Fair enough. I suppose it is. I wasn't, however, intending to say that it was my position. Just that it was reasonable to take the position that a position that makes one happy has intrinsic value.
I'll agree that it's reasonable to say that it has intrinsic value, when used for some purposes. For the purposes that I'm fairly sure that I cited, no. We can move on from there, though, since we appear to be in agreement.
Me too, although it would seem I overreacted to yours.
This might be better placed if you actually had pointed out where any of my arguments actually were in error.
With no disrespect intended, this sentence is one of the most indigestible I've ever seen, to the point of being humorous.
My apologies. I can certainly attempt to remember to speak more simply when discussing with you, even if it may less accurately communicate the concepts in some situations.
Yes, I suppose that mathematical proofs have the advantage of being supportable by empirical evidence, and the greatest indicator of truth is to have both logical proofs AND evidence. Furthermore, the assumptions upon which mathematical proofs are based have the apparent advantage of arising from common sense (A=A, for example). So it isn't reasonable to suggest that logical arguments against the extinction theory have the same quality as those of mathematical proofs.
More reasons could likely be presented, but we can say that we're agreed on this point.
However, it is reasonable to suggest that they have some weight.
Why? All the arguments for an afterlife that I've seen have rested on logical fallacies or are simply unsupported and unfalsifiable. Often, they rest on phenomena that are already quite explainable without needing to invoke an afterlife at all. This, of course, is not the same as saying that there is no afterlife, just that I've seen no logically valid reason to assign any weight to the arguments that I've seen for an afterlife.
The most parsimonious position is the one with the least assumptions.
Not really. A better way to say it is that the most parsimonious position is the one that fully explains the phenomena in question with the fewest assumptions.
That would appear to me to be the position that what happens when we die is unknowable.
This doesn't explain anything, thus, it's not particularly qualified to count as parsimonious.
It is a reasonable requirement for excluding as impossible all positions except ones own.
I'm afraid that I don't actually see any reasonable position that this could be indicating, much less a valid response to the quoted statement right before it. Thus, I'm concluding that it was just a poor attempt at a cheap shot. Shall we just leave it in the past as pointless?
Before iaca goes on another rant at me with that solipsism accusation, perhaps you'd be so kind as to explain why what I say seems to imply that I hold that position. I have trouble extracting his POV from all the "useless boring retard" stuff.
Alright. In particular, this passage is rather indicative of solipsism-like thinking.
If the mind is capable of substituting a fantasy and making it into a memory, then one could logically ask if all experiences were a fantasy. If experience is potentially unreal, then all data derived by observation and experience are potentially invalid. If such data are possibly invalid, a null hypothesis that relies on them isn't as strong as one that doesn't.
So for the present I'm sticking with the idea that what happens to us when we die is unknowable.
Basically, you invoked concepts that solipsism is based on, then followed that up with stating that you are sticking with your position, heavily implying, at the least, that it's because of those concepts.
