Quashing Materialist Appeals to Magic (Again)

_{Barry Arrington

August 14, 2015

Intelligent Design}

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Ironically enough, materialists are a mystical lot. They say they reject irrational and superstitious beliefs, but when one pushes them past their ability to explain life, the universe and everything in materialist terms, they are very quick to resort to obscurantist pseudo-explanations. And “it emerged” is their favorite dodge.

As we have explained many times before, “it emerged” is the explanatory equivalent of “it’s magic.” But like bugs scattering when the lights are turned on, we have to stomp on this one again and again. Like today for instance. In my Why there is no Meaning if Materialism is True post I argued that on materialist premises – that nothing exists but space, time, particles and energy – there can be no meaning.

Popperian says I can do better. There is “emergence” after all. And I poked a little fun at Pop:

as Popperian argues on these pages ad nauseam, it’s all emergent. You see, if you stack up the burned out star stuff this way, nothing. But if you stack it up ever so slightly differently, poof!! out of a cloud of smoke emerges rabbits, doves, silly string, consciousness, and morality.

Yes, that is the level to which we have descended — the invocation magic.

And then REC gave us this gem:

Barry, @29, seems close to denying that different arrangements of matter will have different properties. If ID wants to fight with chemistry, that is a development I look forward to.

Sigh.

REC, as we have explained over and over and over, we do not reject emergence as an explanation as such. See here where we said this in so many words. No, we reject “it emerged” when materialist like you and Popperian use it as a pseudo-explanation to obscure the fact that you haven’t the faintest idea how consciousness arises from the physical properties of the brain.

Your fellow atheist Thomas Nagel also rejects your antics:

Merely to identify a cause is not to provide a significant explanation without some understanding of why the cause produces the effect.

To qualify as a genuine explanation of the mental, an emergent account must be in some way systematic. It cannot just say that each mental event or state supervenes on the complex physical state of the organism in which it occurs. That would the kind of brute fact that does not constitute an explanation but rather calls for an explanation.

If emergence is the whole truth, it implies that mental states are present in the organism as a whole, or its central nervous system, without any grounding in the elements that constitute the organism, expect for the physical character of those elements that permits them to be arranged in the complex form that, according to the higher-level theory, connects the physical with the mental. That such a purely physical elements, when combined in a certain way, should necessarily produce a state of the whole that is not constituted of of the properties and relations of the physical parts still seems like magic even if the higher-order psychophysical dependencies are quite systematic.

Emphasis added.

And if you don’t believe Nagel, maybe you’ll believe Elizabeth Liddle:

[“Emergent” is] simply a word to denote the idea that when a whole has properties of a whole that are not possessed by the parts, those properties “emerge” from interactions between the parts (and of course between the whole and its environment). It is not itself an explanation – to be an explanation you would have to provide a putative mechanism by which those properties were generated. . . .

‘It’s emergent’ would be on an intellectual par with saying ‘It’s magic!’

REC, you most certainly cannot provide a putative mechanism by which immaterial consciousness arises from the material properties of the brain. I know this, because if you could I feel sure I would have seen you on the news accepting your Nobel prize.

Since you cannot provide such a putative mechanism, your own buddy Elizabeth Liddle would say you have done the equivalent of invoking magic. And I bet you think ID proponents are credulous.

Comments

Mapou #104: Thinking is a cause-effect phenomenon.
NOT of a physical nature. 1. All men are mortal 2. Socrates is a man. 3. Socrates is mortal If physicalism is true it follows that logical relationships are irrelevant to what actually happens in the world. However during rational inference thoughts cause one another in virtue of their content and of the logical relationships in which they stand. Rational inference requires rational causes, and if it is produced by nonrational causes then it cannot have been rationally inferred.
Reppert: . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as [C S] Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.

