Philosopher exposes neo-Darwinian Daniel Dennett: Claims “so preposterous as to verge on the deranged”

Axel,

Your answer was evasive, but then you showed a knowledge of Bush minimus’ stake in the company that completely belied your apparent affectation of such ignorance. Are you close to the Bushes? Otherwise your interest seems to reflect a curious ambivalence.

I never claimed to be "ignorant" of these things. I spent/wasted many hours reading discussions of Sept 11 conspiracies on various forums in the 20-oughts, so I have run across quite a bit of this stuff. I'm not close to the Bushes (having never met any); in fact, I'm not particularly fond of them.

And you still unwilling to consult VT. I think you know it ‘from cover to cover’, and might even be employed to do so as part of your work. So, this must be a parting of the ways.

I did look at the website and found it to be unremarkable. Rather like a mashup of abovetopsecret and buzzfeed. FTR, I don't know the site well (likely have never seen it), and am not employed by anyone with an interest in it. Heh. :-) daveS

Axel, FTR, I will volunteer that IMHO the notion that Sandy Hook was a false flag attack is preposterous. Excellent, Dave. I like that turn of phrase, too: 'I will volunteer....' A mite archaic, but in a rather grand way. Axel

'Do you find it odd that, in order to disseminate your theories, you have to refer me to some middling website that supposedly has been deliberately salted with nonsense?' The short answer is: 'No. I don't find it in the least bit odd.' Mostly, because I am not in the least bit interested in 'disseminating "my" theories', but was prompted to ask you a question, in response to what struck me as an extraordinary display of disingenuousness by way of feigned ignorance. Your answer was evasive, but then you showed a knowledge of Bush minimus' stake in the company that completely belied your apparent affectation of such ignorance. Are you close to the Bushes? Otherwise your interest seems to reflect a curious ambivalence. And what about 'some "middling" website'? 'Middling' in what sense? You surely don't expect truth from the MSM, least of all concerning geopolitics. And you still unwilling to consult VT. I think you know it 'from cover to cover', and might even be employed to do so as part of your work. The Bushes would not be the prime-movers, would they ? They are a little subordinate to the Deep State, I believe, who would have been the prime-movers. Anyway, this must be a parting of the ways. Axel

Axel,

Well, why don’t you read VT’s report, and critique i. It should be very easy for you to expose it as piffle, that actually rare bird, a ‘conspiracy theory.’ It’s not as if what I believe concerning these false-flags and VT’s analysis of them is contentious un your eyes: they are a joke. No less. You are sovereignly confident in your certainty, so why not go to the source and really dispose of its putatively-authoritative pabulum, among many peple who despise the MSM’ wall-to-wall, mendacious propaganda, once and for all.

I'm not interested in debunking conspiracy websites or even debating these issues in depth, to be honest. I gave that up years ago when I found it was like trying to nail jello to a wall.

It’s not just about individuals, but the much broader canvas of geopolitics, the so-called Great Game.

But these acts were perpetrated by individuals. GWB is either guilty or not guilty of murdering thousands of Americans. Adam Lanza either killed 26 people five years ago or he didn't. Crisis actors either exist or they don't. If your theories are true, then we have a very dangerous situation on our hands. Do you find it odd that, in order to disseminate your theories, you have to refer me to some middling website that supposedly has been deliberately salted with nonsense? daveS

It's not just about individuals, but the much broader canvas of geopolitics, the so-called Great Game. I've just accidentally wiped a whole damned screed. PS: Incidentally, if you are on the level and consult the analyses of VT's experts - and they are experts - don't be put of by the unmistakably-flakey articles, which serve a purpose. I'm loathe to do more for you, if you won't help yourself. It's too labour-intensive, and shamefully derelict on your part that your 'take' on the whole topic is so resolutely superficial. Even 9/11 is a vast topic, but an intelligent man in worldly terms that I take you to be (within the limits of your secular-fundamentalist, materialist beliefs), shouldn't need a primer in false-flag atrocities, but be much better informed and, moreover, open to non-official info. More open to it. As regards these recent incidents, I believe only one of them is held to have been the work of a 'lone gunman-type 'nutter' - thougb I can't remember which. I don'teven bother with the names of tem any more. I know a recent one (f-f) was in Vegas, ther was one in Charlottesville, and at least one in Paris. Oh, and we've had, I think, at least a couple in the UK. A while back, a 'commenter' in the Guardian, writing from France, showed a photograph in an underground station involved, showing a man in front of a rail or some such. Only thing was, you could see the rail through his body. Photo-shopped. Axel

Well, why don't you read VT's report, and critique i. It should be very easy for you to expose it as piffle, that actually rare bird, a 'conspiracy theory.' It's not as if what I believe concerning these false-flags and VT's analysis of them is contentious un your eyes: they are a joke. No less. You are sovereignly confident in your certainty, so why not go to the source and really dispose of its putatively-authoritative pabulum, among many peple who despise the MSM' wall-to-wall, mendacious propaganda, once and for all. It makes much more sense for you to go the primary source. I skim articles, and take away the gist. You want 'hard facts'. And rightly so. Axel

Axel, FTR, I will volunteer that IMHO the notion that Sandy Hook was a false flag attack is preposterous. daveS

Axel,

If you follow veteranstoday.com, daveS, they go into false-flags in some depth, and I believe only one was found to be the exclusive work of a genuine ‘nutter’; the others were ‘patsies’, just as Oswald was. In fact, though I haven’t yet looked at it, there is a website called False Flag, which I believe would have gone into them in great depth.

