Much of what happens on a blog is in the form of a debate. The blogger asserts a premise/conclusion and the commenters take sides. The result seems like a debate, but is uncontrolled and is frequently unmanageable, deteriorating into opinionated jabbing and posturing. True debating has rules, is somewhat managed, and even then frequently becomes opinionated jabbing and posturing.
The context of a debate is not at all analytical. Analysis is the objective, dispassionate probing of axioms, premises, evidence and the logic leading to conclusions. Debate is the scoring of points in order to win a competition; the points need not be based on rationality and can be gained by forcing the opposition into a corner or an infinite loop or some tactic to make him appear foolish, unsure, lost or some other characteristic of a losing arguer. This is very easily done with simple argumentation devices such as outright denial of definitional issues, pursuit of fallacies as valid logic, attacking valid logic as fallacious, persistently veering off topic, attacking the opposition as a person or attacking his credentials, etc. It is easier to jam up a debate than it is to produce a legitimate rejoinder.
Formal debates start with a premise and conclusion, by a side that starts with the burden of proof. The burden of proof requires that the axioms, premises, evidence be sound, and the conclusion follows logically from them.
The opposition has the burden of rejoinder, which is the requirement that the opposition assert any non-valid axioms, premises, and evidence, with valid axioms, premises and evidence found in the original proposition; or assert the logical fallacy behind the reasoning of the original assertion. And then the opposition has the burden of proof for the presentation of the opposing proposition, including assertion of valid axioms, premises, and evidence, along with a logically valid conclusion.
Then the original side becomes the opposition, with the burden of rejoinder, as shown above.
Formal debates even have rules, such as that non-monotonic or binary reasoning is or is not acceptable, or that certain thresholds of probability equate to non-acceptable or acceptable ( e.g.: <00.0001% is not an acceptable probability for accepting a premise, >99.999% probability is acceptable; in between is subject to further scrutiny).
What really happens in the blogosphere is rarely like the formal process. The drive to win is frequently fed by an attachment to an agenda that is not the desire to reveal truth. When an agenda is threatened, the proponent starts to use tactics rather than logic, and to insist that these tactics are not fallacies, they are in fact logic. And it is difficult-to-impossible to ascertain the opposition’s true set of presuppositions, and the opposition might even deny that they have them.
The result is a chaotic mess that profits neither side, much less the observers.
It is understandable that a proponent of an idea that is essential to his worldview would become stressed to the point of constant fallacious assertions in order to protect that worldview. After all, to lose such an argument threatens his entire view of the world and of himself. And debating is win/lose argumentation.
This is the reason that I sometimes cease an argument. When an argument becomes non-rational, in the sense that the niceties of formal arguments are rejected in favor of win/lose tactics, there is no cause to continue because there is no chance of arriving at a rational, valid conclusion in that atmosphere.
I have dedicated this blog to analysis, and I welcome those who question any of these analyses and wish to arrive at valid conclusions. These comments are valuable and highly desirable.
But when a win/lose argument is found unable to be redirected into an analytical channel, I will assert my right to stop it, and move on. This is not about win/lose, it is about discovering the extent of reality and the possible existence of validity and truth despite a culture that denies it.
And I do encourage everyone to engage with me in this analytic pursuit.
33 comments:
OK.
Your argument that atheism is illogical is flawed.
Your argument relies on the premise that a scientific worldview requires that the laws of logic can be demonstrated empirically.
A scientific worldview does not in fact require this, because a scientific worldview is merely based on the pragmatic use of what works in reality, rather than a statement about universal truths.
I look forward to your analytical response!
Cheers.
Matt said,
"Your argument relies on the premise that a scientific worldview requires that the laws of logic can be demonstrated empirically."
I have never said such a thing. What I maintain is that Philosophical Materialism is a false extension of empiricism; that Philosophical Materialism makes the claim that no reality exists beyond the material; that Philosophical Materialism cannot empirically validate its claim; and that Philosophical Materialism is not science, not based in science, and is in fact, based on a faith statement, not a statement of empirical fact.
