/lit/ - Literature

S

Rest in Piss

vaxxed around and found out

>>23304040
Who are you?

Good riddance
Christ is King

>>23304056
BASED

>>23304047
>>23304056
>>23304040
You know nothing about his work and probably also falsely think he was a materialist.

>>23304065
>Daniel Dennett is a self-declared materialist and reductionist.

>>23304065
Sinner, repent!

>>23304073
Where did he declare it?

>>23304074
The christian larping on /lit/ got stale 8 years ago.

>>23304036
All of his views were just arose from his contrarianism. If you told him not to eat shit he would do it just to spite you

>>23304093
Looks like you're just mad that he didn't agree with you.

>>23304092
It's alive and kicking. New Atheism is passé.

>>23304093
All the carbon in the shit is absorbed by bugs that feed a chicken and I eat its eggs. Viola! I have eaten shit just to prove you wrong.

Reminder that it's literally impossible to be intellectually honest and be religious.
If you still believe in god after the age of 20, something must be terribly wrong without your epistemology. I've never seen anyone proselytize their faith without resorting to logical fallacies and generally dumb arguments.

>>23304103
ok but ywnbaw

>>23304099
Perhaps so in your shithole country. Not in the developed world.

>>23304114
Europe is being replaced by niggers. Imagine being proud of a rotting corpse.

>>23304103

>>23304119
>niggers bad even though they have the BBC

>>23304120
This is exactly the level of intellectual honesty I'm talking about.

>>23304036
>Daniel Dennett
Hope for him that he repented on his deathbed

>>23304126
God doesn't exist.

>>23304129
*tips fedora*

The world is a slightly better place now.

>>23304130
>>23304125

>>23304136
>>23304109

>>23304079
In his book you didn't read.

>>23304093
There's nothing wrong with eating shit.

>>23304036
He should have accepted Christ as his lord and saviour. Now he is experiencing eternal, torturous, excruciating, writhing pain for ever.

>>23304103
How is refusing to understand different perspectives "intellectual honesty"? If you don't even understand what animists are talking about you basically can't have any insight into human history. How would following you in refusing to understand history help me? You're telling me your religion has all the answers and those other religions are all "intellectually dishonest" but you're too deranged from religious zealotry to even acknowledge that you're a zealot. Even the most extreme crusaders and jihadists in history at least understood on some level what they were, they were all more intellectually honest than you.

>>23304114
>Germany
>only 11% Muslim
This map must be old.

>>23304103
Logic has its limits.

>>23304125
"Intellectual honesty" is a dumb heuristic that is only ever cited in the reverse when someone uses language they don't like or don't understand. Much like "logical fallacies." You sound like you're either 15 or 34. Either way, you need to stop watching atheist debates on the internet. Go outside.

>>23304103
Pic rel has an IQ of 195, is a literal polymath and believes in god. Would you debate him?

>>23304178
he's a generic deist, isnt he?

>>23304169
>but you're too deranged from religious zealotry to even acknowledge that you're a zealot
I do hold strong opinions on the truth of atheism and wish others were honest and agreed. In this sense, I freely admit to being a zealot.
Also I grew up deeply religious protestant christian, so I understand the different perspective against which I'm arguing.
Your point is void.

>>23304172
Nowhere did I suggest otherwise.
>>23304174
> "Intellectual honesty" is a dumb heuristic that is only ever cited in the reverse when someone uses language they don't like or don't understand.
Pretty sure I understand christian language, as I grew up being one.
> . Either way, you need to stop watching atheist debates on the internet
I have stopped watching them 8 years ago.

>>23304178
This guy is a fraud. His IQ claim is a meme. I watched a video of him on Kurt Jaimungal where he spouted a bunch of nonsense about math he knew nothing about.

>>23304036
he was overweight
you are more likely to live longer if you are a stick

>>23304164
You have a vivid imagination.

>>23304202
The worms will feast on this dead fat turd.

>>23304201
he has taken iq tests verifying that he has a high iq
being wrong or ignorant about something doesn't prove any anything

>>23304201
Maybe your IQ just wasn't smart enough to understand what he said

>>23304211
He spoke about my area of expertise.
>>23304210
Can you provide me proof of his high IQ?
Here are some examples to give you an idea:
> Solving newly released IMO problems live on camera and doing a good job.
> Doing a digit span test live on camera and doing a good job.
> Doing any other kind of short term memory test live and doing a good job.
> Solving Putnam problem live and doing a good job.
> Demonstrating a good grasp of mathematics and achieving any kind of nontrivial results in mathematics.
AFAIK he has never done anything like the above. Not even close. And it would be extremely easy - most of these wouldn't take more than one day.
This guy is obviously a fraud.

>>23304187
>Also I grew up deeply religious protestant christian, so I understand the different perspective against which I'm arguing.
You're projecting your personal, local experiences on the entire world and all history because you're a retard and that won't change no matter what label you identify with. You're admitting that instead of engaging with the great thinkers of history you read their words and reply "no mom ur rong". There's a million different perspectives under these labels you dismiss so "intellectually honestly" and your fucking mom doesn't grasp any of them, she's a braindead burger like you.

>>23304233
What is your area of expertise?

>>23304239
Set theory as was implied.
>>23304236
I've talked to a lot of christians and asked them to justify their belief. None of them could do it in an intellectually honest way. One time I went to a seminar about how to justify your belief in christianity. On the first lecture we were told that I could not argue with them about belief in god, this is a place for apologetics. Oh the irony.

>>23304246
>anecdotal evidence
Mr Intellectual Honesty, everyone.

>>23304246
>set theory
What's your favorite set?

>>23304260
I haven't expressed this clearly enough, but I am open to challenge my beliefs. If you disagree with what I said, present with an intellectually honest proselytization of your belief.

>all this disrespect and shit flinging
>all this bitter Christfag jealousy
>in a thread about Santa's death
He brought joy and smiles to children the world over every Christmas. Have some respect.

>>23304283
kek

>>23304161
Based

>>23304036
He was the one member of New Atheism whose atheism felt incidental and independent of his actual relevant thought, as opposed to a predisposed animus. And his books not explicitly related to atheism at least tried to be serious books and not popsci meme bullshit like The Selfish Gene.

>>23304103
Prove God doesn’t exist

>>23304283
heh

>>23304348
1. Many different conflicting religions suggest it's a byproduct of human psychology.
2. The disappearance of all miracles with the advent of the ability to properly document them.
3. The lack of any kind of advance scientific or mathematical knowledge given by these gods. Whatever they say is always limited to what the people of the time could have thought. Strongly suggest human made up phenomena.
4. Being able to strongly alter your feelings of religiosity/closeness to god with mind-altering drugs suggests it's a psychological artifact not something real.
5. The lack of any kind of proof of existence of god to this day.

>>23304246
>all the burgers I talk to are burgers
Justin Martyr an early church father wrote the first "apology" in a letter to the Roman emperor. He said it was the fulfilment of the project of Greek philosophy.
When your answer to something like that is "no it wasn't" you're not being honest. The guy is trying to explain the ideas he lived and died for. Half the early church fathers were Greek philosophers. The old schools taught the Bible and the Greek classics side by side until Julian banned mixing the two and most schools chose the Bible.
As I understand it for most monotheists in history doubting the existence of God wouldn't make any sense, faith was about faith in God being good, right and loving, the nature of God not if the phenomena exists. Universality can't exist without a universal organizing principle, relying on universal statements is itself an act of faith in the highest power.
Until around the enlightenment everyone globally agreed on the vocabulary tribal people still use today where local gods do represent something real and people who thought in universals like when we use logic acknowledged there's a highest power.
With mass literacy the meaning was lost on the plebs while the words were parroted until they reached you after being mangled by propaganda from 20 different political factions.

>>23304355
Miracles do happen

>>23304370
>Food analogy

>>23304355
1. people can have wrong ideas about math therefore math is a product of human psychology
2. burgerism, only relevant in your little world
3. science was developed by Christians based on Christian ideas. Does that prove God exists?
4. drugs can change your ideas about math so math doesn't exist?
5. the idea was proven as valid to a higher standard than the idea of "chair" like 500 years before Christ.

Wait, is he really dead? This thread isn't a prank?

>>23304036
what is this mental illness? why would you make a reverent thread on someone who passed and not share the name? I know I can reverse image search but, you know, fuck that, just share the name

>>23304412
Daniel Dennett.

>>23304103
>>23304125
>y-you can't believe in a spiritual world besides the material... BECAUSE YOU JUST CAN'T OKAY?!
Muh ((intellectual)) honesty lol. Lmao even

I don't like him and I don't like anything he has written.

>>23304355
1. literally anything regarding perception is a byproduct of human psychology.
2. what do you mean by miracles? Because as far as I know, they still happen
3. at least under Christian theology, human intelligence is a byproduct of God's creation and freewill. Anything that equals advancement for the betterment of humans can be attributed to God.
4. Not necessarily.
5. There's no way to prove something like God in the material. By its definition, it's something even beyond our imagination. That being said, if God Himself were to come down now and speak to you, I'm 99% sure you still wouldn't believe it because of your "intellectual honesty"

>>23304246
Academic theology is a meme. Try mysticism. Since you do maths, try LEJ Brouwer's Life, Art, and Mysticism, although keep in mind he was a 24 year old schopenhauer-pilled edgelord when he wrote it.

>dies a few days after his chat with peterson goes up, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWpm2NOF2Zw
coincidence?

>>23304470
repulsive person

>>23304348
Evolution

>>23304564
Proves God and objective morality exist.

>>23304818
As temporary perceptions of temporary lifeforms, yes.

>>23304178
>>23304210
>>23304211
>use jargon to obfuscate
>never accept the onus is on followers to clarify arguments
>if anyone points this out or criticizes terminology say "YOU'RE JUST NOT SMART ENOUGH TO GET IT"
>if anyone criticizes the above behavior, project they're part of a system that has a vested interest to detract
>never accept the idea of "vested interest" is a projection from those who feel that Piss Fagman has validated their beliefs and anointed their intelligence
CTMU is a confidence trick put forth by a narcissistic social engineer (i.e. conman) that tricks retards into attaching their perception of their own intelligence by attaching it to promoting his (kind of like The Emperor's New Clothes).

>>23304564
Saying that evolution precludes the existence of a creator is one of the most dimwitted cop-outs I've ever heard.

>>23304103
Bro I'm not even a God believer but you sound euphoric

>>23304833
That he's a retarded narcissist doesn't necessarily mean he isn't the highest IQ man alive.

>>23304840
It's more that the creator must evolve, too, which diminishes the idea of God.

>>23304103
I believe in God but I do not proselytize my faith because I know I cannot objectively prove it, and part of my belief is that everyone has a divine right to choose what they believe. The same cannot be said of you with your religion called atheism.

>>23304853
Why must a creator evolve? Time does not exist in higher dimensions. Time is only a concept to our highly limited perception of reality.

>>23304867
Your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, dreams, perceptions, and so on are all a byproduct of your nervous system, which evolved over hundreds of millions of years and led to countless other evolutionary paths such as cephalopods. Ideas, in other words, evolve too; whatever you think God is, that thought is temporary.

>>23304853
It diminishes the idea of a God as a biological material creature or whatever, some retarded concept you have in your mind but no Christian ever did and is clearly incompatible with everything historically said about God.
Being given the "image of God" is being given qualia according to early church fathers and the orthodox. That's also the charitable interpretation you would give to any ancient text you weren't programmed by politically motivated forces to hate.

>>23304882
See >>23304881

Evolution kills God because it kills consciousness. Reality is relative and evolving.

>>23304881
Whatever you think 1+1 is that thought is temporary but even if all humans are dead an apple falling into a basket with one apple already in it will result in two apples being in the basket.
>>23304887
I looked and there's nothing there.

>>23304888
>but even if all humans are dead an apple falling into a basket with one apple already in it will result in two apples being in the basket.
That would be because some other organism(s) perceived it. Eliminate all of them and this reality disappears.

So, what did he contribute to philosophy, exactly?

>>23304881
This is a severely flawed argument. Your premise is that because ideas are temporary, then nothing can be true. Your ideas do not make something real.

>>23304904
>Your premise is that because ideas are temporary, then nothing can be true.
Not exactly. Truth is evolving, rather; it is relative to evolving organisms.

>>23304909
So are you suggesting that after X amount of time (which again, does not exist in higher dimensions), 1+1 will no longer equal 2?
Also, on what basis do you assert that truth/reality depends on the perception of organisms? If there was a species near our solar system that evolved far beyond our current state, what would happen if they came here? Whose perception would reign supreme over the truth/reality that you claim is relative to the organisms contained within it?

>lives a life making others feel stupid
>dies
>tormented in a pit of hell by nerd imps mogging him in endless discourse

>>23304889
>That would be because some other organism(s) perceived it. Eliminate all of them and this reality disappears.
How do you know? When we leave a room the rules in the room appear to stay the same, we can check it later using cameras and such. If the effect is an "illusion" doesn't matter, it's reliable. All the ways we can imagine it to be an illusion still leaves us with the same effective universal rules. Space and time and logic as we know it might all be derived from the evolution of organisms but it leaves us in the same place, with effectively universal coherent rules relying on real phenomena that don't store all state information in the organisms.

>>23304922
I'm suggesting that numbers and math were manufactured by evolving organisms rather than were discovered.

>Also, on what basis do you assert that truth/reality depends on the perception of organisms?
Evolution. Where do you think nerves, brains, the sensory organs came from within evolutionary biology?

>If there was a species near our solar system that evolved far beyond our current state, what would happen if they came here?
We'd probably be enslaved or eradicated since their reality would be more comprehensive or designed in such a way that it consumes ours.

