Philbert's invisible flying pink unicorn

[Dantalion]

If you wish, I can convincingly demonstrate that the invisible pink unicorn exists, right in your own house. No kidding, start a new thread if you want the reasoning.

Go for it

[Dantalion]

The fact that this is not seen as debate is entirely Philbert's fault.

Agreed, outrageous debate coming soon, I promise...

So please Philbert, if you could present your argumentation instead of making funny posts

Ah, then so you agree that my posts are HILARIOUS, and thus we're not actually having a debate at all, and the mod is proven entirely correct, and I have been fatally debunked!

Oops....

This site tries to be a serious and thoughtful debate forum, please act accordingly

I'm craving to have a debate here but all you seem to have is well, the sort of post you've been making in this thread.

I can 'wait' but when you claim you can demonstrate something, you should be able to do so when challenged no ?

If you're going to post a wall of text for which you need time to prepare, you can also give me one argument at a time, so I'll at least know you're serious and not a troll

Give me something serious please.

[Jax Agnesson]

If I didn't know Philbert from another forum, I'd suspect either trollery or an eventual stupidity of the "Aha! you're debating it. Therefore it must exist!" variety.
But Philbert is, IMO, neither troll nor idiot.
And in any case, I talk to my VOPPU (Very Own Personal Pink Unicorn) every day, and receive answers, (sort of), so I already know my invisible friend existeth!
(except she's not really invisible, she's properly pink.)

[Philbert]

Our apologies. It appears Cardinal Philbert has gotten in to the invisible wine again. (Again!) We've put him to bed, and Pope Philbert will now take over this theological dialog, and lead it with the utmost academic rigor and super serious solemnity appropriately befitting such an august body etc etc. Ahem...

Let us consider the following....

- You're in your garage standing over a pile of wood left over from other projects, and you get the idea to make this pile of wood scraps in to a new workbench. An image of the finished workbench appears in your mind.

- A human sperm hooks up with a human egg, resulting in the very first stage of a new human being. Everything the new human will eventually be resides in this very tiny cell.

- A tiny seed grows in to a huge tree.

An idea, a zygote, a seed. Each exists, each is invisible or close to it, and each is the beginning phase of something very different to come.

And so it is with the Holy IPU.

It currently exists in seed form in the mind of people all over the world. Now that you've seen the image above, it exists in your mind too.

These thoughts exist. They are real. Although they are more an electro-chemical process than they are a separate discrete object, they are nonetheless part of the physical world, with mass and weight, taking up space, meeting the definition of "exists".

Having seen the IPU currently exists in seed form, the next question is, how will it develop and thus fulfill a more ordinary meaning of the word "exists".

This is easy. Atheists have been hitting theists over the head with the IPU for years, continually offering it as the ultimate absurd sarcastic argument against God etc. It's too late to take all these conversations back!

Thus, we can safely predict that sooner or later some clever theist genetic programmer will bring this new form of life in to full bloom, as a form of ideological revenge.

Once there's a living pink unicorn (formerly invisible) running around your back yard, it will be far harder to claim the seeming impossible can not occur.

Pope Philbert expects, in fact he demands, that readers now heap generous helpings of adamant abusive sarcasm and glorious claims of ruthless debunkination upon this humble thread, in keeping with the traditions of our Holy Church, we the faithful worshipers of the Invisible Pink Unicorn, holy be her name!!!!

[Philbert]

But Philbert is, IMO, neither troll nor idiot.

Heretic! Apostate blasphemer! How dare you challenge the personal integrity of Pope Philbert with such blatantly false accusations!!!

[Dantalion]

All this talk to finally argue 'if we can think about it, it exists'.

If I think about my non-existence, does my non-existence exist ?

I hate these metaphysical philosophical obfuscations.


existing solely in the mind =/= existing in the natural world.

According to you, every concept, every mythological creature ever imagined actually exists.

Of course, since I can also imagine the non-existence of every concept and every mythological creature, they also don't exist.

I don't see anything meaningful we can get out of this but hey.

[Divine Insight]

Pope Philbert expects, in fact he demands, that readers now heap generous helpings of adamant abusive sarcasm and glorious claims of ruthless debunkination upon this humble thread, in keeping with the traditions of our Holy Church, we the faithful worshipers of the Invisible Pink Unicorn, holy be her name!!!!

I personally have no problem with your argument that the Invisible Pink Unicorn exists as a thought.

However, what progress have you made?

If you are holding this out to be equal to your invisible Christian God, then you are simply confessing that your God is nothing more than a thought. Totally equal to the thought of Zeus, or Thor, or the Wiccan Moon Goddess, and the list goes on and on.

By the way, as someone who personally uses the psychic paradigm of a Moon Goddess, I will be the first to confess that, for me, She is indeed a thought, fabricated entirely within my psyche of my own mind, and of course shared with many other people who also conjure up this same image.

