Michael Egnor: A materialist neuroscientist continues the argument with himself

_{Denyse O'Leary

July 25, 2019

Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

Dr. Egnor got into an online discussion with Dr. Faizal Ali, an “anti-creationist” psychiatrist and, he says, “a materialist who believes that abstract (intellectual) thought is simply the product of material brain processes”:

Let’s recap: on June 28th, Dr. Ali wrote confidently that intellectual seizures do exist: “… Egnor is simply wrong. Intellectual seizures do occur.”

On July 20th, Dr. Ali wrote confidently that intellectual seizures do not exist: “[W]hy do ‘intellectual seizures’ not exist? Neural connectivity theory provides an answer:… Such stimulation is too crude and localized to produce a more complex response such as an abstract thought.”
Michael Egnor, “A Materialist Neuroscientist Continues the Argument with Himself” at Mind Matters News

We hope it doesn’t come to blows (self-inflicted injuries).

Also by Michael Egnor in discussion with psychiatrist Dr. Faizal Ali

What is abstract thought?, Part I: Now Dr. Ali argues with Dr. Ali

Can Buzzwords About “Neural Networks” Save Materialist Neuroscience? No. Experiments that support an immaterial consciousness often involve split or massively damaged neural networks.

Do “forced thinking” seizures show that abstract thought is a material thing? Epilepsy suppresses abstract thought, it does not evoke it.

Do Epileptic Seizures Cause Abstract Thoughts? A psychiatrist argues that “intellectual seizures” can occur.

and

Atheist Psychiatrist Misunderstands Evidence for an Immaterial Mind Patients with massive brain damage were shown to have a mental life.

Comments

BS77@19, and I was under the assumption that behaviour was an aspect of personality. Silly me.Brother Brian_{July 27, 2019
July
07
Jul
27
27
2019
07:46 AM
7
07
46
AM
PDT}

BB, It seems that BA77 has responded, identifying a fairly familiar concern on strawmannish distortion. Which, BTW, can be produced by overly simplistic summary. KFkairosfocus_{July 27, 2019
July
07
Jul
27
27
2019
07:46 AM
7
07
46
AM
PDT}

Folks, could we move away from schoolyard level vulgarisations of handles etc, even by way of the tissue-thin veil of initial letters? The gap between an A and an S above, for example, literally moves from the heavens to the sewer and is beyond doubt utterly inexcusable sacrilegious blasphemy. Not needed, points to "get thee behind me, Satan." Let us do better. KFkairosfocus_{July 27, 2019
July
07
Jul
27
27
2019
07:43 AM
7
07
43
AM
PDT}

BB states:
an unsupported scientific claim made by BS77 that split brain patients don’t suffer any behavioural changes.
And yet I, nor Dr. Egnor, claimed "that split brain patients don’t suffer any behavioural changes" The specific claim was,
“the disconnect did not affect the patient’s personality or capacity for abstract thought”
Thus BB, as is typical for atheistic trolls, set up a strawman fallacy.
Strawman Fallacy Description: Substituting a person’s actual position or argument with a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version of the position of the argument. Logical Form: Person 1 makes claim Y. Person 2 restates person 1’s claim (in a distorted way). Person 2 attacks the distorted version of the claim. Therefore, claim Y is false.
And as ET pointed out at post 10
YOU are the BS’er who brought up suicide. Talk about being clueless. What does suicide ideation have to do with personality?
And to repeat some references in post 3
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.” Further notes: 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
bornagain77_{July 27, 2019
July
07
Jul
27
27
2019
07:19 AM
7
07
19
AM
PDT}

KF
This is not a business of 140 or 280 character tweets or rhetorically loaded sloganeering.
You are correct. It was about an unsupported scientific claim made by BS77 that split brain patients don’t suffer any behavioural changes. A claim I was able to refute with a 10 second google search.Brother Brian_{July 27, 2019
July
07
Jul
27
27
2019
07:03 AM
7
07
03
AM
PDT}

