List of common fallacies of Atheists

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hatsoff said:
I’m quite sure that those things do not exist at all, except insofar as they are concepts which physical brains may conceive.
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What you have said does not make any sense. You say that the motion of non-being to being is a mental concept, and does not actually exist

Furthermore you say that redness is just a concept and has no objective value.

You also claim that logic is just a product of the mind and has no objective value. If this were true we would not be able to use logic in the sciences to help one to know objective natural truth.

For example, we know that true and false = false. 1 and 0 = 0. This is a basic boolean operation. If this was just a concept in my mind, it would not be able to work in objective reality, because such logic would not exist outside of my imagination. Furthermore if logic didn’t exist outside of my mind, you would never be able to say someone is truly false, because false itself would be a product of the imagination and would not actually exist. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt that this is how you live out your life on an everyday basis.
 
Matthias123 said:
What you have said does not make any sense. You say that the motion of non-being to being is a mental concept, and does not actually exist
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Correct. And it seems plain enough to me. Do you not know what I mean when I say that some claim is a concept?
Furthermore you say that redness is just a concept and has no objective value.
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You also claim that logic is just a product of the mind and has no objective value. If this were true we would not be able to use logic in the sciences to help one to know objective natural truth.
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I didn’t say anything about value or objectivity. Truth is objectively determined in a given formal system. But that doesn’t mean concepts have any other sort of existence than within human thought.
For example, we know that true and false = false. 1 and 0 = 0. This is a basic boolean operation. If this was just a concept in my mind, it would not be able to work in objective reality, because such logic would not exist outside of my imagination.
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How do boolean operations “work in objective reality,” such that they require existence on some ethereal plane outside the mind?
Furthermore if logic didn’t exist outside of my mind, you would never be able to say someone is truly false, because false itself would be a product of the imagination and would not actually exist. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt that this is how you live out your life on an everyday basis.
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I live my life just fine without believing that truth values have meaning apart from any value system, or that said value systems have existence outside our minds.
 
hatsoff said:
Correct. And it seems plain enough to me. Do you not know what I mean when I say that some claim is a concept?

I didn’t say anything about value or objectivity. Truth is objectively determined in a given formal system. But that doesn’t mean concepts have any other sort of existence than within human thought.

How do boolean operations “work in objective reality,” such that they require existence on some ethereal plane outside the mind?

I live my life just fine without believing that truth values have meaning apart from any value system, or that said value systems have existence outside our minds.
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How do boolean operations “work in objective reality,” such that they require existence on some ethereal plane outside the mind?
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Logic itself is an idea that exists outside the human mind, but it can be possessed by the active intellect.
 
Physical things as in material things? Logic exists immaterially.
 
…I have been providing reason, but you are not understanding. If logic didn’t actually exist you would not be able to perform logic. Logic is not made of matter, it is immaterial.

If you are a materialist examine this logic:
  1. We know matter.
  2. We have an idea of matter
  3. You must have an idea of something before you can know it.
  4. Therefore the idea of matter cannot be made of matter.
(Because then the idea of matter would be made up of matter, and you must have an idea of matter before you can know matter, therefore if the idea of matter was made up of matter you would never be able to know matter.)
 
Matthias123 said:
…I have been providing reason, but you are not understanding. If logic didn’t actually exist you would not be able to perform logic. Logic is not made of matter, it is immaterial.

If you are a materialist examine this logic:
  1. We know matter.
  2. We have an idea of matter
  3. You must have an idea of something before you can know it.
  4. Therefore the idea of matter cannot be made of matter.
(Because then the idea of matter would be made up of matter, and you must have an idea of matter before you can know matter, therefore if the idea of matter was made up of matter you would never be able to know matter.)
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Well, speaking from a physicalist standpoint, the “idea” of matter is just the organization of neuron paths in your brain that represent the idea inside your mind, thus the idea is just the organization of matter. I think your point that you can’t know matter if the idea of matter is made of matter is ridiculous. As a for instance, we know cells, yet we are made of those.
 
liquidpele said:
Well, speaking from a physicalist standpoint, the “idea” of matter is just the organization of neuron paths in your brain that represent the idea inside your mind, thus the idea is just the organization of matter. I think your point that you can’t know matter if the idea of matter is made of matter is ridiculous. As a for instance, we know cells, yet we are made of those.
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“idea” is neuron in your brain that represent idea inside your mind, thus idea is matter :confused:
 
