Postulating a supreme being as the one who did it does not get us anywhere toward an explanation of HOW biological evolution was accomplished. “One Supreme Being” is not a simpler explanation. It is adding an extra term that doesn’t explain anything unless the answer to the “how” issue is simply divine magic.
How on earth is this question of yours related to the issue at stake: …“how often have you encountered a philosopher rather than a chaplain in a prison?” With equal irrelevance I could ask you “How often have you encountered a chaplain rather than a philosopher in a prison?”
The concept of One Supreme Being is a simpler and more adequate explanation of the development of rational persons from atomic particles for the simple reason that it integrates consciousness, truth, goodness, freedom, beauty, love and purpose - recognising them as fundamental realities rather than rejecting them as either illusions or “efficacious human concepts”. The success of science is ample evidence that we have direct knowledge and experience of the power with which a valuable, complex system is designed and created even though we cannot emulate the exquisite harmony, beauty and co-ordination of living organisms in the biosphere.
Do you regard your consciousness, power of reason and decision-making, free will and capacity for love as magical? How do you explain and integrate them? Or do you too reject them as merely efficacious human concepts?
If you take the trouble to read through my posts you will find plenty… with some recent ones specifically on the subjectivity and objectivity of values.
How does the God hypothesis explain the things that you say it explains? How did God supposedly go about creating a universe that includes truth, goodness, beauty, etc if not through natural selection?
No. I am not the one proposing that claiming “goddidit with his magical powers” adds anything to biological evolutionary theory.
You keep saying that I don’t think any of those things are real. Since you believe in them and believe that your God hypothesis explains them, perhaps you could support your claim by explaining how God created free will and love and stuff.
I am willing to concede, provisionally, that consciousness arises from molecular activity alone. It is an emergent property. But I’m just saying that you can’t reduce an entity to its properties or processes. Perhaps we should talk about *teleology *here. When you look at a computer program, the relevant question is not “what is the code?” but rather “what does it do?” Perhaps we’re on the same page here?
I agree that it wouldn’t. But if we did have a teleology, a purpose over and above our “programming”, then that would make a **big **difference. (Interesting that our computer scientists spend so much time trying to give a computer free will. We call that “playing God”, don’t we?)
(If functioning brain, then person.) Yes.
I deny that you can simply add one more shovelful or atom or whatever you have in mind to your initial pile of uranium and it will go “boom!” (insofar as this is *only *true of highly refined weapons-grade U-235, produced specifically for that purpose), but mainly I deny that there is a qualitative change rather than a quantitative change (the *same *qualitative thing occurring at an exponentially increased rate) in a nuclear explosion. Nuclear engineers relied on knowing what happens in nuclear fission and increasing the rate of its occurrence based on knowledge of this mechanism in order to produce nuclear explosions. I’m pretty sure they weren’t surprised by this amazing new ‘emergent property’ of “boom!” when they first created a critical mass of weapons-grade uranium. Do you think I’m mistaken? If so, where did I go wrong?
Why not just try to be a reasonable person and respond reasonably to reasonable queries that are put to you, then we’ll see what it is that we have to argue about.
The “meter” is…? Elementary? Are you quite sure you’re not being too hasty here? Do you know what the standard meter in Paris is? Do you really think that what it is is “an arbitrarily selected distance”? Can you think of any other relevant description for what it might be?
To clarify - which I probably didn’t do, on reflection, in the post this came from - what I intended in posting this was to make a point about your claim that the belief in a heavenly father carried more weight with ‘thugs’ than an argument about human equality and fellowship based on other factors. I took your ‘thug’ reference to mean those who convert to Christianity either in prison or in church youth programs - where one is not likely to come across atheist philosophers! My point was that what one is exposed to makes a big difference to what one ends up believing.How on earth is this question of yours related to the issue at stake: …“how often have you encountered a philosopher rather than a chaplain in a prison?” With equal irrelevance I could ask you “How often have you encountered a chaplain rather than a philosopher in a prison?”
That’s the truest thing I’ve heard all day. It’s exactly why I generally believe scientists, but I don’t believe people who tell me what science means. Whenever anyone tells me that they’re not interpreting, they’re just looking at the facts, I get suspicious. We always look at the facts through lenses, and we have no procedures for figuring out which lenses are most accurate.
First of all, we have two claims:
That seems correct to me - I guess my problem with notions of reductionism is that to me, explaining how something - or someone! - works is not an attempt to break down the whole into its component parts, but an effort to better understand and appreciate the whole. If consciousness exists as an emergent property of molecular activity in the brain, that does not decrease my sense of wonder at its existence. Quite the contrary, in fact. Perhaps this attitude has its basis in years of studying and analysing literature - I must admit I had little time for the notion that close textual analysis reduced one’s enjoyment of the text as a whole. The opposite was true for me.
The problem I find is in the insistence that there must be a divinely ordained purpose to our lives. I agree that if this were so, it would make a big difference to the way many people behave, and would certainly alter our understanding of how and why we exist (or perhaps I should say it would change our understanding back to the notion of divine creation). The difficulty is this - if, somehow, it were proved beyond doubt that humans were not created, either specially or through guided evolution, but that we did arise purely by the accidents of genetic mutation and the processes of natural selection, how would this affect our understanding of what we are, or our faith in our abilities? If a person stakes their faith on divinely ordained purpose, and then finds there is none, what do they have to fall back on? Is it despair and internal anarchy, as some think is logically necessary? Or is there hope to be found in embracing our biochemistry, our nature as conscious, rational animals with the ability to choose how we act and which preferences we pursue?
Do you think you’re being consistent when you say this (or is it a dodge)? Before, I was under the impression that you associated free will with a particular kind of metaphysical reality that might not exist, and presumably doesn’t exist if it is merely an epiphenomenon of particular physical (‘naturalistic’) phenomena. Now you seem to be equating free will with “what we experience as free will,” a formulation that precludes doubt about the existence of free will.
I think you’re quite right about this. Even if this view (no divinely ordained purpose) ‘objectively’ didn’t make sense, as Tony wants to argue, not making objective sense is irrelevant – humans are quite comfortable prosecuting all sorts of projects that ‘objectively’ speaking ‘don’t make sense.’ I think the more interesting question is whether or not it is intelligent to live as if we have no need to search out a divinely ordained purpose for our lives.
My friend, it was just a simplified description of the process, not the textbook description of how to create a nuclear explosion. Of course I did not go into technical details about U-235, it is not necessary for this discussion. The principle is what counts. (I could have brought up an example about the collapse of a star into a black hloe, where during the gradual cooling of the star the gravitational force will violently cause the star to collapse unto itself. Examples like this are endless.).
I am trying. I hope I succedded above.Why not just try to be a reasonable person and respond reasonably to reasonable queries that are put to you, then we’ll see what it is that we have to argue about.
The original definition of a meter was the 1/40,000,000th of the Equator. This was the basis for the length of the iridium rod in Paris. The new definition (accepted in 1983) is the distance what light covers in vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second. Tell me what is not arbitrary about this.
I’m pretty sure it’s not a dodge - or at least, it’s not intended to be so. I don’t believe I’m being inconsistent, either, in saying that we experience that which we take to be free will.
“Less real” is quite distinct from “independently existing”. To say that subjective experience is ‘less real’ than objective experience would be like saying that a flame is ‘less real’ than the candle it depends upon. Things that I experience - emotions, thoughts, understandings, exist in my mind, not outside of it. I can tell you about them, and you may be able to relate to them, but you cannot have my experiences for me, in the same way that you could visit the same building, drive the same car, handle the same object as I could. That is the difference between subjective and objective existence.
Because, as far as I can tell, they do suffice.
“Divorced from its physical context”? This seems to be confusing the issue. Morality is never independent of the physical existence of sentient beings. Morality, as a subjective construct, must exist upon an objective, physical substrate.
So by spiritual needs, you meant philosophical insight?
Only if one automatically supposes that a biochemical source renders morality unimportant and uncompelling. If a person genuinely experiences value for something, I doubt they are going to stop valuing it if they understand the value as subjective.
I don’t claim to be disinterested and impartial. As I have demonstrated, I strongly favour an atheistic worldview, based upon my own experience and research. And how is it that you claim to know the truth about me, while in previous posts you declared that it was foolish to make suppositions about the knowledge and experience of posters (which I have only ever done on the basis of what has been written). The fact of the matter is that if I had not considered the possibility that atheism necessarily implies hopelessness, I would not be here stating with confidence that it does not. On the contrary, your analysis reveals your own inherent bias towards theism, because that seems to be where you have found your own source of hope and moral certitude. My experience, as ought to be very clear from my posts, has been different.
Then please do not excuse yourself for stating earlier in this very post that I have failed to consider the implications of my own beliefs.
Value and purpose are metaphysically subjective qualities. If there were no sentient beings in the universe, there would be no-one to value it. It is not the existence of value I am disputing - it is the notion that value is inherent in entities, rather than ascribed by sentient valuers.
It is self-evident that all our thoughts about morality, science and everything else come from ourselves. Why is science not metaphysically subjective given that it is based on **our interpretation **of sense data?
There is no gap between is and ought because both are mental categories created by us. It is an artificial gulf devised by human beings.
In that case morality is in the same boat as science because the existence of physical objects is also inferred.
The status of morality is clearly affected by whether human beings are animals which exist by chance or rational beings who exist by Design.
If all our experiences stem from our biochemistry our “evaluation” of them is beyond our control. There is no reason to regard one evaluation as superior to another because they are all equally insignificant in the amoral context of biochemistry.
They cannot be otherwise! But since morality is not generally associated with animals it is necessary to explain why this particular species is different from all the rest. At this juncture it is also necessary to explain what you understand by the term “morality” because it has various interpretations… from Hobbes to Kant…
Since it is possible for a person to have commitment to any version of morality - including undiluted egoism - there is no prima facie reason to suppose it is a mistake. The real question is whether the biological version is adequate and worthy of commitment. Why should a particular species be singled out?
This is certainly true of those with a criminal mentality!