Seversky further claims that,,,
As for reductive materialism, Bonnette does not deny that we are all made, in Sagan’s words of “star stuff”. If we were to somehow take away all the atoms or sub-atomic particles of which Richard Dawkins or Dennis Bonnette are made there would be nothing detectable, certainly no “real person”, left. That is the way it’s always been. So, yes, we do reduce to matter but that does not encompass all that we are. What makes each of us unique is the particular arrangement of that matter and energy. The interesting questions are how does matter and energy come to form these unique arrangements and how does the behavior of this matter and energy that we recognize as personality come about?
Seversky claims that we are nothing but particles in motion. Yet he reluctantly admits that he does not really know "how does matter and energy come to form these unique arrangements and how does the behavior of this matter and energy that we recognize as personality come about?" The answer to Seversky's reluctant question, " how does matter and energy come to form these unique arrangements", is quantum information. Welcome to advances in modern science, and to the world of quantum biology, Seversky. Darwinian evolution, with its reductive materialistic framework, is now shown to not even on the correct theoretical foundation in order to properly understand quantum biology in the first place.
Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology - video https://youtu.be/LHdD2Am1g5Y Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II - video (2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg
And directly contrary to Seversky's assertion that if you "take away all the atoms or sub-atomic particles,, there would be nothing detectable, certainly no “real person”, left",,, contrary to that materialistic assertion,,, it is important to realize that quantum information is conserved. As the following article states, 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.
Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time - 2011 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
The implication of finding 'non-local', beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every important biomolecule in our bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication, of course, being the fact that we now have 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 video, 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.”
Leading Scientists Say Consciousness Cannot Die It Goes Back To The Universe - Oct. 19, 2017 - Spiritual Excerpt: “Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” - Stuart Hameroff - Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - video (5:00 minute mark) https://www.disclose.tv/leading-scientists-say-consciousness-cannot-die-it-goes-back-to-the-universe-315604
Verse:
Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?
Of supplemental note, In post #3 I pointed out that, on reductive materialism, the entire concept of 'person' is an abstract, immaterial, concept that becomes an 'illusion' for the reductive materialist. i.e. On reductive materialism there are no 'real' persons, only illusions who falsely believe they are real persons. Per Jerry Coyne, “You are robots made out of meat.”
“You are robots made out of meat. Which is what I am going to try to convince you of today” Jerry Coyne – No, You’re Not a Robot Made Out of Meat (Science Uprising 02) – video https://youtu.be/rQo6SWjwQIk?list=PLR8eQzfCOiS1OmYcqv_yQSpje4p7rAE7-&t=20
To make this 'abstract' dilemma all the more devastating to Darwinian materialists, advances in science have now shown that atoms themselves are not the solid indivisible concrete particles, as they were originally envisioned to be by materialists, but it turns out that the descriptions we now use to describe atoms themselves, the further down we go, dissolve into “abstract conceptual tools for describing nature, which themselves seem to lack any real, concrete essence.,,,”
Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind So-called “information realism” has some surprising implications By Bernardo Kastrup – March 25, 2019 Excerpt: according to the Greek atomists, if we kept on dividing things into ever-smaller bits, at the end there would remain solid, indivisible particles called atoms, imagined to be so concrete as to have even particular shapes. Yet, as our understanding of physics progressed, we’ve realized that atoms themselves can be further divided into smaller bits, and those into yet smaller ones, and so on, until what is left lacks shape and solidity altogether. At the bottom of the chain of physical reduction there are only elusive, phantasmal entities we label as “energy” and “fields”—abstract conceptual tools for describing nature, which themselves seem to lack any real, concrete essence.,,, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/
In fact, according to quantum theory, the most fundamental ‘stuff’ of the world is not even matter or energy at all, (as Darwinian materialists presuppose), but turns out to be immaterial information itself, (as Christians presuppose in John 1:1).
“The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, but information–and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena.” Vlatko Vedral – Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of Wolfson College – a recognized leader in the field of quantum mechanics. “It is operationally impossible to separate Reality and Information” (48:35 minute mark) “In the beginning was the Word” John 1:1 (49:54 minute mark) Prof Anton Zeilinger speaks on quantum physics. at UCT https://youtu.be/s3ZPWW5NOrw?t=2984
Thus, in irony of ironies, not even the material particles themselves turn to be are ‘real’, (on a materialistic definition of what is ‘real’), but turn out to be “abstract” immaterial information. This puts the die-hard materialist in quite the conundrum because as Bernardo Kastrup further explains, to make sense of this conundrum of a non-material world of pure abstractions we must ultimately appeal to an immaterial mind. i.e. we must ultimately appeal to God!
Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind So-called “information realism” has some surprising implications By Bernardo Kastrup – March 25, 2019 Excerpt: “To make sense of this conundrum,,, we must stick to what is most immediately present to us: solidity and concreteness are qualities of our experience. The world measured, modeled and ultimately predicted by physics is the world of perceptions, a category of mentation. The phantasms and abstractions reside merely in our descriptions of the behavior of that world, not in the world itself.,,, Where we get lost and confused is in imagining that what we are describing is a non-mental reality underlying our perceptions, as opposed to the perceptions themselves. We then try to find the solidity and concreteness of the perceived world in that postulated underlying reality. However, a non-mental world is inevitably abstract. And since solidity and concreteness are felt qualities of experience—what else?—we cannot find them there. The problem we face is thus merely an artifact of thought, something we conjure up out of thin air because of our theoretical habits and prejudices.,,, As I elaborate extensively in my new book, The Idea of the World, none of this implies solipsism. The mental universe exists in mind but not in your personal mind alone. Instead, it is a transpersonal field of mentation that presents itself to us as physicality—with its concreteness, solidity and definiteness—once our personal mental processes interact with it through observation. This mental universe is what physics is leading us to, not the hand-waving word games of information realism. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/
Or to put it much more simply, as Physics professor Richard Conn Henry put it at the end of the following article, “The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.”
The mental Universe – Richard Conn Henry The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Excerpt: “The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.” – Richard Conn Henry is a Professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf
The Darwinian materialist, in his rejection of God, and in his rejection of everything that may be considered 'abstract' and immaterial, i.e. irreducible to material particles, simply has no anchor for reality to grab onto: As I have pointed out several times now, assuming Naturalism instead of Theism as the worldview on which all of science is based leads to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself.
Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris), who has unreliable beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the reality of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Bottom line, nothing is real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, – Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video – 39:45 minute mark per YouTube
Thus, although the Darwinist may firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
One final note:
What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? – M. Anthony Mills – April 16, 2018 Excerpt: Barr rightly observes that scientific atheists often unwittingly assume not just metaphysical naturalism but an even more controversial philosophical position: reductive materialism, which says all that exists is or is reducible to the material constituents postulated by our most fundamental physical theories. As Barr points out, this implies not only that God does not exist — because God is not material — but that you do not exist. For you are not a material constituent postulated by any of our most fundamental physical theories; at best, you are an aggregate of those constituents, arranged in a particular way. Not just you, but tables, chairs, countries, countrymen, symphonies, jokes, legal contracts, moral judgments, and acts of courage or cowardice — all of these must be fully explicable in terms of those more fundamental, material constituents. In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. - per realclearreligion
bornagain77_{July 27, 2019
July
07
Jul
27
27
2019
04:07 AM
4
04
07
AM
PDT}