>>23304036
damn daniel

>>23304937
>How do you know?
Evolution means reality is relative. It doesn't work otherwise. We are animals and other animals are on an equal level in terms of the truthfulness of one's reality.

>>23304949
>It doesn't work otherwise.
Why do you just say random things? Ask an AI to clarify absolute basics. Evolution doesn't work if there's no external environment to adapt to.

>>23304036

>>23304949
Literally none of that is true.

>>23304969
>Evolution doesn't work if there's no external environment to adapt to.
What you're referring to is natural selection, not evolution. What has "adapted" best is what tends to reproduce, but this adaptation isn't what drives evolution. Adaptation or maladaptation are merely consequences of it; whether an evolutionary chain results in adaptive or maladaptive traits is entirely by accident and unknown to the process itself.

That there are thousands of different species across the planet with varying forms of nervous systems and other traits suggests that there is no such thing as a "complete" or "final" evolutionary stage or organism. Consequently, there is no "complete" or 'final" perception or reality.

>>23304944
Ok, what you're doing is taking an established theory (evolution) and piggybacking a whole bunch of complete conjecture and asserting it as fact. Are you able to see the structure of your argument? What you're asserting requires a greater leap of faith than believing in a creator.

>Evolution. Where do you think nerves, brains, the sensory organs came from within evolutionary biology?
This is a meaningless statement. You're saying that reality is dependent on the perception of organisms because organisms evolve. How can you possibly not see the colossal chasm in your deduction? There are many, many logical steps missing in your deduction.

>We'd probably be enslaved or eradicated since their reality would be more comprehensive or designed in such a way that it consumes ours.
Again, what is your basis for this assertion that the reality of a more advanced species would "consume" ours if we were to come into contact?

>>23304944
Also consider that your argument is entirely unfalsifiable. Established concepts that directly contradict your entire premise (such as time not existing on higher dimensions) can be conveniently dismissed by saying, "any concept that contradicts my argument isn't actually true because truth depends on evolution, even though I can't establish any objective or consistent parameters of this hypothetical relationship."

>>23305006
What a bunch of absolutely braindead pseud shit. You don't understand anything you're talking about.
>What you're referring to is natural selection
No, again ask a fucking AI about absolute basics instead of presenting the most braindead uninformed horseshit as if it's not only coherent but authoritative. The mechanism that allows organisms to adapt is natural selection. The process of adapting to an environment is evolution and the idea was well established before the idea of natural selection. The "environment" doesn't need to be what we perceive, it's what our perception is adapted to. Time and space can still be selected by life.
>Consequently, there is no "complete" or 'final" perception or reality.
Which is what Christian dogma and Platonism say. It's the classic idea of an objective reality separate from how fallen being perceive them.
You can't account for everything and every possibility. That does not mean those things aren't there. If the idea of an apple rests on a perspective why would that mean the apple isn't objectively there? It really exists within the context it exists within. Why do I need to explain this to you?

>>23305022
>This is a meaningless statement.
I don't care. Answer the question.

>Again, what is your basis for this assertion that the reality of a more advanced species would "consume" ours if we were to come into contact?
It was a tongue-in-cheek response, really. You'd need to define "more advanced" to get me to seriously address your premise, since it's unclear until this is defined.

>>23305035
What's the plausible alternative conclusion to evolution besides the last sentence of >>23305006 ?

>>23305063
>The mechanism that allows organisms to adapt is natural selection.
What the fuck are you talking about, retard? You have it completely backwards. Natural selection is a mechanism of evolution. If you don't even understand this much, then you don't belong in this discussion.

>>23305022
>>23305072
You two should have sexual intercourse in a motel by the road. The sexual tension is too high.

>>23305072
>I don't care.
Unsurprising response, given your inability to see the critical flaws in your argument.

>You'd need to define "more advanced" to get me to seriously address your premise, since it's unclear until this is defined.
The irony is absolutely palpable. I would define "more advanced" using the exact premise of your argument: a species that is advanced enough to have a reality that noticeably differs from ours. Why would you even need me to define this redundancy? Let me phrase it another way: at what point during the evolution of the human species did reality and its parameters change? You're saying that the nature of reality is dependent on organisms, so at what point in earth's history did reality change? And how did it change?

>>23305072
>What's the plausible alternative conclusion to evolution
Please stop doing that. You can't just take an established theory and drastically change its definition to usurp its credibility for your own beliefs.
But I will give you a far more plausible alternative conclusion to your own: that objective reality exists, and it is merely our own perception of it that changes over time. Concepts like mathematics do not change reality; they are concepts we use to understand and describe it. But there is absolutely nothing that proves, or even tenuously suggests, the inverse.

But again, this discussion is basically pointless because your theory cannot possibly be falsified. The nature of your argument allows you to conveniently dismiss any fact, idea or concept that disproves your theory.

Side question: where did organisms come from? If reality is dependent on organisms, how did organisms become part of a reality whose very existence depends on that organism?

>>23305063
>>23305063
>No, again ask a fucking AI about absolute basics instead of presenting the most braindead uninformed horseshit as if it's not only coherent but authoritative
What was incoherent?

>The process of adapting to an environment is evolution and the idea was well established before the idea of natural selection.
First of all, "environment" is a product of evolution. What environment do you think a sea urchin perceives for adapting to, or a tree? The same one as a spider, an amoeba, or a human?

Reaction as the defining behavior of organisms seems like nothing more than the brain fart of an entirely reactive i.e. weak-willed organism. There's nothing about evolution suggesting that it's purpose is solely for adaptation, and in fact, it makes no sense to conceive of it this way. We could have just as easily remained as unicellular organisms then. Why didn't we, if all evolution was was a game of adaptation?

>That does not mean those things aren't there.
I didn't say they aren't there. I said that they weren't always and won't always be there.

>>23305112
>Unsurprising response, given your inability to see the critical flaws in your argument.
Are you going to answer the question, you fucking faggot?

>>23304036
Here's a story I found about what would have happened if Daniel Dennett did LSD. Dennett never did any psychedelics throughout his entire life.

https://qualiacomputing.com/2020/08/06/that-time-daniel-dennett-took-200-micrograms-of-lsd/

>>23304852
Interestingly enough the IQ test on which he bases his claim to fame is the same one that Keith Raniere did as well. The 3rd person who supposedly aced it grifts via a magazine column.

>>23305122
>Where do you think nerves, brains, the sensory organs came from within evolutionary biology?
I honestly don't know what you mean by this question. More importantly, I don't know how this can possibly prove that reality is dependent on organisms. Why not just answer the question yourself if your entire premise hinges on the answer? This is almost certainly just a massive red herring you're latching onto, given your inability to address any of my points that objectively disprove the logical validity of your argument. Lol

Again, this is pointless. Your argument relies on circular reasoning (until you can fill the logical gaps, which you've been unable to do for multiple posts now) and is unfalsifiable. 100% of all objective evidence contradicts your argument, but you conveniently dismiss that by claiming it's not true because truth and reality depend on organisms. If you cannot fill those critical holes in your logic, there is no reason to continue a conversation with a person who is as detached from reality as you are. So don't respond to me unless you can do that. Don't ask me rhetorical questions; just state your point without any gaps in your deduction or don't respond. Peace.

