It's been a long time since I've looked in here. I miss this forum. I hope all the other regular contributors to the AU are doing well for themselves. I often wonder what has become of the usual suspects here, since many must have made transitions through their education into their adult lives. I often wonder about those other members who I debated with and often clashed with through my unswerving and dogged debating style. If any of you come across this, I send you all my best regards!

In the last few years, the landscape of global religious thought has shifted, with many of the ideas that seemed like alarmist fear-mongering during the height of the Atheism Union have become reality today. In some ways, the need for debate forums like the AU could be seen as even more important. I'm under no illusion that this place could be resurrected, especially since the infamous site re-design and change of social media since the invention of the "forum". I am grateful that these union forums have been retained, since many good conversations and examples of well thought out ideas and evolution of thought can still be read in these pages.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25561810

An article by John Gray about the philosophy of Normal Lewis and of the dangers in political and religious evangelism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25561810

An article by John Gray about the philosophy of Normal Lewis and of the dangers in political and religious evangelism.

I updated my blog on 14 December with the URL for the new union location. Good luck Michael with your new leadership role here.

Thanks Michael. I've got PM's from people asking me about our union and I would hate to loose all the interesting and productive discussions we've had there over the years.

I would like Gamespot to keep their promise and commitment to retain all active unions and re-publish them in the new forum format ASAP, else retain them in some legacy format.

I'd also encourage anyone who would like unions to return to add their voice to this thread. Thanks!

How to avoid triple posting? I thought I deleted them.

3atronach3

No, I had to do that. It is simple enough to check your post is up (in a new browser tab) before attempting to re-post it. Those "BONK" errors are one reason why these forums are being replaced. Oddly enough, the new technology being implemented still has a tendency to create double posts from single submits, if the Giantbomb forums are anything to go by!

Understanding mathematics is an eliminating factor, one who cannot use it cannot achieve understanding of some things.

3atronach3

Sure, but it is no panacea or true indicator of intelligence. Intelligence can take many other forms too. Mathematics is fairly procedural and has limited creativity in and of itself. But if used as a means to an end, for the purposes of discovery, then imagination and creativity takes a more profound importance when using maths.

Who doesnt lke to be admired, however that is not the goal I just want to talk to someone who shares my thoughts. Every human likes that...

3atronach3

Not me. I prefer to admire achievement over some contentious self-description.

Talking to people who share your thoughts is also desirable and comforting to many, although I think all the furious agreement would get boring rather quickly. Unquestioning agreement seems more appropriate for one ruled by the dogma of faith than for a free-thinker.

Why is, in your opinion, human brain an exception in the universe and not simply a highly sophisticated machine?

3atronach3

For the same reasons that make humans unique in the universe as we know it. I think it is our (evolved) limited free will and creative thinking will that enables us to discover and create. Why do you think humans are unique amongst evolved species? Why do we urge to explore, discover and create, rather than efficiently just simply survive?

 

Oh and the neurologist said wed have to put everything in place and thats that so she belives that brain is nothing else than a piece of matter. It doesnt matter if its doable...

3atronach3

If it doesn't matter, then why say it can be done (when she said it couldn't - according to you)? Of course you can look at humans as purely physical entities, but then it gets impossible to describe consciousness and being human in those terms.

Oh and he would be a master in mathemathics.3atronach3

Do you think prowess in mathematics is the sole factor determining intelligence?

Please stop triple posting - it is not particularly intelligent and easily avoidable.

Why would humans be more than pyshics? Every part of human body obeys pyshics and we can see it easily in every part of human brain except in the brain wich is very complex and he has some emergent charachteristics but it is still material. A leading female neuroscientist whose name I cannot recall stateted that we cannot replicate a human beacuse every atom of his brain would have to be in the exact same spot hinting she beleives its theoreticaly possible.

3atronach3

Humans are more than physics since physics does not resolve the paradigm of humanity in accounting for human discovery, invention and creation. You say a neuroscientist said it is not possible to create the human mind and from that you infer that we can. That is the most dubious sort of twisted logic.

 

How can constructs of evolution, such a mindless process, be more than material? Living creatures only differ from everything beacuse they can selfreproduce and are more complex. We are still constructed from ordinary material and its hihgly unlikely that uters puts a soul into the baby...

Looking at humans from evolutinary standpoint there is only one way to define brain. Our world is not magical, it is realistic and almost everything is explainable by its structure and compostion.

3atronach3

Humans can be viewed from more than a simple evolutionary perspective, which, like physics does not account for the dynamics of the human mind and the discoveries and creations that we have already achieved. It can not predict what we will go on to discover, create and achieve.

I'm not talking about anything ethereal, but tangible, evidence based human achievement. That you don't consider this shows a flaw in your understanding of human psychology. 

