marmalade

Well, I don't limit meaning to rationality. I have non-rational experiences all of the time that feel meaningful. This includes even simple experiences such as feelings and intuitions.

I agree with everything you said as far as it goes, but I also consider non-rational experiences as evidence. As most of my experiences of reality have at least an element of non-rationality to them, I'd be quite a bit at odds with myself if I dismissed them.

Still, I love to be rational and I will analyze those experiences endlessly, but at some point such analysis goes no where. And you either accept the experience or you don't.

If you choose not to accept non-rational experiences, then that is your prerogative. I don't know what your experiences are and you don't know mine. Certainly, there is no reason you should accept my experiences. I know that I don't accept other people's experiences until I can verify them within my own experience.

skeptic griggsy

Marmalade, quite true. Now our own experiences are those of our own brain states. The presumption of naturalism demands evidence to show otherwise and as you note, that is impossible. Thanks.

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:: Fr.Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. He might be wrong. And his cortical defects might harm his thinking and posting. Logic is the bane of theists.

marmalade

You can assert experiences are simply brain states. You would be correct if you meant it as correlation... for brain states are also experiences. Your brain effects your experiences, but so does your experiences effect your brain. For example, people can learn to manipulate their brain states through their intention.

This, however, wouldn't be a reason to assume a reduction of body into mind, and so why reduce mind into body. Such reductions simplify, but so do many assumptions simplify whether philosophically valid or not. You don't have any evidence for your 'naturalism' being any more likely. I understand it satisfies you personally, and for most scientific purposes(besides consciousness research) its a good enough assumption to make if you feel the need for an assumption. However, a scientist has no need of making this assumption, and not all scientists make this assumption or feel the need to have absolute conclusions about these speculative matters. Research doesn't demand it.

We can argue about words forever. Great philosophers have been arguing about the mind/body conection for thousands of years, and philosophers are still arguing about it. I could quote various philosophers that support my view and you could do the same.

I noticed you state your naturalism as being humble, and I too value being humble. So, I'd recommend humbly accepting the present limits of human knowledge and our personal limitations in discussing it. But, if discussing it makes you happy, I'd be willing to continue a while longer.

skeptic griggsy

[i]Maramalade, I mean that those brain sensations accoount for all religious experiences. To bring ins God would violate the Ockham. Now atheologian Jonathon Harrison in God, Freedom and Immortality disagrees with me and Susan Blackmore in stating that the experieinces are quasi-hallucinatory so not as " to commit onself to the view tthat they were wholly caused by the state of the percipient,, which would be to beg the the queston agaisnst the view that the quasi- hallucinations were partly caused ,by, say the Virign Mary."Now I find it otherwise as noted, and it would be question-beggig to aver that she has a role in that we know she is dead and so cannot have such a role!
Now your argument pertains to where I note that my Socratic ignorance comes to the fort. Let us further discuss your cogent argument. We make a good team, eh? My humble naturalism needs enlightment!

__________________
:: Fr.Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. He might be wrong. And his cortical defects might harm his thinking and posting. Logic is the bane of theists.

AB517

Oh a philo-guy ... I won’t even take the time to shred what you said ... you’re doing fine. You are making great qusi sense obviously stating the painfully clear notion that ones link into the quasi spiritual worlds (surely the half baked notion of more uni’s is clear to even you.) starts with the limits held within a quzi-water-ballon, the body.

AB517

Actually not really true.
What is true is what one man calls garbage another calls gold.

skeptic griggsy

Thanks, Marmalade. I am a fallibilist who therefore recognizes his opinions are indeed defeasbile! I hope to spur others to consider my points and maybe theists will learn something to make them a little bit skeptical of their beliefs and, this gives them a chance to improve their apologetics. I have firm notions but recognize that others can question them.That is the agnostic attitude.

__________________
:: Fr.Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. He might be wrong. And his cortical defects might harm his thinking and posting. Logic is the bane of theists.

marmalade

Actually, I'm not a theist in any normal sense of the word, but I am attracted to the idea of pantheism. Then again, many claimed pantheists don't believe in God which is kind of funny with the whole 'theism' part being stuck on the end of that word. I prefer the word panpsychism because it has no implication of a greater being.

I'm sorry I didn't respond to you earlier. I was busy elsewhere and wasn't feeling all that inspired towards a rational debate with no end in sight. I often love debate, but haven't been as much in the mood this past month.

I will note one thing though. Occam's razor is a a general attitude dependent. Its a relative concept on context. It applies differently to philosophy than to science, and it certainly applies differently to psychological or spiritual experiences. What seems the simplest from one perspective may not seem so from another.

By the way, I just joined the beliefnet forums and noticed you there. I posted in an agnostic thread that you had also posted in.

skeptic griggsy

Marmalade, thanks. I only know what you point out about pantheism. Quentin Smith is a naturalistic pantheist-atheist.
Ockham isn't merely the simplest but the one that itself doesn't reqire ad hoc assumptions as the god one so does and that one just fits onto natural explanations without any additional facts and cannot of itself make predictions.
Anyway , it is nonsense even to ask why is there something that is a non -question with a non-answer as the ignostic challenge so shows. Why not? How could there be nothing?
And I also apologize as depression entered my litle world.

__________________
:: Fr.Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. He might be wrong. And his cortical defects might harm his thinking and posting. Logic is the bane of theists.

skeptic griggsy

What the ignostic-Ockham challenges show is that either God is either vacuous or else He need not apply for work! We no more need God as an explanation than we do Thor in addition to the laws of meteorology, demons in addition to psychology or gremlins in addition to mechanical laws.

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:: Fr.Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. He might be wrong. And his cortical defects might harm his thinking and posting. Logic is the bane of theists.