Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

The Brit riots: “When churches disappear, the vacuum is filled by gangs or tribes.”

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In “Cleaning up pre-riot” (Toronto Sun August 19, 2011) British-born Canadian commentator Michael Coren discusses practical riot prevention, suggesting, among other things,

3) Stop the war on religion. Whatever your view of faith and God, the massive decline of religious observance and community in Britain has removed one of the glues that held the country together.

When churches disappear, the vacuum is filled by gangs or tribes. Beyond this is the disappearance of moral standards and ethical absolutes. Witness how in the black community it is the Christian evangelical youths who are least touched by the anarchy.

It was noted at the time that Muslim youths didn’t riot either. Thoughts?

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Comments
Philip at 25.1.1 said: "But I still do not see how beings that can make free choices fit into this category." Maybe the post above (27) will help.tgpeeler
August 25, 2011
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“the “conclusions” we reach — without residue — must be produced and controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or logical validity" If conclusions are the result of thought, and it must be so as the entire process is thinking, then the materialist account is necessarily false. All human thought requires the free and purposeful manipulation of symbols according to the rules of logic and a "local" (i.e. the one being used) language. The problems for the materialists encompassed in the last sentence are many. First of all, the rules of logic do not reduce, are not explained by, the laws of physics. Modus tollens, for example, is inexplicable by means of the standard model, the equations of quantum or classical physics, the laws of thermodynamics, etc... Just as the laws of reason cannot be explained by reference to physical laws, neither can the existence of languages be so explained. All languages are comprised of symbols and rules. The symbols are freely and purposefully arranged into words, which mean something (represent reality or a truth claim or whatever - see Law of Identity) and can be arranged, according to the rules of grammar and syntax of the language, to develop and/or communicate a thought. Physics has nothing to say about why "the dog" makes reference to Rover and "Der Hund" can also refer to Rover. These particular arrangements of symbols MEAN something because people agree that they do. In this example, in English and German. The problems of "free will" and “intentionality,” neither of which exist in the materialist ontology, are never more apparent that when it comes to thought. If my thoughts – “without residue – must be controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or logical validity” then how is it that I can type “this" rather than "that"? What law of physics explains how I am freely and purposefully choosing from among various possible combinations of letters and other symbols on my keyboard to communicate the message I am trying to communicate? Well, none, of course. What could be more obvious? Every thought requires freedom and intentionality which are inexplicable by reference to physical laws operating on neuro-transmitters in my brain. Were my thoughts governed by the laws of physics then I could have no thoughts. I could only “think” in terms of aaaaaaaaa (classical law based algorithm) or 48fjm57dm$o^ (quantum physics based algorithm) but clearly neither of those strings of symbols means a thing because there is no LANGUAGE that allows for the encoding of a message. So even if 48fjm57dm$o^ could mean anything, it would be necessary for a set of rules (known by sender and receiver) for any communication to take place. Said rules being beyond explanation in terms of physical laws. The huge irony here is that whenever a materialist (or naturalist or physicalist – take your pick) denies free will, or purpose they are using both free will and purpose to encode the message and deliver it. Talk about internal contradictions. It’s as if I say that I do not exist. A moment of reflection will reveal that I must be here in order to deny that I am here. In the same way, purpose and free will must be used in order to deny purpose and free will. The entire materialist project is fundamentally and irretrievably irrational and hopelessly incapable of explaining anything that matters to human beings. Why it persists is a mystery for the ages.tgpeeler
August 25, 2011
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AG: Your attempted refutation above inadvertently underscores your failure to address the logic of the analysis, or the evidence behind it. You picked one statement out of context and tried to dismiss it then whistled by the overall summary step by step case. And as for "long," you will note that I have highlighted a classic short summary by Haldane, that has never been soundly answered. Caricatured and evaded, yes, soundly and cogently answered on the merits in light of the underlying issues, no. Should I refer you instead to Hasker as already linked, or to Plantinga in say this 58 pp. argument, or to Reppert's argument from reason book-length presentation [responses to critiques here] or many others? At first level the above links should be warrant enough to see that this is not something to be lightly brushed aside on strawmanistic scooping out of context. Let me do a point by point on a clip from your attempted rebuttal just above: _________ >> I will pick out “j” by name and remind you of its conclusive final language: “the “conclusions” we reach — without residue — must be produced and controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or logical validity” Gee, I’ve just realized I’ve already discussed this a lot, even paraphrasing it. Looking it over perhaps it is the choice of words that make it seem, 1 --> Not choice of words, but logical import of self referential incoherence, as in if mind is a wholly shaped product of the blind forces, this undermines the credibility of thought, and examples were given that more than amplify just how this happens in several real-world cases. well like what, some might find the idea distasteful, or disturbing? 2 --> Dodges the actual historically and currently relevant cases given by way of illustrating the self referential incoherence. Let me clip again:
e: For instance, Marxists commonly derided opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismissed qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? Should we not ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is little more than yet another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? And -- as we saw above -- would the writings of a Crick be any more than the firing of neurons in networks in his own brain? f: For further instance, we may take the favourite whipping-boy of materialists: religion. Notoriously, they often hold that belief in God is not merely error, but delusion. But, if such a patent "delusion" is so utterly widespread, even among the highly educated, then it "must" -- by the principles of evolution -- somehow be adaptive to survival, whether in nature or in society. And so, this would be an illustration of the unreliability of our reasoning ability, on the assumption of evolutionary materialism. g: Turning the materialist dismissal of theism around, evolutionary materialism itself would be in the same leaky boat. For, the sauce for the goose is notoriously just as good a sauce for the gander, too. h: That is, on its own premises [[and following Dawkins in A Devil's Chaplain, 2004, p. 46], the cause of the belief system of evolutionary materialism, "must" also be reducible to forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity that are sufficiently adaptive to spread this "meme" in populations of jumped- up apes from the savannahs of East Africa scrambling for survival in a Malthusian world of struggle for existence.
3 --> Notice the way that these examples PRECEDE the summary remark, and give it specific force. The “blind forces of chance”, look like a lot more probable cause for your “conclusions”, when you realize that they were operating in the parents and your teachers who may have taught you about logical validity. 4 --> begging he question at stake and ignoring the specific examples under examination. We are at the current end of a long chain of such life energetically creating order out of random chance. 5 --> begs the question by assertion. This is perhaps more your own voice: “If we are determined by chance circumstances and forces of mechanical necessity across time, we are not making a real choice, and if we are not making a real choice we cannot be morally responsible, nor have we any basis to assume, infer or believe that our “reasoning” is anything above delusion.” Here you don’t try to rise above Haldane at all with the unrigorous “nor have we any basis to assume”, 6 --> Again studiously avoids dealing with the actual on the ground examples that bring the force of the point home. I’ve already responded to this with a “basis”, the brain has to work argument, natural selection is rather unforgiving of ones that don’t work. 7 --> Nope, you failed to cogently address the categorical difference between that which pragmatically works and that which is true; again ignoring serious real world examples that give the summary point force. If knowing you will be held morally responsible, causes you to make different decisions, 8 --> This is now on the IS-OUGHT gap, where the issue is to account for why OUGHT is real. but instead of addressing the actual question the strawman substitute is put forth: you are likely to be punished if you do X so you will avoid X. That does nothing to address the IS-OUGHT gap, save to illustrate the point that evo mat thought ends up in one form or another of the horrifying nihilistic principle might makes right. 9 --> or putting that the other way around (as the original post does on the riots in the UK) the real question then is if one is in a situation where one likely can get away with doing something. If that calculation says yes then do what you want. Ask the 100 million ghosts of regimes that lived by that in the past 100 years where that goes wrong. because you are capable of consider consequences and making different decisions, why would you claim you cannot be morally responsible? 10 --> Cf just above. You have admitted the problem and managed to try to present it in suitably repackaged form as the solution. Oops. Western philosophy is not unfamiliar with the issue of determinism vs free will. 11 --> And the upshot of 2500 years is this: if one is not significantly free one cannot choose what tho think or what to do in any responsible or credible fashion. If choice is a delusion as Provine et al imply, then that means love is a delusion, and virtue is a delusion. Similarly, if one is not free to think for oneself but is the plaything of unconscious forces that are driven by dynamics that are irrelevant to truth or validity etc, then one is trapped in delusions. Can we hold someone morally responsible for their “uncaused” decisions? What would be the point, since their next decision is likely to be uncaused too, why would we assume it was related or presaged by the earlier one at all? 12 --> Have you bothered to read say Plato in The Laws Bk X 2350 years ago, on self-moved agency as ensouled life? 13 --> Much less, tried to understand the nature of responsible thought and choice as a free agent, indeed subject to external influences but not determined by them? 14 --> If you have, why did you resort to a crude caricature, apart form having an argument so weak that it can only succeed rhetorically by knocking over a strawman? If not, are you not simply regurgitating fundamentally fallacious talking points without having addressed the issue on the merits? But the issue has been well worked in the philosophical literature. The causal chain that runs through us and results in us making the decisions, we apparently would want to make anyway, if we were who we are. 15 --> Another restatement of the problem presented as a pretended solution. If we are the playthings of the blind forces as summarised above, we are in a position where mind and conscience are fatally undermined, leading to radical relativism on knowledge and radical amorality, onward promoting chaos in the community. Plato spotted this 2350 years ago, and you or the serious onlooker would profit by reading what he had to say, as a first point of departure. If “free will” is something different, then perhaps it is just a widely held illusion. Remember, these things don’t have to be relevant to the truth to “work” and have survival value. 16 --> restating the problem as though this were the solution, yet again. Work out he implications, as I laid out above please. 17 --> BTW, this means that you actually accept the logic of my case, which you tried to dismiss. Perhaps there was some value to feeling guilty and not destroying society every time it presumed to hold you responsible, when you knew that you were just a bunch of impulses beyond your control, determined by God long ago. 18 --> An attempted turnabout, to project the same problem unto theism. Only problem, the theists have long since answered the issue along the general lines Plato laid out: take the evident case of the self-moved initiating ensouled cause seriously, including the hebraic insight that the ability to choose to love is the foundation of all virtue. let's clip Plato in the relvant discussion, to see where this must begin [as in doing the 101 homework of basic review of positions before coming to one's own view in light of a balanced analysis . . . ], to reach a sensible conclusion:
Ath[enian Stranger]. . . . when one thing changes another, and that another, of such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which is moved by another ever be the beginning of change? Impossible. But when the self-moved changes other, and that again other, and thus thousands upon tens of thousands of bodies are set in motion, must not the beginning of all this motion be the change of the self-moving principle? . . . . self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second. [[ . . . .] Ath. If we were to see this power existing in any earthy, watery, or fiery substance, simple or compound-how should we describe it? Cle[nias, Megilus being silent]. You mean to ask whether we should call such a self-moving power life? Ath. I do. Cle. Certainly we should. Ath. And when we see soul in anything, must we not do the same-must we not admit that this is life? [[ . . . . ] Cle. You mean to say that the essence which is defined as the self-moved is the same with that which has the name soul? Ath. Yes; and if this is true, do we still maintain that there is anything wanting in the proof that the soul is the first origin and moving power of all that is, or has become, or will be, and their contraries, when she has been clearly shown to be the source of change and motion in all things? Cle. Certainly not; the soul as being the source of motion, has been most satisfactorily shown to be the oldest of all things. Ath. And is not that motion which is produced in another, by reason of another, but never has any self-moving power at all, being in truth the change of an inanimate body, to be reckoned second, or by any lower number which you may prefer? Cle. Exactly. Ath. Then we are right, and speak the most perfect and absolute truth, when we say that the soul is prior to the body, and that the body is second and comes afterwards, and is born to obey the soul, which is the ruler? [[ . . . . ] Ath. If, my friend, we say that the whole path and movement of heaven, and of all that is therein, is by nature akin to the movement and revolution and calculation of mind, and proceeds by kindred laws, then, as is plain, we must say that the best soul takes care of the world and guides it along the good path. [[Plato here explicitly sets up an inference to design (by a good soul) from the intelligible order of the cosmos.]
There are people who believe God already knows what they are going to do. 19 --> And for God, who is present everywhere and every-when, to know the future is not at all to be equated with his so determining it that there is no real power of choice. This is a basic theological and philosophical confusion of categories. To know or to predict a given state of affairs is not to cause it. The spiritual realm may not be that friendly to free will either. 20 --> yet another attempted turnabout driven by failure to understand the basic issues and cases in the situation. >> ________ Thus, we see how the attempted rebuttals fall apart on closer examination. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 25, 2011
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GEM of TKI, You clipped an extremely long summary in "101", which I responded to selectively, there is no reason to assume the rest of 101 was any better. Do you (yourself) have a particular point you think you can rest your hat on? I will pick out "j" by name and remind you of its conclusive final language: "the “conclusions” we reach — without residue — must be produced and controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or logical validity" Gee, I've just realized I've already discussed this a lot, even paraphrasing it. Looking it over perhaps it is the choice of words that make it seem, well like what, some might find the idea distasteful, or disturbing? The "blind forces of chance", look like a lot more probable cause for your "conclusions", when you realize that they were operating in the parents and your teachers who may have taught you about logical validity. We are at the current end of a long chain of such life energetically creating order out of random chance. This is perhaps more your own voice: "If we are determined by chance circumstances and forces of mechanical necessity across time, we are not making a real choice, and if we are not making a real choice we cannot be morally responsible, nor have we any basis to assume, infer or believe that our “reasoning” is anything above delusion." Here you don't try to rise above Haldane at all with the unrigorous "nor have we any basis to assume", I've already responded to this with a "basis", the brain has to work argument, natural selection is rather unforgiving of ones that don't work. If knowing you will be held morally responsible, causes you to make different decisions, because you are capable of consider consequences and making different decisions, why would you claim you cannot be morally responsible? Western philosophy is not unfamiliar with the issue of determinism vs free will. Can we hold someone morally responsible for their "uncaused" decisions? What would be the point, since their next decision is likely to be uncaused too, why would we assume it was related or presaged by the earlier one at all? But the issue has been well worked in the philosophical literature. The causal chain that runs through us and results in us making the decisions, we apparently would want to make anyway, if we were who we are. If "free will" is something different, then perhaps it is just a widely held illusion. Remember, these things don't have to be relevant to the truth to "work" and have survival value. Perhaps there was some value to feeling guilty and not destroying society every time it presumed to hold you responsible, when you knew that you were just a bunch of impulses beyond your control, determined by God long ago. There are people who believe God already knows what they are going to do. The spiritual realm may not be that friendly to free will either.africangenesis
August 24, 2011
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Philip: Mere drumbeat repetition of a talking point does not suddenly turn it into a substantial objection. Kindly address the matter on its merits. You have been duly corrected [the signs of design are in that unnatural shape and sustained smoothness of a polycrystalline rock, and in what appears to be a text, of course building on a scenario well known from sci fi as a thought exercise to make a point plain . . . ], so accept it and move on. THIS THOUGHT EXPERIMENT IS SUFFICIENT TO SHOW THAT WE NEED NOT KNOW THE THINGS YOU KEEP TOSSING UP AS HURDLES, IN ORDER TO CREDIBLY INFER DESIGN ON RELIABLE, TESTED SIGNS. You know full well that if one of the Apollo missions had found such a rock, it would have been instantly recognised as designed, regardless of our not knowing what it was for, who put it there, or when or how it was made. Because it has in it functionally specific complex information only reasonably accounted for on design. Now, there is a real world directly comparable case, though we have actually begun to read this text over these past sixty or so years. DNA in the living cell. And onlookers can see for themselves the a prioris that lead you to reject what should be plain. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 24, 2011
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AG: B+ for rhetoric and flourishes and distractors, now please deal with the actual substantial issue. FYI, Haldane was an English man, and such habitually understate their case. Now, kindly deal with the issues starting with say the 101 here, as you have already been repeatedly pointed to.kairosfocus
August 24, 2011
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What "seems to me" is hardly a rigorous reductio ad absurdum. What seems "immensely unlikely" to Haldane, is not evidence or deductive logic. And it certainly isn't conclusive, because even if it is unlikely, it doesn't have to happen often and may have happened only once in the common anscestor of mammals, reptiles and the dinosaur/bird lineages. Haldane may merely be ignorant or negligent when he states that if his "mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true" How hard did he look for reasons? Did he go beyond just supposin'? That isn't a search at all, much less the exhaustive search required to prove a negative. Even without a unifying evolutionary theory, he has reason to believe his beliefs are true (well except maybe the one we are discussing). He is descended from functional beings, parents and grandparents, and presumably a long line of them , hypothetically to adam and eve, that had minds that were able to use and produce technology, plot their paths through terrain, develop social strategies for surviving in cooperation and competition, and pass these inate and cultural abilities to their children, including eventually an oral and written wisdom literature sharing what they have learned. We and the other animals have minds that have been harshly screened by competition, happenstance and environmental challenges. We do more than just "work" and "function" we succeed. In 1927 Haldane may not have been familiar with the reasons for supposing his "brain to be composed of atoms", but they existed even then. If today, he would still have no reason to believe his brain was composed of atoms, he would have noone but himself to blame. He would have to both lack curiosity and be illiterate in our society. How do we define "truth"? Our brains work, they develope models and maps of reality that work. We can through experience (try that Haldane) confirm and become confident that are models achieve some level of success to the extent that we can see order, repeatabilty and predictability in our sensory in put. How similar are our models to actual reality, to real "truth"? We don't know. We can tell that through practicing certain difficult mental disciplines, we can develop models like the laws of physics are more consistent across our range of sensory experience than other models. It was't being sound chemically, that made our minds sound logically, in fact our brains aren't sound logically without discipline. Logic may be a cultural achievement. A model itself of the characteristics of consistency in patterns we detect in our sensory input. Life is an energetically expensive uphill battle. When it came to minds, it may not have needed "truth", but it did need something that worked and that may be as good as it gets, and it may well sometimes be the truth. Haldane's brain may not have been sound logically, his paragraph doesn't allow us to conclude that he was capable of more rigor. For most of human life "supposing" may be good enough. Where is the reductio ad absurdem!africangenesis
August 24, 2011
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Your example fits within the category of observed products of intelligent design. But I still do not see how beings that can make free choices fit into this category. Thanks for the reference to the article on inferring design. But as you pointed out to me elsewhere, we mustn't get off-topic or off-subject, so I shall not respond further here.Philip
August 24, 2011
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Philip: If you ran across a perfectly cuboidal highly polished slab of polycrystalline rock on the moon, with lines of what looked like text on it, you would be well warranted to conclude it was designed and hosted writing on it, even if you hadn't a clue as to the text, the author or the means by which the stone was created. And that example is just one that I have in mind. GEM of TKI PS: On inferring design on signs, cf here and onward.kairosfocus
August 24, 2011
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kindly note it is possible to infer that an object per reliable signs is designed, even if we do not know how or why or by whom, or even what it does.
Such an inference would be unreliable, when no observed process of design has ever been shown to give rise to phenomena such as the making of free choices, that are supposedly explained by it. Be prepared to admit that we have very limited scientific knowledge about the origins of many aspects of our existence.Philip
August 24, 2011
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Onlookers, cf here for the other thread which discusses the design architecture of self-directing systems. And, kindly note it is possible to infer that an object per reliable signs is designed, even if we do not know how or why or by whom, or even what it does.kairosfocus
August 24, 2011
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Philip: I wonder if you are reading accurately:
For ID to be a scientific theory, you need at least to be able to show how in principle observable intelligent design could lead to the design of life, including the way humans and animals make choices. But in your comparison with computers, you implied strongly that observable human design cannot lead to this.
1: Venter, as pointed out already, is empirical proof of concept that the design of life can be accounted for on molecular nanotechnology in the hands of intelligent agents. 2: To compound the question as you did is to dodge the key implication. For, we have good and empirically anchored warrant that cell based life -- starting with the single cell the foundation of biology, is designed. (There is literally no observational evidence that anything other than a designer can do this, and there is serious analytical reason to see that mechanical necessity and chance circumstances absent designers, will not credibly do so on the gamut of the observable cosmos.) 3: Both beavers and us are examples of cell based life, so the implication is that our life forms are designed, especially as the implied functionally specific complex info to get to the body plans is again well beyond the reach of chance and necessity on the gamut of the observed cosmos. 4: So, we have warrant to infer that designing life forms can be the product of design in turn. 5: Observe in the previously linked the Smith Model, which shows an architecture of an autonomous cybernetic entity capable of decision and giving effect to decision. 6: Observe as well the discussion on limited vs unlimited autonomy. 7: Blend in the context of robotics and artificial intelligence as also discussed, and the question of various possible ways to effect a supervisory controller, with hints at the likely capacities and limitations. _______ It should be plain that it is possible to infer to design of life forms, without addressing designing life forms. So the addition is a rhetorical complexification of a matter to dodge the plain weight of the evidence int eh first instance. In the second instance, some significant points were adduced that address the onward issue of the design of designers. Such an objection as you made is either confused or is not serious, save in the rhetorical sense. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 24, 2011
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F/N: it may help to provide a short definition of truth, based on Ari in Metaphysics, 1011b: that which says of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not.kairosfocus
August 24, 2011
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Philip: Survival advantage and practical success lie in a completely different conceptual category from truth. AS I HAVE POINTED OUT BY SEVERAL MEANS, OVER AND OVER. Is that clear enough, yet? (Or are you playing at perceived refutation by passive-aggressive strawman tactic nit-picking that evades the real matter at stake?) Let me put it the way professor Harald Neiderriter profoundly did in my first university course in Mathematics, in the opening unit on logic and set theory: ex falso, quod libet. From the false, anything follows. The significance of an emphasis on truth is that false premises can yield both true and false consequences in logic, but from true premises only true consequences will follow. In ducking and dodging the core issue and setting up a strawman to knock it over, you are missing the point. So, let me repeat, practical success is not a decisive criterion of truth. Period. Now, go back and deal with the core problem of evolutionary materialism as a theory of the roots and competence of mind, as has been laid out at 15.1.1.1 above, at 101 level (with an onward link to more sophisticated discussions): self refutation by reduction to self-referential incoherence. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 24, 2011
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And (pardon directness, it seems I have to be pretty direct to be clear to you), as I noted already, you keep repeating the points I have made, as though their implications have no relevance to the intellectual credibility of evolutionary materialism. Let's cut to the chase scene, and ask you to respond to Haldane's observation:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." [["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. ]
Do you see what he is getting at and why it matters? As in reductio ad absurdum? Per, self-referential incoherence and self-refutation?kairosfocus
August 24, 2011
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GEM of TKI, "Practical advantage is not at all necessarily or even usually linked to truth." You appear to be disputing on points I've already agreed with and even made myself. I hope you are reading my posts. The credibility of the mind doesn't depend on access to the truth, but to what works. Natural selection is a harsh mistress in that regard. I don't see a difference in the credibility of mind per materialism and per some undefined something else. We can only confirm our models through the prediction and consistency of sensory input. What works is not necessarily what is true.africangenesis
August 24, 2011
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kairosfocus
The inference to design as cause on empirically reliable signs is also not an inference to either the specific process used or the particular designer involved.
For ID to be a scientific theory, you need at least to be able to show how in principle observable intelligent design could lead to the design of life, including the way humans and animals make choices. But in your comparison with computers, you implied strongly that observable human design cannot lead to this.
First, kindly look here on what beavers do, and see what I say about it.
I have done so.
Second, have you ever designed and built a computer system?
Yes.
There is simply no comparison between even an ant or a bee and a computer, much less a beaver.
I agree. There cannot be such a comparison. That is why it is not shown how design could lead to an ant, a bee, or a beaver.
In addition, we do have a very good account of what intelligence does, characteristically and recognisably.
Exactly. The account based on observable intelligence does not show that it could produce creatures or artefacts capable of making human-like choices. I'm not saying that evolutionary theory fills that gap in scientific knowledge, but I cannot see how intelligent design theory could complete the jigsaw either.Philip
August 24, 2011
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Here is the argument as excerpted, as a 101 version. You may want to follow the link there to Hasker.kairosfocus
August 23, 2011
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Philip: That's desperate. Do you see the strawman you erected? I have pointed out, with examples, that a successful model is not to be equated to actual reality. I don't know if you have ever taken time to address the serious discussions that have shown that adaptive behaviour that promotes differential reproductive success is not to be equated to veridicality of beliefs or world models. (the latest major discussions on this are in nature of nature, which you may want to look at.) That was my point, and the underlying issue is that it has been shown, repeatedly and by many from many directions that the forces that drive an evolutionary materialist model of origin of mind, are simply not connected to veridicality. Why don't you scroll up and actually address the issue point by point on the merits, including were I point out the implications of the claimed delusional nature of religion? [And its extension to several other ideologies.] Pummelling strawmen as just did, is a lot easier than dealing with serious issues. So, let's see you grapple with the serious issues. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 23, 2011
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Philip: First, kindly look here on what beavers do, and see what I say about it. Second, have you ever designed and built a computer system? There is simply no comparison between even an ant or a bee and a computer, much less a beaver. In addition, we do have a very good account of what intelligence does, characteristically and recognisably. As conscious and intelligent creatures, we know what conscious reasoning is like from the inside, and what real choice is like. Branch on Z-flag = 1 is not that. You also need to make acquaintance of Craig Venter's work. Intelligent design of life forms is not any more simply an inference from the FSCI in it, it is a practical demonstration to the tune of was it a US$ 20 mn lab? The inference to design as cause on empirically reliable signs is also not an inference to either the specific process used or the particular designer involved. As in, there is more than one way to skin a catfish. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 23, 2011
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Last sentence should have read: But why call them intelligent design, when we know of no design process that could give rise to our experience of making choices?Philip
August 23, 2011
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The inability of the computer to make human-like choices is a good argument against the idea that life in general, and human life in particular, is the product of intelligent design. The only examples of intelligent design that we can see happening right now are designs by humans such as computer engineers. So if the outcome of intelligent design by humans cannot produce something that's able to make choices in the way humans (or even animals) do, then we currently have no grounds to infer that a process of intelligent design is behind life itself. This is not necessarily an argument for traditional evolutionary theory. There may be other processes at work. But why call them intelligent design, when we know of know design process that could give rise to our experience of making choices?Philip
August 23, 2011
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kairosfocus
In addition, survival advantage and truthfulness of perceptions or models are utterly distinct.
To call them "utterly distinct" from survival advantage seems excessive, when a truthful perception of depth might prevent you from stepping over a cliff edge.Philip
August 23, 2011
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So is it to fallaciously anthropomorphize animals to talk of, say, an ant monitoring and responding to the environment, an eagle optimizing its flight, a lion seeking and choosing a mate?Philip
August 23, 2011
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AG: In addition, survival advantage and truthfulness of perceptions or models are utterly distinct. For very simple example, if I had to design a transistor amplifier, I would reduce the BJT to an input resistive etc network, and the output side to a controlled current source perhaps shunted by R, L and C elements as appropriate. The bias circuits and load would find power supply shorted to signal ground, and the like. None of this is true to the actual components in the circuit, but that then allows that fictional model to analyse sufficiently well for me to build the amp. The same obtains across a lot of science and technology. Practical advantage is not at all necessarily or even usually linked to truth. So, the question of the credibility of the mind per materialism is very much an unanswered challenge, and it is usually met by brush-aside attempts. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 23, 2011
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AG:
Re: Computers can monitor and respond to conditions in the environment, they can optimize and choose paths, seek preprogrammed goals, etc.
In short, I have struck out every point where you fallaciously anthropomorphised those collections of silicon, gold wire, copper wire, fibreglass circuit board, etc that we call computers. It is computer designers who build computers as machines that are collections of electronic circuits and associated peripheral machines. It is computer programmers that in various levels from microcode to high level language, instruct that certain sequences of actions are to occur on input of certain signals, and that certain patterns of digits are to be stored in certain devices, which manipulate other devices. At no point int eh process is the computer doing anything more than blindly executing chains of causal patterns designed by external designers. Have you ever designed and built one from monitor on up, laying out architecture and machine code instructions or even assembly language instructions? "Choose" sounds so much more impressive than "check flag register, bit Z, branch to line XXXX if high, continue sequential fetch-decode execute cycles if not." It is the latter that is actually happening at machine code level. By creating a hierarchy of higher level artificial languages, this sort of elementary operation can be chained, branched and looped to carry out required physical operations, that are then useful to designers, programmers and users. There are no smarts in a computer that were not put in, and there is no choosing, only branching on condition in a sequence of machine code instructions, each of which is nowadays carried out by microcode; hard wired instruction execution seems to be a dead art. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 23, 2011
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p.s., We apparently love to play with thoughts too. Is it any wonder that we came up with thought systems and thought structures. May the most relevant ones survive. But perhaps even the irrelevant ones should be preserved like art or cultural artifacts in museums and libraries ... or on the internet!africangenesis
August 23, 2011
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Computers can monitor and respond to conditions in the environment, they can optimize and choose paths, seek preprogrammed goals, etc. Humans are very different, we are good at satisficing goals, but deduction is hard work, and as Barbie would tell you, "math is hard". But the main difference is the pre-programmed goals. Humans too can monitor and respond to conditions, like a baby crying, unexpected sounds that should be checked out. Humans can sit and do nothing until they feel like doing something. What are the sources of these feelings? There is a lot of subconcious internal monitoring, that will result in feelings of hunger after awhile, or discomfort from being in the same position too long. But other social animals are capable of sophisticated social monitoring, such as positions and changes in the social hierarchy. Other animals can have goals of rising in the social hierarchy, or failing that satisficing other goals through opportunistic matings, or heading out to look for other opportunities. Children like other young mammals engage in play and exploratory behavior. Many humans retain this to adulthood. The motivations and initiative are all there in "lower" animals, but they are just a layer of social intelligence required for animals which obtain resources and reproductive success through social cooperation and organization. Any "leap" is from adaptive strategy based upon monitoring the actions and inferring the intentions of other group members to explicitly transmitting such information, enabling preparation and plans at a greater distance in space and time. The "leap" is from non-verbal implicit communication and some verbal communication of warnings, moods and emotions, to explicit symbolic communication. f) Religion is not always a whipping boy of evolution, in the anthropological branch it can be seen as a universal human norm, spandrel or meme. As a meme the surviving religions all have group elements for group discipline, conformance and spreading through evangelism or other means. Marxism and other ideologies have many of the characteristics of religions, "God" apparently isn't necessary. b) the dismissive phrase "random chance" must also cover the spontaneous order and dynamic systems, and optimized order that result from the laws of physics j) "the reasonings we attempt and (v) the “conclusions” we reach — without residue — must be produced and controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or logical validity." Discussion) Not quite, this assumes that relevance to purpose, truth and logical validity, when "randomly" stumbled upon wouldn't have a survival advantage. Happenstance and necessity that are irrelevant will only persist if for some reason they work or are a spandrel of something that does work. A fascination and tendency to play with sound may have resulted in both language and the irrelevancy of music which in the complex social millieu, the irrelevancy may result in reproductive success. A fascination with design that resulted in better tools and structures, may have resulted in the irrelevancy of art,and both new variations may have then been co-opted for social cohesion and religion. Rationality is undermined daily in human societies, don't you remember that it was the football heros and not the nurds that got the deliciously fertile looking cheer leaders? (this is back before they got so skinny). Yes, sometimes techies get their due, we are lucky rationality was of any benefit at all. Or was it "luck"?africangenesis
August 23, 2011
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with the claim there there is no evidence for a particular God, a claim which should be easily refutable, The claim that "there is no evidence" for the God described in the Bible is easily refutable. There are ontological proofs, there are historical proofs, there are the life-changing examples of converts, there material successes that flew in the face of conventional wisdom predicated on the assumption of the existence of God. IOW there is plenty of evidence. The existence of the universe is evidence of something. What is it evidence of? The omnipotentcy of chance? That's the only alternative to a belief in a designer who stands outside the laws of nature.tribune7
August 23, 2011
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I'm sorry, has someone done a survey of all the imprisoned/caught rioters to check what their religious position is? There seems to be an awful lot of "look at those nasty atheists" when we aren't even sure that any of those people are atheists.Jet Black
August 23, 2011
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