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MindOverMatter
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All this time i was speaking to a highly educated person. I only have a GCSE in English with a grade B.
I have never been one for academics.
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All this time i was speaking to a highly educated person. I only have a GCSE in English with a grade B.I have never been one for academics.
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Fran65
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Hey, I was asked so I answered. I don’t like to qualify posts with btw “I’m x, y or z” as I think that a high quality argument and the reasoning should not need that kind of support. The problem with declining to answer is that some assume that you have something to hide…
As my post suggests, academic qualifications do not mean that the poster is more or less likely to be right in areas other than their particular expertise and even then people make mistakes. I also think that intellectual pride can also get in the way of development of knowledge and understanding - particularly spiritually!
Never mind qualifications, if I could argue and explain the kind of high level theological and philosophical arguments that you, JDaniels, Cecilianus & Warp make I would be a very happy poster! That’s what keeps me returning - I learn so much from you guys and others.
BTW, NowAgnostic, I don’t mean to imply that I don’t believe your experience, I’m making the point that there is a difference between claiming and showing that is relevant to the argument about neuroscience. It seemed apposite at the time, but on rereading it sounds accusatory - if so I apologise - again!
As my post suggests, academic qualifications do not mean that the poster is more or less likely to be right in areas other than their particular expertise and even then people make mistakes. I also think that intellectual pride can also get in the way of development of knowledge and understanding - particularly spiritually!
Never mind qualifications, if I could argue and explain the kind of high level theological and philosophical arguments that you, JDaniels, Cecilianus & Warp make I would be a very happy poster! That’s what keeps me returning - I learn so much from you guys and others.
BTW, NowAgnostic, I don’t mean to imply that I don’t believe your experience, I’m making the point that there is a difference between claiming and showing that is relevant to the argument about neuroscience. It seemed apposite at the time, but on rereading it sounds accusatory - if so I apologise - again!
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warpspeedpetey
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im just a redneck who lives in a doublewide trailer, rides a motorcycle, drives a pickup, wears boots and says sophisticated things like “yall” and “caint”. i just havent stopped taking classes and reading since i was 16 about 20 years ago. i dont fit in with high falutin’ intellectual people anywhere but online where caint nobody see i look and sound like larry the cable guy. 
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NowAgnostic
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As though repeating the same debunked replies makes them more valid? All I can say is, come on. What is your point in denying the obvious?
You took a cheap shot and were rightly called out on it. Apology accepted though.
Happens all the time, it doesn’t mean they don’t have knowledge, only that they’re human and make mistakes. Guess what? Philosophers and theologians also make incorrect claims.
Well, every activity of the “mind” thought of by psychologists or philosophers that has been investigated by neuroscientists has been shown to have a physical correlate. There is not a single example of any mental activity investigated without a physical correlate. Higher order functions such as memory, language, attention, mathematical processing, moral judgment, free will, etc. have also been shown to have physical correlates - and some of these are precisely those functions previously thought to have been conducted by an “immaterial” mind or soul and therefore independent of matter. The erroneous assumption is that if there is an immaterial soul its actions must necessarily be independent of matter. I’m not sure exactly why a Catholic would feel a need to object to the neuroscientific data anyway; it seems to pose no problem to the idea that the soul is the essential form of the body. But anyway, it is what it is.
I’ll be happy to give you a list of my publications via PM if you wish.
Again, all I can say is, come on. You’re equivocating. By “all science” is meant every branch of empirical science not of course every activity conducted in the scientific process. Of course pure observation doesn’t involve mathematics. The prediction stage may or may not, depending. But the induction stage, where one wants to generalize to the larger population instead of merely the population actually studied, always involves mathematics and inferential statistics, at least implicitly. You have not refuted the example I gave regarding the heart, because you know you couldn’t, given your background.
Well maybe it’s “hard to admit” because it isn’t true. I would like to know how you propose to make an inductive generalization without using mathematics (at least in a back-of-the-envelope calculation sense); or, how anything empirical done without using inductive generalization can be properly called “science”.
So do you accept a claim made by medical researchers without a p-value? If so, I sure hope I don’t get treated by one of your students if I get sick.
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Areopagite
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You’re right NowAgnostic, that Catholics shouldn’t have a problem with this. Aristotle and Aquinas said that every thought we have must be accompanied by a corresponding “phantasm” (mental image … which they said is stored in the body). Even immaterial concepts can only be brought into consciousness if the phantasm from which the concept was abstracted can also be brought to consciousness. If certain phantasms are lost (i.e. forgotten … or destroyed by brain damage), then we lose the ability to recall the immaterial concepts they relate to. That’s what Aristotle and Aquinas said at least.
It was Descartes, it seemed, that started the thinking that all thought happened without any need for bodily functionality. But far from this being a Catholic idea, this idea was a definite departure from the Scholastic Tradition. And, it turned out Descartes was wrong (as neuroscience has … I think we can say with confidence … proved). So Descartes, “You think, and you exist … but you’re wrong!”
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Fran65
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Nowagnostic,
No-one ‘called me out’. I reread my post after a short period of time. I’m pleased that you have accepted my apology. By all means PM if you’d like to talk further.
You haven’t ‘debunked’ my reply at all. You have simply repeated your assertions with the addition of some technical terms. Howver, I’m very pleased to see that you have finally, finally added the qualifier “those that have been investigated” with respect to activities of the mind - that is what I was pointing out! There we are agreed.
You’ve also admitted that empirical methods are not the same as mathematical processes. You seem to experience me as pedantic. However, I think that accuracy and precision is important. Otherwise it is easy for people to misunderstand.
You want me to refute the example of the heart? What I was refuting with my original example was your statement that all science is done with maths. I’ve done that and you’ve admitted that observation is a scientific method and not mathematical. I don’t disagree with your exposition of the underlying mathematical processes of inductive generalisation.
Regarding the use of the p value, I have already stated that drug trials and, yes, I should have added clinical trials, need to use inferential statistics.
I don’t have a problem with neuroscientific evidence other than when it is misrepresented - particularly by someone who should know better. If you’re interested enough you can have a look at my other posts in previous threads. What I do have is a problem with is materialism and scientism. You will find that that is also the case with very many Catholics. Consider the meanings of the terms ‘science’, ‘scientism’ and ‘materialism’. This will clarify things for you I hope.
No-one ‘called me out’. I reread my post after a short period of time. I’m pleased that you have accepted my apology. By all means PM if you’d like to talk further.
You haven’t ‘debunked’ my reply at all. You have simply repeated your assertions with the addition of some technical terms. Howver, I’m very pleased to see that you have finally, finally added the qualifier “those that have been investigated” with respect to activities of the mind - that is what I was pointing out! There we are agreed.
You’ve also admitted that empirical methods are not the same as mathematical processes. You seem to experience me as pedantic. However, I think that accuracy and precision is important. Otherwise it is easy for people to misunderstand.
You want me to refute the example of the heart? What I was refuting with my original example was your statement that all science is done with maths. I’ve done that and you’ve admitted that observation is a scientific method and not mathematical. I don’t disagree with your exposition of the underlying mathematical processes of inductive generalisation.
Regarding the use of the p value, I have already stated that drug trials and, yes, I should have added clinical trials, need to use inferential statistics.
I don’t have a problem with neuroscientific evidence other than when it is misrepresented - particularly by someone who should know better. If you’re interested enough you can have a look at my other posts in previous threads. What I do have is a problem with is materialism and scientism. You will find that that is also the case with very many Catholics. Consider the meanings of the terms ‘science’, ‘scientism’ and ‘materialism’. This will clarify things for you I hope.
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AnAtheist
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Yes, the descriptions of Christ were written centuries after the prophecies, in a way that they match those prophecies.
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Fran65
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Wrong. The Gospels can be dated to between 65 - 80AD. (Borg, 2002)
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AnAtheist
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So? And the prophecies are dated what? Isaiah e.g. 500BC, 700BC?
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Touchstone
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I think you have missed the force of AnAtheist’s objection. The parsimonious resolution to the “fullfilment of prophecies” question is that the writers of the gospels simply tailored the narrative to conform to them, “fulfilling them after the fact”. For example, the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem would be something added or embellished after the fact – two generations after the death of Jesus, three generations after his birth, which is the matter in question here.
So where the prophet Micah prophesies “Bethlehem” as the birthplace of the Messiah, so is fashioned the narrative, many years later, to lend credence and authority (and awe) to the story.
That may NOT have been what happened, but it sure is an economical, simple way to explain the “miracle” of fulfilled prophesy as merely embellishments added later to manufacture “fulfillment”.
-TS
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Fran65
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AnAtheist’s post was factually incorrect. The choice of the term ‘centuries later’ was an attempt to strengthen the argument made regarding the inclusion of statements to demonstrate the fulfillment of prophecy.
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warpspeedpetey
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do you have sufficient evidence to support that claim? if so what is it? reputable scholars do not hold this position to my understanding. im sure you can find a few nuts who say such a thing because they want it to be true, but do you have any group of reputable scholars who say this?
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warpspeedpetey
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and it is just as friendly to occam to accept the veracity of the prophecies and their fulfillment. without the witness of the Apostles and the first Christians, their followers, there is no faith to have an ideological fervor for.
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Fran65
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What would need to occur for AnAtheist’s argument to stand would be a conspiracy between all of those responsible for the spreading of the Gospel. It would also need to involve all of those who knew Jesus, his family and his life; and all of those who had heard about him. Surely competing accounts would also exist, so these would also need to be found and destroyed. This is quite an achievement for a persucuted minority.
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Touchstone
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No, because “veracity” requires the introduction of a “God entity” or some supernatural agent or process that controls events – this is the “multiplying entities” beyond necessity that Ockham was arguing against. We can explain the phenomenon without any need for such fantastic introductions into the picture.
-TS
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Fran65
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Regarding the application of Occam’s razor to this case. There is either a major conspiracy as I outline above, or the Gospel writers were writing the truth as they understood it. The most parsiminious explanation is clear.
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Touchstone
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No, it would just require an over-active imagination for a few desperately anguished, apocalyptic-minded, mystically-oriented disciples of Christ to envision an “appearance” Jesus. From there, it can unfold quite naturally with people believing sincerely that there was an empty tomb when there wasn’t and that Jesus was bodily resurrected and had appeared to others when in fact no such thing happened. Once begun that way, innocently enough, considering the grief and trauma of the events that had just taken place, the legend and myth takes on a life of its own, and the zealous ground their zeal in sincere, but mistaken beliefs.
No such conspiracy needed.
-TS
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warpspeedpetey
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we cannot explain the plain fact of existence of the universe apart from G-d. it is a necessary part of any explanatory chain. i dont think that occam, a Catholic himself, would find the parsimony of ontological beings to exclude G-d. when russel did it, he simply ignored the ontological necessity of a Creator.
so when we posit G-d as a cause of the Messianic Prophecies, we posit a necessary being.
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warpspeedpetey
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why do i miss the obvious with such frequency?
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warpspeedpetey
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but Jesus appeared more than once, to more than a few people, and performed miracles in plain view of the disciples, among others for 3 years prior to His resurrection. thats a whole lot of incidents to explain away as mass delusion.
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