The god centre, if it exists, is presumably a byproduct of our runaway brain / intellectual evolutionary development. I suspect that the idea of a 'god centre' is a gross simplification. I would suggest it is actually some region of the brain used for visual or auditory processing which malfunctions or over-stimulates in some individuals. I don't think it's a cellphone for god.
In any case, how would it be possible to tell whether one was receiving a genuine communication or whether that part of the brain was just playing up?
That's an admission. You're an agnostic. Not an atheist.
No.
I wholeheartedly (or wholebrainedly) believe that all religions are false, wrong and purely man-made. I am certain that interventionist gods such as those of the Abrahamic faiths do not exist. My certainty on this is as high as any I hold. This is why I am an atheist, not an agnostic.
As for a non-interventionist god who created the universe and left it to do its own thing - that I don't know. No one does. I have no reason whatsoever to think it might be the case, but there is no proving or disproving of it. In any case, with no possibility of intervention or communication with it being outside the realm of our existence, such a god might as well not exist.
Only parsimony guides here, and as you know, Ockham's Razor is a theorem not a law. Parsimony would suggest that the existence of such a being as complex and powerful as this would raise infinitely many more questions than it answers. If one is to minimise assumptions, this one's a biggie. On that basis I doubt the existence of that deity, and see no need for it to explain our existence.
This line of thinking is in line with many atheists, including Dawkins if I read him correctly. What happened before the creation of the universe is outside the scope of atheism.
The god centre, if it exists, is presumably a byproduct of our runaway brain / intellectual evolutionary development. I suspect that the idea of a 'god centre' is a gross simplification. I would suggest it is actually some region of the brain used for visual or auditory processing which malfunctions or over-stimulates in some individuals. I don't think it's a cellphone for god.
The key word there is 'presumably'. If all our OTHER receptor centres, no matter how complicated, are evolutionarily useful, then it's just your prejudice that this one too is useless. That's a loaded jury. It's not a question of a 'cellphone for God' anyhow, but whether the 'vision-inducing' faction of the brain is useful. Given the number of precognitive warnings etc., well enough anecdotally documented though hard to 'prove', it aseems to have an important function. Whether it's to do with 'God' or not, is another matter. But you're just assuming it's valueless. A sort of contempt for the psyche's more peripheral creations.
In any case, how would it be possible to tell whether one was receiving a genuine communication or whether that part of the brain was just playing up?
That goes for EVERY reception via nerves. How do we know that our senses ever tell us the truth? If we smell a tiger, and a tiger appears, then we say 'that was a reliable stimulus' as we climb the tree. With the 'uncanny' or with visions, it's harder, but outcomes sometimes give all the hint we would be likely to expect.
I wholeheartedly (or wholebrainedly) believe that all religions are false, wrong and purely man-made. I am certain that interventionist gods such as those of the Abrahamic faiths do not exist. My certainty on this is as high as any I hold. This is why I am an atheist, not an agnostic.
The problem here is too complex for this thread. In a Hindu, Christian, Jewish, even Taoist framework, the interconnectedness of all things in 'omnipresence' of space/time means that this 'God' (and also some small part of ourselves) is 'all everywhere' in spirit. Not 'everywhere', but ALL everywhere. In THAT transcendentalist view, the idea of 'intervention/non-intervention' causality just disappears. What we see is only the surface, the '1001 things' Buddhists talk about. That another layer of the onion affects the outer ones (or inner) would require no 'energy', only the TINIEST most miniscule shift in a 'Divine' mind to change things bigtime. Whether we belive in these other layers/dimensions is a matter for us, but you can't rule them out. The only half-convincing real argument against such an 'interventionist' would be the allowing of suffering and horrors in the world. That can be talked about, but it'd be pushing it here. But the God would be as much 'within' us as 'outside'.
As for a non-interventionist god who created the universe and left it to do its own thing - that I don't know. No one does. I have no reason whatsoever to think it might be the case, but there is no proving or disproving of it. In any case, with no possibility of intervention or communication with it being outside the realm of our existence, such a god might as well not exist.
Two problems.
(a) At some point that God's action would need to cross over from what we can't measure to what we CAN, for him to have any agency here at all. Maybe that's what the Big Bang was. But there MIGHT be a way to understand that end physically to a certain degree. You should not close your mind to that possibility. Cosmology is an important science. You're putting limits on possibility, unusual for an atheistic stance.
(b) Again, you're with the 'before/after' or 'either/or' causality. If he dwells where all time and space are one, then his one action of creation is always here and everywhere, and if there should ever be a future act of destruction, then that's always right here too. 'Nothing is forgotten'. We would carry these within, very literally. If we could ever enter those realms nothing would be impossible. You may say we cannot rationally KNOW or be certain of those realms, but you have to allow the experiment of those who believe they MIGHT.
Only parsimony guides here, and as you know, Ockham's Razor is a theorem not a law. Parsimony would suggest that the existence of such a being as complex and powerful as this would raise infinitely many more questions than it answers. If one is to minimise assumptions, this one's a biggie. On that basis I doubt the existence of that deity, and see no need for it to explain our existence.
Yes, the biggest problem is the existence of evil and pain, allowed by this omnipresent loving God. I see no way round that without the 'parallel universes' possibility, that somewhere these are 'swallowed up in victory'. But no-one can be blamed for wondering why these evils are still here. BUT .... there are situations (I might need to invent one as an illustration) where the multiplicity of assumptions is the only way to get at truths that are too hard to grasp. It shouldn't be too hard to envisage scenarios where the 'Razor' cuts too much.
JC used to say 'Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you', and parsimony IS 'flesh and blood' logic, so I wouldn't use this as an argument on my side, simply because the same words could be used to push charlatanism.
The key word there is 'presumably'. If all our OTHER receptor centres, no matter how complicated, are evolutionarily useful, then it's just your prejudice that this one too is useless. That's a loaded jury. It's not a question of a 'cellphone for God' anyhow, but whether the 'vision-inducing' faction of the brain is useful. Given the number of precognitive warnings etc., well enough anecdotally documented though hard to 'prove', it aseems to have an important function. Whether it's to do with 'God' or not, is another matter. But you're just assuming it's valueless. A sort of contempt for the psyche's more peripheral creations.
I didn't say it was useless, I said it was for visual and auditory processing. Other parts of the brain can go wrong too, despite their usefulness. The ones that cause 'phantom limb' pain, for example, or the ones that cause epilepsy (which has often been linked to religious vision).
That goes for EVERY reception via nerves. How do we know that our senses ever tell us the truth? If we smell a tiger, and a tiger appears, then we say 'that was a reliable stimulus' as we climb the tree. With the 'uncanny' or with visions, it's harder, but outcomes sometimes give all the hint we would be likely to expect.
Yes, it goes for every perception. If god desired a method of revealing things more important than sensation, a less ambiguous method would have been a better choice.
The problem here is too complex for this thread. In a Hindu, Christian, Jewish, even Taoist framework, the interconnectedness of all things in 'omnipresence' of space/time means that this 'God' (and also some small part of ourselves) is 'all everywhere' in spirit. Not 'everywhere', but ALL everywhere. In THAT transcendentalist view, the idea of 'intervention/non-intervention' causality just disappears. What we see is only the surface, the '1001 things' Buddhists talk about. That another layer of the onion affects the outer ones (or inner) would require no 'energy', only the TINIEST most miniscule shift in a 'Divine' mind to change things bigtime. Whether we belive in these other layers/dimensions is a matter for us, but you can't rule them out. The only half-convincing real argument against such an 'interventionist' would be the allowing of suffering and horrors in the world. That can be talked about, but it'd be pushing it here. But the God would be as much 'within' us as 'outside'.
Atheism is concern with that type of personal god which declares that he will answer prayer, reward virtue, punish sin, require praise, accept sacrifice, and intervene in petty human affairs.
Your concocted notions, which seem to touch on pantheism, deism and so on, are outside its scope.
Two problems.
(a) At some point that God's action would need to cross over from what we can't measure to what we CAN, for him to have any agency here at all. Maybe that's what the Big Bang was. But there MIGHT be a way to understand that end physically to a certain degree. You should not close your mind to that possibility. Cosmology is an important science. You're putting limits on possibility, unusual for an atheistic stance.
(b) Again, you're with the 'before/after' or 'either/or' causality. If he dwells where all time and space are one, then his one action of creation is always here and everywhere, and if there should ever be a future act of destruction, then that's always right here too. 'Nothing is forgotten'. We would carry these within, very literally. If we could ever enter those realms nothing would be impossible. You may say we cannot rationally KNOW or be certain of those realms, but you have to allow the experiment of those who believe they MIGHT.
The point is, in deism, god does not have any agency here at all - now. Creation was the setting off and letting go of the universe by the deity.
I'm putting a limit on the possibility of what I can accept personally - which is that I cannot reason about anything before the creation of the universe, before the laws of nature, before causality.
The multiverse theory allows that every possible universe is instantiated, so no creative intelligence is necessary.
Yes, the biggest problem is the existence of evil and pain, allowed by this omnipresent loving God. I see no way round that without the 'parallel universes' possibility, that somewhere these are 'swallowed up in victory'. But no-one can be blamed for wondering why these evils are still here. BUT .... there are situations (I might need to invent one as an illustration) where the multiplicity of assumptions is the only way to get at truths that are too hard to grasp. It shouldn't be too hard to envisage scenarios where the 'Razor' cuts too much.
There are no evils except those which are man made. Pain is a biological necessity (misused by intelligence of torturers). Nature is indifferent, pitiless, insensate but not cruel. Science and reason have no conflict with these notions.
That's an admission. You're an agnostic. Not an atheist.
No.
I wholeheartedly (or wholebrainedly) believe that all religions are false, wrong and purely man-made. I am certain that interventionist gods such as those of the Abrahamic faiths do not exist. My certainty on this is as high as any I hold. This is why I am an atheist, not an agnostic.
As for a non-interventionist god who created the universe and left it to do its own thing - that I don't know. No one does. I have no reason whatsoever to think it might be the case, but there is no proving or disproving of it. In any case, with no possibility of intervention or communication with it being outside the realm of our existence, such a god might as well not exist.
Only parsimony guides here, and as you know, Ockham's Razor is a theorem not a law. Parsimony would suggest that the existence of such a being as complex and powerful as this would raise infinitely many more questions than it answers. If one is to minimise assumptions, this one's a biggie. On that basis I doubt the existence of that deity, and see no need for it to explain our existence.
This line of thinking is in line with many atheists, including Dawkins if I read him correctly. What happened before the creation of the universe is outside the scope of atheism.
I think atheism and agnosticism speak to different aspects of the same question - they are not mutually exclusive. It sounds unconventional but I would consider myself something of an agnostic atheist, though, again, these terms aren't precise. On the question of some sort of supernatural God, I disbelieve it but recognize our limitations in knowing such a thing. Some explanations seem more implausible than others but on the most general level that's more or less where I'm at.
Similarly, WilliamDMCCrum sounds like an agnostic theist in that he grounds his outlook in a belief in a higher power but seems to recognize some of our limitations in knowing such a thing. You go a little further than me in claiming certainty in your disbelief in certain religions but on the more general question of belief in a higher power, you sound like an agnostic atheist. Admittedly that label doesn't have the irrestible charm of being called a "heathen" by one's mom. ( : I'd be tempted to go with that one if we're searching for labels.
I didn't say it was useless, I said it was for visual and auditory processing. Other parts of the brain can go wrong too, despite their usefulness. The ones that cause 'phantom limb' pain, for example, or the ones that cause epilepsy (which has often been linked to religious vision).
Which all goes to prove that the experiment doesn't touch on anything other than where the receptors are. It doesn't DISPROVE anything, but the onus would still be on you to explain what use this brain-centre has. Visions can be useful, not becessarily pathological or random.
Yes, it goes for every perception. If god desired a method of revealing things more important than sensation, a less ambiguous method would have been a better choice.
You're proving my point without realising it. Visions are about many things, personal psychological things, collective, etc.. They needn't be about 'God'. Which is why the use of that experiment to 'disprove' God is meaningless. Why did he call it the 'God' helmet? Becasue he was after an agenda.
Atheism is concerned with that type of personal god which declares that he will answer prayer, reward virtue, punish sin, require praise, accept sacrifice, and intervene in petty human affairs.
Your concocted notions, which seem to touch on pantheism, deism and so on, are outside its scope.
I have to say, that's a very arbitrary definition of 'atheism'. The atheist who only concerns himself with what is clearly the Semitic-root faiths has an agenda clearly. I've never heard a defintion of atheism that excludes pantheism, or deism, Dawkins apart. You're moving the goalposts.
The point is, in deism, god does not have any agency here at all - now. Creation was the setting off and letting go of the universe by the deity.
Y'see, I haven't heard the term 'Deism' used so frequently since I was reading up about the 18th Century religious movements yonks ago. It's an 18th Century phenomenon, considered out-dated. Now it seems Dawkins has made it part of his ad campaign?
Deism proper, as I understood it always, related to the Newtonian universe. God the clockmaker, God the clock-winder. Since Einstein became popular that tended to change. Not here though. It's a viewpoint, and in the 18th Century it led to a lot of repression, against people like the Methodists etc.. It has no revolutionary aspect, is conservative, and reactionary. Not like you, surely Jehannum. Is this a new dawn for the deists? God is not just 'unchanging' but also in 'infinite motion' which is the same thing. But theologies tend to choose one or the other. As you have.
I'm putting a limit on the possibility of what I can accept personally - which is that I cannot reason about anything before the creation of the universe, before the laws of nature, before causality.
The multiverse theory allows that every possible universe is instantiated, so no creative intelligence is necessary.
Fine. But that's a choice. It could change, y'know' as you do.
There are no evils except those which are man made. Pain is a biological necessity (misused by intelligence of torturers). Nature is indifferent, pitiless, insensate but not cruel. Science and reason have no conflict with these notions.
No, I see that as naive. The word has two meanings, one moral, one not. Nature is indeed amoral which is why I tend to give the bum's rush to nature-worshippers. If you had an accident and experienced terrible pain, or lost a child etc., you'd then be asking yourself why evolution had given us such awareness of both pleasure and pain. You'd see a design flaw. Maybe that would increase your atheism, confirm that God is not there. Or maybe it would make you look for a redeemer for a 'fallen' universe. But to say all evils spring from man is actually a very transcendental statement. Is a child-murderer in charge of his own conscience, or is he defective? If he's defective, does it stop being evil?
How about: "there is such a thing as objectivity but it is unattainable by man"?
Brightest bullseye salute to that one, pally!
One almost smirks at the thought of a journalist's idea of objectivity.
By all means, smirk away with righteous accuracy.
Idea for an exercise: Copy out a newspaper article. Amend it to make it objective (in your opinion). Submit it to another person - at random - to do the same, and so on. Will the article ever stop changing?
Hecketh noeth. We’ve seen too many editors or headline writers tossing out this phrase or that lead with another opener and a ‘better’ closer to ever again buy the popular crock-of-the-well-known article about Journalistic Objectivity in anything.
And your exercise is terrifyingly close to a well-known acting vignette where someone whispers something to the first person inna line, who then repeats it to the next and vicey-versa till – by the time it gets to the last person – it barely resembles the message originally verbally mailed.
There’s a tantalizin’ tidbit of unassailable Truth in there somewhar …
I have to say, that's a very arbitrary definition of 'atheism'. The atheist who only concerns himself with what is clearly the Semitic-root faiths has an agenda clearly. I've never heard a defintion of atheism that excludes pantheism, or deism, Dawkins apart. You're moving the goalposts.
My definition coincides with Dawkins'. And as discussed earlier, atheism is only a word. I don't want to make my definition of it the one and only official meaning.
Thanks for the 'yonks' reference there, by the way.
Deism is another 'just a word' which I used to mean believing in a non-interventionist creator. The historical details you relate, while interesting, don't have any bearing on my argument.
Fine. But that's a choice. It could change, y'know' as you do.
Fine.
No, I see that as naive. The word has two meanings, one moral, one not. Nature is indeed amoral which is why I tend to give the bum's rush to nature-worshippers. If you had an accident and experienced terrible pain, or lost a child etc., you'd then be asking yourself why evolution had given us such awareness of both pleasure and pain. You'd see a design flaw. Maybe that would increase your atheism, confirm that God is not there. Or maybe it would make you look for a redeemer for a 'fallen' universe. But to say all evils spring from man is actually a very transcendental statement. Is a child-murderer in charge of his own conscience, or is he defective? If he's defective, does it stop being evil?
By the way, I like naivety. I associate it with ingenuousness. I associate it with learning, not being learned.
I have experienced pain and have wished that my brain included a mechanism to stop it: "ok, you've made your point, I'll get it looked at, now stop it!"
Our bodies and brains are full of design flaws (the eye's blind spot for example, or our fragile reliance on food and oxygen and water). Evolution isn't flawless. It works on what it's got. It can only make microscopic changes, one at a time. Our bodies were not designed for our benefit - that's a subjective thing anyway - they are what happened to give the maximum chance of the survival of our genes.
Again, there's no conflict, no issue, here in my worldview. Design flaws are to be expected and predicted. Contrast that with the theists who have to explain their creators' hamfistedness with absurdities like 'the Fall'.
Your example of the child murderer brings us to questions of free will, which is a topic for another thread I think. But as for the question of whether he is evil or not, when you realise that evil is not a universal truth, not an absolute - that it is a subjective, man-made concept - there is no problem. Whether he is evil or not depends upon our own definition of evil, and it is of no consequence except to ourselves if we so choose.
My definition coincides with Dawkins'....Deism is another 'just a word' which I used to mean believing in a non-interventionist creator. The historical details you relate, while interesting, don't have any bearing on my argument.
Yes but Dawkins gets it very wrong sometimes. Somewhere on the net there's a N. Irish TV interview he gave to a chap called William Crawley. I might dig it up. He had to recant something in it, I'll try to find it. He's not the last word, you know. The word had a long tradition before he ever exploited it, and if he's such a fine thinker, he can jolly well learn precise definitions of terms.
By the way, I like naivety. I associate it with ingenuousness. I associate it with learning, not being learned.
Yes but there's naivete and naivete. The naivete in a child can be inspirational and charming and fresh. But when you get kicked out of Eden (and we all are) then there's no going back. The 'New Jerusalem' isn't Eden, it's supposedly better. If we pretend we don't know what we do know, just to keep things all simple, then we have to repress something. You can't unknow what you know if you really know it. Now atheists all agree with that.
Our bodies and brains are full of design flaws (the eye's blind spot for example, or our fragile reliance on food and oxygen and water). Evolution isn't flawless. It works on what it's got. It can only make microscopic changes, one at a time. Our bodies were not designed for our benefit - that's a subjective thing anyway - they are what happened to give the maximum chance of the survival of our genes.
Look what you're doing there. The same thing Attenborough does. Actually if evolution is true, then there IS no 'design'. (Actually that's not necessarily true: it depends on whether it's part of a design...) The idea of the 'selfish gene' is as illogical as any religion. Evolutionarily, certain genes would be helped by certain conditions, no more, no less. They have no agenda, no goal other than survival and self-propagation. In fact they could have no 'goal' at all. That of course, as you say, might remove the expectation of any necessity for 'justice' in the universe. But it's only about the HOW, not the WHY.
But you're doing what biologists always do, you're personifying 'Nature' and extolling 'her' design, her variety etc.. As if 'she' should be applauded or something. Only a figure of speech of course, but I really get the impression that the naturalists actually forget that from time to time.
Again, there's no conflict, no issue, here in my worldview. Design flaws are to be expected and predicted. Contrast that with the theists who have to explain their creators' hamfistedness with absurdities like 'the Fall'.
Well, Hindus belong among the 'theists', and they see the universe similarly. They see all the universe, including God as holding all the opposites, both good and bad. They 'expect' nothing. It can result in a certain stagnation though. The socities that made strides in medicine did so by RESISTING nature, and trying to master it.
'The Fall' is a metaphor for a mythic 'truth'. Having become more concious than the animals, we have a responsibility and self-consciousness. We ate the fruit of knowledge, and could feel pain. It's about US. Myths aren't meant to be taken literally. The Mesopotamian origins of those stories were a starting point. These people had nothing but the big picture to work on. They're not 'literal', but as myths they're very enlightening. We all start from a point where we know that the world isn't as good as we need it to be. Religions either made us accept that OR fight to improve things, sometimes both. But remember, if the GENE were in charge, we'd have no compulsion to improve anything.
You need to remember that nature gives us no rights. To a fascist that implies we should HAVE no rights. To a religious person, or a humanist, or a moral philosopher it implies we need to INVENT rights for ourselves, or else find them from somewhere other than nature. Did you expect those ancient peolple to just lie down and die in the face of misery?
Your example of the child murderer brings us to questions of free will, which is a topic for another thread I think. But as for the question of whether he is evil or not, when you realise that evil is not a universal truth, not an absolute - that it is a subjective, man-made concept - there is no problem. Whether he is evil or not depends upon our own definition of evil, and it is of no consequence except to ourselves if we so choose.
Tell that to the child in his last moments. Tell him there is 'no problem'.
Here's Fry on 'Room 101' making his own differentiation between different types of 'spirituality', and a few interesting comments on 'atheism' too, near the end:
Yes but Dawkins gets it very wrong sometimes. Somewhere on the net there's a N. Irish TV interview he gave to a chap called William Crawley. I might dig it up. He had to recant something in it, I'll try to find it. He's not the last word, you know. The word had a long tradition before he ever exploited it, and if he's such a fine thinker, he can jolly well learn precise definitions of terms.
Yes, he's fallible.
Look what you're doing there. The same thing Attenborough does. Actually if evolution is true, then there IS no 'design'. (Actually that's not necessarily true: it depends on whether it's part of a design...) The idea of the 'selfish gene' is as illogical as any religion. Evolutionarily, certain genes would be helped by certain conditions, no more, no less. They have no agenda, no goal other than survival and self-propagation. In fact they could have no 'goal' at all. That of course, as you say, might remove the expectation of any necessity for 'justice' in the universe. But it's only about the HOW, not the WHY.
But you're doing what biologists always do, you're personifying 'Nature' and extolling 'her' design, her variety etc.. As if 'she' should be applauded or something. Only a figure of speech of course, but I really get the impression that the naturalists actually forget that from time to time.
If you know it's only a figure of speech then why bring it up? Nature doesn't design, of course, but on many occasions its useful to look at things as if they were designed. Everyone who understands evolution understands this. To remove personification from every sentence would be tedious and tiresome in the extreme. If some can't understand it's metaphorical, so be it.
By the way, I've never used 'her' to refer to nature. I don't know where you got that from.
The 'selfish gene' idea is a perfectly logical way of viewing evolution. It showed that evolution works at the gene level, not necessarily for the benefit of the gene host (the organism). As with people who can't understand why some biologists personalise nature, there will be those who think it means the genes themselves are selfish, that they have motive. What can you do?
But remember, if the GENE were in charge, we'd have no compulsion to improve anything.
No, the gene is not in charge of us. Minds, intelligence, logic can be substrate neutral, not dependent on genetics.
Tell that to the child in his last moments. Tell him there is 'no problem'.
A truly pathetic appeal to the emotions here, worthy of the hammiest lawyer.
The 'selfish gene' idea is a perfectly logical way of viewing evolution. It showed that evolution works at the gene level, not necessarily for the benefit of the gene host.
It still implies a heirarchy of causal priorities. As if the gene itself is all the reason that can ever be, and the most fundamental (or highest) determinant and therefore the 'reason' or at least that which precludes any need for a 'reason'. My point is that it means nothing. The theory is okay as far as it goes. It's relevance is exaggerated though.
If I say as an analogy, that suppose I was compiling an encyclopedia, and I had to include an article about the most complex computer program for, say, regulating a hospital life-support system. (This a bit off the cuff, I know). I could take the line that the significance or 'meaning' of the machine was that it enabled PIXELS to arrange themselves in the most incredibly complex way, millions of them, and it was a triumph of the pixellation art/technology. It could all be 'about' pixels.
Well, I'd've said something factual, but it would be a poor article, no? It wouldn't take into account the true significance of that program. It MIGHT take into account how wonderfully micro-circuitry and binary theory could be developed to run great technology, but if it didn't imply that LIVES WOULD BE SAVED, it would tell an alien life-form very little about the true TOTAL AND REAL significance of that program.
You will try to get around this by saying, 'Ah, but the value systems we put on these things are our own and subjective'. But the fact that genes are programmed to replicate and express themselves furiously means nothing in terms of the bigger picture. If a builder is paid to make bricks, and the economy allows houses to be built, it's only the builder himself who thinks that the bricks justify the whole house. For most people, it's the other way round. In fact, given what a brick IS, it IS the other way round.
No, the gene is not in charge of us. Minds, intelligence, logic can be substrate neutral, not dependent on genetics.
It's called the, 'You can tell your genes to go jump in the lake' theory: I can't remember the scientist's name who coined that phrase. But it's a bit odd to hear you say this. If minds, intelligence etc. are totally byproducts of the result of genetic action as you say (as opposed to just mostly dependent on genetics), then, no, they WOULDn't be substrate neutral. I'm foxed there.
A truly pathetic appeal to the emotions here, worthy of the hammiest lawyer.
No, and you haven't answered it. This is NOT an appeal to emotions but an appeal to rationale. (Here's the stink-centre. It can't hide forever.) You're playing courtroom bluff here, not me, old son.
This example shows how limited the argument is. The 'child' cannot be told that he has no particular claim to sympathy or help, that his life or death are just subjective decisions on society's part, that if only he had the 'right' attitude, there'd be no problem. The 'subjective' compassion actually is totally rational and based on values beyond the gene. Compassion by the way requires IMAGINATION, the imagination of what another experiences and the LOGIC to realise that the other person is just like you, therefore it is RATIONAL, not irrational. People lacking compassion are lacking rationality. That's why the Nazis weren't truly 'rational' and why Jung called feeling 'rational', as long as it's wired up properly and people are 'in touch' with it.
You're walking fast into a trap y'know. On one hand, you say we're all products of genetic multiplication, so nothing more can be said with certainty. Then you have to admit on the other that mind, intelligence etc. are actually realities that need approaching from the other end, that the gene aspect is irrelevant in those areas, if we need to get values. In other words, you haven't explained why 'meaning' is not important.
Parsimony is good scientific EXPERIMENTAL technique, but not ALWAYS good scientific ENQUIRY. We're spoilt today. We can sit in labs with white coats and NEVER venture into imaginative realms because of the big certainties that previous generations of scientists have given us. But that doesn't mean we can forget the 'What if?' imaginations that GAVE them those insights in the first place. Every day we face the reality of values and meanings that parsimony is not yet adequate to deal with, and we have to negotiate them by a sort of faith. Many scientists today (at the lower end of the scale) think that 'bottom up' is the only way to do science. It occasionally requires 'top down' from speculation and assumption before we experiment, and the further back in time we go, the MORE of that was necessary. The midgets forget who built the ladders, and then they forget how to build the ladders and even persecute the ladder-builders sometimes.
If there was more MONEY for scientific budgets, science would be able to go both 'bottom up' and 'top down' more often, but limitations on resources mean we tend to play focused and safe and stick 'bottom up'. Fair enough, but we lose something too that way, and we shouldn't express that as methodology, but see it for what it often is: reality and economics.
You will try to get around this by saying, 'Ah, but the value systems we put on these things are our own and subjective'. But the fact that genes are programmed to replicate and express themselves furiously means nothing in terms of the bigger picture. If a builder is paid to make bricks, and the economy allows houses to be built, it's only the builder himself who thinks that the bricks justify the whole house. For most people, it's the other way round. In fact, given what a brick IS, it IS the other way round.
The selfish gene theory was created as a reaction to the fallacy of species selection (evolution working directly for the benefit of the species).
Natural selection takes place at brick level; it does not consider the whole house except as a carrier for bricks, although changes to the bricks may occur that benefit the house.
As a simple example consider the outrageous plumage of some birds, a result of runaway sexual selection, which is a hindrance to survival in many ways.
It's called the, 'You can tell your genes to go jump in the lake' theory: I can't remember the scientist's name who coined that phrase. But it's a bit odd to hear you say this. If minds, intelligence etc. are totally byproducts of the result of genetic action as you say (as opposed to just mostly dependent on genetics), then, no, they WOULDn't be substrate neutral. I'm foxed there.
It's not odd to hear me say this! I hope no evolutionary biologist would say we humans were gene slaves. In The Selfish Gene Dawkins exhorts us to break free of our genetic shackles.
I can perform the same logical analysis on paper, with a computer or in my head. That logic is substrate neutral. We are capable of thought that transcends our genetic influences (although we are susceptible to those influences). This is what makes us different from other animals.
No, and you haven't answered it. This is NOT an appeal to emotions but an appeal to rationale. (Here's the stink-centre. It can't hide forever.) You're playing courtroom bluff here, not me, old son.
This example shows how limited the argument is. The 'child' cannot be told that he has no particular claim to sympathy or help, that his life or death are just subjective decisions on society's part, that if only he had the 'right' attitude, there'd be no problem.
You are arguing against some one else's point here, not mine. My meaning of 'no problem' meant simply that in my worldview I don't need to consider whether the child murderer is evil or not, because evil is subjective. In the case of protection or punishment, it need not figure.
I had to either post a new thread or awaken one that seemed close enough. Sorry if you deem this is not appropriate, but, I think it helps to objectively single out those things we can't put into verbiage.
I think it is worth seeing the programme, especially as AI is now being splashed haphazardly almost everywhere. I owe a debt to Sir Roger Penrose, for at least breaking down into fairly digestible nuggets, the main idea he was communicating with The Emperor's New Mind. Formal systems have an in built blind spot which is basically this: no matter what you can prove in the language, there will always be some things that can neither be proved, nor disproved using, strictly speaking, computational methods. Human conscious intellect can clothe these states with an internalised cognitive imprint. Machines, in contrast, have no seat of consciousness - particularly since we don't know what that thing is ourselves. We can't imbue that aspect of ourselves in a machine. At least, not yet. For that, we have to gain insight into how non-computational processes unfold - our brains may never actually discover how this works since the totality of the forces in nature that made us don't filter down into finite brain matter, or if they do, the level of underlying organisational complexity is potentially orders of magnitude away. Essentially, once inside the 'loop' there is no way to see outside of it - it comes down to that familiar saying in which there are limits to our understanding. That is basically the crux of the problem.
If man made machines what made man? No matter how complicated a robot can be made, the thing that is outside our realm cannot be made to fit inside the realm of the so-called thinking machine. The programme is a bit old, but all the better for it. It is narrated by Sir Roger himself, bless him.
A couple of talks by Stuart Hameroff, one time collaborator with Roger Penrose, on the deeper quantum biological structure of grey matter. The possible methods of memory structure for retention of lifelong snippets of information is particularly interesting. Microtubules, as Hameroff explains at the start, are involved in cellular structural organisation on multiple levels, so how nature can single out multi-purpose usage from the structure itself is mind-blowing stuff. The important thing is that microtubules are a place where the quantum process can take place:
