Nothing is ever settled in Darwinian history. That’s part of the genius of Darwin’s strategy for secular science: it provided job security for storytellers (25 June 2014). Since human imagination is boundless, Darwin put it to work overcoming the challenges of empirical proof. Data points like genes, rocks, fossils and embryos are the playthings of those engaged in “fun scenarios” (25 Aug 2020) of what might have happened—and must have happened—in a universe without intelligent design.
They have gotten mighty skilled at it. There is no anomaly that a skilled Darwinian storyteller cannot overcome with imagination. In Darwinian science, data points are mere props to rearrange at will in order to maintain the worldview that floats on an ocean of purposelessness. The rules even allow for returning to previous deck-chair patterns. To them, after all, if the ship is going nowhere in particular, one might as well stay occupied with activity that pretends to be designed for a purpose. By agreement, the underlying philosophy (the Stuff Happens Law) cannot be altered (the Law of the Misdeeds and Perversions).
David F. Coppedge, “Rearranging the Deck Chairs on Darwin’s Titanic” at Creation-Evolution Headlines
The thing is, any nonsense may be believed if it is given a Darwinian explanation. To those who doubt, we have two words: evolutionary psychology
And few know Darwin’s deck chairs as well as Coppedge, if you followed the story.
The problem of unrestrained imagination and/or boundless illusion goes far beyond Darwinists just trying to explain away uncooperative “Data points like genes, rocks, fossils and embryos” with ‘just so stories’. The problem of unrestrained imagination and/or boundless illusion in Darwinian explanations goes to the very heart of any definition of reality that we may try to put forth.
A particularly crystal clear example of this is when Richard Dawkins, (in a debate with Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams), stated that he agreed with materialistic philosophers who say that:
“consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asked Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”.
Here are a few more quotes by atheistic materialists claiming that consciousness is just an illusion,
In the following video Dr. Dennis Bonnette gets into the details of exactly why atheistic materialists are forced into the insane position of claiming that they really don’t exist as real persons but that they are just ‘neuronal illusions’.
As well, M. Anthony Mills puts the insurmountable problem for reductive materialists like this, “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.”
And as Erwin Schroedinger himself succinctly put it, “Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms.,,, It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”
This denial of the primacy of consciousness by Darwinian materialists creates an insurmountable problem from Atheists. Namely, for anything to be real for us in the first place we must first be conscious of it.
And as David Bentley Hart states in the following article, “Simply enough, you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it.”
And as Max Planck observed, “We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
And as Eugene Wigner himself observed, “The principal argument (against materialism) is that thought processes and consciousness are the primary concepts, that our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied.”
Rowan Williams’ response to Richard Dawkins, ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?” is far more than just a rhetorical talking point in a debate.
The denial of the primacy of consciousness, by atheistic materialists, effects everything downstream from it.
For example, besides claiming that consciousness is an illusion, Darwinian materialists also claim that free will is an illusion,
Besides consciousness and free will, the Darwinian materialist is also forced to believe that his beliefs about reality are unreliable, that is to say he is forced to believe that his beliefs are illusory,
On top of that, the Darwinian materialist is also forced to believe that his perceptions of reality are also illusory,
On top of that, the Darwinian materialist, since he has no real time experimental evidence substantiating any of his grandiose claims for Darwinian evolution, must also make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection,
The Darwinian materialist is forced to make up these illusory “just so stories” so as to ‘explain away’ the overwhelming appearance of design, which is to say to ‘explain away’ the overwhelming illusion of design,
On top of that, the Darwinian materialist also must make up illusory meaning and purposes for his life since the hopelessness inherent in his nihilistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear,
On top of that, the Darwinian materialist is also forced to hold morality is subjective and illusory,, i.e. no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
On top of all that, and perhaps most insulting of all, the Darwinian materialist is also forced to hold, since beauty itself cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, that beauty itself must be illusory.
Bottom line, without God nothing turns out to be truly real in the atheist’s worldview. Not even the atheist himself turns out to be real in his materialistic worldview. Much less are beauty, meaning, and purposes for his life to be considered real in his atheistic worldview.
To say that such a view of reality where beauty, meaning and purpose, are complete illusions is an impoverished view of reality is to insult the truly impoverished people of the world who at least believe in God in spite of their material poverty. IMHO, they, with their faith in God, are, spiritually speaking, immensely richer than any academic atheist in America is.
So in conclusion, the problem of unrestrained imagination and/or boundless illusion goes far beyond Darwinists just trying to explain away uncooperative “Data points like genes, rocks, fossils and embryos” with ‘just so stories’. The problem of unrestrained imagination and/or boundless illusion in Darwinian explanations goes to the very heart of any definition of reality that we may try to put forth, and destroys any coherent definition of reality that we may try to put forth.
