You evaluated evidence for this that is not merely “common sense” and “intuition”. The same documentary evidence gives claims of the miraculous and encounters with God.
At this point, I’d shift to the question of what you think about the other people who accept the evidence.
Ok, but let’s keep it in focus.
It’s theoretical. It’s not true as a statement about the real world. It’s true as statement regarding the rules of the particular geometry Pythagoras employed (flat space). In a curved space geometry, either concave or convex, Pythagoras’ theorem does not hold, the formula doesn’t work.
I apologize for that comment. It’s insulting and I shouldn’t have said that.
The claim of “beating heart tissue” under the microscope, five years after collection, from a sink, would be an instant hands-down major article (not just in the letters section) in Nature, if it held up to scrutiny. By his own claims, this specimen was put into a scientific/clinical setting, If there was any truth to those claims, any merit whatsoever, they’d not only be thoroughly documented and discussed in the literature – this is a major find! --, the discovery would be famous at the retail level. The doubters may continue to doubt it, but the facts are the facts, per the literature, if that were true; this specimen was throbbing and “beating” as a living heart might do, under the microscope, after 5 years!!The Spanish custom is to have two apellidos (surnames), the first being more important, so Ricardo Castañon Gòmez would usually be shortened to Castañon (pronounced cast-AN-yon) rather than Gòmez.
From his facebook page I linked to you on the Ante up! thread, his background says he’s a clinical psychologist. If you search for “Ricardo Castañon” on amazon you’ll find he’s written at least three books, all unavailable. I can also tell you that one of his favorite pop stars is Eric Clapton from his webmii page.
The differences between his facebook and the youtube you posted (see my post here), along with the lack of citations on his Wikipedia page and lack of independent reports leads me to strongly doubt his account of the miracle.
You can use google translate to render text and web pages into English (now also from Latin!). It’s far from perfect, but does a reasonable job.
The hyperlink is the skeptic’s friend.
No.
Sure, that’s fine. If we have to “walk a mile in everyman’s shoes” to determine what is reasonably considered actual or real, we can give up on the whole shootin’ match. There aren’t any determinations to be had, and we are presented with a perfect post-modern kind of neo-solipsism, where every person has their own truth, not to be shared, or subject to harmonization with anyone else’s. That may be the case, but if what you say really is necessary, the consequences are catastrophic for all of us in terms of knowledge.
Ok, maybe I should have said just “a determnining factor”, an element without which you would not believe as you do. If it’s a factor that tips it one way or the other, its a probelm in terms of rational thinking, I suggest.
I don’t think I distorted anything you said. Let’s recap – you pointed to your “internal witness”, and I responded by saying that’s a problem if we’re giving that weight; on those grounds, Mormons are quite compelling (over Catholics) in terms of their “internal witness”. I don’t think that’s a reasonable basis to proceed on, but if you do, and you apparently do, by your measure, I’d be inclined to embrace Mornonism over Catholicism (assuming I don’t have my own “internal witness” one way or another, but am relying on the testimony of the “internal witness” of others).
It’s a garbage-in-garbage-out problem (and just to head off raise hackles, that’s the term the concept goes by, and not a claim that anything here is “garbage” by use of that term). You can apply all the rigorous logic and honesty you want, but if you are starting with faulty premises, a bad paradigm, it won’t help you. To apply this, if you accept that God is sovereign over all, no matter what, and just to boot, and immanent on top of that, as axiomatic, then perfect execution on the logic that flows from that, applying it rigorously and honestly to your daily experiences won’t help you out of your error, your embrace of a non-falsifiable, self-validating paradigm. That’s the subtle danger of adopting bogus paradigms, you just make that one mistake, and you can layer on all sorts of “best practices” which you convinced you are being logical and honest (which you are), obscuring the fundamental error in the structure of the paradigm.
Logically, no. NT Wright can’t overturn, challenge or adjust the truth that the Holy Catholic Church claims authority over (and that’s “every truth” on this account!). Here you have the paradigm preserving itself, defeating any challenges in an *a priori *way, dismissing outright the legitimacy of any potential challenge to the paradigm. This is the same dynamic as young earth creationism, where the axiom denies all evidential or rational challenges. It’s dogma, anti-knowledge at that point.
