Hawking says there are no gods

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There's a thought experiment called Buridan's Ass. In it a creature, a donkey in the classic version, exists that only operates on logic. It is incapable of acting emotionally, irrationally, or for no reason.

You take this creature and place it equally distant from two exactly equal and identical piles of hay.

Soon the creature starts to get hungry. It can easily see and smell the two piles of nearby food but, since they are exactly the same distance away and the two piles are identical, he cannot come up with a valid reason to choose either pile over the other and, being a creature incapable of acting irrationally, instead waste aways and dies of starvation within easy reach of two perfectly acceptable meals.

Tommy seems to think everyone who doesn't embrace his "Magic is real, everything everybody things is valid therefore I'm right and smarter than you" game is that, a Buridan's Ass.

That seems to be the goal of about 99.99% of street level philosophy; trying to corner the rationalist and skeptics into admitting there's some decision they can't make using (an incredible strawman version) of logic and reason.

It's just another longform anti-intellectualism creed from the Naval Gazing Cosplayer Society.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
The situations are different and there is no evidence for neither being right or wrong, because both cases are natural.
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Except that you behave as if those who do not accept your claims to expertise are wrong about that. Every time you begin a post with "You don't get that..." you pretend that they have not understood some aspect of your purported genius. This is practically your entire opus -- claiming that other people can't see what a brilliant mind you are.

You don't believe your own hype, and we'd appreciate you simply being honest about that fact.

You want one universal standard for evidence...
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No, I don't. And as it relates to your claims to expertise in philosophy, I've explained this countless times. You can't seem to comprehend plain English, which undermines your claim to be an expert philosopher.

All you want is this:
No, this is not a solution to every problem you are presented with, therefore it is not a solution at all.
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No, I have made no such claim.

Try to make an argument that doesn't involve making things up and pretending I've said them.
 
So in Tommy('s character) world view the only "wrong answer" is to suggest that Tommy is wrong about their being no wrong answers.
 
JoeMorgue said:
So in Tommy('s character) world view the only "wrong answer" is to suggest that Tommy is wrong about their being no wrong answers.
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There are wrong answers, the fun is to understand how the word "wrong" works. If in general abstract terms all words are about reality, what is "wrong" about? What is "wrong" as a real thing or process?
Explain that using logic, reason and evidence.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
There are wrong answers, the fun is to understand how the word "wrong" works. If in general abstract terms all words are about reality, what is "wrong" about? What is "wrong" as a real thing or process?
Explain that using logic, reason and evidence.
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In other words "Step right up and be Buridan's Ass."

No. You're as dishonest as what logic, reason, and evidence are as you are about everything else. I will not engage you just have my words twisted.
 
JoeMorgue said:
There's a thought experiment called Buridan's Ass. In it a creature, a donkey in the classic version, exists that only operates on logic. It is incapable of acting emotionally, irrationally, or for no reason.

You take this creature and place it equally distant from two exactly equal and identical piles of hay.

Soon the creature starts to get hungry. It can easily see and smell the two piles of nearby food but, since they are exactly the same distance away and the two piles are identical, he cannot come up with a valid reason to choose either pile over the other and, being a creature incapable of acting irrationally, instead waste aways and dies of starvation within easy reach of two perfectly acceptable meals.
Click to expand...

Some idiot intelligent designer forgot to add a random function, there.

Tommy seems to think everyone who doesn't embrace his "Magic is real, everything everybody things is valid therefore I'm right and smarter than you" game is that, a Buridan's Ass.

That seems to be the goal of about 99.99% of street level philosophy; trying to corner the rationalist and skeptics into admitting there's some decision they can't make using (an incredible strawman version) of logic and reason.

It's just another longform anti-intellectualism creed from the Naval Gazing Cosplayer Society.
Click to expand...

Ironically, anti-intellectualism is as far from actual philosophy as you can get.
 
JayUtah said:
Except that you behave as if those who do not accept your claims to expertise are wrong about that. Every time you begin a post with "You don't get that..." you pretend that they have not understood some aspect of your purported genius. This is practically your entire opus -- claiming that other people can't see what a brilliant mind you are. ...
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Well, "wrong" is an interesting word.
No human is actually physical wrong. "Wrong" is a stand-in for something in the evidence sense. I leave out "wrong" in the moral sense for latter.
It is wrong that you can do morality using science, because you are doing something else. It doesn't make you wrong, it just means that you don't do in practice, what you claim, you can do. That is, what wrong is in evidence terms in this example. Something else happens, than you claim would happen.

