Two years ago Ann departed from what I had taken for a generally secular and modern public persona by coming out with a book entitled “Godless: The Church of Liberalism” which advanced, of all things, a down-with-Darwin line. Apparently I was not the only one a bit surprised by this development (Jillian Becker). Per Wikipedia, Godless includes the following curious statement: “Throughout this book, I often refer to Christians and Christianity because I am a Christian and I have a fairly good idea of what they believe, but the term is intended to include anyone who subscribes to the Bible of the God of Abraham, including Jews and others.” A hostile review in The New Republic is here.
Now she has a new book out entitled “Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America”. Do any readers know whether it represents a return to earlier, better form?
@Kristor
I know you said that you aren’t likely to be back, but I will answer your question at least in case you do come back to read, or if others want to see a response from me since I am essentially on the same “side” as DD, Kev, etc. but am not necessarily going to argue it their way.
If God is part of reality, does God have a definite nature? What is that nature? Is it self-contradictory? I make the assertion that if you want to claim God has a definite nature, you will give me the nature of something that is either a) not God or b) self-contradictory. In reality, things act according to their nature, and that is why we have a lawful, causal universe.
As to objective morality, this objective morality did not exist prior to the emergence of rational creatures who needed it for survival. Objective morality for humans is based on the nature of humans, which is what makes it objective – human nature is definite, knowable, and unchanging (relatively…it may change extremely slowly on the order of thousands of years, but this would be a span of time sufficient to round out to unchanging over the lifetime of any one person or, I daresay, one civilization). When I say “human nature” I do not mean “human tendencies” but rather those things that are part of the definition of humanity that we necessarily share, things like for instance being mortal.
Before humans appeared there needed not have been any moral order, because most other animals get on just fine without one, due to their natures being such that they live and die by force (this may not NECESSARILY be true for EVERY nonhuman animal, but I don’t know, which is why I study it for my career). I would argue that before humans and morality that VALUES objectively existed, because any living creature can have values, whether consciously or not, values being those things which advance life as opposed to those that do not.
Hope that was clear as mud for everyone.
I am not going to reply to all your points Kristor, because as you say you don’t intend commenting again. I was sorry you didn’t comment on my comment #64. I would have been interested to hear what you had to say about that. Most of your comments stand by themselves.
You are wrong in your analysis of why I rejected belief. It’s really 2 things.
1. I got really bored with a totally static system. I realised that I knew all I ever wanted to know about it. Maybe you are satisfied with medieval philosophies, but I just caught the science/empiricism bug in a big way. I realized this was my Tao. My path.
2. I just woke up one day and realized that I knew the answer to Pascal’s wager: If I had to live in a universe that contained your kind of God for even one more second, I would choose eternal damnation as the lesser of two evils. It’s hard to explain, this idea that the Abrahamic God, in all his variations, is just the most loathsome idea that the human mind has ever invented. Perhaps that means I am now damned. Well so it goes. We gamble for real in this game of life. But now you see, even by your lights, you must admit the right of a soul to make the choice I am making.
Perhaps you realize now why you are wasting your time arguing with me as you see: I chose the serpent’s apple – the fruit of the tree of knowledge, rather than Jesus’ Cross – The sacrifice of a man/god to appease the anger of a jealous God.
When in the end we were never guilty for death and suffering coming into the world in the first place. It was your God that created a universe of pain and death and suffering – Not our Original Sin. There was no Fall of Man Kestor. The fossils prove it. Death was here before we were. There was perhaps a Fall of God. Assuming he ever existed at all. In truth I don’t believe he did.
There may be a God, but it is something totally different to what you think it is. Maybe we’ll find him/her/it/them someday. But through empirical science not through religion.
@Alan Roebuck
“Mathematics is objective because the concepts are defined in a way to be independent of any subjective mind.”
The clear implication of this statement is that if we had defined mathematics differently, it would not have been independent of any mind. (The word “subjective” is redundant.)
No, it isn’t redundant. And that error on your part is a the heart of the error in the rest of your argument. Mathematics is a suite of concepts. Concepts are non-corporal and their existence is wholly dependant on the existence of minds. They have no existence outside of minds. (Obviously, they can be represented independent of minds, as in a math book. But the thing itself is wholly a mental construct.) Indeed, to speak of “concepts” in the absence of minds is nonsensical. (Literally, “a rock’s concept of existence” is meaningless.)
Mathematics is objective because it is defined in a way that it is independent of any subjective mind. In other words, the composition of the concept does not depend on any consciousness’s reflection/opinion/value-laden evaluation on the concept; it is definitional. The concept “good” is subjective, the concept “one” is objective. It is objective because we define concept “one” (not the label, which can vary — “1”, “one”, “ein”, “uno”, “4-3”, etc. — but the concept itself) in a manner independent of what a consciousness’s opinion of it might be. Roughly as, “[t]he minimum whole quantity which is greater than nothing.”
The fallacy of your thinking is to posit a false dichotomy in which mathematics is either dependant on mind or is subjective. That dichotomy is false.
“A similar analysis applies to laws of logic and even moral principles.”
Logic, yes, because it is, at heart in sense, analogous to mathematics.
Morals, no, because they are wholly subjective and are dependant on subjective mind. Murder is not wrong because it is objectively wrong, it is wrong because we subjectively believe it to be wrong.
As a practical matter, we know this. At one time, in some society, it was (at least officially) held to be moral to kill: infidels, homosexuals, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, polytheists, idolaters, witches, Canaanites, disobedient children, heretics, etc., etc., etc. Where’s the “objectivity” in this??
Things are moral or not because we believe them to be. It’s subjective. But due to our makeup and evolution, it is not wholly subjective, it is biased. We are biased towards those things which enhance our reproductive fitness, for example, by making living as humans in human societies possible.
It also does no good to say “Evolution has conditioned us to think morally.” Evolution, at most, might describe how we do behave. It has zero ability to describe how we OUGHT TO behave, which is what morality is.
Not if evolution has also given us the tools to make the “ought” determination, either intuitively or with intelligent foresight. Such as a sense of empathy, tools for in-group cohesion, altruism, an ability to treat others as we want to be treated, etc., etc.
“That being so, what is your basis for thinking the Holocaust to be immoral?…The only possible answer you could give, while remaining an atheist, is “It’s just wrong, but for no reason.”
Nonsense. It is wrong because all of the aforementioned tools with which we evolved. A sociopath, on the other hand, might not believe it immoral, however most of humanity would agree that it is. That demonstrates that while it the determination is not objective and that there is some subjective element, it is not purely subjective. It is a biased subjectivity.
Atheism cannot answer the basic questions of existence.
Sure it can. It just doesn’t answer them the way the theist frames them or the way the theist answers them.
+++++++++++++++++
@Kristor
In comment 51, you ask theists to provide evidence of the existence of God. This is a category error. If God exists, everything is evidence of His existence;…
This is sophistry of the dumbest sort. Please look up the meaning of the word “evidence.”
In other words, the existence of God is not a scientific question.
Sure it is (at least deities like the evil god Yahweh/Jehovah/Jesus/Holy Sprit-Ghost, who according to the myth, butts his face(s) into everything.)
Your mockery of philosophy redounds to you. You say it is silly; it is silly to say so.
Well, I’m rubber and your glue….
Yes. I never said that ignorance of the absolute good would prevent any knowledge whatsoever of goodness. But if there is no absolute, objective Good, then, by definition, relative, subjective goods are the only sort that exist.
Yes, subjective goods are all that exist. To some, being bound and whipped is hellish torture. To others, it brings sexual fulfillment. Different folks, different strokes…
Thus begins the slide into moral and cultural relativism, pc, and so forth.
Only if you cling to the foolish notion that this is a binary choice between “purely objective” and “purely subjective.”
Indeed, if there were no objective standard of heat in the world, it is hard to see what it could possibly mean for you to say, “Man, is it ever hot today!” People would look at you like you were some sort of nut, as if you had said, “Man, is it ever gankry today!” So likewise with goodness.
Is jihad objectively good? How would the Muslim answer? Why is your answer “objectively” correct and his “objectively” wrong? (Especially since his answer is based on the word of God, the font from whom all morality flows?)
Do we need a cosmic dictator to establish our objective standard of goodness? Well, we need something or other – the idea of goodness can’t have itself, and goodness as a property has to be a property of some actuality (this was one of the ways that Aristotle corrected Plato). Whatever it is that somehow has this objective idea or quality of goodness has to have had it prior to every particular contingent instance of goodness, or it wouldn’t be objective with respect to any such instance. Thus whatever this a priori being is, it must be eternal, necessary, completely general and exhaustively comprehensive.
This is all nonsensical gibberish. “Goodness” isn’t an attribute of something, the way it’s volume or its mass is. “Goodness” is a value judgment created by humans in their minds.
We find ourselves moving pretty quickly in the direction of theism, no?
As I said, nonsensical gibberish.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In comment 61, you ask Alan Roebuck, “Exactly why, other than your personal preference, should I take the existence of your [Abrahamic] god seriously and not the near-infinite alternative [gods] that are not any less unlikely?” This was a lively question for the Israelites, back in the day. The answer is that some conceptions of the divine make more sense than others; are more logical, work better, are more coherent.
No, what they are is “not inconsistent with reality.” But even with that baseline, you still have a near infinite number of god concepts which are equally as “no inconsistent with reality” but which share the same amount of evidence pointing to their existence: zero. Further, for every one of these god concepts, one can imagine at least one other god or supernatural situation which is inconsistent with the first. Given that there is no evidence for any of them, none of them is more likely than any of the others, so none of them are worth considering as existing at all.
In just the same way, there are infinitely many possible ideas about what it is that is really happening in the world. Any of them could, with equal probability be true. But only a few of them actually are true, and this is what enables them to work out better in practice than their competitors.
But they (assuming you are talking about god concepts or ideas of the supernatural) don’t “work out better in practice” because there is absolutely no evidence to establish that any one of them is true or exists at all.
{{Repost to fix error in formatting}}
@Alan Roebuck
“Mathematics is objective because the concepts are defined in a way to be independent of any subjective mind.”
The clear implication of this statement is that if we had defined mathematics differently, it would not have been independent of any mind. (The word “subjective” is redundant.)
No, it isn’t redundant. And that error on your part is a the heart of the error in the rest of your argument. Mathematics is a suite of concepts. Concepts are non-corporal and their existence is wholly dependant on the existence of minds. They have no existence outside of minds. (Obviously, they can be represented independent of minds, as in a math book. But the thing itself is wholly a mental construct.) Indeed, to speak of “concepts” in the absence of minds is nonsensical.
Mathematics is objective because it is defined in a way that it is independent of any subjective mind. In other words, the composition of the concept does not depend on any consciousness’s reflection/opinion/value-laden evaluation on the concept; it is definitional. The concept “good” is subjective, the concept “one” is objective. It is objective because we define concept “one” (not the label, which can vary — “1”, “one”, “ein”, “uno”, “4-3”, etc. — but the concept itself) in a matter independent of what a consciousness’s opinion of it might be. Roughly, “[t]he minimum whole quantity which is greater than nothing.”
The fallacy of your thinking is to posit a false dichotomy in which mathematics is either dependant on mind or is subjective. That dichotomy is false.
“A similar analysis applies to laws of logic and even moral principles.”
Logic, yes, because it is, at heart in sense, analogous to mathematics.
Morals, no, because they are wholly subjective and are dependant on subjective mind. Murder is not wrong because it is objectively wrong, it is wrong because we subjectively believe it to be wrong.
As a practical matter, we know this. At one time, in some society, it was (at least officially) held to be moral to kill: infidels, homosexuals, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, polytheists, idolaters, witches, Canaanites, disobedient children, heretics, etc., etc., etc. Where’s the “objectivity” in this??
Things are moral or not because we believe them to be. It’s subjective. But due to our makeup and evolution, it is not wholly subjective, it is biased. We are biased towards those things which enhance our reproductive fitness, for example, by making living as humans in human societies possible.
It also does no good to say “Evolution has conditioned us to think morally.” Evolution, at most, might describe how we do behave. It has zero ability to describe how we OUGHT TO behave, which is what morality is.
Not if evolution has also given us the tools to make the “ought” determination, either intuitively or with intelligent foresight. Such as a sense of empathy, tools for in-group cohesion, altruism, an ability to treat others as we want to be treated, etc., etc.
“That being so, what is your basis for thinking the Holocaust to be immoral?…The only possible answer you could give, while remaining an atheist, is “It’s just wrong, but for no reason.”
Nonsense. It is wrong because all of the aforementioned tools with which we evolved. A sociopath, on the other hand, might not believe it immoral, however most of humanity would agree that it is. That demonstrates that while it the determination is not objective and that there is some subjective element, it is not purely subjective. It is a biased subjectivity.
Atheism cannot answer the basic questions of existence.
Sure it can. It just doesn’t answer them the way the theist frames them or the way the theist answers them.
+++++++++++++++++
@Kristor
In comment 51, you ask theists to provide evidence of the existence of God. This is a category error. If God exists, everything is evidence of His existence;…
This is sophistry of the dumbest sort. Please look up the meaning of the word “evidence.”
In other words, the existence of God is not a scientific question.
Sure it is (at least deities like the evil god Yahweh/Jehovah/Jesus/Holy Sprit-Ghost, who according to the myth, butts his face(s) into everything.)
Your mockery of philosophy redounds to you. You say it is silly; it is silly to say so.
Well, I’m rubber and your glue….
Yes. I never said that ignorance of the absolute good would prevent any knowledge whatsoever of goodness. But if there is no absolute, objective Good, then, by definition, relative, subjective goods are the only sort that exist.
Yes, subjective goods are all that exist. To some, being bound and whipped is hellish torture. To others, it brings sexual fulfillment. Different folks, different strokes…
Thus begins the slide into moral and cultural relativism, pc, and so forth.
Only if you cling to the foolish notion that this is a binary choice between “purely objective” and “purely subjective.”
Indeed, if there were no objective standard of heat in the world, it is hard to see what it could possibly mean for you to say, “Man, is it ever hot today!” People would look at you like you were some sort of nut, as if you had said, “Man, is it ever gankry today!” So likewise with goodness.
Is jihad objectively good? How would the Muslim answer? Why is your answer “objectively” correct and his “objectively” wrong? (Especially since his answer is based on the word of God, the font from whom all morality flows?)
Do we need a cosmic dictator to establish our objective standard of goodness? Well, we need something or other – the idea of goodness can’t have itself, and goodness as a property has to be a property of some actuality (this was one of the ways that Aristotle corrected Plato). Whatever it is that somehow has this objective idea or quality of goodness has to have had it prior to every particular contingent instance of goodness, or it wouldn’t be objective with respect to any such instance. Thus whatever this a priori being is, it must be eternal, necessary, completely general and exhaustively comprehensive.
This is all nonsensical gibberish. “Goodness” isn’t an attribute of something, the way it’s volume or its mass is. “Goodness” is a value judgment created by humans in their minds.
We find ourselves moving pretty quickly in the direction of theism, no?
As I said, nonsensical gibberish.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In comment 61, you ask Alan Roebuck, “Exactly why, other than your personal preference, should I take the existence of your [Abrahamic] god seriously and not the near-infinite alternative [gods] that are not any less unlikely?” This was a lively question for the Israelites, back in the day. The answer is that some conceptions of the divine make more sense than others; are more logical, work better, are more coherent.
No, what they are is “not inconsistent with reality.” But even with that baseline, you still have a near infinite number of god concepts which are equally as “no inconsistent with reality” but which share the same amount of evidence pointing to their existence: zero. Further, for every one of these god concepts, one can imagine at least one other god or supernatural situation which is inconsistent with the first. Given that there is no evidence for any of them, none of them is more likely than any of the others, so none of them are worth considering as existing at all.
In just the same way, there are infinitely many possible ideas about what it is that is really happening in the world. Any of them could, with equal probability be true. But only a few of them actually are true, and this is what enables them to work out better in practice than their competitors.
But they (assuming you are talking about god concepts or ideas of the supernatural) don’t “work out better in practice” because there is absolutely no evidence to establish that any one of them is true or exists at all.
Grant Canyon,
You give your views of mathematics, logic and morals, but you do not answer the main challenge to them: If mathematics, logic and at least some morals could not be defined any way other than the way we do define them, then they are not made what they are by the way we define them. They are objective in the sense that they exist prior to our definition of them.
(By the way, the law is “Thou shalt not murder,” not “Thou shalt not kill.” All societies recognize at least some killing to be wrong, so your counterexamples do not invalidate my main point.)
Again, I ask you: Is there at least one mathematical entity that could not be defined other than the way we define it? If the answer is “Yes, there is at least one such entity,” then this entity is not “…objective because it is defined in a way that it is independent of any subjective mind.” We know it, but we don’t define it.
Perhaps you mean that mathematics in its entirety is, in effect, one big definition. But my question still applies: Could this one definition be other than what we have defined it to be?
Alan Roebuck
Perhaps you mean that mathematics in its entirety is, in effect, one big definition. But my question still applies: Could this one definition be other than what we have defined it to be?
So you know the entire definition (or “nature”, or “essence”…) of mathematics?
I urge you to publish this for the edification of the whole community of professional mathematicians, because, to this day there is NO CONSENSUS YET about the foundations of mathematics.
Ignorant moron!!!
Mathematics is the set of all proof-algorithms that run to completion on the human brain-computer.
There have been many comments since I last posted that I don’t have time to reply to now. However, there is one comment I do need to acknowledge.
In reply to my point that altruistic genes “are no answer to the question I posed about how do we get from creatures totally determined by maximum production of offspring to human beings who care about truth for its own sake,” Daniel Dare replied a couple of days ago:
“See now that’s got to be the easiest question you’ve ever asked.
“What makes you think that maximum production of offspring isn’t helped by caring about truth for it’s own sake?
“In a universe of natural laws where knowledge depends on the accurate interpretation and communication of facts, truth is often life and death.”
Mr. Dare makes a good point, which requires me to modify my previous point. I will concede that if a primate or proto-human by random mutations acquired consciousness and rational thought and interest in truth for its own sake, and if these new capabilities of thought helped him survive better than others and have more offspring, then theoretically it would be possible for consciousness and intentional thought to be selected.
Now I’m prepared to argue at length why I think that, even if by some wild genetic accident, human consciousness came into existence, such consciousness could not, by means of natural selection (which only selects features that directly aid in increasing the number of offspring), could lead to the higher qualifies of mind involved in art, religion, science, and civilization. However, in reply to such an argument, Mr. Dare and others would come back with counter-scenarios, and the discussion would go on forever.
Therefore I will not argue against the possibility of the natural selection of the higher mental qualities once they have appeared by random mutation; I concede that that is not my best argument. My argument goes instead to the inherent impossibility of intentional consciousness and love of truth appearing by accident in a material universe that radically lacks intention and consciousness.
To put it very simply, if you have a universe consisting of nothing but billiard balls moving about, there is no conceivable arrangement of billiard balls by which intention and consciousness can come into being.
Human higher consciousness obviously happened sometime during our 150,000 year journey from African Eve. However, Homo erectus 2 million years ago was able to make tools and cook with fire. They may have begun the last steps to higher consciousness.One cannot debate brain evolution because we have ample evidence of its stepwise progression.Brains got bigger and more elaborate because they served as the basis for complex social life and problem-solving.William Calvin’s The Ascent of Mind does the job.
Love of truth is likely an accidental outcome once the specialization of the brain became very great.Language is essential for such an achievemnt as ideas cannot be communicated without it.Higher consciousness or self-consciousness, while terribly difficult to unravel, is yielding its secrets today.What you call intention is built upon well-understood drives such as hunger or sex.Our planning skills derive from our prefrontal cortex and are dysfunctional if that region is damaged.While curiosity is a basic drive helping survival, our intelligence varies enormously among individuals and races so that “love of truth” is relatively rare because high IQ’s seem to be required.Nonetheless, it is likely an artifact related to overspecialization just as earlier elks had massive antlers that led to extinction.
Lawrence,
if you have a universe consisting of nothing but billiard balls moving about, there is no conceivable arrangement of billiard balls by which intention and consciousness can come into being.
Well, I don’t believe in the billiard ball model of matter. Physics hasn’t believed in that for over a century now.
We believe in Quantum Field Theory. And one of the most popular interpretations of that, is that the cosmos consists of an infinite number of constantly branching universes.
I’m not sure I am yet convinced by the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Theory, but it is at least something to think about when you try to conceptualize what “mere matter” may be capable of.
Daniel,
With respect, are you not embarrassed to mock at the idea of God, and then turn around and, as the alternative to the primitive, backward idea of God as the explanation of existence, propose multiple universes as the explanation? What happened to the materialist scientist’s lodestar, parsimony? Which is more plausible: God, or multiple universes? Is there not some pang of intellectual conscience telling you that if atheists have to bend themselves into pretzels to maintain the atheist view of the universe, something is wrong with it, as with the epicycles and hemicycles that were needed to maintain the Ptolemaic solar system?
The answer is Lawrence, that I am most reluctant to accept the MWI. For precisely the reason of parsimony that you imagine. And I know that many other physics-minded people are in the same boat.
The probem is that people are coming up with serious tests of the theory(
One recent example). And I have to tell you, much as I hate it. If those tests start to seriously pan out then we are stuck with it, whether we like it or not.
I don’t know where this is going to end Lawrence, this cosmos is unimaginably deep and 21st century physics is becoming seriously weird.
Will it resolve at some point into something prosaic? Don’t know. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment.
People like David Deutsch have been arguing for a long time that the only way you can understand the parallel processing power of Quantum computers, is that the calculations are taking place in multiple parallel universes.
Kevembuangga,
You said that I claim to “know the entire definition… of mathematics” when, in fact, “there is no consensus yet about the foundations of mathematics.”
I don’t need to know it all, and the disagreement of experts is irrelevant. Allow me to explain:
My general approach to arguing against atheism and related beliefs, the one which has the best chance of influencing staunch opponents and undecided onlookers alike, is to refer people to the basic realities that everyone is capable of grasping, at least to a certain extent. Then I show how this points to, or argues for, or perhaps even proves, a non-atheistic state of affairs.
The fact that experts disagree about the metaphysical and epistemological characteristics of the basic concepts of mathematics proves nothing. Given any subject, even evolution, the experts disagree with it. Of course, those who disagree with you about evolution, you would define to be non-experts. But by the same token, I could define away the opposition to my beliefs, making us equal in that respect. Now what?
Now we examine the evidence, including the expert’s argument, rather than take the expert’s word for it. If there is a disagreement over a well-defined issue that refers to reality, at least one of the experts will be wrong, and it is up to us to decide which way the evidence points.
With regard to mathematics, you all continue to evade the main issue. I presume you evade it because you cannot provide an actual argument against it.
That main issue, I repeat, is this: If a mathematical entity (or a law of logic, or a moral principle) could not be any way other than the way it is, then it is not made what it is by our act of definition. It is, in some sense, objective.
At least some mathematical entities and propositions could not be otherwise. Are you seriously going to argue that pi could have been defined to be approximately 2.798 rather than approximately 3.142? I don’t mean redefining the symbols (e.g., “2” meaning what we currently call 3, “7” meaning what we currently call 1, etc.) but rather the REALITY the symbols represent. Could this reality be redefined?
No scholar seriously argues that the basic facts of basic mathematics could have been defined to be different from what they are. And you need to take that fact seriously, and understand what it necessarily implies. Without getting into all the details, it implies that the material is not all of the real world. Immaterial reality exists.
Saying that I’m an “ignorant moron” [Same to you, pal!] won’t resolve the dispute.
Referring to the experts, and their unnamed arguments, won’t either.
Simply asserting an alternate understanding of mathematics won’t either. An argument always trumps an assertion, and I have made (in outline) an argument.
No, you have to engage the argument itself: Could mathematics be defined other than the way we chose to? And if not, why is that?
One possible atheistic answer is to say “Reality is like that, but for no reason beyond the material. It just is.”
Well, at least you’re acknowledging reality. That’s something. But refusing to consider the possibility that there is an explanation makes you, past a certain point, non-intellectual. This will not do. Inquiring minds want to know.
To the Denizens of Secular Right:
Here is another fatal flaw in Darwinism: Although it is premised on materialism (only matter exists), it cannot EVEN IN PRINCIPLE, provide a scientific mechanism for how consciousness arose. And ditto for how intellect arose. Allow me to explain:
Darwinism’s mechanism for explaining PHYSICAL changes is extremely plausible when it comes to small changes in the body or physical behavior: Something physical causes the DNA to mutate, the body is accordingly changed, and the result is a greater survivability. It is highly questionable that this can describe radical changes such as the introduction of brains, wings, or eyes, but at least it has some plausibility.
But when it comes to the first appearance of consciousness, the Darwinian mechanism cannot, even in principle, be a possible mechanism. A physical mechanism cannot, even in principle, account for something non-physical.
Darwinists say “Whenever the brain reaches a certain degree of complexity, consciousness just emerges.” But that’s not a mechanism. It’s just the bare assertion that is happens, somehow.
And that makes Darwinism, in truth, radically nonscientific at key points. To say “It happens. Somehow.” is actually far less rational than saying “God made it happen.” If God exists, He could have made it happen. But under materialism, no possible mechanism to make it happen could exist. It just appears by magic.
The best argument a Darwinist could make at this point would be to point to computers and say “See? When the complexity of the computer reaches a certain level, we observe empirically that thought appears.” [This assumes that computers have reached the level that people will make this claim. I don’t follow the field closely, so I cannot say that this level has been reached.]
But regardless of the actual state of computer science, there are two fatal flaws with this argument: For one, you do not know that the computer is conscious; you just assume it is. And second, in order to be scientific in the best sense of the word, you still have to provide a mechanism, which you cannot without abandoning materialism.
I repeat: materialism cannot, in principle, provide a mechanism for the appearance of consciousness and mind. So to be consistent materialists, you will have to deny (as some do) that consciousness and mind even exist. But this is obviously false, so would you lose all credibility.
You will have to bite the bullet: to be rational (i.e., not content with believing that consciousness and mind have no cause) you will have to reject materialism.
So now you may be saying “Then what is the cause of God? On your theory, God is there for no reason, and so you are no better than me.” Yes, but God has consciousness, intellect, and all those other things that you have to say appear for the first time, uncaused, when evolution reaches a certain point. At least my theory holds that they come from something that possesses them. My theory (the one I endorse, not the one I created) is more rational.
Alan Roebuck
The answer to your question is that yes pi could have different values in different geometries. For instance in a non-Euclidean geometry. And I defy you to stand on a general relativity textbook and tell me you don’t believe in non-Euclidean geometry.
I categorically do not accept that consciousness is non-physical. I think you have a seriously limited and sterile notion of “physical”. The physical is much deeper than you imagine.
Daniel, I repeat, given that physics has no answers to these questions in its present state, given that material science, in order to maintain some plausible material explanation of the universe, is being required to bend itself into something “seriously weird,” as you put it, isn’t it incumbent on you, as a man of science, to be more modest about the claims of science, and to stop expressing the contempt and hatred for people who believe in God that has been repeatedly expressed by you and others in this thread?
Daniel Dare writes:
“I categorically do not accept that consciousness is non-physical. I think you have a seriously limited and sterile notion of ‘physical’. The physical is much deeper than you imagine.”
To such absurd lengths are the materialists required to go to maintain their reductive materialistic view of the universe. No one can see your consciousness by any physical means. No scientific instrument can locate your consciousness. Its existence cannot be discerned materially. You alone know your own consciousness—directly, through your consciousness itself. Consciousness—YOUR consciousness—is a non-physical fact. Yes, science can identify electrical impulses moving through the neurons in the brain, it can see the amazingly rapid changes in the chemical balance in the neurons as they transmit the electrical impulses. But science has never seen a thought. A thought—“I exist”—is by its very nature non-physical.
When materialists in order to maintain materialism have to go so far as to deny the self-evidently non-material nature of their own consciousness and their own thoughts, that is a clear sign of a belief system that is on the ropes, like the Ptolemaic system in the time of Copernicus.
Alan Roebuck
If a mathematical entity (or a law of logic, or a moral principle) could not be any way other than the way it is, then it is not made what it is by our act of definition. It is, in some sense, objective.
Yes, so?
Actually THIS is how mathematicians come to agree on “actual proofs” in spite of wild disagreements on the foundations, metaphysical and epistemological stuff.
Since a proof is a finite object subject to rules about its structure, all mathematicians agree about the formal validity of proofs (modulo typos and other clerical errors of course) what they disagree about is whether the proofs are conclusive with respect to what they are supposed to demonstrate because of disagreements on the principles (excluded middle, higher order infinities, etc…) used to pick the valid rules of proof derivation.
You can notice here too that where EVIDENCE is available (a proof is in conformity with the set of rules which it is supposed to stick to), there is NO disagreement.
Disagreement only occur where no evidence is available, e.g.does higher order infinities “exist”?
The fact that one can do mathematics about such elusive “things” is NOT an argument for their existence, no more than being able to speak thoughtfully of pink unicorns (or God…) renders them real.
As most delusionals you confuse discourse and reality, discourse is much richer than reality (hopefully!).
And, anyway, WTF does this has to do with the “god question”?
Yes, reality has some “shape”, so?
It is entirely vain to try to “prove” God or any kind of supernatural by way of logic because it is not the logic which is at fault (the proof steps) but the basic principles.
As all religionists you choose to posit arbitrary fancy theories out of thin air which end up in total absurdities (theodicy!!!), no wonder, garbage in, garbage out.
Furthermore, except when slavishly abiding by some “tradition”, every individual engaging in religious fantasies is bound to come up with different fairy tales, which if they “succeed” will be enforced by the sword.
We atheists choose not to “believe” in the absurd.
Without getting into all the details, it implies that the material is not all of the real world. Immaterial reality exists.
The meaning of exists in (say) “numbers exists” isn’t the same as “cheese exists” this is the idiotic Platonistic stance which I keep fighting off, conflating ideas and substances as if they were in similar realms subject to the same rules.
[Same to you, pal!]
Mmmmm… Not likely, did I made any assertion for which you could exhibit a blatant counterexample?
Daniel Dare: “Well, I don’t believe in the billiard ball model of matter. Physics hasn’t believed in that for over a century now. We believe in Quantum Field Theory.”
Quantum field theory doesn’t get us any closer to the evolution of consciousness out of non-conscious matter than does a universe consisting of nothing but billiard balls.
Without wanting to be tendentious, I would add that what quantum field theory does do is point to the limits of matter as an explanation of the universe. At the margins of the material universe, it is evidently the product of something non-material. The Big Bang demonstrates that the material universe came out of something that is not itself. It’s remarkable how materialists continue to deny the undeniable evidence that points beyond materiality.
Alan Roebuck writes: “Here is another fatal flaw in Darwinism: Although it is premised on materialism (only matter exists), it cannot EVEN IN PRINCIPLE, provide a scientific mechanism for how consciousness arose.”
The nature of consciousness and how it arises (if it does) from a material substrate is currently a problem for neuroscience, not evolution theory. If an explanation is found, only then can the evolution of consciousness be considered.
Roebuck is making what could be called “The Ben Stein Mistake”. Ben Stein on Hannity and Colmes, touting his movie “Expelled”, said: “There’s no evidence that Darwin had anything useful to say about how life began or how the Universe began or how gravity began or how physics began or how fluid motion or thermodynamics began – he had nothing to say about that whatsoever, so why attribute that to Darwinist causes?”
(No, I’m not making it up, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Wj6_DLV0M, at 2:50; warning, pretty scary brain-dead stuff, Colmes tries and fails to get some sense out of Stein, and then it’s all downhill)
Alan Roebuck writes: “But when it comes to the first appearance of consciousness, the Darwinian mechanism cannot, even in principle, be a possible mechanism. A physical mechanism cannot, even in principle, account for something non-physical.”
An algorithm is a non-physical entity, but it can be implemented and executed in an entirely physical computer. Computers can be programmed to generate their own algorithms using an process analogous to evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm).
Computers can find (entirely non-physical) proofs to (entirely non-physical) mathematical theorems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_theorem_proving).
To continue: It’s as though the scientists had said, “This notion in the Book of Genesis that a transcendent God created the universe is sheerest superstition that only a mentally backward person could believe. The truth is that only the material is real. There is nothing outside materiality and that which can be registered by the instruments of physical science. We will only believe in the possibility of a God if science provides evidence for it.”
But then these same scientists through their instruments began to realize that the universe is expanding, and found increasingly strong evidence that it began expanding from a single point in space about 15 billion years ago. Virtually all scientists today accept the Big Bang. Science has thus inadvertently discovered the strongest possible scientific indication that the physical universe came into being from some reality outside the physical universe, exactly as the Book of Genesis says. But do the scientists acknowledge the obvious and inescapable implication of their own discovery of the Big Bang? No. It turns out that they are not following the evidence where it leads, but are locked up inside their dogma of scientism, which says that only the material can exist. Not only do the materialists refuse to admit the implications of the Big Bang, but, like Harvard liberals demonizing Lawrence Summers for merely suggesting that there may be differences between the math abilities of men and women, they speak in terms of hatred and contempt about anyone who even suggests that there might be something beyond matter.
Bill of MD is correct, but only superficially correct, when he says that Darwinism has nothing to say about how the universe began or about how the laws of physics began or about how life began, and therefore that Ben Stein is wrong to attribute the lack of knowledge in these areas to a failure of Darwinism.
But Bill is only superficially correct, and Ben Stein is only superficially incorrect. Why do I say this? Because the core of Darwinism, as all honest Darwinists well know, is that it banishes any non-material or designing Intelligence from the universe. That is why they instantly attack as a “creationist” anyone who questions Darwinism, even if the questioner has said nothing about God. For the Darwinians, and certainly for for the atheist Darwinians who post at this website, the choice is stark: it’s either Darwin or God. Therefore any fundamental failure of material science to explain how the universe began, or how the laws of physics began, or how life began, reflects directly back on the fundamental premise of Darwinism itself, that there is no reality outside the material forces of nature. Since Darwinian evolution on one side and a non-material Guiding Intelligence on the other are mutually incompatible, any failure of material science to explain the universe, or any evidence of material science pointing to a reality beyond matter, is a failure of Darwinism. And in that sense, Stein’s comment was correct.
Also, Bill of MD writes:
“An algorithm is a non-physical entity, but it can be implemented and executed in an entirely physical computer. Computers can be programmed to generate their own algorithms using an process analogous to evolution”
But Bill, how could you miss the point that a human mind had to design that computer and its programming?
Bill of MD writes: “An algorithm is a non-physical entity, but it can be implemented and executed in an entirely physical computer. Computers can be programmed to generate their own algorithms using an process analogous to evolution”
Lawrence Auster asks: “But Bill, how could you miss the point that a human mind had to design that computer and its programming?”
The immediate question from Roebuck was not where the non-physical entity came from, but whether it can be instantiated in a physical entity. His point is that consciousness is non-physical, therefore it cannot be supported by physical processes. This is obviously a flawed argument. I was provoking him to make a better argument.
The thing that makes consciousness mysterious is not its non-physicality, but some other, indefinable quality. Our intuition is that it represents a higher order of reality than anything else in our world. As the philosopher Colin McGinn asks: “How is the water of the physical brain turned into the wine of consciousness?” (quoting from memory).
Lawrence Auster writes: “the core of Darwinism, as all honest Darwinists well know, is that it banishes any non-material or designing Intelligence from the universe.”
“Darwinism”, aka the theory of evolution, doesn’t “banish” anything; it does what science always does, uses a systematic method to find a naturalist explanation for the phenomena in its particular domain. You could just as well write “the core of Astrophysics, as all honest Astrophysicists well know, is that it banishes any non-material or designing Intelligence from the universe.” or “the core of Medical Research, as all honest Medical Researchers well know, is that it banishes any non-material or designing Intelligence from the universe.” etc.
By postulating a Guiding Intelligence, we would be back in the Medieval world, maintaining that, for example, the stars are moved by angels in their crystal spheres.
Consider the issue of Dark Matter; this is a previously unknown form of matter that causes anomalous motion in the orbits of stars around galaxies. Its existence was never suspected by Astrophysicists or particle physicists, and it is under intense study. But why not just say “Anomalous orbits? A Guiding Intelligence did it” and leave it at that? Why waste time with all that expensive research?
Since when confronted with a mystery you can always say “God did it” and leave it at that, what you are suggesting would cause scientific inquiry to grind to a halt. It is precisely the naturalistic assumption that has got science where it is today.
Eliezer Yudkowsky argues that multiple-worlds really is the choice of Occam’s Razor, relative to the Copenhagen Interpretation. His view on Occam’s Razor, and why science which seems complicated is actually simpler than theistic explanations is here.
Lawrence Auster writes: “Therefore any fundamental failure of material science to explain how the universe began, or how the laws of physics began, or how life began, reflects directly back on the fundamental premise of Darwinism itself, that there is no reality outside the material forces of nature.”
You appear to be using religion as a model for understanding science. They are fundamentally different. Big Bang theory, for example, is not an infallible gospel, but, like evolution theory and a dozen other major paradigms, the widely accepted basis of an ongoing research program. There is no “fundamental failure” in cosmology; each problem leads to a new direction for research. Typically a mystery is resolved within a decade or so, leading to new mysteries. The mystery of the nature of the early universe is not a weakness of science that needs to be corrected by invoking supernatural beings, it is a weakness in General Relativity, that will probably eventually be fixed. Would you say to someone working now on this problem: “God did it, so you might as well give up”?
stop expressing the contempt and hatred for people who believe in God
I do believe that religion is deeply wrong. Factually. At least, any religion that we have today. But I deny contempt and hatred. Do not mistake bluntness and honesty for contempt.
As I said personally, my views entail non-interference and I consider that to be respectful. I believe my understanding to be superior, as do you. But I have no interest in conquering the world, although I think it is probably happening anyway.
given that physics has no answers to these questions in its present state, given that material science, in order to maintain some plausible material explanation of the universe, is being required to bend itself into something “seriously weird,” as you put it,
Physics has a very good answer. it is called Many Worlds Quantum Theory. And it is possible that this is going to turn out to be a major advance. Though I suspect we still have a few parts to add to this new synthesis. Seriously weird. Yes. But all the same, maybe true and in full agreement with experiments and observations.
Also it is going to have major technological applications. Improving the theory of measurement of weak fields and quantum computation.
At this point I am not yet a believer in MWI. I am an interested observer. This only becomes true for me when key experiments start to confirm it.
But then these same scientists through their instruments began to realize that the universe is expanding, and found increasingly strong evidence that it began expanding from a single point in space about 15 billion years ago. Virtually all scientists today accept the Big Bang. Science has thus inadvertently discovered the strongest possible scientific indication that the physical universe came into being from some reality outside the physical universe, exactly as the Book of Genesis says. But do the scientists acknowledge the obvious and inescapable implication of their own discovery of the Big Bang?
There are two issues here. One is that Gensis doesn’t seem to indicate that the universe began 15 billion years ago. Many of Darwin’s critics argue the Earth began 6000 years ago.
And second, it’s not “inescapable” that the universe was created via the big bang. Though as a humble agnostic I’ll admit it is plausible. The atheist answer — just as plausible — is that the big bang was merely a radical transformation in a preexistent universe, not something coming from nothing. Various theories have been posited to explain this like an ever expanding and contracting universe; eventually gravity pulls time space matter and energy back to a single point at which it explodes, ad infinitum.
Where the atheist goes wrong is when he or she notes that (a theory that excludes God) has got to be it. As long as we can explain it without God, an uncaused cause like God could have had NO part of it; the universe MUST be the uncaused cause.
No. It could be either.
Lawrence
Because the core of Darwinism, as all honest Darwinists well know, is that it banishes any non-material or designing Intelligence from the universe.
That’s not Darwinism, that’s methodological naturalism. All natural philosophy is founded on that principle.
Virtually all scientists today accept the Big Bang. Science has thus inadvertently discovered the strongest possible scientific indication that the physical universe came into being from some reality outside the physical universe, exactly as the Book of Genesis says. But do the scientists acknowledge the obvious and inescapable implication of their own discovery of the Big Bang?
The story is not ended yet. The Big Bang (Friedmann Cosmology) only gives a crude description of the universe. We are filling out the details, how the galaxies formed, why they are distributed the way they are, how to explain the temperature fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), why is the expansion accelerating?
These are starting to yield important clues about the initial state that is starting to give us an understanding of what lies behind/before the “Big Bang”.
Also there is the vital question of Quantum Gravity. The initial point cannot be a true singularity. There is no distance shorter than the Planck Length. Classical Gravity gives a point. Quantum Gravity is vastly more subtle.
I must say that I detect a certain opening here to a more reasonable discussion of these questions, based on the fact that several proponents of the material view are admitting that there are, at the least, very large unanswered questions about the nature and origin of the universe, the origin of life, the origin of consciousness, and so on. Given that science has not answered these fundamental questions, and, for all we know, may never do so, and given that the supposition of a non-material intelligent creator is a reasonable and understandable response to these vast unanswered questions, my hope is that the proponents of materialism and Darwinism will drop their extreme dogmatism and their Dawkins-like hatred of anyone who questions Darwinism and materialism.
That is really all I want. I do not have a problem with atheists. I have a problem with atheists who are on a war against religion and religious believers.
Lawrence Auster writes: given that physics has no answers to these questions in its present state, given that material science, in order to maintain some plausible material explanation of the universe, is being required to bend itself into something “seriously weird,” as you put it
Daniel Dare writes: Physics has a very good answer. it is called Many Worlds Quantum Theory. And it is possible that this is going to turn out to be a major advance. Though I suspect we still have a few parts to add to this new synthesis. Seriously weird. Yes. But all the same, maybe true and in full agreement with experiments and observations.
Auster appears to think that the weirdness of the Many Worlds concept is an indication of its weakness, and of intellectual desperation on the part of theorists. But, as anyone familiar with the history of physics would know, Quantum Theory, one of the most successful paradigms in the history of science, was itself born of desperation, and was totally weird almost from the outset (for those unfamiliar with the double slit experiment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpSqrb3VK3c&feature=related
this video would also be a useful corrective for those who picture the material universe as a collection of colliding Newtonian masses).
@Lawrence Auster
The only reason someone like me is “at war” against religion is because I believe it to be a destructive, mind-destroying force in the human race, responsible for more suffering and irrationality than possibly any other widespread cultural phenomenon in human history.
The fallacy you make in your worldview is called a Primacy of Consciousness outlook. Consciousness cannot exist without something to be conscious of – thus, consciousness presupposes existence. Before existence there could not have been consciousness, and this is the chief (though by no means the only) reason an idea of God does not make sense.
Lawrence,
the origin of life
Ah yes, the origin of life. Well we are starting to understand a little how that might have come about.
But let’s take the worst case. Is materialism invalidated if there is no theoretical explanation for the origin of life?
I would argue no. Because in the final analysis chance could explain it.
Ah Lawrence, I can hear you sneering already. Chance? An entire living cell coming into existence by chance? No matter how primitive, no matter how large an ocean, this could not have happened by chance.
But you are wrong Lawrence. Listen. There is a new law of physics. It is called the Bekenstein Entropy Bound. It defines the maximum amount of information that can be encoded into a finite volume. It has arisen from our research into Quantum Gravity.
Assume the truth of the BEB. Then a sphere the size of the smallest, simplest cell has a finite amount of information in it.
In reality even assuming the cell is made of 92 different kinds of atoms lighter than uranium and at a temperature of less than 100C, the boiling point of water, imposes limits on how much information it can contain, according to the laws of Quantum Mechanics.
So here we have a finite amount of information.
Now the universe has an open cosmology. It is open and unbounded. Our current models suggest it is infinite. They may be simple models. But why is an infinite cosmos harder to believe than an infinite God? After all Relativistic Cosmology is wildly successful in explaining a huge amount of data in astronomy.
But in an infinite space, every finite thing must occur an infinite number of times. By chance.
Why can’t we be one of those instances?
Remember I don’t really believe this model. I believe we will one day find much better answers than this one.
It’s just that if all else fails, we have this.
Actually, there are superior formulations of Bekenstein Entropy Bound conjecture, today, but I’m an aging retired geezer, and I don’t always remember the latest stuff
Says the kat: “The only reason someone like me is “at war” against religion is because I believe it to be a destructive, mind-destroying force in the human race, responsible for more suffering and irrationality than possibly any other widespread cultural phenomenon in human history.”
Perhaps here you are envisioning numerically threatening throngs of unthinking, blindly obedient servants of God? Such a vision is more a misleading take on those people than the comprehension of any religion in itself. The superficial case you make is one of the most tiresome popular tropes in the consideration of human behavior. So the 20th C genocide of tens of millions by the non-religious/atheist Russians and Chinese are what exactly? The ghosts of religion? What about unorganized spiritual belief– is this threatening to you also?
Humans have killed each other for a wide range of reasons, both before and after the advent of religion per se. Modern archaeological evidence indicates that were are continuing on a very old trajectory of *lessening* per capita violence. It is unlikely, in my opinion, that vital developments such as compassion and mercy would have emerged at the level of mass consciousness without the emergence of various religions.
The vacuum that would be created by the obliteration of religion, your own heart’s desire apparently, would in this day and age almost certainly lead to a reductionist, materialist regime of science-based state control (read: tyranny) and it would be attended by impersonal, efficient horrors the world has not yet witnessed. What can stand between us and such a future? Rational thinking?
Although it might seem otherwise from my post above, I was not intending to draw this thread into some other interminable tangent. Just wanted to respond to what seems to be a major underlying cause of hostility toward religion in general.
It appears that materialists and non-materials have met on the field of battle and crossed swords and concepts until confusion reigns.I tried reading Lisa Randall’s Warped Passages but boredom and confusion overwhelmed me.However, I know evolution and a fair amount of genetics so I can comment on the “failures” of Darwinism.
After 150 years we celebrate Darwin because he was right about the broad outlines of an organic process that produced the myriad life forms of earth.The “failures” you enjoy celebrating are merely areas beyond the reach of his theory at that time. The origin of life resisted study for over a century because we could not duplicate the exact conditions that would lead to spontaneous development of primitive bacteria.This implies nothing more than the fact that it is a tough problem. The problem of consciousness still puzzles us but again is likely to yield to neuroscience quite soon. In my book I discuss Edelman’s TNGS theory or neural darwinism as the best theory of mind that we have. Edelman is likely to win a Nobel prize for this theory if it turns out to be correct.Conversely, the non-materialists have no real alternative except to nibble at the heals of science by pointing to previous “failures.” We learn much from failures and are approaching the solution to the consciousness problem. Few would argue that consciousness-the wine from water-is nonetheless utterly material because a blow to the head ends it instantly. Thoughts, after all, are able to move objects, even via artificial limbs.Non-materialists obfuscate endlessly because they really need to believe in a Higher Power. I don’t blame them for seeking comfort in a lonely universe.They look rather feeble against the pattern of success racked up by materialistic science. This does not justify Dawkins’ rantings, but one must give naturalism its due.
Imagine how idiotic it would be if the 4 billion year process of evolution, with its vast genetic continuity, turned out to have one single non-material factor-consciousness-arising only in human brains! Instead, it is much more likely that selection pressures became more severe and higher order consciousness arose from regular animal consciousness present in your pet dog.If we can study mystical experiences via fMRI and QEEG devices, we know well that neuronal networks become active during such thinking. Drugs, too, affect the brain, which is clearly a physical device even if immensely complicated.Non-material explanations add nothing to our knowledge and are for that reason likely to be wrong.
The fact that theoretical cosmology gets ever more hairy cannot be evidence for the non-materialist side because even string theory must eventually have a connection with physical reality and established theoetical structures.Wedding relativity to quantum theory will put our understanding on more solid ground but the universe may well turn out to be much stranger than we believed today.Regardless, no physics can be used to determine non-material ends without violation of basic scientific epistomology.Faith seems to be on track to be nothing but faith.Science works so very well because the universe, for all its dynamic slendor,seems to be a physical phenomenon without purpose.
The Kat writes:
“The only reason someone like me is “at war” against religion is because I believe it to be a destructive, mind-destroying force in the human race, responsible for more suffering and irrationality than possibly any other widespread cultural phenomenon in human history.”
Then the Kat must be at war with all of human history and virtually all human cultures. He must regard every society and culture that has ever existed as controlled by a destructive, mind-destroying force. Ancient Egypt, according to Kat, was built by a destructive, mind-destroying force.
Ancient Israel, according to Kat, was built by a destructive, mind-destroying force. The Bible was written by a destructive, mind-destroying force. The Gospels and the Christian religion are a destructive, mind-destroying force. The Catholic Church, which built up Europe from barbarism after the end of the western Roman empire, was a destructive, mind-destroying force. Augustine’s City of God is the work of a destructive, mind-destroying force. The separation of society into the secular and spiritual realms was the work of a destructive, mind-destroying force. The conversion of the pagan English to Christianity and the making of the English nation as told by the venerable Bede was the work of a destructive, mind-destroying force. The conversion of Ireland by St. Patrick and the churches and universities of Dark Age Ireland were the work of a destructive, mind-destroying force. Romanesque churches and Gothic churches were the work of a destructive, mind-destroying force. Westminster Abbey is the work of a destructive, mind-destroying force. Chartres is the work of a destructive, mind-destroying force. The books of Thomas Aquinas are the work of a destructive, mind-destroying force.
And so it goes. Kat, having declared war against religion, must be against every civilization that has ever existed, particularly our own. He must be against every stage of our own civilization until modern science became dominant. As such he like a Communist, or a Nazi, or a Taliban member, that is, someone who is at war with everything that has ever been, except his own belief system.
Kat continues:
“The fallacy you make in your worldview is called a Primacy of Consciousness outlook. Consciousness cannot exist without something to be conscious of—thus, consciousness presupposes existence. Before existence there could not have been consciousness, and this is the chief (though by no means the only) reason an idea of God does not make sense.”
That’s actually a very interesting point. Could God have been conscious prior the creation of a universe to be conscious of? According to the Indian spiritual master Meher Baba, he could not. According to Baba’s book, God Speaks, which describes the evolution of the universe, before the universe came into existence, God existed, but he was in deep sleep, unconscious of himself. He only became gradually conscious—first of the universe, then of himself, as the universe itself gradually evolved out of himself.
Lawrence –
You should know that we often have computers evolve their own programs now. We just set up conditions, tell it to create random ‘mutations’ in the code, and kill off the worst versions. We eventually end up with lots of novel solutions that no human has ever thought of, some of which we don’t even understand. We can model a blob and some physics, with food across the room, and the blob, after generations, will evolve some unforeseen way (like legs) to move around our model and get its food. Or, we can model jet engines and evolve them to be 30% more efficient. Or, we can evolve mathematical theorems or proofs. Whatever.
This is actually proof that selective pressures really work to evolve extremely complex systems. Take a look into evolutionary and genetic programming. Since evolution works, why would you postulate a supernatural God to try to explain things?
As for the mystery of consciousness, there is none. Consciousness is your brain seeing what it sees, hearing what it hears, and knowing what’s stored in its neurons. To say you are aware of something simply means the sensation reached your brain. To say you know something merely means that you can retrieve a memory about it…
Trevor- You say nothing of the bounds of theoretical modeling. For one, the inputs are extremely limited vis-a-vis analyzing natural systems– modeling ecology is basically useless in any comprehensive sense. As far as evolution, there are significant weaknesses in generating the most parsimonious cladograms that reflect purported phylogenies. One is always limited by input (missing taxa in samping for instance) and by the limitations of statistical probability. As someone remarked, statistical probability is the underlying premise of all science. That is a weakness in itself. How can it be corrected for?
Perhaps you believe, as many science-minded people tend to believe, that the scientific process has no limitations; it is only a matter of time and technique before we master any problem. I think all these avenues of pursuit are exciting and worthwhile. But as possessors of intelligent, reflective minds, why would we want to stock 100% of our “beliefs” in a scientistic outlook? How can we escape the problem of misleading ourselves, since we would only be looking to our own imperfect intellect and its derived yet mutable proofs for answers, that some miscalculations will not have catastrophic or even fatal effects? Belief in God requires faith. Belief in science as the highest endeavour also rests on faith. It is a matter of ordering priorities.
I don’t believe we are self-aware. I believe, “I” am concious of a abstract, simplified representation of the self.
Thomas Metzinger is one of the leading philosophers of this school.
If you watch this video, please ignore the riot going on in the background for about 20 minutes of this video.
Or at least it sounds like a riot to me. Overactive imagination probably.
Which is more plausible: God, or multiple universes?
Multiple universes. An all-powerful god could make multiple universes, so is, himself/itself/herself/theirselvesm, so you still have to explain the existence of a power capable of creating multiple universes.
But Grant, is there one God per multiverse or one God per each universe?
And does God branch when his universe does?
Somehow my answer got chopped… It should have read:
Multiple universes. An all-powerful god could make multiple universes, so is, himself/itself/herself/theirselves more complex and less plausible that multiple univeses, so you still have to explain the existence of a power capable of creating multiple universes.
Daniel, god both branches and stay one. It’s one of those “mysteries” of religion.
Ah like the Trinity I get it. Wow!
@ Alan Roebuck
If mathematics, logic and at least some morals could not be defined any way other than the way we do define them, then they are not made what they are by the way we define them. They are objective in the sense that they exist prior to our definition of them.
Again, I’ve said from the outset that mathematics and logic are objective. (Morality is a measure of how humans feel about things, so is by definition subjective.) Not in the sense that they “existed” prior to our definition of them, but because they are concepts which do not depend on subjective opinion.
(By the way, the law is “Thou shalt not murder,” not “Thou shalt not kill.” All societies recognize at least some killing to be wrong, so your counterexamples do not invalidate my main point.)
Some sociopaths don’t recognize that “objective” moral law. In fact, they find gratification in it, so, for them, it is a moral good. If your point is that this “law” is universal among successful societies, then that is true, but only trivially so. If your point is that it is a objective moral truth, then the sociopath, and the fact that it can be bended in such was as I previously noted, show that it is not in any sense objective.
Again, I ask you: Is there at least one mathematical entity that could not be defined other than the way we define it? If the answer is “Yes, there is at least one such entity,” then this entity is not “…objective because it is defined in a way that it is independent of any subjective mind.” We know it, but we don’t define it.
Perhaps you mean that mathematics in its entirety is, in effect, one big definition. But my question still applies: Could this one definition be other than what we have defined it to be?
You are stuck on this “defined other than” argument, presumably because you read it in a philosophy text at one point. But what are you trying to assert? You seem to be trying to argue that mathematics is objective, which I’ve already noted a bunch of times here, and also noted why it is objective.
Again, Mathematics is objective because the concepts which make up its essence do not depend on subjective opinion. We cannot define the concepts other than the way we define them, because the concepts are what they are. The concept of “one” for example, as previously noted, is basically “the lowest possible whole quantity greater than zero.” We can’t define it in any other way, because, as a concept, its entire essence and existence is encapsulated in its definition. It is that which we have identified. It has no existence other than its that, as any concept has no existence other than the content of the concept.
+ + +
That main issue, I repeat, is this: If a mathematical entity (or a law of logic, or a moral principle) could not be any way other than the way it is, then it is not made what it is by our act of definition. It is, in some sense, objective.
It is objective, as I said, because it doesn’t depend on the subjective view of other minds, although its existence is wholly dependant on the existence of minds.
At least some mathematical entities and propositions could not be otherwise. Are you seriously going to argue that pi could have been defined to be approximately 2.798 rather than approximately 3.142? I don’t mean redefining the symbols (e.g., “2” meaning what we currently call 3, “7” meaning what we currently call 1, etc.) but rather the REALITY the symbols represent. Could this reality be redefined?
The problem, I believe, is that you seem to think that if it is an objective concept, that it must corresponds with something other than the concept; that there must be a “reality” to mathematical concepts other than the concepts themselves. There isn’t. There is no cosmic aether where the immaterial Platonic essence of “one” resides and where what we’ve identified as the concept of “one” is simply us defining that essence. There is the concept, and that’s it.
No scholar seriously argues that the basic facts of basic mathematics could have been defined to be different from what they are. And you need to take that fact seriously, and understand what it necessarily implies. Without getting into all the details, it implies that the material is not all of the real world. Immaterial reality exists.
It implies no such thing. Again, basic math is a non-corporal objective thing, a concept, that resides in the mind. Since the mind is a product of the wholly material brain (and “mind” is actually a concept itself – the label we place on the brain’s function), the mind, and all its contents, such as the concept of mathematics, are likewise wholly material. Remove all the brains capable of conceiving mathematics, and it will no longer exist.
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But when it comes to the first appearance of consciousness, the Darwinian mechanism cannot, even in principle, be a possible mechanism. A physical mechanism cannot, even in principle, account for something non-physical.
Consciousness is not “non-physical.”