New Zealand mosque shooting

[pgardn]

Then show your data.

You want to give you books to read?



First try Kurt Goedel. And dont read about what he is famous for; But what he says about fundamental reasoning in math thus basic assumptions made in so much science.
Then follow the path of authors that pop up. Hes long dead so there is lots of new stuff.

Your conclusion from your study is that smart people dont believe in a God I guess.
I think this is completely silly.
Ive explained why.

[midnightpulp]

It might be ridiculous but it's not supernatural or metaphysical. It's falsifiable, ergo not the same.

You latched onto the IQ aspect of the topic and didn't address the trend. You still haven't. Forget the IQ aspect. Let's just say higher education level. Are you going to argue that some home schooled people with street smarts are actually smarter than college professors?

Just use whatever criteria you choose to decide intelligence, because the caveat is "they are at the precipice of learning". They cannot learn much more.

To some people, science cannot do much now. They have no idea how anything works so they are in essence where the hypothetical future people would be anyhow. Are these people what you personally consider to be intelligent?

Simulation argument isn't falsifiable, since no evidence to the contrary would satisfy the proponents of the argument because they could merely handwave, "Well, that's because the simulators are purposely keeping us in the dark, stupid!" Essentially, you can never logically disprove the argument. Other technology they "believe in" does assume supernaturalism, like cryonics and nanotech

It really does depend on how we define "intelligence." I think there's such a thing as moral intelligence which has a foundation in empathy (the ability to "see"rom another's perspective). Personally, I would consider a morally righteous person with a 100 IQ more intelligent than Jeffrey Skilling, because I think people like him (sociopaths) lack the necessary visualization ability to "put themselves in another's shoes." If you want to define intelligence as measured by IQ tests, then sure, Skilling wins.

I think we will eventually arrive at point where scientific knowledge ends, either due to cognitive limitations or lack of framework (like you'll never be able to prove the multiverse theory since those many universes are theorized to have separated from each other faster than the speed of light). I think it's more logical to assume some limit on scientific understanding than to assume it can continue indefinitely until it's all figured out.

[pgardn]

All this rebuttal you two are offering is just "education is overrated" talk. While it could be true that some education is overrated, and no doubt the anecdotes are likely true, it has nothing to do with whether or not learning about science and the world around you is directly proportional or inversely proportional to belief in the supernatural or metaphysical.

B fckn S.

You again make up your own narrative.
I say exactly the opposite.

What I am saying is once a person knows more about how science works and the limitations; The more inclined even "smart" people come to see why metaphysical or supernatural explanations are attractive.

And you disagree.

[spurraider21]

So white dude slaughters Muslims and the debate here is if Muslims are too dangerous to let in

now that’s what i call privilege

[midnightpulp]

You're using false equivalence to suggest any belief not supported by evidence is the same as theism. This approach fails if you consider the concept of falsifiablity. God claims are not falsifiable which is why so many different gods are believed to exist. We could create a few more right here and they could be just as safe from being disproved.

So again, do you have any data to suggest that people with higher learning are more apt to have metaphysical or supernatural beliefs than people with lower learning?

Isn't it? And per my latest post, many of the beliefs aren't falsifiable. Furthermore, what does it say about a person's rationality when they continue to believe in something that has been proven to be bunk? There's a lot of smart people who think nanotechnology as portrayed in movies and sci-fi is feasible, despite the it violating the laws of physics. Yes, I would admit that people of lower IQs are more apt to believe in the supernatural, as your graph showed, but that graph only considered religious beliefs and not any other nonsense ideas that, to me, are as unlikely as sky daddies.

To clarify, my essential point is that people of higher intelligence aren't inherently more rational when it comes to believing in things that "comfort them." I don't have data for this, since no one has studied what I'd call alternate forms of belief. I'd love to see a poll of Silicon Valley techies who believe a robot God will be created. Or who believe in the simulation argument.

[Winehole23]

I wonder if a person could get through a single day normally and productively, if it were required that every single judgement and decision made be empirically and rationally supportable.

