Can you imagine that years ago? But the fact is, materialists are out of ideas about consciousness and don’t know where to go. So they can’t just keep saying “That’s nuts!” They need an argument against it. Alternatively, they could give up and buy themselves yoga mats:
Essentially, panpsychists solve the conundrum of consciousness by ascribing consciousness to everything. Yes, consciousness remains a mystery but it is now subsumed into the mystery of “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Examining questions like that from a science perspective takes us away from practical research programs and into the dark interior of theoretical physics.
Make no mistake, panpsychism—as Goff elucidates it—is a purely naturalist view (“nothing supernatural or spiritual”). But, unlike the village atheist, he goes on to ask, but then what IS nature? Matter is all there is? But what IS matter? It turns out, no one really knows.
“Scientific American explores panpsychism respectfully” at Mind Matters News
Further reading on panpsychism:
Why materialism fails as a science-based philosophy: I don’t believe that either panpsychism or cosmopsychism is true. But I have some sympathy with people who hold those views (Michael Egnor)
Are electrons conscious? If they are, the uncertainty principle means that they will never make up their minds. 😉 (Michael Egnor)
Panpsychism: You are conscious but so is your coffee mug. Materialists have a solution to the problem of consciousness, and it may startle you.
and
Why some scientists believe the universe is conscious
PHILOSOPHICAL MATERIALISM SHOULD BE ON ITS DEATH BED
‘Philosophical materialism, the foundation of Western academia, is showing ever-widening cracks’.
‘Materialistic evolutionists believe that life began and emerged on earth as a result of unguided purposeless processes. It makes little difference whether we call them materialists or metaphysical naturalists. To the materialist, only matter (with its governing laws) is real. In other words, to the believer in philosophical materialism, reality cannot exist beyond physical objects in a space-time universe governed by the laws of science. He allows no room for intelligent purpose, guidance, design, or final cause. To a metaphysical naturalist, observable events are explainable only by natural causes that are, in principle, discernable using the scientific method –i.e. scientifically testable (or falsifiable). This view has also been called “scientism”. These philosophical positions are all similar, and all atheistic. No supernatural agency is allowed’.
‘As the basic philosophical foundation for secular education and research in Western academia, philosophical materialism has reigned supreme for about 150 years. If any academician working in a secular educational institution were to challenge this foundation, his challenge would be deemed unacceptable –a forbidden taboo –by most who hold the reigns of power in Western secular education at all levels’.
‘But philosophical materialism is now showing ever-widening cracks in its here-to-for monolithic foundation. And there are good reasons why it should no longer reign supreme’.
http://web.csulb.edu/~mbiedeba/ch1.html
as to this quote,
OK, if electrons are supposedly conscious, and all the matter and energy of the universe was created approx. 14 billion years ago, then does not it stand to reason that some incredibly powerful conscious being, i.e. God, brought all those conscious particles into existence? 🙂 It seems to me that, at the origin of the universe at least, panpsychists suffer an even bigger conundrum than Darwinian materialists do in explaining the origin of consciousness since panpsychists have already conceded the existence of consciousness at the origin of the universe itself. And therefore it necessarily follows, via the necessity of causal sufficiency, that for panpsychists to explain the origin of all those conscious particles at the origin of the universe, that panpsychists are forced to postulate a cause, i.e. God, that is sufficient within itself to explain the effect in question, i.e. namely, a universe full of conscious particles.
Thus, whilst panpsychists apparently believe that they may have the upper hand on Darwinian materialists in explaining the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, in that they claim consciousness is already present in the elementary particles, never-the-less, their supposed solution turns around and bites them big time at the origin of the universe since they have already conceded the existence of consciousness.
i.e. Any cause sufficient to bring about the effect in question, namely a universe full of conscious particles, must necessarily already have the ability within itself to impart consciousness into all those material particles., i.e. God!
as to this quote from the article:
Although the experience of qualia itself, i.e. ‘qualities’, is forever beyond the scope of physical measurement,
Although the experience of qualia itself, i.e. ‘qualities’, is forever beyond the scope of physical measurement, there are other attributes of the immaterial mind that do lend themselves to physical measurement, or more exactly, ‘reveal themselves’ to physical measurement.
Dr. Michael Egnor, who is a neurosurgeon as well as professor of neurosurgery at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, states that there are six properties of immaterial mind that are irreconcilable with materialism, They are, “Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,,”
Likewise, J. Warner Wallace has a very similar list, (but not an exact match to Dr. Egnor’s list), of six properties of immaterial mind that are irreconcilable with reductive materialism.
