How My Five Year-Old is Like a Materialist

_{Barry Arrington

September 4, 2018

Intelligent Design}

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My five year-old granddaughter is brilliant. But she shares a flaw with many other brilliant people. She absolutely hates to say “I don’t know.” And she sometimes just makes concepts up out of whole cloth in an attempt to disguise the fact that she does not know something.

Example: This evening LK brought home Chick-fil-A. Instead of packets of ketchup, for some reason she got packets of something called “Polynesian Sauce” that is red and gooey but slightly less viscous than ketchup. The following exchange ensued:

Granddaughter: Papa, this is not ketchup.

Papa: It’s not? What is it?

Granddaughter: uh, hmmm, uh, it’s Fraxee.

Fraxee? Not bad for a word she made up on the spot to disguise her ignorance. I would pass it off as an amusing stage she is going through except for one thing that really alarms me — I think my granddaughter might be a materialist. After all, if you ask a materialist how the mind can be reduced to the electro-chemical processes of the brain, they will say the mind is an “emergent property” of the brain. They say this with a straight face apparently expecting you to just swallow down their confession of ignorance disguised as an explanation. Instead of saying the mind is “emergent,” they might just as well take a cue from my granddaughter and say the mind is “Fraxee.” The accounts are equally explanatory.

Comments

R J Sawyer:
I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night.
Just go look in your trash or recycle bin to see what frozen dinner you microwaved. Or is the empty package still laying around? ;) Also check for a McDonald's receipt in your front pocketET_{September 5, 2018
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ET
EricMH- Can you remember anything about your 1st year?
I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night.R J Sawyer_{September 5, 2018
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EricMH- Can you remember anything about your 1st year?ET_{September 5, 2018
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Deputy Dog:
Arguments have gone all the way from “children act like materialists and make stuff up” to “children instinctively know the truth that God exists”
What? For once it would be nice to see our cowardly opponents actually make a case instead of just spewing nonsense as if that is all it takes. Also the two statements aren't even contradictory, even as misrepresented. Just because a child doesn't know everything and tries to fill in the blanks doesn't mean the child cannot know anything.ET_{September 5, 2018
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Interesting. Arguments have gone all the way from "children act like materialists and make stuff up" to "children instinctively know the truth that God exists" Can you theists get any more contradictory amongst yourselves?Deputy Dog_{September 5, 2018
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@ET I cannot say I was born with knowledge of God. However, when my parents told me about God it made a lot of sense.EricMH_{September 5, 2018
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Deputy Dog claims that,,,
"The fact is, we are all born non-theists, until someone else puts theistic ideas into our heads."
That claim is shown to be false.
Out of the mouths of babes - Do children believe (in God) because they're told to by adults? The evidence suggests otherwise - Justin Barrett - 2008 Excerpt: • Children tend to see natural objects as designed or purposeful in ways that go beyond what their parents teach, as Deborah Kelemen has demonstrated. Rivers exist so that we can go fishing on them, and birds are here to look pretty. • Children doubt that impersonal processes can create order or purpose. Studies with children show that they expect that someone not something is behind natural order. No wonder that Margaret Evans found that children younger than 10 favoured creationist accounts of the origins of animals over evolutionary accounts even when their parents and teachers endorsed evolution. Authorities' testimony didn't carry enough weight to over-ride a natural tendency. • Children know humans are not behind the order so the idea of a creating god (or gods) makes sense to them. Children just need adults to specify which one. • Experimental evidence, including cross-cultural studies, suggests that three-year-olds attribute super, god-like qualities to lots of different beings. Super-power, super-knowledge and super-perception seem to be default assumptions. Children then have to learn that mother is fallible, and dad is not all powerful, and that people will die. So children may be particularly receptive to the idea of a super creator-god. It fits their predilections. • Recent research by Paul Bloom, Jesse Bering, and Emma Cohen suggests that children may also be predisposed to believe in a soul that persists beyond death. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2008/nov/25/religion-children-god-belief Justin Barrett - Why Would Anyone Believe in God? - Veritas at UC Davis - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I3GAaswAkc Children are born believers in God, academic claims - 24 Nov 2008 Excerpt: "Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/3512686/Children-are-born-believers-in-God-academic-claims.html
Moreover, "despite years of scientific training, even professional chemists, geologists, and physicists from major universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Yale cannot escape a deep-seated belief that natural phenomena exist for a purpose"
Design Thinking Is Hardwired in the Human Brain. How Come? - October 17, 2012 Excerpt: "Even Professional Scientists Are Compelled to See Purpose in Nature, Psychologists Find." The article describes a test by Boston University's psychology department, in which researchers found that "despite years of scientific training, even professional chemists, geologists, and physicists from major universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Yale cannot escape a deep-seated belief that natural phenomena exist for a purpose" ,,, Most interesting, though, are the questions begged by this research. One is whether it is even possible to purge teleology from explanation. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/design_thinking065381.html Richard Dawkins take heed: Even atheists instinctively believe in a creator says study - Mary Papenfuss - June 12, 2015 Excerpt: Three studies at Boston University found that even among atheists, the "knee jerk" reaction to natural phenomenon is the belief that they're purposefully designed by some intelligence, according to a report on the research in Cognition entitled the "Divided Mind of a disbeliever." The findings "suggest that there is a deeply rooted natural tendency to view nature as designed," writes a research team led by Elisa Järnefelt of Newman University. They also provide evidence that, in the researchers' words, "religious non-belief is cognitively effortful." Researchers attempted to plug into the automatic or "default" human brain by showing subjects images of natural landscapes and things made by human beings, then requiring lightning-fast responses to the question on whether "any being purposefully made the thing in the picture," notes Pacific-Standard. "Religious participants' baseline tendency to endorse nature as purposefully created was higher" than that of atheists, the study found. But non-religious participants "increasingly defaulted to understanding natural phenomena as purposefully made" when "they did not have time to censor their thinking," wrote the researchers. The results suggest that "the tendency to construe both living and non-living nature as intentionally made derives from automatic cognitive processes, not just practised explicit beliefs," the report concluded. The results were similar even among subjects from Finland, where atheism is not a controversial issue as it can be in the US. "Design-based intuitions run deep," the researchers conclude, "persisting even in those with no explicit religious commitment and, indeed, even among those with an active aversion to them." http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/richard-dawkins-take-heed-even-atheists-instinctively-believe-creator-says-study-1505712
As the following video clearly shows, atheists have to mentally work suppressing their innate “knee jerk” design inference!
Is Atheism a Delusion? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ii-bsrHB0o
As the preceding video clearly highlighted, it is not that Atheists do not see purpose and/or Design in nature, it is that Atheists, for whatever severely misguided reason, live in denial of the purpose and/or Design that they themselves see in nature. And yes, Denialism is a mental illness:
Denialism In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person’s choice to deny reality, as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth.[1] Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event, when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality.[2] per wikipedia
Perhaps the two most famous quotes of atheists suppressing their innate ‘design inference’ are the following two quotes:
“Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning.” Richard Dawkins – “The Blind Watchmaker” – 1986 – page 21 “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.” Francis Crick – What Mad Pursuit
First off, contrary to what Dawkins stated, natural selection certainly does NOT explain the “appearance of design”
“Darwinism provided an explanation for the appearance of design, and argued that there is no Designer — or, if you will, the designer is natural selection. If that’s out of the way — if that (natural selection) just does not explain the evidence — then the flip side of that is, well, things appear designed because they are designed.” Richard Sternberg – Living Waters documentary Whale Evolution vs. Population Genetics – Richard Sternberg and Paul Nelson – (excerpt from Living Waters video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0csd3M4bc0Q
Secondly, when just looking at a cross section of DNA, even before getting into the astonishing multiple overlapping coding within DNA, it is easy to see why Crick stated that “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.”
Cross Section of DNA – google search https://www.google.com/search?q=cross+section+dna&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwi4uLGe_ILdAhVI7qwKHXBPCncQ_AUICigB&biw=1600&bih=782#imgrc=_
Thus in conclusion, the Christian is well justified in trusting his inborn intuition that the world is Designed. And the Atheist is found to be artificially, and without empirical warrant, suppressing that same inborn intuition in Design. As molecular biologist Doug Axe stated in his book “Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed”, “Our intuition was right all along.”
“Our intuition was right all along.” - Doug Axe https://www.amazon.com/Undeniable-Biology-Confirms-Intuition-Designed/dp/0062349597
Verse:
Romans 1:19-20 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
bornagain77_{September 5, 2018
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We are all born theists with the knowledge of God fresh in our minds. We have to be brainwashed to think otherwise. Deputy Dog is clearly confused.ET_{September 5, 2018
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@DD for that matter we are all born solipists. That doesn't make solipism the more rational position.EricMH_{September 5, 2018
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Dog writes: "It is obvious that Barry is implying that “materialists” are like immature children." Fascinating comment. I did not imply that. I don't think I implied anything. What you see is what you get. I flat out stated that materialists are like my granddaughter when she makes up an "explanation" to disguise her ignorance. And they most certainly are. The fact that materialists are like her in that one respect does not mean they are like her generally. Get a grip.Barry Arrington_{September 5, 2018
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@Mung #12 Maybe? It is obvious that Barry is implying that "materialists" are like immature children. The fact is, we are all born non-theists, until someone else puts theistic ideas into our heads.Deputy Dog_{September 5, 2018
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What is really odd is that any pro-materialist argument is essentially defeated by internal contradiction the first time the arguer uses "I" as a subject and ANY voluntary action (such as reading a certain paper, choosing a model of behavior, deciding upon a certain school of thought ). As has been well said, "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God._JDH_{September 5, 2018