[DMC]

So white dude slaughters Muslims and the debate here is if Muslims are too dangerous to let in

now that’s what i call privilege

Who here is debating that?

[pgardn]

Simulation argument isn't falsifiable, since no evidence to the contrary would satisfy the proponents of the argument because they could merely handwave, "Well, that's because the simulators are purposely keeping us in the dark, stupid!" Essentially, you can never logically disprove the argument. Other technology they "believe in" does assume supernaturalism, like cryonics and nanotech

It really does depend on how we define "intelligence." I think there's such a thing as moral intelligence which has a foundation in empathy (the ability to "see"rom another's perspective). Personally, I would consider a morally righteous person with a 100 IQ more intelligent than Jeffrey Skilling, because I think people like him (sociopaths) lack the necessary visualization ability to "put themselves in another's shoes." If you want to define intelligence as measured by IQ tests, then sure, Skilling wins.

I think we will eventually arrive at point where scientific knowledge ends, either due to cognitive limitations or lack of framework (like you'll never be able to prove the multiverse theory since those many universes are theorized to have separated from each other faster than the speed of light). I think it's more logical to assume some limit on scientific understanding than to assume it can continue indefinitely until it's all figured out.

Because a limit on scienitific understanding, is the limit on our own brains.
IMO no AI will solve this. Its as flawed as we are.

We are derived from little savanna hominids with limited sensory structures designed to survive that environment.
Yet we are going to figure "it" all out. The hubris is all encompassing, from the ultra religious, to the people who "just say no" through science.

"I dont know" cant be overused in these discussions however.
I could be very wrong. But right now, I dont think so.

[DMC]

I wonder if a person could get through a single day normally and productively, if it were required that every single judgement and decision made be empirically and rationally supportable.

So if one thing needs to be supportable rationally, all things must?

[DMC]

You want to give you books to read?



First try Kurt Goedel. And dont read about what he is famous for; But what he says about fundamental reasoning in math thus basic assumptions made in so much science.
Then follow the path of authors that pop up. Hes long dead so there is lots of new stuff.

Your conclusion from your study is that smart people dont believe in a God I guess.
I think this is completely silly.
Ive explained why.

Do you have evidence to suggest countries that are on average more highly educated are less secular than countries that are not?

[midnightpulp]

All this rebuttal you two are offering is just "education is overrated" talk. While it could be true that some education is overrated, and no doubt the anecdotes are likely true, it has nothing to do with whether or not learning about science and the world around you is directly proportional or inversely proportional to belief in the supernatural or metaphysical.

Not at all. To clarify, I think we overrate the competence of people with high intelligence when speaking about things they have a limited understanding of. We too often grant them oracle status when their opinions on a matter outside of their expertise is no better than "common folk." Here's an example. I'll bring up Kurzweil again. Brilliant computer scientist, sky high IQ I'm sure, said bull about the brain that even with my casual understanding of neuroscience knew was bull . After a prominent neuroscientist took him to task, he still wouldn't yield and admit he doesn't know what he's talking about. But you'll still have people believing him because he's Ray Kurzweil and he's "smart." If you're interested:

https://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/...s-not-understa
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyng...esnt-understa/

, if anything these examples prove education isn't overrated .

[DMC]

Not at all. To clarify, I think we overrate the competence of people with high intelligence when speaking about things they have a limited understanding of. We too often grant them oracle status when their opinions on a matter outside of their expertise is no better than "common folk." Here's an example. I'll bring up Kurzweil again. Brilliant computer scientist, sky high IQ I'm sure, said bull about the brain that even with my casual understanding of neuroscience knew was bull . After a prominent neuroscientist took him to task, he still wouldn't yield and admit he doesn't know what he's talking about. But you'll still have people believing him because he's Ray Kurzweil and he's "smart." If you're interested:

https://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/...s-not-understa
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyng...esnt-understa/

, if anything these examples prove education isn't overrated .