And again, while the attribute of qualia itself appears to forever be beyond the scope of physical measurement I find that the attributes of Persistence of Self-Identity through time (which may also be termed ‘the experience of ‘the Now”), and of free will do reveal themselves in physical measurement. Specifically reveal themselves in the ‘measurement’ of quantum mechanics.
I go over how those particular attributes of immaterial mind reveal themselves to us in ‘physical measurement’, i.e. in quantum mechanics, in the following video:
Moreover, due to advances in quantum mechanics, the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this:
And here are eight intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness must precede material reality (Double Slit, Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, validation of Wigner’s Friend thought experiment, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, Leggett’s Inequalities, Quantum Zeno effect, Quantum Information theory, and the closing of the Free Will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company):
Here are a couple of examples from that list.
First, via Wheeler’s Delayed Choice experiment, ““It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”
and secondly, via Leggett’s inequality, “Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”
Verse:
Supplemental note:
That goes for pretty much all of us.
The thing about matter is that, if you kick it, it hurts your toe. Hard to do that with the immaterial like souls or ghosts or even heaven or God. You can’t kick something that just isn’t there
Sev:
Says the subjective experience of your mind in all its glory.
Moreover, who is this ‘you’ that ‘you’ keep referring to that gets his toe hurt? Remember, ‘you’ are an atheistic materialist. Ergo, ‘you’ are an illusion, “You” do not exist!
BA77
Option 1: address the issue.
Option 2: declare the opposition as sub human and avoid addressing the issue.
Yup. That’s a strategy. A lame, moronic one, but still a strategy.
@6 Ed George:
Option 3: appeal to emotions.
Atheist materialists are in fact good Christians:
Matthew 16:24
‘Then Jesus said to his disciples’: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves…”
seversky:
That’s why no one kicks the evidence for materialism. I wonder if seversky has tried kicking sunlight? seversky thinks that you can block radio waves by kicking them
Ed George,
What in blue blazes are you talking about? Where in the world did I say that Sev was ‘sub human’? I said that if his philosophy of atheistic materialism were actually true then his sense of self, by logical necessity, is an ‘illusion”. For crying out loud, it is what HIS atheistic materialism itself declares. I even provided many quotes from leading atheistic materialists themselves to back up what I said. i.e. It is NOT me insulting ‘you’ and Seversky, it is your own atheistic materialism that is insulting ‘you’ and Seversky. If ‘you’ are going to be upset, then be rightly upset at your very own worldview, Darwinian materialism, that forces ‘you’ into such an insane position as denying that ‘you’ really exist as a real person. i.e. If you are going to call anything lame and moronic then rightly call your atheistic materialism lame and moronic since it is what is in fact insulting ‘you’ as, not only as being a ‘sub human’, (in that you have lost your divine dimension of being ‘made in the image of God’), but your philosophy is also insulting ‘you’ as a ‘non-person’ by denying that ‘you’ even exist!
I can guarantee you that Christianity does not ‘insult’ you with the ‘lame and moronic’ claim that you are ‘sub human’ or that you a ‘non-person’ who does not really exist!
In Christianity, you have infinite value in that God Himself died for you so that ‘you’ may inherit eternal life with Him!
Why you and Seversky hold onto such an insane position as atheistic materialism I have no idea. The materialistic claim that our sense of self is an illusion is, simply, a blatantly self-refuting (pun intended) position. As David Bentley Hart succinctly put it, “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.”
Supplemental note as to life after death:
.
… says the guy who happily states his reasoning, then runs from its consequences.
… says the guy who argues for a particular physical reality, then hides his eyes from the physics.
(cognitive dissonance)
To be fair, that’s not what ba77 said, he said Sec doesn’t exist. Which is a step down from his usual argument that atheists are non-human, because they subscribe to some philosophy that neither they nor ba77 subscribe to.
Seversky @ 4
“The thing about matter is that, if you kick it, it hurts your toe. Hard to do that with the immaterial like souls or ghosts or even heaven or God. You can’t kick something that just isn’t there.”
The universe if filled with things that cannot be kicked, but we know they are very real. Space is a vacuum and cannot be kicked, but that does not mean astronauts should not wear clothing to protect them from what they cannot kick. Gravity exists, despite having very little knowledge as to how it works, cannot be kicked.
I’m having a little fun at your expense, but all in good humor. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, which is the first law of thermodynamics, where did the energy come from?
Bob O’H:
So you say but cannot demonstrate.
