One neuroscientist doesn’t seem to understand the problems the idea raises
Darwinian theory could account for non-physical consciousness if consciousness were caused by the brain—that is, if non-physical consciousness were a property of brain activity and thus inextricably linked to brain activity. In that case, the argument is that the brain evolved and consciousness was dragged along because it is linked to brain activity.
In this view, consciousness is an epiphenomenal property of the brain. Epiphenomenalism was first explicitly proposed by “Darwin’s bulldog” Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895). If consciousness were epiphenomenal to physical brain processes—as a sort of by-product, like smoke from a steam engine—what evolves is the brain. Does this satisfactorily explain the evolution of consciousness?
The problem with this epiphenomenal view of consciousness is that it renders the mind powerless. If consciousness is merely a property of the brain, it has no agency—no power to cause anything—in itself. Properties can’t do anything. For example, if you hit a nail with a yellow hammer, you hit it with the hammer, not with the yellow. Epiphenomenalism, which is the only framework by which an immaterial consciousness could evolve, asserts that what actually causes us to do things is brain activity. Consciousness is a useless spin-off.
Michael Egnor, “Did consciousness evolve?” at Mind Matters News
And then what becomes of theories based on consciousness, like Graziano’s?
Here’s the earlier article on Michael Graziano’s approach to consciousness: Neuroscientist Michael Graziano should meet the p-zombie. A p-zombie (a philosopher’s thought experiment) behaves exactly like a human being but has no first-person (subjective) experience. The meat robot violates no physical principles. Yet we KNOW we are not p-zombies. Think what that means.
And here is a selection of Dr. Egnor’s articles on consciousness:
In one sense, consciousness IS an illusion. We have no knowledge of the processes of our consciousness, only of the objects of its attention, whether they are physical, emotional, or abstract
Does Your Brain Construct Your Conscious Reality? Part I A reply to computational neuroscientist Anil Seth’s recent TED talk
and
Does Your Brain Construct Your Conscious Reality? Part II In a word, no. Your brain doesn’t “think”; YOU think, using your brain
Epiphenomenal, If the consciousness was Epiphenomenal and simply a property of of the brain it has no impact, how does the brain record its existence? Every memory you have is of the subjective experience of you and through you
If it was just a property it would be recorded it would have no impact the very fact that it is recorded as a immediate physical impact on your brain as DNA is broken inside each one of the neurons to record your life through your subjective self and you are recorded in such
Your brain is shaped and wired through your subjective experience and it is recorded that way in that physical meet between your ears
Young philosopher said that on YouTube of all things not all of it just the fact that Epiphenomenal Is a hypocritical position to see that the mind and subjective self has no impact yet your brain records immediately
As to this comment from Dr. Egnor:
And to add empirical support for Dr. Egnor’s claim, there is now found to be a mysterious ‘higher dimensional’ (4-Dimensional) component to life. As the following article states, “A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling.”
And as Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini stated in their book, “What Darwin Got Wrong”, “The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection. It’s inconceivable that so many different organisms, spanning different kingdoms and phyla, may have blindly ‘tried’ all sorts of power laws and that only those that have by chance ‘discovered’ the one-quarter power law reproduced and thrived.”
The reason why these universal and as uniquely biological ’4-Dimensional’ quarter power scaling laws are impossible for Darwinian evolution to explain is that Natural Selection operates at the 3-Dimensional level of the organism and the ’4-Dimensional’ quarter power scaling law are simply ‘invisible’ to natural selection. The reason why 4-Dimensional things are, for all practical purposes, completely invisible to 3-Dimensional things is best demonstrated by the illustration of ‘flatland’:
And the reason why life is is based on 4-Dimensional principles rather than 3-Dimensional principles is because life is constrained to be so far out of thermodynamic equilibrium by immaterial information.
The information content that is found to be in a simple one cell bacterium, when working from the thermodynamic perspective, is found to be around 10 to the 12 bits,,,
And indeed, immaterial information is now shown to have a quote/unquote ‘thermodynamic content’.
In 2010 the Maxwell’s demon thought experiment, which was originally devised by James Clerk Maxwell in 1867, was finally experimentally realized. As the following paper highlights, it has now been experimentally demonstrated that knowledge of a particle’s location and/or position converts information into energy.