>>23304887
>>23304944
>>23304949
Lmfao, babby's first philosophy attempt. Quick tip: in a few years you're going to look back and realize how fucking retarded you were.

>>23305122
>First of all, "environment" is a product of evolution.
No it's not retard. What you perceive is not the actual fucking environment. The map is not the fucking territory.
>What was incoherent?
Natural selection with no external factor to decide if something lives or dies.
>I said that they weren't always and won't always be there.
You said nothing even approaching an informed coherent thought and don't demonstrate a hint of understanding of anything I say so no communication is possible. You're reddit incarnate randomly stringing together words you heard but have no grasp on, not even on a child's level.

>>23305079
Evolution is nothing more than the idea of natural selection taken to its logical extremes.
>>23305167
The guy you're replying to is an absolute STEMcel who has inadvertently funko pop first into some retarded variant of the is-ought gap. He's assuming you think that you're better than other animals because you're more evolved or something and trying to shove a morality through the narrow lens of hippie-dippie biological essentialism. His case is terminal. Nigger aids.

>>23305122
>There's nothing about evolution suggesting that it's purpose is solely for adaptation, and in fact, it makes no sense to conceive of it this way. We could have just as easily remained as unicellular organisms then. Why didn't we, if all evolution was was a game of adaptation?
You're trolling. Fucking kek there is no way you seriously wrote this out. Idk if you knew this, but environments change over time (and thus the need for adaptation). In fact, all of Earth's protohistory is a series of environmental changes (that had absolutely no dependence on "evolution"), which forced adaptation on single celled organisms. Bro, we (maybe not you) learned this in grade school.

>>23304099
so is new christianity, new atheism was over 10 years ago. you replaced one meme with another

>>23305254
Christianity is not a meme. It's eternal.

>>23304099
Atheism will always be smarter and more interesting than your thousand year old dead tradition, no matter how much you seethe.

>>23305508
There's nothing interesting about atheism. It's a magnet for pseuds and midwits to feel smart.

>>23305167
You seem to not understand what evolution actually means, probably because you don't actually understand how your own brain and body work. Protip: Abrahamic religion is dead, and so is God, the soul, and consciousness as a singularity.

>LE CIRCULAR REASONING!!!!
No, you're just a fucking retard who lacks the self-awareness to realize that the very perception and "knowledge" with which you operate and see through came into existence through evolution. You're too fucking dumb to actually grasp the concept. You lack self-awareness. That's all.

>>23305209
Go fuck yourself.

>>23305213
>No it's not retard.
It is. There was no "outside" until organisms possessed the biological means for such a sensation. That's all "outside" is — sensation. You can only know yourself.

>Natural selection with no external factor to decide if something lives or dies.
The external factor is power, in the sense that a celestial body possesses the power to force smaller bodies into its orbit. The weaker orbit the stronger, the stronger consume the weaker. They do not adapt to the weaker, the weaker adapt to the stronger. Adaptation is the game of the weak, influence that of the strong. Evolution isn't merely adaptation.

>>23305245
>Bro, we (maybe not you) learned this in grade school.
Yes, grade school. A level of education you appear to not have progressed from.

>>23305508
>you must be 18 to post on this board

>>23305517
Even if that were true it’s still miles better than drooling morons who haven’t realized the falsity and ridiculousness of religion.
>>23305531
Not an argument. Cope.

>>23305535
>Not an argument.

>>23304833
Conman are the real high IQ people

This got more attention than Barth. Grim.

>>23304202
The only 80+ year old sticks are the ones who already dying.

>>23304036
Literally who?

Reading this thread has made me realize how fucking retarded atheist proselytizers are. I'm not even saying God exists because I don't know. But at least the religionfags admit their belief relies on a degree of faith. The atheists here use utterly broken logic that doesn't even pass the first level of scrutiny, to substantiate their claims.

>>23304178
Sure he seems kinda dumb

>>23305916
Barth never got signal-boosted by mainstream media and intelligence agencies like “the four horsemen” did.

>>23305527
>It is. There was no "outside"
I already covered this you absolutely subhuman illiterate piece of shit.
>The external factor is power
Then there is an external reality they're adapting to. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you regurgitating all this shit you don't understand on any fucking level? How have you convinced yourself you have any clue what you're talking about? Why do you keep replying to posts while completely ignoring everything said in them?

>>23306216
I think that most people who call themselves atheists are really agnostics.

>>23306237
>Then there is an external reality they're adapting to.
Not a comprehensible one. Whatever you can describe as "reality" will always ever be at the mercy of your biology, and that goes for everyone and everything. I call it "power" — but this is an evolutionary concept too. THAT'S WHAT I'M FUCKING SAYING, YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKER WITH NO SELF-AWARENESS.

>LE CIRCULAR REASONING!!!
Yes, the truth you search for pathetically can never be reached within evolution. Fucking deal with it.

>Why do you keep replying to posts while completely ignoring everything said in them?
You do the same fucking thing, go fuck yourself.

>>23304119
There is a poster against racism close to my house, it was posted by the Catholic Church.

>>23306279
All of them are Christian.
>>23306296
You're not saying anything retard. You're trying to regurgitate ideas from others which I know better than you but you don't understand on any level. You can't engage, only mindlessly parrot. You don't understand evolution, will to power or where you even got these ideas. You're fucking mindless.
>You do the same fucking thing
I don't. Everything you say is delusional fantasy.
I've already addressed all your braindead shit and you completely ignore it, not consciously but because you're actually incapable, completely fucking illiterate.
>not a comprehensible one
That's the classic idea of an external reality and what I fucking presented over and over. Who are you arguing against? What the fuck is happening in the incoherent soup of parroted memes you call a mind?

>>23306320
The guy you're arguing with is mentally ill. There's no point responding because he'll just ignore every single counterargument you make and throw an ad hom instead. I tried to give him a chance to explain his position without logical gaps, and he still refuses. The very best he can do is throw strawmans and insult you for believing something that you literally never said. This is a person who has delusionally crafted an impenetrable belief system that conveniently dismisses any basic argument that disproves his own.

>>23306311
Yes, the Catholic Church is in fact not racist, thank you for this insightful observation.