@11 BobO’H: ‘To be fair, that’s not what ba77 said, he said Sec doesn’t exist. Which is a step down from his usual argument that atheists are non-human, because they subscribe to some philosophy that neither they nor ba77 subscribe to’.
Some evolutionist materialist ‘claims’:
1. Humans are silly semi-evolved primates.
2. The ‘self’ does not exist (sic). It is an ‘illusion’.
3. Life is purposeless and nothing matters.
And then the evolutionist materialist gets ‘angry’ because the theist uses the silly arguments the same evolutionist materialist has uttered. But ‘who’ is angry if ‘people’ are ‘illusions’?
And then the evolutionist materialist appeals to emotions because he realizes his worldview makes no sense and can not find rational arguments.
Thanks Truthfreedom at 14, that pretty much sums up, more succinctly, what I would have said and saves me from having to respond.
@15 Bornagain77: My pleasure.
I love your posts, btw 🙂
Could you please help me with text format? I have looked everywhere and I can not find the options.
Thanks in advance.
Here you go Truthfreedom
Myself, I only use the blockquote and bold (b) options. Unfortunately I cannot give you a exact demonstration of how to do it since it hides the formatting code. But you start with the arrow to the left symbol then add the word blockquote then you end with the arrow to the right symbol. To end the blockquote you simply begin with the arrow to the left symbol again, then slashdash immediately after that, and then, after adding the word blockquote, you end as usual with arrow to the right symbol . For bolding text you simply use the letter b in place of the word blockquote and use the arrows and the slashdash as you did with blockquote, Hope that helps.
Thank you very much Bornagain77!
ET @ 13 – nope, it’s easy to demonstrate. This is what ba77 wrote @ 5 –
Q.E.D.
Truthfreedom @ 14 –
That’s the same tactic ba77 uses. Don’t try to use the actual argument that’s used, paraphrase it as a straw-man, then change the words and hence meaning, and claim that you’re reflecting someone else’s views. Does anyone actually claim that people are illusions? And if they do, is there any evidence that this is widely accepted?
At least you, unlike ba77, hasn’t been repeatedly told that the views they are ascribing to people are not the views that these people hold. By the very people that ba77 is ascribing these views to.
To be fair to you, you are demonstrating that at least some humans are silly evolved primates.
There’s a continuum of consciousness with particles having a simple form. Then the human brain “derives” consciousness from the particles “somehow”.
I think the mathematics on that will be a challenge. There is “one consciousness per particle”. Therefore, how many consciousnesses does it require to “derive” a human consciousness? I guess it depends whether it’s a strict addition or if there’s a more complex formulation.
It could be some kind of monist view: “there is one consciousness” and everything is a fragment of it.
There is, however, “nothing supernatural” in this because … it’s impossible to think that God actually exists and this theory is easier to accept?
That’s a good start. We don’t have “even the beginnings of an explanation” of what this is.
However, we know for certain it all originated from blind, mindless evolution?
@19 BobO’H:
Yes, imbecile evolutionary materialists. https://evolutionnews.org/2017/09/post-modern-science-the-illusion-of-consciousness-sees-through-itself/
I do not know. If people are illusions, I would not trust much what ‘they’ accept. Oh wait, ‘they’ do not exist. Nevermind.
And you BobO’H: do you exist? Or do you follow Jesus’ teachings and ‘deny yourself’.
LoL! @ Bob O’H- I know what bornagain77 wrote. YOU, as usual, refused to understand the explanation. Clearly you have reading comprehension issues, Bob.
Truthfreedom @ 21 –
Err, who? That piece doesn’t point to anyone claiming that people are illusions.
Can you do better with a second attempt, and point to someone who actually thinks people are illusions? With quotations where they actually say this?
@23 O’H:
Copied from the piece:
The influential MIND group of philosophers argues that we are “simulacrums of reality,” always hallucinating. (Link provided in the piece).
More mental mistreatment/pseudoscience/trash/shoddy philosophy:
Who do you think you are? Why your sense of self is an illusion
‘Most of us are convinced that we’re coherent individuals who are continuous in time. There’s just one problem with this sense of self – it can’t exist’.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newscientist.com/article/mg24432601-000-who-do-you-think-you-are-why-your-sense-of-self-is-an-illusion/amp/
I will copy+paste more links and quotations later.
Quotes on self as an illusion in post 5 here.
The first big problem for materialists is proving that matter exists. The second big problem is proving that matter is all that exists. In other words, the materialist can’t prove that matter and matter alone is sufficient to explain everything else that exists.
The only thing that I really know is that I exist. I know that because I am conscious and I am conscious of my own existence. Everything else I know are beliefs based on logical inferences. Therefore, the logical place to begin is with consciousness.
