Panderos wrote:Thommo I think there is a misunderstanding here centering on what I mean by this % accuracy.

Definitely, and I'm sure it's on my part as well. I wanted to know what you had in mind with "100% accurate" and how you felt it was involved, I clearly haven't put my enquiry in the plainest way.

Panderos wrote:

Thommo wrote:You put a lot of weight on this idea of "100% accurate" models, but it's impossible to see what that even means. What does it mean to ask "Is 100% accuracy the best survival strategy?" if 100% accuracy isn't a survival strategy at all?

It means when building mental models, are we concerned only with accuracy - lets define that as predictive capacity if you like - or has selection resulted in us choosing which models we take to be true based on some other criteria as well. The % refers to the importance of these different considerations, it is not a measure of the model as compared to the true reality.

Ok, in some sense I think that answers my question. One of the obstacles answering your question is going to be how would you know whether some propensity was down to selection as opposed to drift in the first place? An additional difficulty might be that selection doesn't operate on beliefs either (we aren't born with them), we're born with sort of heuristic structures for acquiring beliefs - so even if our heuristics are preferred purely based on accuracy we'd still expect a proportion of false belief.

It's certainly hard for me to see how anything that favours inaccuracy over accuracy could ever be selectively beneficial. The normal examples of right beliefs for wrong reasons don't really apply to heuristics - that's more of a memetic response than a genetic one.

Thommo wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:Bookmarking. I might watch this later or tomorrow. Someone remind me. You're all just here to do my bidding.

Good morning Jennifer, this is the front desk. You requested a wake up call at this time. *beep*.

You posted that at 1am my time. What sort of service is this?

Okay, I watched it. It just looks like Lewis's Argument from Reason stripped of its meat and with a bit of Plantinga and Islam tacked on as salad. And stop conflating atheism with narrow naturalism or materialism, dicks.

That showed 'em.

Spearthrower wrote: Because, as you've now repetitively smeared firmly established dozens of times, I have rational reasons for disliking the raging horn for Islamism. Unlike you some?!.

If that is what you think I've done, well all I can say was this was not or ever my intent.

Anything else I say on this will I'm sure only open old wounds.

Peter Brown wrote:

Spearthrower wrote: Because, as you've now repetitively smeared firmly established dozens of times, I have rational reasons for disliking the raging horn for Islamism. Unlike you some?!.

If that is what you think I've done, well all I can say was this was not or ever my intent.

Well, considering you've said exactly that half a dozen times, if it wasn't your intent, you need to get some more control over what you're saying to people.

Peter Brown wrote:Anything else I say on this will I'm sure only open old wounds.

Oh you really need not worry, Peter. Accusations can only hurt when they're true.

I haven't read everyone's posts yet, but this part of this one from spearthrower caught me up:

You can actually justify the existence of a rational universe in the absence of god. You do it by imagining an infinity of universes, many of which fail to be ordered (whatever definition you choose to take for that), and some which are ordered. We live in an ordered one. Were this one not an ordered one, we wouldn't be alive to contemplate this.

A buzzer should be set to go off when people who are otherwise being logical say things like this.

I would myself submit, that the thought that that which is, has to be "justified," is dangerous to the kind of rational reasoning the author seems to support elsewhere. The universe we have, can be noodled through to exist AS it is, because of a series of mechanical occurrences. Not because it's "better" than other possibilities, in any moral sense.

Watch out for using the terminology of your opponents: they established that terminology for the express purpose of rigging the discussion in their favor.

As for this latest silly online video of people confidently claiming to prove something about religion versus non-religion, it fails withing the first seconds, with the declaration that acceptance of a "natural" world, requires the denial of the mind as an observer of that world. It's not a non-sequitur, it's a self-contradictory statement. No point in continuing to watch or listen to anything after a statement as obviously false as that.

[quote="Spearthrower";p="2265467"]
Well, considering you've said exactly that half a dozen times, if it wasn't your intent, you need to get some more control over what you're saying to people.
quote]

that is one popular and Christian (st Paul) way of looking at it, but I came to choice a long time ago that it doesn't really work as sometime people just hear (or read) what the want to so you can't ever please them.

