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Is atheism a threat to humanity?

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Unnecessarily overcomplicating things with vague and ambiguous statements, AGAIN.

The ONLY thing I said, is that science informs us on the consequences of actions and events.
The ONLY reason that the trolley problem is a thing, is because we understand what the consequence is of being run over by a trolley.

If you don't have the knowledge / understanding of what the consequence is of being run over by a trolley, then there is no recognized ethical trolley problem.

That is ALL I said.
Please learn to respond to what I actually say.

Take it up with @Satans_Serrated_Edge

I am connecting the dots. Do you know that all knowledge is scientific? If, yes, both for knowing that and knowing how? What ever you know regarding this, what do you know and how do you do it?
What is knowledge for these 2 factors? Is all that you do knowledge as scientific as for these 2 factors? Or do you know differently?
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member

No, I'm talking to you. When you respond to me, you should respond to what *I* say.
I don't speak for @Satans_Serrated_Edge nore does (s)he speak for me.

I am connecting the dots
Not my dots, yet you are replying to me.

Do you know that all knowledge is scientific?

Scientific knowledge is scientific. Not all knowledge is scientific knowledge.
I never said otherwise.


If, yes, both for knowing that and knowing how? What ever you know regarding this, what do you know and how do you do it?
What is knowledge for these 2 factors? Is all that you do knowledge as scientific as for these 2 factors? Or do you know differently?

Since these questions are follow ups of basicly a strawman, I feel no need to engage them.

I can only repeat myself: when you respond to MY posts, respond to what I actually wrote. Not to what you imagine me to write, nore what others have written.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
No, I'm talking to you. When you respond to me, you should respond to what *I* say.
I don't speak for @Satans_Serrated_Edge nore does (s)he speak for me.


Not my dots, yet you are replying to me.



Scientific knowledge is scientific. Not all knowledge is scientific knowledge.
I never said otherwise.




Since these questions are follow ups of basicly a strawman, I feel no need to engage them.

I can only repeat myself: when you respond to MY posts, respond to what I actually wrote. Not to what you imagine me to write, nore what others have written.

May I use your posts as a reference within this thread? Do I need your okay for that? I know if I want to use it in another thread, I have to ask. Is it the same here?
 
I know my conscience god directly. It is evidence that I have one, evidence I can interpret and draw reliable conclusions from. From prior experience, I know the consequences of obeying and disobeying my conscience god. Applying reason to evidence, I determine how I should behave in order to reap the reward of knowing I did the right thing and avoid the punishment of guilt and shame that my god conscience will surely dole out if I do the wrong thing.

Having those experiences, having them be reproducible and predictable, generalizing from them to generate a rule that will help anticipate and control outcomes - that's all informal science, because it's the same process done in a laboratory to generate a useful induction about physical reality, only here I am determining my personal reality so that I can navigate life as painlessly as possible, including my inner life.

Wouldn't this mean that personal experiences of god were also science?

Once we start describing personal, subjective experiences as science we are really losing the plot
 
You can't do morality properly without science, as science informs you on the consequences of your actions

Do you think it is useful to redefine science in a manner that means that animals also do science?

For example, most people would not find the following meaningful:

What are you up to?
Just watching my cat do a scientific experiment.
Don't be silly.
It's true! He just took a crap in his tray!

AdmiredAlarmedHalicore-size_restricted.gif
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Do you think it is useful to redefine science in a manner that means that animals also do science?

We're talking about humans.
The more you know about the world, the better "armed" you are in moral evaluations.

Through science, we learn about the world.
This allows for better and more informed decision making.

If you know / understand nothing about the world, and thus don't understand the consequences of your actions, then that is going to affect your moral judgements.

So in that sense, science contributes a great deal to moral judgements.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
May I use your posts as a reference within this thread? Do I need your okay for that? I know if I want to use it in another thread, I have to ask. Is it the same here?

I don't care either way, as long as you don't misrepresent me or my opinions / beliefs / writings.
But I must say that so far, you don't really do a good job in accurately representing me.

It's one strawman after the other.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I don't care either way, as long as you don't misrepresent me or my opinions / beliefs / writings.
But I must say that so far, you don't really do a good job in accurately representing me.

It's one strawman after the other.

Is this a strawman:
... Not all knowledge is scientific knowledge.
I never said otherwise. ...
That is what I going to use.

Regards
Mikkel
 
We're talking about humans.

Humans are not unique in their ability to identify the consequences of their actions, and you claimed that even identifying the most rudimentary consequences of your actions = science. Humans are just animals, why don't the other species count if they are doing exactly the same thing as us?

