The continuation of my critique of Steven Novella's post about materialism and the mind-brain relation: (Novella in regular type. His quotation of me in italics)
[Egnor] continues:
What does Novella mean by “brain maturity”? Mylenation? If so, then there is a vague correlation. Babies are immature, and their brains are incompletely mylenated. What else could he mean by “brain maturity”? Size? Dendritic complexity? Anatomical (gyral) complexity? None of those brain states correlates in any reliable way with mental and emotional maturity. There are mentally/emotionally mature people with brains of all sizes and shapes and structures. There isn’t the least bit of correlation.Gross disease states can correlate, somewhat. A patient with advanced Alzheimers will have brain changes at autopsy that would lead the pathologist to predict that the patient was “immature” in behavior. But aside from gross obvious brain pathology, there is no consistent correlation.Contra Novella, you can’t do an MRI of your prospective spouse to determine how mature/immature he/she is.I honestly have no idea what Novella means by “brain maturity will correlate with mental and emotional maturity.”It’s just a stupid assertion.
Egnor’s lack of understanding is not an actual argument, even though he confuses it for one. Here I am not talking about personality,I am talking about personality. Novella makes a bizarre claim: that every mental act is explainable in full by a strictly material brain state-- that the 'brain causes the mind, without remainder'.
Personality involves maturity, in the sense of judgement, self-discipline, etc. maturity. There's no question that brain states sometimes correlate very loosely with maturity-- teens act immaturely at times-- that is not what Novella is claiming. Novella claims that all mental states ontologically reduce to material brain states, without remainder, and that science demonstrates this to be true beyond dispute.
That claim is delusional.
The fact remains that most of what we would consider mature traits-- honesty, acceptance of responsibility, planning ahead-- have no specific correlation with a brain state as yet determined by science. Now perhaps some day a correlation will be found-- your 'planning ahead' will be found to correlate in a specific way with the level of dopamine exceeding 13.4 picograms in your subthalamic nucleus or such-- but today no such correlation has been demonstrated. And since Novella claims that all mental states are caused completely by material brain states, this counts against his hypothesis. The number of different thoughts you can have is essentially infinite, and since not a single thought has ever been shown to be caused by a specific brain state, that data against Novella's unhinged assertion that 'every single prediction of materialism has been verified by neuroscience' is essentially infinite as well.
but the development of the brain as we grow and the fact that this brain development correlates with neurological maturity. The most obvious example is the brain of a baby or child. Babies act like babies because they have a baby’s brain – it’s not just the lack of worldly experience.Novella is incoherent. His assertion is that all mental function is brain function, period. According to his hard materialism, the only reason a baby would or could do or think anything is because he has a baby brain, because the brain causes the mind, without remainder. So forget "lack of worldly experience" as a cause for immature behavior. It's all brain, folks.
One gets the impression that even Novella can't take dogmatic materialism seriously.
As parts of their brain mature (developmentally speaking) then they gain new abilities. They cannot walk until their cerebellum develops sufficiently.Walking involves all sorts of neurological functions. This, of course, proves materialism.
Novella:
I was also referring to research into the teen brain. Scientists followed children over years and imaged their brains while doing specific tasks. This is what they found:
Another series of MRI studies is shedding light on how teens may process emotions differently than adults. Using functional MRI (fMRI), a team led by Dr. Deborah Yurgelun-Todd at Harvard’s McLean Hospital scanned subjects’ brain activity while they identified emotions on pictures of faces displayed on a computer screen.5 Young teens, who characteristically perform poorly on the task, activated the amygdala, a brain center that mediates fear and other “gut” reactions, more than the frontal lobe. As teens grow older, their brain activity during this task tends to shift to the frontal lobe, leading to more reasoned perceptions and improved performance. Similarly, the researchers saw a shift in activation from the temporal lobe to the frontal lobe during a language skills task, as teens got older. These functional changes paralleled structural changes in temporal lobe white matter.
In other words, teens act differently than adults partly because their brains function differently. Their emotional immaturity correlates with functional immaturity in the brain – it’s not just lack of life experience.
Correlation between mental states and fMRI does not provide an arrow of causation. Novella provides no evidence teasing out the question: how much of the change in teen brain function with maturity is caused by the teens' mental states (more experience, etc) rather than the other way around.
Does mental state cause brain state? Does brain state cause mental state? Is the reality a blend of the two?
Novella's dogmatic materialism leaves him only one option: all mental states are caused completely by material brain states. This fMRI study does nothing to support the materialist assertion. It merely demonstrates correlation, without demonstrating the arrow of causality.
Does Novella even know how to evaluate a research study?
He makes an even deeper logical error. Novella again makes the same gaffe with the teens as he made about the babies' maturity. He asserts that teens are teens "partly because their brains function differently... it's not just lack of experience."
!
Notice that Novella has no option for invoking "partly" and "not just" brain function. According to his materialism, it's all brain function, because the brain causes the mind, period.
Novella isn't even coherent. His theory is so idiotic that even he can't accept it fully.
More to come...
Does mental state cause brain state? Does brain state cause mental state? Is the reality a blend of the two?
Novella's dogmatic materialism leaves him only one option: all mental states are caused completely by material brain states. This fMRI study does nothing to support the materialist assertion. It merely demonstrates correlation, without demonstrating the arrow of causality.
Does Novella even know how to evaluate a research study?
He makes an even deeper logical error. Novella again makes the same gaffe with the teens as he made about the babies' maturity. He asserts that teens are teens "partly because their brains function differently... it's not just lack of experience."
!
Notice that Novella has no option for invoking "partly" and "not just" brain function. According to his materialism, it's all brain function, because the brain causes the mind, period.
Novella isn't even coherent. His theory is so idiotic that even he can't accept it fully.
More to come...
"Their emotional immaturity correlates with functional immaturity in the brain – it’s not just lack of life experience."
ReplyDeleteSo they are not really 'human'?
I have long suspected that :P
So Novella has tested this with teens who do not lack life experience? Teens who have somehow defied time and space to be 90 year old teens?
All I see here is an avenue of attack.
Novella HIMSELF should be studied to see why a man of his years suffers from materialism. Perhaps HIS brain state is immature? Or perhaps he uses a different area of his body altogether to reason - IE the gluteus set.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteYou know what your arguments boil down to? You merely assert that Novella is incoherent.
No, scratch that! Stop the presses! Novella isn't even coherent. His theory is so idiotic that even he can't accept it fully.
Wow, you just reduced him to pieces! I'm sure he is smarting right now.
Again, Oleg has nothing to say on the subject.
ReplyDeleteBrain maturity, Oleg.
Do you see strength in Novella's argument? Where?
All I see is someone with a lack of social understanding. Maybe someone who missed their own teenage years? Could this be Novella's 'Why I was justified in being such a nerd' argument? Just a guess.
OK Michael,
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly do you believe and what's your evidence for it.
I think the evidence from neuroscience definitely indicates that:
The mind is a product of the brain. The brain does things of which the mind is completely unaware. The decision to perform a motor action is made by the brain first, then the mind becomes aware of it and then the action is performed so the mind 'thinks' it initiated it.
The mind is good, but it's not perfect. It can be fooled, as shown by all the visual and auditory illusions. False memories and remodeled memories also show how imperfect the mind is. False memories can seem to be just as true as real ones.
The mind is affected by physical factors. Even just inadequate sleep is enough. Some people even have synaesthesia when tired, experiencing one sensation as another.
The brain does physically develop after birth. Teenagers admittedly are difficult because they're also going through the hormonal surges of puberty (in previous centuries, 15 year olds were marrying and having children). Agreed, fMRI scans are crude and showing that one pattern of increased brain activation is the cause and not the result of a decision is not strictly speaking possible. But in admittedly small numbers of subjects (the small numbers is due to the cost of doing fMRI scans) the same patterns of activation occur.
Alzheimer's disease isn't immaturity. There are definite neuropathological changes in the brain such as neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques that don't occur in the immature brain.
What exactly is your hypothesis? And what is your evidence? I've read your posts and I can't see one.
@bachfiend:
ReplyDeleteI believe that hylemorphic dualism (Thomistic dualism) is the best explanation for nature, and it naturally explains the the mind-brain connection. I've explained it several times on this blog and on ENV, and I intend to post on it quite a bit when I'm done with Novella's nonsense.
If you want a nice and quite readable account, read Ed Feser's Aquinas ch 4.
I am not a Cartesian dualist. That framework has almost as many problems as materialism. Thomistic dualism uses hylemorphism (matter-form) as the fundamental paradigm of nature, and the mind-body is the matter (soul)-form relation in man. Some aspects of the soul, specifically intellect and will, are immaterial. Other aspects, such as sensation, growth, nutrition, etc are material.
Thomistic dualism provides the framework that is most consistent with logic, common sense, and neuroscience.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI've just read Oderburg's essay on hylemorphic dualism. It's just absolute nonsense. It assumes that there is immaterial form, whatever that is, and an immortal soul, as givens, without providing the slightest evidence that they exist. It's just words, words, words, ...
You might think that it is the best explanation of neuroscience, but all you are doing is making up a story, the same way that ID proponents claim that intelligence is the best explanation of biological complexity. Do you agree with Michael Behe that quinine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was intelligently designed to kill more humans, since quinine resistance can't naturally evolve?
You haven't got a scrap of evidence. All you're doing is stating what you wish to be true. It's all make believe and piling words on top of each other. There's an infinite number of thoughts, but virtually all of them are nonsensical.
Your blogs on mind are just nonsensical.
@bachfiend:
ReplyDeleteOderburg isn't nonsense. He's a brilliant philosopher. You don't understand the terminology he's using (neither the definitions of the words nor the genuine meanings). For example, "matter" means something quite different in hylemorphism than it does in ordinary language or in b.s. philosophy like materialism.
You have to engage the topic to criticize it competently. That's why I recommended Feser. We explains things very well. When you become comfortable with the basics, Gilson's "The Christian Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas" is superb. It's dense, and not an easy read, but accessible if you have some grounding (Feser) and can take the time. It took me about a year to get through it.
You can no more intelligently criticize Thomistic dualism without a genuine understanding of hylemorphic metaphysics than a person can intelligently criticize general relativity without knowing something about math.
You may not care to invest the time to understand it. I did (my understanding is rudimentary), and it is a very powerful and fruitful way of understanding nature and God. If you don't take the time to engage it, you have nothing meaningful to say about it.
Mike: it is a very powerful and fruitful way of understanding nature
ReplyDeleteYou keep saying that, but so far you have not presented any examples of enhanced understanding of nature based on Thomism.
I think Thomism could realte better to data than other types oh mind theories. I think that is the point.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteThe only bs I can see is the philosophy of hylemorphic metaphysics. Defining words to have a completely different meaning or defining words to be incomprehensible is nonsense. I read Oderburg's definition of 'form' and it's completely confused. His analogies of a lump of clay having matter and form, and if you smash it it still has matter but no form, and a dead dog not being a dog, because it has the matter of a dog but not the form of dog, are just bizarre.
If Oderburg is a brilliant philosopher, I'm glad I never took much interest in philosophy. It shows what it can do to people's mental abilities. Deductive reasoning can take you only so far. Unless your initial premise is true, even if the logical steps are valid, the argument collapses.
There's absolutely no evidence that the mind exists once the brain is destroyed. There's no evidence that the soul exists. You might think that hylemorphic metaphysics explains your viewpoint of the mind, but it doesn't. You're just telling a very bad story.
I think that if I insisted that the geocentric model 'explained' the world much better than the heliocentric model, I'd be on better ground than you. Everyone can 'see' that the Sun moves and the Earth is still.
You don't actually need mathematics to understand Einstein's Special and General Theories of Relativity. Einstein's thought experiments are completely adequate to understand them, and they're the way he first thought of them. Actually Einstein needed a lot of help with the mathematics and didn't actually manage to get a rigorous proof of his E = m x c (squared). You can if you want criticize the theories using the thought experiments; that is, dispute that there's no privileged position and that the speed of light in a vacuum isn't a constant or that acceleration and gravitational force aren't equivalent.
Hylemorphic metaphysics makes the completely unjustifiable assumptions that form and souls actually mean anything. Cloaking that in opaque jargon is like coating cow pats in chocolate.
I always find it amazing how one-sided the materialists are. They point out the obvious fact that matter affects mind (One acts differently after consuming alcohol or after a brain injury) while completely ignoring the far more pervasive, frequent, and commonplace evidence that mind affects matter (I lift my arm when I decide to). It's all sweetness and light when they point out something blatantly obvious on one side of the ledger, but either they completely ignore, or sarcastically explain away the even more blatantly obvious other side of the ledger.
ReplyDeleteO_O Well Bach, I have no idea what you read, but why don't you try just reading first and not thinking about you read, taking notes THAN making the objections to each assertion.
ReplyDeleteMatteo,
ReplyDeleteActually you've got it wrong when you state that mind affects matter. Brain scanning shows that the brain sends out the command to lift the arm, then the mind receives notice that the arm is to lifted, then the muscles in the arm perform the action. But the mind isn't aware of the first step so it rationalizes that it started the action. So it's still matter (the brain acts) and the mind notices.
Edward,
Oderburg doesn't make any points worth objecting to. He's not even wrong, he's just irrelevant. Starting off with the premises that form and mind are immaterial just invalidates the entire 30 odd pages of waffle he wrote.
Bachfiend,
ReplyDeleteYour deep faith in materialism would be moving, if it was a moral and ethical force. Being unguided and futile, however, it makes you appear to of the 'bunker mentality'.
All that aside, your assertion are junk - and that is visible to a layman like myself. The basic logic is flawed. All the diction and references to Latin names do not cloud the fallacies you present.
You present to Matteo for example, that my arm reaches for a coke and lets me know it has done it for me. A profound rejection of causal logic, a foundation of your materialism (no?), is simply thrown out the window to make such a statement. My thirst is apparently felt in my arm ligaments before my renal system, nervous system, and brain. And what if I am NOT thirsty? What if it is a second or third beer, Bach? My arm wants to get a buzz on and is taking my brain out for drinks?
You remind me of a certain enemy combatant we caught defending a portable toilet with a spade ...in a crater.
Consider: Arguing for futility is FUTILE.
Oderburg doesn't make any points worth objecting to. He's not even wrong, he's just irrelevant. Starting off with the premises that form and mind are immaterial just invalidates the entire 30 odd pages of waffle he wrote.
ReplyDelete_____________________________________
Bach before you enter a discussion you need first to get a grip on what metahphysics or epystemology we are going to discuss. In this case, you are readin another person's opinion... sooo what you need to do is grasp their metaphysics or epystemology.
For instance ... I can say the same about your objectiong which you just DID in the second phrase. you are just saying words... substantiate your objection, is it a objection based on the lack of pragmatism of his ideas, is it because youi are materialist and you don't want to accept his ideas, is it becausse you believe positivism to be true, so his ideas are obviously non falsiable.
See you are too stuck in you own school of thought, materialism in this case. I mean your school of thought will always think that other conflicting schools are wrong, buuuuttt.... well it becomes worthless for you to critisize something if, the only reason why other people are wrong is because they do not agree with your own school thought.
See would be the same if I were.... I dunno a Phylosophical Skeptic or a Anti-realism defendder, and believed I was absolutely correct. Everything you say becomes worthless because of mine "a priori" school of thought ( that in this case is the ultimate truth for me )
CrusadeRex,
ReplyDeleteCommon sense assumptions as to how the world works are often wrong.
Your inability to understand how the mind works is an example. You might think that you are your 'mind', but actually you are your 'brain' which is a complex of largely subconscious modules including sensation, motor control, emotion, planning, empathy, etc.
We know that the brain acts and the mind reacts. The simplest experiment showing this is one where the subject has to press a button whenever he wants to and also note the exact time on a counter. The motor signal always precedes the subjective desire to press the button.
The mind is a product of the brain to allow it to sort out all the contradictory impulses that are coursing through the brain. To use your beer example, if you're on your 4th beer, one part of your brain might be noting that you're thirsty or hot, another part might be craving the physiological effects of the alcohol, another part might be noting that you've put on weight and don't need the extra calories and the planning part of your brain is noting that you have to drive home and drink-driving isn't a good idea. The actual decision that your mind appears to make is a result of the addition of all the subconscious impulses, and the mind then rationalizes the decision, which has often been made for emotional reasons.
Bach,
ReplyDeleteThanks for responding.
"Common sense assumptions as to how the world works are often wrong."
Agreed. The fact remains, however, that my arm has still never taken me out for a pint of the good stuff. None of my limbs or organs have. Instead I have taken them. Even without one of my arms (or both, God forbid)I could still manage a beer. Will my arm make off to the public house without me? It better not!
You then continue:
"Your inability to understand how the mind works is an example."
Well, I may be unable to understand it properly and in that I am in very good company (most mortal beings). You, Bach, on the other hand deny the mind's very existence beyond the illusory function of a beautifully 'complex' lump of tissue. We imagine our imagination, in your imagination. Fine. I get it.
Weird as is reads in plain English, I understand what you mean. If you were not a materialist, I would call it quixotic!
I disagree, but I understand your position.
That said, I personally WILL consider things beyond the material and continue to exist as individual, moral, being. I admit to not properly understanding the mind.
As for me personally seeing myself as a/my mind, I do not.
You mistake me for a student or adherent of Cartesian dualism/thought.
I am not.
Mind and physical being are two parts of a larger. I write this based on my understanding, experience, and instincts on this very real subject.
But, again I see your argument, Bach. It just falls short. It is not a matter of common sense that keeps us from consensus. Rather it is the chasm of logic, philosophical differences and life experience. We reason differently, view the world differently, and have lived very different existences, but we are created in the same image and for the same purpose. There, in purpose, we may find common ground. Or can we?
Are your forbidden purpose as well, Bach?
The mind is a product of the brain to allow it to sort out all the contradictory impulses that are coursing through the brain.
ReplyDelete__________________________________
Weiiirrrd. That is a teleological argument. There is no teleology according to Darwinism, just a shit happen principle guided luckily by natural selection. Why would the mind try to bridge a already fucked up brain XD ????
Isn't it easier to just let is stay the way it is and let it disappear and try a better brain some day ????
Edward,
ReplyDeleteThat's not a teleological argument. Everything biological has a purpose. The heart exists to pump blood, the kidneys exist to regulate salt and fluid balance, the mind exists to rationalize contradictory impulses. It would be teleological to state that the Earth exists for humans alone. Or that flowers exist for the enjoyment of the gardener.
CrusadeRex,
No, I don't agree that we are created in the same image and for the same purpose. I'm a materialistic atheist, don't forget. I've looked at the same evidence as you, and I've come to the conclusion that there's no god, let alone a God who had his son sacrificed on a cross in atonement for Eve giving the fruit of forbidden knowledge to Adam in the garden of Eden 6,000 years ago. It's just too ridiculous.
The mind affects the brain
ReplyDelete1. “In a study published in the journal NeuroImage, researchers report that certain regions in the brains of long-term meditators were larger than in a similar control group.
“Specifically, meditators showed significantly larger volumes of the hippocampus and areas within the orbito-frontal cortex, the thalamus and the inferior temporal gyrus–all regions known for regulating emotions.
“‘We know that people who consistently meditate have a singular ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and engage in mindful behavior,’ said Eileen Luders, lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. ‘The observed differences in brain anatomy might give us a clue why meditators have these exceptional abilities.’
“Research has confirmed the beneficial aspects of meditation. In addition to having better focus and control over their emotions, many people who meditate regularly have reduced levels of stress and bolstered immune systems. But less is known about the link between meditation and brain structure.
“The researchers found significantly larger cerebral measurements in meditators compared with controls, including larger volumes of the right hippocampus and increased gray matter in the right orbito-frontal cortex, the right thalamus and the left inferior temporal lobe. There were no regions where controls had significantly larger volumes or more gray matter than meditators".
PhysOrg–May 13, 2009. Source: University of California-Los Angeles
2. "People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don’t. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.
“In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That’s intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age.
“‘Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being,’ says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School.
“The researchers compared brain scans of 20 experienced meditators with those of 15 non-meditators. Four of the former taught meditation or yoga…the rest worked in careers such as law, health care, and journalism.…During scanning, the meditators meditated; the others just relaxed and thought about whatever they wanted.
PhysOrg–January 31, 2006. Harvard University. William J. Cromie
The Mind Affects the Brain (continuation)
ReplyDelete3. There was a study reported at the American Geriatric Association convention in 1979 involving forty-seven participants whose average age was 52.5 years. It found that people who had been meditating more than seven years were approximately twelve years younger physiologically than those of the same chronological age who were not meditating.”
Gabriel Cousens, M.D., Conscious Eating, p. 281
4. “Everyone around the water cooler knows that meditation reduces stress. But with the aid of advanced brain-scanning technology, researchers are beginning to show thatmeditation directly affects the function and structure of the brain, changing it in ways that appear to increase attention span, sharpen focus and improve memory.
One recent study found evidence that the daily practice of meditation thickened the parts of the brain’s cerebral cortex responsible for decision making, attention and memory. Sara Lazar, a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, presented preliminary results last November that showed that the gray matter of twenty men and women who meditated for just forty minutes a day was thicker than that of people who did not.…What’s more, her research suggests that meditation may slow the natural thinning of that section of the cortex that occurs with age.”
How to Get Smarter, One Breath At A Time, Lisa Takeuchi Cullen. Time, January 16, 2006, p. 93
Novella is a misophist.
ReplyDeleteI bet he thinks he actually chose to believe what he believes, based on evidence.
Unfortunately if what he believes is true, that cannot be so.
CS Lewis stated it nicely, "If naturalism were true then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes...it cuts its own throat."
I would say "non rational" rather than irrational, but you all get the point, right?
And, "The theory that thought is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense; for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction but of which it would be meaningless to use the words 'true' or 'false'". -C.S. Lewis
Materialism sucks. It simply doesn't work in the real world.
When you have a anti-religion scoundrel like Voltaire rebuking atheists, its time to think something is really wrong with their views:
"The atheists are for the most part imprudent and misguided scholars who reason badly who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis the eternity of things and of inevitability..." - Voltaire: Philosophical Dictionary
Thus Novella is an "imprudent and misguided scholar who not being able to understand" his own domain has run aground upon the rocks of sophism. He thus wastes much time spewing forth geistigen Blähungen.
The most hilarious thing about people like Novella is that they always try to convince you that you're "nothing but a pack of neurons" (Crick), all while failing to notice that, if that's true, then no one can change their own mind.
Or, as Provine put, "free will is nonexistent"
For, mind equaling brain, one's mind cannot be changed without some sort of physical modification to the brain. You can't just choose.
But of course, his idea could possibly explain Novella's incapacity to change his own mind, er brain, and accept the truth about his anserine ideas.
LOL
"Everything biological has a purpose."
ReplyDeleteWrong. You don't understand evolution. It has no purpose, no reason, no teleology and thus nothing that it creates has any purpose either.
Purpose is an illusion.
Dawkins et al. say so, so there.
LOL
Why are you materialist immune to logic?
Bach, I would agree to you, because I feel that this structures have purpose. But for unguided evolution like Darwinism. There is no teleology. Your heart has no purpose, it was probably not even made for pumping blood, actually a unguided evolution, we got to keep telling ourselves that, for instance HANDS are not made to hold things but rather they just showed up there, luckyly with the right muscles with the correct traction force, with the correct bone size, and correct cognitive capabilbities, and in the correct place. I mean full-fledged unguided evolution obligates me by logic to accept that there is no teleology in anything.
ReplyDeleteSee you used teleology. Teleological arguments are arguments that usually call upon purpose or objective to something, which you did, you gave purpose, objective to the mind. BUT I can not accept your explanation if Darwinism is correct * In its totally unguided form *. You see I am being picky but for a good reason. If mind is meant to solve problems in the brain, than that has objective. And objective becomes part of our equation!
Well Bach let me see if I can explain what Telos of purpose is. Because you probably do not understand what Telos is.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, does a gun have a purpose to be the way it is? If yes, then it HAS a purpose! Telos!
Now was the gun made to kill the person which could probably kill in a few days. Well who knows. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have Telos.
You are confusing Teleology or the sort "This is made for exactly for this other particular object" with , "this is made for this".
Both have teleology, purpose or objective to it. You probably heard me say Teleology and jumped straight to Theology, which didn't even existed when the word Telos was made, and from where Teleology comes from.
Melbourne,
ReplyDeleteYou're right, but I'd put it as the brain affects the brain. You don't even have to pick esoteric items such as meditation. Professional musicians, such as violinists, who have spent years developing their skills, have overdeveloped and expanded cortical fields involved with fine motor control of their fingers and hands and also auditory perception to attain perfect pitch and tone. Practice makes perfect, even with a nonphysical activity such as meditation.
Gary H,
I agree that there's no such thing as free will. People can change their minds, and it does involve physical changes in the brain, albeit of subtle and undetectable nature. Memories are not set in concrete and unalterable. Whenever a memory is called forth, it's changed in keeping with the person's current opinions. A person might have a completely different opinion to that hold 10 years earlier, but often the memory of that memory is amended to that held currently.
And materialism works.
Also you don't understand evolution. It doesn't state that there's no purpose. It states that there's no goal. Adaptations have to be beneficial now, not in a hundred years. The flightless dodo on Mauritius would have been well advised to have re-evolved its flight wings in the 16th century, before Dutch and English sailors, out of boredom, caused their extinction around 1680, but that's not what evolution is. It has no long term goals. It doesn't think ahead.
Edward,
Have you ever looked at a monkey's hands? You'll be amazed at how similar they are to ours. Their hands evolved to grip things too with just the right balance of muscles and bones, just like ours. Clue; they're evolved primates, just like us.
Human inventions, such as guns, have teleological function because they were made.
bachfiend said...
ReplyDelete" I agree that there's no such thing as free will. People can change their minds, and it does involve physical changes in the brain, albeit of subtle and undetectable nature."
You don't see the contradiction in what you said there?
No free will = can't change your mind.
This isn't hard.
Worse, "undetectable nature"??!!
You realize that this means that your statement is unreliable, unprovable, and unfalsifiable, right?
I.e., no one should take it seriously at all, including you.
"And materialism works."
No it doesn't. You just gave us some proof with the above nonsense claims.
Materialist reasoning cripples the mind and causes immunity against logic.
" Also you don't understand evolution."
I'm afraid I understand it far better than you, sorry.
" It doesn't state that there's no purpose. It states that there's no goal."
You like word games I see.
Try using a dictionary next time maybe.
"pur·pose
[pur-puhs] Show IPA noun, verb, -posed, -pos·ing.
noun
1. the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc.
2. an intended or desired result; end; aim; goal.
3. determination; resoluteness.
4. the subject in hand; the point at issue.
5. practical result, effect, or advantage: to act to good purpose." - dictionary.com
"pur·pose (pûrps)
n.
1. The object toward which one strives or for which something exists; an aim or a goal: "And ever those, who would enjoyment gain/Must find it in the purpose they pursue" (Sarah Josepha Hale).
2. A result or effect that is intended or desired; an intention." - The free dictionary
" ... It has no long term goals. It doesn't think ahead."
Exactly. I.e. it has no purpose.
So you still don't understand Darwinian evolution.
Have you ever looked at a monkey's hands? You'll be amazed at how similar they are to ours
This is typical Darwinian fallacious reasoning.
A clear example of the undistributed middle fallacy and the affirming the consequent fallacy.
You are saying "like this therefore from this". See?
Darwinism is full of logical fallacies and Origin is crammed packed full of such errors.
Darwin was a very poor thinker, yet a very good story teller like atheist high priest Richard Dawkins.
Story telling doesn't count as scientific proof.
Gary H,
ReplyDeleteFree will means that choices are made independent of genetics, environment, subconscious thought processes, emotions, etc. It means that a person under exactly the same conditions can make different decisions. This doesn't happen. Choices for most people are predetermined.
Slight and undetectable doesn't mean nonexistent.
Dictionary definitions, particularly when they indicate multiple uses, are only a guide. Most of the definitions you quoted above indicate immediate results, including the ones with 'goal'. But I said long term goals. Evolution is only concerned purpose in the here and now, survival now and successful breeding to have viable offspring and grandchildren.
The point about the monkey's hands was in response to Edward's claim that the humans hand is designed to hold things. It isn't. It evolved to be the way it is as part of our common ancestry with monkeys who also have hands suited for gripping. Evolution is cleverer than you, literally. The giant panda also has a hand capable of gripping, but because it evolved from carnivores with opposable thumbs it evolved a false thumb, an oversized wrist sesamoid bone.
Evolution explains the facts. ID doesn't. Unless you want to assert that the Intelligent Designer designed monkey and human hands to look the same and the giant panda's hand in a completely different and inefficient manner to do the same thing, grip.
Darwin was a genius, but he was writing around 150 years ago, so of course he might errors. And Richard Dawkins also is brilliant, unlike Michael Egnor.
Bach,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"...I've come to the conclusion that there's no god, let alone a God who had his son sacrificed on a cross in atonement for Eve giving the fruit of forbidden knowledge to Adam in the garden of Eden 6,000 years ago. It's just too ridiculous."
[Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge your respectful capitalization of His name. It is proper English and polite. You are one of the few materialists I have sparred with that bothers such courtesy. *tips cap*]
Now on to the red meat:
Did I posit those ideas? No.
I was speaking of purpose in general, not the purpose of the Christ or original sin etc.
6000 years? Eve as a motivator? I think you have mistaken me for another type of Christian, Bach.
Perhaps I should begin suggesting you adhere to Haekel and Darwin's ideas on race? Nietzsche's on the Superman? They were materialists after all. Wouldn't that be ridiculous too?
Maybe there are less easily ridiculed forms of materialism...and my religion?
Maybe Nazis and New Earthers are not the whole spectrum? I wonder! (is wonder allowed either?)
But fair enough, you believe in nothing AT ALL save what can be proven by Bacon's Dogma on the study of material sciences. This requirement is due to the fact you may be ridiculed if you are found to be incorrect in this above mentioned stance by others in your field. I get it.
Why they would ridicule you is not explained. You simply stated it was worthy of ridicule.
That ridicule could be indicative of a 'brain hurt' (see here), you may want to book a session with the good Doctor.
I jest, of course.
But, in all seriousness this is not about appearances or references, but substance.
A life driven by purpose and meaning is important. Futility is not the desired state for a human, or any living being, to exist in. Appearance of purpose is not enough.
Can we agree:
1)There is a reason for ALL this.
2)A purpose to being alive and aware beyond material; and that there are functions that correspond to that purpose.
If NO, then what good to anyone is your myopic 'truth'?
If YES, this is where we may find common ground, if you will allow yourself that much intellectual freedom.
I am not asking you to jump in the Jordan, but to acknowledge PURPOSE to existence. Get it?
It is these borderlands of your materialism you can find exit into the broader universe beyond monistic philosophy.
Can you see that possibility?
Bach?
ReplyDelete"Evolution is only concerned purpose in the here and now, survival now and successful breeding to have viable offspring and grandchildren."
"Evolution is cleverer than you, literally."
WOW!
Sing Hosannas before Evolution on His throne!
Are you SURE you're not a pantheist, Bach?
Teleology, thinking/prescient evolution etc not very Atheist sounding AT ALL.
BTW Pandas are very pretty bears. Why would god give them eyes, and fish eyes too? Perhaps so they can both see?
Lemures are nice too, and dogs. I love dogs. Funny how so many animals seem to have some of the same 'designs' isn't it?
One way to look at it is they all came from the same source codes, written by the same programmer who is an external ever present force on our universe. A creator.
The other? "sh!t happens'.
Dr Egnor,
Bach wrote:
"Richard Dawkins also is brilliant, unlike Michael Egnor."
Another quote for the blog sidebar? :P
a god*
ReplyDeleteHave you ever looked at a monkey's hands? You'll be amazed at how similar they are to ours. Their hands evolved to grip things too with just the right balance of muscles and bones, just like ours. Clue; they're evolved primates, just like us.
ReplyDeleteHuman inventions, such as guns, have teleological function because they were made.
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Still you didn't objected my point. I eam saying that HAND HAVE TELEOLOGY. Monkey's or ours.... well it all goes.
Evolved or not, darwinism hinges on unguided proccesses. I can no accept due the theory own claims that hand have teleology. It is simply how things are. Saying that things have teleology and saying that darwinism is correct would be contradictory I supppose.
Kids make drawings for no freaking reason. Is there teleology on a 6 yo drawing ??? or if a person trips on a can of paint. The stain on the ground was made, but it serves no purpose. at least as far as I know XD.
Things that are made do not equals teleology. C'mon, you need objective to have teleology, some kind of purpose to have teleology.
Free will means that choices are made independent of genetics, environment, subconscious thought processes, emotions, etc. It means that a person under exactly the same conditions can make different decisions. This doesn't happen. Choices for most people are predetermined.
ReplyDeleteA profoundly dogmatic and unempirical statement, since no experiment with people could possibly duplicate exactly the same conditions in every detail. You assert something that is not known and cannot be known scientifically as if it were a scientific truth.
You're just blowing (or inhaling) smoke here, Bachfiend.
bachfiend said...
ReplyDeleteFree will means that choices are made independent ...a person under exactly the same conditions can make different decisions. This doesn't happen.
Ergo, this response of yours was predetermined rather than intelligently thought out and chosen.
You're clearly shooting yourself in the foot here.
"Choices for most people are predetermined."
Most people? So there are people who have "independent of genetics, environment, subconscious thought processes, emotions, etc." choices, yet this doesn't happen according to your previous statement? Right.
" Slight and undetectable doesn't mean nonexistent."
Apply this to God bach, undetectable doesn't mean he doesn't exist!
Now we'll see just how honest you are.
Undetectable? Are you sure? If so then its impossible for you know it according to methodological naturalism!
Undetectable materially may mean simply that the wrong tools are being used for the job, period.
" Dictionary definitions, particularly when they indicate multiple uses, are only a guide. ..."
I.e. you're wrong but don't want to admit the mistake.
"Evolution is only concerned purpose in the here and now, survival now ..."
No, evolution has no purpose, short term or long.
Your statement is a glaring contradiction of evolution. It never has purpose, none, ever.
"...It evolved to be the way"
No, it was designed that and that design is more than obvious.
"Evolution is cleverer than you,"
Wrong. You sound like Coyne, who contradicts himself at every turn.
Evolution is not clever at all. Clever ONLY applies to minds.
continued ...
ReplyDelete"The giant panda ..."
This is just TO and PT parroting.
It's also based on another logical fallacy, another Darwinian assumption that is not provable or falsifiable.
As I explained previously and assumed you'd understand the error of "affirming the consequent".
"Evolution explains the facts."
No, it explains nothing but minor variation and adaptation. There is zero evidence for anything more.
Thus it is obliged to tells stories based on assumptions and logical fallacies, for the everything else.
"ID doesn't."
ID is the ONLY explanation, to date, that makes sense.
How? DNA is an information molecule and it's information is not random, but algorithmic. It's formal information, not meaningless.
It has syntax and semantics. It is prescribed.
DNA also contains meta-information. But meta information is literally impossible without intelligence as its information about information.
Surely you know that algorithms, instructions, for creating functional machines with specific purposes, and construction factories, do not and cannot arise without intelligence and planning.
DNA also has many error detection and correction mechanisms. Error is NEVER detectable without prescience of correct system state.
Correction measures presume that knowledge of correct system state AND correct technique for putting a system back into that state, after anomaly, is also pre-known and pre-planned.
No way out of that.
Ex. Imagine a monolingual Chinese person being asked to correct a page from a students English exam.
Can he? Of course not. He doesn't know the symbolism, he doesn't know the language.
To correct such errors one has to have knowledge of the sign system in use.
See?
Evolution knows nothing. Nothing at all of either sign systems or error trapping/correcting. Just as the Chinese man can neither detect nor correct.
" Darwin was a genius,"
Darwin was a hypocritical scoundrel. A very knowledgeable naturalist but with a humongous imagination for fantasy. He was also terrible at math.
He borrowed his main ideas from creationists (Edward Blyth etc.) and then called them his own.
He deliberately dissimulated his materialism. He deliberately hid his real intentions -ridding science of God.
He told more just-so stories than even Dawkins tells. Dawkins, the greatest show on earth. His stories are sorely lacking in fact and logic, but that doesn't matter to you now does it?
You're determined to remain a materialist for the "benefits" you sadly believe you derive from its relativist morality.
These stories Darwin passed it off as though the stories were real truths.
His disciples have been doing the same ever since, as a superficial overview of the Darwinian literature reveals.
"And Richard Dawkins also is brilliant,"
ROTFLMAO. The only proper response to such incredible gullibility.
Dawkins has invented what exactly in his science? Nothing. He's just a very minor zoologist story-teller. That's all.
Worse is that the intelligent ones even among the atheists know he's a first class loser at logic and philosophy, and they say so.
I guess that means you're not among them?
His "I hate God" books are so bad and full of terrible reasoning, glaring historical errors & "scientific" inanities, its amazing any intelligent person could ever not see through his multitude of lies.
Dawkins has no guts either. He attacks religion sans cesse, but always Christianity, never Islam.
They would arrange to have his head - literally.
Gay H!
ReplyDeleteA steel trap of logic and wit. Military style precision. Love it.
I find myself in almost complete agreement. A nice change for a fossilizing soldier and atrophying academic such as myself.
Kudos.
There is but a single change I would make.
You wrote:
"You're determined to remain a materialist for the "benefits" you sadly believe you derive from its relativist morality."
I would change 'benefits' to 'advantages' and leave the quotes in place.
I am not sure that is Bach is motivated by this perception, as I suspect he is young and still thinking this out (hence being here), but I have heard MANY Atheist/Materialist colleagues use that word (advantage) to describe WHY they adhere to such an inane and banal philosophy, despite it's obvious inadequacies. Career advantages, and an 'edge' on people who are moral. While the first may be real, the second is obviously illusory.
Again, my hat is off, Gary.
A splendid thrashing indeed!
Actually you've got it wrong when you state that mind affects matter. Brain scanning shows that the brain sends out the command to lift the arm, then the mind receives notice that the arm is to lifted, then the muscles in the arm perform the action. But the mind isn't aware of the first step so it rationalizes that it started the action. So it's still matter (the brain acts) and the mind notices.
ReplyDelete_______________________________________
Actually the part of the brain that correlates to conscious ( for instance, the I KNOW MY ARM IS LIFTED thought correlates to these areas ), get's the noticed later. Not mind. I remember reading that in a transhumanist magazine H+.