A Progressive Auto-da-fé

_{Barry Arrington

April 21, 2018

Intelligent Design}

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Long time readers know we have occasionally indulged in Sam Harris fricassée in these pages. See here, here and here for examples. Harris is one of the leading proponents of the “consciousness is an illusion” school, which means he denies the Primordial Datum – the one thing that everyone (including Sam Harris) knows for a certain fact to be true — that they are aware of their own existence. That said, we will be the first to admit there is an integrity – of a sort – to Harris’ silliness. He understands that his materialism precludes, in principle, the existence of immaterial consciousness, and so he denies consciousness exists. Yes, I know, it is gobsmackingly stupid. But at least it is an honest sort of stupidity.

Unsurprisingly, Harris is an uber-progressive, but, as Kyle Smith at NR reports, Harris’ integrity has landed him in hot water with his fellow progressives, especially Ezra Klein:

Klein’s site Vox, in a piece by scientists Eric Turkheimer, Kathryn Paige Harden, and Richard E. Nisbett, merely tagged Harris as participating in “pseudoscientific racialist speculation” and peddling “junk science” while being “egregiously wrong morally” and implied he’s on the same side as eugenicists, claiming that the burden of proof is on Harris to demonstrate that he isn’t. The piece was listed as one of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hatewatch headlines” of the day, right alongside news about neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Klein himself then chimed in with an attack piece saying Harris was carrying on with “America’s most ancient justification for bigotry and racial inequality.” All of this because Harris had a podcast conversation with Charles Murray, the co-author of The Bell Curve, which contains a chapter about race and IQ.

Klein is a high priest of progressivism, and like most such he holds progressive orthodoxies with a blinkered and hidebound dogmatism that would have made Torquemada blush. Harris allows Murray a platform to express views challenging a progressive orthodoxy? To the stake! Fortunately for the rest of us, Klein has no access to a literal stake, so he burns Harris metaphorically in the pages of Vox. And for a progressive like Harris, that may be almost as painful as the real thing.

Comments

Allan Keith, One more crack like 46 and you will be escorted to the exit. Last warning.Barry Arrington_{April 25, 2018
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Bob and Allan Keith now try to attack my mental health
Just to be clear, I wasn't attacking your mental health - I was voicing my opposition to people attacking your mental health. I felt that Allan's comment was inappropriate, and wanted to make that clear.Bob O'H_{April 25, 2018
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Bob and Allan Keith now try to attack my mental health, which is ironic since, #1, I can present actual empirical evidence, instead of baseless accusations, that demonstrates that atheists do indeed suffer mentally (and physically) much more than Christians do, and, #2, I'm not the one holding onto the insane worldview that says I am a neuronal illusion: Oh well, what can one do when faced with such insanity?
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/ Of snakebites and suicide – February 18, 2014 RESULTS: Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/of-snakebites-and-suicide/ “I maintain that whatever else faith may be, it cannot be a delusion. The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.” – Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists – Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – preface “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 Is Christianity Evil? (Mental Benefits of Christianity – Meta-analysis, 8:24 minute mark) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dgESPmh-TxY#t=504
bornagain77_{April 25, 2018
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as to:
not all a/mats think they are illusions or accept Alex Rosenberg as the official spokesperson for atheism.
So who is the 'official spokesman' now? I know you guys immediately called Anthony Flew senile when he finally honestly admitted, (after decades of being one of the, in not THE, leading spokesman for atheism), that atheism was false. ,,, Is Richard Dawkins now considered the 'official spokesman" for atheism? If so:
At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: “consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s
Let me guess, anyone who disagrees with Sev, such as Nagel, can never qualify as a leading spokesman for atheism.
"I have argued patiently against the prevailing form of naturalism, a reductive materialism that purports to capture life and mind through its neo-Darwinian extension." "..., I find this view antecedently unbelievable---a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense". Thomas Nagel - "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False" - pg.128 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199919755/ref=pe_240370_26181270_nrn_si_1_im Mind and Cosmos - Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False - Thomas Nagel Excerpt: If materialism cannot accommodate consciousness and other mind-related aspects of reality, then we must abandon a purely materialist understanding of nature in general, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199919758.do
bornagain77_{April 25, 2018
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as to: In case you are not aware, Christianity holds that the Mind of God preexists everything. Therefore my mind, and the minds of all other people, are certainly not a problem for Christianity to account for. The infinite Mind of God is taken as the fundamental entity from which all else is derived.
Put some evidence for this God on the table, other than the fact that a lot of people believe in such a being, and we can see if it supports your claim. Otherwise all you have is speculation.
Okie Dokie
Double Slit, Quantum-Electrodynamics, and Christian Theism – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK9kGpIxMRM A Short Survey Of Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Excerpt: Putting all the lines of evidence together the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this: 1. Consciousness either preceded all of material reality or is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality. 2. If consciousness is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality. 3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality. 4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality. Five intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes material reality (Double Slit, Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, Leggett’s Inequalities, Quantum Zeno effect): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G_Fi50ljF5w_XyJHfmSIZsOcPFhgoAZ3PRc_ktY8cFo/edit Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness: 5 Experiments – video https://youtu.be/t5qphmi8gYE Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFFtZ301j4
bornagain77_{April 25, 2018
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Bob O'H @49
Bob: ... some materialists may think that “we” are an illusion, but not all.
Can you name one or more proponents of the latter group? Do you know of a leading materialist who makes the case that consciousness is real?Origenes_{April 25, 2018
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Otigenes @ 43 - a couple of points: 1. some materialists may think that "we" are an illusion, but not all. There are many strains of materialist thought, just as there are many strains of Christian thought. 2. ba77 has gone further and claimed that I do not exist. His logic is difficult for me to grasp (unless it's just street theatre).Bob O'H_{April 25, 2018
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Allan Keith @ 46 - we shouldn't make light of mental illness either. I don't know if ba77 suffers from mental health problems, and if he does then he should have our sympathy.Bob O'H_{April 25, 2018
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bornagain77 @ 36
So ‘you’, as an Atheist who holds the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution to be true, really think that it is Christianity that has a problem accounting for personal conscious experience and that atheistic materialism does not?
I've said many times previously that a/mat faces the hard problem of bridging the explanatory gap between our subjective experience of consciousness and our observation of brain function. There is nothing in Christianity that gets around that.
In case you are not aware, Christianity holds that the Mind of God preexists everything. Therefore my mind, and the minds of all other people, are certainly not a problem for Christianity to account for. The infinite Mind of God is taken as the fundamental entity from which all else is derived.
Put some evidence for this God on the table, other than the fact that a lot of people believe in such a being, and we can see if it supports your claim. Otherwise all you have is speculation.
And herein lies the problem for reductive materialists. Nobody has a clue how material particles can give rise to the immaterial mind.
I know. That's what I said.
In fact, atheists deny, altogether, the reality of the immaterial realm. For the reductive materialist, the only thing that is real are the material particles, and anything not reducible to the material realm is, of necessity, illusory to the reductive materialist.
You should know that some a/mats at least are aware that our understanding of matter has moved a little beyond beyond the idea of minute solar systems made up of miniscule specks of matter.
I can, and have, quoted to ‘you’ many leading atheistic philosophers who have taken the premises of the reductive materialistic philosophy to their logical end and have concluded, and proclaimed, for all the world to hear no less, that they are ‘neuronal illusions’.
And it's also been pointed out that not all a/mats think they are illusions or accept Alex Rosenberg as the official spokesperson for atheism.Seversky_{April 24, 2018
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Bob O’H,
You’re the only one on this blog telling people they don’t exist, so go figure.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness. We really shouldn’t be making light of BA77’s affliction.Allan Keith_{April 24, 2018
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Bornagain77 @44
“Enjoying Life without Illusions”. :) Now that is FUNNY!
Doing away with illusion is quite a daunting task for any neuronal illusion, to say the least. :) However, elsewhere neuronal illusion Rosenberg admits that "his" guidance of fellow neuronal illusions is not always rewarding.
Epicurus wasn’t right when he argued that understanding the nature of reality is by itself enough to make a person happy. Alas, some people do get everything right about the universe and our place in it and remain dissatisfied. Satisfying themselves that science answers all the persistent questions correctly, they are still troubled. You, gentle reader, may be one of these people. Fortunately for such people, Epicurus was almost right. If you still can’t sleep at night, even after accepting science’s answers to the persistent questions, you probably just need one more little thing besides Epicurean detachment. Take a Prozac or your favorite serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and keep taking them till they kick in. … Take two of whatever neuropharmacology prescribes. If you don’t feel better in the morning . . . or three weeks from now, switch to another one. Three weeks is often how long it takes serotonin reuptake suppression drugs like Prozac, Wellbutrin, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, or Luvox to kick in. And if one doesn’t work, another one probably will.
Origenes_{April 24, 2018
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Origenes, I went to look up your quote and laughed when I found out the subtitle of Rosenberg's book is "Enjoying Life without Illusions". :) Now that is FUNNY!
"Science provides clear-cut answers to all of the questions on the list: there is no free will, there is no mind distinct from the brain, there is no soul, no self, no person that supposedly inhabits your body, that endures over its life span, and that might even outlast it." Alex Rosenberg - The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions https://books.google.com/books?id=sqpqeetCs5oC&pg=PA147
bornagain77_{April 24, 2018
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Bob (to BA77): You’re the only one on this blog telling people they don’t exist, so go figure.
Bob, according to materialism, there is no "you." This is common knowledge around here. Why do you pretend that Bornagain77 is the only one telling you this?
Science provides clear-cut answers to all of the questions on the list: there is no free will, there is no mind distinct from the brain, there is no soul, no self, no person that supposedly inhabits your body, that endures over its life span, and that might even outlast it. [Rosenberg]
Origenes_{April 24, 2018
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Well, "Bob", (if 'you' really are in there somewhere), 'you' may not 'personally' hold to the reductive materialistic philosophy, but the reductive materialistic philosophy of Darwinian evolution, which 'you' defend tooth and nail with no caveats for consciousness, implies just that. Perhaps you should be a little more explicit in exactly how your personal philosophy differs from the reductive materialistic philosophy that currently dominates American Universities??? Or is that too much to ask???? But I'm pretty sure you, i.e. "Bob and weave", could care less for being consistent in your logic and are just playing games as you usually do so as to avoid dealing forthrightly with the issue. As to: (you are the only one around here who has claimed that I or Seversky don’t exist.) No. I have made it clear time and again that it is reductive materialism that implies that. And, many others on UD, including Mr. Arrington, have made this same exact point repeatedly. Keep digging your hole though. I will use it against you.bornagain77_{April 24, 2018
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And yet, “you” hold to a reductive materialistic philosophy which denies the reality of “you” and says “that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”
No, I don't hold to a philosophy like that. I've told you this several times. You have repeatedly mis-represent my views. But again, you are the only one around here who has claimed that I or Seversky don't exist. Don't push your weird views onto other people, especially after they've told you that these views don't represent their views. It makes you appear confused, at best.Bob O'H_{April 24, 2018
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Well Bob, you got a BIG problem. "You" claim, (I have no way of knowing if "you" really exist since I obviously am not "you"), that "you" really do exist as a real person and that "you" are not a neuronal illusion. And yet, "you" hold to a reductive materialistic philosophy which denies the reality of "you" and says “that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." (Francis Crick) So which is it Bob? Do "you" really exist as a real person or are "you" "no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." If being consistent in your logic mattered to "you". "you" should, by virtue of your immaterial free will, rightly choose to immediately reject reductive materialism since it denies the most certain thing that you can possibly know about reality. Namely, the fact that "you" do indeed exist as a real person. So which is it Bob? Sanity or insanity? Theism or Reductive materialism? Your choice!bornagain77_{April 24, 2018
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Only from Atheistic Philosophers, and Evolutionary Biologists, have I ever heard such an insane claim.
You're the only one on this blog telling people they don't exist, so go figure.Bob O'H_{April 24, 2018
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as to:
It’s your philosophy that’s leading you to declare the non-existence of atheistic materialist, not anyone else’s.
Funny, I never heard any of my Sunday school teachers claim that they, or I, was a 'neuronal illusion'. Only from Atheistic Philosophers, and Evolutionary Biologists, have I ever heard such an insane claim. Are 'you' sure that Christianity leads to the conclusion that people are neuronal illusions? Can 'you' elaborate on that claim? Perhaps quote some leading Christian scholars or at least cite some scriptures from the New Testament? Or perhaps work it out from the foundational precepts of Christianity, i.e. John 1:1-4 Here are a few quotes, again, that drive my claim against atheistic materialism home:
Ross Douthat Is On Another Erroneous Rampage Against Secularism – Jerry Coyne – December 26, 2013 Excerpt: “many (but not all) of us accept the notion that our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” Jerry Coyne – Professor of Evolutionary Biology – Atheist https://newrepublic.com/article/116047/ross-douthat-wrong-about-secularism-and-ethics At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: “consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s “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 The Consciousness Deniers – Galen Strawson – March 13, 2018 Excerpt: What is the silliest claim ever made? The competition is fierce, but I think the answer is easy. Some people have denied the existence of consciousness: conscious experience, the subjective character of experience, the “what-it-is-like” of experience.,,, Who are the Deniers?,,, Few have been fully explicit in their denial, but among those who have been, we find Brian Farrell, Paul Feyerabend, Richard Rorty, and the generally admirable Daniel Dennett.,,, http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/ “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor “that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick – “The Astonishing Hypothesis” 1994
bornagain77_{April 24, 2018
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ba77 @ 36 - It's your philosophy that's leading you to declare the non-existence of atheistic materialist, not anyone else's. Why does the pre-existence of the Mind of God mean that the existence of people depends on whether they believe in the existence of this Mind of God?Bob O'H_{April 24, 2018
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As to:
Me: One problem with your ‘consciousness is a model’ theory Sev. You see Sev, I’m sure that I really exist. But I am not sure that you, as an atheistic materialist, really exist. Bob: It would seem to me that that would indicate a problem with your consciousness theory, not Seversky’s.
So 'you', as an Atheist who holds the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution to be true, really think that it is Christianity that has a problem accounting for personal conscious experience and that atheistic materialism does not? In case you are not aware, Christianity holds that the Mind of God preexists everything. Therefore my mind, and the minds of all other people, are certainly not a problem for Christianity to account for. The infinite Mind of God is taken as the fundamental entity from which all else is derived. Whereas on the other hand, Atheistic Materialism posits that matter and energy have always existed and that everything, including each of our individual minds, are derivative from matter. And herein lies the problem for reductive materialists. Nobody has a clue how material particles can give rise to the immaterial mind. In fact, atheists deny, altogether, the reality of the immaterial realm. For the reductive materialist, the only thing that is real are the material particles, and anything not reducible to the material realm is, of necessity, illusory to the reductive materialist. It is not that hard to understand Bob. Yet, you have repeatedly strenuously objected to being thought of as a neuronal illusion and, I believe you even, humorously, held that it was 'immoral', of all things, for me, a Christian, to point out that atheists, according to the reductive materialistic premises of their own Darwinian philosophy, are not really 'persons' but are merely neuronal illusions. I can, and have, quoted to 'you' many leading atheistic philosophers who have taken the premises of the reductive materialistic philosophy to their logical end and have concluded, and proclaimed, for all the world to hear no less, that they are 'neuronal illusions'. No Bob, it is not Christianity that has a problem accounting for personal conscious experience, not in the least, it is a insurmountable problem that rests squarely, whether you choose to acknowledge the irreconcilable problem or not, at the feet of the philosophy of reductive materialism which undergirds Darwinian thought. I can't force you to be honest, or consistent, in your own worldview, but at least I can, for unbiased readers, point out the fatal flaws inherent in your materialistic worldview. Of related interest is this article that News just cited in an OP:
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,,, 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
bornagain77_{April 24, 2018
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ba77 @ 22 -
One problem with you ‘consciousness is a model’ theory Sev. You see Sev, I’m sure that I really exist. But I am not sure that you, as an atheistic materialist, really exist.
It would see to me that that would indicate a problem with your consciousness theory, now Seversky's.Bob O'H_{April 24, 2018
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Do you think uber-progressive Sam Harris is “lining up alongside ‘race science’ now”? If so, that is very odd.
Isn't that, essentially, he point of Pound's piece?Bob O'H_{April 24, 2018
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Still don't get it Sev. I don't have a dog in the fight. This post is about leftist intolerance to certain thoughts. Irony of irony, cornu jumps in to demonstrate.Barry Arrington_{April 23, 2018
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Barry Arrington @ 26
Well, we have on the one hand, a world famous materialist doctor of cognitive neuroscience who is a progressive with every reason to view Murray skeptically (and in fact did until he bothered to investigate the matter). And then we have . . . Sev. Whom to believe? That’s a real head-scratcher. I’ll have to get back to you on that.
Or maybe you shouldn't believe either of us but read the article I linked to which calls into question at least some of the research on which Murray based his bookSeversky_{April 23, 2018
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"Are you a thought-fascist cornu?" Wow, not even a denial. OK. The left is growing more and more intolerant of ideas they disagree with. It is, frankly, alarming. Notice cornu's response was utterly substance-free. Why discuss a question rationally when you can shut the debate down with name-calling and innuendo? Barry Arrington_{April 23, 2018
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You'll note I'm replying to your post in 26, which is not about Klein's article...cornu_{April 23, 2018
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cornu,
are you lining up alongside “race science” now?
Do you think uber-progressive Sam Harris is "lining up alongside 'race science' now"? If so, that is very odd. So it is clear, I don't have a dog in this fight. The point of the OP is not whether Harris is right or wrong. The point is that progressives like Ezra Klien don't even want to allow a debate. They don't want some questions even asked, much less answered. They are thought-fascists. Are you a thought-fascist cornu?Barry Arrington_{April 23, 2018
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Well, we have on the one hand, a world famous materialist doctor of cognitive neuroscience who is a progressive with every reason to view Murray skeptically (and in fact did until he bothered to investigate the matter). ...
I'm sorry... are you lining up alongside "race science" now? US political identity sure makes for some strange bedfellows...cornu_{April 23, 2018
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When one says, with Harris, that “consciousness is an illusion”, one attempts to draw a closed circle around consciousness, while arrogating to oneself a position outside of this circle by which one can judge the ontological status of consciousness. However, this cannot be done. No one can step outside of consciousness and attain an detached position from which to judge consciousness. There is simply no such position.Origenes_{April 23, 2018
April
04
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23
23
2018
04:20 AM
4
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PDT}

Sev,
Yes, I disagree with Harris about this.
Well, we have on the one hand, a world famous materialist doctor of cognitive neuroscience who is a progressive with every reason to view Murray skeptically (and in fact did until he bothered to investigate the matter). And then we have . . . Sev. Whom to believe? That's a real head-scratcher. I'll have to get back to you on that.Barry Arrington_{April 22, 2018
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04
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22
22
2018
08:57 PM
8
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PDT}

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