However, even if the only thing I can be certain of is my own consciousness it does not follow that consciousness is the only thing that exists or I am the only being that exists. The starting point is epistemological not ontological.
Too funny, Bob (and weave) O’Hara, (who, IMHO, is the reigning king of disingenuous argumentation on UD, although the competition has been fierce with Ed George), accuses me of, you guessed it, disingenuous argumentation
Yet, I am not doing any of those things. So Bob (and weave) is either purposely lying or else he is severely deluded in his thinking about me.
The fact that leading Darwinian/Atheistic materialists themselves deny the existence of ‘self’ was clearly pointed out in post 5, (A post which Bob (and weave) apparently did not bother to read). To repeat those quotes that were and are unaltered by me,
To add a few more quotes and articles for good measure,
Look the quotes up Bob, do whatever you want, but the quotes from Atheists are there in all there naked, unaltered, glory. In fact, I recommend that unbiased readers look them up for themselves to see that you basically flat out lied about me when you accused me of altering the quotes to reflect views that they do not hold.
Moreover, there are also many leading Atheistic materialists claiming that consciousness itself is an illusion. Which is almost exactly the same thing as claiming that our sense of self in an illusion since there could be no sense of self without consciousness,
Bob (and weave) O’Hara, in the midst of disparaging me. asks these questions
The answer to the first question is, YES! Leading Atheistic and/or Darwinian materialists claim, (as the quotes I provided make clear). that our sense of self is a ‘neuronal illusion’.
The answer to the second question, “is there any evidence that this is widely accepted?”, is, “Of course it is not widely accepted”, it is a completely insane position for crying out loud. The fact that we really exist as real persons, (as Rene Descartes “I think, therefore I am!” pointed out), is, by far, the most certain thing we can possibly know about reality.
That supposed atheistic intellectuals can deny the reality of the one thing they have the most direct access to, namely, that they really do exist as real persons, is a sure clue that they have been academia way too long. Such insanity on their part reminds me of this quote,
As to why supposed atheist intellectuals commit such a grave error in logic, indeed as to why they commit such a violent crime against common sense itself, so as deny the reality of their own personhood, is not really all that hard to figure out. Being committed to the paradigm of Darwinian materialism, (and/or to Reductive materialism, which is the same thing), forces them into the awkward position of having to deny the reality of all abstract immaterial objects. Abstract immaterial objects simply are not reducible to materialistic explanations. Thus, by definition, those objects must be illusory.
Yet, here’s the rub, personhood itself is not reducible to materialistic explanation. Personhood, like an endless litany of other abstract immaterial objects, simply can find no basis within the philosophy of reductive materialism:
Indeed human thinking is distinguished and permeated by abstract immaterial concepts., as Dr. Michael Egnor points out, “Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals.
Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different — ontologically different — from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,,,
It is a radical difference — an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference.
We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,,”
Again, the reason why leading Darwinian materialists are forced into the insane position of denying the reality of their own personhood is simply because personhood itself is an abstract immaterial concept of the immaterial mind that can find no grounding within reductive materialism.
To add further weight to my claim that personhood itself is an abstract immaterial concept that can not be reduced to any possible materialistic explanation, I will now refer to hemispherectomies.
If a person were merely the brain, as reductive materialists hold, then if half of a brain were removed then a ‘person’ should only be ‘half the person’, or at least somewhat less of a ‘person’, as they were before. But that is not the case, the ‘whole person’ stays intact even though the brain suffers severe impairment:
As should be needless to say, the preceding evidence from hemispherectomies is completely inexplicable for reductive materialists, whereas for Christian Theists who believe in an immaterial mind and in an immaterial soul, these findings, while surprising, are none-the-less, to be expected since we believe that the immaterial soul and immaterial mind live past the death of our material bodies.
Truthfreedom @ 24 – none of those quotes say that people are illusions, though. They say – rightly or wrongly – that the sense of self is an illusion, but that’s a rather different kettle of fish. My phone exists, but doesn’t have a sense of self (at least as far as I can tell).
If you want to claim that some people say that the sense of self or consciousness are illusions, then that’s fine. Yes, people do claim that, and it might lead to interesting discussions. But it would reduce confusion if that’s what you actually claim.
Bob says:
Apparently Bob O’Hara has need for the law of non-contradiction in his arguments.
The claim that our sense of self is a neuronal illusion is far from to only ‘crime against common sense’ that Darwinian materialists are forced to commit because of their a-priori adherence to methodological naturalism and/or Darwinian materialism.
