Explain, please

[Serious]

Alright then, let’s focus on this set of questions.

(1) I did say that God created the regularity in nature, sustains individual things in existence through secondary causality, and does not have to directly second-to-second sustain an individual thing in existence, and that this is the faith of the church. I repeat and reaffirm it here.
A few examples:
“The LNs are empirical generalizations re how nature functions as I said before. And, according to the doctrine, God works through them as secondary causes to sustain the universe and everything in it in existence given that He created the universe to work according to them.”
And from my very first post: “Hence observed regularities were seen as rooted in God’s creative and providential will. He is therefore the law maker.”

(2) I cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church which says the same thing unambiguously.
Let me add an oft-quoted text from the Old Testament addressed to God: “But you have disposed all things by measure and number and weight. (Wisdom 11:21)

(3) Sententia communis (“common opinion”) is the next lowest grade of theological certainty out of 6. You can find that on p. 10 of Ludwig Ott’s book which you quote above. Anyway what 70 above seeks to avoid is deism: which asserts, in essence, that God created the world as a perpetual motion machine which He does not sustain or guide in any way and He went off to do something else.

(4) I would encourage you to study Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles III, 65-70. It discusses God as the primary creative and sustaining cause of existence through secondary causes.

If I read your words correctly, then you say that God set the “train” in motion, and now there is no need for constant intervention. In the threads dealing with this question, there was only one catholic poster who expressed the same sentiment. Everyone else jumped down his throat. You said that those posters were ill-informed. I add to that that they are absolutely certain that they are right, and they are very vocal about it, too.

Oh please! Did you even read the Wikipedia article? An international medical board composed of doctors and other experts, use of the latest medical tests and technologies, strict criteria—what else does rationality and science require? and all they do is pronounce the cure to be “medically inexplicable.” Go back and read the section “Investigation of apparent cures.”

“Medically inexplicable” is a far cry from declaring it a “miracle”. One cannot expect doctors to be experts in discovering flim-flam and fraud. The experts in those fields are the stage magicians.

I’m all for exposing frauds and delusions.

And I applaud you for it.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

If I read your words correctly, then you say that God set the “train” in motion, and now there is no need for constant intervention. In the threads dealing with this question, there was only one catholic poster who expressed the same sentiment. Everyone else jumped down his throat. You said that those posters were ill-informed. I add to that that they are absolutely certain that they are right, and they are very vocal about it, too.

If I understand your concerns, what you object to is the notion that individual objects in creation require God’s direct, second-to-second sustenance or tinkering in order to remain in existence.
I stressed in my first response that the Catholic view is (from the Catechism and as seen in Aquinas) that “The individual objects in reality are held in existence by God not directly but by secondary causes. E.g., God holds me in existence at each moment by all the well-known necessary conditions for human life. The idea is a hierarchical series of natural causes operating simultaneously (observable and describable by science) all ultimately resting on God as the primary sustaining cause of existence (grasped by the intellect philosophically).”

If posters object to this they either don’t understand the Church’s teaching or aren’t expressing themselves well.

There is a both-and component to this discussion that may enter in with those posters as well. Let me get at it by exploring an earlier response of yours in greater depth. Perhaps it may help.

Sure. There is no point to posit a “law maker”. The laws are simply regularities. They can be adequately explained (if one is interested) by the logical law of identity: “things are what they are”. An electron is what it is. A proton is what it is. Since they have equal but opposite electrical charges (and the opposite electrical charges attract), the hydrogen atom is stable on its own right. There is no need to posit that God needs to consciously “maintain” the stability of a hydrogen atom - because without this attention the atom would simply “disintegrate” or maybe blow up into a supernova.

(1) First principles (aka, laws of thought or logic) are not explanations they are truths about reality and the mind that are implicitly contained in all knowledge and used in all reasoning; and need only be made explicit. They are the rational ground for all knowing. People live and act on them every day. They are seen by the intellect to be true directly, intuitively from our experience of the world. Examples are: Principle of Identity, Principle of Contradiction, Principle of Excluded Middle, Principle of Sufficient Reason, Principle of the Uniformity of Nature.

(2) The principle of identity [A thing is what it is : A is A : a thing is itself : if there are two or more things, each of them is different from the other, and the same with itself (cf. Plato *Theaetetus, 185a). see also Aristotle, Metaphysics, (VII, 17) 1041a15] does not eliminate the need for explanation of anything. For example on the level of science: to say the car is what it is does not eliminate the need to explain it. Similarly to say that the law of gravity is what it is doesn’t rule out explaining it in the bigger picture of general relativity as a geometric property of spacetime. Philosophically also the existence of anything (the LNs included) requires an explanation by the principle of sufficient reason.

(3) (a) The SM by its nature can only observe empirically, catalogue, quantify, and describe (whether concretely and/or in mathematical relationships and/or in theoretical constructs) physical reality. All of the first principles I listed are involved. Your description of the structure and function of the hydrogen atom uses a sufficient scientific accounting of it. What the SM can see of reality/existence (physical reality) yields perfectly valid scientific knowledge of reality/existence.
(b) But for one to say (not implying that you do) that God in no way at all sustains the hydrogen atom is a philosophical statement not a scientific one since science by its nature cannot pronounce on the subject of God. If one were to say that the only way to understand all there is to know and anything there is to know about the hydrogen atom including its relations to everything else is by what science can tell us is, again, a philosophical statement, and then we’re into theoretical scientism or policy scientism.

(4) I have been explaining that the Catholic teaching is that God created and sustains the universe as a whole in existence; and consciously brings into and maintains in existence individual things through secondary causes which act regularly with observable and understandable properties that are amenable to both scientific and philosophical investigation. Again, what the SM can see of reality/existence (physical reality) yields perfectly valid scientific knowledge of reality/existence. Ditto for philosophy.

“Medically inexplicable” is a far cry from declaring it a “miracle”. One cannot expect doctors to be experts in discovering flim-flam and fraud. The experts in those fields are the stage magicians.

There is no question that some claims of miraculous happenings would have to be tested against known techniques used by magicians. But medical claims need to be tested medically. X-rays, other medical imaging, blood tests, physical exams, EKGs, EEGs, etc., by a team trained diagnosticians in the area affected by the putative cure would seem to me to absolutely necessary and controlling.

Declaring an event miraculous is a philosophical or theological judgement, not scientific.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

It just occured to me . . .

Even if the church did teach God’s direct, second-to second sustenance of individual things (and I reaffirm that it does NOT), how would that affect the doing of science and the employment of the SM? Whether God does or doesn’t is completely outside the purview of the SM which has physical reality at hand to study empirically, quantitatively, and mechanistically to discover amenable truths.

 

[Serious]

It just occured to me . . .

Even if the church did teach God’s direct, second-to second sustenance of individual things (and I reaffirm that it does NOT), how would that affect the doing of science and the employment of the SM? Whether God does or doesn’t is completely outside the purview of the SM which has physical reality at hand to study empirically, quantitatively, and mechanistically to discover amenable truths.

 

[Serious]

It just occured to me . . .

Even if the church did teach God’s direct, second-to second sustenance of individual things (and I reaffirm that it does NOT), how would that affect the doing of science and the employment of the SM? Whether God does or doesn’t is completely outside the purview of the SM which has physical reality at hand to study empirically, quantitatively, and mechanistically to discover amenable truths.

It would be a illusion to try to discover regularities in nature, where there are none. Of course science does not assume any “supernatural” sustenance, not even the catholic scientists. They are just as committed to the naturalistic approach as their atheistic co-workers. Interesting that catholic scientists might assume some supernatural interference, but NEVER in their own field of study. A catholic astronomer would never accept that God is needed to push the planets around, but might have problems accepting that the mind is simply the activity of the brain.

The funny thing is that way back in the beginning of human race, when people knew very little about nature, everything was attributed so some imaginary beings, gods. As we accumulate knowledge, the need for the god-of-gaps is shrinking. Looks like that the last “bastion” where some stupor-natural )) assumptions are still prevalent is the complexity of the brain and the mind. There are some people who fight tooth-and-nail against the idea that the mind is simply the activity of the brain, even though the evidence is overwhelming. But it is very hard to give up the ingrained ideas, especially if their loss would invalidate one’s whole worldview.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

… what does the phrase “laws of nature” mean?

Are you Serious?

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

It would be a illusion to try to discover regularities in nature, where there are none. Of course science does not assume any “supernatural” sustenance, not even the catholic scientists. They are just as committed to the naturalistic approach as their atheistic co-workers. Interesting that catholic scientists might assume some supernatural interference, but NEVER in their own field of study. A catholic astronomer would never accept that God is needed to push the planets around, but might have problems accepting that the mind is simply the activity of the brain.

No illusion. The regularities are there for everyone to see. And, again, what God does or doesn’t do is completely outside the purview of the SM which has physical reality at hand to study empirically, quantitatively, and mechanistically to discover amenable truths that must be repeatable and subject to peer review. The only inconsistency would be if one already held ideological/philosophical materialism and hence (usually) scientism. But one has to distinguish methodological materialism (in the SM) from ideological/philosophical materialism (and hence scientism) which one must attempt to justify philosophically.

Even if a Catholic scientist believed in direct sustenance it would make no difference in any scientific endeavor: it is outside the bounds of the SM and irrelevant to that type of investigation.

The funny thing is that way back in the beginning of human race, when people knew very little about nature, everything was attributed so some imaginary beings, gods. As we accumulate knowledge, the need for the god-of-gaps is shrinking. Looks like that the last “bastion” where some stupor-natural )) assumptions are still prevalent is the complexity of the brain and the mind. There are some people who fight tooth-and-nail against the idea that the mind is simply the activity of the brain, even though the evidence is overwhelming. But it is very hard to give up the ingrained ideas, especially if their loss would invalidate one’s whole worldview.

The god-of-the-gaps theory to explain the fundamental source religious experience is not the consensus by any stretch of historians of religion–it is generally rejected. This is the usual (and mistaken) portrayal of religion as a system of explanation by primitive humans. Caveman: “Ugh! thunderstorm scary. Why it happen? Caused by . . . uh . . . uh . . . uh . . . ah, storm god. Feel better now. I go placate storm god.”

Historians of religion (e.g., M. Eliade, R. Otto, G. van der Leeuw, et al.) stress from their research that religious experience is first and foremost of the holy/sacred/supernatural supreme reality. The domain is not primarily one of a physical or metaphysical explanation, but of an encounter and relationship.

Regarding the mind being reductively explained as nothing but brain activity (neuronal events) you need to address several sets of issues: (1) is this a scientific, functional definition based on what is accessible to the SM?; or is it (2) a philosophical assertion. There is no problem with (1). If (2), we are back to distinguishing methodological materialism (in the SM) from ideological/philosophical materialism (and hence scientism) which one must attempt to justify philosophically.

The second set is in the post below from another post of mine. The bottom line is that no scientist and no research to date has claimed to discover and prove an account the mind or even just consciousness that reduces it to nothing but brain activity. There is no overwhelming evidence. Read the quotes from latest summaries of the state of the science.

The account of the mind as reduced to brain activity neglects a huge amount of information both scientific and philosophical. Divide it into the big problem, where science actually is, and bi-directionality. See post below.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

If one were to open the cranium and look at the brain of a perceiving, remembering, thinking patient, they would not see a single thing going through that patient’s mind–not an image, feeling, thought, or sense of self. In fact with mirrors I could look at my own brain and yet would see none of its conscious content.
From outside the conscious mind of another there is no direct access to the inside experienced content by observing the brain.

A search of one’s mind will never give a direct experience of one’s own brain cells or their electro-chemical processes and multi-level networking.
From the inside by observing my own consciousness there is no direct access to the observable brain and its neural electro-chemical processes.

No matter how detailed our correlation of conscious mental acts with brain structure and function may be, there is still an “explanatory gap” between brain activity observed from the outside and the content of consciousness as experienced from the inside.
How do objective, publically-observable neuronal events or the brain as a whole produce/become inner, first-person conscious mental experience(s)? In other words, how does what happens in the brain become what happens in your mind? No one is even close to figuring out how to cross that bridge scientifically.

Scientists:
•Joaquin M. Fuster, MD, PhD, a neurological researcher writes in his Cortex and Mind. (Oxford University Press, 2003)
“There are evident correlations between the brain and the mind. In the domains of scientific empiricism, however, where causality reigns supreme, correlation is Cinderella. Yet correlation is the only logical relationship we can substantiate empirically between the brain and the mind. . . . correlation is all we need for upholding the indissoluble unity of cortex and mind.” (p. viii)
•Larry R. Squire, et al., Fundamental Neuroscience, 3rd ed., 2008.
They discuss how “Brain scientists are exploiting a number of empirical approaches to shed light on the neural basis of consciousness.” (pp. 1223ff) As of 2008, neuroscientists “are shedding light on . . .”
•Christoph Koch, The Quest for Consciousness, 2004.
Francis Crick himself (a avowed materialist and atheist) writes in the preface: "Consciousness is the major unsolved problem in biology. . . . there is no present consensus on the general nature of the solution.” (p. xiii) We “will need the labors of many scientists . .” (xiv) Koch, a neuroscientist at Caltech, himself says of his efforts “I argue for a research program whose supreme aim is to discover neuronal correlates of consciousness.” (underlining mine)
•Michael S. Gazzaniga, ed., The Cognitive Neurosciences III. 3rd. ed. (Cambridge, MA: the MIT Press, 2004).
“As the science of consciousness advances, such definitions [Searle’s] will need to be refined and expressed in more fundamental neuronal terms. Until the problem is understood much better, though, a more formal definition of consciousness is likely to be either misleading or overly restrictive, or both. If this seems evasive, try defining a gene.” (p. 1107)

Further relevant data is provided by research into neuroplasticity, a term for the phenomena that conscious choices can alter brain structure and function. This shows a bi-directional causality in the relationship between brain and mind. That is, not only can one affect conscious experience and functioning by changes in the brain, one can also affect brain structure and functioning by conscious changes in activity. Researchers today are investigating the “bidirectional interaction between cultural experience and the brain” and “the neurosciences have identified mechanisms of neural plasticity from the molecular to the systems level.”(1) Numerous studies “demonstrate the surprising degree to which brain processes are malleably shaped by cultural tools and practices.”(2)

For example, studies show that adults who choose to learn Braille show changes in brain structure over those who do not.(3) Changes in brain structure are also seen in musicians proficient in stringed instruments relative to which fingers are used the most.(4) Additionally a study was performed on brain changes taking place in Buddhist monks during meditation–changes which sustain in long-term practitioners over time.(5)

The conviction that the mind as we know it is the soul (immaterial life principle, form of the body) in operation squares perfectly with all of the information and doesn’t in the least harm the legitimate aims and methods of neurological research even its goal to reach a complete scientific account of brain activity in its correlation with mental acts.

Another source of data is the immaterial nature of the intellectual acts of concept formation and reflection.

(1) Elizabeth A. Reynolds Losin, et al., “Culture and neuroscience: additive or synergistic.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5 (June/September 2010): 148-58.
(2) Shinobu Kitayama, et al., “Cultural neuroscience of the self: understanding the social grounding of the brain.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5 (June/September 2010): 111-29.
(3) Alvaro Pascual-Leone, et al., “Plasticity of the sensorimotor cortex representation of the reading finger in Braille readers” Brain 116 (February 1993):39-52. see summary discussion in Christopher Ariel Shaw, Jill McEachern, eds., Toward a Theory of Neuroplasticity. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor & Francis, 2001., pp 71-3.
(4) Thomas Elbert, et al., “Increased Cortical Representation of the Fingers of the Left Hand in String Players” Science 270 (13 October 1995): 305-307.
(5) Lutz, et al., “Long-term mediators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101 (November 16, 2004): 16369-16373.

 

[Serious]

No illusion. The regularities are there for everyone to see.

The regularities are an illusion if God would need to puch the planets on their elliptic path. And it would make God a “slave” to those alleged regularities.

And, again, what God does or doesn’t do is completely outside the purview of the SM which has physical reality at hand to study empirically, quantitatively, and mechanistically to discover amenable truths that must be repeatable and subject to peer review. The only inconsistency would be if one already held ideological/philosophical materialism and hence (usually) scientism. But one has to distinguish methodological materialism (in the SM) from ideological/philosophical materialism (and hence scientism) which one must attempt to justify philosophically.

Your usage of “scientism” is confused. The idea that the physical universe is the “existential primary” does not lead to the assumption that every facet of the universe can (or even need) to explained by the usual scientific method. We seemed to have clarified that issue before (is that weight “heavy” or “light”?). Why do you keep bringing it up?

The god-of-the-gaps theory to explain the fundamental source religious experience is not the consensus by any stretch of historians of religion–it is generally rejected. This is the usual (and mistaken) portrayal of religion as a system of explanation by primitive humans. Caveman: “Ugh! thunderstorm scary. Why it happen? Caused by . . . uh . . . uh . . . uh . . . ah, storm god. Feel better now. I go placate storm god.”

We are talking about conjectures here. What went on in the mind of those prehistoric humans can only be surmised. And it is the most probable explanation that the unknown forces of nature need to be appeased. The fact, however remains: as science expands the horizons of knowledge, the realm of the supernatural “explanation” shrinks. Now one believes that the lightning is the “flaming sword of God” any more. Only very few people believe that diseases are caused by demons.

Regarding the mind being reductively explained as nothing but brain activity (neuronal events) you need to address several sets of issues: (1) is this a scientific, functional definition based on what is accessible to the SM?; or is it (2) a philosophical assertion. There is no problem with (1). If (2), we are back to distinguishing methodological materialism (in the SM) from ideological/philosophical materialism (and hence scientism) which one must attempt to justify philosophically.

Well, you, yourself said that (1) carries not problem - and I concur. Science has something that “philosophy” can never have - science can make predictions, and can verify if those predictions are borne out by the experiments. Philosophy is speculation. It does not and cannot make predictions. Who cares what those philosophers speculate about? As the saying goes, “don’t speculate, calculate”. No, scientists do not have to “justify” anything philosophically. That is a bogus issue concocted by those philosophers, who do not wish to acnowledge that they don’t count any more.

 

[Serious]

If one were to open the cranium and look at the brain of a perceiving, remembering, thinking patient, they would not see a single thing going through that patient’s mind–not an image, feeling, thought, or sense of self. In fact with mirrors I could look at my own brain and yet would see none of its conscious content.
From outside the conscious mind of another there is no direct access to the inside experienced content by observing the brain.

Why is that a problem? If you “look” into the working of a computer, you could not decide if it was working on a spreadsheet or rendering a 3-dimensional picture? And yet, no one in the right mind would think that the working of the computer needs a “supernatural” explanation.

A search of one’s mind will never give a direct experience of one’s own brain cells or their electro-chemical processes and multi-level networking.

“Never” is a loooong time. How do you know that? Though I think that the difference between the individual brain structures is far too large to be able to create a “map” and find out which part(s) of the brain carry out the recognition process of the face of someone. So what? Just because we cannot find out how those trillions of neurons perform the tasks, there is no reason to assume some immaterial “soul”.

Even today a very simple computer (as compared to the complexity of a brain) can beat that human in a game of chess - in other words it is superior to the brain. Does that mean that the computer has a better “soul”?

No matter how detailed our correlation of conscious mental acts with brain structure and function may be, there is still an “explanatory gap” between brain activity observed from the outside and the content of consciousness as experienced from the inside.
How do objective, publically-observable neuronal events or the brain as a whole produce/become inner, first-person conscious mental experience(s)? In other words, how does what happens in the brain become what happens in your mind? No one is even close to figuring out how to cross that bridge scientifically.

So what? The research is a few decades old, and we deal with a neural network of incredible complexity. What you say here is the typical god-of-the-gaps: today we cannot find a solution for this problem, therefore it needs to belong to the realm of “stupid-natural” )).

 

[Serious]

Some more addendum.

Science is pragmatic, it deals with questions which will likely yield result. Sometimes, when there is an interesting problem, and there is enough money to burn, a corporation might set up a project which does not promise such results, but might be a good PR or advertisement.

Consider the IBM project of Watson, the super-computer that won the game of Jeopardy so handily against the best of the best Jeopardy champions. Now, the scientific question of: “how does the mind-brain process the information” to retrieve the correct result from scant and even misleading information is a fascinating one. But only for one reason: we want to emulate it. We want to build “intelligent” machines.

Obviously Watson’s algorithm is very different from what a human brain does, but it did the “job” fabulously well. And that is what matters.

You brought up that observing the brain does not tell us what the mind does. Of course not, and no one cares. If you were to observe the muscle movement within the hand, and tendon movements in the palm could you figure out what the hand is doing? Of course not. The irrelevant question you presented is called “reductionism”. It is brought up against the materialist stance quite frequently. How can the electro-chemical activity of the brain produce…whatever? What nonsense.

Can the properties of a lump of carbon atoms be reduced to the properties of one carbon atom? Obviously not. That lump of atoms can be charcoal or it can be a piece of diamond. No sane person would say that we must reduce the properties to the underlying carbon atoms. Yet, this is what is demanded from the materialist (in conjuction with the mind-brain "problem). And when the answer is just a shrug - because dumb questions do not deserve an answer - usually the questioner declares “victory”. What a joke.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Some more addendum.

Science is pragmatic, it deals with questions which will likely yield result. Sometimes, when there is an interesting problem, and there is enough money to burn, a corporation might set up a project which does not promise such results, but might be a good PR or advertisement.

Consider the IBM project of Watson, the super-computer that won the game of Jeopardy so handily against the best of the best Jeopardy champions. Now, the scientific question of: “how does the mind-brain process the information” to retrieve the correct result from scant and even misleading information is a fascinating one. But only for one reason: we want to emulate it. We want to build “intelligent” machines.

Obviously Watson’s algorithm is very different from what a human brain does, but it did the “job” fabulously well. And that is what matters.

Basically agreed on Watson. On science I think you’re half right. True, there is applied science, technology, and engineering; but there is also pure research. And many of our greatest advancements have come from this kind of study

You brought up that observing the brain does not tell us what the mind does. Of course not, and no one cares. If you were to observe the muscle movement within the hand, and tendon movements in the palm could you figure out what the hand is doing? Of course not. The irrelevant question you presented is called “reductionism”. It is brought up against the materialist stance quite frequently. How can the electro-chemical activity of the brain produce…whatever? What nonsense.

Can the properties of a lump of carbon atoms be reduced to the properties of one carbon atom? Obviously not. That lump of atoms can be charcoal or it can be a piece of diamond. No sane person would say that we must reduce the properties to the underlying carbon atoms. Yet, this is what is demanded from the materialist (in conjuction with the mind-brain "problem). And when the answer is just a shrug - because dumb questions do not deserve an answer - usually the questioner declares “victory”. What a joke.

“Who cares?” is your argument? Talk about a joke!

You have heard of orthopedic doctors I gather—they know exactly how a hand as a object outside the mind works in terms of structure and function.

Actually, if you’ve read the literature, your position is referred to as reducing consciousness to neuronal activity.

“Nonsense”, that’s funny! I thought what you were trying to scientifically explain was the conscious mind. I defined it for you. Do you dispute the definition of what you claim to explain? You’re the one who announced “the evidence is overwhelming” that science had explained it. But when pushed to show where the scientific research has demonstrated that consciousness has been reduced to brain activity, you balk. And when pushed to give even a clue how the SM which deals with observer-independent, objects outside the mind in terms of structure and function might be able to account for the inner, first-person experience of sentience, awareness and cognition we call the conscious mind, again you balk. You sound like Nancy Pelosi who told us not to bother reading the legislation: just vote for it.

The problem with the emergent property argument/analogy you put forward using coal—others use water—is that the thing to be explained, coal as we perceive it with the senses, is still an observer-independent, third-person, object outside the mind. Consciousness has a observer-dependent, first-person, inner ontology. What’s demanded of the materialist is to give a proper accounting of the thing to be explained as it actually is.

You say “No sane person would say that we must reduce the properties to the underlying carbon atoms” but that is what you claim science has accomplished re the brain-mind problem . . . with overwhelming evidence. In reality you’re not announcing an accomplishment of science at all. You’re announcing an ideology, a philosophy, materialism.

Once again, if one is going to adopt philosophical materialism and claim that it is more reasonable than the traditional philosophical worldview that affirms immaterial features to reality as well as material, then you must show philosophically why one rationally compelled to do so.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

First I do want to make clear that I posited the hypothetical about direct, second-to-second sustenance to get at methodological issues re science. Please bear in mind that the church’s doctrine on the subject is as I detailed it and I vigorously affirm it.

The regularities are an illusion if God would need to puch the planets on their elliptic path. And it would make God a “slave” to those alleged regularities.

Think about this and answer it—so far you have refused: how can the regularities be an illusion if they are there for anyone to observe and quantify and describe using the SM? They are a fact of life.

Besides, are you talking philosophically or scientifically here? Your points are as irrelevant to the SM as they are to a mathematical proof. One neither needs God in the formal process of mathematical proof nor in using the SM. God cannot enter into the SM as an explanatory step, so what difference at all does it make what one believes about Him in this question. I have a philosophical and theological problem with direct sustenance, but what one believes in this regard is absolutely irrelevant to the employment of the SM to gain valid scientific knowledge.

Your usage of “scientism” is confused. The idea that the physical universe is the “existential primary” does not lead to the assumption that every facet of the universe can (or even need) to explained by the usual scientific method. We seemed to have clarified that issue before (is that weight “heavy” or “light”?). Why do you keep bringing it up?

(1) I think you’ve finally reached it. So let me put it this way to lay this to rest. I gather you disagree with the following two assertions: (a) the SM is sufficient for all knowledge involving propositions (statements that can be true or false) about external reality; (b) I personally choose to investigate all of external reality using only the SM because when I use it I always get results and anything outside of or not amenable to the SM and its discourse I deem nonexistent or meaningless.

(2) It depends on what you mean by “the idea that the physical universe is the ‘existential primary.’” (a) If you thereby intend to affirm philosophical materialism or physicalism, you yourself are asserting a philosophical thesis that must be defended philosophically. Philosophical materialism holds that the real world consists of material things, varying in their states and relations, and nothing else. (b) If you are asserting that there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses; and that sense experience of physical things is the beginning and foundation (or the necessary condition) of all human knowledge, I am with you.

We are talking about conjectures here. What went on in the mind of those prehistoric humans can only be surmised. And it is the most probable explanation that the unknown forces of nature need to be appeased. The fact, however remains: as science expands the horizons of knowledge, the realm of the supernatural “explanation” shrinks. Now one believes that the lightning is the “flaming sword of God” any more. Only very few people believe that diseases are caused by demons.

Not accurate. We have no idea what gods or beliefs prehistoric humans had: there is no linguistic record. Historians of religion draw their insights from often ancient oral traditions that they record and investigate, ritual traditions that they study and describe, and from written materials or scriptures or early transcriptions that they gather from all over the world. Again, the popular myth that the fundamental source religious experience is an attempt to explain natural phenomena is rejected roundly by historians of religion.

Yes, but your argument seems to be: people used to think that storks brought babies; we now know that they do not; therefore storks don’t exist.

Well, you, yourself said that (1) carries not problem - and I concur. Science has something that “philosophy” can never have - science can make predictions, and can verify if those predictions are borne out by the experiments. Philosophy is speculation. It does not and cannot make predictions. Who cares what those philosophers speculate about? As the saying goes, “don’t speculate, calculate”. No, scientists do not have to “justify” anything philosophically. That is a bogus issue concocted by those philosophers, who do not wish to acnowledge that they don’t count any more.

Your “bogus issue” business is rhetoric, not analysis.

OK we agree on (1). You didn’t specifically address (2). Are you going beyond (1) to claim that (1) is a total and complete accounting of the mental life of the human person? Are or are not making a philosophical assertion that in all actuality and in every way the mind is nothing but brain activity? “The mind” refers to the complex of cognitional, volitional, perceptual, emotional processes, and qualia in the conscious life of an individual person usually emphasizing rationality. I start with this as a phenomenological definition. So are you saying that just as the sun in all actually doesn’t move around the earth at all, it’s really nothing but the earth rotating, so too the mind really isn’t as defined above, it is really nothing but brain activity?

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Why is that a problem? If you “look” into the working of a computer, you could not decide if it was working on a spreadsheet or rendering a 3-dimensional picture? And yet, no one in the right mind would think that the working of the computer needs a “supernatural” explanation.

Wow, where to start with this? OK, I see several problems with the monitor-mind analogy, if I may call it that, as regards this discussion.

1. Who is doing the looking?
   If the brain is like the CPU, and our mind is like the monitor whereby we view a representation of what is happening in our brain, then who is it that is looking at the “monitor?”
   a) You have just pushed the problem back one step, and nothing more.
   b) The self-alienation involved in that analogy is frightening. I am a little–what(?)–inside me looking at the screen of my mind representing what is happening in my brain?
2. Both monitor and CPU are objects outside the mind observed by conscious experience.
   They have an external, third-person, observer-independent ontology. In the case of the CPU and monitor there is a clearly understood causal connection between objects (CPU and monitor) that fits perfectly within the structure-and-function-of-external-objects paradigm of science and completely accounts for the connection.

Consciousness has an inner, first-person, observer-dependent ontology. (There is no other way to describe the datum (consciousness) we are attempting to explain.) Explanations of consciousness must take into account the datum to be explained: consciousness (inner, first-person) and its relation to the brain (objective, third-person). If you want to advance the proposition that the brain reductively explains the mind, fine of course; but we have to get straight the datum we are attempting to explain, then go about explaining it. To speak about the explanatory gap between brain and mind is to acknowledge and start from the datum rather than substituting an explanation for the datum and starting from that.

“Never” is a loooong time. How do you know that? Though I think that the difference between the individual brain structures is far too large to be able to create a “map” and find out which part(s) of the brain carry out the recognition process of the face of someone. So what? Just because we cannot find out how those trillions of neurons perform the tasks, there is no reason to assume some immaterial “soul”.

First of all science cannot even speak about the soul because it is (by definition) immaterial; nor does it need it as an objective, structure-function explanation of brain activity and I’m fine with that. And the neurobiological enterprise to find the biological basis of consciousness is fine with me too—as I said.

But if you going beyond that to claim that that is a total and complete accounting of the mental life of the human person, and it is the soul that is being assumed or postulated instead, you betray a lack historical awareness. You’ve got things backwards. The natural philosophical conviction that the mind/soul is an inner, first-person, immaterial power in us is over 2500 years old. As you point out “the [neurobiological] research is a few decades old.” The new philosophical thesis (unproven and that you assume) is that the mind is nothing but brain activity. And, contrary to your claim, it not yet demonstrated by any probative scientific research. Contrary to what you claim, as I have documented, there is no overwhelming evidence for it.

If you want to set it as a goal, fine. But you can’t claim that science has proven it.

So what? The research is a few decades old, and we deal with a neural network of incredible complexity. What you say here is the typical god-of-the-gaps: today we cannot find a solution for this problem, therefore it needs to belong to the realm of “stupid-natural” )).

More rhetoric without analysis. A “God-of-the-gaps” argument has nothing to do with this. Nor does God. The starting point is the mind and consciousness as lived and experienced in connection with the over 2 millennia old thought and experience of it in philosophy. You have not made good on the philosophical assertion that science has presented overwhelming evidence that the mind is in all actuality and in every way nothing but brain activity. If you’re just talking about science and the proper way of doing science and employing the SM, I’m fine with that. Which is it?

 

[Serious]

Wow, where to start with this? OK, I see several problems with the monitor-mind analogy, if I may call it that, as regards this discussion.

No, this is not the correct analogy, so we are talking past each other.

Literally: the brain is the equivalent of the computer hardware. Literally: the mind is the program that runs on that hardware. On the same hardware different software can run. Of course the brain is much more complicated than the most sophisticated computer. The brain has built-in distributed processing and a few billion processors. However, it can be proven mathematically that the Turing machine is capable to emulate the most complicated, multi-processor environment.

You said that if one looks at the neural activity, one cannot “figure out” what the activity is all about. This is rather correct, though we can have some rudimentary idea, when certain parts of the brain are effected. The pleasure/pain centers of the brain are quite well established. Exciting these territories will bring forth very predictable results. So we have excellent evidence that the “working of the brain” reflects the neural activity.

Furthermore, a huge part of the brain activity is not accessable even to the person, whose brain we are talking about. I am talking about the sub-conscious, of course. The idea of consciousness is the recognition that “I” am different from the “environment”, and even animals have (maybe not so rudimentay) ability of it.

But if you going beyond that to claim that that is a total and complete accounting of the mental life of the human person, and it is the soul that is being assumed or postulated instead, you betray a lack historical awareness. You’ve got things backwards. The natural philosophical conviction that the mind/soul is an inner, first-person, immaterial power in us is over 2500 years old.

Ok, no. The length of the time an incorrect assumption is held has no bearing on the issue. Back then the most advanced “science” about the brain was that it is a cooling organ for the blood. That pretty much tells us the relevance of those musings.

As you point out “the [neurobiological] research is a few decades old.” The new philosophical thesis (unproven and that you assume) is that the mind is nothing but brain activity. And, contrary to your claim, it not yet demonstrated by any probative scientific research. Contrary to what you claim, as I have documented, there is no overwhelming evidence for it.

Insofar it has not been invalidated as a working hypothesis. There is not one shred of evidence of any - independently existing - immaterial aspect to it. Of course the road has been barely investigated. I think the evidence is enough. You deny it. Fine. Do you have any evidence to the contrary - except the repetition that the concept is 2000 years old?

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

No, this is not the correct analogy, so we are talking past each other.

Literally: the brain is the equivalent of the computer hardware. Literally: the mind is the program that runs on that hardware. On the same hardware different software can run. Of course the brain is much more complicated than the most sophisticated computer. The brain has built-in distributed processing and a few billion processors. However, it can be proven mathematically that the Turing machine is capable to emulate the most complicated, multi-processor environment.

Alright, thanks. I get your point now.

First, if the hardware-software analogy for the scientific study of brain–to-mind causality works to help interpret what the brain does in its correlations with conscious mental acts, that’s fine. But it only tells half the story. The scientific research also show clearly mind-to-brain causality. Science has demonstrated that conscious choices and decisions effect changes in the structure and functioning of the brain. Causality between brain and mind is bidirectional. Research into neuroplasticity, among other things, has shown this. I already gave some basic scientific documentation on the subject which has good bibliographies for further study. (post dated Feb 24, 3:02 pm)

You said that if one looks at the neural activity, one cannot “figure out” what the activity is all about. This is rather correct, though we can have some rudimentary idea, when certain parts of the brain are effected. The pleasure/pain centers of the brain are quite well established. Exciting these territories will bring forth very predictable results. So we have excellent evidence that the “working of the brain” reflects the neural activity.

Furthermore, a huge part of the brain activity is not accessable even to the person, whose brain we are talking about. I am talking about the sub-conscious, of course. The idea of consciousness is the recognition that “I” am different from the “environment”, and even animals have (maybe not so rudimentay) ability of it.

This is not quite what I said. It was: If one were to open the cranium and look at the brain [its structure and function however deep you want to go] of a perceiving, remembering, thinking patient, they would not see a single thing going through that patient’s mind–not an image, feeling, thought, or sense of self. In fact with mirrors I could look at my own brain and yet would see none of its [my mind’s] conscious content.

My point in saying this is not to dispute neurological, electro-chemical, anatomical findings re the brain nor to dispute that there is a brain-to-mind causality. The working of the brain revealed in neurological research of the brain and neural activity are basically synonymous as far as I can see.

My point is to highlight what needs to be explained and the path an explanation must take and the scope of certain explanations. A also pointed out that I can’t rummage around through my consciousness and directly experience a brain cell, neural networking, the electrical signals in my brain, my left brain vs. right brain, etc.

• The DATUM to be explained is the mind defined as the complex of cognitional, volitional, perceptual, emotional processes, and qualia in the conscious life of an individual person usually emphasizing rationality. This is inner, first person, observer-dependent.

• The PROCESS involved in the SM investigates extra-mental objects that are third person and observer-independent mechanistically in terms of structure and function.

• PROBLEM: How does one get from these thing-objects that work mechanistically and atomistically to the mind, my mind, as known in life? Once one tells the story of the physical and physiological processes in all possible depth there is still the further fact of inner conscious first-person mental activity in me. Perhaps solutions for science lie in some kind of emergentism, holism, and supervenience. I don’t think mechanism and reductionism will work.

That’s why I side with Fuster regarding the unity (not reductive identity) of brain and mind and that the most we can get from science is correlations between brain and mind; and with the implications of neuroplasticity and the bidirectional causality that it reveals in the brain-mind relationship. I would not hold that there is an independently existing immaterial component, a ghost in the machine. A distinguishable but united component, yes.

All of this science is quite compatible with the philosophical conviction that there is an immaterial component to the human person. Philosophical materialism is not. But then it has to be shown philosophically why it is more reasonable to adopt it.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Ok, no. The length of the time an incorrect assumption is held has no bearing on the issue. Back then the most advanced “science” about the brain was that it is a cooling organ for the blood. That pretty much tells us the relevance of those musings.

You’re begging the question here, i.e., assuming what is to be proven. You haven’t proven it incorrect yet . . . philosophically speaking. And I want to stress that. As far as science and the SM goes—and I’ve said this before–your approach is a perfectly legit project yielding perfectly true scientific results, and the only one possible for science. Be sure to understand that.

You’ll recall my gripe is in making the further philosophical claim that in all actuality and in every way the mind is nothing but brain activity such that the traditional philosophical view that there is an immaterial component (the mind, soul, consciousness) to the human person has now been proven false. Two reasons: (1) you haven’t proven it false philosophically: you have only outlined the legitimate program of science employing the SM; and (2) you seem to be saying that the SM is sufficient for all knowledge involving propositions about the reality of the brain in relation to the mind: that what the SM can reveal is all there is to know about the subject. That would cross over to the territory of the dreaded S-ism word. And you have to prove that principle philosophically.

IOW, you say you eschew the idle speculations of philosophy, but you are either making a philosophical claim when you go beyond the SM and speak about a topic outside of its purview (the soul) which has no explanatory role at all science; or you are saying that what the SM can reveal is all there is to know about the subject, which itself is a philosophical claim that must be defended philosophically.

Insofar it has not been invalidated as a working hypothesis. There is not one shred of evidence of any - independently existing - immaterial aspect to it. Of course the road has been barely investigated. I think the evidence is enough. You deny it. Fine. Do you have any evidence to the contrary - except the repetition that the concept is 2000 years old?

I have no problem with any truly scientific hypothesis about anything, nor with the claim that there is no evidence amenable to the SM for an immaterial component to the human being. That is beyond what the SM can investigate or pronounce upon.

But if you’re saying that what the SM can reveal is all there is to know about the subject, . . .

The 2000 year-old concept has not been proven wrong philosophically; squares with my experience and insight both existentially and philosophically; can accommodate, use, and hold the SM and the scientific truths that result from its application; and is consistent with the state of the established scientific knowledge on the subject and the philosophical considerations involved in its scope, which I outlined for you. (post dated Feb 24, 3:02 pm)

 

[Serious]

First, if the hardware-software analogy for the scientific study of brain–to-mind causality works to help interpret what the brain does in its correlations with conscious mental acts, that’s fine. But it only tells half the story. The scientific research also show clearly mind-to-brain causality. Science has demonstrated that conscious choices and decisions effect changes in the structure and functioning of the brain. Causality between brain and mind is bidirectional. Research into neuroplasticity, among other things, has shown this. I already gave some basic scientific documentation on the subject which has good bibliographies for further study. (post dated Feb 24, 3:02 pm)

Very trrue, but I fail to see why is that a problem.

The hardware-software analogy goes very deep and it accomodates the self-modifying aspect of the brain-mind complex. Actually it is more than an analogy. The brain is a biological computer. There are self-modifying algorithms running on fully physical computers. In the field of cellular automata we have examples that the software not only modifies itself, but also the underlying hardware structure. We have actual, working computers which show this self-modifying behavior. We have actual computers which exhibit highly sophisiticated behavior, so much so, that they can win against the best humans in their specific field. Both Watson and Deep Blue (beat the world’s chess champion) belong to this category.

The point is not that we have a computer, which can emulate a human mind. It is that we keep making computers, which can do better what the human mind does in specific fields. Also there is no reason why we could not combine these faculties in one machine. So far we have at least two examples, playing chess and evaluating scant and misleading data. (Let’s not forget all the others, which solve more mathematical problems than all the humans combined.) And they do it without any need to assume a “primary soul”. The computers are fully material. I hope no one denies this. Maybe someone will argue that these computers were initially programmed by humans. Not relevant. The self-modifying progams cannot be understood by their original creators.

This is not quite what I said. It was: If one were to open the cranium and look at the brain [its structure and function however deep you want to go] of a perceiving, remembering, thinking patient, they would not see a single thing going through that patient’s mind–not an image, feeling, thought, or sense of self. In fact with mirrors I could look at my own brain and yet would see none of its [my mind’s] conscious content.

I alrready answered this. If you would open the computer, and “peek” into the wires, processors, etc. as deep as you want to, you not be able to discover what the computer does. The reason is very simple. The same circuits (neurons) are used in many different problems. The brain is widely distributed, multi-processing environment. And I used an analogy: even if you observed all the tendons and muscles in the hand, you could (maybe) figure out that the hand is engaged in drawing something, but you could not decide “what is being drawn”.

You’re begging the question here, i.e., assuming what is to be proven. You haven’t proven it incorrect yet . . . philosophically speaking.

The 2000 year-old concept has not been proven wrong philosophically; squares with my experience and insight both existentially and philosophically; can accommodate, use, and hold the SM and the scientific truths that result from its application; and is consistent with the state of the established scientific knowledge on the subject and the philosophical considerations involved in its scope, which I outlined for you. (post dated Feb 24, 3:02 pm)

A concept cannot be “proven” philosophically. Philosophy is not in the game of proving something.

The philosophical concept of “matter-independent immaterial aspect” Is neither right nor wrong, it is irrelevant. Since it is supposed to exist in a realm outside the physical universe, it cannot be either proven or invalidated. It is a useless proposition, which does not lead anywhere.

In a very good sense the material view cannot be “fully proven” either. No scientific theory can be “fully proven”. It can be invalidated, however. The experiments of Deep Blue and Watson are excellent examples of lending credence and support to the material explanation of the brain-mind complex. When (not if) therre will be a “machine” with will pass the Turing test, then the idea of the “soul” will be finally obsolete. Not that it will die out immediately. We all know that deeply ingrained ideas die slowly.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Very trrue, but I fail to see why is that a problem.

The hardware-software analogy goes very deep and it accomodates the self-modifying aspect of the brain-mind complex. Actually it is more than an analogy. The brain is a biological computer. There are self-modifying . . . . And they do it without any need to assume a “primary soul”. The computers are fully material. I hope no one denies this. Maybe someone will argue that these computers were initially programmed by humans. Not relevant. The self-modifying progams cannot be understood by their original creators.

I love computers, relish the achievements; AI is extremely cool, and the sky’s the limit in computer science.

“Actually it is more than an analogy. The brain is a biological computer.” Science can run with this as much as it wants. Results that stand up to repetition and peer review will be valid scientific knowledge.

Again, science and engineering technology do not need a soul for describing or making physical and mechanistic (including 1s and 0s, on and off) causal chains in objects outside the mind. Everything in computer engineering fits perfectly within the structure-and-function-of-external-objects paradigm of science and completely accounts for the operations. But if you are asserting the philosophical proposition that one is rationally compelled to limit oneself to that paradigm, you need to prove why it is more reasonable to do so.

None of this answers the hard problem regarding consciousness or the mind, which is what you need to answer to start proving your point. See below in next response.

I have in mind MS Word and my CPU. I haven’t seen reports of instances where the software like that can modify the physical archetecture of the CPU. I have seen for a long time now software that is self-modifying. But that doesn’t apply to software-to-hardware directionality. From, the information I have and articles I’ve investigated, when one gets to what is strictly and actually happening in man-made cellular automata they don’t show anything like first person conscious choices and pursuits altering third person physical structure and function.

I alrready answered this. If you would open the computer, and “peek” into the wires, processors, etc. as deep as you want to, you not be able to discover what the computer does. The reason is very simple. The same circuits (neurons) are used in many different problems. The brain is widely distributed, multi-processing environment. And I used an analogy: even if you observed all the tendons and muscles in the hand, you could (maybe) figure out that the hand is engaged in drawing something, but you could not decide “what is being drawn”.

IMHO, you’re being obtuse and evasive. The point I made is one integral part of a whole argument, and applies and makes sense only in the light of the whole. I even took time to break down into individual components, and you have completely ignored it, again. Please take the time to answer the whole argument. Otherwise you haven’t proven your point. In short you have to answer the hard problem: you have to show how one can get from third person data given mechanistically and in terms of structure and function to first person data (my consciousness, experience, cognition, and volition) which the third person data is supposed to reductively explain.

A concept cannot be “proven” philosophically. Philosophy is not in the game of proving something.

A concept cannot be proven philosophically, but a proposition can. Philosophy is exactly a game of proving something, philosophical propositions–as any reading of philosophy will show–philosophical propositions like going beyond what the SM can explore to the statement that in all actuality and in every way the conscious mind is nothing but brain activity.

The philosophical concept of “matter-independent immaterial aspect” Is neither right nor wrong, it is irrelevant. Since it is supposed to exist in a realm outside the physical universe, it cannot be either proven or invalidated. It is a useless proposition, which does not lead anywhere.

(1) A concept cannot be true or false. Only a proposition can. I am somewhat to blame for this. Although every other time I used “conviction” to express the same proposition, you used “concept” and this time I adopted your useage to communicate better with you. What I said was the repetition, in other words, of proposition I asserted many times before: e.g., “All of this science is quite compatible with the philosophical conviction that there is an immaterial component to the human person. Philosophical materialism is not. But then it has to be shown philosophically why it is more reasonable to adopt it.”
“The natural philosophical conviction that the mind/soul is an inner, first-person, immaterial power in us is over 2500 years old.”

(2) As I have said, I agree that the proposition is “irrelevant” and “useless” to science and the SM which investigates the physical universe. You seem to be (or even are) saying it’s irrelevant and useless in all actuality and in every way, because you advance materialism/physicalism as a worldview and/or because the SM is the only way to investigate true or false propositions about external reality. These need to be proven to overturn the existing proposition I have been reminding you of.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

In a very good sense the material view cannot be “fully proven” either. No scientific theory can be “fully proven”. It can be invalidated, however. The experiments of Deep Blue and Watson are excellent examples of lending credence and support to the material explanation of the brain-mind complex. When (not if) therre will be a “machine” with will pass the Turing test, then the idea of the “soul” will be finally obsolete. Not that it will die out immediately. We all know that deeply ingrained ideas die slowly.

AGAIN, I don’t dispute the validity of the scientific enterprise (and method, inc. falsification) and its scientific results including their application to the conscious mind. I hope we do create a machine that passes the Turing Test. But a test where one cannot tell if typed responses to typed entries are from a human or computer doesn’t even come close to a solution to how third person data (brain activity) can become first person data (my conscious experience). We know at every step how the third person processes follow natural laws to produce the third person scientific results in a computer, even if we may not have created the program entirely by ourselves or cannot hold it all in mind at once.

There is no “obsolete” involved here: there never was a soul needed for a scientific explanation. Again “You’ll recall my gripe is in making the further philosophical claim [assertion] that in all actuality and in every way the mind is nothing but brain activity such that the traditional philosophical view that there is an immaterial component (the mind, soul, consciousness) to the human person has now been proven false.”

Once more I ask you: please set about the task of making good on your assertion by proving it. Start with the hard problem of conscioueness.