this didn't happen until...

[luke warm]

Thanks for asking my view. I tried to point out that a discussion where one argues from a scientific basis and the other from a metaphysical basis seems bound to lead to only frustration. From the quotes I posted, there has long been a conflict between the two schools of thought.

 

But I really don't think they should overlap in a debate - either we both debate the metaphysical or we both debate the scientific.

 

My problem is when the scientific 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is borrowed and utilized as a metaphysical Law of Entropy - IMO it cannot be both. Also, IMO, as I stated before, it appears the metaphysical utilizes a gross generalization of entropy and then claims that as a general law.

 

So I guess my starting point would be this: I have serious doubts about the reality or usefulness of any metaphysical Laws. A=A, The Law of Identity, doesn't seem to serve much useful purpose. Seems more like a high school debate rule than a Universal Law.

would you agree that whether serves a useful purpose or not, in your opinion, it can still be a 'law'? the point isn't, in any case, the usefulness we might ascribe to 'laws', it's whether or not they even exist

 

you can call the discussion of such things equivalent to high school debates if you want, but there are many who even have a year or twenty of college who think about such things

[Winstonm]

a question: what happens when a professionally trained doctor misdiagnoses and the patient dies as a result? Are they also charged?

 

No criminal charges but could certainly have a civil suit for malpractice.

 

A agree that some aspects of medicine tend to be a closed system - but you have to realize also that medicine is based on scientific advance, so testable, verifiable, and repeatable studies are at its heart.

 

This tends to make it seem reluctant to change - but in truth not all of your complaints are unfounded - but it is not a simple as many of the articles we might read want us to believe or as moribund as some talk-show radio hosts would have us think.

[hotShot]

setting aside the "ifs" and "the idea is" and the inefficient forming of amino acids, where do the reproductive molecules (or any other molecules) come from?

Assuming you don't ask that molecules are built from atoms, please look at Trinidads post. As he points out there is room for a god in this model.

Science can't prove the existence or nonexistence of god.

People used to explain everything they could not understand with a god.

Science can explain a lot of things, so there is no need to use god as explanation for these things. But this just proves abuse of the "god model".

[helene_t]

I don't fully understand that isolated system thing. If the Earth is not isolated enough because it takes energy from the sun, why don't you make the system bigger and involve the sun?

 

You could just say the system is the universe.

Good point.

 

The second law says that the entropy in an isolated system is non-decreasing. Include the Sun in the system and the entropy changes are dominated by the increase in entropy related to the Sun's radiation, so what happens on Earth becomes irrelavant.

 

Free energy (the opposite of entropy) is build up when organisms grow. So if anything, the abuse of the second law could lead to the idea that life cannot exist. For evolution it is completely irellevant. Free energy builds up when an animal or plant community expands, not (necesarilly) when it evolves.

[gwnn]

I have now read Books I and II and skimmed Book III of the lectures later produced as mere Christianity... I thank Richard for the link.

 

Sorry, but I am not convinced.

 

That was not the purpose of me referring it to you (or you to it?) as I said :rolleyes:

 

I just wanted to show you a simple and extremely readable version of Christian thought.

 

On amazon.com, between the many extremely positive Christian and extremely negative atheist reviews, I found myself agreeing with a positive review from an atheist which went something like

"While I do not agree with CS Lewis' main conclusions or premises, it is still wonderful to see his arguments working."

Of course it would be quite foolish from me to dismiss every other review as biased and his review as absolutely objective, I thought this could be your opinion also.

 

But Lewis wrote before developments that have come to be known as evolutionary psychology came about.. he wrote in an era of relative ignorance.

And this is where the crux of the matter is: is morality and related concepts sufficiently explained by evolutionary psychology? From the little that I have read about its concepts I'm not convinced either but I hope I can go into it a little more some other time.

 

I would like to point out the minor flaw of your arguments against the Gospels' accuracy that they weren't written "hundreds of years after his death", I would say that word is misleading, but that doesn't matter much. Of course in this case also it is a question for everyone to decide, how are those texts/sayings etc best explained, along with all the other facts/experiences/etc related to the religions: Jesus was invented by clever men/Jesus was a clever man and his sayings were modified to make it sound even more clever/Jesus was indeed more or less some sort of special person (as many Eastern religions believe)/etc. Everyone must decide for themselves, and of course almost everyone will be only partly sure and will have doubts/open mind for accepting being wrong in case the balance of evidence changes dramatically.