Because of their unwarranted presumption of methodological naturalism (and more specifically the unwarranted presumption of reductive materialism within Darwinian evolution), the Darwinian materialist, as was already mentioned, ends up being forced to claim that he himself is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc.. etc.),
Moreover, the Darwinian materialist, besides being forced to claim that he himself is merely a neuronal illusion, is also forced to claim that he is having the illusion of free will (Coyne, Harris, etc.. etc..),
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, (Pearcey, Plantinga. etc.. etc..),
The Darwinian materialist is also forced to believe that his perceptions of reality are also illusory, (Novella, Hoffman, etc..),
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 (Gould, Behe, Sternberg, etc..),
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 (Dawkins, Crick etc..),
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 (Dawkins, Weikart, etc..),
The Darwinian materialist is also forced to hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God Who is the source for all real and objective moral truths, (Kreeft, Craig, etc..).
The Darwinian materialist is also forced to hold, since beauty itself cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, that beauty itself is illusory (Darwin).
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 naturalistic worldview.
Needless to say atheistic materialism, a worldview that is devoid of any real meaning, beauty or purpose, for life is a severely impoverished, even severely depressing, worldview for anyone to have to hold. (And indeed this plays out in quality of life studies which measure the happiness, health and longevity, etc. of atheists compared to Christians)
Fortunately atheistic materialism is not true,
It turns out that atoms themselves are now found to not be the solid indivisible concrete particles, as they were originally envisioned to be by materialists, but it turns out that the descriptions we now use to describe atoms themselves, the further down we go, dissolve into “abstract conceptual tools for describing nature, which themselves seem to lack any real, concrete essence.,,,”
As Werner Heisenberg explained, “Atoms are not things.” and “the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.”
In fact, according to quantum theory, the most fundamental ‘stuff’ of the world is not even matter or energy at all, (as Darwinian materialists presuppose) but is immaterial information itself
Thus, in irony of ironies, not even the material particles themselves turn to be are ‘real’ and concrete, (on a materialistic definition of what is suppose to be ‘real’ and concrete), but atoms themselves turn out instead to be “abstract” immaterial information.
This puts the die-hard materialist in quite the conundrum because as Bernardo Kastrup further explains, to make sense of this conundrum of a non-material world of pure abstractions we must ultimately appeal to an immaterial mind. i.e. we must ultimately appeal to God!
Or to put it much more simply, as Physics professor Richard Conn Henry put it at the end of the following article, “The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.”
I certainly can live happily and consistently knowing that God really does exist. The unanswered question is “why in blue blazes do atheists find the Theistic worldview, which is full of objectively real meaning, purpose, and beauty for their lives, to be so upsetting?”
It simply makes no sense for atheists to choose a blatantly false nihilistic worldview that is devoid of any real hope for their lives.
@29 Bob O’H:
Bob O’H:
If the sense of self is an ‘illusion’?
What is having that ‘illusion’?
@30 Bornagain77:
According to atheist evolutionist materialists, only ‘material’ things are real. Since logic and laws are not ‘material’, they do not exist. Oh wait. They want to teach us (theists) how to be rational and get rid of ‘superstition’.
The person.
Oh wait, yes. Unless you can find an “atheist evolutionist materialist” who actually says laws and logic don’t exist, I’d suggest you don’t use this argument, as it suggests you might have mis-understood something. In particular, there is nothing wrong with the existence of concepts in a material world. As long as conscious entities exist, they can think about concepts. Of course, this implies that consciousness has a material basis, but the jury is still out on that, and we are a long way from getting to an answer, one way or another.
@33 Bob O’H:
Bob O’H replied:
.
Well, well, well.
Bob O’H:
How can a person have the ‘illusion’ he/she is a ‘person’?
Nothing wrong then with the concepts of soul and God.
Go tell imbeciles like dawkins, dennet and coyne who say consciousness is an ‘illusion’. Bob O’H, what is ‘illusory’ does not exist. Hence, ‘illusory consciousness’ (oh my) can not think about anything.
as to:
Besides the law of non-contradiction, Bob apparently also needs access to a dictionary
Bob O’H
The person is the self.
If the self is an illusion, so is the person.
If the person is an illusion then the person does not exist.
Bob O’H
I believe you’re saying “there is nothing wrong with the existence of concepts in the material world, except that there is something wrong with it since we don’t know if concepts are material or immaterial.” Right?
Bob: “there is nothing wrong with the existence of concepts in a material world.”
What material world?
@33 Bob O’H:
Concepts are:
a) material?
b) or im-material?