A robust defense of intelligent design in a liberal Catholic mag?

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 8, 2015

Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design}

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From National Catholic Register:

The Half-Truths of Materialist Evolution

COMMENTARY: Scientific study of the brain’s evolution exposes the non sequitur of mind-less evolution.

“The thing from which the world suffers just now more than any other evil,” wrote author and Catholic convert G.K. Chesterton, “is not the assertion of falsehood, but the endless and irrepressible repetition of half-truths.”

Jean-Paul Sartre emphasized freedom, but denied morality. Sigmund Freud stressed instinct, but suppressed the spiritual. Friedrich Nietzsche glorified the individual, but disdained the community. Karl Marx celebrated the community, but rejected the individual. Charles Darwin was enamored of empirical science, but excluded metaphysics.

It is an all-too common theme. Chesterton, himself, I am happy to note, was not speaking in half-truths. More.

…

The notion of intelligent design is the logical complement of scientific research. It offers a truth that has the salutary merit of not being a half-truth.

I hope the Catholic casuistry for naturalism crowd doesn’t get their hands on Donald Demarco.

Incidentally, Chesterton wrote an anti-Darwinism book as well.

Update: A friend advises that the Register is actually a fairly conservative Catholic newspaper, by comparison with the liberal National Catholic Reporter, but that said, conservative Catholic papers have hardly been very sympathetic to ID either. This is an unusually robust defense for any Catholic venue.

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Comments

as to this fallacious claim (out of many) of Red Herring Fish:
"And finally, there are real questions regarding how a causal consciousness can be consistent with the results of experiments by Libet, Wegner, and many others."
That claim, as is so common with claims from anti-theists, is simply false. Libet himself interpreted his findings as supporting free will:
Do Benjamin Libet's Experiments Show that Free Will Is an Illusion? - Michael Egnor - January 15, 2014 Excerpt: Materialists often invoke the experiments of Benjamin Libet when they deny free will.,,, (Yet) Libet himself was a strong defender of free will, and he interpreted his own experiments as validating free will. He noted that his subjects often vetoed the unconscious "decision" after the readiness potential appeared. ,,,"The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a voluntary act, but rather to control whether the act takes place. We may view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as 'bubbling up' in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and abort, with no act appearing." - Libet Libet even observed that his experimental confirmation of free will accorded with the traditional religious understanding of free will:,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/01/do_benjamin_lib081171.html
Libet was hardly alone:
Materialism of the Gaps - Michael Egnor (Neurosurgeon) - January 29, 2009 Excerpt: The evidence that some aspects of the mind are immaterial is overwhelming. It's notable that many of the leading neuroscientists -- Sherrington, Penfield, Eccles, Libet -- were dualists. Dualism of some sort is the most reasonable scientific framework to apply to the mind-brain problem, because, unlike dogmatic materialism, it just follows the evidence. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/01/materialism_of_the_gaps015901.html In The Wonder Of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind, Eccles and Robinson discussed the research of three groups of scientists (Robert Porter and Cobie Brinkman, Nils Lassen and Per Roland, and Hans Kornhuber and Luder Deeke), all of whom produced startling and undeniable evidence that a "mental intention" preceded an actual neuronal firing - thereby establishing that the mind is not the same thing as the brain, but is a separate entity altogether. http://books.google.com/books?id=J9pON9yB8HkC&pg=PT28&lpg=PT28 “As I remarked earlier, this may present an “insuperable” difficulty for some scientists of materialists bent, but the fact remains, and is demonstrated by research, that non-material mind acts on material brain.” Sir John Eccles - Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1963 - (as quoted in Cousins, 1985, pp. 61-62,85-86)
The Libet experiments, which materialists, in spite of Libet's claim to the contrary, falsely thought supported their 'no free will' position, is debunked here:
Random Brain Waves Save Free Will? - November 15, 2013 Excerpt: A new paper adds to the perennial free will debate, by casting doubt on the famous Libet experiment. Back in 1983, neuroscientists led by Benjamin Libet found that, about two seconds before someone presses a button ‘of their own free will’, a negative electrical potential – dubbed the Readiness Potential (RP) – began to build up in the cortex. Their EEG study showed that the brain seemed to have ‘decided’ before the conscious mind did – bad news for free will. Since then, the meaning of the RP has been extensively debated. But the new study by Han-Gue Jo and colleagues of Freiburg makes a strong case that the “RP” is not really a ‘thing’ at all. They say that, in the two seconds before a button press, you see both negative and positive changes, in roughly equal numbers. There are slightly more negative ones, so on average, there is a small negative “RP”, but only on average. Almost half the button presses were not preceded by a negative potential, yet the button still got pressed – which means that the negative “RP” can’t directly reflect the decision to press.,,, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2013/11/15/free-will/
Of related note:
Do Conscious Thoughts Cause Behavior? -Roy F. Baumeister, E. J. Masicampo, and Kathleen D. Vohs - 2010 Excerpt: The evidence for conscious causation of behavior is profound, extensive, adaptive, multifaceted, and empirically strong. http://carlsonschool.umn.edu/assets/165663.pdf
And, to reference this finding once again, the evidence that 'conscious causation' is real is also, in rather dramatic fashion, now established by Schwartz's work in brain plasticity:
The Case for the Soul - InspiringPhilosophy - (4:03 minute mark, Brain Plasticity including Schwartz's work) - Oct. 2014 - video The Mind is able to modify the brain (brain plasticity). Moreover, Idealism explains all anomalous evidence of personality changes due to brain injury, whereas physicalism cannot explain mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsI_ay8K70
In fact not only is the mind now shown to be able to have a pronounced effect on the physical structure of the brain, but the mind is now also shown to have pronounced effects all the way down to the genetic level of the body:
Scientists Finally Show How Your Thoughts Can Cause Specific Molecular Changes To Your Genes, - December 10, 2013 Excerpt: “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice,” says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs,” says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted.,,, the researchers say, there was no difference in the tested genes between the two groups of people at the start of the study. The observed effects were seen only in the meditators following mindfulness practice. In addition, several other DNA-modifying genes showed no differences between groups, suggesting that the mindfulness practice specifically affected certain regulatory pathways. http://www.tunedbody.com/scientists-finally-show-thoughts-can-cause-specific-molecular-changes-genes/
The preceding finding is simply completely inexplicable, and unexpected, for atheists/materialists! i.e. We are not such helpless victims of our genes that materialists such as Richards Dawkins (selfish gene) would have us believe! Thus we have very dubious, and now overturned, evidence that was highjacked from Libet in the first place to try to support the materialists position for 'no free will' (why does that 'highjacked evidence' not surprise me?), whereas on the other hand we have very strong empirical support for the Theist's contention that conscious causation is real not only in the brain but in the body as well. Thus once again Red Fish is found to be disingenuous to the empirical evidence just so as to try to support his preferred anti-theistic philosophy. Of related note, Mental Intention is also shown to have an effect outside the body (although of a much less pronounced effect than inside the body):
Dean Radin - Random Number Generators correlate to intention - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFULrlxTFsA
bornagain77_{February 12, 2015