If that is true I thought why waste my time trying to please them, why not if I am the same and I can't be pleased by what they do all the time, why not change the St Paul meme and try not to be offended when possible?

I find its a lot easier.

Spinozasgalt wrote:

Thommo wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:Bookmarking. I might watch this later or tomorrow. Someone remind me. You're all just here to do my bidding.

Good morning Jennifer, this is the front desk. You requested a wake up call at this time. *beep*.

You posted that at 1am my time. What sort of service is this?

Karmic.

igorfrankensteen wrote:I haven't read everyone's posts yet, but this part of this one from spearthrower caught me up:

You can actually justify the existence of a rational universe in the absence of god. You do it by imagining an infinity of universes, many of which fail to be ordered (whatever definition you choose to take for that), and some which are ordered. We live in an ordered one. Were this one not an ordered one, we wouldn't be alive to contemplate this.

A buzzer should be set to go off when people who are otherwise being logical say things like this.

I would myself submit, that the thought that that which is, has to be "justified," is dangerous to the kind of rational reasoning the author seems to support elsewhere.

Clearly, you didn't even read the post you're replying to igor... you know? The bit where I said....

Spearthrower wrote:Firstly, the sentence is problematic: what exactly is meant by 'justify'? I don't need to justify that which manifestly exists. I will need to assume that they mean 'justify the existence of'.

Which rather makes the rest of your contentions redundant.

igorfrankensteen wrote:The universe we have, can be noodled through to exist AS it is, because of a series of mechanical occurrences. Not because it's "better" than other possibilities, in any moral sense.

Can you show me where I was talking about 'better' in a moral sense?

For some reason, you also seem to have overlooked me defining this clearly too:

Spearthrower wrote:one which reasonably correctly models the external world - it corresponds well with observable external reality.

igorfrankensteen wrote: Watch out for using the terminology of your opponents: they established that terminology for the express purpose of rigging the discussion in their favor.

A better tip would be to pay attention to what people are actually saying rather than getting entirely the wrong end of the stick even when they've taken time to clarify their operating definitions.

Peter Brown wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Well, considering you've said exactly that half a dozen times, if it wasn't your intent, you need to get some more control over what you're saying to people.

that is one popular and Christian (st Paul) way of looking at it, but I came to choice a long time ago that it doesn't really work as sometime people just hear (or read) what the want to so you can't ever please them.

It would be wonderful if you could recognise that in yourself too. It's always easy to see other people's flaws, but it's the rare person who can see their own. Thus, rational skepticism.

Peter Brown wrote:If that is true I thought why waste my time trying to please them, why not if I am the same and I can't be pleased by what they do all the time, why not change the St Paul meme and try not to be offended when possible?

I find its a lot easier.

You could easily please me Peter. You could acknowledge the simple fact that collectivizing guilt onto a manufactured group is morally wrong.

Spearthrower wrote:

igorfrankensteen wrote:I haven't read everyone's posts yet, but this part of this one from spearthrower caught me up:

You can actually justify the existence of a rational universe in the absence of god. You do it by imagining an infinity of universes, many of which fail to be ordered (whatever definition you choose to take for that), and some which are ordered. We live in an ordered one. Were this one not an ordered one, we wouldn't be alive to contemplate this.

A buzzer should be set to go off when people who are otherwise being logical say things like this.

I would myself submit, that the thought that that which is, has to be "justified," is dangerous to the kind of rational reasoning the author seems to support elsewhere.

Clearly, you didn't even read the post you're replying to igor... you know? The bit where I said....

Spearthrower wrote:Firstly, the sentence is problematic: what exactly is meant by 'justify'? I don't need to justify that which manifestly exists. I will need to assume that they mean 'justify the existence of'.

Which rather makes the rest of your contentions redundant.

igorfrankensteen wrote:The universe we have, can be noodled through to exist AS it is, because of a series of mechanical occurrences. Not because it's "better" than other possibilities, in any moral sense.

Can you show me where I was talking about 'better' in a moral sense?

