It’s time for the regular Monday message board, where you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. I’m still planning a May Day post on labour issues, but I’d be interested in your thoughts. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.
60 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”
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John Quiggin 
That’s the reader’s digest non-rigorous version of the ontological argument, with lots of flaws. As to the real thing, I cannot say that it is correct but that it is irrefutable. That is, unfalsifiable in its own terms. It shows a basic lack of common ground between theology and science as understood by Popper.
Why isn’t it the same thing – feeding a machine ‘nothing’ and not feeding the machine anything? I think these two are the same thing. Also ‘nothing; cannot be fed into a machine, you cannot manipulate nothing. And I still believe that the ‘non-existence’ (damn the english language) of ‘nothing’ is unfalsifiable on it’s own terms. Merely thinking about ‘nothing’ refutes it.
So I would say:
“I think, therefore I am”.
“I think therefore everything am (many sics).”
“Everything that ‘is’ is manipulable”
“I think therefore ‘nothing’ is a concept that is unmanipulable.”
“‘Nothing’ is unmanipulable therefore ‘nothing’ is logically irrelevant.”
“If it is logically irrelevant my statement is a tautology.”
“If my statement is a tautology and I am an idiot then I will attempt to use it to take over the world.”
“When my rule leads to my death I will no longer exist”
“If I don’t exist then ‘nothing’ isn’t unmanipulable”
“Therefore my statement isn’t a tautology”
“If it isn’t a tautology how can I use it to take over the world?”
“If I can’t use it to take over the world then how did I ever die”
“Therfore If I am an idiot I am immortal”
And my teachers always said I wouldn’t ammount to anything. Well If I ammount then logically I can’t be ‘nothing’. And if I am immortal then immortal is a perfection. Therefore I am god.
***urgent annoucement, please put benno philosophically out of his misery.***
now for a readers brain tumor description.
1) God is the entity than which no greater entity can be conceived.
(not proven a priori by prior statements)
2) The concept of God exists in human understanding.
(Not in my understanding)
3) God does not exist in reality (assumed in order to refute).
(How can both 1. and 3. be taken to be true at the same time?)
4) The concept of God existing in reality exists in human understanding.
(Not in my understanding)
5) If an entity exists in reality and in human understanding, this entity is greater than it would have been if it existed only in human understanding (a statement of existence as a perfection).
(Not proven a priori by prior statements)
6) from 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 An entity can be conceived which is greater than God, the entity than which no greater entity can be conceived (logical self-contradiction).
(Nothing can be concieved from statements 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 because they aren’t proven a priori by prior statements)
7) Assumption 3 is wrong, therefore God exists in reality (assuming 1, 2, 4, and 5 are accepted as true).
(One of them did have to go, but taking out either one still leaves us with a pile of logical crap)
Therefore this god statment falls into idiotic god statement type 1. God exists therefore he exists.
Pure faith, as I said the gutter of eternal faith where it belongs. Believing in God is logically the equivilant of beliecing that your footy team is the best. Not verfiable, not provable ontologically. That would be a good title for a book ‘The gutter of faith”
Therefore it is not irrefutable on it’s own terms or any terms. Therefore this ontological argument is not an ontological argument. A paradox a paradox…. But I have still managed to prove that I am god. So a double paradox.
Anyway completely changing the topic. Does anyone know what the psychological basis of religion is?
**Increase your post size by up to 3 inches with the fully organic ontological argument**
The machines, evidently, are not actual physical machines of a sort with which we are familiar (given that it’s possible to feed anything into them, including my aforementioned bank account, the pixies in the bottom of my garden, and beauty). Hence, it might be possible that feeding nothing into them is different from not feeding anything into them—but it might not be. On this point I’m not certain.
No, because your statement relies on passing suicide into the machine.
I mean, if we have a statement ‘nothing is either about control, or something’, then that statement is not true. Nothing is neither about control, nor is it something. By definition. So if suicide is nothing, your statement isn’t a tautology either. Though in the general case ‘foo is about bar or something’ (replacing ‘foo’ and ‘bar’ with anything) is a tautology, because the rules say we can’t put nothing into them 😉
(Looks like I needed some of your fully organic ontological argument, Benno. Have you got a link? 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument
this is where I pulled the argument from. As for all of my stuff, I make policy on the run mark latham style and use only a small amount of previously thought out material.
In this the starting point was my observation that young people today aren’t sure of themselves and feel as if they need to feign apathy all of the time otherwise people will think that they have something to loose and bash them in the street. So they often end statements in a heistant manner, like they are asking a question and then tack ‘, or something’ at the end. And if you think I am speaking from experience you can go and get **********.
Given that I am insane I am willing to concede that you have won the argument by default. That’s not to say that it couldn’t have been won on merit though. But does anyone have an answer to my question “what is the psychological basis of religion?”
Except for this once, I think I’m a prototypical example of your young person who tacks ‘or something’ at the end.
I hate winning arguments by default 😦 But you’re insane too? Have you learnt of my brilliant plan to take over the world? I don’t suppose it’s really private when you have a webpage all about it. (I’d always wanted a webpage that was a ‘waste’ of a domain … so I made one. And I honestly believe everything I’ve written there 😉
Unfortunately, the psychological basis of religion (see the Naked Ape series) doesn’t disprove religion. A benevolent god would have made man predisposed to worship. Another example of unfalsifiability, of course.
I know that any psychological basis of religion if it existed wouldn’t disprove anything. What it would do though is make it legitimate to make fun of religious people and in extreme cases send them to gaol. Much like they sent people to gaol themselves for their science such as ‘the earth is spherical’ and not the centre of the universe.
They could of course plead “It wasn’t me your honour it was my genes!”
Actually I’m not quite sure if I am insane, just a little confused. Or a lot confused, but at least I admit it. If you are interested in someone else who is insane you should take a trip to http://www.theworldofthingshappening.blogspot.com and then email random stuff to myisaac@gmail.com and see what you get. He isn’t really insane but is after some who is. Happy hunting.
P.S. **You would have to be insane to use emoticons**
Emoticons are ligitimate forms of punctuation, at least when they aren’t converted into graphics. (I have no idea why anyone would want to do that, but it’s a different matter entirely.)
A very insane site, btw, is http://www.timecube.com/