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hecd2
Guest
I think you need to read up a bit on the incompleteness theorems (there are two actually). First of all they apply only to formal systems such as natural arithmetic or set theory. Secondly, they do not preclude the possibility of provable statements in the system. They prove a) that there are true statements that cannot be proven within the system and b) that the consistency of the whole system cannot be demonstrated within the system.
So not only are Goedel’s incompleteness theorems not strictly applicable to the conclusion that human cognition has a material foundation, but even if it was applicable it would in no way rebut the statement that human cognition arises from a material foundation.
The statement “matter cannot explain itself” is a statement of faith, not supported by incompleteness or undecidability theorems and not evidenced.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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tonyrey
Guest
If matter is regarded as the sole reality do you maintain it can explain itself? If so on what grounds do you base your conclusion?
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brandymmiller
Guest
So you believe the only reality is what is physically tangible? Is that true?
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hecd2
Guest
I don’t hold that matter is necessarily the sole reality. I do claim that it is the only reality that we can know, and that it is necessary to explain human cognition, and I conclude parsimoniously that mental and brain states are different aspects of the same phenomenon. I see no reason to suppose that brain/minds will be unable to explain some aspects of human cognition, but the jury is still out on just how far we’ll get with that project. If your assertion is that matter *cannot *explain itself (I’m assuming by that that you are claiming that a purely matter based cognition cannot explain cognition), then it is for you to tell us why we should agree with you. As I pointed out and as you have ignored, your so-called best evidence is simply inapplicable.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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tonyrey
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Why do you hold anything? Why do you even suppose matter exists?
What are your criteria of knowledge? How do you arrive at them?
That is a less parsimonious view than the one we have been discussing - that mental states and brain states are identical.
An incomplete explanation is an inadequate explanation.
Your assumption is incorrect. I am asserting that matter cannot explain matter (in the context of the view that matter is the sole reality) - not that “a purely matter based cognition cannot explain cognition” (although that is an unsubstantiated hypothesis).
The onus is on you to show that matter can explain matter. In the absence of any evidence it is as vacuous as the assertion “atomic particles can explain atomic particles”.
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tonyrey
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hecd2
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Because I can sense it and I choose to eschew solipsism. I start with a non-negotiable bootstrapping axiom, that the world is comprehensible and that our senses can give us reliable information about it - everything about understanding reality proceeds from that position which is pragmatically demonstrable. That’s how we manage to survive in this universe of hard edges. I have described myself as a pragmatic verifacationist.
One cannot describe any statement as constituting knowledge (ie a true statement about reality) if it is not falsifiable, shareable and supported by evidence which ultimately derives from sense experience. So speculations which are incapable of falsification, private revelation or inspiration, and musings about entities and domains that we cannot in principle sense do not constitute knowledge. (By the way, knowledge about reality is not amenable to formal proof like a mathematical proposition.)
I fail, in the context of the discussion, to see the distinction. Perhaps I’d make it clearer for you if I say that they are different aspects of the same material phenomenon. The electrochemical firing of neurons in certain centres in the brain and pain are different aspects of the same phenomenon. No supernatural mind needed.
Not necessarily - in order to discuss adequacy we’d need to agree on adequate for what purpose. Almost all explanations are incomplete, but that does not make them inherently or universally inadequate. Furthermore it’s a fallacy to claim that if the particular brains that evolution has provided us with are practically unable to completely explain themselves then that is the same as saying that material based cognition is unable in principle to explain itself as support for the necessity of a non-material domain.
In any case, I’m not sure where you are hoping your logic will take you. The premises of your syllogism go like this (questionable, but let’s go with them for a while):
- Matter cannot explain matter
- We might be unable to explain our cognition completely
therefore
?
Well atomic particles can explain atomic particles in the sense that our brains are made up of hypercomplex configurations of atomic particles, and it’s our brains that we use when we “explain” (discover the existence of, describe the behaviour of) atomic particles (try explaining anything after you have dropped 3 feet head first on to a concrete floor). If you assert, as you have, that matter cannot explain matter, or that atomic particles cannot explain atomic particles, then the onus is on you to show why that is so. Just stating it again in bold text doesn’t help. Perhaps it’s something that you just know privately, because as I pointed out above, your “best evidence” for your assertion is based on a misunderstanding of theorems about formal systems.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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wanstronian
Guest
Because our brain gives us continuity. We can ‘decide’ to pursue a line of thinking and then do so. However, the thought that prompts the decision to purse that line of thinking is arbitrary and unplanned.
As I said before, we cannot control our body. If you disagree, then stop your heart from beating for five seconds.
That is correct. For example, many people believe in God. That’s not evidence that he exists. People used to believe that the sun went round the earth.
Why does a physical cause preclude spontaneity?
Not at all, if you accept that thoughts are caused by physical events that we ultimately have no control over. It just implies that we cannot be sure of the outcome.
It doesn’t answer all the questions, you’re right. But it’s still streets ahead of supernaturalism which just makes stuff up.
That’s an irrelevant question, as it was in your previous post. Please stick to the point.
Yes. Clearly human conventions have changed, therefore they can’t be categorical.
I didn’t say that either! Why are you prolonging this with irrelevant questions? I thought you wanted to arrive at a conclusion? All I can imagine is that you can see what that conclusion will be and you don’t like it, so you’re trying to prevent us arriving.
Finally you get it. You’ve just disproved God, extracorporeal consciousness et al, by using basic logic. Congratulations! You’re one of us now! Doesn’t it feel good to throw off the chains of dogma and have an open mind!!
You’re moving the goalposts again. I addressed your point about similarity, now you’re attacking me on a different subject that isn’t relevant to the discussion anyway.
Well that groups every other living organism into the same category, which clearly isn’t the case. And you have no evidence that, say, dogs don’t act by choice. So you’re just making assumptions that support your desired outcome. Again.
Fair enough. It doesn’t detract from my original point though. I think you’re too easily distracted, half of my text is spent trying to keep you on-topic.
To all intents and purposes, a wholly consistent perception of our environment can be taken as a fact. I’ve made this clear in previous posts. I made the mistake of giving an extreme example of subjectivity, which you’ve since chosen to take as my standard worldview. You are wrong to do so, hopefully I’ve clarified now and you’ll stop diverting from the point.
Now you’re arbitrarily making a distinction between animals and machines. We were previously dicussing biological machines.
As I said before - I don’t know, I’m not one.
Not currently, as you’re well aware. Are we heading towards your favourite “Any answer is better than admitting you don’t know” argument again…?
Okay. I inferred that you were granting it sentience and purpose. But you’re just talking about the origin of the universe, whatever it might be. You might do well to use more objective nomenclature to avoid confusion.
Agreed - without a cause of the universe it wouldn’t exist.
As Touchstone pointed out, you are ignoring emergent properties. Your argument is just the argument from personal incredulity.
They’re not. I could ignore them all. But it wouldn’t be in my interest, and it would conflict with my evolved morals.
Probably no purpose to the evolution of morals. However, the benefit of morals to the individual and to society in general should be obvious. Therefore the purpose of morals is to benefit society.
I don’t know how many times I’ve got to ask, but please stop misrepresenting my comments. If you don’t understand them, then ask for clarification. Don’t start asking dumb questions like this one.
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wanstronian
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The concepts wouldn’t exist without someone to conceptualise them. You’re being naive here.
Exactly! ALL thoughts come from out of the blue - you cannot decide to have a particular thought. Then you can have another thought which leads to a decision to return to the subject and meditate on it.
You know exactly what I meant, you’re being disingenuous again. Why not try answering the comment for once?
Alec (hecd2) has responded to this more eloquently than I could.
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tonyrey
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How do you know that?
I leave others to decide…
Is a consensus of every rational person’s thoughts, e.g. that we have thoughts, make plans and decisions, and are responsible for what we think and do, valueless as evidence?
Latin sponte: of one’s free will.
If people really believe in determinism they become fatalists and tend to let things take their course.
Every unanswered question weakens the theory.
Why irrelevant?
So you believe that people had no right to life because people did not recognise the right to life? That it was not wrong to kill people for entertainment?
You believe a person is a collection of mental events. So choices are made either by all the mental events or some of them.
The likelihood of naturalism being true is diminishing steadily.
Why is it irrelevant whether identicality, equality, numerical relations and physical constants existed before human beings existed? If they did exist they are not just concepts…
Dogs do not make rational or moral choices.
Which you don’t accept as evidence?
How is it an extreme example when it is the basis of all our thinking. If we don’t know we are thinking why bother to think?
The urge to survive is not an arbitrary distinction.
Is there any evidence that computers are aware of themselves and their makers?
Yet consciousness, intelligence and purpose are the factors which make human beings the highest form of known reality in the entire universe. Without them the amazing success of science would not have occurred. To dismiss them as fortuitous freaks of nature is a most inadequate explanation.
It has not been explained how and why emergence occurred.
Many people find it in their interest and are not bothered about their evolved morals.
It seems odd that morals benefit society but they have not evolved for that purpose. Why have they evolved?
What do you understand by the term “self-consciousness”?
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Touchstone
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This is an appeal to superstition. We don’t know that natural explanations “will never come”, and in fact, the evidence we have in view of the development of natural explanations across all sorts of hard questions suggests that we shan’t be surprised to see breakthroughs made on questions of cognition that rival those we’ve already achieved in other areas – quantum physics, relativity, DNA, evolution, etc.
For the time being, “unkown” remains “unknown”. Who’s forcing you into superstitious alternatives, making you commit one way or another prematurely, here?
A concept is a reality, it’s a discrete phenomenon. What’s the problem?
It’s only fortuitous from our parochial point of view. For the many species we’ve wiped out with the faculties we’ve gained, many of which we can identify as fellow hominids, this development was very bad deal.
“High level” not a problem. It’s just a factual error, given what we have in view, to say that such developments are directed, the product of telic forces or processes.
No, it’s not the base, or the limit. It’s a provisional metaphysical commitment - the hypothesis that reality is real, and at least partially intelligible. Experience shows this hypothesis to find merit in the results – natural explanations for natural phenomena does seem to lead to significant levels of intelligibility of the world around us.
We just don’t have any competing explanations to material ones that fare well, at all. And neither are we convinced that natural explanations are not and cannot be adequate to account for “nature contemplating itself” as Carl Sagan might put it. The cascading and interlocking natural explanations in so many other areas further suggests that superstitious surrenders are unwarranted.
If you look at the Ontological Arguement, for example, there’s nothing distinctively Catholic about it, it’s just vanilla theism. And yet, it is predicated on the premise of “maximal greatness” – ultimacy, which the argument supposes obtains because – get this! – it’s greater to exist than to be imaginary, therefore it must exist! This is exemplary of theistic pretense to knowledge, claims that identify the ultimate. Put whatever name and logo you want on the god of the ontological argument, it’s as ultimate as any Catholic version.
I think you are confusing hypocrisy with truth propositions. Indeed, it is noble and good to live in deep accord with one’s claimed beliefs, but matching praxis with doxis doesn’t establish the truth value of the doctrine.
-TS
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Touchstone
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I was a Christian for 30+ years. I accepted those beliefs, and lived under the aegis of that understanding for a long time, and did fine. It’s not repulsive at all, it just isn’t rationally sustainable. In many ways, it’s quite appealing still – I, like so many, have a conflicted inner urge to be a slave, to hand off my thinking to some other master, to accept a totalitarian hypothesis just because it provides soothing, anodyne simplicity, rigid order and putative certainty. I don’t think theism entails fatalism or nihilism, or any “-ism” that entails despair.
But I think that’s an asymmetry. Clearly, because you have said so, repeatedly and explicitly, you recoil from naturalist models because you labor under the belief that they somehow entail despair.
If you want to spin up a thread on compatibilism – theistic and atheistic renderings, I’m game. That’s way more than can be addressed in a space like this.
Ispe dixit!
Let’s see… how to respond… does not!
(It will help to remember that our reality is not a “lapacian” reality, a world of hard determinism, at least for those who don’t subscribe to religious doctrines that assert hard determinism. The determinism we identify in our reality is one infused with probabilism and low-level indeterminacy. That’s little comfort for one who supposes there’s some kind of magic, cosmic autonomy of the immaterial self, but on a naturalist view, the end is unknowable in its details, and fundamentally hinges on stochastic processes and probabilities as drivers for law-based processes.)
I think that’s just a feature of theistic conceits. It’s certainly quite a common understanding, though, I’ll grant. On naturalism, love and beauty are, like so many other features of the mind, emergent properties of the human brain (and probably not just human brains, but at least those).
There’s no such implication. Much of Christian theology exhorts believers toward courage, sacrifice and discipline. Atheism just doesn’t have such facile answers available to it, so it takes commitment and conviction that stems from the self to find a positive, productive path towards the goals one has in life.
-TS
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Fran65
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TS,
Isn’t it the case that you are labelling something as magic in order to discredit it, when the reality is that both of the explanations you are discussing involve mechanisms, processes and outcomes which are difficult to describe, explain and understand?
I grant that there is empirical evidence to support the involvement of the brain in many processes and the experience of consciousness, but demonstrating this link does not discredit the hypothesis of a soul or the hypothesis of the supernatural. It supports the hypothesis that the brain is involved, but it does not demonstrate that the non-material does not exist. Those hypotheses are not falsifiable, which is why relying on science to discredit these aspects of the supernatural is doomed to failure!
You can have many reasons and arguments for not believing in God, the existence of the soul and the existence of the supernatural, but scientific evidence is not one of them. Sorry.
*
You *can choose to live in a strictly material world, and you can tell others why; however, others can choose to live in a world that is both material and supernatural. And neither of us can prove the other wrong (until the afterlife of course
)
Isn’t it the case that you are labelling something as magic in order to discredit it, when the reality is that both of the explanations you are discussing involve mechanisms, processes and outcomes which are difficult to describe, explain and understand?
I grant that there is empirical evidence to support the involvement of the brain in many processes and the experience of consciousness, but demonstrating this link does not discredit the hypothesis of a soul or the hypothesis of the supernatural. It supports the hypothesis that the brain is involved, but it does not demonstrate that the non-material does not exist. Those hypotheses are not falsifiable, which is why relying on science to discredit these aspects of the supernatural is doomed to failure!
You can have many reasons and arguments for not believing in God, the existence of the soul and the existence of the supernatural, but scientific evidence is not one of them. Sorry.
*
You *can choose to live in a strictly material world, and you can tell others why; however, others can choose to live in a world that is both material and supernatural. And neither of us can prove the other wrong (until the afterlife of course
)
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Touchstone
Guest
No, at least that isn’t the source of “discredit”, there, in my view. “Unknownedness”, difficulties in description, and particularly as concerns detail and robustness are challenges that any “non-magical” epistemology or program must face. You could ask me about abiogenesis, for example, I would be thoroughly unable to describe that historical process by anything more than preliminary hypotheses supported by “building block” experiments.
So, that is not the source of discredit I intend, and I do intend discredit by “magic”, not in an ad hominem sense, but in an epistemic sense. The source of the discredit obtains from the appeal to casaul factors, or more precisely, agents that are invoked. That is, faced with unknowns, man has a well-established predilection for superstition – not just “explaining away unknowns”, but appealing to active, telic agents that are otherwise unknowns or fabulous implausibiliites. Demons and faeries, djinni and ghosts.
These, like God, are as intuitively appealing, given human psychology, as they are intellectually facile. They are discreditable because they are cheap, unaccountable to any coherent framework. An omnipotent, omniscient God, as I’m sure you have heard, is the explanation for everything, and thus the explanation for perfectly nothing at all. Even if it is true, after we investigate, that faeries are making mischief at the bottom of the garden, this is NOT an intellectually virtuous belief as a “default”, as that which fills the vacuum of ignorance. One cannot apprise oneself of the intellectual history of man and not be overwhelmed by the spectacular failure of this reflex by the mind.
Unkown is fine – a fact we must deal with. Known by virtue of unknowns-that-default-to-magic, supernatural or incoherentist is discreditable on its face. This is precisely what reasoning and knowledge seek to overturn.
I agree that the evidence does not discredit dualism or dual-aspect monism; but this is not to the credit of either, but the discredit of both. That is because both are UNFALSIFIABLE IN PRINCIPLE. They may be true hypotheses, but we have no way to know. It’s a fools errand to try and disprove such notions, just as it is to try and disprove God.
Instead, we understand that while these hypotheses can’t be ruled out, it’s because they are immune to being ruled out that we don’t care about them, and more importantly, don’t need them and can’t be helped by them in terms of real knowledge. So one pursuing real knowledge hears out these hypotheses and says “Could be, but who cares. It’s a moot concept!”
If you read my posts here and elsewhere, you will find I’m consistent and vocal about this: God and the soul are not falsifiable concepts! I’m ultra-clear on this, and make this point all the time. But the unfalsifiability of those concepts is a mark of the utter intellectual poverty of those concepts, not their truth or strength. As was said disparagingly (and rightly) about unfalsifiable and purely speculative formations of string theory: *it’s not even wrong. *God and the soul don’t even rise to he level of meriting “true” or “false”. “True” and “false” are yet meaningless terms to apply to the soul or the immaterial mind, as statements about the real world. The statement “man has an immaterial mind” cannot even be wrong.
And not even then!You *can choose to live in a strictly material world, and you can tell others why; however, others can choose to live in a world that is both material and supernatural. And neither of us can prove the other wrong (until the afterlife of course
-TS
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Charlemagne_II
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Touchstone
And not even then!
Of this you are absolutely certain?
And not even then!
Of this you are absolutely certain?
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Touchstone
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tonyrey
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You are missing the point. You stated:
“I think here you are “flashing your cards”, so to speak, as to the source of your **resistance **to systematic investigation of this question – you anticipate revulsion at what may be revealed…”
I responded to an argumentum ad hominem with another argumentum ad hominem to demonstrate how vacuous it is: “I **could equally well **attribute.”. I know perfectly well that some atheists do recognise these realities as objective.
Yet another argumentum ad hominem! But that is a perfect description of atheism because it does provides soothing, anodyne simplicity, rigid order and putative certainty! Nothing could simpler than materialism - in more senses than one…
Determinism rules out free will and therefore entails fatalism, i.e. total slavery of the mind and body to external events. Does that give you cause for hope?
Determinism is incompatible with self-determinism. How do you evade that conclusion?
Stochastic processes do not account for self-determinism…
The onus is on deviants from the norm to justify their deviance! Try denying free will and responsibility in a court of law…
How and why are they supposed to have emerged from matter?
I was responding to another argumentum ad hominem with another argumentum ad hominem!! If you have thought all these years that theism has facile answers your version of theism is so superficial and distorted that you were and are fully justified in renouncing it!
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Fran65
Guest
TS,
Faith in God and belief in the supernatural (as in the existence of an immaterial soul) is only '“intellectually impoverished” if it leads to answering scientific and intellectual questions with the response ‘God did it’ without any pursuit of further knowledge and understanding.
Many seem to believe that Faith stymies intellectual and scientific endeavour, and this is simply not true. My God is not the god of the gaps or the endstop to our potential to answer both theological, scientific and moral questions. Rather He poses more and deeper questions and this enlarges the universe rather than shrinks it.
Whilst I am aware of a the existence of those who use ‘God’ as a set of blinkers and as limiter on the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, this not an inevitable consequence of belief in God, but rather a symptom of a profound dis-ease with change and novelty and a profound fear of the loss of faith. That is a impoverished view and one that does no-one any credit.
Faith in God and an acknowledgement of the possibility and/or reality of the supernatural can lead to an enrichment of our intellect and our worldview. A universe that contains both the material and the immaterial is a much richer and diverse universe than that which is solely material (rich though that is).
As you have acknowledged elsewhere, God remains a possibility, as does the existence of an immaterial soul. Surely a dismissal of this possibility is an intellectually impoverished position rather than the contrary?
Faith in God and belief in the supernatural (as in the existence of an immaterial soul) is only '“intellectually impoverished” if it leads to answering scientific and intellectual questions with the response ‘God did it’ without any pursuit of further knowledge and understanding.
Many seem to believe that Faith stymies intellectual and scientific endeavour, and this is simply not true. My God is not the god of the gaps or the endstop to our potential to answer both theological, scientific and moral questions. Rather He poses more and deeper questions and this enlarges the universe rather than shrinks it.
Whilst I am aware of a the existence of those who use ‘God’ as a set of blinkers and as limiter on the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, this not an inevitable consequence of belief in God, but rather a symptom of a profound dis-ease with change and novelty and a profound fear of the loss of faith. That is a impoverished view and one that does no-one any credit.
Faith in God and an acknowledgement of the possibility and/or reality of the supernatural can lead to an enrichment of our intellect and our worldview. A universe that contains both the material and the immaterial is a much richer and diverse universe than that which is solely material (rich though that is).
As you have acknowledged elsewhere, God remains a possibility, as does the existence of an immaterial soul. Surely a dismissal of this possibility is an intellectually impoverished position rather than the contrary?
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wanstronian
Guest
It’s obvious. You can’t decide to have a thought about a pink elephant, without first having a thought about a pink elephant. You can decide to spend some time considering a pink elephant, but the initial thought arrives unbidden.
Fine by me - what I say is clearly true.
I’ve answered this already.
Latin sponte: of one’s free will.
What does that prove?
Utter tripe. Determinism does not mean, “The same thing will happen if do nothing, as if I do something.”
True. It completely screws theism!
For the reason I gave in the comments you quoted. My point was something else entirely. You are doing this a lot in this thread. It’s like me saying, “The sun sets in the West,” and you saying, “How do you know you’re spelling ‘West’ right?” It’s irrelevant to the topic. If you want to go off and have sideline discussions, that’s fine, but lets do it in another thread.
I understand why you’re sidelining, but it would be more honest of you to address the comments head on instead of trying to dodge.
Wrong by today’s standards, but not by the standards of the day. This enforces my point, so thank you.
That’s true. But it’s not the question you asked, or you asked it too vaguely. It’s unlikely that every brain cell is involved in every decision. A choice is a mental event. You’re deliberately confusing the entity with the events, but I don’t understand why unless it’s another attempt to cloud the issue.
How so? Even if it were true - for which I keenly await your evidence - by this same logic, God and extracorporeal consciousness CANNOT exist.
You may remember, your point was about similarity. I answered it so you came up with a different concept. I could answer this too, but you could then come up with dozens of concepts. I have proved my point; now you are just dodging.
Not moral, no - they’re not sufficiently evolved. How do you know they’re not rational? But yet again, you deflect from the original point, which was whether animals make choices. Not the basis for their choices, just whether they make them. If you can’t stick to the point, why should I continue debating with you? Are you just trying to get me to quit so you can claim you were right??
Whether I do or not, this wasn’t the point. Start another thread and I’ll gladly discuss it.
we are thinking why bother to think? Well, as you insist on pursuing this for some reason: You know that you are thinking. That is all that you can ever absolutely know. HOWEVER, as I’ve said before, you have to make an assumption that the world is not a figment of your imagination, otherwise as you say, there’s no point. Does this make things clear for you?
Straw man. We were talking about biological machines, then all of a sudden you were talking about automata. I pointed out your disenginuity and you bluster. All I ask is for an honest conversation. If you can’t comply, let me know and I’ll be out of your hair.
Ah, sorry, I thought you were still talking about biological machines. You see what happens when you change the subject? There is no evidence that computers are aware, of course. As for non-human biological machines (which is what we were talking about before your little trick), the only evidence is anecdotal. There are experiments on chimps (Byrne, 1997, don’t know if there’s an online document.)
is a most inadequate explanation.Why? And what better explanation is there? God? He may be an answer, but he’s not an explanation.
No. Therefore it can’t have happened, right? Grow a mind, mate.
That’s true. Not everybody is sane. Do you have a point?
The theory of natural selection holds that nothing evolves for a purpose, did you not know this?
Awareness of one’s own consciousness. Same as self-awareness I guess.
- Status