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I’s glad we’ve had this exchange. It turns out are positions are not that far apart. Who knew?
Barry: But the materialist does not get to resort to that explanation [God]. Indeed; he has specifically rejected it. So tell me Fish, what else is there besides particles, space and time? I am truly curious. Fish: Well there’s also dark matter and dark energy, plus a few forces, some physical constants, some equations describing how small systems evolve over time with implications that challenge realism, locality, and causality, and some other equations that describe the large-scale geometry of spacetime and its interaction with mass/energy. That’s only what we’ve got so far, except for untethered speculations about extra dimensions, multiple universes, and the like.
OK, let’s review. The materialist has (1) matter/energy; (2) space; and (3) time Dark matter is (1) Dark energy is (1) “A few forces” so vague as to be meaningless; I grant that there are “forces” out there. Four fundamental ones to be precise. And all they are is observed regularities about how particles move through space time. They are not some “thing” in addition to (1), (2) and (3). Physical constants. Again, not some “thing” in addition to (1), (2) and (3). Equations. Ditto. I expected an answer like this. After all of the dust settles the materialist is left with particles in motion through space/time. Now we need to account for your resistance to that rather obvious conclusion. My theory -- you know your monism cannot hold up under scrutiny. Your options: (1) become a dualist. (2) Resort to woo and speculation about esoteric but unspecified "forces" to do the heavy lifting that spirit does for the dualist. Both require faith. You prefer the more irrational kind. OK. To each his own.Barry Arrington_{February 12, 2015
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RED Herring Fish, the reigning 'crackpot' on this thread is you. You yourself disingenuously called Hameroff, who believes in life after death because of the evidence from quantum mechanics, a 'materialist'. That renders the term materialist, as you yourself admitted, meaningless. But regardless of that admission, you yourself tried to use that 'meaningless" term, so as to try undermine Mr. Arrington's argument. DUH! That is YOU, not anyone else I have ever seen, severely abusing the term 'materialist' for your own ends. The term materialist to everyone with a lick of common sense means someone who believes the material realm is primary and the transcendent realm is illusory. Despite how much smarter you think you are than you actually are, you don't get to redefine words in such a radical fashion so to make the words refute themselves in their common usage, and just so that it makes your preferred philosophical view of reality (atheism) more plausible in a debate. As that and other instances on this very thread make clear, you have no clue how to properly evaluate the scientific evidence in a consistent manner as to any overarching philosophical concerns. In fact IMHO, you are driven to be disingenuous to the scientific evidence is such a radical fashion because of your philosophical desire to 'be against' Theism no matter what (even if you have to radically redefine words to do so).bornagain77_{February 12, 2015
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Hi Barry,
Yes, yes, I’ve seen Dennett’s “consciousness is like an optical illusion” analogy many times. It explains precisely nothing. It is little more than saying illusion is possible; therefore it is possible that consciousness is an illusion. OK; even if I grant that, it does not follow that consciousness is an illusion.
Sorry, but have you already forgotten that I agree on this point? I've mentioned it multiple times now, for example when I said "I disagree with his philosophy" @59? The only thing I said about Dennett is that he doesn't deny that minds exist, not that he's right about conscious awareness being an illusion.
By the way, Fish, who is being deceived by the illusion? Dennett’s entire project is one massive assertion based on his religious predilections. He demonstrates nothing.
You're making me laugh here - both you and ba77 fling these arguments at me that have nothing to do with what I think, no matter how many times I tell you otherwise. It's as though you have no response to the points I make, so you decide to respond to points I don't make! I even wrote that I agreed with you that he "doesn't write the truth" and that he "writes his delusions pithily". How much more clear could I have been?
RDF: we are not assuming dualism is correct (or if you are, you are simply begging the question) BA: Why not? Dennett assumes the opposite on an a priori basis.
In that case, I suggest you go argue with Dennett. You certainly don't seem to be able to argue with me, since all you do is ignore my position and fight with Dennett's instead. If you would like to simply assume that interactionist dualism is true, then be my guest - we will at least be clear regarding your epistemology.
It [dualism] is merely the most plausible explanation.
You have merely asserted this, not argued it.
And there is some force to the obvious criticism that I am accepting it as an inexplicable brute fact. I cannot explain it.
There are more problems than that. If you're talking about the sort of dualism ba77 here is advocating for, then you have the interaction problem, for starters. (Pineal gland, perhaps?) Also, since we cannot objectively characterize consciousness, either mathematically or even verbally/conceptually, it isn't even clear what brute fact you believe you are accepting in dualism. And finally, there are real questions regarding how a causal consciousness can be consistent with the results of experiments by Libet, Wegner, and many others.
But I know I am in here; you know you are in there. Denying that fact does neither of us any good. There may never be a satisfactory explanation. Nagel has thrown up his hands while he waits for nothing less that the next scientific resolution. He’s a lot smarter than I. Why can’t I throw up my hands. That is why they call it a hard problem after all.
Ok, this is really funny. Barry, you have just described my position exactly. We are in violent agreement here.
Dennett is the ultimate reductionist.
Yes.
I should have said that every materialist who is logically coherent has said that the mind is an epiphenomenon of the electro-chemical processes of the brain for the simple reason that, for the materialist, that exhausts the possibilities.
No, you're still wrong about this. Dennett is a functionalist, and thinks it makes no difference what sort of physical processes are involved. Searle disagrees vehemently, and argues that the specific biological processes that occur in the brain are what produce consciousness. Other people think that exotic physics must be involved. And still other people - like me, and Nagel - simply acknowledge that we have no idea whatsoever about how consciousness arises.
An appeal to quantum woo is a sound refutation?
Oh, brother. It was actually ba77 who appealed to woo, not me. Here - instead of you, like BA77, endlessly building these strawmen and knocking them down, I will repeat exactly what my position is:
HERE IS WHAT I THINK (repeated from @69): 1) “Easy” problem: thought, by which I mean mental abilities (reasoning, problem solving, language, etc) 2) Hard problem: consciousness, by which I mean our subjective phenomenological experience of awareness As for (1), it’s clear that we use our brains for thinking, so without a brain, we could not accomplish any of these mental tasks. It is not clear whether or not the neural processes we currently understand can ever fully account for our ability to think; it’s possible that certain mental tasks are not Turing-computible. It is also possible that our brains utilize aspects of physics that we do not currently understand, or in ways we don’t understand. As for (2), nobody has any understanding about conscious awareness other than our direct experience of it. Nobody knows what the sufficient conditions for consciousness are, although we do have some understanding of various physiological correlates of consciousness. Nobody knows if our conscious will is causal (we decide to do something and make it happen by conscious free will) or if it is perceptual (as the Libet and Wegner studies suggest – but of course do not prove). Apart from very poor evidence from paranormal psychology, the vast (huge!) preponderance of evidence indicates that conscious awareness, like thought, critically depends upon neural function, but again nobody can even imagine how consciousness arises from brain function. It may be that our minds (our thinking) are not capable of understanding the nature of consciousness at all.

So what do we have? We have energy/matter (which we will call for convenience sake “particles”). We have space. We have time. I also have God.
But if you have God, doesn't that mean you don't need the rest of it? After all, you could explain anything with God alone if you wanted to without contradiction.
And for that reason dualism is the best explanation.
I missed the reason... was it because you have God? That is why dualism is the best explanation?
But the materialist does not get to resort to that explanation. Indeed; he has specifically rejected it. So tell me Fish, what else is there besides particles, space and time? I am truly curious.
Well there's also dark matter and dark energy, plus a few forces, some physical constants, some equations describing how small systems evolve over time with implications that challenge realism, locality, and causality, and some other equations that describe the large-scale geometry of spacetime and its interaction with mass/energy. That's only what we've got so far, except for untethered speculations about extra dimensions, multiple universes, and the like. But the important point here is that we already know that this understanding is radically incomplete. We have no unified theory of everything. Moreover, we have no conceptual understanding of the quantum effects (the ones ba77 loves) that we can describe and predict mathematically with QM. So we have no understanding of how the world actually operates at the smallest levels, and atoms are not things. Maybe when we figure out how it all really goes together we will be able to understand what consciousness actually is and how it relates to the outside world (if there even is an "outside world"). But quantum woo like ba77's "consciousness collapses the waveform" has nothing to do with science, and his efforts to start with pop physics and end with Christian theology adds a good deal to the crackpot factor of this forum. Nobody has solved the measurement problem, and nobody has solved the mind/body problem, and those have been my points to ba77 all along. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{February 12, 2015
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Hi ba77,
you have no clue what you are debating about scientifically and that you are thus inept at empirically backing up any of your philosophical claims that apparently only you understand. For instance, you claimed that Hameroff was a materialist. “Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff are “materialists””
Here was the actual quote of mine @79 that you shamelessly mined by leaving off the qualification:
RDF: Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff are “materialists” (I suppose – that term is abused to the point of meaninglessness as well)
As everyone here can see, I put "materialist" in scare quotes, and explicitly qualified my remark to indicate that there is no clear meaning to that term and various materialists may not all agree on everything. Then you point out that Hameroff believes in the possibility of life after death. Ok, fine, so what? You yourself don't even say that this means they aren't materialists! Rather, you say this @80:
BA77:You decide that whether or not they are materialists, they are not at least "materialists" in the traditional sense.
So you weren't sure if they were materialists or not @80... until now, when you decide that I have made a gigantic blunder by calling them materialists, proving my ineptitude at emprically backing up my claims :-) Give it a rest, junior. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{February 12, 2015
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Rd Herring Fish, let's agree that you have no clue what you are debating about scientifically and that you are thus inept at empirically backing up any of your philosophical claims that apparently only you understand. For instance, you claimed that Hameroff was a materialist. "Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff are “materialists”" Yet, I cited a video and article showing Hameroff arguing, from empirical evidence, for life after death. Well by golly Red Herring Fish, if you are so flexible in your definitions so as to consider those who believe in life after death to be materialists, then I guess you can consider me and Mr. Arrington, and every other Theist on the internet, to be a materialists as well in you ever plastic philosophy that apparently only you understand. The truth is you have no clue what the science says one way or the other towards any philosophical view that you may have as was made abundantly clear in your failed attempt to refute Theism earlier. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-robust-defense-of-intelligent-design-in-a-liberal-catholic-mag/#comment-547309 philosophically you are a boorish mess, and empirically you have no case whatsoever against theism (even if you could evaluate evidence properly), in fact Theism stands heads and shoulders above any other religion and/or philosophy in regards to empirical support. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-robust-defense-of-intelligent-design-in-a-liberal-catholic-mag/#comment-547528 Moreover, science is not possible unless Theism is true: "Nonphysical formalism not only describes, but preceded physicality and the Big Bang Formalism prescribed, organized and continues to govern physicodynamics." http://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/2/1/106/ag An Interview with David Berlinski - Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time …. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind's capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.htmlbornagain77_{February 11, 2015
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Red Fish Yes, yes, I’ve seen Dennett’s “consciousness is like an optical illusion” analogy many times. It explains precisely nothing. It is little more than saying illusion is possible; therefore it is possible that consciousness is an illusion. OK; even if I grant that, it does not follow that consciousness is an illusion. Here is my favorite Dennett quote: “Are zombies possible? They’re not just possible, they’re actual. We’re all zombies.” An idiot could not write something that stupid. It takes someone with a lot of education to be that spectacularly wrong. It is almost literally not debatable. That first person consciousness is a real phenomenon is self-evident and therefore cannot be demonstrated. Nagel’s and Searle’s critiques of Dennett are devastating; irrefutable except on pure mule-headed contradiction of what everyone (including Dennett himself) knows to be true. I have no time for his idiocy. By the way, Fish, who is being deceived by the illusion? Dennett’s entire project is one massive assertion based on his religious predilections. He demonstrates nothing.
we are not assuming dualism is correct (or if you are, you are simply begging the question)
Why not? Dennett assumes the opposite on an a priori basis. He does not even address it (other than to exclude it), thereby rigging the game so that something like his preferred solutions is compelled simply as a matter of logical necessity. Doubtless he learned this tactic from Darwinists. But no, I am not assuming it. It is merely the most plausible explanation. And there is some force to the obvious criticism that I am accepting it as an inexplicable brute fact. I cannot explain it. But I know I am in here; you know you are in there. Denying that fact does neither of us any good. There may never be a satisfactory explanation. Nagel has thrown up his hands while he waits for nothing less that the next scientific resolution. He's a lot smarter than I. Why can't I throw up my hands. That is why they call it a hard problem after all.
Again, he is not saying that we do NOT seem to find some ghostly thing; rather, he is saying that the ghostly things we seem to find do not exist in reality
He is also most emphatically saying that the “we” to which you refer in that sentence does not exist. I can’t tell if this is a language difficulty or if you do not get it conceptually. Let us focus on this sentence again: “our cognitive machinery is accessing internal models and those models are providing information that is wrong.” To whom is the cognitive machinery providing wrong information? To itself? It makes no sense to conceptualize “cognitive machinery” as both the subject and object of that sentence. Then who? Us. But there is no “us.” That’s the whole point of the exercise. Bottom line: He is forced to deny subject/object duality in subject/object terms. You assume Graziano is being logically coherent. I don’t. I am convinced of just the opposite.
Then you simply haven’t read much on the topic (not a jab this time, I’m really just saying…). Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff are “materialists . . .
I have read extensively on the subject. Dennett is the ultimate reductionist. I should have said that every materialist who is logically coherent has said that the mind is an epiphenomenon of the electro-chemical processes of the brain for the simple reason that, for the materialist, that exhausts the possibilities.
Barry suggested I was insane for suggesting, among other things, that atheists could hold any position on the mind/body problem except electro-chemical emergentism. I have soundly refuted this position, and await Barry’s rebuttal.
An appeal to quantum woo is a sound refutation? We’ll have to disagree about the definition of “sound refutation.” Yes. Energy and matter are the same thing. I don’t disagree with that. So what do we have? We have energy/matter (which we will call for convenience sake “particles”). We have space. We have time. I also have God. And for that reason dualism is the best explanation. But the materialist does not get to resort to that explanation. Indeed; he has specifically rejected it. So tell me Fish, what else is there besides particles, space and time? I am truly curious.Barry Arrington_{February 11, 2015
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Hi ba77,
Red Fish,
You have my handle wrong (it is "RDFish"), but at least you are consistent in being wrong :-)
Contrary to what you believe, Non-local, beyond space and time, quantum effects in biology are not reducible to materialism.
At this point, ba77, it is apparent that you have no interest in debating anything at all with me. Each and every time you argue some point, you argue against something that I do not believe. You dump post after post of irrelevant quotes into every thread you enter, and then you build strawmen and proceed to knock them down, and you can do all that without having to listen to anyone else. So let's agree that you have no clue what I believe about anything, and you can go your merry way arguing with yourself. Enjoy! Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{February 11, 2015
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Who died and made Stuart Hameroff an expert in quantum mechanics?skram_{February 11, 2015
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Red Fish, Contrary to what you believe, Non-local, beyond space and time, quantum effects in biology are not reducible to materialism. i.e. Finding something that transcends space and time in biology is a Theistic expectation not an atheistic/materialistic expectation. Moreover, Stuart Hameroff, although he leans on eastern philosophy too much, certainly is not materialistic/atheistic in the traditional sense since he holds that life after death is plausible given quantum effects in biology:
Quantum Entangled Consciousness (Permanence of Quantum Information) - Life After Death - Stuart Hameroff - video https://vimeo.com/39982578 Being the skunk at an atheist convention – Hameroff – 2006 Excerpt: In November 2006 I was invited to a meeting at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California called “Beyond Belief”. Other speakers and attendees were predominantly atheists, and harshly critical of the notion of spirituality. They included Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Patricia Churchland, Steven Weinberg (the least venal), Neil deGrasse Tyson and others who collectively vilified creationists and religious warriors. But the speakers also ragged on the notion of any purpose or meaning to existence, heaped ridicule on the very possibility of a God-like entity (and those who believed in such an entity), declared that scientists and philosophers should set society’s moral and ethical standards, and called for a billion dollar public relations campaign to convince the public God does not exist. Near the end of the first day came my turn to speak. I began by saying that the conference to that point had been like the Spanish Inquisition in reverse - the scientists were burning the believers. And while I had no particular interest in organized religion, I did believe there could be a scientific account for spirituality. After pointing out faulty assumptions in conventional brain models for consciousness and summarizing the Penrose-Hameroff theory, I laid out my plausibility argument for scientific, secular spirituality, suggesting cosmic connections and influence in our conscious thoughts occurred via quantum interactions in microtubules. I closed with a slide of the DNA molecule which emphasized it’s internal core where quantum effects rule, suggesting a Penrose non-computable influence in genetic mutations and evolution (aimed at Dawkins in the form of a quantum-based intelligent design). At the end a few people clapped loudly, but most sat in steely silence.,,, http://quantum.webhost.uits.arizona.edu/prod/content/being-skunk-atheist-convention
