Where do you stand?

[Unkotare]

I have read the link carefully. It was written by philosophy amateurs if they equate determinism with rationalism.

You really seem to be misunderstanding one of the fundamental philosophical debates of the Enlightenment.

Which might be determinism vs. empiricism.

Let's at least get the names of the teams right.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNsrK6P9QvI]Picard's Epic Double Facepalm - YouTube[/ame]




Maybe you need to find something else to discuss.

 

[percysunshine]

You really seem to be misunderstanding one of the fundamental philosophical debates of the Enlightenment.

Which might be determinism vs. empiricism.

Let's at least get the names of the teams right.

Maybe you need to find something else to discuss.

Already started a thread.


Still waiting for you to explain how empiricism is irrational. Which is impossible, but apparently necessary from your philosophical position.

 

[Unkotare]

Still waiting for you to explain how empiricism is irrational. Which is impossible, but apparently necessary from your philosophical position.

There is really no point to this since you clearly don't understand the topic. Enjoy your chicken and egg thing, though.

 

[midcan5]

As with most online debate this has deteriorated to a 'I know, you don't' level. Add in a few ad hominem's and the stew is complete. But back on topic, I'd have to go with empiricism over rationalism. The reason is simple, nothing we think about appears magically or rationally. We can only think about what we know, and what we know is based entirely on experience. And how we think about what we know is based on a lot of what we experience and who we are - history, culture, class etc. Dependent on your age you have gone through numerous changes in thinking, consider the Tooth Fairy and Santa as examples. Nothing in my mind alone tells me anything about either. It is only now after many years, like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin, that I have come to the realization that twelve Playboy bunnies and a C7 Corvette will not be in my driveway Christmas day. I still look but it seems it ain't gonna happen. My wife of many many years laughs at my rationalism, she I suppose was always the empiricist. And so it goes.....

 

[Unkotare]

We can only think about what we know, and what we know is based entirely on experience. .....

That would be the Empiricists' argument alright...

 

[Unkotare]

Nothing in my mind alone tells me anything about either......

And that would be where the Rationalists would disagree with you...

 

[Mertex]

Which might be determinism vs. empiricism.

Let's at least get the names of the teams right.

Maybe you need to find something else to discuss.

Already started a thread.


Still waiting for you to explain how empiricism is irrational. Which is impossible, but apparently necessary from your philosophical position.

The decision to become an Atheist is one of rejection, pure and simple. If one knows about the deity, one can't just "be without"; either one accepts it, or one rejects it.

And the decision basis absolutely cannot be empirical, unless one changes the meaning of the word, empirical.

When an Atheist claims empiricism, what he generally seems to actually mean is that he, personally, sees no material evidence of a deity, and therefore the odds against are overwhelmingly against such an existence.

One might think that if 88% of the population claims knowledge that Fred does exist, then the denier might reconsider. But it doesn't work that way with Atheism, because Atheism is based on denial and emotional issues, not on classical logic.

The college freshman daughter of an acquaintance recently told him that she had looked through the telescope all over outer space, and saw no god; therefore he does not exist. This is a crashingly poor piece of thinking. One does not see the carpenter when looking at a house, nor the engineer when looking at a cell phone, nor the biochemist when looking at an aspirin.

Atheists use logic that is inverted. Because there is no grounding, no absolute basis for their thoughts, then their thoughts are free to be selected in favor of the perpetuation of their worldview dogma. In other words, it is the opposite of rational, it is rationalized.Atheistic Empiricism or Irrational Induction? | True Freethinker

 

[Unkotare]

Apropos of the OP, ever consider the significance of Kant's first name?

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Empiricism.

"Empiricism is a theory of knowledge which states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience.[1] One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism, and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory experience, in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or traditions;[2] empiricists may argue however that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sense experiences.[3]

Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.

Empiricism, often used by natural scientists, asserts that “knowledge is based on experience” and that “knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification.”[4] One of the epistemological tenets is that sensory experience creates knowledge. The scientific method, including experiments and validated measurement tools, guide empirical research."