It's not about competence. It's about the trend toward or away from god belief.

[pgardn]

Do you have evidence to suggest countries that are on average more highly educated are less secular than countries that are not?

Do you think countries that contain populations under severe deprivation are more or less secular that countries that are not?

[DMC]

I have to catch a flight to Toronto. Hopefully someone will drop some charts and data to show that people with little understanding of science are more likely to become atheist.

[DMC]

Do you think countries that contain populations under severe deprivation are more or less secular that countries that are not?

Evidence

[pgardn]

Evidence

Its a question.

[Winehole23]

So if one thing needs to be supportable rationally, all things must?

Any thing not supported by evidence is the same as theism, says you.

I wonder. It's odd to conflate religion (understanding the objects of belief) with science (which grasps the objects of sense.) Seems different faculties of mind are involved, though one can, like Aquinas, adduce reasons to believe, for whoever cannot take it on simple faith.

[Winehole23]

So if one thing needs to be supportable rationally, all things must?

Why does one thing need to be supportable rationally?

[midnightpulp]

It's not about competence. It's about the trend toward or away from god belief.

Isn't believing in omnipotent computer programmers, mind uploading, and robot gods essentially god belief, though? To me it is. People only give those ideas credence because they vaguely sound scientific. But yeah, I don't have data, since it's something we haven't polled. My primary point is that the intelligent aren't all that much better at teasing out supers ious, nonsensical, and even supernatural beliefs than people of lower intelligence. People of lower intelligence simply haven't moved on from "sky daddies" while the "intelligent" moved on to science fiction.

I guess I just don't agree with the idea that the "intelligent" are inherently more "enlightened" compared to the religious believing "rabble."

[Winehole23]

I guess I just don't agree with the idea that the "intelligent" are inherently more "enlightened" compared to the religious believing "rabble."

People like having someone else to spit on. Makes 'em feel better about themselves.

[midnightpulp]

Because a limit on scienitific understanding, is the limit on our own brains.
IMO no AI will solve this. Its as flawed as we are.

We are derived from little savanna hominids with limited sensory structures designed to survive that environment.
Yet we are going to figure "it" all out. The hubris is all encompassing, from the ultra religious, to the people who "just say no" through science.

"I dont know" cant be overused in these discussions however.
I could be very wrong. But right now, I dont think so.

Sometimes I think human intelligence might be perhaps the theoretical limit on how intelligence an organism can be. For one, think about how limitless our imagination is. Now someone might object and say, "No way is human intelligence the limit! Look how fast computers can calculate and !"

Well, computers at the moment aren't performing any mental feats we couldn't do. They're just performing them much, much faster. Second of all, sorting data in a brute force way isn't intelligent behavior. Thirdly, I think perhaps our consciousness adds a "cognitive weight" if you will that couldn't co-exist with the kind superspeed calculating feats a computer can do. Adding consciousness to our "intelligence" is very much like adding mass to an object in motion. Think of a computer as the speed of light and the human brain as a jet. The speed of light is so fast because it's unen bered by any kind of mass, existing purely as a wave. More mass, slower speeds. But the trade off is, well, more mass (consciousness).

To clarify, much how like an object with a large mass can't travel anywhere near the speed of light, an intelligence with consciousness can't "calculate" above a certain speed.

[midnightpulp]

People like having someone else to spit on. Makes 'em feel better about themselves.

I really do dislike our narrow definition of "intelligence" and the way we praise "cleverness" in our culture to almost, dare I say, religious degrees. As I said before, empathy is certainly a form of intelligence, based on the ability to step outside of yourself to try and view the world from someone else's point of view. The Sacklers (Purdue Pharma, who pushed Oxycontin like candy) are definitely "intelligent" as measured by IQ, but are totally stupid when it comes to empathy. To me, an empathetic person with a 100 IQ is far more intelligent than any Sackler.

[Winehole23]

I really do dislike our narrow definition of "intelligence" and the way we praise "cleverness" in our culture to almost, dare I say, religious degrees. As I said before, empathy is certainly a form of intelligence, based on the ability to step outside of yourself to try and view the world from someone else's point of view. The Sacklers (Purdue Pharma, who pushed Oxycontin like candy) are definitely "intelligent" as measured by IQ, but are totally stupid when it comes to empathy. To me, an empathetic person with a 100 IQ is far more intelligent than any Sackler.

Let's call it what it is, caste distinction based on education level. Those who can afford advanced specialization lording it over everyone else with little good cause apart from the social prestige their advanced degrees -- or the mere pretense to "higher education" -- affords them.

There's no doubt that there's more to intelligence than testable academic chops, but people always seem to insist on measuring it that way. There's a certain circularity to what gets included and excluded. Fuzzy things like empathy and personability are defined out.

[pgardn]

Sometimes I think human intelligence might be perhaps the theoretical limit on how intelligence an organism can be. For one, think about how limitless our imagination is. Now someone might object and say, "No way is human intelligence the limit! Look how fast computers can calculate and !"

Well, computers at the moment aren't performing any mental feats we couldn't do. They're just performing them much, much faster. Second of all, sorting data in a brute force way isn't intelligent behavior. Thirdly, I think perhaps our consciousness adds a "cognitive weight" if you will that couldn't co-exist with the kind superspeed calculating feats a computer can do. Adding consciousness to our "intelligence" is very much like adding mass to an object in motion. Think of a computer as the speed of light and the human brain as a jet. The speed of light is so fast because it's unen bered by any kind of mass, existing purely as a wave. More mass, slower speeds. But the trade off is, well, more mass (consciousness).

To clarify, much how like an object with a large mass can't travel anywhere near the speed of light, an intelligence with consciousness can't "calculate" above a certain speed.

In order to define intelligence and consciousness we are limited by a look around us at other organisms and really ask how are we different. Because biochemically speaking, we are not very different.

When we do this, things like the ability to empathize, to contemplate one's own existence, to recognize we are an individual among many like us, on and on... seem to best to define consciousness. Intelligence... This one continually baffles me because all these royally labeled tests invented by ourselves measure limited abilities. You do well in school, or business, you are intelligent. And Only certain artists are given this status.

But what is truly striking to me is the invention of symbolic language by our species and ancestors.
Its like one day we looked out into a field and took a stick and pointed at one of few animals and pointed at both? Like the stick represents this animal in that group? So you got counting started and then a rock may represent another type of animal. Then we are drawing maps in dirt and on caves and such. Then it gets so complex you got letters that represent words that if put together in different ways mean very different things. This is what seems to me to be incredible. And now of course, we have the ability to make this planet perfectly uninhabitable for ourselves by communicating all types of skills and methods.

I dont know if they have found any mammals or birds, that if they put a certain group of sounds together, mean entirely different things concerning future events. This is what is astounding or "miraculous" about us. Symbolic language does not have to happen to a social group evolutionarily. The insects and division of labor and chemical communication seems much more evolutionarily advantageous for social animals. Yet here we are, miscommunicating (me anyway) our thoughts via computers.

I also like how we relate so much to vision. A black hole and dark matter are things we cant know certain things about. They dont send us signals of a type we can model properly. But as models they might work well to explain other occurrences around them. We constantly make and remake models of how things around us work mechanistically, so we think we get it because it can be predictive. And we basically do all this through symbolic language and testing never thinking that when we say "its like a ball rolling down a hill" that might be a really horrid model and this can lead to some really bad reasoning. Then we throw some math in that seems to fit the observed mechanism and describe it well. But it only works given.... Its a mess. Especially in biology where variation in individuals causes so much confusion in the "right" things to eat, how much sleep to get, which drugs work... And this leads people to disregard science findings in more complex situations. Antivaccers and such arise.

Enough.
Back to topic.

[Winehole23]

the alt-right doctrine of civilizational war makes it an analogue of ISIS/Al Qaeda: