335 réponses à ce sujet

[In Exile]

CastonFolarus wrote...
Um...bunk. I can sure be 100% sure about many things.

You're wrong. Look at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and start with "Brain in a Vat". Their links are good. 

I can be WRONG, but I can still be sure about my belief of its existence. Or non-existence, as the case may be. It all depends on how willing I am to be mistaken.

You can't have a rational basis for it.

Some people simply have a higher standard of certainty than others, I guess.

If the word is subjective, it's meaningless. 

[In Exile]

dragonflight288 wrote...

Here's another philosophy by Rene' Descartes.

"I think, therefore I am."

Read about Descartes Category mistake (or error). You can't distinguish his belief in existence from, say, a butterfly dreaming to be a person. So Descarts claim is really about a subjective sense of existence, versus being able to prove any kind of existence as such. 

[In Exile]

EntropicAngel wrote...
How exactly do you falsify, "There is a God"?

But that's not the actual claim a religion makes. There are specific claims, e.g. miracles, the consequences of not following religious doctrine, claims about cosmology, human lifespan, etc. 

These can all be disproven. Which is where the argument that religious text is not literal comes from: because any non-metaphorical interpretation is easily falsified, so the explanation has to become one that's immune to facts. 

Since religion is awfully broad, I'll just say theism is every bit as valid as atheism. Neither has true scientific support or criticism. 

The preponderance of evidence that monotheistic religions held IRL are unlike to be true unless interpreted like a Shakesperean text is pretty high. Disproving theism is like disproving the existence of purple chickens. It's impossible without an exhaustive search. 

[dragonflight288]

In Exile wrote...

dragonflight288 wrote...

Here's another philosophy by Rene' Descartes.

"I think, therefore I am."

Read about Descartes Category mistake (or error). You can't distinguish his belief in existence from, say, a butterfly dreaming to be a person. So Descarts claim is really about a subjective sense of existence, versus being able to prove any kind of existence as such. 

True, but it's still fun to think about whether or not you agree with it.

That's the fun thing about philosophy. Ultimately each and every philosophy is nothing more than a theory, something some people may or may not believe, as there are so many 'truths' peopl can accept, or what is 'good' in the world and what is 'real.' 

No single philosophy has ever truly be definitively proven, as there are always some people who live outside that philosophies teachings.

[Ieldra]

x-aizen-x wrote...
how can anyone not believe in higher powers in thedas when every1 is fully aware of entire other dimensions plus they basically have proof the maker existed.

Err....there is proof the Maker exists? Exactly how? Also, the existence of other dimensions and the existence of gods are unrelated, and the Fade is not an "other dimension" but rather an aspect of the one world. Note how Tevinter mages liken entering the Fade to a change in perception (WoT I, 141). DAI will likely throw some confusion into this with the Veil tears as visible phenomena, and something like "physically entering the Fade" is apparently possible. Nonethelss, I have created a theory that explains this.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 24 janvier 2014 - 03:29 .

[In Exile]

dragonflight288 wrote...
That's the fun thing about philosophy. Ultimately each and every philosophy is nothing more than a theory, something some people may or may not believe, as there are so many 'truths' peopl can accept, or what is 'good' in the world and what is 'real.'

That's not quote right. A philosophy is about a framework of reasoning. A lot of philsophy is misunderstood because it's taught separate from it's contenxt. Like Kant's work. A lot of it is purely legal. He has pages on how a gratiutious promise to give a gift can't form a binding contract. Hegel's Abstract Right is purely about the framework of private law and civil society and the justifiability of legal rules. 

But people study Kant in some sort of vacuum and talk about inscrutable and universal moral principles, which was never quite the claim that Kant was making. The same with Hobbes, actually, who was quite the learned evidence law scholar. Utilitarianism was more of a framework for a principled justification of laws. 

At any rate, I'm not disagreeing that these things are somehow universal truths, but it's not quite right to say theories because they're really more instrumental then that. 

[HK-90210]

If you hold the words '100% sure' to that kind of standard, of course there's going to be no way to meet it. Everything becomes an academic discussion, nothing more. If the language of the arguement, rather than the substance of the arguement itself comes under scrutiny, the debate becomes nothing more than sematics.

My final opinion on that matter is that we as players have been given the opprotunity to express doubt about various religions of Thedas before, and we likely will again. In my mind, it makes sense that atheism is not a represented or substancial group of the people of Thedas, as the supernatural world is very evident in Thedas. You don't have to believe in the Maker, or even any diety at all. But in Thedas, you have to have some kind of idea as to where magic, the Fade, and life in general came from. If you can come up with a viable theory that doesn't involve supernatural elements, all power to you. But it's apparent that in Thedas, those kinds of theories havn't become widespread.

Even Morrigan's flat-out disbleief in the Maker is bound to be replaced by something. What it is, she never really says. She is an example of disbelief in the Maker. She certainly respects the power of the Old Gods, though not necesarily to the point of diefication. Fact is that we don't know what Morrigan believes. Only what she doesn't.

