Creationists

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No. I am living a simple pragmatic life disregarding superstition and unvalidated fantasies. Your philosophical theoretics have no impact on my abilities to maintain myself and that is the important aspect of survival and personal prosperity. I am dealing with utility. I feel stepping on cracks will not break my mother's back no matter how epistemology might warn me against it.

Actually got you. The only proof you claimed you would accept are miracles, and now you demonstrate that even if provided such that they would be immediately written off as, even, the acts of space aliens. Your atheism is non-falsifiable.

Right on.

That just pushes the problem back one step. If you're going to use the argument from first cause to say that the universe requires a Creator, then who created the Creator? And if the Creator doesn't need to be created, then why does the universe "need" to be created. THAT is an assumption.

Alan Watts discussed this in terms of languages.The idea that every verb has to have a subject is a grammatical rule and not a law of nature. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been discredited in its extreme forms, but there is no doubt (in my mind at least) that the tools we use for thought (the language we think in) influences our perception of reality to some degree.

Ooh ooh ooh. Somebody called for Philologos.

A. Subject / Verb / Object while common [and often read into languages where it really does not apply] is by no means the only option. Topic Comment is a very common formula,for example. Even in S/V/O languages there are verbs which take no subject and others that in fact take no object.

B. The Whorf hypothesis as thrown at generations of us is junk. Language influencing our perception? True it is that we perceive what we expect to perceive. True it is that if we see a color we class as "red" many of us will likely REMEMBER "red" and pick a color central to our red category rather than the actual shade.

But the closest I can come to language influencing PERCEPTION is that one often cannot HEAR w word one does not expect. Do you have better than that?

But thinking that anything that happens has to have a subject (noun) cause it to happen is built into many languages, even if it is not necessarily an accurate description of nature. How can a thing (a noun) start a process (a verb), when "things" are more accurately described as processes in nature? So people who are limited by that mindframe cannot easily conceive of another possibility, and might try to tell you that it "has" to be the way they imagine it to be. I have heard of some languages that use verbs where we use nouns, but it sounds awkward in English.

Some questions may be unanswerable not because they are legitimate questions but because they are based on false assumptions. In Zen, teachers discover what assumptions a student bases his or her world view on, then they proceed to smash those assumptions by using reductio ad absurdum until the student realizes how silly those assumptions were.

I read a study in Scientific American many years ago about how the vowel frequencies of British English compared to American English affected what melodies were perceived when identical pieces of music were played to British and American English speakers.

Even though the pieces of music were identical, the two groups HEARD different melodies (tunes, the part you would whistle in reproducing the song). Further study showed that the frequencies of the melodies perceived corresponded to the vowel sounds of the listeners' accents.

It's an observed fact that Chinese which depends upon intonation very closely to carry correct language has an extremely strong effect on perception. Absolute pitch discrimination is far more common amongst Chinese speakers than those who speak English because of the requirements of the language.

Chinese youngsters learn to beef up their pitch discrimination wetware at an early age. We who use less intoned western languages do no exercise pitch discrimination as much.

If English were as pitch dependent as Chinese you would see a lot more perfect pitch or very good relative pitch in the English speaking countries.

As the old saying goes: use it or lose it.

ruveyn

The universe can only observe information within the universe. If there was an argument for "god" scientifically, there would have to be an energy link between said entity and the universe. The only way intelligent matter of the universe can interact with anything is through some form of energy link. Light is usually used in it's many forms to gather data. I think it might be possible to say the energy link between said proposed entity and the universe might actually fall at or below the Planck scale, if indeed the universe began as a singularity as modern cosmology suggests.

Edit: Also the problem you run into is you can't observe what's going on in the "center" of the universe because it's beyond the dim edge. So, how would you gather data if you can't get to it in the first place?

Guitar on Wheels:

The music perception thing is interestig. Ties in with other material - different minds of SAME language / "culture" hearing differently - A hears fundamental frequency / base tune, B hears harmonics / counterpoint, C hears fundamental rhythm, D hears the full percussion line - with various combos. AND Herself reading to me lately a thing on men's ears hearing women's voices - or not hearing.

Worthy of a serious synthesis - if I were a bit younger and Numbeer 1 Son a bit older we would be a great team for it.

BUT:

"But thinking that anything that happens has to have a subject (noun) cause it to happen is built into many languages, even if it is not necessarily an accurate description of nature. How can a thing (a noun) start a process (a verb), when "things" are more accurately described as processes in nature? So people who are limited by that mindframe cannot easily conceive of another possibility, and might try to tell you that it "has" to be the way they imagine it to be. I have heard of some languages that use verbs where we use nouns, but it sounds awkward in English."

This is - if plenty experiences with a very wide range of languages - a Whorfian fallacy. Remember: people of languages which do NOT have grammatical gender, which do not even have the relic pronous he / she / it of English, STILL manage to figure out who is male and who is female. The masculine / feminine / neuter this is a convenience that add a little redundancy and permits a greater specificity of reference, but a male [and grammatically masculine] German has NO problem detecting the sex of a female but grammatically neuter Weib or Maedchen.

Languages which insist on a grammatical subject accompanying their verbs still very clearly use - and distinguish - verbs that are in fact without subject or without object. And languages where "subject" is not a grammatical category can still tell you - like the German with his sweetheart - who did what to whom.

If there is a difference across cultures as to causation - as there is with ownership [How can a man own a tree? asks my late friend, cut off young in a car accident] - I would bet it will NOT turn out to correlate with grammatical structures.
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We work with the verifiable data we can obtain. Inferences about any other data are made from what is known but those inferences are not treated in the same manner as verifiable data. They remain theoretical until verification is obtainable.

