I Believe God Exists

[stromboli]

And further, Solipsism by itself cannot refute the physical aspects of the universe. We are back to testing. We cannot describe something as a solid unless we universally understand the concept of solid. In order for something to be observed as solid and universally understood, it has to meet the criteria we ascribe to "solid." Those criteria by themselves are arrived at by common, universal understanding.

We cannot describe a physical object as flat, black, heavy or square without a commonality of understanding and a shared, universally understood meaning of those terms. regardless of whether your observation starts, i.e. mind, without an agreed upon reality, that meets universally understood criteria. If your mind can assume these things as understandable- remember, they originated outside your mind- then by good old Occam's Razor we can therefore assume that all aspects of reality that are quantifiable and universally understood by overwhelming logic as real.

By that same shared experience we cannot, using the same commonly understood measures of testing, test that which is outside of the framework that we can quantify and measure. Guess what? We can't test, measure or prove the existence of something that is outside of what we perceive as nature, i.e. the supernatural-god. So any statement you make that "proves god" by any measure we can apply is invalid.

[Bibliofagus]

Is there a solipsist trick or course I can take to fool myself into having more imaginary money?
I would be interested in that.

[Solitary]

Bishop Berkeley said that it takes a mind to create, and we create the world around us from information from it.  And he said the information is from the mind of God providing it. I can't see what is wrong with his explanation accept it is an infinite regress, because who creates the mind of God. The whole concept of God or gods is obviously created in our mind and just complicates everything to the point it is absurd. "Things should be simple (Occam's Razor), but not too simple." Einstein.

I Think therefore I am is not logical because of who is thinking.  We are physical first, we think, therefore we think we are is an illusion. We are an emerging property from the body that is consciousness, and nothing more. If we are not conscious we only exist physically. If we were not a physical being, a bump on the head, or a chemical couldn't affect us. Emerging properties were first recognized by biologists, and has still not infiltrated the other sciences like it should. Solitary

[Feral Atheist]

Demonstrably false means it has been demonstrated. Demonstrate away. Or point to the demonstration.

Debating with a fundy christian is like playing chess with a pigeon.
The pigeon knocks over all the pieces, shits on the board and then struts around like it won the game.

[Casparov]

You can have Superman says in a DC comic book: "I think therefore I am". That doesn't mean Superman really exist.

You are absolutely right. Just because you perceive a character that says he exists, that does not prove to you that you he exists. But because you are perceiving, you know that you exist. The fact that you are aware of anything at all, is proof that you exist.

But you still won't know if your existence is an illusion or not. You might believe that you exist, but you can't prove it.

Incorrect. You are aware, therefore you exist. The fact that you are having experiences, whether the experiences are illusions or not, is proof that you exist. You cannot doubt your own existence. As soon as you say "I doubt that I exist." the fact that you have that capability itself is proof that you exist.

Things that do no exist cannot "doubt" at all. Things that do not exist cannot have "any" experiences at all, dreams illusions material or other wise. The fact that are aware and having experiences is proof that you exist.

Now... let me add here that this only is proof to you, not anyone else. You cannot prove to me that you exist, and I cannot prove to you that I exist.

You can prove to yourself that you exist because you are aware of your own experience, but you cannot provide proof to anyone else that you exist, because you cannot prove that you are aware and having experiences to anyone but yourself.

Therefore, I can prove that I exist to myself, but I cannot then hope to prove to anyone else that I exist. To everyone else, I am only information being processed by their consciousness. You can doubt that I exist, because I can only communicate to you through your perceptions, and you can always doubt your perceptions.

But what you do have proof of, is that YOU exist. And you cannot doubt this fact no matter how hard you try.

[Casparov]

Ok, just one final attempt to knock some sense into you, in case you are genuinly not pulling our leg:

I'm not pulling your leg, so please do enlighten me. That is why I am here.

You see the world around you, correct?

Correct.

You can feel it, touch it, smell it.

Correct.

Every other person (save people with various handicaps) can do the same.

This is what they tell me, yes.

You experience a reality - and you claim that everything we feel and see is a lie. Well, then you need to demonstrate it, because clearly, the acceptance of absolutely everything we can verify around us with every tool we know appears to be the only logical default position.

