Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
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Sorry for the delay in responding back.
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ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster
This is wrong, I was not elaborating positive Atheism in any way. The definition stayed as it was, and one way to reach it, could have been using that rule. But a person saying "God does not exist" for any other possible reason, would have remained a positive Atheist. Therefore, no, I was not elaborating the definition of positive Atheist, nor I would intend to.
Okay, but the rule "Positive assertions are to be considered false until there is a reason to consider them true" seems to sum up the basic tenet of positive atheism.
The statement that "there is a God" is a positive assertion, but without any reason to consider it true, the positive atheist would consider it false and claim that "there is no God" or "God does not exist." This seems to fall in line with the basic idea behind positive atheism.
As an agnostic, I would probably tend to qualify such a statement.
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To you. But no matter how does it sound to you, in many languages, saying "God does not exist" immediately implies that you are positive Aheist. No matter how sure do you feel or if you think that you have the absolute truth. I take it from Spanish, but it is the same in German and Italian, as far as I know.
In English, to say that "God does not exist" would also imply positive atheism, however, such a statement would NOT imply "Said as a temporal assertion. Truth until proven otherwise. Without pretending to be an absolute eternal truth." There is no condition or qualification to it, when such a statement is uttered in English. "God does not exist" means that the person IS making an assertion about absolute eternal truth, and that's the reason I can not accept positive atheism.
Perhaps in other languages, there are other implications behind the words, leaving some wiggle room in defining what "positive atheism" truly is.
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In Spanish, being "ateo" is "state that God does not exist"(2). Note the "state that". Technically, even a person who is blatantly lying would be "ateo". Of course it is pretty absurd to use the definition that way, but what the definition definitively does NOT do, is to say by whichever reason or with which level of security the person must speak to be Atheist. He says that - he is Atheist. Period.
Okay, well, just so we're on the same page here, I just wanted to cite the definitions for "Atheist" and "Agnostic" (from Dictionary.com):
Atheist: a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Agnostic: a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
The primary difference that I can see here is that the Atheist claims to have definite knowledge that God does not exist, while the Agnostic does not claim to have any such knowledge. The Atheist is CERTAIN that God does not exist, while the Agnostic is not certain.
If there's any degree of uncertainty in an Atheist's mind, then I would say that comes closer to Agnosticism than Atheism.
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Wrong. It does simply not necessarily mean "There is no God, and I am absolutely sure, and I know that I will never change my mind". It is you the one who is adding characteristics to the sentence, not me. The sentence is still the same, "there is no God".
If this was true, then there shouldn't be any problem with adding a few qualifying words, such as "In all likelihood, there is no God." Without any qualification or conditional words, "There is no God" means "There is no God," no different than "There is no cup on the table" or "There are no bullets in this gun."
In terms of logic, I would still regard these statements as claims requiring proof. To prove there is no cup on the table, you'd have to show a picture of an empty table clearly showing no cups on it. To prove there are no bullets in the gun, you'd have to demonstrate that every chamber of the gun is empty. I think the same would apply for the statement "There is no God." You'd have to be able to prove that you've (at the very least) visited every star system in every galaxy in the universe and made a thorough search for God before being able to logically proclaim that "there is no God."
That's why I stated that, for all intents and purposes, I generally follow the rule in day to day life, which you seemed to take exception to in post #244 of that thread:
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But please explain why the use of the rule is limited to "day-to-day life". Can you really justify that, or whas it only a way to have an "escape door" for the case you need it?
If it was - why do you create such a "door"? Is there any reasoning behind?
If, for example, I was driving down the highway and someone said "There's an invisible man in the road," I'm not going to suddenly slam on my brakes and create a possible traffic hazard based on a questionable claim like that. That's what I mean by "day to day life." For all practical purposes, I'm going to assume that what I perceive is actual reality and that the physical laws of the universe remain constant. However, the "escape door," as you call it, is because I must acknowledge that there is no way to know the ultimate, final, objective truth.
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In many games, you do not have to use all the rules in all the plays. I do not understand how possibly does this render the rule unnecessary. And actually, we only did not need it because we played (both) so bad that nobody won.
The problem that I was having is that the game itself reached a dead-end.
First, you kept saying that I "agreed" with the statement "If Azonier exists, then I have no nose." If anything, it was more of an agreement for the sake of argument, mainly because I wanted to see where you were going with that line of questioning.