Mapou: It does not have to be conscious.
Speak for yourself.Box_{August 17, 2015
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Zachriel: Note the absence of any mention of scientific research. You might want to simply point to scientific research on measurable characteristics of the artisan. Silver Asiatic: You’re acting like a childish troll, looking for attention. Of note, you failed to answer the query. UDEditors: Z, we are not quite sure what you mean. Are you complimenting him for refusing to respond to an asshat question? If you are, good for you.Zachriel_{August 17, 2015
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Of course, the brain thinks. We can use MRI to pinpoint exactly where in the brain a certain type of thinking takes place. The human spirit uses the brain to think. This is what makes thinking a conscious process. The spirit cannot think without the brain. Consciousness requires a knower (spirit) and a known (brain). Nothing can be its own opposite. Thinking is a cause-effect phenomenon. It does not have to be conscious. In fact, probably more than half of the thinking that goes on in the brain is unconscious. Furthermore, there are good reasons to believe that animals are unconscious meat machines. Animals do think. Rationality is a causal phenomenon.Mapou_{August 17, 2015
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The brain orders sensory input and is the control system of the body. Especially the former function can have a strong impact on the mental (memory, reason and emotional state). And no, the brain does NOT think; see #81Box_{August 17, 2015
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Mapou,
IMO, it is a mistake to assert that the brain has nothing to do with the mental.
A mistake that I did not commit. There is a difference between necessary and sufficient.Barry Arrington_{August 17, 2015
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Arrington:
Similarly, the physical chemicals in my head are incapable of producing mental images. Physical and mental are in separate unbridgable ontological categories.
IMO, it is a mistake to assert that the brain has nothing to do with the mental. The mental (conscious cognition) is the result of the yin-yang interactions between the spirit and the brain. If not, who needs the brain and, if you are a Christian, what is the promised resurrection good for?Mapou_{August 17, 2015
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#99 I agree with Silver Asiatic 100%.Box_{August 17, 2015
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Zachriel: You say you make a conclusion of design, and the scientific door closes.
You lied about what I said. You're acting like a childish troll, looking for attention. You have no qualifications in science at all. There are scientists far more credentialed and qualified than you are who support ID. Your opinions are basically worthless. If you had something to say it would be one thing. If you had a personality or something to say about yourself that might be worthwhile. But double-speak and lies from an unqualified, anonymous troll gets quite boring. I don't know why anyone wastes time on you. I can't see that you have anything to say.Silver Asiatic_{August 17, 2015
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Popperian:
When I point out the idea that like things can only beget like things commits a specific fallacy or is a form of inductivism, that is your response?
No, that is not what I said. I (and StephenB) have said that an effect (consciousness for example) cannot be brought about by a cause that is incapable of producing the effect. My analogy is apt. A pile of bricks is incapable of being a cause that produces the effect of the image of a house in my mind. Similarly, the physical chemicals in my head are incapable of producing mental images. Physical and mental are in separate unbridgable ontological categories. Your response to this obvious fact is to stamp your feet and repeat the word "emergence, emergence, emergence, emergence" like a mantra. You are the one who has proposed "emergence" as the process by which the cause produces the effect. Therefore, it up to you, as the proponent of the proposition, to describe how that could possibly happen. Until you do, the OP stands unrefuted, and invoking emergence is equivalent to invoking magic.Barry Arrington_{August 17, 2015
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Popperian
Emergence isn’t difficult to understand. The difficulty is trying to overcome misleading and disingenuous presentations of emergence in the OP and elsewhere.
Emergence is easy to understand. As materialists would have it, effects can occur without sufficient causal conditions. That seems to be your claim as well. In fact, effects do not occur in the absence of sufficient causal conditions. This is one of the first principles of rational thinking. Materialism challenges this principle.
Except, my comment criticized the rationality of your thinking about what is or is not a casually sufficient cause, which you did not address.
I have answered it indirectly, but I will now answer it directly. A sufficient or proportional cause is one that is capable of producing the effect, which is defined as a change or the coming into existence of another thing. Accordingly, a cause cannot give what it does not have to give. Matter, for example, does not have the power to reflect on itself, so it cannot confer or transmit that quality to humans. The advocates of emergence challenge the point and insist that matter does not need any such power to produce that effect. They hold that the effect can simply emerge in the absence of those necessary causal conditions. This is not rational position. In order to defend their position, they often claim, among other things, that "wetness" emerges from water, as if the causal conditions for wetness were not already present in the elements, as if negative electrons and positive protons did not have the inherent power to cause reactions, as if some molecules were not more tightly bonded that others, causing variations in hardness, viscosity, etc. Even at that, the argument falls on its face because wetness, hardness, or viscosity are not even recognized in some quarters are real qualities. Many believe that wetness, for example, is simply a description of the human experience of coming into contact with water. In that context, they argue that water is not really wet, but that it causes other things to get wet. I don't hold that position, but the point dramatizes how inappropriate the example would be as a means of defending the irrational notion of emergence.