Empiricism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rationalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Rationalists have such a high confidence in reason that proof and physical evidence are unnecessary to ascertain truth – in other words, "there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience."[4]"


No thanks.

 

[Tor Hershman]

If Aqua Athena's avatar is an apt depiction on herself, I DO stand with whatever she has to say

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

From your post, it seems you misunderstand what Rationalism is.

Ayn Rand is on line #666

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Which might be determinism vs. empiricism.

Let's at least get the names of the teams right.



On a side note, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

On a side note, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Obviously, the egg. Science. Evolution. Over generations some bird like creature evolves. Genetic changes over a long time. The bird that lays the chicken egg, looks like a chicken, but many generations before would not have looked like a chicken.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

The chicken had to come first. Both if you believe religion or science. Scientifically there is no reason to believe that evolution would have created the first chicken by egg. That makes no sense.

Science 101: fail.

The chicken does not spontaneously appear. Evolution.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Science 101: fail.

The chicken does not spontaneously appear. Evolution.

you prove your stupidity yet again

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

you prove your stupidity yet again

Science.

Sentient life eventually arises out of the early life in the primordial soup.

Egg before the chicken. Or maybe you believe the Adam and Eve fable? Eve created out of a rib of Adam?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Science.

Sentient life eventually arises out of the early life in the primordial soup.

Egg before the chicken. Or maybe you believe the Adam and Eve fable? Eve created out of a rib of Adam?

I believe that God made man yes. But that doesn't mean he didn't also allow nature to make man too Cain left and joined other Humans after killing Able. There is no evidence though that we descended from apes.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I believe that God made man yes. But that doesn't mean he didn't also allow nature to make man too Cain left and joined other Humans after killing Able. There is no evidence though that we descended from apes.

Science-4-dummies.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Which might be determinism vs. empiricism.

Let's at least get the names of the teams right.



On a side note, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Steven Pinker Meets Richard Dawkins | On Reason and Rationality



snippet of transcript: 05:40

I have to credit you with this argument and the blind watchmaker you uh noted that the what natural selection can explain and nothing else can explain is how signs of design the illusion of engineering can appear in the natural world

so that's the extent to which I'm an evolutionary psychologist

well I suppose that they feel it's fine to talk about Darwinism for physical structures when it comes to behavior or the mind that's what kind of off limits especially if it's human

well it is and it was in part the reaction that uh some of the reactions that I got to how the mind works that led me to realize that these were not just scientific disagreements that there were moral and emotional and political colorings to the very idea of human nature uh in and in particular many people many intellectuals many the critics many writers seem to feel that the idea that we are blank slates that there is no such thing as human nature that Evolution did not shape our um our our motives our emotions our ways of learning that that somehow politically more desirable we should hope that it's true and pretend that it's true

so I wanted to answer that you're the very question why now any particular hypothesis about an Adaptive function it could be false let's hope many of them are false because that's what makes it science
but many people treat them not as hypotheses that are true or false but hypotheses that are are evil to think
and I wanted to know why and I think there are a number of reasons
one of them is that if we're blank slates because nothing equals nothing equals nothing it's the ultimate guarantor of equality
the men can't be women different from women and and races can't be different ethnic groups can't be different because we're all zero there's nothing there so there can't be any innate differences

now I think it's a non-sequitur or at least it's a maybe it's a fallacy of affirming the consequent because even if it's true that if we are identical if we because we have because there's nothing in the brain at Birth that would make it easy to endorse political equality

on the other hand it is not the case that if you endorse political equality you have to believe in them in the blank slate
I do endorse political equality uh for for All Humans
but it doesn't depend on our being blank slates or clones it just depends on the moral commitment that people ought to be treated as individuals and not prejudged by the statistics of their their race or sex or ethnicity
that's one of these the other is as I call it the fear of of inequality
there's the fear of imperfect stability that is if we're blank slates it holds