Thanks for your thoughts.

Although you have made some good points and I have had second thoughts regarding a few of my criticisms, I am not going to response to everything you have written. Time is against me. I thought I would make a few broad points and wind down for the time being. We may return in due course to functionalism.

First a few line by line comment responses:

“…when to the chagrin of Wittgenstein disobeying language rules…” since I am unfamiliar with his language rules “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” :)

For the purposes of this blog I propose we take statistics on a case by case basis. If we have significant doubts on a particular statistic we can challenge it on statistical fallacy grounds but I ask we use it sparingly (or as little as possible).

“Citing statistics from atheism.net does not satisfy the veracity of the data any more than I would happily believe gun-crime statistics from the NRA or data on smoking related illnesses commissioned by British American Tobacco.” That is Ad hominem circumstantial i.e. “pointing out that someone is in circumstances such that he is disposed to take a particular position”. You are probably correct in pointing out their bias but we will weight each argument by itself.

“We both seem to agree there is a need”.. “your position classically materialist is that the need is physiological mine in accepting the transpersonal paradigm proposes the need is metaphysical.” I chopped out the section about how it is fulfilled as I don’t agree with that bit but we have a limited area of agreement!

“I agree with you we should embrace existential angst, but as part of the journey and not as the destination.” A second area of agreement! lol

Your starting point “Phenomena are seen to exist because they serve a function” I had not really been able to comment directly because of my lack of understanding on how it is applied. I was able to attempt comments on the Iban’s beliefs since this was a concrete application but I am at a lost for commenting on functionalism itself. I wonder if it would be even possible to have a counter example to functionalism? If not it is not falsifiable and therefore not very useful in providing a explanation for our world. (I would definitely be interested in your views on falsifiability or its relevance.)

“I believe the proposition that Marinoff had argued”… “was that Materialistic views are also often beliefs…. ” I see what he is saying but I would take a further step back here: to take the materialistic view is to accept it without evidence (I think at the moment). To say theories (eg Evolution) based on materialism are also “beliefs” is perhaps technically true but not really helpful. We materialists/naturalists value this belief over others because of Occam’s Razor (which is no proof but a great guideline), not to mention the destructive power of spiritualism. I know you will strongly reject both those points (for probably a verbose list of reasons! lol!) but it’s one of my views. We should perhaps start a separate discussion on this since it is not really related to functionalism?

I stated: “If it arises in our contact then we should be frank that the weather does not depend on their rituals.” You replied “With regards again to the Iban, I would here refer you to Wittgenstein and the language games.” This is a good example of how spiritualism can get us getting tied in knots – we can’t agree that the weather is “true” by which I mean “the quality or state of being accurate”. I know you can attack that on “is not any more truthful because of its reasonability or general acceptedness” but I am uneasy on universal application of that rule.

Anyway I can always resort to Argumentum ad baculum :)

Could you reply, with a “closing arguments” type posting? I think the defense usually get the final word – most appropriate (and I am assuming innocence until proved guilty… but who is the judge?).

Response to this.

Anti Citizen One