>>23306320
>You're not saying anything retard.
>proceeds to say over and over "ur dumb"
You're a fucking cancer. You also never answered my question because you're an intellectually dishonest faggot. If evolution doesn't work as I say it does, then where do you think nerves, brains, or the sensory organs came from? Why do other animals possess different forms of these things? Do you think this shit just fell out of the sky? Do you think there's such a thing as a "complete" or "final" or "perfect" organism in evolution when everything we can observe suggests the exact opposite? Do you think any of your observations, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs have any basis outside of your biology — and if so, why would you think anything like this given all this information? Everything you write suggests endless fucking idiocy; YOU are the one who falls into circular reasoning in the end. Evolution CLEARLY works as I described it as and consequently the search for truth is nothing more than the expression of biology.

>>23306320
>>23306332
>>23306363
And let me make this finally clear, since you're all too fucking stupid to understand it: I'm not declaring any sort of "truth." What I'm declaring is the ultimate theory OF HUMAN BIOLOGY. The human brain HAS LIMITS. This means there's an end to the road of theory. AND YOU'RE NOT AT THE END YET IF YOU'RE STILL SEARCHING FOR TRUTH.

There is no truth. There's only families of organisms raping and killing other families of organisms. There's only realities being created and destroyed as different biological configurations emerge throughout this ongoing process. Consciousness evolves along with everything else. This is all the universe is. ACCORDING TO OUR LIMITED MINDS. THIS IS THE PEAK OF OUR THEORIZING. THEORIZING IS OVER (until we encounter intelligent aliens whom we can fuck and breed with, changing our biology and therefore also the limits of our theorizing).

>>23306363
What are you replying to retard? Why can't you make your braindead horseshit relate to something said?
The theory of evolution by natural selection does not address the origins of life or the nature of the environment. In the traditional view it's understood that our perception evolved but the outside world including time and space are considered objective and external. If we speculate that even more of what we consider objective is in fact a perspective and product of evolution it doesn't actually change any of the principles involved, life still evolved to adapt to an external environment. The "environment" is just a larger possibility space that includes among other things space and time.

>>23306389
>And let me make this finally clear
It's clear that you're an idiot trying and failing to parrot ideas you don't understand. Maps have limits but one map can be more accurate than another. The fallen form struggles to approach its heavenly ideal but can never succeed.

>>23306461
>The theory of evolution by natural selection does not address the origins of life or the nature of the environment.
It has significant implications on these things. How can you even suggest otherwise?

>In the traditional view it's understood that our perception evolved but the outside world including time and space are considered objective and external.
The traditional view is stupid.

>>23306471
>Maps have limits but one map can be more accurate than another.
We're not talking about maps. Your analogy is garbage.

>>23304470
It was Interstitial lung disease, so he knew very well that he was dying soon.

My question is: what was he thinking? That was his last public appearance, on Jordan fucking Peterson, and it was his deliberate choice.

>2006 era le epic atheism debates in 2016 + 8
Dire

>>23306482
>It has significant implications on these things.
Most notably it absolutely demands an external factor to adapt to. If we accept that theory there has to be an objective reality.
>The traditional view is stupid.
I don't subscribe to it but at least it's coherent and built on something unlike anything you've said. It's also where any informed discussion starts.
>We're not talking about maps.
Everything you say is based on this retarded misconception. We are talking about fucking maps. The idea of a chair is not a chair, it's a representation of some strange phenomena which we know little about except that we can sit on it.
The organism adapts to what is demanded for survival, mapping an environment to be able to navigate it by for example shaping ideas like "chair" out of experimenting with what's allowed and what's not according to some external factor / rules / environment.

>>23306653
>If we accept that theory there has to be an objective reality.
No. The theory suggests that "internal vs. external" or "subjective vs. objective" are just ideas that evolved into existence with our brains. Evolution itself is an idea that evolved into existence. The idea is the ultimate representation of the peak limit of our brains' capacity to theorize and become self-aware. We can't theorize further or become more self-aware than evolution.

>We are talking about fucking maps.
Maps are a representation of something else. The structure of our nervous system does not suggest that it is mapping something else any more than it suggests that it is producing the "something else." The theory of evolution, on the other hand, does suggest that the latter is what's happening, not the former.

>>23306716
>The structure of our nervous system does not suggest that it is mapping something else
Incoherent nonsense. You can't even grasp the simplest logic. If there's nothing to adapt to the theory is completely wrong, these are your own personal nonsense ideas that have nothing to do with evolution or anything that makes any sense. A photosensitive neuron is adapted to absorb packets of energy of a specific wavelength from some field or whatever. However detailed the description is it rests on ideas we make up but the underlying phenomena is there no matter how much our ideas of it rest on perspective.

>>23306764
>If there's nothing to adapt to the theory is completely wrong
Your version of the theory, maybe. Evolution is not only adaptation. See >>23305527

>The weaker orbit the stronger, the stronger consume the weaker. They do not adapt to the weaker, the weaker adapt to the stronger. Adaptation is the game of the weak, influence that of the strong. Evolution isn't merely adaptation.

>>23304036
literally who, this guy was like the Ringo of the Four Horsemen

>>23304161
Saar

>>23306334
Then why do anons act like atheists are the reason we have so many immigrants?

>>23306590
Maybe talking to Jordan Peterson accelerated his demise.

>>23306911
Who decides on immigration policies in your country? The Church or the secular government?

>>23306782
>Your version of the theory
There is no other version. That's the fucking theory. You're not talking about evolution, natural selection or the will to power. You're talking about vague private intuitions you can't express coherently because you don't have the tools to form structured thoughts.
>weaker, stronger
Appeal to an external metric, an external possibility space to map and navigate through adaptations. Even when the metric changes the ruleset doesn't, only the context. A different mountain is still a mountain.

>>23307036
The secular government voted into power by atheists and Christians alike. The Catholic church doesn't oppose it either.

>>23307052
>There is no other version.
Yes, there is. There's Nietzsche's / mine, which plenty of evolutionary biologists agree with. Adaptation is an inherently reactive activity, but organisms wish to discharge their strength, not merely react in order to survive.

>Appeal to an external metric
No. We are just theorizing. We are taking the information our brains can process and trying to make sense of it. This is all we can do. You fundamentally do not understand this process.

>>23307052
>There is no other version.
You've obviously never studied biology, anon. The worst thing about Nu Atheism is that it taught midwits that being strongly opinionated is a substitute for being informed.

>>23304056
>>23304063
>"Christ is King"

It's always funny to read a thread like this and see so many people defending their imaginary friend. No, really, you can't even object to this categorization, let's just review the facts here: Can't be objectively proven, can't be seen, can't interact with reality, is unique to you since your version of your friend is different from other people's imaginary friends, and on and on. It's okay if you need the psychological crutch of an imaginary father figure, but don't pretend it's intellectually honest or rigorous to believe in such a thing. It's a remnant of childhood, the wish for daddy to take care of you in perpetuity. You belong at the kiddy table.