 

(and of course the invitation to read the book was not addressed only to MikeH, but he was the one who had talked about reading similar books so I thought he might be most interested).

[Lobowolf]

start smaller, winston... first start by asking whether or not non-material things even exist... that's what started this, imo... the weight of importance ascribed to this existence is at the root of the whole thing... what do you think?

 

But I really don't think they should overlap in a debate - either we both debate the metaphysical or we both debate the scientific.

 

So I guess my starting point would be this: I have serious doubts about the reality or usefulness of any metaphysical Laws. A=A, The Law of Identity, doesn't seem to serve much useful purpose. Seems more like a high school debate rule than a Universal Law.

The laws of the physical world are pretty much useless without some metaphysical laws; for instance, the law of non-contradiction. At any given time and in a single context, both "A" and "not A" cannot be true. If you don't hold to that one, there's not really much point in having a zillion-page "evolution v. creationism" thread.

 

You don't have to debate or discuss them, and maybe it's a silly exercise, but you do have accept them to move onto the empirically-based debates.

[Winstonm]

start smaller, winston... first start by asking whether or not non-material things even exist... that's what started this, imo... the weight of importance ascribed to this existence is at the root of the whole thing... what do you think?

 

But I really don't think they should overlap in a debate - either we both debate the metaphysical or we both debate the scientific.

 

So I guess my starting point would be this: I have serious doubts about the reality or usefulness of any metaphysical Laws. A=A, The Law of Identity, doesn't seem to serve much useful purpose. Seems more like a high school debate rule than a Universal Law.

The laws of the physical world are pretty much useless without some metaphysical laws; for instance, the law of non-contradiction. At any given time and in a single context, both "A" and "not A" cannot be true. If you don't hold to that one, there's not really much point in having a zillion-page "evolution v. creationism" thread.

 

You don't have to debate or discuss them, and maybe it's a silly exercise, but you do have accept them to move onto the empirically-based debates.

Maybe it is just me but I have trouble calling these "laws" - principles seems a better description because they seem (again to me) as self-evident. I can grasp the significance of these principles to logic and philosophy - but I am unsure about their value outside that realm as at the heart it appears all that can be done is to argue an opinion about those things which cannot be verified.

[mikeh]

I have now read Books I and II and skimmed Book III of the lectures later produced as mere Christianity... I thank Richard for the link.

 

Sorry, but I am not convinced.

 

That was not the purpose of me referring it to you (or you to it?) as I said :)

 

I just wanted to show you a simple and extremely readable version of Christian thought.

 

On amazon.com, between the many extremely positive Christian and extremely negative atheist reviews, I found myself agreeing with a positive review from an atheist which went something like

"While I do not agree with CS Lewis' main conclusions or premises, it is still wonderful to see his arguments working."

Of course it would be quite foolish from me to dismiss every other review as biased and his review as absolutely objective, I thought this could be your opinion also.

 

But Lewis wrote before developments that have come to be known as evolutionary psychology came about.. he wrote in an era of relative ignorance.

And this is where the crux of the matter is: is morality and related concepts sufficiently explained by evolutionary psychology? From the little that I have read about its concepts I'm not convinced either but I hope I can go into it a little more some other time.

 

I would like to point out the minor flaw of your arguments against the Gospels' accuracy that they weren't written "hundreds of years after his death", I would say that word is misleading, but that doesn't matter much. Of course in this case also it is a question for everyone to decide, how are those texts/sayings etc best explained, along with all the other facts/experiences/etc related to the religions: Jesus was invented by clever men/Jesus was a clever man and his sayings were modified to make it sound even more clever/Jesus was indeed more or less some sort of special person (as many Eastern religions believe)/etc. Everyone must decide for themselves, and of course almost everyone will be only partly sure and will have doubts/open mind for accepting being wrong in case the balance of evidence changes dramatically.

 

(and of course the invitation to read the book was not addressed only to MikeH, but he was the one who had talked about reading similar books so I thought he might be most interested).

