Readers may remember philosopher Justin Smith, who thinks that we can understand life better if we “give up the idea of rationality as nature’s last remaining exception.”
Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor weighs in, responding point by point to the essay, for example:
Material states of the brain can, of course, influence our power of reason—an ounce of whiskey can have quite an effect on our judgment—but the power of reason itself is immaterial. It cannot “evolve” because natural selection, whatever its worth as a scientific hypothesis, needs matter to act on.
[Smith:] “Reason is exceedingly rare, a hapax legomenon of nature, and yet this rarity has led to a bind: when pushed to account for its origins, thinkers who champion reason’s human-exclusivity are forced to lean on supernaturalism, while those who contend that reason is a fundamentally natural property have then to concede that ‘lower’ lifeforms are capable of exercising it. The question is – how?”
Reason isn’t rare at all. 7.7 billion people do it every day. But no non-human animal does it. This immaterial power of the soul is precisely what makes man qualitatively different from every other living thing. And I am not “forced to lean on supernaturalism” by pointing this out. I’m merely making an observation that’s obvious to all. Man, and man alone, has the power to reason. Michael Egnor, “An atheist argues against reason” at Mind Matters News
Egnor’s words remind us that pop science media made strenuous efforts recently to convince the world that paper wasps reason:
The researchers clearly dissociate themselves from a claim that wasps reason. “We’re not saying that wasps used logical deduction to solve this problem…” But the media ignored the hint, as they might be expected to do. …
Elite media behave the same way as tabloids: Whereas the media release says, “The study by Tibbetts and her colleagues illustrates that paper wasps can build and manipulate an implicit hierarchy. But it makes no claims about the precise mechanisms that underlie this ability,” the Smithsonian Magazine headline is Wasps Are the First Invertebrates to Pass This Basic Logic Test (May 10, 2019). Denyse O’Leary, “Wasps can reason? Science media say yes, researchers no” at Mind Matters News
Legacy media are collapsing because their passion is enforcing a “narrative,” not in informing an audience about what is really happening.
If science writers need to believe that wasps reason (or that people don’t), that’s what you will be hearing from them.
Meanwhile, the facts are becoming more and more obvious. Stay tuned.
See also: Philosopher eliminates human exceptionality by dethroning reason
Also by Michael Egnor: Why apes are not spiritual beings Apes do not have language, which enables humans to think about abstract ideas
Can physics prove there is no free will? No, but it can make physicists incoherent when they write about free will
and
The brain is not a meat computer Dramatic recoveries from brain injury highlight the difference
Follow UD News at Twitter!
No, it is a matter of belief. Do any animals reason like humans reason? Probably not. But do severely autistic people reason like “baseline” humans? Probably not. But nobody would claim that they do not reason.
The ability to ‘instantaneously’ know answers to complex problems has long been a very intriguing characteristic of some autistic savants;
This following man refuses the autistic label, but is very ‘spooky’ none-the-less in his ability at math;
Of humorous note, “Shutting down part of the brain that’s responsible for problem solving” causes atheism.
Shutting down part of brain changes views on God, immigrants: study – October 14, 2015
Excerpt: Temporarily shutting down part of the brain that’s responsible for problem solving can suppress your religious views and prejudices toward immigrants, a new study has found.
Researchers out of the University of York, in England, and the University of California, Los Angeles, used magnetic energy to safely and temporarily shut down specific regions of the brain of some study participants.
When the posterior medial frontal cortex — a part of the brain located near the surface and roughly a few inches up from the forehead — was shut down, participants reported a decrease in their religious convictions and were more positive toward new immigrants critical of their country.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/s…..-1.2609612
I remember the study but it really didn’t stop your belief in God they just didn’t use it as their solution for the problem of death
The same goes for immigrants it was a very odd study
The only thing of note that was actually truly interesting was that belief in God was not emotionally driven even though emotions can be attached
It is also worth noting they didn’t shut it down completely they just lowered their use of it by 32.8% I don’t know how you come up with a number like that per person because you would’ve had to of known a number of units for how they would use God in their life and how they would use God to answer questions like death
How they lowered it by 32.8% almost seems silly to me
I believe in God 100% now because of the magnets I only believe in God 77.2%
The only way you get measurements like that is if there was measurable amounts that you could see being decreased
Very odd
I am an ID supporter and a Christian AGI researcher. I disagree with this view. Some animals, such as corvids, do reason. Reasoning is the application of causality, predictions and, in humans, symbolic language to problem solving. Making tools, even primitive ones, is a sign of causal and predictive reasoning applied to goal-directed behavior.
I implore fellow Christians to not go out on a limb and make assertions about intelligence and consciousness that you may regret later. The truth is stranger than you think. The scriptures contain hidden knowledge (about the brain and other matters) coded in clever metaphors that a few of us are beginning to decipher. Things are happening. Hang on to your faith.