Beliefs: how do they work?

[Malerin]

No.

All you have demonstrated here is that whatever the fundamental nature of reality is, it is indistinguishable from idealism.

Therefore materialism idealism is a correct assumption, for all rational purposes.

Fix that for ya.

 

[plumjam]

Let me be perfectly clear.

I thought you didn't believe in the efficacy of prayer.

 

[athon]

Malerin - simple request for you: define 'physical'.

Athon

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The monk in the picture was protesting S. Vietnam's treatment of Buddhists. I would say his faith was essential to what he did. Did any atheists protest the war in such a way?

That is the difference between rational thought and irrational thought, not the difference between theist and atheist per se. There are examples of irrationally thinking atheists. I don't think the methods of the Weather Underground, for example, were particularly effective in ending the Vietnam War. John Lennon, OTOH, with songs like "Imagine" was effective in motivating large numbers of young people to speak out against the war which did have an impact.

Then what was your point? You were asking CJ to lock himself in a room with no food and water. Presumably as a test of faith. History is replete with examples of people sacrificing themselves because they had faith in what they beleived in.

That includes examples of atheists who for causes they believed very strongly in, made personal sacrifices in other ways. Take Rachel Cory, for example. Whatever her god beliefs, it was her belief in an injustice being done that led her to sacrifice herself under an Israeli bulldozer.

 

[RandFan]

Likewise, the information you get from your senses when you look at your wife is consistent with countless competeing theories of reality (a vivid dream, an experience machine, a computer simulation, an actual person, etc.). Yet you continue to cling to the idea that your sensory evidence is proof your wife is an actual person (and proof of materialism, overall).

No. I don't "cling" to anything. A brain in a vat or an experience machine would still render the same results so who cares? I experience love and my wife seems real. I care and believe that she is real. However I don't really have a choice. Pretending that she isn't real won't solve anything. In fact it is irrational and would likely cause me a lot of heartache and headache.

....but you are the one who can't seem to question your core beliefs.

This is dishonest on your part because you already know that I've questioned my core beliefs. I'm fine with idealism. No clinging. No dogmatic beliefs. I'm just honest enough to admit that I can't beat the locked room test. You on the other hand, well, you are the one who can't question your core beliefs because if you did you would have to admit that your internal feelings or experiences aren't worth squat. You use cars and computers and the rest because you, like me, have no choice. God? Well, we have a choice about that and there is no evidence. Unlike my wife who I can see every day and pretending she isn't there won't make it true.

 

[RandFan]

Where do you think CJ claimed all possibilities are equal? Here?

It's the only way he can make his conclusions.

That's an appeal to belief in the most probable thing.

His argument is incoherent. Stating anything about "probable" is nonsense given that god is a distinct possibility based solely on an abuse of skepticism.

How we act, and whether something's true or not are often two different things.

Nonsense. Try acting like you don't need to eat for a month. It's a silly and absurd supposition that it's not real. You can navel gaze all you want but why bother trying to convince people who don't exist that your solipsism is real? Curl up in a ball and stop posting your crap if you truly believe it.

You are not fooling anyone.

 

[RandFan]

I thought you didn't believe in the efficacy of prayer.

? I don't think this follows from anything in my post.

In any event, I've already stated that it is demonstrable that prayer is as effective as belief in horse shoes and rabbits feet.

I believe in the evidence and that is a rational belief.

 

[paximperium]

That's an appeal to belief in the most probable thing.

Yes. Because that is the rational thing to do.

Anyway, it's true that all possibilities are equal,

Besides this being complete and utter garbage and downright absurd, yeah sure.

though I think idealism has a slight advantage.

Besides being completely and utterly wrong, yeah right.

No doubt you would ask me to test this by standing in the middle of a busy street, which would prove nothing other than that I have a phobia of standing in busy streets (or I could claim that I've done the test a hundred times and erased your memory of it each time).

Your "mind-wipe" excuse is the ultimate cop-out.

How we act, and whether something's true or not are often two different things.

No. It just shows your complete and utter hypocrisy and cowardice in testing out your so-called belief. You belief and make claims in things with no repercussions but act contrary to what would happen if materialism is true. Dishonesty and cowardice to the max.

Not surprising at all.

 

[RandFan]

Fix that for ya.

Even if we assume that is true it still won't prove god and it doesn't justify your beliefs based on your internal experiences which are as rational as the voices in the head of a schizophrenic. Arguing that we can't disprove idealism does nothing to prove that you can fly simply by flapping your arms.

 

[paximperium]

Even if we assume that is true it still won't prove god and it doesn't justify your beliefs based on your internal experiences which are as rational as the voices in the head of a schizophrenic. Arguing that we can't disprove idealism does nothing to prove that you can fly simply by flapping your arms.

As I've mentioned in the past. Malerin's position and arguments are one of ultimate dishonesty.

Like Creationists, he is unable to provide evidence or rational justification for their superstitious belief so he goes about attempting to tear down the opposing idea. Of course it does nothing to support his beliefs or claims, just an excuse to not have to provide any evidence. He just takes this strategy to the ultimately level by denying reality itself.

What I find most hypocritical is that none of these believers live their lives as if their claims are true, they just talk big and act as if the world was materialistic anyway.

PS: I always find it funny how solipcistic/idealistic/post-modernist believers use logic to support their illogical beliefs where if their claims are true, logic would not apply in their fantasies at all. More hypocrisy.

 

[PixyMisa]

Fix that for ya.

Fail.

We know that mind is a product of matter. The evidence that this is so is overwhelming.

Perhaps the fundamental nature of reality is something that could come under the label of idealism. It's certainly possible. But we can't ever know, because everything in the Universe is material. Everything we can observe is material.