I should have checked before writing about the gospels :D I gather that there is a general consensus among scholars who are not bound by church dogma that the gospels were probably written over a period of years, but that the earliest would have been written two or more decades after the death of Jesus and that, moreover, the original writing would have been in Greek. It seems to me unlikely, based on an admittedly vague recollection of the new Testament, that any of the actual disciples would have been able to write in Greek. This combination suggests that the gospels were at best second-hand.

 

I would also hope that most of us recognize the human tendency to embellish our memories when we sit down to tell about our past, especially if that past has elements of drama, as would surely have been the case. I am not saying that the gospels are thus inherently unreliable.. but I am suggesting that I think that some of the details ought to be read with some degree of scepticism.. an attribute that we routinely bring to bear on secular information but one that, it seems to me, is blithely ignored when it comes to believers reading holy scripture (at least for the more evangelical, or fundamentalist ones).

 

And in terms of the 'final' form of the gospels and which ones (of many) were selected to be the New Testament.. yes, the selection was made hundreds of years after the events, and thus by people who could have had no personal knowledge.

 

As for the underlying nature of our moral sense... that seems to be the bedrock underlying Lewis' acceptance of religion, which in turn, after more somewhat dubious 'logic' led him to Christianity. Personally, having read Pinker in particular, and having read of the morality studies described by Dawkins, the argument in favour of morality being an adaptive trait seems very strong. 'Right', in the sense that it is beyond doubt? No... but 'right' in the sense of plausible and avoiding the need to invoke the unprovable... yes.

 

The perception (I almost wrote 'fact') that Lewis indulged in some pretty loose arguments, that can readily be seen to be fundamentally flawed, doesn't automatically mean that his conclusions were incorrect. It is possible to come to a correct view based on faulty reasoning.. counting a suit out to break 3-2 with length on one's left may get you to hook lho for the missing Queen, and it turns out that you had miscounted, and it was RHO who had the length, but LHO had the Queen anyway. But it does mean that sceptics will likely be reinforced in their scepticism when 'the best that they can do' is so weak (I am not saying, for a moment, that Lewis's Mere Christianity is the 'best that they can do', but it is the place you suggested I visit)

[jtfanclub]

It's not that faith in religion cures. It's that a belief that you're going to get better makes it more likely that you'll get better, whether that belief is from a placebo or a religion or something else.

 

Sorry, but I am a little frustrated right now as I feel I am dealing with good folks who have some kind of reading disorder - I never said the placebo effect can't make you temporarily better - what I said is that neither faith nor placebos cure.

 

I really don't care what makes the placebo effect work - faith, placebo, or invisible green monkeys - because at best it can only be used to augment treatments. It is never utilized as the sole means to cure unless you are engaging in the hocus-pocus of Christian Scientists, witch doctors, or faith healing.

Treatments in general don't cure, medical or otherwise. Your body cures itself. Treatments just help your body in doing so.

 

For example, cancer treatments don't cure cancer. They mark and destroy vast portions of the body, and trust that the body's immune system and healing process will do the actual curing. Splints don't cure broken bones, they're just a treatment to help the body cure itself. Vaccines? Just help the immune system, and so forth. Short of removing a part of the body or transplanting it, what is it in modern medicine that you consider a cure?

 

Is it that you believe that without treatment, things like cancer cannot be cured? Well, in truth, most cancer can't be cured period, with or without treatment. Chemotherapy, Radiation therapy, even surgical removal generally doesn't do the trick. Doctors don't talk about cancers being cured, they talk about them being "in remission", which is temporary. So if a placebo allows a cancer to go into remission, does that not count because it's only temporary?

 

Besides, temporary is often permanent, much the way that you won't come back to life if a doctor removes a bullet from your heart. High blood pressure leads to a higher incidence of heart attacks. Heart attacks can kill. If I temporarily lower somebody's blood pressure by giving them a placebo, I have significantly lowered of his odds of dying during this period. Living vs. Death is permanent. If a patient is given a placebo to lower his blood pressure while a splint is being inserted to keep him alive, then there's a huge chance that placebo will help keep him alive.

 

And finally, I reject that it's temporary at all. Medications have been recalled by the FDA after they've been shown to be no better than placebos after having been on the market for decades. If people hadn't noticed an effect from them all this time, why would they still have sold? You can argue that it's all in their head, but the truth is that the human immune and repair system is centuries ahead of every medical device and drug ever invented. Your mood and beliefs affect your body's natural healing process, both directly (through secreted chemicals) and indirectly (such as happier person is more likely to exercise).

