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> While religion does result in those people having a model of reality, there is no attempt being made at any point to relate the model to reality. When religio

> While religion does result in those people having a model of reality, there is no attempt being made at any point to relate the model to reality. When religious people and scientists disagree, it's not because the religious person is trying to model reality differently--the religious person isn't even trying to model reality--it's because the religious person is biased in favor of their existing belief. A problem: you're talking to one right now, and you (your mind's model of reality, technically - you do not have access to the state of the things you claim to) could hardly be more wrong. From large quantities of experience, I am confident I would have no success tackling your disagreements on a careful, strict, point by point basis. Instead, I will simply present two links (I have many others, but let's see what happens with these) and ask: do you believe these have some substantial relevance here, related to the truth value (and appearance of) of our respective claims? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism I can appreciate that this approach may seem unworthy of anything more than a rhetorical response that dodges the question (and the importance of the phenomena these links discuss), so hopefully you can take the challenge seriously. I am more than happy to offer a more substantive reply later, but if you declare victory by fiat[1] it's a bit tough to have a serious conversation. [1] Roughly: declaring that one's opinion of the unknowable is necessarily correct, and that it is(!) contrary to my (actual) stance.

kerkeslager 2y ago
> A problem: you're talking to one right now, and you (your mind's model of reality, technically - you do not have access to the state of the things you claim to) could hardly be more wrong. A problem: you're talking to someone who used to be religious, so I have as much access to the internal thinking of a religious person as you do. A second problem: people's self-perceptions of their own internal processes are quite often measurably wrong. > From large quantities of experience, I am confident I would have no success tackling your disagreements on a careful, strict, point by point basis. Instead, I will simply present two links (I have many others, but let's see what happens with these) and ask: do you believe these have some substantial relevance here, related to the truth value (and appearance of) of our respective claims? > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism Short answer: not in any interesting way. Long answer: From large quantities of experience, I would guess that you're about to make a special pleading argument that based on convenience beliefs that you yourself don't believe in any other context, as evidenced by the fact that you don't practice them. Those pages, particularly the latter, are another example of poor communication being presented as intelligence. If we translate to English instead of philosophy-speak, it boils down to an argument about whether perception is reality or not. Let's cut to the chase with a relevant parable: The Buddha and his disciple were walking down the road. Suddenly, the disciple drew his sword and cut the Buddha in half at the waist. The Buddha turned to his disciple and said, "Now you're beginning to understand!" Would you be willing to reproduce this parable experimentally with you as the Buddha? After all, perception is reality, so if you're the Buddha and you perceive being cut in half with a sword as no big deal, that will be just fine, right? The thing is, science is perfectly capable of answering this question--it's not unknowable. The experiment of cutting someone in half with a sword has sadly already been performed too many times in history: we don't need to perform it again. The scientific answer, which we already have, is that no amount of changing our perception prevents the person cut in half with a sword from dying in horrible agony. And when you're not speaking philosophese, you already believe the scientific answer just like every philosopher who believes perception is reality until faced with the prospect of being cut in half with a sword. So if you're about to make an argument about direct and indirect realism, I'd have to ask, why do you believe that reality is reality when it comes to swords (and everything else in your day-to-day life), but you suddenly you want me to believe that perception is reality when it comes to your invisible friend? My only opinion of the unknowable relevant to this conversation is that by definition, neither of us knows it. More parts of philosophy I think we can discard without losing anything of worth: 1. Arguing that perception=reality when it's convenient and refusing to practice it in any other context. 2. Talking about the unknowable as if we know it.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > A problem: you're talking to someone who used to be religious, so I have as much access to the internal thinking of a religious person as you do. Just one way you've missed the mark: you are speaking as if your access to my mind is as good as it is to yours. > Short answer: not in any interesting way. To you, or to all people? > From large quantities of experience, I would guess At least here you realize you're guessing. > that you yourself don't believe in any other context, as evidenced by the fact that you don't practice them. How could you possibly know this? > Those pages, particularly the latter, are another example of poor communication being presented as intelligence. If we translate to English instead of philosophy-speak, it boils down to an argument about whether perception is reality or not. Here you are speaking as if you perceive reality as it is directly, no interpretation, no bias. > Let's cut to the chase with a relevant parable: > After all, perception is reality, so if you're the Buddha and you perceive being cut in half with a sword as no big deal... It may be relevant, but it certainly isn't representative. > ...that will be just fine, right? Incorrect. Might you be thinking in binary? > The thing is, science is perfectly capable of answering this question--it's not unknowable. "Science" only has volition through scientists (or "scientific thinkers"), and Humans very often are not able to not know things (particularly educated Humans at times....a little knowledge is a dangerous thing as they say). Studying science does not turn one into a Perfectly Rational Human, after all. > The experiment of cutting someone in half with a sword... Look at you milking this incorrect strawman! > you already believe You can not read my mind. You are literally hallucinating. > So if you're about to make an argument about direct and indirect realism, I'd have to ask, why do you believe that reality is reality when it comes to swords (and everything else in your day-to-day life), but you suddenly you want me to believe that perception is reality when it comes to your invisible friend? Please, tell me who "my" "invisible friend" is, Human. Tell me in vivid detail, I would really like to know this about my actual, not indirect self. > My only opinion of the unknowable relevant to this conversation is that by definition, neither of us knows it. Note that this itself is an opinion (an opinion of an opinion). It is also a tautology, which in this case I would classify as cheating (you are making claims to know the unknown, and backing it up with a tautology). > More parts of philosophy I think we can discard without losing anything of worth When you say "think", I'm curious what you mean. Could you (after the fact, giving you an advantage) write out a pseudocode representation of the chain(s) of logic (and the axioms & premises upon which it is based) you ran to arrive at that incorrect conclusion? Because I have a sneaking suspicion there might be some heuristics and bad axioms(!) in the cognitive pipeline. > More parts of philosophy I think we can discard without losing anything of worth: > 2. Talking about the unknowable as if we know it. Ok, this is too much. Have you been putting me on this whole time? I'll shoot the fish in a barrel in your followup later on (I am "posting too fast"...what on this site isn't at best a half truth?).
kerkeslager 2y ago
One thing I'll add to my other post is: Anything you're going to say to try to show that religion is trying to model the world is going to be an attempt to use logic and observation, because those are the tools that work, and you know those are the tools that work. You're just using them with an end goal in mind due to aforementioned anchoring bias, which isn't really the way to use them. What you probably aren't going to do is tell me to pray and God will tell give me the answers, or tell me to read a book written by ancient people who believed stuff like "the sky is a dome", because you're well aware nobody takes that seriously as a way of modeling reality. I mean, maybe you are going to tell me to do those things: if so, that's embarrassing. And the latter is what religion has to offer for modeling reality that science doesn't have. Sure, religion uses logic and observation because they so obviously work, but science has logic and observation too, and frankly, is better at it--we don't need religion (or philosophy) to tell us how to logic or observe. So if you really want to present religion as a way to model reality, that's what you've got to prove has value for modeling reality: talking to invisible friends and consulting outdated writings. We're already convinced that logic and observation work: how do your weird additions compete with that?