Would you care to name specific incidents that they found to be false flags? For example, what about Sandy Hook? Edit: Despite what I said above about not getting into a wide-ranging discussion, I am interested to know your opinion on some of these relatively recent "false flag" events. daveS

Axel, I'd prefer not to get into a wide-ranging discussion of other events beyond Sept 11. For one thing, the JFK assassination was before my time, so I didn't experience it (through the media) as it occurred. I will simply say that I'm very confident that GWB and others in the Bush family did not conspire to bring about the events of Sept. 11. Anyone who disagrees must have a radically different understanding of the world than mine. daveS

Who do you think was responsible for JFK's death, Dave? Axel

If you follow veteranstoday.com, daveS, they go into false-flags in some depth, and I believe only one was found to be the exclusive work of a genuine 'nutter'; the others were 'patsies', just as Oswald was. In fact, though I haven't yet looked at it, there is a website called False Flag, which I believe would have gone into them in great depth. Interestingly, in terms of evidence, an Israeli photographer was photograpehd at the scene of a few of the 'terrorist' attacks - and I mean virtually 'on the spot', when they happened. If your really want to know - and I really don't think you do - at least read the coverage of the incidents by VeteransToday. Axel

Axel,

Tell me why you think it would be unlikely, bearing in mind the other false-flag incidents – ongoing evidently at a local level in these ‘mad gunman’ shooting sprees – some of considerable magnitude, e.g. the ship incident used to justfy the invasion of Viet Nam,

1. I don't think GWB is the type of person who would murder thousands of Americans. 2. There's no plausible motive. What did he think he would gain? 3. Which of these "mad gunman" shooting sprees do you think were false flag attacks? I don't know of any that fit that description. Usually it's some mentally ill guy who flips out or a terrorist attack. daveS

His actual role in the company is rather irrelevant, isn't it? An evasion, even. I would simply refer you to the veteranstoday.com online journal. It is a mixture, I believe, of inside information and madhouse nonsense - deliberately so. It should not be difficult to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Do you think Oswald was the lone gunman killer of JFK? Do you think Wellstone was just plum unlucky he died in that light aircraft ... one could go on an on, yet your question suggests that you are reluctant to join the dots concerning the cynicism of the US and, indeed, the UK governments, when it comes to liquidating individuals who threaten to stand in the way of their plans. Tell me why you think it would be unlikely, bearing in mind the other false-flag incidents - ongoing evidently at a local level in these 'mad gunman' shooting sprees - some of considerable magnitude, e.g. the ship incident used to justfy the invasion of Viet Nam, Axel

Axel,

Did you know, DaveS, that Dubya’s younger brother was reported to own/have owned, at the time, the security company that sealed off the basement for two or three weeks before 9/11. Entry to the basements was prohibited.

Yes, I've heard statements that he was connected to the security company (but not that he owned it, which I doubt, since it was a publicly traded company). He was apparently on the board of directors from 1993 to 2000. Do you think it's likely that the Bushes conspired to take down the WTC? daveS

Did you know, DaveS, that Dubya's younger brother was reported to own/have owned, at the time, the security company that sealed off the basement for two or three weeks before 9/11. Entry to the basements was prohibited. KF, loved that 'transcends'(below). Definitely 'le mot juste'. 'And, let us note, too, that the attempts to get to an emergent mind that somehow stands on the blind material order and transcends it are just as problematic.' Axel

F/N3: Yet more, bringing out the self-refuting stance of evolutionary materialistic scientism. And, let us note, too, that the attempts to get to an emergent mind that somehow stands on the blind material order and transcends it are just as problematic. Clipping:

part of the problem bedeviling Dennett’s narrative is the difficulty of making a case that seems so hard to reconcile with quotidian experience. But that difficulty is only exacerbated by his fierce adherence to an early modern style of materialism, according to whose tenets there can be no aspect of nature not reducible to blind physical forces. For him, the mechanistic picture, or its late modern equivalent, is absolute; it is convertible with truth as such, and whatever appears to escape its logic can never be more than a monstrosity of the imagination. But then the conscious mind constitutes a special dilemma, since this modern picture was produced precisely by excluding all mental properties from physical nature. And so, in this case, physicalist reduction means trying to explain one particular phenomenon — uniquely among all the phenomena of nature — by realities that are, in qualitative terms, quite literally its opposite. Really, in this regard, we have progressed very little since Descartes’s day. The classical problems that mental events pose for physicalism remain as numerous and seemingly insoluble as ever. Before all else, there is the enigma of consciousness itself, and of the qualia (direct subjective impressions, such as color or tone) that inhabit it. There is simply no causal narrative — and probably never can be one — capable of uniting the phenomenologically discontinuous regions of “third-person” electrochemical brain events and “first-person” experiences, nor any imaginable science logically capable of crossing that absolute qualitative chasm. Then there is the irreducible unity of apprehension, without which there could be no coherent perception of anything at all, not even disjunctions within experience. As Kant among others realized, this probably poses an insuperable difficulty for materialism. It is a unity that certainly cannot be reduced to some executive material faculty of the brain, as this would itself be a composite reality in need of unification by some still-more-original faculty, and so on forever, and whatever lay at the “end” of that infinite regress would already have to possess an inexplicable prior understanding of the diversity of experience that it organizes. For, even if we accept that the mind merely represents the world to itself under an assortment of convenient fictions, this would involve a translation of sense data into specific perceptions and meanings; and translation requires a competence transcending the difference between the original “text” and its rendition. This problem, moreover, points toward the far more capacious and crucial one of mental intentionality as such — the mind’s pure directedness (such that its thoughts are about things), its interpretation of sense experience under determinate aspects and meanings, its movement toward particular ends, its power to act according to rationales that would appear nowhere within any inventory of antecedent physical causes. All of these indicate an irreducibly teleological structure to thought incongruous with a closed physical order supposedly devoid of purposive causality. Similarly, there is the problem of the semantic and syntactic structure of rational thought, whose logically determined sequences seem impossible to reconcile with any supposed sufficiency of the continuous stream of physical causes occurring in the brain. And then there is the issue of abstraction, and its necessary priority over sense experience — the way, for instance, that primordial and irreducible concepts of causality and of discrete forms are required for any understanding of the world of events around us, or the way some concept of resemblance must already be in place before one is able to note likenesses and unlikenesses between things, or even the way in which the bare concepts of Euclidean geometry permit us to recognize their imperfect analogues in nature. And then, also, there are those more than abstract — in fact, transcendental — orientations of the mind, such as goodness or truth or beauty in the abstract, which appear to underlie every employment of thought and will, and yet which correspond to no concrete objects within nature. And so on and so forth.

It looks extraordinarily like institutionally entrenched grand question-begging compounded by self-referential incoherence. KF kairosfocus

F/N2: More from Hart on Dennett:

Rather, however, than attempt to explain nature in terms of a “mind-like” order of rational relations, as Aristotelian tradition did, Dennett seeks to do very nearly the opposite: to reduce mind and nature alike to a computational system, which emerges from “uncomprehending competences,” as he calls them — small, particulate functions wholly unaware of the larger functions they accomplish in the aggregate — of the sort first fully understood by Alan Turing. And those functions, as retained, combined, and developed by the slow, diffident, mindless designing hand of natural selection, are — like the hugely intricate ensemble of discrete lines of code hiding behind the illusory simplicity of the icons on a computer’s screen — the real engines of everything that happens, hiding behind the phenomenal simplicity of perceptible nature. In Dennett’s telling, it is all very obvious: Under certain chemical and environmental conditions, life will emerge in time [--> notice the huge explanatory gap on the FSCO/I in OoL] and develop organisms [ --> Noticed the gap on explaining origin of body plans] with large brains [--> notice the gap on explaining brains with successful computational substrates including both hardware in some architecture and the software that makes it work right], and these organisms will of necessity be social organisms. And social organisms require mental activity to survive and flourish. For Dennett, all evolutionary developments occur because they incorporate useful adaptations. He has no patience for talk of “spandrels” — phenotypic traits that are supposedly not adaptations but byproducts of the evolution of other traits — or of large, inexplicable, fortuitous hypertrophies (such as, say, the sudden acquisition of language) that have no specific evolutionary rationale at all. So sanguine, in fact, is Dennett in his certainty that adaptive usefulness is sufficient explanation for why things happen that he often fails to consider whether the things that he claims have happened are, strictly speaking, possible. For him it seems evident that in the right circumstances, in time, natural selection will generate and preserve ever more competences without comprehension until, at some point of cumulative complexity, certain ensembles of those competences will become comprehension. Slowly, what we think of as self-awareness and reflective consciousness emerged from, and in fact remains wholly dependent upon, innumerable small, unconscious, discrete forces. Exactly how all of this happens, of course — how physical causality is wondrously inverted into phenomenal awareness — is never quite clear. But for Dennett, once again, the distinction between the useful and the possible is a hazy one at best. And in a sense it hardly matters, since even the appearance of rational conscious agency, as something in addition to or formally distinguishable from those tiny competences underlying it, is for Dennett only a useful illusion

Let us note: computation is not and can never amount to contemplation, it is a blindly mechanical process that is itself dependent on correct ordering of processing elements to achieve a reliable result, under the looming shadow of the GIGO principle: Garage in, garbage out. Here, we face the notion that noise and blind mechanism goes in and a sufficiently functional brain as processor somehow comes out, getting massive functionally specific complex organisation and associated information "for free." Never mind, the trillion member database of observation that tells us that such routinely arises by prior mind at work via intentionally directed configuration, and the search challenge in configuration spaces that once we go beyond 500 - 1,000 bits, becomes utterly implausible for the resources of our solar system or observed cosmos. No wonder we see the onward imagination of a quasi-infinite unobserved wider cosmos. And all along we must rely on that most abstract of disciplines, the logic of structure and quantity, as our handmaiden and guide. Mathematics. The bankruptcy of the scheme is obvious, but maybe the feeling is that some things are too big and important to be allowed to openly fail. Where, many are frightened of a world haunted by mind, especially ultimate Mind. KF kairosfocus

F/N: Time to look at the actual focal topic, which is highly important. Hart, on Dennett, from OP and onward his review of a new book:

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. But this confusion is entirely typical of Dennett’s position. In this book, as he has done repeatedly in previous texts, he mistakes the question of the existence of subjective experience for the entirely irrelevant question of the objective accuracy of subjective perceptions, and whether we need to appeal to third-person observers to confirm our impressions. But, of course, all that matters for this discussion is that we have impressions at all.