Sev, there are such things as metaphysics and ontology that point to the need for a necessary being world root adequate to cause a world involving rational, morally governed creatures. Where, Aristotle happens to be the pioneer of this discipline, as well as the first in our civ to systematically expound on logic. So, we are all heirs of the old philosopher and sometime tutor to Alex the Great. In that context, good reasoning is good reasoning regardless of whodunit. KFkairosfocus_{July 27, 2019
July
07
Jul
27
27
2019
03:56 AM
3
03
56
AM
PDT}

BB, if a philosophical claim on any serious matter fits neatly into a nutshell, it belongs there. There is always an issue of substantial exposition, cross-check against material facts, establishing credible coherence and comparative, balanced explanatory power. This is not a business of 140 or 280 character tweets or rhetorically loaded sloganeering. We need substance, and that's why a serious phil work may take 50 pp to establish a pivotal point. Short summaries and headlines may indeed summarise, promote and link, but they do not generally speaking establish a substantial matter. (And BTW, that's one of the few things that that notorious tabloid Daily Mail is exemplary on: header, bullet points, exposition.) KF PS: In The Laws, Bk X, Plato speaks eloquently to the demand for arbitrary brevity:
Ath. At Athens there are tales preserved in writing which the virtue of your state, as I am informed, refuses to admit. They speak of the Gods in prose as well as verse, and the oldest of them tell of the origin of the heavens and of the world, and not far from the beginning of their story they proceed to narrate the birth of the Gods, and how after they were born they behaved to one another. Whether these stories have in other ways a good or a bad influence, I should not like to be severe upon them, because they are ancient; but, looking at them with reference to the duties of children to their parents, I cannot praise them, or think that they are useful, or at all true. Of the words of the ancients I have nothing more to say; and I should wish to say of them only what is pleasing to the Gods. But as to our younger generation and their wisdom, I cannot let them off when they do mischief. For do but mark the effect of their words: when you and I argue for the existence of the Gods, and produce the sun, moon, stars, and earth, claiming for them a divine being, if we would listen to the aforesaid philosophers we should say that they are earth and stones only, which can have no care at all of human affairs, and that all religion is a cooking up of words and a make-believe. Cle. One such teacher, O Stranger, would be bad enough, and you imply that there are many of them, which is worse. Ath. Well, then; what shall we say or do?-Shall we assume that some one is accusing us among unholy men, who are trying to escape from the effect of our legislation; and that they say of us-How dreadful that you should legislate on the supposition that there are Gods! Shall we make a defence of ourselves? or shall we leave them and return to our laws, lest the prelude should become longer than the law? For the discourse will certainly extend to great length, if we are to treat the impiously disposed as they desire, partly demonstrating to them at some length the things of which they demand an explanation, partly making them afraid or dissatisfied, and then proceed to the requisite enactments. Cle. Yes, Stranger; but then how often have we repeated already that on the present occasion there is no reason why brevity should be preferred to length; who is "at our heels"?-as the saying goes, and it would be paltry and ridiculous to prefer the shorter to the better. It is a matter of no small consequence, in some way or other to prove that there are Gods, and that they are good, and regard justice more than men do. The demonstration of this would be the best and noblest prelude of all our laws. And therefore, without impatience, and without hurry, let us unreservedly consider the whole matter, summoning up all the power of persuasion which we possess.
kairosfocus_{July 27, 2019
July
07
Jul
27
27
2019
03:21 AM
3
03
21
AM
PDT}

Severssky states
I find it ironic how often Christian theologians appeal to the pre-Christian philosophy of Aristotle while implying that nothing of any scientific or religious significance has occurred outside the Christian tradition.
Too funny, pot meet kettle. i.e. I find it ironic how often Darwinists appeal to the pre-Darwinian philosophy of Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus while implying that nothing of any scientific significance has occurred outside the Darwinian tradition.
Darwin’s Straw God Argument - DECEMBER 31, 2008 Excerpt: The Ancient Philosophical Roots of Darwinism Six centuries before the Christian era (B.C.E.), the Greek philosopher Anaximander asserted that the first living things emerged from formless matter and then underwent transmutations to produce a wide variety of forms. In what some commentators regard as a primitive form of evolutionary theory, Anaximander apparently held that humans descended from some other species of animal — probably a fish.48 In the fifth century B.C.E., the Greek philosopher Empedocles taught that the chance interplay of earth, air, fire and water produced disconnected organs and limbs that wandered aimlessly about until they combined spontaneously to make whole creatures. Most of the resulting combinations were monstrosities — with faces and breasts on the back as well as front, or half ox and half human — that were so maladapted that they perished. Among the few that survived were creatures that eventually developed into modern humans.49 Leucippus and Democritus in the fifth century B.C.E. and Epicurus in the fourth century B.C.E. advocated a materialistic philosophy in which no gods exist — only atoms and the void.50 In the first century B.C.E., the Roman philosopher Lucretius immortalized this view in his long poem “On the Nature of Things.” Book Five begins with an attack on religion and teleology, then it lays out a theory of survival of the fittest that is remarkably similar to Darwin’s. Although Lucretius did not suggest that all living things are descended from a common ancestor, he believed that all things — including living organisms and human beings — are products of aimless interactions among atoms. If they are well adapted to their environment, they survive and leave descendants; if not, they perish.51 Some modern followers of Charles Darwin regard these ancient thinkers as their intellectual forebears. According to a 1996 statement on a pro-evolution web site maintained by the University of California at Berkeley, “evolutionary theory begins” with Anaximander. Although his ideas “drew on the religious and mythical ideas of his time, he was still one of the first to attempt an explanation of the origin and evolution of the cosmos based on natural laws.” Thus Anaximander’s theory “bears some resemblance to evolutionary theory.” According to the same web site Empedocles proposed a theory that “seems a bit bizarre today” but was nevertheless “a sort of evolutionary theory: Past natural selection is responsible for the forms we see today. Empedocles also ascribed the origin of the life of today to the interplay of impersonal forces, in which chance, not the gods, played the major role.” Thus the Greeks “led the way in developing a general scientific worldview — one in which natural, non-miraculous explanations for the causes of phenomena were sought.”52 Of course, there were differences between the ideas of the ancient Greeks and modern evolutionary theory, but they were similar in one fundamental respect: They attributed cosmic and biological origins to unguided natural processes rather than divine design. As modern evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr put it, the ancient Greek theories “constitute the first scientific revolution, so to speak, a rejection of supernatural in favor of materialistic explanations.”53 For Mayr and the author of the Berkeley evolution web site, and for other followers of Charles Darwin, “science” is synonymous with “materialistic explanation.” In this respect, they are following in the footsteps of ancient materialistic philosophers. This is why modern controversies over evolution are not really about empirical science. Although many of Darwin’s followers believe that he presented overwhelming evidence for his theory, nothing could be further from the truth. The Origin of Species is just warmed-over materialistic philosophy, decorated with illustrations borrowed from nineteenth-century science. https://iconsofevolution.com/darwins-straw-god-argument/
bornagain77_{July 27, 2019
July
07
Jul
27
27
2019
03:14 AM
3
03
14
AM
PDT}

RE seversky @ 9- Atheists find some benefit in their blissful ignorance...ET_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
08:10 PM
8
08
10
PM
PDT}

LoL! No, there isn't any evidence that we reduce to matter. What seversky posted is in no way evidence for that claim. Take away all of the atoms from a computer and you won't have a computer. What makes computers unique is the immaterial information that it takes to produce one. Matter and energy, without immaterial information, A) would not exist and B) could never form a living organism. Personality is more than just the behavior of the matter and energy that make up our body. We will NEVER understand life, consciousness nor personality from a materialistic standpoint.ET_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
08:08 PM
8
08
08
PM
PDT}

Bornagain77 @ 3
Dr. Dennis Bonnette, at 37:51 minute mark of following video, in detailed examination of the philosophy of reductive materialism, shows that, according to Richard Dawkin’s own philosophy, Richard Dawkins does not really exist as a real person: (the unity of Aristotelian Form is also discussed). Thus, in a sweet twist of poetic justice, in the reductive materialist denying that God really exists as a real person, the Darwinian atheist also ends up denying that he himself really exist as a real person.
I find it ironic how often Christian theologians appeal to the pre-Christian philosophy of Aristotle while implying that nothing of any scientific or religious significance has occurred outside the Christian tradition. As for reductive materialism, Bonnette does not deny that we are all made, in Sagan's words of "star stuff". If we were to somehow take away all the atoms or sub-atomic particles of which Richard Dawkins or Dennis Bonnette are made there would be nothing detectable, certainly no "real person", left. That is the way it's always been. So, yes, we do reduce to matter but that does not encompass all that we are. What makes each of us unique is the particular arrangement of that matter and energy. The interesting questions are how does matter and energy come to form these unique arrangements and how does the behavior of this matter and energy that we recognize as personality come about?Seversky_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
07:51 PM
7
07
51
PM
PDT}

BS Brian:
Hmm, talk about changing the subject..,
YOU are the BS'er who brought up suicide. Talk about being clueless. What does suicide ideation have to do with personality?ET_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
07:47 PM
7
07
47
PM
PDT}

I think you will find that there are also health benefits to Buddhism, for example. In fact, you can probably find there are health benefits in belonging to any supportive social group whatever it's religious or political grounds. That doesn't mean that any of those beliefs are true on that basis alone, just that we are social animals who do better in groups than in isolation.Seversky_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
07:26 PM
7
07
26
PM
PDT}

BS77
Hmm, talk about missing the forest for the trees,,, but anyways, speaking about suicide rates,
Hmm, talk about changing the subject.., What does this have to do with split brain patients?Brother Brian_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
07:05 PM
7
07
05
PM
PDT}

Brother Brian:
I guess you missed the study where split brain women had an increased incidence of suicide ideation.
There are personality traits correlated with suicidal tendencies but being suicidal is not a personality trait. It's as if Brian is totally disconnected from realityET_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
06:06 PM
6
06
06
PM
PDT}

BB,, Hmm, talk about missing the forest for the trees,,, but anyways, speaking about suicide rates,
Atheism and suicide "Concerning suicide rates, this is the one indicator of societal health in which religious nations fare much better than secular nations." https://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_suicide “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – page 100 https://books.google.com/books?id=PREdCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q&f=false
Mortality is also significantly different In fact, in the following study it was found that, “those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%.”
Can attending church really help you live longer? This study says yes – June 1, 2017 Excerpt: Specifically, the study says those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%. The Plos One journal published the “Church Attendance, Allostatic Load and Mortality in Middle Aged Adults” study May 16. “For those who did not attend church at all, they were twice as likely to die prematurely than those who did who attended church at some point over the last year,” Bruce said. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/02/can-attending-church-really-help-you-live-longer-study-says-yes/364375001/ Study: Religiously affiliated people lived “9.45 and 5.64 years longer…” July 1, 2018 Excerpt: Self-reported religious service attendance has been linked with longevity. However, previous work has largely relied on self-report data and volunteer samples. Here, mention of a religious affiliation in obituaries was analyzed as an alternative measure of religiosity. In two samples (N = 505 from Des Moines, IA, and N = 1,096 from 42 U.S. cities), the religiously affiliated lived 9.45 and 5.64 years longer, respectively, than the nonreligiously affiliated. Additionally, social integration and volunteerism partially mediated the religion–longevity relation. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/study-religiously-affiliated-people-lived-religiously-affiliated-lived-9-45-and-5-64-years-longer/ Can Religion Extend Your Life? - By Chuck Dinerstein — June 16, 2018 Excerpt: The researcher's regression analysis suggested that the effect of volunteering and participation accounted for 20% or 1 year of the impact, while religious affiliation accounted for the remaining four years or 80%. https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/06/16/can-religion-extend-your-life-13092
Thus BB, besides the fact that your atheistic materialism is scientifically indefensible, you now also have the very practical reason of your very own mortality as motivation to seriously consider becoming a Christian.bornagain77_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
04:17 PM
4
04
17
PM
PDT}

And several hundred fewer words.Brother Brian_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
03:54 PM
3
03
54
PM
PDT}

BS77
Besides split brain studies in which “the disconnect did not affect the patient’s personality...
I guess you missed the study where split brain women had an increased incidence of suicide ideation. And that only took a 10 second google search.Brother Brian_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
03:29 PM
3
03
29
PM
PDT}