And as the following 2010 article stated about the preceding experiment, “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,”
And as the following 2017 article states: James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,,
quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,,
Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
Again to repeat that last sentence,“Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
That statement about entropy being a property of an observer who describes the system, for anyone involved in the ID vs. Darwinism debate, ought to send chills down their scientific spine.
Simply put, these developments go to the very heart of the ID vs. Evolution debate and directly falsify, number one, Darwinian claims that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from some material basis. And number two, these experimental realizations of the Maxwell’s demon thought experiment go even further and also directly validate a primary claim from ID proponents that an Intelligent Designer who imparts information into a biological system is necessary in order to circumvent the second law.
Moreover, in regards to immaterial consciousness itself, (as compared to immaterial information), the following article states, “Brain is one of the most energy demanding organs in mammals, and its total metabolic rate scales with brain volume raised to a power of around 5/6. This value is significantly higher than the more common exponent 3/4 (4- dimensional Quarter Power Scaling) relating whole body resting metabolism with body mass and several other physiological variables in animals and plants.,,,”
If natural selection, ‘via flatland’. cannot possibly ‘see’ the immaterial information that is constraining life to 4-Dimensional parameters, then it is that much more ludicrous to presuppose that natural selection, (in so far that natural selection can even be said to exist), would ‘see’ something that is operating on ‘6 Dimensional’ parameters. The most parsimonious explanation for such a optimal, 6 Dimensional, constraint on the brain’s metabolic activity is that the material brain was designed, first and foremost, to house the immaterial mind and give the immaterial mind the most favorable metabolic environment at all times.
As to this comment from Dr. Egnor:
i.e. If epiphenomenalism is true then free will is false. Yet free will is not false but is empirically shown to be true:
Moreover, due to advances in quantum mechanics, the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this:
Quote and verse:
Is this correct logical reasoning? I would like it to be, but it seems to me it may be an example of the hasty generalization fallacy. This fallacy occurs when someone draws expansive conclusions based on inadequate or insufficient evidence. In other words, they jump to conclusions about the validity of a proposition with some – but not enough – evidence to back it up, and overlook potential counterarguments.
The possibility that unconscious p-zombies could exist and be consistent with physical science (for instance some sort of very advanced AI which nearly perfectly mimics consciousness) doesn’t seem to me to logically imply that actual real examples of consciousness (namely us) must necessarily be inconsistent with physical science. Note: I do think that consciousness is actually inconsistent with (present or future) physical science, because it is basically immaterial, of an entirely other (and higher) realm of existence. But really establishing that proposition is much more difficult.
Doubter, to bring a little more clarity to this topic it is important to elucidate just what mental attributes of the immaterial mind are detectable by science and which are not.
Dr. Michael Egnor, who is a neurosurgeon as well as professor of neurosurgery at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, states six properties of immaterial mind that are irreconcilable to the view that the mind is just the material brain. Those six properties are, “Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,,”
You can read more in-depth definitions of each of the six properties of immaterial mind in Dr. Egnor’s article.
Likewise, J. Warner Wallace has a very similar list, (but not an exact match to Dr. Egnor’s list), of six properties of immaterial mind that are irreconcilable with reductive materialism.
Of those six attributes of the immaterial mind, I will focus on Qualia, Persistence of Self-Identity through time (which may also be termed ‘the experience of ‘the Now”), and free will, respectfully.
First off, we will examine the mental attribute of qualia, which many consider the centermost piece of the consciousness. An attribute which refuses to be reduced to any possible materialistic explanation, and which also refuses to find any correlation with our present day experiments in quantum mechanics.
With the specific mental attribute of qualia, it is often pointed out to reductive materialists, with what is termed “the hard problem” of consciousness, that the specific mental attribute of qualia, which is defined as being the inner subjective conscious experience of exactly what something may feel or look like to us personally,,,
,,,it is often pointed out to reductive materialists that the specific mental attribute of qualia is forever be beyond the scope of any possible materialistic explanation and/or any possible physical examination.
As Frank Jackson made clear in his philosophical argument ‘Mary’s Room’, no amount of scientific and physical examination on Mary’s part will ever reveal to Mary exactly what the inner subjective conscious experience of the color blue actually is until Mary actually experiences what the color blue is for herself.
Likewise, no amount of us knowing exactly what state a material brain may be in, whether it be by MRI brain scans or whatever, will ever be able to reveal to us exactly how something may feel or look like to someone else personally.