Yes, I wasn’t shopping for the maximally fideist example with Mormons, and I don’t think they are – I was looking at the intensity and primacy of their “internal witness”. But if you are concerned with fideism, Muslims of course have very strictly enforced injuctions against even questioning the veracity of the Qur’an, even in the details. That’s a triumph of faith over reasoning, I’d say… fideism.
I’m sure that’s true.
Agree, and I’m happy to declare and discuss those biases (as far as I’m aware of them), and defend them.
A lot of the points I bring out in my posts are focused on the nomenclature invoked, terms used. I don’t know what dialect, if there are distinct dialects I speak, but I spend a lot more time talking to Catholics and evangelicals about these topics than I do talk talking to other atheists. I think I’m your garden variety materialist, with a scientific realist bent, if you want a “starter handle”.
Understand,
Yes, just like everyone else. The knobs maybe at different settings on the dial for different people, but it’s the same process. Everyone filters (name removed by moderator)ut and new information through their working model of the world.
Humans have a remarkable ability for abstraction and meta-analysis. You and I can try on and understand and explore all sorts of complex and subtle ideas provisionally, without having to commit to them personally. I learn a lot here by trying out ideas presented here, provisionally, and I test them, examine them from different angles, and not strictly (or at all, necessarily) from a personal paradigm. It’s a bit like moving from Euclidean geometry to Riemannian geometry – you have to think along different lines and principles, but when you do, you can work from the inside, using the internal rules and consistencies of that framework to see what comes of it.
There’s no free lunch. If I’m not disciplined and skeptical in my thinking, I’ll fall for all sorts of preposterous claims. Been there, done that. I was raised a YEC (which I do understand is not completely my burden to bear, as it was burned into the brain through training and instruction as a child). So there’s risk on that side. On the other side, there is the risk of closing off avenues to understandings or truths that don’t fit into rational or empirical heuristical frameworks. That’s a risk, too. There’s a ditch to fall into on either side of the road, then, and the trick is to maintain a course that avoids the ditches to the left, and the right.
Because you don’t have a reasonable basis for thinking it’s untrue rather than true. Or maybe you do, in which case, that would be your default position on hearing the claim. But on its face, that seems a claim that’s perfectly uncontroversial in the setting it’s given. And your acceptance is not a blood oath or a lifetime commitment. It’s just a working proposition useful for the purposes of discussion.
OK! Maybe we’re getting somewhere!
No, that is a very poor line of reasoning. The implication is that behavior, in this case computation, can emerge from matter without the need to ascribe spiritual aspects to the matter. We do not think of our computers as having souls or intellect. I posit that the brain is merely a biological computer; therefore “intellect” is merely a behavior that emerges from sufficiently advanced computers, while computation is a behavior that arises from appropriately arranged matter. There is no reason to suppose that the human brain exceeds the power of any possible computing system. In fact, personal computers are on track to reach the computational power of the brain in roughly 15 years. People have also proposed that sometime in the next 20 years we will develop a computer capable of passing the Turing test.
Human minds do have limits. For an interesting example, read about Anosognosia:
Faith and disbelief each are the consequence of choice. But as to the tautology, Pythagorus
Ok, I shouldn’t go around in circles on this. I think we agreed that I referred to internal rationality (collecting evidence privately and drawing rational conclusions from it) as A source of evidence, not THE SOLE source. We can debate about whether Mormonism provides any basis for building an argument internally (on one of the many threads devoted to Mormonism). I think you’re reading “reasoned conclusion from privately acquired data” as “internal experience” (the Mormon ‘burning in the breast’) alone, with no other qualifying factors to consider.
In one way, Pythagoras did find the key to understanding reality, natural anyway. His proof was something he could test out on paper (er, papyrus?), in the real world, drawing it out, and verifying that yes, the lengths and the angles of the triangle did relate in practice just the way the math indicated. That is the key, tying a model to experience.
Computers are limited by matter and their code. As such, they cannot generate an infinite kind and amount of information.
The mind can have limits and still have infinite capacities.
Yes, but we can agree with your statement here because we share some knowledge about reality – and we know that this particular disorder exists.
Pythagoras saw mathematics as more than a mental construct but a description of reality. Numbers and/vectors as the basic elements of things. I suppose he came to this conclusion by considering the knowledge piled up by the Egyptians, whose constructions were concerned–like Stonehenge–with the mysteries of the heavens and its order which in some way was replicated on earth. He took a step away from myth. Of course, in a way he replaced it with magic.