Besides split brain studies in which "the disconnect did not affect the patient’s personality or capacity for abstract thought", hemispherectomies, (removal of half the brain), are also very interesting to look at. If a person were merely the brain, as materialists hold, then if half of a brain were removed then 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:
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."
Further notes:
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 How Removing Half of Someone's Brain Can Improve Their Life – Oct. 2015 Excerpt: Next spring, del Peral (who has only half a brain) will graduate from Curry College, where she has made the dean’s list every semester since freshman year. http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/70120/how-removing-half-someones-brain-can-improve-their-life The man with the missing brain - 17 Aug 2014 A medical recovery that is baffling science - and giving hope to head injury patients Excerpt: Doctors deemed his cognitive function so low it was untestable – that is, an IQ below 50. It was likely, they said, that he would have to rely on others for even the most menial of tasks for the rest of his life.,,, When he was sent to her, in October 1995, his IQ had climbed significantly to 89, just a point below the lower edge of “normal” (between 90 and 110) on the Revised Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. But when she was finished with him in February 1997 – after three sessions a week, with gaps for the occasional surgery – Lewis had an IQ of more than 151, close to so-called “genius” levels,,, Lewis is missing a third of his right hemisphere,,," - per the telegraph Discrepancy Between Cerebral Structure and Cognitive Functioning: A Review - 2017 Excerpt: The aforementioned student of mathematics had a global IQ of 130 and a verbal IQ of 140 at the age of 25 (Lorber, 1983), but had “virtually no brain” (Lewin 1980, p. 1232).,,, This student belonged to the group of patients that Lorber classified as having “extreme hydrocephalus,” meaning that more than 90% of their cranium appeared to be filled with cerebrospinal fluid (Lorber, 1983).,,, Apart from the above-mentioned student of mathematics, he described a woman with an extreme degree of hydrocephalus showing “virtually no cerebral mantle” who had an IQ of 118, a girl aged 5 who had an IQ of 123 despite extreme hydrocephalus, a 7-year-old boy with gross hydrocephalus and an IQ of 128, another young adult with gross hydrocephalus and a verbal IQ of 144, and a nurse and an English teacher who both led normal lives despite gross hydrocephalus.,,, Another interesting case is that of a 44-year-old woman with very gross hydrocephalus described by Masdeu (2008) and Masdeu et al. (2009). She had a global IQ of 98, worked as an administrator for a government agency, and spoke seven languages.,,, ,,, , people who grew up with only one hemisphere developed all the neuronal foundations needed for ordinary cognitive and most motor skills. Even so, it seems additionally surprising that one hemisphere can accomplish this after the other has been removed or was isolated anatomically and functionally from the rest of the brain, as it is the case of surgical hemispherectomy.,,, It is astonishing that many patients can lead an ordinary life after this drastic procedure, having only minor motor disabilities that result from mild hemiplegia.,,, McFie (1961) was astonished that “not only does it (one hemishere) perform motor and sensory functions for both sides of the body, it performs the associative and intellectual functions normally allocated to two hemispheres” (p. 248).,,, ,,, most patients, even adults, do not seem to lose their long-term memory such as episodic (autobiographic) memories.,,, https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/360/2017/12/Discrepancy-between-cerebral-structure-and-cognitive-functioning-JNMD.pdf
The interesting thing about a ‘whole person’ staying intact even though the brain suffers severe impairment during a hemispherectomy is that, it turns out, the entire concept of 'personhood' itself is an abstract, immaterial, concept that cannot be reduced to materialistic explanations:
What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? By M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: Barr rightly observes that scientific atheists often unwittingly assume not just metaphysical naturalism but an even more controversial philosophical position: reductive materialism, which says all that exists is or is reducible to the material constituents postulated by our most fundamental physical theories. As Barr points out, this implies not only that God does not exist — because God is not material — but that you do not exist. For you are not a material constituent postulated by any of our most fundamental physical theories; at best, you are an aggregate of those constituents, arranged in a particular way. Not just you, but tables, chairs, countries, countrymen, symphonies, jokes, legal contracts, moral judgments, and acts of courage or cowardice — all of these must be fully explicable in terms of those more fundamental, material constituents. In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html