For some reason, you also seem to have overlooked me defining this clearly too:

Spearthrower wrote:one which reasonably correctly models the external world - it corresponds well with observable external reality.

igorfrankensteen wrote: Watch out for using the terminology of your opponents: they established that terminology for the express purpose of rigging the discussion in their favor.

A better tip would be to pay attention to what people are actually saying rather than getting entirely the wrong end of the stick even when they've taken time to clarify their operating definitions.

Okay. So you are incapable of recognizing that you misspoke, and went against your own standards, even when someone carefully points it out to you?

Fine. I tried.

igorfrankensteen wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

igorfrankensteen wrote:I haven't read everyone's posts yet, but this part of this one from spearthrower caught me up:

You can actually justify the existence of a rational universe in the absence of god. You do it by imagining an infinity of universes, many of which fail to be ordered (whatever definition you choose to take for that), and some which are ordered. We live in an ordered one. Were this one not an ordered one, we wouldn't be alive to contemplate this.

A buzzer should be set to go off when people who are otherwise being logical say things like this.

I would myself submit, that the thought that that which is, has to be "justified," is dangerous to the kind of rational reasoning the author seems to support elsewhere.

Clearly, you didn't even read the post you're replying to igor... you know? The bit where I said....

Spearthrower wrote:Firstly, the sentence is problematic: what exactly is meant by 'justify'? I don't need to justify that which manifestly exists. I will need to assume that they mean 'justify the existence of'.

Which rather makes the rest of your contentions redundant.

igorfrankensteen wrote:The universe we have, can be noodled through to exist AS it is, because of a series of mechanical occurrences. Not because it's "better" than other possibilities, in any moral sense.

Can you show me where I was talking about 'better' in a moral sense?

For some reason, you also seem to have overlooked me defining this clearly too:

Spearthrower wrote:one which reasonably correctly models the external world - it corresponds well with observable external reality.

igorfrankensteen wrote: Watch out for using the terminology of your opponents: they established that terminology for the express purpose of rigging the discussion in their favor.

A better tip would be to pay attention to what people are actually saying rather than getting entirely the wrong end of the stick even when they've taken time to clarify their operating definitions.

Okay. So you are incapable of recognizing that you misspoke, and went against your own standards, even when someone carefully points it out to you?

Fine. I tried.

No, Igor.

I am not incapable of that - I admit to my mistakes all the time. I just finished writing a post where I admitted how I'd made a mistake and then came to read this one.

The fact is that you completely misunderstood what I wrote. I showed that you misunderstood what I wrote in the above post you quoted in full. You misunderstood, posited stuff that wasn't there, and then got on your lecturing box. You were mistaken. You can admit it too, you know? No one's going to judge you for being mistaken - we all make mistakes at times.

You could easily please me Peter. You could acknowledge the simple fact that collectivizing guilt onto a manufactured group is morally wrong.

in principle I can acknowledge that can be morally and ethically wrong

But I'd still close down all the mosques down though if it was my only choice to get rid of terrorism, just like I won't attack Israeli soldiers who return fire and say Hamas hide behind innocent children when Hamas fire rockets into Israel. Life is just the way it is, and that is how Hamas operates, and the peaceful citizens of Gaza voted Hamas into regional power so do they bear some associated guilt in this chain of events?

I'd also say why am I even having to reply to a issue about mosques, here, in a topic that has Hamza talking his usual bollocks aimed at atheists because PZ & LK ripped him a new one???

Peter Brown wrote:

You could easily please me Peter. You could acknowledge the simple fact that collectivizing guilt onto a manufactured group is morally wrong.

in principle I can acknowledge that can be morally and ethically wrong

But I'd still close down all the mosques down though if it was my only choice to get rid of terrorism,..

Not only is it not your only choice, it's not even a choice that would make any sense. It would require an underlying 'logic' that all Muslims are to blame for terrorism.

Peter Brown wrote:just like I won't attack Israeli soldiers who return fire and say Hamas hide behind innocent children when Hamas fire rockets into Israel.