Man, times like these, I can see why Mr. Gaider makes tweets like he does. The fanbase gets all in a tizzy. To me, what he said made sense, but he HAD to know he was going to tick off somebody when he said what he said. Power to him. Offend away, Mr. Gaider. Soak up them fantears. You know you want to.

[In Exile]

CastonFolarus wrote...

If you hold the words '100% sure' to that kind of standard, of course there's going to be no way to meet it.

But if all you mean is "pretty convinced it's right", then that's not a hard standard to meet. It's as simple as "preponderance of evidence points to [X]". We can disprove lots of things on that standard, like gods and purple chickens. 

In my mind, it makes sense that atheism is not a represented or substancial group of the people of Thedas, as the supernatural world is very evident in Thedas. You don't have to believe in the Maker, or even any diety at all. But in Thedas, you have to have some kind of idea as to where magic, the Fade, and life in general came from.

Do we need to have some kind of idea of where life in general, gravity, and evolution came from IRL to not believe in monotheistic dieties? 

If you can come up with a viable theory that doesn't involve supernatural elements, all power to you. But it's apparent that in Thedas, those kinds of theories havn't become widespread.

They don't exist IRL, either, because we have no theories besides basically theology and people's random unsubstatiated conjecture. 

All I'm saying is that Thedas has the same intellectual problem we do IRL about the nature of their laws of nature (pardon the pun). 

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

You're wrong. Look at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and start with "Brain in a Vat". Their links are good.

I like how you're arguing my side on this one.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 24 janvier 2014 - 06:00 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Your design for the Bhaalspawn is less likely to be broken by the game, because there you have the ability to avoid character-breaking remarks.

You have no such ability in DA2.

I can't recall BG2, but DA:O absolutely has character-breaking situations. The only reason you do not see them is that you think adding a "I refuse to answer" option prevents a character from being broken.

It usually does.  And that prevents that situation from being character-breaking.

Having an out is necessary to avoid those situations.  Refusals to answer are such an out.

DA2 may well have had refusals to answer, but we couldn't see them.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I like how you're arguing my side on this one.

I don't disagree with you on the existence of the problem, just it's significance and solution. Regardless of whether people reach a different conclusion, they need to understand that this is a fundamental problem that has to have an answer for a coherent theory of (among other things) perception and proof. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

dragonflight288 wrote...

Here's another philosophy by Rene' Descartes.

"I think, therefore I am."

That argument is circular.  The statement "I think" presupposes the existence of the thinker by assigning the characteristic "thinks" to the pronoun "I".  Since things that don't exist can't exhibit characteristics, Descartes's phrasing presupposes that "I" exists, rendering the ultimate conclusion the result of circular reasoning.

At best, Descartes identified that something was thinking, but he has no reason to believe it was him.

Moreover, this construction, "I think, therefore I am," is a pretty poor translation.

[Sylvius the Mad]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Atheism is disbelief. Agnosticism is non-belief.

If Theism is a belief, then atheism is the lack that belief.  Etymologically, it is the negation of theism.

Agnosticism would then be a subset of atheism.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Theists have a belief in a god. Atheists lack that belief.

The definition holds.

[CaptainBlackGold]

EntropicAngel wrote...

In Exile wrote...

But that's not the actual claim a religion makes. There are specific claims, e.g. miracles, the consequences of not following religious doctrine, claims about cosmology, human lifespan, etc. 

These can all be disproven. Which is where the argument that religious text is not literal comes from: because any non-metaphorical interpretation is easily falsified, so the explanation has to become one that's immune to facts. 
...

The preponderance of evidence that monotheistic religions held IRL are unlike to be true unless interpreted like a Shakesperean text is pretty high. Disproving theism is like disproving the existence of purple chickens. It's impossible without an exhaustive search. 

I understand what you're saying. I was more thinking of theism, I suppose, than "religion," because religion is too broad to be approached singularly.

Perhaps religion was being discussed earlier and I missed it.

In Exile; the issue is not as simple as you state, neither for us, nor for the characters in the DA universe.

First, you state that certain "religious" claims can be "disproven." By what standard is something "proven" or "unproven?" Without taking us too far afield, may I suggest considering the following:

a. The presuppositions with which you begin, will determine which conclusions appear valid.
b. The psychology of learning demonstrates that evidence that supports a presupposition is given more weight than one that would overturn said presuppositions.
c. What is "credible" or "reasonable" is more a sociological statement than rational one; i.e., what is credible (or believable), is only short hand for "What fits within my preconceived ideas about how things ought to be."
d. "Religious" explanations of natural phenomenon vary with the presuppositions with which they begin. As Entropic Angel said, "religion" is really too broad an area to lump every belief system into one bag. However, some religions offer explanations of physical phenomenon that can in fact be tested.
e. Whether those religious explanations are accepted by others, has less to do with whether they can be "proven" but by whether they are consistent with the presuppositions of other explanations.