 

This is an actual case behind this- a medicine given to patients before a splint was inserted was pulled off the market because it was no better than a placebo. But before it was pulled, that medicine had saved hundreds of lives. You can draw your own conclusion.

[Winstonm]

what is it in modern medicine that you consider a cure?

 

Using antibiotics to kill harmful bacteria. Some surgical repairs.

 

Besides, temporary is often permanent

 

That's as convoluted as George Bush saying, "When I say war, I really mean peace."

 

And finally, I reject that it's temporary at all

 

Sounds like you have a lot of faith in your beliefs.

 

Next time I a seriously ill, I am going to a physician - I wish you well with your faith healers.

[jtfanclub]

Besides, temporary is often permanent

 

That's as convoluted as George Bush saying, "When I say war, I really mean peace."

All antibiotics are temporary. Does that mean they don't cure things? Short of surgery, just about everything in medicine is temporary. Claiming that a placebo's effect is "temporary" and therefore without merit doesn't make any sense. How about if a doctor uses a placebo to reduce a fever? Is that useful, or not?

 

Next time I a seriously ill, I am going to a physician - I wish you well with your faith healers.

 

 

Yes, you and all of your friends can rack up trillions of dollars in unnecessary medical visits so that our economy can go down the toilet. If we show really little faith in ourselves, all countries can become Iceland.

 

Antibiotics are over the counter in Mexico. They're prescription here in the U.S. because people believe in the magic healing power of doctors. Long lines of people every flu season going to see a doctor because their kid has the sniffles, so the doctor can say a benediction for them. Almost as long lines of people keeping the elderly alive but sedated for an extra few months, so that they can have a clear conscience when mom or dad passes on. Does that sound like the job for a doctor to you, or a priest?

 

If I believe that my body will take care of most of my illnesses without outside help, and if I believe that long term fatal illnesses should be allowed to take their course rather than spend hundreds of thousands per case trying to treat them, I guess that makes me a faith healer or something. Personally, I think it's the people who think that visiting a doctor will make them better that are engaging in faith healing.

[luke warm]

start smaller, winston... first start by asking whether or not non-material things even exist... that's what started this, imo... the weight of importance ascribed to this existence is at the root of the whole thing... what do you think?

 

But I really don't think they should overlap in a debate - either we both debate the metaphysical or we both debate the scientific.

 

So I guess my starting point would be this: I have serious doubts about the reality or usefulness of any metaphysical Laws. A=A, The Law of Identity, doesn't seem to serve much useful purpose. Seems more like a high school debate rule than a Universal Law.

The laws of the physical world are pretty much useless without some metaphysical laws; for instance, the law of non-contradiction. At any given time and in a single context, both "A" and "not A" cannot be true. If you don't hold to that one, there's not really much point in having a zillion-page "evolution v. creationism" thread.

 

You don't have to debate or discuss them, and maybe it's a silly exercise, but you do have accept them to move onto the empirically-based debates.

Maybe it is just me but I have trouble calling these "laws" - principles seems a better description because they seem (again to me) as self-evident. I can grasp the significance of these principles to logic and philosophy - but I am unsure about their value outside that realm as at the heart it appears all that can be done is to argue an opinion about those things which cannot be verified.

i don't mean this as criticism, but have you thought deeply on just *why* they seem "self-evident" to you? take the law of non-contradiction... isn't it self-evident to you *because* it's a law?... lobowolf answered your concern about their value outside of logic and philosophy - you really can't discuss or debate materially until the question of abstracts is settled

Personally, having read Pinker in particular, and having read of the morality studies described by Dawkins, the argument in favour of morality being an adaptive trait seems very strong. 'Right', in the sense that it is beyond doubt? No... but 'right' in the sense of plausible and avoiding the need to invoke the unprovable... yes.

i'd like to know more about your view on this (without actually having to read pinker)... how would morality being an adaptive state work? would it be consensus-based?

[helene_t]

is morality and related concepts sufficiently explained by evolutionary psychology?

I haven't read Lewis so I may be wrong about this, but isn't it so that while a scientist hopes to explain morality in the same sense as he hopes to explain other phenomena, the theologist hopes to justify either morality in general, or a particular moral codex, depending on the theological school he belongs to? For the latter it doesn't make much sense to apply a scientific theory. Applying religion apparently makes sense to most people, though.