>>23306813
>this guy was like the Ringo of the Four Horsemen
And who can forget the famous "I got blisters on my fingers!" line from Helter-Skelter? I prefer Daniel Dennett's attitude of sticking to philosophical approaches to philosophical problems over Sam Harris' need to come up with "scientific" explanations or solutions for purely philosophical questions in epistemology and ethics. His move towards the so-called "Intellectual Dark Web" has tarnished his image as a free-thinker who advocates for a society free from superstition and radicalism.
On the other hand, Daniel Dennett remained surprisingly stable in terms of his philosophical views all throughout his life, and was always more of an academic philosopher than a political activist, displaying a similar consistency to Ringo Starr, who, unlike John Lennon and Paul McCartney, never tried advocating for social and political causes, and unlike George Harrison, never tried to become part of supergroups with other famous musicians simply for the sake of being back on the spotlight. Ringo is just Ringo, and that's all he's ever tried to be, just as Daniel Dennett was just Daniel Daniel, and that's all he ever tried to be.

>atheists are titans of intellect
>[but expect you to be impressed they don't believe in Santa]
>atheists stand for free-thinking
>[but demand you adhere to Scientism]
>atheists are champions of reason
>[but have strong opinions about things of which they're uneducated]
>atheists are anti-dogmatic
>[but insist you interpret scripture only according to their ideas of it]
Atheism is an intelligence LARP that retards indoctrinate themselves into. Being an atheist is ridiculously easy; their main weak point is their unearned pride and if you poke at their (entirely self-perceived) intelligence they become reactive and break down. Reminder that the legacy of New Atheism is pic-related: homosexual rape/cuck furry fetish cartoons.

>>23307173
>unlike George Harrison, never tried to become part of supergroups with other famous musicians simply for the sake of being back on the spotlight
Harrison had the best solo album of any Beatle (All Things Must Pass). The Traveling Willburys are pretty much the only supergroup where you're not thinking about how the outcome is less than the sum of its parts while listening (and Harrison wrote a lot of the songs). Also, TTW started as a one off single but the producer convinced them it was so good it needed an album around it.

>>23307174
The problem with [most] atheists is that they think they're geniuses by arguing against a child's conception of God ("imaginary friend", "old man sitting in a cloud", etc.).
I'm not saying all arguments for atheism are bad, but most arguments by most atheists are.

>>23304036
As sad as this death is at least NDEs are real and prove that there is an afterlife and that we are eternal and will go to heaven unconditionally when we die. So he is literally in paradise now. Indeed, NDEs are actually irrefutable proof that heaven really is awaiting us all because (1) people see things during their NDEs when they are out of their bodies that they should not be able to under the assumption that the brain creates consciousness, and (2) anyone can have an NDE and everyone is convinced by it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U00ibBGZp7o

So any atheist or materialist or agnostic would be too if they had an NDE, so pic related is literally irrefutable proof of life after death. As one NDEr pointed out:

>"I'm still trying to fit it in with this dream that I'm walking around in, in this world. The reality of the experience is undeniable. This world that we live in, this game that we play called life is almost a phantom in comparison to the reality of that."

If NDEs were just hallucinations then extreme atheists and neuroscientists who had NDEs would agree that they were halluinations after having them. But the opposite happens as NDEs convince every skeptic when they have a really deep NDE themselves.

>>23307174
Really regret leafing through that comic

>>23307085
>Yes, there is
No retard. Your incoherent private fantasies are not the theory of evolution by natural selection which requires selection pressure from something external to the information copying process.
>>23307098
You haven't studied anything. You have no clue how to begin to think about any subject so why not learn? What the fuck is wrong with your brain? Why is everything you post beyond the dumbest nonsense imaginable?
>atheism
Am I talking about fucking theology? Are you completely incapable of anything resembling thought?

>>23307364
>private fantasies
No, you just can't into logic. Adaptation is reactive, but every reaction needs an action to react to. Natural selection can't purely be a series of reactions like you're describing it. Further, if life only evolved towards what makes it more environmentally fit, then there would be no real reason for life beyond its most basic forms. The more basic forms of life are vastly better fit for survival than we are, yet we still evolved into existence.

Now, isn't this something?

>>23307404
Your mind is mush. Never post retard, it will never help anyone including you. Read wiki or ask an AI for absolute basics. Look at educational videos for children to at least have a surface level understanding of the things you pretend you have all figured out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT1vXXMsYak
The basic form is eaten by more complex forms. That's part of the environment. The energy requirements that pressure them into eating is part of the environment. They can't decide to outcompete the others by pretending that rule doesn't exist.

>>23307558
>The basic form is eaten by more complex forms.
The more complex forms didn't always exist. Why did they come into existence if evolution is solely about adaptation? Why didn't everything just converge into one perfect niche of near 100% survival rate and never change further?

>>23307558
>>23307565
Your ignorant view of everything being about adaptation also doesn't factor in all the intricate behaviors developed over time in animals with complex nervous systems. Curiosity and play are almost a universal aspect of behavior in such animals and have very little to do with adaptation, often taking the animals into environments that are threatening to them, but also compelling them to do so at the same time.

But ultimately, life can't merely be about adaptation, since adaptation is reactive, and reaction doesn't actually generate anything new, it merely conserves what already exists. Which is my point about complex life forms not even being necessary in a universe that was oriented solely towards adaptation.

>>23307558
>>23307565
>>23307592
"A living thing seeks above all else to discharge its strength—life is will to power."

Complexity in organic life forms proves this. Things evolve towards complexity to further influence the environment and minimize the influence of it on them.

>>23307565
>Why did they come into existence if evolution is solely about adaptation?
Why are you asking me to educate you about the absolute basics of the theory you supposedly know better than Darwin?
Also, why are you asking me a question answered very explicitly in the post you're replying to?
What am I supposed to infer from this other than you have no idea what you're talking about and incapable of even reading my posts?
>>23307592
>also doesn't factor in
How would you know retard? You haven't even glanced at the models based on evolution that do factor in all that shit. Why do you just say random shit? What the fuck is wrong with your brain?
What Desmond Morris called the play principle is one of my favourite ideas based on evolutionary theory and it applies in everyday life, it's part of what Peterson keep referencing when he talks about Piaget. You play to practice and explore boundaries.
>since adaptation is reactive, and reaction doesn't actually generate anything new, it merely conserves what already exists
Since you're retarded your imagination is retarded and you refuse to learn from others with working imaginations.

>>23307623
>you supposedly know better than Darwin
Nice appeal to authority there. Darwin was just a man, and men can be mistaken sometimes.

>Also, why are you asking me a question answered very explicitly in the post you're replying to?
It's not answered. One life form eats another due to environmental pressures, but this does not mean more complex forms of life need to evolve into existence. Everything could have remained at a basic level of complexity in this fashion. Yet the universe didn't do this.

>How would you know retard?
Because those behaviors aren't about adapting to the environment, but exerting influence over it.

>You play to practice and explore boundaries.
There are various kinds of play. Mischief and bullying are kinds of play. This isn't just exploring boundaries, it's about exerting influence. Life isn't just reacting to its environment, it's endlessly looking for new opportunities to shape the environment according to its desires as well.

>>23307645
Just watch the fucking introduction for kids I linked.
>Nice appeal to authority there.
That's not what those words mean. Everything you say is completely deranged incoherent nonsense. A vomit of triggered associations with no relationship to one another. Is that the intention?
>it's endlessly looking for new opportunities to shape the environment
Based on what the environment dictates. Just fucking glance at the basics about the subject before vomiting more shit. You can reproduce all of this basic stuff you're claiming is impossible in 1980s computers.

>>23304355
> The lack of any kind of advance scientific or mathematical knowledge given by these gods. Whatever they say is always limited to what the people of the time could have thought. Strongly suggest human made up phenomena.

Look:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_fkpZSnz2I

The problem goes even deeper.

It's clear from history and literatur that religious textes has recyclet the same narratives as used at this time.
How does this fits with the hypothesis of a God who revelves themself?

>>23304396
https://youtu.be/WI3EP17G8sw?t=117

>>23307861
>That's not what those words mean.
Why else would you bring up a specific scientist in an argument about theory?

>Based on what the environment dictates.
That search is based on the organism's innate desire to exert itself over its environment.

>all of this basic stuff you're claiming is impossible
What did I claim was impossible? I'm saying it's MORE than what you're saying, you autistic fucking sack of shit.

This guy mustve been based as hell to cause this much seething

>>23307911
A normal friday on christcucks vs. atheist-chads. ;-)

To be honest, I have no problem with Christian faith but with some of the people who tries to protect them.

>>23307897
>Why else would you bring up a specific scientist in an argument about theory?
Maybe one day you'll learn to read and figure it out. I've learned that it doesn't matter how much I try to clarify, you'll find a way to undermine any chance of communication or coherent thought. Until then please stop posting. It's not helping you or anyone.

>>23307911
yeah, real philosophers are gadflies

I disagree with him on a fundamental level but his beard game was admirable.

The fear exhibited ITT by the religious proves that the only reason people try to believe, is because they are terrified of death.

>>23308010
>Until then please stop posting.
Suck my fucking dick.

>>23308191
The closest thing to a sincere coherent post you've made. Think for yourself alone what compelled you to make these posts. Who goes around vomiting incoherent nonsense about subjects they never even glanced at? It's one thing to try to refine an incomplete understanding but you just kept demanding I explain to you shit like basic biology and logic and when I did you completely ignored it every time. You have to figure this basic shit out before posting or nothing will be gained by anyone, you'll just turn everything you touch into pointless noise.

>>23308230
You're a pretentious retard. Nothing I wrote is incorrect about evolution or biology, you just refuse to accept my argument because it threatens your sacred cow of consciousness as something exempt from evolution.

>>23304036
Delany died?
Holyshoot!

>>23308090
There's a reason every religion has an afterlife, or promises freedom from mortality, or that you are part of infinity. Many people are terrified of nothingness, and fear makes them easy to manipulate.

>>23308090
>>23308323
Freud outlined this 100 years ago. As long as people are afraid of death, we will have religion, the desperate illusion that we will not really die.

>>23304040
https://youtu.be/FM2c2Vb4u1c

>>23308260
>it threatens your sacred cow of consciousness as something exempt from evolution
What the actual fuck are you talking about retard? How are you so absolutely reliably always completely incoherent? These posts are dumber than anything I could imagine as a parody of a braindead retard. If you get tested you will almost definitely be classified as actually retarded. If you and a decent AI were presented to a 1000 people 900 would say you're the AI.
>Nothing I wrote is incorrect about evolution
Every single thing you wrote is incorrect, to a degree that it's an achievement. Most of your statements are also incompatible with other statements you confidently make based on nothing.
>That would be because some other organism(s) perceived it. Eliminate all of them and this reality disappears.
>Evolution means reality is relative. It doesn't work otherwise. We are animals and other animals are on an equal level in terms of the truthfulness of one's reality.
>"environment" is a product of evolution
>There was no "outside" until organisms possessed the biological means for such a sensation.
>There's Nietzsche's / mine, which plenty of evolutionary biologists agree with.
Your deranged horseshit has nothing to do with the theory of evolution, biology or Nietzsche.

>>23308483
You don't know enough about Nietzsche to claim anything about him. He regarded both free will and causality, and in fact any conclusion whatsoever, as unconscious projections of different evolutionary beings. Do you realize that, dumbass? Why do you think he wrote "we have no organ for truth"?

>>23308483
>>23308523
Full quote:

>We have no organ at all for knowledge, for truth: we know (or believe or imagine) precisely as much as may be useful in the interest of the human herd, the species: and even what is here called usefulness is in the end only a belief, something imagined and perhaps precisely that most fatal piece of stupidity by which we shall one day perish.

Another quote:

>The nineteenth century instinctively goes in search of theories by means of which it may feel its fatalistic, submission to the empire of facts justified. [...] The success of determinism, the genealogical derivation of obligations which were formerly held to be absolute, the teaching of environment and adaptation, the reduction of will to a process of reflex movement, the denial of the will as a "working cause"; finally—a real process of re-christening: so little will is observed that the word itself becomes available for another purpose. Further theories: the teaching of objectivity, "will-less" contemplation, as the only road to truth, as also to beauty (also the belief in "genius," in order to have the right to be submissive); mechanism, the determinable rigidity of the mechanical process; so-called "naturalism," the elimination of the choosing, directing, interpreting subject, on principle.

It's well known that Nietzsche disagreed with the Darwinists, by the way.

>>23308544
>We have no organ at all for knowledge
I didn't dispute these quotes, only your horseshit. Those quotes do not mean if I "eliminate all organisms everything disappears". You're confusing the fucking map for the territory like I tried to explain to you a million times.
I started going into all of this, how this all fits together but you completely ignored everything said every time like you'll continue to so there's no point in trying to help you.
That there really is some external factor dictating what adaptations work doesn't inherently negate the idea of will as fundamental.
In the future when you're talking about your personal interpretations of what philosophers you don't understand believed about subjects you know nothing about yourself don't present that as some kind of authoritative source on that subject while refusing to actually glance at anything traditionally believed about that subject. What kind of braindead faggot would?
Teaching people like you to "read" was probably a mistake humanity will never recover from. You'll never actually read a word.

>>23308651
>Those quotes do not mean if I "eliminate all organisms everything disappears".
What I meant by that is what Nietzsche is saying here. In a certain sense, if all organisms with eyes vanished, then the entire visual aspect of life WOULD disappear. There would be no visual dimension of life anymore. Further, there are camera and compound eyes, and maybe other kinds of eyes elsewhere in the universe, and the kind of eye changes the visual aspect, because the organs are responsible for creating the information; they are interpreting their designs into the final result (Nietzsche's perspectivism). Hence why he says we have no organ for knowledge or truth — what he means is that everything you "know" stems from an interpreting subject (yourself) and everything you regard as "true" is an interpretation.

