Summations Only

Well I am baffled as to how one can reconcile the fact that changes to ones physical brain can shape ones preferences with the belief that ones preferences are independent of physical brains.How do you reconcile this?Edited by Straggler, : Spelling

From the OP:

quote:

---

(1) Science doesn't ask/answer "why" questions

​

(2) The proper use of "why" is to answer questions of purpose.

​

(3) Science answers the "how" questions and religion answers the "why" questions."

---

Which ones are they? How do we identify them? The "context of statement 3" being.......? What exactly?

On its own, it's meaningless, and it wouldn't give context to the other two statements even if it appeared with them. No. RAZD argued for the point made baldly in statement (2). That appears to be what he believes, and it's the source of his confusion. Which doesn't refer to any specific type. So statement 2 presented on its own would be wrong. And we don't have any context in statement 3 anyway. He was making some correct points to Dawn. But he was also making some incorrect points which confused the issue, and it was those that I pointed to. It isn't correct, for example, to say that scientific theories do not answer "why" questions. All his "sky is blue" stuff that he was giving to Dawn was wrong. "Why is the sky blue" asks for immediate reasons, not the purposeful intent of the sky gods!RAZD brought in statement (2) in order to try to define why so that he would be right in his assertion that science doesn't answer why questions. By which he meant all of them. Even that wouldn't work, because questions concerning purpose are asked in some fields, as I'd already pointed out.It could be summed up like this. Dawn wants to bring his god into science to answer why questions. RAZD makes a philosophical argument against this, but shows his agreement with Dawn that naturalistic science does not address why questions of any kind. Dawn wants why in, thinking it means purposeful creation; RAZD says science doesn't deal with why, apparently thinking the same. Bluegenes thinks that science does address the why questions anyway and that there's no evidence of any purpose being involved in evolution and the origin of life, so that questions like "why is there life on earth" are technical and scientific anyway.

I see you have been cheering jar in this thread and I wondered if you too are a dualist?It would explain a lot.......

You are certainly entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. That is the rub for this topic. Science can ask the why questions, but only the why's for things that are real. Does science need to ask why leprechauns are green? No, because no one can show that leprechauns are real. This is not a matter of science being incapable of answering these why questions. It is a matter of the why questions being based on things that are not a part of reality. While I appreciate the sentiment, your pity is not needed.

Let me preface my response by stating that I am not a dualist...I prefer my own made up term, Quantum Determinist. But, you could say that the brain is the filter for the "soul" or whatever non-physical thing we are beyond our bodies.Then, if you mess with the brain, you mess with the filter, making things seem to be different, when the source, the "soul" is still unchanged.It would be like drawing on or breaking the monitor fo your computer. It can't show you things in certain areas of the screen, but that doesn't change the functions or storage of the computer, just the disply of it.

I have never denied that I am a dualist.I figured, perhaps wrongly, that over the years you might have noticed.Sorry.

I did not say there was an ideal beauty but rather there was the ideal beauty.

A counterfeit, no matter how closely it copies the real thing, is still a counterfeit.

Firstly - How does that answer the above question? How do you reconcile the fact that changes to ones physical brain can shape ones preferences with the belief that ones preferences are independent of physical brains.Secondly - Is that true? If two things are literally physically identical (down to the quark or whatever) how do you tell which is the "real" one?

So if you suffer some brain damage that changes your personality radically you think there is a non-physical "real you" with your original personality floating around somewhere?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I'm afraid I have no idea what this means. Can you clarify? Maybe give an example of what you mean?

Do I think so? No. Do Dualists think so? From what I've heard from them, yes they do.

Is there any reason whatsoever to think this even might be true?

I'm not sure I could tell the difference but of course that is irrelevant to the fact that one is not the original.