Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

1185186188190191327

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 3,457 ✭✭✭Morbert


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Neuroplasticity suggests however that reductionist thinking is wrong or at least incomplete. It suggests that the complex patterns of the brain can be adapted by a conscious decision. It is an emerging area so its unsound to make many conclusions, and it does appear that numerous mechanisms are involved. Just like regulation mechanisms in DNA, the more this area is studies the more complex it becomes. It was thought that synapses were simply strengthened by deliberate mental exercises such as meditation but recent studies show that new synapses are formed and new brain cells are formed. One has the "choice" to do such exercises or not, so in my opinion the "no free will" reductionist argument falls apart on this point. Just like one has the choice to go to college and learn or stay in bed and not learn.

    Yes, there are people who are born with seemingly insurmountable challenges as in the example you gave, but most people have the ability to choose their outcomes consciously.

    I think you're putting the cart before the horse here. It is Neuroplasticity that affects your train of thought, rather than the other way around.

    Basically, when you encounter a new scenario or challenge, you are required to coordinate various muscles and/or engage in a category of thinking that your brain is not used to. Therefore, the neural pathways the ions must flow along to choreograph the response to this new challenge are difficult to engage, and thus the relevant neurons do not fire as frequently as they should. An analogy is a road seldom used will have vegetation growing across it.

    As you practice, however, those pathways become "cleared"/more susceptible to ions, and the relevant neurons communicate more efficiently. This leads to an increase in proficiency for the challenge at hand. It also affects the way you think. (For this reason, it can also have negative effects.)

    In all cases, you are receiving stimulus (The challenge at hand), and developing a response (Thinking and doing).

    The reductionist position is there is never a thought that is generated for any reason other than neurons firing. Neural plasticity means a thought can affect the neural pathways in your brain, but since a thought is generated by neural firing, it simply means neural pathways are affected by neural firings. This was encapsulated by the pithy saying "Neurons that fire together, wire together" (It's actually a little more complicated than that but it's a sufficient approximation for our purposes.)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Geomy wrote: »
    Isn't prayer and meditation what many mystics,prophets,spiritual teachers and guru's tells us bring us closer to inner peace and closeness to universal consciousness or God

    Yes, generally, but we have to be careful about linking the benefits of meditation with "God". Buddhists are the most common practitioners of meditation and most Buddhists do not believe in God. I am no expert in Budddhism but my general understanding is that one can believe in God, not believe in God, or say "I don't know", and still be a Buddhist. Buddhism addresses the source of human suffering and how to escape such suffering.

    Meditation has many benefits in terms of achieving inner peace and outer peace and does not have to involve any concept of God.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Morbert wrote: »
    I think you're putting the cart before the horse here. It is Neuroplasticity that affects your train of thought, rather than the other way around.

    With respect, I don't think we know enough about the nature of the mind yet to say anything conclusive about how thoughts are generated or how thoughts affect neural structures in the brain. The brain is an incredibly complex organ and we are just beginning to scratch the surface in understanding how it functions. There are at least three theories of how mind is generated that I am aware of. The most complex issue is communication within the brain, i.e. the binding problem.

    A good analogy is our understanding of human genetics, where we are much further along in our understanding. Before the human genome was decoded a mere decade ago, it was thought genes would explain everything in terms of understanding human complexity. As I am only now fully comprehending, researchers were surprised to find that there were only roughly 20,000 genes, and shocked that genes represented <2% of human DNA. The non coding DNA was called "junk" at first, but the ENCODE project over the past decade is beginning to uncover regulatory complexity that is almost incomprehensible.

    What the results of the ENCODE project are telling us so far is it is not the number of genes that makes up human complexity, it is how genes are regulated by the non coding section of DNA. These regulation mechganisms represent a huge paradigm shift in our understanding of genetics, and how this impacts our understanding of evolution has barely been considered yet as the data is so recent and unfolding. It would appear for example that the rapid pace of human brain development is related to non-coding DNA and not "genes" (source: Seaching for the Mind, Jon Leiff).

    How this relates to the mind is trying to understand how a billion neural cells that themselves are incredibly complex having a hundred trillion synaptic connections are regulated. Neurons are the most complex cells in the body and the level of intelligence in neural cells is mindboggling. A thought does not appear to be just some specific firing of neurons, it appears to be generated by some "complex and synchronized mental computation relayed across areas of the brain by electrical signals" (Jon Leiff). We have no real idea of the nature of these signals as we have no current way to measure them. What we do know is that there are numerous sources of electrical signals within the brain.

    I am not a biologist nor a neuroscientist, but this subject area is fascinating to me. It appears entirely consistent to me that the brain is a very sophistocated quantum computer, although this is obviously speculative at the moment.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Roger Penrose (apologies for fragrant argument from authority) was a leading quantum physicist before he took up an interest in neuroscience. He describes three realms, the physical realm or matter (including energy), the mental realm or consciousness, and the mathematical realm or ideas. Ideas give rise to the physical which gives rise to the mental. Penrose is an atheist but his ideas raise some interesting questions. If Penrose is right everything we describe as matter and energy are just our senses describing an underlying reality that is purely dictated by mathematics.

    I think more and more scientists in a variety of fields are being blown away by the underlying intelligence of the universe. Nowhere is that seen more clearly than in Biology in terms of the the regulation inside a cell.

    Where did all that complexity come from on earth 3.7 Billion years ago? Was it bottom up chemical evolution or top down chemical evolution or a mixture of both?
    We keep referring to the laws of physics and the laws of chemistry, where did these laws come from?
    Why have our brains being developing at the rapid rate they have in such a short time by evolutionary standards?
    If we develop a self replicating artificial huminid to get off this place before its lights out, what will we call it; homo artificialis?


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,457 ✭✭✭Morbert


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Roger Penrose (apologies for fragrant argument from authority) was a leading quantum physicist before he took up an interest in neuroscience. He describes three realms, the physical realm or matter (including energy), the mental realm or consciousness, and the mathematical realm or ideas. Ideas give rise to the physical which gives rise to the mental. Penrose is an atheist but his ideas raise some interesting questions. If Penrose is right everything we describe as matter and energy are just our senses describing an underlying reality that is purely dictated by mathematics.

    I am familiar with Penrose's books. You're presumably referring to the opening chapters of his great book "Road to Reality", where he discusses the relation between three spheres of "stuff".

    3worlds.jpg

    He talks about how mathematics is only a small set of all our mental exercises, how physical laws are described with only a small set of all mathematical principles, and how our mental thoughts emerge from only a small set of all physical processes. What he does not do is posit a causal relation between the three spheres. He is not saying ideas give rise to the physical world, for example. He says the physical world is described using mathematics.

    In fact, he goes on to say the above position is not exactly correct. He modifies the relations between the spheres to accommodate the fact that all physics might not necessarily be understandable using mathematics (or any human intelligence). He also, to be fair, modifies the other relations to leave open the possibility that mental thought might not all be physical, but he certainly does not imply it. Nor do his two books dedicated to the issue of the mind and the brain.
    I think more and more scientists in a variety of fields are being blown away by the underlying intelligence of the universe. Nowhere is that seen more clearly than in Biology in terms of the the regulation inside a cell.

    Where did all that complexity come from on earth 3.7 Billion years ago? Was it bottom up chemical evolution or top down chemical evolution or a mixture of both?
    We keep referring to the laws of physics and the laws of chemistry, where did these laws come from?
    Why have our brains being developing at the rapid rate they have in such a short time by evolutionary standards?
    If we develop a self replicating artificial huminid to get off this place before its lights out, what will we call it; homo artificialis?

    Two things I would say about this.

    1) I think it is a good example of the hubris of human thought when we look at structures more beautiful and complex than anything we create, and we recoil from the idea that they could be created through unintelligent processes.

    2) More importantly, evolutionary biology is doing a great job exploring these complexities, while intelligent design has not withstood the tests for what is and isn't good science.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 3,457 ✭✭✭Morbert


    nagirrac wrote: »
    With respect, I don't think we know enough about the nature of the mind yet to say anything conclusive about how thoughts are generated or how thoughts affect neural structures in the brain. The brain is an incredibly complex organ and we are just beginning to scratch the surface in understanding how it functions. There are at least three theories of how mind is generated that I am aware of. The most complex issue is communication within the brain, i.e. the binding problem.

    A good analogy is our understanding of human genetics, where we are much further along in our understanding. Before the human genome was decoded a mere decade ago, it was thought genes would explain everything in terms of understanding human complexity. As I am only now fully comprehending, researchers were surprised to find that there were only roughly 20,000 genes, and shocked that genes represented <2% of human DNA. The non coding DNA was called "junk" at first, but the ENCODE project over the past decade is beginning to uncover regulatory complexity that is almost incomprehensible.

    What the results of the ENCODE project are telling us so far is it is not the number of genes that makes up human complexity, it is how genes are regulated by the non coding section of DNA. These regulation mechganisms represent a huge paradigm shift in our understanding of genetics, and how this impacts our understanding of evolution has barely been considered yet as the data is so recent and unfolding. It would appear for example that the rapid pace of human brain development is related to non-coding DNA and not "genes" (source: Seaching for the Mind, Jon Leiff).

    How this relates to the mind is trying to understand how a billion neural cells that themselves are incredibly complex having a hundred trillion synaptic connections are regulated. Neurons are the most complex cells in the body and the level of intelligence in neural cells is mindboggling. A thought does not appear to be just some specific firing of neurons, it appears to be generated by some "complex and synchronized mental computation relayed across areas of the brain by electrical signals" (Jon Leiff). We have no real idea of the nature of these signals as we have no current way to measure them. What we do know is that there are numerous sources of electrical signals within the brain.

    I would never claim we fully know the inner workings of the brain, and how they pertain to the experience of consciousness. My point was a very specific one. The reductionist position is fully compatible with neural plasticity and efficacy.
    I am not a biologist nor a neuroscientist, but this subject area is fascinating to me. It appears entirely consistent to me that the brain is a very sophistocated quantum computer, although this is obviously speculative at the moment.

    This is where I (and most other scientists) would somewhat part ways with Roger Penrose. Quantum mechanics certainly plays a role by default, but I do not think it plays a role on the computational level. I simply do not see how a quantum state could be maintained at the scales necessary for neural processes unless the brain was cooled to near absolute 0, which would obviously result in immediate death.

    I also find his arguments based on Godel to be unconvincing. Our brains can and do come across problems associated with classical computers. Take the following statement.

    "nagirrac can never know that this statement is consistently true."

    I immediately recognise the statement as true, but you never can, because your brain will not permit it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    nagirrac wrote: »
    However, the involuntary aspect of consciousness appears to be only half the story. We have the ability to somehow focus on specific thoughts to achieve a negative or positive outcome. By focussing on negative thoughts we amplify these processes in the brain and as anyone who suffers for anxiety / OCD / depression knows it is this "stuck" behavior that makes the condition worse. Through mindfulness or meditation processes these conditions can be relieved and MRI studies have shown permanent changes in neural pathways over time i.e. focussed thought pattens changing neural pathways. This is the basis for the expanding treatment area called neuroplasticity and would suggest that conscious free will does exist but is only activated through deliberate mental exercises.


    I think this suffers from the same problem we were initially talking about.

    nagirrac wrote: »
    We have the ability to somehow focus on specific thoughts to achieve a negative or positive outcome.


    Our focus is decided for us by the same subconscious brain hardware that generates the initial thoughts.

    In my opinion it works something like this (in massively simplified form):

    Initial stimulus (should note here that initial is misleading as once the system is in operation there will never again be a truly initial state)
    Various brain segments go to work on the stimulus and we experience thoughts. The machinery is already responding. Sometimes this feels like a decision, particularly if the various components of brain are urging different actions. Not being able to make your mind up is basically this; a tug of war between specialized brain components trying to take different actions. These urgings (which might in fact be attempts to directly act on other brain components) generate new data which is fed back through the system. By this method it will be rare if not impossible for your brain to ever reach a complete impasse. The tiniest bias will amplify over many iterations (excluding new external stimulus).
    The brain makes associations. The more often you do something or the more extreme the emotional response the more often certain pathways through this system are activated and the stronger they become. These associations can be good or bad. We tend not to mind if our mind is regularly bringing up something that we like. Consider the person newly in love. They are having very strong feelings and their beloved comes regularly to mind, evoking these powerful feelings. More powerful emotional responses tend to more heavily weight particular stimuli in your consideration. PTSD might be an example of this. A veteran soldier hears fireworks at Halloween. While he is entirely capable of understanding that fireworks (down the street) are no threat to him they activate similar neural patterns to Mortar rounds or IEDs in terms of stimulus and he feels terrified. His terror at the initial events, which were life-threatening, has prioritized certain stimuli.
    In the case of our love-addled friend the stimulus was positive and in the case of our soldier the stimulus was negative. The effect is much the same. We just don’t mind being reminded of our new beau or belle all the time, we don’t mind experiencing a rush of love or affection or happiness so we don’t consider this a problem. If on the other hand, we are experiencing a rush of anxiety or fear, we want it to stop. It is the same feedback loop.

    Let’s take a fictional guy Bob as an example:

    Let’s say Bob has had a really bad experience at work. He felt terrible after it. He tried not to but couldn’t help focusing on it for days after but Bob is a sturdy gent and he mostly manages to return to his former mostly carefree state. Something happens at work that reminds Bob of the initial really bad event. It may not even involve Bob, but it reminds him of those stomach-churning feelings he experienced before and he feels considerably more anxious. This happens several times. Bob is slowly beginning to associate the workplace with very bad feelings and he routinely begins to feel a little anxious when heading off to work. On account of his heightened anxiety and now heightened awareness of certain types of situations, Bob reacts with exaggerated anxiety when relatively minor bad things happen at work. These reactions reinforce his stimulus response and things get worse. Let’s assume this pattern continues for a while until eventually Bob is so anxious about going to work that he starts calling in sick with increasing frequency to avoid it. The first time he calls in sick, he is rewarded by his brain with a huge surge of relief (let’s say dopamine) for avoiding the anxiety he would have otherwise felt. He will want to repeat this outcome but the more he does it, the more he introduces a new kind of anxiety. If he keeps staying off sick, something very bad will eventually happen at work (being sacked say or maybe anxiety laden meetings with management). Eventually Bob is in the damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation with anxiety. Bob’s brain still wants to stop the anxiety and is casting about looking for solutions. Perhaps Bob happens to be offered some recreational drugs. His brain isn’t particularly interested in the long game and Bob starts taking drugs, loses his job and embarks on whole new anxiety/reward adventures. If, on the other hand, Bob confides in a friend, let’s say Sally (whose brain likes Bob and wants to continue having Bob present and isn’t under the pressure Bob is. This brain is better at determining long game solutions to Bob’s problems because it is in its immediate and long term interests to do so). Sally recommends some manner of anxiety-management course to Bob. Bob attends. New response/reward situations are introduced to Bob’s brain. His problems are reframed. What he has to gain is emphasized over what he has to lose. When Bob displays agreement and behavior compatible with the intent of the course, he is exposed to powerful social reward. His brain gives him a nice big hit of that sweet stuff he just can’t get enough of. Essentially the stick is replaced, or at least is being balanced, by the carrot. Bob begins to see every day he attends work as a minor victory and less of an ordeal. The course he attended has introduced a new avenue for his brain to give him a little hit of dopamine. The encouragement and admiration he gets at the course for his progress and the feeling that he is “taking control of his life” provide powerful positive stimulus that may eventually override his anxieties and Bob might be able to return to his initial position with regard to work. He might even end up in a better position.

    Our brains reward anything that promises to ameliorate negatives and boost positives. Even just the idea that X is going to make you feel better generally makes you feel better. Your brain is rewarding you for doing something perceived to be advantageous. The placebo effect demonstrates this very well. I have long held the belief that almost any practice, be it mediation, prayer, personal introspective affirmation or dancing around a fire naked can have a rehabilitative effect on your brain so long as you operate under the belief that it will. It is this belief, not the practice itself that holds the keys to the candy store in your brain.

    When someone focuses on negatives, we don’t tend to call it free will. We have courses to help people stop doing it.
    This is a conceivable statement on some manner of course promoting positive thinking:
    “Poor Jonny would be able to have a more balanced outlook on life if he just stopped focusing on the times things go badly for him. He is trapped in a vicious cycle of negative reinforcement”

    When they focus on positives we call it a choice. We make no effort to impede it. There are no courses promoting negative thinking.
    “Poor Jonny would be able to have a more balanced outlook on life if he just stopped focusing on the times things go well for him. He is trapped in a vicious cycle of positive reinforcement”. I’m willing to bet you will never hear anything like this.

    It is the same mechanism.

    In all cases, something in the world triggers new feedback. This feedback has consequences in our brains. Free will is always going to suffer from the problem that thoughts arise. They are not willed or they themselves thought into being. Who makes the decision to focus on something? Is that decision not a thought in itself? Who decided to decide to focus on that? Etc. Etc.
    This is one of the principle reasons that people tend strongly to be like the people they are around. If a child from an upper-class highly educated family is swapped at birth with a child from an undereducated delinquent/criminal family the two children will likely take on the demeanor of the demographic they inhabit. Free will is an illusion but in an odd, slightly perverse way, this opens up the possibility of overcoming our more negative traits.

    I have overlooked natural predilections here which are undeniably a factor.

    Apologies for the length of the post! :o

    TLDR version: No free will. Sorry. Blame your brain, not me! :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    Morbert wrote: »
    "nagirrac can never know that this statement is consistently true."

    I immediately recognise the statement as true, but you never can, because your brain will not permit it.

    Brilliant, I got quite a chuckle out of that. :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    HHobo;
    Apologies for the length of the post!

    TLDR version: No free will. Sorry. Blame your brain, not me!
    Good post I cut it for brevity sake not because I disagree.
    I wonder if you are overestimating free will and what we mean when we apply it to ourselves. I don't think anyone thinks free will allows us to chose anything or any outcome.
    Don't we mean free will is a limited freedom and recognize, and weigh the factors that influence that freedom to chose?
    How far do you go taking those factors into account if the end point is either a chaotic or clockwork will?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Morbert wrote: »
    I think it is a good example of the hubris of human thought when we look at structures more beautiful and complex than anything we create, and we recoil from the idea that they could be created through unintelligent processes.

    More importantly, evolutionary biology is doing a great job exploring these complexities, while intelligent design has not withstood the tests for what is and isn't good science.

    Science should have no bias when it comes to how anything we observe came about, whether through unintelligent or intelligent processes. In the case of chemical evolution processes, science should be as open to the idea of top down design as it is to bottom up design. Surely rejecting the concept of top down is as anti-science as creationism? Although they are not as widely popular as bottom up, there are several top down approaches to chemical evolution that are worthy of consideration.

    In every area of scientific study we find that processes are defined by very specific laws, the fundamental laws of physics, of chemistry. Why would we exclude the possibility that the emergence of life and evolution of life are also subject to laws that mandate molecular development in specific ways? The fact we may not yet understand the specific energies or forces behind these processes should not impede our search, just as we suspected electricity existed before we understood it, or electromagnetic radiation existed before we understood it.

    I believe a lot of scientists have got into the trap of equating anything that suggests intelligent design with creationism when this is patently false. What evolutionary biology research is demonstrating as it unfolds is the incredible information based complexity in the cell. All theories of bottom up chemical evolution have the same problem, there is absolutely no mechanism for information transmission to get kick started. There may well have been a transition from bottom up basic chemical reaction processes to top down information based processes early on in the emergence of life.

    The current honest statement on the problem of how life emerged is "we don't know how complex information transmission based cellular life emerged", but to exclude any line of inquiry because it smells of intelligent design or god forbid "God" is as anti-scientific as creationism.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 3,457 ✭✭✭Morbert


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Science should have no bias when it comes to how anything we observe came about, whether through unintelligent or intelligent processes. In the case of chemical evolution processes, science should be as open to the idea of top down design as it is to bottom up design. Surely rejecting the concept of top down is as anti-science as creationism? Although they are not as widely popular as bottom up, there are several top down approaches to chemical evolution that are worthy of consideration.

    In every area of scientific study we find that processes are defined by very specific laws, the fundamental laws of physics, of chemistry. Why would we exclude the possibility that the emergence of life and evolution of life are also subject to laws that mandate molecular development in specific ways? The fact we may not yet understand the specific energies or forces behind these processes should not impede our search, just as we suspected electricity existed before we understood it, or electromagnetic radiation existed before we understood it.

    I believe a lot of scientists have got into the trap of equating anything that suggests intelligent design with creationism when this is patently false. What evolutionary biology research is demonstrating as it unfolds is the incredible information based complexity in the cell. All theories of bottom up chemical evolution have the same problem, there is absolutely no mechanism for information transmission to get kick started. There may well have been a transition from bottom up basic chemical reaction processes to top down information based processes early on in the emergence of life.

    The current honest statement on the problem of how life emerged is "we don't know how complex information transmission based cellular life emerged", but to exclude any line of inquiry because it smells of intelligent design or god forbid "God" is as anti-scientific as creationism.

    Without getting into the usual pits that litter the other thread: It is not true that there is absolutely no mechanism for life to be kick started. It is true that we don't have a complete model, but abiogenesis, the relevant field for the emergence of life, is not merely wild speculation.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    HHobo wrote: »
    I have long held the belief that almost any practice, be it mediation, prayer, personal introspective affirmation or dancing around a fire naked can have a rehabilitative effect on your brain so long as you operate under the belief that it will. It is this belief, not the practice itself that holds the keys to the candy store in your brain.
    Apologies for the length of the post! :o

    TLDR version: No free will. Sorry. Blame your brain, not me! :D

    No worries, enjoyed reading it.

    Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change its own wiring. If you look at the research, it is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that deliberate mindful attention (meditation) stimulates neuroplasticity, not just enhancing existing circuits, but building new circuits and both enlarging and shrinking certain centers in the brain.

    Studies have shown that different types of meditation cause physical changes in the brain and in different centers in the brain, but all suggest that self directed neuroplasticity i.e. the physical changes resulting from focussed thought, is observed.

    None of this should be surprising, it is the same process as study and learning.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Science should have no bias when it comes to how anything we observe came about, whether through unintelligent or intelligent processes. In the case of chemical evolution processes, science should be as open to the idea of top down design as it is to bottom up design. Surely rejecting the concept of top down is as anti-science as creationism? Although they are not as widely popular as bottom up, there are several top down approaches to chemical evolution that are worthy of consideration.

    In every area of scientific study we find that processes are defined by very specific laws, the fundamental laws of physics, of chemistry. Why would we exclude the possibility that the emergence of life and evolution of life are also subject to laws that mandate molecular development in specific ways? The fact we may not yet understand the specific energies or forces behind these processes should not impede our search, just as we suspected electricity existed before we understood it, or electromagnetic radiation existed before we understood it.

    I believe a lot of scientists have got into the trap of equating anything that suggests intelligent design with creationism when this is patently false. What evolutionary biology research is demonstrating as it unfolds is the incredible information based complexity in the cell. All theories of bottom up chemical evolution have the same problem, there is absolutely no mechanism for information transmission to get kick started. There may well have been a transition from bottom up basic chemical reaction processes to top down information based processes early on in the emergence of life.

    The current honest statement on the problem of how life emerged is "we don't know how complex information transmission based cellular life emerged", but to exclude any line of inquiry because it smells of intelligent design or god forbid "God" is as anti-scientific as creationism.

    Science dosn't have a bias, as long as the evidence leads in a direction then thats where it goes.
    Say what? the laws of physics are just descriptions of what we observe not a set of rules that existed prior and must be followed by things physical.

    Then I guess science is the most honest because it dosn't claim to know, thats ID's department.


  • Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    nagirrac wrote: »
    No worries, enjoyed reading it.

    Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change its own wiring. If you look at the research, it is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that deliberate mindful attention (meditation) stimulates neuroplasticity, not just enhancing existing circuits, but building new circuits and both enlarging and shrinking certain centers in the brain.

    Studies have shown that different types of meditation cause physical changes in the brain and in different centers in the brain, but all suggest that self directed neuroplasticity i.e. the physical changes resulting from focussed thought, is observed.

    None of this should be surprising, it is the same process as study and learning.

    I wouldn't argue with any of that except the "self-directed" part. Your prior experiences, the way in which your mind has been thus far sculpted, is what determines why one person would do this in the first place and another would not, how effective it is, and specifically what they are attempting to change.

    Also, what do you mean by "chemical evolution?"


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Morbert wrote: »
    Without getting into the usual pits that litter the other thread: It is not true that there is absolutely no mechanism for life to be kick started. It is true that we don't have a complete model, but abiogenesis, the relevant field for the emergence of life, is not merely wild speculation.

    Abiogenesis, as yet at least, is not a model for a "mechanism for information transmission based cellular life". There is a huge chasm to get from synthesising amino acids or peptides in the laboratory to the complexities in even the most basic cell. Anything I have read so far in terms of bottom up is highly speculative, just as in fairness any top down approach also is.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    tommy2bad wrote: »
    Say what? the laws of physics are just descriptions of what we observe not a set of rules that existed prior and must be followed by things physical.

    The laws of physics and chemistry are very specific rules that must be followed and only allow certain processs and outcomes to occur and not others.


  • Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    tommy2bad wrote: »
    Good post I cut it for brevity sake not because I disagree.
    I wonder if you are overestimating free will and what we mean when we apply it to ourselves. I don't think anyone thinks free will allows us to chose anything or any outcome.
    Don't we mean free will is a limited freedom and recognize, and weigh the factors that influence that freedom to chose?
    How far do you go taking those factors into account if the end point is either a chaotic or clockwork will?

    I take free will to be much like what you suggest in the second paragraph above. i.e. "freedom to choose"


  • Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Abiogenesis, as yet at least, is not a model for a "mechanism for information transmission based cellular life". There is a huge chasm to get from synthesising amino acids or peptides in the laboratory to the complexities in even the most basic cell. Anything I have read so far in terms of bottom up is highly speculative, just as in fairness any top down approach also is.

    The reason bottom up is assumed to be more likely than top down is that there is no evidence what-so-ever for the latter beyond an argument from ignorence.
    We already have conclusive evidence that elements can spontaneously arrange themselves into complex patterns by virtue of the laws of physics. We also have a roadmap for the evolution from single-cellular organisms to highly complex systems like human bodies. We feel no need to worry over designers to get from systems of many single cells going about autonomously to billions of them working together to create a maco-organism like a human.

    We have reason to believe that bottom up is how it works. We have no reason to believe the opposite. Everything we understand in the universe, planets, stars, evolution from single celled to multicelled organisms etc. all work by unguided processes. We can understand the very beginning of the process, construction of amino acids, and this too is unguided or designed. There is no reason to assume the middle bit isn't too.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,457 ✭✭✭Morbert


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Abiogenesis, as yet at least, is not a model for a "mechanism for information transmission based cellular life". There is a huge chasm to get from synthesising amino acids or peptides in the laboratory to the complexities in even the most basic cell. Anything I have read so far in terms of bottom up is highly speculative, just as in fairness any top down approach also is.

    Abiogenesis doesn't attempt to explain how the most basic cells around emerged. Instead, it attempts to explain how cells much much more basic than the most basic cells around. I.e. It studies the simplest possible self-replicating cycles. Once you have self-replication, evolution takes over.


  • Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    nagirrac wrote: »
    The laws of physics and chemistry are very specific rules that must be followed and only allow certain processs and outcomes to occur and not others.

    That is an odd way to describe the laws of physics. You make them sound like they are court mandated. :)

    They are only our descriptors of how we have found the universe works. The universe has to work some way. It works this way.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    nagirrac wrote: »
    The laws of physics and chemistry are very specific rules that must be followed and only allow certain processs and outcomes to occur and not others.

    No their not. They are not rules that must be followed, they are the result of the properties of the things we observe. Their is no law that can have an amendment added so we can have slightly dryer water.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    HHobo wrote: »
    The reason bottom up is assumed to be more likely than top down is that there is no evidence what-so-ever for the latter beyond an argument from ignorence.

    The evidence for top down is the information transmission complexity in biological processes. By calling top down an "argument from ignorance" you are falling into the trap of equating such genuine scientific inquiry with creationism.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    nagirrac wrote: »
    The evidence for top down is the information transmission complexity in biological processes. By calling top down an "argument from ignorance" you are falling into the trap of equating such genuine scientific inquiry with creationism.
    I'm saying nothing ... I'm offering it up!!:)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,296 ✭✭✭Geomy


    J C wrote: »
    I'm saying nothing ... I'm offering it up!!:)

    Why not just hand it over,easier than offering it up ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    nagirrac wrote: »
    The evidence for top down is the information transmission complexity in biological processes. By calling top down an "argument from ignorance" you are falling into the trap of equating such genuine scientific inquiry with creationism.

    A Morbert points out the modern notion of the cell originated approx 1 billion years after evolution had guided self replication.

    It is therefore way way outside the realm of abiogensis, you might as well be looking for abiogenesis to explain an elephant.

    Scientists study much much simplier replicating units and cell structures because no one things abiogenesis started off by creating the cell as we know it today.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Zombrex wrote: »
    A Morbert points out the modern notion of the cell originated approx 1 billion years after evolution had guided self replication.

    It is therefore way way outside the realm of abiogensis, you might as well be looking for abiogenesis to explain an elephant.

    Scientists study much much simplier replicating units and cell structures because no one things abiogenesis started off by creating the cell as we know it today.

    What does "after evolution had guided self replication" even mean?

    I haven't said anything about abiogenesis explaining how we got to cells, not sure where you got that from.

    The earth is thought to have formed about 4.5B years ago and cooled to where water was possible on its surface about 3.8B years ago. The first bacteria (maybe they were simpler but they were cellular and they had DNA) date to around the same time. Abiogenesis i.e. bottom up, does not appear to tell much of the emerging life story due to 1) the time available, and 2) the complexity of information in even a simpler unicellular organism.


  • Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    nagirrac wrote: »
    The evidence for top down is the information transmission complexity in biological processes. By calling top down an "argument from ignorance" you are falling into the trap of equating such genuine scientific inquiry with creationism.

    Why is "information transmission" in biological processes evidence for top down?

    The usual answer is that there is no known way this can occur bottom up.

    This would be a textbook case of "argumentum ad ignorantiam"

    We don't know how it works yet, maybe we never will. This is not evidence either way. Not even slightly.

    We have innumerable natural processes creating all manner of complex systems all around us. We bottom up happening every day. To date we have exactly zero instances of established Top down.

    Our universe seems to generally operate on a bottom up paradigm. Almost everything we know to be bottom up was once thought to be self-evidently top down. Wrong in 100% of cases where actual cause has been established

    Intelligent design has no content. It is synonymous with creationism because seriously proposing it requires ignoring the fact that thus far the track record is 100% in the other direction and it is only, to my knowledge, expressed by people who really, really want there to be design. There may come a time when someone discovers something that really does reveal design. When that happens, the world will change it's mind. All that is required is actual evidence.

    The wierd thing is that most scientist and atheists would welcome evidence of design. It would be a facinating mystery as to who or what was responsible and a vigorous effort would be made to investigate.

    Most religious people vehemently reject the idea that maybe there is no design at all. The perspective that has evidential support. They refuse to believe and are completely intractable in that.


  • Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    nagirrac wrote: »
    What does "after evolution had guided self replication" even mean?

    I haven't said anything about abiogenesis explaining how we got to cells, not sure where you got that from.

    The earth is thought to have formed about 4.5B years ago and cooled to where water was possible on its surface about 3.8B years ago. The first bacteria (maybe they were simpler but they were cellular and they had DNA) date to around the same time. Abiogenesis i.e. bottom up, does not appear to tell much of the emerging life story due to 1) the time available, and 2) the complexity of information in even a simpler unicellular organism.

    I think he means that after inheritence is possible, evolution is guided by selective pressures. The surviving inherited traits are no longer random.

    Also, it is believed that inheritence was first tranmitted by RNA, and only later did organisms switch over to the doulbe stranded DNA. It has been shown that RNA has this capability.

    We have worked up to amino acids and down to RNA. The gap is still significant but closing.
    In less than 150 years we have gone from only a tentative understanding of the principles of evolution to mapping the human genome. I say we give the scientists investigating this problem a little more time.:)

    Incidentally, I make no claim to expertise in this area. Every comment I make is based on my extremely limited knowledge and basic research and should be read that way!

    It could go the other way and it might even be more interesting if it did but I doubt it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    HHobo wrote: »
    The wierd thing is that most scientist and atheists would welcome evidence of design. It would be a facinating mystery as to who or what was responsible and a vigorous effort would be made to investigate.

    Do you seriously think that Richard Dawkins and his more fanatical disciples would welcome evidence of design? He has made a career and considerable income on arguing for a random, purposeless universe and concluding those who believe in design are somehow "dim". The reason why there is so much irrational response to the ENCODE project recent findings is that some scientists and many non scientists do not like the results as it does not fit comfortably with their worldview.

    The history of science should teach us to be humble. There is a tendancy among many people to assume what we know now is accurate, when history teaches us that what we know at any give time is likely to be overthrown in the future.

    The "fine tuned universe" is strong evidence for a top down design as is the incredible information processing (both digital and analog) in cellular life.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 100 ✭✭IRWolfie-


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Do you seriously think that Richard Dawkins and his more fanatical disciples would welcome evidence of design?
    Yes, I think many would welcome it. Of course evidence of design wouldn't be evidence of the abrahamic God. I'm curious though; I thought most of the religious denied that God was a testable hypothesis (and hence not under the remit of Science) and they had a Carl Sagan "non-overlapping magisteria" type idea. Since you think there can be evidence for the existence of God, then surely there can be evidence against the existence of God. Does this mean that you think we can disprove the existence of your God?
    The reason why there is so much irrational response to the ENCODE project ...
    I don't recall any, who (specifically) are you referring to?
    There is a tendancy among many people to assume what we know now is accurate ...
    Yes, this can be fully justified if the evidence overwhelmingly supports something (remember that evidence thing you were citing in your first comment). The Sun is not the moon, and the evidence overwhelmingly supports that.

    What we knew before, but which lacked evidence, gets overthrown. For example, the concept of the aether. Theories which have plenty of evidence are still valid in their areas where the evidence exists to support them. For example, Newton's laws are still perfectly valid in the classical scale.

    Now, no scientist will say any existing theory is absolutely perfect and science is a continually improving endeavour (this improvement being what scientists do for their job). Of course Science can not "prove" something to be true. This doesn't mean "anything goes", what it does mean is that science focusses in on the truth by disproving all else. Any new theory will have to account for all the evidence which supported the previous theory.
    The "fine tuned universe" is strong evidence for a top down design as is the incredible information processing (both digital and analog) in cellular life.
    Talking about information processing etc seems reminiscent of standard creationist arguments.


This discussion has been closed.
Advertisement