[luke warm]

is morality and related concepts sufficiently explained by evolutionary psychology?

I haven't read Lewis so I may be wrong about this, but isn't it so that while a scientist hopes to explain morality in the same sense as he hopes to explain other phenomena, the theologist hopes to justify either morality in general, or a particular moral codex, depending on the theological school he belongs to? For the latter it doesn't make much sense to apply a scientific theory. Applying religion apparently makes sense to most people, though.

hmmm... i don't think so, helene... i think most theists are of the opinion that morality can be accounted for from within their worldview (justified maybe, accounted for surely)

[Lobowolf]

hmmm... i don't think so, helene... i think most theists are of the opinion that morality can be accounted for from within their worldview

I agree that this is the case; however, I do believe that most theists are wrong about that.

[mikeh]

Personally, having read Pinker in particular, and having read of the morality studies described by Dawkins, the argument in favour of morality being an adaptive trait seems very strong. 'Right', in the sense that it is beyond doubt? No... but 'right' in the sense of plausible and avoiding the need to invoke the unprovable... yes.

i'd like to know more about your view on this (without actually having to read pinker)... how would morality being an adaptive state work? would it be consensus-based?

You should read Pinker, or some of the other writers in the area.. I like Pinker because he writes in a very lucid fashion. The fact that he is Canadian is merely a coincidence :P

 

I cannot do him justice, especially as I did not take notes as I went, read him several months ago (the last book of his that I read) and do not have access to that book as I write.

 

I am not trying to duck the issue, but if you are genuinely looking for knowledge.. have an open mind.. then read his books. It seems to me, from the tenor of some of our 'exchanges' that the odds are high that anything I say will merely trigger a defensive and negative reaction.

 

As for Lewis' ideas.. they are well written, as I thing anyone would agree, but they simply do not stand up to critical analysis, as far as I am concerned.

 

Take a look at his arguments for the existence of a Moral Law as being a decider between conflicting instincts. Even if you find that to be attractive, imagine being called upon to debate that point, as happens in debating societies... I suspect it wouldn't take long for you to realize where there are enormous gaps and errors in his reasoning.

 

One of these, and by no means the only, is in his assumption that the enemies he and England fought in the World Wars really knew, deep down, that they were in the wrong. He had to hold to that, contrary to a significant body of evidence that suggests that most of the population of the opposing countries, at least for a long while, felt that they were fighting the good fight. Why? Because the Moral Law, being externally imposed, has to be the same for all. And surely the Moral Law couldn't compell nations to go to all-out war, resulting in the death of millions?

 

Since his side won, and since he was sure, from the Moral voice inside him, that his side had been morally right (and I agree that his side was, but my reasons are somewhat different, I suspect)... the other side was in the wrong... and had to know it. This is silly... any student of any major war will appreciate that almost invariably both sides believe that their cause is just. Heck, we just saw a thread deleted for, essentially, that very reason... feelings were so inflamed, amongst a small but vociferous number of posters, that the thread was censored. Who hears the Moral Law in the middle east? Please note that I am NOT trying to argue the Gaza issue.. I am pointing out a fallacy in Lewis' argument that one side to a conflict will 'know' that it is acting immorally.

[helene_t]

One of these, and by no means the only, is in his assumption that the enemies he and England fought in the World Wars really knew, deep down, that they were in the wrong. He had to hold to that, contrary to a significant body of evidence that suggests that most of the population of the opposing countries, at least for a long while, felt that they were fighting the good fight.

I suppose you are right about this "significant body of evidence". But based on introspection I would say the opposite. I used to believe in certain ridicolous political ideas, and today I think that, at least sometimes, I was aware that I was wrong back then.

[Winstonm]

Thanks for asking my view. I tried to point out that a discussion where one argues from a scientific basis and the other from a metaphysical basis seems bound to lead to only frustration. From the quotes I posted, there has long been a conflict between the two schools of thought.

 

But I really don't think they should overlap in a debate - either we both debate the metaphysical or we both debate the scientific.

 

My problem is when the scientific 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is borrowed and utilized as a metaphysical Law of Entropy - IMO it cannot be both. Also, IMO, as I stated before, it appears the metaphysical utilizes a gross generalization of entropy and then claims that as a general law.

