A former 40 year Atheist analyzes Atheism, without resorting to theism, deism, or fantasy. *** If You Don't Value Truth, Then What DO You Value? *** If we say that the sane can be coaxed and persuaded to rationality, and we say that rationality presupposes logic, then what can we say of those who actively reject logic? *** Atheists have an obligation to give reasons in the form of logic and evidence for rejecting Theist theories.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The Mathematics of Evolution
[ Rock ]Z = [ Intellect ]
Solve for Z.
Show your work.
Hint: Remember that Z = f(n), where n = Deep Time.
Fighting evolution itself, you are up against paleontology and all the other biological sciences, and it is unlikely you can make a good argument in that sense.
But the argument in this post is possibly quite strong, and I can offer you an interesting fleshing out of it.
Consider that it is irrational to hold these two beliefs at once:
1. That something was created by blind impersonal forces 2. And that it accurately gives information about something beyond itself
If blind and impersonal forces create the letters "JOHN F KENNEDY IS 5'6" TALL AND WEIGHS 160 LBS" in the rocks, then we can safely assume that this is not accurate information. If, however, we can take it to give us accurate information about Kennedy, then we can also assume that the letters were not placed there by blind and impersonal forces of nature.
Consider the woman who believes Jesus appeared in her toast. She believes that A) God put the picture there, and B) that the picture accurately represents Jesus. She is OK. (Although, obviously, her belief that God would do such a thing is another story). If she believed that the picture of Jesus was made by mold, and also that the picture was an accurate representation, then we would think that she is quite out of her gourd.
Now consider the materialist. He believes two things: A) human intellect developed from blind and impersonal natural forces, and B)the human intellect can give us accurate information about things beyond itself, such as knowledge about the world beyond himself.
Darwin wrote: “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; via “Total Truth”, Nancy Pearcy.
An entity which is analytical and creative is necessarily non-determinate - which falls outside the purview of Materialism. That paradox leads to a lot of philosophical scrambling and double talk.
I don't understand your post. From my understanding Darwinian evolution works as follows:
Natural Selection:
Assume X randomly producing properties. Assume it is subjected to environment that allows only property k to pass through successfully. Therefore, X with property K survives.
Therefore, Nature appears to be designed because nature allowed only the properties that we observe to be successfully survived/passed through/filtered.
Negative/Purifying selection
Assume a population randomly producing properties. Positive and Neutral properties are accumulated over the populations, while populations with harmful properties will get isolated and deleted over the years.
Therefore, Nature appears to be designed because Positive and Neutral properties accumulated over it over the years.
------
I personally see several holes in this mechanisms. But, i would like to know your opinion on this logic of Darwinian evolution.
Atheists have to learn that they can't know everything so there is always room for God. Unfortunately the first time most of these fools realize that will be will they are burning in Hell.
Assume X randomly producing properties. Assume it is subjected to environment that allows only property k to pass through successfully. Therefore, X with property K survives.
Therefore, Nature appears to be designed because nature allowed only the properties that we observe to be successfully survived/passed through/filtered.”
This is a good description. But there is a presupposition embedded within it which needs to be stated fully: Property k pre-existed in X. That is a necessity if X + k is to be selected. Now where did k come from?
Unless k always existed in X, and evolution presumes that it did not, then some sort of change occurred within X which brought k into existence. This previously was called “mutation”, but now there are all sorts of reasons for X to change in order to include k.
But that only applies to living things, and that is why “evolutionists” deny that abiogenesis (life deriving from non-life) has anything to do with evolution: because the probability is too low to be accepted by reasonable persons, and further it is never observed.
An example of this would be the transition from cold blooded animals to warm blooded. The elements for warm bloodedness did not exist in cold blood animals: where did it come from? I.e. k (warm blooded organs, temperature regulation, etc.) did not exist in X (cold blooded creatures). So a change in X had to occur in order to produce k, so that X + k could be selected for.
Now back to the equation in the post. No matter how long you keep a rock around (deep time), there is no expectation that it will spontaneously change or mutate in order either to become alive, or to develop an intellect. In fact, to express such an expectation would demonstrate insanity and/or invite ridicule.
But that is the demand made by Philosophical Materialism – the development of life and intellect had to have occurred under material cause and effect conditions. The equation is merely a demonstration of the absurdity of Philosophical Materialist demands.
When those who base their worldview philosophy on the wonders of science tout the “reasonableness” of evolution, they also ignore – purposefully – the other requirement: having non-life jump to life. This requirement is so unreasonable that it rationally cancels out the “reasonableness” of evolution from the point of rocks, and thus cancels out the “reasonableness” of Materialism as a philosophy.
Re: C S Lewis. That is exactly what the argument is. It was also recently developed more comprehensively by Victor Reppert, which you can find an article by here.
And you're correct. Materialists do not seem to generally apply much analysis to their own worldview in the way they do to religions.
Really? Because I see people talking about how they can't understand the intellect and reason or the origin of life as if their inability to understand something makes that something supernatural. When do we get to the part where you explain how the supernatural works?
What we see more of is that evolutionistas declare that Philosophical Materialism is a requirement of science, yet they refuse to discuss abiogenesis because (a) it is crazily improbable, and (b) it is never observed, empirically or anecdotally.
Now if abiogenesis is the material fact, why should we think that to be so? Merely because you claim that materialism is the only valid existence?
Here you have two problems: first: Prove that Materialism is valid and True using Materialism of course to provide your proof; second, prove that abiogenesis makes sense based on material claims and observations (science).
Your claims that "supernatural" forces can't be considered is negated by the need for non-natural (under current understanding) explanations which are required due to the insufficiency of natural explanations.
If that is not so, then give us a "natural" explanation, without the empty scientistic claim that science knows or will know everything. The term "natural" merely refers to things which we currently understand. When other things are added to that understanding they also will be called natural, although professional skeptics and deniers currently deny their existence. Denial is not evidence. Denial along with scientism is merely opinion which has not and cannot be validated materially. In other words, Skepticism and denialism are anti-knowledge and anti-intellect: they are defenses of the status quo, which is Philosophical Materialism.
I would agree with your input on NS. Everything that constitute design is assumed. All that is left is explaining why design does not adapt to certain environment or the demographic fluctuations between different designs.
But what is noticeable is two aspects:
1) The ability to move in increment steps. Their explanation can be valid to explain the accumulation of traits in a blind manner. Good traits accumulate while bad traits are isolated and deleted.
2) The ability to counter teleology in 2 ways:
If a property is linked to a purpose and teleology is invoked (or God is praised), they would counter it by going back one step and explain the trait as randomly emerged and then came to be used for a purpose in second step.
Or, They would go back one step and imagine several variations of the said property that randomly emerged, and then in the next step only the successful one from the variations survived.
I don't think anyone has yet attacked this logic of atheism. But i am not sure how significant this is.
As for the topic at hand, i think it would be fairer if rock was replaced by sub atomic particles, as rock brings in the added notion of static non-reactive entity. Or perhaps proving how all of nature is equivalent to a rock, if God was to be negated.
Ahmed said, "As for the topic at hand, i think it would be fairer if rock was replaced by sub atomic particles, as rock brings in the added notion of static non-reactive entity. Or perhaps proving how all of nature is equivalent to a rock, if God was to be negated."
Ahmed, that's a very interesting point. I'm not sure which of the particles to propose, though. How about hydrogen as the first element?
I doubt that I will pursue this as an actual argument, it is more of a Reductio Ad Absurdum in parody form.
Science discovered that intelligent life derived not from rocks, but from primordial soup. Life-from-rocks, or rather dust, is your ancient Hebrew creation myth:
[ Dust ]^M = [ Humanity ]
where M = God Magic.
As you suggest, Stan, you'd better have started with [ Hydrogen ], as Hydrogen + Gravity + Time → Stars → Novas → Heavy Elements → Planets → Oceans → Amino Acids → Life → Intelligence.
Martin, in your first comment above, you conclude: “Now consider the materialist. He believes two things: A) human intellect developed from blind and impersonal natural forces, and B)the human intellect can give us accurate information about things beyond itself, such as knowledge about the world beyond himself.”
We have empirical evidence that is so.
Not just human intellect, either: Bumblebee intellect, too, developed from blind and impersonal natural forces, yet not only do bumblebees gather information about the external world, they use their dance language to communicate, frex, locations of nearby food sources to other bumblebees.
Robin Lionheart said, ”Hydrogen + Gravity + Time → Stars → Novas → Heavy Elements → Planets → Oceans → Amino Acids → Life → Intelligence
Nah. You didn’t show your work: there’s an implicit miracle between Amino Acids and Life, and again between Life and Intelligence. There is nothing about Amino Acids that suggests life because they are not alive and do not contain “life particles” or any other little pieces of life. And there is nothing about life that suggests rationality, by the same token.
Robin Lionheart said, "We have empirical evidence that is so.
Not just human intellect, either: Bumblebee intellect, too, developed from blind and impersonal natural forces, yet not only do bumblebees gather information about the external world, they use their dance language to communicate, frex, locations of nearby food sources to other bumblebees."
This logic form is thus:
If [ E ] then [ I ]; [ I ]; therefore, [ E ].
Where E = evolution, and I = intellect.
This is "Affirming the Consequent", an invalid form.
Stan, the transition from amino acids to scum is amazing, but not miraculous. Life is chemistry, not magic.
Life has no special “life particles”. Just atoms. When you drink a glass of water, you replace some of the 60% of you that’s water with different water. Your water doesn’t have magic “life particles” (just the usual protons, neutrons, and electrons), so you can replace it with any other water.
Nor does intelligent life need special “intelligence particles”. Just more complex forebrains. It’s biology, not magic. (Until we design non-biological intelligence, that is!)
No, Stan, that's not a logic form, that's a comparison. Martin ascribed to materialists two propositions about human intelligence. I restated them in terms of bumblebees, to illustrate that non-humans also produce knowledge. Notice the parallel phrasing?
The bumblebee comment did not address the issue in question. The issue in question is: do we take human intellect to accurately reflect something beyond itself?
Or, consider this: in a world of just particles, no group of particles can represent or be a symbol for another group of particles unless some mind interprets it that way. Group of particles A can only represent group of particles B if some mind assigns that meaning to them.
Therefore, if materialism is true, then our minds cannot represent, or be "about", things beyond themselves.
Are you thinking about this comment? Yes. Then your mind is representing something beyond itself.
Stan, the transition from amino acids to scum is amazing, but not miraculous. Life is chemistry, not magic.
I’m sure that we all would love to see your attribution for the assertion that amino acids spontaneously form living things. There is a $ 1 Million dollar prize awaiting whoever can produce that. So publish your attributions, not just your assertions.
” Life has no special “life particles”.
Agreed: life is not a physical particle; no one is claiming that. Yet living things do things that non-living things do not. As Bertrand Russell concluded, the intentionality and rationality of humans demonstrates the need for a dual substance, one that is not present in corpses, but is present in living things; the second substance is not naturally (physically) measurable except by its effect, so it is not physical as we know it: it is therefore, metaphysical.
”Just atoms. When you drink a glass of water, you replace some of the 60% of you that’s water with different water. Your water doesn’t have magic “life particles” (just the usual protons, neutrons, and electrons), so you can replace it with any other water.”
You are arguing against a position which is not being taken.
”Nor does intelligent life need special “intelligence particles”. Just more complex forebrains. It’s biology, not magic. (Until we design non-biological intelligence, that is!)
A dead brain is directly available for entropic decay, and produces no intentionality or rational thought. It is the life in the brain, not the brain itself, which is intentional and rational. While this fact is obvious to the casual observer, the Materialist true believer must ignore it in order to preserve the narrative. Reductive materialism ignores the things which it cannot explain, and replaces them with wishful, magical thinking that leaves out the facts of the situation in order to make way for the dogma: Materialism first, facts later if at all.
Robin said, ”No, Stan, that's not a logic form, that's a comparison. Martin ascribed to materialists two propositions about human intelligence. I restated them in terms of bumblebees, to illustrate that non-humans also produce knowledge. Notice the parallel phrasing?”
So you are making no argument, even though one is apparent in your text? If there is no argument (despite its obvious presence), then how do you expect to make a truth claim? And under what sort of logic is a comparison made to demonstrate a conclusion not an argument?
No, I did make an argument, explicitly, spelled out with four words and a colon. My description of bumblebee behavior substantiated that conclusion. Can you figure out what it was?
“The issue in question is: do we take human intellect to accurately reflect something beyond itself?” How would you function if you didn’t?
I believe there is an objective reality, which each of us view through a cloudy filter of our perceptions, to varying degrees of accuracy. Some perceptions are accurate, some are not.
I deduce with my human intellect that I am responding to another human being right now. My conclusion could be inaccurate, but I think you very probably are, in fact, a human being.
“Or, consider this: in a world of just particles, no group of particles can represent or be a symbol for another group of particles unless some mind interprets it that way. Group of particles A can only represent group of particles B if some mind assigns that meaning to them.” Okay.
“Therefore, if materialism is true, then our minds cannot represent, or be "about", things beyond themselves.” Sure they can. As you just said, our minds can assign meanings. We can assign meanings to our minds as well as anything else.
“Are you thinking about this comment? Yes. Then your mind is representing something beyond itself. Therefore, materialism is false.” So, you’re saying that since my mind is assigning meaning right now, therefore materialism is false? How so? Your argument makes no sense to me.
“I’m sure that we all would love to see your attribution for the assertion that amino acids spontaneously form living things.”
There are several plausable theories of abiogensis. One proposal is Günter Wächtershäuser’s iron-sulfur world theory.[1]
In a nutshell, he suggested that carbon oxides released from deep sea vents could stabilize on iron-sulphates, reacting with molecular hydrogen to form organic monomers.
[1] Wächtershäuser, Günter (2007). "On the Chemistry and Evolution of the Pioneer Organism". Chemistry & Biodiversity 4 (4): 584–602.
“As Bertrand Russell concluded, the intentionality and rationality of humans demonstrates the need for a dual substance, one that is not present in corpses, but is present in living things...”
Bertrand Russell the monist?
Bertrand Russell who wrote, “It is, therefore, unwarranted to continue the statement that in addition to the acceleration of oxidations the beginning of individual life is determined by the entrance of a metaphysical ‘life principle’ into the egg; and that death is determined, aside from the cessation of oxidations, by the departure of this ‘principle’ from the body. In the case of the evaporation of water we are satisfied with the explanation given by the kinetic theory of gases and do not demand that to repeat a well-known jest of Huxley the disappearance of the ‘aquosity’ be also taken into consideration.”
That Bertrand Russell? I don’t believe you.
“It is the life in the brain, not the brain itself, which is intentional and rational. While this fact is obvious to the casual observer, the Materialist true believer must ignore it in order to preserve the narrative.” Well, duh, of course only living brains can be rational. What materialist narrative do you claim ignores that dead brains don’t think?
Name one materialist who has ever suggested otherwise.
So, you’re saying that since my mind is assigning meaning right now, therefore materialism is false? How so? Your argument makes no sense to me.
This is a deductive argument. This means that it is logically impossible for both premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. If you think the conclusion is false, then you have to show which premise is wrong:
Axiom: If everything consists of just quarks, electrons, and other particles, then "this" group of particles cannot be represent, symbolize, or be about "that" group of particles unless some mind interprets them that way.
And the argument:
1. Nothing that is material can symbolize, represent, or be "about" something else 2. Our minds symbolize, represent, and are about things other than themselves 3. Therefore, our minds are not material
Remember, this argument is deductive. Forget the conclusion and just focus on the two premises. You can't dispute premise 2. Which just leaves premise 1. But premise 1 seems tight as well.
Apparently you have not read Russell's "Fifteen Lectures on the Analysis of Mind". On page 26 and 27 he makes the following statements, which I will edit out of context (and I don't care what you believe about them, you can buy the book and read it yourself).
"Any attempt to classify modern views, such as I propose to advocate, from the old standpoint of materialism and idealism, is only misleading. In certain respects, the views which I shall be setting forth approximate to materialism; in others the approximate to the opposite. On this question of the study of delusions, the practical effect of the modern theories, as Dr. Hart points out, is emancipation from the materialist method. On the other hand, as he also points out (pp. 38-9) , imbecility and dementia still have to be considered physiologically, as caused by defects in the brain. There is no inconsistency in this If, as we maintain, mind and matter are neither of them the actual stuff of reality, but different convenient groupings of an underlying material, then clearly, the question whether, in regard to a given phenomenon, we are to seek a physical or a mental cause, is merely one to be decided by trial.
“If as we maintain, mind and matter are neither of them the real stuff of reality, but clearly different groupings of an underlying material, then, clearly, the question whether, in regard to a given phenomenon, we are to seek a physical or a mental cause, is merely one to be decided by trial.” (pg 26)
[…]
“I receive a letter inviting me to dinner: the letter is a physical fact, but my apprehension of its meaning is mental. Here we have an effect of the matter on the mind. In consequence of my apprehension of the meaning of the letter, I go to the right place at the right time; here we have an effect of mind on matter. I shall try to persuade you, in the course of these lectures, that matter is not so material and mind is not so mental as is generally supposed. When we are speaking of matter, it will seem as if we are inclining to idealism; when we are speaking of mind, it will seem as if we were inclining to materialism. Neither is the truth. Our world is to be constructed out of what the American realists call “neutral” entities, which have neither the hardness and indestructibility of matter, not the reference to objects which I supposed to characterize the mind." (continued)
“There is, it is true, one objection which might be felt, not indeed to the action of matter on mind, but to the action of mind on matter. The laws of physics it may be urged, are apparently adequate to explain everything that happens to matter, even when it is matter in a man’s brain. [Materialism; ED.] This, however is only a hypothesis, not an established theory. There is no cogent empirical reason for supposing that the laws determining the motions of living bodies are exactly the same as those that apply to dead matter. Sometimes, of course, they are clearly the same. When a man falls from a precipice or slips on a piece of orange peel, his body behaves as if it were devoid of life. These are the occasions that make Bergson laugh. [Bergson = dualist]. But when a man’s bodily movements are what we call “voluntary”, they are, at any rate prima facie, very different in their laws from the movements of what is devoid of life. I do not wish to say dogmatically that the difference is irreducible; I think it I highly probable that it is not. I say only that the study of the behavior of living bodies, in the present state of knowledge, is distinct from physics.” Russell, “Fifteen Lectures on the Analysis of Mind”, pg 27-8.
And this:
”It is probable that the whole science of mental occurrences, especially where its initial definitions are concerned, could be simplified by the development of the fundamental unifying science in which the causal laws of particulars are sought, rather than the causal laws of theose systems of particulars that constityte the material units of physics. This fundamental csience would cause physics to become derivative, in the sort of way in which in theories of the constituion of the atom make chemistry derivative from physics; it would also cause psychology to appear less singular and isolated among the sciences. If we are right in this, it is a wrong philosophy of matter which has caused many of the difficulties in the philosophy of mind – difficulties which a right philosophy of matter would cause to disappear.” Russell, “Fifteen Lectures on the Analysis of Mind”, pg 203.
Through the two resulting separate causal chains, Mnemic Causation for mental particulars, and Physical Causation for material particulars, Russell’s theory maintained two separate sets of existence with one common base existence. But the dualism is made palatable by insisting that physical particles be redefined as “events” only, thus being more but not completely compatible with mental “events”. In fact, the physical causal laws are made subsidiary to the psychological causal laws. (Ibid pg 204, item VI) He admitted that some laws of physical causation were divorced from mnemic causation, meaning that the duality exists and that the strict Materialist dogma cannot hold.
Robin, "...Günter Wächtershäuser’s iron-sulfur world theory.[1]"
Surely you realize that I was asking for empirical data, not unproven hypotheses. When you have empirical verification for your hypotheses, let us know. I just don't care about who makes what unproven hypothesis. The $1 Million prize is not for hypotheses, it is for replicable, falsifiable, experimental production of life and that life has to meet the qualifications made for living things to differentiate them from non-living.
Axiom: If everything consists of just quarks, electrons, and other particles, then "this" group of particles cannot be represent, symbolize, or be about "that" group of particles unless some mind interprets them that way.
Okay.
And the argument:
1. Nothing that is material can symbolize, represent, or be "about" something else
“...unless some mind interprets them that way.” Otherwise, you contradict your axiom.
2. Our minds symbolize, represent, and are about things other than themselves
...only if a mind interprets our minds that way? What?
Oh, now I understand, you’re saying “minds” when you mean “thoughts”.
No, according to your axiom, “Our minds interpret things as symbolizing, representing, or being about things other than themselves.”
3. Therefore, our minds are not material
No, that does not follow.
Every thought in your head is an electrochemical event. Synapses firing in your brain. You may think about abstract things, but your thoughts are 100% physical.
Yes, I have not read Fifteen Lectures on the Analysis of Mind. But your quote persuades me that Bertrand Russell was, indeed, not a materialist.
Though, in that first lecture you cite, his view is still monist, not dualist: “The stuff of which the world of our experience is composed is, in my belief, neither mind nor matter, but something more primitive than either. Both mind and matter seem to be composite, and the stuff of which they are compounded lies in a sense between the two, in a sense above them both, like a common ancestor.”
I disagree with Russell; as far as we know, matter and energy are the “actual stuff of reality”, and minds are emergent phenomena of brains.
"I disagree with Russell; as far as we know, matter and energy are the “actual stuff of reality”, and minds are emergent phenomena of brains.
Then we will need to discuss your philosophy of knowledge, how it is obtained, and of what it consists. One materialist aspect of that is that if Einstein's brain still existed (whole, not in parts), then all of his knowledge should be available to us because knowledge - like all things - is material, and therefore, it is still in there because he put it there.
And what counts as knowledge? Speculation based on speculation? According to Materialist empiricism, knowledge doesn't exist until it has verifiability and falsifiability and has been verified repeatedly without falsification. You repeatedly refer to speculation as evidence. But for both science and philosophy, speculation is just another unproven hypothesis.
So as far as you know, only speculation exists about the mind, the brain, and why the brain responds to the laws of physics but the mind does not.
According to your concept, physical laws are being violated yet physical laws are the cause. this is non-coherent, and therefore irrational. The insistence that this is true demonstrates an adherence to a dogma rather than to the pursuit of the consequences of known facts.
I respect nearly all of Russell's work, even though I reject his lifestyle and politics. He at least struggled to accommodate the obvious facts in his philosophy, even if he had to make up additional unprovable substances to do it.
One materialist aspect of that is that if Einstein's brain still existed (whole, not in parts), then all of his knowledge should be available to us because knowledge - like all things - is material, and therefore, it is still in there because he put it there.
It's like a computer's RAM. My computer is on and the RAM has information in it. Turn off the computer and the information is lost. Einstein's knowledge is the result of a natural material process.
"We have not yet replicably reproduced abiogenesis in a lab. If we do, would that change your mind?"
Something coming spontaneously to life, under the 10 point definition of life, has already happened - would that change your mind?
As for laboratory abiogenesis, it would be very interesting if it occurs, but not convicting and here is why: (a) merely demonstrating the possibility is not incorrigible evidence that it either occurred, or that it occurred that way; (b) as Russell points out, the laws of physics must be violated in order to allow life to occur. So I am not concerned that it will happen.
The nature of the original abiogenesis is that it cannot be falsified, nor can it be proved. It must be accepted on faith. The faith - fact gap currently is beyond huge; the gap would be reduced by such a demonstration, but it can never be eliminated.
The reason I am not concerned that it will happen is that when minerals produce life, they must also produce new laws outside the laws of physics, in order for there to be a differentiation between "alive" and "dead". As Russell points out, there is a difference and the difference is not due to molecular structure or energy distributions. Life requires a different causal chain, outside the causal chain which drives mass/energy.
We do not - ever - see that occur, the suspension of the laws of physics in order to accommodate a different sort of causal chain. And we do not - ever - see spontaneous, natural creation of something living from something which is not. In fact, one of the religious tenets of evolution is that life always comes from other life, clear back to the common ancestor.
Why should there be special relief from the laws of physics, just so that life could occur, just once, for the common ancestor? That, then, is the question.
D. Emp. said, "It's like a computer's RAM. My computer is on and the RAM has information in it. Turn off the computer and the information is lost. Einstein's knowledge is the result of a natural material process."
So knowledge evaporates at the transition from life to death? Then the knowledge itself was not material, it was an artifact of "being alive".
As for your RAM, it has states which are set into it as binary charges (charge=1, no charge=0)on CMOS capacitive devices. These charges do not set themselves nor do they give themselves meaning; that is done externally, first through the intentional of design of the hardware, and second through the design of the software. With out the successful intentional design of the HW/SW, plus the intentional inputs of a user, the charges on the CMOS FET's will display nothing in the manner of information.
Even further, the computer will not boot up without boot instructions embedded within it, placed there previously, intentionally and by design.
Using the computer as an analog is always an interesting subject.
D. Emp: For your phone... Russell observed that a person who falls, say off a cliff, obeys physical laws. On the other hand, a person who performs intentional acts, such as catching a train to go to a meeting, violates physical causation while obeying "mnemic", or mental causation. Physical and mnemic causation are not the same thing. Physical laws exclude intentionality on the part of an "actor", say a rolling boulder which has neither intent nor control and is wholly under external influence.
Demp: Can someone sum up this "life violates the laws of physics" argument for me in a paragraph? I'm trying to read this on my phone.
I'll help. Stan says "...there’s an implicit miracle between Amino Acids and Life". (It's a kind of argument from ignorance. Don't understand? It's a miracle!)
3 Dashes says, "I'll help. Stan says "...there’s an implicit miracle between Amino Acids and Life". (It's a kind of argument from ignorance. Don't understand? It's a miracle!)"
Did you not read the claim? It was a claim by a materialist, with arguments from ignorance implicit in the argument. By skipping from state (n) to state (n + p), the materialist is claiming miraculous events in the interstices. The opposite of what you think you saw.
“...unless some mind interprets them that way.” Otherwise, you contradict your axiom.
Yes, which does you no good. You are trying to reduce mind to matter, here, and this shows that it is not successful, because you just end up having to bring mind back into it at some level. That's the whole point of the argument.
No, that does not follow.
Yes it does, because it's a logically valid argument:
1. No M is S 2. All T is S 3. Therefore, no T is M
The conclusion follows logically and inescapably if you do not contest one of the premises.
Every thought in your head is an electrochemical event. Synapses firing in your brain. You may think about abstract things, but your thoughts are 100% physical.
You're just restating the very thing in question, without providing any argument. What you've said here is exactly what my argument refutes. Your job is to show which of the two premises are wrong.
“One materialist aspect of that is that if Einstein's brain still existed (whole, not in parts), then all of his knowledge should be available to us because knowledge - like all things - is material, and therefore, it is still in there because he put it there.”
If Einstein's brain were intact and perfectly preserved, and had we technology to ‘reboot’ it (perhaps in a Ghost in the Shell-style android), then perhaps Einstein and his knowledge could be available to us again.
“And what counts as knowledge? Speculation based on speculation?”
The classic definition is that knowledge is (1) justified (2) true (3) belief. That is, subject S knows proposition P if, and only if,
a) P is true b) S believes P is true c) S is justified in believing P is true
“You repeatedly refer to speculation as evidence.”
You must have misunderstood me. Speculation is not evidence.
“So as far as you know, only speculation exists about the mind, the brain, and why the brain responds to the laws of physics but the mind does not.”
Not just speculation. Neuroscience has learned a lot about how brains work. We can even, to an extent, watch them work. We can see love on an MRI. What laws of physics do you think minds don’t behave in accord with?
“Something coming spontaneously to life, under the 10 point definition of life, has already happened - would that change your mind?”
I already believe that. And the first single-celled organism reproduced with changes, growing more and more complex, until its descendants took over the world.
“as Russell points out, the laws of physics must be violated in order to allow life to occur”
In the passage you quoted, Bertrand emphasizes that he is not saying that. If he had claimed that, he would be wrong.
“The nature of the original abiogenesis is that it cannot be falsified...”
Yes it can. If you prove it impossible for life to come from non-life, then you falsify abiogenesis.
“Life requires a different causal chain, outside the causal chain which drives mass/energy.”
People having sex and making babies seems to follow the mass/energy causal chain to me.
“We do not - ever - see that occur, the suspension of the laws of physics in order to accommodate a different sort of causal chain.”
“Why should there be special relief from the laws of physics, just so that life could occur, just once, for the common ancestor? That, then, is the question.”
Why, indeed? Why, just so life could occur, should we posit an immaterial being using physics-defying magical powers?
No dice. Those require minds to a) create them, and b) give meaning to them. They are otherwise meaningless ink marks on a page. The ink that makes up the word "dog" no more refers to the quarks over that that compose a dog than they do the quarks over there that refer to an elephant.
” If Einstein's brain were intact and perfectly preserved, and had we technology to ‘reboot’ it (perhaps in a Ghost in the Shell-style android), then perhaps Einstein and his knowledge could be available to us again.”
Then you agree that the brain must have life in order to have knowledge; interesting. If knowledge were physical, material, then we would not need life to access it. All that would be needed is to dig around in the grey matter and find the material chunks of knowledge which reside there. What do you suppose that a material, physical chunk of knowledge looks like? What would be its weight? Its density? It’s color? What sort of molecules make up a chunk of knowledge?
” The classic definition is that knowledge is (1) justified (2) true (3) belief. That is, subject S knows proposition P if, and only if,
a) P is true b) S believes P is true c) S is justified in believing P is true”
This is a loose materialist restriction on knowledge, based on Philosophical Materialism: but it even fails that, because under reductive materialism, there is no truth to start with, and under the fallacy of induction there is no possible justification. Under loose materialism, truth occurs when a belief coincides with a physical fact. Under reductive materialism, physical fact doesn’t exist due to the unreliability of the senses.
” You must have misunderstood me. Speculation is not evidence.”
Yet you continually refer us to speculation as your evidence.
”Not just speculation. Neuroscience has learned a lot about how brains work. We can even, to an extent, watch them work. We can see love on an MRI. What laws of physics do you think minds don’t behave in accord with?”
This is one of my most favoritist subjects! No, we can NOT see love on an MRI. What is shown on an MRI is blood flow in the brain. This is a lagging indicator of brain segment usage under certain conditions of thought. For example, it does not refer to brief access to other parts of the brain, which are known to be necessary for decision making and other thoughts. But for the most part it shows nothing other than blood flow to the segments which are most active.
Now if one is a reductive materialist, then the conclusion is that blood flow is, in fact, love. According to Atheist and uber-Skeptic, Michael Shermer, the use of MRI pictures to declare that thought has been “seen” is the same, logically and philosophically, as phrenology.
It falsely associates a subsidiary attribute of a process with a “thing”, in this case, love.
Again, is love a “thing”, in the material sense? What is its mass? What is its color? How big is it, in inches or Angstroms? What is its molecular composition, so we can find chunks of it in the brain using electron micrography?
The claim that love is material is without merit of either logical or empirical evidential types.
I suggest that you reconsider what it is that merits consideration as “evidence”. i.e., what is proven, what constitutes actual proof, what constitutes justification, etc.
“If knowledge were physical, material, then we would not need life to access it. All that would be needed is to dig around in the grey matter and find the material chunks of knowledge which reside there.”
In principle, we could reconstruct Einstein's knowledge by analyzing his brain structure. Seems like needless effort, since Einstein already recorded his scientific knowledge in his books and papers.
“What do you suppose that a material, physical chunk of knowledge looks like? What would be its weight? Its density? It’s color? What sort of molecules make up a chunk of knowledge?”
As material as a chunk of fire, or a chunk of lightning. In physical terms, knowledge looks like a pattern of chemical reactions and electrical charges in clusters of grayish-white molecules with carbon-hydrogen bonds. Variable weight and density.
“...under reductive materialism, there is no truth to start with, and under the fallacy of induction there is no possible justification”
Under reductive materialism, the physical is absolute truth. Which inductive fallacy do you think makes justification impossible?
“Under reductive materialism, physical fact doesn’t exist due to the unreliability of the senses.”
Under reductive materialism, the physical world is all that is truly real.
“Yet you continually refer us to speculation as your evidence.”
No, I don’t.
“Again, is love a “thing”, in the material sense? What is its mass? What is its color? How big is it, in inches or Angstroms?”
As material as knowledge, with similar properties, but its composition includes more hormones. :)
Yes, to nature, a book is just an arrangement of molecules.
OK, so you agree with premise 1: no group of particles can symbolize, represent, or refer to another group of particles unless some mind interprets them that way.
That leaves you with premise 2 to dispute: minds symbolize, represent, or refer to other groups of particles.
1. No group of particles can symbolize, represent, or refer to another group of particles unless some mind interprets them that way. 2. Minds symbolize, represent, or refer to other groups of particles.
Premise 2 is: our minds symbolize/ represent/refer to things beyond themselves.
Think about this sentence, for instance. Or think about elephants. The sodium ions and neuron cells in your brain are now referring to things beyond themselves. Namely, this sentence and elephants.
Yes, but you are just shifting the problem around. If your mind is interpreting the sodium ions as representing elephants, then your mind is still "pointing": it is pointing to the sodium ions.
You are explaining the problem in terms of the very thing trying to be explained, and thus falling prey to homunculus.
If I wrote “elephants” on a piece of paper, other people could see that and recognize what it referred to. But if you show them my sodium ions, they would represent nothing.
The only mind to whom those sodium ions represent anything, is mine. They have no meaning to anyone else.
My mind isn’t even aware of them, they’re just ink on my mental page.
The only mind to whom those sodium ions represent anything, is mine. They have no meaning to anyone else.
This is the same problem. Private or not, you are claiming that your mind interprets sodium ions as representing elephants. But if your private mind is interpreting something, then this is still an example of representing, symbolizing, or pointing. Which material things cannot do and you agreed with.
Like it or not, your mind symbolizes, represents, or points to things beyond itself. Indeed, how could you even avoid this? You are thinking about this comment, are you not? If it didn't, you can kiss science and reason goodbye, since they all involve this as well.
“But if your private mind is interpreting something, then this is still an example of representing, symbolizing, or pointing. Which material things cannot do and you agreed with.”
On the contrary, by your (revised) first premise, material things which are minds can do that.
On the contrary, by your (revised) first premise, material things which are minds can do that.
Material things cannot do that unless some external mind uses them that way. No one is using our minds to represent things. If you answer that your own mind is using your mind then you fall into homunculus fallacy and thus explain representation in terms of representation.
If my own mind is not using parts of my mind to represent something, then those parts of my mind do not represent anything, and your second premise fails.
If my own mind is not using parts of my mind to represent something, then those parts of my mind do not represent anything, and your second premise fails.
Your mind is representing things. When you think about this sentence, for example. It is representing, symbolizing, or referring to things beyond itself. Clearly, as this sentence is beyond itself.
Your mind is representing things. No one else is using your mind to represent things. The only mind that could be using your mind to represent things, is yours.
If you did not use your mind to represent things, then your mind would not represent anything, and premise 2 would be false.
Your mind is representing things. No one else is using your mind to represent things. The only mind that could be using your mind to represent things, is yours.
The key problem is how anything can represent anything else if materialism is true. How can this group of electrons in your brain be "about" that group of quarks that compose an elephant?
You mind uses those particular brain cells in your cerebellum to store that information, linked to the various categories and related concepts your brain associates with elephants.
You mind uses those particular brain cells in your cerebellum to store that information, linked to the various categories and related concepts your brain associates with elephants.
But the problem is that your paragraph here is absolutely laden with the very thing in question: aboutness.
"store that information"
What is information? Something that represents something beyond itself.
"your brain associates with elephants."
What is association? Aboutness.
This is the very thing in question. A group of quarks in your brain refers to a group of quarks that compose an elephant...how, exactly?
In fact, it's even worse than that. A group of quarks in your brain can refer, represent, be about not just another group of quarks but also groups of quarks that do not exist (Santa Claus) and groups of quarks that can never exist (perpetual motion machines).
Undoubtedly, neuroscience has come a long way, but are we really any closer to explaining consciousness within the modern wordview?
David Chalmers, an Australian philosopher of mind, claims that consciousness is not an accidental derivative of reality working randomly, but a fundamental part of reality existing permanently.
No matter how good the correlations of brain to mind are, they could never literally be "mind". It seems that there must be something extra in consciousness, which can never be explained by anything physical, chemical, or biological.
- Spiros Kakos
A good example would be the following:
Water comes from pipes (correlation).
If the water pipes are damaged, there is less or no water.
Yet the pipes do not generate water. Water is not identical to a property of the pipes.
“A group of quarks in your brain refers to a group of quarks that compose an elephant...how, exactly?”
When you learn about elephants, your hippocampus forms a memory in your neurons, identifying common features with other concepts and linking that concept to neurons related to relevant categories for mammals, size, grayness and so forth.
If you want a detailed description of the biology of memory storage, pick up a neurobiology textbook.
“Undoubtedly, neuroscience has come a long way, but are we really any closer to explaining consciousness within the modern wordview?”
Yes, definitely.
Using MRIs, we can monitor blood flow in your brain and almost read your thoughts, and tell whether you are thinking about a place or a face, or whether a picture you are looking at is of an elephant or a pipe.
We can physically manipulate your consciousness, attaching electrodes to your brain tissue and stimulating it directly, causing you have vivid hallucinations of your fifth birthday or a favorite song. Some Swiss neuroscientists figured out how to switch out-of-body experiences on and off by stimulating a part of the brain where your sensory inputs converge. We can alter how you think and feel by tweaking your brain chemistry with drugs, from alcohol to Zoloft to Ecstasy. We can change a person’s whole personality with antipsychotic drugs.
We’ve come a long way since an earlier, cruder age when sanitariums made psychotics docile by chopping off a lobe, giving patients frontal lobotomies. But speaking of altering your personality by cutting into the brain, some people have even been treated for epilepsy by separating the left and right hemispheres of their brain, splitting it in two, spawning two independent consciousnesses in one head.
If your thoughts and memories were just “piped in” from some metaphysical entity, why would your immaterial ghost be affected by drugs or brain injuries? Why would you lose memories to amnesia, or Alzheimer’s? After my father had a massive brain bleed, he was quite conscious, but he had lost his ability to read. Did his “pipe” to the consciousness main remain open, but the tap of knowledge of how to read get shut off? A better explanation is that his brain tissue that stored that knowledge was destroyed.
We have empirical evidence that your thoughts, your emotions, your memory, your consciousness, all of it arises from your brain.
You can do the same things with a computer. That proves that its software and its origins are itself.
A while back (quite a while now) I was involved in integrated circuit design, some of which contained on-board CPUs. One of the analytical techniques was (is) to put a working chip into an electron microscope, and watch the circuitry light up under electron bombardment. Working circuits would absorb electrons while the non working circuits did not. Exactly the same idea as the so-called revelations of MRI photos of the brain.
Also disrupting the circuitry produces odd effects just like with the brain.
No one ever proposed that the software was identical with the hardware, or that the software originated in the hardware as an emergent event.
One of the major failures of certain segments of science and the science groupies that follow those segments is the apparent need to add meaning to the findings that are outside the actual data. It is proper deduction to hypothesize consequence of the finding and then to test those consequences.
It is irrational to step out into ideology beyond that. Scientism falls directly into the latter category.
Chris, There is a sizable movement amongst materialists which claims that consciousness does not exist, and that the mind is the secondary repository for remembering what the brain did (the brain merely notifies the mind of its finished activity).
This is a necessary conclusion they say, because there can be no "uncaused causer" in their material world. These conclusions derive from their presupposed worldview, a classical rationalization of premises to support a conclusion.
And this precludes any intentionality which you might think that you have, because the mind is only a receiver, not a transmitter.
If you wish, I'll dredge up attributions - but it'll do none of us any good, we are only reactors with no capacity for proactive, non-Newtonian activity.
““We have empirical evidence that your thoughts, your emotions, your memory, your consciousness, all of it arises from your brain.””
“Working circuits would absorb electrons while the non working circuits did not. Exactly the same idea as the so-called revelations of MRI photos of the brain. Also disrupting the circuitry produces odd effects just like with the brain.”
Way to support my point, Stan!
“No one ever proposed that the software was identical with the hardware, or that the software originated in the hardware as an emergent event.”
Indeed, no one ever proposed that. When you boot your computer, an instance of your operating system running emerges from your hardware as an executing process, but your OS does not ultimately originate there; your computer’s software is artificial. Unlike your brain, your computer was designed.
“There is a sizable movement amongst materialists which claims that consciousness does not exist...”
Then you’ll have no trouble naming a couple who claim that. Name two.
“...and that the mind is the secondary repository for remembering what the brain did (the brain merely notifies the mind of its finished activity).”
You could look at it that way. Brain scans indicate that we subliminally recognize an image, before our brain registers that we have recognized it. Our consciousness of our perception lags behind those perceptions.
“This is a necessary conclusion they say, because there can be no "uncaused causer" in their material world.”
What materialist ever said that?
That conclusion derives from experimental data, not anything to do with cosmology.
“If you wish, I'll dredge up attributions...”
I do so wish. Show me where materialists claimed consciousness does not exist, and that we must conclude that brains notify minds of their finished activitiy because there can be no “uncaused causer”.
When you learn about elephants, your hippocampus forms a memory in your neurons, identifying common features with other concepts and linking that concept to neurons related to relevant categories for mammals, size, grayness and so forth.
But you're just explaining aboutness by pulling in more aboutness, which is what we are trying to explain. I'm not asking for mechanics, here. I asked how quarks can refer to, or be about, another group of quarks, and look how you answered: "identifying common features with other concepts and linking that concept to neurons related to relevant categories for mammals"
What does it mean to "identify"? It means for the quarks to be about another group of quarks. What are concepts? Quarks that are about other quarks.
You're just answer my question by saying the same thing: "Oh, well, you see, these quarks here refer to these quarks over there."
But that is the very problem trying to be explained.
But you're just explaining aboutness by pulling in more aboutness, which is what we are trying to explain. I'm not asking for mechanics, here. I asked how quarks can refer to, or be about, another group of quarks...
Sounds like a question about mechanics to me.
Take your sense of sight: When you see something, frex, an apple, light bounces off its surface, enters your eyes, onto your light-sensitive retina. Your brain accumulates that with your other sense impressions and constructs an internal model of an apple.
Thus your mind builds a representation of an apple.
Perhaps you form a long-term memory of that apple. Your brain breaks down your collected sense impressions, its red color, its smooth feel, its apply smell, its sweet taste, its crunchy sound as you bite it, and it records them. The red color gets recorded in the visual cortex, the crunchy sound gets stored in your auditory center, and so forth.
As your brain stores it, it connects those memories to related memories, to other apples you have experienced, to apple trees, to Isaac Newton having been hit by one, and so forth.
Take your sense of sight: When you see something, frex, an apple, light bounces off its surface, enters your eyes, onto your light-sensitive retina. Your brain accumulates that with your other sense impressions and constructs an internal model of an apple.
Stop right there. What is a model? A model is a representation of something else. It has a referent. That is the very thing in contention, and you cannot explain it without appealing back to the very problem itself.
Think about apples. The scientist opens up your skull and looks inside. He sees some electrons sparking in one region of your brain (your apple thought). Are these electrons apple shaped? No. Are they physically connected with an apple? No.
So how can these electrons represent their referent? Namely, the apple?
If I gave you a DVD of video footage of an apple, you put my disc under a microscope and look at its tiny bumps (my apple video). Are its bumps apple-shaped? No. Are they physically connected with an apple? No.
So how can this bit of bumpy aluminum represent its referent? Namely, a moving picture of an apple? Play it and you’ll see.
Many electrons form a set of "many electrons". Many neurons form a set of "many neurons". Is it logical to claim that a thought is made up of electrons. Many electrons cannot be a thought.
Neuroscience is reductionist, and it plans to "solve" consciousness by finding its physical substrate. But this method is hopelessly flawed, and for a simple reason: self-consciousness, at least when felt from the inside, feels like more than the sum of its cells.
Any explanation of our experience solely in terms of our neurons will never explain our experience, because we don't experience our neurons. To believe otherwise is to indulge in a simple category mistake. - Spiros Kakos
So how can this bit of bumpy aluminum represent its referent?
Because we apply that meaning to it from the outside. We collectively decide that these quarks over here reference those quarks over there. Take us away, and the quarks and electrons that make up an image of an apple on a screen no more reference a real apple than do the quarks and electrons that make up a rock.
But when you think about apples, the electrons in your brain refer directly to the quarks that make up an apple, with no one applying that meaning to those electrons. The electrons just intrinsically reference the apple.
As for sense experience, I'm not talking about replaying an image in your mind's eye. I'm talking about intellect. You can intellectually grasp appleness in general, over and above any particular image of an apple in your head. In fact, it's even worse than that. The electrons in your brain can refer to things that don't exist and cannot exist, such as perpetual motion machines.
“Is it logical to claim that a thought is made up of electrons. Many electrons cannot be a thought”
Why not? Is it logical to claim that the Web browser you are using right now is made up of electrons? Is it logical to claim your chair is made up of atoms?
Speaking Newtonianly, chairs are big "things" and atoms are small "things". Both "things" can be observed and expressed in mathematical terms.
But, nobody has ever seen a thought. Nobody has ever seen love nor can it be expressed quantitatively. Humankind's greatest values: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are not merely quantities.
And therein lies the great error and danger of materialism- reductionism.
It seems to me that metaphysical naturalism is a contradiction by definition. It tries to make absolute what is relative.
93 comments:
NOW, my friend, you are on the right track!
Fighting evolution itself, you are up against paleontology and all the other biological sciences, and it is unlikely you can make a good argument in that sense.
But the argument in this post is possibly quite strong, and I can offer you an interesting fleshing out of it.
Consider that it is irrational to hold these two beliefs at once:
1. That something was created by blind impersonal forces
2. And that it accurately gives information about something beyond itself
If blind and impersonal forces create the letters "JOHN F KENNEDY IS 5'6" TALL AND WEIGHS 160 LBS" in the rocks, then we can safely assume that this is not accurate information. If, however, we can take it to give us accurate information about Kennedy, then we can also assume that the letters were not placed there by blind and impersonal forces of nature.
Consider the woman who believes Jesus appeared in her toast. She believes that A) God put the picture there, and B) that the picture accurately represents Jesus. She is OK. (Although, obviously, her belief that God would do such a thing is another story). If she believed that the picture of Jesus was made by mold, and also that the picture was an accurate representation, then we would think that she is quite out of her gourd.
Now consider the materialist. He believes two things: A) human intellect developed from blind and impersonal natural forces, and B)the human intellect can give us accurate information about things beyond itself, such as knowledge about the world beyond himself.
That reminds me of...
Darwin’s Horrid Doubt
Darwin wrote: “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; via “Total Truth”, Nancy Pearcy.
An entity which is analytical and creative is necessarily non-determinate - which falls outside the purview of Materialism. That paradox leads to a lot of philosophical scrambling and double talk.
I don't understand your post. From my understanding Darwinian
evolution works as follows:
Natural Selection:
Assume X randomly producing properties. Assume it is subjected to environment that allows only property k to pass through successfully. Therefore, X with property K survives.
Therefore, Nature appears to be designed because nature allowed only the properties that we observe to be successfully survived/passed through/filtered.
Negative/Purifying selection
Assume a population randomly producing properties. Positive and Neutral properties are accumulated over the populations, while populations with harmful properties will get isolated and deleted over the years.
Therefore, Nature appears to be designed because Positive and Neutral properties accumulated over it over the years.
------
I personally see several holes in this mechanisms. But, i would like to know your opinion on this logic of Darwinian evolution.
That sounds like the argument that led CS Lewis to abandon Materialism as a worldview, which started his intellectual journey back to Christianity.
In practice, I think the Atheists tend to "dodge the bullet" by only applying the "horrid doubt" to other people's beliefs, but never to their own.
Atheists have to learn that they can't know everything so there is always room for God. Unfortunately the first time most of these fools realize that will be will they are burning in Hell.
Ahmed said,
”Natural Selection:
Assume X randomly producing properties. Assume it is subjected to environment that allows only property k to pass through successfully. Therefore, X with property K survives.
Therefore, Nature appears to be designed because nature allowed only the properties that we observe to be successfully survived/passed through/filtered.”
This is a good description. But there is a presupposition embedded within it which needs to be stated fully: Property k pre-existed in X. That is a necessity if X + k is to be selected. Now where did k come from?
Unless k always existed in X, and evolution presumes that it did not, then some sort of change occurred within X which brought k into existence. This previously was called “mutation”, but now there are all sorts of reasons for X to change in order to include k.
But that only applies to living things, and that is why “evolutionists” deny that abiogenesis (life deriving from non-life) has anything to do with evolution: because the probability is too low to be accepted by reasonable persons, and further it is never observed.
An example of this would be the transition from cold blooded animals to warm blooded. The elements for warm bloodedness did not exist in cold blood animals: where did it come from? I.e. k (warm blooded organs, temperature regulation, etc.) did not exist in X (cold blooded creatures). So a change in X had to occur in order to produce k, so that X + k could be selected for.
Now back to the equation in the post. No matter how long you keep a rock around (deep time), there is no expectation that it will spontaneously change or mutate in order either to become alive, or to develop an intellect. In fact, to express such an expectation would demonstrate insanity and/or invite ridicule.
But that is the demand made by Philosophical Materialism – the development of life and intellect had to have occurred under material cause and effect conditions. The equation is merely a demonstration of the absurdity of Philosophical Materialist demands.
When those who base their worldview philosophy on the wonders of science tout the “reasonableness” of evolution, they also ignore – purposefully – the other requirement: having non-life jump to life. This requirement is so unreasonable that it rationally cancels out the “reasonableness” of evolution from the point of rocks, and thus cancels out the “reasonableness” of Materialism as a philosophy.
Materialism is the insane step-son of Atheism.
FrankNorman,
Re: C S Lewis. That is exactly what the argument is. It was also recently developed more comprehensively by Victor Reppert, which you can find an article by here.
And you're correct. Materialists do not seem to generally apply much analysis to their own worldview in the way they do to religions.
Ahmed,
The argument in question has nothing to do with whether natural selection works. Allow that it does.
The problem is how reason can arise from a non-rational source.
Or, to make an Aristotle take on it, materialism rejects final causality. Intellect is an example of final causality. Therefore, materialism is false.
Wait, so the argument is that you don't know how reason arose from a material source therefore materialism is false?
Good luck with that.
Nats,
As usual you either don't understand the argument or you purposefully distort it.
Good luck with that.
Really? Because I see people talking about how they can't understand the intellect and reason or the origin of life as if their inability to understand something makes that something supernatural.
When do we get to the part where you explain how the supernatural works?
Nats,
See my comment at the very top.
Nats,
What we see more of is that evolutionistas declare that Philosophical Materialism is a requirement of science, yet they refuse to discuss abiogenesis because (a) it is crazily improbable, and (b) it is never observed, empirically or anecdotally.
Now if abiogenesis is the material fact, why should we think that to be so? Merely because you claim that materialism is the only valid existence?
Here you have two problems: first: Prove that Materialism is valid and True using Materialism of course to provide your proof; second, prove that abiogenesis makes sense based on material claims and observations (science).
Your claims that "supernatural" forces can't be considered is negated by the need for non-natural (under current understanding) explanations which are required due to the insufficiency of natural explanations.
If that is not so, then give us a "natural" explanation, without the empty scientistic claim that science knows or will know everything. The term "natural" merely refers to things which we currently understand. When other things are added to that understanding they also will be called natural, although professional skeptics and deniers currently deny their existence. Denial is not evidence. Denial along with scientism is merely opinion which has not and cannot be validated materially. In other words, Skepticism and denialism are anti-knowledge and anti-intellect: they are defenses of the status quo, which is Philosophical Materialism.
I would agree with your input on NS. Everything that constitute design is assumed. All that is left is explaining why design does not adapt to certain environment or the demographic fluctuations between different designs.
But what is noticeable is two aspects:
1) The ability to move in increment steps.
Their explanation can be valid to explain the accumulation of traits in a blind manner. Good traits accumulate while bad traits are isolated and deleted.
2) The ability to counter teleology in 2 ways:
If a property is linked to a purpose and teleology is invoked (or God is praised), they would counter it by going back one step and explain the trait as randomly emerged and then came to be used for a purpose in second step.
Or, They would go back one step and imagine several variations of the said property that randomly emerged, and then in the next step only the successful one from the variations survived.
I don't think anyone has yet attacked this logic of atheism. But i am not sure how significant this is.
As for the topic at hand, i think it would be fairer if rock was replaced by sub atomic particles, as rock brings in the added notion of static non-reactive entity. Or perhaps proving how all of nature is equivalent to a rock, if God was to be negated.
Ahmed said,
"As for the topic at hand, i think it would be fairer if rock was replaced by sub atomic particles, as rock brings in the added notion of static non-reactive entity. Or perhaps proving how all of nature is equivalent to a rock, if God was to be negated."
Ahmed, that's a very interesting point. I'm not sure which of the particles to propose, though. How about hydrogen as the first element?
I doubt that I will pursue this as an actual argument, it is more of a Reductio Ad Absurdum in parody form.
I appreciate your comments, Ahmed.
Science discovered that intelligent life derived not from rocks, but from primordial soup. Life-from-rocks, or rather dust, is your ancient Hebrew creation myth:
[ Dust ]^M = [ Humanity ]
where M = God Magic.
As you suggest, Stan, you'd better have started with [ Hydrogen ], as Hydrogen + Gravity + Time → Stars → Novas → Heavy Elements → Planets → Oceans → Amino Acids → Life → Intelligence.
Robin,
It's amazing how people keep missing the point. I flesh out Stan's point above in my first comment.
Martin, in your first comment above, you conclude: “Now consider the materialist. He believes two things: A) human intellect developed from blind and impersonal natural forces, and B)the human intellect can give us accurate information about things beyond itself, such as knowledge about the world beyond himself.”
We have empirical evidence that is so.
Not just human intellect, either: Bumblebee intellect, too, developed from blind and impersonal natural forces, yet not only do bumblebees gather information about the external world, they use their dance language to communicate, frex, locations of nearby food sources to other bumblebees.
Robin Lionheart said,
”Hydrogen + Gravity + Time → Stars → Novas → Heavy Elements → Planets → Oceans → Amino Acids → Life → Intelligence
Nah. You didn’t show your work: there’s an implicit miracle between Amino Acids and Life, and again between Life and Intelligence. There is nothing about Amino Acids that suggests life because they are not alive and do not contain “life particles” or any other little pieces of life. And there is nothing about life that suggests rationality, by the same token.
Robin Lionheart said,
"We have empirical evidence that is so.
Not just human intellect, either: Bumblebee intellect, too, developed from blind and impersonal natural forces, yet not only do bumblebees gather information about the external world, they use their dance language to communicate, frex, locations of nearby food sources to other bumblebees."
This logic form is thus:
If [ E ] then [ I ];
[ I ];
therefore, [ E ].
Where E = evolution,
and I = intellect.
This is "Affirming the Consequent", an invalid form.
Robin,
We have empirical evidence that is so.
Uhhh, I don't know what argument you are talking about there, but ain't the one I posted above. Read it again.
Stan, the transition from amino acids to scum is amazing, but not miraculous. Life is chemistry, not magic.
Life has no special “life particles”. Just atoms. When you drink a glass of water, you replace some of the 60% of you that’s water with different water. Your water doesn’t have magic “life particles” (just the usual protons, neutrons, and electrons), so you can replace it with any other water.
Nor does intelligent life need special “intelligence particles”. Just more complex forebrains. It’s biology, not magic. (Until we design non-biological intelligence, that is!)
No, Stan, that's not a logic form, that's a comparison. Martin ascribed to materialists two propositions about human intelligence. I restated them in terms of bumblebees, to illustrate that non-humans also produce knowledge. Notice the parallel phrasing?
Robin,
The bumblebee comment did not address the issue in question. The issue in question is: do we take human intellect to accurately reflect something beyond itself?
Or, consider this: in a world of just particles, no group of particles can represent or be a symbol for another group of particles unless some mind interprets it that way. Group of particles A can only represent group of particles B if some mind assigns that meaning to them.
Therefore, if materialism is true, then our minds cannot represent, or be "about", things beyond themselves.
Are you thinking about this comment? Yes. Then your mind is representing something beyond itself.
Therefore, materialism is false.
Stan, the transition from amino acids to scum is amazing, but not miraculous. Life is chemistry, not magic.
I’m sure that we all would love to see your attribution for the assertion that amino acids spontaneously form living things. There is a $ 1 Million dollar prize awaiting whoever can produce that. So publish your attributions, not just your assertions.
” Life has no special “life particles”.
Agreed: life is not a physical particle; no one is claiming that. Yet living things do things that non-living things do not. As Bertrand Russell concluded, the intentionality and rationality of humans demonstrates the need for a dual substance, one that is not present in corpses, but is present in living things; the second substance is not naturally (physically) measurable except by its effect, so it is not physical as we know it: it is therefore, metaphysical.
”Just atoms. When you drink a glass of water, you replace some of the 60% of you that’s water with different water. Your water doesn’t have magic “life particles” (just the usual protons, neutrons, and electrons), so you can replace it with any other water.”
You are arguing against a position which is not being taken.
”Nor does intelligent life need special “intelligence particles”. Just more complex forebrains. It’s biology, not magic. (Until we design non-biological intelligence, that is!)
A dead brain is directly available for entropic decay, and produces no intentionality or rational thought. It is the life in the brain, not the brain itself, which is intentional and rational. While this fact is obvious to the casual observer, the Materialist true believer must ignore it in order to preserve the narrative. Reductive materialism ignores the things which it cannot explain, and replaces them with wishful, magical thinking that leaves out the facts of the situation in order to make way for the dogma: Materialism first, facts later if at all.
Robin said,
”No, Stan, that's not a logic form, that's a comparison. Martin ascribed to materialists two propositions about human intelligence. I restated them in terms of bumblebees, to illustrate that non-humans also produce knowledge. Notice the parallel phrasing?”
So you are making no argument, even though one is apparent in your text? If there is no argument (despite its obvious presence), then how do you expect to make a truth claim? And under what sort of logic is a comparison made to demonstrate a conclusion not an argument?
No, I did make an argument, explicitly, spelled out with four words and a colon. My description of bumblebee behavior substantiated that conclusion. Can you figure out what it was?
Martin,
“The issue in question is: do we take human intellect to accurately reflect something beyond itself?”
How would you function if you didn’t?
I believe there is an objective reality, which each of us view through a cloudy filter of our perceptions, to varying degrees of accuracy. Some perceptions are accurate, some are not.
I deduce with my human intellect that I am responding to another human being right now. My conclusion could be inaccurate, but I think you very probably are, in fact, a human being.
“Or, consider this: in a world of just particles, no group of particles can represent or be a symbol for another group of particles unless some mind interprets it that way. Group of particles A can only represent group of particles B if some mind assigns that meaning to them.”
Okay.
“Therefore, if materialism is true, then our minds cannot represent, or be "about", things beyond themselves.”
Sure they can. As you just said, our minds can assign meanings. We can assign meanings to our minds as well as anything else.
“Are you thinking about this comment? Yes. Then your mind is representing something beyond itself. Therefore, materialism is false.”
So, you’re saying that since my mind is assigning meaning right now, therefore materialism is false? How so? Your argument makes no sense to me.
Stan,
“I’m sure that we all would love to see your attribution for the assertion that amino acids spontaneously form living things.”
There are several plausable theories of abiogensis. One
proposal is Günter Wächtershäuser’s iron-sulfur world theory.[1]
In a nutshell, he suggested that carbon oxides released from deep sea vents could stabilize on iron-sulphates, reacting with molecular hydrogen to form organic monomers.
Monomers → polymers → replicating polymers → hypercycle → protobiont → bacteria.
[1] Wächtershäuser, Günter (2007). "On the Chemistry and Evolution of the Pioneer Organism". Chemistry & Biodiversity 4 (4): 584–602.
“As Bertrand Russell concluded, the intentionality and rationality of humans demonstrates the need for a dual substance, one that is not present in corpses, but is present in living things...”
Bertrand Russell the monist?
Bertrand Russell who wrote, “It is, therefore, unwarranted to continue the statement that in addition to the acceleration of oxidations the beginning of individual life is determined by the entrance of a metaphysical ‘life principle’ into the egg; and that death is determined, aside from the cessation of oxidations, by the departure of this ‘principle’ from the body. In the case of the evaporation of water we are satisfied with the explanation given by the kinetic theory of gases and do not demand that to repeat a well-known jest of Huxley the disappearance of the ‘aquosity’ be also taken into consideration.”
That Bertrand Russell? I don’t believe you.
“It is the life in the brain, not the brain itself, which is intentional and rational. While this fact is obvious to the casual observer, the Materialist true believer must ignore it in order to preserve the narrative.”
Well, duh, of course only living brains can be rational. What materialist narrative do you claim ignores that dead brains don’t think?
Name one materialist who has ever suggested otherwise.
Robin,
So, you’re saying that since my mind is assigning meaning right now, therefore materialism is false? How so? Your argument makes no sense to me.
This is a deductive argument. This means that it is logically impossible for both premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. If you think the conclusion is false, then you have to show which premise is wrong:
Axiom: If everything consists of just quarks, electrons, and other particles, then "this" group of particles cannot be represent, symbolize, or be about "that" group of particles unless some mind interprets them that way.
And the argument:
1. Nothing that is material can symbolize, represent, or be "about" something else
2. Our minds symbolize, represent, and are about things other than themselves
3. Therefore, our minds are not material
Remember, this argument is deductive. Forget the conclusion and just focus on the two premises. You can't dispute premise 2. Which just leaves premise 1. But premise 1 seems tight as well.
Robin,
Apparently you have not read Russell's "Fifteen Lectures on the Analysis of Mind". On page 26 and 27 he makes the following statements, which I will edit out of context (and I don't care what you believe about them, you can buy the book and read it yourself).
"Any attempt to classify modern views, such as I propose to advocate, from the old standpoint of materialism and idealism, is only misleading. In certain respects, the views which I shall be setting forth approximate to materialism; in others the approximate to the opposite. On this question of the study of delusions, the practical effect of the modern theories, as Dr. Hart points out, is emancipation from the materialist method. On the other hand, as he also points out (pp. 38-9) , imbecility and dementia still have to be considered physiologically, as caused by defects in the brain. There is no inconsistency in this If, as we maintain, mind and matter are neither of them the actual stuff of reality, but different convenient groupings of an underlying material, then clearly, the question whether, in regard to a given phenomenon, we are to seek a physical or a mental cause, is merely one to be decided by trial.
“If as we maintain, mind and matter are neither of them the real stuff of reality, but clearly different groupings of an underlying material, then, clearly, the question whether, in regard to a given phenomenon, we are to seek a physical or a mental cause, is merely one to be decided by trial.”
(pg 26)
[…]
“I receive a letter inviting me to dinner: the letter is a physical fact, but my apprehension of its meaning is mental. Here we have an effect of the matter on the mind. In consequence of my apprehension of the meaning of the letter, I go to the right place at the right time; here we have an effect of mind on matter. I shall try to persuade you, in the course of these lectures, that matter is not so material and mind is not so mental as is generally supposed. When we are speaking of matter, it will seem as if we are inclining to idealism; when we are speaking of mind, it will seem as if we were inclining to materialism. Neither is the truth. Our world is to be constructed out of what the American realists call “neutral” entities, which have neither the hardness and indestructibility of matter, not the reference to objects which I supposed to characterize the mind."
(continued)
(continued from above)
“There is, it is true, one objection which might be felt, not indeed to the action of matter on mind, but to the action of mind on matter. The laws of physics it may be urged, are apparently adequate to explain everything that happens to matter, even when it is matter in a man’s brain. [Materialism; ED.] This, however is only a hypothesis, not an established theory. There is no cogent empirical reason for supposing that the laws determining the motions of living bodies are exactly the same as those that apply to dead matter. Sometimes, of course, they are clearly the same. When a man falls from a precipice or slips on a piece of orange peel, his body behaves as if it were devoid of life. These are the occasions that make Bergson laugh. [Bergson = dualist]. But when a man’s bodily movements are what we call “voluntary”, they are, at any rate prima facie, very different in their laws from the movements of what is devoid of life. I do not wish to say dogmatically that the difference is irreducible; I think it I highly probable that it is not. I say only that the study of the behavior of living bodies, in the present state of knowledge, is distinct from physics.”
Russell, “Fifteen Lectures on the Analysis of Mind”, pg 27-8.
And this:
”It is probable that the whole science of mental occurrences, especially where its initial definitions are concerned, could be simplified by the development of the fundamental unifying science in which the causal laws of particulars are sought, rather than the causal laws of theose systems of particulars that constityte the material units of physics. This fundamental csience would cause physics to become derivative, in the sort of way in which in theories of the constituion of the atom make chemistry derivative from physics; it would also cause psychology to appear less singular and isolated among the sciences. If we are right in this, it is a wrong philosophy of matter which has caused many of the difficulties in the philosophy of mind – difficulties which a right philosophy of matter would cause to disappear.”
Russell, “Fifteen Lectures on the Analysis of Mind”, pg 203.
Through the two resulting separate causal chains, Mnemic Causation for mental particulars, and Physical Causation for material particulars, Russell’s theory maintained two separate sets of existence with one common base existence. But the dualism is made palatable by insisting that physical particles be redefined as “events” only, thus being more but not completely compatible with mental “events”. In fact, the physical causal laws are made subsidiary to the psychological causal laws. (Ibid pg 204, item VI) He admitted that some laws of physical causation were divorced from mnemic causation, meaning that the duality exists and that the strict Materialist dogma cannot hold.
Robin,
"...Günter Wächtershäuser’s iron-sulfur world theory.[1]"
Surely you realize that I was asking for empirical data, not unproven hypotheses. When you have empirical verification for your hypotheses, let us know. I just don't care about who makes what unproven hypothesis. The $1 Million prize is not for hypotheses, it is for replicable, falsifiable, experimental production of life and that life has to meet the qualifications made for living things to differentiate them from non-living.
http://www.lifeorigin.org/
Martin,
Axiom: If everything consists of just quarks, electrons, and other particles, then "this" group of particles cannot be represent, symbolize, or be about "that" group of particles unless some mind interprets them that way.
Okay.
And the argument:
1. Nothing that is material can symbolize, represent, or be "about" something else
“...unless some mind interprets them that way.” Otherwise, you contradict your axiom.
2. Our minds symbolize, represent, and are about things other than themselves
...only if a mind interprets our minds that way? What?
Oh, now I understand, you’re saying “minds” when you mean “thoughts”.
No, according to your axiom, “Our minds interpret things as symbolizing, representing, or being about things other than themselves.”
3. Therefore, our minds are not material
No, that does not follow.
Every thought in your head is an electrochemical event. Synapses firing in your brain. You may think about abstract things, but your thoughts are 100% physical.
Stan,
Yes, I have not read Fifteen Lectures on the Analysis of Mind. But your quote persuades me that Bertrand Russell was, indeed, not a materialist.
Though, in that first lecture you cite, his view is still monist, not dualist: “The stuff of which the world of our experience is composed is, in my belief, neither mind nor matter, but something more primitive than either. Both mind and matter seem to be composite, and the stuff of which they are compounded lies in a sense between the two, in a sense above them both, like a common ancestor.”
I disagree with Russell; as far as we know, matter and energy are the “actual stuff of reality”, and minds are emergent phenomena of brains.
“Surely you realize that I was asking for empirical data, not unproven hypotheses.”
Actually, you requested “your attribution for the assertion that amino acids spontaneously form living things”.
We have not yet replicably reproduced abiogenesis in a lab. If we do, would that change your mind?
"I disagree with Russell; as far as we know, matter and energy are the “actual stuff of reality”, and minds are emergent phenomena of brains.
Then we will need to discuss your philosophy of knowledge, how it is obtained, and of what it consists. One materialist aspect of that is that if Einstein's brain still existed (whole, not in parts), then all of his knowledge should be available to us because knowledge - like all things - is material, and therefore, it is still in there because he put it there.
And what counts as knowledge? Speculation based on speculation? According to Materialist empiricism, knowledge doesn't exist until it has verifiability and falsifiability and has been verified repeatedly without falsification. You repeatedly refer to speculation as evidence. But for both science and philosophy, speculation is just another unproven hypothesis.
So as far as you know, only speculation exists about the mind, the brain, and why the brain responds to the laws of physics but the mind does not.
According to your concept, physical laws are being violated yet physical laws are the cause. this is non-coherent, and therefore irrational. The insistence that this is true demonstrates an adherence to a dogma rather than to the pursuit of the consequences of known facts.
I respect nearly all of Russell's work, even though I reject his lifestyle and politics. He at least struggled to accommodate the obvious facts in his philosophy, even if he had to make up additional unprovable substances to do it.
One materialist aspect of that is that if Einstein's brain still existed (whole, not in parts), then all of his knowledge should be available to us because knowledge - like all things - is material, and therefore, it is still in there because he put it there.
It's like a computer's RAM. My computer is on and the RAM has information in it. Turn off the computer and the information is lost.
Einstein's knowledge is the result of a natural material process.
I think David Chalmers coined the phrase the "Hard Problem of Consciousness".
Why should physical processing give rise to any inner life at all?
Why does awareness of sensory information exist at all?
Why do qualia exist?
Why is there a subjective component to exprience?
Why aren't we philosophical zombies?
It seems to me that the scientistic reductionist would have to say that we actually are.
Respectfully, it seems to me that an atheo-materialist who is not a nihilist is just being, well, at best, sentimental.
"We have not yet replicably reproduced abiogenesis in a lab. If we do, would that change your mind?"
Something coming spontaneously to life, under the 10 point definition of life, has already happened - would that change your mind?
As for laboratory abiogenesis, it would be very interesting if it occurs, but not convicting and here is why: (a) merely demonstrating the possibility is not incorrigible evidence that it either occurred, or that it occurred that way; (b) as Russell points out, the laws of physics must be violated in order to allow life to occur. So I am not concerned that it will happen.
The nature of the original abiogenesis is that it cannot be falsified, nor can it be proved. It must be accepted on faith. The faith - fact gap currently is beyond huge; the gap would be reduced by such a demonstration, but it can never be eliminated.
The reason I am not concerned that it will happen is that when minerals produce life, they must also produce new laws outside the laws of physics, in order for there to be a differentiation between "alive" and "dead". As Russell points out, there is a difference and the difference is not due to molecular structure or energy distributions. Life requires a different causal chain, outside the causal chain which drives mass/energy.
We do not - ever - see that occur, the suspension of the laws of physics in order to accommodate a different sort of causal chain. And we do not - ever - see spontaneous, natural creation of something living from something which is not. In fact, one of the religious tenets of evolution is that life always comes from other life, clear back to the common ancestor.
Why should there be special relief from the laws of physics, just so that life could occur, just once, for the common ancestor? That, then, is the question.
D. Emp. said,
"It's like a computer's RAM. My computer is on and the RAM has information in it. Turn off the computer and the information is lost.
Einstein's knowledge is the result of a natural material process."
So knowledge evaporates at the transition from life to death? Then the knowledge itself was not material, it was an artifact of "being alive".
As for your RAM, it has states which are set into it as binary charges (charge=1, no charge=0)on CMOS capacitive devices. These charges do not set themselves nor do they give themselves meaning; that is done externally, first through the intentional of design of the hardware, and second through the design of the software. With out the successful intentional design of the HW/SW, plus the intentional inputs of a user, the charges on the CMOS FET's will display nothing in the manner of information.
Even further, the computer will not boot up without boot instructions embedded within it, placed there previously, intentionally and by design.
Using the computer as an analog is always an interesting subject.
Can someone sum up this "life violates the laws of physics" argument for me in a paragraph? I'm trying to read this on my phone.
I said knowledge is the -result- of natural material processes.
And I disagree. Knowledge has meaning which cannot be conferred by material processes.
D. Emp: For your phone...
Russell observed that a person who falls, say off a cliff, obeys physical laws. On the other hand, a person who performs intentional acts, such as catching a train to go to a meeting, violates physical causation while obeying "mnemic", or mental causation. Physical and mnemic causation are not the same thing. Physical laws exclude intentionality on the part of an "actor", say a rolling boulder which has neither intent nor control and is wholly under external influence.
Demp: Can someone sum up this "life violates the laws of physics" argument for me in a paragraph? I'm trying to read this on my phone.
I'll help. Stan says "...there’s an implicit miracle between Amino Acids and Life". (It's a kind of argument from ignorance. Don't understand? It's a miracle!)
3 Dashes says,
"I'll help. Stan says "...there’s an implicit miracle between Amino Acids and Life". (It's a kind of argument from ignorance. Don't understand? It's a miracle!)"
Did you not read the claim? It was a claim by a materialist, with arguments from ignorance implicit in the argument. By skipping from state (n) to state (n + p), the materialist is claiming miraculous events in the interstices. The opposite of what you think you saw.
But welcome back, you're always a hoot...
Robin Lionheart,
“...unless some mind interprets them that way.” Otherwise, you contradict your axiom.
Yes, which does you no good. You are trying to reduce mind to matter, here, and this shows that it is not successful, because you just end up having to bring mind back into it at some level. That's the whole point of the argument.
No, that does not follow.
Yes it does, because it's a logically valid argument:
1. No M is S
2. All T is S
3. Therefore, no T is M
The conclusion follows logically and inescapably if you do not contest one of the premises.
Every thought in your head is an electrochemical event. Synapses firing in your brain. You may think about abstract things, but your thoughts are 100% physical.
You're just restating the very thing in question, without providing any argument. What you've said here is exactly what my argument refutes. Your job is to show which of the two premises are wrong.
Stan,
“One materialist aspect of that is that if Einstein's brain still existed (whole, not in parts), then all of his knowledge should be available to us because knowledge - like all things - is material, and therefore, it is still in there because he put it there.”
If Einstein's brain were intact and perfectly preserved, and had we technology to ‘reboot’ it (perhaps in a Ghost in the Shell-style android), then perhaps Einstein and his knowledge could be available to us again.
“And what counts as knowledge? Speculation based on speculation?”
The classic definition is that knowledge is (1) justified (2) true (3) belief. That is, subject S knows proposition P if, and only if,
a) P is true
b) S believes P is true
c) S is justified in believing P is true
“You repeatedly refer to speculation as evidence.”
You must have misunderstood me. Speculation is not evidence.
“So as far as you know, only speculation exists about the mind, the brain, and why the brain responds to the laws of physics but the mind does not.”
Not just speculation. Neuroscience has learned a lot about how brains work. We can even, to an extent, watch them work. We can see love on an MRI. What laws of physics do you think minds don’t behave in accord with?
Martin, the structure is valid, but your argument is unsound.
“Your job is to show which of the two premises are wrong.”
I didn’t? All right:
“Nothing that is material can symbolize, represent, or be "about" something else”
False. Counterexample: books.
“Something coming spontaneously to life, under the 10 point definition of life, has already happened - would that change your mind?”
I already believe that. And the first single-celled organism reproduced with changes, growing more and more complex, until its descendants took over the world.
“as Russell points out, the laws of physics must be violated in order to allow life to occur”
In the passage you quoted, Bertrand emphasizes that he is not saying that. If he had claimed that, he would be wrong.
“The nature of the original abiogenesis is that it cannot be falsified...”
Yes it can. If you prove it impossible for life to come from non-life, then you falsify abiogenesis.
“Life requires a different causal chain, outside the causal chain which drives mass/energy.”
People having sex and making babies seems to follow the mass/energy causal chain to me.
“We do not - ever - see that occur, the suspension of the laws of physics in order to accommodate a different sort of causal chain.”
“Why should there be special relief from the laws of physics, just so that life could occur, just once, for the common ancestor? That, then, is the question.”
Why, indeed? Why, just so life could occur, should we posit an immaterial being using physics-defying magical powers?
An issue for creationists, not for materialists.
Robin Lionheart,
False. Counterexample: books.
No dice. Those require minds to a) create them, and b) give meaning to them. They are otherwise meaningless ink marks on a page. The ink that makes up the word "dog" no more refers to the quarks over that that compose a dog than they do the quarks over there that refer to an elephant.
Robin 2 091811
” If Einstein's brain were intact and perfectly preserved, and had we technology to ‘reboot’ it (perhaps in a Ghost in the Shell-style android), then perhaps Einstein and his knowledge could be available to us again.”
Then you agree that the brain must have life in order to have knowledge; interesting. If knowledge were physical, material, then we would not need life to access it. All that would be needed is to dig around in the grey matter and find the material chunks of knowledge which reside there. What do you suppose that a material, physical chunk of knowledge looks like? What would be its weight? Its density? It’s color? What sort of molecules make up a chunk of knowledge?
” The classic definition is that knowledge is (1) justified (2) true (3) belief. That is, subject S knows proposition P if, and only if,
a) P is true
b) S believes P is true
c) S is justified in believing P is true”
This is a loose materialist restriction on knowledge, based on Philosophical Materialism: but it even fails that, because under reductive materialism, there is no truth to start with, and under the fallacy of induction there is no possible justification. Under loose materialism, truth occurs when a belief coincides with a physical fact. Under reductive materialism, physical fact doesn’t exist due to the unreliability of the senses.
” You must have misunderstood me. Speculation is not evidence.”
Yet you continually refer us to speculation as your evidence.
”Not just speculation. Neuroscience has learned a lot about how brains work. We can even, to an extent, watch them work. We can see love on an MRI. What laws of physics do you think minds don’t behave in accord with?”
This is one of my most favoritist subjects! No, we can NOT see love on an MRI. What is shown on an MRI is blood flow in the brain. This is a lagging indicator of brain segment usage under certain conditions of thought. For example, it does not refer to brief access to other parts of the brain, which are known to be necessary for decision making and other thoughts. But for the most part it shows nothing other than blood flow to the segments which are most active.
Now if one is a reductive materialist, then the conclusion is that blood flow is, in fact, love. According to Atheist and uber-Skeptic, Michael Shermer, the use of MRI pictures to declare that thought has been “seen” is the same, logically and philosophically, as phrenology.
It falsely associates a subsidiary attribute of a process with a “thing”, in this case, love.
Again, is love a “thing”, in the material sense? What is its mass? What is its color? How big is it, in inches or Angstroms? What is its molecular composition, so we can find chunks of it in the brain using electron micrography?
The claim that love is material is without merit of either logical or empirical evidential types.
I suggest that you reconsider what it is that merits consideration as “evidence”. i.e., what is proven, what constitutes actual proof, what constitutes justification, etc.
“No dice. Those require minds to a) create them, and b) give meaning to them. They are otherwise meaningless ink marks on a page.”
Yes, to nature, a book is just an arrangement of molecules. But to us, they are about something.
Thus, your premise “Nothing that is material can symbolize, represent, or be ‘about’ something else” is false as stated.
If you want to excluding meaning to humans, rewrite your premise accordingly, and see what happens to your argument.
“If knowledge were physical, material, then we would not need life to access it. All that would be needed is to dig around in the grey matter and find the material chunks of knowledge which reside there.”
In principle, we could reconstruct Einstein's knowledge by analyzing his brain structure. Seems like needless effort, since Einstein already recorded his scientific knowledge in his books and papers.
“What do you suppose that a material, physical chunk of knowledge looks like? What would be its weight? Its density? It’s color? What sort of molecules make up a chunk of knowledge?”
As material as a chunk of fire, or a chunk of lightning. In physical terms, knowledge looks like a pattern of chemical reactions and electrical charges in clusters of grayish-white molecules with carbon-hydrogen bonds. Variable weight and density.
“...under reductive materialism, there is no truth to start with, and under the fallacy of induction there is no possible justification”
Under reductive materialism, the physical is absolute truth. Which inductive fallacy do you think makes justification impossible?
“Under reductive materialism, physical fact doesn’t exist due to the unreliability of the senses.”
Under reductive materialism, the physical world is all that is truly real.
“Yet you continually refer us to speculation as your evidence.”
No, I don’t.
“Again, is love a “thing”, in the material sense? What is its mass? What is its color? How big is it, in inches or Angstroms?”
As material as knowledge, with similar properties, but its composition includes more hormones. :)
Robin Lionheart,
Yes, to nature, a book is just an arrangement of molecules.
OK, so you agree with premise 1: no group of particles can symbolize, represent, or refer to another group of particles unless some mind interprets them that way.
That leaves you with premise 2 to dispute: minds symbolize, represent, or refer to other groups of particles.
Martin,
So your premises now read:
1. No group of particles can symbolize, represent, or refer to another group of particles unless some mind interprets them that way.
2. Minds symbolize, represent, or refer to other groups of particles.
Then a valid conclusion is not,
*3. Therefore, minds are not groups of particles.
but rather,
3. Therefore, minds interpret minds that way.
Robin Lionheart,
But no one is using our minds to represent things beyond themselves, unless you want to pull in God.
Martin,
If no one is using our minds to symbolize, represent, or refer to other groups of particles, there goes your premise 2.
OK, so you agree with premise 1.
Premise 2 is: our minds symbolize/ represent/refer to things beyond themselves.
Think about this sentence, for instance. Or think about elephants. The sodium ions and neuron cells in your brain are now referring to things beyond themselves. Namely, this sentence and elephants.
So my mind would be using those sodium ions in my brain to represent elephants.
They represent elephants, because a mind interpreted them that way: mine.
Yes, but you are just shifting the problem around. If your mind is interpreting the sodium ions as representing elephants, then your mind is still "pointing": it is pointing to the sodium ions.
You are explaining the problem in terms of the very thing trying to be explained, and thus falling prey to homunculus.
Martin,
If I wrote “elephants” on a piece of paper, other people could see that and recognize what it referred to. But if you show them my sodium ions, they would represent nothing.
The only mind to whom those sodium ions represent anything, is mine. They have no meaning to anyone else.
My mind isn’t even aware of them, they’re just ink on my mental page.
The only mind to whom those sodium ions represent anything, is mine. They have no meaning to anyone else.
This is the same problem. Private or not, you are claiming that your mind interprets sodium ions as representing elephants. But if your private mind is interpreting something, then this is still an example of representing, symbolizing, or pointing. Which material things cannot do and you agreed with.
Like it or not, your mind symbolizes, represents, or points to things beyond itself. Indeed, how could you even avoid this? You are thinking about this comment, are you not? If it didn't, you can kiss science and reason goodbye, since they all involve this as well.
Martin,
“But if your private mind is interpreting something, then this is still an example of representing, symbolizing, or pointing. Which material things cannot do and you agreed with.”
On the contrary, by your (revised) first premise, material things which are minds can do that.
My mind is doing that right now, as is yours.
On the contrary, by your (revised) first premise, material things which are minds can do that.
Material things cannot do that unless some external mind uses them that way. No one is using our minds to represent things. If you answer that your own mind is using your mind then you fall into homunculus fallacy and thus explain representation in terms of representation.
Martin,
If my own mind is not using parts of my mind to represent something, then those parts of my mind do not represent anything, and your second premise fails.
To all external minds, my mind represents nothing.
If my own mind is not using parts of my mind to represent something, then those parts of my mind do not represent anything, and your second premise fails.
Your mind is representing things. When you think about this sentence, for example. It is representing, symbolizing, or referring to things beyond itself. Clearly, as this sentence is beyond itself.
That is premise 2.
Martin:
Your mind is representing things. No one else is using your mind to represent things. The only mind that could be using your mind to represent things, is yours.
If you did not use your mind to represent things, then your mind would not represent anything, and premise 2 would be false.
Martin,
If no one, not even you, uses your mind to represent anything, it does not represent anything.
If no one, not even you, uses your mind to symbolize anything, it does not symbolize anything.
If no one, not even you, uses your mind to refer to anything beyond itself, it does not refer to anything beyond itself.
Your mind is representing things. No one else is using your mind to represent things. The only mind that could be using your mind to represent things, is yours.
The key problem is how anything can represent anything else if materialism is true. How can this group of electrons in your brain be "about" that group of quarks that compose an elephant?
Martin,
You mind uses those particular brain cells in your cerebellum to store that information, linked to the various categories and related concepts your brain associates with elephants.
You mind uses those particular brain cells in your cerebellum to store that information, linked to the various categories and related concepts your brain associates with elephants.
But the problem is that your paragraph here is absolutely laden with the very thing in question: aboutness.
"store that information"
What is information? Something that represents something beyond itself.
"your brain associates with elephants."
What is association? Aboutness.
This is the very thing in question. A group of quarks in your brain refers to a group of quarks that compose an elephant...how, exactly?
In fact, it's even worse than that. A group of quarks in your brain can refer, represent, be about not just another group of quarks but also groups of quarks that do not exist (Santa Claus) and groups of quarks that can never exist (perpetual motion machines).
In accordance with materialism,
mind=brain.
Undoubtedly, neuroscience has come a long way, but are we really any closer to explaining consciousness within the modern wordview?
David Chalmers, an Australian philosopher of mind, claims that consciousness is not an accidental derivative of reality working randomly, but a fundamental part of reality existing permanently.
No matter how good the correlations of brain to mind are, they could never literally be "mind". It seems that there must be something extra in consciousness, which can never be explained by anything physical, chemical, or biological.
- Spiros Kakos
A good example would be the following:
Water comes from pipes (correlation).
If the water pipes are damaged, there is less or no water.
Yet the pipes do not generate water. Water is not identical to a property of the pipes.
The pipes are conduits of water.
Likewise the brain is a conduit of consciousness.
-Jonah Lehrer
“A group of quarks in your brain refers to a group of quarks that compose an elephant...how, exactly?”
When you learn about elephants, your hippocampus forms a memory in your neurons, identifying common features with other concepts and linking that concept to neurons related to relevant categories for mammals, size, grayness and so forth.
If you want a detailed description of the biology of memory storage, pick up a neurobiology textbook.
Chris,
“Undoubtedly, neuroscience has come a long way, but are we really any closer to explaining consciousness within the modern wordview?”
Yes, definitely.
Using MRIs, we can monitor blood flow in your brain and almost read your thoughts, and tell whether you are thinking about a place or a face, or whether a picture you are looking at is of an elephant or a pipe.
We can physically manipulate your consciousness, attaching electrodes to your brain tissue and stimulating it directly, causing you have vivid hallucinations of your fifth birthday or a favorite song. Some Swiss neuroscientists figured out how to switch out-of-body experiences on and off by stimulating a part of the brain where your sensory inputs converge. We can alter how you think and feel by tweaking your brain chemistry with drugs, from alcohol to Zoloft to Ecstasy. We can change a person’s whole personality with antipsychotic drugs.
We’ve come a long way since an earlier, cruder age when sanitariums made psychotics docile by chopping off a lobe, giving patients frontal lobotomies. But speaking of altering your personality by cutting into the brain, some people have even been treated for epilepsy by separating the left and right hemispheres of their brain, splitting it in two, spawning two independent consciousnesses in one head.
If your thoughts and memories were just “piped in” from some metaphysical entity, why would your immaterial ghost be affected by drugs or brain injuries? Why would you lose memories to amnesia, or Alzheimer’s? After my father had a massive brain bleed, he was quite conscious, but he had lost his ability to read. Did his “pipe” to the consciousness main remain open, but the tap of knowledge of how to read get shut off? A better explanation is that his brain tissue that stored that knowledge was destroyed.
We have empirical evidence that your thoughts, your emotions, your memory, your consciousness, all of it arises from your brain.
You can do the same things with a computer. That proves that its software and its origins are itself.
A while back (quite a while now) I was involved in integrated circuit design, some of which contained on-board CPUs. One of the analytical techniques was (is) to put a working chip into an electron microscope, and watch the circuitry light up under electron bombardment. Working circuits would absorb electrons while the non working circuits did not. Exactly the same idea as the so-called revelations of MRI photos of the brain.
Also disrupting the circuitry produces odd effects just like with the brain.
No one ever proposed that the software was identical with the hardware, or that the software originated in the hardware as an emergent event.
One of the major failures of certain segments of science and the science groupies that follow those segments is the apparent need to add meaning to the findings that are outside the actual data. It is proper deduction to hypothesize consequence of the finding and then to test those consequences.
It is irrational to step out into ideology beyond that. Scientism falls directly into the latter category.
Chris,
There is a sizable movement amongst materialists which claims that consciousness does not exist, and that the mind is the secondary repository for remembering what the brain did (the brain merely notifies the mind of its finished activity).
This is a necessary conclusion they say, because there can be no "uncaused causer" in their material world. These conclusions derive from their presupposed worldview, a classical rationalization of premises to support a conclusion.
And this precludes any intentionality which you might think that you have, because the mind is only a receiver, not a transmitter.
If you wish, I'll dredge up attributions - but it'll do none of us any good, we are only reactors with no capacity for proactive, non-Newtonian activity.
Stan,
““We have empirical evidence that your thoughts, your emotions, your memory, your consciousness, all of it arises from your brain.””
“Working circuits would absorb electrons while the non working circuits did not. Exactly the same idea as the so-called revelations of MRI photos of the brain. Also disrupting the circuitry produces odd effects just like with the brain.”
Way to support my point, Stan!
“No one ever proposed that the software was identical with the hardware, or that the software originated in the hardware as an emergent event.”
Indeed, no one ever proposed that. When you boot your computer, an instance of your operating system running emerges from your hardware as an executing process, but your OS does not ultimately originate there; your computer’s software is artificial. Unlike your brain, your computer was designed.
“There is a sizable movement amongst materialists which claims that consciousness does not exist...”
Then you’ll have no trouble naming a couple who claim that. Name two.
“...and that the mind is the secondary repository for remembering what the brain did (the brain merely notifies the mind of its finished activity).”
You could look at it that way. Brain scans indicate that we subliminally recognize an image, before our brain registers that we have recognized it. Our consciousness of our perception lags behind those perceptions.
“This is a necessary conclusion they say, because there can be no "uncaused causer" in their material world.”
What materialist ever said that?
That conclusion derives from experimental data, not anything to do with cosmology.
“If you wish, I'll dredge up attributions...”
I do so wish. Show me where materialists claimed consciousness does not exist, and that we must conclude that brains notify minds of their finished activitiy because there can be no “uncaused causer”.
Robin Lionheart,
When you learn about elephants, your hippocampus forms a memory in your neurons, identifying common features with other concepts and linking that concept to neurons related to relevant categories for mammals, size, grayness and so forth.
But you're just explaining aboutness by pulling in more aboutness, which is what we are trying to explain. I'm not asking for mechanics, here. I asked how quarks can refer to, or be about, another group of quarks, and look how you answered: "identifying common features with other concepts and linking that concept to neurons related to relevant categories for mammals"
What does it mean to "identify"? It means for the quarks to be about another group of quarks. What are concepts? Quarks that are about other quarks.
You're just answer my question by saying the same thing: "Oh, well, you see, these quarks here refer to these quarks over there."
But that is the very problem trying to be explained.
Martin,
But you're just explaining aboutness by pulling in more aboutness, which is what we are trying to explain. I'm not asking for mechanics, here. I asked how quarks can refer to, or be about, another group of quarks...
Sounds like a question about mechanics to me.
Take your sense of sight: When you see something, frex, an apple, light bounces off its surface, enters your eyes, onto your light-sensitive retina. Your brain accumulates that with your other sense impressions and constructs an internal model of an apple.
Thus your mind builds a representation of an apple.
Perhaps you form a long-term memory of that apple. Your brain breaks down your collected sense impressions, its red color, its smooth feel, its apply smell, its sweet taste, its crunchy sound as you bite it, and it records them. The red color gets recorded in the visual cortex, the crunchy sound gets stored in your auditory center, and so forth.
As your brain stores it, it connects those memories to related memories, to other apples you have experienced, to apple trees, to Isaac Newton having been hit by one, and so forth.
That’s how.
Robin,
Take your sense of sight: When you see something, frex, an apple, light bounces off its surface, enters your eyes, onto your light-sensitive retina. Your brain accumulates that with your other sense impressions and constructs an internal model of an apple.
Stop right there. What is a model? A model is a representation of something else. It has a referent. That is the very thing in contention, and you cannot explain it without appealing back to the very problem itself.
Think about apples. The scientist opens up your skull and looks inside. He sees some electrons sparking in one region of your brain (your apple thought). Are these electrons apple shaped? No. Are they physically connected with an apple? No.
So how can these electrons represent their referent? Namely, the apple?
That is the problem.
Martin,
When you called “stop”, your electrons represented an apple because they’re transmitting your sense impressions of an apple.
When you later recall that apple, you activate electrons that replay those sense impressions.
That’s how they relate to the apple. Why do you not understand this? It all seems very straightforward to me.
Martin,
If I gave you a DVD of video footage of an apple, you put my disc under a microscope and look at its tiny bumps (my apple video). Are its bumps apple-shaped? No. Are they physically connected with an apple? No.
So how can this bit of bumpy aluminum represent its referent? Namely, a moving picture of an apple? Play it and you’ll see.
Yes, it seems straightforward, but ....
Many electrons form a set of "many electrons". Many neurons form a set of "many neurons". Is it logical to claim that a thought is made up of electrons. Many electrons cannot be a thought.
Neuroscience is reductionist, and it plans to "solve" consciousness by finding its physical substrate. But this method is hopelessly flawed, and for a simple reason: self-consciousness, at least when felt from the inside, feels like more than the sum of its cells.
Any explanation of our experience solely in terms of our neurons will never explain our experience, because we don't experience our neurons. To believe otherwise is to indulge in a simple category mistake. - Spiros Kakos
Robin Lionheart,
So how can this bit of bumpy aluminum represent its referent?
Because we apply that meaning to it from the outside. We collectively decide that these quarks over here reference those quarks over there. Take us away, and the quarks and electrons that make up an image of an apple on a screen no more reference a real apple than do the quarks and electrons that make up a rock.
But when you think about apples, the electrons in your brain refer directly to the quarks that make up an apple, with no one applying that meaning to those electrons. The electrons just intrinsically reference the apple.
As for sense experience, I'm not talking about replaying an image in your mind's eye. I'm talking about intellect. You can intellectually grasp appleness in general, over and above any particular image of an apple in your head. In fact, it's even worse than that. The electrons in your brain can refer to things that don't exist and cannot exist, such as perpetual motion machines.
Martin,
“As for sense experience, I'm not talking about replaying an image in your mind's eye.”
We can build up to abstract things, but let’s start with simple, concrete apples:
Do you agree that when you replay a memory of an apple in your mind’s eye, that memory represents an apple?
If so,
Do you agree that bumps on a DVD represent a video?
Chris,
“Is it logical to claim that a thought is made up of electrons. Many electrons cannot be a thought”
Why not? Is it logical to claim that the Web browser you are using right now is made up of electrons? Is it logical to claim your chair is made up of atoms?
Speaking Newtonianly, chairs are big "things" and atoms are small "things". Both "things" can be observed and expressed in mathematical terms.
But, nobody has ever seen a thought. Nobody has ever seen love nor can it be expressed quantitatively. Humankind's greatest values: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are not merely quantities.
And therein lies the great error and danger of materialism- reductionism.
It seems to me that metaphysical naturalism is a contradiction by definition.
It tries to make absolute what is relative.
Robin Lionheart has been removed from this blog.
Chris writes:
“But, nobody has ever seen a thought. Nobody has ever seen love nor can it be expressed quantitatively.”
To a extent, we have seen thoughts, and love, on MRIs. Aspects of love can be expressed quantitatively, such as oxytocin levels in your brain.
“And therein lies the great error and danger of materialism- reductionism.”
What’s so dangerous about thinking you can understand complex things fully in terms of their simpler parts?
“It seems to me that metaphysical naturalism is a contradiction by definition. It tries to make absolute what is relative.”
Metaphysical naturalism holds that nature is all that exists. Do you mean that nature is relative, not absolute? How so?
Post a Comment