Well, you need an uncaused cause to cause the universe, if it is created. Now, Occam, the athiests friend, would say that, since you only need one uncaused thing, why not have the universe be uncaused, and cut to the chase?
I don't really have an opinion on it one way or the other, I'm just saying why the first athiest you spring that argument on is going to jump you.
Design is worthless, because it becomes recursive. You have to have an undesigned designer at some point, or you're left in the same boat. If something like a sea slug can't just evolve into being through chemical syntesis and natural selection, then something like GOD sure as hell can't just be.
The ontological argument is the same. The existence of god is not a prerequisite for the existence of the universe. It can be claimed that it is, but really the argument that it just is has equal weight.
And by the epistemological proof, I assume you're referring to Kant, but Kant himself, in the Critque stated that he believed that it was not possible to construct conclusive logical proofs for the existence of God, which to my mind puts the subjective proofs he then puts forward on the same ground as the subjective proofs of Kierkegaard and Descartes, which is to say, cute, but not compelling.
Mind you, I myself am an agnostic. I think the arguments against the existence of god are equally trite and meaningless, though I don't ascribe to any organized idea of what it would be to be god, so...
The only provable god is Spinoza's holistic god, but since that 'god' is just the sum of existence, it would be hard to argue against its existence.
Hardly any point in arguing with you, then. If you believe, as you have said, that nothing can be known, the branch of learning dealing with how it is possible to know things is certainly worthless to you.
Moreover, I don't think Hume answered near as much as he thought he did.
The Cogito Ergo Sum part is brilliant, but it leads to you being the only person, because you can't prove anything from your own existence...Just because you are doesn't mean anything.
This is a Solipsim, in philosophese. It means you just argued everyone but yourself out of existence.
Descartes dug himself out of this hole by saying (roughly), "I exist, therefore God must exist, and since god is wonderful and benevolent, he wouldn't mess with my mind by making the world seem so exist without really existing, so the world exists."
That's why it's a crappy argument. He dug himself a hole he couldn't dig out of. Its funny; the rope he used to pull himself out of the hole has been forgotten by the world, but the hole remains.
Heh, yea, I spent a lot of time on other equally "worthless" stuff as well. In the real world, induction works great, but by deductive standards, just because it's always been true before doesn't mean a damn thing.
Like a guy calls me up and says, "A bunch of us guys are gonna sit around in our underwear and watch the football game and drink beer and eat chips and, you know, maybe wrestle with each other, just us guys. You wanna come over?" And I'm like, "...No."
The whole point of logic is to be an a priori system that preserves the truth value of whatever you plug into it. Math is merely logic, applied to quantification.
It is interesting to note that many methods for valid mathematical inference are considered invalid for pure logic (induction leaps to mind).
I call you a retard for spouting crap about proving the existence of god in philosophy class. Some of use did real work.
"I suppose you will cite a logical, true, provable argument for the existence of God that you learned in your philosophy classes, yes?
Actually, no. I only had one class where we even gave it discussion time..."Philosophy and Religion".
Maybe "mind-numbingly ignorant" would be a more apt description of you, and regardless, Slashdot without ad homiem would be pointless and boring.
If you agreed with my original post, which you seem to be saying, then why would you attribute such an utterly false point of view to me? I suppose I took the defintion of a "Strawman fallacy" out of my sig too quickly.
The term you're looking for is "Solipsim". A lot of philosophers actually are concerned about how to prove whether or not other people exist. I find it to be a dull argument, because, one way or the other, it just doesn't matter.
On the other hand, if you think all that philosophy is about is crap like that, you need to educate yourself.
The Cogito is actually several types of fallacy all rolled into one. It is of historical interest, and it raises an interesting epistemological question, but it is not taught as a "right" thing, but instead as a historical curiosity.
A lot of things are taught in philosophy, but they are not taught as being true but as being dead ends, or wrong-headed thought, examples of mistakes that are given so as not to be repeated. I have no problem with Id being put in that category.
Physics, Biology, Mathematics, Chemistry...All these sciences were once branches of philosophy.