 

So I guess my starting point would be this: I have serious doubts about the reality or usefulness of any metaphysical Laws. A=A, The Law of Identity, doesn't seem to serve much useful purpose. Seems more like a high school debate rule than a Universal Law.

would you agree that whether serves a useful purpose or not, in your opinion, it can still be a 'law'? the point isn't, in any case, the usefulness we might ascribe to 'laws', it's whether or not they even exist

 

you can call the discussion of such things equivalent to high school debates if you want, but there are many who even have a year or twenty of college who think about such things

Jimmy,

 

When I say high school debate rule I don't mean sophomoric - I mean simplistic in the sense of something self-evident.

[luke warm]

hmmm... i don't think so, helene... i think most theists are of the opinion that morality can be accounted for from within their worldview

I agree that this is the case; however, I do believe that most theists are wrong about that.

wrong about what?

Thanks for asking my view. I tried to point out that a discussion where one argues from a scientific basis and the other from a metaphysical basis seems bound to lead to only frustration. From the quotes I posted, there has long been a conflict between the two schools of thought.

 

But I really don't think they should overlap in a debate - either we both debate the metaphysical or we both debate the scientific.

 

My problem is when the scientific 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is borrowed and utilized as a metaphysical Law of Entropy - IMO it cannot be both. Also, IMO, as I stated before, it appears the metaphysical utilizes a gross generalization of entropy and then claims that as a general law.

 

So I guess my starting point would be this: I have serious doubts about the reality or usefulness of any metaphysical Laws. A=A, The Law of Identity, doesn't seem to serve much useful purpose. Seems more like a high school debate rule than a Universal Law.

would you agree that whether serves a useful purpose or not, in your opinion, it can still be a 'law'? the point isn't, in any case, the usefulness we might ascribe to 'laws', it's whether or not they even exist

 

you can call the discussion of such things equivalent to high school debates if you want, but there are many who even have a year or twenty of college who think about such things

Jimmy,

 

When I say high school debate rule I don't mean sophomoric - I mean simplistic in the sense of something self-evident.

again, winston - why do you think they are self-evident?

[Winstonm]

again, winston - why do you think they are self-evident?

 

Jimmy,

 

I don't know them all but from what I have read they seem to be stating the obvious. For example, the Law of Identity, A=A. This doesn't compute in my brain as being on the same "law" plane as the law of gravity that allows people in tiny metal capsules to be shot on top of rockets into orbits around the Earth.

 

 

I am not being facetious here, but just trying to let you know how my brain views the discrepancy. Say Law of Gravity and I see Neil Armstrong on the moon. But mention Law of Identity and I see Big Bird holding two side-by-side pictures of identical apples.

 

That doesn't mean metaphysics is Sesame Street - that means my understanding makes an unflattering comparison of the two. I welcome enlightenment.

[helene_t]

For example, the Law of Identity, A=A.

There is no "law" of identity. It's an axiom and it's called reflectiveness (the axiom of identity tells you that there are no two distinct sets that consist of the same elements). IOW it is just something we have decided to be true. It doesn't tell us anything about the real world (except in the sense that human behavior, including human axiom making, is something that goes on in the real world).

[luke warm]

laws, in the sense i'm speaking, are axioms... that's what i was trying to say to winston... an axiom *is* a self-evident law... so when you saw the 'law' of identity is the 'axiom' of identity, you're saying the same thing... the important thing is, they are not material and they exist and *that* is important... the reason it is can be seen by the fact that in debate after debate, their existence is denied (out of necessity)

[mikeh]

Jimmy, you got upset with me on an earlier post in which I said that theists and atheists used the same words but spoke a different language (altho when you quoted me, you truncated my sentence, which served to distort what I had written).

 

But your posts about self-evident laws is an example of what I was saying.

 

To me, and I think to helene and winston, there is a fundamental difference between an axiom and a law.

 

I refreshed my memory by recourse to wikipedia, and I commend the same to you.

 

At the risk of over-simplification, an axiom is something that we postulate to be true, and upon which we build a description of the universe (whether the universe we observe or some hypothetical different realm). The laws are then determined (usually, as far as I can tell) by observation and then formalization.. with the mathematical expression of the laws being contingent upon the formal method that is founded on the axioms.

