Evolution Vs Creation
Discussion
Jabbah said:
ChrisGB said:
This is exactly what you were doing in your first posts on this thread - assuming that the empirically verifiable is all there is "in reality" and running with that. And you are still doing that.
Once again you choose to misrepresent to preserve your arguments. I am not assuming that what can be empirically validated is all there is, just that that only theories that can be validated are supportable by empirical evidence. It's a fine distinction that you don't seem to be able to grasp.Complexity of thought dependant on the meat the thoughts run on... there's no magic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_nu...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_nu...
Edited by IainT on Tuesday 15th April 12:14
Jabbah said:
With your refusal to even entertain Searle's own words then going round in circles is all you will ever do. Dualists are using a misinterpretation of Searle's argument to attack materialism. His thought epxeriments are based on a narrow definition of computation and attack that directly whilst accepting that physical processes themselves (eg. the brain) can generate can assign syntax to physical tokens. The argument is against the brain (mind) as a digital computer not against it being a physical process which is explicitly accepted. Even his Chinese Room thought experiment is based on a programmed digital computer or set of written down rules and not that no physical process can support consciousness. Searle even states that other physical processes other than the brain could support consciousness.
One thing that strikes me about Searle's Chinese Rook proposition (that programmed systems can only simulate consciousness rather than recreate it) is a bit flawed, as the self-same argument would apply to interactions with real people to.As far as I am concerned, I accept the fact of my consciousness because I am intuitively aware of it, but my experience of other people's consciousness is only though my senses. Therefore any external system which displays all the necessary attributes of consciousness has to be thought of as actually being conscious, or I deny the possibility of consciousness in other people. Or have I got something wrong in my interpretation of Searle?
ChrisGB said:
Sorry but a quantum "sea of potentialities" might be offered by someone as a brute fact based on which everything g else might be explained. There are big problems with such an approach.
On the other hand, prime mover is NOT a brute fact, because we can, as I've said, talk about the attributes of it, etc.
What are the problems with such an approach other than negating the need for god? Isn't everything essentially reducible to brute facts? Even quantum mechanics as we know it is based on brute facts that limit our understanding. Even if we manage to create a grand unifying theory of everything, brute facts will still exist of why is it like that and why are the constants exactly that. The answer to those questions is that given the potentially infinite number of universes that could have spontaneously erupted from an infinite sea of quantum randomness, the universes capable of supporting life will support it and the life capable of asking those questions will, and due to evolution that universe will seem perfect for that life.On the other hand, prime mover is NOT a brute fact, because we can, as I've said, talk about the attributes of it, etc.
How is the prime mover not also based on brute facts? Where do the attributes you talk of come from?
Gaspode said:
One thing that strikes me about Searle's Chinese Room proposition (that programmed systems can only simulate consciousness rather than recreate it) is a bit flawed, as the self-same argument would apply to interactions with real people to.
As far as I am concerned, I accept the fact of my consciousness because I am intuitively aware of it, but my experience of other people's consciousness is only though my senses. Therefore any external system which displays all the necessary attributes of consciousness has to be thought of as actually being conscious, or I deny the possibility of consciousness in other people. Or have I got something wrong in my interpretation of Searle?
Yeah I don't think the problem of everyone else being a p-zombie is tackled directly, just that as we are based on the same biological structure we can assume that everyone else is capable of supporting consciousness, therefore if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and has brains like a duck... As far as I am concerned, I accept the fact of my consciousness because I am intuitively aware of it, but my experience of other people's consciousness is only though my senses. Therefore any external system which displays all the necessary attributes of consciousness has to be thought of as actually being conscious, or I deny the possibility of consciousness in other people. Or have I got something wrong in my interpretation of Searle?
I also doubt that Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment could stand up to a serious interrogation for the Turing test though. Being able to compile enough predefined rules to accomplish this is an impossible task, as has been shown by many years of the Turing test. Searle also only considers a set of predetermined rules constructed about the language in his thought experiment which is akin to programming that knowledge into a digital computer and in this case I would agree that such a computer program will never become aware or understand the computations being performed. This completely disregards the ability of modern computers to be able to simulate the physical processes of neural networks though which would allow an artificial brain to learn and gain knowledge and generate meaning in the same way as a biological brain. In this case the knowledge and meaning is learnt rather than programmed directly so isn't covered by the Chinese Room.
So Searle's only argument is that a system based on a set of rules (eg. language rules) cannot be conscious, but this doesn't cover machine learning.