Citing the rule modus tollendo tollens, you then stated that "If I have a nose, then Azonier does not exist." That's all well and good, except the problem was in your definition of Azonier, which was just another name for "Unoser," which you described early in the thread as an alien being:
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Its name is "Unoser". He is an extraterrestrial and lives in a planet far beyond the reach of our astronomical instruments. In his planet, the civlization is more than one million years more advanced as the one of the Earth in technology (don't tell me that this is impossible because we won't survive that much, I am just trying to express things in a simple way, not writing a contract with the devil). So, their technology is so extreme that it looks like magic for us.
He has a hobby: Around far planets with life, he looks for and internet and then for internet forums. And there, he looks for people whose alias in the forums is _________. Of course, he uses his extreme technology for this, as well as his extremely advanced mind (so advanced that we cannot even imagine his reasons to do this). And then, when he finds one, he substitutes their nose with an illusion.
The substitution is made in such a way, that the technological devices he uses (which can be artificial intelligences far beyond our natural one) influence all the environment. When a victim tries to touch his nose, the mechanisms of the illusion care about that he feels the nose (interfering with the neural channels, maybe). They care that the victims sees the nose in the mirror. They care that a doctor can see it too (even if it is not there, they can also interfere with the doctor's perception). They can change the results of X-Ray analysis, etc, etc, etc... in other words... there is no way, for us, to discover the illusion. And still - it is an illusion. The victim has no longer a nose.
So, based on this definition, how can one positively answer whether he has a nose or not? The only thing we have to go by is our observational skills, and if those are compromised by an "illusion," then we can't really be certain. This is based on the definition of "Azonier" (or whatever name you give it) as you wrote it. (By the way, why make up different names for the same being?)
The only way to answer the question of whether I have a nose is based on observation, and you rejected that answer.
Whether Azonier exists or not, according to the definition you wrote, I would still observe that I have a nose either way.
So, if we rework the same statement to make it more in line with the definition you wrote, it would have to be more like this:
- If Azonier exists, then human beings would observe that I have a nose.
- If Azonier does not exist, then human beings would observe that I have a nose.
I and other human beings observe that I have a nose.
Therefore, we can not tell if Azonier exists or not.
Now, for whatever reason, you did not accept this, even though I was going by the very definition you stated in this hypothetical scenario.
You also seemed to take exception to my use of the phrase "observed nose" when you drew a distinction between "I observe that I have a nose" versus "I have a nose." You insisted that I can not say that "I have a nose" without precluding the existence of Azonier.
I think the mistake here was in starting out with a mundane question like "Do you have a nose?" A nose is a provable, physical object that humans and other animal species are born with. So, of course, most everyone would say "Yes, I have a nose" (unless they were born without a nose or lost their nose in some tragic accident). If someone asked me (as you did), then I would also say "Yes, I have a nose," even before considering the question of whether Azonier exists or not. That's why I considered the question separately, as you ostensibly considered it in the beginning when you first asked if I had a nose - before you even introduced the subject of an extraterrestrial being who steals noses and replaces them with illusionary substitute noses which look and act like real noses.
So, even you asked it as a separate question in the beginning, so I don't see how you can insist that they be necessarily connected later on in the game. What also seemed to change is in the game's definition of "nose" itself, in that an observed nose can either mean a real nose or an illusionary nose.
It might have been interesting to ask about something more abstract, such as "Do you have a soul?" or "Do you have love inside your heart?" Why ask about a nose?
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Because it completely decides my future strategy. Please note the game of SixMore, for example. His answer to #1 led to a completely different game. I absolutely check that answer and decide what to present and how according to it. Or even, if the game makes sense with this person.
About my strategy on a particular play, I am sorry, but I do not think that I want to comment this at all. You think that my strategy is wrong? Well, heck, I think that yours is completely crazy, but the only way to know who is right and who is wrong is to play the game.
I was just responding to the questions and scenarios as you stated them. I didn't add anything extra, nor did I redefine anything or question any of the definitions you provided. I accepted the scenario "as is" and responded on that basis. Maybe it was "crazy" to you, but the main problem with the game itself is that you were acting as judge and referee while playing the game at the same time.
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RE: Agnosticism - 
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