Even if we arbitrarily insist that only one species of animal is allowed to do science, I don't think it is helpful to water down the concept to such a degree that babies begin doing science the second they are born.

Through science, we learn about the world.
This allows for better and more informed decision making.

That doesn't mean we have to accept that basically every human activity constitutes science though.

This is why we have the philosophy of science (and philosophy in general).

If you know / understand nothing about the world, and thus don't understand the consequences of your actions, then that is going to affect your moral judgements.

So in that sense, science contributes a great deal to moral judgements.

If we redefine science to be so all encompassing that it becomes functionally meaningless, we also accept that science contributes a great deal to immoral acts.

We would also have to accept that things like child rapes are not only motivated by science, they are scientific experiments in their own right. Every time someone was killed in a war it was a scientific experiment. Every time someone did anything with the intent of harming another physically or mentally they would have been doing science.

If you value scientific knowledge and understanding, redefining science to make it by far the biggest source of evil in human history just doesn't seem like the most rational thing to do in my book.
 
i.e. You have no idea what you are talking about and would prefer to remain wilfully ignorant than make the effort to understand what contemporary scientists and philosophers of science think about the issue.

It's strange that quite a few people on RF who are purportedly proponents of rationality and scholarship suddenly become completely anti-intellectual on certain subjects when the experts don't support their preconceived notions. The response is always a completely out of hand dismissal too, rather than a reasoned, evidence based argument.

They will then criticise religious folk for doing exactly the same thing that they do: "Even though I've put in little effort to understand the issue, I'm absolutely certain I'm right and the actual experts are all wrong" :shrug:
No, ie your previous post was so riddled with nonsense that the only appropriate reply was 'nonsense'

Do better if you want a serious reply.
 
Let us take gravity and now don't nitpick universal. I am not certain, I am confident as a conditional statement that gravity is universal for all humans. Gravity is objective in that it is the same for all humans.
But what you say is not objective and universal for all humans, because what you claim is subjective and so is what I do now.
If science as a methodology is something else, science is objectivity done by humans, but (remember confident and conditional) if objectivity is a human behavior, then you can't with objectivity do subjectivity, because that amounts to a contradiction.
And if morality is a form of subjectivity and science is form of objectivity, then for the following claim of knowledge it seems to be the case, that it is so: It is unknown as a universal for all humans, how to do objectivity subjectively.
In other words: Nobody apparently knows, how to do objectivity subjectively. So if science is a form of knowledge, then there is something science as methodology doesn't know. It doesn't know how to do objectivity subjectively.

That is where it ends. Science can objectively describe subjectivity, but science can't do subjectivity. So there is something, it doesn't know, because it doesn't know, how to do it.

Regards
Mikkel
I'm sure in your own mind you have made a point about...something...here.

Good job I guess.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
The second you can reproduce knowledge though a repeatable methodology, it becomes science.

If you can't reproduce it in such a way, it isn't really knowledge.

Even your cave man clubbing example is in fact science.

This is why unevidenced religious claims can never be 'knowledge'

Knowledge, in the clearest epistimological(philosophical) sense, is 'justified true belief'. Scientific(reproducible, falsifiable) methods are the only reliable path to the 'justified' and 'true' parts of that definition.

... Not all knowledge is scientific knowledge.

I never said otherwise. ...

So to the both of you. And it has nothing with the 3 of us in particular.
Someone: All knowledge is scientific knowledge.
Someone else: Not all knowledge is scientific knowledge
Me: We now use the rule of contradiction gods, so we get - All knowledge and not all knowledge is scientific knowledge. Now both the someones are non-religious, don't use the supernatural, magic, woo-woo and what not. They both understand science in a natural sense, yet one of them holds a false belief.

So you 2! If I remember correctly as per the quotes this might apply to you as you 2 holding the contracting positions. If not, then move along. If yes, then that is on you 2.
That is in the end, what I have in mind. Now if I got it correct, you 2 are the same as non-religious and you both claim science, yet one of your are not doing science. You know like contradicting gods.

Regards
Mikkel
PS At least one of you are doing "science" as scientism.
 
No, ie your previous post was so riddled with nonsense that the only appropriate reply was 'nonsense'

Do better if you want a serious reply.

If you think the philosophy of science = nonsense unworthy of consideration, no wonder you are so badly informed on the topic.