A good number of theologians have tried over the years to prove the existence of God using philosophical methods. They all failed. The very idea of a falsifiable claim is direct from philosophy.
Just because your idea of philosophy is something to talk about while you're smoking pot, doesn't mean that's all there is to it.
Both of them were theists, and unable to comprehend a worldview anything like we understand in modern times. Aristotle was also known for pulling answers out of his ass when he didn't actually know the answer...Upon being confronted with a fossilized fish skeleton, he informed his students that there were fish who could swim through the solid rocks below, and that this was one of their skeletons, which would have been fine if people hadn't still been quoting the answer 2000 years later.
I don't think either of them would have supported ID in its present form...For them it was clear, and everyone believed that the Gods had made everything. It was self-evident, and unchallenged. Much as most people view Evolution today.
As a former philosophy major, I ask that this be taught in Philosophy classes...new students always need clear examples of bad arguments.
But as for being taught seriously in Philosophy? You must be joking. The foundation of philosophy is logic, and true, provable argument, and the foundation of this "theory" is nothing more than wishful thinking and fantastical invention.
Well, even here in Georgia, they don't teach ID, so I suppose we're in agreement.
Still, I don't have any issue with is being some sort of elective. I just don't really think ID is a worthy subject. Either you can study religion, or you can study science, but when you try ad merge the two, all you get is a mess, less that either of its parts.
You can talk to a christian who has faith and have a perfectly normal conversation. It's like talking to a gay guy...if you're not comfortable with your sexuality, its weird, but if you are, it's not. A christian who has solid faith is perfectly okay with saying, "I don't know" because they don't have to know. They don't have anything to prove.
But take someone who has no faith, and try and have a logical, rational discussion, and watch how fast they lose it. Because they have no faith, they need proof to shore up their belief, but since there is no proof, their arguments are weak and easily countered. They've built their whole lives on those "facts", so any attempt to reveal them as the figments they are is viewed as a personal attack, and responded to accordingly.
It's crap anyway. When I work at home, I'm not as productive as when I'm at the office. If I need to put in more than forty hours, I go back to the office on saturday.
Anything else, and I end up time sharing between working and fragging...One day I'd get teamspeak confused with my hands-free phone and call my boss a spawn camping n00b lamer, and that would be it.
I'll tell ya though, I hated being freelance. There was no "at work" and no "off work" there was just work, and everytime I sat in front of the computer it would reproach me.
Clarification: This only applies if the individuals in question are in the same chain of command. Most companies have rules like this as well, e.g. bosses aren't allowed to date people they supervise.
Sure, because there is no difference in the complexity of the tasks performed by each. Right? Isn't that what you're saying?
I can only guess that you're being willfully ignorant. The difference is, people don't decide every few weeks to make the air conditioner do something different. It just moves hot air from a to b. An IT air conditioner would move hot air from points a1-a10000 to b1-b500 and c1-c500 and make muffins, and keep track of the air molecules, and make copies of itself to put in new buildings.
The thing is, it isn't IT that makes the job hard, it's business that makes the job hard. If the requirements upstairs never changed, we could make bullet-proof never-fail systems. But stuff changes all the time, and there is never enough time to deal with it all, and you have to do the best you can to keep on top of it, and when it all falls apart for whatever reason the people like you, who think its all air conditioners, start ranting and firing people and it gets even harder, until it all ends up in the toilet and you're stuck with a hopelessly obsolete system and faced with ridiculous upgrade costs and no skilled labor because you didn't get it the first time when someone told you that it was important.
That, if there is no way to tell who your source is, your source is worthless.
It's one thing to get an anonymous tip that says, "Such and such person is involved in such and such illegal activity and if you look in such and such a place you will find proof." This is information that can be backed up in the real world, and it is irrelevant who lets you know about it.
But you can't print factual information gathered from an anonymous source for the simple reason that the anonymous source might be some sort of whacko, and you'd end up looking like a moron.
Half the time the reporter already knows what they're looking for, because, whenever theres an issue, a dozen people will hint about it under the table, but until you get someone who is in a position to know to go on record and say it, all you get is the kind of crap Fox News spouts which is 50% innuendo and 50% sensationalism. That may be good enough for TV, but if print starts spouting crap like that, they end up as the National Enquirer.
The long an short of it is, if your reporter can't find out enough about the source to tell if the information is reliable enough to print, then they can't use the source anyway.
The truth of it is very simple to grasp, if you bother to check. How long does it take to replace an ad rep? An accountant? A HR person? A facilities maintenance person? All those jobs require general skillsets that are applicable everywhere.
Now how long does it take to replace a DBA, who has to work with a database that is unique? How long does it take to replace a coder who has to maintain a critical system written by his predicessors, which is likewise unique? How long does it take to replace a tech whose job it was to maintain 200 odd machines from different upgrade cycles, which each have special issues and seperate repair histories? A network administrator dealing with a unique network?
If your AC breaks, and your facilities guys can't fix it, you can call in a tech from the company that made it, because your air conditioner is just like every other one they made.
But when everything is custom made and custom configured, and in big companies it ALL is, you're screwed. There is no one to call. There are people in my company whose retirement will force a multimillion dollar software/hardware upgrade because if they go, parts of the system become unmaintainable.
Don't kid yourself. Data is the heart and soul of every company these days. And the people who protect and maintain the data are critically important.
It's worth noting that it is nearly always legally actionable whenever someone utters/prints an untruth that relates to another person or organization in any sort of demi-public forum. Fraud, Libel, and Slander cover a hell of a lot of ground.
Like a lot of things in the constitution, your right to protected free speech ends when it starts hurting other people/organizations/multinational corporations etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you need an uncaused cause to cause the universe, if it is created. Now, Occam, the athiests friend, would say that, since you only need one uncaused thing, why not have the universe be uncaused, and cut to the chase?
I don't really have an opinion on it one way or the other, I'm just saying why the first athiest you spring that argument on is going to jump you.
Crap.
Design is worthless, because it becomes recursive. You have to have an undesigned designer at some point, or you're left in the same boat. If something like a sea slug can't just evolve into being through chemical syntesis and natural selection, then something like GOD sure as hell can't just be.
The ontological argument is the same. The existence of god is not a prerequisite for the existence of the universe. It can be claimed that it is, but really the argument that it just is has equal weight.
And by the epistemological proof, I assume you're referring to Kant, but Kant himself, in the Critque stated that he believed that it was not possible to construct conclusive logical proofs for the existence of God, which to my mind puts the subjective proofs he then puts forward on the same ground as the subjective proofs of Kierkegaard and Descartes, which is to say, cute, but not compelling.
Mind you, I myself am an agnostic. I think the arguments against the existence of god are equally trite and meaningless, though I don't ascribe to any organized idea of what it would be to be god, so...
The only provable god is Spinoza's holistic god, but since that 'god' is just the sum of existence, it would be hard to argue against its existence.
Hardly any point in arguing with you, then. If you believe, as you have said, that nothing can be known, the branch of learning dealing with how it is possible to know things is certainly worthless to you.
Moreover, I don't think Hume answered near as much as he thought he did.
I agree! That's why I put quotes around it. Philosophers love deduction, but induction is defintitely cool.
It's the whole argument, actually.
The Cogito Ergo Sum part is brilliant, but it leads to you being the only person, because you can't prove anything from your own existence...Just because you are doesn't mean anything.
This is a Solipsim, in philosophese. It means you just argued everyone but yourself out of existence.
Descartes dug himself out of this hole by saying (roughly), "I exist, therefore God must exist, and since god is wonderful and benevolent, he wouldn't mess with my mind by making the world seem so exist without really existing, so the world exists."
That's why it's a crappy argument. He dug himself a hole he couldn't dig out of. Its funny; the rope he used to pull himself out of the hole has been forgotten by the world, but the hole remains.
Heh, yea, I spent a lot of time on other equally "worthless" stuff as well. In the real world, induction works great, but by deductive standards, just because it's always been true before doesn't mean a damn thing.
Hmmmm. Well, there are dumbasses in every profession, alas.
Any argument that leads you into solipsim and then leaves you there waiting for god to pull you out pretty much fails, in my book.
Lol!
Like a guy calls me up and says, "A bunch of us guys are gonna sit around in our underwear and watch the football game and drink beer and eat chips and, you know, maybe wrestle with each other, just us guys. You wanna come over?" And I'm like, "...No."
Other way around, actually.
The whole point of logic is to be an a priori system that preserves the truth value of whatever you plug into it. Math is merely logic, applied to quantification.
It is interesting to note that many methods for valid mathematical inference are considered invalid for pure logic (induction leaps to mind).
I call you a retard for spouting crap about proving the existence of god in philosophy class. Some of use did real work.
"I suppose you will cite a logical, true, provable argument for the existence of God that you learned in your philosophy classes, yes?
Actually, no. I only had one class where we even gave it discussion time..."Philosophy and Religion".
Maybe "mind-numbingly ignorant" would be a more apt description of you, and regardless, Slashdot without ad homiem would be pointless and boring.
If you agreed with my original post, which you seem to be saying, then why would you attribute such an utterly false point of view to me? I suppose I took the defintion of a "Strawman fallacy" out of my sig too quickly.
Yawn.
The term you're looking for is "Solipsim". A lot of philosophers actually are concerned about how to prove whether or not other people exist. I find it to be a dull argument, because, one way or the other, it just doesn't matter.
On the other hand, if you think all that philosophy is about is crap like that, you need to educate yourself.
The Cogito is actually several types of fallacy all rolled into one. It is of historical interest, and it raises an interesting epistemological question, but it is not taught as a "right" thing, but instead as a historical curiosity.
A lot of things are taught in philosophy, but they are not taught as being true but as being dead ends, or wrong-headed thought, examples of mistakes that are given so as not to be repeated. I have no problem with Id being put in that category.
I can only assume you are a retard.
Physics, Biology, Mathematics, Chemistry...All these sciences were once branches of philosophy.
A good number of theologians have tried over the years to prove the existence of God using philosophical methods. They all failed. The very idea of a falsifiable claim is direct from philosophy.
Just because your idea of philosophy is something to talk about while you're smoking pot, doesn't mean that's all there is to it.
Heh. I always went to this coffee shop...Well, anyway, I agree. Home was never that free of distractions for me.
Both of them were theists, and unable to comprehend a worldview anything like we understand in modern times. Aristotle was also known for pulling answers out of his ass when he didn't actually know the answer...Upon being confronted with a fossilized fish skeleton, he informed his students that there were fish who could swim through the solid rocks below, and that this was one of their skeletons, which would have been fine if people hadn't still been quoting the answer 2000 years later.
I don't think either of them would have supported ID in its present form...For them it was clear, and everyone believed that the Gods had made everything. It was self-evident, and unchallenged. Much as most people view Evolution today.
As a former philosophy major, I ask that this be taught in Philosophy classes...new students always need clear examples of bad arguments.
But as for being taught seriously in Philosophy? You must be joking. The foundation of philosophy is logic, and true, provable argument, and the foundation of this "theory" is nothing more than wishful thinking and fantastical invention.
Well, even here in Georgia, they don't teach ID, so I suppose we're in agreement.
Still, I don't have any issue with is being some sort of elective. I just don't really think ID is a worthy subject. Either you can study religion, or you can study science, but when you try ad merge the two, all you get is a mess, less that either of its parts.
Sad but true.
You can talk to a christian who has faith and have a perfectly normal conversation. It's like talking to a gay guy...if you're not comfortable with your sexuality, its weird, but if you are, it's not. A christian who has solid faith is perfectly okay with saying, "I don't know" because they don't have to know. They don't have anything to prove.
But take someone who has no faith, and try and have a logical, rational discussion, and watch how fast they lose it. Because they have no faith, they need proof to shore up their belief, but since there is no proof, their arguments are weak and easily countered. They've built their whole lives on those "facts", so any attempt to reveal them as the figments they are is viewed as a personal attack, and responded to accordingly.
It's already got the amount of time it deserves in schools, though if they want to add another mythology course, far be it from me to object.
Tell 'em to call back when they can add some facts to their "theory", though theory is too robust a word to apply to such twaddle.
It's crap anyway. When I work at home, I'm not as productive as when I'm at the office. If I need to put in more than forty hours, I go back to the office on saturday.
Anything else, and I end up time sharing between working and fragging...One day I'd get teamspeak confused with my hands-free phone and call my boss a spawn camping n00b lamer, and that would be it.
I'll tell ya though, I hated being freelance. There was no "at work" and no "off work" there was just work, and everytime I sat in front of the computer it would reproach me.
Clarification: This only applies if the individuals in question are in the same chain of command. Most companies have rules like this as well, e.g. bosses aren't allowed to date people they supervise.
Really just makes sense.
Sure, because there is no difference in the complexity of the tasks performed by each. Right? Isn't that what you're saying?
I can only guess that you're being willfully ignorant. The difference is, people don't decide every few weeks to make the air conditioner do something different. It just moves hot air from a to b. An IT air conditioner would move hot air from points a1-a10000 to b1-b500 and c1-c500 and make muffins, and keep track of the air molecules, and make copies of itself to put in new buildings.
The thing is, it isn't IT that makes the job hard, it's business that makes the job hard. If the requirements upstairs never changed, we could make bullet-proof never-fail systems. But stuff changes all the time, and there is never enough time to deal with it all, and you have to do the best you can to keep on top of it, and when it all falls apart for whatever reason the people like you, who think its all air conditioners, start ranting and firing people and it gets even harder, until it all ends up in the toilet and you're stuck with a hopelessly obsolete system and faced with ridiculous upgrade costs and no skilled labor because you didn't get it the first time when someone told you that it was important.
That, if there is no way to tell who your source is, your source is worthless.
It's one thing to get an anonymous tip that says, "Such and such person is involved in such and such illegal activity and if you look in such and such a place you will find proof." This is information that can be backed up in the real world, and it is irrelevant who lets you know about it.
But you can't print factual information gathered from an anonymous source for the simple reason that the anonymous source might be some sort of whacko, and you'd end up looking like a moron.
Half the time the reporter already knows what they're looking for, because, whenever theres an issue, a dozen people will hint about it under the table, but until you get someone who is in a position to know to go on record and say it, all you get is the kind of crap Fox News spouts which is 50% innuendo and 50% sensationalism. That may be good enough for TV, but if print starts spouting crap like that, they end up as the National Enquirer.
The long an short of it is, if your reporter can't find out enough about the source to tell if the information is reliable enough to print, then they can't use the source anyway.
Typical response from someone who doesn't know.
The truth of it is very simple to grasp, if you bother to check. How long does it take to replace an ad rep? An accountant? A HR person? A facilities maintenance person? All those jobs require general skillsets that are applicable everywhere.
Now how long does it take to replace a DBA, who has to work with a database that is unique? How long does it take to replace a coder who has to maintain a critical system written by his predicessors, which is likewise unique? How long does it take to replace a tech whose job it was to maintain 200 odd machines from different upgrade cycles, which each have special issues and seperate repair histories? A network administrator dealing with a unique network?
If your AC breaks, and your facilities guys can't fix it, you can call in a tech from the company that made it, because your air conditioner is just like every other one they made.
But when everything is custom made and custom configured, and in big companies it ALL is, you're screwed. There is no one to call. There are people in my company whose retirement will force a multimillion dollar software/hardware upgrade because if they go, parts of the system become unmaintainable.
Don't kid yourself. Data is the heart and soul of every company these days. And the people who protect and maintain the data are critically important.
It's worth noting that it is nearly always legally actionable whenever someone utters/prints an untruth that relates to another person or organization in any sort of demi-public forum. Fraud, Libel, and Slander cover a hell of a lot of ground.
Like a lot of things in the constitution, your right to protected free speech ends when it starts hurting other people/organizations/multinational corporations etc.