I'm way out of my league here, but I'll give this one a try, as language is something of a special interest of mind though not to the extent it might be a linguist: Over time, certain associations develop attached to words. For the sake of simplicity, let's just focus on words that are perceived to be positive and words that are perceived to be negative. Choosing the right words conveys a positive, acceptable perception of the concept while negatives convey an unacceptable theme.

Take the PPACA, for instance. Is it a good thing to help protect patients? Of course! Is it a good idea to see that more American citizens have access to Affordable Care? Wow, that's a no-brainer. Certainly. What kind of monster thinks patients shouldn't have protection and affordable care? Surely EVERY American should be in support of the PPACA!

The devil is in the details, of course, and the reality is that it is in many ways harmful to certain groups of people. There is a legitimate concern of possible unconstitutionality and threat to freedom. As such, it has been called "Obamacare," which seems to have stuck more so in the minds of the public than PPACA. The increased negative usage of "Obamacare" seems to be somewhat a factor in leading to the decreased support of the administration. So, yeah, the usage of words in certain ways does contribute to long-term perception.

Other threads as of late have discussed "pro-choice" and "pro-life." "Pro-abortion" seems to have had long-term negative connotations, so rather than focus on the ABORTION issue, it's better to focus on the support of women's rights when it comes to reproductive freedom. After all, what kind of monster tells women what to do with their bodies? "Pro-choice," then, is better to be proffered. Pro-life: Well, EVERYONE believe that everyone deserves a chance to live and experience the world, right? So why keep a yet-unborn baby from experiencing all the good the world has to offer? Surely those who favor abortions are emotionless, wanton murderers. Yes, you have a choice, so CHOOSE LIFE!

I think that the interplay between positive/negative connotations goes a long way to influencing the masses.

The essential problem with the abortion question is involved with the concepts of the right to be alive and in full control of the potential baby and the mother. There are all sorts of potential babies. If a man or a woman merely decides not to have sex, that might be considered the death of a potential baby. If they use contraceptives or even prejudice their coupling towards infertile times, that could be considered as killing a potential human. Once the egg is fertilized there are decisions to be made as to when the baby could be thought of as independent of the mother. Each of these problems adds to the confusion. Strangely, many of the concerns of the rights of the unborn child seem to disappear for the actual child once it is born and the callousness of the right to lifers for the actual children becomes grotesque in the context of a right to life. There is very little clear thinking in the area by right to lifers.

Well, I'm aware of the issues and the views of either side. I'm just saying that the the subtle, or not-so-subtle, inflection tied to the semantics is intended to influence the public in such a way that people will choose one side. Note I said "one side," not "one side or the other." The way I see it, it's a zero-sum game. The pro-abortion camp has as its goal to convince EVERYONE to favor abortion. The anti-abortion side has as its goal to convince everyone to oppose abortion. There's no middle ground, here--and by that I mean no middle ground as far as the most vocal of either position is concerned. There are situations in which I consider an abortion acceptable if and only if meeting certain conditions, even though I identify as "pro-life."

The issue of homosexuality is another topic. You may be aware of the very recent admission of one queer columnist of indoctrinating children to the gay lifestyle:

Source: http://www.queerty.com
Yes, I do realize it's a reactionary opinion piece. But one must be aware of is the usage of terminology: "FCKH8" as in the Tennessee ads. Surely we are all against hatred, right? Who outright promotes hatred, aside from WBC? What about the gay marriage debate? Well, no one really prima facie says "gay marriage" but prefer the term "marriage equality." Don't we live in a country that espouses equality for everyone? What about anti-bullying measures in schools? Sure, it sounds good. But discipline measures for merely expressing the view that homosexuality is wrong? There's nothing inherently hateful about expressing a viewpoint or moral ground. So the reality isn't the goal of equality or actual ant-bullying. It's furthering an agenda (anti-gay perspective, here). But you can't SAY you're furthering an agenda--because that would "look bad."

My goal here is not to advocate/denigrate one view or the other. I'm just trying to make the point that "it's all in the advertising." And that advertising is easier to do once the general public accepts certain connotations of "good-sounding" terms that really mean quite the opposite of what is implied. I personally could do without all the propagandizing.

I have known and liked and delighted in the talents of gay people all my life but I am totally heterosexual and no encouragement by a columnist or anybody else could influence in the slightest way my fascination with women in all their aspects nor could I contemplate having a sexual relationship with a man with anything but disdain. This is not subject to persuasion and I sincerely doubt it is in anybody else.

Agreed, as am I. But it's less about persuading you on your own leanings but rather your acceptance of that of others. And by that, I'm not just referring to homosexuality but all currently controversial topics. You may prefer one "persuasion" for yourself personally which is not likely to change, but if you can be convinced to at least support the cause, then the side that has garnered your support has won. The FCKH8 video doesn't just represent gays--it represents straights who stand behind, er, BESIDE gays against hatred. The message is "straights are doing it, too." Without winning over straight comrades, pushing the agenda is much more difficult in that they have more opponents among straights than advocates. Similar for the pro-choice debate. If you can convince more people the issue is really about reproductive freedom and the rights of oppressed women, you're more likely to get help from people who might otherwise be opposed to abortion (as a personal decision) but willing to stand up for something they may see as fundamentally right (equality for everyone, hence "pro-choice").

Without the manipulation of language, this is a difficult task. In the words of Principal McGee, "If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter."