Pinned Tweet
The real theological question, isn’t is there God, it is what is God? #Philosophy
37
7
84
19,254
I understand atheists want to label themselves that, because they don’t want to be associated with certain religious beliefs, but I’m intrigued why they would wan’t to associate themselves with cosmic hopelessness 2. Either they believe in that, or why not call yourself agnostic?
65
1
12
5,615
The problem with the word, is does a great whale ‘know’ it feels, does an atom feel? I think the ambiguity of both questions makes ‘subjectivity’ a far better word, as we ‘know’ the atom/great whale has a ‘subjective’ component to it.
It really irritates me when people "We don't know what consciousness is." You know what a feeling is when you feel it!
0
0
2
96
The issue is simplicity vs complexity is not the best reason to believe either way. Why is there not nothing at all, if brute simplicity is the key thing to consider?
Theists try to say atheists don’t have grounding for what we believe.
- senses are reliable
- we experience reality
- reasoning is reliable
Yes. Those are fundamentally axiomatic.
The thing is, they share all the same axioms, but add the wildly complex “god exists” axiom.
2
0
3
179
If AI is sentient, let alone truly conscious like us, we should probably switch it off at that marker even shouldn’t we ie. it’s just our slave going through pain? I don’t think it could be sentient but why let it find out, what’s in that for us?
There's a long history of people writing off the interests of other sentient beings who matter morally. We should worry about making the same mistake for AI.
1
0
0
87
You’re spot on, I always think of that quote, a little philosophy makes men atheist, while a great deal reconciles them to spirituality. It’s like the perennial philosophy too. The great thinkers across multiple cultures don’t just happen to be spiritual for no reason right?
It actually astounds me how many atheists have absolutely no idea what philosophy is. Or logjc, for that matter. They actually think “me no see thing right now? Thing no exist!”
1
1
0
152
Leon Eden retweeted
It actually astounds me how many atheists have absolutely no idea what philosophy is. Or logjc, for that matter. They actually think “me no see thing right now? Thing no exist!”
@tulipvirtues If your god actually existed, you wouldn't need arguments.
205
20
310
10,781
Er, so we ought to not remove systemic human poverty if we can. That’s a moral fact.
Ethics just is vibes. Stop trying to invoke moral principles. You think there's real, like, laws of nature that determine when things are good or bad? It's vibes all the way down. Just get comfortable with that.
1
0
2
176
Do you think we could have reflection via evolution without there being the chance of cancer? It’s easy to say yes, but that’s a completely different system to what we have. Is that system possible? Probably not.
Since we humans get cancer and there’s even cancer in children, doesn’t that mean that God‘s design could’ve been better?
0
0
2
75
It’s quite possible. Analytical philosophy is simply an overreach to say everything else is wrong, without making a positive argument one self. It’s just claim busting, but philosophy is not ultimately about refuting claims.
Richard Bernstein (1971), suggesting that "all contemporary philosophy, including analytic philosophy, can best be understood as an outgrowth of, or reaction to Hegel’s profoundly presumptuous claims."
0
0
0
57
AI is very different than having true reflection. That’s not happened yet and may never happen certainly.
It’s fascinating to me that there were many twenty century philosophers who were sure that AI is impossible, but only a handful who considered it likely: Dennett, Chalmers, early Putnam (but he later recanted), the Churchlands (but they didn’t get the Church/Turing thesis).
0
0
0
65
For all those Hume loving naturalists, be certain of this, Hume would be highly sceptical of anyone who stated they were a naturalist, or thought no afterlife was essentially proven. Scepticism does start and end with non-naturalism. #Philosophy
0
0
1
48
Er, 2+2 equals 4 is a fact, irrespective of whether there are brains or not discovering that.
Math, logic, and thought aren't floating in some ethereal, undetectable plane. They're patterns of electrochemical activity in physical brains. Damage the brain, alter the chemistry, and the “immaterial” reasoning changes or disappears. That's observable fact, not philosophy.
3
0
6
238