Specifically, It’s unclear why only God is a casually sufficient cause beyond merely defining him as such, committing the fallacy of division or appealing to inductivism.
It is not the case that God is the only sufficient cause. Humans are a sufficient cause. The laws of nature can be a sufficient cause. With respect to the universe, it should be obvious that a supernatural cause is necessary to bring nature into existence. Materialists argue that it simply popped into existence from nothing. On the contrary, "nothing" does not have nature to give. SB: Your task, then, as a materialist, is to explain this: If even one effect can occur without a proportional cause, why cannot any and all effects occur without a proportional cause. In keeping with that point, how can science search for causes if it can’t be sure they are always needed to explain physical events? Under the circumstances, how would you even know which effects were caused and which ones were not?
Again, we’re getting ahead of ourselves, as we have yet to address what i means to rationally talk about what it means for a cause to be sufficient.
Now that you know, you can provide your answer.StephenB_{August 17, 2015
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The “random driver” is recombination.
Except that you don't have any idea if recombination is random. Your ignorance is not an argument.Virgil Cain_{August 17, 2015
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Whatever Zach, contrary to what you desperately want to believe as a Darwinist, the genetic evidence now decidedly supports 'top down' control instead of just 'happenstance' variation as was originally held by Darwinistsbornagain77_{August 17, 2015
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bornagain77: That split is not certainly ‘random’ as you had claimed for recombination! It's apparently random enough that every individual is unique, which was the original question.Zachriel_{August 17, 2015
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and what part of this did you miss:
“It’s amazing how precisely the 60:40 ratio is maintained. It occurs in the genome of every individual – almost like a magic formula,” says Hoehe.
That split is not certainly 'random' as you had claimed for recombination! In fact the 'non-random' nature of the 60:40 split is what garnered a good portion of their surprise in their study. Moreover, that the genes are being radically 'tailored' in a unique way for each of us, that appears to be, at first glance, non-deleterious in their overall effects, instead of being overtly deleterious as all 'randomly induced' mutation studies indicate, then that strongly supports the contention that the mutations are somehow happening in a designed way, as I would hold, instead of a completely random way as you would hold.
Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4 - May 2013 Excerpt: It is almost universally acknowledged that beneficial mutations are rare compared to deleterious mutations [1–10].,, It appears that beneficial mutations may be too rare to actually allow the accurate measurement of how rare they are [11]. http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0006 Ask an Embryologist: Genomic Mosaicism - Jonathan Wells - February 23, 2015 Excerpt: humans have a "few thousand" different cell types. Here is my simple question: Does the DNA sequence in one cell type differ from the sequence in another cell type in the same person?,,, The simple answer is: We now know that there is considerable variation in DNA sequences among tissues, and even among cells in the same tissue. It's called genomic mosaicism. In the early days of developmental genetics, some people thought that parts of the embryo became different from each other because they acquired different pieces of the DNA from the fertilized egg. That theory was abandoned,,, ,,,(then) "genomic equivalence" -- the idea that all the cells of an organism (with a few exceptions, such as cells of the immune system) contain the same DNA -- became the accepted view. I taught genomic equivalence for many years. A few years ago, however, everything changed. With the development of more sophisticated techniques and the sampling of more tissues and cells, it became clear that genetic mosaicism is common. I now know as an embryologist,,,Tissues and cells, as they differentiate, modify their DNA to suit their needs. It's the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/02/ask_an_embryolo093851.html "It is difficult (if not impossible) to find a genome change operator that is truly random in its action within the DNA of the cell where it works' James Shapiro - Evolution: A View From The 21st Century - (Page 82) Revisiting the Central Dogma in the 21st Century - James A. Shapiro - 2009 Excerpt (Page 12): Underlying the central dogma and conventional views of genome evolution was the idea that the genome is a stable structure that changes rarely and accidentally by chemical fluctuations (106) or replication errors. This view has had to change with the realization that maintenance of genome stability is an active cellular function and the discovery of numerous dedicated biochemical systems for restructuring DNA molecules.(107–110) Genetic change is almost always the result of cellular action on the genome. These natural processes are analogous to human genetic engineering,,, (Page 14) Genome change arises as a consequence of natural genetic engineering, not from accidents. Replication errors and DNA damage are subject to cell surveillance and correction. When DNA damage correction does produce novel genetic structures, natural genetic engineering functions, such as mutator polymerases and nonhomologous end-joining complexes, are involved. Realizing that DNA change is a biochemical process means that it is subject to regulation like other cellular activities. Thus, we expect to see genome change occurring in response to different stimuli (Table 1) and operating nonrandomly throughout the genome, guided by various types of intermolecular contacts (Table 1 of Ref. 112). http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro2009.AnnNYAcadSciMS.RevisitingCentral%20Dogma.pdf
bornagain77_{August 17, 2015
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bornagain77: Actually no, Recombination is not ‘random' You might read the article you cited.
More than 85 percent of all genes have no predominant form which occurs in more than half of all individuals. This enormous diversity means that over half of all genes in an individual, around 9,000 of 17,500, occur uniquely in that one person - and are therefore individual in the truest sense of the word.
Zachriel_{August 17, 2015
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"The “random driver” is recombination." MMM, Actually no, Recombination is not 'random':
Duality in the human genome - Nov. 28, 2014 Excerpt: According to the researchers, mutations of genes are not randomly distributed between the parental chromosomes. They found that 60 percent of mutations affect the same chromosome set and 40 percent both sets. Scientists refer to these as cis and trans mutations, respectively. Evidently, an organism must have more cis mutations, where the second gene form remains intact. "It's amazing how precisely the 60:40 ratio is maintained. It occurs in the genome of every individual – almost like a magic formula," says Hoehe. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-duality-human-genome.html
also of note:
Sex Is Not About Promoting Genetic Variation, Researchers Argue - (July 7, 2011) Excerpt: Biology textbooks maintain that the main function of sex is to promote genetic diversity. But Henry Heng, Ph.D., associate professor in WSU's Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, says that's not the case.,,, ,,,the primary function of sex is not about promoting diversity. Rather, it's about keeping the genome context -- an organism's complete collection of genes arranged by chromosome composition and topology -- as unchanged as possible, thereby maintaining a species' identity. This surprising analysis has been published as a cover article in a recent issue of the journal Evolution.,,, For nearly 130 years, traditional perceptions hold that asexual reproduction generates clone-like offspring and sexual reproduction leads to more diverse offspring. "In reality, however, the relationship is quite the opposite," said Heng.,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110707161037.htm
bornagain77_{August 17, 2015
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Silver Asiatic: Every brain is unique, so each thought in each brain is unique. The only thing that could produce that physically is some kind of random driver. Every person is unique (other than identical twins). The "random driver" is recombination.Zachriel_{August 17, 2015
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Zachriel: You say you make a conclusion of design, and the scientific door closes. Silver Asiatic: Well, you said that and you just lied about me saying it. Silver Asiatic: Once a scientific conclusion is drawn that there is Design, then any number of projects are available to follow on, including philosophical and theological research. Note the absence of any mention of scientific research. You might want to simply point to scientific research on measurable characteristics of the artisan.Zachriel_{August 17, 2015
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Every brain is unique, so each thought in each brain is unique. The only thing that could produce that physically is some kind of random driver. But though-generation is not random.Silver Asiatic_{August 17, 2015
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No, we are not. You simply refuse to acknowledge that which is contrary to your faith commitments.
When I point out the idea that like things can only beget like things commits a specific fallacy or is a form of inductivism, that is your response? I'm the one with the faith commitment? I always find this sort of talk is very confusing. I'm merely open to the possibility that our folk conceptions of what is a sufficient cause is false. Apparently, you're not. And we're the ones that are not open minded? Why would you think that our folk conceptions of sufficient causation are true? Why do you think we would get it right in the first place? The assumption that we would get it right would be based on some underlying philosophical view, like it's possible to infallibly identify and interpret an infallible source, or the unseen we use to explain the seen resembles the seen, or that steel atoms must be hard, or that all knowledge comes to us though the senses. However, we have no good explanation for how the former is possible. And the latter simply isn't the case, in practice, so that assumption has already been violated. For example, imagine someone in the early 1700's said that there can be no meaning if we could not touch