So any form of idealism that could possibly be true is indistinguishable from materialism, and any form of idealism that is distinguishable from materialism is false.

 

[PixyMisa]

Anyway, it's true that all possibilities are equal, though I think idealism has a slight advantage. No doubt you would ask me to test this by standing in the middle of a busy street, which would prove nothing other than that I have a phobia of standing in busy streets (or I could claim that I've done the test a hundred times and erased your memory of it each time). How we act, and whether something's true or not are often two different things.

Again, you demolish your own argument.

You argue that idealism is true, while acting in all ways as though materialism were true.

Thus, by your own experience, even if some form of idealism is true, it is indistinguishable from materialism.

 

[cj.23]

Again, you demolish your own argument.

You argue that idealism is true, while acting in all ways as though materialism were true.

Thus, by your own experience, even if some form of idealism is true, it is indistinguishable from materialism.

And you can imagine the experiment. Therefore if materialism is true, it is indistinguishable from idealism?

I think the argument both ways here is flawed?

cj x

 

[cj.23]

As I've mentioned in the past. Malerin's position and arguments are one of ultimate dishonesty.

Like Creationists, he is unable to provide evidence or rational justification for their superstitious belief so he goes about attempting to tear down the opposing idea. Of course it does nothing to support his beliefs or claims, just an excuse to not have to provide any evidence. He just takes this strategy to the ultimately level by denying reality itself.

What I find most hypocritical is that none of these believers live their lives as if their claims are true, they just talk big and act as if the world was materialistic anyway.

PS: I always find it funny how solipcistic/idealistic/post-modernist believers use logic to support their illogical beliefs where if their claims are true, logic would not apply in their fantasies at all. More hypocrisy.

Hey isn't this just an attack on Malerin, not his position? A major ad hominem? Can't you rewrite it to make it less so?

And why would logic not apply in idealism? Logic is presupposed in most theistic belief systems after all - say Aquinan theology. The idealist universe would still have laws of physics for example?

cj x

 

[PixyMisa]

And you can imagine the experiment. Therefore if materialism is true, it is indistinguishable from idealism?

I think the argument both ways here is flawed?

Nope.

There are forms of idealism that are axiomatically equivalent to materialism (such as the idea that, since all we can know is not what matter is but what it does, there's no substance, just information).

And there are forms of idealism that are only equivalent because of special pleading. The idea that the fundamental existent is "mind", for example, explains neither our observations of the material Universe nor our observation of minds as they actually are. It merely adds a second, unncecessary, unfalsifiable layer of assumptions.

A lot of armchair philosophers like this form of idealism because, since it is so ill-defined, it allows for such things as parapsychological phenomena, reincarnation, various forms of deities and so on. In the end, though, it is equivalent to materialism because none of those things actually exist.

 

[PixyMisa]

Hey isn't this just an attack on Malerin, not his position?

No.

A major ad hominem?

No.

Can't you rewrite it to make it less so?

No, since it's not.

And why would logic not apply in idealism?

You tell us. We merely observe.

Logic is presupposed in most theistic belief systems after all - say Aquinan theology.

And then abandoned by the roadside when it becomes inconvenient.

The idealist universe would still have laws of physics for example?

Why would the idealist universe have a universe?

 

[plumjam]

? I don't think this follows from anything in my post.

In any event, I've already stated that it is demonstrable that prayer is as effective as belief in horse shoes and rabbits feet.

I believe in the evidence and that is a rational belief.

It was a joke.

 

[Dancing David]

I love talking about delusions, in a DSM IV medical kind of sense. What was the question?

cj x

I think that they point out some interesting aspects to beliefs, other than what I call opinions, stereotypes and conclusions (common beliefs like democrats are free spenders).

That along with memory tricks and damage is an interesting part of what makes for beliefs, not of the 'I believe that Newton’s law accurately describes the falling of an object in the earth's gravitational field.' sort of beliefs.

But the core biological basis what we perceive, have memories of and really believe to be reality.

People with delusions seem to have memories of events that did not happen, say they believe that they served in Europe in World War II, even though photographs, signatures, letters, companions and overwhelming amounts of evidence would indicate other wise. These beliefs are help firmly, confronting them has no effect on them, people may learn not to share them but they hold them to be true and valid experiences which they had.

Now this does lead to some interesting possibilities:

-that memory and experience are biological in nature and therefore subject to malfunctioning and spurious events. So perceptive events occur for the individual which are not related to actual events in the external world. Only in the brain.

-that somehow multiple realities exist and that a person may have a body but receives information from another reality (unlikely), but a correlate of the 'consciousness as TV signal' sort of theory.

And as intriguing as the second is the first seems more likely, in that in head trauma, memories are often confabulated, the person knows they were in the car but they believe they were headed to the store when they were heading home. (Beliefs countering evidence.)

Or in memory deficits such as dementia or Alzheimer’s, where consolidation of new memories do not occur, the individual has experiences that may no longer perceive as memories.

And this is where I think that the evidence for personhood as a biological process lies.

 

[Dancing David]

You talk as if no one has ever put their religious beliefs to the test:

http://burmasitmone.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/burningmonk.jpg

Um, so Thich Quang Duc (Thich Naht Hahn's mento) chose to imolate himslef as a way of publicizing the damage to Viet Nam perpetrated by the Viet Nam war (by Americans, Viet Cong and the French).

That is a social act, does it really say anything about the belief in the buddha as a transcendent being born of his mother mating a white elephant in a dream.

 

[Dancing David]

Thus, by your own experience, even if some form of idealism is true, it is indistinguishable from materialism.

But only materialists ever make a point of it!