Now if someone claims to be able to do morality using science, I explain to them that they are not using observation. They are using a bias for and against something and something else. All humans do that, morality is natural and a result of biology. Both cheating and feeling cheating is not fair are natural, but only one of them becomes wrong when comparing them with a bias. That is the problem with comparing for good and bad. They are both biases.
You can rationally explain them using science, but you can't decide which is wrong using science because science is without bias, it is rational and uses observation in the testing.
SG's claim is with bias and without observation. Any standard for comparing different behavior as good or bad is a bias and is not based on observation.

For the rest of your post, the following applies. What the universe is in toto can't be done for all behavior and questions using science. Yet you(and Hawking) claimed something for the universe in toto, namely that there can't be a creator god.
That is your problem. You defend a position about the universe in toto. For all of the universe you can give a correct answer.
But no standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others.

Now of course, he didn't do that. Hawking said "think" and "accept" and that is not evidence. So, no, Hawking didn't give evidence nor proof. He took a metaphysical position and you in effect defend that metaphysical position of the universe in toto.

You are not alone in that position and what always happens is to the following effect, you treat your thinking as true. Theists have different thinking, which they treat as true. Both processes are wrong, because thinking can't decide that. Metaphysics is a form of thinking and not science.
 
Yet again Tommy using words in ways that nobody ever uses them does not make you clever.

Arguing that nobody can ever be wrong because "wrong" is a thing and nothing in the universe can be "wrong" because if its in the universe it's right isn't deep or clever. It's not even deepity. It's just gibberish.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Yet again Tommy using words in ways that nobody ever uses them does not make you clever.

Arguing that nobody can ever be wrong because "wrong" is a thing and nothing in the universe can be "wrong" because if its in the universe it's right isn't deep or clever. It's not even deepity. It's just gibberish.
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Yes, we test, if everything are things/hard facts and all words are about things/hard facts . So what is wrong as a real thing/hard fact? The same with unreal? :)

I am a thing and I am wrong is a thing/hard fact. So what is wrong?
 
JoeMorgue said:
Yet again Tommy using words in ways that nobody ever uses them does not make you clever.

Arguing that nobody can ever be wrong because "wrong" is a thing and nothing in the universe can be "wrong" because if its in the universe it's right isn't deep or clever. It's not even deepity. It's just gibberish.
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Yep. Knee-jerk deconstruction for the purpose of evasion/obfuscation. Hardly clever.
 
Tommy being rude, intentionally obtuse, dishonestly changing people's arguments, and acting condescending doesn't become okay because you put a cutesy-poo smiley face at the end of it.
 
JayUtah said:
That's as may be. But nothing you wrote addressed the points I made in the post you quoted Try again.
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Okay, falsification for differences in people's lives is in practice if they can live differently and all get away with it.
Atheist and theists can both do that. Now some(mainly theists) may kill others, but that is natural and so is harm.
You want a better world?
Start here:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
 
JayUtah said:
Well, you keep saying things like "You argue this..." or "You want that..." with respect to my argument, and I keep having to tell you that it's not what my argument is and not what my goal is. If I'm constantly correcting you in this fashion, does this count as you being wrong?
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Your goal is to show that I don't live up to the standard of "we". I get that. My point is that I use a different standard for, what the universe is than you.
Your set is a certain set of axioms as useful for a we. I point out there are other sets of axioms as useful for other humans. You point out I can't do that, because I claim a certain set must be useful for all. I don't: I claim there are different sets of axioms as useful for different humans.

It is wrong that there is only one set of axioms as useful for all humans, because we can't observe that in effect. We observe limited cognitive relativism.
 
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Belz... said:
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Yes they are, all the time. Take yourself for instance (please). You're participating in some sort of internet wrongness olympics, and winning handily.
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Yet I am still here and though different than you, we are both humans. How come we can be in contact, I am not dead and so on?
What does it do to me to be wrong? Are you going to diagnose me now? What is your degree?

You are not wrong. You are different that me. If you experience that you are wrong, then that is a result of your thinking. There is nothing wrong with that. But some other humans do it differently than how you use the word "wrong".
 
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