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Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

olin posted:

I guess it would be moral for you to stop me from jumping in front of Mary, but i'm really not sure.

It certainly wouldn't be a seriously immoral act.

Don't you have an objective standard, though? There should be absolutely no question on what is or is not moral for you.

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Zaradis
Nov 6, 2014

olin posted:

I guess it would be moral for you to stop me from jumping in front of Mary, but i'm really not sure.

It certainly wouldn't be a seriously immoral act.

The point being that morality is ambiguous. It is not a concept which lends itself to absolutes.

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

olin posted:

He pretty convincingly argues that If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who is changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful. Those qualities would meet most definitions of divinity.

Here is Craig's argument (Call it argument A) that the cause of the universe must be a person:

1.) The universe has a beginning (from the first part of the KCA).
2.) The cause of the universe must be eternal (again, from the first part of the KCA).
3.) Anything that has a beginning is not eternal.
4.) If a cause is sufficient for an effect, and the cause is eternal, then the effect is eternal.
_4a.) (Premise for reductio) The universe has a material cause.
_4b.) A material cause is sufficient for its effect.
_4c.) The universe is eternal (This is a contradiction with 1 and 3)
5.) The universe does not have a material cause (from 4a-4c)
6.) All causes are either material or personal.
7.) The universe has a personal cause. (From disjunctive syllogism of 5 and 6)

The problem with this argument is that 'sufficiency' goes both ways. Here's another argument (argument B):

1.) An eternal sufficient cause must have an eternal effect.
2.) God's will to create "a world with a beginning" is sufficient to produce it (Denying this would probably get you into trouble)
3.) God's will to create "a world with a beginning" is eternal (Or else God changed his mind, a bad result).
4.) "A world with a beginning" is eternal (from 1,2,3)
5.) (4) contradicts (3) from Argument A. So one of the premises 1, 2, or 3 from Argument B must be false.


Edit: I should say that this reply is not mine; I got it from a Philosophy of Religion professor that I was a TA for some number of years ago.

Brainiac Five posted:

If you can definitely objectively quantify happiness, you've got more important things to do than engage in this silly argument. Publish, publish, publish, drat it.

Presumably, a utilitarian will want to identify 'happiness' by ostension. Either by pointing at a bundle of behaviors or pointing at a neural correlate would be sufficient. "This is the thing I'm interested in, maiximize this!" is what I imagine them saying.

Juffo-Wup fucked around with this message at 17:57 on May 19, 2016

Brainiac Five
Mar 28, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Juffo-Wup posted:

Presumably, a utilitarian will want to identify 'happiness' by ostension. Either by pointing at a bundle of behaviors or pointing at a neural correlate would be sufficient. "This is the thing I'm interested in, maiximize this!" is what I imagine them saying.

Oh, well, see, I was going to avoid any intimations that utilitarianism tends towards a horrific police state, but then you went ahead and made that argument for me.

This doesn't actually address the argument I made, in favor of the presumption that obviously the "neural correlate" of someone who is free from prejudice, assuming that this can actually be determined and generalized, will be one that produces greater happiness than that of a prejudiced person. Indeed, someone who lives in a prejudiced society but considers that prejudice to be evil seems intuitively more likely to be unhappy, depressed, or anxious than someone who conforms to societal norms. The issue that utilitarianism is in many ways counter to liberal and leftist values remains.

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

Brainiac Five posted:

Oh, well, see, I was going to avoid any intimations that utilitarianism tends towards a horrific police state, but then you went ahead and made that argument for me.

This doesn't follow, or at least not obviously so. If you want me to take an argument seriously, you have to give me more than just the conclusion.


Brainiac Five posted:

This doesn't actually address the argument I made, in favor of the presumption that obviously the "neural correlate" of someone who is free from prejudice, assuming that this can actually be determined and generalized, will be one that produces greater happiness than that of a prejudiced person. Indeed, someone who lives in a prejudiced society but considers that prejudice to be evil seems intuitively more likely to be unhappy, depressed, or anxious than someone who conforms to societal norms. The issue that utilitarianism is in many ways counter to liberal and leftist values remains.

It will not come as a shock to a utilitarian that particular moral problems have empirical solutions that can only be imperfectly predicted from the armchair. This is how the theory is supposed to work. That utilitarianism fails to rule out certain forms of social organization or personal behavior a priori is a fairly weak criticism of it, seeing as that's the whole point.

