ClassicalLiberal.Theist wrote:

Due_Kindheartedness wrote:

Ancient Greeks believed magnets were caused by rocks having souls. We know that this is stupid. Therefore the entire concept of souls is like believing magnets have souls.


Why is this an apples-and-oranges comparison?

Fallacy of accident?

I don't understand what you mean.

The most shocking discovery in mathematics is that any statement about all numbers (famous for being infinite) can be proven or disproven by testing only a finite number of number. The Busy Beaver function allows you to take a proposition P, evaluate the maximum number of states possible, and then spit out a number N such that if P is true for all the numbers from zero to N, then it is true for all numbers period. My point is that it isn't logically possible for the universe to be infinite in the past because mathematics isn't infinite. Nothing is infinite. Because nothing is infinite, time isn't infinite either. The burden of proof is on anybody who says that anything can be infinite especially in light of the fact that numbers (the most obviously infinite thing) aren't.

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/12/da-ya-think-im-sphexy.html?m=1

Now, you’ll recall from a recent post the notion of acognitive zombie -- a creature physically and behaviorally identical to a normal human being, but devoid of concepts and thus devoid of the other aspects of rationality.  You might think that a cognitive zombie would be sphexish, but that is a mistake.  If it was sphexish, it wouldn’t be behaviorally identical to a normal human being, and thus by definition wouldn’t be a cognitive zombie.  A true cognitive zombie would be something which would, like a sphexish creature, be devoid of concepts, but which, like a normal human being, would behave as if it had concepts.

The notion of sphexishness thus helps to clarify the notion of a cognitive zombie.  If ya think I’m sphexy, then you don’tthink I’m a cognitive zombie.  A sphexy Rod Stewart on his best day wouldn’t pass for a cognitive zombie.  A James Brown sphex machine wouldn’t pass either.  Peoplemagazine’s Sphexiest Man Alive definitely wouldn’t be a cognitive zombie.  The notion of a cognitive zombie is the notion of something as utterly devoid of concepts as thesimplest of any of Dennett’s purely syntactical engines, but whose lack of concepts is nevertheless more perfectly undetectable than that of even the most complex and perfect of Dennett’s syntactical engines.  Is this notion even coherent?  I think not, but that is a topic for another time.

1a. Isn't a sphexish human being a cognitive zombie by definition? When he says "a sphexish Rod Steward wouldn't pass for a cognitive zombie," I am confused.

1b. Or was he saying that no sphexish person is a cognitive zombie because concepts, according to Dennett, would be an emergent phenomenon and so any sphexish person would have a rudimentiary type of concepts emerge almost ex nihilo?

2. When he claims that "a sphexish person wouldnt be behaviorally identical to a human being," wou

My greatest fear is that I turn out to be one of those who can only let the light in temporarily but in the end darkness prevails. Do you believe the Calvinist theory that God hardens people's hearts for some private, inexplicable reason and leaves the hardened person completely helpless to escape his fate?

I know that a lot of Protestants will give me trouble for this, but I believe in some Marian apparitions. Some of them have too much evidence to be hallucinations and the "it's by the power of the Devil" explanation sounds like what the Pharisees said to Jesus when they wanted him to shut up. When Our Lady at Fatima appeared, she mentioned the importance of praying for others, saying that many people descend into Hell because they have nobody to pray for them.

Hypatia wrote:

It's not a consensus. You're not going to find many reputable historians who accept Mythicism. The more normal secular view is that an historical Jesus existed and that a number of miracles were eventually attributed to him.

They're definitely the loudest. Hahahaha.

Hypatia wrote:

Honestly, the amount of creative reinterpretation that you need to do to make the Pauline Epistles say what the Mythicists want them to say is pretty remarkable. I'm not sure how they manage to get "born of a woman" in Galatians 4:4-5 to mean "not born of a woman" instead, but I suspect they have their methods.

I think they would deny Galatians was written by Paul. It is one of the disputed epistles according to Wikipedia, so this could be a viable interpretation.