorting to skepticism. You can do no such observations for your deity. The question is: is there any good reason to believe your deity at all, especially over any of the other similar deities? I am saying it is hard to argue for very good reasons for your god. That alone makes the two propositions very different.

But something can be real even if your not conscious of it. And apparently Stephen Hawking can claim "imaginary time" is real. The question is who is imagining this time? God or humans? If God is imagining time in order to fulfill His will, then time is as real as God needs it to be until the truth is revealed, but what if we are imagining time because we do not know the complete truth yet?

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I really don't care about "imaginary time". Given how science works, the time when things are really unknown in a specific question (like they are now in high level physics) is generally a time of a lot of speculation and false ideas. I don't believe we will find really good answers to most "universal origins" questions in my lifetime. The farthest we've gotten back is the "singularity"; we cannot currently go back further because things get down to the quantum level and everything falls apart then. However, filling in the answer with another mystical being is not an explanation; it's a cop-out that is born out of the psychological need to eliminate uncertainty.

How do we know the physical is physical. Is there a test for it?

GrowingSmaller said:

How do we know the physical is physical. Is there a test for it?

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Is there really any point to such airy philosophizing?

I think that the answer is that we infer that there is a physical realm from life experience. It is meaningless to talk about a "test" for physicality, when our very idea of "testing" involves physicality.


eudaimonia,

Mark

GrowingSmaller said:

How do we know the physical is physical.

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"Physical" -as opposed to what?

Is there a test for it?

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It seems to be the other way round: We have come to call "physical" that which lends itself to testing.

Chriliman said:

I feel lead to say to anyone who is interested or has questions about the concepts discussed in this forum to come to a humble place in your heart and mind and ask God to fill you with His wisdom and knowledge through the power of His son Jesus who was sacrificed for your sins.

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Everyone else needs have some humility and accept that my religious dogma is absolutely correct...

Chriliman said:

I realize consciousness is not a thing, I've said many times that consciousness is not physical

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Oh boy! You see this is the problem (just one of many you have). Of course consciousness is a thing. To be something need not be to be physical. Love is a thing. A relationship is a thing. Consciousness is not an entity. It is an attribute of an entity and attributes are things. Anything which has identity is a thing. A math equation is a thing. A memory is a thing. An action is a thing.

Chriliman said:

Asking me to define consciousness would be like me asking you to define truth

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I can define both. If you can't then you have no business discussing these issues. It's very clear that you have no understanding of what a fundamental concept is. These issues we are discussing here are basic stuff. Philosophy 101. It's clear you have no understanding of the hierarchical structure of knowledge. It's clear that you have no idea of what a concept is or how it's formed. It's clear you have no theory of concepts (why would you since Christianity has none.) If you would have read the information I provided for you and gotten a basic understanding of these concepts you would have gotten my post to you where I laid out my four "objections" to your arguments against the primacy of existence but you didn't. So it went completely over your head. What you fail to understand is that the argument I presented, both premises, draw on axioms for their inference. All anyone need to do is point out that fact to refute all of your ill informed nonsense. You see the brilliance of the argument from primacy is that since its premises are axiomatic any challenge to them is self-refuting and at the same time affirms their truth. I wasn't kidding when I said the argument is irrefutable.

Chriliman said:

You can't prove any of what you just said, but you believe it, and I would agree. But how is it any different for me to claim I believe in God even though I can't prove it?

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Here you are demanding proof, performatively affirming the primacy of existence and thereby conceding the argument I presented. If the primacy of existence is not true, what would there be to prove and why would there be a need to prove anything. Chany may be having fun but all she really has to do is point out that in denying the primacy of existence you also deny the axioms of existence, consciousness and identity which the primacy of existence is a corollary to ( that's what I did with my four "objections"). And in so doing you refute your own argument. If you don't exist and are not conscious then how can you argue in the first place and in denying the primacy of existence you are announcing that your argument against the primacy of existence is true because you want it to be true.

You've already lost this debate. You lost it the moment you made one statement about knowledge. When you say "it is", just that much, you affirm the primacy of existence and concede the argument. You've lost and you don't even realize it.

Just go back and count the number of times you've used the concepts exist, consciousness and proof and see how many instances of the fallacy of the stolen concept you have committed. I take back my statement that you seem like a sincere person who is interested in learning. You automatically assumed that my argument is invalid without any understanding of it. You deny the possibility that someone else may know more than you do about an issue. You see something that you sense as a threat to your confessional beliefs and you just need to smash it. But it can't be smashed because it's true.

