Back At Special Agent ERV’s Blog…

_{April 12, 2008

Intelligent Design}

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DMS, with an as yet undetermined appendage writes:

Might I suggest that “someone” (perhaps a group effort) work up a brief flyer to hand out to people going to see Expelled. It should be non-snarky, non-confrontational, with some simple points and web addresses to go to for more information

Great idea! I think they should shave their heads, wear togas, and chant ziiiiiiii-enzzzzzz ziiiiii-enzzzzz ziiiiii-enzzzzz. People will wonder if the Hare Krishnas are making a comeback and be naturally curious.

Now boys and girls at Ms. ERV’s website please, no applause for this awesome marketing strategy. Just send me money to show your appreciation. Y’all have paypal, right? Of course you do.

Comments

On the discussion above featuring on evidence of the nonmaterial mind. I think that KF hits the nail on the head with his implication of Kant's philosophy. What is true for me on many levels may or may not be true for you but nonetheless logically one of us is right and we have to appeal to the forces and matrix of data from which we both derive our conclusions, namely experience.
"5 –> Kant of course concluded that we cannot know things in themselves, but only as perceived. [Go back to 49 ff above and see why I and others think this leads us to a self-referential inconsistency and/or absurdity; and why it therefore makes sense to take certain truths to be self-evident, namely that we are aware, however provisionally and imperfectly, of an external, real world and can act into it, based on the use of our minds and how they influence the behavior of our bodies.]"
So it is, so its always been. I find it always imperative to invoke Leibniz in general discussions about consciousness. In this most important quote below Leibniz argues convincingly from the perspective of self referential experience. Leibniz uses the incredible illustration of the mill…
17. “Moreover, it must be confessed that perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of figures and motions. And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill. That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work one upon another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in a simple substance, and not in a compound or in a machine, that perception must be sought for. Further, nothing but this (namely, perceptions and their changes) can be found in a simple substance. It is also in this alone that all the internal activities of simple substances can consist.”
Also lets discuss the difference between consciousness as we experience it - the only way which it can be known- and as it may seem existent in say material objects such as a computer. The computer is just a mechanistic device that is not conscious of its surroundings or its origins- and the computer cannot conceptualize the infinite- you can program an infinite like algorithm but the concept of anything qualitative like infinity or benevolence is not a communicable- it has nothing to do with mathematics and counting- The computer is a slave of the human who is its designer- The human has unpredictable or free will- but the computer is already programmed- Moreover the computer could never be as intelligent as the human because as soon as we come up with a concept or program to put into the computer we have already cognized a new set of reasoning and sets that are not included in the latest and therefore the computer is merely waiting for the next set of instructions that the human experiences first. It is this experience that keeps man inevitably greater and ahead of the computer’s quantitative world- yet it amounts to a qualitative observation about the computers derivation and dependency on man and the difference in experience between the two- Human consciousness is therefore unique in many respects. I need not bring into this discussion Hamlet's dialectic by I think I shall anyways.
“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
Only man can claim to be the paradigm of all animals. To profess a belief, to possess a spirit, to live, to die. We are at once the valiant dust that makes up all of the cosmos and yet then again somehow we are very different. Man mysteriously owes his to the divine that brought his order out of a world of disorder. The computer and the mill all owe their construction to the exact mysterious force that organizes for man- intelligence. The human being has consciousness on a level that no animal can claim. Man, is differnt though i nthat he has a full soul. But if what we mean of consciousness is self reflection "I think thereof I am" then only one known entity in this world can claim such a developed form and that is man. As we infer intelligence from its effects. That is through the explanatory filter, we are ONLY inferring design. That is the filter is not finding consciousness but assuming it is there because its effects are obvious indicators. Once again this concept of intelligence and consciousness comes from a qualitative notion that we gather from self referential experience and reflection of our own existence. It is in this form of understanding that a computer will never be able to cogitate. This is an issue of quality not quantity. I ask you what is good? What does the concept "good" feel like? It cannot be found with in the matter itself- and perhaps not even in it's shape. Quality "transcends" matter. And I can not tell you "exactly" why except to speak in negations of improbability or lack of explanation for. The sense experience of consciousness is one that we all feel and we all have. We can not imagine it any other way. You have it too don't lie. ;) Most everything begins and ends with experience. Without consciousness there would be no experience. Without mind no design. And no material process has been shown to mimic true design. Consciousness must be somewhere else in the laws that construct matter. The only place we know where to look for the source of laws is in a legislator and design in a designer. Here in this realm consciousness in manifest, indivisable and as real anything else. In the physical order of things we look for an ultimate cause, one that can account ofr the first at the big bang. All we can guess is that this thing is a non material thing- because we know of no material process that can exist without a cause. INcidently that cause must be able ot account for the complexity of life- it therefore must have mind and consciousness. A non material consciousness has therefore been inferred. An self referentially I know that mind is not merely dust.Frost122585_{April 18, 2008