My summary, Red Fish has soundly refuted nothing. ,,Of note on Hameroff's model, although I very much enjoyed the feisty, “Galileo”, way in which Hameroff defended his model against the “atheists’ inquisition”, I have to say that Hameroff’s model fall’s short of finding complete agreement with quantum mechanics, and thus I find his model falls short of truly explaining consciousness. The primary reason why I think Hameroff model falls short of finding complete agreement with quantum theory is primarily because of his pantheistic metaphysical view of reality. A metaphysical view of reality in which consciousness, for him, is somehow, if I read him right, co-terminus with the space-time of material reality at the Planck scale. Something he calls ‘proto-consciousness’ at the fine (Planck) scale. Yet, the instantaneous actions of Quantum mechanics have no use for any space-time postulate! Thus, his postulation of 'proto-consciousness' at the Planck scale falls short of fully accounting for the origin of consciousness in humans.bornagain77_{February 11, 2015
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Hi Barry, First, I am taken aback by your seeming willingness to actually engage the topic in good faith. As is my longstanding personal policy, whenever I am treated to a serious discussion I immediately agree to debate cordially. I thus apologize for jerking your chain with arrogance and insults - I was wrong to assume that this was to be just another spitting match. You can rest assured I will debate the topic in complete seriousness as long as you do the same.
I am happy with these as working definitions. And if someone says consciousness is an illusion and that the mind does not experience consciousness, then they are saying that neither (2) nor (4) exists. Both Dennett and Graziano say that.
I still disagree about Dennett and Graziano (but I'm still less interested in debating their views than ours). Let me try to explain the reason we are speaking past each other here: Imagine I show you a design where some stripe is "really" (note the scare quotes) blue (i.e. the stripe is in ink that reflects wavelengths in the blue range), but is perceived as being green (similar to this.) We would say that the blue color is an illusion. Does that mean we don't actually see blue? No - of course we actually experience the quale of blue. Likewise, when Dennett says that consciousness is an illusion, he is not saying that we do not experience conscious awareness, nor that we do not have minds. Rather, he is saying that the way we experience consciousness is an illusion: While it intuitively appears to us that consciousness is thought, and that our conscious decisions are the causes of our volitional actions, all of that (according to Dennett) is illusory.
RDF: I think it should be clear that calling consciousness a “thing” is meaningless. BA: *sigh* And I thought we were making progress. Of course “consciousness” is a thing. Otherwise your definition (2) would have no referent.
Here our problem is what is meant by "thing" of course. For example, John Wheeler famously said that atoms are not things, meaning they do not exist in space and time the way we think of those things in the classical world. Neither does consciousness. Dualists reify intelligence and consciousness, but we are not assuming dualism is correct (or if you are, you are simply begging the question).
It is you who do not understand Graziano. He affirmatively says that we do not have a subjective phenomenological experience of awareness. Go back and read him again.
He says this: "When we introspect and seem to find that ghostly thing — awareness, consciousness, the way green looks or pain feels — our cognitive machinery is accessing internal models and those models are providing information that is wrong." Again, he is not saying that we do NOT seem to find some ghostly thing; rather, he is saying that the ghostly things we seem to find do not exist in reality. But if you think that Graziano believes we do not actually see green or feel pain, then fine, let us agree that Dr. Graziano is saying something very bizarre indeed. Again, let's focus on our debate here rather than debate about what others may or may not think.
RDF: Who says that the brain operates soley on electro-chemical processes? BA: Ummm? How about pretty much every materialist who has ever rendered an opinion on the issue.
Then you simply haven't read much on the topic (not a jab this time, I'm really just saying...). Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff are "materialists" (I suppose - that term is abused to the point of meaninglessness as well) who reject outright that electro-chemical processes are responsible for consciousness (or even certain types of thought). There are many other examples of course.
Are you saying that quantum effects or quantum gravitational effects amount to something more than the interaction of energy and particles in space-time? If so, you need to support that proposition with something other than mere assertion. If not, then my statement stands unrebutted.
You are rebutted by modern physics of course: All of the wonderful things that ba77 here clutters up these threads with show that energy and particles (which are the same thing) do not account for all the phenomena we observe. Correlations of entangled particles cannot be explained by energy/particles or any field theory, for example.
Let’s summarize: So far I have argued. Red Fish has ranted and preened.
My summary: Barry suggested I was insane for suggesting, among other things, that atheists could hold any position on the mind/body problem except electro-chemical emergentism. I have soundly refuted this position, and await Barry's rebuttal. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{February 11, 2015
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Bohemian Gravity – Rob Sheldon – September 19, 2013 Excerpt: there’s a large contingent of physicists who believe that string theory is the heroin of theoretical physics. It has absorbed not just millions of dollars, but hundreds if not thousands of grad student lifetimes without delivering what it promised–a unified theory of the universe and life. It is hard, in fact, to find a single contribution from string theory despite 25 years of intense effort by thousands of the very brightest and best minds our society can find. http://rbsp.info/PROCRUSTES/bohemian-gravity/
,,,Taking that failure in mind, I consider the preceding ‘quantum’ nuance on the Shroud of Turin to be a subtle, but powerful, evidence substantiating Christ’s primary claim as to being our Savior from sin, death, and hell: Verses and the grace of ‘propitiation’
John 8:23-24 But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins. Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. G.O.S.P.E.L. – (the grace of propitiation) – poetry slam – video https://vimeo.com/20960385
supplemental notes:
The Case for the Soul – InspiringPhilosophy – (4:03 minute mark, Brain Plasticity including Schwartz’s work) – Oct. 2014 – video The Mind is able to modify the brain (brain plasticity). Moreover, Idealism explains all anomalous evidence of personality changes due to brain injury, whereas physicalism cannot explain mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsI_ay8K70 Materialism of the Gaps – Michael Egnor (Neurosurgeon) – January 29, 2009 Excerpt: The evidence that some aspects of the mind are immaterial is overwhelming. It’s notable that many of the leading neuroscientists — Sherrington, Penfield, Eccles, Libet — were dualists. Dualism of some sort is the most reasonable scientific framework to apply to the mind-brain problem, because, unlike dogmatic materialism, it just follows the evidence. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/01/materialism_of_the_gaps015901.html
Quote, Photo, and Music:
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Shakespeare Quotes – Context of the Quote http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/there-more-things-heaven-earth-horatio An Atheist contemplates his mind - photo http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H-kjiGN_9Fw/URkPboX5l2I/AAAAAAAAATw/yN18NZgMJ-4/s1600/rob4.jpg Mystery Of Grace-4HIM – music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcNbzvFylmc
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The following paper appeals to a ‘non-local’, (i.e. beyond space and time), cause to try to explain the synchronization in neural circuits,,,
Nonlocal mechanism for cluster synchronization in neural circuits – 2011 Excerpt: The findings,,, call for reexamining sources of correlated activity in cortex,,, http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.3634
Moreover, unlike the multiverse postulation of atheists/materialists, for which we have no empirical evidence, we have excellent evidence for two very different 'higher dimensional eternities' above this temporal realm (just as is postulated in theism, Christian Theism in particular):
Two very different ‘eternities’ revealed by physics: Special Relativity, General Relativity, Heaven and Hell https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_4cQ7MXq8bLkoFLYW0kq3Xq-Hkc3c7r-gTk0DYJQFSg/edit “Einstein’s equation predicts that, as the astronaut reaches the singularity (of the black-hole), the tidal forces grow infinitely strong, and their chaotic oscillations become infinitely rapid. The astronaut dies and the atoms which his body is made become infinitely and chaotically distorted and mixed-and then, at the moment when everything becomes infinite (the tidal strengths, the oscillation frequencies, the distortions, and the mixing), spacetime ceases to exist.” Kip S. Thorne – “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy” pg. 476
In light of this dilemma that these two very different eternities present to us spiritually minded people, and the fact that Gravity is, in so far as we can tell, completely incompatible with Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity (i.e. Quantum Electro-Dynamics),,, including the failure of string theory, M-theory, etc.. ,,in light of that dilemma, it is interesting to point out a subtle nuance on the Shroud of Turin. Namely that Gravity was overcome in the resurrection event of Christ:
Particle Radiation from the Body – July 2012 – M. Antonacci, A. C. Lind Excerpt: The Shroud’s frontal and dorsal body images are encoded with the same amount of intensity, independent of any pressure or weight from the body. The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image. Radiation coming from the body would not only explain this feature, but also the left/right and light/dark reversals found on the cloth’s frontal and dorsal body images. https://docs.google.com/document/d/19tGkwrdg6cu5mH-RmlKxHv5KPMOL49qEU8MLGL6ojHU/edit A Quantum Hologram of Christ’s Resurrection? by Chuck Missler Excerpt: “You can read the science of the Shroud, such as total lack of gravity, lack of entropy (without gravitational collapse), no time, no space—it conforms to no known law of physics.” The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. Dame Piczek created a one-fourth size sculpture of the man in the Shroud. When viewed from the side, it appears as if the man is suspended in mid air (see graphic, below), indicating that the image defies previously accepted science. The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. http://www.khouse.org/articles/2008/847 THE EVENT HORIZON (Space-Time Singularity) OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN. – Isabel Piczek – Particle Physicist Excerpt: We have stated before that the images on the Shroud firmly indicate the total absence of Gravity. Yet they also firmly indicate the presence of the Event Horizon. These two seemingly contradict each other and they necessitate the past presence of something more powerful than Gravity that had the capacity to solve the above paradox. http://shroud3d.com/findings/isabel-piczek-image-formation The Center Of The Universe Is Life (Jesus) – General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin – video http://vimeo.com/34084462
Moreover, as would be expected if General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics/Special Relativity (QED) were truly unified in the resurrection of Christ from death, the image on the shroud is found to be formed by a quantum process. The image was not formed by a ‘classical’ process:
The absorbed energy in the Shroud body image formation appears as contributed by discrete values – Giovanni Fazio, Giuseppe Mandaglio – 2008 Excerpt: This result means that the optical density distribution,, can not be attributed at the absorbed energy described in the framework of the classical physics model. It is, in fact, necessary to hypothesize a absorption by discrete values of the energy where the ‘quantum’ is equal to the one necessary to yellow one fibril. http://cab.unime.it/journals/index.php/AAPP/article/view/C1A0802004/271 “It is not a continuum or spherical-front radiation that made the image, as visible or UV light. It is not the X-ray radiation that obeys the one over R squared law that we are so accustomed to in medicine. It is more unique. It is suggested that the image was formed when a high-energy particle struck the fiber and released radiation within the fiber at a speed greater that the local speed of light. Since the fiber acts as a light pipe, this energy moved out through the fiber until it encountered an optical discontinuity, then it slowed to the local speed of light and dispersed. The fact that the pixels don’t fluoresce suggests that the conversion to their now brittle dehydrated state occurred instantly and completely so no partial products remain to be activated by the ultraviolet light. This suggests a quantum event where a finite amount of energy transferred abruptly. The fact that there are images front and back suggests the radiating particles were released along the gravity vector. The radiation pressure may also help explain why the blood was “lifted cleanly” from the body as it transformed to a resurrected state.” Kevin Moran – optical engineer Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural – December 2011 Excerpt: After years of work trying to replicate the colouring on the shroud, a similar image has been created by the scientists. However, they only managed the effect by scorching equivalent linen material with high-intensity ultra violet lasers, undermining the arguments of other research, they say, which claims the Turin Shroud is a medieval hoax. Such technology, say researchers from the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Enea), was far beyond the capability of medieval forgers, whom most experts have credited with making the famous relic. “The results show that a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin,” they said. And in case there was any doubt about the preternatural degree of energy needed to make such distinct marks, the Enea report spells it out: “This degree of power cannot be reproduced by any normal UV source built to date.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-say-turin-shroud-is-supernatural-6279512.html
Personally, considering the extreme difficulty that many brilliant minds have had in trying to reconcile Quantum Mechanics and special relativity(QED), with Gravity, through string theory and M-theory,,,,
A Capella Science – Bohemian Gravity! – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rjbtsX7twc
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In fact an entire human can, theoretically, be reduced to quantum information and teleported to another location in the universe:
Quantum Teleportation Of A Human? – video https://vimeo.com/75163272
Thus not only is information not reducible to a energy-matter basis, as is presupposed in neo-Darwinism, but in actuality both energy and matter ultimately reduce to a information basis as is presupposed in Christian Theism (John1:1-4). Of related note, encoded ‘classical’ digital information, such as what William Dembski and Robert Marks have demonstrated the mathematical conservation of,,,,
Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II http://www.evoinfo.org/publications.html
,,this conserved classical ‘digital’ information is found to be a subset of ‘non-local’ (i.e. beyond space and time) quantum entanglement/information by the following method:
Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 2011 Excerpt: No heat, even a cooling effect; In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that “more than complete knowledge” from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy. Renner emphasizes, however, “This doesn’t mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine.” The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says “We’re working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601134300.htm
,,,And this quantum information is found to be ‘physically conserved’ (not just mathematically conserved),,,
Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html Quantum no-deleting theorem Excerpt: A stronger version of the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem provide permanence to quantum information. To create a copy one must import the information from some part of the universe and to delete a state one needs to export it to another part of the universe where it will continue to exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_no-deleting_theorem#Consequence
Besides providing direct empirical falsification of neo-Darwinian claims as to the generation of functional information, the implication of finding ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious:
Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff – video (notes in description) http://vimeo.com/29895068 Will Human Teleportation Ever Be Possible? As experiments in relocating particles advance, will we be able to say, “Beam me up, Scotty” one day soon? By Corey S. Powell|Monday, June 16, 2014 Excerpt: Note a fascinating common thread through all these possibilities. Whether you regard yourself as a pile of atoms, a DNA sequence, a series of sensory inputs or an elaborate computer file, in all of these interpretations you are nothing but a stack of data. According to the principle of unitarity, quantum information is never lost. Put them together, and those two statements lead to a staggering corollary: At the most fundamental level, the laws of physics say you are immortal. http://discovermagazine.com/2014/julyaug/20-the-ups-and-downs-of-teleportation
Also of interest, the quantum entanglement of consciousness in the brain is of a somewhat different nature than the entanglement that is witnessed (thus far) in the rest of the body:
Quantum Entangled Consciousness – Life After Death – Stuart Hameroff – video https://vimeo.com/39982578 ,,, zero time lag neuronal synchrony despite long conduction delays – 2008 Excerpt: Multielectrode recordings have revealed zero time lag synchronization among remote cerebral cortical areas. However, the axonal conduction delays among such distant regions can amount to several tens of milliseconds. It is still unclear which mechanism is giving rise to isochronous discharge of widely distributed neurons, despite such latencies,,, Remarkably, synchrony of neuronal activity is not limited to short-range interactions within a cortical patch. Interareal synchronization across cortical regions including interhemispheric areas has been observed in several tasks (7, 9, 11–14).,,, Beyond its functional relevance, the zero time lag synchrony among such distant neuronal ensembles must be established by mechanisms that are able to compensate for the delays involved in the neuronal communication. Latencies in conducting nerve impulses down axonal processes can amount to delays of several tens of milliseconds between the generation of a spike in a presynaptic cell and the elicitation of a postsynaptic potential (16). The question is how, despite such temporal delays, the reciprocal interactions between two brain regions can lead to the associated neural populations to fire in unison (i.e. zero time lag).,,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2575223/
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And then there is also quantum information. In other words, besides the ‘normal’ classical/digital information that is found in life, there is now also found to be ‘quantum’ information in life. Moreover, this quantum information is found in every DNA and Protein molecule:
Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA – short video https://vimeo.com/92405752 Coherent Intrachain energy migration at room temperature – Elisabetta Collini and Gregory Scholes – University of Toronto – Science, 323, (2009), pp. 369-73 Excerpt: The authors conducted an experiment to observe quantum coherence dynamics in relation to energy transfer. The experiment, conducted at room temperature, examined chain conformations, such as those found in the proteins of living cells. Neighbouring molecules along the backbone of a protein chain were seen to have coherent energy transfer. Where this happens quantum decoherence (the underlying tendency to loss of coherence due to interaction with the environment) is able to be resisted, and the evolution of the system remains entangled as a single quantum state. per - scimednet.org Physicists Discover Quantum Law of Protein Folding – February 22, 2011 Quantum mechanics finally explains why protein folding depends on temperature in such a strange way. Excerpt: First, a little background on protein folding. Proteins are long chains of amino acids that become biologically active only when they fold into specific, highly complex shapes. The puzzle is how proteins do this so quickly when they have so many possible configurations to choose from. To put this in perspective, a relatively small protein of only 100 amino acids can take some 10^100 different configurations. If it tried these shapes at the rate of 100 billion a second, it would take longer than the age of the universe to find the correct one. Just how these molecules do the job in nanoseconds, nobody knows.,,, Their astonishing result is that this quantum transition model fits the folding curves of 15 different proteins and even explains the difference in folding and unfolding rates of the same proteins. That’s a significant breakthrough. Luo and Lo’s equations amount to the first universal laws of protein folding. That’s the equivalent in biology to something like the thermodynamic laws in physics. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/423087/physicists-discover-quantum-law-of-protein/ etc.. etc..
Moreover, it is important to learn that this ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, quantum entanglement (A. Aspect, A. Zeilinger, etc..), which is found in every DNA and protein molecule, can be used as a ‘quantum information channel’,,,
Quantum Entanglement and Information Quantum entanglement is a physical resource, like energy, associated with the peculiar nonclassical correlations that are possible between separated quantum systems. Entanglement can be measured, transformed, and purified. A pair of quantum systems in an entangled state can be used as a quantum information channel to perform computational and cryptographic tasks that are impossible for classical systems. The general study of the information-processing capabilities of quantum systems is the subject of quantum information theory. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/
And by using this ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, ‘quantum information channel’ of quantum entanglement, such as they use in quantum computation, physicists have reduced material to quantum information. (of note: energy is completely reduced to quantum information, whereas matter is semi-completely reduced, with the caveat being that matter can be reduced to energy via e=mc2). (forgive the fairly long list of references)
Ions have been teleported successfully for the first time by two independent research groups Excerpt: In fact, copying isn’t quite the right word for it. In order to reproduce the quantum state of one atom in a second atom, the original has to be destroyed. This is unavoidable – it is enforced by the laws of quantum mechanics, which stipulate that you can’t ‘clone’ a quantum state. In principle, however, the ‘copy’ can be indistinguishable from the original,,, http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2004/October/beammeup.asp Atom takes a quantum leap – 2009 Excerpt: Ytterbium ions have been ‘teleported’ over a distance of a metre.,,, “What you’re moving is information, not the actual atoms,” says Chris Monroe, from the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland in College Park and an author of the paper. But as two particles of the same type differ only in their quantum states, the transfer of quantum information is equivalent to moving the first particle to the location of the second. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2171769/posts Scientists Report Finding Reliable Way to Teleport Data By JOHN MARKOFF – MAY 29, 2014 Excerpt: They report that they have achieved perfectly accurate teleportation of quantum information over short distances. They are now seeking to repeat their experiment over the distance of more than a kilometer. If they are able to repeatedly show that entanglement works at this distance, it will be a definitive demonstration of the entanglement phenomenon and quantum mechanical theory. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/science/scientists-report-finding-reliable-way-to-teleport-data.html?_r=2 First Teleportation Of Multiple Quantum Properties Of A Single Photon – Oct 7, 2014 To truly teleport an object, you have to include all its quantum properties. Excerpt: ,,,It is these properties— the spin angular momentum and the orbital angular momentum?(of a photon)—?that Xi-Lin and co have teleported together for the first time.,,, https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/first-teleportation-of-multiple-quantum-properties-of-a-single-photon-7c1e61598565 Researchers Succeed in Quantum Teleportation of Light Waves – April 2011 Excerpt: In this experiment, researchers in Australia and Japan were able to transfer quantum information from one place to another without having to physically move it. It was destroyed in one place and instantly resurrected in another, “alive” again and unchanged. This is a major advance, as previous teleportation experiments were either very slow or caused some information to be lost. http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/quantum-teleportation-breakthrough-could-lead-instantanous-computing How Teleportation Will Work - Excerpt: In 1993, the idea of teleportation moved out of the realm of science fiction and into the world of theoretical possibility. It was then that physicist Charles Bennett and a team of researchers at IBM confirmed that quantum teleportation was possible, but only if the original object being teleported was destroyed. — As predicted, the original photon no longer existed once the replica was made. per howstuffworks Quantum Teleportation – IBM Research Page Excerpt: “it would destroy the original (photon) in the process,,” http://researcher.ibm.com/view_project.php?id=2862 etc.. etc..
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Fish, if the mind of a person were merely the brain, as materialists/atheists (and whatever you are) hold, then if half of a brain were removed a 'person' should only be ‘half the person’, or at least somewhat less of a 'person', as they were before, but that is not the case. The ‘whole person’ stays intact even though the brain suffers severe impairment during hemispherectomy:
Miracle Of Mind-Brain Recovery Following Hemispherectomies - Dr. Ben Carson - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zBrY77mBNg Dr. Gary Mathern - What Can You Do With Half A Brain? - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrKijBx_hAw Removing Half of Brain Improves Young Epileptics' Lives: - 1997 Excerpt: "We are awed by the apparent retention of memory and by the retention of the child's personality and sense of humor,'' Dr. Eileen P. G. Vining,, Dr. John Freeman, the director of the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Epilepsy Center, said he was dumbfounded at the ability of children to regain speech after losing the half of the brain that is supposedly central to language processing. ''It's fascinating,'' Dr. Freeman said. ''The classic lore is that you can't change language after the age of 2 or 3.'' But Dr. Freeman's group has now removed diseased left hemispheres in more than 20 patients, including three 13-year-olds whose ability to speak transferred to the right side of the brain in much the way that Alex's did.,,, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/19/science/removing-half-of-brain-improves-young-epileptics-lives.html
In further comment from the neuro-surgeons in the John Hopkins study:
"Despite removal of one hemisphere, the intellect of all but one of the children seems either unchanged or improved. Intellect was only affected in the one child who had remained in a coma, vigil-like state, attributable to peri-operative complications." Strange but True: When Half a Brain Is Better than a Whole One - May 2007 Excerpt: Most Hopkins hemispherectomy patients are five to 10 years old. Neurosurgeons have performed the operation on children as young as three months old. Astonishingly, memory and personality develop normally. ,,, Another study found that children that underwent hemispherectomies often improved academically once their seizures stopped. "One was champion bowler of her class, one was chess champion of his state, and others are in college doing very nicely," Freeman says. Of course, the operation has its downside: "You can walk, run—some dance or skip—but you lose use of the hand opposite of the hemisphere that was removed. You have little function in that arm and vision on that side is lost," Freeman says. Remarkably, few other impacts are seen. ,,, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-when-half-brain-better-than-whole
Moreover Fish, much like the evidence-free Darwinian claim that unguided material processes can generate functional information that far exceeds, in terms of sophistication, anything man has ever programmed into computers, you simply have no scientific evidence for your claim that souls/minds do not really exist and do not survive death. In fact, we have far more observational evidence for the reality of souls surviving death than we do for the Darwinian claim that unguided material processes can ever generate sophisticated functional information:
Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist’s Evidentiary Standards to the Test – Dr. Michael Egnor – October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE’s are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception — such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE’s have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most “parsimonious” explanation — the simplest scientific explanation — is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a protein/gene, or a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE’s show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it’s earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it’s all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html
As to the validity of the Near Death Experience testimonies, the experiences are found, by surprised materialistic researchers no less, to be ‘even more real than real’:
‘Afterlife’ feels ‘even more real than real,’ researcher says – Wed April 10, 2013 Excerpt: “If you use this questionnaire … if the memory is real, it’s richer, and if the memory is recent, it’s richer,” he said. The coma scientists weren’t expecting what the tests revealed. “To our surprise, NDEs were much richer than any imagined event or any real event of these coma survivors,” Laureys reported. The memories of these experiences beat all other memories, hands down, for their vivid sense of reality. “The difference was so vast,” he said with a sense of astonishment. Even if the patient had the experience a long time ago, its memory was as rich “as though it was yesterday,” Laureys said. http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/health/belgium-near-death-experiences/
Moreover, the fact we do have souls, and the fact that unguided Darwinian processes cannot generate functional information, appear to be two sides of the same coin that support each other. In clarifying this point of the relatedness of information and the soul, it is helpful to learn about the nature of information. In regards to the ‘transcendent’ nature of information. Dr. Stephen Meyer states:
“One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences. Intelligent design: Why can’t biological information originate through a materialistic process? – Stephen Meyer – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8
To further support the contention that the immateriality of information and the immateriality of the soul are correlated to each other, it is also helpful to point out what happens to the physics of an organism upon the death of the organism. The immaterial information, that was keeping the organism alive, ‘disappears’ from the body upon death of the organism:
The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings – Stephen L. Talbott Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. ,,, the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Despite the countless processes going on in the cell, and despite the fact that each process might be expected to “go its own way” according to the myriad factors impinging on it from all directions, the actual result is quite different. Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings
Materialists/atheists would believe, since they hold information to be merely emergent from a material basis, that the information in the organism simply ceased to exist upon the death of an organism. But our science tells us otherwise. In learning what actually happens to the information of an organism, information that was keeping the organism alive, upon death of an organism, it is helpful to learn a little bit about the hierarchy of information in the body. There are two types of information in an organism. First, there is the ‘normal’ classical/digital information, which Darwinists and ID proponents constantly debate over, that we find encoded in DNA, RNA and Proteins:
Every Bit Digital: DNA’s Programming Really Bugs Some ID Critics – Casey Luskin – 2010 Excerpt: “There’s a very recognizable digital code of the kind that electrical engineers rediscovered in the 1950s that maps the codes for sequences of DNA onto expressions of proteins.” http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo12/12luskin2.php
bornagain77_{February 11, 2015
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Whether dualism is true or monism is true is beside this point. On the contrary, it is quite central to this discussion.
You seem to have misunderstood me. Of course it is perhaps the central issue with respect to philosophy of mind. It is beside the point with respect to whether you get to Humpty Dumpty your terms.
The first thing you would learn if you embarked on a study of philosophy of mind . . .
You really do need to get a handle on this little arrogance thing you've got going. I have studied this issue for many years. You seem to think that the only possible explanation for someone not agreeing with you is that they don’t understand the issues as well as you do. That kinda makes you a pompous ass.
1) Brain – the physical organ in our heads 2) Consciousness – our subjective phenomenological experience of awareness 3) Thought – our mental abilities (reasoning, problem solving, language, planning, etc) 4) Mind – that which thinks(3) and experiences consciousness(2)
I am happy with these as working definitions. And if someone says consciousness is an illusion and that the mind does not experience consciousness, then they are saying that neither (2) nor (4) exists. Both Dennett and Graziano say that. Get it now? (he said echoing the pompous ass tone of his interlocutor).
I think it should be clear that calling consciousness a “thing” is meaningless.
*sigh* And I thought we were making progress. Of course “consciousness” is a thing. Otherwise your definition (2) would have no referent. It is you who do not understand Graziano. He affirmatively says that we do not have a subjective phenomenological experience of awareness. Go back and read him again.
Why do I think you won’t [read what you wrote to BA], but instead would rather beat down straw men of your own design?
I dunno. Because in addition to being pompous, arrogant asshat you are also cynical?
Who says that the brain operates soley on electro-chemical processes?
Ummm? How about pretty much every materialist who has ever rendered an opinion on the issue.
and not also, say, quantum effects, or quantum gravitational effects, or effects that nobody has yet discovered?
Are you saying that quantum effects or quantum gravitational effects amount to something more than the interaction of energy and particles in space-time? If so, you need to support that proposition with something other than mere assertion. If not, then my statement stands unrebutted. The paragraph that begins with “OK, let me get this straight . . .” is nothing but pure asshat spewings. Let me try to help you again. Mere assertion is not an argument; mere contradiction is not an argument. Mocking your opponent is not argument. Where did you get the idea that I deny that there are lots of theories about the mind-body issue? Certainly not from me. So I will just ignore that last part of your rant, tilting as it does at a position I do not hold. Let’s summarize: So far I have argued. Red Fish has ranted and preened. We will let the readers judge.Barry Arrington_{February 11, 2015
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BA said Some of this really is Dr. Seuss level stuff like: A thing cannot be itself and something other than itself at the same time. I say, Please don't go down that road with RDFish. My head has still not healed from his squares can be circles talk. ;-) peacefifthmonarchyman_{February 11, 2015
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as to: "And I corrected Barry by explaining that if the mind is the brain, and we agree that brains exist, then ipso facto minds exist. You’re not going to win this – you should give up." You should take a class in basic logic. Calling the mind the brain denies the reality of the mind and confers it on the brain! Perhaps you should step away from the mirror you are staring in, admiring your false sense of intellectual prowess that you seem to be enamored with, so that you could see this simple fact that even a five year old could realize! I asked for a simple yes or no answer in regards to mind/soul surviving death, and as usual you were trying to be too clever by half. I take it that you are leaning heavily towards saying that you do not believe you have a mind/soul that can survive death. If so, in that regards you are severely mistaken!bornagain77_{February 11, 2015
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Hi Barry,
My wife bought Dr. Seuss books for our grandchildren yesterday. Some of this really is Dr. Seuss level stuff like: A thing cannot be itself and something other than itself at the same time.
I knew we could agree on something!
If you mean he’s [Dennett] an excellent stylist; agreed. If you mean he writes the truth, not so much. So I would say he describes his delusions in very pithy prose. Kind of like Dawkins in that respect...
I agree with all of this as well!
Violent abuse of language is, and that is what you are doing.
Now you're confused again. Relax - it all makes sense if you just try and be open to rational thinking.
Whether dualism is true or monism is true is beside this point.
On the contrary, it is quite central to this discussion. Technically, it's not just the question of the truth here, but also of knowability (both current and theoretical).
The point is that neither you, nor I, nor Dennett, nor Graziano get to use words any old way we want if we want to be honest. Words have meaning. That meaning is defined by common usage. And the practically universal usage of the word “mind” is in contradistinction to the word “brain.” That’s why the issue we are talking about is called the “mind-body” problem after all.
The first thing you would learn if you embarked on a study of philosophy of mind is that our common meanings for words are insufficient to frame these questions, and so the first step (as in any philosophical endeavor) is to provide clear technical terms for the investigation. The fact that people speak as though minds are something other than the operation of their brains does not make that itself an empirical fact!
Anyone who wants to make the problem go away by linguistic fiat, as you seem to do, is not engaging the problem in good faith.
Let's be clear, so we can both talk in good faith. Here are what I find to be useful definitions; you can offer different ones if you'd like, as long as you clearly say what those definitions are: 1) Brain - the physical organ in our heads 2) Consciousness - our subjective phenomenological experience of awareness 3) Thought - our mental abilities (reasoning, problem solving, language, planning, etc) 4) Mind - that which thinks(3) and experiences consciousness(2) When I told you that nobody denies their own mind, I meant nobody believes that they can't think or experience consciousness. Do you get it now?
Graziano denies that consciousness is a “thing” period. And he describes the feeling of phenomenological consciousness to which you allude as not a real thing at all, but an error made by the computational machinery of the brain.
I think it should be clear that calling consciousness a "thing" is meaningless. But I think you still don't understand Graziano, but rather than argue about what he thinks let's just argue about what you and I think, OK? Please refer to my previous post to ba77 for a short summary of what I think. (Why do I think you won't, but instead would rather beat down straw men of your own design?)
The issue, again, is this. Is it possible even in principle for an atheist to aver logically that the mind is reducible to anything other than the electro-chemical processes of the brain. The answer to that question is self-evidently “no,” because, for an atheist, the electro-chemical processes of the brain is, in principle, the only thing there can be. This is true for any physicalist; any monist.
This is truly such an ignorant position it's hard to know where to start. But just for starters: Who says that the brain operates soley on electro-chemical processes, and not also, say, quantum effects, or quantum gravitational effects, or effects that nobody has yet discovered? Your silly over-simplifications make talking about these things impossible.
Your vague allusion to a “large number of theories” that atheists adhere to that contradicts this position is noted. Vague allusions are not arguments. You do not even seem to feel obligated to argue at all. Your “argument,” such as it is, is that you are deeply knowledgeable and if anyone disagrees with you it can only be because they are ignorant.
OK, let me get this straight (if I can keep from laughing). Are you seriously doubting that there are a large number of theories regarding the mind/body problem? OH MY. Please - just say it straight out. You think there are, what - maybe two? Three at most? Sorry to break it to you, but it's a bit more involved than dualism vs. materialism I'm afraid. And why in the world can't an atheist be a dualist? There is no contradiction in that! Perhaps you're thinking of the converse - it is very difficult to resolve theism with physicalism (but not impossible). Interactionist dualism, Psychophysical parallelism, Occasionalism, Property dualism, Dual aspect theory, Behaviorism, Identity theory, Functionalism, Non-reductive physicalism, Weak emergentism, Eliminative materialism, Idealism, Neutral monism... and these are still in broad strokes of course, with plenty more variations on a number of different themes. Besides these there is Mysterianism, various mystical "theories" and explanations in Eastern philosophy, new theories such as IIT,and so on and so on and so on...
“Barry and BA are ignorant poopyheads” is not an argument.
Of course that isn't an argument! That is simply a statement.
My intellect is so powerful that I’ve come up with a theory...
Sure I'm a smart guy, but no, I didn't invent the theories I adhere to. Thanks though, I'm flattered :-)
I’ve explained why identify theorists’ position in based on an equivocation. How do you respond? By repeating the equivocation! A healthy respect for language is absolutely essential for sound reasoning.
In that case let's settle on our terms, the way real adults do, can we?
Yes, there are two generally opposing positions: Dualism in its various forms and monism in its various forms. That you don’t seem to understand this is very telling.
I don't seem to understand it because you're wrong. Not only are there many, many very different (and mutually exclusive) positions within dualism, and the same within monism, but there are other theories that can't be categorized under either heading (where does IIT fit, for example)? Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{February 11, 2015
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Hi ba77,
You stated that nobody you know of denies the reality of their own mind. I pointed several quotes of atheists denying the reality of consciousness and free will. Then you tried to play a definition games with the word mind. So for good measure Mr Arrington cited these quotes: There is only one sort of stuff, namely, matter-the physical stuff of physics, chemistry, and physiology-and the mind is somehow nothing but a physical phenomenon. In short, the mind is the brain.
And I corrected Barry by explaining that if the mind is the brain, and we agree that brains exist, then ipso facto minds exist. You're not going to win this - you should give up.
After those quotes of Athiests denying the reality of their mind, sure enough you tried to once again play semantics with the word mind and tried to equivocate it with the word brain,, just as Mr. Arrington predicted you would try to do.
HAHAHAhahahaha you are unbelievable. I've explained over and over that identity theorists believe that mind=brain, and that I am not an identity theorist, and that "mind" is neither "brain" nor "free will" nor "conscious self"!!!
RDFish, to simplify matters greatly, do you believe the ‘mind is the brain’? i.e. In your smoke and mirrors philosophy, if there were no brain would there be no mind? Yes or no? Can your convoluted philosophy, with all its bells and whistles, even answer that question in a straightforward manner?
I'll see if I can make my views simple enough for you. 1) "Easy" problem: thought, by which I mean mental abilities (reasoning, problem solving, language, etc) 2) Hard problem: consciousness, by which I mean nothing more or less than our subjective phenomenological experience of awareness As for (1), it's clear that we use our brains for thinking, so without a brain, we could not any of these mental tasks. It is not clear whether or not the neural processes we currently understand can ever fully account for our ability to think; it's possible that certain mental tasks are not Turing-computible. It is also possible that our brains utilize aspects of physics (yes, as in QM, etc) that we do not currently understand, or in ways we don't understand. As for (2), nobody has any understanding about conscious awareness other than our direct experience of it. Nobody knows what the sufficient conditions for consciousness are, although we do have some understanding of various physiological correlates of consciousness. Nobody knows if our conscious will is causal (we decide to do something and make it happen by conscious free will) or if it is perceptual (as the Libet and Wegner studies suggest - but of course do not prove). Apart from very poor evidence from paranormal psychology, the vast (huge!) preponderance of evidence indicates that conscious awareness, like thought, critically depends upon neural function, but again nobody can even imagine how consciousness arises from brain function. It may be that our minds (our thinking) are not capable of understanding the nature of consciousness at all. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish_{February 11, 2015
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Especially for RDFish:
FOR SOLID EVOLUTIONARY REASONS, WE’VE BEEN tricked into looking at life from the inside. Without scientism, we look at life from the inside, from the first-person POV (OMG, you don’t know what a POV is?—a “point of view”). The first person is the subject, the audience, the viewer of subjective experience, the self in the mind. Scientism shows that the first-person POV is an illusion. Even after scientism convinces us, we’ll continue to stick with the first person. But at least we’ll know that it’s another illusion of introspection and we’ll stop taking it seriously. We’ll give up all the answers to the persistent questions about free will, the self, the soul, and the meaning of life that the illusion generates. The physical facts fix all the facts. The mind is the brain. It has to be physical and it can’t be anything else, since thinking, feeling, and perceiving are physical process—in particular, input/output processes—going on in the brain. We can be sure of a great deal about how the brain works because the physical facts fix all the facts about the brain. The fact that the mind is the brain guarantees that there is no free will. It rules out any purposes or designs organizing our actions or our lives. It excludes the very possibility of enduring persons, selves, or souls that exist after death or for that matter while we live. Not that there was ever much doubt about mortality anyway. This chapter uses the science of Chapter 8 to provide scientism’s answers to the persistent questions about us and the mind. The fact that these answers are so different from what life’s illusions tell us from the inside of consciousness is just more reason not to take introspection seriously. THE GRAND ILLUSION DOWN THE AGES AND UP FROM BIRTH The neural circuits in our brain manage the beautifully coordinated and smoothly appropriate behavior of our body. They also produce the entrancing introspective illusion that thoughts really are about stuff in the world. This powerful illusion has been with humanity since language kicked in, as we’ll see. It is the source of at least two other profound myths: that we have purposes that give our actions and lives meaning and that there is a person “in there” steering the body, so to speak. To see why we make these mistakes and why it’s so hard to avoid them, we need to understand the source of the illusion that thoughts are about stuff. [A.Rosenberg, The Atheist Guide to Reality, Ch.9]
Box_{February 11, 2015
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Barry Arrington:
Is it possible even in principle for an atheist to aver logically that the mind is reducible to anything other than the electro-chemical processes of the brain. The answer to that question is self-evidently “no,” because, for an atheist, the electro-chemical processes of the brain is, in principle, the only thing there can be. This is true for any physicalist; any monist.
Perhaps Mr. Arrington has never heard of Phil Anderson? Let us remind him of this gentleman's famous words:
The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. At each level of complexity entirely new properties appear. Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry. We can now see that the whole becomes not merely more, but very different from the sum of its parts.
Anderson's approach directly contradicts Barry's simplistic picture. UDEditors: Yeah skram. Nothing is ever simple for you. For me it is easy to say "the Holocaust was evil, period." Not you. You can't bring yourself to say "the Holocaust was evil, period." That is not to your credit. Making simple things complex is not a sign of superior intelligence. It is a sign of moral failure. BTW, the materialist "poof; it happened" strategy you advocate here is intellectually indefensible. It is a lie materialists tell to themselves because otherwise they have to admit that their program is bankrupt. Even your buddy Red Fish agrees with this. See above where he dismisses the very idea you are pushing here. Another major fail skram. skram_{February 11, 2015
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Mr. Arrington you comment here drove the nail home:
“Barry, you’re an ignorant poopyhead” is not an argument. You seem to be stuck on this. Let me try to help you. In an intellectual argument, I make an assertion and try to support it with evidence and logic. If you think my evidence is insufficient to support my premises or if you think my logic is unsound or invalid, you demonstrate why you think that. Mere contradiction is not argument. That you seem to think it is should cause you to reflect and think again on the obviously high opinion you have of your own intelligence and rectitude.
bornagain77_{February 11, 2015
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Fish, here is a link to a report on a conference of theorists in which the consensus view was that "consciousness is an illusion." You ask "What sort of person would think that anyone denies conscious awareness or self-perception?" Well, that was the consensus view at this conference. Let me help you with the language. You don't seem to understand this. When someone says something is an "illusion" that means they are denying that it is a real thing.Barry Arrington_{February 11, 2015
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Red Fish; Blue Fish; One Fish; Two Fish My wife bought Dr. Seuss books for our grandchildren yesterday. Some of this really is Dr. Seuss level stuff like: A thing cannot be itself and something other than itself at the same time.
he’s [i.e., Dennett’s] a great writer.
If you mean he’s an excellent stylist; agreed. If you mean he writes the truth, not so much. So I would say he describes his delusions in very pithy prose. Kind of like Dawkins in that respect (though I believe I recall hearing they hate each other; or maybe that is someone else who hates Dawkins – that’s a pretty long line after all).
Barry: Let me anticipate your next ploy. You will say that neither Dennett nor Graziano said the mind does not exist. If you do go there, that will be a semantic dodge, not an apt response. Fish: Since when is the truth a ploy or a dodge, Barry?
The truth is not a ploy or a dodge. Violent abuse of language is, and that is what you are doing.
Barry: If one defines the mind as anything other than the physical stuff that makes up the brain, then Dennett would most certainly say that the mind, as defined, does not exist. Fish: OF COURSE! These people deny dualism (as do I). Why don’t you just say it truthfully, instead of pretending they are saying something else?
Fish, this is not a matter of this or that “actual state of things.” Whether dualism is true or monism is true is beside this point. The point is that neither you, nor I, nor Dennett, nor Graziano get to use words any old way we want if we want to be honest. Words have meaning. That meaning is defined by common usage. And the practically universal usage of the word “mind” is in contradistinction to the word “brain.” That’s why the issue we are talking about is called the “mind-body” problem after all. Anyone who wants to make the problem go away by linguistic fiat, as you seem to do, is not engaging the problem in good faith.
He [Graziano] does not deny we feel phenomenological consciousness; he denies that consciousness is a causal thing.
Wrong; not even close to correct. You really are shameless. Graziano denies that consciousness is a “thing” period. And he describes the feeling of phenomenological consciousness to which you allude as not a real thing at all, but an error made by the computational machinery of the brain.
Of you, me, and ba77, I am the only one who appears to have an understanding of these fundamental issues.
It is amusing that you would say that when you’ve made Romper Room errors on this very thread.
emergantism is only one of a large number of theories of mind that atheists might adhere to. I am not a theist, and I am not an emergentist, so I myself directly contradict your naive belief.
The issue, again, is this. Is it possible even in principle for an atheist to aver logically that the mind is reducible to anything other than the electro-chemical processes of the brain. The answer to that question is self-evidently “no,” because, for an atheist, the electro-chemical processes of the brain is, in principle, the only thing there can be. This is true for any physicalist; any monist. Your vague allusion to a “large number of theories” that atheists adhere to that contradicts this position is noted. Vague allusions are not arguments. You do not even seem to feel obligated to argue at all. Your “argument,” such as it is, is that you are deeply knowledgeable and if anyone disagrees with you it can only be because they are ignorant. Fish, you’re not fooling anyone you know. If you have an argument, make it. If not, then admit that. “Barry and BA are ignorant poopyheads” is not an argument.
Everything you say is wrong. I am not a theist nor an atheist; my view is more nuanced than that, so in your naive view I look like an atheist to you – that’s fine. Yet I do not believe that matter, energy, and space are all there are, because I believe our understanding of ontology is incomplete, and that is the reason we can’t resolve deep problems of metaphysics (mind/body problem, problem of free will, etc).
Translation from Fish-speak: My intellect is so powerful that I’ve come up with a theory that is so elegant, so powerful, so wise, so smart, so wonderful, that not even I – as stupendously intellectual as I am – can understand it. You see, it’s all about “nuance.” Nuance Nuance über alles. But I can't be bothered to make an actual argument. It' all complicated and stuff and you wouldn't understand even it I did. Fish, saying “it’s just so complicated that you can’t possibly understand” is also not an argument.
I think saying that conscious experience “emerges” from the electro-chemical properties of the brain is nothing but hand-waving – nobody has any idea what that means.
Well, it’s nice to know that we agree on something.
Everything you say is wrong, including this. Really, Barry, you just don’t know what you’re talking about.
Again, “Barry, you’re an ignorant poopyhead” is not an argument. You seem to be stuck on this. Let me try to help you. In an intellectual argument, I make an assertion and try to support it with evidence and logic. If you think my evidence is insufficient to support my premises or if you think my logic is unsound or invalid, you demonstrate why you thing that. Mere contradiction is not argument. That you seem to think it is should cause you to reflect and think again on the obviously high opinion you have of your own intelligence and rectitude.
Good grief. Identity theorists do indeed say . . .
Good grief. I’ve explained why identify theorists’ position in based on an equivocation. How do you respond? By repeating the equivocation! A healthy respect for language is absolutely essential for sound reasoning. You respect language like Humpty Dumpty did.
What is obvious is that you feel like philosophy of mind is simple and basically consists of two opposing positions. All I can say is you’ve revealed a deep ignorance here.
No, I do not believe philosophy of mind is simple. But I do distinguish between those that are logically or onotologically incoherent and those that are not (and that sets me apart from you). It is not simple though; there are some thorny issues. Yes, there are two generally opposing positions: Dualism in its various forms and monism in its various forms. That you don’t seem to understand this is very telling. It tells me that the triumphalist tone you always use concerning your own competence is unwarranted. Please do better.Barry Arrington_{February 11, 2015
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RDFish, to simplify matters greatly, do you believe the 'mind is the brain'? i.e. In your smoke and mirrors philosophy, if there were no brain would there be no mind? Yes or no? Can your convoluted philosophy, with all its bells and whistles, even answer that question in a straightforward manner?bornagain77_{February 11, 2015
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RDFish, you are quite full of it and astonishingly stupid if you think people cannot see through your empty rhetoric. You stated that nobody you know of denies the reality of their own mind. I pointed several quotes of atheists denying the reality of consciousness and free will. Then you tried to play a definition games with the word mind. So for good measure Mr Arrington cited these quotes:
There is only one sort of stuff, namely, matter-the physical stuff of physics, chemistry, and physiology-and the mind is somehow nothing but a physical phenomenon. In short, the mind is the brain. Daniel Dennett How does the brain go beyond processing information to become subjectively aware of information? The answer is: It doesn’t. The brain has arrived at a conclusion that is not correct. When we introspect and seem to find that ghostly thing — awareness, consciousness, the way green looks or pain feels — our cognitive machinery is accessing internal models and those models are providing information that is wrong. Michael S. A. Graziano
After those quotes of Athiests denying the reality of their mind, sure enough you tried to once again play semantics with the word mind and tried to equivocate it with the word brain,, just as Mr. Arrington predicted you would try to do. But none-the-less you did it anyway. (Pound the table if you can't pound the facts ???? ),,, "Red Fish (Herring)", is a very apt nick name Mr. Arrington has given you. I fully concur with Mr. Arrington's last statement
"Only stupid people deny what Hart calls the “primordial datum,” the self evident fact that I am an object that perceives a subject. Every other thought “about” anything else is logically downstream from that thought."
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11:41 AM
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Hi Barry,
Only stupid people deny what Hart calls the “primordial datum,” the self evident fact that I am an object that perceives a subject.
Stupid? What sort of person would think that anyone denies conscious awareness or self-perception? And would fail to realize that the question is not whether we are conscious beings, but rather what is the relationship between consciousness and the physical world? And would fail to understand that there are literally dozens of different theories regarding the mind/body problem, not just two? And would dodge all of my responses, but accuse me of dodging? Cheers, RDFish/AIFish RDFish_{February 11, 2015
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11:16 AM
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Red Fish:
The reason you do this is to try and make their philosophy sound stupid.
Their philosophy is profoundly stupid all by itself. I don't have to "try" anything to make it sound so. Only stupid people deny what Hart calls the "primordial datum," the self evident fact that I am an object that perceives a subject. Every other thought "about" anything else is logically downstream from that thought.Barry Arrington_{February 11, 2015
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11:02 AM
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