GrowingSmaller said:

How do we know the physical is physical. Is there a test for it?

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There's the stick test. When I get hit by a stick, it hurts.

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True Scotsman said:

Oh boy! You see this is the problem (just one of many you have).

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Is the highlighted part a thing?

Of course consciousness is a thing. To be something need not be to be physical. Love is a thing.

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Define "Love". I wouldn't consider Love a thing any more than I'd consider consciousness a thing.


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Chriliman said:

Your unwilling to consider the new concepts I've presented like the problem of an infinite singularity or the problem at the bottom of reason, simply because they point to God. I'm freely giving you these concept in order for you to honestly think about them, but you refuse to even honestly think about them because your being deceived into thinking you already know all that you need to know about life.

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Well, that's the thing, Chrili, most of us have considered "the new concepts," that in fact, they're old concepts to us, and we've come to the conclusion that your assertions are untenable and without merit. I've pointed out numerous times how your syllogism is fallacious. And each time, you've ignored my points. I have honestly considered the concept of a god as real, and based on all available evidence at this point in time, I accept the null hypothesis, that is, unless you can demonstrate the existence of god/s, I will not accept your claims to knowledge of god/s. I have at length pointed out to you that we cannot prove absolutely that reality exists, which is why assumptions must be made: Reality exists. Secondly, if reality exists, and most of us believe this, then we can learn something about reality. Lastly, the best way to learn about reality are models that are falsifiable and have predictive capabilities.

Your argument, it would seem, has devolved into one of special pleading, unless of course, you can demonstrate your god/s exist,

Chriliman said:

Its important to make the distinction between a "thing" as physical object and a "state of being" as in state of being conscious or state of being in love. Saying consciousness is a thing, just does not makes sense. If you think it makes sense, go right ahead and believe that, but you make it very difficult to reason with you when you don't have the proper definitions of words. I'm sure Chany would agree with me on this because he has said the very same thing, but he probably won't speak up against you. So far Chany has been the most reasonable atheist I've come across, which is why I have high hopes for him.

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Is this true because you want it to be?

Chriliman said:

Being able to define something non-physical is very different from being able to prove that something non-physical actually exists. Sure we can't see air, but we know its there because we've been able to see the molecules that comprises air. But consciousness is different because not only can we not physically see it, but it is not comprised of physical molecules that we can even study. Consciousness is not physical, which means its very possible that our human consciousness did not originate from the physical realm. If you can't understand this, then your just being unreasonable.

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But you told me there is no mind-independent reality so what is there to define?

Chriliman said:

Okay, so are you claiming to know everything there is to know about life? If so then yes you can actually say I have lost this debate and you can actually say with absolute certainty that there is no God. If you can actually do this, then you should be presented with a nobel peace prize for solving the problem of life. Except, that you have to ignore some pretty big questions in order to make these claims and the fact that there are even still questions proves that you actually don't know all there is to know about life, so in fact I have not lost this debate in anyway, I've only shown that I'm willing to think deeper than you are by presenting questions about scientific claims that simply don't make sense, like how an infinite singularity would have to contradict its own existence in order to change into a finite universe.

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Where did I ever claim that I know everything there is to know about life? Can you point me to where I said this? Also since you deny the primacy of existence, and therefore the axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity. How could there be anything to know, anyone to know, or a consciousness to know it? So you are contradicting yourself.

Chriliman said:

Your unwilling to consider the new concepts I've presented like the problem of an infinite singularity or the problem at the bottom of reason, simply because they point to God. I'm freely giving you these concept in order for you to honestly think about them, but you refuse to even honestly think about them because your being deceived into thinking you already know all that you need to know about life.

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You said that there is no mind independent reality so what is it I'm supposed to consider?

dlamberth said:

Is the highlighted part a thing?

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Yes it is.

dlamberth said:

Define "Love". I wouldn't consider Love a thing any more than I'd consider consciousness a thing.

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Love is a Human emotion, a type of conscious activity. It is our emotional response to values. You need to learn the difference between an entity and an existent. Not all existents are entities. There are also actions, emotions, memories, relationships and concepts. None of these things are entities but they still exist.