kerkeslager 2y ago

> A problem: you're talking to one right now, and you (your mind's model of reality, technically - you do not have access to the state of the things you claim to) could hardly be more wrong. A problem: you're talking to someone who used to be religious, so I have as much access to the internal thinking of a religious person as you do. A second problem: people's self-perceptions of their own internal processes are quite often measurably wrong. > From large quantities of experience, I am confident I would have no success tackling your disagreements on a careful, strict, point by point basis. Instead, I will simply present two links (I have many others, but let's see what happens with these) and ask: do you believe these have some substantial relevance here, related to the truth value (and appearance of) of our respective claims? > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism Short answer: not in any interesting way. Long answer: From large quantities of experience, I would guess that you're about to make a special pleading argument that based on convenience beliefs that you yourself don't believe in any other context, as evidenced by the fact that you don't practice them. Those pages, particularly the latter, are another example of poor communication being presented as intelligence. If we translate to English instead of philosophy-speak, it boils down to an argument about whether perception is reality or not. Let's cut to the chase with a relevant parable: The Buddha and his disciple were walking down the road. Suddenly, the disciple drew his sword and cut the Buddha in half at the waist. The Buddha turned to his disciple and said, "Now you're beginning to understand!" Would you be willing to reproduce this parable experimentally with you as the Buddha? After all, perception is reality, so if you're the Buddha and you perceive being cut in half with a sword as no big deal, that will be just fine, right? The thing is, science is perfectly capable of answering this question--it's not unknowable. The experiment of cutting someone in half with a sword has sadly already been performed too many times in history: we don't need to perform it again. The scientific answer, which we already have, is that no amount of changing our perception prevents the person cut in half with a sword from dying in horrible agony. And when you're not speaking philosophese, you already believe the scientific answer just like every philosopher who believes perception is reality until faced with the prospect of being cut in half with a sword. So if you're about to make an argument about direct and indirect realism, I'd have to ask, why do you believe that reality is reality when it comes to swords (and everything else in your day-to-day life), but you suddenly you want me to believe that perception is reality when it comes to your invisible friend? My only opinion of the unknowable relevant to this conversation is that by definition, neither of us knows it. More parts of philosophy I think we can discard without losing anything of worth: 1. Arguing that perception=reality when it's convenient and refusing to practice it in any other context. 2. Talking about the unknowable as if we know it.

mistermann 2y ago
> A problem: you're talking to someone who used to be religious, so I have as much access to the internal thinking of a religious person as you do. Just one way you've missed the mark: you are speaking as if your access to my mind is as good as it is to yours. > Short answer: not in any interesting way. To you, or to all people? > From large quantities of experience, I would guess At least here you realize you're guessing. > that you yourself don't believe in any other context, as evidenced by the fact that you don't practice them. How could you possibly know this? > Those pages, particularly the latter, are another example of poor communication being presented as intelligence. If we translate to English instead of philosophy-speak, it boils down to an argument about whether perception is reality or not. Here you are speaking as if you perceive reality as it is directly, no interpretation, no bias. > Let's cut to the chase with a relevant parable: > After all, perception is reality, so if you're the Buddha and you perceive being cut in half with a sword as no big deal... It may be relevant, but it certainly isn't representative. > ...that will be just fine, right? Incorrect. Might you be thinking in binary? > The thing is, science is perfectly capable of answering this question--it's not unknowable. "Science" only has volition through scientists (or "scientific thinkers"), and Humans very often are not able to not know things (particularly educated Humans at times....a little knowledge is a dangerous thing as they say). Studying science does not turn one into a Perfectly Rational Human, after all. > The experiment of cutting someone in half with a sword... Look at you milking this incorrect strawman! > you already believe You can not read my mind. You are literally hallucinating. > So if you're about to make an argument about direct and indirect realism, I'd have to ask, why do you believe that reality is reality when it comes to swords (and everything else in your day-to-day life), but you suddenly you want me to believe that perception is reality when it comes to your invisible friend? Please, tell me who "my" "invisible friend" is, Human. Tell me in vivid detail, I would really like to know this about my actual, not indirect self. > My only opinion of the unknowable relevant to this conversation is that by definition, neither of us knows it. Note that this itself is an opinion (an opinion of an opinion). It is also a tautology, which in this case I would classify as cheating (you are making claims to know the unknown, and backing it up with a tautology). > More parts of philosophy I think we can discard without losing anything of worth When you say "think", I'm curious what you mean. Could you (after the fact, giving you an advantage) write out a pseudocode representation of the chain(s) of logic (and the axioms & premises upon which it is based) you ran to arrive at that incorrect conclusion? Because I have a sneaking suspicion there might be some heuristics and bad axioms(!) in the cognitive pipeline. > More parts of philosophy I think we can discard without losing anything of worth: > 2. Talking about the unknowable as if we know it. Ok, this is too much. Have you been putting me on this whole time? I'll shoot the fish in a barrel in your followup later on (I am "posting too fast"...what on this site isn't at best a half truth?).

kerkeslager 2y ago

One thing I'll add to my other post is: Anything you're going to say to try to show that religion is trying to model the world is going to be an attempt to use logic and observation, because those are the tools that work, and you know those are the tools that work. You're just using them with an end goal in mind due to aforementioned anchoring bias, which isn't really the way to use them. What you probably aren't going to do is tell me to pray and God will tell give me the answers, or tell me to read a book written by ancient people who believed stuff like "the sky is a dome", because you're well aware nobody takes that seriously as a way of modeling reality. I mean, maybe you are going to tell me to do those things: if so, that's embarrassing. And the latter is what religion has to offer for modeling reality that science doesn't have. Sure, religion uses logic and observation because they so obviously work, but science has logic and observation too, and frankly, is better at it--we don't need religion (or philosophy) to tell us how to logic or observe. So if you really want to present religion as a way to model reality, that's what you've got to prove has value for modeling reality: talking to invisible friends and consulting outdated writings. We're already convinced that logic and observation work: how do your weird additions compete with that?