Mind in TS argumemt
There are really two basic aspects to the major argument this work develops: (1) the TS, the top of the metaphysical hierarchy, (2) that the TS is mind, and that this is the missing piece of the puzzle that Western thought has lost. What I consider to be my innovation, such as it is, is that by making TS mind, and universal mind in particular, I solve sets of problems that otherwise create a rift in my sets of concerns and render the two aspects contradictory. To understand this and for the sake of a consistent argument we have to explore this concept of universal mind. It is not that modern thought rejects the TS per se, there's GUT which aims at establishing a TS but that they denude it of mind which is what makes it workable and gives it meaning. Modern secular thought seems to assume that science has disproved the possibility of transcendent mind by showing that mind can only be produced by brain chemistry. Such is not the case. Science has proven no such thing. It the most it could prove is that this is true for biological life only but it has not even proved that.
Warrant for Transcendent/Universal Mind
(1) the universal nature of mind in humans:
Just the fact that all our perceptions are coming from this perspective would seem to indicate that mind is a property related to complexity. thus it is logical to assume that consciousness comes with complexity of brain stricture if it is related to brain stricture. If mind emerges when there is complexity then there is a property and since it is universal to humans it seems that it is a property of "higher" life forms (at least om our planet). Thus if there is a creating ordering force it would be on a higher level. It's very reasonable to assume it would include consciousness of some kind.
(2) The Hard Problem
The hard problem is usually not taken as a proof of ontological theory but as a means of illustrating the point about our ignorance of the nature of consciousness. Yet it might also suggest that universal mind is best explanation for certain phenomena. David Chalmers explains the hard problem:
The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience. i
Cut off from others in our own isolated consciousness, the prison house of language and the cocoon of personal reflection, the hard problem is a means of pointing out the insufficiency of brain function as an explanation for consciousness overall. Since we don't understand consciousness, as the hard problem makes clear, the few physiological things we do know, like brain chemistry, are hardly a proof against the independence of mind. While the hard problem does not prove mind it disproves the assertion that mind reduces to brain.
(3) Temporal beginning:
Time is thought to have a beginning with the is big bang. We can't speak of “before” The big bang since there is no time “before” the big bang, but they treat it like space and speak of “beyond event horizon.” Those timeless coordinates are sympathetically pure in that no ripple on the pond disturbs the peace since there is no cause and effect without time. In such conditions there could be no change thus nothing should ever come to be. Hawking tells us there no time beyond event horizon of the big bang (note that he does speak of “before”):
...the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: What did God do before he created the universe? Augustine didn't reply: He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions. Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe. ii
Even though there is a massive profusion, a cacophony of answers denying the temporal beginning problem, atheists still assert it as an anti-God argument; there is no change in a timeless void, if there is no time “before” big bang then time could never come to be, nothing could ever come to be. There is a need for a mind who can rewrite the rules the universe. The atheists pitch it that God would be frozen in timeless state unable to do anything since there is no time. iii But Universal mind is not merely an individual among other individuals against a background of a larger cosmos of which it is a part. The concept is the basis of reality. Thus the timeless void is in the-mind not the mind in the void. That is a way of saying the mind that creates the rules is not subject to them. But atheists would still have the same problem. The problem of temporal beginning would not allow a naturalistic universe and time to emerge from a timeless void either. Thus mind is required to move creation forward.
Great scientific minds have at times resorted to the notion of mind to explain gaps in scientific knowledge. Issac Newton, for example, explained the problem of gravity known as “action at a distance,” how can gravity effect things that are not touching? The answer he employed was that “the universe is the sensorium of God.” In other words, God is thinking the existence of the universe and it's the power of God's mind that connects things in attraction such as gravity.
...critics immediately attacked what they saw as the weak point in Newton's theory: gravity, the force of attraction. Newton claimed that it acts at a distance, as between the sun and the earth, or between the moon and the sea. Action at a distance is a direct violation of the mechanical principle that all motion is by contact. Newton's opponents went so far as to call attraction an "occult quality," on the order of a medieval "virtue" which explains nothing. iv
Newton asserted a mechanical explanation, claiming he had presented enough empirical evidence that it could be generated to all bodies, yet he knew this did not explain gravity. It was his appeal to God on this issue that brought Newton into conflict with Leibniz. “Newton had described space as God's 'sensorium,' which Leibniz understood to mean 'sense organ.' This suggests that God's relation to the world is not that of creator but rather of a kind of 'world soul' (as Leibniz put it later).”v There was much squabble between Samual Clarke (major Latitudinarian and author of a fine version of the cosmological argument) and Leibniz over this phrase. All one really needs to do is employ another term. Rather than saying the world is God's sense organ, the world is a thought in the mind of God, this is what it means to say God is the basis of reality.
(4) Mind as part of nature for which materialism cannot account
Thomas Nagel is a major philosopher, best known for his essay “What is it is like to be a Bat”vi which is seminal in the Brain/Mind issue. Mind and Cosmosvii was a very important book in some ways but it was panned horribly and treated like a creationist tombe. Nagle is clearly an atheist he is not turning to God for answers even though he is turning to mind. It's an important book because he had the guts to pursue the obvious even though it contradicts the received word from on high in the secular world. The book is rejected by those who enforce the will of the lack of a God. He actually makes two major arguments that are connected. He makes an anti-reductionist argument, in that we can't reduce the mental to the physical, and failing that then there is suggested that the explanation is not merely physical. From that assumption he assert the intelligibility that science must assume as underlying the universe dictates the possibility of intelligible source.
Nagel starts off saying he is not motivated by any religious belief and he has no definite alternative it's just obvious that there's a short coming and he will obey common sense.viii He begins with reference to how little we really know about the world and why it is the way it is. One theme that unfolds throughout the world beginning early on is the vast order. Too replete throughout cosmos of be random, it points to a principle of order making.ix Remember the organizing principles? He goes on to make the argument similar to that made above about the hard problem. Physical sciences are not able to account for the consciousness aspect of reality because they can't deal with it from inside consciousness. Facts about conscious organisms do not give us insight into the nature of consciousness. Reducing of mental to the physical merely loses the phenomena of consciousness. This is not his terminology but that is what he is saying. “If one doubts the reducibility of the mental to the physical, and likewise of all those other things that go with the mental, such as value and meaning then there is some reason to doubt that a reductive materialism can apply even in biology, and therefore reason to doubt that materialism can give an adequate account even of the physical world.”x
He makes the argument that mind is a basic aspect of nature.xi The materialist version of evolutionary biology cannot account for the existence of mind. He actually raises the specter of teleology in evolutionary thinking rather than buy into the illogic of assuming consciousness could have arisen by purely accidental means such as brain chemistry.xii As he points out everyone admits there are vast amounts we do not know but materialists are so certain that teleological aspects can't be part of it. The natural order is presumed to be intelligible the basic laws are found at the simplest levels but not being necessary truths we can't say why they hold.xiii
Since we are physical organisms what explains us as such must also explain mind. Yet we have this mental dimension that is not psychical thus not fully explained by the physical sciences. Nor does it seem therefore that physical biology can account for mind either, Thus evolutionary biology cannot fully account or human being.xiv If such micro-organisms are not miracles but products of naturalism then biology cannot be purely a physical scheme. “The possibility opens up of a pervasive conception of the natural order that must be very different from materialism--one that makes mind central, rather than a side effect of physical law.”xv He makes an anti-reductionist argument but also an argument from philosophy of mind:
My guiding conviction is that mind is not just an afterthought or an accident or an add-on, but a basic aspect of nature. Quite a part from antireductionist arguments in the philosophy of mind, there is independent support for the step to such an enlarged conception of reality in one of the background conditions of science. Science is driven by the assumption that the world is intelligible, That is, the world in which we find ourselves, and about which experience gives us some information, can be not only described but understood. That assumption is behind every pursuit of knowledge, including pursuits that end in illusion...What explains this order? One answer would be that nothing does: explanation comes to an end with the order itself, which the assumption of intelligibility has merely enable us to uncover. Perhaps one level of order can be explained in terms of a still deeper level--as has happened repeatedly in the history of science. xvi
Ultimately he appeals to rational intelligibility to explain mind, which might require mind itself as an organizing principle. That argument is driven home even more so by Victor Reppert following C.S. Lewis in the “argument from reason.” Unlike Nagel, however, Reppert (Lewis) is making an actual God argument.
In essence the argument might be summarized in three stages as Reppert does (p72) He does not enumerate premises as a deductive presentation this is not a deductive argument in a formal preseention but merely a summary of observations:
(1) reasoning process is essential to our epistemic ability
(2) to fit reasoning into our universe we must accept a dualism, that is we must accept rational explainable for fundamental assumptions and inferences in addition to physical explanation
(3) theism is necessary to account for these fundamental explanations,xvii
Reppert uses a supporting argument, from intentionality, that illustrates the nature of the argument. This by no means the only such supporting argument but it's the only one I'll look at. His objective in making this argument is to show that there are elements in making argument that can't be fitted into a naturalistic framework. Lewis argued that it made no sense to say that one state is about another state. If we think about brains as merely lumps of matter one lump of matter is about another lump of matter? The reasoning process is essential for understanding human being. But if naturalism is true that natural inference just does not occur.xviii Reppert terms this the “absoluteness argument.” He has eight more on the same principle I'll just deal with a couple. Laws of physics govern physical states without reference to what they are “about.” Then how can there be determinate meaning to the words we use? Our thought processes are incidental to the lumps of matter and how the laws of physics describe what they do. As Reppert points out “W.V. Quine argued that physical conformation leaves it indeterminate as to what a speaker of a foreign language means by...[a word] but would not this argument also show that there is no fact of the matter as to what Quine means by “naturalism” when he says “naturalism is true?” xix
At this point Reppert makes a deductive argument:
(1) if naturalism is true then there is no fact of the matter as to what somone's thought or statement is about.”
(2) But there are facts as to what someone's statement is about (implied by the Existence of Rational inference).
(3) Therefore, naturalism is falsexx
He raises the issue of eliminative materialists who think that if intentional brain states are not found nonscientific data then there must not be any. For that reason this group maintains that there are no beliefs. Of course it's not wasted upon Reppert that this is a belief. An example of eleminative materialists is Wayne Proudfoot in rejecting the idea of internal mental states due to the difficulty in solving the hard problem, He just makes it go away by refusing to accept there could be truth beyond the ability of his methodology to find it. I deal with this in chapter six ( on Reductionism)of my book God, Science, and Ideology.xxi Reppert et al published an article proving that the eliminative position is self refuting.xxii
A second supporting argument is argument from truth. “to talk about one bit of matter being true of another seems to me to be nonsense.”xxiii Some naturalistic philosophers seek elimination of truth as a meaningful category. Reppert points to the Churchland's (Paul and Patricia) as examples of this group. xxiv I am reminded of how Paul Tillich raised this same issue and argues that one could reject the canon of truth as false without affirming truth as a category.xxv Of course analytic philosophers would say it's not false but just not meaningful. There is a point at which they have to abandon that dichotomy where truth and significance cross paths. If it is true that naturalism is a valid view point then the truth of that position would have to be meaningful.
Source
Source
iDavid Chalmers, “Facing Up to the problem of consciousness.”Journal of Consciousness Studies 2(3):1995, 200-19.
ii Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), 8
iii Brain Leftow, “Eternity and Immutability.” the Blackwell guide to the philosophy of religion ed William E Mann Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing, 48-80, 68.
iv Rob Cummins, “Philosophy 22 Lecture notes, Isac Newton, course material for Philosophy 33, online resource, URL: http://hume.ucdavis.edu/mattey/phi022old/newtlec.htm (accessed 9/3/16).
vIbid.
viThomas Nagel, “What's it Like top Be a Bat?” op cit
viiThomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: op cit, 7.
viiiIbid.
ixIbid.
xIbid., 14.
xiIbid., 16
xiiIbid., 5-6, 10
xiiiIbid., 20
xivIbid., 15
xv(bid., 14-15
xviIbid., 16
xvii Victor Reppert, C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of The Argument From Reason, Downer's Grove Il.: IVP Academic 1989
reernces C.S. Lewis Miracles New York McMilliom papperback ed 1978 224-31
xviiiIbid. 73
xixIbid, 75.
xxIbid.
xxifind
xxiiVictor Reppert, “Eleminative Materialism, Cognative Suicide, and Begging the Question,” Metaphilosophy, 23, (1992), 378-92.
xxiiiC.S. Lewis, Quoted in Reppoert, Dangerous Idea, op cit 76.
xxivIbid.
xxvfind
Comments
No, it has not proven it, but it certainly gives us "warrant" to think it.
It would make a refreshing change if you kept the playing field level. If you demand proof from the naturalistic explanation, then we expect proof from your explanation - and clearly you do not have that proof.
If you are merely claiming "warrant" for your beliefs, then the naturalistic explanation certainly has that!
Joe: (1) the universal nature of mind in humans:
All that fits the naturalistic explanation of emergence,
Joe: Cut off from others in our own isolated consciousness, the prison house of language and the cocoon of personal reflection, the hard problem is a means of pointing out the insufficiency of brain function as an explanation for consciousness overall. Since we don't understand consciousness, as the hard problem makes clear, the few physiological things we do know, like brain chemistry, are hardly a proof against the independence of mind. ...
Okay, it is a problem we have no answer to, and certainly there is no proof of anything. In summary: We do not know.
And yet, from this position of ignorance, you go on to claim:
Joe: While the hard problem does not prove mind it disproves the assertion that mind reduces to brain.
How does it disprove the assertion?
You just said we do not know, and from that you conclude that we know this assertion is wrong!
This is a problem for theists too.
Joe: There is a need for a mind who can rewrite the rules the universe.
What are you talking about? Rewriting implies it was different before. There was no before - there was no time.
Joe: The atheists pitch it that God would be frozen in timeless state unable to do anything since there is no time. iii But Universal mind is not merely an individual among other individuals against a background of a larger cosmos of which it is a part. The concept is the basis of reality. Thus the timeless void is in the-mind not the mind in the void. That is a way of saying the mind that creates the rules is not subject to them.
That does not help you. The problem is that in a timeless void there is no change. There is no creating rules, because that would mean there was a time before the rules existed.
Joe: But atheists would still have the same problem. The problem of temporal beginning would not allow a naturalistic universe and time to emerge from a timeless void either.
Right. It is a problem for any scenario.
Joe: Thus mind is required to move creation forward.
This is the usual god-did-it. You argue against the naturalistic view, and then insert God into the gap, hand-waving away the fact that your own hypothesis has exactly the same issues.
How does a mind think in a timeless void? A thought is very much an event, something that happens in time. There is a difference in a mind before the through occurs compared to after the thought - you know that you have had the thought.
Joe: One theme that unfolds throughout the world beginning early on is the vast order. Too replete throughout cosmos of be random, it points to a principle of order making.
How does he measure order? I have not read the book, so I am going out on a limb here, but my guess is that he does not. I would guess that Nagel bases his opinion on the fact that it kind of looks organised, right? The reality is that all the organisation that we see is founded squarely on randomness! The Second Law of Thermodynamics tell us that every observable change happens because entropy is increasing, order is decreasing.
You say of Nagel "he will obey common sense", but that is not necessarily a good guide, especially when looking at the wider issues. Common sense says the world is flat. It is only when you start to look beyond the horizon that we find that actually it is spheroid. Common sense is a very bad guide to what happens at the quantum level, or at the speed of light. Seems likely common sense will be a very poor guide to how the universe started.
No wonder his book was panned!
Joe: (1) reasoning process is essential to our epistemic ability
(2) to fit reasoning into our universe we must accept a dualism, that is we must accept rational explainable for fundamental assumptions and inferences in addition to physical explanation
(3) theism is necessary to account for these fundamental explanations,
With regards to (2), then, we can accept property dualism, right?
With that in mind, explain why theism is necessary?
- The concept of time is misunderstood by most people. Yes, we believe that time had a beginning with the creation of the universe. Yes, we also believe that the universe spontaneously emerged from nothing. There is no contradiction there if you have the proper understanding of what time is. First, as we know from relativity (and it has been empirically verified), time is not some standard thing against which we all measure the passage of events. Time is relative to the observer. Second, at the boundaries of our universe (such as at the creation), the equations are not valid. Time "blows up". But you have to remember that this is only with respect to our own measures of time (because it's relative). Time begins with the creation of the universe from our human perspective. That does not imply that there is no time from another perspective. And that's precisely why physicists have no problem with the universe emerging from the void.
- Theists love to tout Nagel's credentials as a "atheist" as if they expect us to take him seriously. Nagle may be an atheist, but he is clearly NOT a naturalist. In case you didn't know it, Joe, it is observation and acceptance of the reality of the natural world that leads us to atheism, not the other way around. Theists reject natural reality, and Nagel does, too. He believes the same kind of woo-laden stuff that theists believe, and he makes the same kind of woo-laden arguments, as you have noted. It's not based on evidence. As long as he makes evidence-free arguments based on supernatural beliefs, naturalists will reject his nonsensical raving.
I guess you also refuse to see Chalmers as a atheist, so official athiest doctrine can't believe in a mind,
- No, Joe. I told you. It's about naturalism. Naturalism doesn't accept that which isn't part of the natural world. There is lots of talk, but ZERO evidence of any "universal mind", or any kind supernatural woo. There is ample evidence that mind is a product of the brain (and please note that despite your propaganda, we don't deny that people have minds). Why can't you go where the evidence leads?
But atheists would still have the same problem. The problem of temporal beginning would not allow a naturalistic universe and time to emerge from a timeless void either. Thus mind is required to move creation forward.
- The concept of time is misunderstood by most people. Yes, we believe that time had a beginning with the creation of the universe.
of course you understand it because you worship science,
Yes, we also believe that the universe spontaneously emerged from nothing.
we being the science worship cult
There is no contradiction there if you have the proper understanding of what time is. First, as we know from relativity (and it has been empirically verified), time is not some standard thing against which we all measure the passage of events. Time is relative to the observer.
time is a function of space/time,it's limited to the space/time continuum. Outside or beyond event horizon there is no time. talk about realities nature of time is not an answer because it;s a different deal. Beyond the continuum there is no time,
Second, at the boundaries of our universe (such as at the creation), the equations are not valid. Time "blows up". But you have to remember that this is only with respect to our own measures of time (because it's relative). Time begins with the creation of the universe from our human perspective. That does not imply that there is no time from another perspective. And th
that does not entitle you to claim that temporal theory is wrong that there is time beyoind BB. Time begimns with psaceim the big bang.
Sten Olenwald
NASA Scientist
2003
http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11839.html
No time "before" BB.
In the quantum world...the world that the universe inhabited when it was less than a second old...many things work very differently. One of these is that time itself does not mean quite the same thing as it does to us in the world- at-large. Although we have no complete theory of the relevant physics, there are many indications from the mathematics that yield sound experimental results, that time itself may have ceased to have much meaning near the Big Bang event. This means that there was no 'time' as we know this concept 'before' the Big Bang. That being the case, the question of what happened before the Big Bang is now a question without any possible physical answer. The evolution of the universe has always been a process of transformation from one state to the next as the universe has expanded. At some point in this process, looking back at the Big Bang, we enter a state so removed from any that we now know, than even the laws that govern it become totally obscure to science itself. In the quantum world, we see things 'appearing' out of nothing all the time. The universe may have done the same thing. What this means to us may never be fully understood.
"As we shall see, the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: What did God do before he created the universe? Augustine didn't reply: He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions. Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe. [Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 8]
astronmy cafe
Odenwald, 2004
Was there really no time at all before the Big Bang?
As I have mentioned in a previous question, we do not know what the state of the universe was like at the Big Bang and beyond.
Our best guess at this time suggest that time and space as we know these concepts will become rather meaningless as the universe enters a purely quantum mechanical state of indeterminacy. Cosmologists such as Stephen Hawking suggest that the dimension of time is transformed via quantum fluctuations in the so-called "signature of the spacetime metric", into a space-like coordinate so that instead of 3-space and 1-time dimension, space-time becomes a 4-dimensional space devoid of any time-like features. What this state is imagined to be is anyone's guess because as humans trained to think in terms of processes evolving in time, our next question would then be, What came before the Hawking space-like state? There is no possible answer to this question because there is no time in which the concept of 'before' can be said to have a meaning. The question itself becomes the wrong question to ask.
_____________________________________
Phyical law opporates in time
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/qg_qc.html Cambridge Relativity and Quantum Gravity. 1996, University of Cambridge The physical laws that govern the universe prescribe how an initial state evolves with time. In classical physics, if the initial state of a system is specified exactly then the subsequent motion will be completely predictable.
Blogger The Pixie said...
Joe: Such is not the case. Science has proven no such thing. It the most it could prove is that this is true for biological life only but it has not even proved that.
No, it has not proven it, but it certainly gives us "warrant" to think it.
No it does not do that either,I preseted six argumets taht disprove the redction, util
you answer those youhaveno warrant, Morover there threemajor arguets for mind thatyou jsut overcome inadditiomn to those.
(1) the hard problem
(2) veto power
(3) top down cajsation
It would make a refreshing change if you kept the playing field level. If you demand proof from the naturalistic explanation, then we expect proof from your explanation - and clearly you do not have that proof.
I am the only one who has, You did not document your assertion I did document mine--and don't forget my temporal beginning evidence I just posted.
If you are merely claiming "warrant" for your beliefs, then the naturalistic explanation certainly has that!
no it doesn't. warrant does not come as a free pass just because you say it, you have to overcome defeaters,
Joe: (1) the universal nature of mind in humans:
All that fits the naturalistic explanation of emergence,
Perhaps you might claims that in terms of humans having minds but my argument is that there has to be a universal mind planning the universe, you cna't have that nationalistically,
Joe: Cut off from others in our own isolated consciousness, the prison house of language and the cocoon of personal reflection, the hard problem is a means of pointing out the insufficiency of brain function as an explanation for consciousness overall. Since we don't understand consciousness, as the hard problem makes clear, the few physiological things we do know, like brain chemistry, are hardly a proof against the independence of mind. ...
Okay, it is a problem we have no answer to, and certainly there is no proof of anything. In summary: We do not know.
we know it;s more than brain function because that's the essence of the hard problem.
And yet, from this position of ignorance, you go on to claim:
you are the one who must explain away the mental dimension,
Joe: While the hard problem does not prove mind it disproves the assertion that mind reduces to brain.
How does it disprove the assertion?
because it says that you can't explain the mental dimension the only way you ever try is the bait and switch you try to pretend it's not there, The essence of the had problem involves the mental dimension
You just said we do not know, and from that you conclude that we know this assertion is wrong!
I said we don;t knkow what causes consciousness not that we don't know consciousness exists,
5/14/2018 04:26:00 AM Delete
Joe: Even though there is a massive profusion, a cacophony of answers denying the temporal beginning problem, atheists still assert it as an anti-God argument; there is no change in a timeless void, if there is no time “before” big bang then time could never come to be, nothing could ever come to be.
This is a problem for theists too.
you are just reiterating what i said. are you actually reading this?
Joe: There is a need for a mind who can rewrite the rules the universe.
What are you talking about? Rewriting implies it was different before. There was no before - there was no time.
since something came into being so something had to be that changed the rules. It does not have to be physical, it's mind.
Joe: The atheists pitch it that God would be frozen in timeless state unable to do anything since there is no time. iii But Universal mind is not merely an individual among other individuals against a background of a larger cosmos of which it is a part. The concept is the basis of reality. Thus the timeless void is in the-mind not the mind in the void. That is a way of saying the mind that creates the rules is not subject to them.
That does not help you. The problem is that in a timeless void there is no change. There is no creating rules, because that would mean there was a time before the rules existed.
you are not listening. God is not in the timeless void. the timeless void is in God,an idea in a mind, The mind has priority over ideas,
Joe: But atheists would still have the same problem. The problem of temporal beginning would not allow a naturalistic universe and time to emerge from a timeless void either.
Right. It is a problem for any scenario.
yes but I just solved it by sorting out God's relation to time and the world,
This is the usual god-did-it. You argue against the naturalistic view, and then insert God into the gap, hand-waving away the fact that your own hypothesis has exactly the same issues.
hardly, you can't bane any theologian who said this other than Newton,this is a something atheists so called thinkers need to get through thick skulls. If God;s actions are local necessity then but God is not just an excuse so God did it is stupid,,
How does a mind think in a timeless void? A thought is very much an event, something that happens in time. There is a difference in a mind before the through occurs compared to after the thought - you know that you have had the thought.
God is not in the timeless void. That's part of creation a d creation is the idea in the mind or God,
Joe: One theme that unfolds throughout the world beginning early on is the vast order. Too replete throughout cosmos of be random, it points to a principle of order making.
How does he measure order? I have not read the book, so I am going out on a limb here, but my guess is that he does not. I would guess that Nagel bases his opinion on the fact that it kind of looks organised, right? The reality is that all the organisation that we see is founded squarely on randomness! The Second Law of Thermodynamics tell us that every observable change happens because entropy is increasing, order is decreasing.
No he's a real philosopher, you ought to read some so you know what they are like,don't listen to I am a doufus because he would say Kant can't think and Spinoza is an idiot,
You say of Nagel "he will obey common sense", but that is not necessarily a good guide, especially when looking at the wider issues. Common sense says the world is flat. It is only when you start to look beyond the horizon that we find that actually it is spheroid. Common sense is a very bad guide to what happens at the quantum level, or at the speed of light. Seems likely common sense will be a very poor guide to how the universe started.
No wonder his book was panned!
he says nothing about common sense,that was my attempt at simplifying, but to me common sense is being a pacifist so when I use that term it;s different than you know it to be
Joe: (1) reasoning process is essential to our epistemic ability
(2) to fit reasoning into our universe we must accept a dualism, that is we must accept rational explainable for fundamental assumptions and inferences in addition to physical explanation
(3) theism is necessary to account for these fundamental explanations,
With regards to (2), then, we can accept property dualism, right?
With that in mind, explain why theism is necessary?
Property dualism by itself doesn't explain stuff like temporal beginning you can include fine running as well in necessities of mind,
5/14/2018 04:27:00 AM Delete
you answer those youhaveno warrant,
And we have presented arguments that "disprove" your universal mind. Until you answer those YOU have no warrant.
For example:
Brain injuries and fMRI studies show a clear correspondence between specific parts of the brain and specific types of thinking.
If the brain has a two-way interaction with the universal mind then it necessarily follows that the physical world can interact with the universal mind (the brain being a subset of the physical world). And yet the reality is that no such interaction has ever been observed.
Joe: Morover there threemajor arguets for mind thatyou jsut overcome inadditiomn to those.
(1) the hard problem
(2) veto power
(3) top down cajsation
Just to be clear, I assume you mean universal mind there; we all agree we have minds.
Talk me through how your universal mind solves these problems. Then I will show you how emergence does.
Pix: It would make a refreshing change if you kept the playing field level. If you demand proof from the naturalistic explanation, then we expect proof from your explanation - and clearly you do not have that proof.
Joe: I am the only one who has, You did not document your assertion I did document mine--and don't forget my temporal beginning evidence I just posted.
I was going on what you stated. Your position is that the naturalistic position is not proved ("Science has proven no such thing."), and that you have warrant for your belief ("Warrant for Transcendent/Universal Mind"). You have clearly set this up as an unequal game, rigging it so your pet theory will seem to win.
That you are obliged to do this just shows the desperation of your argument.
Joe: Perhaps you might claims that in terms of humans having minds but my argument is that there has to be a universal mind planning the universe, you cna't have that nationalistically,
I did not see your argument for an intelligent agent designing the universe. Why should we suppose this intelligent designer is the same as the consciousness that pervades the universe? It would seem that the intelligent designer would exist outside of the universe, whilst the universal mind would necessarily be a part of it.
Joe: we know it;s more than brain function because that's the essence of the hard problem.
No, we do not know that. Philosophers disagree on whether reductionism can solve the hard problem or even whether it exists or not.
Joe: I said we don;t knkow what causes consciousness not that we don't know consciousness exists,
Sure. We both agree it exists!
Joe: since something came into being so something had to be that changed the rules. It does not have to be physical, it's mind.
Why did it have to "change the rules"? What rules?
Joe: you are not listening. God is not in the timeless void. the timeless void is in God,an idea in a mind, The mind has priority over ideas,
Hmm, I really must not be listening, because I have no recollection of you ever saying that before.
So you are saying there is God, within which is the timeless void, and within the timeless void, the universe was created? And within the universe is the universal mind, which is God. And within God is the timeless void, and within...
So is God timeless, or just the void inside him?
Joe: yes but I just solved it by sorting out God's relation to time and the world,
So talk us through how that works, Joe.
The point about god-did-it is that it explains nothing. It is just a sticking plaster over a gap, something that disguises our ignorances.
Every time you claim to have an explanation, that explanation is just a glib phase that explains nothing. Saying universal mind does not explain consciousness. How does the universal mind connect to the brain? When is the connection established? When does it break? How do the molecules in the brain interact with it? How does it affect the molecules in the brain? Why do we forget stuff? Is memory in the brain of the universal consciousness? Why can we not communicate telepathically if we are all part of the same mind?
Joe: God is not in the timeless void. That's part of creation a d creation is the idea in the mind or God,
But the universe is, and the universal mind is in the universe. So either God and the universal mind are two different things, or God is in the timeless void. I really have no idea now what you are proposing.
Joe: No he's a real philosopher...
Okay. So how does he measure order? You said of his book: "One theme that unfolds throughout the world beginning early on is the vast order. Too replete throughout cosmos of be random, it points to a principle of order making." To be able to make that statement Nagel must have some way to measure order, even if only approximately. How does he do that?
You have read his book, and this is a theme running through the book, so it must be there, right?
Well, actually my guess is it is not. I appreciate Nagel is a professor of philosophy, and I have not read his book, but nevertheless I feel pretty confident saying he never says how he is measuring order.
Joe: Property dualism by itself doesn't explain stuff like temporal beginning you can include fine running as well in necessities of mind,
So in fact your number 2 there is specifically about substance dualism? So really it says:
(1) reasoning process is essential to our epistemic ability
(2) to fit reasoning into our universe we must accept substance dualism (i.e., universal mind), that is we must accept rational explainable for fundamental assumptions and inferences in addition to physical explanation
And it turns out this is merely a summary of what you are claiming, and not evidence to support the claim.
- I'm not claiming anything is wrong except your understanding. OUR time begins with the creation of the universe. Consider this: What if there is another universe? Do you think they go by OUR time or their own. Use your head, man. Just because the time we experience begins with the start of our universe, that doesn't imply that there is no other perspective of time.
Yes, all the physics equations show time beginning with our universe. There are still OTHER perspectives of time. And there is still a logical possibility of something BEFORE the beginning of out universe, even though is is meaningless from the perspective of our own view of time.
that does not entitle you to claim that temporal theory is wrong that there is time beyoind BB. Time begimns with psaceim the big bang.
- I'm not claiming anything is wrong except your understanding. OUR time begins with the creation of the universe. Consider this: What if there is another universe? Do you think they go by OUR time or their own. Use your head, man. Just because the time we experience begins with the start of our universe, that doesn't imply that there is no other perspective of time.
that's an atheist pipe dream, no evidence it's true, It's also not an answer to the problem because it just kicks the can down the road,the basic issue that nothing should come to be has not been gotten around. You are just saying more examples of getting around it but we still don't know how,
Yes, all the physics equations show time beginning with our universe. There are still OTHER perspectives of time. And there is still a logical possibility of something BEFORE the beginning of out universe, even though is is meaningless from the perspective of our own view of time.
No perspectives of time answer the problem. btw perspectives require mid. there is no organizing principle on a grand scale that solves real problems without mind,
5/14/2018 09:36:00 PM Delete
Blogger The Pixie said...
Joe: No it does not do that either,I preseted six argumets taht disprove the redction, util
you answer those youhaveno warrant,
And we have presented arguments that "disprove" your universal mind. Until you answer those YOU have no warrant.
Bullshit! you have not said one single thing that comes close to disproof, you express doubt big deal, you no evidence. !
you can;'t worm out of those six issues then pretend like you have answered it,
For example:
Brain injuries and fMRI studies show a clear correspondence between specific parts of the brain and specific types of thinking.
I did answer that you did not even come back on it
that's not even approaching a problem. for one thing it doesn't even apply. You are talking about being continent with an answer just because you can link parts of the brain to certain access issues related to consciousness--not about consciousness they are just related to it. But that is only about an individual organism, I am dealing with consciousness as an organizing principle for the universe.
If the brain has a two-way interaction with the universal mind then it necessarily follows that the physical world can interact with the universal mind (the brain being a subset of the physical world). And yet the reality is that no such interaction has ever been observed.
It does not follow that personal awareness is acted upon inanimate unconscious non awareness in the same way that it interacts up pom non awareness, your assertion is illogical.
- Joe, this is not an atheist pipe dream. Many theists, including WL Craig, believe the very same thing. The concept is based on logic.
No perspectives of time answer the problem. btw perspectives require mid. there is no organizing principle on a grand scale that solves real problems without mind
- perspectives require mind, true. But reality doesn't. Reality can exist without a mind to have a perspective of it. Out universe did quite well on its own for billions of years before humans were around to have any knowledge or perspective of it.
(1) the hard problem
(2) veto power
(3) top down cajsation
Just to be clear, I assume you mean universal mind there; we all agree we have minds.
O man you are out of the loop! those who argue the way you doing, the "reductionists" actually oppose the idea that we have minds,they are opposes to mind itself, Baht goes for Dennette the guys who did the studies you sighted and atheists who argue the way you are, when they say reduce mind to brain function they mean it: eliminate mind,
Talk me through how your universal mind solves these problems. Then I will show you how emergence does.
(1) emergence contradicts reductionism; it was specifically invented by holists to coiner reduction.
(2) it makes no sense to say mimed reduces to bran then say mind is an emergent property of brain, its;a contradiction. emergent property is counter to reduction, and it is compatible with Christianity.
Pix: It would make a refreshing change if you kept the playing field level. If you demand proof from the naturalistic explanation, then we expect proof from your explanation - and clearly you do not have that proof.
that doesn't mean that every aspect has to have the same level of proof. I don't demand that atheists disposed G0d. I argue that people prove the arguments they make,
Joe: I am the only one who has, You did not document your assertion I did document mine--and don't forget my temporal beginning evidence I just posted.
I was going on what you stated. Your position is that the naturalistic position is not proved ("Science has proven no such thing."), and that you have warrant for your belief ("Warrant for Transcendent/Universal Mind"). You have clearly set this up as an unequal game, rigging it so your pet theory will seem to win.
I did not say that naturalism hasn't proven anything, ever,I was specifically talking about mind being reduce able to brain. I ague God is warranted as belkefandIpro eit warrned soIdo prove the arguetsimake,
Joe: hardly, you can't bane any theologian who said this other than Newton,this is a something atheists so called thinkers need to get through thick skulls. If God;s actions are local necessity then but God is not just an excuse so God did it is stupid,,
The point about god-did-it is that it explains nothing. It is just a sticking plaster over a gap, something that disguises our ignorances.
as I answered before that is an excuse, you are confusing -hypocritically--answers with completeness of information, "God did it" is empty rhetoric since the arguments prove God is necessary. Then the idea that it not an answer if we don't have total knowledge is garbage especially when science theorizes unprofitable tripe like string theory,
Every time you claim to have an explanation, that explanation is just a glib phase that explains nothing. Saying universal mind does not explain consciousness. How does the universal mind connect to the brain?
seems that way because you are ignorant, you don't have the back ground to uinderand the connection to other things I can't give you a college education in text ''all you are really saying is that it doesn't involve chemistry so it's not important,.
When is the connection established? When does it break? How do the molecules in the brain interact with it? How does it affect the molecules in the brain? Why do we forget stuff? Is memory in the brain of the universal consciousness? Why can we not communicate telepathically if we are all part of the same mind?
none of that stuff needs to be known It doesn't have to be known to be saved from sin,It doesn't have to be known to know God is is Real. those are the thins we are after here,
Yes we do want to know it all eventually and eventually we will. I;m not shutting down learning we can all study all those areas but we don't need to know all thing in reality just to know God is real,
But the universe is, and the universal mind is in the universe. So either God and the universal mind are two different things, or God is in the timeless void. I really have no idea now what you are proposing.
God is the timeless void in a sense not literally but in place of it. God is not the universe, those are separate things,like I am not an idea in my mind. Universal mind is in the universe but is not limited to it it is also beyond the universe,
Joe: No he's a real philosopher...
Okay. So how does he measure order? You said of his book: "One theme that unfolds throughout the world beginning early on is the vast order. Too replete throughout cosmos of be random, it points to a principle of order making." To be able to make that statement Nagel must have some way to measure order, even if only approximately. How does he do that?
You have read his book, and this is a theme running through the book, so it must be there, right?
Well, actually my guess is it is not. I appreciate Nagel is a professor of philosophy, and I have not read his book, but nevertheless I feel pretty confident saying he never says how he is measuring order.
Joe: Property dualism by itself doesn't explain stuff like temporal beginning you can include fine tunning as well in necessities of mind,
So in fact your number 2 there is specifically about substance dualism? So really it says:
(1) reasoning process is essential to our epistemic ability
(2) to fit reasoning into our universe we must accept substance dualism (i.e., universal mind), that is we must accept rational explainable for fundamental assumptions and inferences in addition to physical explanation
no my argent works as well with property dualism, I've explained that before,
And it turns out this is merely a summary of what you are claiming, and not evidence to support the claim.
getting the summary right is crucial.the evidence usless without understand what is claimed
I count logical arguments as evidence,so the arguments I've made about irrediceablity the need for mind in creation are evidence,
Blogger im-skeptical said...
Joe: that's an atheist pipe dream, no evidence it's true, It's also not an answer to the problem because it just kicks the can down the road,the basic issue that nothing should come to be has not been gotten around. You are just saying more examples of getting around it but we still don't know how
- Joe, this is not an atheist pipe dream. Many theists,
You know damn well there is no empirical evidence of a multiverse,If you think there is let's see it! link to it,
No perspectives of time answer the problem. btw perspectives require mind. there is no organizing principle on a grand scale that solves real problems without mind
- perspectives require mind, true. But reality doesn't.
apparently it does
Reality can exist without a mind to have a perspective of it.
in localized terms but has to be mind to collapse the wave function
Out universe did quite well on its own for billions of years before humans were around to have any knowledge or perspective of it.
you are begging the question,you have not answered the arguments the arguments I made that say we need universal mind, you need to answer oatmeal begining your answwer is not backed by emprical fact,
- I didn't say that, Joe. We were talking about time. I only mentioned a multiverse as an illustration of how there could be different perspectives of time. Theists are not allowed to believe that a multiverse is possible because of their dogma. But some of them can and do believe that there is time beyond a single human perspective.
apparently it does
- The existence of some reality is certainly independent of any human mind. It is not at all apparent that it is dependent on a mind of some kind. in fact, that is only a question-begging assumption of theism.
in localized terms but has to be mind to collapse the wave function
- Joe, why don't you just admit that you have no idea what that means? A wave function is a conceptual thing, like an idea. Conceptual things are dependent on a mind. But reality is not merely conceptual. It is what everything (including conscious minds ) is based upon.
you are begging the question,you have not answered the arguments the arguments I made that say we need universal mind, you need to answer oatmeal begining your answwer is not backed by emprical fact
- As a matter of fact, it is empirically true that our universe existed before human minds. You can make all the arguments for a "universal mind" you like, but YOU have presented no empirical evidence for such a thing, nor is there any reason whatsoever in our observation of nature or science to think it's true. YOU are begging the question with this obviously theistic presumption, but you haven't proven it. It's your assertion that requires backing, not mine. I have all of science with me and nature. You have a question-begging argument with no evidence of ANY KIND.
Joe: Bullshit! you have not said one single thing that comes close to disproof, you express doubt big deal, you no evidence. !
Hence, I put "disprove" in scare quotes. I have refuted your universal mind just as thoroughly as you have refuted naturalism, which in both cases falls well short of actually disproving.
Joe: you can;'t worm out of those six issues then pretend like you have answered it,
Just because they have not been answered that does not imply they disprove naturalism.
Joe: that's not even approaching a problem. for one thing it doesn't even apply. You are talking about being continent with an answer just because you can link parts of the brain to certain access issues related to consciousness--not about consciousness they are just related to it. But that is only about an individual organism, I am dealing with consciousness as an organizing principle for the universe.
None of which explains why brain injuries and fMRI studies show a clear correspondence between specific parts of the brain and specific types of thinking. All you can offer is a rationale to dodge the issue - which is exactly what you accuse me of doing!
Joe: It does not follow that personal awareness is acted upon inanimate unconscious non awareness in the same way that it interacts up pom non awareness, your assertion is illogical.
It necessarily follows that consciousness can affect the material world, and that the material world can affect consciousness. Given you are reading stuff and typing stuff, you can hardly deny that!
Joe: O man you are out of the loop! those who argue the way you doing, the "reductionists" actually oppose the idea that we have minds...
I am not obliged to agree with them. My position is that we have minds, we have consciousness (I am a dualist). However, consciousness supervenes on the physical; it is emergent.
Joe: (1) emergence contradicts reductionism; it was specifically invented by holists to coiner reduction.
I very much doubt any reputable scientist rejects emergence. Wetness and the Second Law of Thermodynamics are emergent, and well established. Reductionism is a useful tool, but I seriously doubt anyone today is a reductionist (in the sense you mean it).
Joe: (2) it makes no sense to say mimed reduces to bran then say mind is an emergent property of brain, its;a contradiction. emergent property is counter to reduction, and it is compatible with Christianity.
Then do not say mind reduces to brain. Fine by me.
Mind supervenes on brain, because mind is emergence. There is no other substance involved, and when the brain dies, the mind stops. That is not compatible with Christianity, which posits life after death.
Joe: that doesn't mean that every aspect has to have the same level of proof. I don't demand that atheists disposed G0d. I argue that people prove the arguments they make,
It does if that is how you are judging it! You have set this up as two competing hypotheses, but you reject one because it is not proven, and favour the other, even though it has also not been proven.
Of course, we all know this is just a way for your to rationalise your faith.
It seems that way because you make no attempt to explain.
This is a case in point. You could explain, even if you thought I would not understand. You could link to an explanation. You did not. Why?
There is no explanation!
Joe: none of that stuff needs to be known It doesn't have to be known to be saved from sin,It doesn't have to be known to know God is is Real. those are the thins we are after here,
Right. None of it needs to be known because this is religion. God-did-it is a sticking plaster that we use to hide the gaps in our ignorance. Just take it on faith, and you will be saved.
As long as we are clear this is not related to what is true.
Joe: Yes we do want to know it all eventually and eventually we will. I;m not shutting down learning we can all study all those areas but we don't need to know all thing in reality just to know God is real,
The reality is that you have no clue how this universal consciousness relates to the material world. This is not an explanation, it is a religious claim.
There is no explanation!
one can only explain so many times you just Oshkosh not have to go over the same basic ground every tine you talk about it. That is a game atheists play Then there is the fact that most of what you ask about is irrelevant,things we don't need to know,
you want to always bring it back to the same circular reasoning of hatred for religion
that;s region so it;no good' answers about why is good are wrong because it;s religion and religion is bad,
Joe: none of that stuff needs to be known It doesn't have to be known to be saved from sin,It doesn't have to be known to know God is is Real. those are the thins we are after here,
Right. None of it needs to be known because this is religion. God-did-it is a sticking plaster that we use to hide the gaps in our ignorance. Just take it on faith, and you will be saved.
<><>
As long as we are clear this is not related to what is true.
Joe: Yes we do want to know it all eventually and eventually we will. I;m not shutting down learning we can all study all those areas but we don't need to know all thing in reality just to know God is real,
Just proved my point didn't you? religion is bad no matter what no answer can ever save it because it;s a religions answer and religion is bad,
The reality is that you have no clue how this universal consciousness relates to the material world. This is not an explanation, it is a religious claim.
the reality is you have just invigilated your whole position ,you are not capable reasoning about the issues,
you are the one who said that and your argument is circular,
I quoted top researcher Ray Talis saying that is simplistic thinking it does't prove anything,It's on a par with saying most people with cancer have eaten white bread at some point in their lives so that proves white bread causes cancer
you have already lost that point because I said before you did not answer,
There is no big mystery that if you damage the recover you can't revive. So if you damage the brain you can't connect to consciousness, does not prove consciousness is the brain,
Joe: It does not follow that personal awareness is acted upon inanimate unconscious non awareness in the same way that it interacts up pom non awareness, your assertion is illogical.
It necessarily follows that consciousness can affect the material world, and that the material world can affect consciousness. Given you are reading stuff and typing stuff, you can hardly deny that!
yes but that doesn't prove anything,It does not tell us if it's a matter of identity or merely connection,
Joe: O man you are out of the loop! those who argue the way you doing, the "reductionists" actually oppose the idea that we have minds...
I am not obliged to agree with them. My position is that we have minds, we have consciousness (I am a dualist). However, consciousness supervenes on the physical; it is emergent.
supervisor does not prove that mind reduces to brain it only means there's a connection so it's taken out by the accessibility argument, see above.
you want to always bring it back to the same circular reasoning of hatred for religion
that;s region so it;no good' answers about why is good are wrong because it;s religion and religion is bad,
If you had a link to one place that you gave an explanation, I would believe you. But inevitably you do not.
Joe: Just proved my point didn't you? religion is bad no matter what no answer can ever save it because it;s a religions answer and religion is bad,
Religion is bad because it is used as an excuse for not proving an explanation. As you said: "none of that stuff needs to be known It doesn't have to be known to be saved from sin..." In religion, explanations are not needed.
If you could provide a religious answer that does explain, we would be having a very different conversation.
Joe: I quoted top researcher Ray Talis saying that is simplistic thinking it does't prove anything,It's on a par with saying most people with cancer have eaten white bread at some point in their lives so that proves white bread causes cancer
Nevertheless, any workable hypothesis has to be compatible with the findings of fMRI. It is a fact that certain modes of thinking cause blood flow to increase in certain parts of the brain. You cannot just ignore that fact, and if your pet theory fails to explain that, then it must be rejected.
Also, where did you quote Tallis? I cannot find his name anywhere in the post or comments.
Joe: There is no big mystery that if you damage the recover you can't revive. So if you damage the brain you can't connect to consciousness, does not prove consciousness is the brain,
Which nearly ducks the issue that damaging a specific part of the brain causes a specific impairment to consciousness.
Your hypothesis fails to account for that. You know it fails to account for it, so you carefully and deliberately duck it.
Of course you do, it is a hypothesis based on religious beliefs, and they override what the evidence tells you. This, Joe, is why religion is bad - it blinds you to the truth.
Pix: It necessarily follows that consciousness can affect the material world, and that the material world can affect consciousness. Given you are reading stuff and typing stuff, you can hardly deny that!
Joe: yes but that doesn't prove anything,It does not tell us if it's a matter of identity or merely connection,
The point is that any hypothesis we are going to take seriously has allow for the fact that consciousness can affect the material world, and that the material world can affect consciousness.
If the universal mind affects the material world, why can we not detect it?
Joe: supervisor does not prove that mind reduces to brain it only means there's a connection so it's taken out by the accessibility argument, see above.
Again with the "prove" shtick? Your argument, by your own admission, does not prove anything. Should we therefore reject it?
Here again, we see the bad influence of religion in your bias. You reject the naturalistic view because it is not proven, you cling to the universal mind hypothesis, despite it too not being proven. Why? Religion.
1. Consciousness is an emergent property of an organic brain.
2. Consciousness is due to a universal mind that pervades the entire universe.
3. Consiousness is due to magic.
There are various thinks we can ask about these hypotheses. Here are a few, with answers (for number 2, I have tried to get the answered as provided by Joe above).
A: How do these three hypotheses solve the hard problem?
1. So far it cannot, but research is on-going.
2. It just does.
3. It just does.
B: How do these explain why a brain injury in a certain part of the brain has a specific effect on consciousness?
1. As consciousness is in the brain, it is inevitable that damage to the brain will affect consciousness, and the type of damage will determine the effect.
2. "If you damage the brain you can't connect to consciousness" (nothing about why specific injuries have specific effects).
3. If you damage the brain the magic does not work properly (nothing about why specific injuries have specific effects).
C: Why can we not detect this supposed medium?
1. Not applicable, there is no medium, it is just the brain, which we know is there.
2. "None of that stuff needs to be known."
3. Because it's magic.
D: How does the brain interact with this supposed medium?
1. Not applicable, there is no medium, it is just the brain.
2. "None of that stuff needs to be known."
3. Just don't look behind the curtain.
Are there any other questions we should ask, Joe? Are there better replies to any of these question for your hypothesis Joe? Which hypothesis do we have most warrant for?
- Joe, it's too bad you don't understand anything at all about the cognitive sciences. If you did, you wouldn't so easily dismiss these issues as "simplistic thinking". You might actually have an appreciation for how badly they damage your case. It seems to me that every time you find yourself in a bind like this, you make these claims that it isn't relevant to your point, or that it is stupid, or simple-minded. That's a good way to side-step the problems for which you have no answer.
Joe: I quoted top researcher Ray Talis saying that is simplistic thinking it does't prove anything,It's on a par with saying most people with cancer have eaten white bread at some point in their lives so that proves white bread causes cancer
- Joe, it's too bad you don't understand anything at all about the cognitive sciences. If you did, you wouldn't so easily dismiss these issues as "simplistic thinking".
i DID NOT SAY IT WAS SIMPLISTIC THINKING IT WAS TALIS WHO SAID IT STUPID, LEARN TO READ
You might actually have an appreciation for how badly they damage your case. It seems to me that every time you find yourself in a bind like this, you make these claims that it isn't relevant to your point, or that it is stupid, or simple-minded. That's a good way to side-step the problems for which you have no answer.
here is the Talis quote again stupid, learn to read.
The fundamental assumption is that we are our brains and this, I will argue presently, is not true. But this is not the only reason why neuroscience does not tell us what human beings “really” are: it does not even tell us how the brain works, how bits of the brain work, or (even if you accept the dubious assumption that human living could be parcelled up into a number of discrete functions) which bit of the brain is responsible for which function. The rationale for thinking of the kind – “This bit of the brain houses that bit of us...” – is mind-numbingly simplistic.[9]
see he said it
What we have here are three competing hypotheses (and we have to be aware that both could be wrong):
1. Consciousness is an emergent property of an organic brain.
2. Consciousness is due to a universal mind that pervades the entire universe.
3. Consiousness is due to magic.
Joe: Here we see Pixie;s ability to construct straw man arguments, that is all it proves.My position is a synthesis 1 and 2. Of course saying magic is just his childish mockery of a view he doesn't understand. It's not like he read all the material I've offered.
I say yes in humans mind emerges from brain but that does not mean it reduces to brain,That's why it emerged, it goes beyond it. But also the basic stricture (deep stricture of being) that allows that is the universal mind that creates the possibility of mind. But it shows up in individual organisms through brain chemistry,
There are various thinks we can ask about these hypotheses. Here are a few, with answers (for number 2, I have tried to get the answered as provided by Joe above).
That is an ungrammatical sentence I don't understand it's meaning.
A: How do these three hypotheses solve the hard problem?
1. So far it cannot, but research is on-going.
2. It just does.
3. It just does.
yes he obviously made such a serious attempt at understanding! Of course the reductionist mentality allows the skeptic to slide off the hook with no commitment but the religious believer has to answer all things or the belief is disproved. My answer is we can;t solve the hard problem without more research so 1 has a point it just doesn't disprove my position..
we know mind is real and that it is not physical that offers a good answer to the ultimate questions because is the only thing that does,
B: How do these explain why a brain injury in a certain part of the brain has a specific effect on consciousness?
1. As consciousness is in the brain, it is inevitable that damage to the brain will affect consciousness, and the type of damage will determine the effect.
2. "If you damage the brain you can't connect to consciousness" (nothing about why specific injuries have specific effects).what he is purposely blocking out my answers they all subsume his answers. Yes there is a connection between brain and mind.I have spelled this out every time. It's connection it's acess. We have consciousnesses and brain allows us to access it.
C: Why can we not detect this supposed medium?
1. Not applicable, there is no medium, it is just the brain, which we know is there.
everyone knows we have consciousness, your being awake and seeing these words knowing their meaning is part of being conscious, That we do not have to prove,
2. "None of that stuff needs to be known."
taking that out of context
3. Because it's magic.
D: How does the brain interact with this supposed medium?
1. Not applicable, there is no medium, it is just the brain.
aj so now he contradicts his position. Before he claimed he believes in mind,now he doesn't, he found out he's not supposed to atheist central did not approve. that's Thrush to us man from uncle fans,
2. "None of that stuff needs to be known."
taken out of context--I have said all along it interacts with it by making it accessible, I have answered that every time,
Are there any other questions we should ask, Joe? Are there better replies to any of these question for your hypothesis Joe? Which hypothesis do we have most warrant for?
when you get serious let me kowtow. just asking a bunch of crap to show up the other guy is not valid.
Blogger The Pixie said...
Joe: one can only explain so many times you just Oshkosh not have to go over the same basic ground every tine you talk about it. That is a game atheists play Then there is the fact that most of what you ask about is irrelevant,things we don't need to know,
you want to always bring it back to the same circular reasoning of hatred for religion
that;s region so it;no good' answers about why is good are wrong because it;s religion and religion is bad,
If you had a link to one place that you gave an explanation, I would believe you. But inevitably you do not.
ask a serious question
Joe: Just proved my point didn't you? religion is bad no matter what no answer can ever save it because it;s a religions answer and religion is bad,
Religion is bad because it is used as an excuse for not proving an explanation. As you said: "none of that stuff needs to be known It doesn't have to be known to be saved from sin..." In religion, explanations are not needed.
more games, I have a million question it;s easy to mike the up they don;t have to have any real importance just so you can;t answer with definite data, that inability always plays well for the skeptic, itz not like you re serious about learning,
I should have specified that 1 is an entirely naturalistic hypothesis (this was implied in the responses to questions C and D, by the way).
Joe: I say yes in humans mind emerges from brain but that does not mean it reduces to brain,That's why it emerged, it goes beyond it. But also the basic stricture (deep stricture of being) that allows that is the universal mind that creates the possibility of mind. But it shows up in individual organisms through brain chemistry,
Okay... So let us see how this hypthesis answers questions A to D.
Pix: A: How do these three hypotheses solve the hard problem?
Joe: yes he obviously made such a serious attempt at understanding! Of course the reductionist mentality allows the skeptic to slide off the hook with no commitment but the religious believer has to answer all things or the belief is disproved. My answer is we can;t solve the hard problem without more research so 1 has a point it just doesn't disprove my position..
we know mind is real and that it is not physical that offers a good answer to the ultimate questions because is the only thing that does,
So your answer to A is the same as mine. Thus far the two hypotheses are equal.
Pix: B: How do these explain why a brain injury in a certain part of the brain has a specific effect on consciousness?
Joe: what he is purposely blocking out my answers they all subsume his answers. Yes there is a connection between brain and mind.I have spelled this out every time. It's connection it's acess. We have consciousnesses and brain allows us to access it.
And again, you duck answering how a brain injury in a certain part of the brain has a specific effect on consciousness.
Your answer to B is inferior to mine.
Pix: C: Why can we not detect this supposed medium?
Joe: everyone knows we have consciousness, your being awake and seeing these words knowing their meaning is part of being conscious, That we do not have to prove,
Yes, we all know we have consciousness. We disagree on what that is. I say it is a property of matter. You say it involves another substance. This question is about that substance.
Joe: taking that out of context
That is the best answer I could find that you have offered to the question. I note that again you failed to answer the question.
Your answer to C is entirely lacking.
Pix: D: How does the brain interact with this supposed medium?
Joe: aj so now he contradicts his position. Before he claimed he believes in mind,now he doesn't, he found out he's not supposed to atheist central did not approve. that's Thrush to us man from uncle fans,
In my hypothesis, the mind exists, but purely in the brain. There is no other substance.
Joe: taken out of context--I have said all along it interacts with it by making it accessible, I have answered that every time,
What does that mean? How does it make it accessible? How is access achieved?
How is that different to hypothesis 3?
Pix: Are there any other questions we should ask, Joe?
Joe: when you get serious let me kowtow. just asking a bunch of crap to show up the other guy is not valid.
Okay, so between us we have these four questions. And for all four the naturalistic answer is as good or better than the universal mind one.
Mondays thing will have answer on this point, The information gap.
Most of your arguments have nothing to do with what I've said. Your basic approach is to say "you can't tell e how consciousness comes to be naturalistic have a theory about it with some loose associations that correlate aspects of the theory so therefore you can't argue for God." But that concerns answering how individual humans get conscious that has very little to do with my aguent. I am not arguing repeat NOT arguing that because people have consciousness there is a God. not my argument.
5/17/2018 07:47:00 AM Delete
Blogger The Pixie said...
Joe: Here we see Pixie;s ability to construct straw man arguments, that is all it proves.My position is a synthesis 1 and 2. Of course saying magic is just his childish mockery of a view he doesn't understand. It's not like he read all the material I've offered.
I should have specified that 1 is an entirely naturalistic hypothesis (this was implied in the responses to questions C and D, by the way).
could be compatible with my view to a point.
Joe: I say yes in humans mind emerges from brain but that does not mean it reduces to brain.That's why it emerged, it goes beyond it. But also the basic stricture (deep stricture of being) that allows that is the universal mind that creates the possibility of mind. But it shows up in individual organisms through brain chemistry,
Okay... So let us see how this hypthesis answers questions A to D.
Pix: A: How do these three hypotheses solve the hard problem?
Joe: yes he obviously made such a serious attempt at understanding! Of course the reductionist mentality allows the skeptic to slide off the hook with no commitment but the religious believer has to answer all things or the belief is disproved. My answer is we can;t solve the hard problem without more research so 1 has a point it just doesn't disprove my position..
we know mind is real and that it is not physical that offers a good answer to the ultimate questions because is the only thing that does,
So your answer to A is the same as mine. Thus far the two hypotheses are equal.
not quoit there's a huge difference in the kinds of answers we are giving, but moreover you are still assuming it's about individual humans and how man is conscious as long you are thinking that you are missing the boat completely
I don't have to answer that because I am not arguing about how humans get to be conscious. That does not prove that mind is replaceable to brain. But I did answer it, I said if the access point is danged you can't access consciousness,
say someone comes to your house who had never seen television,He assumes the shows originate in the box, you tell him now it's beaned thorough the air the box picks it up he says then why is it when I turn off the box the it stops?
Joe: what he is purposely blocking out my answers they all subsume his answers. Yes there is a connection between brain and mind.I have spelled this out every time. It's connection it's acess. We have consciousnesses and brain allows us to access it.
And again, you duck answering how a brain injury in a certain part of the brain has a specific effect on consciousness.
I gave that answer before
Your answer to B is inferior to mine.
the major searcher says your answer is simplistic
Really? And yet you said: "none of that stuff needs to be known It doesn't have to be known to be saved from sin,It doesn't have to be known to know God is is Real. those are the thins we are after here,"
By the way, if you look at my last few posts, I have not mentioned God. I think religion is the reason for you favouring one hypothesis over another, but neither hypothesis mentions God.
Joe: could be compatible with my view to a point.
Okay. But with regards to questions B, C and D, the two hypotheses must necessarily give different answers, and with regards to A, both fail to give an answer, so really this does not help your case at all.
Joe: not quoit there's a huge difference in the kinds of answers we are giving,...
Absolutely! I am not ducking them, for one thing.
Joe: ... but moreover you are still assuming it's about individual humans and how man is conscious as long you are thinking that you are missing the boat completely
I am comparing two hypotheses. One is about individual consciousness, the other is not. In what way am I missing the boat?
Joe: I don't have to answer that because I am not arguing about how humans get to be conscious. That does not prove that mind is replaceable to brain.
Either we are discussing human consciousness, or you and I are talking about entirely different things.
You do not answer why a brain injury in a certain part of the brain has a specific effect on consciousness. Again and again you duck this question, and answer a different question instead. And we both know why you are doing it. You have no answer, but you have to keep up pretending to yourself for the sake of your religious faith.
It is the same for the fMRI experiments. You can deny the conclusions, but the results are real. Different types of thought cause increased blood flow in different parts of the brain. Exactly what we expect if consciousness is an emergent, naturalistic property.
But unexplainable for the universal consciousness hypothesis.
Joe: say someone comes to your house who had never seen television,He assumes the shows originate in the box, you tell him now it's beaned thorough the air the box picks it up he says then why is it when I turn off the box the it stops?
Sure. And you show him the radio, and the PC connected to the internet and your mobile (cell) phone. Each does a different job, and is connected to the world in a different way. Is that what you propose for your hypothesis? A whole array of connects between the brain and the universal consciousness? One bit of the brain communicates with the universal consciousness when using short term memory, another bit when using long term memory, another bit when thinking about a loved one, another when doing maths, and another when arguing on the internet.
Joe: the major searcher says your answer is simplistic
Actually he was talking about something slightly different. He is saying it is simplistic to say that one part of the brain handles one task, which seems likely. However, I am saying different parts of the brain are required for different tasks; that allows for multiple parts for each task. I appreciate it is a subtle difference.
But this would suggest that in your hypothesis we now have several different parts of the brain all communicating with the universal consciousness when we think about cats, and a different, but overlapping set when we talk to a friend, and a further set when we are remembering our childhood.
It is like a "thin client" computer with dozens of connections to a server. Each time you do a calculation, different components in the computer send messages by their own dedicated line to the server, when you move data in or out of RAM, a different set of components each communicates with the server, by its own dedicated connection.
Well, I suppose it explains the fMRI and brain injury results.
i DID NOT SAY IT WAS SIMPLISTIC THINKING IT WAS TALIS WHO SAID IT STUPID, LEARN TO READ
- Actually, Joe, I did read your answer to Pix. You cite Tallis saying it was simplistic, and then you went on to say "it does't prove anything,It's on a par with saying most people with cancer have eaten white bread at some point in their lives so that proves white bread causes cancer". Of course, Tallis wasn't responding to exactly the same issue that was raised in this thread, but you seem to think that quote was appropriate. We do understand that the brain is quite complex. Nevertheless, is is evident that there are specific parts of the brain that play a critical role in certain specific cognitive functions (and this is what Pix said, also). That has been demonstrated over and over again.
But after being informed about all this, you stick to your guns, insisting that your quotation proves all of cognitive science is wrong. If anyone here has a simplistic understanding, it's you. You do this again and again. Find a quotation the seems to fit what you want to say, but you don't really understand it (or at least you don't understand how it applies to the discussion at hand), and then you believe you can dispute anyone because you have a quote.
i DID NOT SAY IT WAS SIMPLISTIC THINKING IT WAS TALIS WHO SAID IT STUPID, LEARN TO READ
- Actually, Joe, I did read your answer to Pix. You cite Tallis saying it was simplistic, and then you went on to say "it does't prove anything,It's on a par with saying most people with cancer have eaten white bread at some point in their lives so that proves white bread causes cancer". Of course, Tallis wasn't responding to exactly the same issue that was raised in this thread, but you seem to think that quote was appropriate.
you really have a big reading comprehension problem you are not able to understand the things you read.let's look at the qUote, ONE MORE EVER LOVING TIME!!!!!
Talis:
"he fundamental assumption is that we are our brains and this, I will argue presently, is not true. But this is not the only reason why neuroscience does not tell us what human beings “really” are: it does not even tell us how the brain works, how bits of the brain work, or (even if you accept the dubious assumption that human living could be parcelled up into a number of discrete functions) which bit of the brain is responsible for which function. The rationale for thinking of the kind – “This bit of the brain houses that bit of us...” – is mind-numbingly simplistic."
notice he includes "which bit of the brain is responsible for which function." that is part or what he calls simplistic. Baht is exactly what Pix and I were arguing about,I was quoting that directly in response to his question 'why does brain damage alter consciousness?' That is exactly the same thing, Talis is ragging on the notion that we can pin down behavior by charting stemulus to parts of the brain.
But after being informed about all this, you stick to your guns, insisting that your quotation proves all of cognitive science is wrong. If anyone here has a simplistic understanding, it's you. You do this again and again.
Me:
Talis says:
"neuroscience does not tell us what human beings “really” are: it does not even tell us how the brain works,"
that comes pretty close to saying it;s wrong! You ninny, I knew you thought I was quoting him to say all of neuroscience is wrong,Once again you are not capable of focusing upon ideas, you can't reason about what;'s being said,you are only able to think in big chunks of conflict:we are right they are wrong, them vs us,beat the enemy.
Find a quotation the seems to fit what you want to say, but you don't really understand it (or at least you don't understand how it applies to the discussion at hand), and then you believe you can dispute anyone because you have a quote.
you are just not on my level because you did not do doctoral work,stop wasting my time,
Blogger The Pixie said...
Joe: Most of your arguments have nothing to do with what I've said. Your basic approach is to say "you can't tell e how consciousness comes to be naturalistic have a theory about it with some loose associations that correlate aspects of the theory so therefore you can't argue for God." But that concerns answering how individual humans get conscious that has very little to do with my aguent. I am not arguing repeat NOT arguing that because people have consciousness there is a God. not my argument.
Really? And yet you said: "none of that stuff needs to be known It doesn't have to be known to be saved from sin,It doesn't have to be known to know God is is Real. those are the thins we are after here,"
I was not saying we should not study it in the course or human knowledge but in realtor to belief in God and and my argument for God we don't need to know it. that has nothing do with the thing I said. you are being totally non responsive.
By the way, if you look at my last few posts, I have not mentioned God. I think religion is the reason for you favoring one hypothesis over another, but neither hypothesis mentions God.
Dah! did you just check out at the front when Isaid this is all an argument for the existence of God?
Joe: could be compatible with my view to a point.
Okay. But with regards to questions B, C and D, the two hypotheses must necessarily give different answers, and with regards to A, both fail to give an answer, so really this does not help your case at all.
No that is wrong,I explained it, God crated the brain physiology to produce and access the mind, the consciousness dimension. Noting in the physiological account has to change. The whole physical brain chemistry thing is the same regardless of one's ontology, it's the ontological aspect that differs,the metaphysical.
Joe: not quoit there's a huge difference in the kinds of answers we are giving,...
Absolutely! I am not ducking them, for one thing.
No? you just intimated that you don't know that I'm making a God argument! Then I just said all your arguments hare non-applicable you didn't even alter a bit you are still defending the non applicable,l so you are doing everything,
you lost on the sub point anyway,
you have not answered my six arguments why mind cannot be reduced to brain, your irrelevant questions are just a smoke screen, you are avoiding the issue of my God argument.
- Nobody here is saying that. It's a straw man. We know that neural networks inherently function in a distributed manner. But we also know that various pieces of the brain are critical COMPONENTS for performing various specific cognitive functions. It is a fact that damage in certain specific parts of the brain causes loss of specific cognitive function. This isn't up for debate. It's a scientific fact, and Tallis should be well aware of it. But I think the main problem is that you aren't interpreting his words correctly. I've told you before, Joe - when it comes to science, you are prone to misunderstanding what you read. You really should listen when people who know more than you about science try to tell you that you've got the wrong idea. As for what makes us human, your philosophers can weigh in on that, but don't pretend that you or your philosophers can overrule what is known about the function of the brain.
you are just not on my level because you did not do doctoral work,stop wasting my time
- Once again, you're WRONG, Joe. Don't go around boasting about a degree you don't have. And don't assume I have less education than you. It only reveals you as the fool.
I can answer them just as well as you can:
emergence-did-it
It is not a real explanation, but then neither is yours. It is just a sticking plaster to hide our ignorance - just like yours.
However, it fits the evidence better, and scientists are doing real research so one day it may be a real explanation.
Pix
Blogger im-skeptical said...
“This bit of the brain houses that bit of us...”
- Nobody here is saying that.
yet you defend it and you oppose my every statement to that effect,
It's a straw man. We know that neural networks inherently function in a distributed manner. But we also know that various pieces of the brain are critical COMPONENTS for performing various specific cognitive functions. It is a fact that damage in certain specific parts of the brain causes loss of specific cognitive function.
yes but non of that proves that mind is phenomenal or an illusion or any such thing or that it reduces to mind,
This isn't up for debate. It's a scientific fact, and Tallis should be well aware of it.
as I said if you knock the life out of some one they are not alive anymore, that does not mean that life is nothing more than the physical processes of the body. What we are debating is the conclusions you draw from those facts. Although I can't blame you wanting to be sure of my meaning in this day and age,but you should know I am not in solidarity with the new American stupidity,or it;s anti-scientific implications.
But I think the main problem is that you aren't interpreting his words correctly. I've told you before, Joe - when it comes to science, you are prone to misunderstanding what you read.
Wrong! I have have demonstrated over and over again you go by the dictates of atheist mob rather than reason or analysis. I am a better reader than you are,I studied close reading in graduate school you did don't even kokwwhqatthatis.
I just showed you the interpretation of Talis I made is right by the quote itself you are not answering it, i do not see an answer, You probably didn't read it,
You really should listen when people who know more than you about science try to tell you that you've got the wrong idea.
Yo don't know anything about science, you don't read the material
your knowledge of subatomic theory proved to be inferiror to mine, I totally bested you on that,
As for what makes us human, your philosophers can weigh in on that, but don't pretend that you or your philosop
hers can overrule what is known about the function of the brain.
\
that little pretense shows how deep your goes. It is Chalmers who makes the argument about the bait and switch you don't know anything that,we see the deep ignorance of yours there,
have you ever even heard of David Chalmers?
I have never claimed to have a Ph,D. but I should have ,I have done all but dissertation and I did half of that,I made 4.0 for years, you have not had one day of Ph,D level work,I have the knowledge i have all but the piece of paper,
Joe: you have not answered my six arguments why mind cannot be reduced to brain, your irrelevant questions are just a smoke screen, you are avoiding the issue of my God argument.
I can answer them just as well as you can:
emergence-did-it
emergence is from God. that's an obvious dodge because they are positive arguments as to why we can't reduce mind to brain. Now an atheist could make them, they are totally neutral as far as God goes.So your refusal to consider them is just an admission that you don't know.
It is not a real explanation, but then neither is yours. It is just a sticking plaster to hide our ignorance - just like yours.
Since you are not willing discuss what kind of answer is needed you are not wiling to face the fact that science (aka chemistry) is not the only valid form of knowledge then you have no real meaning to that statement. You might as well just be saying: you don't belong to my club. you are really just saying my unknowing assertions are better than yours.
However, it fits the evidence better, and scientists are doing real research so one day it may be a real explanation.
The six argument make about irreducibly are coming from scientists,they are in peer reviewed academic science journals the whole bit. You are afraid to deal with them
this topic is closed
Nagel and Chalmers are both naturalists. What evidence do you have that Nagel is not a naturalist? Aside form the atheist bumper-sticker slogans like "woo-laden stuff"?
Obviously you two have education in different areas. I have no idea what level of education you've attained; it doesn't really matter anyway. However, I think you've been taken in by the mystique of science; you seem to have an unquestioning faith in its all-explanatory powers. Science is a human activity; it requires interpretation, foundational assumptions, a worldview m=none of which are or can be strictly 'scientific.' To think that science can circumvent these enabling factors strikes me as naive. Joe's kind of education has been about understanding the conceptual and historical foundations of science whereas yours (seems) to take scientific authority as a given that cannot be questioned. And if anyone does talk about or question them, you relegate and dismiss it as "woo." No more thought required. Comrades, pay no attention to these nattering woo-purveyors! Back to the labs!