Prescott: Is Reality Hostile or Nurturing Toward Us?

Jim, are you trying to persuade us with illogic that we can only be persuaded by illogic, or...? ;-)

I am not trying to persuade you of anything. I am stating my beliefs.

I am not trying to persuade you of anything. I am stating my beliefs.

When I am trying to persuade you, it will be obvious because my prose will read like an infomercial or one of Trump's tweets.

http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/br...ost-120500

[Laird]

I am not trying to persuade you of anything. I am stating my beliefs.

To which you were yourself persuaded with [logic/illogic]..?...

To which you were yourself persuaded with [logic/illogic]..?...

I don't consider it to be a question of logic or illogic.  That is the whole point. And illogic to me implies means faulty logic. We are so habituated to using our rational mind that we assume any other mode of cognition is flawed. Do you use logic to decide when to hug someone? Is it a flawed decision if it is based on emotion?

[Laird]

I guess it's just curious to me, Jim, that you endorse the notion that materialism is self-defeating in that its own rational basis is implicitly undercut by its premise that thought evolved for the purpose of survival not rationality, yet you don't seem to recognise that a similar claim of self-defeat could be made against your (self-admitted to be a) belief that "people [do not] choose beliefs based on logic".

I remember a supposedly humorous statement I came across years ago:
"If you ask enough people for advice, eventually you will come across someone who will advise you to do what you were going to do in the first place".

It is kind of witty, but it does lend credence to the idea that we make a decision first, then come up with supporting arguments afterwards.

I remember a supposedly humorous statement I came across years ago:
"If you ask enough people for advice, eventually you will come across someone who will advise you to do what you were going to do in the first place".

It is kind of witty, but it does lend credence to the idea that we make a decision first, then come up with supporting arguments afterwards.

It's the same with the internet, you can find justification for anything you want on the internet.

It's the same with the internet, you can find justification for anything you want on the internet.

Yes, I’ve seen your website Jim.

Interesting posts, thanks, Sci (and Michael Prescott). Also interesting would be an explanation as to why, if reality is on balance nurturing, at least some of us experience hostility from it at least some of the time.

Well is Nature nurturing? I mean it has to be on some level because otherwise we wouldn't be writing about it. Or, at the least, it's not completely inimical.

But to more directly try to articulate a potential explanation consider a theology that, IIRC, Teilhard held to - There is a teleology that is like the river running down the mountain. The water is going to end up at the bottom of the mountain, but the exact path isn't necessarily known to God.

Or, if one wants to get even more nitpicky, think of organisms caught up in the descending current.