 

Brain has to be very usefull to get away wich huge energy consumption. So what is his use without resorting to magic/god explanations? Brain is a mind generating organ. Since mind is generated by brain they are conected. Try and damage a brain and well see what happens to the mind/*soul*. What else could brain be than a structure wich enforces highly sophisticated routines to the information he gets and by doing so creating a usefull behaviour wich is the reason it was picked by natural selection... That is the sole reason for the existence of feelings, logic, memory they are all usefull to a selfreproductive system... 

3atronach3

There is no need to resort to God or magic for me. I think you confuse what you don't understand with what is supernatural. Even lauded religious apologists like Thomas Aquinas asserted that miracles could simply be gaps in our understanding. 

 

My logic has been proven for a milion times, and dissproven a lot also. This is why I think before I say beacuse I know logic is unperfect... Usualy people dont have this much problem understanding what im saying since they show much higher knowledge of pyshics/chemistry/biology but they dont like it beacuse its so depressing...If you dont understand how free will is immposible in a deterministic world then your logic is really :)

3atronach3

For your logic to be proven and disproven sounds suspect at least and should lead you to an agnostic view towards it. Deductive logic can only lead to singular conclusions, whereas inductive logic - or inference - can lead to a multitude of competing results that can not be deduced. You only said yourself in your last post that it might be possible to have free will. In the case of free will, the world would not be entirely deterministic and I think I have shown that it isn't.

You might ignore some of what I say, but that does not make it unsaid. You have not shown me any concepts in physics/chemistry and biology that I don't understand. The only thing you've said that depresses me is your resort to your favourite red herring of intelligence. This makes me believe that it is a cover for your rigidity of thinking. You also contradict yourself in earlier saying that no-one understands you, but now you say they do, but it depresses them.

 

To meeting someone who is even more capable I can give him admiration and maybe give him some opinions beacuse my thought probably wouldnt be completely usseless. I would know beacuse there would not be any logical holes in his thinking. I have enough logic that it can send me on the right path exploring(path of demistification) it is only annoying when people think that half of the world is magical, so I think they would be pleased to meet someone at least similar to them and on the same path.

Its not like im trying to insult you but we are material beings and we can often be quantified, even our brain. If theres no more ATP or arc protein you just cant learn anymore and its a pyshical limitation just as it would be if you had no more ATP in your legs...

3atronach3

Why would your opinions matter to them and why would they want your admiration? How would that enhance or benefit them? Is it that you want to be admired yourself? Is that it? 

You simply don't understand things yourself if you think I believe in magic. I think it is funny that you blame others for not understanding you when you show clearly that you don't understand them. The irony only deepens with your fixation on your own superior intelligence! Albert Einstein said: "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination".

The thing I've learned as I've learned more is that there is always much more to learn. If you think you know enough then you know nothing. TAs Confucius wrote: "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." The tactics you use against others with (you say) lesser intelligence potentially could be used against you by someone with greater intelligence (if your own intelligence is a guide to what intellegince is). But intelligence does not work like that and intelligent people don't use it to try and make them seem more intellectual, since it has exactly the opposite effect - as you repeatedly demonstrate here.

Predictable pyshics= predictable humans= no free will

3atronach3

Humans are not always predictable... Humans are more than physics.

 

It is truly useless for me to tell you that macro world is so predictable, grab a pyshics basics book and soon you shall see it is the truth. Macroworld is predictable beacuse of decoherence and I do not see how quantum model would help you beacuse some argue it is more deterministic than classic pyshics. Our whole body relies on the fact that laws of nature are so strict- look at the enzymes wich have to have an extremely precise structure.. 

3atronach3

Again, more references to unrelated matter and "helpful" advice to "grab a physics book". Your jusitification is rather poor and shows me a lack of intelligence. Why would the macro world be predictabe because of decoherence? Who would argue that the quantum world is more deterministic than the macro world? Once again, what have enzymes got to do with free will?

 

You say we only have models, and its the truth. That is why those models should be taken lightly, you should try to understand my thought and not criticise the vessel it uses(playing with semantics). It doesnt matter that IQ test can be cheated, it can be done right and it shows that some are more capable and intelligence is the most out of the box thing there is as you cannot learn it. Creativity is a terible concept wich I hate. Creativity tests are ussualy how much jibberish you can say in one minute. 

3atronach3

I wan't aware of any creativity tests! I'm not surprised you dislike it so, because it definitely exists, has much supporting evidence, but is not determined and can not be quantified. 

 

Multiverse is accepted by many prominent people, I think it will soon be a "fact",

3atronach3

How intelligent to use an argument ad-populem in amongst all the other fallacies you've been using. In addition, there are plenty of other competing hypothesis relating to universal origins. Pinning your hopes on any one of them is akin to being religious - as far as evidence is concerned.