Dr. Dennis Bonnette, at 37:51 minute mark of following video, in detailed examination of the philosophy of reductive materialism, shows that, according to Richard Dawkin's own philosophy, Richard Dawkins does not really exist as a real person: (the unity of Aristotelian Form is also discussed). Thus, in a sweet twist of poetic justice, in the reductive materialist denying that God really exists as a real person, the Darwinian atheist also ends up denying that he himself really exist as a real person.
Atheistic Materialism – Does Richard Dawkins Exist? – video 37:51 minute mark Quote: "It turns out that if every part of you, down to sub-atomic parts, are still what they were when they weren't in you, in other words every ion,,, every single atom that was in the universe,, that has now become part of your living body, is still what is was originally. It hasn't undergone what metaphysicians call a 'substantial change'. So you aren't Richard Dawkins. You are just carbon and neon and sulfur and oxygen and all these individual atoms still. You can spout a philosophy that says scientific materialism, but there aren't any scientific materialists to pronounce it.,,, That's why I think they find it kind of embarrassing to talk that way. Nobody wants to stand up there and say, "You know, I'm not really here". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCnzq2yTCg&t=37m51s
You don't have to take Dr. Dennis Bonnette's word for it, here a many supposedly leading 'rational' atheists who openly admit, for all the world to hear, that they are illusions and that they do not exist as real persons:
“You are robots made out of meat. Which is what I am going to try to convince you of today” Jerry Coyne – No, You’re Not a Robot Made Out of Meat (Science Uprising 02) – video https://youtu.be/rQo6SWjwQIk?list=PLR8eQzfCOiS1OmYcqv_yQSpje4p7rAE7-&t=20 The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness By STEVEN PINKER – Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 Part II THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there’s an executive “I” that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. http://www.academia.edu/2794859/The_Brain_The_Mystery_of_Consciousness “(Daniel) Dennett concludes, ‘nobody is conscious … we are all zombies’.” J.W. SCHOOLER & C.A. SCHREIBER – Experience, Meta-consciousness, and the Paradox of Introspection – 2004 “There is no self in, around, or as part of anyone’s body. There can’t be. So there really isn’t any enduring self that ever could wake up morning after morning worrying about why it should bother getting out of bed. The self is just another illusion, like the illusion that thought is about stuff or that we carry around plans and purposes that give meaning to what our body does. Every morning’s introspectively fantasized self is a new one, remarkably similar to the one that consciousness ceased fantasizing when we fell sleep sometime the night before. Whatever purpose yesterday’s self thought it contrived to set the alarm last night, today’s newly fictionalized self is not identical to yesterday’s. It’s on its own, having to deal with the whole problem of why to bother getting out of bed all over again.” – A.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, ch.10 “I’m not arguing that consciousness is a reality beyond science or beyond the brain or that it floats free of the brain at death. I’m not making any spooky claims about its metaphysics. What I am saying, however, is that the self is an illusion. The sense of being an ego, an I, a thinker of thoughts in addition to the thoughts. An experiencer in addition to the experience. The sense that we all have of riding around inside our heads as a kind of a passenger in the vehicle of the body. That’s where most people start when they think about any of these questions. Most people don’t feel identical to their bodies. They feel like they have bodies. They feel like they’re inside the body. And most people feel like they’re inside their heads. Now that sense of being a subject, a locus of consciousness inside the head is an illusion. It makes no neuro-anatomical sense.” - Sam Harris: The Self is an Illusion (YouTube video) etc.. etc.. etc..
I guess atheists simply never stop to consider the fact that any words that an imaginary illusion may say to you are absolutely worthless!
The Confidence of Jerry Coyne - Ross Douthat - January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession (by Coyne) that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_r=0
Verse:
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
bornagain77_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
02:22 PM
2
02
22
PM
PDT}