I do not claim that everything we perceive is "a lie". I simply deny the claim that what we perceive is "Objectively Material". I do not perceive the outside world directly, so I cannot know this. I claim that everything we see and feel is real, I just believe it is fundamentally immaterial rather than material.

To claim "It seems material to me, therefore it definitely is material," does not seem like a very sound argument.

I'm certainly not 100.00000% sure this is right, but nothing implies otherwise (and if we were part of a simulation that wouldn't change a thing, it would be no different from our universe existing within a different reality outside it. It would only give us more information).

I am glad that you admit that you cannot be sure of Materialism. The reason for this uncertainty is of course the complete lack of evidence to support it and also that Materialism is an assumption rather than a conclusion.

You say that "if we are part of a simulation that wouldn't change a thing," but it obviously would. It would mean that the reality we perceive is not an objectively material universe. No one would be qualified to speak on whatever is running the simulation because it would be outside of our ability to know. Anything about that would be pure conjecture.

You say, "nothing implies otherwise," but I disagree. Here are two very concrete things that imply otherwise:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2529
http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6578

On the one hand we have never observed any minds directly controlling this reality. We have never observed minds working without a body. And everything we observe appear to be material.

On the one hand, you know with absolute certainty that your mind exists, and cannot doubt it. But on the other hand, you have no proof, no evidence, and justification for Materialism other than "it appears that way". You can doubt the assumption that we live in a Material Objective Universe in a million different ways but you cannot doubt that mind exists no matter how hard you try because you are directly aware of your own.

But despite all of this, because you have never seen a brainless mind preserved in a bottle of fermaldehyde, you seem to have decided to cling to the assumption that you exist in a Material Objective Universe. Even in light of scientific evidence that suggests otherwise.

Also, if you genuinely are a solipsist: WHY ARE YOU ARGUING WITH FICTIONAL PEOPLE? WHY ARE YOU INTERACTING WITH US? Seriously, what the fuck is the point?

Because I am not a solipsist and I never said I was, that's why. I am a Monistic Idealist. Get it right.

You are telling me to "just believe the world is how you perceive it", but there is scientific proof that shows that the world is not how we perceive it. There is absolutely no proof that the world we perceive is an actual objective material universe that exists independent of observation and there are plenty of other explanations that describe our perceptions just well and do not contradict the findings of current quantum experimentation.

If the only argument is "it seems that way so just believe it is that way", then I am simply not convinced. Not in light of the evidence that contradicts your assumption and your compete and utter inability to provide even a shred of evidence to support it.

[Casparov]

To say that everything beyond your personal experience is ultimately not provable may be true in the philosophical sense, but you have to admit that the universal commonality of aspects of existence render them as real.

Well stromboli, as I have said repeatedly now: I am not contesting whether or not our experiences are "real." So yes, of course they are real! That was never a point of debate but you keep trying to make it one. What I am debating is whether or not these "real experiences" are the result of an objective material universe.

Shared experience does not prove that materialism is true any more than massively multiplayer online video games are proved to be Material Universes because the players have shared experiences. No more than people in the matrix are proved to actually be in an objective material universe just because they are having a shared experience. Are you even reading my responses? I feel like ive repeated this about twenty times now....

SHARED EXPERIENCE DOES NOT PROVE MATERIALISM IS TRUE

The fact that we from different countries can communicate with shared experience is evidence that information is real. Mind has to process information. Mind receives information from my mind. Therefore mind and information by common understanding have to be understood experientially as real.

Well god damn I actually agree with an entire paragraph that you produced. Absolutely. Yes. All of the above is true.

You have completely sidestepped the aspect of testing.

A character who is living in a simulated universe like a character in skyrim, is therefore limited to the tools within that simulation to test it. Simulated tools testing the simulation. But this does not mean that just because he is limited in this way he could never discover that he exists in a simulation rather than a material objective universe. For instance he could notice that trees pop into existence out of no where whenever he walks in an open field. They seem to only be rendered when an observer is present to observe them. This observation, without the need to exit the simulation and test from the outside as you are suggesting, would be sufficient reason to doubt that he exists in a material universe.