The problem that people have with Christianity is that this religion attempts to proclaim that their delusions of God are the only delusions that are "real". And that their delusions of God will cast other people into a state of damnation if they fail to pretend that this God exists.

So all you've done is demonstrate the total emptiness of the claims of your own religion. In other words, you've demonstrated that your all-powerful God is as equally powerless as an Invisible Pink Unicorn.

So what have you accomplished?

All you've done is basically reinforce the very point that the atheists make with this analogy to an Invisible Pink Unicorn. You fell right into their trap hook line an sinker and demonstrated the validity of their point.

Your biblical God has no more reality than an invisible pink unicorn.

That is their point, and you've just clarified it.

[Divine Insight]

According to you, every concept, every mythological creature ever imagined actually exists.

Exactly. Pope Philbert would need to worship Zeus, Allah, Wanka Tanka, Thor, Odin, the Moon Goddess, and so on and so forth. Any God that has ever been imagined is a valid God according to Pope Philbert.

[Philbert]

All this talk to finally argue 'if we can think about it, it exists'.

Do thoughts exist? Do they have mass and weight, and take up space?

I hate these metaphysical philosophical obfuscations.

Why is the question I just asked above a "metaphysical philosophical obfuscations"? Seems a pretty straightforward simple question to me, no fancy footwork involved.

According to you, every concept, every mythological creature ever imagined actually exists.

In seed form, yes.

Of course, since I can also imagine the non-existence of every concept and every mythological creature, they also don't exist.

By imagining the mythological creature, it then exists. Until you banish it from your mind and all other minds, it continues to exist.

I don't see anything meaningful we can get out of this but hey.

Hmm.... I suspect the truth is closer to....

You don't want to see anything meaningful we might get out of this, because you've invested considerable energy in to creating a personal identity which flatters you as being superior to theists, and you'd rather that this psychological structure, which you enjoy a fair bit, not come crashing to the ground.

In fairness to you, just about everybody, especially we philosophical types, is in the same situation.

[keithprosser3]

By imagining the mythological creature, it then exists. Until you banish it from your mind and all other minds, it continues to exist.

But surely a thing and a thought about that thing are not the same thing. If I think about an elephant, then there is a thought about an elephant in my brain, but what is in my brain are 'brain waves' which are very different things from what you might find wandering the savannah. For one thing, brain waves don't eat grass. Brain waves don't even eat brain waves of grass.

Words have the meaning they are defined to have, so it is an option to define 'Exists' such that "X exists if a) X has physical existence or b) a thought about X is present in someone's brain", but I don't think that is the best way to define the term.

I would define 'exists' such that if I think about a unicorn then a thought-about-a-unicorn can be said to exists but thinking about a unicorn does not bring an actual unicorns into existence because a thought-about-a-unicorn is a thought, not a unicorn.

[Dantalion]

Do thoughts exist? Do they have mass and weight, and take up space?

The bio-electric patterns between synapses are real yes.
it's those that have 'mass' if you really want to call it that.
But 'thought' does not have mass any more than 'sight' or 'smell' does.
Even though the light particles and receptors and neural impulses etc have mass, the concept 'sight' does not, nor does the concept 'thought'.
But I'm not an expert on the matter .
So I'd say 'how thought works' exist, and ' a thought' exists, but what is thought doesn't necessarily exist.
Don't confuse 'a thought' (theoretically has mass) with the concept of thought (does not have mass) or with what the thought is about (doesn't have mass)

Why is the question I just asked above a "metaphysical philosophical obfuscations"? Seems a pretty straightforward simple question to me, no fancy footwork involved.

Seeing as you just asked now asked the question, I never said it was any kind of obfuscation. It actually made me think for a while lol, good job.

In seed form, yes.

'seed form' is a concept you just invented, if it exists in seed form, it exists right ? so you are saying that every god and every creature and every concept ever imagined exist, which is meaningless.

By imagining the mythological creature, it then exists. Until you banish it from your mind and all other minds, it continues to exist.

I do not agree with your version of 'existence'.
For me, existence means independent of mind.

Hmm.... I suspect the truth is closer to....

You don't want to see anything meaningful we might get out of this, because you've invested considerable energy in to creating a personal identity which flatters you as being superior to theists, and you'd rather that this psychological structure, which you enjoy a fair bit, not come crashing to the ground.

Cute but not quite. Show me what meaningful information we can get out of your theory.
The cool thing of being driven by evidence and reason is that you allow your positions to shift according to new evidence and logic.
So if I were to change my mind based on your musings, not a single position or structure will have crashed to the ground.

In fairness to you, just about everybody, especially we philosophical types, is in the same situation

I try not to dabble in abstract philosophy.
It has no point to make, it's just a thought exercise, we can't derive any meaningful information from it.

TBH I just think you are confusing the existence of a thought (which I grant you) with the existence of what the thought is about (which I don't grant you).
So what you have demonstrated is the existence of a thought your unicorn, NOT the thing itself.

edit: can we please get this out of 'random ramblings' and into a more serious category ?