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I think to understand “mind” or consciousness we have to begin with a few fundamental questions: Do you exist? How do you know you exist? Is your existence real? I would argue you know you exist (like I know it) because you are conscious of your own existence. However, if the conscious experience of your existence is real then what is consciousness? Does it have a chemical formula? A circuit diagram? If consciousness is created by the brain, how does the brain create it? And, what exactly does it create? Is it something we can measure and analyze like electrons, protons or photons? Supposedly we can “objectively” analyze the brain. Can we analyze and study consciousness in the same way? David Chalmers puts it this way:
“Why should there be conscious experience at all? It is central to a subjective viewpoint, but from an objective viewpoint it is utterly unexpected. Taking the objective view, we can tell a story about how fields, waves, and particles in the spatiotemporal manifold interact in subtle ways, leading to the development of complex systems such as brains. In principle, there is no deep philosophical mystery in the fact that these systems can process information in complex ways, react to stimuli with sophisticated behavior, and even exhibit such complex capacities as learning, memory, and language. All this is impressive, but it is not metaphysically baffling. In contrast, the existence of conscious experience seems to be a new feature from this viewpoint. It is not something that one would have predicted from the other features alone. That is, consciousness is surprising. If all we knew about were the facts of physics, and even the facts about dynamics and information processing in complex systems, there would be no compelling reason to postulate the existence of conscious experience. If it were not for our direct evidence in the first-person case, the hypothesis would seem unwarranted; almost mystical, perhaps. Yet we know, directly, that there is conscious experience. The question is, how do we reconcile it with everything else we know?”
David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. I would argue that if consciousness and mind can’t be studied in the same way then ontologically it is different and distinct from the physical things we study in science. If it’s different and distinct from physical world then that’s dualism.john_a_designer_{September 5, 2018
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What does Mung have against a 5 year old? :)ET_{September 5, 2018
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Maybe materialists are like a 5 year old.Mung_{September 5, 2018
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The accounts are equally explanatory.
I have differ on this. The child's explanation is more innocent. Adults who play the "emergent" game should know better. But they do it anyway to prop up their (arguably destructive) agenda.mike1962_{September 5, 2018
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@Bob O'H, perhaps you can be more specific about which part is "arm-waving and vagueness?" The article is saying Dennett is arm wavy and vague, then goes on to do a best guess what Dennett's position is and why it doesn't work. I'm happy to talk through any questions regarding the article.EricMH_{September 5, 2018
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EricMH - that piece is strange. We are carefully walked up to this paragraph:
If the single cells in the Game of Life do not have cognitive states, what else might have them? Maybe a particular system of cells has a cognitive state. However, for such a claim to be intelligible, we need to make sense of what it means for something to be a system possessing internal states.
and then we get arm-waving and vagueness. But if we can "make sense of what it means for something to be a system possessing internal states" then we do have emergentism, so it rather falls down at exactly the point when it gets to what it's promising.Bob O'H_{September 5, 2018
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Bob- You are clearly hopeless and proudly willfully ignorant. It doesn't follow that a search engine could help you find what you are asking for if they have read Barry's mind. And you have never cared about being on the same page before.ET_{September 5, 2018
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Here is a great article pointing out the fallacy with Daniel Dennett's emergentism. https://mindmatters.today/2018/08/can-a-game-prove-that-computers-could-really-think/EricMH_{September 5, 2018
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ET - I rather hope a search engine wouldn't help, as it would mean that not only was Google/Microsoft closely monitoring what Barry was reading, but it would also be broadcasting it to the world. I'm sure there is a lot of material about this online, but if it is not what Barry is thinking of, then basing a discussion on it would be to tart off with a mis-understanding. Better, I think, to make sure we're all on the same page.Bob O'H_{September 5, 2018
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So Bob is too dim to be able to use a search engine. And apparently proud of it.ET_{September 5, 2018
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aarceng - can you be more specific about what parts of that Barry is referring to? Of the people mentioned who advocated for emergentism, the most recent publication cited is from 1925. Are you sure Barry hasn't read anything written since then?Bob O'H_{September 5, 2018
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Bob O'H, start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentismaarceng_{September 5, 2018
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Barry, could you link to some articles where people say that the mind is an emergent property of the brain? I suspect there's a bit more to the argument than that, so I'd like to judge for myself.Bob O'H_{September 5, 2018
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How does neurological interconnections produce the experience of "blue?" There is only one explanation: Fraxee! Sounds about right. ???? Hat's off to G.D.A.mike1962_{September 4, 2018
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