Therefore, Philosophical Materialism is false, it is a religious faith - a blind faith in fact- and it is not a scientific worldview.
Science does not claim to know anything about any entity which it cannot physically measure, experimentally, replicably, and with capability of falsification. Empirical science does not imply Philosophical Materialism because empirical science artificially and voluntarily limits the scope of its investigations; it does not declare any limits on reality, as does Philosophical Materialism.
Empirical science is based on axioms which it cannot prove, using empirical techniques. But these axioms are seen to be valid intuitively, and are not falsified by any empirical experiments.
An example is the cause and effect. It is not possible to materially prove that cause and effect will always apply; but without provable singularities (miracles) there are no known failures of this axiom. So it is useful to empiricism, and in fact empiricism trusts the validity of it, implicitly, as it also does other First Principles.
All this has no bearing on the inability of Philosophical Materialism, which claims faith in empiricism, to provide empirical proof of its claim that there is no reality beyond the material.
I'm not sure this entirely addresses your question. If you are referring to a specific statement that I made somewhere, point me to it, and we can discuss it.
Sorry, when I said "scientific worldview" in my above comment, I meant philosophical materialism.
Apart from that minor correction, my original comment still stands.
You haven't explained *why* the validity of empirical science needs to be proven empirically. You've merely asserted it.
Matt said,
"You haven't explained *why* the validity of empirical science needs to be proven empirically. You've merely asserted it."
No, I have not asserted that; Please read on.
Philosophical Materialism requires material (empirical, experimental, replicable, falisifiable) proof of that which it claims is acceptable to believe. It uses this principle as a weapon against religion. Yet it has the same problem for its own belief, that there "is no reality beyond the matrial reality" and that there "is no deity".
It is not the validity of empirical science that needs to be proven empirically, for the reasons I stated above and repeat here: empirical science voluntarily chooses to limit its pursuit to material entities which can be measured objectively. This is conditional materialism, not Philosophical Materialism.
Philosophical Materialism takes the next step beyond and outside of empirical science (conditional materialism) and makes the assertion that there is no reality that cannot be measured or objectively (materially) detected. This assertion is not within the constraints accepted by empirical science, yet proponents claim empirical science as the basis for the claim.
The only way I can be more clear would be this:
1)Given that A is not part of B;
2)If A claims its basis is B,
3)Then A is false.
(Where A = Philosophical Materialism, and B = Empirical Science).
Or maybe this:
empirical science needs NO empirical validation - its constraints are voluntary, not dogmatic;
Philosophical Materialism requires empirical validation, because it dogmatically requires empirical validation of everything else.
Requiring universal empirical validation must of necessity include itself, being a part of the universe that it claims to be solely and purely material.
I'll repeat my statement in the comment above, which I think you did not apprehend:
"Therefore, Philosophical Materialism is false, it is a religious faith - a blind faith in fact- and it is not a scientific worldview.
Science does not claim to know anything about any entity which it cannot physically measure, experimentally, replicably, and with capability of falsification. Empirical science does not imply Philosophical Materialism because empirical science artificially and voluntarily limits the scope of its investigations; it does not declare any limits on reality, as does Philosophical Materialism."
Science is not the issue; Philosophical Materialism is the issue.
Actually, if I read your concern in a different light, you seem to think that if I hold Philosophical Materialism to its standards, that I should also hold empirical science to the standards of Philosophical Materialism also.
Obviously, the standards of Philosophical Materialism (which are not my standards) will be destructive to empirical science, since empirical science cannot prove its own validity empirically. This is not my claim, it is a natural outcome of the claims of Philosophical Materialism. Since this requirement of Philosophical Materialism generates a self-referencing internal contradiction (paradox) then either Philosophical Materialism is false, or the concept of paradoxes being false - is false.
It is true that some folks choose to deny that paradoxes are false. Unfortunately for them, that places them squarely in the realm of anti-rationality.
If this still doesn't suffice, I will try again.
OK. I thought your argument was directed at conditional materialism.
Still, this is an interesting point so let's run with it. You said:
"Philosophical Materialism takes the next step beyond and outside of empirical science (conditional materialism) and makes the assertion that there is no reality that cannot be measured or objectively (materially) detected."
I'll concede that point, but how is this an interesting or useful argument, beyond the merely academic?
If something cannot be materially detected, then isn't its existence indistinguishable from non-existence?
Stan-
Excuse me butting in here --
1) Lucretius, d'Holbach, and Buechner would agree with you on this-
the assumptions of materialism reach beyond empirical science.
2) One reason that philosophic materialism has had a hold on the sciences was summed up by Max Born in his Nobel Prize speech-
"The facts known up to the end of the 19th century seemed to indicate that the world was a perfect mechanism, an automaton, so that if its configuration were known at a given instant its future behaviour could be predicted with certainty. This deterministic view was still generally accepted when I was young."
If all actions are completely determined by the physical facts, then there is no need to include anything other than physical facts in ones description of reality.
The problem for the materialist is summed up rather nicely by Born in the same speech…
"But then new facts were discovered, in the realm of atoms as well as in the stellar universe, facts which did not fit in the mechanistic frame."
While these discoveries did not prove the existence of an immaterial being, they did change the nature of physics to allow the possibility that such a being could influence physical reality.
I say this- historically it was well known and acknowledged that philosophic materialism went beyond the sciences and that physics (as it is currently formulated) does not necessarily support philosophic materialism. (see Bell's theorem regarding the condition of 'realism' for example)
Hi Sonic,
Unless I've misunderstood Stan's point, I don't think he's talking about phenomena (even supernatural phenomena) that influence the material world.
Such phenomena, having a material effect, are still subject to scientific enquiry.
Is that correct, Stan?
Sonic, Hello; it's not possible to interrupt a public conversation, at least in my view - thanks for your quote from Born.
I think that extending causation of material phenomena to a non-material being is not necessary under the process of science in its investigation of material effects.
It is an axiom that every material effect does have a material cause, one that is proximate, prior, necessary and sufficient. If such a cause is unable to be found, then it is labelled "unknown" and it is researched further.
This is the case for the two quantum occurrences that I am familiar with, quantum entanglement, and equation collapse at observation (I'm sure there are more, these are the two I know of). Both of these seem to violate the cause and effect conditions that are traditionally accepted as descriptive of reality. But the appropriate response for investigative science is to continue to probe the local reality surrounding these events, rather than to ascribe them to interference from a non-material being.
Will science ultimately come across an effect that truly has no material cause? Single event miracles aside, it is still thought that all things material have causes that are material, except for the first cause.
Because cause and effect requires a time element ("prior"), and because time did not exist before the Big Bang, then the first cause was not a material cause even though it produced a material effect, in fact it produced all material reality. This by itself falsifies Philosophical Materialism., which dogmatically insists that there is no non-material reality.
Stan, your comment above doesn't address Philosophical Materialism, but conditional materialism.
"Every material effect has a material cause" is not an axiom of science. It's just an assumption backed up by previous experience. And as an assumption it's subject to falsifiability just like anything else in science.
The same goes with cause and effect. Our experience to date has been that "effects" follow "causes", but quantum physics shows us that our labelling system may be insufficient, because the equations run just as well in reverse. But this doesn't violate any assumptions about a material source.
Wishing to ascribe any of the things you've mentioned to a non-material being is just fallacious God-of-the-gaps reasoning.
Besides, Philosophical Materialism addresses the existence of an immaterial realm that doesn't interact with the material realm.
As soon as that immaterial realm starts doing things like creating galaxies, then its activites are subject to scientific investigation, just like everything else in this realm.
Matt,
It appears to me that you have misread my comment. It was, indeed, addressing conditional materialism. I was replying to Sonic, and I said,
” I think that extending causation of material phenomena to a non-material being is not necessary under the process of science in its investigation of material effects.
I felt that this statement also served to reply to your comment,
” Such phenomena, having a material effect, are still subject to scientific enquiry.
Is that correct, Stan?”
In other words, rather than contradicting me, you are agreeing with me. Sonic’s comment was concerning a statement from Max Born, who made comments concerning the limits of conditional materialist investigation, from his perspective. My comment disagreed, with respect to conditional materialism. It is apparent that current limits of technology do not imply boundaries to material reality. That was my point.
Now as for “axiom”, if cause and effect were not universally accepted by scientists, then they would not pursue any causes, nor have any reason to be paid for what they do, which is pursue causes. The difference between your definition of cause and effect and an axiom appears to be negligible:
You said:
” "Every material effect has a material cause" is not an axiom of science. It's just an assumption backed up by previous experience.”
Merriam Webster says,
”axiom;
1. a statement generally accepted as true;
2. a proposition regarded as a self-evident truth.”
Self-evidence is produced by previous experience.
You said,
” Wishing to ascribe any of the things you've mentioned to a non-material being is just fallacious God-of-the-gaps reasoning.”
Perhaps Max Born did that, I did not, with the exception of first cause, which, being outside of the space-time dimensions, is not subject to investigation by conditional materialism. And of course, there is a Science-of-the-Gaps blind faith that corresponds to Philosophical Materialism. Science does have theoretical limits. That would make an interesting topic, we could pursue that if you’d like?
Stan-
I did not claim science needs to find cause in immaterial beings- nor that Max Born claimed any such thing. It is a fact that physics as it is currently formulated does not preclude the existence of an interactive material and immaterial realm- this is a change from what most scientists thought was proved about 100 years ago. (If you read "Consciousness Explained", by Dennett you can see he still believes that science has ruled out dualism. Given the number of reviewers that have failed to point out this error, I never assume that anyone has come to grips with this monumental change in physics.)
It is not an axiom of science that every material effect has a material cause, one that is proximate, prior, necessary and sufficient. (Let's call this MPPNS) That is an axiom of certain philosophies, but not science.
Examples--
radioactivity. (When will this atom decay?)
In this case there is no known MPPNS. This is acknowledged. This does not mean that some people will look for MPPNS in this case, but many scientists don't think there is one, and that this situation is still science.
example--
gravity. Gravity is a relationship between space-time and mass. This is not cause-effect in the usual sense, it is relational. This does not make it outside of science (Although some scientists have a problem with it and look for a graviton…)
Here is an example of an experiment that demonstrates 'spooky action at a distance'. In this case the experimenters were able to do a set-up where they could alter the behavior of light by changing the apparatus in a remote location.
http://www.inoa.it/home/azavatta/References/PRL67p318.pdf
So science does not demand that causation be local.
"Strict causality is abandoned in the material world. Our ideas of the controlling laws are in the process of reconstruction and it is not possible to predict what kind of form they will ultimately take; but all the indications are that strict causality has dropped out permanently."
Eddington, A.S. The Nature of the Physical
World. New York: Macmillan, 1929.
There are scientists who reject what
Eddington wrote. There are those who don't.
It is not a demand of science that the universe
be a certain way, it is a demand of science that
the universe be investigated in a certain way.
(The idea that all answers to all questions will
succumb to this type of investigation is
another matter)
sonic,
I don't want to hijack the thread, but just a quick question: do you have suggested reading for where Dennet is wrong about dualism and how physics has come around to the idea of an immaterial realm over the last 100 years?
Martin,
Thank-you for asking. I have not had a short answer to that in the past, but you have inspired me to try to get one.
(Please understand I have not used these references before, so that while I think they are fine, I am willing to find out they are not).
First it is important to note what I am actually saying-
a) In the world pre-quantum physics all future events were completely determined by the physical configurations of the past. (So the fact that on July 3, 2023 at 11:42:13 EST you would fart was a fact and is a fact and will for all times in all places be a fact.
b) this total determinism was found wanting with the discoveries that are now called quantum mechanics.
c) part of the consequence of this discovery that the physical is not completely determined allows for the possibility (not the fact of or the need to claim) that there be non-physical causes at work in the universe.
As to Dennett--
I found this. It seems very good to me, as I say I haven't read much of this guys blog, so I make no claim about whatever else is there, but this article was quite good.
http://subversivethinking.blogspot.com/2009/06/daniel-dennetts-argument-against.html
For an overview of the change in physics try this-
http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/QID.pdf
I'm curious what anyone who reads these thinks of them--
Stan, thanks for that clarification. But you still haven't addressed my earlier point:
"If something cannot be materially detected, then isn't its existence indistinguishable from non-existence?"
Sonic said,
"It is not a demand of science that the universe be a certain way, it is a demand of science that the universe be investigated in a certain way."
As far as I know, that certain way is to invesigate effects with an eye toward causation. Certainly disease, space shots, bridge failures and other macro endeavors still respond to causation. The world of quantum mechanics is still investigating the strange effects looking for new explanatory theories which I assume include causation.
I agree with Martin, I also would like to be pointed to literature that indicates if and when the scientific method goes outside or beyond causation for investigation of material effects.
However, assuming this to be the case, it does not help the Philosophical Materialist case that there is no reality that is not material.
Looks like I came in late with too little, sorry guys.
Sonic said,
""If something cannot be materially detected, then isn't its existence indistinguishable from non-existence?"
To the equipment operator, yes; to the thinker, no. The meaning in these bits, pixels on the screen, cannot be determined materially, but to a mind, they do have meaning.
The obvious rejoinder here would be to claim that computers will be able to determine meaning when they are AI programmed sometime in the future. But that ability has to be placed there by minds.
Next would be the objection that minds are material, a claim that I feel is adequately refuted by the lack of a mind in a dead person, even though everything else remains the same. A mind is a function of time plus life; brain plus life supports mind (brain is necessary but not sufficient); brain minus life yields no mind.
A mind is a function of life plus time, hosted on a brain, and is not material in the sense of mass and physical dimension. (That's why futurists are panting for the "Singularity": so they can put their minds on a more permanent host).
So brain activity can be detected, but the actual mind, I don't think so. Brain activity does not guarantee intellect or discernment. Brain activity should be designated as epi-phenomenal, as Shermer said. The plasticity of the brain and its constant shuffling of brain functions in the presence of a mind will prevent the detection / interpretation of whatever "meaning" is currently being discerned by the mind.
So, no, the lack of material evidence is not sufficient to prove non-existence, nor is it indistinguishable from non-existence.
Sorry, Stan, but I don't buy that argument at all.
In your very first paragraph there you sidestepped from talking about observable phenomena to talking about the "meaning" of observable phenomena.
Are you really claiming that the existence of "meaning" (a construct that we subjectively overlay onto things we observe) implies the existence of an objective and extant but otherwise immaterial and undetectable metaphysical force?
Maybe you're asserting that "meaning" is some kind of objective property, but if that were the case then it (meaning) could be measured, and we'd be back talking about conditional materiality again.
Next you talk about mind/body dichotomy, which of course is a huge topic in itself.
Personally, I'm persuaded that mind is an emergent feature of brain wiring and brain chemistry. This is because as we delve further and further into neuroscience, there are more and more aspects of "mind" that we find to be simply the result of neuronal interactions.
Not a side-step as you accuse, it is element of our existence that some things have meaning, that meaning is not material, yet it exists: it is an example that is outside the parameters you seem to insist upon, where all existence is either material or indistinguishable from non-existence.
A construct? Is the meaning of entropy a construct without an existence? Objectively entropy exists; subjectively it has meaning. Is any construct without an existence? The construct issue seems to be beside the point. Individual meanings are constructs based on relationships; the overall category, "meaning", might be considered a set within which the constructs reside in the subjective space.
Perhaps you deny that there is a subjective space? A non-material space where thoughts occur? A non-material space where philosophy exists? Where order is perceived, and logic is derived? Where abstract higher mathematics predicts other dimensions and other existences?
The phrase "indistinguishable from non-existence" is subjective, and I suspect that you are defining it to suit your preference for materialism. So we will look at two possible interpretations.
"Meaning" exists (as just one example of subjective existence - knowledge as meaningful information being an example), it is discernable and therefore distinguishable as existing, and it is not material. By my judgment that refutes your claim that no non-material existence is distinguishable from non-existence. However, you might well define distinguishable to include only material sense inputs, which would render the question meaningless, although oddly enough the answer would be "true": no non-material entity is materially distinguishable from material-non-existence... which in no way implies that non-material entities do not exist, only that they can't be detected materially.
As for neuronal interactions (ionic charge transfer) causing an emergence of discernment, discrimination, cognition, consciousness and so on, I see that is a faith statement, not an empirical factoid. The ability to think new and creative thoughts seems enough to falsify this notion. The ability to place oneself into a subjective, creative zone at will (as some people do regularly, and I have been able to do frequently in the past) argues against the determinism that emergent mind theory seemingly requires.
This was Darwin's "Horrid Doubt":
"“With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value at all or trustworthy.”
Charles Darwin, “Life and Letters of Charles Darwin”, 1898; Francis Darwin, ed; From “Total Truth”, Nancy Pearcy."
Others have argued that the movement of atoms and the motion of electrons are not likely to emerge to analyze themselves, regardless of their configuration or concentration. It would be very difficult to demonstrate otherwise empirically, without prejudicing the demonstration with prior intellect.
BTW: It seems odd that you make the claim for metaphysical existence of the mind via Henry P. Stapp, yet also claim a purely material existence of the mind here.
Which is your position?
BTW #2: there is a purported refutation of some of Stapp's work here:
http://www.mth.kcl.ac.uk/~streater/stapp.html
I haven't critically read either so far...
When you said “ ... you might well define distinguishable to include only material sense inputs, which would render the question meaningless, although oddly enough the answer would be "true": no non-material entity is materially distinguishable from material-non-existence... which in no way implies that non-material entities do not exist, only that they can't be detected materially.”
... that is precisely what I meant. My question that follows from this is: what does it mean to detect something via non-material means, and can you give me an example?
Regarding emergence of mind being a “faith statement”, that may be technically true, but I would argue only in the sense that every scientific conclusion, being based on inductive rather than deductive reasoning, is a faith statement. In that context “the sun will rise tomorrow” is a faith statement too.
I didn’t follow your argument about the “ability to place oneself into a subjective, creative zone at will”. Care to expand on that?
And responding to your “BTW” ... I don’t believe I argued for metaphysical existence of mind. If I did I certainly didn’t mean to.
Stan-
you seem to be confusing me (sonic) with Matt.
(And that could get very confusing as the positions we have been discussing are at odds.)
I would like to agree with you that scientists look for causes. I would like for you to agree with me that it is not a prerequisite of science that they find them.
(BTW- I really liked your post Feb. 4, I'd never seen this-- it is really fantastic)
Matt-
If your position is that thought is an emergent property of matter (perhaps electrical?), then I would suggest that there isn't anything that is subjective. I mean that any thought is actually a configuration of matter that could be viewed objectively and the problem we have now is that we don't know how to view it- right? (If I could hook up the right equipment to your brain, then I would be able to see the configuration of the matter in such a way as to know all the thought therein…)
Consciousness is the same way-- if it is an emergent property of matter, then it is an objective fact. Our inability to measure it is a problem of understanding, not an inherent problem- right?
By this same reasoning we get that the natural numbers are actually a material reality, (they exist only in the thought of conscious entities aka electrochemical fields)
And so on--
Am I following you?
Sonic,
Well put. Yes, I would agree with that.
Sonic, sorry for the conflubterpation...
You said,
"I would like to agree with you that scientists look for causes. I would like for you to agree with me that it is not a prerequisite of science that they find them."
There are a couple of ways to think about this it seems to me. First, there is an expectation that they will find causes. But there is also the need to describe the effect fully, without having found the cause. Papers are frequently published in this state, yet they typically insist that more study (and funding) is needed. So in that regard, I suppose that there is no real requirement for finding causes.
Yet it still seems to me that the overall thrust is to find causes.
I do agree that a material cause might never be found, if only because technology never advances to provide the resolution required or proper sensors etc.
I am not convinced that material effects will be found to have non-material causes, or to exist without causes, ex nihilo, except for the first cause.
But back to the question, is it a requirement of science that a cause be found... I guess I'd have to say no, with the caveat that they will very likely keep trying.
Matt,
You said,
"... that is precisely what I meant. My question that follows from this is: what does it mean to detect something via non-material means, and can you give me an example?"
I will try. Materialist contention starts at this juncture: I maintain that there are two reality spaces, one is objective: sensory input only; the other is subjective: non-sensory realizations concerning the nature of sensory inputs, plus creation of non-material entities - such as abstract concepts, inventions, plus analytical realizations, etc. It is in subjective space that the order of the universe is realized.
The subjective reality space holds self-contained, complete entities which are transmissible from one subjective space to another subjective space. Much is also translatable into material form as inventions, music, art, plans based on analysis, blog discussions, etc.
Now going back to the 'two spaces', even the material world is experienced in subjective space. Sensory inputs provide the mind - in subjective space - with excitation which the mind interprets, using cognitive faculties to compare, differentiate, discern and comprehend. With the sensory inputs all removed, the remaining reality space is subjective, only. (This actually happens in the final stages of leprosy, a nerve death disease).
My personal experience with willed entry into the subjective space is describable but not explainable. I have been able in the past to enter "the zone" while designing systems using state machines which needed to perform together. To describe the zone, the mind goes into intense, singular focus during which time the external sensory inputs cease to control, but go onto automatic, not even being noticed by the highly focused mind.
I once had lunch with a designer who was working on a systemic problem in his design. In the middle of lunch, his eyes dilated, went into a stare, and he (mentally) disappeared for about 15 minutes, fully subjectively involved in the intricacies of his machine. When he came out of it, his food was cold, but he had ideas that led to a solution. This is only a description from the external viewpoint and is not an explanation.
You said,
"Regarding emergence of mind being a “faith statement”, that may be technically true, but I would argue only in the sense that every scientific conclusion, being based on inductive rather than deductive reasoning, is a faith statement. In that context “the sun will rise tomorrow” is a faith statement too."
I disagree. Inductively, the hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow is based on massive experience, including data; it can be tested and falsified. The emergence of the mind from the electro-chemical activity in the brain is not; it is an hypothesis without empirical or even practical back-up. It cannot, in fact, be either proved or falsified, and under Popper's constraints it falls outside the demarcation boundary of scientific knowledge and into the realm of metaphysics. (Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pp 11-20).
Sorry Stan, but this is an incredibly weak argument.
You first assume the existence of this subjective "other" space and then assert that various perfectly natural phenomena (such as our mind's ability to perform on a subconscious level) is evidence of its existence.
I'll give you an equivalent argument:
I maintain there are two reality spaces. One is objective, and one is made completely of milk.
We cannot objectively see this milk, but we know it exists because we have thoughts about milk and, in fact, actual objective milk in our own space.
Reductio ad Absurdum is not a viable argument technique here. I can reduce your argument to absurdity very easily also. But that proves nothing.
What you cannot do is successfully claim that knowledge does not exist, that it is no more than electrochemical reactions, and that it is not real, yet not with mass, and dimensions. If you think you can successfully argue the non-existence of knowledge, then you have argued away your own sentience.
As I have said elsewhere, you can argue that you have no subjective space and that knowledge is not a reality and does not exist in your subjective space; You can argue that successfully.
You can argue that I do not have a subjective space, and that knowledge is not a reality within my subjective space; but you cannot argue that successfully.
The reductionism required to claim "subconscious" as electron travel is without empirical merit.
So say we do find, one day, that thoughts and emotions can be reduced to electrical signals in the brain, would that be a death blow to your entire belief system?
So are you saying, Stan, that if we were to discover that all thoughts and emotions could be reduced to electrical impulses, your worldview would suffer a deathblow?
That strikes me as a dangerous game to play. Science has a history of disabusing people of the notion that certain phenomena are supernatural.
Stan-
regarding material cause, you might want to read more about Bell's theorem with respect to what it means that No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.
Stan and Matt-
(I might be sticking my nose in here)
You're disagreement is about (currently) non-provable or disprovable premises.
Need I say more?
Matt said,
"So are you saying, Stan, that if we were to discover that all thoughts and emotions could be reduced to electrical impulses, your worldview would suffer a deathblow?
That strikes me as a dangerous game to play. Science has a history of disabusing people of the notion that certain phenomena are supernatural."
I make no claims that material phenomena are supernatural. Nor do I claim that consciousness is not hosted on a material substrate, or scaffold. The (transcendent) mind is implemented materially on a material substrate in order to interface with the material universe.
The conscious mind is detectable, currently, only as a secondary effect: by assuming that it is a cause for other effects, such as intelligent conversation, for example. It is also the cause for electrical activity in the brain, not the other way around.
I suspect that the mind is a cause, not an effect, at least not a material effect; it is definitely non-material, being never the same in any two instances. Not only is it never the same in any two instances, the output of the mind (creativity, intellect, etc) is not predictable in nature of electrons, Volts and Amps.
It is certainly legitimate to pursue the mind as a material effect, if there is an honest apprehension of what the mind is, and what it is not (it is not the substrate).
Why should the mind be considered an artifact of voltage and current acting on biological impedances? Only the fact that the non-material mind loses its scaffold at death? And how would conditional materialism prove otherwise, that there is NOT a transcendence? The conclusion is self-fulfilling, not being able to prove the opposite (non-falsifiable). This places the investigations outside the purvue of empirical integrity.
In fact, the current quantum investigations seem to imply the opposite: that it is the material existences which lose their scaffolding in the non-presence of a mind... would that deliver a deathblow to your worldview?
Not long ago Hawking presented a theory that the Big Bang origin of the universe occured as a macro-event similar to the equation collapse seen in quantum experiments. The secondary implication of that would be that an intelligent entity "observed" and thereby forced the collapse. This entire scenario, while "scientific" in appearance, is metaphysical in nature, because any such event would have to have occured outside the limitations of space/time, mass/energy which totally constrains both materialism and empiricism.
I have every reason to doubt that conditional materialism / empiricism will unveil either the transcendence of the mind, or the first cause of the universe. In fact, it appears more possible to show the transcendence of the mind using quantum techniques, than to show the non-transcendence of the mind.
So I cannot answer your question either yes or no, because the question presents a virtual empirical impossibility, and is therefore without an answer.
Guys, Comments have gone into moderation, due to the date on the post. We can either continue here with the necessary delay in seeing the comment on-line, or move to a more recent post. The PZ watch post is still recent. Your choice, let me know.
Bell's theorem is discussed at the stanford site:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bell-theorem/
There seem to be some caveats, which are expressed in the Philosophical comments (Sec 7), and which include questioning the definition of "local" for distances under the Planck length (10e-33), and the idea that the speed of information is not necessarily limited to the speed of light. And others, too, including a paper by Fine concluding that the Hardy variant (and other variants of Bell's theorem) is not a "proof of nonlocality".
It is possible to view gravity as non-local if "local" is defined a certain way. But there still is no reason that I can see to declare that common material effects exist ex nihilo, without a material cause, even if the cause is yet to be determined.
In quantum physics, the bewilderment seems connected to the inability to even detect a possible, conjoined event that might serve as a cause. But that doesn't mean that there isn't one.
Proving that there "is no cause" is another of those non-falsifiable hypotheses; one can only prove that no cause has yet been found, not that it doesn't exist. So I think empiricism will continue to search for causes, even if it requires technology not yet available, or even never available.
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