Heuristics are well established science. Michael Polanyi (tacit knowledge) is considered one of the foremost scientific thinkers of the 20th C, and the idea that falsification is not a clear demarcation for science is the consensus view of contemporary philosophers of science. But uninformed internet chap simply knows they are self-evidently nonsense and can be dismissed out of hand.

Much easier to just say 'nonsense' than to actually think critically (or even learn something new), but if wilful ignorance is your goal, you'll certainly achieve it.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Someone: All knowledge is scientific knowledge.

@Satans_Serrated_Edge didn't say that.

Clearly he's talking about knowledge concerning claims about the world - which falls within the scope of scientific inquiry.

Someone else: Not all knowledge is scientific knowledge
Me: We now use the rule of contradiction gods, so we get - All knowledge and not all knowledge is scientific knowledge. Now both the someones are non-religious, don't use the supernatural, magic, woo-woo and what not. They both understand science in a natural sense, yet one of them holds a false belief.

So you 2! If I remember correctly as per the quotes this might apply to you as you 2 holding the contracting positions. If not, then move along. If yes, then that is on you 2.
That is in the end, what I have in mind. Now if I got it correct, you 2 are the same as non-religious and you both claim science, yet one of your are not doing science. You know like contradicting gods.

Regards
Mikkel
PS At least one of you are doing "science" as scientism.

Since all this is based on a misunderstanding on your part, I'll go ahead and ignore it.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Humans are not unique in their ability to identify the consequences of their actions, and you claimed that even identifying the most rudimentary consequences of your actions = science. Humans are just animals, why don't the other species count if they are doing exactly the same thing as us?

Because the social dynamics of different social species are quite unique to those species.
And just because I gave rudimentary examples, to make it simple and short, doesn't mean that I'm only talking about that.

There's a lot that science informs us about which aren't all that obvious in "rudimentary" knowledge.
Obviously one doesn't require a scientific experiment or background or study to figure out that falling from great height will not end well - and thus pushing someone of a cliff as a prank isn't a good idea.

We humans have this thing called science and the ability to use science to learn about the world. That knowledge informs us concerning consequences of actions. In turn, that helps us in making better moral decisions / judgements.

A wolf would benefit from additional knowledge to, but a wolf doesn't have the ability or means to gain it. We do.

Even if we arbitrarily insist that only one species of animal is allowed to do science

Who said anything about being "allowed" to do science?


I don't think it is helpful to water down the concept to such a degree that babies begin doing science the second they are born.

In a sense, they do, actually. They explore their world and do "experiments" all the time, trying to figure out how things work, how things react, etc. That's obviously not science in the academic sense. But it's certainly a process of learning through experimentation.

That doesn't mean we have to accept that basically every human activity constitutes science though.

Who said it was?

If we redefine science to be so all encompassing that it becomes functionally meaningless, we also accept that science contributes a great deal to immoral acts.

Who redefined science to be all encompassing?
ALL I said was that through science, we learn about the world. And the more we know about the world, the better informed we are and the better we become at making decisions (moral and otherwise).

You object to this?
You don't think that have a better understanding of how the world works, and thus have a better / more accurate understanding what the consequences of some action is, would help us in better moral decision making?

We would also have to accept that things like child rapes are not only motivated by science, they are scientific experiments in their own right.

Wut?
You seem all over the place, except on point of what I actually said..

Every time someone was killed in a war it was a scientific experiment. Every time someone did anything with the intent of harming another physically or mentally they would have been doing science.

Again, wut?
Where do you come up with this stuff? Certainly not from anything I said.
I never said anything remotely like that, nore implied it.
I have no clue what you are on about.

If you value scientific knowledge and understanding, redefining science to make it by far the biggest source of evil in human history just doesn't seem like the most rational thing to do in my book.

Show me where I redefined science in such a way.
Or redefined science, full stop.

Once more: ALL I said, was that science informs us about how the world works and that this understanding helps us better understand the consequences of our actions, which in turn allow for better decision making and moral evaluation.

That's it.
 
Show me where I redefined science in such a way.
Or redefined science, full stop.
Wut?
You seem all over the place, except on point of what I actually said..

You said:

If you don't understand what the result is of a trolley impacting a human or groups of humans, then there isn't even a (recognized) problem to solve...
"What I actually said, was that science informs us about the consequences of our actions.
In this case, what the consequence is of hitting a person with a trolley."
... You can't do morality properly without science, as science informs you on the consequences of your actions


This seems to suggest that "in this case", it is 'science' informing us of the consequences of being hit by a trolly (rather than knowledge which is pretty much implicit to anyone older than a baby). Is this correct?

