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Guest Post: Continuity of Thought – A Disproof of Materialism

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Today’s guest post is from nkendall:

We have looked at the phenomena of dreams LINK: Are Dreams Incompatible With Materialism? and constancy of self through near death experiences LINK: Constancy of Self in Light of Near Death Experiences – A Disproof of Materialism as disproofs of materialism. Now I want to look at continuity of thought as a disproof of materialism.

 

Have you ever noticed that your mind is always presented with a continuous stream of related thoughts? There are seldom, if ever, any gaps where your mind is blank. There always seems to be a single, whole, intact thought present in our conscious awareness. I suppose there are exceptions such as seizures. Remarkably, barring interruption, each distinct thought in a sequence of thoughts is related to the adjacent thoughts in time; those before and after and in the context of one’s experiences. This is true whether we are rehashing a similar set of thoughts from memory, or when we are daydreaming or when our imaginations are heightened and presenting us with a novel, sequence of thoughts. Even more astounding is when these streams of thought are found to be creative and unique in human history and contribute to the advancement of human knowledge, human artifacts, artistic renderings and expressions of goodness in fundamental ways. Can these marvelous qualities of mind be reconciled with materialism which posits only the physical brain to account for human consciousness and intellect? No, they cannot; not even in principle.

 

Let’s first look briefly at materialist claims regarding consciousness and human intellect and then examine them in light of the qualities of mind that we all experience each moment of our lives.

 

MATERIALISM

It is not known how thoughts could arise in the brain, how they could be represented in the brain or how they could be rendered in our consciousness much less what consciousness is. For many people these intractable problems are enough to dismiss materialism from the start. But materialism’s grip on Western thought has conditioned the educated class into thinking that there are no plausible alternatives to a brain-only hypothesis of human consciousness and intellect. Only by thinking about the details of our conscious thoughts and about what would have to be the case for materialism to be true, does materialism’s brain-only theory fall apart.

 

Materialism’s reductionist accounting of human intellect requires strict adherence to bottom up causation. Bottom up causation means that it is the sequences of molecular neural events that give rise to one’s thoughts and directs them to our conscious awareness for rendering–somehow. Therefore, the thoughts that appear in our conscious awareness are entirely determined by the prior local causal chain of molecular neural events. But if our thoughts are produced and determined by the prior causal chain of neural events in the brain then they would not be expected or necessitated in any way to produce a coherent, continuous sequences of related thoughts that were recognizable to our conscious experience. There would be no expectation that adjacent brain states (similar configurations) would result in “adjacent” (tightly related) mental states. This decoupling of local causation at the physical level and information and meaning at the mental experience level is a fundamental fact that materialism is bound by. Simply put, physical processes in the brain cannot possibly have any way of knowing what set of physical sequences in the brain would give rise to coherent mental sequences of thought. Therefore, materialism is left with either blind chance or determinism neither of which could possibly produce the rich mental lives we all experience.

 

COMPLEX, SPECIFIED INFORMATION

The sequences of molecular neural events that materialism claims give rise to our thoughts would have to be precise and they would have to be specific. They would have to be precise and specific because there are an incalculable array of thoughts that can arise in our minds and these must then have an incalculable number of physical arrangements to underlie them. Imagine an insight that you have had or bit of knowledge that you have acquired. Then think of the innumerable ways in which it could be slightly modified even in very subtle ways. Each version of this insight would have–must have if materialism is true–a slightly different underlying neural signature otherwise they would not be distinguishable from thoughts which were slightly different. Also, since these physical processes–these sequences of molecular neural events–would have to interface with other putative physical processes, a predictable outcome could only result if the processes themselves, and the interface between them, were precise and specific.

 

Because thoughts and insights unfold over time, they would have underlying sequences of arrangements, not just static arrangements. Once the first thought in a stream of related thoughts were brought forth in our conscious awareness, the subsequent thoughts would be constrained by the content (the meaning) of the initial thought and increasingly so with each new thought as this collection of emerging thoughts matured into a complete insight. The underlying physical processes which materialism claims give rise to these thoughts would, therefore, also be increasingly constrained and more tightly specified as more thoughts were brought forth just as the configurations in my brain causing the movements of my hands and fingers would have to be increasingly constrained as I type out this sentence.

 

Therefore, under a materialist assumption, in order for a continuous, coherent stream of related thoughts to occur, an enormous number of molecular components in the brain would have to be continuously arranged in increasingly very precise and specific ways. The sheer number of molecular components involved betrays a very high degree of complexity. These streams of thought would exhibit extraordinary quantities of complex, specified information and constitute irreducibly complex configurations.

 

Especially noteworthy are the spontaneous emergence of unique and novel thoughts that lead to an expansion of human knowledge in profound and important ways. Although each of us have unique and novel thought streams each day, most are not significant in this regard. If materialism is true, its account of such unique and novel phenomena would entail that the underlying local causation in the brain results in a unique sequence of arrangements of components in the brain–arrangements that these components would have never assumed before. In and of itself that is not significant. By chance, local physical causation of components in the brain will almost always result in unique configurations. But what is special about the complexity here is the types of unique, complex sequences of arrangements of neural molecular components. These arrangements would be highly specified and convey information at the mental level that has meaning–important meaning–in human discourse. These sequences of arrangements would comprise an infinitesimally small set of possible dynamic configurations of the brain’s molecular components, the vast majority of which would convey absolutely no useful information at all in human discourse. (This all of course assumes that a sequence of arrangements of molecules can produce any thing at the mental level at all as materialism claims.)

 

FOREKNOWLEDGE

In addition to a material mechanism to account for the generation of continuous sequences of novel, complex, specified arrangements of physical brain components, there would have to be a physical process in the brain that would somehow know in advance either where those specific neural circuits were that were incubating a spontaneous emerging thought or whether the outcome of a physical process is producing a thought that is useful in an existing sequence of related thoughts. This physical process would also have to know how these thoughts were structured and how they were bounded within the neural circuits such that a whole, distinct, coherent thought could be captured, sequestered, transmitted and presented to our consciousness in a timely fashion. These physical processes in the brain would have to pass these distinct thoughts to another unknown physical process which would serialize them properly with other emerging thoughts and prepare them for rendering in our conscious experience. How these physical processes would know where and when these useful related thoughts were emerging, how they were structured and bounded, how they should be sequence and rendered in our consciousness are intractable mysteries.

 

These seemingly omniscient and clairvoyant physical processes of engendering coherent, contextually relevant thoughts, locating and identifying them as they emerge, sequencing them and preparing them for rendering in our consciousness would have to be repeated continuously and unerringly throughout the entire life of a human such that our conscious awareness was continuously presented with a coherent stream of related thoughts. These putative physical processes of the brain would have to account for the seamless rendering of a continuous stream of thoughts despite interruptions from our senses. They would have to be able to continuously reassert prior thought streams and integrate them with our memories and with any new information presented through the senses.

 

PROBABILITIES

Despite the intuitive implausibility of materialist claims given the foregoing, it is not possible to adequately quantify the probabilities. There are at least two reasons for this. First, we cannot know the scope of the possible alternative brain states, within which any coherent continuous thought stream would reside, because materialism cannot tell us how thoughts are, or could be, generated in the brain or how many physical components would be required to produce them and represent them. But we do know that the super set of possible brain states is vast and the probabilities of landing on a specific sequence of brain states that might produce a specific series of coherent mental states would be very unkind to materialism’s brain-only hypothesis, if it could be done at all. Secondly, thoughts have no obvious material qualities at all and therefore cannot be quantified except by using a proxy calculation using symbolic language which would grossly understate the complexity involved and therefore be excessively charitable to materialism. But materialism would fail miserably nonetheless

 

NEO-DARWINISM

Absent an immaterial mind, materialism is left with the physical brain. The brain then has to account for everything we experience in our mental lives. This is an enormous burden. According to materialism, each quality of mind is underwritten by a physical process in the brain. The only explanation materialism has to offer as to how all these marvelous qualities of mind could have arisen (and arisen so quickly), is evolutionary theory–neo-darwinism. According to neo-darwinism each of these processes would have had to have been assembled piecemeal using the tandem mechanism of random mutation and natural selection. But there are serious problems with this that cannot be overcome, even in principle.

 

One obvious problem with an evolutionary accounting for the brain is that so many of the features and qualities of mind exhibit the signature of modern humanity. It is hard to accept that the brain could have been configured by evolution in the distant past to harbor a vast set of latent capabilities which when manifested would just happen to be useful in the context of 21st century humans. It is one thing to have the general capability for something but quite another thing to explain the specific causes that could bring forth vast quantities of novel, complex specified information spontaneously, continuously and near instantaneously and that offer value to modern humanity!

 

Secondly, in order for evolution to have produced a brain with the capabilities and qualities of mind we all experience, the physical processes which materialism purports gives rise to them in the brain would have to be encoded and stored in the DNA. These configurations might then be subject to “random mutational” changes such that they could be selected. However, the configurations for these processes cannot be identified or even inferred from the DNA. So where does all this complexity come from? And where is it stored? Think of it this way: If materialism is true and if science is the only pathway to truth, then it is reasonable to say that nature and in fact all reality is transparent to human reason. In effect, then, the brain could be said to have the capability of subsuming the complexity of all reality. Yet the complexity of the DNA–especially those more limited segments that produce the brain–is hopelessly insufficient to account for the total complexity of reality. Furthermore, this complexity would have had to have arisen throughout the lives of far too few individuals throughout the brief evolutionary period during which the descent of modern man is believed to have occurred.

 

SUMMARY

I have briefly sketched out the intractable difficulties of a materialist account involving the continuity of human thought. If any of this sounds at all plausible to you then let me suggest that you have been irreparably brainwashed by the scientism which has come to dominate Western academia.

 

If it is unreasonable to believe that these marvelous qualities of mind that we all experience continuously cannot be explained by an electro-chemical “machine” of sorts i.e. the brain, then we have to consider alternatives such as mind/brain dualism and dismiss materialism as a false hypothesis. And in fact it is unreasonable to believe that material processes in the brain could account for these qualities of mind. Setting aside the intractable difficulties in explaining how abstract thoughts are represented in the brain and rendered in consciousness or even what consciousness is, there is no reason to suspect that physical processes would have the foreknowledge to identify specific areas in the vastness of the brain that just happened to be readying themselves to produce a specific, coherent stream of thoughts that have meaning in human discourse. And there is also no reason to believe that it is likely or even possible for the brain–unaided by an immaterial mind–to arrange its components in such a way that it would generate a succession of complex, specified configurations continuously and unerringly throughout one’s life. These problems are fundamental and will not surrender to an entreaty to promissory materialism because foreknowledge and spontaneous generation of novel, continuous, complex, specified information is required and these cannot be accounted for by physical processes in the brain.

 

Let me close with a supreme example of human thought. To believe that the streams of thought Einstein must have experienced, as he sought the solution to the problems whose eventual resolution became a fundamental truth about reality–Relativity, happened as a result of continuous sequences of chance arrangements of molecular neural events, is such a draft on common sense that one would have to conclude–given the general acceptance of materialism–that any belief, no matter how foolish and no matter how contrary to direct human experience, could come to be accepted if wrapped in the sophistication of intellectualism and delivered with the full authority of science. One has to wonder at the irony as to how a method of inquiry–science–which has been spectacularly successful, with its intention to seek truth empirically through open rational inquiry, could lead us down a dead end path and become like that which it sought to counter–the tyranny of an overbearing institutional religion which itself had departed from its own charter.

 

Comments
Mapou
A true dualist knows without any doubt that mind is both material and spiritual. There is a need for both causal processing by a physical mechanism and intentional agency by a spiritual entity.
Most dualists would say that the mind is a spiritual faculty and that the brain is a physical organ. As a (hylomorphic) dualist, that is what I would say.StephenB
May 26, 2015
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Silver Asiatic
You can’t defeat Plantinga’s argument with an unreliable mind.
Precisely. You can't defeat an argument if you can't make an argument. Indeed, with an unreliable mind, you can't reasonably assert anything, most especially the logical consequences of having an unreliable mind.StephenB
May 26, 2015
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Mapou: A true dualist knows without any doubt that mind is both material and spiritual. There is a need for both causal processing by a physical mechanism and intentional agency by a spiritual entity.
Would you care to elaborate? In order to explain the mind, we are in need for a physical mechanism, because ....Box
May 26, 2015
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Mr RDFish, It has been a pleasure. I have not had time to read through many of the recent postings on this thread but will try and do so as I fly off to Kyoto in a few days. It is a long plane ride. Anyway...My claim has been that material processes (yes that includes all energy and matter-Newtonian and "exotic" physics) cannot generate complex specified information continuously and spontaneously whether in our thoughts or the imagery in our dreams. This is especially the case in thoughts related to the discovery of universal truths. No one has disposed of that claim in that view. You are reserving judgement on that. I suppose that is not unreasonable. Re: Intelligent Design...By "design" I mean something was designed by an intelligent entity--real design, not "apparent design." This would preclude evolutionary processes as they are commonly understood. I have read most of what James Shapiro and Michael Denton have written, I am not aware of any falsification of neo-Darwinism by either. If you can point me to something in that vein I would be very interested. For Shapiro anyway, he does not say how natural genetic engineering arose, but has said that this capability exists in the very earliest cells. So either it evolved by Darwinian mechanisms or it was luck or the capability is an endowment by a prior intelligent entity. I don't know any other way and he has not offered any to my knowledge. I doubt Mr. Shapiro would subscribe to luck or intelligent design. So I do not see this necessarily as a refutation of neo-Darwinism. For me, Shapiro and Koonin have corroborated the insights that Behe, Dembski, Meyer, Axe, Sternberg, Wells, and others have put forth even though they themselves do not subscribe to Intelligent Design at all. I have found that these folks--the ID folks I listed--have put forth a strong case falsifying neo-Darwinism and I think this will be universally recognized by future historians of science. So Mr RDFish...I did have a question that is somewhat related. Since you are an AI guy, perhaps you can offer a response. It is not clear to me what your view is on whether, or how, the physical brain might be able to account for all the splendid qualities of mind that we experience daily. Do you believe, knowing what we know now about the brain and physics, that the qualities of human thought could possibly be explained by the conventional materialistic view using algorithmic processes? If you would like to restate the question in a way that enables you to answer in a more comfortable fashion, please do. If so, how does, or how could, the physical brain recognize something--a face, a place, a photo, a sketch, etc? If you have the time and can offer some details on how the brain might interact with other putative algorithms, memory and consciousness to achieve this, I would be delighted to read them. Thanks for participating Mr RDFish! Be well.nkendall
May 26, 2015
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RDFish
I’ll be out of town for a week, so I’ll have to call it quits for now.
I think you're quite wise to run away now. There were some big bad meanies here who wouldn't play nice in your materialist sandbox. Next time, we'll just agree that you're smarter than everyone else, you've read all the right books, and we'll agree that your point of view is coherent. Then we'll be 'intelligent'. That's how it works. We should all assume that materialism is perfectly compatible with human reason, then we can all be lost in the dark with you!
... feel free to ...claim victory now…
If you're willing to concede that you're wrong, then that is a very good thing!Silver Asiatic
May 26, 2015
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Mung
Is this something you read in a holy book and have taken on faith ever since? Or do you have some reason to believe that what you say is true? No reason, says RDFish. Just an assumption. An assumption because … OOPS!
RDFish might get upset here because you're questioning the reliability of his mind to make assumptions and draw conclusions. Maybe he read in a holy book that his mind is reliable and we all should believe him. Oops! No, I mean, he ASSUMED his mind is reliable for no reason at all. Oops! I mean, he doesn't think his mind is reliable and nobody can possibly know if their own mind is reliable. Oops! I mean, he never said that. RDF: No, I don’t THINK our minds are reliable … Well, he did say it, but he didn't mean it! Come on! Let's stop with the silly little dodge. If we question him about his own views, we might jump the shark. Ok, we really should just focus on his great argument refuting Plantinga -- all this other stuff about how he denies the reliability of the mind to assess truth is a distraction! :-)Silver Asiatic
May 26, 2015
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RDFish
Silver Asiatic hilariously jumped the shark, pretending that I somehow disqualified myself by denigrating my own mental faculties (good grief)
If there's anyone (besides you) who cannot see how your position totally collapsed, I would really like to hear about it. StephenB made it clearer than I could in several posts. nkendall amplified the point @119. WJM merely extended it @122.Silver Asiatic
May 26, 2015
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StephenB
I am right again. You just argued on the basis of an If/ Then proposition, proving that you trust the reliability of your mind’s capacity to draw a conclusion from a premise. (If we do not assume the reliability of the mind (X), then (Y) will happen.) How do you know that Y follows from X if your mind is not reliable?
Exactly. He uses logic and reasoning and beyond that, claims that his argument has not been refuted. All of that is a statement about the reliability of his mind. This is actually a more important issue than merely Plantinga's argument.
You are totally refuted by virtue of the fact that you have complete faith in your own arguments.
RDFish has nowhere to go with this. His position is contradicted and refuted.
If you really believed that your mind may not be reliable, then you would say that you are undecided about the value of your arguments.
Exactly right again. If it was true (as he openly claimed) that he doesn't think his mind is reliable, he would be unsure if he was correct in his arguments. Instead, he insists that we have to accept his reasoning. You can't defeat Plantinga's argument with an unreliable mind. As you correctly pointed out, you can't know why X should follow Y in a logical construction.Silver Asiatic
May 26, 2015
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RDFish paraphrases Plantinga’s argument:
RDF: IF we believe in evolution THEN we have little reason to think our minds are reliable and so THEN we have little reason to believe our theory of evolution in the first place
RDFish presents his rebuttal:
RDF: 1) Either our minds are reliable or they are not 2) IF our minds are reliable THEN Plantinga’s argument is moot because our minds are reliable whether or not evolution is true
If our minds are reliable, then our minds are reliable no matter what (2). True. But why does this render Plantinga’s argument “moot”? Plantinga argues that evolution is unlikely to produce reliable minds. Assuming arguendo that Plantinga’s argument is true, it follows that if our minds are reliable, that they are probably not caused by evolution. In what sense is that “moot”?
RDF: 3) IF our minds are NOT reliable, THEN Plantinga’s argument is moot because our minds are NOT reliable, and we can’t even believe Plantinga’s argument is sound in the first place.
I’m pretty sure that Plantinga will agree with this, but he will also point out that this doesn’t make evolution any more likely to be true, as you seem to imply. If we hold that our minds are not reliable we have no reason to believe any theory—including the theory of evolution.
RDF: 4) Therefore, we cannot use the reliability of minds to argue for or against materialism.
To be precise: Plantinga argues against (unguided) evolution—not materialism. Second, Plantinga doesn’t “use the reliability of minds to argue against materialism evolution”. Plantinga points out that, for various reasons, evolutionary processes have a low probability to produce true beliefs. I don’t see how that can be summarized as using the reliability of minds to argue for or against evolution.
RDF: Plantinga argues that evolutionary theory represents a defeater of itself, because if it is true, then we can’t know if it is true because our minds are likely to be unreliable. I simply basically point out that if our minds are unreliable, we can’t know if Plantinga’s argument is sound either.
Sure, if we hold that our minds are not reliable we have a defeater for any theory, including evolution and—as you point out—Plantinga’s argument. But what is your point? More specifically: how does this help evolution?Box
May 26, 2015
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RDFish
ANSWERED AGAIN: Wrong – I assume it because it is undecidable and we are intellectually paralyzed if we do not assume it.
I am right again. You just argued on the basis of an If/ Then proposition, proving that you trust the reliability of your mind's capacity to draw a conclusion from a premise. (If we do not assume the reliability of the mind (X), then (Y) will happen.) How do you know that Y follows from X if your mind is not reliable?
Come on – your dodge is so transparent it’s pathetic. Engage my argument and try to show where it’s wrong, and stop with this sophomoric nonsense.
You are totally refuted by virtue of the fact that you have complete faith in your own arguments. If you really believed that your mind may not be reliable, then you would say that you are undecided about the value of your arguments.StephenB
May 25, 2015
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Well it's been fun as usual. I'm glad to have learned that bFast shares my views regarding ID's equivocations on its central concepts of "design" and "intelligence"; he along with drc466 also discussed Plantinga's argument intelligently (and drc466 regarding AI). nkendall is a civil and sincere debater as well, and Box also engaged productively regarding compatibilism. Silver Asiatic hilariously jumped the shark, pretending that I somehow disqualified myself by denigrating my own mental faculties (good grief), and StephenB not only repeated this silly strategy to dodge my arguments but indulged in his usual belligerence. WJM as usual took a drive-by shot with some empty rhetoric but failed to stay to defend it (he never can). Of course Mung is here only to heckle, and KF pontificates in his inimitable style without bothering to find out what people are talking about. I'll be out of town for a week, so I'll have to call it quits for now. Thanks - the angry folks can feel free to hurl some insults and claim victory now... until next time :-) Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
May 25, 2015
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EAAN begins from certain doubts about the reliability of our cognitive faculties, where, roughly, a cognitive faculty - memory, perception, reason - is reliable if the great bulk of of its deliverances are true. These doubts are connected with the origin of our cognitive faculties. - Alvin C. Plantinga
Mung
May 25, 2015
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LoL RDFish. You should perhaps make a more concerted effort to understand the arguments.
I never claimed that my mind was NOT reliable, I simply stated the obvious, that none of us can show that our minds ARE reliable. The proposition is clearly undecidable...
Is this something you read in a holy book and have taken on faith ever since? Or do you have some reason to believe that what you say is true? No reason, says RDFish. Just an assumption. An assumption because ... OOPS! Anyways, it's been entertaining :) Don't have to spend money on outrageous movie prices.Mung
May 25, 2015
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And finally, StephenB, if you'd like to insist that we have reason to believe that our minds are reliable, I shall simply agree arguendo, for this absolutely refutes Plantinga's argument against Naturalism in yet another way. Would you like to go that route?RDFish
May 25, 2015
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Hi StephenB, While you're pondering how you can determine your mind to be reliable (hahaha), here are the rest of your errors:
The point is, and the evidence shows, that you believe your mind is reliable, in spite of your claims to the contrary.
You're wrong again: I never claimed that my mind was NOT reliable, I simply stated the obvious, that none of us can show that our minds ARE reliable. The proposition is clearly undecidable, so to claim that we have proven it either way is unsupportable. Instead, we all ASSUME that we are arguing with reliable minds.
You trust your mind to inform you that the assumption of reliability is reasonable.
You're wrong again: I simply make the assumption, just as you do.
Obviously, you know nothing of realist epistemology. No one from that school...
You're wrong again: Of course I know that some epistemologists argue for realism! Did I indicate otherwise? How exactly do they show that their own minds are reliable?
...entertains the possibility that our minds are a mess of irrational nonsense.
As I already told you, epistemological nihilism has been argued by other philosophers... but of course they can't show their minds are reliable either.
Even Plantinga, the philosopher you are arguing against, holds that our minds are reliable, and he is certainly no college freshman.
I never said he didn't. If you ever even attempted to refute my argument instead of chasing your tail in these silly diversions you'd know that already.
If your mind is subject to being a “mess of irrational nonsense,” why do you presume to make rational arguments from such a mess.
How many times would you like me to explain this?
RDF: Now, you understand that you have no way of assessing if your mind is reliable or not. What shall you do? You could give up thinking and arguing because you can’t be sure it’s not just a bunch of nonsense that you mistake for reason, or you could assume that your mind is reliable and continue living your life.
Why are you confident that they make any sense at all?
WE ASSUME THAT OUR MINDS ARE RELIABLE - WE CANNOT DETERMINE IT USING OUR MINDS, OBVIOUSLY!!!!
a] If you assume that our minds are reliable, it is only because you think it is reasonable to do so.
ANSWERED AGAIN: Wrong - I assume it because it is undecidable and we are intellectually paralyzed if we do not assume it. I prefer not to be intellectually paralyzed, so I assume it - just as you do.
[b] Clearly, you are trying to have it both ways. When someone presents Plantinga’s argument, you challenge his claim that our minds are reliable, but when you are arguing against Plantinga, you become supremely confident about the reliability of your own mind.
ANSWERED AGAIN: Wrong - I assume it because it is undecidable and we are intellectually paralyzed if we do not assume it. I prefer not to be intellectually paralyzed, so I assume it - just as you do.
[c] It’s very simple, really. When you need to believe that our minds are reliable, you believe it; when you need to believe that our minds are not reliable, you believe that as well. So, we are left with your silly line of demarcation between assuming and thinking–as if one had nothing to do with the other. Remarkable.
ANSWERED AGAIN: Wrong - I assume it because it is undecidable and we are intellectually paralyzed if we do not assume it. I prefer not to be intellectually paralyzed, so I assume it - just as you do. Come on - your dodge is so transparent it's pathetic. Engage my argument and try to show where it's wrong, and stop with this sophomoric nonsense. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
May 25, 2015
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RDFish,
Box: Similarly the four ball (see RDFish’s example in #114) cannot be said to be in control, because the four ball was hit by the cue ball.
RDF: Well, that was my point about billiard balls – having no internal structure or activity, they are inert and can’t really be thought of as having “control”.
That wasn’t your point, but it’s good to see that you have changed your mind and now hold that the four ball cannot be said to be in control. In post #114 you argue that it would be question begging for me to say that the four ball is not in control:
RDF (#114): I’ll try to save time by anticipating your objection: The four ball may cause the eight ball to move, but it doesn’t control it. If that is what you’re going to say, it is question-begging, (…)
Anyway, let’s say you have refined your objection concerning "control":
RDF: But things that we know are purely physical – like a car that drives itself or a robot that autonomously explores Mars – can certainly be said to control things. (…) We just agreed that that person was NOT acting freely – their actions were forced externally! If a robot was on the platform and it jumped in front of the train, it was in control of itself at the time. If the robot was pushed by another robot, then the first robot was NOT in control. Billiard balls don’t decide to do anything, not because they are material but because they are just billiard balls, have no internal energy source, no motor effectors, no information processing mechanisms, and so on.
The robot’s actions on the platform are programmed (caused) by an external agent, right? I’m not sure what you are saying here … For instance, are you willing to argue that a doorbell—because it has an internal structure—can be said to be in control of its sound, and a Chinese gong is not? Can you elaborate on your thoughts?
RDF: If you are not arguing for libertarian free will that transcends physical causality, what exactly are you arguing for???
Please reread my argument in post #107. I argue that materialism is false. I suggest that you are mistaken, if you hold that this is in need of interpretation.Box
May 25, 2015
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Hi StephenB,
I didn’t say that I can determine that my mind is reliable, though I certainly can.
How? Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
May 25, 2015
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RDFish
You have no way of determining that your mind is reliable, for the simple fact that if your mind is not reliable, you would not be able to know it. Get it? Read that a few times until you understand it.
You are not paying attention. I didn’t say that I can determine that my mind is reliable, though I certainly can. I said that, in spite of your claims to the contrary, you believe your mind is reliable by virtue of the fact that you trust it enough to judge the reasonableness of your assumption that the mind is reliable. Reread until you understand. Hopefully, the bold type will help you.
Now, you understand that you have no way of assessing if your mind is reliable or not. What shall you do? You could give up thinking and arguing because you can’t be sure it’s not just a bunch of nonsense that you mistake for reason, or you could assume that your mind is reliable and continue living your life.
Are you really so locked in to your ideology that you cannot follow a simple argument. The point is, and the evidence shows, that you believe your mind is reliable, in spite of your claims to the contrary. You trust your mind to inform you that the assumption of reliability is reasonable. Try to do less reacting and more thinking.
Anyone who grasps this simple point (that is, anyone who has taken a freshman course in epistemology) realizes that we can only assume our minds are not a mess of irrational nonsense, and carry on.
Obviously, you know nothing of realist epistemology. No one from that school entertains the possibility that our minds are a mess of irrational nonsense. Even Plantinga, the philosopher you are arguing against, holds that our minds are reliable, and he is certainly no college freshman. If your mind is subject to being a "mess of irrational nonsense," why do you presume to make rational arguments from such a mess. Why are you confident that they make any sense at all? You really ought to expand your reading list. You refute your own philosophy at every turn.
I’ve answered all of your points, over and over again: We all ASSUME our minds are reliable whenever we argue anything.
Nope. I made three specific points and you evaded all three of them. I even labeled them [a], [b], and [c] in order to help you out. Try again.
My argument stands absolutely untouched:
LOL: You refute your own argument every time you trust your mind to apprehend and apply logical principles. I refute it every time I remind you of the irony. Cheers,StephenB
May 25, 2015
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Hi bFast,
I think we get back to my first statement — Plantinga’s argument restated: “natural selection” doesn’t care that our minds are reliable, so how could it have produce a reliable mind. The real question is the validity of this premise. I don’t find the premise very valid, as reliable minds would seem to have significant selective advantage over unreliable minds.
First, I don't happen to believe that evolution as we currently understand it could have produced brains in the first place. If it did, however, I would expect most of our beliefs to be reliable, and some not (exactly what we observe).
If one of Plantinga’s premises doesn’t hold water, then his whole argument doesn’t hold water.
That's right, but I wasn't attacking the first one - I think it fails for the reason I give even if you don't believe in N&E, or that N&E implies P( R ) is low.
I do find the other argument that I presented to be more compelling than his. If we have a truly naturalistic reliable mind generator, why would it generate a mind that is reliable except when considering the divine?
But there are dozens of well-documented cognitive illusions and "bugs" that are displayed by most people - all the informal fallacies, motivated reasoning/confirmation biases, superstitions, biases like the Dunning–Kruger effect, the gambler's fallacy, and on and on. All this actually fits well with evolutionary theory (but of course doesn't make it true).
If naturalism created our reliable mind, why do we live with an obsessive desire to find the divine, and a psychotic belief that we have found such and that we commune with such?
We are wont to explain things, even when we don't know the explanation. Remember, before we could explain tides and seasons and celestial motion, we explained them by human-like gods and other beings. Again, my own personal belief: There is something profound and mysterious about our existence, and our conscious awareness, and none of this is explained by evolutionary theory. There are lots of conceptions of gods and spirits and so on - anthropomorphic projections by those who really aren't comfortable with the intellectually honest answer, which is: Nobody knows. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
May 25, 2015
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RDfish: "1) Naturalism/Evolution (N&E) is unlikely to produce reliable minds ( R )." I think we get back to my first statement -- Plantinga’s argument restated: “natural selection” doesn’t care that our minds are reliable, so how could it have produce a reliable mind. The real question is the validity of this premise. I don't find the premise very valid, as reliable minds would seem to have significant selective advantage over unreliable minds. If one of Plantinga’s premises doesn't hold water, then his whole argument doesn't hold water. I do find the other argument that I presented to be more compelling than his. If we have a truly naturalistic reliable mind generator, why would it generate a mind that is reliable except when considering the divine? If naturalism created our reliable mind, why do we live with an obsessive desire to find the divine, and a psychotic belief that we have found such and that we commune with such? Ie, psychotic religious belief is incompatible with a naturalistic reliable mind generator.bFast
May 25, 2015
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Hi Box,
Yes, the point being that in the first case it is clear that it cannot be said that the person being pushed is in control.
Yes, that is correct, we agree. And furthermore the point is that we agree on this without any reference to the question of libertarianism - without delving into questions regarding res cogitans or other contra-causal additions to our brains.
To be precise, the difference is that in the first case the person being pushed cannot be said to be in control.
And we repeat: yes, that's right again. And it makes no difference if some non-physical causality is going in inside his head or not.
Similarly the four ball (see RDFish’s example in #114) cannot be said to be in control, because the four ball was hit by the cue ball
Well, that was my point about billiard balls - having no internal structure or activity, they are inert and can't really be thought of as having "control". But things that we know are purely physical - like a car that drives itself or a robot that autonomously explores Mars - can certainly be said to control things.
Why don’t you explain to me how a person who is being pushed under a train is in control and acting freely?
HUH? We just agreed that that person was NOT acting freely - their actions were forced externally! If a robot was on the platform and it jumped in front of the train, it was in control of itself at the time. If the robot was pushed by another robot, then the first robot was NOT in control. All of this couldn't be more obvious, and none of it requires that we answer the question of metaphysical libertarianism.
Complexity does not alter the fact...
It's not complexity per se that is at issue, it is internal vs. external cause. If I decide to jump, it is my decision whether or not libertarianism is true. If you push me, then it is not my decision. Billiard balls don't decide to do anything, not because they are material but because they are just billiard balls, have no internal energy source, no motor effectors, no information processing mechanisms, and so on.
RDF: (…) and as I’ve explained, choice does not require that physical laws be violated or transcended. BOX: I don’t know what triggered this explanation, since no one suggested that scenario.
HUH? If you are not arguing for libertarian free will that transcends physical causality, what exactly are you arguing for??? Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
May 25, 2015
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RDFish #147,
Box: The essential difference between being pushed under a train and jumping under a train by one’s own choice, without coercion, is the location of “control”.
RDF: That’s right – in the first case the cause is external, and in the second case it is internal.
Yes, the point being that in the first case it is clear that it cannot be said that the person being pushed is in control.
Box: When you argue for the synonimity of “ultimate cause” and “cause”—or even “cause” and “control”— you lump these two scenarios together.
RDF: Not in the least!! They are very different – in the first case somebody pushed the poor person, and in the second they decided on their own – that’s an important difference!
Good to see that you appreciate the difference. To be precise, the difference is that in the first case the person being pushed cannot be said to be in control. Similarly the four ball (see RDFish’s example in #114) cannot be said to be in control, because the four ball was hit by the cue ball—I hope you see that now.
RDF: You think it makes no sense to say somebody makes a decision if that decision was in turn a result of previous interactions with the events world and internal physical events. I point out that it makes perfect sense, and does nothing to undermine our ideas regarding control, cause, or freedom.
Merely stating it doesn't make it true. Why don’t you explain to me how a person who is being pushed under a train is in control and acting freely? And why stating that such a person is in ‘control’ “does nothing to undermine our ideas regarding control, cause, or freedom” ?
RDF: Even under materialism (which I do not happen to believe, by the way) we are not billiard balls – we are stupefyingly complex beings who interact with and experience the world over our lives in countless ways.
Complexity does not alter the fact—given the truth of determinism—that the past determines a unique present and future. Complexity does not alter that things have to be the way they are given that things were the way they were and the laws are what they are.
RDF: We choose to act, and these choices reflect all of these external influences, all interacting with our inherited characteristics. These choices are free (…)
Nope, if determinism is true, then the past produces only one unique present and future, so no choices and no freedom.
Box: Rationality implies the ability to choose between alternatives, …
RDF: Yes, rationality implies choice, (…)
And being able to choose implies being in control, so I take it then that the objection “rationality doesn’t require control” can also be discarded.
RDF: (…) and as I’ve explained, choice does not require that physical laws be violated or transcended.
I don’t know what triggered this explanation, since no one suggested that scenario.Box
May 25, 2015
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Hi bFast,
RDfish (102) “No, it’s a different argument by Plantinga.” Oh, I see. So is Plantiga generally saying that if materialism produced a reliable mind, it makes no sense that it would it have produced a mind that has a habit of seeing/seeking the divine?
Nope. Plantinga argues: 1) Naturalism/Evolution (N&E) is unlikely to produce reliable minds ( R ). 2) So, he says P(R | N&E) is low or inscrutable. 3) So, he says if we believe N&E, it is likely that our minds are not reliable (~R). 4) In that case, the reasoning that leads us to accept N&E is undermined, and N&E is thus a self-defeating assumption. My counter-argument basically points out that our minds are either reliable or not, and what we assume regarding N&E does nothing to change that fact. If our minds are unreliable for whatever reason, then all of our reasoning is undermined, including Plantinga's argument. And if our minds are reliable for whatever reason, then Plantinga's argument fails because P( R ) is in fact 1 - whether or not N&E is true. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
May 25, 2015
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Hi Box,
So, we agree that it [qm randomness] doesn’t matter in this argument.
Yup, for the third time, my objection has nothing to do with QM randomness.
The essential difference between being pushed under a train and jumping under a train by one’s own choice, without coercion, is the location of “control”.
That's right - in the first case the cause is external, and in the second case it is internal. This has no bearing on libertarian freedom.
When you argue for the synonimity of “ultimate cause” and “cause”—or even “cause” and “control”— you lump these two scenarios together.
Not in the least!! They are very different - in the first case somebody pushed the poor person, and in the second they decided on their own - that's an important difference! But you needn't even mention metaphysical libertarianism in order to see this! This illustration really is the crux of the matter - I hope you see it now.
X is can only be said to be in “control” of its actions, if those actions are not the outcomes of prior conditions guaranteeing them.
You are picking your own definitions to argue your position, which is a way of begging the question. You think it makes no sense to say somebody makes a decision if that decision was in turn a result of previous interactions with the events world and internal physical events. I point out that it makes perfect sense, and does nothing to undermine our ideas regarding control, cause, or freedom. Even under materialism (which I do not happen to believe, by the way) we are not billiard balls - we are stupefyingly complex beings who interact with and experience the world over our lives in countless ways. Each experience reverberates in us and changes us in many ways - our memories, our beliefs, our desires, and so on. We choose to act, and these choices reflect all of these external influences, all interacting with our inherited characteristics. These choices are free unless they are constrained by others or by circumstance, whether or not we assume that there is some dualistic, contra-causal "secret sauce" that somehow affects our brains in some way that transcends what we know about physics.
Rationality implies the ability to choose between alternatives, ...
Yes, rationality implies choice, and as I've explained, choice does not require that physical laws be violated or transcended. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
May 25, 2015
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SA, great. 'Just not what you had said earlier. Chalk it up to a typo.bFast
May 25, 2015
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Bfast I understand. You assume it because it's reasonable to do so. If you did not assume it (and you assumed otherwise), that would be unreasonable. So, you do assume it because it is reasonable (not unreasonable). Like you said, 2+2=4Silver Asiatic
May 25, 2015
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Silver Asiatic, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_negative RDfish, If materialism created a "reliable" mind, how could materialism create that mind to be a God-seeking mind if there is no god to seek. (God seeking, if I understand correctly, is a near universal cultural phenomenon.) After all, in a godless world, isn't God seeking and God-finding an example of unreliability? On the question of the reliability of mind being incapable of detecting its own unreliability. I start by noting that when we dream, our thoughts are factually unreliable. When we dream we rarely realize it (though sometimes we do.) However, when we are awake, we do. I am also reminded of Dr. John Nash (may he rest in peace.) He rationalized that he was schizophrenic. It seems that a mind that swings between reliability and unreliability can differentiate between the two.bFast
May 25, 2015
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bFast
You assume your mind is reliable because it’s unreasonable to do otherwise.
To do otherwise is unreasonable. Therefore, to do so is reasonable.Silver Asiatic
May 25, 2015
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RDfish (102) "No, it’s a different argument by Plantinga." Oh, I see. So is Plantiga generally saying that if materialism produced a reliable mind, it makes no sense that it would it have produced a mind that has a habit of seeing/seeking the divine?bFast
May 25, 2015
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Silver Asiatic (to RDfish) "You’ve some personal insults in these recent replies. It’s always a sign that you’re getting a little defensive" I think this is a false diagnosis. I think RDfish is being exasperated that he can't get understanding for the basics of Plantinga’s argument, let alone the RDfish rebuttal. If you tell a person 2 + 2 = 4, and 2 weeks later they still don't get it, you get a little annoyed. "Ok, got it. You assume your mind is reliable because it’s unreasonable to do so." You assume your mind is reliable because it's unreasonable to do otherwise.bFast
May 25, 2015
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