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Comment by lucky13 on Personhood is a Religious Belief · 2023-05-04T04:41:37.674Z · LW · GW

You're getting heavily ratio'd, and with good reason tbh. 

If you aren't advocating any particular god, you really aren't saying anything. Your point is just "the idea of other human minds existing independently" is as unverifiable as "the idea that our universe was created". If you ended your commentary there then fine, but trying to add any meaning to that is where you go off the rails.

While personhood and a creator are both unverifiable, one does not use something being unverifiable as a reason to believe in all unverifiable things.  Do you believe in every single deity because they're all unverifiable and if you accepted one you accepted them all? A magic poopy unicorn from the planet Buttface is also completely unverifiable. Does that mean you now have to believe in it because you believe in unverifiable persons? It's silly. 

But also, you ignored my analysis that the default position is not to doubt personhood. Being human = having personhood, unless proven otherwise. I cannot verify that this position is conclusively true, because it's possible there are outside influences such as the great demon, but just because it isn't conclusively true doesn't mean I should automatically doubt it. This is how our brains perceive it, and there is value in that. I can then independently verify through my senses that when I interact with that human, they function exactly as if their brain was operating independently. I have a strong probabilistic reason to believe the world I see is the world I experience, even if that may be inconclusive. The same is not true for a creator, where I do not have any sensory validation for this being. It is a concept, a possible concept, but one which cannot be verified under any circumstance, and also doesn't even fit with the sensory means of validation.

Comment by lucky13 on Personhood is a Religious Belief · 2023-05-03T18:20:29.215Z · LW · GW

Sorry but I'm not buying it.

For one thing, you're playing super loose with definitions. Even if we accept everything you wrote, this doesn't even remotely verify the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other version of a deity. It would simply mean there's as much evidence that "something created the universe" as there is that "other persons exist".

Secondly, you randomly assert that there is as much evidence for one than the other, and yet you didn't even reference the human senses, which are the means we have for verifying evidence. We can verify the existence of outside beings through sight, touch, smell, hearing, and I guess taste. We can't use any of those to verify the existence of a creator. While it is possible that our senses are faulty, it is undeniable that there is significantly more evidence to verify the people in front of us, than there is the concept of a creator. 

I do get that you are talking about the concept of "personhood" rather than the concept of "humans". But most would consider these to be synonymous, which leads to my third problem with this post.

You're actually shifting the burden of proof. The default position shouldn't be to doubt the things we see in front of us. The default position is to doubt the things we do NOT see in front of us. Me standing in front of you saying "I exist" has significantly more evidence and probabilistic reason for you to believe, than me standing in front of you saying "A creator made this universe". These two concepts are not linked, and even if they were, the first is FAR more verifiable than the second. Both could be true, or both could theoretically be false, but you have to actively deny sensory evidence in order to reject my personhood, while you need to acquire significantly more evidence in order to believe a creator made this world.

Every interaction you have with humans, all of which can be validated by your senses serve to (as you wrote) "personify humans and deepen my relationship with them".  All of that is evidence, perhaps inconclusive evidence, but evidence nonetheless. You then conflate this with "So too can I personify the world". But that only serves to validate proof that this world exists.  It says literally nothing about the concept that this world was created. You would be making a good point if you said that "human personhood" is as verifiable as the concept that one can "interact with and feel the universe on an intimate level".

It almost feels like you're trying to say that "a deeper relationship with the universe" somehow = God. But it doesn't. And again, you'd be playing super loose with definitions to try to make that case.