Yes, even self-evidently yes. Note too, an observation of how the problem of mind was manufactured by moving to a mechanistic picture of reality that opened the way for matter to try to gobble up mind, ending in the shipwreck of self-referential incoherence:

The modern scientific novum organum — as Francis Bacon dubbed the new rationality that he hoped would replace classical and medieval sophistries — achieved its first systematic expression in the seventeenth century. With its ambition to perfect a method of pure induction, it proposed to the imagination the idea of a “real” physical world hidden behind the apparent one, an occult realm of pure material causation, utterly devoid of all the properties of mind, most especially intentional purposes. From at least the time of Galileo, a division was introduced between what Wilfrid Sellars called the “manifest image” and the “scientific image” — between, that is, the phenomenal world we experience and that imperceptible order of purely material forces that composes its physical substrate. And, at least at first, the divorce was amicable, inasmuch as phenomenal qualities were still granted a certain legitimacy; they were simply surrendered to the custody of the immaterial soul. But mind was now conceived as an exception within the frame of nature. In the pre-modern vision of things, the cosmos had been seen as an inherently purposive structure of diverse but integrally inseparable rational relations — for instance, the Aristotelian aitia, which are conventionally translated as “causes,” but which are nothing like the uniform material “causes” of the mechanistic philosophy. And so the natural order was seen as a reality already akin to intellect. Hence the mind, rather than an anomalous tenant of an alien universe, was instead the most concentrated and luminous expression of nature’s deepest essence. This is why it could pass with such wanton liberty through the “veil of Isis” and ever deeper into nature’s inner mysteries. The Cartesian picture, by contrast, was a chimera, an ungainly and extrinsic alliance of antinomies. And reason abhors a dualism. Moreover, the sciences in their modern form aspire to universal explanation, ideally by way of the most comprehensive and parsimonious principles possible. So it was inevitable that what began as an imperfect method for studying concrete particulars would soon metastasize into a metaphysics of the whole of reality. The manifest image was soon demoted to sheer illusion, and the mind that perceived it to an emergent product of the real (which is to say, mindless) causal order.

The resulting self-referential incoherence is patent: it is only by starting from our conscious mindedness that we come to reason, experience, observe, infer and more. So, any grand scheme of thought that undermines mind or its ability to at least in some cases -- error exists is also a self-evident first truth -- correctly apprehend truths about the world, abstract and concrete, is inescapably fatally incoherent. But if we are forever distracted, forever pointing the finger elsewhere, we will not see this. The matter goes on:

After five decades, it would be astonishing if Dennett were to change direction now. But, by the same token, his project should over that time have acquired not only more complexity, but greater sophistication. And yet it has not. For instance, he still thinks it a solvent critique of Cartesianism to say that interactions between bodies and minds would violate the laws of physics. Apart from involving a particularly doctrinaire view of the causal closure of the physical (the positively Laplacian fantasy that all physical events constitute an inviolable continuum of purely physical causes), this argument clumsily assumes that such an interaction would constitute simply another mechanical exchange of energy in addition to material forces.

How do we arrive at laws of physics save by conscious mindedness? Mindedness that must be able to sufficiently apprehend and reason about reality that we have some confidence in our findings? A confidence that Dennett here uses to pose what he imagines is unanswerable: oh, you would contradict the laws of material reality. And, sir, how do we come to know that such laws exist and are sufficiently strong that their violation as claimed is problematic if the very minds that we use to get to the laws are what we now would undermine? The fatal incoherence of evolutionary materialistic scientism is yet once more on public display, but we are bewitched. KF kairosfocus

DS, yup -- the original painted lady, daughter of a pagan high priest (and king looks like) sent to draw those hillbillies into the orbit. Complete with her retinue of false prophets. And guess who stars as demonic prince over that domain, hisself? Doff hats, a moment's silence as we remember Naboth standing on his birthright and judicially murdered through sworn false testimony set up by ole Jez herself (with Ahab playing the weak hubby wrapped around the little finger) in order to get a power grab through. Plenty of trouble for Michael, prince of Israel! Somebody should write it as a SFF short story. KF kairosfocus

At least Jezebel was, according to the bible, anyway, an actual person, so it's possible that some woman (or man, for that matter) could be comparable to her. This person would have to be very bad to warrant a comparison with Jezebel. daveS

DS, would you prefer something like "Jezebel"? The import is the same. However I do not normally use loaded terms. Let me contrast, a Ruth or even a Rahab, and of course there is a "Ruby" from Prov 31, or an Esther, or a Priscilla, or of course a Mary. KF kairosfocus

KF,

My own counsel is, find the right woman, who your heart can safely trust, then marry her. Be faithful to her and stand by her in accord with your wedding vows. Keep away from fornication and adultery, those are simply ways to buy grief in wholesale lots. And that’s just a counsel of prudence before we get to the actual moral and sin issues. The right woman is the one who will be the best mother for your children, and you need to make yourself the best father for hers. A good yardstick is found in Prov 31.

