[ExI] Pascals wager

[William Flynn Wallace]

To say that something can or cannot be conscious implies that we know what
it is and how to measure it.  We don't.  Other than crudely  bill w

On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 5:46 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, 5 May 2021 at 06:25, Ben via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On 04/05/2021 18:00, bill w wrote:
>> > atheism has no goals to offer people
>>
>> Not so sure about that, either.
>>
>> I'd call achieving an unblinkered, rational view of the world a goal. A
>> very worthy one, too.
>> I'd call combating the evils of religion in a non-violent way a worthy
>> goal as well.
>>
>> Many atheists still have what I call a 'crypto-dualist' worldview, which
>> is betrayed in their language. They may say they have no beliefs in the
>> supernatural, but then say things which reveal some kind of conviction
>> that there is something non-natural about the mind, for instance. Look a
>> the number of atheists who can't take the final step to fully embrace
>> materialism, and as a consequence deny that uploading can work, for
>> instance ("it would 'only' be a copy!!").
>>
>> I'd say that an important goal of atheism is to divest oneself of any
>> trace of non-materialism, to fully accept that the mind is a result of
>> physical processes, and all the consequences of that view. And yes, I
>> know how difficult that can be. For many people, atheism is just as much
>> a challenge as any religious path. But far more rewarding, in my view.
>
>
> Atheism does not entail materialism. Atheists just believe that there are
> no gods, either material or non-material. Most atheists are probably
> materialists, but they don’t have to be in order to consistently be
> atheists. Moreover, a materialist could claim that computers cannot be
> conscious because there is a certain material quality that biological
> systems possess that computers lack. It requires some careful argument to
> refute this position.
>
>> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20210504/3c2a4c5e/attachment.htm>