I have explained this to you several times now. There are things we can do to test whether or not we exist in a material objective universe, and we are currently running those tests, and here are just two with excerpts from the abstracts:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2529
"Most working scientists hold fast to the concept of 'realism' - a viewpoint according to which an external reality exists independent of observation. But quantum physics has shattered some of our cornerstone beliefs... According to Bell's theorem, any theory that is based on the joint assumption of realism and locality (meaning that local events cannot be affected by actions in space-like separated regions) is at variance with certain quantum predictions. Experiments with entangled pairs of particles have amply confirmed these quantum predictions, thus rendering local realistic theories untenable. Maintaining realism as a fundamental concept would therefore necessitate the introduction of 'spooky' actions that defy locality... Our result suggests that giving up the concept of locality is not sufficient to be consistent with quantum experiments, unless certain intuitive features of realism are abandoned."

http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6578
" The counterintuitive features of quantum physics challenge many common-sense assumptions... No naive realistic picture is compatible with our results because whether a quantum could be seen as showing particle- or wave-like behavior would depend on a causally disconnected choice. It is therefore suggestive to abandon such pictures altogether."

Those are not just quotes, they are abstracts from peer reviewed scientific experiments that directly contradict your assumptions about reality.

If we universally agree in the periodic table, then for all intents and purposes we can agree it is real. If we can agree gravity is real, the physical, measurable aspects of the universe by that same logic can be assumed as real. If we don't have the common understanding that something is real, then we could not communicate or interact in any way.

We both agree that experience is real. This was never a point of debate. What we disagree about is whether we are experiencing an objective material reality as Naive Realism suggests, or if the reality we experience is fundamentally immaterial.

Solipsism is self refuting.

Well I'm not a Solipsist so what does that matter?

If the brain doing the experiencing exists then reality exists in some form . Given that the
most parsimonious explanation is that the reality we experience ( with due reference to the limitations of the senses )
is the real reality because if one brain exists then a barrier to other brains existing is required and this constitutes an unnecessary multiplication of entities . Occam's Razor does the rest

You'd have to prove that brains are objectively material, which I welcome you to attempt.

Regardless of your argument, there is still a universal understanding of what we observe experientially. There is a vast body of agreed upon information that for all intents and purposes we have to agree upon as real in some form; were it not, there would be no commonality of understanding, no periodic table, no written language, no formal body of inquiry and so on.

Keep in mind I am not arguing whether or not our experiences are "real in some form" of course they are real! I am simply unconvinced that what we are experiencing is the result of an Objective Material Universe.

Your argument comes down to "it seems that way and most everybody agrees". Not a good argument. I remain unconvinced.

[Casparov]

Debating with a fundy christian is like playing chess with a pigeon.
The pigeon knocks over all the pieces, shits on the board and then struts around like it won the game.

Couldn't agree more, which is why I don't debate fundy Christians any more.

[La Dolce Vita]

If the only argument is "it seems that way so just believe it is that way", then I am simply not convinced. Not in light of the evidence that contradicts your assumption and your compete and utter inability to provide even a shred of evidence to support it.

I never said such. I never said you should believe the world is material. I said it's the natural default position.

You do admit it "appears that way". That is all that count. If it appears a certain way then that's the most logical position to have. You need good reasons to deny something that clearly appears a certain way, and you do not.

As for admitting I can't be "certain of materialism" - This makes me think you are a troll. It's just such an incredibly stupid thing to say. No one is saying we are 100.0000% certain of materialism. Just as we're not saying we are 100.0000% certain that the flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist. Seriously, it could! But nothing implies it does yet, so it's crazy to believe in it. Equally nothing implies the world is immaterial, so it's crazy believing it. Your examples are asinine.

You also dodged everything I've said. So what if I have a mind? Have you seen a mind without a body, that works on it's own? Does anything imply this exist? A human mind exists solely by courtesy of our brain, and is created by processes we understand more and more of. It cannot exist without the brain. No mind has ever been showed to control this universe, while cause and effect has. So, AGAIN - and please be serious if you are for real - Give evidence for your crazy outlandish claim.

