Oh, man, Mega-Post.
Why attempt to change what is your purpose? It was given to you by the originator of truth.
I did not use the word change. I used react. One can only react to something one is able to know or perceive. Trying to change it would be an exercise in futility anyway.
Okay, so this is a mess of terminology and dives into a tangent. Entropy and order are not diametrically opposed. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what entropy actually is. Entropy is not a synonym for disorder. It is, essentially, a measurement of the dispersal of energy. None of this has anything to do with why Z needs an objective truth giver to assign it value.
It needs objective truth to assign it objective "value(s)". Failing that it is like any other subjective purpose which is ultimately meaningless.
After reading more of your posts, it's come to my attention that you don't actually use "objective" in a consistent manner. What do you mean by "objective" and "subjective?"
Objective as in constant not subject to change based on any other factors.
Subjective as in fluid, changeable. Dependent on other factors.
I don't think you understood the statement. You are the one arguing for the normative preference for objective purpose. I'm re-stating your implicit preference.
Let me rephrase my question:
Do you prefer an external, objective purpose, no matter what it is, over a purpose you define for yourself?
I prefer knowing objective purpose, no matter what it is, over not knowing and therefore defining it subjectively based on delusional desires.
Your claim is that subjective preferences and states do not matter, but yet you would attempt to change what you could about an objective, assigned purpose. You literally state that you would attempt to do so in the first block. If you were consistent, you would not try to change anything about your purpose, even if it were awful. That you would attempt to change it, as much as you could, both lends value to subjective states, and undermines your argument that an objective purpose is all that has meaning.
Again, I did not use the word change. That would be a contradiction. By definition I would not be able to change it.
Your preface doesn't matter because your value judgment is a separate issue.
When I say you don't have the evidence to make the claim that human actions and meaning "ultimately, objectively accomplishes nothing" you are making a philosophical argument that you have not supported with anything. Saying that the universe ends in heat death has nothing to do with your evaluation of the meaning of human effort because you haven't argued that they are necessarily related, at all.
I am supporting it with our existing understanding of the universe. We can only base our understanding on what we are able to observe. If you do not accept that the universe will eventually end and everything that occurred during its expansion is undone/non-existent/meaningless then that is fine but it would not conform to our present understanding. As stated previously, logically, if an outcome is certain then any effort spent in the process of achieving (or attempting to change) it is wasted/meaningless.
I'm not sure why you think studying the Bible and Quran gives you any sort of authority to state anything. I was on track to go to seminary at one point in my life. I studied the Bible my entire life, took upper division university courses on religion, Biblical exegesis, and Old and New Testament history and studies. Who cares? None of that has anything to do with the problem of evil trilemma.
That you think the Judeo-Christian and yes, Islamic, God is not omnibenevolent doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I think he is awful. The problem of evil trilemma is addressing what believers claim are necessary characteristics of their God
Having studied them at least allows me to approach a discussion regarding them from an informed perspective. It does not matter "what I think". However, it's illogical to infer they are the same from reading those texts since their personalities are not consistent within some of the books and across all of them. It also does not matter what "believers" think. As I've stated previously belief and blind faith are folly. It's a crutch used by the intellectually lazy who do not wish to apply their minds.
What kind of scientist are you?
BSc Computer Science and Information Systems, MSc Finance. I work as a cross industry analyst developer.
Evolution doesn't have a perspective. The perspective you are looking for is one of philosophical naturalism.
True, I could use philosophical naturalism but then evolutionary theory predisposes that anyway.
In order for a given person to believe a thing, the level of evidence provided must meet the level of the claim. Belief is simply the acceptance of a thing as "true."
Belief is literally accepting a thing as true, by the most basic definition. So, yes, if you accept the existence of an all encopassing entity - God - you believe in God. Your messy usage of terminology makes your arguments far more convoluted than they need to be.
Belief can also be the acceptance of a thing as possible though. It has varying degrees. The term belief can also mean the subjective acceptance without any evidence due to bias. I.e. "I believe my brother is telling the truth because he is my brother"
What is this evidence that you have been presented with? Because...
... this is literally an argument from personal incredulity and fallacious reasoning.
You're free to see it as such. I have no qualms
What is this evidence? You are using "belief" when you want to use "faith" btw.
I have literally typed "belief or blind faith" together in my previous posts so I'm not sure why you would take issue with it now. I use the terms interchangeably since people generally accept belief to be irrational when discussing theological matters.
We don't know what the likelihood is. We have a sample size of 1.
Exactly. Yet we are so willing to accept the likelihood of other life existing that we often use terms like "does" or "must" even though we have no evidence to support that.
Observation is not necessarily objective. It's why observational study designs are extremely limited in terms of the conclusions they can draw.
"Evolution" is a term we use to describe a natural phenomena. It could have been called "Pastrami Fight". What we call it doesn't matter as much as it is something that happens. The theory of evolution is our explanation as to how it works.
I agree entirely
Something being unlikely doesn't matter given time and amount of chances for a thing to happen. Lightning hitting a person is extremely unlikely. Yet, it happens.
Honestly, lightning hitting you is not unlikely at all given the number of people getting struck by lighting ever year. If anything I could almost ensure you are struck by lightning given the right conditions. Hell I could produce the lightning to strike you with in a lab.
The likelihood of something occurring is extremely pertinent since it is how we manage risk and expectation. How a logical rational individual can brush that off as "doesn't matter" is... strange. Were we to propose the infinite simultaneous universe theory then yes I would admit that life elsewhere is not only is possible but is inevitable. Because literally everything is possible in such a scenario. But we have no evidence to back that up
Regarding my evidence, I might be able to provide it depending on your answer to the question i posted previously:
If i was to, for example, perfectly explain (in a step by step manner) a mechanism which we currently do not understand, the duplicitous wave and particle form of matter and light for example as observed via the double slit experiment, and then sometime in the future we develop an error free quantum computer capable of computing and thus modelling it which confirms my explanation. What would your observation be?
It merely allows me to ascertain how open one is to even considering the evidence. There's no point in conducting the exercise if the outcome is certain, after all.
None of this seemed to answer my questions, nor do you seem keen to answer them plainly without using verbosity
Also you can't cite evidence you have seen that led you to a conclusion and then when asked to show it ask me to instead ask me to be burdened with proving my position. My evidence would be that it's a statistical likelihood that we were created by probability because we are here and prove that it's possible, there are likely infinite cases were it didn't in fact work - this is why I mentioned the Just 6 Numbers book - it's as if infinite numbers of experiments with variables have been ran, and will run, and we are just one experiment that was a "success" - just because we haven't observed another doesn't mean it hasn't happened
The bolded is a complete hypothetical and I thus cannot accept it. We haven't even observed 1 what still "another". We assume life came about as such but cannot state so definitively. We would be basing a complete hypothetical on an assumption. It literally has no supporting evidence. All I wanted to do is ascertain, from my subjective point of view, how likely you were to consider the evidence I would provide, what still process it.
And what way is that? Are you talking metareligion?
It seems you don't want to answer certain questions.
I never claimed to have all the (any) answers :D