another human being. (Note I'm not suggesting this is your argument. I'm making an analogy.) If our common sense of touch is "fake", then everything is meaningless. Fast forward to today. We now know that the strong nuclear force actually repels our fingers before they actually touch anything. Nor is our sense of touch, with a sense of having a specific location in space, actually generated by the tips of our fingers. Not to mention that we do not experience touch for what it is, because what our fingers generate are electrical crackles, which do not resemble our experience of touch. So, in that sense, our common-sense idea of touch is actually "fake". Would discovering that our common-sense idea is false mean that life would not have meaning? IOW, we already know the common-sense, inductive idea that the unseen that we use to explain the seen resembles the seen is false. It's unclear why you think this must also be the same in the case when it comes to our brains and consciousness, etc.
You have an intense faith that the mental can emerge from the physical. You might as well say the image of a house I have in my mind right now emerged from bricks.
Now you're trying to grossly misrepresent my position to make it appear absurd and deflect my criticism. Is a mere calculator a universal computer? No, it's not. Neither is a bunch of bricks.Popperian_{August 17, 2015
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Supposedly, each mental thought, imagination, idea emerges from a unique physical configuration. The number 32 is a certain configuration. The number 32,000,000,000,000,000 is another one. Actually, each letter in a sentence is a unique physical configuration in the brain. So, the brain has infinite power. All from some mutations and selection.Silver Asiatic_{August 17, 2015
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eigenstate:
Are you aware of the number of subjects and questions that science has made breakthrough discoveries on and built knowledge and models around?
Neither materialism nor evolutionism can be modeled. No one even knows where to start.Virgil Cain_{August 17, 2015
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Popperian
Again, we’re getting ahead of ourselves, as we have yet to address what i means to rationally talk about what it means for a cause to be sufficient.
No, we are not. You simply refuse to acknowledge that which is contrary to your faith commitments. You have an intense faith that the mental can emerge from the physical. You might as well say the image of a house I have in my mind right now emerged from bricks.Barry Arrington_{August 17, 2015
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e
In areas where science can’t reach empirically – like the multiverse or t=0, we understand the epistemic limitations.
True, but it's important to recognize the epistemic problems of materialism as a worldview and/or foundation for science also.
But cognition and models of the human mind are not so limited. They are enormously complex, but they tractable problems so far as we can see, and its tractability gets lets promissory and more realized every year that goes by.
We don't know any of that. A material reductionist view may be moving farther away from the answers. We see that with evolutionary theory - neo-Darwinism is not growing in explanatory power but continues to require alternative explanations added on to it. Some of those move in a radically different direction (self-organization for one).Silver Asiatic_{August 17, 2015
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Popperian states:
Are you aware of the number of subjects and questions that science has made breakthrough discoveries on and built knowledge and models around?
I'm aware of a few breakthroughs, and naturalism/materialism certainly did not provide the catalyst for those breakthroughs:
1. Naturalism/Materialism predicted time-space energy-matter always existed. Theism predicted time-space energy-matter were created. Big Bang cosmology now strongly indicates that time-space energy-matter had a sudden creation event approximately 14 billion years ago. 2. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that the universe is a self sustaining system that is not dependent on anything else for its continued existence. Theism predicted that God upholds this universe in its continued existence. Breakthroughs in quantum mechanics reveal that this universe is dependent on a ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, cause for its continued existence. 3. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that consciousness is an ‘emergent property’ of material reality and thus should have no particularly special position within material reality. Theism predicts consciousness precedes material reality and therefore, on that presupposition, consciousness should have a ‘special’ position within material reality. Quantum Mechanics reveals that consciousness has a special, even a central, position within material reality. - 4. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the rate at which time passed was constant everywhere in the universe. Theism predicted God is eternal and is outside of time. – Special Relativity has shown that time, as we understand it, is relative and comes to a complete stop at the speed of light. (Psalm 90:4 – 2 Timothy 1:9) - 5. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the universe did not have life in mind and that life was ultimately an accident of time and chance. Theism predicted this universe was purposely created by God with man in mind. Scientists find the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned for carbon-based life to exist in this universe. Moreover it is found, when scrutinizing the details of physics and chemistry, that not only is the universe fine-tuned for carbon based life, but is specifically fine-tuned for life like human life (R. Collins, M. Denton).- 6. Naturalism/Materialism predicted complex life in this universe should be fairly common. Theism predicted the earth is extremely unique in this universe. Statistical analysis of the hundreds of required parameters which enable complex organic life to be possible on earth gives strong indication the earth is extremely unique in this universe (Gonzalez). - 7. Naturalism/Materialism predicted it took a very long time for life to develop on earth. Theism predicted life to appear abruptly on earth after water appeared on earth (Genesis 1:10-11). Geochemical evidence from the oldest sedimentary rocks ever found on earth indicates that complex photosynthetic life has existed on earth as long as water has been on the face of earth. - 8. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the first life to be relatively simple. Theism predicted that God is the source for all life on earth. The simplest life ever found on Earth is far more complex than any machine man has made through concerted effort. (Michael Denton PhD) - 9. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Theism predicted complex and diverse animal life to appear abruptly in the seas in God’s fifth day of creation. The Cambrian Explosion shows a sudden appearance of many different and completely unique fossils within a very short “geologic resolution time” in the Cambrian seas. - 10. Naturalism/Materialism predicted there should be numerous transitional fossils found in the fossil record, Theism predicted sudden appearance and rapid diversity within different kinds found in the fossil record. Fossils are consistently characterized by sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within that group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. - 11. Naturalism/Materialism predicted animal speciation should happen on a somewhat constant basis on earth. Theism predicted man was the last species created on earth – Man (our genus ‘modern homo’ as distinct from the highly controversial ‘early homo’) is the last generally accepted major fossil form to have suddenly appeared in the fossil record. (Tattersall; Luskin)– 12. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that the separation of human intelligence from animal intelligence ‘is one of degree and not of kind’(C. Darwin). Theism predicted that we are made in the ‘image of God’- Despite an ‘explosion of research’ in this area over the last four decades, human beings alone are found to ‘mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities.’ (Tattersall; Schwartz). Moreover, both biological life and the universe itself are found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis. 13. Naturalism/Materialism predicted much of the DNA code was junk. Theism predicted we are fearfully and wonderfully made – ENCODE research into the DNA has revealed a “biological jungle deeper, denser, and more difficult to penetrate than anyone imagined.”. - 14. Naturalism/Materialism predicted a extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Theism predicted only God created life on earth – The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. (M. Behe; JC Sanford) - 15. Naturalism/Materialism predicted morality is subjective and illusory. Theism predicted morality is objective and real. Morality is found to be deeply embedded in the genetic responses of humans. As well, morality is found to be deeply embedded in the structure of the universe. Embedded to the point of eliciting physiological responses in humans before humans become aware of the morally troubling situation and even prior to the event even happening. 16. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that we are merely our material bodies with no transcendent component to our being, and that we die when our material bodies die. Theism predicted that we have minds/souls that are transcendent of our bodies that live past the death of our material bodies. Transcendent, and ‘conserved’, (cannot be created or destroyed), ‘non-local’, (beyond space-time matter-energy), quantum entanglement/information, which is not reducible to matter-energy space-time, is now found in our material bodies on a massive scale (in every DNA and protein molecule).
Popperian then states:
In case you are not aware, it’s a really solid record. If someone followed you around for a few days and recorded your actions, you be relying on a whole lot more on the cashed out promissory notes of science past than you do on your supernaturalism. Try reading this post with you spiritual computer, for example.
Actually, contrary to what Popperian wants to believe in, (who, by the way, prefers to believe in gazillions of Popperians in gazillions of parallel universes than believe in God), the computer he is currently using, even the building he is sitting in, and even the entire universe, is 'spiritual' not material:
The Mental Universe - Richard Conn Henry - Professor of Physics John Hopkins University Excerpt: 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.,,, The universe is entirely mental,,,, The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy. http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf Reality doesn’t exist until we measure it, (Delayed Choice) quantum experiment confirms - Mind = blown. - FIONA MACDONALD - 1 JUN 2015 Excerpt: "It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it," lead researcher and physicist Andrew Truscott said in a press release. http://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-we-measure-it-quantum-experiment-confirms New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It - June 3, 2015 Excerpt: The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html
In fact, the computer itself is far more reliant on 'spiritual' principles than Popperian apparently seems, or wants, to realize:
10 Real-world Applications of Quantum Mechanics - 2013 Excerpt: The study of quantum mechanics led to some truly astounding conclusions. For instance, scientists found that electrons behave both as waves and as particles, and the mere act of observing them changes the way they behave. Revelations like this one simply defied logic, prompting Einstein to declare “the more success the quantum theory has, the sillier it looks.” Einstein’s sentiments still resonate today, more than a century after humanity’s first insights into the quantum world; quantum mechanics makes perfect sense mathematically but defies our intuition at every turn. So it might surprise you that, despite its strangeness, quantum mechanics has led to some revolutionary inventions over the past century and promises to lead to many more in the years to come. Read on to learn about 10 practical applications of quantum mechanics. 10. The Transistor 9. Energy Harvesters 8. Ultraprecise Clocks 7. Quantum Cryptography 6. Randomness Generator 5. Lasers 4. Ultraprecise Thermometers 3. Quantum Computers 2. Instantaneous Communication (highly debatable) 1. Teleportation (with huge caveats) Go here to read details of each http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/10-real-world-applications-of-quantum-mechanics.htm Describing Nature With Math By Peter Tyson - Nov. 2011 Excerpt: Mathematics underlies virtually all of our technology today. James Maxwell's four equations summarizing electromagnetism led directly to radio and all other forms of telecommunication. E = mc2 led directly to nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The equations of quantum mechanics made possible everything from transistors and semiconductors to electron microscopy and magnetic resonance imaging. Indeed, many of the technologies you and I enjoy every day simply would not work without mathematics. When you do a Google search, you're relying on 19th-century algebra, on which the search engine's algorithms are based. When you watch a movie, you may well be seeing mountains and other natural features that, while appearing as real as rock, arise entirely from mathematical models. When you play your iPod, you're hearing a mathematical recreation of music that is stored digitally; your cell phone does the same in real time. "When you listen to a mobile phone, you're not actually hearing the voice of the person speaking," Devlin told me. "You're hearing a mathematical recreation of that voice. That voice is reduced to mathematics." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/describing-nature-math.html
bornagain77_{August 17, 2015
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Popperian, A quick comment related to your discussion with StephenB on 'emergence' and 'insufficient causes'. Rational inference cannot "emerge" from nonrational interactions of matter. Nonrational interactions of matter is an insufficient cause for rational inference. If physicalism is true it follows that logical relationships are irrelevant to what actually happens in the world. However during rational inference thoughts cause one another in virtue of their content and of the logical relationships in which they stand. Rational inference requires rational causes, and if it is produced by nonrational causes then it cannot have been rationally inferred.
Reppert: . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as [C S] Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.
Box_{August 17, 2015
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StephanB
This is not as hard as you are trying to make it.
Emergence isn't difficult to understand. The difficulty is trying to overcome misleading and disingenuous presentations of emergence in the OP and elsewhere.
Effects do not occur in the absence of sufficient causal conditions. This is one of the first principles of rational thinking. Materialism challenges this claim by asserting that some effects emerge from conditions that are not causality sufficient.
Except, my comment criticized the rationality of your thinking about what is or is not a casually sufficient cause, which you did not address. Specifically, It's unclear why only God is a casually sufficient cause beyond merely defining him as such, committing the fallacy of division or appealing to inductivism. You've address none of these points.
Your task, then, as a materialist, is to explain this: If even one effect can occur without a proportional cause, why cannot any and all effects occur without a proportional cause. In keeping with that point, how can science search for causes if it can’t be sure they are always needed to explain physical events? Under the circumstances, how would you know which effects were caused and which ones were not?
Again, we're getting ahead of ourselves, as we have yet to address what i means to rationally talk about what it means for a cause to be sufficient. If by proportional, you mean a unseen causes that resemble the seen or is merely defined as being sufficient, then my standing criticism still applies. Why should we use the criteria as indicate above? Especially, since doing so would exclude causes that we've already identified in existing theories?Popperian_{August 16, 2015
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@Barry,
Materialist promissory note number 1,373,832. Hey eigy, why should we take note 1,373,832 when you have not paid note 1 yet? Keep the faith baby. On second thought, you really should abandon that faith. It is irrational.
How so? Are you aware of the number of subjects and questions that science has made breakthrough discoveries on and built knowledge and models around? In case you are not aware, it's a really solid record. If someone followed you around for a few days and recorded your actions, you be relying on a whole lot more on the cashed out promissory notes of science past than you do on your supernaturalism. Try reading this post with you spiritual computer, for example. Does that guarantee success in every inquiry, or any particular inquiry? No, not hardly. But it's laughable to look at the track record of the scientific enterprise and suggest one is even being bold in taking an expectant position on this inquiry or that. In areas where science can't reach empirically - like the multiverse or t=0, we understand the epistemic limitations. But cognition and models of the human mind are not so limited. They are enormously complex, but they tractable problems so far as we can see, and its tractability gets lets promissory and more realized every year that goes by. It doesn't take faith, Barry. You just have to pay attention!eigenstate_{August 16, 2015
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UB, How does your "emergence of non-dynamic relationships." differ from a programmable constructor in constructor theory? From this paper on Constructor Theory.
2.1 Catalysis A catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without undergoing any net chemical change itself. Chemical equations describing catalysis are written like this: (1) (2) C (1) (2) n1R +n2R +...------>m1P +m2P +..., (3) which conforms to the pattern (1) with the catalyst C as the constructor. Since a catalyst changes only the rate of a reaction, not the position of equilibrium, it is sometimes deemed a mistake to regard catalysts as causing reactions. However, that argument would deny that anything causes anything. Even without a factory, the components of a car do spontaneously assemble themselves at a very low rate, due to Brownian motion, but this happens along with countless other competing processes, some of them (such as rusting away) much faster than that self-assembly, and all of them much slower than the assembly effected by the factory. Hence a car is overwhelmingly unlikely to appear unless a suitable constructor is present. So if causation is meaningful at all, catalysts and other constructors do indeed cause their characteristic constructions. When one is not specifically discussing the catalyst, one usually omits it, describing the reaction as a construction task instead: n1 R(1)+n2 R(2)+... -> m1 P(1)+m2 P(2)+.... (4) This is convenient because most laws of chemistry are only about the reagents; that is to say, they hold regardless of what the catalyst may be, and hence assert nothing about the catalyst. For example, the law of definite proportions requires the coefficients n1,n2... and m1,m2... in (3) or (4) to be integers, depending only on the chemical identities of the reagents and products. It says that any catalyst capable of catalysing (4) can do so only for integer values of the coefficients. Similarly, (4) has to balance (expressing the fact that chemical processes cannot create or destroy atoms); it has to scale (be the same whether the terms refer to molecules, moles or any other measure proportional to those); the free energy of the products must not exceed that of the reagents; and so on. All these laws hold whatever causes the reaction while remaining unchanged in its ability to do so. Imposing the prevailing conception of fundamental physics on chemistry would entail treating the catalyst as another reagent. One would rewrite (3) as kC+n1 R(1)+n2 R(2)+... -> kC+m1 P(1)+m2 P(2)+... (5) for some k. But then the catalyst violates the law of definite proportions: since each catalyst molecule may be re-used, (5) can proceed for a huge range of values of k. Nor does (5) scale: the minimum number of catalyst molecules for which it outpaces competing reactions is some k0 , but for x times the number of reagent molecules, the minimum number may be much lower than xk0 , and will depend on non-chemical factors such as the size of the container, again contrary to the law of definite proportions. The customary distinction between catalysts and other reagents therefore correctly reflects the fact that they are treated differently by laws of nature – in this case, laws of chemistry. But there is no significant distinction between catalysts and other constructors. For example, the synthesis of ammonia, 3 H + 2 N ----> 2 NH , will not 223 happen in empty space, because at near-zero pressure the process of diffusing away is much faster than the chemical reaction. Hence a container or equivalent constructor is among the conditions required in addition to the catalyst. Indeed, some catalysts work by being microscopic containers for the reagents. Chemical catalysis has natural generalisations. Carbon nuclei are catalysts for nuclear reactions in stars. A living organism is both a constructor and a product of the construction that is its life-cycle which, for single-celled photosynthesising organisms, is simply: cell small molecules+light -----> cell+waste products . (6) Inside cells, proteins are manufactured by ribosomes, which are constructors consisting of several large molecules. They function with the help of smaller catalysts (enzymes) and water, using ATP as fuel: RNA+ribosome+enzymes+H O 2 aminoacids+ATP -----------------------------> protein+AMP+wasteproducts. (7) I mention this reaction in particular because the RNA plays a different role from the other catalysts. It specifies, in a code, which protein shall be the product on a given occasion. Thus, the catalysts excluding the RNA constitute a programmable constructor. The general pattern is: program v programmable constructor input state of substrates ---------------------> output state of substrates. (8) Constructor theory is the ultimate generalization of the idea of catalysis.
Popperian_{August 16, 2015
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Box @72, please excuse me. I notice that your question was for eigenstate and not for me. It is a good question>StephenB_{August 16, 2015
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