AARO
Mar 9, 2005

by Lowtax

Juffo-Wup posted:

Here is Craig's argument (Call it argument A) that the cause of the universe must be a person:

1.) The universe has a beginning (from the first part of the KCA).
2.) The cause of the universe must be eternal (again, from the first part of the KCA).
3.) Anything that has a beginning is not eternal.
4.) If a cause is sufficient for an effect, and the cause is eternal, then the effect is eternal.
_4a.) (Premise for reductio) The universe has a material cause.
_4b.) A material cause is sufficient for its effect.
_4c.) The universe is eternal (This is a contradiction with 1 and 3)
5.) The universe does not have a material cause (from 4a-4c)
6.) All causes are either material or personal.
7.) The universe has a personal cause. (From disjunctive syllogism of 5 and 6)

The problem with this argument is that 'sufficiency' goes both ways. Here's another argument (argument B):

1.) An eternal sufficient cause must have an eternal effect.
2.) God's will to create "a world with a beginning" is sufficient to produce it (Denying this would probably get you into trouble)
3.) God's will to create "a world with a beginning" is eternal (Or else God changed his mind, a bad result).
4.) "A world with a beginning" is eternal (from 1,2,3)
5.) (4) contradicts (3) from Argument A. So one of the premises 1, 2, or 3 from Argument B must be false.


Edit: I should say that this reply is not mine; I got it from a Philosophy of Religion professor that I was a TA for some number of years ago.


Presumably, a utilitarian will want to identify 'happiness' by ostension. Either by pointing at a bundle of behaviors or pointing at a neural correlate would be sufficient. "This is the thing I'm interested in, maiximize this!" is what I imagine them saying.


That is not a good representation of his argument. From an Atheist site I got this:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
4. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful.
5. Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful.


I don't agree with the beinglessness part though. 4 is explained in detail. You can download a more extensive map of the argument here. http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/KCA_mapped_11_20_2010_.pdf

AARO fucked around with this message at 18:13 on May 19, 2016

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

olin posted:

That is not a good representation of his argument. From an Atheist site I got this:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.

Demonstrate that this is true.

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

olin posted:

That is not a good representation of his argument. From an Atheist site I got this:

1.) Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2.)The universe began to exist.
3.) Therefore, the universe has a cause.
4.) If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful.
5.) Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful.


I don't agree with the beinglessness part though.

I was trying to be charitable. The argument as you've presented it is obviously invalid; what is (4) supposed to follow from?

Edit: I don't want to read from your atheist site. I read Craig's book. I'm happy to look at any argument you care to reproduce here, though.

Brainiac Five
Mar 28, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Juffo-Wup posted:

This doesn't follow, or at least not obviously so. If you want me to take an argument seriously, you have to give me more than just the conclusion.

How are you measuring "neural correlates", dude?

quote:

It will not come as a shock to a utilitarian that particular moral problems have empirical solutions that can only be imperfectly predicted from the armchair. This is how the theory is supposed to work. That utilitarianism fails to rule out certain forms of social organization or personal behavior a priori is a fairly weak criticism of it, seeing as that's the whole point.

Oh my god, dude, can you respond to the actual argument? Like, how do we get away from the potential conclusion that the increase in happiness from gays being oppressed is greater than that from gay equality if that's an empirical conclusion, without escaping the bounds of utilitarianism?

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦
You are the one who claimed "maximum happiness" as the goal.

Any attempt to define maximum happiness will instead start defining something else that is intended to result in maximum happiness.

The goal, whatever it may be, is determined by a society, group, or even an individual.

So, I have no interest in trying to define happiness.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

olin posted:

Rejecting hypotheticals and thought experiments because "they can't happen in real life" is antithetical to doing philosophy.One of the reasons that people today score about 30 points higher on IQ tests then 100 years ago is that people are more able to answer questions with hypothetical premises.

You're mischaracterizing my objection. I would expect a Christian to be able to think about how they would live if they didn't believe in God, but I would not expect Christianity, as a system in any of its typical forms, to answer the question "how would morality work without God" because at that point it would no longer be Christianity.

olin posted:

Also, lets say ISIS captured you and a bunch of other prisoners. The terms of release for all the prisoners were for you to kill the child prisoner. Otherwise they would behead you all in one week.

Is that real world enough for you?

Sure. Assuming I'm brave enough to stick by my principles, I wouldn't kill the child in those circumstances, for a variety of reasons. I don't know if I can trust ISIS to keep their word, and I don't know what they hope to achieve. I'm willing to assume that the interests of an organization who kidnapped me and threatened to kill me are antithetical to my interests, that the taboo against killing and hurting human beings generally serves the interests of minimizing human suffering, and that ISIS shows very little regard for that taboo. I don't want to advance a cause that I suspect has significant disutility, and my estimate of the disutility of killing the child is much greater than the small possibility that a) ISIS would keep its word and b) ISIS's goals in creating this dilemma have positive or neutral utility.

AARO
Mar 9, 2005

by Lowtax

Juffo-Wup posted:

I was trying to be charitable. The argument as you've presented it is obviously invalid; what is (4) supposed to follow from?

Edit: I don't want to read from your atheist site. I read Craig's book. I'm happy to look at any argument you care to reproduce here, though.

quote:

4. If the universe has a cause, then an
uncaused, personal Creator of the universe
exists, who sans the universe is
beginningless, changeless, immaterial,
timeless, spaceless, and enormously
powerful.


- Timelessness may be mysterious, but it is not incoherent. [Craig & Sinclair, 2009]
+ The basic case: The cause of the universe must be uncaused, for an infinite regress of
causes is impossible. Occam's razor suggests the cause is singular rather than plural. The
cause must be beginningless, because the first premise entails that whatever is uncaused
does not begin to exist.

The first cause must be changeless because an infinite temporal
regress of causes cannot exist. The immateriality of the first cause follows from its
changelessness, for whatever is material involves incessant change at least at the atomic
level. The first cause must be timeless and spaceless without the universe, because it
created time and space. It must also, of course, be enormously powerful. [Craig & Sinclair,
2009]

+ This first cause must also be personal because there are only two accepted types of
explanations, personal and scientific, and this can't be a scientific explanation. Also, the only
things that might be immaterial, timeless, and spaceless are abstract objects or
disembodied minds, but abstract objects cannot cause things, so it must be a disembodied
mind. Finally, only personal agency can explain how a temporal effect could come from a
changeless cause. [Craig & Sinclair, 2009]



AARO fucked around with this message at 18:20 on May 19, 2016

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

Brainiac Five posted:

How are you measuring "neural correlates", dude?

I'm not. I'm not even a utilitarian, I'm just not convinced your particular criticism of the theory ultimately works. Anyway, I think a utilitarian of a reasonable cast might say: the metaphysical ground of normative facts is neural. But our access to neural facts is imperfect, so our epistemic access to neural facts comes through observation of behavior, which is (we assume) correlated with neural facts. Or they might think the behavior is the metaphysical ground, maybe. Either way, pointing out problems with epistemic access to the ground of normative facts is at best a criticism of a moral theory as an operational guide to behavior, and does not address the truth or falsity of that theory's normative claims. I've said this before in other threads, but we should be careful to to conflate epistemic and metaphysical problems.

Brainiac Five posted:

Oh my god, dude, can you respond to the actual argument? Like, how do we get away from the potential conclusion that the increase in happiness from gays being oppressed is greater than that from gay equality if that's an empirical conclusion, without escaping the bounds of utilitarianism?

A priori? You don't, I don't think. A committed utilitarian would have to accept that there is a possible world in which that's how the normative facts shake out. But they can maintain that while simultaneously thinking they have good evidence that that world is not the actual world.

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

How do you know that the universe was caused, though?

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

olin posted:

+ This first cause must also be personal because there are only two accepted types of
explanations, personal and scientific, and this can't be a scientific explanation. Also, the only
things that might be immaterial, timeless, and spaceless are abstract objects or
disembodied minds, but abstract objects cannot cause things, so it must be a disembodied
mind. Finally, only personal agency can explain how a temporal effect could come from a
changeless cause. [Craig & Sinclair, 2009]

This is the distinction between mechanical and personal cause that my argument was a reply to. Ultimately, the reasons that Craig thinks that a 'scientific'/mechanical cause cannot be the First Cause apply equally to personal causes, on any reasonable theory of what a personal cause actually is.

