Why are you an Atheist? - Catholic Answers Live - 12Nov2018

[Benny44]

Damien

Current Scientists currently conclude that the natural laws of physics were suspended at the genesis of the Big Bang by the way.

You have not addressed the abundant witness of the miracle of Fatima nor the activities of Joan of Arc

 

[HarryStotle]

I agree there are differences in each exact process, but here’s where it still works for me and where it breaks down with your use of the word “consciousness”. I’ll use the example of chewing food. A blender can do the same process as me chewing food. But you’re claiming that since I’m a human, that I have a duality to the process of “chewing” that the blender doesn’t have. I have a special ghost in me that allows me to chew food, even though reality does not demonstrate that at all. Now change “chewing” with “processing data and responding to that data” (which is what I call the conscious process) and its the exact same thing. Some special ghost is allowing me to process data and respond to it even though reality does not demonstrate this at all. It also appears that you don’t like the idea of there not being this special ghost not being there. Well tough, until you can demonstrate that special ghost is there at all, reality doesn’t owe you a special ghost just because you don’t like the idea that what reality actually demonstrates to be the case is that you are a biological machine, just a highly advanced one.

Well, when you can show that the blender decides what it will blend based upon its current energy needs and then judiciously changes its own settings relative to the food being processed, completely on its own, then you might have made your case. You haven’t.

Blending and chewing are far from being the same process. Think about what the word “process” means.

And yet you continue to make entirely false equivalencies as if one similarity between two quite different phenomena makes the two identical.

Chewing, in toto, is quite a different thing from blending.

Where you fall down is you have completely either forgotten or never knew Aristotle’s theory of the four causes.

You don’t really know much about a thing until you have been able to produce a competent explication of the formal, efficient, material and final causes of that thing.

You might learn a lot from ancient primitives if you’d give them the opportunity.

 

[HarryStotle]

Nope I actually do. That’s why I am able to take in data from this discussion and respond to it. The conscious process.

Alexa and Siri can take in verbalized data and respond to it. They are not conscious processes.

QED

 

[IWantGod]

On 12Nov2018, during the second hour of the show, I called in to talk to Trent Horn about why I am an Atheist. I opened up the conversation that theistic claims for why they believe in the supernatural are all internally logically consistent, but there is no evidence of it in reality so far that anyone can point to that demonstrates its existence. That’s where I pointed out the similarity of religious claims to comic books and fantasy stories. These are all internally logically consistent, but that doesn’t make Thanos and the Infinity stones actually exist in reality. You can have an internal logically consistent argument that can lead you to a belief about something. But if that position is a claim in reference to reality, then, until you can demonstrate that it is found in reality, you are NOT justified in believing that claim is actually true. Religious claims are referencing reality and are internally logically consistent but since you can not demonstrate these claims to be there at all, you are not justified in believing that claim is actually true.

It depends on the kind of logical argument and the context in which it operates. If it’s a metaphysical argument like out of nothing comes nothing, once one understands what nothing is, one can know that this is internally consistent and also that it’s opposing view cannot happen in reality, because it’s meaningless and reason would fall apart otherwise. Similarly a thing cannot be and not be at the same time; and this is both internally consistent and objectively true, and it is also true that any conclusion that follows from this fact is also objectively true. It’s reliable knowledge. A metaphysical argument succeeds on the basis that if it was wrong the entire foundation of human reason falls to pieces or our very notion of being becomes absurd, and so it has to be correct; that is to say we have to agree with it if we want to continue reasoning.

That is the strength of a metaphysical argument, so long as it’s done correctly, and in that regard the knowledge gained from such an argument is objectively reliable because the opposing view is meaningless and unintelligible…

 

[Damian]

You have not addressed the abundant witness of the miracle of Fatima nor the activities of Joan of Arc

Because it’s just eye witness testimony that does not follow with what reality actually demonstrates to be possible. You seem to be implying that eye witness testimony is an accurate way to actually know something about reality. Its not based on the claim. Its a good reason to investigate something interesting, but you can’t assume that people’s testimony was accurate to what actually happened when they are making claims that defy what reality actually demonstrates to be possible. Just like yetti sightings and UFO abductions as well. You can actually go talk to these people and there are 1000s of people that make these claims today that you can go meet. Still not going to believe them based solely on eye witness testimony based on the magnitude of their claims.

Current Scientists currently conclude that the natural laws of physics were suspended at the genesis of the Big Bang by the way.

The process of the beginning of the big bang is not the same claim as people having magical powers or abilities. No scientist is claiming that the laws of the big bang are in any way magical in nature, just that the environment of the event was soo extreme that some laws break down. As to why? Not sure, but it’s not magic since reality has yet to demonstrate magic is possible at all. You seem to want to find a limit of scientific understanding and then plant the flag of evidence of magic. That’s not how methodological naturalism works. You can only use the current facts that reality has demonstrated to be possible to use for explanations about questions of reality or stop and say “We can’t know further than this point yet.” To move forward with discovery of the unknown, you attempt to make logical models to help narrow down what equipment you would need to develop to study further in that unknown area and then see if you can find some additional facts to start actually understanding what happened instead of what you assert is the case and then look for evidence to justify your assertion. aka building the bulls-eye around your arrow.

 

[Damian]

Babies and people with brain damage do the same thing that Alexa and Siri do as well, are they not conscious either?

 

[Damian]

Well, when you can show that the blender decides what it will blend based upon its current energy needs and then judiciously changes its own settings relative to the food being processed, completely on its own, then you might have made your case. You haven’t.

I am talking about the process a blender does in relation to chewing, no more. You’ve expounded the example beyond what I was pointing out. Yes a human is more complex than a machine is, but I am talking about the same processes that we both do, just the person is more complex in their process of it. Like how a machine can walk, but we can dance. We both do movement though, we both can balance based on (name removed by moderator)ut from the environment, we both make decisions to move around obstacles. You seem to be arguing that since machines can’t do what people can do at our advanced level of movement, then we have a special duality to us, we have a special ghost that makes us more than the machines. Okay, show me the ghost then. I can show you the biological processes that we use in reality that has nothing to do with duality at all.

 

[Damian]

That is the strength of a metaphysical argument, so long as it’s done correctly, and in that regard the knowledge gained from such an argument is objectively reliable because the opposing view is meaningless and unintelligible…

Or just ignorant of what reality can actually do. Every scientific experiment that was tested against reality was also internally logically consistent. But we were not justified in concluding our claim about reality was actually correct until we could find it in reality. Reality has to tell us what is possible in reality, not our logical models without testing. Our logical models just show us where to investigate so that we don’t waste our time in our investigations. I agree that we wouldn’t investigate the idea of a married bachelor, but if I define the bachelor to do anything and everything, then the bachelor is as nebulous an idea as I need to fit the answer to every unknown I ever run into and exists in a realm that I can not ever investigate, then of course it will be an answer to everything, but still not demonstrable in reality, IE: Thanos, Magic, universe making pixies, etc.

human reason falls

Our reason is first grounded in what reality demonstrates to be the case. Logical absolutes are just language restrictions we use for creating models of reality. What ever concept in reality we label as X, is logical to conclude that it is not Y. However, after investigating, we learn that Y is a subset of X or X is a subset of Y. So our logic was correct, but our conclusions were wrong because of our ignorance of how X and Y were related. Or we learn that X can by Y but Y can not be X. Our logic doesn’t break but our category labels break because of our ignorance of reality. That’s why you have to test your logical equation against reality because what we are labeling for the logical model to work may be wrong because we’ve restricted our category labels based on our ignorance. So until you can demonstrate your logical model against reality, its a good place to look for your conclusions, but not justified in believing your conclusions are actually justified to believe is true against what reality indicates is true.

 

[IWantGod]

Or just ignorant of what reality can actually do.

If you think that it’s possible for something to come from nothing by itself without a cause, or better yet you think that a thing can exist and not exist at the same time, or even better you think that you don’t exist, then by your standards anything is possible including a square circle and reason is nothing more than a subjective fantasy. If this is the case there is no convincing you of anything other than what you want to believe.

What you fail to understand is that science itself is grounded in metaphysical principles. The position you argue from is called scientism and it’s a fallacious position, and it’s not science…

 

[IWantGod]

Our reason is first grounded in what reality demonstrates to be the case. Logical absolutes are just language restrictions we use for creating models of reality

And reality demonstrates that things are existing and are not absolutely nothing at the same time, so it’s simply not true that there is no such thing as metaphysical absolutes. Metaphysics is completely justifiable and defensible. You simply don’t want it to be.

 

[vz71]

So where does the story exist prior to the author writing it down?

A flippant answer was provided earlier, but served only to show the lack of thought in the response.

 

[Damian]

I’m fine with all the logical arguments you want to make and that its seems logical for where it leads you to a first cause. What ever that first cause is that you can logically argue is internally logically consistent as well. Great Fine I can follow that. However, when you conclude that your logical model is actually reality without demonstrating that reality actually reflects your logical model, that is where we have a problem. I’m fine just withholding belief till we can demonstrate the logical conclusion in reality, you are not. That is the difference between our world views. You need this deity to be there before actually demonstrating it to be there and I don’t. But I’m fine understanding the logical reason to be justified in looking for it, but not fine with believing your claim to have a justified true belief claim about reality when you can’t demonstrate your claim.

 

[Damian]

Metaphysics is completely justifiable and defensible. You simply don’t want it to be.

Sure just like 1+1=2 is completely justifiable and defensible. But when you claim 1 apple +2 apples = 3 apples. That is a claim that is in direct reference to reality. So you have to demonstrate that in reality. Which is easy to do. But the point to have justified true belief claims about reality is when reality actually demonstrates your logical conclusion is actually true. That’s the difference between our world views.

 

[HarryStotle]

Babies and people with brain damage do the same thing that Alexa and Siri do as well, are they not conscious either?

You are missing the point, here.

My point was that simply responding to verbalized data is not conclusive regarding whether consciousness is involved or not.

Perhaps verbal response is a necessary condition for consciousness, but it certainly isn’t a sufficient condition. In fact, it may not be a necessary condition because a conscious person is an autonomous entity and may CHOOSE not to respond to verbal stimuli.

It certainly isn’t the case that merely because Siri or Alexa respond to verbal clues that they are necessarily conscious.

And with regard to babies and people with brain damage, a simple verbal response test is inconclusive either way depending upon the extent of brain damage or level of development. It may be that the physiological damage prevents the conscious subject from responding physically. There have been cases of apparently comatose subjects who years later come out of their comas and divulge that they were aware of what was happening around them all along but had no means to express to the outside world their subjective awareness.

As for babies, perhaps consciousness is a developing capacity that begins in some limited way and develops. So, it may be that babies have consciousness to some degree, but not to a complete degree. It may also be that memory plays a role in consciousness in that what we are conscious of – in terms of perceptions, memories, ideas, imaginings, etc., may limit the abiding sense of consciousness we refer to as personal identity, without nullifying conscious awareness altogether.

Then, again, that does not mean consciousness or abiding personal identity are just reducible to memories or responses, but that control of these might be superintended by an increasing competency with consciousness as an entirely separate capacity from memory, thinking, or neural motor response.

 

[Damian]

So where does the story exist prior to the author writing it down?

The story doesn’t exist prior to the author, just like the termite tunnels don’t exist prior to the termites, different hunting patterns from pack hunters didn’t exist prior to the experience and existence of those hunters and the defensive patterns of the hunted, etc.

 

[HarryStotle]

IWantGod:

Metaphysics is completely justifiable and defensible. You simply don’t want it to be.

Sure just like 1+1=2 is completely justifiable and defensible. But when you claim 1 apple +2 apples = 3 apples. That is a claim that is in direct reference to reality. So you have to demonstrate that in reality. Which is easy to do. But the point to have justified true belief claims about reality is when reality actually demonstrates your logical conclusion is actually true. That’s the difference between our world views.

The difference in your world views is that YOUR world view is determined by you arbitrarily having decided that the physical world is the determiner for what constitutes reality, whereas others in this thread are not convinced that the physical world by itself is sufficient to determine what is permitted into their world views.

You have made the scientific method into the determiner of your metaphysical views, while others have not. Hence, for you the physical world = reality. Whereas, for others reality > the observable or physical world.

It is that simple.

Unfortunately for you, you haven’t shown the equivalency you assume.

 

[Damian]

Perhaps verbal response is a necessary condition for consciousness, but it certainly isn’t a sufficient condition. In fact, it may not be a necessary condition because a conscious person is an autonomous entity and may CHOOSE not to respond to verbal stimuli.

Yes you can choose what you want after your unconscious has filtered out all the insane options to select. Like choosing to eat an apple over a pear, but you’ll never even consider drinking battery acid because your brain has already unconsciously removed that as even an option for you to consciously consider. Your brain is still choosing whether its conscious of it or not based on the strength of the pathway of the process. Like language or playing the piano. You are unconsciously playing the notes without making decisions about how to play the notes because of the strength of the biochemical pathways developed in the brain. The song to play is not as strong of a pathway as the process of playing piano music, so you are conscious of the result, but unconscious of the underlying reasons why you landed on that piece of sheet music. Maybe it was closer to reach to, maybe it was a piece of music you haven’t played in a while and you unconsciously have a desire to maintain your variability of music to play and techniques to practice, etc. That evolutionary driver to be an expert at a skill is what kept you alive but instead of applying it to being as versatile in the changing savanna you’re applying it to music.
All you seem to be doing is, again, looking for the point where we don’t understand consciousness any further and then claiming its evidence of the soul, supernatural, a spirit, etc. There’s always an infinite amount of “Why’s” to our questions, so the bar gets moved back for every “why” we are able to answer. It’s always 5 degrees of god of the gaps. So your 5 degrees of God of the Gaps is just my version of “We don’t know.” it seems.

 

[Benny44]

Hi Damien,

I think you are struggling in unreasonable denial. Rather than offering a long series of supernatural events let’s just look at Fatima. Do your own research if you have an open mind.

Weeks beforehand the children asked for a sign so people would believe them. They were given a day a time and a place for any doubters like you to ridicule and prove them silly.

70 + thousand turned up and it poured rain all morning to render the area a quagmire by the due time. Suddenly the Sun began to dance changing colours then fell down upon the terrified crowd whilst religious images appeared in the sky and many invalids and sick were instantly cured. People some 25miles away also witnessed the phenomenon. Photographs Newspaper reports supported the numerous testimonies. The children also reported many predictions regarding the wars and Russia that proved totally accurate.

Damien I am beginning to think that if you lost an arm and grew another you would see it as natural. I forgot to mention that when the sun retired everyone found themselves and the once swampy ground completely dry.

 

[Damian]

How could you tell the difference between magic, the supernatural, lesser deities, your deity, superior technologically advanced race, etc then?
Your example of an arm growing back reveals this bias. An event happened with unknown cause and appeared to be defying the current known laws of reality and, instead of investigating to see if you were mistaken, if it was an unknown natural cause, you jump straight to, “Well of course its my cultural deity that did this.” But the problem is, we can demonstrate the natural exists. All of our unknown solutions to problems have all been discovered to be a natural process that we were ignorant to. We can only work with what reality offers as a possible solution to the issue. If we still can’t solve it, then it must remain as “We don’t know”. Until you can actually demonstrate the existence of the supernatural, what it can and can’t do, how to determine what the supernatural markers are that are left behind when it interacts with reality, then can you be, first, justified in even suggesting that it was a possible cause, and then try to find a causal link between the event and the supernatural.
I’ll give my burnt wood example again. How do you determine if I was the cause of the burnt wood or if it was a natural event? When I did it, I left markers behind that indicated that I did it. Such as lighter fluid on the wood for example. See in this example, we first understand that I actually exist and that I actually have the ability to burn wood and when I do burn wood I actually leave behind markers of the event that indicated that I was linked to the event. Do this with your idea of the supernatural and then it’s allowed as a possible option for events in reality. Until then, it’s not allowed even on the list of possible options to even consider.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

Perhaps verbal response is a necessary condition for consciousness, but it certainly isn’t a sufficient condition. In fact, it may not be a necessary condition because a conscious person is an autonomous entity and may CHOOSE not to respond to verbal stimuli.

Yes you can choose what you want after your unconscious has filtered out all the insane options to select. Like choosing to eat an apple over a pear, but you’ll never even consider drinking battery acid because your brain has already unconsciously removed that as even an option for you to consciously consider. Your brain is still choosing whether its conscious of it or not based on the strength of the pathway of the process. Like language or playing the piano. You are unconsciously playing the notes without making decisions about how to play the notes because of the strength of the biochemical pathways developed in the brain. The song to play is not as strong of a pathway as the process of playing piano music, so you are conscious of the result, but unconscious of the underlying reasons why you landed on that piece of sheet music. Maybe it was closer to reach to, maybe it was a piece of music you haven’t played in a while and you unconsciously have a desire to maintain your variability of music to play and techniques to practice, etc. That evolutionary driver to be an expert at a skill is what kept you alive but instead of applying it to being as versatile in the changing savanna you’re applying it to music.
All you seem to be doing is, again, looking for the point where we don’t understand consciousness any further and then claiming its evidence of the soul, supernatural, a spirit, etc. There’s always an infinite amount of “Why’s” to our questions, so the bar gets moved back for every “why” we are able to answer. It’s always 5 degrees of god of the gaps. So your 5 degrees of God of the Gaps is just my version of “We don’t know.” it seems.

And maybe the 5 degrees just are what they are. It isn’t as if your “unconscious” filtering explanation explains why there is consciousness of some things to begin with or why there happens to be any consciousness at all to speak of.

The physical-chemical world would, apparently just go on doing its thing without any conscious observers being necessary to begin with. It isn’t as if consciousness is a prerequisite for survival or life. So why isn’t at all unconscious? Why the woke observer part, if everything is simply biochemical reactions to begin with?

You haven’t quite explained that have you? Except by your own 5 degrees of causality of the gaps. We don’t know why consciousness of some things occurs but not others, it just happens. Explaining precisely nothing.

At least positing a transcendent reality points to an explanation rather than merely dismissing all explanation by invoking a limited methodology.