As David Chalmers has pointed out with the philosophical zombie argument, for all we know, the person we are talking to, or even the person that we are examining with all our scientific instruments, could hypothetically be a philosophical zombie who has no inner subjective conscious experience whatsoever and that the philosophical zombie we are examining may just robotically be giving us correct answers that seem appropriate to any situation that we may be asking the philosophical zombie about.
Materialists simply do not have any realistic clue how anything material could ever generate the inner subjective consciousness experience of qualia. Here are a few quotes that make that point clear.
As Professor of Psychology David Barash states in the following article, an article which happens to be entitled “the hardest problem in science?”, “But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can’t even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don’t even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run.”
In fact, the hard problem of consciousness is such a hard problem for reductive materialists to try to explain that many leading materialistic scientists (and philosophers), have resigned themselves to the absurd claim that ‘consciousness is just an illusion’ and that it does not really even exist at all.
And whereas consciousness in general, and qualia specifically, absolutely refuses to be reducible to any possible materialistic explanation, and/or to any possible physical examination, and also refuses to reveal itself to us in our present day experiments with quantum mechanics,,,
,,, the other mental attributes that I listed from Dr. Egnor’s list of ‘Persistence of Self-Identity through time’ (which may also be termed ‘the experience of ‘the Now”), and of ‘free will’, although being irreconcilable with reductive materialism, nonetheless, both of those defining attributes of immaterial mind that Dr. Egnor listed, unlike qualia, do make their presence known to us in recent experimental evidence from quantum mechanics.
As to defining the specific mental attribute of the ‘Persistence of Self-Identity through time’ (and/or ‘the experience of ‘the Now”) in particular, it is first important to note that we each have a unique perspective of being outside of time. In fact we each seemingly watch from some mysterious outside perspective of time as time seemingly passes us by. Simply put, we seem to be standing on an island of ‘now’ as the river of time continually flows past us.
In the following video, Dr. Suarez states that the irresolvable dilemma for reductive materialists as such, “it is impossible for us to be ‘persons’ experiencing ‘now’ if we are nothing but particles flowing in space time. Moreover, for us to refer to ourselves as ‘persons’, we cannot refer to space-time as the ultimate substratum upon which everything exists, but must refer to a Person who is not bound by space time. (In other words) We must refer to God!”
In further defining the mental attribute of ‘the experience of the now’, in the following article Stanley Jaki states that “There can be no active mind without its sensing its existence in the moment called now.,,, ,,,There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future. The mind remains identical with itself while it lives through its momentary nows.”
And ‘the experience of ‘the now” also happens to be exactly where Albert Einstein got into trouble with leading philosophers of his day and also happens to be exactly where Einstein eventually got into trouble with quantum mechanics itself. Around 1935, Einstein was asked by Rudolf Carnap (who was a philosopher):
Einstein’s answer was categorical, he said:
And here is an article that goes into bit more detail of that specific encounter between Einstein and Rudolf Carnap:
Prior to that encounter with Carnap, Einstein also had another disagreement with another famous philosopher, Henri Bergson, over what the proper definition of time should be (Bergson was also very well versed in the specific mental attribute of ‘the experience of the now’). In fact, that disagreement with Henri Bergson over what the proper definition of time should actually be was one of the primary reasons that Einstein failed to ever receive a Nobel prize for his work on relativity:
The specific statement that Einstein made to Carnap on the train, “The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.” was a very interesting statement for Einstein to make to the philosopher since “The experience of ‘the now’ has, from many recent experiments in quantum mechanics, established itself as very much being a defining part of our physical measurements in quantum mechanics.
For instance, the following delayed choice experiment with atoms demonstrated that, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”
Likewise, the following violation of Leggett’s inequality stressed the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.
Quantum Mechanics also now shows that Stanley Jaki’s contention that “There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future” is confirmed by recent experimental breakthroughs in quantum mechanics.
As to the ability of the mind to extend from its experience of the now to past moments in time, in recent experiments in quantum mechanics, it is now found that “quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events”
And as the following 2017 article states, “a decision made in the present can influence something in the past.”
And to drive the point further home, in the following 2018 article Professor Crull provocatively states “entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted,,, it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.”
In further confirmation of Stanley Jaki’s contention that, “There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future.”, in further confirmation of that contention, not only does “quantum mechanics show us that “a decision made in the present can influence something in the past.”, but quantum mechanics also shows us that our present conscious choices ultimately determine what type of future will be presented to us in our measurements of quantum systems.
As leading experimentalist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
As well, with contextuality we find that, “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation”
Thus, Stanley Jaki’s contention that “There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future.”, is now experimentally established to be true by the fact that “a decision made in the present can influence something in the past.” and is also established by the fact that, “We are not just passive observers,,, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure”.
Thus, to sum this section of this post up, recent experiments in quantum mechanics, contrary to what Einstein himself thought was possible for experimental physics, have now shown, in overwhelming fashion, that ‘the experience of the now’ is very much a part of experimental physics. In fact, due to advances in quantum mechanics, it would now be much more appropriate to rephrase Einstein’s answer to the philosopher Rudolph Carnap in this way:
Besides Einstein falsely believing that “The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.”, Einstein also falsely believed that he did not have the mental attribute of free will.
It is difficult for me to see how a genius of Einstein’s caliber could fall for the logically self-refuting fallacy of denying his own free will.
Moreover, despite Einstein’s logically self refuting belief that he had no free will, recent experimental evidence from quantum mechanics itself now also falsifies Einstein’s contention that he had no free will.
As Steven Weinberg, an atheist himself, states in the following article, In the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,
In fact Weinberg, again an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within. Yet, regardless of how he and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave.
For instance, this recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.
Moreover, although there have been several major loopholes in quantum mechanics over the past several decades that atheists have tried to appeal to in order to try to avoid the ‘spooky’ Theistic implications of quantum mechanics, over the past several years each of those major loopholes have each been closed one by one. The last major loophole that was left to be closed was the “setting independence” and/or the ‘free-will’ loophole:
And now Anton Zeilinger and company have recently, as of 2018, pushed the ‘free will loophole’ back to 7.8 billion years ago, thereby firmly establishing the ‘common sense’ fact that the free will choices of the experimenter in the quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal influences from the past for at least the last 7.8 billion years, and that the experimenters themselves are therefore shown to be truly free to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiments that he or she may so desire to choose so as to ‘logically’ probe whatever aspect of reality that he or she may be interested in probing.
Thus regardless of how Steven Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the universe to behave, with the closing of the last remaining free will loophole in quantum mechanics, “humans are indeed brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level”, and thus these recent findings from quantum mechanics directly undermine, as Weinberg himself stated, the “vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.”
Moreover, allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned,,,, (Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders),,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands (with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”.
Thus in conclusion, whilst the center most piece of immaterial mind, i.e. qualia, is inaccessible to scientific testing, (and therefore supports Dr. Egnor’s main claim that ‘p-zombies, who lack consciousness, are conceptually consistent with physical science’), none-the less, the mental attributes of ‘the experience of ‘the Now”, and free will, unlike qualia, are detectable to us in the science of quantum mechanics and the mental attribute of free will in particular even goes so far as to give the Christian Theist solid empirical support for his primary belief that Christ’s resurrection from the dead is the primary purpose for this universe’s existence.
preceding notes were condensed from this video:
I have a serious question. Does anyone really take Bornagain77 seriously? Does anybody actually read his cut-and-pasta spewage? Or do people just tolerate him as we do our “odd” relatives?
UD EDITORS: BUH BYE HUGH.
Hugh, here’s a clue: Come up with some serious arguments rather than using childish ad hominem attacks against a respected poster. Otherwise, YOU are the odd relative, and we won’t tolerate you for long.
Okay, first comment here on this site. Completely unrelated to the article (at least I think), I recently came across this math proof about the universe.
“Proof” that the universe cannot be formed by chance:
“Probability is equal to the number of tries (N) multiplied by the number of acceptable universes (A) over the number of possible universes (U). A universe is “acceptable” when it is capable of sustaining advanced chemistry (we’re assuming, for the atheist’s sake, that Reductionism is true). We can be generous here; assume that half of all possible universes are acceptable. Expressed mathematically: P=(N/1)(A/U)
The Proof:
1) P=(N)(1/2)*
2) The maximum number of tries is is in direct proportion to the amount of time available.
3) Time began to exist coincidentally with the universe(s), “before” the universe(s) there “was” no time.
4) (2 & 3) The maximum number of tries is zero
5) (1 & 4) Therefore, P=(0)(1/2)=0. The probability of the universe(s) being created by chance is zero.”
PLEASE NOTE: this is not my work. I’m pretty sure this is from http://www.theism.net/article/28. If you critique, please go after the proof, not me, because I am just asking if this is correct. I am really not savvy when it comes to math, so I was hoping some of you geniuses out there (IDers or Evolutionists/Darwinists, anyone is welcome) could analyze and gives your opinion.
OldArmy, are you suggesting that you have read and understood the thousands of words that Bornagain77 has posted in this thread? Maybe you could entertain us by summarizing in a few paragraphs what he has said.
And if you can, why can’t he?
At a wild guess, they become theories about the brain.
Hugh Kenneth claims that he does not understand anything I wrote. And even called my posts ‘spewage’.
First, I suggest to you Hugh that you do not attack me or any of the other commentators on UD personally. i.e. ad hominem. Secondly, if you honestly do not understand anything I wrote, point it out and I will try to help you understand it. But you complained that you were having trouble understanding EVERYTHING I wrote. I find this VERY hard to believe. You are, after-all, writing the English language. Thus, I find it very hard to believe that you are being honest about not understanding what I wrote. It is fairly obvious that you did not even read my posts, much less try to understand any part of them, but that your main purpose was merely to troll me.
Again, I suggest you not do that.
There are plenty of other atheistic sites where you can go and where you can troll to your hearts content.
i.e. Panda’s Thumb. Jerry Coyne’s blog, TSZ, PZ Myer’s blog, etc.. etc…
UD is NOT one of those sites!
LoL! @ Hugh Kenneth- At least bornagain77 doesn’t post ignorant spewage as you do- for example your response to my saying CO2 was not a pollutant was to spew nonsense about mercury, a toxic pollutant. And now all you can do is act like a child with respect to bornagain’s posts.
Why even bother posting seeing that you don’t have anything to add to the discussion?
I do appreciate very much the information-rich commentaries BA77 posts here. I encourage him to continue his contributions and disregard the cacophonous noise produced by those who seem confused and disoriented. Just pray for them.
HK, BA77 has more than earned his place in the community of frequent commenters at UD. Many who simply find fault and dismiss would be better advised to consider and then do some independent research for themselves informed by worldviews and first principles of reason considerations. KF
From the OP:” If consciousness is merely a property of the brain, it has no agency. Properties can’t do anything…”
A property can take the form of a process, and processes most definitely CAN do things.
BA77@5,6&7
Thanks for the detailed explication, especially the above. I have no significant disagreement.
Unfortunately, you don’t seem to have directly engaged with the specific problem I seem to have found with Dr. Egnor’s argument using the p-zombie. If I am wrong about this, could you explain how his argument is logically correct?
re 9: serious question to the UD editors. How can you justify getting rid of Hugh Kenneth fro what he wrote about bornagain77 when ET, to mention the obvious case, is much more insulting to multiple people on a regular basis. This looks like a large double standard to me.
I have never been quite as rude as KH was, but I have asked the same question: does anyone really read ba’s continual, repetitious long winded cut-and-paste posts? I doubt it.
So I don’t think “Buh bye Hugh” is justified.
hazel needs to grow up. I do not just attack people. I slap the losers who try to insult science, ID and other people. If you have any evidence to the contrary I will gladly read it. And if not then please just shut up.
And if people choose to be willfully ignorant and ignore bornagain’s posts then that is one them. Is it his fault that you and yours have the attention span of a gnat?
Life is so unfair.
Hazel
Your observation is accurate. Perhaps it should not be surprising that Team Ignorance has a mascot.
Actually, more than one.
Pater K:
You have a mascot? 😛
I googled Egnor to find out more about him, and ran into this neologism:
“Egnorance: The Egotistical Combination of Ignorance and Arrogance”
https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/03/egnorance-combo-arrogance.html
From hazel’s reference:
Natural selection is a process of elimination and not of selection, dude. Also it is non-random in a trivial way- that being not all individuals have the same chance of being eliminated. It is still all just contingent serendipity.
Question-begging and special pleading all in one sentence.
Total equivocation. When Dr. Egnor says “evolution” he is of course talking about blind watchmaker evolution and the claim that life’s diversity owes its collective common ancestry to some simple biological reproducers via blind and mindless processes.
So no, that “evolution” is not required for anything accept to somehow make some people feel better about themselves.
On Nobel Prizes related to evolution:
Not one of those had anything to do with blind watchmaker evolution. Moar equivocation.
It is very telling that hazel would post that link, though.
Doubter at 19 you state this and then ask,
Doubter the first part of your original argument in post 4 is this,
Doubter, although, when looking through the details of the mental attributes of ‘the experience of the now’ and free will, you are technically correct in claiming that Dr Egnor has made a hasty generalization in claiming that “consciousness is something outside the purview of physical science”, yet in the specific sense that Dr Egnor was using the word consciousness in his argument to refer to the specific mental attribute of qualia, Dr Egnor was correct in his argument. As I pointed out in post 5, the specific mental attribute of Qualia, from all science to date, is found to be “something outside the purview of physical science”. i.e. To be specific, Dr. Egnor’s argument is that philosophical zombies, (i.e. hypothetical people who have no inner subjective experience, who have no qualia), “are conceptually consistent with physical science”. There is simply nothing that physical science can tell us as to what the specific inner subjective experience of another person actually is.
As Frank Jackson made clear in his philosophical argument ‘Mary’s Room’, no amount of scientific and physical examination on Mary’s part will ever reveal to Mary exactly what the inner subjective conscious experience of the color blue actually is until Mary actually experiences what the color blue is for herself.
There simply is no amount of us knowing exactly what state a material brain may be in, whether it be by MRI brain scans or whatever, that will ever be able to reveal to us exactly how something may feel or look like to someone else personally.
Even quantum mechanics itself, as ‘spooky’ as quantum mechanics is, turns out to leave qualia, the centermost piece of consciousness, on the cutting room floor:
Thus Dr. Egnor’s argument, in so far as he was using consciousness to refer only to the mental attribute of qualia, is correct. He could have been a bit more specific I suppose and used the exact word qualia, but from the context in which Dr. Egnor used the word consciousness it is clear that qualia was exactly the specific mental attribute that he was talking about.
Doubter you then stated the second part of your objection to Dr. Egnor’s argument like this:
You objection here is a bit meatier. As I elucidated in posts 6 and 7, the immaterial mental attributes of ‘Persistence of Self-Identity through time’ (which may also be termed ‘the experience of ‘the Now”), and of ‘free will’, although being irreconcilable with reductive materialism, nonetheless, both of those defining attributes of immaterial mind, unlike qualia, do make their presence known to us in recent experimental evidence from quantum mechanics.
As to the specific immaterial mental attribute of free will in particular:
Steven Weinberg, an atheist himself, states in the following article, In the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,
In fact Weinberg, again an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within. Yet, regardless of how he and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave.
For instance, this recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.
As well, with contextuality we find that, “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation”
And as leading experimentalist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
In fact, Anton Zeilinger and company have now, as of 2018, pushed the ‘free will loophole’ back to 7.8 billion years ago, thereby firmly establishing the ‘common sense’ fact that the free will choices of the experimenter in the quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal influences from the past for at least the last 7.8 billion years, and that the experimenters themselves are therefore shown to be truly free to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiments that he or she may so desire to choose so as to ‘logically’ probe whatever aspect of reality that he or she may be interested in probing.
Thus regardless of how Steven Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the universe to behave, with the closing of the last remaining free will loophole in quantum mechanics, “humans are indeed brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level”, and thus these recent findings from quantum mechanics directly undermine, as Weinberg himself stated, the “vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.”
Thus in conclusion Doubter, you are correct in saying that “The possibility that unconscious p-zombies could exist and be consistent with physical science (for instance some sort of very advanced AI which nearly perfectly mimics consciousness) doesn’t seem to me to logically imply that actual real examples of consciousness (namely us) must necessarily be inconsistent with physical science.”
And indeed, humans are not “inconsistent with physical science”. To reiterate Weinberg, “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level”. What we humans are inconsistent with is with the reigning materialistic paradigm of science that holds to “a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.”
Thus Doubter, your intuition that humans are not inconsistent with physical science is correct. In fact humans are far more ‘consistent’ with physical science than we can possibly fully appreciate right now. The potential implications of “humans being brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” are truly staggering.
But still your objection to Dr. Egnor’s argument, since he was talking specifically about the mental attribute of qualia in particular, is not valid as far as present day science can tell us.
I hope that this helps clear up the misunderstanding between you and Dr. Egnor.
Pater Kimbridge@18
“A property can take the form of a process, and processes most definitely CAN do things.”
This is to completely and far too broadly redefine the word “property” to fit your agenda. This is invalid, like claiming powering a car is a “property” of the engine.
Scientific definition of “property”:
Another:
The scientific definition of “physical property”, at https://www.thoughtco.com/definition-of-physical-property-605911:
Properties interacting with other properties can create processes.
hazel:
Examples?
Example: Water, which has various properties, flows downhill and interacts with rocks and dirt, which also have properties, causing the process of erosion.
Oxygen has properties that facilitate the process of respiration.
LoL! What are the properties of oxygen that facilitate respiration? Do tell
hazel:
Water has the properties of matter that when it runs over other matter can alter it. So physical objects can alter other physical objects.
Pater said that “A property can take the form of a process”- that would mean a property in and of itself, hazel.
Try again.
A better example may be one of water being a solvent. It has that property. And the process of dissolving means it is doing something.
The question is- is it the property or the water that is doing the dissolving?
The water is doing the dissolving. Water is a real thing, and its properties are abstract generalizations that we have made based on observing water. There is a distinction between real things and our knowledge about those things.
Alrighty then. That means Egnor is right.
Water has the property of being a solvent in the form of the process of dissolution/ dissolving? Or is it just that the water has a property of being a solvent with the process incorporated into the definition of “solvent”?
That would then apply to all solvents. So the property describes the process? With the process being the actual way the thing is dissolved?
Heck with it. Methinks hazel is right and that Dr. Egnor is referring to the fact that properties are abstract.
Getting back to the original quote from Dr. Egnor:
The issue is really with the relation of mental phenomena or properties to physical properties, which gets down to philosophical argumentation.
Dr. Egnor’s words accurately reflect the definition of epiphenomenalism in philosophy of mind. From Wiki:
This is obviously contradicted by our observed ability to impact the world through mental decisions. We observe that our minds can and do physically change the world. Of course the epiphenomenalists’ rejoinder is that this is just an illusion, begging the question of why would our physical brains have bothered to evolve such an illusion mechanism given that they say the consciousness illusion can’t affect the physical brain.
Since mental phenomena like subjectivity and qualia can’t affect the physical brain and body (according to epiphenomenalism), they would not even be subject to evolution.
Epiphenomenalism is also simply self-contradictory: if we know about or or have the conception of epiphenomenalism in our thoughts, then our brains know about the existence of the mind. But if epiphenomenalism is correct, then our brains should not have any knowledge about the mind, because epiphenomenalism says the mind and mental phenomena are powerless to affect anything physical.
For that matter, knowledge of most kinds is impossible without a mental to physical causal chain, and something similar holds for justification, memory, meaning, and reference. How, for instance, could we say that John knows that there is orange juice in the fridge or that his belief that there is orange juice in the fridge is justified, if his belief were in no way causally connected to the fridge or the orange juice? And the causal relation does not have to be direct; it could be through other persons in the past.
ET
“Gaseous chemical element, symbol: O, atomic number: 8 and atomic weight 15,9994. It’s of great interest because it’s the essential element in the respiratory processes of most of the living cells and in combustion processes.”
LoL! Ed thinks that quoting something makes his case. Again:
What are the properties of oxygen that facilitate respiration? “Cuz it is an essential element in the respiratory process of most organisms”, is an “answer a child would give.
Is it its atomic weight of 15,9994? Hopefully not as it comes in pairs, ie dioxygen, in our atmosphere. Also pure oxygen “generally bad and sometimes toxic”. It could cause pulmonary fibrosis in otherwise healthy people.
Not to mention that by all naturalistic origin of life scenarios there has to be an anaerobic environment to get the process started. Anaerobic respiration once ruled.
ET
Buy a periodic table.
I own a periodic table, Ed. Did you have a point beyond your ignorance? The atomic weight of ONE oxygen atom is 15.999.
Look, it’s obvious that you don’t know what you are talking about, Ed. You spewed nonsense and got caught, again, as usual.
https://sciencenotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/PeriodicTableMuted2016.pdf
ET
I wasn’t the one suggesting that the atomic weight of oxygen is greater than 15.99… because oxygen generally found as O2. But if you want to keep insisting on this nonsense, please go ahead.
Ed George:
I never suggested that. Obviously you have reading comprehension issues.
That said, YOU are the moron who stated:
And FAILed, miserably, to support that claim.
What are the properties of oxygen that facilitate respiration?
Still waiting, loser.
I am surprised this is even a question. A quick Google search finds this:
The property of oxygen is that its electron configuration enables it to combine with other atoms to form molecules essential to cellular respiration.
hazel:
1- Glucose is a molecule, not an atom.
2- Carbon has an electron configuration that enables it to combine with other atoms
3- ATP synthesis is more than oxygen combining with glucose
The reaction is oxidization- the glucose is being oxidized into CO2 (OIL) and the oxygen is reduced into water (RIG). Clearly you had no idea what was going on, hazel. You just found a quote and went with it
So we are right back to- “Cuz it is an essential element in the respiratory process of most organisms” and:
Also pure oxygen is “generally bad and sometimes toxic”. It could cause pulmonary fibrosis in otherwise healthy people.
Not to mention that by all naturalistic origin of life scenarios there has to be an anaerobic environment to get the process started. Anaerobic respiration once ruled.
I am still puzzled by what the issue is, and also by ET’s hostility. I supplied a quote, which I understand, to show that, in my own words, “The property of oxygen is that its electron configuration enables it to combine with other atoms to form molecules essential to cellular respiration,” which I am sure is true.
To reply to ET’s points:
“1- Glucose is a molecule, not an atom.” True. But molecules are formed from atoms bonded together, and in any molecule that contains oxygen, the oxygen atoms are bonded to other atoms that are part of the molecule.
“2- Carbon has an electron configuration that enables it to combine with other atoms.” True, although not sure why you mentioned this, as this is true of all elements (although of course the inert gases have full electron shells so they don’t combine.)
The particular property of oxygen that is involved with bonding is that it only has six electrons, out of a possible eight, in its outer shell.
“3- ATP synthesis is more than oxygen combining with glucose.” Yes, I know that.
This is all high school science.
hazel:
What hostility?
Again, for the learning impaired:
The reaction is oxidization- the glucose is being oxidized into CO2 (OIL) and the oxygen is reduced into water (RIG). Clearly you had no idea what was going on, hazel. You just found a quote and went with it.
There isn’t any “oxygen combining with glucose”, hazel. Well unless you want to rewrite the definition of “combine”:
b
: to cause to unite into a chemical compound
combining hydrofluoric acid with soda ash to form sodium fluoride
c
: to unite into a single number or expression
Combine fractions and simplify.
So the issue is you don’t seem to understand high school science, hazel
From biologydictionary.net
Enough said, as I still don’t know what the disagreement is about, or why you think I don’t know what is going on.
hazel- Now the issue is the use of the word “combine” which does not go with the definition of the word.
Hmmm. The sentence I quoted above from biologydictionary.net used “combined”. This doesn’t seem like an issue to me.
By the way, I see the -> for the chemical reaction above printed as a ?, but I assume that didn’t cause any confusion.
hazel:
So you are unable to think for yourself. Got it.
Their use of the word does not follow the definition.
You are wrong, ET. In chemistry, combination refers to two or more atoms or molecules having a reaction that produces one or more different molecules. The formula that I offered in 50 is an example.
As for quoting, you offered definitions in 49 without attribution: where did you quote from?
Very often, words in science have different and/or more specialized meaning than their everyday usage. Try googling “chemical combination”.
I’ve been reviewing my chemistry (it’s been decades since I studied this). In some places, combination is used strictly for the situation where two atoms or molecules react to form a single substance, as ET has said. This is called a synthesis reaction.
Other kinds of reactions which involve more complicated situations, such as the formula I posted, have different names other than synthesis, so “combine” refers to just one kind of chemical reaction. However, other sites use the word “combine” to include all types of reactions, which may be less precise.
Therefore, my sentence in 46 should be amended to read, “The property of oxygen is that its electron configuration enables it to react
combinewith other atoms to form molecules essential to cellular respiration.hazel, you said:
It looks like you thought oxygen was added to glucose and not that there was a reaction that took place.
I see, and you are right: reacted with, not combined with, is much better.
Hazel
ET
Hazel is not the one who claims that Frequency = Wavelength.
So Ed George is in fact Acartia bogart/ William spearshake/ brother brian and a variety of other anti-science sock puppets. It is a total lie that Ed is OK with ID.
And yes, it is a fact that wavelength and frequency are interchangeable, ie equivalent, in certain contexts. For example you can discuss the absorption spectrum of CO2 in terms of the wavelengths or the frequencies and you are talking about the same thing. See also:
Frequency or equivalently wavelength.
And it is very telling that Eddie cannot make any case. What hostility, Ed? Is Captain Obvious the same as Captain Hostile?