Are atheists more content with their souls?

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

Arguments from personal incredulity or ignorance are better suited to Creationists.

Bullshit. I'm not arguing from ignorance, I'm arguing from my understanding of human experience: Sentience is an inherently subjective experience. By your logic its an irrational statement to say "A non-interventionist God cannot be disproven" because its arguing from ignorance.

And I don't care that some tits from google are analysing the complexity of animal behaviour, they're not, and cannot, research what I'm talking about.

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

Bullshit. I'm not arguing from ignorance, I'm arguing from my understanding of human experience: Sentience is an inherently subjective experience. By your logic its an irrational statement to say "A non-interventionist God cannot be disproven" because its arguing from ignorance.

Hmm. Combative as ever. OK, your claim is that sentience is a subjective experience, and cannot therefore ever be determined in others, but only assumed likely on the basis of similarity.

Now, that will be true only as long as sentience has no measurable effects whatsoever. I would argue that if this were the case, then it could not have evolved - if it is real, it has a cost, and if it has a cost, it must have a measurable benefit.

Therefore, the claim that sentience cannot be measured cannot be correct.

Zillah wrote:

And I don't care that some tits from google are analysing the complexity of animal behaviour, they're not, and cannot, research what I'm talking about.

Er, that's a Google search, which points to current research. Not research by Google. The papers and books it shows are not books about "the complexity of animal behaviour", but about sentience.

So people actually working in the field of animal behaviour feel that sentience can be measured, where you do not. I therefore suggest, respectfully, that you are arguing from your own ignorance and/or incredulity.

cordially,
nevertheless,
Scofflaw

Son Goku

This journal often deals with issues concerning Animal self-awareness:
Animal Behaviour.
(And like all journals the price is a rip-off, but anyway........)

5uspect

Son Goku wrote:

This journal often deals with issues concerning Animal self-awareness:
Animal Behaviour.
(And like all journals the price is a rip-off, but anyway........)

I'll check if we have access in UL tomorrow... if you want any papers?!

Son Goku

5uspect wrote:

I'll check if we have access in UL tomorrow... if you want any papers?!

Geez, thanks. Yeah, definitely if you get anything interesting looking.

robindch

> like all journals the price is a rip-off, but anyway...

I remember hearing a documentary on Radio 4 a few years back about the UK government mooting a plan to make all papers funded from public money available to the public domain. Did anything happen with this?

I hasten to add that I don't know much about the economics of journals anyway, but do recall the documentary suggesting that the current system doesn't do much more than produce expensive, low-circulation publications which are a bugger to index.

Son Goku

Off-Topic, but robindch has raised something fairly interesting.

robindch wrote:

I remember hearing a documentary on Radio 4 a few years back about the UK government mooting a plan to make all papers funded from public money available to the public domain. Did anything happen with this?

Unfortunatly not. To be honest, the real people who suffer are interest students and non-acedemics(in relation to that area). As an example it effects me due to my interest in evolution and, because I'm not a biologist, I often get confronted with "Please pay €40 for this paper".

robindch wrote:

I hasten to add that I don't know much about the economics of journals anyway, but do recall the documentary suggesting that the current system doesn't do much more than produce expensive, low-circulation publications which are a bugger to index.

They'd be right. Most scientific journals are read by a very limited group of people, who require the knowledge and are forced to pay through the nose.
It's also very poorly indexed. (e.g. "Phys Litt B, V209A, (1985) , Vol 49, pg546)
Not only that, but alot of Journals have wierd methods of indexing that have to be learned.

The main culprit is a company called Elsevier, a Dutch publishing house who make an average of 1,000% profit on anything they make.

A journal that has caused controversy in recent years is this fella, Topology, which has been forced down to a €100 personal subscription price, because it entire editing staff resigned, a lot of them being top class in the area.

If your interested there's a good deal more about the issue to be found here. Some journals reach €4,000 per person.

5uspect

And lets face it, such rip offs only help to feed ignorance.
Anyway, as an academic with reasonable access, if anyone is looking for a paper that UL may have subscribed to feel free to PM me!

robindch

Off-topic again, and impossible to do anyway, but it would be interesting to find out how many creationist organizations subscribe to scholarly journals. As I assume that few or none do, it would suggest that our creationist friends may have missed the point regarding conspiracies of biologists.

SG - thanks for the info, btw, on Elsevier. A relative who was over for dinner this evening publishes in some of their more well-known journals and was unaware of the carry-on.

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

Off-topic again, and impossible to do anyway, but it would be interesting to find out how many creationist organizations subscribe to scholarly journals. As I assume that few or none do, it would suggest that our creationist friends may have missed the point regarding conspiracies of biologists.

SG - thanks for the info, btw, on Elsevier. A relative who was over for dinner this evening publishes in some of their more well-known journals and was unaware of the carry-on.

Certainly there are not many references to academic papers on AnswersInGenesis...

cordially,
Scofflaw

aidan24326

Scofflaw wrote:

Certainly there are not many references to academic papers on AnswersInGenesis...

cordially,
Scofflaw

They only need reference one book. The answers are all there, silly.

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

Hmm. Combative as ever.

Compare me to a creationist again and you'll get all the combativeness you deserve.

OK, your claim is that sentience is a subjective experience, and cannot therefore ever be determined in others, but only assumed likely on the basis of similarity.

Yes.

Now, that will be true only as long as sentience has no measurable effects whatsoever.

It has no measurable effect whatsoever. There is no difference from any point of view other than the entity itself between a sentient system and one that has been designed to perfectly emulate a sentient system.

I would argue that if this were the case, then it could not have evolved

All sorts of things that have 0 effect have evolved simply as piggy-backs and tangents.

- if it is real, it has a cost, and if it has a cost, it must have a measurable benefit.

I still think you don't understand me. I'm not talking about the ability to behave intelligently, I'm not talking about the capacity to interact with other systems in a logical or self sustaining fashion, I'm talking about the awareness, the ghost in the machine.

Therefore, the claim that sentience cannot be measured cannot be correct.

You can measure intelligence, you can measure behaviour and knowledge and complexity of design, but cannot in any way determine if there is that spark of awareness inside.

Er, that's a Google search, which points to current research. Not research by Google. The papers and books it shows are not books about "the complexity of animal behaviour", but about sentience.

I didn't mean to imply they worked for google, I meant more "from a google search". And you can state they're researching sentience all you like but they're not, there is no means by which to determine if there is a sentience behind the system, only to tell if the system can behave in a fashion that would imply sentience, you cannot confirm its existence.

So people actually working in the field of animal behaviour feel that sentience can be measured, where you do not. I therefore suggest, respectfully, that you are arguing from your own ignorance and/or incredulity.

Well I'm not, they're misusing the word sentience.

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

Compare me to a creationist again and you'll get all the combativeness you deserve.

It has no measurable effect whatsoever. There is no difference from any point of view other than the entity itself between a sentient system and one that has been designed to perfectly emulate a sentient system.

I still think you don't understand me. I'm not talking about the ability to behave intelligently, I'm not talking about the capacity to interact with other systems in a logical or self sustaining fashion, I'm talking about the awareness, the ghost in the machine.

You can measure intelligence, you can measure behaviour and knowledge and complexity of design, but cannot in any way determine if there is that spark of awareness inside.

I didn't mean to imply they worked for google, I meant more "from a google search". And you can state they're researching sentience all you like but they're not, there is no means by which to determine if there is a sentience behind the system, only to tell if the system can behave in a fashion that would imply sentience, you cannot confirm its existence.

Very well. Clearly you have chosen to define 'sentience' as not measurable. If something is not measurable by definition, there is little point in discussing it except in a 'theological' sense.

Zillah wrote:

Well I'm not, they're misusing the word sentience.

I see. Sentience researchers are 'misusing' the word sentience, because it doesn't fit your definition. At the risk of provoking your combativeness, that really is a very Creationist argument...

cordially,
Scofflaw

Son Goku

Zillah wrote:

I didn't mean to imply they worked for google, I meant more "from a google search". And you can state they're researching sentience all you like but they're not, there is no means by which to determine if there is a sentience behind the system, only to tell if the system can behave in a fashion that would imply sentience, you cannot confirm its existence.

Yeah, but that's the nature of science. You confirm all you can from empirical effects. Sentience, if it existed would have effects X,Y,Z and then we check if we observe them. I get the point your making, but your actually brushing up against the common problem people have with science. i.e., just because something acts like X doesn't mean it is X.

Would you be willing to apply that to the rest of science?
For instance just because a molecule acts like our models suggests doesn't mean there really are molecules. That's where you're line of reasoning leads to.

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

Very well. Clearly you have chosen to define 'sentience' as not measurable. If something is not measurable by definition, there is little point in discussing it except in a 'theological' sense.

Yeah pretty much. I'm choosing to use the word sentience for what I'm describing (which I hope you get by now), if theres a better word for it please suggest one.

I see. Sentience researchers are 'misusing' the word sentience, because it doesn't fit your definition. At the risk of provoking your combativeness, that really is a very Creationist argument...

If you'd like to link something other than a google search, maybe something specific for us to use as an exercise, then feel free. I don't think theres such a thing as a "sentience researcher", just behaviour analysts and whatnot. Perhaps if this example you choose goes into their methods/goals then we could better clarify what we're discussing.

Son Goku wrote:

Would you be willing to apply that to the rest of science?
For instance just because a molecule acts like our models suggests doesn't mean there really are molecules. That's where you're line of reasoning leads to.

Its a very good point. The only reason I treat sentience differently is because I have personally experienced it in a fashion that no human being can experience, say, a molecule.