As this is the 2nd time you've made this apparently unrelated point today, do you think that this is what *always* happens, Peter? Do you think that the treatment of Palestinians by Israel is justified because Hamas hides behind innocent children while Hama fire rockets into Israel? Do you think that's a fair and balanced assessment of the conflict in Palestine? That Palestinians are the ones conducting the violence and that Israel is unfairly being criticised by the rest of the civilized world over their treatment of Palestinians?

If the Palestinians weren't Muslims, do you think you might perceive a different tug of empathy, say, for the innocent victims who are being treated like subhumans, having their lands stolen, their people killed, their freedoms abrogated?

If you were under such a system, Peter - would you roll over and capitulate?

Peter Brown wrote:Life is just the way it is, and that is how Hamas operates,...

This is phrased in quite an explicit way saying that this is a) a fact b) always true - I don't think you can support either of those. It's another one of those sound-bites you hear in certain segments of the internet.

Peter Brown wrote:...and the peaceful citizens of Gaza voted Hamas into regional power so do they bear some associated guilt in this chain of events?

So they should've voted for someone with a platform of appeasement with their oppressors? Thus, it's their own fault when their children die disproportionately to Israeli children in these conflicts?

Peter Brown wrote:I'd also say why am I even having to reply to a issue about mosques, here, in a topic that has Hamza talking his usual bollocks aimed at atheists because PZ & LK ripped him a new one???

I don't even understand what you're talking about again. What has Hamza got to do with this topic? What does PZ and LK (don't even know who that is) have to do with this topic?

I might be wrong, but it looks like you're once again engaging in what you think is sophisticated insinuation, but which actually just leaves everyone mystified.

Not only is it not your only choice, it's not even a choice that would make any sense. It would require an underlying 'logic' that all Muslims are to blame for terrorism.

Yes, no or undecided

if you can not understand my other comment how can you judge if they are relevant to even make a comment?

Peter Brown wrote:

Not only is it not your only choice, it's not even a choice that would make any sense. It would require an underlying 'logic' that all Muslims are to blame for terrorism.

Yes, no or undecided

if you can not understand my other comment how can you judge if they are relevant to even make a comment?

That's a non-sequitur, Peter.

I know people have thrown that out at you many times, so maybe we should clarify together what it means.

non-sequitur (noun)

a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.


Firstly, what 'other' comment? You make lots of comments. Which one?

Secondly, I am not judging whether your other comments are relevant, I am explaining to you that closing down *all* Mosques, because of the activities of a few, would not solve any problems at all. If anything, it would dramatically exasperate problems, telling the perfectly innocent citizens of our country who just happen to be Muslim, that their religious beliefs are suspect, criminal, and forbidden in our nation. Given that other places of worship would not similarly be closed down, this would very strongly support the notion that they are being discriminated against unfairly. No one likes to be discriminated against, and I presume they'd be angry and it would convince some of them that the society they live in hates them.

See Aarhus Model - which I've posted several time - to see why that is a very stupid and self-defeating idea, and that we have a far better chance of ending extremism by being inclusive and tolerant of those Muslims (the majority) who are just normal people living their lives.

Aarhus vs Allah, a battle royal of memes: I wonder who wins that epic

Peter Brown wrote:Aarhus vs Allah, a battle royal of memes: I wonder who wins that epic

Well, the best place to start it by appreciating that it's not a battle. You don't win, you don't aim to defeat, you don't try to overpower. Even though the actual number of European Muslims becoming violent extremists is absurdly low - even with the recent rise of ISIL - having someone born and raised on our own country be so disconnected from our society to find joining extremist thugs preferable also indicates a failing in our own society.

Some may want to just pass all the blame off onto johnny foreigner and his queer ways, revising history to paint our own actions in a golden glow holding back the hordes of darkness, but aside from being warped and nonsensical, it just doesn't measure up to the supposedly desired task of stamping out extremism.

There's only so much we can do about countries whose population positively wants to live under absurd theocratic restrictions on their freedoms - it would be ironic (but not entirely out of character for some) to think that we could set them free of their freedom. We can educate, we can push for reforms, we can provide true freedom and liberty in our own countries for all citizens to lead by example.