Benadam said:
“idea” is neuron in your brain that represent idea inside your mind, thus idea is matter :confused:
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A good analogy may be a computer. You can model things on a computer… the representation there is being represented by electrical charges on silicon, yet the computer is able to compute and do amazing things. Of course electrical charge itself is incapable of representing such complexities, but with the right organization it can. So it is with our brains, only they are way more complex than modern day processors/memory.
 
liquidpele said:
A good analogy may be a computer. You can model things on a computer… the representation there is being represented by electrical charges on silicon, yet the computer is able to compute and do amazing things. Of course electrical charge itself is incapable of representing such complexities, but with the right organization it can. So it is with our brains, only they are way more complex than modern day processors/memory.
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But…a computer is idea realized both are contigent on human imagination. How much does an idea weigh? weigh a computer:p
 
liquidpele said:
Well, speaking from a physicalist standpoint, the “idea” of matter is just the organization of neuron paths in your brain that represent the idea inside your mind, .
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Which would be matter. Now you see the paradox the materialists need to face. Also how are we able to know things that don’t actually exist? We know the idea of actual infinity, but it doesn’t exist in the natural world. How do we know something that doesn’t actually exist? This can’t be explained through purely material means.
 
Matthias123 said:
…I have been providing reason, but you are not understanding. If logic didn’t actually exist you would not be able to perform logic.
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If by “exist” you mean exist on some transcendent, ethereal plane, then I’ll need you to justify your claim before I can accept it. For nothing is required to “perform logic” except a physical brain.
Logic is not made of matter, it is immaterial.
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Indeed, it is conceptual. It has no physical existence–the only kind of existence I know.
If you are a materialist examine this logic:
Click to expand...
  1. We know matter.
  2. We have an idea of matter
  3. You must have an idea of something before you can know it.
  4. Therefore the idea of matter cannot be made of matter.
Click to expand...
(Because then the idea of matter would be made up of matter, and you must have an idea of matter before you can know matter, therefore if the idea of matter was made up of matter you would never be able to know matter.)
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I freely agree that “the idea of matter” is not made of matter. You did not need to supply any argument for that. And since the idea is not made of matter, that idea has no physical existence–which, again, is the only kind of existence I know.

No idea has physical existence.
 
liquidpele said:
Well, speaking from a physicalist standpoint, the “idea” of matter is just the organization of neuron paths in your brain that represent the idea inside your mind, thus the idea is just the organization of matter. I think your point that you can’t know matter if the idea of matter is made of matter is ridiculous. As a for instance, we know cells, yet we are made of those.
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It sounds like you have the right idea (no pun intended), but I need to nitpick over your language due to the issues with Matthias123.

The “idea of matter” isn’t the organization of neurons. For the neurons have direct physical existence, but this is not the case for any idea.

On the other hand, the organization of neurons is responsible for someone having an idea. And so when we say, “John has an idea,” we’re saying that the physical organization of neurons in John’s brain is such that John has that idea. We’re not saying that there exists some transcendent, ethereal thing called an “idea” in some abstract realm called John’s “mind.” For in our physicalist/materialist model, no non-physical entities exist, by definition.

And of course it appears you understand this quite well. But I want to be as exact as I can in my language, in order to help Matthias123 understand my perspective.
 
Matthias123 said:
Which would be matter. Now you see the paradox the materialists need to face. Also how are we able to know things that don’t actually exist? We know the idea of actual infinity, but it doesn’t exist in the natural world. How do we know something that doesn’t actually exist? This can’t be explained through purely material means.
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I fail to see why it’s a paradox. And we don’t know things actually exist. We could be in the Matrix technically.
 
Benadam said:
But…a computer is idea realized both are contigent on human imagination. How much does an idea weigh? weigh a computer:p
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Did you really not understand what I said? Just google “AI chat bot” and talk to a computer. The creation of the computer is not my point here, it’s that simple organization of charges on silicone can produce amazing results that include abstract concepts that it can calculate that we can’t (mandelbrot set for instance) .

From that, considering how much more complicated our brains are than a computer, it’s not a far jump to think about what could be accomplished with trillions of neurons able to reconnect in any fashion they choose.
 
hatsoff said:
Observation and usefulness.
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Observation (by the sense) implies that only physical objects exist. How do you know that only physical objects exist?
Usefulness from what point of view? Material success?
 
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