Naturalism and human faculties...

smacl · 22-08-2017 03:46PM

kelly1 wrote: »

Do atheists believe in the existence of objective truths?

Atheists don't have any shared beliefs other than they don't believe there is a god or gods. I'm not quite sure what you mean by objective truth. There are observable phenomena, e.g. the speed of light in a vacuum, that are largely independent of the observer. The accuracy of the result has improved with improving measurement techniques, but the result stays the same. Anything declared as theoretical is subject to change, and many other understandings get revised or event upturned as new discoveries are made. Many truths are subjective, e.g. I love my wife. I know it to be true, you don't know whether or not I'm lying, thus the truth is subjective.

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 04:26PM

King Mob wrote: »

I quoted them:

Sorry! Missed the quote bit

Ok then. How does supernatural causes explain the conciousness?
Please detail what supernatural elements are essential to conciousness, how did they arise? How do they interact with the physical elements of conciousness? How did they become integrated? How does conciousness continue without the physical elements of itself?

Obviously none of these things can be explained in physical terms so we're moving into the realm of philosophy/theology.

I believe the intellect and will are faculties of the soul/spirit which is created by God. The body is the vehicle for the soul and the soul survives bodily death because it does not depend on the body.

As for the soul-body interaction mechanism, I've no idea on that.

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 04:29PM

RichieO wrote: »

The mind is NOT separate from the brain, no more than the brain is separate from the body, the mind and brain are connected to the body in ways that are still poorly understood by experts in the field, so how can anyone conclude they are separate or separable? Only by imaging it and having faith that it's true...???

In a naturalistic world, there can be no mind, only brain, surely? Is the mind then, a region within the brain?

magicbastarder · 22-08-2017 04:34PM

In a naturalistic world, there can be no mind, only brain, surely?
In a naturalistic world, there can be no brain, only cells, surely?
In a naturalistic world, there can be no cells, only molecules, surely?

you probably see what i'm getting at. emergent phenomena which (to use a clumsy phrase) are greater than the sum of their parts.

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 04:35PM

smacl wrote: »

....I'm not quite sure what you mean by objective truth....

I mean the truth of a claim regardless of what people think.

e.g. there are an infinite number of integers is either true or it is false independent of a person's belief on the subject.

Was this true before life began in the universe?

smacl · 22-08-2017 04:51PM

kelly1 wrote: »

I mean the truth of a claim regardless of what people think.

e.g. there are an infinite number of integers is either true or it is false independent of a person's belief on the subject.

Was this true before life began in the universe?

Integers are an abstract mathematical concept invented by humankind, they are not a truth. Mathematics is simply one way we might describe a thing real or imagined, often the most obvious way for us to describe the thing. Like any form of communication it only exists while we exist to use it or while it is available in a stored medium such that someone else might use it in the future.

magicbastarder · 22-08-2017 04:54PM

smacl wrote: »

Integers are an abstract mathematical concept invented by humankind, they are not a truth.

yet they seem to obey rules we have no control over...

22-08-2017 04:55PM

kelly1 wrote: »

Obviously none of these things can be explained in physical terms so we're moving into the realm of philosophy/theology.

This is a dodge. You claimed that the supernatural can accurately explain the origins and mechanics of consciousness in ways that materialism cannot.
So please detail this solidly.

Vague claims are not going to be convincing.

For example, you can detail what parts of the consciousness are contained in the brain or which are contained in the supernatural part, then explain how you know this.

Or you could explain how the supernatural elements of the consciousness became entangled with a physical organ? Or similarly explain how it's impossible for a physical brain to produce a consciousness, yet perfectly acceptable for quarks and particles to some how connect and communicate with something supernatural.

Basically you can detail anything more in depth than "ooooh it's magic", which you are doing now.

kelly1 wrote: »

As for the soul-body interaction mechanism, I've no idea on that.

Then your theory has no explanatory power. It's not a useful theory.

It also begs the question of how you can be so sure that a soul exists, yet cannot even speculate about its most basic form and rules.

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 05:03PM

magicbastarder wrote: »

you probably see what i'm getting at. emergent phenomena which (to use a clumsy phrase) are greater than the sum of their parts.

Yes, I take your point, thanks.

RichieO · 22-08-2017 05:09PM

I don't know why but this old observation suddenly appeared, like a vision...

It is difficult to reason with people who are.

1. Religious.
2. Deluded.
3. Uneducated.
4. Confused.
5. Angry.
6. Blinkered.
7. Narrow minded.
8. Drunk
9. Drugged.
10. Mental.

It seems to have some truth... I should know, I have, in the past suffered 9 of them....

smacl · 22-08-2017 05:18PM

magicbastarder wrote: »

yet they seem to obey rules we have no control over...

That doesn't suggest that they exist beyond our imagining them, that they existed prior to us imagining them, or that they will continue to exist after we're gone. Counting things is something that demands intelligence, having a concept of negative numbers even more so.

Pherekydes · 22-08-2017 05:33PM

kelly1 wrote: »

The body is the vehicle for the soul and the soul survives bodily death because it does not depend on the body.

If the soul survives bodily death why does it hang around at all?

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 06:02PM

smacl wrote: »

Integers are an abstract mathematical concept invented by humankind, they are not a truth. Mathematics is simply one way we might describe a thing real or imagined, often the most obvious way for us to describe the thing. Like any form of communication it only exists while we exist to use it or while it is available in a stored medium such that someone else might use it in the future.

Mathematics is the only means we have to model physical processes in our universe and it's quite remarkable that mathematics allows us to make such incredible predictions.

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 06:27PM

King Mob wrote: »

This is a dodge. You claimed that the supernatural can accurately explain the origins and mechanics of consciousness in ways that materialism cannot.
So please detail this solidly.

You know very well I can't explain *how* the soul produces consciousness. I can't even show that the soul exists. But there are two points I would like to make:

1) As I have been claiming throughout this thread, it is my belief that physical matter cannot account for consciousness. Lots of people here are assuming that matter produces it but cannot explain how that works. It's is assumed on the *belief* that nothing but matter and energy exist, ergo it must come from matter/energy.

On the subject of free-will, the consensus appears to be that free-will is an illusion produced by the mind/brain.

2) Knowledge about God (and other supernatural matters) can only come from God since we cannot put God under the microscope for observation.

So my belief in God is based on general revelation and special revelation. For Christianity in particular, the strongest evidence we have is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And many would claim that this evidence if far stronger that that for other faiths, making it the most plausible of the theistic religions.

The point I'm making is that's it a top down approach. i.e God revealed to us that he gave us the intellect and will through a soul, and to my mind there is no better explanation. I believe science has hit a brick-wall in this area, just as I think it has hit a brick-wall in physics, trying to blend general relativity and quantum mechanics.

smacl · 22-08-2017 06:46PM

kelly1 wrote: »

Mathematics is the only means we have to model physical processes in our universe and it's quite remarkable that mathematics allows us to make such incredible predictions.

Not really though. I can calculate the gradient of a hill using a mathematical model. I can also calculate it using a contour drawing and measuring the distance between contours. I can also calculate it by building a physical scale model of the area of interest. The same is true for very many physical processes, and much of what we do computationally today we used to do using other methods. Mathematics and more recently algorithmics allow us to describe and model many processes but they are our inventions.

smacl · 22-08-2017 06:55PM

kelly1 wrote: »

So my belief in God is based on general revelation and special revelation. For Christianity in particular, the strongest evidence we have is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And many would claim that this evidence if far stronger that that for other faiths, making it the most plausible of the theistic religions.

By many, you're of course talking about many Christians. Many Muslims for example might disagree, as might many Hindus, many Sikhs, many Buddhists, etc,etc... I would suggest that the members of each group are suffering from a severe case of confirmation bias, in that they want their truth to be the one genuine truth and dismiss others as false on that basis. Of course all the other groups do the same, and with a huge number of religions out there, present and past, either none of them are true or one of them is true. There is no evidence that any of them are true, such that the probability of any one of them being true is the same for each religion. Given the large number of conflicting belief systems, this is a very small number.

smacl · 22-08-2017 06:57PM

RichieO wrote: »

I don't know why but this old observation suddenly appeared, like a vision...

It is difficult to reason with people who are.

1. Religious.
2. Deluded.
3. Uneducated.
4. Confused.
5. Angry.
6. Blinkered.
7. Narrow minded.
8. Drunk
9. Drugged.
10. Mental.

It seems to have some truth... I should know, I have, in the past suffered 9 of them....

11. Dead

Which kind of makes me wonder about this life everlasting and soul business.

Samaris · 22-08-2017 06:59PM

I am not a biologist, although I have a bit of basic experience in the field, but I subscribe more or less to the view that a person's mind/conciousness/soul - however you like to call it - is all based on chemical and electrical signals, modified between individuals based on their genetic coding and enviromental influences that have allowed certain parts of the brain to develop more or less.

Take a human being and their brain.

When they are born, pathways have already started to be implanted - the pathways that allow for responses important to living to start with, but then certain other pathways linking sensation and rudimentary memory. A baby is soothed by something familiar; that brain pathway - the link between the baby sensing mama nearby and comfort, along with the "understanding" that it is safe - is being formed and reimpressed every time mama comforts sprog.

As children get older, more pathways develop - language use, learning. The connection between action and reward (or punishment). Thoughts that lodge themselves and become an important part of how a child views the world, becomes part of the lens through which the child experiences the world. Each person is individual because how their brain works is based both on their genetics and their environment. That is why it is so difficult to socialise a "wild" child - a child that has been raised with no human contact. Their brain has missed the opportunity to form pathways it needed. There have been no documented cases of a "wild" child ever managing to master social interaction to the extent that those with a normal background can do instinctively. They also tend to remain mute or have very limited vocabularies, often just one or two words.

The only proof we have of a "soul" is that every person is individual, some good, some bad, and we cannot see our own thought processes (although we can measure electrical activity "lighting up" the brain in response to stimuli. In my view, the explanation above (although I am sure a biologist could phrase it all better) covers it quite well without having to invoke the supernatural. I as an individual person am a product of my genes and of my environment. All choices I make are down to me, not down to an angel of demon on my shoulder speaking to my soul.

Regarding objective reality - if it can be tested empirically multiple times by different people and come out with the same result, I'm willing to bet the farm that it's probably real. If it turns out not to be real, well, the farm wasn't real either. :P Even if I scream myself hoarse that that electric fence isn't there, if I touch it I'm still going to get a shock.

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 07:35PM

smacl wrote: »

By many, you're of course talking about many Christians. Many Muslims for example might disagree, as might many Hindus, many Sikhs, many Buddhists, etc,etc... I would suggest that the members of each group are suffering from a severe case of confirmation bias, in that they want their truth to be the one genuine truth and dismiss others as false on that basis. Of course all the other groups do the same, and with a huge number of religions out there, present and past, either none of them are true or one of them is true.

Yes, this is a problem. So I think the sensible approach is to start with 'general revelation' i.e what we can deduce about God from nature and what He has created and then consider the 'special revelations' from each religion and decide which, if any, is the most plausible.

There is no evidence that any of them are true, such that the probability of any one of them being true is the same for each religion. Given the large number of conflicting belief systems, this is a very small number.

Sorry, can you explain this for me in different words, I don't get your meaning?

Samaris · 22-08-2017 07:47PM

kelly1 wrote: »

Yes, this is a problem. So I think the sensible approach is to start with 'general revelation' i.e what we can deduce about God from nature and what He has created and then consider the 'special revelations' from each religion and decide which, if any, is the most plausible.

Sorry, can you explain this for me in different words, I don't get your meaning?

Er, would it not make more sense to look at the world and deduce what we can about the world and how it works and only jump to supernatural conclusions once there is a basis for them?

You're still starting off from the point that there must be a God. That is an assumption that biases any further findings. Starting off from the viewpoint that God (if one exists and happens to be the one from Christian ideology) is irrelevant to how processes work (you can say that God made the processes if you have to!) until there is a process that cannot be explained other than God seems a more sensible approach.

And that's the "Christian scientist" view, rather than just the scientific view which precludes supernatural causes as there is no proof for the supernatural (which I tend to personally stick with).

God did it is also a bit of a cop-out answer. It means that there is no answer and it's not worth investigating because God and His ways are ineffable and all the rest of it. There generally is an answer, but it may take hard work and a lot of studying of data to figure it out. If we just throw our hands up and accept that God did it and so it doesn't need to follow natural rules, then there's an awful lot that might get disregarded because it is simply too difficult.

smacl · 22-08-2017 07:49PM

if we have N belief systems each of which consider their God to be the one true God either none of them is right or one of them is right. Assuming none of them can provide any objective evidence to support their claim they are as likely as each other to be right. Thus the probability of any one being right is 1/N. However, there are an infinite number of possible belief systems thus the probability of any being the one right one is infinitesimal.

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 09:20PM

Samaris wrote: »

Er, would it not make more sense to look at the world and deduce what we can about the world and how it works and only jump to supernatural conclusions once there is a basis for them?
... You're still starting off from the point that there must be a God

But there is evidence for God and I find it quite convincing. Examples:

- scientifically verified miracles e.g. Lourdes.
- Scientific studies done on "near death experiences". e.g congenitally blind people being able to "see" during their NDE.
- The elegance of the laws of nature and the beauty of nature (general revelation)
- Philosophical arguments for God's existence e.g the Kalam cosmological argument. Or the mathematical argument that time can stretch infinitely into the past because actual infinities cannot exist, implying that the universe must have had a beginning.
- The philosophical argument from morality.
- Scientific arguments e.g (disputed) arguments for the impossibility of a past-eternal universe based on the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem.
- Fine-tuning of the universe and multiverse models.
- Apparent intelligence behind the design of the universe and biological life.
- The fact the every culture in history appear to have a strong need to find transcendent meaning in life.

God did it is also a bit of a cop-out answer. It means that there is no answer and it's not worth investigating because God and His ways are ineffable and all the rest of it. There generally is an answer, but it may take hard work and a lot of studying of data to figure it out. If we just throw our hands up and accept that God did it and so it doesn't need to follow natural rules, then there's an awful lot that might get disregarded because it is simply too difficult.

I completely understand this point of view. "God of the gaps" is the wrong approach. Science should keep trying to push the boundaries out as far as it can. But let's also keep in mind that the scientific revolution took off *because* the scientists of the day believe the world to be rational and intelligible precisely because they believed it was created by a rational God!

Before Christianity, pagans believed they were at the mercy of the whims of the gods and nothing was predictable. Christianity did away with all that.

Having said that, it's my personal belief that science will inevitably hit invisible boundaries because it excludes the supernatural.

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 09:40PM

smacl wrote: »

if we have N belief systems each of which consider their God to be the one true God either none of them is right or one of them is right. Assuming none of them can provide any objective evidence to support their claim they are as likely as each other to be right. Thus the probability of any one being right is 1/N. However, there are an infinite number of possible belief systems thus the probability of any being the one right one is infinitesimal.

ok, gotcha. A process of elimination can be applied here. Any religion which claims something illogical must be eliminated.

e.g lets say science proves that the universe had a beginning but some religion e.g. Hinduism says that the universe had no beginning, the we can rule it out.

Another religion e.g Islam says that Jesus was never crucified but the historical records show that he was, then we can rule Islam out as being false.

Then we takes what left and weigh them up based on evidence for their truth claim.

Pherekydes · 22-08-2017 09:55PM

kelly1 wrote: »

ok, gotcha. A process of elimination can be applied here. Any religion which claims something illogical must be eliminated.

e.g lets say science proves that the universe had a beginning but some religion e.g. Hinduism says that the universe had no beginning, the we can rule it out.

Another religion e.g Islam says that Jesus was never crucified but the historical records show that he was, then we can rule Islam out as being false.

Then we takes what left and weigh them up based on evidence for their truth claim.

So I assume you believe, as the Christian church did in the middle ages, that the Earth is at the centre of the universe?

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 10:04PM

Pherekydes wrote: »

If the soul survives bodily death why does it hang around at all?

Hang around? On earth or what?

Pherekydes wrote: »

So I assume you believe, as the Christian church did in the middle ages, that the Earth is at the centre of the universe?

You assume wrong. The Church, albeit slowly, came around the scientific view. I don't live in the middle-ages and the Church no longer holds this view, so your point is moot.

Pherekydes · 22-08-2017 10:18PM

kelly1 wrote: »

Hang around? On earth or what?

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Why does the soul hang around in the human body? Why not just fly free?

You assume wrong. The Church, albeit slowly, came around the scientific view. I don't live in the middle-ages and the Church no longer holds this view, so your point is moot.

The church was wrong at one point in time. Ergo, it is ruled out as being false. Changing its mind later is irrelevant.

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 10:34PM

Pherekydes wrote: »

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Why does the soul hang around in the human body? Why not just fly free?

No I'm not being obtuse, your question was lazy and unclear. You didn't clarify whether meant before or after death. I would have assumed after.

If we didn't have bodies, we'd be angels. I don't know why God gave us bodies. I suppose it was a means to hide himself from us to test us properly.

The church was wrong at one point in time. Ergo, it is ruled out as being false. Changing its mind later is irrelevant.

Now who's being obtuse? The Church was wrong and so were the beliefs of the scientists before they discovered the sun was the centre of the solar system. Before that discovery, there was no conflict between Church and science. Sure the Church was slow to react but that's the nature of the beast.

Pherekydes · 22-08-2017 11:00PM

kelly1 wrote: »

No I'm not being obtuse, your question was lazy and unclear. You didn't clarify whether meant before or after death. I would have assumed after.

My question was "If the soul survives bodily death why does it hang around at all?"

Is it clear yet? Obviously after death it heads off to heaven or hell. Why does it hang around waiting for its body to die? Clear enough for ya?

If we didn't have bodies, we'd be angels.

If we didn't have bodies we wouldn't exist.

Now who's being obtuse? The Church was wrong and so were the beliefs of the scientists before they discovered the sun was the centre of the solar system. Before that discovery, there was no conflict between Church and science. Sure the Church was slow to react but that's the nature of the beast.

The key point here that you seem to have overlooked is that the church was wrong! Let it sink in for a mo, then ask yourself, "How could the church be wrong?"

kelly1 · 22-08-2017 11:18PM

Pherekydes wrote: »

The key point here that you seem to have overlooked is that the church was wrong! Let it sink in for a mo, then ask yourself, "How could the church be wrong?"

The Church has been wrong on many matters but not when it comes to matters concerning salvation. I'm referring to dogma here. Having the sun vs the earth at the centre of the cosmos makes no difference when it comes to salvation.

The Church, including the pope, is made up of fallible human beings. Ecclesial infallibility is the work of the holy spirit and only occurs when a doctrine is officially taught Ex Cathedra. But this is *very* rare.

23-08-2017 12:25AM

kelly1 wrote: »

You know very well I can't explain *how* the soul produces consciousness. I can't even show that the soul exists. But there are two points I would like to make:

Yes I know this because as I have pointed out your explanation is not really an explanation.
If you cannot even speculate about the hows and particulars of the supernatural explanation, what does it explain? What makes it a better explanation?

kelly1 wrote: »

1) As I have been claiming throughout this thread, it is my belief that physical matter cannot account for consciousness. Lots of people here are assuming that matter produces it but cannot explain how that works. It's is assumed on the *belief* that nothing but matter and energy exist, ergo it must come from matter/energy.

You cannot explain how the soul produces consciousness, so why does that not count against your explanation.
How do you know for a fact that physical matter cannot account for consciousness?
And again, it's not an assumption, it's what is evidently the case.
Please show something that is not matter or energy, yet also exists,

kelly1 wrote: »

On the subject of free-will, the consensus appears to be that free-will is an illusion produced by the mind/brain.

This may be the case, but by your definition, free will absolutely cannot exist with your God.

kelly1 wrote: »

2) Knowledge about God (and other supernatural matters) can only come from God since we cannot put God under the microscope for observation.

So my belief in God is based on general revelation and special revelation.

How is this different from delusion or fiction? There doesn't seem to be any way to tell the difference.

kelly1 wrote: »

For Christianity in particular, the strongest evidence we have is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And many would claim that this evidence if far stronger that that for other faiths, making it the most plausible of the theistic religions.

People have tried this rather sad argument many times before. It doesn't really work and is a bit dishonest.
Hopefully Oldrnwisr will take the time to tear it apart again. It's always entertaining when he does.

kelly1 wrote: »

The point I'm making is that's it a top down approach. i.e God revealed to us that he gave us the intellect and will through a soul, and to my mind there is no better explanation. I believe science has hit a brick-wall in this area, just as I think it has hit a brick-wall in physics, trying to blend general relativity and quantum mechanics.

But you have not really explained how science has hit a brick wall.
And at the same time, you admit your explanation is a brick wall as you are utterly incapable of providing any details about your explanation...

Naturalism and human faculties...

Comments