I agree with you that anything that appears conscious should be thought of as being conscious with the proviso that the Chinese Room thought experiment would never fool anyone in reality, even with a really really fast computer instead of a human operator; it will always fail a proper Turing test.
Dennett discusses the limitations of the Chinese Room problem and draws similar conclusions about the limits of what can be extrapolated from it.
There seems to be a fundamental resistance to acknowledging that a computer can exhibit real learning or that there's an inevitability to the complexity of computation surpassing that of the brain in the near future.
There seems to be a fundamental resistance to acknowledging that a computer can exhibit real learning or that there's an inevitability to the complexity of computation surpassing that of the brain in the near future.
Captain Muppet said:
Could someone who cares read these and tell me if they are worth the effort please? I'm lazy. If anyone has read them and not been convinced then just say so, not need to go in to details.
Here are a couple of reviews from different perspectives:http://www.apologetics315.com/2011/11/book-review-...
http://currentlogic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/edward-...
Sounds like he is a pretty angry man preaching to the choir. Unless you fully buy into Aristotelian metaphysics and enjoy reading diatribes it seems his books won't sway you.
Timsta said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
That must be soooo annoying. Fortunately I came to atheist aged 8 or 9 so those avenues of pleasure were fully open to me. Unfortunately, my ugly mug was a barrier to copious amounts of sex, but the odd short sighted girl came my way.
At least you never turned them down! 
doh!
Jabbah said:
Captain Muppet said:
Could someone who cares read these and tell me if they are worth the effort please? I'm lazy. If anyone has read them and not been convinced then just say so, not need to go in to details.
Here are a couple of reviews from different perspectives:http://www.apologetics315.com/2011/11/book-review-...
http://currentlogic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/edward-...
Sounds like he is a pretty angry man preaching to the choir. Unless you fully buy into Aristotelian metaphysics and enjoy reading diatribes it seems his books won't sway you.
Also it sounds very much like it doesn't contain the rational demonstration of God I was asking for, but rather a potentially rational argument that there might be a God of some kind given a few assumptions and a pre-existing beleif in some kind of God.
I'll stick with animism, which is all that I really need from a religion as it gives me a reason to beg my car to start on cold winter mornings and I get to do whatever I like on Sundays.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
That must be soooo annoying. Fortunately I came to atheist aged 8 or 9 so those avenues of pleasure were fully open to me. Unfortunately, my ugly mug was a barrier to copious amounts of sex, but the odd short sighted girl came my way.
So, she was short sighted and odd? As someone who also lacked the burden of good looks I certainly would have.
Moonhawk said:
ChrisGB said:
I see it could look like that.
1. It looks exactly like that. If a "pure act" does exist and does so without having to had a prior cause. How does this not violate causality? So far your reasoning has resulted in no more concreted an argument than "because it doesn't".
ChrisGB said:
Prime mover explains premise 2 as no potentiality being able to actualise itself.
2. This is another way of saying that things can't create themselves. But that in itself does not provea) That causality cannot be an infinite regression.
b) That causality holds under all circumstances.
ChrisGB said:
The conclusion deduced by the argument, an unmoved mover, is in these terms "purely actual", or pure act.
3. You keep stating this as fact - but this is nothing more than your opinion. There are many potential conclusions to this argument - you haven't demonstrated why yours is any more valid than any other proposition.ChrisGB said:
So there is no exception or rule breaking here - the rule is that change is change of potentiality to act, and the argument proves there is something that is pure act, therefore no potentiality, therefore no change.
Nothing broken then, once these concepts are used, as they are to get us over the problem of imagining any of this.
4. The argument "proves" no such thing. You have simply drawn a conclusion that is convenient to your beliefs.Nothing broken then, once these concepts are used, as they are to get us over the problem of imagining any of this.
Can you demonstrate that "prime movers", "pure acts" etc even exist - or are you simply assuming they must to suit your argument? How about giving an example (a real example - not one derived from a philosophical thought exercise).
Edited by Moonhawk on Tuesday 15th April 10:49
It's about realizing what must be there to ground the whole of everything changing or changeable.
The argument doesn't try to prove an exception, it starts from experience and tries to figure out what the nature of reality is underpinning that experience. Given that some things change, how can we make that change intelligible? And prime mover is the answer to that, and it incidentally shows there must be some "pure act" which further deduction shows is what Judaism and Christianity, in their traditional forms, call God.
2. The argument is about change not bringing itself about, not whether things create themselves, but that may not matter.
There is no infinite regression of essentially ordered causal series. Gaspode recognizes this. Regress back my arm moving my saw sawing my firewood - what causal sequence until you can't go any further? Neurons, nerves, muscles, organism, etc to universal forces to (?) and that's as far as we can go. Infinite?
That causality always holds? But the alternative is an unintelligible universe, so no science. Even where causality looks different from the obvious, it would still make no sense to have the effect coming from nothing.
3. Not to the formal version explaining causality in terms of potentials.
4. Show me how pure act could change / be material / be not unique etc. these are more or less built in to what it means.
And to ask for a real example not from philosophy?! - next you'll be telling me that the only sort of truth is science?
burwoodman said:
ChrisGB said:
Engineer1 said:
I've decided the best solution is that people who don't believe scientific facts should be forced to live without the science they don't believe in... So goodbye Chris you can come back when catholic science and philosophy catches up,good luck with that given most cutting edge scientists aren't religious.
Religion as not-so-good-version-of-science red herring!Well cheers anyway E1, your brand of fundamentalism is an essential part of threads like this!
That the method itself can't tell you that is obvious to a high school philosophy student.
But not to so many on here, in the thrall of new atheism.
That scientism is easily refuted by any example of final causality means that stubbornly holding on to it despite accepting that eg. thoughts are about something, means cloning to this belief in scientism despite the evidence. And I'll carry on calling that fundamentalism.
Jabbah said:
ChrisGB said:
This is exactly what you were doing in your first posts on this thread - assuming that the empirically verifiable is all there is "in reality" and running with that. And you are still doing that.
1. Once again you choose to misrepresent to preserve your arguments. I am not assuming that what can be empirically validated is all there is, just that that only theories that can be validated are supportable by empirical evidence. It's a fine distinction that you don't seem to be able to grasp.ChrisGB said:
You are saying that any claim about reality needs to be "empirically validated". This begs the question. You are assuming that all of reality is empirically verifiable, when this is exactly the question that we disagree about, so you can't assume it, you need to demonstrate it. And to demonstrate something about the whole of reality, there is nothing for you to do but deal with metaphysics.
2. This doesn't beg the question at all, it is just the reality of the tools at our disposal. It doesn't assume that all of reality is empirically verifiable, just that the only things that are verifiable in reality are empirical. The only places where truths can be verified non-empirically are in pure logic axiomatic systems. As soon as you try to apply those systems to reality though you need empirical data to show the correlations. Something that you haven't been able to do.ChrisGB said:
Thanks for the not understanding jibe, though. You wrote a post with no insults and I matched it. I'm happy to carry on civilly or polemically, your call.
3. You have a strange definition of insults. You have been the only one throwing about phrases such as "You are a child" or "Joker". You seem to think that showing obvious errors in your reasoning constitutes an insult."What can be empirically validated is all there is" - this you say you DON't hold, great, which means you are not in the scientistic, materialist etc camp, and then you explain not holding this view as "Only theories that can be validated are supportable by empirical evidence" which means there is nothing but "theories", validation, the empirical. How so you reconcile this? You just mean there are other theories out there that are worthless? Hardly a departure from what a scientistic atheist would say.
2.
Let's try to figure this out:
A. Not all of reality is empirically verifiable
B.. The only things that are verifiable are empirical
C.. Truths can be verified in pure logic systems
D. Empirical data needed to tell you if these logic systems correlate with reality.
What I don't get is: on what basis the empirical trumps logic, axioms etc. and what difference there can be between truth and reality? Does one not need logic and axioms in order to make any sense out of the empirical? So the empirical presupposes, is dependent on, logic and axioms? And what is reality of it is not the same as the truth about things?
3.
We can drop the insults or carry them on. Your call.
ChrisGB said:
blissful ignorance of the fact that this scientism is blatantly and obviously not possibly true, because scientific method is just a method, not some idea or meta-method that can prove itself. To justify believing in scientism, you need to engage in rational thought and get into philosophy and metaphysics to work out how it could be that this method gives all truth.
Or you could merely look at the computer you're typing this guff on, and the internet which allows people from all corners of the globe to join together and develop RSI from relentlessly facepalming while reading this thread.Science has proved itself over and over and over. The scientific method has done more for mankind than any religion ever has.
Book a flight on your smartphone, get on the plane, fly to Australia and then explain to me how science is "just a method".
OK oh great philosopher using philosophy make a computer, explain gravity, predict the movement of the planets. Science can and does it is also progressing towards greater understanding and while it may eventually stumble on some truely unexplainable stuff its a long way from there at the moment.
@Jabbah
On Searle. Non-materialists use his arguments to show that some sort of dualism must be correct. Searle avoids calling his conclusions property dualism ( which is just what you outlined in your explanation of Searle), because he knows that that is never easily saved from becoming something more like substance dualism, once the physical and mental are separated.
The problem with Searle's making a big deal about not being a property dualist is that he accepts the key feature of property dualism, namely the mental and physical as distinct, and so whatever he then wants to call his position, he is going to be treated as a pd.
If like Searle you are strongly anti-religion, think full-blown materialism and eliminativism are bonkers, see that defeating these puts you in danger of being on the religionists' side, what are you going to do? Maybe what you need to in order to carve out a non-committal niche?
All of which would leave your arguments to be developed by the dualists and lead you to attend Thomist conferences where your pseudo-dualist arguments are lapped up?
Not that we haven't been round this circle before.....
On Searle. Non-materialists use his arguments to show that some sort of dualism must be correct. Searle avoids calling his conclusions property dualism ( which is just what you outlined in your explanation of Searle), because he knows that that is never easily saved from becoming something more like substance dualism, once the physical and mental are separated.
The problem with Searle's making a big deal about not being a property dualist is that he accepts the key feature of property dualism, namely the mental and physical as distinct, and so whatever he then wants to call his position, he is going to be treated as a pd.
If like Searle you are strongly anti-religion, think full-blown materialism and eliminativism are bonkers, see that defeating these puts you in danger of being on the religionists' side, what are you going to do? Maybe what you need to in order to carve out a non-committal niche?
All of which would leave your arguments to be developed by the dualists and lead you to attend Thomist conferences where your pseudo-dualist arguments are lapped up?
Not that we haven't been round this circle before.....
Engineer1 said:
Moonhawk said:
The argument "proves" no such thing. You have simply drawn a conclusion that is convenient to your beliefs.
Can you demonstrate that "prime movers", "pure acts" etc even exist - or are you simply assuming they must to suit your argument? How about giving an example (a real example - not one derived from a philosophical thought exercise).
Can you demonstrate that "prime movers", "pure acts" etc even exist - or are you simply assuming they must to suit your argument? How about giving an example (a real example - not one derived from a philosophical thought exercise).
Edited by Moonhawk on Tuesday 15th April 10:49
The problem is ChrisGB is a true Christian his belief is part of him so he forces everything to fit round GOD, because if it doesn't then he has been living a lie, his afterlife insurance policy is a sham, the Sundays spent in church a waste, the things during a teenagers experimental stage sex, drugs, rock and roll etc that were declined because they would upset God are now regretted. Basically if we attack his assertion therefore God we ae attacking his whole being.
So why not deal with that instead?
Moonhawk said:
Jabbah said:
ChrisGB said:
This is exactly what you were doing in your first posts on this thread - assuming that the empirically verifiable is all there is "in reality" and running with that. And you are still doing that.
Once again you choose to misrepresent to preserve your arguments. I am not assuming that what can be empirically validated is all there is, just that that only theories that can be validated are supportable by empirical evidence. It's a fine distinction that you don't seem to be able to grasp.IainT said:
Dennett discusses the limitations of the Chinese Room problem and draws similar conclusions about the limits of what can be extrapolated from it.
There seems to be a fundamental resistance to acknowledging that a computer can exhibit real learning or that there's an inevitability to the complexity of computation surpassing that of the brain in the near future.
Dennett should be an atheist anti-hero: he makes it quite clear that we must only work within naturalism. It is a fundamental dogma of his that any discussion starts: "given naturalism, how do we explain X?"There seems to be a fundamental resistance to acknowledging that a computer can exhibit real learning or that there's an inevitability to the complexity of computation surpassing that of the brain in the near future.
This is not open-mindedness, this is not following the evidence.
So he refutes and dismisses eg qualia by just asserting naturalism, not by showing. If Jabbah is willing, why not look at eg. Chalmers dismantling Dennett?
There is no resistance to science, but as Searle's introduction to "Is the Brain a Digital Computer?" shows, there is room among atheist and theist alike for if necessary withering criticism of very bad ideas attached to or in interpreting the science, such as strong AI in that paper.
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