Naturalism

Most people think we are more than just live bodies but what is the “more”? Frank Turek explains, Here are some types of dualism: 2. Varieties of Dualism: Ontology 2.1 Predicate dualism 2.2 Property Dualism 2.3 Substance Dualism 3. Varieties of Dualism: Interaction 3.1 Interactionism 3.2 Epiphenomenalism 3.3 Parallelism (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy) More. If you don’t think you are 99.44% chimpanzee nd that consciousness is an illusion, you might want to consider what sort of dualism you are. Hat tip: Ken Francis See also: Alternatives to dualism: Post-modern science: The illusion of consciousness sees through itself and From Scientific American: “we may all be alters—dissociated personalities— of universal consciousness.”

Moshe Averick, author of The Confused World of Modern Atheism (Mosaica Press, 2016), asks us to look at the facts: For those who lean towards secularism in the Western world, it is the Scientist who has taken over the role of the priest, clergyman, and medicine man. Men and women of Science are looked upon with a sort of awe and have been conferred with something akin to a demi-god status. They are the holders of hidden “mystical” knowledge and perform magical technological and medical feats. The simple fact, of course, is that scientists are no different than anyone else. … For those who actually believe that scientists – homo scientistus – exist on a higher, exalted plane than the rest of Read More ›

Some articles in science journals leave one wondering, that’s for sure. At Nature: Lethal aggression in Pan is better explained by adaptive strategies than human impacts Abstract: Observations of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) provide valuable comparative data for understanding the significance of conspecific killing. Two kinds of hypothesis have been proposed. Lethal violence is sometimes concluded to be the result of adaptive strategies, such that killers ultimately gain fitness benefits by increasing their access to resources such as food or mates1,2,3,4,5. Alternatively, it could be a non-adaptive result of human impacts, such as habitat change or food provisioning6,7,8,9. To discriminate between these hypotheses we compiled information from 18 chimpanzee communities and 4 bonobo communities studied over five Read More ›

The one that was supposed to waste traditional philosophy? At Mind Matters Today, Back in 1992, philosopher of mind Jerry Fodor said, “…we’re all materialists for much the reason that Churchill gave for being a democrat: the alternatives seem even worse. The new research project [science of mind] is therefore to reconcile our materialism to the psychological facts: to explain how something that is material through and through could have whatever properties minds actually do have…. Thinking of philosophical materialism as a science must have seemed like a step forward at the time. Over twenty-five years later, there have been dozens of theories of consciousness jostling for the podium, most of them “worse than wrong,” even in the eyes of Read More ›

From Michael Egnor at Mind Matters Today: The hallmark of human thought is meaning, and the hallmark of computation is indifference to meaning. That is, in fact, what makes thought so remarkable and also what makes computation so useful. You can think about anything, and you can use the same computer to express your entire range of thoughts because computation is blind to meaning. Thought is not merely not computation. Thought is the antithesis of computation. Thought is precisely what computation is not. Thought is intentional. Computation is not intentional. A reader may object at this point that the output of computation seems to have meaning. After all, the essay was typed on a computer. Yes, but all of the Read More ›

From design theorist William Dembski at Mind Matters Today: The computational literature on No Free Lunch theorems and Conservation of Information (see the work of David Wolpert and Bill Macready on the former as well as that of Robert J. Marks and myself on the latter) imply that all problem-solving algorithms, including such a master algorithm, must be adapted to specific problems. Yet a master algorithm must also be perfectly general, transforming AI into a universal problem solver. The No Free Lunch theorem and Conservation of Information demonstrate that such universal problem solvers do not exist. Yet what algorithms can’t do, humans can. True intelligence, as exhibited by humans, is a general faculty for taking wide-ranging, diverse abilities for solving Read More ›

From Carl Sagan: Consider this claim: as I walk along, time – as measured by my wristwatch or my ageing process – slows down. Also, I shrink in the direction of motion. Also, I get more massive. Who has ever witnessed such a thing? It’s easy to dismiss it out of hand. Here’s another: matter and antimatter are all the time, throughout the universe, being created from nothing. Here’s a third: once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street. They’re all absurd! But the first is a statement of special relativity, and the other two are consequences of quantum mechanics (vacuum Read More ›

Via Chad at Truth Bomb, quoting Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland, …you can’t get something from nothing…It’s as simple as that. If there were no God, then the history of the entire universe, up until the appearance of living creatures, would be a history of dead matter with no consciousness. You would not have any thoughts, beliefs, feelings, sensations, free actions, choices, or purposes. There would be simply one physical event after another physical event, behaving according to the laws of physics and chemistry…How then, do you get something totally different- conscious, living, thinking, feeling, believing creatures- from materials that don’t have that? That’s getting something from nothing! And that’s the main problem…However…if you begin with an infinite mind, then Read More ›

From Peter Gooding at The Conversation: A recent study showed that it is possible to diminish people’s belief in free will by simply making them read a science article suggesting that everything is predetermined. This made the participants’ less willing to donate to charitable causes (compared to a control group). This was only observed in non-religious participants, however. … It may therefore be unsurprising that some studies have shown that people who believe in free will are more likely to have positive life outcomes – such as happiness, academic success and better work performance . However, the relationship between free will belief and life outcomes may be complex so this association is still debated. … People using a philosophical definition Read More ›

A little while ago, UD’s News noted on the tenth anniversary of Louisiana’s science education law, and an exchange has developed on the significance of “methodological” and “philosophical” “naturalism” in science, education — and by implication society. A crucial issue is the July 2000 statement of the US National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) on science education and how it must be confined to naturalistic concepts and explanations. For cause, I have long marked up that statement as follows: >>PREAMBLE: All those involved with science teaching and learning should have a common, accurate view of the nature of science. Science is characterized by the systematic gathering of information through various forms of direct and indirect observations and the testing of this Read More ›

From Geoffrey Pullum at Chronicle of Higher Education: Plenty of linguists have expertise in the analysis of sign languages, and none of them have ever independently confirmed Koko’s incipient linguistic competence. Koko never said anything: never made a definite truth claim, or expressed a specific opinion, or asked a clearly identifiable question. Producing occasional context-related signs, almost always in response to Patterson’s cues, after years of intensive reward-based training, is not language use. Not even if it involves gestures that a genuine signer could employ in language use. Neither journalists nor laypeople will ever be convinced of that. Such is their yearning to believe that Koko had mastered language, and had things to say, and shared those things with Penny Read More ›

From Brian Gallagher at Nautilus: Certain features of human behavior recur regardless of culture. Does that mean that we are in some sense fine-tuned by natural selection to be a particular kind of creature? Nope, says Ian Tattersall, a paleontologist and the former chairman of the department of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History. The notion that evolutionary forces sculpted humans in a certain way is misleading. In fact, he says, it’s the biggest misapprehension about human origins. “We can basically blame evolution for our shortcomings and look upon ourselves as somewhat optimized, and therefore not have to change our behaviors,” he told Nautilus. “We are not the product of perfectionizing. We are, in many ways, totally accidental. Read More ›

Or just at the New York Times? From an op-ed by Steven Petrow at The New York Times: Do You Believe in Magic? I Do Talismans and amulets — objects believed to have magical powers — were once part of any self-respecting doctor’s medicine bag. More. Petrow, a writer, is a cancer survivor who is sure that a magical stuffed rabbit played a role. He tells us, And the use of medical talismans has persisted. Dr. William Bartholome, a pediatrician and bioethicist at Kansas University Medical Center, wrote prolifically about his struggle with metastatic esophageal cancer — and his collection of 40 frogs. “Bill’s frogs were totems or talismans that he believed brought him luck,” said Martha Montello, his friend Read More ›

From neurosurgeon Michael Egnor at Plough Quarterly: I watched the CAT scan images appear on the screen, one by one. The baby’s head was mostly empty. There were only thin slivers of brain – a bit of brain tissue at the base of the skull, and a thin rim around the edges. The rest was water. Her parents had feared this. We had seen it on the prenatal ultrasound; the CAT scan, hours after birth, was much more accurate. Katie looked like a normal newborn, but she had little chance at a normal life. She had a fraternal-twin sister in the incubator next to her. But Katie only had a third of the brain that her sister had. I explained Read More ›

From “Tyson” at the Bee: There are a lot of things we can learn from science. Did you know that the earth is round? It is round, and it is not flat. A lot of religions think the world is flat, but they are wrong. It is round. I know this because I am a scientist. More. We are informed that the Bee will soon feature an op-ed by Stephen Hawking as well … See also: March for Science: Neil DeGrasse Tyson thinks science denial dismantles democracy and Tyson bombshell: Universe likely just computer sim Twenty-first century, meet your science.