In short, the Darwinian materialists lives in a ocean of unrestrained imagination and illusion with no discernible anchor for reality to grab onto.
It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed, more antagonistic to reality itself, than Darwinian materialism has turned out to be.
Dr. Dennis Bonnette is an incredible person (and yes, he DOES exist!) 🙂
Thank you Bornagain77!
Naturalism’s Epistemological Nightmare
Dr. Dennis Bonnette
https://strangenotions.com/naturalisms-epistemological-nightmare/
@
Perhaps Dawkins was making the same argument as our own WJM, that all we really experience is our internal mental model of reality. We assume that the model is representing the ‘modeled’, something that is out there beyond us but we have no way of distinguishing between an objective reality and a Matrix-like simulation. Aren’t there those who argue that this whole reality is just thoughts in the mind of God?
Personally, as an agnostic/atheist anathema, I believe that there is an objective reality beyond and we live our everyday lives in a mental model of that reality built on data coming in through our senses. It’s not an entirely accurate model because our senses only provide a limited amount of data about what is out there, we don’t see by infrared or ultraviolet or X-ray for example, but it’s good enough for getting around in reasonable safety. But that’s an assumption on my part. There’s no way for me to prove it that I can see.
I don’t claim we don’t exist as real persons and I don’t know anyone who does. But the fact remains that all we actually know is what’s going on inside our heads. That could all be nothing more than a simulation.
Schroedinger was an eminent quantum physicist but not a psychologist or neurobiologist so he was speculating outside his own field. He clearly had no more idea how to solve the hard problem of consciousness than anyone else.
Which is what we’ve been saying earlier.
Truthfreedom, thanks for the link to Dr. Dennis Bonnette’s article Naturalism’s Epistemological Nightmare. It’s a keeper.
And using the power of Darwinian Evolution Seversky presents his argument because of the fact that he has experienced a flight or flight syndrome which was inherited from millions of year of evolution and developed further from the interaction of our ancestors during the hunter gatherer phase
Bornagain77 @ 2
Do you deny you are a product of your history? Do you deny that you have inherited traits from your parents? Was your sexual orientation consciously chosen by you at an early age? Could you change that orientation now just by an effort of will?
To what extent can you say you have free will?
“Fitness”, in the evolutionary sense, refers to the ability to survive in a given environment. The more accurate or truthful our understanding of that environment is the better our chances of survival in it are going to be. In terms of survival, searching for the truth has a clear advantage over falsehoods in terms of survival.
No, we believe like Steven Novella that it is most likely a “constructed representation”.
Materialists are well aware (mostly) that “just so” stories, without any evidence, are just that.
In the absence of a known designer, the appearance of design is just that. We’re pretty sure we didn’t design those things that have that appearance so either there’s an unknown designer or that appearance is just a for of pareidolia.
And one can argue that religion exists for the same reason, because the hopelessness of the alternative is just as intolerable.
But if all purposes are simply the inventions of a “purposer” then why should some other being’s purposes be any better than ours?
If you can’t derive “ought” from “is” then morality is inevitably subjective, even God’s.
Atheists experience beauty and all the other pleasures of life just like anyone else. We don’t deny ourselves some of them just because some argue that they are “sinful”
And the poor cling to religion because they are left with little else, the wealthy have grabbed most of the wealth for themselves.
Seversky, since you pretend to defend science, I have an experiment to put this entire ‘is consciousness an illusion?’ question to rest.
Since consciousness is held, by Darwinian materialists, to be an illusion generated by the brain, and illusions, by definition, prevent us from seeing reality as it really is, then I propose that we remove your consciousness from you, (via general anesthesia, preferably by Dr. Stuart Hameroff who is a anesthesiologist), so we can see the reality of the situation much more clearly and see if you have anything interesting to say about consciousness being an illusion of the brain when that illusion that is preventing us from seeing reality as it really is removed from your brain. 🙂
I would even be willing to have Dr. Hameroff perform to experiment repeatedly on you, thousands of times if necessary, so as to make the conclusion of the experiment all the more reliable and ‘scientific’. 🙂
Actually many Darwinians defend the idea of consciousness because if it was epiphenominal it would not have evolved at all and would have disappeared
So it’s not an illusion they also argue for free will in many cases to as a very useful adaptive strategy
Challenge to all Darwinian thinkers
Science is influenced by your genes and scientists are subject to genetic predispositions in their conclusions, scientific Consensus is simply a group of individuals with similar genes and Dispositions
Seversky
As if you had an alternative. If your bain has been ‘programmed’ to make you experience ‘beauty’, then you are going to experience beauty. FULL STOP.
Bornagain77,
My pleasure 🙂 Dr. Bonnette is excellent (an oasis of mental peace and welcoming logic among all the atheist insanity).
Pinker non-sense:
– It is no longer an illusion then if Mr. Pinker “knows” that is a “trick”.
An illusion is something that cheats on you without you knowing it.
– Millions of years of evolution have “programmed” us to be “under the illusion of consciousness”. Except certain ‘chosen ones’ (darwinists) that are not tricked, of course.
And look at all the materialists that have been freed of the ‘God delusion’ program.
Me, I would hire a better “programmer”. Because this “evolution” thing is not very professional.
Seversky
Alvin Plantinga has a different opinion:
Atheists Can’t Trust Reason (Or Anything)
Anybody want to take a wild crack at how your science is influenced by your in genetics and so forth, it’s part of evolutionary theory,
I’m sure your ancestors during the hunter gatherer phase have some reason for your choice of conclusions, I mean how can you trust or support your own conclusions when they could easily be influenced by the environment and your genetics. remember your subjective experience is not a valid form of science
Hey did anybody ever really realize that when you say the brain controls (or is) the mind and the brain informs the mind of its decision after, that it implies dualism immediately
Correct that, it doesn’t imply it a presupposes it.
Seversky says: “In the absence of a known designer, the appearance of design is just that. We’re pretty sure we didn’t design those things that have that appearance so either there’s an unknown designer or that appearance is just a for of pareidolia.”
Well, I will give you credit for allowing for the possibility of a designer. Most atheists and agnostics do not even allow for that possibility. They just assume that there is none so they make up their silly stories to try and adequately explain things that can only adequately be explained by intelligence, intention, and design. If you choose to believe in an unlimited series of natural miracles of chance and think that such an explanation is actually more trustworthy /more accurate than the idea of a designer, then that’s up to you. At least I think it is up to you. Perhaps it really isn’t up to you. Perhaps your conclusions are pre-determined by the chemical interactions in your evolved monkey brain so that both you and I believe what we believe because of the brain that evolution blessed us with. We evolved to think the way we do and we really can’t do anything about that. That’s a lovely thought to dwell on because it makes real knowledge and truth inaccessible. We interpret the data the way we do because of the monkey brain we inherited.
And actually why have these long drawn out argument with these people?
I mean the more I think about it you can just apply evolutionary theory to their own ideas and it invalidates all of them
Think about it they never aim their own theories at themselves, they aim at religion, they aim at morality, and they certainly aim it at love. But they aim only at what society thinks is important they never aim it at themselves.
Certainly never at the science that they do
So aim Darwinian theory at Seversky or Chuckdarwin
It’s super easy to do and then you can watch them scramble for excuses for why they still think they’re valid
Evolutionary theory doesn’t play any favorites so aim it that their arguments
And I really want to start applying the principles of evolution to scientists and their science
AaronS1978
They “support” it via blatant circular “reasoning”:
-we can reach valid conclusions (and trust our reason)
– because we have evolved to have “good enough” reason
If you think the above statement is not stupid enough, now they add the following:
-but we are plagued by “cognitive biases”/ “illusions”/ can not “understand reality”.
Except if you are a darwinist. Darwinism is magic, you read On The Origin of Species and then “you” (your “brain”) gets cleansed of your biases and your brain chemistry magically changes. No more cheating!
You are born-again. 🙂 (Notice the parallel with religion/ baptism).
Lol. It could be funny. But the truth is that is pathetic.
Seversky
Liar. Your “interpersonal agreement” bull is the code for:
“good/ (allowed by society) behaviors (not-“sinful”)
“bad”/ (not allowed by society) behaviors (“sinful”)
Seversky:
Schroedinger was an eminent quantum physicist but not a psychologist
Why is it that I have encountered so many with degrees in psychology including from my alma mater Vanderbilt, who could not find work in their ‘field’ ? Even physicists lacking a Ph.D can find work in applied science (or teaching), as I encountered them in my career doing both. You guys can read ONE BOOK and then know much more valid information on consciousness than most Ph.D psychologists (with notable exceptions) and here is a link to my review of that book as I posted here years ago. And btw the fame of the author has grown since, as references to his work has snowballed (e.g. Michael Pollan, materialist-in-transition out): https://www.amazon.com/review/R93YN1VTGE33U
AaronS1978
Seversky presents a garbage argument to himself because he has already acknowledged that he is speaking to himself.
He ‘thinks’ that there is an ‘outside world’ but he can not be sure about it, because he has already mentioned that HE CAN NOT ESCAPE HIS OWN PRISON/MIND.
Seversky= solipsist.
And if you add to that the hypothesis that our consciousness itself is an illusion, there can be no prison because there’s no mind.
-Q