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PS: A bit of background reading on the issue of mind and matter: Reppert on mental causation, on defining materialistic worldviews -- and in response to an attempted rebuttal, MP on materialism and truth,.kairosfocus_{April 18, 2008
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EM; I am monitoring for the moment, so a few more remarks. I see you have made some dismissive references on how we are caricaturing evolutionary materialistic views [but please cf. 102 above; which is very general on the issue of chance + necessity acting on matter + energy --> mind], and are trying to say that we are making a logical not an empirically based case. Even though reasoning processes and exercises are in fact in this case, empirical ones; ones that we can use metacognition about. More to the point, though, if you will look above, you will see that I have provided a little thought experiment to trigger a real world exercise and [re-]constructivist discussion. [Again: since we happen to be mental creatures, that is not only empirical -- experience based -- but a live example of the issues of mind and brain, mentality and materiality. We are not confined to simply blindly following the opinions and declared conclusions of claimed experts -- we can think for ourselves, and need to, as: [a] no expert is better than his/her facts, reasoning and assumptions, and [b] we may be living in an intellectual Plato's Cave of manipulative shadow shows backed up by force to suppress dissent -- as Expelled publicly documents starting today.] The case, the third time of asking:
. . . echoing Richard Taylor, suppose you were in a train and saw [outside the window] rocks you believe were pushed there by chance + necessity only, spelling out: WELCOME TO WALES. Would you believe the apparent message, why?
Why don't you do it? If you do so, I believe you will discover: 1 --> Functionally Specified Complex Information is a characteristic product of mind, and even in cases where such FSCI -- per thought experiment [just try to observe this little exercise: rocks rolling down a hill per chance + necessity only and spontaneously forming a full sentence in English, with letters properly formed, happen in the real world . . . !] -- is believed to originate by chance + necessity only, it then loses credibility. (For, chance + necessity cause-effect chains are unconnected to ground-consequent issues. This is the exact issue I raised in 102 above.) 2 --> Further, how did you become aware of the text you read and responded to? [Your eyes as sensors, true, but how then did swatches of black and white etc become meaningful words and sentences in a language [as opposed to i/o signals and noise in a control loop or the like]? And how did you then make the observations, inferences and decisions relative to the excitation of rods, cones and connected neurons? If by chance and necessity only, you are back at 1. Namely, apparent messages tracing to "lucky noise" and/or non-foresighted, non-purposive mechanical necessity are not credible.] 3 --> Next, we are aware/conscious of our bodies and how they function, thence the external world, through: mental processes. Thus, the phenomenal world is a mental world, leading to the Kantian bridge challenge . . . 4 --> Namely, how do we bridge from things as they are perceived and conceived and subjectively experienced, to the noumenal world of "things in themselves"? [And, "inter-subjective consensus" does not help as your belief that we exist may be a part of that mental world isolated from things in themselves.] 5 --> Kant of course concluded that we cannot know things in themselves, but only as perceived. [Go back to 49 ff above and see why I and others think this leads us to a self-referential inconsistency and/or absurdity; and why it therefore makes sense to take certain truths to be self-evident, namely that we are aware, however provisionally and imperfectly, of an external, real world and can act into it, based on the use of our minds and how they influence the behaviour of our bodies.] 6 --> Notice, also how this exemplifies how the worlds of experience and of mind interact; thence, how we come to hold a well-warranted belief on evidence of fact and logic. Once we accept that real knowledge exists [note the given simple definition in a nutshell], they cannot be separated, in short. 7 --> And, to make the claim that knowledge does not exist is to claim . . . to know. Oops. [Yet another self-evident truth, once we have a functioning mind that understands and experiences.] 8 --> So, we know that mind exists -- that is how we come to perceive, be aware of, then understand and know everything else in our world, starting with our own bodies. MIND is more certain than the external world! [Or, haven't we learned from Kant?] 9 --> But, is mind just "a matter of" a particularly useful configuration of matter and energy, as encoded, stored or transmitted information indubitably is? That brings us right back to 1 again: can we reasonably trust the deliverances of chance + necessity only acting on matter + energy to give us access to knowledge, understanding, reason and truth? [No word magic about "emergence" permitted -- you have to explain.] 10 --> And yet, by the very fact of participating in the blog thread, you believe that reason, evidence, knowledge, understanding and communication are possible, actually existing and important. [Never mind the use of name-dropping and appeal to authority to dismiss a serious question without addressing it even in outline on the merits.] So, why? 11 --> ANS, part 1: because you know by experience [an observation that was immemorial in the days of Plato], that causal factors in the world in which we live trace reliably to:
[1] natural regularities rooted in mechanical necessities, [2] chance configurations (which, per accident or happenstance, take up whatever values they hold, and could "just as easily" have taken up other values) and their constraining effects on such mechanical necessities, [3] intelligent, intentional, decisional action, and its supervening effects on situations embracing necessity + chance.