Understanding what causes bodily injury is such rudimentary knowledge, that it would follow that basically any knowledge derived empirically must also be 'science'.

If this is not what you meant then fair enough, it was a misunderstanding, but you can probably see why someone might think you were making this point.


As to the rest of what I said:

If simply knowing the consequences of basic actions is 'science', then shooting someone in the face to cause them harm is 'science', or raping a child because you believe it will fill some sick urge is 'science'.

Just as we may choose to do moral actions because we understand the consequences, we can also do immoral actions because we understand the consequences.

But if you weren't saying that all generic knowledge gained empirically/tested via experience = science, then this is beside the point, as I certainly don't think that we should call it science.

What do you think qualifies as science?
 
So to the both of you. And it has nothing with the 3 of us in particular.
Someone: All knowledge is scientific knowledge.
Someone else: Not all knowledge is scientific knowledge
Me: We now use the rule of contradiction gods, so we get - All knowledge and not all knowledge is scientific knowledge. Now both the someones are non-religious, don't use the supernatural, magic, woo-woo and what not. They both understand science in a natural sense, yet one of them holds a false belief.

So you 2! If I remember correctly as per the quotes this might apply to you as you 2 holding the contracting positions. If not, then move along. If yes, then that is on you 2.
That is in the end, what I have in mind. Now if I got it correct, you 2 are the same as non-religious and you both claim science, yet one of your are not doing science. You know like contradicting gods.

Regards
Mikkel
PS At least one of you are doing "science" as scientism.
Just stop
 
If you think the philosophy of science = nonsense unworthy of consideration, no wonder you are so badly informed on the topic.

Heuristics are well established science. Michael Polanyi (tacit knowledge) is considered one of the foremost scientific thinkers of the 20th C, and the idea that falsification is not a clear demarcation for science is the consensus view of contemporary philosophers of science. But uninformed internet chap simply knows they are self-evidently nonsense and can be dismissed out of hand.

Much easier to just say 'nonsense' than to actually think critically (or even learn something new), but if wilful ignorance is your goal, you'll certainly achieve it.
I am uninterested in your tangents, or your agenda.

We both know that your original post , as well as the most recent one were disingenuous vis a vis what I wrote, and I feel no obligation to follow you there.

So ignoring all of it, I'll bring it back around to the actual subject.

Two parts. Give me an example of mind without brain.

Give me an example of knowledge that isn't testable or reproducible.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
...

Give me an example of knowledge that isn't testable or reproducible.

I know that I believe that I am a pacifist. Are you a pacifist? Are all humans pacifists?
What I know is something subjective. So how do you turn "I am a pacifist" into a scientific fact, because science only deal in objective fact.
You could like the scientific theory of gravity, refer to the scientific theory of pacifism. So how do we build so a test? How do we observe that? What do we measure pacifism in, what type of unit in the international scientific measurement standard do we use? What kind of instrument do we use? What is formula for pacifism?
You know like this one: F = mg

Let us try with the feeling of being wet. Most humans know that feeling, unless they have a disorder. Or the smell of roses. Did you know, that to a few humans roses smell bad. That is how you know it is not objective and not based on objective empirical observation.
So again. You know it be now - the scientific theory of feeling wet. Its formula, what it is measured in and so on. Or the scientific theory of smelling roses; again you know the drill. Formula, units measured in and so on.

Now to politics, you know politics. right?!! Please give the scientific theory of democracy and while you are at - the scientific theory of universal human rights. You know, the declaration(did you notice that word - declaration) of universal human rights. That was signed by politicians from different countries.
BTW I know I am a social democrat Scandinavian style. I know this because I had my brain scanned, otherwise I wouldn't know it, right?!! So when did you have your brain scan done to determine your political leaning?

This is fun, you know a lot of this, which are all science and nothing else, right?!! Now I am just waiting to you to post the scientific theories and all that.

Do you know what? I think you know a lot a things, which is not science. E.g. you know how to fill out a tax form, right?!! Did you know that not all humans can fill out tax forms? Do you know how to explain that? It is because it is subjective.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
@Satans_Serrated_Edge didn't say that.

Clearly he's talking about knowledge concerning claims about the world - which falls within the scope of scientific inquiry.
...

Are you in the world? A part of the world? It would seem so, otherwise I couldn't communicate with you? Do you have any favorite food? Let us say, you have. Let us call that personal opinions. I bet you know that you have personal opinions and that you can talk about them. I also bet you know how you know that? You use feelings and so on. Maybe you even have an aesthetic taste? :)
 
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