In the second quote I shared, which you conveniently did not respond to, he argues that the notion of history as a series of adaptations to one's environment is too limiting and a byproduct of a society that unconsciously desires to submit to the "empire of facts." He regarded determinism in general to be such a projection. All theories are interpretations of certain evolutionary beings.

>>23308669
>What I meant
I knew everything you were attempting and failing to parrot from the start.
You consistently tell yourself you meant whatever you want in the moment and contradict yourself. Read the braindead statements you made in this thread. Stop pretending there's any justifying them.
If logic itself and causality are selected by will 1+1 is still objectively 2 within this selected context. The organism can't make up the rules its adapting to.
>he argues
Against empiricism and for what we can call "perspectivism", neither of which you have any grasp on.

>>23308798
>The organism can't make up the rules its adapting to.
I neither said nor implied we can "make up the rules." Rather, the rules are an extension of the organism itself; these two things aren't separable. They come into existence together. You'd realize this is what I meant if you dropped the pretentious attitude and actually thought about what I'm writing.

>>23308837
>Rather, the rules are an extension of the organism itself
The map is not the territory.
The perceived rules are an interaction between the organism and the external factors it's adapting to including other organisms and whatever possibility space it conceivably picks things like causal logic out of, if that's indeed a product of perspective.
Empiricists check to see if they can sit on the chair to verify it's a "chair" but that doesn't actually tell us anything about the chair itself, only the limited ruleset of interactions with the phenomena as we perceive it based on preconceptions, biological, cultural and personal. Almost everything about the "chair" can be made up but the idea is still representing something, something with what amounts in practice to properties distinct from other "things".
Any idea of evolution rests on some kind of external factor. The concept of power also rests on adversity to will existing.

>>23307011
Jordan convinced him to repent so he could go to heaven.

>>23304065
I don't even know who he is.

>>23308979
Samuel R. Delany, who was a noted critic and writer with a controversial approach to postmodernist science fiction.

>>23305153
Keith Raniere is an American hero.

>>23308906
>One should not wrongly reify “cause” and “effect,” as the natural scientists do (and whoever, like them, now “naturalizes” in his thinking), according to the prevailing mechanical doltishness which makes the cause press and push until it “effects” its end; one should use “cause” and “effect” only as pure concepts, that is to say, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and communication—not for explanation. In the “in-itself” there is nothing of “causal connections,” of “necessity,” or of “psychological non-freedom”; there the effect does not follow the cause, there is no rule of “law.” It is we alone who have devised cause, sequence, for-each-other, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose; and when we project and mix this symbol world into things as if it existed “in itself,” we act once more as we have always acted—mythologically.

>Against empiricism, which halts at observable phenomena—'There are only facts'—I would say, no, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations. We cannot establish any fact 'in itself': perhaps it is folly to want to do such a thing. 'Everything is subjective,' you say; but even this is interpretation. The 'subject' is not something given, it is something added and invented... Is it necessary to posit an interpreter behind the interpretation? In so far as the word 'knowledge' has any meaning, the world is interpretable, otherwise it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings—'Perspectivism.' It is our needs that interpret the world; our drives and their 'for' and 'against'. Every drive is a kind of lust to rule; each one has its perspective that it would like to compel all the other drives to accept as a norm. Deception, flattering, lying and cheating, talking behind the back, posing, living in borrowed splendor, being masked, the disguise of convention, acting a role before others and before oneself—in short, the constant fluttering around the single flame of vanity is so much the rule and the law that almost nothing is more incomprehensible than how an honest and pure urge for truth could have arisen among men. They are deeply immersed in illusions and dream images; their eye only glides only over the surface of things... their feeling nowhere leads into truth, but contents itself with the reception of stimuli, playing, as it were, a game of blind man's bluff... the true world is unattainable, it cannot be proved, it cannot promise anything.

>>23308669
>if all organisms with eyes vanished, then the entire visual aspect of life WOULD disappear
How do you know that? Closed eye visuals are possible, so one would think that eyeless visuals would be also possible.

>>23308906
>>23309680
>Against the teaching of the influence of environment and external causes; the power coming from inside is infinitely superior; much that appears like influence acting from without is merely the subjection of environment to this inner power. Precisely the same environment may be used and interpreted in opposite ways: there are no facts. A genius is not explained by such theories concerning origins.

>The "subject" is a piece of fiction: the ego of which every one speaks when he blames egoism, does not exist at all. Our "ego"—which is not one with the unitary controlling force of our beings!—is really only an imagined synthesis; therefore there can be no "egoistic" actions.

>That thinking must be a measure of reality,—that what cannot be the subject of thought, cannot exist,—is a coarse non plus ultra of a moral blind confidence (in the essential principle of truth at the root of all things); this in itself is a mad assumption which our experience contradicts every minute.

>What separates me most deeply from the metaphysicians is: I don't concede that the 'I' is what thinks. Instead, I take the 'I' itself to be a construction of thinking, of the same rank as 'matter', 'thing', 'substance', 'individual', 'purpose', 'number'; in other words to be only a regulative fiction with the help of which a kind of constancy and thus 'knowability' is inserted into, invented into, a world of becoming. Up to now belief in grammar, in the linguistic subject, object, in verbs has subjugated the metaphysicians: I teach the renunciation of this belief. It is only thinking that posits the 'I': but up to now philosophers have believed, like the 'common people', that in 'I think' there lay something or other of unmediated certainty and that this 'I' was the given cause of thinking, in analogy with which we 'understood' all other causal relations. However habituated and indispensable this fiction may now be, that in no way disproves its having been invented: something can be a condition of life and nevertheless be false.

>>23309689
What is a "visual" to an organism that never had any visual organ?

>>23309734
You're just assuming empiricism - it could be that visual impressions can be created through brain data alone, without optical input. There has been some research about dreams and congenitally blind people, for example.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8340899/
>Recently, objective evidence has been provided that individuals who have never had visual experiences can dream of virtual images, which are probably mediated by the activation of the cortical areas responsible for visual representations. This cross-modal effect is related to the facilitation of auditory and tactile inputs to process information in the brains of congenitally blind individuals for the formation of dreams.

>>23309755
I think it would make sense that members of a species with a long history of having visual organs would still experience visuals in their minds, since this aspect of the species is no doubt embedded in our nervous systems. It's like how removing the genitals doesn't entirely remove sexual urges, because part of these urges is embedded in the nervous system. But what about a species that NEVER had any visual organ? Does that species experience any "visual" as we understand the term?

>>23309770
>But what about a species that NEVER had any visual organ?
It's possible, at least. To say it's impossible is to be a dogmatic empiricist.

>>23309776
I would think that if it were possible, then there is something in the species' nervous system or genome that makes it possible, some trace of the same structure that arose the visual organs in other species.

>>23309783
Well, if you generalize eyes to "any generic visual-enabling structure", the original statement becomes
>if all the organisms with visual content would disappear, then the entire visual aspect of life would disappear
which is trivially true