12 --> ANS, part 2: Such intelligent, decisional actions result in matter and energy taking up complex, organised functional configurations that would otherwise be too rare in the relevant search space for reasonable random walk based processes to reach without exhausting available probabilistic resources -- and one has to get TO the shores of islands of functionality before one can start to climb hills to better performance through whatever handy hill-climbing procedure you want to use. [Think of being stranded at a point at random in a vast Pacific dotted with tiny islands, and being on a raft with limited food and water. What are the odds of landing on an island before you run out of resources? But, what if you had a map, nav tools and an engine with enough fuel to head to the relevant nearest island? See the difference intelligent action makes?] 13 --> This of course brings us right back to the significance and revolutionary power of the empirically anchored inference to intelligent action based on observed characteristic signs of intelligence. The design inference in short. 14 --> And, it shows why there is a self-referential inconsistency in the reasoning of those who have to use their MINDS to think that all is matter + energy, acted on by chance + necessity. Worse yet, some dare to redefine Science -- "knowledge" -- to embed and entrench and defend this assertion. So, EM, join us: "Step into the sunshine, and step out of the cave!" GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 18, 2008
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I have been watching this discussion unfold with interest. Daniel King's call for empirical evidence has been met mainly by the other side of the empirical/rational divide, namely reasoning (of a sort) that a materialist view of mind is self-contradictory or self-refuting. Yet I don't know to what they (StephenB or kairosfocus) mean when they refer to a "materialist" view of mind. Such views come in many forms, and I see very little evidence that those who provide cartoon versions of materialism here comprehend that. So I suggest a bit of reading. A good start would be The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates, edited by Block, Flanagan, and Guzeldere. Many of the big names are represented therein, including many serious materialists, and nothing in that 800+ page book looks remotely like the strawman constructed in the previous posts.evo_materialist_{April 17, 2008
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DK; Again, simply work through the following example:
echoing Richard Taylor, suppose you were in a train and saw [outside the window] rocks you believe were pushed there by chance + necessity only, spelling out: WELCOME TO WALES. Would you believe the apparent message, why?
The implications thereof will suffice to show what is going on, once you reckon with the implications of the four forces of physics and chance acting on matter and energy without mind as an INDEPENDENT causal factor. Since we have already argued the issue out at hundreds of posts length [with the evo mat position IMHBXO failing to hold up a solid ground for the mind -- word magic like "emergence" will not do], I can only think that this is the best way forward: (1) If you believe the product of chance + necessity without residue gives coded information and even truth [ARI: that which says of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not], why? (2) if not then you ave to reckon with the implications of the visible world of symbolic code that refers to reality, and even makes a difference to it -- starting with the fine tuned convergent multidimensional physics of a life-facilitating cosmos, and going on through the implications of DNA and our need for minds to apprehend all this. Ah gone. God bless! GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 17, 2008
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KF, Always delighted, especially when you have couched your view in such a concise form. But it is a shame that we keep meeting so far below the page-break, beyond the reach of many onlookers. Your strawman (colossal enough to bestride the Bosphorus and boy will that light up the sky when the oil of crimson herring with which it has been copiously annointed is ignited!): "blind chance + necessity" does not advance the discussion. Because I do not question the existence of a behavior that is called "mind." I ask only for evidence that it is a substance separable from the activity of a brain.Daniel King_{April 17, 2008
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DK: Everytime you make a mental decision that reverses the brain's impulses, you prove the existence of the mind. The "placebo" effect alone provides strong evidence of a mind. Conquering a bad habit proves the existence of the mind. Matter can't reverse its own decisions or change its mind or reflect on itself. In any case, that is a separate matter from the fact that two realms are needed for rationality and the perception of truth.StephenB_{April 17, 2008
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DK: Thanks for the kind words. On empirical evidence for mind, it is all around you. To see it why not just try to address the "WELCOME TO WALES" question, in context:
echoing Richard Taylor, suppose you were in a train and saw [outside the window] rocks you believe were pushed there by chance + necessity only, spelling out: WELCOME TO WALES. Would you believe the apparent message, why?
That should be enough to show the difference between mind and blind chance + necessity acting on matter + energy across space and time. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 17, 2008
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KF, I thought you were retiring from these premises, at least for a while. Let me add my congratulations for your fine work on this site so far and my best wishes for success in those endeavors to which you are now turning. And may you enjoy good health, without which we are all handicapped in achieving our potential. Call me a selective hyperskeptic if you will. If I am such, then are not all those who call themselves "scientists?" Because all they and I ask is that you and StephenB cite empirical evidence for the existence of a substance called "mind" that exists in a form separable from a brain.Daniel King_{April 17, 2008
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-----"As Jack Krebs most eloquently pointed out in #96, the materiality or immateriality of “mind” is irrelevant to propositions about rationality." No, he didn't point it out; he simply made the empty claim. Rationality requires a subject and an object or, if you like, an investigator and something to be investigated. You can't reason your way to a destination if there is no place to go.StephenB_{April 17, 2008
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PS: and relabelling empirically anchored logical argument "philosophical argument" then deriding it as not being "evidence" -- which includes issues of fact and logic -- is selective hyperskeprticism. You need to show us that as a claimed material entity with a brain and body suitably controlled by chance + necessity only, as conveyed through the four major forces and whatever non-purposive conditions serve as boundaries on the relevant forces, your thoughts and conclusions can be taken as more than lucky noise. Or, echoing Richard Taylor, suppose you were in a train and saw [outside the window] rocks you believe were pushed there by chance + necessity only, spelling out: WELCOME TO WALES. Would you believe the apparent message, why?kairosfocus_{April 17, 2008
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DK: You are ducking the point in 102:
[evolutionary] materialism [a worldview that often likes to wear the mantle of “science”] . . . argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature. Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of chance. But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this picture. Thus, what we subjectively experience as “thoughts” and “conclusions” can only be understood materialistically as unintended by-products of the natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains. (These forces are viewed as ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance and psycho-social conditioning, within the framework of human culture.) Therefore, if materialism is true, the “thoughts” we have and the “conclusions” we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity. Of course, the conclusions of such arguments may still happen to be true, by lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” them. And, if our materialist friends then say: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must note that to demonstrate that such tests provide empirical support to their theories requires the use of the very process of reasoning which they have discredited! Thus, evolutionary materialism reduces reason itself to the status of illusion. But, immediately, that includes “Materialism.” For instance, Marxists commonly deride opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismiss qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? And, should we not simply ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is simply another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? In the end, materialism is based on self-defeating logic . . . .
GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 17, 2008
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StephenB:
You are missing the point, my friend. I am not trying to prove the existence of the mind. I am pointing out that if the non-material mind doesn’t exist, rationality is impossible.
As Jack Krebs most eloquently pointed out in #96, the materiality or immateriality of "mind" is irrelevant to propositions about rationality. Nevertheless, you might care to cite some evidence (not philosophical argument) to support the proposition that a "mind" is a substance independent of the functioning of a brain.Daniel King_{April 17, 2008
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PS: here is Ari's discussion; the REAL case that has to be answered to in the first instance -- and without self referential absurdity or other similar confusions: _____________ Aristotle, Metaphysics [1011b][1] But perhaps it is for this reason that those who argue not from a sense of difficulty but for argument's sake are compelled to say that the appearance is not true in itself, but true to the percipient;and, as we have said before, are compelled also to make everything relative and dependent upon opinion and sensation, so that nothing has happened or will happen unless someone has first formed an opinion about it; otherwise clearly all things would not be relative to opinion. Further, if a thing is one, it is relative to one thing or to something determinate. And if the same thing is both a half and an equal, yet the equal is not relative to the double.If to the thinking subject "man" and the object of thought are the same, "man" will be not the thinking subject but the object of thought; and if each thing is to be regarded as relative to the thinking subject, the thinking subject will be relative to an infinity of specifically different things. That the most certain of all beliefs is that opposite statements are not both true at the same time, and what follows for those who maintain that they are true, and why these thinkers maintain this, may be regarded as adequately stated. And since the contradiction of a statement cannot be true at the same time of the same thing, it is obvious that contraries cannot apply at the same time to the same thing.For in each pair of contraries one is a privation no less than it is a contrary--a privation of substance. And privation is the negation of a predicate [20] to some defined genus. Therefore if it is impossible at the same time to affirm and deny a thing truly, it is also impossible for contraries to apply to a thing at the same time; either both must apply in a modified sense, or one in a modified sense and the other absolutely. Nor indeed can there be any intermediate between contrary statements, but of one thing we must either assert or deny one thing, whatever it may be. This will be plain if we first define truth and falsehood. To say that what is is not, or that what is not is, is false; but to say that what is is, and what is not is not, is true; and therefore also he who says that a thing is or is not will say either what is true or what is false. But neither what is nor what is not is said not to be or to be. Further, an intermediate between contraries will be intermediate either as grey is between black and white, or as "neither man nor horse" is between man and horse. If in the latter sense, it cannot change (for change is from not-good to good, or from good to not-good);but in fact it is clearly always changing; for change can only be into the opposite and the intermediate. And if it is a true intermediate, in this case too there would be a kind of change into white not from not-white; but in fact this is not seen.1 1 It is not qua grey (i.e. intermediate between white and black) that grey changes to white, but qua not-white (i.e. containing a certain proportion of black). Preferred URL for linking to this page: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Met.+4.1011b __________ harder to cogently answer without absurdity, than to dismiss I'd say.kairosfocus_{April 17, 2008
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Re JK:
To him, his position is self-evident and rational, and that is enough for him. So, over and out.
If a claim is indeed self-evident, to reject it will end in logical absurdity. For instance, take "error exists." if you try to deny it, you end up affirming it instead, i.e. it is self-evidently true once you understand the terms involved and how they relate, relative to the world of our experiences. What Stephen is saying is not begging the question and closing the mind, it is an invitation to the challenge - test for being able to deny and still make sense:
JK: ”But how do we know your assumption is correct, and that your definition of truth is true? I don’t agree with your assumption, and I don’t think you have any evidence, as Daniel pointed out, to show that it is true. You have made some philosophical assertions that are meaningful to you, but not binding on anyone who starts with a different philosophical framework.” SB: You might as well ask me to prove the law of non-contradiction. Rational people accept my definition of truth and irrational people don’t. That was what all the fuss over Kant was about. He questioned the correspondence principle, meaning that he mistakenly believed that the images in the mind may not represent reality. Adler corrected his error. In any case, there was no question that there are two separate realms, except of course among materialists who say there is no truth or any non-material realities at all. If there is no truth, then obviously reason is either useless or non-existent. Reason’s job, after all, is to discover truth, the very thing materialists say doesn’t exist.
a --> First, that the truth corresponds to reality and the untruth doth not is evidently entailed by JK's quesiton: "But how do we know your assumption is correct, and that your definition of truth is true?" [Correct -- corresponds to the real world . . .] b --> Next, we see JK affirming that this is true -- i.e. corresponds to reality -- "I don’t agree with your assumption . . . " To do that he affirms in effect that it is real that there is an "I" who has a particular opinion. c --> One that would imply that it is simultaneously real that JK exists and does not exist, ans d that he does and does not hold the opinion that the correspondence of truth to reality is a core part of its meaning. d --> Similarly, what does he mean by using conjugations of the verb be such as: is, ands are? Apart from affirming the reality of certain states of mental or physical affairs? e --> Reductio ad absurdum. QED. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 17, 2008
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Well, if it is not yet evident to you, then try a little experement. Try defining truth or rationality.StephenB_{April 17, 2008
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Hmmm. I don't think Stephen makes his case, but my guess is that further discussion will not get us anyplace. To him, his position is self-evident and rational, and that is enough for him. So, over and out.Jack Krebs_{April 17, 2008
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JK; This is what you have to answer to, in a nutshell (and onlookers observe the previous thread on this from here on, to see what happened to the evo mat advocates' arguments under sustained point-by-point slogging . . . no prizes for guessing why I link it . . .]: ________________ [evolutionary] materialism [a worldview that often likes to wear the mantle of "science"] . . . argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature. Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of chance. But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this picture. Thus, what we subjectively experience as "thoughts" and "conclusions" can only be understood materialistically as unintended by-products of the natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains. (These forces are viewed as ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance and psycho-social conditioning, within the framework of human culture.) Therefore, if materialism is true, the "thoughts" we have and the "conclusions" we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity. Of course, the conclusions of such arguments may still happen to be true, by lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” them. And, if our materialist friends then say: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must note that to demonstrate that such tests provide empirical support to their theories requires the use of the very process of reasoning which they have discredited! Thus, evolutionary materialism reduces reason itself to the status of illusion. But, immediately, that includes “Materialism.” For instance, Marxists commonly deride opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismiss qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? And, should we not simply ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is simply another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? In the end, materialism is based on self-defeating logic . . . . In Law, Government, and Public Policy, the same bitter seed has shot up the idea that "Right" and "Wrong" are simply arbitrary social conventions. This has often led to the adoption of hypocritical, inconsistent, futile and self-destructive public policies. "Truth is dead," so Education has become a power struggle; the victors have the right to propagandise the next generation as they please. Media power games simply extend this cynical manipulation from the school and the campus to the street, the office, the factory, the church and the home. Further, since family structures and rules of sexual morality are "simply accidents of history," one is free to force society to redefine family values and principles of sexual morality to suit one's preferences. Finally, life itself is meaningless and valueless, so the weak, sick, defenceless and undesirable — for whatever reason — can simply be slaughtered, whether in the womb, in the hospital, or in the death camp. In short, ideas sprout roots, shoot up into all aspects of life, and have consequences in the real world . . . ________________ GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 17, 2008
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-----Jack: "Of course if you assume - as you are doing - that truth must involve a correspondence between mind and reality, then you are building into your very premise the conclusion that if one thinks this non-material mind doesn’t exist, one can’t know the truth." -----"But how do we know your assumption is correct, and that your definition of truth is true? I don’t agree with your assumption, and I don’t think you have any evidence, as Daniel pointed out, to show that it is true. You have made some philosophical assertions that are meaningful to you, but not binding on anyone who starts with a different philosophical framework." You might as well ask me to prove the law of non-contradiction. Rational people accept my definition of truth and irrational people don’t. That was what all the fuss over Kant was about. He questioned the correspondence principle, meaning that he mistakenly believed that the images in the mind may not represent reality. Adler corrected his error. In any case, there was no question that there are two separate realms, except of course among materialists who say there is no truth or any non-material realities at all. If there is no truth, then obviously reason is either useless or non-existent. Reason’s job, after all, is to discover truth, the very thing materialists say doesn’t exist.StephenB_{April 16, 2008
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Stephen writes,
I am arguing on behalf of the principle that, if truth exists, it must be a correspondence between the mind and reality. That requires two realms of existence, which means that Darwinism/monism is incompatible with reason.
And on what grounds are you justified in invoking this principle as true? Where exactly does this principle come from? Of course if you assume - as you are doing - that truth must involve a correspondence between mind and reality, then you are building into your very premise the conclusion that if one thinks this non-material mind doesn't exist, one can't know the truth. But how do we know your assumption is correct, and that your definition of truth is true? I don't agree with your assumption, and I don't think you have any evidence, as Daniel pointed out, to show that it is true. You have made some philosophical assertions that are meaningful to you, but not binding on anyone who starts with a different philosophical framework.Jack Krebs_{April 16, 2008
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-----Daniel King: "Delurking just to point out that you’re “begging the question,” unless you can cite evidence that “mind” is not material." You are missing the point, my friend. I am not trying to prove the existence of the mind. I am pointing out that if the non-material mind doesn't exist, rationality is impossible.StephenB_{April 16, 2008
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-----Jack Krebs: In fact it is a basic evolutionary principle that of course there is a correspondence between the internal information processing of the organism and the external environment, because those organisms that had more information processing systems have been successful and survived, and less accurate ones have not. There is nothing mysterious about this, and no non-material aspect of our being needs to be posited to explain it. The environment and the organism are all part of the reality that is outside the human mind. Rationality requires a correspondence between the mind and reality, not reality in correspondence with itself. What is truth? The answer to that question is really quite simple. Truth is the CORRESPONDENCE OF THE MIND TO REALITY. Obviously, that means that there must be a mind and a reality to do the corresponding. For Jack, there can be no correspondence. To apprehend truth, the mind must make the journey to reality. If there is no mind, there is no vehicle to make the journey; if there is no reality, there is no destination. For Jack, and the monistic world of materialist Darwinists, the vehicle is the journey, which is, of course, ridiculous. This unfortunate jumbling creates the next logical misfire: -----Jack: There is no reason why there has to be some dualistic part of our mind to create the correspondence between the two of which Stephen speaks.” No one is talking about a “dualistic part of the mind.” Dualism consists as mind and reality, plain and simple. Consider also that the mind can hardly “create” the correspondence any more than it can create the reality. ----“The non-materialistic dualist believes in an external rational mind, and believes that such a mind is necessary to supply a sense of meaning and order to the world. Therefore, this person thinks, if someone doesn’t believe in such a mind, the world is just “one meaningless, monistic, materialistic jumble.” The mind cannot “supply” a sense of meaning and order. Reality must be “apprehended” by the mind as something outside the mind. It is the materialist/ Darwinist who refuses to acknowledge meaning outside the mind and must therefore fabricate it, meaning he makes it up as he goes along. It is this kind of subjectivity that keeps the materialist from acknowledging design. For him, design cannot be real; nothing exists outside the mind, design included. -----But the materialist himself doesn’t need a belief in an outside mind to find meaning and order. The world is not a jumble at all - we can investigate it and understand it reasonably well without any recourse to non-materialistic explanations. This bother this the non-materialist because denying the non-material takes away the non-materialists framework for understanding, but to the person that doesn’t depend on the belief in the first place, denying the non-materials doesn’t have this effect. The materialist most certainly does need belief in two realms and assumes that each time he tries to reason in the abstract. Unfortunately, he renounces the very thing he depends on and unconsciously believes for ideological reasons. That is why he contradicts himself each time he tries to reason in the abstract. We are not talking about the non-materialists “framework for understanding,” we are talking about the necessary conditions for rationality itself. I am not arguing on behalf of my own biases and prejudices, I am arguing on behalf of the principle that, if truth exists, it must be a correspondence between the mind and reality. That requires two realms of existence, which means that Darwinism/monism is incompatible with reason.StephenB_{April 16, 2008
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Daniel King, I realize. I'm just clarifying with the issue of 'non-material' isn't simple. The very notion of 'materialism' is fraught with confusion even among proponents. Nothing more.nullasalus_{April 16, 2008
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StephenB writes,
If we don’t assume metaphysical dualism, the entire rational enterprise collapses.
This is a standard anti-materialist view, and I don't think it's true: it's certainly not what actual materialists think. Let's look at some of what he says:
Science is possible only under the following metaphysical conditions: [A] We have rational minds, [B] We live in a rational universe, and [C] There is a correspondence between the two. Without a non-material, rational mind, there is no tool with which to conduct the investigation; without the rational universe, there is nothing to investigate; without correspondence, the logic of the mind would not be synchronized with the logic of the universe. Unless [A] and [B] both exists, and unless the law of non-contradiction applies to both realms, rationality leaves the building.
I'll accept quite a bit of this. We do live in a rational, ordered universe in the sense that all the particles, forces and principles seem to have definite and consistent ways of being, and those ways interact with each other to have created the a world with lots of orderly interacting features. Also, we, as human beings, have the sensory apparatus to apprehend parts of the universe, and we have (this is the interesting part) the ability to experientially and symbolically comprehend and represent the universe: at least in part, we have a rational mind. However, there is no reason why there has to be some dualistic part of our mind to create the correspondence between the two of which Stephen speaks. The most primitive forms of life have very simple feedback systems between their sensory input and their behavior, and, as we look at more advanced creatures we see a steady increase in the ability to apprehend and comprehend rationally, in the sense of behaving in appropriate ways to the environmental state around the organism. In fact it is a basic evolutionary principle that of course there is a correspondence between the internal information processing of the organism and the external environment, because those organisms that had more information processing systems have been successful and survived, and less accurate ones have not. There is nothing mysterious about this, and no non-material aspect of our being needs to be posited to explain it. Interestingly enough, Stephen does not accurately represent the materialist position. He writes,
An ID inference occurs when a rational mind apprehends the detectable rational elements in the natural world. Darwinist monists reject the possibility of any such inference even before the investigation begins. Their monism forbids any such enterprise in principle. They insist that there is no such thing as a rational universe and no such thing as a rational mind. Both elements are conflated into one meaningless, monistic, materialistic jumble
This, and especially the bolded part, is utterly false. Materialists accept that the universe is rational in the sense that I described it above, and they believe that we can, within limits, know it in a rational manner, as described above. Stepping back from the immediate issue, it is interesting to me to try to understand how non-materialistic dualists understand materialism. There is a circularity in their understanding that is natural, hard to describe, and in some important ways, wrong. The non-materialistic dualist believes in an external rational mind, and believes that such a mind is necessary to supply a sense of meaning and order to the world. Therefore, this person thinks, if someone doesn't believe in such a mind, the world is just "one meaningless, monistic, materialistic jumble." But the materialist himself doesn't need a belief in an outside mind to find meaning and order. The world is not a jumble at all - we can investigate it and understand it reasonably well without any recourse to non-materialistic explanations. This bother this the non-materialist because denying the non-material takes away the non-materialists framework for understanding, but to the person that doesn't depend on the belief in the first place, denying the non-materials doesn't have this effect. So when Stephen writes, "They [materialists] have already renounced the necessary conditions for rationality itself," what he means is that they have renounced Stephen's necessary condition, but they have not renounced the necessary conditions for rationality when that is understood from a materialistic viewpoint.Jack Krebs_{April 16, 2008
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nullasalus: All I asked for was evidence, peace be upon you.Daniel King_{April 16, 2008
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Daniel King, "Delurking just to point out that you’re “begging the question,” unless you can cite evidence that “mind” is not material." Considering even self-proclaimed materialists can hardly decide what's material nowadays (Is a reductionist view the only true one? How about a non-reductionist or emergent view - still material? Should we even call ourselves materialists given what we see in quantum mechanics - are we physicalists now?), I'd say everyone needs to get their ducks in a row before that fight is fought.nullasalus_{April 16, 2008
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Without a non-material, rational mind, there is no tool with which to conduct the investigation
Hi, StephenB, Delurking just to point out that you're "begging the question," unless you can cite evidence that "mind" is not material. Cheerio, DanielDaniel King_{April 16, 2008
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Jack, you get one merit for understanding the core issue, and one demerit for not understanding its significance. Dualism vs. Monism is indeed the issue. If we don’t assume metaphysical dualism, the entire rational enterprise collapses. Science is possible only under the following metaphysical conditions: [A] We have rational minds, [B] We live in a rational universe, and [C] There is a correspondence between the two. Without a non-material, rational mind, there is no tool with which to conduct the investigation; without the rational universe, there is nothing to investigate; without correspondence, the logic of the mind would not be synchronized with the logic of the universe. Unless [A] and [B] both exists, and unless the law of non-contradiction applies to both realms, rationality leaves the building. An ID inference occurs when a rational mind apprehends the detectable rational elements in the natural world. Darwinist monists reject the possibility of any such inference even before the investigation begins. Their monism forbids any such enterprise in principle. They insist that there is no such thing as a rational universe and no such thing as a rational mind. Both elements are conflated into one meaningless, monistic, materialistic jumble. The universe is limited to matter and the mind is reduced to “brain.” Why wouldn’t monist/Darwinists argue against a rational inference to the best explanation? They have already renounced the necessary conditions for rationality itself.StephenB_{April 16, 2008
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congregate, I have ordered the book online on the local library system. The 40 libraries in our county act as one so the book will be at my local branch in a couple days. There were 5 copies in the system so one will make it to my library by Friday,jerry_{April 16, 2008
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StephenB brings up an interesting issue when he writes,
You are importing [sic] the confused Darwinist notion of “natural” with the ID established definition of “natural.” Darwininists, consciously or unconsciously, use the word “natural” to mean anything that occurs “in” nature, except that they don’t know what “in” means. ID uses natural to mean either law or chance. That means that aleins or time travelers would NOT be natural causes. Those things are not ruled out. This is typical for ID critics. Becauase they do not know what ID is, they criticize it for what it isn’t.
First of all, I am curious as to where this ID definition has been "established"? But, be that as it may, Stephen seems to be assuming here, consciously or unconsciously, that human beings (as well as alien beings) are in some sense "not natural" because they exhibit something other than an expression of law and chance - presumably intelligence. But this assumptions begs the very question at issue: how does one know that human beings are anything other than a material being? Attempts to scientifically determine that human beings are anything other than material beings have all failed, and dualistic philosophical positions have certainly not been universally convincing, even as philosophy. I am sure that most scientists would accept aliens coming to earth and seeding it with life, and perhaps farming it at times in the future, as a natural cause that just pushes the origin question back to "where did the aliens come from?". But to assume that those aliens would necessarily be contain something from outside of nature - something not a product of the material properties of the universe - is to assume as true the very issue that is in question, which is is there some outside source of intelligence that somehow imposes itself upon the material world.Jack Krebs_{April 16, 2008
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