Category: evolutionary materialism’s self-falsification
Sev’s IOU on how conscious mind will be explained on materialistic premises
In the Eugene Wigner thread, frequent objector Sev argues to BA77: Sev, 23: >>Yes, the hard problem of consciousness is explaining what it is and how it arises from the physical brain and we don’t have such an explanation as yet. The evidence for consciousness arising from the brain lies in the strong correlation between […]
Responding to Sev: “Moral claims are not about what is but about how we ought to behave, primarily towards one another. They are not capable of being either true or false”
Again, it is vital for us to see what today’s evolutionary materialism, scientism, athiestical advocates and fellow travellers are thinking in their own words, and we must answer them on the merits. Where, as captioned, it is being argued in the intersubjective consensus thread, that there is no such thing as moral truth. This means, […]
CT4: AK on morality: “Since the moral fabric is man made, all we are doing is seeing it change . . .”
Sometimes, one of our frequent objectors has a truly noteworthy letting- the- cat- out- of- the- bag moment that is worth headlining. In the still live CT2 thread, AK unwittingly exposes the incoherence and implied amorality of atheistical, evolutionary materialism when he comments in key part: AK, 80: >>Since the moral fabric is man made, […]
BA77 links on the consequences of mind = brain ideologies
While we’re on a roll on AI and its import at the hands of evolutionary materialistic scientism dressed in a lab coat, BA77 has linked a comic strip — see here (main site here; cf. twist on The Cave currently top of the heap) — that is at first funny then soberingly serious: As in, […]
On subjectivity vs objectivity of moral principles and the importance of self-evidently true moral principles
For quite some days now, a brawling debate has raged across several UD threads on moral principles, truth and self-evidence. It is worth the while to again headline some of the exchange for record. First, an exchange or two on fairness and subjectivity vs objectivity. And yes, this is a second-order clipping — a lot […]
Dan Brown tries the Science disproves/dismisses God trick
As Breitbart (as a handy source) reports: >>“Historically, no god has survived science. Gods evolved,” the best-selling American novelist said at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where he unveiled his newest book, “Origin”. The fifth instalment in the wildly popular series that started with “The Da Vinci Code” tracks Harvard professor Robert Langdon’s latest code-cracking adventure […]
FFT: Gender as a social construct — what is the vid below telling us on where our intellectual culture has now reached?
Someone gave the link, I think we need to watch a comparison of real vs fake papers on gender: I ask us to ponder: Where have we now reached, why? END
RVB8 tries to dismiss ID as failed science
| May 29, 2017 | Posted by kairosfocus under Atheism, Back to Basics of ID, Darwinist rhetorical tactics, evolutionary materialism's self-falsification, Science, worldview issues/foundations and society |
. . . with yet another list of talking points. Namely: >>The irony of a scientific idea, ‘Intelligent Design’, with no experimentation? The irony of a scientific idea, ‘Intelligent Design’, with no predictive qualities? The irony of a scientific idea, Intelligent Design’, that refuses to identify, or even look for, the Designer? My scientific idea […]
FFT: TJG ponders the design inference- objecting mindset
. . . through a case in point: >>tjguyApril 12, 2017 at 2:28 am rvb8 @2 Thank god (heh:), the obvious has been consigned to the rubbish bin of understanding, and we now prefer evidence, experimentation, and the unobvious, to the vacuous, empty, ‘obvious’. What is the problem with this way of thinking? He just […]
Dilbert’s Scott Adams and the reproductively effective delusion evolutionary thesis
Sometimes, popular debates and commenters can put their fingers on a key issue, almost in passing. In this case, in addressing the cognitive dissonance issue triggering many reactions to the rise of Donald Trump to US President-Elect (I confess, my own surprise* . . . ) Dilbert’s Scott Adams has dropped a real clanger of […]
BTB, Answering the “ID is Religion/Creationism in a cheap tuxedo” talking point
For many years, atheistical objectors — often, taking a cue from ruthless advocacy groups such as the NCSE and/or ACLU etc — have been tempted to dismiss ID as “Religion” or “Creationism,” and this long since answered point still occasionally crops up here at UD. (Unfortunately, even when it is not explicit, it is often […]
Where do you get the notion there likely have been 800+ million abortions in 40 years from?
In a current thread that is nominally on the latest allegedly earth-like exoplanet, predictably that is where distractors will come up on things like: >>[RVB8, 21:] “800 million (unusual figure) unborn aborted fetuses. Perhaps this is true, it’s certainly true abortions have occured, and probably happen at a faster rate now becuse of the ‘day […]
Plato’s Socrates on navigating the ship of state
In the past few weeks at UD, we have seen abundant indicators on how: a –> we are in a time of obvious, deeply polarised ideological confrontation in our civilisation [in material part, driven by cultural marxist agendas and stratagems], b –> we are forced to give unwelcome counsel in the face of an obvious […]
FYI-FTR: Conscience is a gift
| June 2, 2016 | Posted by kairosfocus under Atheism, Darwinist rhetorical tactics, Evolutionary materialism's amorality, evolutionary materialism's self-falsification, FYI-FTR, Politics/policy and origins issues, Science, worldview issues/foundations and society |
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In a recent exchange with BA in the WJM arguing thread, CF inadvertently revealed that he too knows or should know and acknowledge, that there is an oughtness towards truth. This is not unexpected, given the core moral self evident truths. For instance, we can see the first cycle: >>1] The first self evident moral […]
FYI-FTR: A plea for civilizational sanity
Overnight CF and Aleta threw down a gauntlet in WJM’s thread on subjectivism: CF, 148 : >>KairosFocus: “CF, again you are asserting when something you have consistently refused to address is on the table.” [CF:] the fact that you disagree with how I have repeatedly addressed the issue does not mean that I have “consistently […]
FYI-FTR: Is there such a thing as objective moral truth? (Or, are we left to the clash of opinions? Esp. as regards sex?)
In a current WJM thread on transgenderism, CF has been arguing that different cultures and religions take different views and each holds themselves to be superior — of course this overlooks for just one instance a key remark C S Lewis made in his essay, “Men Without Chests” on what he called the Tao, on […]
FYI-FTR: The lesson of how Athens — the first great democracy — fell by march of folly
Athens, the first great democracy — the city state and naval power that in company with the great Greek land power Sparta led Greece in its successful defense against Persian aggression — foolishly and arrogantly grasped for empire and wealth; so it fell due to its hubris. By march of folly [I add, cf vid […]
FYI-FTR: Exposing the PC juggernaut’s mass manipulation (“brainwashing”) game
As discussion continues on the march of folly watershed and slippery slopes of wedging apart, polarisation and ruin, it is time to expose mass manipulation tactics. Aka, “brainwashing.” Here, I clip comment 771: ______________ >>>Can “mind control” techniques really rob us of ability to think, decide and act for ourselves? Are we really responsible, free, […]
FYI-FTR: The transgender school bathroom issue as a cultural marxist divide, polarise and ruin wedge
As debate has proceeded on the watershed, wedge-apart issue, real-time events have intruded to show who has read the dynamics accurately. Never mind the dismissive, denigratory accusations: bigot, hater, coward, apocalyptic, and worse . . . So, it is time to promote yet another comment in the still-in progress thread — no. 656 — as […]
FYI-FTR: The self-falsification of evolutionary materialist scientism
| December 3, 2015 | Posted by kairosfocus under academic freedom, Atheism, Darwinist rhetorical tactics, evolutionary materialism's self-falsification, Politics/policy and origins issues, Science, worldview issues/foundations and society |
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In further addressing the curriculum abuse that sought to induce twelve year olds to imagine that belief in God is little more than a culturally induced ill-supported notion, it is critical to address the favoured ideology, evolutionary materialist scientism and/or its fellow travellers. For, never mind the lab coat clad magisterium, evolutionism is self-referentially incoherent […]
An excellent recent summary of this comes from Nancy Pearcey in her Finding Truth, let us refresh our memories — and remind the enthusiasts of evolutionary materialist scientism and fellow travellers/ enablers:
>>A major way to test a philosophy or worldview is to ask: Is it logically consistent? Internal contradictions are fatal to any worldview because contradictory statements are necessarily false. “This circle is square” is contradictory, so it has to be false. An especially damaging form of contradiction is self-referential absurdity — which means a theory sets up a definition of truth that it itself fails to meet. Therefore it refutes itself . . . . An example of self-referential absurdity is a theory called evolutionary epistemology, a naturalistic approach that applies evolution to the process of knowing. The theory proposes that the human mind is a product of natural selection. The implication is that the ideas in our minds were selected for their survival value, not for their truth-value.
But what if we apply that theory to itself? Then it, too, was selected for survival, not truth — which discredits its own claim to truth. Evolutionary epistemology commits suicide.
Astonishingly, many prominent thinkers have embraced the theory without detecting the logical contradiction. Philosopher John Gray writes, “If Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true,… the human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth.” What is the contradiction in that statement?
Gray has essentially said, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it “serves evolutionary success, not truth.” In other words, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it is not true.
Self-referential absurdity is akin to the well-known liar’s paradox: “This statement is a lie.” If the statement is true, then (as it says) it is not true, but a lie.
Another example comes from Francis Crick. In The Astonishing Hypothesis, he writes, “Our highly developed brains, after all, were not evolved under the pressure of discovering scientific truths but only to enable us to be clever enough to survive.” But that means Crick’s own theory is not a “scientific truth.” Applied to itself, the theory commits suicide.
Of course, the sheer pressure to survive is likely to produce some correct ideas. A zebra that thinks lions are friendly will not live long. But false ideas may be useful for survival. Evolutionists admit as much: Eric Baum says, “Sometimes you are more likely to survive and propagate if you believe a falsehood than if you believe the truth.” Steven Pinker writes, “Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.” The upshot is that survival is no guarantee of truth. If survival is the only standard, we can never know which ideas are true and which are adaptive but false.
To make the dilemma even more puzzling, evolutionists tell us that natural selection has produced all sorts of false concepts in the human mind. Many evolutionary materialists maintain that free will is an illusion, consciousness is an illusion, even our sense of self is an illusion — and that all these false ideas were selected for their survival value.
[–> that is, responsible, rational freedom is undermined. Cf here William Provine in his 1998 U Tenn Darwin Day keynote:
Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . .
The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will [–> without responsible freedom, mind, reason and morality alike disintegrate into grand delusion, hence self-referential incoherence and self-refutation. But that does not make such fallacies any less effective in the hands of clever manipulators] . . . [1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address, U of Tenn — and yes, that is significant i/l/o the Scopes Trial, 1925]
So how can we know whether the theory of evolution itself is one of those false ideas? The theory undercuts itself.
A few thinkers, to their credit, recognize the problem. Literary critic Leon Wieseltier writes, “If reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? … Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.”
On a similar note, philosopher Thomas Nagel asks, “Is the [evolutionary] hypothesis really compatible with the continued confidence in reason as a source of knowledge?” His answer is no: “I have to be able to believe … that I follow the rules of logic because they are correct — not merely because I am biologically programmed to do so.” Hence, “insofar as the evolutionary hypothesis itself depends on reason, it would be self-undermining.” [ENV excerpt, Finding Truth (David C. Cook, 2015) by Nancy Pearcey.]>>
No prizes for guessing why we will never see that in a critical thinking curriculum reader.
We might want to probe a tad more on how that self-undermining comes to be. Here on will help.
Famed evolutionary theorist J B S Haldane long since gave us a short summary, one suitable for memorisation and putting on the table to open up room for serious discussion:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
This was tellingly, inadvertently echoed by Crick in his 1994 The Astonishing Hypothesis:
. . . that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.
No wonder ID thinker Philip Johnson commented that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: “I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” Johnson then acidly commented: “[[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [Reason in the Balance, 1995.]
Of course, such matters are strictly verboten, and will be militantly dismissed or distracted from. But that does not change their force: an evolutionary materialist account of mind and intellect is inherently self-defeating, self refuting and necessarily false.
This can be suppressed or brushed aside, and such is routinely done.
Indeed, Darwin is on record as trying to turn this around to deflect criticisms of his theory:
>>People are sometimes under the impression that Darwin himself recognized the problem. They typically cite Darwin’s famous “horrid doubt” passage where he questions whether the human mind can be trustworthy if it is a product of evolution: “With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.”
But, of course, Darwin’s theory itself was a “conviction of man’s mind.” So why should it be “at all trustworthy”?
Surprisingly, however, Darwin never confronted this internal contradiction in this theory. Why not? Because he expressed his “horrid doubt” selectively — only when considering the case for a Creator.
From time to time, Darwin admitted that he still found the idea of God persuasive. He once confessed his “inward conviction … that the Universe is not the result of chance.” It was in the next sentence that he expressed his “horrid doubt.” So the “conviction” he mistrusted was his lingering conviction that the universe is not the result of chance.
In another passage Darwin admitted, “I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man.” Again, however, he immediately veered off into skepticism: “But then arises the doubt — can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?”
That is, can it be trusted when it draws “grand conclusions” about a First Cause? Perhaps the concept of God is merely an instinct programmed into us by natural selection, Darwin added, like a monkey’s “instinctive fear and hatred of a snake.”
In short, it was on occasions when Darwin’s mind led him to a theistic conclusion that he dismissed the mind as untrustworthy. He failed to recognize that, to be logically consistent, he needed to apply the same skepticism to his own theory . . . .
Applied consistently, Darwinism undercuts not only itself but also the entire scientific enterprise. Kenan Malik, a writer trained in neurobiology, writes, “If our cognitive capacities were simply evolved dispositions, there would be no way of knowing which of these capacities lead to true beliefs and which to false ones.” Thus “to view humans as little more than sophisticated animals …undermines confidence in the scientific method.”
Just so. Science itself is at stake. John Lennox, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, writes that according to atheism, “the mind that does science … is the end product of a mindless unguided process. Now, if you knew your computer was the product of a mindless unguided process, you wouldn’t trust it. So, to me atheism undermines the rationality I need to do science.”
Of course, the atheist pursuing his research has no choice but to rely on rationality, just as everyone else does. The point is that he has no philosophical basis for doing so. Only those who affirm a rational Creator have a basis for trusting human rationality.
The reason so few atheists and materialists seem to recognize the problem is that, like Darwin, they apply their skepticism selectively . . .>>
It is much harder to actually answer.
Reppert’s analysis in terms of brain states may also be helpful, for those who are still puzzled as to what such arguments mean:
>>. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [[But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [[so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.>>
. . . especially if we bear in mind Smith’s two-tier controller cybernetic model of the brain-body loop and the potential impact of quantum level influences on brain action:
The Derek Smith two-tier controller cybernetic model
In short, despite pretence otherwise and dominance in institutions, curricula and media messages, the dominant and domineering ideology of evolutionary materialist scientism is foundationally fatally cracked, self falsifying and utterly intellectually bankrupt.
Let us bear that in mind — never mind, that will be locked out of the classroom — as we deal with the question of the reasonableness of believing in an inherently good Creator God and necessary being root of reality (which we next need to explore). END