Second; having said the above, Thedas has a religious explanation of observed phenomenon; magic, spirits, the Fade, Old Gods, etc. While differing religions offer different explanations, they all accept the existence of the "supernatural" or "metaphysical." We can legitimately call this "metaphysical" because they have natural laws that work, apparently anyway, the same way ours do; we can reasonably assume that water evaporates, rises, condenses and falls as rain in a "natural" cycle just as it does in our world. However, in Thedas, magic can by-pass the natural cycle and create say, a thunderstorm with lightening and such. Furthermore, we presume that normally speaking, if a farmer needs water for his fields, he either waits for rain, or irrigates it from a convenient water source - not hire a mage to make it rain.

Thus magic is in fact metaphysical because it works outside of the normal pattern of nature.

Third, your statement "Disproving theism is like disproving the existence of purple chickens..." Let's look at that statement. What if people you had never met wrote documents stating the existence of purple chickens and described their habits, characteristics and variation of hue? It appears to me that your reasoning is that "Well I've never seen a purple chicken and neither has anyone else that I know. Therefore the people who wrote about them were just making them up. I can't prove they don't exist because I haven't been everywhere, but from my experience, it is highly unlikely they do." Your assumptions at the beginning determine whether you accept the testimony of others as being "credible."

Sorry, kind of went off there a bit but it's fun to discuss these kinds of issues.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Or, put another way, theists hold that there is a god.

Some would then say that athiests must hold the opposite, that there is no god.

But I would argue that this negates the wrong part of the statement. It's not the god that should be negated, but the holding.

Remember, the opposite of "A" isn't "B". The opposite of "A" is "not A".

[CaptainBlackGold]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Theists have a belief in a god. Atheists lack that belief.

The definition holds.

I really wanted to respond to your sig at the bottom on your post here, "God used to be my co-pilot, but then we crashed in the Andes and I had to eat him."

So Sylvius, you have taken Holy Communion at least once, eh?

Sorry, off topic here but I thought it was funny.

[Sylvius the Mad]

CaptainBlackGold wrote...

Third, your statement "Disproving theism is like disproving the existence of purple chickens..." Let's look at that statement. What if people you had never met wrote documents stating the existence of purple chickens and described their habits, characteristics and variation of hue? It appears to me that your reasoning is that "Well I've never seen a purple chicken and neither has anyone else that I know. Therefore the people who wrote about them were just making them up. I can't prove they don't exist because I haven't been everywhere, but from my experience, it is highly unlikely they do." Your assumptions at the beginning determine whether you accept the testimony of others as being "credible."

Why would we presume they were making up the chickens?

Thinking those people were lying is not the only available alternative to thinking they were right.

[CaptainBlackGold]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

CaptainBlackGold wrote...

Third, your statement "Disproving theism is like disproving the existence of purple chickens..." Let's look at that statement. What if people you had never met wrote documents stating the existence of purple chickens and described their habits, characteristics and variation of hue? It appears to me that your reasoning is that "Well I've never seen a purple chicken and neither has anyone else that I know. Therefore the people who wrote about them were just making them up. I can't prove they don't exist because I haven't been everywhere, but from my experience, it is highly unlikely they do." Your assumptions at the beginning determine whether you accept the testimony of others as being "credible."

Why would we presume they were making up the chickens?

Thinking those people were lying is not the only available alternative to thinking they were right.

Why would people presume they were lying? My point is that all data is interpreted within the context of a worldview. The "why" the existence of purple chickens is doubted could be manifold; arrogance, provincialism, a religious belief that the Maker would never had done such an outrageous thing or that simply purple chickens are not part of a person's experience.

I am just trying to demonstrate that where we begin, will determine where we will end.

[Jorji Costava]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Or, put another way, theists hold that there is a god.

Some would then say that athiests must hold the opposite, that there is no god.

But I would argue that this negates the wrong part of the statement. It's not the god that should be negated, but the holding.

Remember, the opposite of "A" isn't "B". The opposite of "A" is "not A".

In general, there are three ways to respond to any proposition you are considering: You can believe it, disbelieve it, or withhold judgment. So it seems to me that the most sensible usage of the terms "atheist, "agnostic," etc. maps on to those three attitudes, where atheism is understood as disbelief in a god, agnosticism means the withholding of judgment, and theism denotes belief. This usage is consistent with the dominant usage of these terms within the contemporary philosophy of religion.

CaptainBlackGold wrote...

I am just trying to demonstrate that where we begin, will determine where we will end.

Is this intended as a thesis about how people, as a matter of fact, actually form their beliefs, or a normative thesis about how we ought to form them?

[CaptainBlackGold]

osbornep wrote...

CaptainBlackGold wrote...

I am just trying to demonstrate that where we begin, will determine where we will end.

Is this intended as a thesis about how people, as a matter of fact, actually form their beliefs, or a normative thesis about how we ought to form them?

My statement above is based on properly vetted, statistically validated, scientific studies in the psychology of learning that at this time represents the best explanation of how people form beliefs and convictions.

However, truth in advertising forces me to admit that I am willing to accept that conclusion as valid because it fits within the parameters established by my own worldview...

See what I did there?