 

The macroworld is predictable however I am aware that science is still lacking so I say that free will can be an emergent charachteristic but it probably isnt.

3atronach3

Oh, so you're changing your tune here now. Isn't that a surprise. And isn't that sentence a hypocrisy?

So heres one definiton of a program:

 A set of coded instructions that enables a machine, especially a computer, to perform a desired sequence of operations.

3atronach3

OK - that seems to be a fairly default definition of a program. So does the human brain work sequentially and are instructions coded for it? By the way I have a computer science degree (from a reputable UK university) so can understand what you're trying to say about programming.

Trying for a lot of time to write an explanation I realised that if you can not understand what a program is then there is no way I can explain the more complex stuff that would come afterwards. I succumbed to my wish to be understood once more when I  know that if your brain cant do it then it just cannot do it nor would the result be you understanding as you wouldnt be able to see the implications or give yourself statistical verification. What I would give to meet someone whose capabilities match or surpass mine...

3atronach3

I think your realisation was that it was you that were unable to provide a cogent argument, so you blame me for not understanding you instead. This has been the theme of the whole debate with you. You've already tried this counter-productive "face-saving" disengagement tactic before here, but it did not seem to salve the cognitive dissonance with you then. I'm sure it won't this time, since nothing has changed, aside from your views on free will. - And as you say, you're an intelligent person - I trust intelligent enough to understand your own faulty logic and poor excuses.

What can you give to meet someone whose capabilites match or surpass your own? How would you know when you did? Wouldn't they revolt against your own comparative lack of intelligence?

If one is too modest others will just ignore him. Beauty is subjective to a measure, some people will be atractive to 90% of people and some to 10%. Intelligence is complex but there has to be atleast one component of it that can be compared(has apsolute value) beacuse IQ measuring is used by scientists for a long time so obs it has some truth in it.

3atronach3

I think that is rubbish about being modest and being ignored. I think often the reverse is true. Modesety isn't always about what you say, it is more about the way you say it. The IQ test is not a reliable measure of intelligence, since you can practice it and improve your scores without getting more intelligent. Also, at best it only measures a particular sort of intelligence and has nothing to say about creativity and lateral or "out of the box" thinking. It seems rather outdated too.

 

So you are agnostic? I know that that no intelligent man can claim hes totaly atheist but you seem really agnostic. I meant not our universe but our world, its is practicly useles to speak of quarks as theyre always in the neutron and proton structure(wich is highly stable and always the same). So our world is electron, neutron and proton and nuclear, gravitational and electric force. The equations for their interaction are precise so another argument for determination. Those laws and particles were here before humans and humans were constructed upon them by evolution exploiting what it could.

3atronach3

I'm an agnostic atheist and I think faulty claims to absolute knowledge drive my belief in atheism through my agnosticism. Atheism and agnosticism, just like theism, are not the necessarily the domains of intelligent people. Your generalisations over particle physics seems to be rather simplistic, since we are both aware of the complex makeup of atoms as far as we know, but there is certainly a huge amount about particle physics still left undiscovered; hence establishments like CERN.

I don't think that predictable physics is a good basis for an argument against free will. In the same way, chaos theory, quantum computing, etc could be used as real-world indeterminate souces to counter that proposition.

 

Why would we do the same things, we have different DNA and brain also depends on stimuli and other enviromental factors. Of course that percentage is pulled out of the hat, but do you not understand the complexity of all particles of atmosphere interact ing over a place and always giving the same pressure.....

3atronach3

Pulling things out of a hat does not aid your point well. I understand how we have gravity (to an extent - although the true nature of gravitational force is still elusive to all) and also know that pressure varies with time, environmental conditions and height. I don't understand how you relate that to a deterministic outlook that prevents free will though.

 

He has elevated intelligence for sure however I would much rather agree with Sam Harris. Even very intelligent people can be blinded with wishes besides universe has laws set for life argument is invalid since multiverse theory is around...

Sorry for being lazy and posting in this form.

3atronach3

That seems to be at odds with your evaluation against intelligent non-atheists. There are many, many other examples of people who compartmentalise their beliefs away from their own intelligent discoveries and creations. Others, like Georges LeMaitre, drove new discovery (at least partially) because of their religious beliefs.

This is not about who you side with on the belief scale, it is about rebutting your erroneous view that "Very intelligent people do not believe in traditional religions, not nowadays at least." I don't think the multiverse is a theory, but an interesting hypothesis instead. I think it important to distinguish between them, while also noting that even the most concrete theories are only current models of human understanding, rather than absolute truth.