 

It appears to us self evident that A=A.

 

Neither the law of gravity nor the 2nd law of thermodynamics, to cite two 'laws' referenced in this thread, appear, as far as I know, to be self-evident to anyone.

 

To the extent that you intend to refer to both axioms and laws as the same concept, you are using the same words as, for example, I and winston and helene (I hope I am not being too presumptuous in referring to them) but you are speaking a different language.

 

Indeed, that is a common problem, as I see it, in most of the posts where you and I, or you and richard, or you and winstom, etc, disagree. You use the same words, more of less, but they mean something different to you than to us. So when you read what I have to say, I suspect that you either do not grasp my meaning or you wilfully respond as if you don't.. either would present the same way to an observer :(

 

BTW, may I suggest something? When a theist posted here a suggestion that I, as an atheist, read a work by Lewis, I did so. I have suggested you read a work by Pinker (Say: How the Mind Works). I read a theist book... Pinker's book is not even an atheist book... I don't know if he is an atheist or not, but his book is not written to espouse any opinion in that arena... but it does deal with morality, in part, since he deals with current views (in the scientific community) of what makes us act the way we do.

 

Admittedly, Pinker's books are much longer than Lewis' Mere Christianity and may be harder slogging, since they are based on science and data, but he is a very lucid writer. So why not try it? Or are you too closed minded to risk contamination by information that contradicts your preferred world view?

 

I fear the latter, but hope for the former.. and would be delighted to hear from you some cogent observations after you have read the book.

[PassedOut]

the reason it is can be seen by the fact that in debate after debate, their existence is denied (out of necessity)

But in those debates, is it not you who deny them?

[luke warm]

To the extent that you intend to refer to both axioms and laws as the same concept, you are using the same words as, for example, I and winston and helene (I hope I am not being too presumptuous in referring to them) but you are speaking a different language.

 

Indeed, that is a common problem, as I see it, in most of the posts where you and I, or you and richard, or you and winstom, etc, disagree. You use the same words, more of less, but they mean something different to you than to us. So when you read what I have to say, I suspect that you either do not grasp my meaning or you wilfully respond as if you don't.. either would present the same way to an observer :(

i was just going by the two definitions commonly used:

 

1. a self-evident truth that requires no proof.

2. a universally accepted principle or rule.

3. Logic, Mathematics. a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it.

 

1. A self-evident or universally recognized truth; a maxim: "It is an economic axiom as old as the hills that goods and services can be paid for only with goods and services" (Albert Jay Nock).

2. An established rule, principle, or law.

3. A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument; a postulate.

 

so i take axiom and law to be nearly synonymous... certainly i don't want to argue over semantics, though... it's just that when winston used "self-evident" i wanted to point out that the self-evidence of the law of non-contradiction, for example, is so because it *is* a law... it seemed redundant to me

BTW, may I suggest something? When a theist posted here a suggestion that I, as an atheist, read a work by Lewis, I did so. I have suggested you read a work by Pinker (Say: How the Mind Works). I read a theist book... Pinker's book is not even an atheist book... I don't know if he is an atheist or not, but his book is not written to espouse any opinion in that arena... but it does deal with morality, in part, since he deals with current views (in the scientific community) of what makes us act the way we do.

 

Admittedly, Pinker's books are much longer than Lewis' Mere Christianity and may be harder slogging, since they are based on science and data, but he is a very lucid writer. So why not try it? Or are you too closed minded to risk contamination by information that contradicts your preferred world view?

 

I fear the latter, but hope for the former.. and would be delighted to hear from you some cogent observations after you have read the book.

i do give you credit for reading, at least enough to get the gist of it, mere christianity... i wish i could promise that i'd do the same re: pinker, but i hardly think that my failure to do so constitutes close mindedness... some things i do irritate you, and some things you do irritate me... this is an example of a large body of your posts where you jump to a conclusion of your choosing based on actions (or inactions) of others... how would you like it if i recommended to you plantinga's 3 volume set on epistemology and then called you a narrow minded bigot if you couldn't find the time (or were merely disinterested in reading it) to read it?

the reason it is can be seen by the fact that in debate after debate, their existence is denied (out of necessity)

But in those debates, is it not you who deny them?

deny what?