951. Consciousness Comes from DNA

Comment #40239 by Dianelos Georgoudis on May 14, 2007 at 1:25 am

The article claims that "elephants have recently demonstrated they too are conscious and have minds". And how was that demonstrated? "We report a successful mirror self-awareness elephant test".

Really? So mirror self-awareness (i.e. the ability of a physical system to distinguish itself in a mirror) implies that it is conscious and has a mind? Why, if that is so then I can build an artificial consciousness with about 100 Euros and a few days of work.

(BTW, thanks for the recommendation, Duff. This looks like a good book.)

952. Those fanatical atheists

Comment #40226 by Dianelos Georgoudis on May 13, 2007 at 11:16 pm

sanjiv:

Most atheists ask for *objective* evidence and Gardner's article is a little vague on this point; that's why in my post I tried to explain that to ask for objective evidence is placing the bar too high as we all reasonable believe in propositions for which no objective evidence can be given. I agree with you that all claims require evidence (but not necessarily objective evidence).

As for the existence of other minds the issue is very complex. For example you mention the evidence of happily gurgling babies, but one famous atheist philosopher, Daniel Dennett, believes that children who haven't yet learned to talk are not conscious beings (see http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_10.html#dennett). The best book I know about the problem of consciousness is David Chalmer's "The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory".

As for evidence that God exist, in my previous post I argued that the fact that we are conscious beings is such evidence, and is in fact much stronger evidence than anything particular we can see, hear, taste or smell. I find that the fact of our consciousness is overwhelming evidence by itself. But it is not the only one. How beautiful nature is, how it feels when one loves, how it feels when one does a good deed: these are all pieces of evidence for the existence of God, and indeed heart-felt evidence. Other traditional arguments for the existence of God, such as the argument from morality and the cosmological argument, are still going strong. I am afraid that atheists tend to only read books and articles by other atheists and this tends to create an echo chamber in which mythological beliefs easily take root. For example most atheists believe that the non-existence of God is obvious to any educated person. Well, this just isn't so - on the contrary the non-existence of God is far from obvious to any person who studies a little about religion. The problem is rather that many ignorant people in the field of religion (including Dawkins) are publishing books on religion. A good book I can recommend is "God?: A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist" William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. Here two very knowledgeable people (both professors of philosophy) debate the existence of God, each one presenting his best arguments and responding to the other side's arguments. That's an eminently fair format, and if you read this book you will find out that in truth neither theism nor atheism have really conclusive arguments going for them, so the question of God's existence is far from settled.

To see how ignorant Dawkins is in the field of religion read the (admittedly slightly irreverent) review by Alvin Plantinga (who is one of the most important philosophers of religion today) of Dawkins's "God Delusion": http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/002/1.21.html

Incidentally I was delighted to read your "I'm not so smart (seriously)", because this proves that you are smarter than the vast majority of people. Wisdom is not contingent on one's knowledge but rather on one's freedom of thought.

953. Those fanatical atheists

Comment #40159 by Dianelos Georgoudis on May 13, 2007 at 12:35 pm

pewkatchoo:

You wrote: "Objective evidence, in other words evidence that can be observed, is the only real evidence."

So, what evidence that can be observed do you have for the golden rule?

Or maybe you meant that existential claims require observable evidence. If so then what evidence that can be observed do you have for the existence of the number pi?

You wrote: "All the rest is just semantics."

Semantics is very important. Those who don't care about semantics end up not knowing what they are talking about.

954. Those fanatical atheists

Comment #40069 by Dianelos Georgoudis on May 13, 2007 at 1:34 am

Gardner writes: "If you claim that something is true, I will examine the evidence which supports your claim; if you have no evidence, I will not accept that what you say is true and I will think you a foolish and gullible person for believing it so."

Depends on what one means by "evidence". If one means objective evidence of the kind that is independent of personal opinion and is relevant in the scientific method then we all believe in propositions for which we cannot offer objective evidence. For example virtually all people believe in the existence of other minds (i.e. that other people are really conscious subjects and not just automata behaving as if they were conscious) without basing this belief on some objective evidence. There are many examples like this. For example I believe that the golden rule is a pretty good ethical rule, but I cannot present any objective evidence for that. Since Kant it is well known that there is no objective evidence for the objective existence of the universe itself; nevertheless virtually all people believe in the objective existence of the universe (i.e. that the universe would exist even if no conscious subjects were around to observe it). Many physicists believe in the so-called many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, namely that the world consists of a huge and furiously growing number of similar universes – but they can't give you any objective evidence for their belief either. So to ask for objective evidence is clearly unreasonable. If that is the kind of evidence that Gardner is asking for then according to him virtually everybody (including himself) is foolish. After all he claims that all claims should be based on objective evidence but he can't offer any objective evidence for the truth of his claim.

If by "evidence" we allow any premise that one could use in a philosophical argument then there is plenty of evidence for the existence of God. The best evidence I know is the plain fact that we are conscious beings. It is a central fact that science cannot explain but the existence of God can. And it is the kind of incontrovertible and overwhelming evidence that stares us in the face every second of our waking lives, precisely the kind of evidence God would have given us for his/er existence.

Incidentally most atheists appear to be unaware that the question of what is real is not a scientific question but a philosophical one. Science is about modeling physical phenomena: strictly speaking the physicist does not care whether gravitational force fields (or the curvature of spacetime for that matter) really exist or are just a concept that only exists within a mathematical model. Reality is the subject matter of the philosophical field of metaphysics (or ontology).