There's only so much we can do about violent extremism abroad - there's rarely the political will to put boots on the ground and watch body-bags come home from foreign soils. We can work with other nations - Muslim ones for example - and use economic and other influences to help limit the extremists ability to wreak havoc and hope to wear them down, degrade their capacity, and allow them to be toppled by interested parties in the vicinity.

But there is something we can do at home, and that isn't to ostracize our fellow and equal citizens who just happen to be Muslim, but to ensure they feel part of the nation they live in, connected to society, with commensurate political influence, with sufficient liberties to practice their beliefs, and to be treated as equals with the same compassion we would extend to other, less foreign members of our society.

The chicken-little fear-mongering that we're being overrun, that our rights and laws are being eroded, that we live in danger from people who can't be trusted and would stab us in our sleep - these are all stories we've heard so many, many times to justify mistreatment of a sub-group of society. Over and over, when irrational hatred wins out, and people start painting the manufactured 'other' as the criminals, as depraved, as lacking in essential human traits, truly vile shit begins to happen. And that's the sad fact: history - recent history - shows that it doesn't take being Muslim to enact horrifying repression and violence on others - it just takes a schtick.

Spearthrower wrote:

You can't trust your mind

: non-sequitur.

I can trust my hands to hold onto things, my penis to extrude urine or rise to certain occasions, my hair to grow - so why can't I trust my mind?

Evolution has shaped these organs to deal with a real physical world. The order of that physical world is learned by the brain via observation and experience and by anatomy and physiology via evolution.

You can't justify a rational mind, you can't justify a rational universe in absence of a god.

Non-sequitur, circular reasoning, special pleading.

Firstly, the sentence is problematic: what exactly is meant by 'justify'? I don't need to justify that which manifestly exists. I will need to assume that they mean 'justify the existence of'.

1) You can easily justify the existence of a rational mind in the absence of god - it's one which reasonably correctly models the external world - it corresponds well with observable external reality. Traits which allow an organism to best navigate the external world through to reproduction can preferentially benefit those minds which best represent or model the external order of the world around them, and these traits can be heritable. Irrational beings, ones which modeled the external incorrectly, would be (far) less likely to survive than ones which can.

Also, how is it that God gets free pass on this? If God is a rational mind, how is its existence justified by the same rules? God cannot be a god to God. Whence cometh God?

2) You can actually justify the existence of a rational universe in the absence of god. You do it by imagining an infinity of universes, many of which fail to be ordered (whatever definition you choose to take for that), and some which are ordered. We live in an ordered one. Were this one not an ordered one, we wouldn't be alive to contemplate this.

More significantly, if the universe were the product of personal being with wants, needs, desires, hopes, plans, expectations, dislikes, and assorted other personal characteristics, then the universe would not necessarily be orderly - its morphology could be whatever God wanted it to be. If God were real and It created our universe, then God could have created it diametrically opposite in every way and you would still be obliged to call it 'orderly' if you could exist within it. Ergo, your god contention has no merit and is self-defeating.

I could explain how we don't posit unnecessary entities, but given the demolition of the contention above, that would itself be unnecessary. In fact, Muslims very nearly understand this notion - they have it written into their most sacred utterance: there is no God, but Allah!

3) Why are modern evangelizing Muslims using Christian apologetics?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Pla ... naturalism

In Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism, he argues that the truth of evolution is an epistemic defeater for naturalism (i.e. if evolution is true, it undermines naturalism). His basic argument is that if evolution and naturalism are both true, human cognitive faculties evolved to produce beliefs that have survival value (maximizing one's success at the four F's: "feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing"), not necessarily to produce beliefs that are true. Thus, since human cognitive faculties are tuned to survival rather than truth in the naturalism-evolution model, there is reason to doubt the veracity of the products of those same faculties, including naturalism and evolution themselves. On the other hand, if God created man "in his image" by way of an evolutionary process (or any other means), then Plantinga argues our faculties would probably be reliable.

My question for these chaps is: if you were convinced by Plantinga's argument, why are you not now Christians?

Talking about penises... did you know, your 'old man' is rifled. A neat little evolutionary wassname that prevents urine spashing back and burning your skin. Neat eh. Why it fails when stood at a urinal on a Saturday night, fails me. More research required?