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Author | Topic: What we must accept if we accept evolution | |||||||||||||||||||||||
robinrohan Inactive Member |
Actually a rather small lizard, but whatever. It might have at least been an impressive big one. Maybe the small one came from the big one?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1467 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
To me it shakes the foundations of our concept of "humanity." Your concept, maybe. It doesn't do anything to my concept.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Here's my take on the matter.
Thanks, Parasomnium. As you probably guessed, I was challenging robin to see if he could come up with something similar. Thoughts are not made of physical stuff, but reside in the dynamic arrangement of physical stuff. They are the patterns in which the underlying physical stuff is arranged and is constantly changed. In Message 143, robinrohan wrote:
Thoughts are really something physical. If they are physical, they have a physical cause. All physical events are automatic events. So thoughts are automatic events. Determinism.
Robin's argument would make sense if thoughts were made of physical stuff. But since they aren't, his argument is far from persuasive.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Your sense of self, then, appears to be incorporeal. Your self is not your hands, your ears, your nose, etc.
Yes, I agree with that. But I don't see any "aura of incorporeality" because I don't find an aura. There are lots of important things that are not made of stuff. I like to use a river as an example. We could dig up all of the dirt along the banks of the mississippi, and replace it with different dirt. Then we could wait a few weeks until all the water has flowed to sea, to be replaced by different water. But it would still be the same mississippi river. So obviously the river is not made of dirt and water. It isn't made of stuff.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
It might be something stupid and pointless or it might be a situation in which a poster stops engaging in these equivocations such as saying, it's not the "theory" that says such and such but rather its "conclusions"--as if this was some big difference. Are you suggesting that there's evidence for the "theory" but no evidence for its "conclusions"? I do get annoyed by equivications. I have a whole thread dedicated to something very similar that being discussed here...if you want to discuss equivications pop on over there. There is a big difference between a theory and conclusions drawn from that theory. Are you telling me that there is no distinction between theory and practice? Another way of looking at it is fact vs theory. There is a phenomenon and a theory to explain that. One could say the phenomenon is common descent, the ToE explains that phenomenon. As one Douglas J. Futuyma put it:
quote: One of the big cheeses of evolutionary biology explicitly stating that the idea that ToE is the proposition regarding common ancestors is a common misconceptin and that the ToE is a body of interconnected statements about the things that cause population changes. On its own, the Theory says nothing whatsoever about what happened 10 million years ago. We actually need to plug data into the theory to reach conclusions. Data such as genetic similarity, fossil morphology, current morphology, etc etc. We can then see if a hypothesis about common ancestors can be falsified, or strengthened...using the theory. I am not suggesting there is evidence for the theory but no evidence for its conclusions. Actually quite the contrary. The conclusions are based on combining physical evidence with the ToE. As I have said, whether or not ToE deals with origins is entirely irrelevant. That seems to be your only reason for thinking that acceptance of ToE means rejection of the supernatural. Your two lines of post in reply to me does not tackle the 'even if you're right about ToE, it still doesn't lead to rejection of the supernatural' comment I made:
quote: So let me reiterate my central position: Even if accepting ToE somehow means rejecting a supernatural creator it does not mean rejecting all other supernatural entities and explanations.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Thoughts are not made of physical stuff, but reside in the dynamic arrangement of physical stuff. They are the patterns in which the underlying physical stuff is arranged and is constantly changed. Thoughts are only physical in the sense that they are caused by something physical. But that doesn't mean that thoughts are made of some tangible stuff. You can't pick up a thought, roll it in the palm of your hand like a marble, and say: "This thing in my hand is a thought". Well, they are either something or nothing. If one is not a dualist, I would think one would have to be a materialist: everything is physical.
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Parasomnium Member Posts: 2224 Joined: |
robinrohan writes: Well, they are either something or nothing. Right. They are something: they are patterns.
robinrohan writes: If one is not a dualist, I would think one would have to be a materialist: everything is physical. One can be a materialist and at the same time know that patterns exist that make a difference. A random heap of building materials is not a house, but if put together according to a certain pattern, it becomes a structure you can actually live in. Likewise, a random configuration of bits and bytes in the memory of a computer generally isn't very useful, but a certain pattern of bit and bytes can cause a screen on the other side of a big ocean to light up with a picture of marbles in boxes. The crux of these patterns is that they are not random, they are about something. Their aboutness is what makes the difference.
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2319 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
If our aura of incorporeality was accurate, then we would have a distinct self which makes these logical deductions or inferences. But this cannot be because our thoughts are physically caused. If they are physically caused, then our conclusions are not logical except by accident. But logical thoughts are not supposed to be true just by accident; they are supposed to follow ineluctably, as the night follows the day. Therefore, our sense of logic is an illusion. I think I've got to the bottom of why your argument seems so strange. Generally there are two opposing arguments on this issue; let's call them the Materialist and the Immaterialist arguments (I'm sure they have technical names, but I'm not a logician). Both sides accept the observed fact that human beings are capable of carrying out logical operations. Where they differ is in how they interpret this fact. The Materialist position has an argument (let's call it the Materialist Hypothesis of Mental Causation) that states that all our empirical evidence suggests that mental events have purely physical causes. The Immaterialist argues that logical operations can only proceed from logical, rather than physical, grounds, and therefore can only be performed by a non-material entity. Th Immaterialist combines his hypothesis with the observation that human beings do logic and concludes that the Materialist hypothesis must be wrong. The Materialist does likewise and concludes that the Immaterialist hypothesis must be wrong. Impressively, you have managed to take a third position, i.e. you accept both the Materialist and the Immaterialist hypotheses, but reject the observable fact! This message has been edited by JavaMan, 01-26-2006 03:46 AM The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
An entirely physical calculator can do mathematical operations. An entirely physical computer can do logic operations. So what's the problem with us? The calculator does mathematical operations in a sense: but what it's really doing is going through some automatic algorhythm. That's not a logical procedure. It's a physical procedure, like ice freezing at 32 degrees F. The difference, of course, is that this algorythm was set up by some thinker. So in this way the analogy between the brain and calculator would hold. The natural algorhythm of the brain was set up mindlessly by evolutionary pressures. Sometime back in history the first logical thought occurred. But calling it a logical thought is misleading. Its truth was accidental. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-26-2006 07:00 AM
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Right. They are something: they are patterns. Patterns, yes. Or one might call them events--physical events. However, thoughts are unique physical events in that they are always "about" something. You can't have a thought that's not about anything. There wouldn't be anything to think. Other events are not about anything. A leaf falls from a tree: this event has no meaning in itself. Then a thinker comes along and invests this physical event with aboutness: "This event--the leaf falling from the tree--signifies the coming of autumn." But being caused physically, thoughts remain physical events. Indeed, they have to be if consciousness evolved. Evolution tells us consciousness did indeed evolve. Evolution includes materialism. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-26-2006 07:07 AM
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
But being caused physically, thoughts remain physical events.
That seems wrong to me. However, I would agree to:Being caused physically, acts of having thoughts are physical events. I don't see that a thought itself is any kind of event. However, the act of having a thought is an event.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Th Immaterialist combines his hypothesis with the observation that human beings do logic and concludes that the Materialist hypothesis must be wrong. The Materialist does likewise and concludes that the Immaterialist hypothesis must be wrong. Impressively, you have managed to take a third position, i.e. you accept both the Materialist and the Immaterialist hypotheses, but reject the observable fact! I think I understand you. You're saying that I reject the observable fact that we "do logic." I said our "sense of logic" is an illusion. We think we are doing logic but what's really happening are a lot of physical reactions to stimuli which are not logical but automatic. Now it's true that we can go through processes that yield results but it's in a fashion analogous to a calculator. This process evolved through natural selection. Certain thoughts proved to be useful--therefore "logical." And in fact, the reason they are useful is that they are logical. The accidental thought, "This stick would make a good weapon" is objectively logical. The stick did make a good weapon. But that's not our doing except that our brains were the physical vehicle that accidentally produced a physical event called a logical thought. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-26-2006 07:29 AM
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
I don't see that a thought itself is any kind of event Here's the choices, as I see them: A thought exists or doesn't exist--if it doesn't exist, it's nothing at all. If it exists, then either it's physical or it's mental. If it's mental, it's incorporeal. If it's incorporeal, it's supernatural.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: You have this the wrong way round. Why should we assume a non-physical mind when the brain has been so clearly demonstrated to have a very marked cause and effect influence on perception and behavior? Ever heard of Phineas Gage?
Some months after the accident, probably in about the middle of 1849, Phineas felt strong enough to resume work. But because his personality had changed so much, the contractors who had employed him would not give him his place again. Before the accident he had been their most capable and efficient foreman, one with a well-balanced mind, and who was looked on as a shrewd smart business man. He was now fitful, irreverent, and grossly profane, showing little deference for his fellows. He was also impatient and obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, unable to settle on any of the plans he devised for future action. His friends said he was “No longer Gage.”
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
I think your range of choices is too limited.
What's a symphony (think of Beethoven's 9th, for example). The symphony isn't physical. A particular performance is physical. But the word "symphony" doesn't refer to a particular performance. And the symphony isn't mental either, because the symphony exists even when nobody is thinking about it. Or what's a number. Think of a complex number such as the square root of -1. What is it? Is it physical? Is it mental? Is it supernatural? It seems to me that there is a large class of things that don't fit your "either it's physical or it's mental". And a great deal of our conversation is about such things.
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