This was our final meeting on Atheist Universe:

We had a small turnout for the book club meeting, but the discussion was lively and interesting. We went off topic a bit to discuss all kinds of ideas and concepts.

One recurring theme of the evening was the definition/meaning of different words. I’ll list them here:

• Consciousness: subjective experience or awareness or wakefulness or the executive control system of the mind. Consciousness is the subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Issues of practical concern include how the presence of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill or comatose people; whether non-human consciousness exists and if so how it can be measured; at what point in fetal development consciousness begins; and whether computers can achieve a conscious state.
• Self-awareness: consciousness of one’s self. It is related to but not identical with self-consciousness.
• Intelligence: an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. There are several ways to define intelligence. In some cases, intelligence may include traits such as creativity, personality, character, knowledge, or wisdom. However there is no agreement on which traits define the phenomenon of intelligence agreed upon by a majority across the various concerned disciplines.
• Evidence: in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either a) presumed to be true, or b) were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion’s truth. Evidence is the currency by which one fulfills the burden of proof. An important distinction in the field of evidence is that between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence, or evidence that suggests truth as opposed to evidence that directly proves truth. Many have seen this line to be less-than-clear and significant arguments have arisen over the difference.
• Atheism: In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Although some atheists tend toward secular philosophies such as humanism, rationalism, and naturalism, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere.
• Positive Atheism: one that promotes positive values. Positive atheism entails such things as being morally upright, showing an understanding that religious people have reasons to believe, not proselytizing or lecturing others about atheism, and defending oneself with truthfulness instead of aiming to ‘win’ any confrontations with outspoken critics. Read the rest of this entry »