Trying to knock a co-experienced reality needs evidence, not the other way around. You won't get anywhere here - and trying to is so oblivious and crazy that you will not be seen as anything but a troll.

[Hakurei Reimu]

http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2529
"Most working scientists hold fast to the concept of 'realism' - a viewpoint according to which an external reality exists independent of observation. But quantum physics has shattered some of our cornerstone beliefs... According to Bell's theorem, any theory that is based on the joint assumption of realism and locality (meaning that local events cannot be affected by actions in space-like separated regions) is at variance with certain quantum predictions. Experiments with entangled pairs of particles have amply confirmed these quantum predictions, thus rendering local realistic theories untenable. Maintaining realism as a fundamental concept would therefore necessitate the introduction of 'spooky' actions that defy locality... Our result suggests that giving up the concept of locality is not sufficient to be consistent with quantum experiments, unless certain intuitive features of realism are abandoned."

http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6578
" The counterintuitive features of quantum physics challenge many common-sense assumptions... No naive realistic picture is compatible with our results because whether a quantum could be seen as showing particle- or wave-like behavior would depend on a causally disconnected choice. It is therefore suggestive to abandon such pictures altogether."

Those are not just quotes, they are abstracts from peer reviewed scientific experiments that directly contradict your assumptions about reality.

Actually, papers on that particular archive are NOT peer reviewed. The arxiv.org archive is for preprints.

The other thing is that you are falling into the old trap of thinking that when a physicist says "observer" in a physical context, that he means a person. He does not. What he means by an observer is "a physical apparatus that is able to collect sufficient data about a phenomenon." This confusion is one of the most persistent bugbears of physical science because it gives license to people like you who misunderstand "observer" as a person looking at the expermient and somehow influencing the outcome with the force of his thoughts, and thus materialism is dead. Sorry, but to a physicist, the observer effect does not indicate any such woo. What he understands is that observation itself is a physical interaction with the phenomenon observed. As such, the notion that the fact that you are observing different aspects of a phenomenon changes the outcome of an experiment shouldn't be surprising, because to change the way you observe the experiment is to change the experiment.

It's counterintuitive and defies common sense because on the macroscale the probes we use to observe are so puny compared to what we are observing that they do not significantly affect the object in question, and any perturbations are drowned out by thermal noise. But in the quantum realm, using probes that are comparable in energy to the phenomenon you are observing is unavoidable â€" the interaction of observation is as significant as any other interaction in the experiment.

There is nothing in the abstracts you quoted that that undermine materialism. The only thing you have exposed is your ignorance about the subject. These are physical papers, so the phrase "independent of observation" has to be understood within that physical context, and that phrase differs in significant ways to the layman's understanding of that phrase.

[josephpalazzo]

You are absolutely right. Just because you perceive a character that says he exists, that does not prove to you that you he exists. But because you are perceiving, you know that you exist. The fact that you are aware of anything at all, is proof that you exist.

Incorrect. You are aware, therefore you exist. The fact that you are having experiences, whether the experiences are illusions or not, is proof that you exist. You cannot doubt your own existence. As soon as you say "I doubt that I exist." the fact that you have that capability itself is proof that you exist.

Things that do no exist cannot "doubt" at all. Things that do not exist cannot have "any" experiences at all, dreams illusions material or other wise. The fact that are aware and having experiences is proof that you exist.

Now... let me add here that this only is proof to you, not anyone else. You cannot prove to me that you exist, and I cannot prove to you that I exist.

You can prove to yourself that you exist because you are aware of your own experience, but you cannot provide proof to anyone else that you exist, because you cannot prove that you are aware and having experiences to anyone but yourself.

Therefore, I can prove that I exist to myself, but I cannot then hope to prove to anyone else that I exist. To everyone else, I am only information being processed by their consciousness. You can doubt that I exist, because I can only communicate to you through your perceptions, and you can always doubt your perceptions.

But what you do have proof of, is that YOU exist. And you cannot doubt this fact no matter how hard you try.

You missed the boat. I'm not talking about consciousness, I'm talking about, "how do you know", which a totally different matter. I could be conscious, living in a totally dark room. I have no way of knowing what's happening. Am I in a prison? Am I in a rocketship travelling from star to star? Am I alive? and so on. I am conscious, but I know zilch. So when you make the assertion, " I have proof that I exist" that is a belief which is unproven.

The difference in my scenario with what we experience is that in our daily experience we can see and go outside the dark room, and investigate what's out there. We see trees, cats, tables, etc. and we can ask, are these things made up of the same stuff as I am made of? Further investigation reveals we are all made of the same stuff which we can label matter/energy. But now you ask, what if we are in a simulation? Then we are back to the intial scenario. Unless we can move outside that simulation, we have no way of knowing what's out there. If there is an immaterial world, it is beyond our investigative abilities and we are wasting our time speculating about it.

[stromboli]

Lol! This is comical. I've got a degree in English Lit with mold on the edges and I understand science better than this guy. 20 pages. We'll get there yet. 

[aileron]

You can't prove matter, that's too hard for you  but readily, without any proof, you  assert: MIND IS IMMATERIAL...

Maybe he's the ghost of George Berkeley. 

(It's sad one of the best physics departments in the nation is at a university named for a nincompoop who believed matter is an illusion.  He also claimed that calculus - calculus for chrissake - was an unjustified leap of faith.  God on the other hand...)

[Mister Agenda]

I concede the point at the front that "Atheism does not equal Materialism" however it is my contention that in the great majority of cases, it is materialism which leads to the conclusion of Atheism. The two seem to go hand in hand. A Nihilist who believes absolutely nothing about anything, and is also an Atheist, obviously is not a Materialist, but also is obviously in no position to debate against. One cannot debate against someone who has absolutely no position whatsoever. As I have seen Atheists eager to debate evolution and Big Bang Theory, this leads me to believe that Atheists do have positive positions that they are willing and able to defend, and there must exist at least a few Atheists who are also Materialists.

This is no more significant than the realization that theists have positive positions. The point you're missing is that you need more to go on than a person's mere atheism or mere theism to infer their positions on different matters. You are a theist, and the only view that you can not hold based on just that is that no sort of god or God exists. Not to mention the sampling issue of deriving your opinions on atheists from those who frequent English-speaking discussion boards on the internet.

And it is these Atheists I wish to debate.

Why not just specify materialists, then? Would you be this vague if you were looking for Muslims to debate?

P.S. I am well aware that all being an Atheist means is that you lack a belief in any god and nothing more. I fully accept that. But there are underlying reasons that you have come to such a belief, and if that reason is Materialism, I have a problem with that. If it is not Materialism, I'm interested in what your alternatives to Materialism are as an Atheist.

I've not knowingly ever met a person who was religious, became a materialist, and then became an atheist. And I know hundreds of atheists personally. Growing skepticism of supernatural claims is something I see occasionally, but that seems to lead to methodological naturalism rather than materialism, and the atheism usually precedes that conclusion.

[Mister Agenda]

It seems most of you are still confused about what I mean by "God", even after I have provided a definition. Admittedly the definition I provided does require a little bit of deep thought to see what exactly is being said, so because of this I will further expound upon what I believe "God" to be like.

Your description was a series of vague phrases piled on top of each other, so thanks for clarifying.

I don't believe that God is something separate from what we are. I believe that ultimately, there exists only one thing, and that thing is God, and everything, including us, are parts of it. I believe that the ultimate reality, and the ground of all being, is Mind, and I believe that source of all Mind, is God, which I have defined as "Infinite Mind."

So we're all figments of God's imagination? That's at least coherent. How do you know this?

Let me now point out that in my world view it is not so much important that "God exists" nor that people "believe in God" as it is that the actual nature of reality is such that this conception of God unfolds out of it. Of course if materialism is true than this conception of God is just as fallacious and fictitious as any other. But if Materialism is false, then that changes the whole conversation entirely. So for me, I am much more interested in discovering the true nature of reality, than I am in converting people into Theists.

Seems like a good start would be proving materialism false, then.

Perhaps now I have shed sufficient light onto what my conception of "God" is, and I can begin the actual work of debating the evidence.

I can work with this definition.