I notice that you wisely refrain from using expressions such as "daughter of Satan". 👍 And I don't believe your rendition of the advisory statement is absurd, btw. Peterson's choice of words is hard to defend, however. daveS

DS, I suggest to you that the advisory statement you clipped as apparently absurd is in fact sober and sound prudence. A glance at the Potiphar's wife case speaks volumes, and in fact I am familiar with acrimonious divorce cases that demonstrate just how some -- repeat, SOME -- women can take advantage of their credibility to write falsehood into the court record. Indeed, in some cases, that is done with lawyer's help and is nicely calculated to put the estranged husband into a double bind. Leave it and it is damaging, object and it is perhaps potentially worse. You can imagine how that affects the innocent third party victims -- the children. My own counsel is, find the right woman, who your heart can safely trust, then marry her. Be faithful to her and stand by her in accord with your wedding vows. Keep away from fornication and adultery, those are simply ways to buy grief in wholesale lots. And that's just a counsel of prudence before we get to the actual moral and sin issues. The right woman is the one who will be the best mother for your children, and you need to make yourself the best father for hers. A good yardstick is found in Prov 31. Given where things now are, it might be advisable to refrain from even a so-called French Kiss until after the wedding. If you cannot find the right woman yet, restrain yourself. Our civilisation is increasingly toxic and suicidally self-destructive. The advice to a young leader to avoid antagonising an elder man (in the context of church and family relations) is generally sound advice. I would suggest that only when a disciplinary investigation and process have been completed will there be a place for a formal reprimand and even that should be carefully phrased. KF kairosfocus

KF,

F/N: J L Peterson on addressing vulnerability to false accusations of sexual abuse:

Where do they find these people? That guy is nuts. Edit: Do you endorse this sort of language?

Peterson: Even so-called “consensual sex” outside marriage opens you up to all kinds of calamity. The daughter of Satan with whom you slept can change her mind, turn around and accuse you of insane things when the relationship sours.

On to the bible verse:

Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father

That advice doesn't seem appropriate in some of these instances. Should we not rebuke Kevin Spacey, for example? How about Harvey Weinstein? daveS

PS: Paul's counsel:

1 Tim 5:1 a Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, b younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity. [ESV]

In short, act i/l/o sound family relationships in effect creating an extended family network. In today's climate Billy Graham's rules are advisable, as US VP Pence has counselled. And if some are inclined to complain, they should look to the incidence of media-trumpeted accusations on the slightest excuse. A climate of smear tactics and declaring open hunting season on men has consequences. kairosfocus

F/N: J L Peterson on addressing vulnerability to false accusations of sexual abuse: http://www.wnd.com/2017/11/how-to-deal-with-sex-assault-accusations/ (NB: I do not endorse his descriptions of Mr Trump and we need to come to a responsibly informed view on Judge Moore as sound evidence and credibility of witnesses is carefully evaluated . . . we do not need a media lynch mob climate.) KF kairosfocus

DS, I understand. But in a sense, that is the point. They have to be there so why are they so invisible? Likely, there is an omerta enforced by compromise, shaming, internalised blame the victim, bribery [including of cops, just as with drugs], blackmail and likely murder. Meanwhile on a parallel track there is a line of false accusations that make the real cases seem incredible. Something had to be going on to kill so many stories of those who came out and blew the whistle on Weinstein. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark [--> our civilisation]. KF kairosfocus

KF, I have no information about these "speakeasies". If I run across any, I will report it to law enforcement. daveS

DS, where are the speakeasies and why are they not repeatedly in the headlines? That is the smoking gun. KF PS: Maybe Thailand, Epstein island, some things suggested for Haiti and the DR etc might be places to begin. Possibly, some poking around the studios of Los Angeles on both the Hollywood and porn-perversion anti-industry sides. The Groupie scene surrounding popular music may be another break-in point. The seedier side of Washington DC and London may be fruitful hunting grounds too, also New York. kairosfocus

PS: Don't forget the implications of Pig Mouth "gate" with former UK PM David Cameron and the question of the price for admission to ever more inner circles of power. kairosfocus

KF, You and I have literally no disagreement here, and thus there is nothing to argue about. daveS

DS, I suggest you stop repeating dismissive media talking points. My point just now is not if there are equivalents of speakeasies, but WHERE are they and why is it that we are not hearing of them being busted and closed down regularly, with arrests made and victims sent to counselling to try to patch together some semblance of a sane life. Why is it we pick up signs of the most demonically destructive being enabled and shielded for decades, in what looks like several countries. We are obviously seeing just the tip of a very dirty iceberg, and we need to ask why. I fear the answers are sinister indeed and that if the "Pizzagate" allegations prove false as to the particular case, they will prove to be only hints of a reality that will shake our civilisation when it is fully revealed, as we know how bad it can get -- read Suetonius' lives of the twelve Caesars on Nero, but make sure you are several hours after one meal and several more before the next. KF kairosfocus

KF, Yes, these crimes exist. But PizzaGate is absurd. Just as organized terrorism exists, but the idea that the GWB administration conspired to bring about the Sept 11 attacks is absurd. That's really all I'm saying. daveS

DS, I have reason to believe elite classes and major institutions in many countries have been penetrated and tainted by significant numbers of people implicated in all sorts of sexually tinged perversities. In many of these cases illegal behaviour is implicated, too often including abuse of minors. This has been underscored by too many cases over the years, never mind that there will also be false accusations -- something that goes back to Potiphar's wife. Too many legislative assemblies are implicated. In the US case, Epstein should give pause. And, I have come to see that this includes the entertainment media going back a very long way, e.g. Augustine's rebuke to how the theatre of classical times taught the people the techniques of vice, also his stinging rebuke to the circuses of that time. In more modern times, Hollywood and similar centres have been riddled for generations. The porn-perversion anti-industry is little more than licenced prostitution, likely pervaded by various organised crime syndicates. A lot of human trafficking and modern slavery are implicated, and Rotherham warns us on what can happen with police and social work agencies. Do not forget the ongoing abortion holocaust mounting up at a million victims per week on a baseline of well over 800 million since the '70's, which is supported by the corruption of major institutions -- directly implying serious consequences for our civilisation . . . media, education, health care professions, parliaments and cabinets, the courts and more. Education and the church have not escaped the taint of what is going on. So, my question is not if a modern much worse version of the speakeasies of the 1920's in the US exists, my question is just where they are and why we are not seeing them regularly exposed . . . which itself has potentially extremely sinister implications for the major relevant institutions. KF kairosfocus

KF,

DS, it seems pretty clear that pizza and hot dogs are fairly transparent code words used by abusers; whatever may or may not be so about certain particular places of business.

I take it that means you do not subscribe to the PizzaGate theory. It will be interesting to see if WJM responds. daveS

RVB8, 32:

‘Consciousness’ my friend, is merely the religious person’s last desperate effort at self importance, at significance in a universe that really, doesn’t care.

On the utter contrary, conscious self awareness and linked reflexivity are at the heart of being self-moved agents that have responsible, rational freedom. Without which -- and recall here, consciousness is our first fact of existence and the means by which we access any and all other facts -- our whole rationality collapses. In short you have done little more than distract yourself from the self-referential incoherence and utter amorality of evolutionary materialist scientism by taking a few cheap internet atheist style rhetorical shots. You have again made yourself a poster-boy. (Had we cast you or your ilk in such a mould, you would have doubtless accused us of strawman caricatures. Sorry, the mould came out of your own mouth.) I suggest that you think again. KF kairosfocus

Origines, spot on: self referential incoherence of evolutionary materialism and fellow travellers that enable its dominance. KF kairosfocus

DS, it seems pretty clear that pizza and hot dogs are fairly transparent code words used by abusers; whatever may or may not be so about certain particular places of business. Spirit cooking is also a sad, documented reality reflective of what has to be reckoned a damaged mindset. Frankly, in my worse days, I fear half of several houses of legislative assembly and maybe at least that fraction of entertainers are caught up in much the same. Royals too, from what WJM is saying about the crackdown in Arabia. A terrible cleansing of the elites is going to be needed and it is not going to be pretty. WJM is engaged in that thankless work and more power to him. KF kairosfocus

Dennet denies the possibility of rational understanding. "I understand X" is not possible, according to Dennett's reasoning, because "I" is a mere 'illusion' or 'inner theater'. IOWs there is no one there who understands. According to Dennet, there is no rational understanding on the level of "I", because there is no "I". So, is there perhaps rational understanding on the underlying level of “uncomprehending competences” in the machinery of our brains? Given that they are “uncomprehending” ... res ipsa loquitur.

... those who claim that all beliefs, acts of reasoning, etc., are nonveracious are positing a closed circle in which no beliefs are produced by the proper methods by which beliefs can be said to be veracious or rational. ... Since the raison d’être of their thesis is that there is no outside of the circle, they do not have the epistemic right to assume a position independent of it, and so their beliefs about the nonveracity of beliefs or reasoning are just as nonveracious as those they criticize. If all of the beliefs inside the circle are suspect, we cannot judge between truth and falsity, since any such judgment would be just as suspect as what it seeks to adjudicate. ... At no point can they step out of the circle to a transcendent standpoint that would allow them to reject some beliefs as tainted while remaining untainted themselves. [Jim Slagle]

Origenes

What's the spirit FourFaces? I think you are on to something...let's see... J-Mac

rvb8, My point, and one that was clearly lost on you, was that science has a tendency to reduce the sphere in which god works. Science knows how God works? ‘Consciousness’ my friend, is merely the religious person’s last desperate effort at self importance, at significance in a universe that really, doesn’t care. You have no idea what consciousness is, how life came about or even what causes something as simple as motion and yet you somehow know what the universe cares about? Man, this is pathetic. FourFaces

FourFaces, I don't, 'jump up and down and foam at the mouth', about anything, least of all prepostorous ancient myth; I leave that to Ken Ham and crew. My point, and one that was clearly lost on you, was that science has a tendency to reduce the sphere in which god works. You know? How god would be used to explain absolutely everything in humanity's past; everything! Then as time and evidence improved, we removed god to the sideline. Then as we became even more aware of our utter insignificance, and the absolute stupendous universe in which we, inconceivably exist, we said, "This god chap, quite small isn't he?" 'Consciousness' my friend, is merely the religious person's last desperate effort at self importance, at significance in a universe that really, doesn't care. Enjoy your life and your friends, you won't get another; and that is just fine by me! :) rvb8

rbb8, ‘Consciousness’, the latest thing materialists can not explain. The simple fact, that upon death, consciousness appears to likewise die, rings no bells in the creationist’s heart? As a dualist Christian, I believe that consciousness requires both a physical brain and a spirit. Why should it surprise me that consciousness ceases with death? Heck, consciousness ceases with sleep or anesthesia. Jesus himself compared death to a type of sleep, i.e., a condition whereby the spirit is no longer interacting with the brain. [snip human religious claims] Wrestling against strawmen is not particularly brave. [AIDS and sinners, etc...] Are you a homosexual and you have a bone to pick with certain Christians for judging you? You want to produce evidence for the, ‘unnatural’, hence proving the, ‘supernatural’? Be very careful, because when your latest effort, ‘consciousness’, is given a perfectly understandable, ‘natural’ answer, your oogity boogity, will once again be shown for what it truly is; manmade myth! Well, it is impossible to give consciousness a perfectly understandable, ‘natural’ answer (you don't have one) because it is easy to show that we experience the supernatural (the non-physical) all the time. The visual cortex receives a stream of neuronal pulses from the retina. They are just pulses but we are not conscious of pulses flowing through our synapses, axons and dendrites. Instead we see a fabulous, colorful 3D vista that exists neither in the brain not in the world. We can even easily trick the mind into creating this non-physical 3D vista using a mirror or virtual reality goggles and a computer program. The supernatural is right in front of you but you are too blind and cowardly to see it. You can jump up and down and foam at the mouth if you want to, but you are the one who is preaching your "oogity boogity" with the claim that the non-physical somehow emerges from the physical. Give it a rest already. It's a sign of a cretinous mind. FourFaces

'Consciousness', the latest thing materialists can not explain. The simple fact, that upon death, consciousness appears to likewise die, rings no bells in the creationist's heart? Okay, I'l play your silly game. Earthquakes were a long time favourite of the religious as clear displeasure of god with humanity, until we discovered plate tectonics. Disease was a bug-bear of the religious, showing god was unhappy with his human crew. We then discovered bacteria, and god was put down. Hell! even in the 1980s, some religious believed AIDS was god's wrath upon the homosexual community, whom it seemed to focus upon. They were morbidly joyous at god's judgement upon these unnatural sinners. Sadly, we now know AIDS is a human affliction, treatable, though not curable; yet! God is marched behind the wall again! You want to produce evidence for the, 'unnatural', hence proving the, 'supernatural'? Be very careful, because when your latest effort, 'consciousness', is given a perfectly understandable, 'natural' answer, your oogity boogity, will once again be shown for what it truly is; manmade myth! rvb8

KF,

hot dogs and spirit cooking etc

Hm, I must have missed that part. But, don't tell me you've fallen for the PizzaGate meme as well? To coin a phrase, it's "so preposterous as to verge on the deranged". daveS

DS, don't forget the hot dogs and spirit cooking etc etc too. This stuff is really disgusting. KF kairosfocus

WJM, Is this all related to PizzaGate, by any chance? daveS

KF In case you didn't know, the recent Saudi arrests of so many of the royal family is part of the global human trafficking take-down Trump is spearheading. Much more to follow as the attack on the globalist cartels ramps up and big names like Weinstein, Podesta and Sheen start going down. There's a reason Donna Brazille is jumping off the DNC boat. William J Murray

Axel @ 20: Got it. Thanks. Truth Will Set You Free

WJM, I see moves on the abusers have been hitting headlines. KF kairosfocus

kairosfocus at 18: Did anyone notice Fox News enter the building? Where did they park the crew trucks? We didn't invite them because we didn't think this philosophy stuff was really their thing... ;) Seriously, I think Dennett is *overrated even a poseur* and way out of date. And that the big question re Hart's takedown is, why didn't it happen a decade ago? News

rvb8 said:

Dennet is easy to read, and his ideas logical.

Perhaps you mean his ideas have the illusion of being logical? William J Murray

rvb8 @ 7. I notice you have absolutely nothing of substance to say. When you have no substance I suppose an attack on style is all you've got. Very telling. Barry Arrington

I suppose you mean that my post, #1, was convoluted and opaque, TTWSYF, so I'll try and make it more succinct and intelligible. Some people with very sharp minds, such as a number of Catholic prelates and theologians, notably, the Pope, write with such consummate, mastery of language that they often write a devastating critique of a treatise of some sort, written by a colleague, which seems all the more brutal for being expressed without any rancour but, on the contrary, in the most gracious, urbane and anodyne-seeming terms. It's probably still too prolix and convoluted, but I did my best! But while I'm still in full obsequious mode - what a contrast to Mike's analysis, which expressed what I suspect we all felt, but wouldn't care to have tried to express. Axel

Mike1962 @ 15: Brilliant. Truth Will Set You Free

GP, I suggest THAT we are conscious is self evident. That we may err and even be stubborn in clinging thereto is notorious. That's why we need to look to plumbline self evident truths to help us correct. KF PS: Those taking cheap dismissive shots at Fox News and "Religion" should note the scapegoating and blanket dismissiveness implied are telltales. Extremes provoke mirror-image extremes but the point of balance is the true opposite to all extremes. Hence the need to deal with the straight vs spin challenge in our time. kairosfocus

But again, what can you expect from one of the main supporters of compatibilism? :) gpuccio

"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." Great statement! :) It is embarrassing, indeed! And having to state it anyway tells nothing good about our recent culture. gpuccio

Materialist: Consciousness is an illusion. Skeptic: An illusion of what? Materialist: (Crickets) A mirage is an illusion. A stage magician performs illusions. But a mirage is actually something that appears to be something that is actually real, namely water. When a stage magician appears to saw a woman in half, he doesn't really do it, but sawing a woman in half is a real possible thing. Calling consciousness an illusion has no analogy to this. Illusions are not primary facts. Consciousness is the primary fact of our existence, more fundamental than any product of intellectual reasoning. And so far nobody can provide any justifiable gap-free reason to think that mere matter in a certain configuration is the source of it, or how it possibly could be in principle. mike1962

If there's no consciousness who's reading his books? Hmm on second thought... es58

Dennett, like a lot of materialists, makes the baseless and irrational claim that consciousness is just an illusion. Hart explains, though he shouldn’t have to, why this is self-refuting:

[Y]ou cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it.

And beside that you cannot make the claim that something is an illusion unless you know, or you are conscious of, what reality is. Hart continues,

But this confusion is entirely typical of Dennett’s position. In this book, as he has done repeatedly in previous texts, he mistakes the question of the existence of subjective experience for the entirely irrelevant question of the objective accuracy of subjective perceptions, and whether we need to appeal to third-person observers to confirm our impressions. But, of course, all that matters for this discussion is that we have impressions at all.

john_a_designer

@11 rvb8 the repeating the lie thing is completely accurate. Hence the financial, and popular success of Fox. How else would a someone like Dawkins become so successful? To be fair, same can apply to religions... J-Mac

J-Mac, the repeating the lie thing is completely accurate. Hence the financial, and popular success of Fox. rvb8

"Dennet is easy to read, and his ideas logical." Nonsense can be quite easy to read. "Bentley Hart is monstously hard to grasp, and sadly I believe he wants it that way." I really like Hart's work and his books are very readeable, maybe you just.... don't like ...it kurx78

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”-is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. Or “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Or my favorite version: "If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself." J-Mac

Dennett is known for claiming that Darwinism is the single greatest idea anyone ever had. It made him a hit among talk show hosts, celebs, and science writers. Easy, agreeable nonsense, suited to their intellectual capacities and aspirations. Even the most outrageous idea will find its followers... Propaganda must be limited to a few simple themes and these must be represented again and again. Here, as in innumerable other cases, perseverance is the first and most important condition of success. J-Mac

Does the good philosopher also include in his studies of the Greek patricians, Democritus? You know? He who first thought of 'atoms', being physically but not geometrically invisible? Of course Democritus and his uncanny foreshadowing of modern science, is the philosopher most capable scientists admire. The works of the other great thinkers are far beyond me. But that is strange in itself, because when I read the ideas of Democritus, they are easily, and instantly grasped. When I read the other great dead thinkers, (upart from occasionally), I am left numb. I equate these old thinker's writings, to the writings of modern IDists, who remain opaque. We can then extend this negative comparison, to a more positive comparison with the modern writers of good science, who are completely accessible. I have a question for IDers: Do you believe that the more obscure, and complicated an explanation, or piece of writing is, the more respectability it gets? I can tell you the exact opposite is true. The fiendishly inept writings of modern sociologists, feminists, and snowflakes, bare uncanny resemblances to modern ID efforts at science. Dennet is easy to read, and his ideas logical. Bentley Hart is monstously hard to grasp, and sadly I believe he wants it that way. Afterall, if your language is indecipherable, who the hell can ever rebutt it? rvb8

My new fave:

Why presume that the scientific image is true while the manifest image is an illusion when, after all, the scientific image is a supposition of reason dependent upon decisions regarding methods of inquiry, whereas the manifest image — the world as it exists in the conscious mind — presents itself directly to us as an indubitable, inescapable, and eminently coherent reality in every single moment of our lives?

That question is unanswerable. Barry Arrington

My fave so far:

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.

Barry Arrington

Anyone else notice how much Daniel Dennett resembles Charles Darwin? EDTA

The main thing is, Hart is calling a spade a spade, to use a term that goes back - in that specific form - to ancient Greece. Why are supposedly smart people paying attention to Dennett's self-refuting rubbish? Do their jobs depend on it? But why? Of COURSE Dennett has the right to publish whatever a publisher will front. And the rest of us have the right to say, hogwash. News

Excellent post. Thank you. Axel @ 1: Say what? Truth Will Set You Free

Yes, indeed, Denyse, surely a consummate takedown. Hilariously acerbic - all the more so for being simply factual. Oddly enough, it reminds me of the most urbane and anodyne- seeming, yet clinically-incisive putdowns of each other by Catholic prelates, theologians etc. The thing is, you know there is not a word of explicit 'ad hominem' rancour - just a devastating choice of words stating the facts. Pope Francis is a master of it. Axel