Summations Only

Sure, you can say that evolution is just a series of allele changes over time, but does it have the same meaning as the process itself?What's being said is that the meaning is in your mind. Your mind is an emergent property in your brain. Your brain can be studied as to what neurons are firing and when. We've already got rudimentary "mind-reading" programs using fMRI.Feelings and preferences, while strong, are still just chemical and electrical impulses in your brain. They can be induced externally by people with the necessary neurological training...and by con artists.Knowing that the emotions are just that, doesn't take away the effects they have on us...or at least they don't to me.

To be extremely reductivist...but if I studied the placement of every drop of pigment that makes up the picture...or every brush stroke that went into it, I could determine the process by which the painting was made. That would make me appreciate it more, and would do nothing to reduce my ability to simply sit back, ignore the technical and enjoy it viscerally.Likewise, I can know that my emotions are neurological and physiological responses to certain stimuli without reducing the impact they have on me or stopping them from sweeping me away in euphoria or melancholy.

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.

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

Viscerally, it feels like my mind isn't physical. And for many, the thought of your consciousness existing eternally is very comforting...but no, I don't think either of those reasons are valid for actually thinking this is actually true.

Especially when you add in temporal considerations. Is the real me when I'm 20? 50? 90? Maybe it's when I'm 5?And wouldn't it be less comforting to think that either your real you degrades as you reach advanced age...or the real you is less and less able to communicate with the real world, essentially stuck in a box until the release of sweet death?

Are you arguing for a form of Plato's forms? Where we experience a reflection or copy of love, but that the essence of love exists independent of us?

This is not true. Using fMRI and little bit of calibration with the actual individual involved, scientists have indeed been able to determine which object a person is going to choose moments before they are aware of the choice themselves.

And if the mechanics are all there is? I know you don't think this is the case, but much like the ID debate...what would a world be like if mechanics was it and how would it be different from the world we are in now?

Why do you say this? How would you recognize the difference?

True, but that just means, all else being equal, you are just as likely to be fooled by the real as the counterfeit. If our universe is such that all there is is mechanists cause and effect, you'd still believe in something higher.So everything you've said and felt are entirely consistent with a universe that is purely mechanistic. In that case, why would you believe in an additional preposition? Occam's Razor would seem to indicate we go with the mechanistic universe, at least until we find evidence of something else.

But why do you not believe that is all there is? I would postulate that science has done as good a job as it can, and will do a better job in the future as technology allows, but that you just reject the answers being offfered.I would even argue that the fact that love, beauty, honor, even god are all subjective experiences would seem to imply there is no grand "form" of love etc that exists independent of us.The love I feel for my wife and family and friends is not the same love felt by others, indeed the love I feel for my wife is different from the love I feel for my family, and different still from the love I feel for my friends. It seems much more likely that a subset of actions and feelings that indidcate familiarity, dependence, desire, and etc get lumped together and labelled love. In fact, quite often the feelings that are labelled love in popular culture I would call infatuation, obsession and many other less flattering names.

And if that's all there is...as you've admitted, you couldn't tell the difference if there were or not...then what science has answered is all there is to answer. My degree is in Philosophy, so I'd be the last to say that Philosophy (or theology) are useless, but they rarely provide answers. What they do is give options or hopes or desires...science is the only thing that gives an answer. At least one that isn't just a shot in the dark.

I wouldn't say it's "lesser" it just "is." It may have less than you want or desire, but sadly, the world rarely cares what we want. I want enough money to not have to worry about it, I'd like to have a consciousness that continues, and I'd even like the idea of some sort of paradise after death, but until I see the money in my bank account, or actually experience this eternal consciousness or paradise, I'm stuck without any reason to believe any of them are true.

And Plato would be full of shit. As with all terms that describe senses or feelings, all we can do is assume a similar feeling based on similar actions. I have no idea whether the feeling I have termed "love of spouse" is the same as someone else's. All I can see is that it makes me act in a similar way.Now, neurologists can point to certain amounts of neurotransmitters and chemicals in certain areas of the brain, but again, people have differeing amounts but we still call it the same feeling.I still submit that what we call "love" and "honor" etc is merely a categorization of similar actions in different people.