Doubter at 1
Unfortunately Dr. Egnor doesn’t address Dr. Ali’s grudgingly offered materialist neurological explanation for why there are in fact no intellectual (abstract thought) siezures: “Neural connectivity theory provides an answer:… Such stimulation is too crude and localized to produce a more complex response such as an abstract thought.”
Dr. Egnor addressed that claim in a previous article,,,
CAN BUZZWORDS ABOUT “NEURAL NETWORKS” SAVE MATERIALIST NEUROSCIENCE? No. Experiments that support an immaterial consciousness often involve split or massively damaged neural networks MICHAEL EGNOR JUNE 27, 2019 Excerpt: So let me reiterate my “take-home points”: Roger Sperry studied patients whose brains had literally been cut in half, which meant massive damage to their neural networks. The networks had been surgically disconnected in order to get seizures under control. Yet the disconnect did not affect the patient’s personality or capacity for abstract thought. Benjamin Libet found that “free won’t”—the ability to veto temptations—had no material correlate in brain activity. That, obviously, cannot be explained with recourse to neural networks. These networks entail quite a bit of neural electrical activity but Libet found none. The simplest and most scientifically cogent interpretation is that free will isn’t a material act of the brain. Finally, Adrian Owen found that patients with massive brain damage in a persistent vegetative state surprisingly retained the ability to think abstractly. That hardly supports the materialist inference that neural networks can account for abstract thought. Many of the cases studied involved massive stimulation or destruction of neural networks, and they never specifically evoke or ablate abstract thought. In conclusion, abstract thought cannot be accounted for on a materialist basis. The attribution of abstract thought to the material brain is philosophical and logical nonsense and has been repeatedly discredited by the best neuroscience over the past century. So, friends and colleagues who insist that neural networks can explain away the neuroscience experiments that clearly show the immaterial aspects of the mind, I suggest that you look elsewhere to salvage your ideology. Neural networks cannot save materialism from the dustbin of science. https://mindmatters.ai/2019/06/can-buzzwords-about-neural-networks-save-materialist-neuroscience/
bornagain77_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
01:16 PM
1
01
16
PM
PDT}

Unfortunately Dr. Egnor doesn't address Dr. Ali's grudgingly offered materialist neurological explanation for why there are in fact no intellectual (abstract thought) siezures: "Neural connectivity theory provides an answer:… Such stimulation is too crude and localized to produce a more complex response such as an abstract thought."doubter_{July 26, 2019
July
07
Jul
26
26
2019
10:10 AM
10
10
10
AM
PDT}

Prev 1 2

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply