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Professor: God Would Not Create the Giraffe’s Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve

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One thing evolutionists agree on is that their theory is also a scientific fact. It is a curious point of consensus given that, of all the many, many evolutionary claims, it is the one that is most obviously and undeniably false. It is not that evolutionists fail to prove their theory to be a fact. They most definitely have done so, many times over. But their proofs are not scientificRead more

Comments
#144 You are looking for a neat universal description of "material". I am sorry to keep harping back to Wittgenstein, but he has so many answers. He pointed out that important concepts often don't have neat definitions. This is what he mean't by family resemblance. I think "material" falls into this category. We can point to some of the characteristics that are often associated with material things, and some of the things we would not call material, but there is no essential definitive quality.markf
January 10, 2011
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The same. But how do you tell if something is material or not? How do you describe one kind of thing other than by saying "material?" Or he doesn't have a reply... :-)tgpeeler
January 10, 2011
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#141 tgp Why don’t we just start with what your materialist world view means? That is, what counts as material in your world view and how do you define that? I think that may help Good question. I guess I would characterise materialism as the view there is only one kind of thing - although modern physics raises interesting questions about what that includes - space, time, energy, matter are all part of it i.e. there is no separate world of minds, souls, deities etc. What is your view of materialism? I expect R0bb has better things to do!markf
January 9, 2011
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p.s. what happened to R0bb??tgpeeler
January 9, 2011
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markf @ 140 "I believe both can be accounted for in a materialist world but to make the case would require a book for each one and they have both been done to death in a thousand books and many times on this very blog." Why don't we just start with what your materialist world view means? That is, what counts as material in your world view and how do you define that? I think that may help.tgpeeler
January 9, 2011
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tgp #133 I have been thinking how best to proceed. When the subject was “information” I thought it might be possible to say something new reasonably concisely. But now it comes down to mind and logic. I believe both can be accounted for in a materialist world but to make the case would require a book for each one and they have both been done to death in a thousand books and many times on this very blog. I think we both know we are not going to convert the other. And I don’t suppose you want to get into an endless exchange of comments repeating the same points any more than I do. I think the most I can achieve is to summarise my position at a very high level. I will start with mind. Very, very roughly, I see “mind” as being a set of dispositions for a physical body to behave in certain ways - caused by physical events in a central nervous system. This is far too crude – but there is limited space. We now know that the cause is primarily brain activity – but clearly people talked about minds even when they thought the brain was a cooling organ. The key problem is why is my experience of my own mind in action so different from everyone else’s experience of my mind in action. I can only answer that it is a different way of experiencing the same thing. My favourite analogy is the different way I experience my body from the way others experience my body. But it is just one material body.markf
January 7, 2011
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Note to markf and R0bb - back Sunday evening. Thanks.tgpeeler
January 7, 2011
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markf @ 136 "But, unless it is of special interest to you, I suggest we drop this as of course some information is transmitted using symbols or rules." I'm good with that. My argument doesn't need for ALL information to be transmitted using symbols or rules although I'd be really interested in an example of that. Perhaps I am thinking of symbols in a broader way than you are. I think a "happy face," for example, communicates something. The facial contortions for a smile are different for those of a grimace but the only way we know that is by a regular association of one set of facial muscle arrangements with a certain emotional state. But I'm ok with dropping it for now.tgpeeler
January 7, 2011
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markf @ 129 "The overwhelming problem with this discussion is that it is not primarily about information, but about philosophy of mind and logic and these are massive subjects. I think in this context all I can do is point out that many people who are more intelligent than you and me have disagreed about these things and failed to resolve them. Perhaps we should not be so arrogant as to think the answer is obvious." I certainly agree that philosophy of mind and logic are massive subjects. Much has been written. I have about 10 or 12 logic books alone on my shelves and that barely, if at all, scratches the surface. The same can be said of philsophy of mind. I also understand that people smarter than me have failed to come to agreement about these things. There are probably many reasons for that but I am saying that there is a truth about these things and that truth is only known by the application of right reason to empirical evidence. The deductive logical world can be world of certainty. Sound deductive arguments result in necessarily true conclusions, for example. So, for instance, when I made my modus tollens argument above about naturalism, the conclusion is certain. I don't care if Aristotle or Russell or Wittgenstein or God Himself disagrees with the conclusion to a sound deductive argument, they are wrong. I say God Himself cannot agree for what I think is a very good reason and that is that part of His essence, what He IS, is Reason (with a capital R). More on that later, perhaps. In any case, given that sound deductive arguments result in certain conclusions and that I think I have made a sound deductive argument, there are only two ways that it can be defeated. You can show that modus tollens isn't valid, which it is in the circumstance I have elsewhere described (if there is a NECESSARY connection between the antecedent and the consequent then modus tollens is valid). OR you can attack the truth of the consequent. This, I think, you have failed to do. In fact, I'm not sure you have really tried yet. So that's what I'd really like to see from you. SHOW ME how my argument isn't valid or sound. Otherwise, no matter what you or anyone else may say, it's still there and undefeated. Concerning "obvious." That's a funny thing. These things weren't obvious to me for years but one day they started becoming obvious. Now I'm merely trying to explain that obviousness to others. I contend, as an amateur philosopher, that much philosophy is nonsense. Anytime a metaphysical claim violates a principle of reason, it's false. It's a simple system. And any structure of arguments, no matter how complex, designed to cover up or paper over violations of the laws of reason, in the end are rubbish. Take Kant for example. He claims that we can only know of the phenomenal world and that we can't know about the noumenal world. Well how does he know of the existence of the noumenal world if he doesn't know SOMETHING about it? It's as if a person says well how do I know if I'm dreaming or not? I would ask how do you know of the existence of dreams if you can't tell the difference between dreams and reality in the first place? And I've always wondered what Kant critiqued Pure Reason with, impure reason????? I'm eagerly awaiting your replies.tgpeeler
January 7, 2011
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tgp #131 Good idea to split this into multiple comments. I am in a bit of a hurry so I will address then at different times over the next 24 hours. My original point was about human information. From post #39, I do believe that information can on occasion be communicated from human to human without the use of symbols or rules. But, unless it is of special interest to you, I suggest we drop this as of course some information is transmitted using symbols or rules.markf
January 7, 2011
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p.s. I don't see the relevance of measuring the sides of a right triangle or any other kind of geometric object on a sphere. How does that relate to our conversation about reason? Reason applies in matters of truth but it has nothing to say, as far as I can tell, about things like "I see red" or "I feel great." So I'm not saying that reason governs everything. Only that it rules in matters of truth.tgpeeler
January 7, 2011
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markf @ 129 " guess you regard these rules as discoveries about an abstract reality that somehow exist independently of us. I don’t. I think of them as rules we invent and indeed they are not always applicable. Try measuring the sides of a right angled triangle drawn on a sphere." The rules of reason are abstract and they are not things we have invented, but discovered. They are truths about the universe that are absolute and inviolable (damage to truth always follows if they are violated). Your description of them as "rules we invent" doesn't do it for me. Let's say for a moment that all human life was removed from the planet. Aliens took us all away somewhere, far far away, thousands of light years, say. And let's also say that they bring us back (we've been in suspended animation) a billion years later. When we left the laws of reason were in place. When we came back they were still in place. When we got to the alien place and before we were put into suspended animation the rules of reason still worked. When they woke us up for the trip back the rules of reason still worked. (In fact, if you think about it, the aliens couldn't communicate either without the same prerequisites of symbols, rules, free will, purpose, and rationality.) I take from this simple thought experiment that the rules of reason are not dependent upon location in the universe - space. They are in force everywhere. The rules of reason are also in force today and a billion years from now (or ago). So the rules of reason are independent of time. They never change. This alone gives me pause that although they govern everywhere in space and time somehow they also transcend space and time. "The rules of reason cannot be reduced to sub-atomic particles in energy fields." That is a truth claim that does not contradict itself so it needs to be evaluated by the twin standards of reason and evidence. You can easily put this argument to rest by showing me and any one else who is watching how the rules of reason CAN BE explained in terms of sub-atomic particles in energy fields. But to say "I don't think of them..." without offering justification is not effective in persuading me, at least, that you have a point. You may, but I haven't seen it yet.tgpeeler
January 7, 2011
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markf @ 129 "My point is not that these things are not required but that they come back to mental activities and I have a materialistic theory of mind (including free will)." Perhaps it would be helpful if you would explain exactly how it is that mental activities are reduced to some underlying physical substrate. I don't understand how that is possible, as I've argued. In particular, I am curious as to how free will can exist in an ontology governed by physics. I have never been able to even imagine an algorithm based upon physical law(s) that could possibly account for information. If you have thought of one I'd really like to see it.tgpeeler
January 7, 2011
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markf @ 129 "So again this comes down to whether you have a materialist theory of mind." Exactly. And that's what my arguments are ultimately about. I'm arguing against that although I haven't really argued yet FOR substance dualism. I am currently arguing AGAINST the monism of materialism, or physicalism, in philosophy of mind. I will have that argument with you or anyone after we get through this side of it. The physicalists (mind = brain) are making some FUNDAMENTAL errors and it is these that I am trying to point out.tgpeeler
January 7, 2011
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markf @ 129 I'll be replying in a series of short posts. "I do not believe that symbols and/or rule are required to transfer or even record all types of information." My original point was about human information. From post #39, "How do you account for the existence of information created by human beings? To be more precise, what are the prerequisites for human information? The obvious first prerequisite is humans. I’ll leave the rest to you." In other words, I am not trying to make a case for information in general, that includes biological information (yet) because I don't think I need to in order to defeat naturalism or any of its variants. Because if naturalism or materialism or something like it is true then the laws of physics are sufficient to explain everything, and that includes human information. But they cannot. So materialism fails.tgpeeler
January 7, 2011
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GEM @ 128 "Mind-body interaction influences must go both ways or it is not credible relative to our world of experience." Indeed.tgpeeler
January 7, 2011
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tgp 127
markf @ 114 re me at 111. edited for politeness… regrets…
Thanks.  I have responded to what I think are the key parts of your comment – if I have left out something vital I am sure you will point it out. I am sorry that it is so long. I do not believe that symbols and/or rule are required to transfer or even record all types of information.  However, on thinking further about this I realise it is not that important.  You want to argue that information makes materialism impossible.  So for your purposes it is sufficient to argue: (1) In at least some cases the transfer or recording of information requires symbols or rules (2) Symbols or rules cannot be explained materialistically I don’t deny (1).  I do deny (2).  In the end it all comes down to your theory of mind.  I will try to explain without writing an essay. Rules are instructions about how to behave in specified contexts. They either recorded physically or remembered (possibly unconsciously). Then they are obeyed (or not).  The non-physical parts of this are the remembering and the obeying – both of which are mental activities. I understand a symbol as something physical which means something.  There are lots of philosophical discussions about meaning and many of the greatest thinkers (e.g. Russell) have materialist accounts. I believe that Wittgenstein was the deepest thinker about meaning and he famously described the meaning of a word (and I think this could be applied to any symbol) as the use we make of it.  So again this comes down to whether you have a materialist theory of mind.
You say that intention, free will, and reason have nothing to do with the transfer of information.
I can’t see where you got the idea that I said this. In #53 I wrote:
I certainly accept that transferring information in Grice’s non-natural sense require someone to have an intention. Free will is very long and complex debate. However, if by having free will you mean the ability to make choices then I accept that it is required because having an intention requires making a choice. Rules of reason is another long running philosophical debate. To be honest I don’t really know what you mean in this context. I can hardly deny that” Things, including words, must be what they are and mean what they mean ” but that’s just a tautology.
My point is not that these things are not required but that they come back to mental activities and I have a materialistic theory of mind (including free will).  Now for rules of reason.
Tell me what law or laws of physics can explain the following syllogism: All b’s are less than c’s. All a’s are less than b’s. Therefore, all a’s are less than c’s. Or this. What law or laws of physics can explain why a^2 + b^2 = c^2 in reference to right triangles?
I guess you regard these rules as discoveries about an abstract reality that somehow exist independently of us.  I don’t.  I think of them as rules we invent and indeed they are not always applicable. Try measuring the sides of a right angled triangle drawn on a sphere. The overwhelming problem with this discussion is that it is not primarily about information, but about philosophy of mind and logic and these are massive subjects.  I think in this context all I can do is point out that many people who are more intelligent than you and me have disagreed about these things and failed to resolve them. Perhaps we should not be so arrogant as to think the answer is obvious.markf
January 6, 2011
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TGP: I forgot to explain earlier. There is a story of a brain researcher who had a patient with electrodes all wired up. Twiddled dials that fired off pules to trigger shaking of an arm. There, you [i.e. your brain!!] are now shaking your arm. No, YOU are shaking my arm, and then the other arm went across to try to hold the first down. The issue is not the loop actuating controller but the supervisory controller. Mind-body interaction influences must go both ways or it is not credible relative to our world of experience. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 6, 2011
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markf @ 114 re me at 111. edited for politeness... regrets... markf @103 “Surely there is human information which does not use either. The game of charades specifically forbids both in transferring information about the title of a song or play. If you don’t find that convincing imagine an explorer meeting a tribe which is making its first contact with the outside world. The explorer wants to convey to the tribe that he has discovered a source of water. He leads one of tribe members by the hand to the source and shows it to them. Where is the symbol or rule in that?” Kairos has already dealt with the charades charade so I will leave that alone. As to the explorer… the explorer can’t communicate AT ALL with the tribesmen unless they share some symbols (or signs) in common. While it is true that he can put someone’s nose in the water, so what? At some point, he had to convince the recalcitrant tribesman to accompany him, did he not? He had to communicate somehow that it was his intention to show him something, did he not? And once he got the (German) tribesman to the water didn’t the German think “Wasser” and the American think “water” or “H2O”? THERE IS NO THOUGHT, NO INFORMATION, WITHOUT SYMBOLS (OR SIGNS), RULES, FREE WILL, INTENTIONALITY, AND RATIONALITY. If two people are speaking a different language then they need a TRANSLATOR to convert from one language to another. In this case there can be no communication without a translator. “I wont speak for R0bb, but I have no problem with a materialist account of intention, free will or the rules of reason. All three are long debates, but they are not specific to transferring information.” You say that intention, free will, and reason have nothing to do with the transfer of information. So information can be transferred without first being created? Is that what you are implying? Perhaps you did not really intend to compose your last post and perhaps you did not exercise free will when you typed it out and perhaps you did not employ the rules of reason? If so, please explain how you did not. One cannot take the laws that govern the behavior of physical things and explain non-physical things. You cannot explain the laws of reason in terms of the laws of physics. Tell me what law or laws of physics can explain the following syllogism: All b’s are less than c’s. All a’s are less than b’s. Therefore, all a’s are less than c’s. Or this. What law or laws of physics can explain why a^2 + b^2 = c^2 in reference to right triangles?tgpeeler
January 6, 2011
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p.s. if we can get by this then we can get to the rest of your questions @ 112.tgpeeler
January 6, 2011
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R0bb @ 112 “Are you saying that abstractions cannot supervene on material phenomena? If they can, then why would such cases not be considered material accounts of abstractions? From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “The core idea of supervenience is captured by the slogan, “there cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference.” It is important to notice the word ‘cannot’. Supervenience claims do not merely say that it just so happens that there is no A-difference without a B-difference; they say that there cannot be one. A-properties supervene on B-properties if and only if a difference in A-properties requires a difference in B-properties—or, equivalently, if and only if exact similarity with respect to B-properties guarantees exact similarity with respect to A-properties. Supervenience claims thus have modal force.” In light of this, I am saying that the abstract (A-difference) does NOT necessarily supervene on the material (B-difference). I am further saying that in the particular case of mental states that NO, they do not supervene on material phenomenon. (Read on, I'll explain further.) Although some abstract, non-mental states COULD, but that is not relevant to this discussion. For example, to say that I decided to get a glass of water, a mental state (A-difference) and I could ONLY decide to get a glass of water because my brain state changed (B-difference) would be to say that my “mental state” (my decision to get a glass of water – or do or think anything at all – this is just a particular example that demonstrates the general principle) supervened on my brain/physical state (B-difference). If the mental state supervenes (cannot be different without a corresponding change in the physical state) on the physical state then it seems to me that epiphenomenalism would be true. That is that physical states cause mental states. This is a naturalistic, materialistic, physicalistic (take your pick) view of how the universe is and I reject this view. This is one of the things I am arguing against. Much more on that later if we can get that far. So to be clear, I am not saying that abstractions CANNOT supervene on material phenomena. I AM saying that abstractions do not necessarily supervene on material phenomena. The SEP article on supervenience has a nice section on this. I am also saying that the mental IS INSTANTIATED in the physical. But that is not the same as saying that the mental supervenes on the physical. To put it in terms of information, the information is “contained in” and expressed by the physical (chalk, ink, whatever) but the information is NOT the same as the physical (chalk, ink, whatever). M-W "Instantiation" - to represent (an abstraction) by a concrete instance. Imagine a picture of a cloud of volcanic ash. Imagine that we could explain the location of every particle of the cloud by means of physical laws. (Someone probably could, I could not.) We have now said everything about that cloud that there is to be said. Now imagine a sky that has S U R R E N D E R D O R O T H Y written in (the same) volcanic ash particles (by the Wicked Witch of the West, if you didn’t know). Now here’s where it gets interesting. Certainly no location of any of the ash particles in “surrender Dorothy” violates any physical law but can we say that the location of every particle in this instance can be explained by physical law? I argue no. (And even if they could, by some infinitesimal chance, have happened to “be there” in a way explainable only by physical law, it still leaves much unanswered as I will discuss below.) Also consider that even if we grant that every particle in “surrender Dorothy” can be explained by physical law (I say not but I’m temporarily giving it away here to illustrate my point) have we said everything that can be said about the ash particles? No. Clearly we have not. We’ve not said anything about: the symbols (English letters here – why they are what they are and not something else), the rules (why surrender means to give up, say, and why or how they came to be arranged that way, so that they mean something), the free will of the WWW (who presumably could have written other things), the intentionality of the WWW (why did she write this?), and the laws of rational thought, such as the law of identity, which means surrender instead of fight on and Dorothy rather than Toto. To recap, the mental (or abstract) is different from the physical (or material or concrete). Information is abstract and immaterial even though it is instantiated in physical substrate of some kind. Such substrate can take many forms, letters, pictograms, braille, signs, neon gas contained in glass tubes, well, you get that. Does this help clarify what I am arguing for?tgpeeler
January 6, 2011
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Robb: I guess I need to point out why I have very little confidence int he current consensus on worldview-relevant scientific and related phil thought in our increasingly secularised and ideologised academic sub culture. Lewontin is good enough to make the key point, in his 1997 key NYRB article: __________________ >> . . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth . . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [[From: “Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997.] >> ____________________ The name of the game here is ideologised, institutionally entrenched question-begging, leading to deeply entrenched closed mindedness. Nope, the consensus is bankrupt [doesn't even realise evolutionary materialism is inherently self refuting -- and noteice onlookers, how this is being tippy toed around . . . ), so appealing to it is pointless. Toxic mental environment. At least Engineer Derek Smith and others are really thinking, and have come up with a system architecture that does not require a priorism to rule the roost. So, I start from there. Let's see if we can build a Smith 2-tier controller robot, and let's see if that will be able to be sufficiently intelligent to pass various tests. That would be worthwhile on its own merits, and of course would be a useful research initiative for us applied physics types. Then, we can see if the creation of such would provide a base for ruling out that the supervisory controller could be truly mental in our cases. [Remember, I am open to the possibility that diverse types of approaches will work: a purely electronic-mechatronic robotic intelligence, a mind-body blend, and pure mind.] Nope, the Smith model obviously cannot; in fact it is open to all sorts of possibilities. So, let us be sufficiently open-minded to accept that ever so many of the characteristics and experiences we have as minded, conscious, enconscienced creatures, are radically different from those of matter. And, that we live in a cosmos that shows strong signs of being rooted in an intelligent [purposeful and vastly powerful reality who is a necessary being. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 6, 2011
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kairosfocus:
So I have every right to insist: it is those who would assume or assert that the first fact of existence is reducible to meat in motion under purely physical forces, and starting with pond chemicals in some warm little pond in the pre-biotic world, who have an unmet burden of proof.
Insist all you like, but if you want to advance tgpeeler's argument on the basis of substance dualism, then you've got an uphill battle. From what I can tell, most scientists and philosophers in the relevant fields do not regard substance dualism as being scientifically or rationally demonstrable. That doesn't mean that it's false, but it does mean that you won't be able to persuade the experts with the same arguments that they've already heard. And tgpeeler's assumptions are stronger than mere Cartesian dualism -- he rejects "materialist accounts of abstract things". An ellipse is a mathematical abstraction, so it would seem that, according to tgpeeler's thinking, physics cannot explain the shape of a planetary orbit. Clearly there's something wrong here. I imagine this is why most IDists (Stephen Meyer being a notable exception) do not argue along the same lines as tgpeeler. As noted before, most IDists have no problem with chance+necessity producing information, as long as it's below a certain threshold. We'll see if tgpeeler can clear up his position when he answers the question of whether abstractions can supervene on material phenomena.R0bb
January 6, 2011
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Onlookers: Re TGP at 111 and MF at 114. While TGP was clearly strong in his words [and may wish to reconsider his tone], I think on fair comment that in the context of the persistent evasiveness of MF above [and elsewhere], such is at least understandable. They are further understandable if one observes that in a parallel thread, MF roundly declared just yesterday that he has no knowledge of mis-treatment and expulsion of people for adherence to design-centric or theistic views in the science side of the academy. Others corrected him, but to date he has not acknowledged this. Such refusal to acknowledge a serious pattern of oppression, is enabling behaviour. Which is a far more serious question of disrespect than any remarks by TGP above could raise. (Not to mention, the whole question of respect and oughtness is yet another matter that MF has failed and/or refused to show warrant for on evolutionary materialistic premises.) In short, while he complains of not being respected, MF has been insistently ignoring corrections, and not just from the undersigned. And if you look here and onwards through the linked, you will see that he simply brushed aside serious books he was referred to by way of correction. So, MF needs to look seriously at his behaviour. In the context of the just mentioned, his remarks at 114 in significant part come across as yet more avoidance of response on the merits while pushing an agenda of talking points that he knows or should know through long interactions at UD are open to serious challenge. Of course, for many months now, he had openly announced that he will ignore whatever the undersigned says [on various excuses that do not add up, but are consistent with the "i don't have time" to be responsible in light of serious inputs form the other side of he issue], so that too is a case in point of disrespectful conduct on his part -- blatantly disrespectful closed-mindedness and ideological agenda pushing, and it makes this comment more one for the record than for his actual response. Deeply saddening. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 5, 2011
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PS: An unmet burden of proof that starts with the implications of the observed facts concerning digitally coded, functionally specific complex information. Namely, that the only known and observationally credible source of such dFSCI is intentionally, intelligently directed configuration, i.e. design. So, we have every good reason to infer that such dFSCI is a solid sign of design. Including when we observe it in the heart of the operations and components of the living cell. Biological, carbon chemistry cell based life is evidently a designed entity. Going further, we have a body of observations that in aggregate tells us -- cf 101 survey here -- that our observed, material/physical cosmos (which credibly had a beginning) sits at a finely balanced, complex operating point that facilitates the emergence of such cell based life. These in turn tell us that our observed cosmos is an effect, is contingent and is dependent on causal factors external to it, including at least one necessary causal factor that was switchable to trigger the beginning at some time. Even through multiverse proposals [which are entirely metaphysical, though often presented as though they were a matter of observation], the chain of cause and effect that gives rise to a cosmos such as we observe is rooted in a necessary being, one that is independent of external causal factors, is thus not subject to contingency, and is on the evidence of design of our observed cosmos and life, powerful, knowledgeable, skilled, purposeful, conscious and both intended to and actually created a cosmos and life in it. Plainly such an entity is prior to a world of matter [which world is plainly contingent], and so is credibly non-material. Further, the characteristics above point to MIND as prior to matter. Much, as Plato observed in his The laws Bk X 2300+ years ago.kairosfocus
January 5, 2011
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Robb: Pardon my insistence, but samples of just how radically divergent from properties and characteristics of matter-energy physical entities, properties and concepts and experiences of mind are were in fact listed above. To repeat in part, networked electrochemical neuronal impulses in mV and involving so many times 60 yactomoles [= 1 molecule] of specific chemical substances and ions in the brain and nervous system simply do not easily cross over into being appeared to redly by a cricket ball, or the oughtness of a given duty, or the truth of a certain claim, or its meaning, or consciousness itself, or any number of other extremely familiar mental experiences. Such mental experiences are in fact the first facts of conscious existence; and we gain our awareness of the external world of matter and energy and space time and objects and interactions in it through the window of conscious experience. Conscious, enconscienced mindedness is the first fact of reality as we experience it. The radical divergence between the structures, processes and signals of nerve tissues in our brains and CNSes and the world of conscious, enconscienced minded existence is also actually a commonplace of current studies of the mind-brain issue, as I discussed in the already linked. One cannot simply brush it aside or assume or assert that by default it "must" be reducible to matter, ultimately because one has adopted a worldview that ASSUMES that anything other than matter-energy in space-time is a spooky and suspect entity. This is -- again, already pointed out but brushed aside in the haste to make counterpoints -- as utterly opposed to how one can explain what we observe about stars in terms of the physics of large balls of hydrogen gas heated till they become a plasma undergoing nuclear fusion and the physically predictable consequences of such across time: a star is explainable on being an emergent phenomenon of balls of hydrogen gas collapsing inward under gravity and stabilised by the force of radiation pressure, with nuclei of atoms interacting under the strong forces in the face of electromagnetic forces and in accordance with thermodynamics. In short, evolutionary materialism -- as Lewontin admitted and as the US's National Academy of Sciences plainly implies -- is an ideology often imposed on science, not a scientific view. (And such an evolutionary materialistic, atheistical or agnostic view is as was also linked, inherently self-refuting on the credibility of mind.) I -- along with most of the rest of the world, across time and cultures -- therefore have every valid reason to hold that fact number 1 speaks true, and we are more than meat walking and talking. For a more direct evidence of why such a view is warranted in its own right, I suggest you see a discussion here. And, at this level, the issues will be broader than just those of science. Indeed, as our experience of being conscious, enconscienced, minded creatures is prior to interacting with and observing the world around us, it is prior to the existence of science. Science is not the be-all and end-all of knowing, experiencing or analysing the world. That, too, is an unwarranted assumption or assertion of self-referentially incoherent evolutionary materialistic ideology. So I have every right to insist: it is those who would assume or assert that the first fact of existence is reducible to meat in motion under purely physical forces, and starting with pond chemicals in some warm little pond in the pre-biotic world, who have an unmet burden of proof. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 5, 2011
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Given such a radical divergence the burden of warrant rests on those who would reduce mind to matter. No dynamics, no justified claim.
Radical divergence from what? What claim? You and tgpeeler are the ones making a claim, not me. I'll ask again the question I asked in 112: What property of mind justifies it being classified as immaterial? (And by immaterial I mean that it isn't material, whatever that means, nor does it supervene on material phenomena.)R0bb
January 5, 2011
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Robb: Unless there is a convention and a context of rules and specific message, there is no meaning in a squiggle on paper. That is the squiggle has to be an agreed standard. Full stop. And, when it comes to "supervening" on matter, if you mean that matter solely determines mind [the epiphenomenon view], and you do not have room for mind to influence matter, every concern expressed above or in the linked obtains. Given such a radical divergence the burden of warrant rests on those who would reduce mind to matter. No dynamics, no justified claim. We can reduce stellar dynamics to the dynamics of Hydrogen gas balls. No one has shown a dynamic that adequately accounts for mind on matter. So, there should not be the sort of ideological closed shop on the subject that so often obtains. Further to this, it still obtains that key phenomena of mind [and linked conscience] are radically different from the properties of matter, and there is no good account of matter giving rise to and/or determining mind that is not self referentially incoherent. Evolutionary materialism is inescapably self-referentially incoherent. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 5, 2011
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kairosfocus:
In short,t he meaning is not in the medium used to express it. Nor is it in the optical or thermal or chemical properties of ink and paper.
The meaning of the message is partly in the shapes of the ink on the paper and partly in the mental mapping from shapes to definitions. Both ingredients are necessary in order to convey the meaning.
In short, mental operations are radically different from physical-chemical ones.
The question is whether the former supervene on the latter. If you can show scientifically that they do not, then please remember us little people when you give your acceptance speech in Stockholm.R0bb
January 5, 2011
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Robb: 1976. and 19.76 and .1976 are all numbers but do not carry the same meaning, nor does 6791. Sorry, the place value notational decimal digit system is regulated by rules that give the symbols specific meanings. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
January 5, 2011
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