What is real ?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Enmos, Dec 29, 2007.

  1. Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    Ok. I didn't mean to present those views as fact. I don't KNOW anything about God.
    In fact, isn't it so that one cannot know anything about God by definition ?
    Given the complete lack of evidence for God and the fact that you would have to make a shitload of unfounded assumptions to construct a way for God to exists, I think the possibility of God existing is fantastically small.. almost non-existent if not completely.
    But I don't KNOW.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    No instinct is programmed behavior.

    By the way, the dictionary gives "natural intuitive power" as one of the definitions of the word 'instinct'
    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/instinct
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    Green, please lets not make this an atheist vs theist thing.
    I already apologized for my earlier remark, but I sense you are still a bit offended..
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,811
    If you don't know, then how can you say about some other people that they believe in "something so obviously flawed"?

    Just because you don't think God exists and see no evidence for the existence of God, does not mean that the same is true for others.

    Pride goeth before the fall.


    Why I am pursuing this line of argument: I think you are relying on a sense of security that you derive from science. Yet this sense of security is a false one.
    The fact that this thread and the other one have been going on for so long is grounds for my suspicion that some denial or other is at work in you.
     
  8. Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    It is obviously flawed to me.
    And how can there be more than one reality ?

    Edit: please relax..
    Perhaps you want to point out what you think I am in denial about.
     
  9. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,811
    I am not offended and I am not a theist. Nor am I an atheist in the usual sense.

    I have to admit though that it pisses me off to see you argue from cheap tricks, when at the same time, you rely on "scientific evidence".
     
  10. Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    What cheap tricks ?
    And please, if you get pissed off here you might want to stay out of this thread..
     
  11. shichimenshyo Caught in the machine Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,110
    The only thing that is real is the moment we are in now, wheni die I believe that existence will die with me, after all my personal universe is only as big as what I percieve and only the way I percieve it to be. I am the begining and the end of creation all at once.
     
  12. Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    Exactly.. this universe of yours, is it real outside your mind ?
     
  13. shichimenshyo Caught in the machine Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,110
    No, because if my mind ceases to exist so does the world that it percieves
     
  14. Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Yes, and you realize it.. so you at least kind of agree with my views here right ?
     
  15. draqon Banned Banned

    Messages:
    35,006
    From now on and from here on, I define this reality. I am real and everything else is not. Now according to my new universally accepted definition, lets approach everything.
     
  16. shichimenshyo Caught in the machine Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,110
    Yes, I believe I do

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  17. Myles Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,553
    I disagree. Instinct operates on two levels. Hard wired, e.g., an instinctive fear of snakes. Most animals are hard wired in this way.

    Instinct based on what we have learned in the past and which we draw on in situations in the present. It does not have to be an exact repetition of what happened in the past, but something like an extrapolation of some previous events which informs a present action. I believe that would come under the heading of instinct as opposed to learned behaviour.I may be wrong.
     
  18. Myles Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,553
    Can you not agree that a private universe is a reflection of an outer reality which continues after we are dead. While we live we create our universe but it is not totally subjective. There are things we can agree about with others and some things where we differ, depending on our experience. intelligence and so on.

    When I say I deny god's existence, I cannot do so without being in disagreement with those who affirm his existence. That mkes them wrong in my eyes and I am entitled to regard them in that way. I do not follow Greenberg's argument that my position puts me above god.

    My denial is based on what I regard as the absence of any evidence which supports the notion. It is based on reason. Others tend to reject reason and believe in god on some subjective grounds. I have never heard an argument to support god's existence, that cannot be refuted. Certainly, all the classical philosophical arguments have been refuted time and again but this appears to be unknown to those who continue to use such arguments.

    That god is real to those who believe in him is beyond doubt. But that he is real in an objective sense cannot be demonstrated. Hence my disbelief.
     
  19. shichimenshyo Caught in the machine Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,110
    I can agree that the universe could continue to exist after I die, but if existence to me personally is only my perceptions of the universe then it really does not continue to exist for me, so it ceases to be.
     
  20. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,811
    There was this episode once on Derren Brown. He managed to convince a woman that red is black, yellow is blue and so on, she mixed up all the colors. They then all (Brown, the woman and her friends) went out to the parking lot to her car. The woman couldn't find it. She claimed that someone parked exactly the same type of car, except that this one was black, where she previously parked her red car, but that hers was now gone. The woman was pointing at a red car, claiming it was black.

    - That's what this thread has gotten like.

    I'm out of here.
     
  21. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,168
    What happens to you Enmos when the guy who says his world disappears when he dies, dies? Pardon the floppy grammar.
     
  22. flameofanor5 Not a cosmic killjoy Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    351
    How can we die if we don't exist?
     
  23. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,168
    I would say much of instinct is based on the experiences of those from whom I've gotten my genes from, up the line. Whereas intuition seems like a more complicated _______________ that may include genetic factors, but also can be built up through experience. I wouldn't limit it to those two, but a discussion defining intuition should perhaps go somewhere else.
     

Share This Page