151. Comment #178823 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 5:29 am

Comment #178813 by riandouglas

Ok, my straight out answer, just so you don't keep trotting out that tired old response - "I don't know". That isn't to say that the supernatural is a probability, as there is no evidence to support that assertion at present. EDIT: If anyone knows of some good papers, I'd be interested in reading it. Thanks

MPhil has pointed me at Mackie's "Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong", Churchland's "A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science" and Dennett's "Consciousness Explained".

Given he has pointed me at a whole stack of other stuff as well it may take me a while to get around to these, but they look to be a starter.

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152. Comment #178825 by scooternyc on May 12, 2008 at 5:32 am

"As I said before, it is you lot who are side-stepping my questions. No one has come up with anything like a credible account of how reason and morality can be shown to have a naturalistic origin"

Morals and morality are personal and subjective, they come from the individual. How that person creates them or the process by which they are derived from, is his or her business.

Where such things come from means nothing and adds nothing to anyone's claim about a god's existence.

What possible difference does it make where it comes from except that you apparently want to take ownership of all morality, thereby forcing others to believe as you believe.

Your question is useless; existential; personal and subjective.

If you get your personal subjective morals from one book rather than another, fine and dandy.

However, your civil liberties to impose that personal subjective moral philosophy onto others ends where another's begins.

So long as one individual is not infringing on the other's civil liberties to freedom, choice, pursuit of personal happiness at no cost to you, then you can believe anything you want in life.

For all we know, Santa might be the deity we never thought possible. Who cares! LOL!

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153. Comment #178830 by keith on May 12, 2008 at 5:44 am

Artful-Dodger,

No one has come up with anything like a credible account of how reason and morality can be shown to have a natualistic origin.

I have no idea if you are willing to accept the idea that evolution can explain why some people have blue eyes and others brown. Eye colour is, of course, something purely physical so if you are an enlightened believer, you might just be willing to concede evolution this much.

Possibly you only baulk at the idea that evolution can code for emotion or behaviour. However, if you look at maternal love, you'll agree that this love is not something physical like eye colour, but an emotion that leads to nurturing behaviour. Perhaps you'll want to argue that this love is not genetically but culturally transmitted. However, you will then have to explain why all other mammal mothers (plus other animals that nurture their young) demonstrate the same behaviour.

And if you are willing to entertain the idea that maternal love can be coded for genetically, why not other kinds of love, including moral behaviour and moral emotions? It's hardly a giant leap of imagination once you have found that genetically encoded love is possible. Try reading The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley for ideas about how and why this might have come about. There are various possibilities and each one of them is more likely and has more explanatory power than, 'God did it', which, you must admit, is a simple statement of opinion rather than an explanation.

Of course, you might want to argue that God put this maternal love, not only in humans, but in all his creatures. Even so, you'd then be admitting that there really is no great divide between humans and animals after all, and this surely is precisely where you wanted to end up in the first place.

In the worst case scenario, maybe you are not even prepared to accept that eye colour is genetically passed on rather than chosen by God, in which case I can only suggest that you start to read a little more widely.

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154. Comment #178832 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 5:50 am

Thanks epeeist. It was really an off the cuff response. I realise I have sitting near me "Origins of Virtue" which I assume has something to say on the matter too :-) MPhil has pointed me at Mackie's "Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong", Churchland's "A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science" and Dennett's "Consciousness Explained".

Given he has pointed me at a whole stack of other stuff as well it may take me a while to get around to these, but they look to be a starter.
After typing that quick answer, I realise I am half way through "consciousness explained" and have "The origins of virtue" sitting right nearby. I was really wondering what Arty's response was going to be, whether he was going to try the "you can't explain it, therefore Yahweh!" response.

Thanks again, though I think you added a book to my list :-)

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155. Comment #178834 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 6:01 am

(Sorry, this post is a little late)

Artful,

No one has come up with anything like a credible account of how reason and morality can be shown to have a natualistic origin

You've got it exactly backwards. There is no supernatural "explanation". You are simply postulating magic, which has no explanatory value, since it can describe no mechanism by which that which is to be explained was brought about, only that "there is something which is responsible for this - and I identify 'that-x-which-is-responsible-for-this" as "God".

