tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post8269313198044451990..comments2024-03-28T12:34:14.649-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: Is the argument from reason a god of the gaps argument?Victor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-25987904598191313902011-03-19T08:25:47.240-07:002011-03-19T08:25:47.240-07:00Freeman nailed it.Freeman nailed it.Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-55582466268331468632008-01-12T08:15:00.000-07:002008-01-12T08:15:00.000-07:00Swinburne’s view that reductive explanation in sci...Swinburne’s view that reductive explanation in science proceeds by “saying that really some of the entities and properties were not as they appeared to be; by making a distinction between the underlying (not immediately observable) entities and properties and the phenomenal properties to which they give rise” is wrong.<BR/><BR/>Reduction works (very roughly speaking) by fitting together higher-level properties with lower-level ones that causally co-vary, and explaining the former in terms of the latter. There’s nothing to say that the former must be phenomenal and the latter not. Nor is there any suggestion that the former have to be “not as they appeared to be”. Consider a theory that explains properties of atoms in terms of properties of protons, neutron and electrons. <BR/><BR/>Given that his understanding of reductive explanation is false, it doesn’t then follow that such an explanation of mental phenomena is impossible (although I don’t have one of those on me).Tom Freemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-67164271644409334182008-01-03T15:40:00.000-07:002008-01-03T15:40:00.000-07:00Maybe everyone else is reading a different entry, ...Maybe everyone else is reading a different entry, but I don't see where Vic here argued that nature hasn't provided us with lots of study, or even that Vic has necessarily advanced a substance dualist argument when it comes to consciousness.<BR/><BR/>In fact, if I'm reading right, it sounds like Vic's making a pretty common argument - talking about the inability of reductionist materialism to account for qualia. This isn't some exclusively theist/Christian concept or argument, unless you want to count John Searle, David Chalmers, and others as engaging in apologetics. The answer could be to engage emergent physicalism, property dualism, substance dualism, panpsychism, or otherwise. If you believe Chalmers and others, it doesn't even mean these things cannot be scientifically studied. It just means that reductionist materialism will be considered inadequate (And of course, there are philosophers who disagree with the idea of Qualia.)<BR/><BR/>Pretty tame stuff, says this theist.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-8565779515164429092008-01-03T03:36:00.000-07:002008-01-03T03:36:00.000-07:00'Consider, for example being at a dinner party wit...'Consider, for example being at a dinner party with someone who is given a large amount of water and creates from it an equal volume of wine.'<BR/><BR/>Once again, really good evidence for theists is only a fantasy thought experiment - not something which ever really happens.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>Naturalism would be disproved if somebody had supernatural powers.<BR/><BR/>But the example of water turning into wine shows that nobody has ever had supernatural powers.<BR/><BR/>The supernatural has never been seen to happen.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-35614836537506218292008-01-03T03:33:00.000-07:002008-01-03T03:33:00.000-07:00'All reduction from one science to another dealing...'All reduction from one science to another dealing with apparently very disparate properties has been achieved by this device of denying that the apparent properties (i. e. the ‘secondary qualities” of colour, heat, sound, taste, etc.) with which one science dealt belonged to the physical world at all. '<BR/><BR/>Huh?<BR/><BR/>Reductionism means that 'heat' is not part of the physical world?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-46412825287593383032008-01-02T22:29:00.000-07:002008-01-02T22:29:00.000-07:00Vic,No one is arguing that science has explained h...Vic,<BR/>No one is arguing that science has explained how energy and matter leads to conscious awareness. <BR/><BR/>But nature does allow us to study the brain and so we can agree that the highly complex organ known as "the brain" has far more to do with consciousness than other parts of the human body. And nature also provides examples of different brains in different bodies/organisms, brains of different sizes and types, from those in amphioxus, a very tiny vertebrate and possibly the closest living relative to all subsequent vertebrates, to the brains of chimpanzees which contain many of the same structures and much of the same DNA as human brains. Also, the fossil evidence provides us with skulls and brain case shapes of species that lived prior to human beings, species with larger brains than any gorilla or chimp living today. We can also study the behaviors of chimpanzees (though sadly we cannot study the behaviors of the early hominids which were most ape-like, nor the late upright apes which were most human-like). But nature has still provided us with lots to study. <BR/><BR/>In fact if you could substitute single DNA base pairs in the genome of a chimp you could eventually produce a human genome, and a human with a human-like mind (a brain to which you would also then have to add an education and language in order to obtain human thinking patterns and philosophical understanding, for without a human education and language and input from others sharing such cultural evolutionary things that our species acquired with difficulty and over eons, we'd still be grunting instead of speaking).<BR/><BR/>So a continuing study of nature in my opinion trumps your attempt to short circuit such studies and exclaim that brains and reasoning necessarily involve two things so radically different from one another that one of them has to be "supernatural." You don't know that. <BR/><BR/>Equally important, haven't you considered that the definition of "physicalism" that you employ in your own head whenever you discuss what is "physical" is itself a mere metaphor? It's not a "solid" definition. <BR/><BR/>If the brain (and the complex web of energy and memories and inter-relationships it contains) is anything, it is so complex that it is beyond our ability to grasp it's workings simply and easily, because if we could, then we would be so simple we couldn't come up with such questions in the first place. That's about all that philosophy qua philosophy can say about the matter. <BR/><BR/>And speaking of matter, it's arrangement is crucial. Mere sand and minerals on a beach mixed with electrical energy, if arranged into a computer with its silicon chips (made from minerals also found in sand) can be made into something that is quite different from mere sand. And add in some sensing devices like a camera lens and a computer chip for mental imagery recognition, and perhaps moving wheels on such a computer and it could react to objects in its environment, tell rain from non-rain, and even get out of the rain, acting quite logically. If such can be done with simple silicon chips and matter in nature, then what might not be possible via billions of years of evolution of living reproducing organisms? Might not human brains and consciousness be natural then? <BR/><BR/>*(This is of course a separate question to the one of whether or not a Designer set the entire evolving cosmos up and running "in the beginning.")<BR/><BR/>Vic, really, get the metaphor of "physicalism" as billiard balls out of your head already. It's an insufficient metaphor for all the things in the natural world that exist and interact each bringing to light new things at different levels--from atoms to molecules to electro-chemical reactions and ever upward toward whole organs like brains and the differing consciousnesses of various types in organisms with simpler brains to more complex ones over time.<BR/><BR/>Personally, I'd LOVE to be a dualist, and be able to provide proof like you try to do that human consciousness was separate from the brain and also not subject to the natural world's decay and death I see all around me in all things that live. But philosophical "proofs" strike me as some of the least satisfying when it comes to such questions. <BR/><BR/>Return to the paragraph above what I wrote concerning "all that philosophy qua philosophy can say about the matter."Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.com