Relativist

I don't think "the mind" is a thing; rather, its an abstraction of all the processes that we categorize as mental.

No set of traits can draw sharp boundaries that fit all analyses. E.g. if humans have 46 chromosomes, then men with XYY syndrome don't fit; evolutiona...

In some legal respects, a corporation is a person. What would need defining is: individual human person., but the fundamental problem is that it's a f...

You're mistaken. I suggest you go to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and do a search on "phenomena". Here's a couple examples: This IEP articl...

No. I was referring to physical phenomena, not to perception. If you choose not to trust your perceptions, that's an entirely different issue.

I agree they exist in nature, within the objects that exhibit them. I have a problem with assuming they have independent existence, because that raise...

IMO, the touchstone of what is real is the physical world and the physical stuff in it. I'm not inclined to assume non-physical things exist if the re...

Where do laws of nature exist? In the mind of God? Platonic "third realm"? How do these nonphysical laws influence physical things?

They are different categories. Logic consists of correct rules of reasoning. Causation is a physical phenomenon, reflecting a physical relation. Law r...

Republicans will eventually be in the majority, and can then easily strike down that law, not to mention the ACA

It is logically impossible for infinitely many intervals to have passed.

Irrelevant. We can examine the passage of time in countable, discrete intervals.

Sure it can. The real number line can be divided into discrete, equal intervals mapping to integers. There have been infinitely many temporal points o...

"God exists timelessly sans creation" refers to the counterfactual case, the non-actualized, metaphysically contingent possibility in which God did no...

So you can't count infinity to yesterday.

I pretty much agree, except for the phrasing "without time yet"- this sounds like there's a point prior to time. My view is that there is an initial p...

Well, Craig also says that by creating time, became a temporal being. One of his slogans is, "God exists timelessly sans the universe, and temorally w...

I honestly don't think there's a single correct answer. One can only draw boundaries and apply them consistently, but you may draw the boundaries diff...

Because (according to Craig) everything is created, except for God).

Yes, the set of integers is a countable set (unlike the real numbers). But the problem I'm referring to is that a temporal counting process would neve...

This: There is a successor function that "counts" from one transfinite to the next, but you can't count integers (corresponding to a day, for example)...

You're treating "infinite" as a number, and transfinite math doesn't solve the problem. Time proceeds in countable increments, and you can't count fro...

Yes, Craig says the past is finite (his KCA depends on it), and God chose to create spacetime, and to become temporal himself.

Even removing the speed of light limitation, you still need to accelerate to some maximum velocity halfway there, and then decelerate for the second h...

But there are quite a few speculative hypotheses like this. How do you justify settling on a particular one? What makes you so sure the past is infini...

Smith is quite the optimist. I wonder if he's anticipating warp drive, suspended animation, teleportation - or something else.

I'll assume that by "universe", you're referring to the stars/galaxies/dark matter etc that were produced by the big bang that cosmologists study. It'...

Some sort of epistemic justification, including (but not limited to): deduction, induction, abduction, inference to the best explanation... I couldn't...

Life is a consequence of what they are. Different values would have led to different consequences. OK, but it still reflects a platonist perspective. ...

This is pure speculation. There is no evidence for it. This is true of many things you've asserted. I don't see how these can possibly be justified be...

What do you mean by "right qualities"? Why do you assume there are QM hidden variables? Does quantum indeterminacy unsatisfying? You agree something e...

What makes you think that? It appears to me that intelligence entails complex processes, which are produced by complex entities- there's a dependency ...

Yes, more than likely. You should agree, since you believe there are gods. How could you possibly determine their properties?

Sounds like a special pleading. You acknowledge that something exists without explanation, and we agree on that. IMO, the notion that it is something ...

But the phenomena does manifest itself in a detectable way. If there is a god, it is probably not directly detectable. If one is open to that possibil...

Logically, humans can't go deeper in exploration, but that does not mean that's all there is. Remember, I wad responding to this:

Why exempt god(s) from requiring a reason for existing?

It's weird in the sense that no one would have proposed it based on everyday experience of the world. The behavior did, at least, have an experimental...

We may not be able to explore deeper, but that doesn't mean this is truly fundamental. We used to think protons and neutrons were fundamental.

The point is that the psychological need for causal closure makes some of us overly willing to accept answers just because they are answers, in spite ...

I assure you, Dawkins believes the processes are deterministic (perhaps with some influence from quantum indeterminacy). Genes are not making choices ...

There is a psychological phenomenon called "the need for cognitive closure." We all have it to some degree - it's related to curiosity. But it can als...

Words refer to mental concepts - usually fuzzy concepts (e.g. "shoe"). A definition is an attempt to convey the concept associated with the word. Beca...

How could we ever determine the nature of the "bottom layer" of reality? Even if a model were developed (something like the standard model of particle...

My issue is that "purpose" suggests intentionality, and intentionality implies an intelligence directing it. Theists often reply, "of course there is!...

Interesting. My position was formulated after reading Penelope Mackie.

What do you mean by "default position"? I had assumed you were mirroring atheists who propose that atheism should be assumed as a starting point, but ...

After growing up Catholic, and spending years questioning what I'd been taught, I concluded gods don't exist. My default would have been to unquestion...

That sounds reasonable.

"Coincidental"? Please identify the things upu consider coincidental. Notice that you assume there is a "purpose". If I flip a coin and it comes up ta...