That is no argument, that is just a postulation without any evidence, an untestable hypothesis, because it describes no mechanism.

Once you get it into your head that morality is a social phenomenon, and is not to be considered as linked to some metaphysical entities (metaphysical values) unless there is no naturalistic hypothesis at all available. The naturalistic hypothesis always has the better epistemic stability because it is more parsimonious than any supernaturalistic "explanation".

We know that brains exist, we know that interaction between organisms exists, we know that when the brain gets damaged in specific ways, the personality, body control and and mental faculty of the person cab be severely damaged, in very specific ways relating to the specific location of the damaged brain-area. We also know that neural networks are a reasonable model of the information processing in neural tissue, we can even simulate neural networks that can perform face-recognition, gender allocation and do various, sometimes quite astounding things.
We know a lot about the brain and the mind, it's still the youngest new hard science there is, but the cognitive neurosciences have made astounding discoveries over the years. We can even form a coherent account of the mind in purely naturalistic terms - See the work of Paul and Patricia Churchland, or Daniel Dennett.
Morality is first and foremost a phenomenon of behaviour and judgement - a social phenomenon. We know that behaviour and judgement can be trained, affected, modelled through conditioning. Since the invention of the Digital Computer, (even since the invention of the pocket calculator) we know that purely physical machines, purely physical processes can perform complex operations on information - which is exactly what rationality is. This leads to questions about meaning, and intentionality and qualia etc - and these are all given a naturalistic explanation (however tentative) in turn.
The theistic position can do no such explanatory work - it simply postulates the same thing for everything "god did it (somehow)". No description of the exact "how", no reproducible experiments, no possible falsification... sorry, that means no explanatory value.

We know that there are multiple different moral codes. One might even say there are as many as there are conscious human beings. We know that morality is both a matter of social convention and social cohesion/survival. We know that behaviour is something which is inextricably linked to the working of the brain... if we change the brain in significant ways (frontal lobotomy, inducing psychoactive drugs), then the behaviour, perception, consciousness and faculty for certain judgements can be seriously affected. We are already beginning to 'read' people's minds from observing our brains:

People can control mouse-movements through a brain-computer interface (and even an extremely crude one, an EEG), we can do much more, we can see a perfect corroboration between certain kinds of thoughts, feelings, language, imagination and very spe4cific brain-activity.

We know all these things - about the supernatural, we can per definition know nothing since there is no rational way to decide between the actually infinite set of possible supernaturalistic hypotheses that could be said to be the causal origin of the phenomenon we are trying to eplain.

It has no value and is in no way parsimonious.
The neural-network theory is a very powerful one indeed. Indeed (modern) functionalism is a very powerful theory, especially as A.I. advances, as computers can do rational tasks better and better.

And not only that, but even in a completely materialistic world, morality is still possible. Utilitarianism or Contractualism for example. You may not like these theories, but they are certainly first order moral theories, including their accounts of moral justification etc. So there is a naturalistic account of morality both in the descriptive and normative sense and there are very good theories with a normative account of rationality - and evidence in Computers that can solve rational tasks, like logical deduction and calculation, even playing strategy-games and learn.

Theism on the other hand has no answers at all, no explanatory value - just a "god did it (somehow)".

If you are gonna be infantile, Artful, be my guest. But don't expect me to just let your bold declarations and miserable deductions stand.

-Michael

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156. Comment #178837 by Peacebeuponme on May 12, 2008 at 6:11 am

Scooternyc

Morals and morality are personal and subjective, they come from the individual.

However, your civil liberties to impose that personal subjective moral philosophy onto others ends where another's begins.

So long as one individual is not infringing on the other's civil liberties to freedom, choice, pursuit of personal happiness at no cost to you, then you can believe anything you want in life.

I see a slight inconsistency between the first two statements and the third, but please correct me.

I would say morals are subjective, but also collective. You understand the need for collective agreement on the rules we should all live by (stops murders and theives getting away with it), as the third quoted comment shows. This does not dovetail with the second quoted comment where we should not allow our morals to be imposed on others.

(I'm not antagonising here, I'm genuinely interested).

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157. Comment #178841 by keith on May 12, 2008 at 6:26 am

Evening, Peace,

I see a slight inconsistency between the first two statements and the second, but please correct me.

I suspect if you look at that sentence long enough you'll be able to correct it yourself.

Other Comments by keith

158. Comment #178847 by Artful_Dodger on May 12, 2008 at 6:31 am

OK I'll take some time out and I'll read Churchland, Mackie and Dennett. In the meantime let me recommend this book to you:

"CS Lewis's Dangerous Idea" by Victor Reppert

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159. Comment #178851 by Peacebeuponme on May 12, 2008 at 6:35 am

Hi Keith - edited. Cheers!

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160. Comment #178856 by irate_atheist on May 12, 2008 at 6:43 am

158. Comment #178847 by Artful_Dodger -

"CS Lewis's Dangerous Idea" by Victor Reppert

A book containing a set of philosophical musings. Not a shred of evidence.

Doesn't stack up very well against 3000 years plus of scientific enquiry, does it?

Other Comments by irate_atheist

161. Comment #178858 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 6:55 am

Artful_Dodger: "CS Lewis's Dangerous Idea" by Victor Reppert

From http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/reppert.html

"Reppert argues that the Problem of Reason is for naturalists comparable to the Problem of Evil for Theists (128). I agree in one respect: there are facts that need explaining here, and if naturalism has difficulty explaining them, then that difficulty is comparable in kind to the difficulty Theism has in explaining Evil. But I do not believe the difficulty is remotely the same in degree.

First, Naturalism's solutions to the problems Reppert proposes are all heavily backed by empirical findings from the sciences. Theism has absolutely no empirical evidence backing its solutions to the Problem of Evilâ€"they are all ad hoc, because God isn't around for us to ask him questions or observe his behavior."

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162. Comment #178862 by MaxD on May 12, 2008 at 6:59 am

Artful Dodger,
There doesn't need to be a referee, only a series of contingent choices, if x then y, or b or what ever. You will note that human interactions while not predictable in fine details is predictable in large scale trends. People are nicer to family and nicer and more generous the more closely related they are. People tend to be nicer to members of communities than to members outside that community especially if those community members are suitably placed to return favors.

Remarried parents tend to treat their biological kids better than they treat there step children, any new children produced by the new couple will be treated better by the mother than any of her biological progeny from the previous marriage or relationship. That is a mother will treat the kid from her new husband better than the kid from the old pairing. (Better can simply mean, more diligent care, more doctor visits, more doting, more toys, etc)

This all falls in line with standard Darwinian reasoning and logic. How is any of it predicted by desert theology?

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163. Comment #178864 by Artful_Dodger on May 12, 2008 at 7:02 am

Irate, naturally there is physical evidence only for physical phenomena. If you require of texts arguing in favour of dualism that they produce physical evidence for non-physical properties then, needless to say, you will not find a shred of such evidence, and if you did it would refute the thesis that it is put forward as supporting. We are talking about inference to the best explanation. And, from that point of view, the position defended by CS Lewis, as explained by Reppert, is perfectly reasonable.

1. No belief is justified if it can be fully explained as the result of nonrational causes.

2. If naturalism is true then all beliefs can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes.

3. Therefore, if naturalism is true no belief is rationally inferred.

4. If any thesis entails the conclusion that no belief is rationally inferred, thn it should be rejected and its denial accepted.

5. Therefore materialism should be rejected and its denial accepted.

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164. Comment #178867 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 7:06 am

Artful, how does something non-physical/immaterial interact with the physical/material? Wouldn't such interaction be subject to scientific inquiry? Why has no such interaction been observed?
If there is no interaction, then how do we know about it (EDIT: the non-physical)? Can't we simply ignore it?

Other Comments by riandouglas

165. Comment #178868 by Mitchell Gilks on May 12, 2008 at 7:08 am

As I noted on an earlier page, no explanation will be "satisfactory" to you if you consider the only satisfactory answer to be "god did it".

You can call all the answers, explanations, and well supported theories of the brain and moral foundations insufficient, unsatisfactory, and not credible all you like, but the truth of the matter is that you simply don't like those answers. You would rather it be something else, God sits well in your gut, while natural explanations do not. So you base your decision on what you would prefer to be the case.

In which case you are immune to rational discourse, and the best way to sway you is to make you feel better about a natural answer emotionally. Something I don't think many people on here are up to.

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166. Comment #178870 by irate_atheist on May 12, 2008 at 7:13 am

163. Comment #178864 by Artful_Dodger -

i) Define 'nonrational'.

2) Define 'physical phenomena'.
(Or, if you prefer, describe 'non-physical phenomena')

3) Precisely explain why any of your statements 1-5 are not assertions with no evidence to back them up.

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167. Comment #178871 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 7:15 am

Mitchell Gilks: In which case you are immune to rational discourse, and the best way to sway you is to make you feel better about a natural answer emotionally. Something I don't think many people on here are up to.

Personally, I wouldn't know where to begin. How do you replace the warm and fuzzies of Baby Jesus^TM with the warm and fuzzies of scientific explanations?

Other Comments by riandouglas

168. Comment #178873 by Mitchell Gilks on May 12, 2008 at 7:17 am

Why posit such a thing without evidence? Why even bother to talk about something that can never be varified or falsified? What's the point? What is the difference between that and sheer imagination? Brain candy? Whimsical speculation not bound by any established parameters? What good is it?

What is your criteria for "best explanation"? What do you consider an explanation?

Other Comments by Mitchell Gilks

169. Comment #178878 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 7:29 am

Artful,

the argument from rationality is complete bogus... Philosophy has worked on this for a long time - theism is no explanation anyway. Nor is dualism, since it cannot describe mechanisms of how the mind is to direct the brain, and how that would not contradict the conservation of energy and momentum etc.

You simply define justification and rationality in a way that it couldn't be physical - but that means it also couldn't be implemented in the physical world via our brains. But we know for certain that the brain is inexctricably linked with all mentality.

Substance dualism is know to be a completely indefensible position for more than 100 years.
The Philosophical theories and the scientific knowledge has advanced so far that we have found a way in which all the phenomena we observe (rational or moral behaviour for example) are explainable as functions of physical, biological systems of a certain neurofunctional complexity.

But even if -contrafactually- this wasn't the case, any position postulating magic is worthless from the beginning, because postulating magic has no explanatory value at all.

Theistic philosophy is still on the level of pre-philosophical ideas - their myths... and they try to defend it with the tools of 21st century philosophy - It's quite hilarious what Lewis, Plantinga, Swinburne etc dream up - and how they contradict each other. How blatantly ridiculous some ad hoc hypothesis are (Natural evils are cause by the free will of fallen angels - Plantinga), and what beautiful and elaborate constructions some arguments are which are still ultimately just wrong (Plantinga Ontological argument, Swinburne's Bayesian argument).

Really - you have not a leg to stand on here.
Reality has outgrown your position about 2600 years ago, when mankind first used reason to provide an explanation of phenomena, not myth - simply making up stories about it.

Time you grew up as well.

Other Comments by MPhil

170. Comment #178879 by The Reverend Dark on May 12, 2008 at 7:29 am

Hey Artful.

Here, eat this laughing boy.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/reppert.html

Cheers,
The Reverend Shayne Dark

Other Comments by The Reverend Dark

171. Comment #178881 by Mitchell Gilks on May 12, 2008 at 7:33 am

This is quite a work of sophistry? Where did you get it?

1. No belief is justified if it can be fully explained as the result of nonrational causes.

I don't know what this is suppose to mean. A brains operation being controlled by chemicals and what not is nonrational, but a brain is rational (somewhat anyway). It's a build up, you can't reduce down, and then jump the middle on your way back up.

2. If naturalism is true then all beliefs can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes.

On some levels yes, on other levels no. This is denying rationality.

3. Therefore, if naturalism is true no belief is rationally inferred.

You've denied rationality, the word doesn't exist or applies to anything. This is clearly not true, rationality is something we do, it exists, that thing we do when we infer stuff we call rationality. This is question begging

4. If any thesis entails the conclusion that no belief is rationally inferred, thn it should be rejected and its denial accepted.

Well you forget that not if "naturalism" is true, then this belief isn't rationally infered either, and you have no more reason to accept it than you do to not accept it. This premise clearly assumes that naturalism is false. This is question begging as well.

5. Therefore materialism should be rejected and its denial accepted.

Clearly question begging, and a warped kind of reductionism that is harder to spot.

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172. Comment #178882 by Artful_Dodger on May 12, 2008 at 7:33 am

Artful, how does something non-physical/immaterial [sic] interact with the physical/material? Wouldn't such interaction be subject to scientific inquiry? Why has no such interaction been observed?

This is a very good question riandouglas. This is one of the areas that I feel I need to explore a bit more. There are different views within the Christian community. Suffice it to say that yes, the interaction will be open to scientific enquiry. Neuroimaging can tell neuroscientists what is going on in a person's brain when they are engaged in any "soulish" activity: listening to music, enjoying a conversation, reasoning, making a moral choice, having a spritual experience and so forth. Our body and the "self" that inhabits it are fully and completely integrated. But that does not mean that what the person is experiencing is nothing but the pattern of electical discharges that show up on the neuroimage. The neurological changes that occur are open to scientific scrutiny, but not the "meaning" of the experience in the consciousness of the individual. If our ideas and reasonings were fully explicable in terms of these physiological phenomena, then Lewis' point was precisely that the content of our beliefs would be invalidated.

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173. Comment #178885 by Peacebeuponme on May 12, 2008 at 7:38 am

Neuroimaging can tell neuroscientists what is going on in a person's brain when they are engaged in any "soulish" activity

Oh my god, that just actually got written!

'Hey what are you up to?'
'I'm just listening to some music.'
'Omigod, you're so soulish.'

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174. Comment #178886 by Mitchell Gilks on May 12, 2008 at 7:39 am

You're romanticizing consciousness, morality, and rationality. You are superimposing layers on them that are not required, not evident, and only serve to make you feel special.

There is nothing missing from the puzzle, you are just claiming there is an trying to jam your favorite piece into the board.

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175. Comment #178887 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 7:40 am

Artful, I appreciate the response.
You didn't propose any mechanism, or evidence supporting your position, so I'll assume you don't have any, and dismiss it (EDIT: your position that is, not the evidence or mechanism, which you don't have). That's not to say there isn't valulable work to be done in investigating the mind. Just that you've not justified your position. Edit: that position being that the supernatural is required.

You might want to engage someone who is a little more sophisticated than myself, such as MPhil. Then again, as he and others have already ruined your argument, you'll probably be better off continuing to ignore them. Cheers! :-)

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176. Comment #178888 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 7:45 am

Neuroimaging can tell neuroscientists what is going on in a person's brain when they are engaged in any "soulish" activity

See, that's the mistake. First you postulate a completely non-physical mind, then we find correlations between reported and expressed mental activity and brain-states - and our evidence gets larger and stronger... you claim "Well, there is just some sort of mirroring - influence downwards from the mind to the brain."

That is ridiculous. It is an unnecessary hypothesis, not needed for the explanation, the least parsimonious hypothesis. And it has no explanatory value - in fact it just gets you even deeper in trouble with what we know about the world, namely the causal closure of spacetime.

See my posts above - we are developing theories (scientific and philosophical) that fit the data, while you have a ridiculous hypothesis that you attempt (in vain) to make compatible with our growing knowledge of the world (and the brain, specifically), by means of ad hoc hypothesis and unwarranted definitions of the phenomena that already presuppose your position.

We can see through this. It is shot down - no explanatory value.

Other Comments by MPhil

177. Comment #178889 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on May 12, 2008 at 7:48 am

http://the-end.com/2008GodsFinalWitness/

2008 - God's Final Witness

From now until the latter part of 2008, many prophecies are going to begin to be fulfilled, especially the Seven Thunders of the Book of Revelation, which the apostle John saw but was restricted from recording. Those thunders are revealed in this book, as well as detailed accounts of the final three and one-half years of man's self-rule on earth, which are recorded in the account of the Seventh Seal of Revelation.

Some of these prophecies concern the demise of the United States over the next year, which will be followed by man's final world war. This last war will be the result of clashing religions and the governments they sway. Billions will die! This time will far exceed even the very worst times in all human history.

As these events unfold, the world will increasingly become aware of the authenticity of the words in this book and realize that Ronald Weinland has been sent by God as His end-time prophet.

This book is primarily directed to the people of the three major religions of the world (Islam, Judaism and Christianity), whose roots are in the God of Abraham. Ronald Weinland has been sent to all three.

Other Comments by ThoughtsonCommonToad

178. Comment #178891 by Artful_Dodger on May 12, 2008 at 7:49 am

Riandouglas, I don't htink they have ruined my argument - far from it. Substance dualism is far from having been written off. It is the position held by many numerous philosophers. OK, from a monistic, physicalist point of view it is not tenable. But that is hardly surprising, is it?

Other Comments by Artful_Dodger

179. Comment #178892 by irate_atheist on May 12, 2008 at 7:51 am

172. Comment #178882 by Artful_Dodger -

1. Define 'soulish' activity.

2. Define 'unsoulish' activity.

3. Provide evidence to uphold your assertions as to what activity fits into which category.

4. Provide evidence for a 'soul'.

Thank you.

Other Comments by irate_atheist

180. Comment #178893 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 7:53 am

Artful,

no, substance dualism has an extremely low prevalence in contemporary philosophy... almost no philosopher subscribes to it.

Don't make such bold claims - I am in the field of academic philosophy - I know for a fact almost no one subscribes to substance dualism. Most subscribe either to a kind of property dualism without making ontological commitments or to strong or weak reductionism - or to non-reductive materialism.

Your claim is simply wrong.

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181. Comment #178894 by Peacebeuponme on May 12, 2008 at 7:54 am

Sorry, the pedant in me has come out

many numerous philosophers.

Tautology. Unless you are talking about those specific philosophers who enjoy the same skils as multi-man from the X-men. Or perhaps you meant those specific philosophers who are "numerate".

Other Comments by Peacebeuponme

182. Comment #178895 by keith on May 12, 2008 at 7:55 am

Artful,

riandouglas: Artful, how does something non-physical/immaterial [sic] interact with the physical/material? Wouldn't such interaction be subject to scientific inquiry? Why has no such interaction been observed?

Artful: This is a very good question riandouglas. This is one of the areas that I feel I need to explore a bit more.

Hmm, 'need to explore'. Does it need to be explored in the same way that the Shroud of Turin needs to be explored? That is, since nobody has come up with the desired results, just evidence to the contrary, it will be considered a work forever in progress rather than a lost cause?

Oh, the twisting and turning!

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183. Comment #178897 by Mitchell Gilks on May 12, 2008 at 7:56 am

It is the position held by many numerous philosophers,

Many numerous philosophers eh? Wow, that many people hold that position, and believe it? Oh then it must be well supported, and have good reasons to accept it is true...on wait...really? Oh right, that is completely fallacious reasoning. I forgot.

Other Comments by Mitchell Gilks

184. Comment #178899 by irate_atheist on May 12, 2008 at 8:01 am

183. Comment #178897 by Mitchell Gilks -

Or people hold that position, and believe it? Oh then it must be well supported, and have good reasons to accept it is true...

But of course! The same applies to the existence of the Hindu gods, that Mohammed used a flying horse and that Princess Diana was murdered by Prince Philip.

Ah, now hang on. Didn't I hear a lawyer after that inquest say, 'Belief is not evidence'?

Other Comments by irate_atheist

185. Comment #178900 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 8:02 am

Keith: That is, since nobody has come up with the desired correct results, in fact, only evidence that points the other way spurious denials of the truth, it will be considered a work forever in progress rather than a lost cause the truth?

There Keith, I think that is a little more representative :-)

Keith: Oh, the twisting and turning!

It is such fun to watch :-)

Other Comments by riandouglas

186. Comment #178901 by Artful_Dodger on May 12, 2008 at 8:03 am

many numerous philosophers.

Tautology.

Sorry, just a typo. I was going to write many, then changed it but didn't get rid of the "many"

By the way, typos seem to me to put paid to the brain/mind identification. A thought is not one and the same thing as the physical / material represetation of it. Hence, when we make spelling mistakes or typos the "word" or "thought" that we intended may be different from its actual, black and white (or whatever) representation of it. The message is independent of the medium. Do you see my point?

Other Comments by Artful_Dodger

187. Comment #178906 by Quetzalcoatl on May 12, 2008 at 8:07 am

A thought is not one and the same thing as the physical / material represetation of it.

Just repeating the assertion doesn't mean others will accept it.

Hence, when we make spelling mistakes or typos the "word" or "thought" that we intended may be different from its actual, black and white (or whatever) representation of it. The message is independent of the medium. Do you see my point?

Nope, that's to do with people not being able to spell. That's more to do with language, not the mind/brain "question".

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188. Comment #178908 by MPhil on May 12, 2008 at 8:10 am

By the way, typos seem to me to put paid to the brain/mind identification. A thought is not one and the same thing as the physical / material represetation of it. Hence, when we make spelling mistakes or typos the "word" or "thought" that we intended may be different from its actual, black and white (or whatever) representation of it. The message is independent of the medium. Do you see my point?

The mind/brain question has a lot to do with language and "what is meaning", what is "intentionality" - but you're presenting a false dichotomy - completely fallacious reasoning.
The message is not completely independent of the medium, for it is the medium's functional complexity that transport the information that is interpreted by the subject. No one ever said the thought is identical to the ink-dots, or pixels, but that the thought is identical to activity in the neural network.

Your argument fails miserably. Information is an objective term, used in physics. It has something to do with order, with complexity.

Computers process information - pocket calculators really calculate - they perform logical operations on signals - ie information processing. You might as well say that calculators do not calculate, or that they must have a non-physical mind.

I have dealt with this so many times that it is really becoming tiring.

All we need is the fact of sociality, arbitrary symbols and information/representation - and that is all there in the natural world. Just like the states of a neural network processing a certain picture are about that certain picture because they process information ABOUT IT, certain brain-states are about other things because they are the processing of information about that thing.

Other Comments by MPhil

189. Comment #178909 by keith on May 12, 2008 at 8:10 am

Artful,

By the way, typos seem to me to put paid to the brain/mind identification. A thought is not one and the same thing as the physical / material represetation of it. Hence, when we make spelling mistakes or typos the "word" or "thought" that we intended may be different from its actual, black and white (or whatever) representation of it. The message is independent of the medium. Do you see my point?

Yes. You made a mistake. All you are saying is that tripping down stairs is not the same thing as thinking about going down them successfully.

I think you'll have to concede that this is not the most profound thought you've ever given utterance to. Or perhaps it is?

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190. Comment #178910 by Mitchell Gilks on May 12, 2008 at 8:10 am

No, we make mistakes because our brains are far from perfect. I'm dyslexic, so I make a great deal of mistakes. This is a result of the language areas of the brain not have as well established connections as other parts of my brain. I'm pretty good at math, and I think I grasp logic alright though, so I have better connections in those parts of the brain.

Our brains are often a jumbled mess. Retreiving only particial memories, and then storing them in a different place than last time. It's because of how connections in the brain form during developement. It's what you'd expect from a blindly evolved system.

There are some people that have crossed connections. Like their number recognition center crossed with their colour recognition center. So that seeing certain numbers also makes them see certain colours.

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191. Comment #178911 by The Reverend Dark on May 12, 2008 at 8:15 am

Artful, you don't have a point.

You have an assertion.
An assertion that cannot be logically sustained.
An assertion that you can offer no evidence of; or provide a testing mechanism of any kind.

If you had a point, such as it is, it is on a crayon, you are colouring outside the lines, and the ducky is not supposed to be plaid.

Cheers,
The Reverend Shayne Dark

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192. Comment #178912 by Darwin's badger on May 12, 2008 at 8:16 am

You'll ignore any evidence that contradicts your belief, so I'll bring the conversation down to your level, AD, and say that you're a warped, obfuscating, willfully mendacious wanker. I'll even supply evidence if necessary.

http://richarddawkins.net/userComments,page1,30762

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193. Comment #178914 by irate_atheist on May 12, 2008 at 8:17 am

189. Comment #178909 by keith -

At last!!!!! A new theistic argument!!!!

We will call it 'The argument from typographical errors.'

Or 'argumentum ad mistakum'.

What a prat.

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194. Comment #178916 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 8:20 am

"I make mistakes, therefore god!"
brilliant :-)

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195. Comment #178917 by Quetzalcoatl on May 12, 2008 at 8:20 am

Irate_atheist-

I think I see Artful's argument. It's quite good.

1) Humans make mistakes.
2) Therefore humans are imperfect.
3) The Bible says that humans are imperfect.
4) Therefore the Bible is correct.
5) Therefore God exists.

It's simple, really, for the appropriate definition of simple.

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196. Comment #178920 by Mitchell Gilks on May 12, 2008 at 8:22 am

Well I think that it is equally valid. Theists are always pointing at random things and claiming they are evidence of God. "You, that tree proves god" "babies being born proves god" "bananas prove god" "rationality proves god" "morality proves god" "typos prove god"

I'm beginning to wonder what doesn't prove god. Maybe they should start with that, it would surely be a shorter list.

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197. Comment #178921 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 8:23 am

Darwin's Badger: You'll ignore any evidence that contradicts your belief, so I'll bring the conversation down to your level, AD, and say that you're a warped, obfuscating, willfully mendacious wanker. I'll even supply evidence if necessary.

I find your argument compelling.
While it would take a small amount of evidence to the contrary to falsify you statement, I doubt that evidence will ever exist :-)

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198. Comment #178922 by The Reverend Dark on May 12, 2008 at 8:24 am

Oh this is not good.

One slip of the keyboard and christians will be worshipping dog.

Then again watching an entire congregation fall off the pews while they attempt make the sign of the cross while licking their genitals and then greeting one another with a deep-nose fundament sniffing does have high entertainment value.

If only we could stop them drinking out the baptismal pool.

Cheers,
Shayne

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199. Comment #178923 by Mitchell Gilks on May 12, 2008 at 8:25 am

Oh yes, I forgot my absolutely favorite proof of god "this orange isn't my dogs grandfather, thus god exists." Yes, it's so obvious now.

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200. Comment #178924 by Tyler Durden on May 12, 2008 at 8:25 am

Artful,

I understand you have multiple questions to respond to first, but when you get a chance can you explain this twaddle:

Neuroimaging can tell neuroscientists what is going on in a person's brain when they are engaged in any "soulish" activity: listening to music, enjoying a conversation, reasoning, making a moral choice, having a spritual experience and so forth.

Is this your opinion or do you have actual evidence for this assertion?

Having just completed my final year exam in Neurophysiology, and specifically studying Methods of Investigation of the Brain, this is fresh in my mind, yet I don't seem to recall Carlson, Passer & Smith, or Eysneck & Keane (or even my lecturer) mentioning MRI, fMRI, CAT, MEG or PET scans being able to pick up "a spritual experience" in the human brain.

Physiological, emotional, neural activity, yes... but a "spiritual experience"???

Ask any neurophysiologist for his definition of "soulish" activity and he'll probably laugh in your face, before politely asking you to leave!

What have you been smoking?

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