Artificial Intelligence

Unseen wrote:
However, the disagreements over abortion are not disagreements over facts.  They are conflicts over attitudes or matters of opinion or definition.

What is the highest good or goal on each side?

Pro-life people say that “life” is sacrosanct no matter what.  Pro-choice people take a longer-term approach and think about the lifetime o…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
It’s often “framed” by people who aren’t facing the question and the woman facing the choice has already set aside “greater good for the child” question.

We don’t know how the individual women see it. It must be pretty subjective. As men, we never will understand it directly.

It can be argued that it’s very imp…

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Unseen wrote:
It’s often “framed” by people who aren’t facing the question and the woman facing the choice has already set aside “greater good for the child” question.

We don’t know how the individual women see it.  It must be pretty subjective.  As men, we never will understand it directly.

It can be argued that it’s very important soc…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
I frame the question of abortion as a healthcare choice.

Well, yeah, but (as a pro-lifer might say) what about the health of the baby?

There is a deep divide over this issue and it’s not a disagreement over facts (which would make it solvable). Rather, it’s a disagreement in attitudes.

I frame the question of abortion as a healthcare choice.

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
It gets more complicated when the acts are individual (like whether to get an abortion) rather than social.

But the abortion question is framed as the greater good for the child – on either side.

It’s often “framed” by people who aren’t facing the question and the woman facing the choice has already set aside “…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
It gets more complicated when the acts are individual (like whether to get an abortion) rather than social.

But the abortion question is framed as the greater good for the child – on either side.

The debates on the existence of free will have been poisoned by “the god question.” The science on this topic is inconclusive. Science does not presuppose the answer. Theists however must have it exist to satisfy religious claims. They need relieve their god of the suffering and evil in his world.

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
“Evil” is defined in different ways in different times, places, and communities. In Sparta, for example, it wasn’t evil to murder deformed or weak babies.

But they were doing it for unselfish reasons: for the greater good. That’s not so different from our conception of good and evil.

It gets more complic…[Read more]

We have a pond on the property. In it, lives a really old, really big snapping turtle. I watched it grab a blue heron by the leg as I was lounging on the beach with a dram of whisky. The bird would get free and then get pulled under again. Over and over. Finally, just a few feathers floating in the water. All because of Eve. The lion does not lay…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
However, I don’t think a lay person should accept a philosopher’s word that he has a solution to a philosophical problem if it’s one that only other philosophers or people who can intelligently read philosophy can understand.

“I have solved the free will problem and if you read my 400 page treatise and have a solid backgro…

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Unseen wrote:
“Evil” is defined in different ways in different times, places, and communities. In Sparta, for example, it wasn’t evil to murder deformed or weak babies.

But they were doing it for unselfish reasons: for the greater good.  That’s not so different from our conception of good and evil.

_Robert_ wrote:
This is the logic of christian apologists.

I was wondering when we’d hit post #55555. I missed it by one!

Unseen wrote:
Now, a final word on introducing the quantum world into the discussion. There is no predeterminism because quantum level events can influence events in the world of everyday Newtonian/Einsteinian physics.

I agree, and I feel responsible for potentially confusing a free will discussion with a mostly separate discussion on potential,…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
@robert “Evil” is defined in different ways in different times, places, and communities. In Sparta, for example, it wasn’t evil to murder deformed or weak babies. Even today, is abortion evil? Depends who you ask, doesn’t it?

Evil in the context of a “loving, all powerful god” is all and any suffering that he could easily prevent…[Read more]

@Robert

“Evil” is defined in different ways in different times, places, and communities. In Sparta, for example, it wasn’t evil to murder deformed or weak babies. Even today, is abortion evil? Depends who you ask, doesn’t it?

Free will (as gifted by a loving god) as a way to explain away the problem of evil is such a provincial human excuse in stupidity. The idea that Adam and Eve lived in a perfect world without “evil” is stupid. There could be no evil tempting serpent, LOL. The idea that a single act of disobedience (as defined by a dictator) by one person (Eve)…[Read more]

The first line of my above post should read “The notion of free will has many problems,…” (emphasis mine)

The notion of free has many problems, the first one being defining it. And, of course, one of the easiest and least honest of ways of “solving” a problem is to define it away.

One of the dishonest ways of giving us free will is to define it in a way such as this: “If you can do something you want to do and no external person or force is making…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:

PopeBeanie wrote:
You define determinism as natural law, which is consistent with its standard use in science and philosophy: every event or state of affairs results from prior states according to fixed laws.

I realize I frame determinism that way but to be more precise every state of affairs is the result of its antecedents.…

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