Touka's clearly decided to bail, but that's okay: I'm willing to bargain. Please just answer this one question for me. It's not even about debating at this point; I just want to get inside the psychology of a hardline reductionist, since I run into them so often. Again:
Because I once wasn't a reductionist and the universe was confusing and moved in seemingly random ways and now I am and so many things fall into place. It exorcises my feelings of confusion and also fit in with what I believed about the world from science before that. Note that now my justification for it has changed from that and I'll need to parse it out. But yeah. That's the CAUSAL chain which led to it. Now if you want something else you can try and specify.
"So you're a reductionist because it "makes you feel good"? What part of having no value to your life helps things "fall into place"? Why put your faith in science? If it "makes you happy," then why not simply throw yourself into the world and enjoy your life? Why not be religious, marry a pretty religious girl, have a nice family, and live a normal life?
Your major claim for believing in science is complacency. Notice that there are no claims of "truth" here; presumably, if the scientific was utterly debunked tomorrow from a logical perspective, you'd still cling to it."
I really just want to know how you'd respond to these objections. Then we can wipe our hands clean of all this and move on.
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Kobe XX
http://tinyurl.com/7n46st9