His “little theater in the mind” concept means that you can’t even know that nature exists. It may just be a movie that’s being played in front of your eyes
Michael Egnor: Sure. It’s a classic debate in philosophy of mind. It goes back really to John Locke: What does perception mean?
Locke argued that what we experience in our minds is our perceptions. And perceptions are essentially pictures of the outside world, that are projected onto our brain in some form.
[Philosopher Daniel] Dennett has called this the “Cartesian theater.” It’s as if there’s a little “us” sitting inside our brains in a little theater, and our eyes are shining movies, and our ears are shining audio, and everything’s coming into this theater …
I think Locke made a terrible mistake. The problem with that way of looking at things is that a completely cuts you off from reality. (00:48:11)
News, “How philosopher John Locke turned reality into theatre” at Mind Matters News
Takehome: Aristotle and Aquinas’s traditional philosophical approach, Michael Egnor argues, offers more assurance that we can truly perceive reality.
Here’s a transcript and notes for the first 47 minutes:
How did Descartes come to make such a mess of dualism? Mathematician René Descartes strictly separated mind and matter in a way that left the mind very vulnerable. After Descartes started the idea that only minds have experiences, materialist philosophers dispensed with mind, then puzzled over how matter has experiences.
What’s the best option for understanding the mind and the brain? Theories that attempt to show that the mind does not really exist clearly don’t work and never did. Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor reviews the mind-brain theories for East Meets West: Theology Unleashed. He think dualism makes the best sense of the evidence.
How we can know mental states are real?
Mental states are always “about” something; physical states are not “about” anything. Michael Egnor argues that doing science as a physicalist (a materialist) is like driving a car with the parking brake on; it’s a major impediment to science.
Why neurosurgeon Mike Egnor stopped being a materialist atheist. He found that materialism is just not working out in science. Most propositions in basic science are based on mathematics and mathematics is not a material thing.
and
How science points to meaning in life. The earliest philosopher of science, Aristotle, pioneered a way of understanding it. Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor talks about the four causes of the events in our world, from the material to the mind.
You may also wish to read: Why the universe itself can’t be the most fundamental thing. Atheist biology professor Jerry Coyne is mistaken in dismissing my observation that proofs of God’s existence follow the same logical structure as any other scientific theory. (Michael Egnor)
Dr Egnor does a great job bringing Aristotle and Aquinas into contemporary issues.
… also thanks for the transcript and notes (I usually can’t sit through video interviews)
This kind of theorizing is utterly meaningless. One must first investigate the logic used in ordinary common discourse, and not arbitrarily make stuff up.
News, we need to follow up the theatre model. Go back to Plato’s prisoners trapped in a cave of shadow shows and echoes they imagine to be reality, c what, 380 BC? When one is freed and made to stand and see the apparatus of the theatre, isn’t he then potentially seeing play no 2? And being forced out into the outer world — the forms are here lurking — isn’t that play no. 3? And so we see the problem of grand delusion lurking from the beginnings of the Western Philosophical Tradition. Beneath is Thales of Miletus and the challenge of the one and the many, to make good sense of unity and diversity, cosmos not chaos, where our inner life and first fact of embodiment in a physical world, make us a microcosm of the problem. Egnor is right the mind-body problem is central. I suggest, we need to take common sense and first facts of experience seriously, rejecting as absurd any scheme from the cave to the Wizard of Oz to the Matrix to last Thursday creation ism, which would propose grand delusion. Self-discredit of credibility of mindedness is too high of a price, yes we may and do err, but there is no reason to invite or enable the thesis of global error. KF
As to:
First off, if you really believe that the material brain generates your perceptions, (as is commonly taught in leading universities), and that all your perceptions are, therefore, ‘in your brain’ then, apparently, the ‘hard problem of consciousness’, i.e. qualia, is never adequately dealt with and ‘the hard problem’ comes roaring back in the form of the “Homunculus”, i.e. an infinite regress of ‘little men’ inside your head. …. (LOL, just when I thought the materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists couldn’t get any stranger, now we have infinite little men apparently roaming around inside Darwinian heads. 🙂 ,,, )
And while that ‘infinite little men inside your head’ problem should, from a logical and philosophical point of view, be enough, in and of itself, to render materialistic presuppositions about the mind, and perceptions, utterly absurd and false, it is also interesting to note that Mathematics and Empirical Science have also come alongside this logical and philosophical proof and rendered this widespread belief that the material brain generates our perceptions false.
First, in establishing this fact, it is important to note that leading Darwinian materialist themselves admit that, if Darwinian materialism were actually true, then any perceptions that he may have about reality may be illusory and not true.
Moreover, the Darwinian materialist has no way to differentiate between his real and true perceptions and his illusory perceptions..
Moreover, besides leading Darwinian atheists themselves admitting that, if Darwinian evolution were true, we could not trust our perceptions and beliefs to be reliable, Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist, via extensive analysis of the mathematics of population genetics, has proven that, (again if Darwinian evolution is assumed as being true), then ALL, not just some, of our perceptions of reality would be illusory
The belief that any perceptions and/or beliefs that we may have about reality may be illusory, and that we have no way to differentiate between the two beliefs, simply, besides being completely insane, undercuts the entire scientific enterprise itself.
As Nancy Pearcey explains, “Applied consistently, Darwinism undercuts not only itself but also the entire scientific enterprise. Kenan Malik, a writer trained in neurobiology, writes, “If our cognitive capacities were simply evolved dispositions, there would be no way of knowing which of these capacities lead to true beliefs and which to false ones.” Thus “to view humans as little more than sophisticated animals …undermines confidence in the scientific method.”,,, Of course, the atheist pursuing his research has no choice but to rely on rationality, just as everyone else does. The point is that he has no philosophical basis for doing so. Only those who affirm a rational Creator have a basis for trusting human rationality.”
In fact, reliable observation and/or reliable perception is an indispensable part of the scientific method itself, in fact reliable observation and/or reliable perception is the first step in, and therefore the cornerstone of, the scientific method itself,
Since reliable observation is an indispensable part of the scientific method itself, then the Darwinian claim that ALL our perceptions of reality are illusory undercuts any Darwinian claim that their worldview is, or can be, ‘scientific’.
Fortunately for us, science itself, (real science, and not the ‘scientism’ of Atheistic materialists), could care less if Darwinists are forced to believe that ALL their perceptions of reality are illusory.
Specifically, advances in Quantum Mechanics have now experimentally proven that our observations of reality far more integral to reality, and therefore reliable of reality, than Darwinists are forced to claim via the mathematics of population genetics.
As the following Wheeler Delayed Choice experiment that was conducted with atoms found, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”
And as the following violation of Leggett’s inequality found, “Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”
Thus, apparently, empirical science itself could care less that Darwinists are forced to believe that ALL their perceptions of reality are illusory.
As far as experimental science itself is concerned, the Darwinist’s materialistic belief that ALL our perceptions of reality must be illusory is experimentally falsified. Our conscious observations and/or perceptions are shown to be, via advances in Quantum Mechanics, to be far more integral to reality, and therefore to be far more reliable of reality, than Darwinists are forced to believe via the mathematics of population genetics.
What Dr. Egnor terms “Perception at a distance” draws this distinction between Aristotelian metaphysics and Darwinian materialism out in an even more dramatic fashion.
Specifically, Dr. Michael Egnor’s holds, (via Aristotle), that “Perception at a distance is no more inconceivable than action at a distance.”
This ‘perception at a distance’ claim from Dr. Egnor was simply too much Dr. Vincent Torley.to take.
Dr. Torley strenuously objected against Dr. Egnor that perception cannot possibly occur ‘at a distance’ since a Supernova that we might be observing “ceased to exist nearly 200 millennia ago, long before the dawn of human history.”
Yet, despite Dr. Torley’s strenuous objection against Dr. Egnor’s claim that “Perception at a distance is no more inconceivable than action at a distance”, advances in quantum mechanics could, once again, care less how Darwinian materialists would prefer the world to behave and have now shown that Dr. Egnor’s contention, via Aristotle, is correct, i.e. As far as empirical science is concerned, perception does indeed happen ‘at a distance’.
Specifically, as the following article states, “Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier one to the later one, but two events can become correlated such that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later.,,,”
And as the following 2017 article states, “a decision made in the present can influence something in the past.”
The implications of these ‘quantum entanglement in time’ experiments are fairly dramatic. As Professor Crull explains in the following 2018 article, “entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted,,, it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.”
Thus, as far as empirical science itself is concerned, Dr. Egnor’s contention, via Aristotle, that perception happens ‘at a distance’ is validated and Dr. Torley’s strenuous ‘materialistic’ objection against Dr. Egnor has been falsified.
Thus in conclusion, the materialistic “Cartesian theater” view of the mind has been falsified from several angles. i.e. Philosophy and Logic, Mathematics and Empirical science, ALL join together and falsify the materialistic “Cartesian theater” view of the mind!
Of supplemental note to Dr. Egnor’s claim that, “The Aristotelian way is that the form of the object that you’re perceiving actually comes into your mind. That your mind is, in a way, all things. That you connect to the outside world in a direct way.”
In Aquinas’s extension of Aristotle we find that “the essence of a thing is the composition of its matter and form,,,”
And via Aquinas, we also find that “the essence of the individual (the species in the Aristotelian sense) is the true object of our knowledge.”
And we also find that Atheistic materialists, (because of their denial of “essence” within their reductive materialistic framework), deny ‘the true object of out knowledge’ and therefore can’t even define what a species truly is, (much less can they define what it truly means to be human).
In short, Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, have completely lost the ability to delineate what a species even is in the first place.
And you don’t have to take Logan Paul Gage’s word for it. Darwinist materialists themselves admit that have no rigorous way in which to delineate what a species truly is.
As should be needless to say, the inability of a supposedly scientific theory, a supposedly scientific theory that seeks to explain the “Origin of Species” in the first place, to clearly define what a species actually is in the first place is a clear indication that that supposedly scientific theory cannot possibly be the proper ‘scientific’ explanation for the “Origin of Species”!
Thus summarily, we find that Dr. Egnor’s entire thesis, i.e. “the form of the object that you’re perceiving actually comes into your mind”, a thesis which he derived from the metaphysics of Aristotle and Aquinas, has remarkable support from numerous different angles, not least of which is the abject failure of Darwinists themselves to ever be able to account for the ‘essence of species’, which is the quote unquote ‘true object of our knowledge’.
BA77
Comprehensive and excellent material – thank you!
As stated, materialism destroyed the correct understanding of essenses and natures – so Darwinism destroyed human nature. It’s anti-human.
Silver Asiatic thank you,
Also of note to ‘perception at a distance’, (and also via Dr. Egnor), we find that “The sensory experiments of Benjamin Libet,, demonstrated that a subject perceives a sensory stimulus on the skin at the moment the skin is touched, before the stimulus reaches the brain and before full deliberative consciousness occurs.”
John Eccles went so far as to say that Libet’s findings of ‘instantaneous perception’ suggested “a backward step in time made by a non-physical mind.”
The reason why John Eccles thought that ‘instantaneous perception’ must be the result of “a backward step in time made by a non-physical mind” is because it was, (and still is), widely believed that electrochemical nerve impulses were the only way that perceptions on the skin could possibly be transmitted to the brain. And since electrochemical signals take time to travel and could not possibly be instantaneous, something else must be at play. Hence Eccles suggesting “a backward step in time made by a non-physical mind”.
Since ‘delicate’ quantum entanglements were not even thought to be possible within ‘noisy’ molecular biology at that time, Eccles simply had no other mechanism to appeal to in order to explain ‘instantaneous perception’.
This has now all changed, As the following 2011 article stated, ‘this reverses the previous orthodoxy, which held that quantum effects could not exist in biological systems because of the amount of noise in these systems’,,, Environmental noise here drives a persistent and cyclic generation of new entanglement.
And in the following 2015 paper entitled, “Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules” it was found that “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” and the researchers further commented that “finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,
As well, DNA itself does not belong to the world of classical mechanics but instead belongs to the world of quantum mechanics. In the following video, at the 22:20 minute mark, Dr Rieper shows why the high temperatures of biological systems do not prevent DNA from having quantum entanglement and then at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper goes on to remark that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it.
Thus quantum coherence and/or quantum entanglement, contrary to what was believed to be possible in molecular biology just a few short years ago, is now found to be ubiquitous within molecular biology.
To repeat, Quantum effects are now found to be in all the important biomolecules of life.
And finding quantum effects to be ubiquitous within molecular biology also provides us with a viable mechanism in order to be able to explain the ‘instantaneous perception’ of Libet’s experiments.
Indeed, ‘spooky action at a distance’ is, practically speaking, the defining attribute of quantum mechanics
As the following article entitled “Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory” stated, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”
Thus, finding quantum effects to be ubiquitous within molecular biology provides us with a viable mechanism in order to explain ‘instantaneous perception’, and we do not have to appeal, as John Eccles himself did, to the ‘un-parsimonious’ notion of backwards in time causation.
Moreover, due to the fact that quantum information also happens to be conserved,,,,
,,, due to the fact that quantum information also happens to be conserved, finding quantum effects to be ubiquitous within molecular biology also provides us with very strong empirical evidence suggesting that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff states in the following article, “the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”
Verse:
Silver Asiatic/6
Cherry-picked quotes which may not be a fair representation of the author’s views and almost always ignore alternative and even contradictory interpretations are neither comprehensive nor excellent.
How does one philosophical position destroy another, other than when it is better and truer than the alternative?
Has human nature changed significantly since 1859?
No, it’s nonsense.
Seversky you claim that I “ignore alternative and even contradictory interpretations”.
And exactly how did I not take your Darwinian worldview into consideration since I quoted verbatim from leading Darwinists, such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Novella, about the inability of your Darwinian worldview to ground our ability to have accurate perceptions.
If you think I misquoted them, then please provide the exact quotes where it contradicts what I quoted them as saying, and do not just throw around baseless accusations about me ‘cherry picking’ quotes from them that do not accurately reflect what they really believe.
For crying out loud, you don’t need to go back to Plato. You just need to look at the evidence directly available to you.
The logic of subjectivity and objectivity are quite plain and simple, in ordinary common discourse. Why even a 5 year old child can already express personal opinions, and convey accurate facts. Your pretense that this is some kind of grand mystery of the ages, is shot to pieces by a 5 year old being capable to solve it all linguistically.
Subjectivity:
A subjective opinion is formed by choice, and expresses what it is that makes a choice.
As can be found by considering the phrase “I find this painting beautiful”. The opinion is chosen, in spontaneous expression of emotion with free will. The opinion expresses a love for the way the painting looks.
Objectivity:
A fact is obtained by evidence of a creation, forcing to produce a 1 to 1 corresponding model of it, in the mind.
As can be found by considering the phrase “There is a camel out back”. The words are a 1 to 1 corresponding model of the camel that is supposedly out back, forced by the evidence of it.
Leading to the obvious conclusion of dualism.
1. Creator / chooses / spiritual / subjective / opinion
2. Creation / chosen / material / objective / fact
MNY, I pointed out how deeply rooted the issues are. KF