Brainiac Five
Mar 28, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

doverhog posted:

You are the one who claimed "maximum happiness" as the goal.

Any attempt to define maximum happiness will instead start defining something else that is intended to result in maximum happiness.

The goal, whatever it may be, is determined by a society, group, or even an individual.

So, I have no interest in trying to define happiness.

So in other words, you're going to deal with this issue, which is hardly hypothetical, by dodging and ignoring it.


Juffo-Wup posted:

I'm not. I'm not even a utilitarian, I'm just not convinced your particular criticism of the theory ultimately works. Anyway, I think a utilitarian of a reasonable cast might say: the metaphysical ground of normative facts is neural. But our access to neural facts is imperfect, so our epistemic access to neural facts comes through observation of behavior, which is (we assume) correlated with neural facts. Or they might think the behavior is the metaphysical ground, maybe. Either way, pointing out problems with epistemic access to the ground of normative facts is at best a criticism of a moral theory as an operational guide to behavior, and does not address the truth or falsity of that theory's normative claims. I've said this before in other threads, but we should be careful to to conflate epistemic and metaphysical problems.


A priori? You don't, I don't think. A committed utilitarian would have to accept that there is a possible world in which that's how the normative facts shake out. But they can maintain that while simultaneously thinking they have good evidence that that world is not the actual world.

No, dude, I'm saying that in order to measure happiness from neural correlates you're probably going to mandate regular brain scans for representative samples or whatever and that's basically an absurdist police state. Doing it from behaviors is less absurdist as far as policing goes, but still a loving police state.

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

Brainiac Five posted:

No, dude, I'm saying that in order to measure happiness from neural correlates you're probably going to mandate regular brain scans for representative samples or whatever and that's basically an absurdist police state. Doing it from behaviors is less absurdist as far as policing goes, but still a loving police state.

Maybe! Or it might turn out that trying to carefully track every individual's personal utility (through brain scans or hidden cameras or commisars or whatever) actually is not the most effective way to maximize that value. I'm inclined to think that, if utilitarianism were true, it would not entail that we should institute a police state. It seems like that'd be a pretty unlikely way to make people happy, anyway.

Edit: I mean, it sounds like you're saying that, for any bundle of behaviors and dispositions that we decide to call 'happiness', it follows that they way to get the greatest number of people to express those behaviors would be to criminalize failing to do so. This just seems like a pretty big inferential leap.

AARO
Mar 9, 2005

by Lowtax

Who What Now posted:

How do you know that the universe was caused, though?

quote:

2.11. An actual infinite cannot exist.
2.12. An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
2.13. Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.

Actual vs. potential infinite
Craig & Sinclair argue that an actual infinite can’t exist:

The only legitimate sense in which one can speak of the infinite is in terms of potentiality: something may be infinitely divisible or susceptible to infinite addition, but this type of infinity is potential only and can never be fully actualized.

For example, the number of positive integers is potentially infinite, but you could never actually achieve infinity because you can always add one more.
Of course, the actual infinites “exist” in mathematical theory. They are given symbols like \infty and א 0. But Craig & Sinclair aren’t arguing that the actual infinite has no “mathematical existence.” They are arguing that the actual infinite is not “instantiated in the mind-independent world.” That is, the actual infinite doesn’t exist as anything more than a concept. Many mathematicians, like David Hilbert, have thought that the actual infinite has mathematical existence (mathematical legitimacy), but is not instantiated anywhere in the world.

Hilbert wrote:
The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought… The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea.1

The point is that the actual infinite does not exist in the same sense as “Fish exist in the sea.”

So even if “transfinite” mathematics is logically consistent, that doesn’t mean the actual infinite exists anywhere in the world. So Craig & Sinclair do not argue that the actual infinite is logically impossible, but rather that it is metaphysically impossible: the actual infinite can’t exist in the real world. But this means the authors must use modal logic, not simple Aristotelean logic, to show that the actual infinite is metaphysically impossible. Craig & Sinclair explain the problem this raises:

Arguments for metaphysical possibility or impossibility typically rely upon intuitions and conceivability arguments, which are obviously much less certain guides than strict logical consistency or inconsistency. The poorly defined nature of metaphysical modality cuts both ways dialectically: on the one hand, arguments for the metaphysical impossibility of some state of affairs will be much more subjective than arguments concerning strict logical impossibility; on the other hand, such arguments cannot be refuted by facile observations to the effect that such states of affairs have not been demonstrated to be strictly logically inconsistent.

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦
I'm admitting that I don't have the answer, but that doesn't make utilitarianism false. It is up to each group to define their own goals, and to answer the question for themselves. It's almost like you are asking for god to tell you what the right answer is, but not only is there no such thing, there cannot be.

Brainiac Five
Mar 28, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Juffo-Wup posted:

Maybe! Or it might turn out that trying to carefully track every individual's personal utility (through brain scans or hidden cameras or commisars or whatever) actually is not the most effective way to maximize that value. I'm inclined to think that, if utilitarianism were true, it would not entail that we should institute a police state. It seems like that'd be a pretty unlikely way to make people happy, anyway.

Okay, so we reject empirical attempts to measure the phenomena we are trying to maximize, as utilitarians. Am I reading this correctly?

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

Brainiac Five posted:

Okay, so we reject empirical attempts to measure the phenomena we are trying to maximize, as utilitarians. Am I reading this correctly?

No, not necessarily. For example, a utilitarian might think that a good strategy would be to hire a bunch of sociologists and statisticians for the central government and pay them to use accepted social psych methods to determine what would make for effective social policy. I'm just saying that trying to measure the phenomena by brutally authoritarian methods might be contrary to trying to maximize them.

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

olin posted:

2.11. An actual infinite cannot exist.

This disproves an infinite God right from the get-go. So if your god isn't infinite, what caused it?

Edit:

And, again, I'm only interested in speaking to you, not to people you can quote. If you can't phrase something in your own words then say so.

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

Who What Now posted:

This disproves an infinite God right from the get-go. So if your god isn't infinite, what caused it?

I think you might be (wrongly) conflating 'infinite' and 'eternal.'

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦
By the way, utilitarianism is not a political system, so talking about how it would be implemented on a state level and whatever authoritarian methods might be used is a completely different, only tangentially related, discussion.

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

Juffo-Wup posted:

I think you might be (wrongly) conflating 'infinite' and 'eternal.'

It's possible, and if so I'll admit it.

Brainiac Five
Mar 28, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Juffo-Wup posted:

No, not necessarily. For example, a utilitarian might think that a good strategy would be to hire a bunch of sociologists and statisticians for the central government and pay them to use accepted social psych methods to determine what would make for effective social policy. I'm just saying that trying to measure the phenomena by brutally authoritarian methods might be contrary to trying to maximize them.

Okay, but in reality you can't measure behaviors like that without extremely intrusive surveillance. So your conception makes it so that utilitarianism cannot actually know whether it has successfully maximized the phenomena it is measuring, in cases that are similar to real ones rather than idiotic hypotheticals.

AARO
Mar 9, 2005

by Lowtax

Who What Now posted:

This disproves an infinite God right from the get-go. So if your god isn't infinite, what caused it?

Edit:

And, again, I'm only interested in speaking to you, not to people you can quote. If you can't phrase something in your own words then say so.

An actual infinite cannot exist here in the universe. The creator is not material or existing inside the physical universe. He can be eternal.

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦
Statistics measure things like that all the time, and are only mildly intrusive.

Brainiac Five
Mar 28, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

doverhog posted:

Statistics measure things like that all the time, and are only mildly intrusive.

Statistics don't measure behaviors, and the actual process of observing behaviors is extremely difficult when it comes to avoiding the sense of intrusion or being surveilled.

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

Who What Now posted:

It's possible, and if so I'll admit it.

Well, the sort of infinity that Craig thinks is impossible is one where a thing or a group of things has infinitely many temporal parts, while he thinks that God created time along with the universe, at which point he began to exist within it.

I think. I have a hard time following it. Admittedly, he does need to go through quite a bit of mental gymnastics to prevent God from being subject to the same anti-infinity argument as the Universe. You might be right that there's a problem here, but it's at least one that Craig is aware of and takes himself to have responded to sufficiently.

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦
Not directly, but with enough data and correlations you can learn things about behavior. Anyway, you don't have to have perfect information to act in a certain way, in fact almost no one ever has. Why are you placing this burden of needing an oppressive amount of information on an utilitarian and no one else?

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

olin posted:

An actual infinite cannot exist here in the universe. The creator is not material or existing inside the physical universe. He can be eternal.

How do you know that this is true? And please, don't just quote Craig at me again. If you don't know the answer or can't think of how to phrase it, that's fine.

Brainiac Five
Mar 28, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

doverhog posted:

Not directly, but with enough data and correlations you can learn things about behavior. Anyway, you don't have to have perfect information to act in a certain way, in fact almost no one ever has. Why are you placing this burden of needing an oppressive amount of information on an utilitarian and no one else?

I am a devil and here to do the devil's work, for all you know.

You seem to not understand what empiricism means, though.

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

Brainiac Five posted:

Okay, but in reality you can't measure behaviors like that without extremely intrusive surveillance. So your conception makes it so that utilitarianism cannot actually know whether it has successfully maximized the phenomena it is measuring, in cases that are similar to real ones rather than idiotic hypotheticals.

Well, imagine that we get together as utilitarians and decide that the behaviors we're interested in are the disposition to report "yes that is pleasant" or "no that is unpleasant" to various stimuli. This is something that psych and social psych nerds already spend a lot of time and money studying, and I don't feel like it contributes to a feeling that I'm being constantly surveilled.

Brainiac Five
Mar 28, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Juffo-Wup posted:

Well, imagine that we get together as utilitarians and decide that the behaviors we're interested in are the disposition to report "yes that is pleasant" or "no that is unpleasant" to various stimuli. This is something that psych and social psych nerds already spend a lot of time and money studying, and I don't feel like it contributes to a feeling that I'm being constantly surveilled.

This is one of those idiotic hypothecticals.

Juffo-Wup
Jan 13, 2005

Pillbug

Brainiac Five posted:

This is one of those idiotic hypothecticals.

How's that?

AARO
Mar 9, 2005

by Lowtax

Juffo-Wup posted:

Well, the sort of infinity that Craig thinks is impossible is one where a thing or a group of things has infinitely many temporal parts, while he thinks that God created time along with the universe, at which point he began to exist within it.

I think. I have a hard time following it. Admittedly, he does need to go through quite a bit of mental gymnastics to prevent God from being subject to the same anti-infinity argument as the Universe. You might be right that there's a problem here, but it's at least one that Craig is aware of and takes himself to have responded to sufficiently.

The hotel argument points out the absurdity of infinite material things. If the hotel has infinite rooms and they are all occupied and then a new customer comes the manger can still except new guests. He has infinite rooms. Everytime a new customer comes and can give them a room and move tenet in room 1 to room 2 an room 2 to room 3 etc. Even though every room is occupied he can always except new customers. And even though new customers are checking in he always has the same number of customers. Infinite. 1000 more check in, still the same number of customers. Even if an infinite amount of new customers can he could still accommodate all of them. and he would still have the same number of customers.

Now everyone in rooms with even numbers checks out. Guess what he still has the same exact number of customers; infinite.

The argument goes on and on but you get the point. An actually existing infinite material thing is full of absurdities. It cannot exist.

These absurdities with the infinite do not exist with spiritual beings.

AARO fucked around with this message at 19:00 on May 19, 2016

Brainiac Five
Mar 28, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Juffo-Wup posted:

How's that?

Not even Epicurus promoted sensuality as the totality of pleasure. So it's like a utilitarianism built on maximizing toothbrushes.

AARO
Mar 9, 2005

by Lowtax
opps

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Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

olin posted:

The hotel argument points out the absurdity of infinite material things. If the hotel has infinite rooms and they are all occupied and then a new customer comes the manger can still except new guests. He has infinite rooms. Everytime a new customer comes and can give them a room and move tenet in room 1 to room 2 an room 2 to room 3 etc. Even though every room is occupied he can always except new customers. And even though new customers are checking in he always has the same number of customers. Infinite. 1000 more check in, still the same number of customers. Even if an infinite amount of new customers can he could still accommodate all of them. and he would still have the same number of customers.

Now everyone in rooms with even numbers checks out. Guess what he still has the same exact number of customers; infinite.

The argument goes on and on but you get the point. An actually existing material thing is full of absurdities. It cannot exist.

These absurdities with the infinite do not exist with spiritual beings.

Ok, then how to do go from this to the Christian God specifically?

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