[immortal]

Subjective Idealism

PeterJ, on 10 March 2012 - 10:16 AM, said:

If theologians reduce the brain to the mind then reductionism still wins. And if the Buddhists and Taosts are correct then these are not the only two possibilities. There would be at least three, and in each case reductionism would win. I agree about the mind-matter debate though. Such is the fear of religion in consciousness studies that the obvious solution is unliklely to ever be given much consideration.

Trouble is, of course, that neither materialism or idealism can be made reductive, as the history of metaphysics shows, hence Chalmers' viewpoint, which has never been seriously challenged. These two theories do not work, never have, never will. I would say that the idea that they are only two possibilities is the whole problem with philosophy of mind.

It is a mistake to think that religion argues for idealism. I'm not sure why you would think it does. The doctrine of most major religions would be consistent with the view that there is a third phenomenon in addition to mind and matter. If they were not then they would be no advance on scientific consciousness studies. Most would agree with Descartes, that the mind and body are both one and two depending on our level of analysis.

One difference between the stereotypical 'western' and 'eastern' worldview is that in the west mind-matter is a metaphysical (logical) dilemma. Elsewhere it would be a trilemma, and for Buddhists and some others it would be quadralemma. Religion wouild have no problem with the idea that intentional consciousness requires a material substrate. It would the orthodox view in many quarters.

A hatred of religion won't help you approach the problem honestly.

I am arguing for this view.

The idea of a personal God existing independent of mind and matter stands on its own. The idea of a God rejects the two extreme views of Subjective Idealism(the view that only mind exists) as well as Naturalism(the view that only the things described by physics exists) and it also rejects Objective Idealism(a kind of dualism) and brings God as the fundamental reality. God doesn't favor subjective idealism because God has an objective world which is made of five elements (i.e Fire, Earth, Water, Air and Space) and hence I am a realist, God doesn't favor naturalism because naturalism is only a state of mind. So only the mind and those five elements exist in the external objective world, both mind and those five elements came from God and they are made of a single entity and hence there is no paradox of mind-matter, this is the noumenon of Kant. Absolute Idealism cannot be realized without first realizing the reality of God.

[John Cuthber]

immortal, on 10 March 2012 - 08:20 AM, said:

Of course the brain is a neural network but that doesn't say whether our experience of qualia are due to brain or due to a human mind. If you think that qualia are mere patterns in the brain then develop an artificial neural network and help me to know what it is like to be an artificial neural network, if I find that I am experiencing qualia then I will accept that I was wrong and I will retract from my view.
There can be only two possibilities either science will reduce human mind to brain and the reductionist approach wins or theologians reduce human brain and scientific reality to a human mind and the top down approach wins. This debate was being made from the time of millenia and it will be continued for atleast a century in the future.

As piece of science, rather than mysticism, this "Debate" will start (not finish) when someone blows their brains out with a shotgun, and demonstrates that their mind remains intact.
Until then the only evidence is that the mind is a consequence of the brain.

[immortal]

John Cuthber, on 10 March 2012 - 11:46 AM, said:

As piece of science, rather than mysticism, this "Debate" will start (not finish) when someone blows their brains out with a shotgun, and demonstrates that their mind remains intact.
Until then the only evidence is that the mind is a consequence of the brain.

Yes, If I am right then we should be able to see demonstrations like that given by theologians more often otherwise all of religion will be rubbish and unreal. According to religion, the external world only consists of mind and five elements and the death of a person is interpreted as mind dissociating itself from the body made of five elements and hence I see no reason why anyone can't re-associate his mind to his body(made of five elements) and behave in tact even after being shot to his brain. Brain as such don't exist in the external world in terms of religious perspective.

[John Cuthber]

immortal, on 10 March 2012 - 01:25 PM, said:

Yes, If I am right then we should be able to see demonstrations like that given by theologians more often otherwise all of religion will be rubbish and unreal. According to religion, the external world only consists of mind and five elements and the death of a person is interpreted as mind dissociating itself from the body made of five elements and hence I see no reason why anyone can't re-associate his mind to his body(made of five elements) and behave in tact even after being shot to his brain. Brain as such don't exist in the external world in terms of religious perspective.

Lets be clear about things: what we need is for the separation of mind and brain to be shown not "more often" but at all, even once would be a start.

[immortal]

That's the point, why is a metaphysical argument for the existence of God is not equivalent to an argument which says "submission of yourself to a higher authority like God is erroneous". There is no compelling evidence in science so that we can reject a higher authority, science has not yet modeled conscious thought and hence evolutionary psychological theories aren't enough to reject a higher authority.

Science rejects God hypothesis or metaphysical explanations not because it has evidence against the existence of God, science rejects God because the scientific method is inappropriate for testing metaphysical statements and it cannot falsify such statements and hence the scientific community has no authority to silence theological arguments. There is nothing in science which contradicts the existence of God and hence all scientific and logical arguments against the existence of God is equivalent to all theological and metaphysical arguments for the existence of God. Neither science nor theology has the authority to silence each other. That's my point.

[John Cuthber]

Is this a variation on the idea that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"?

Anyway, my point is that theology doesn't have any legitimate authority to do anything.
It is generally unwise to let fairy tales influence your decisions.

[immortal]

John Cuthber, on 11 March 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

Is this a variation on the idea that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"?

Anyway, my point is that theology doesn't have any legitimate authority to do anything.
It is generally unwise to let fairy tales influence your decisions.

God is a metaphysical concept and the scientific method is ill equipped to falsify such a concept, there is nothing in scientific models which contradicts the existence of God where as theology is best suited to address metaphysical statements through the form of faith and revelations.

Theology says "The light which is stimulating my mind is the same light which stimulates other minds". This is purely a metaphysical statement, the light which they are talking about is not the light coming from the sun, its a different light and its ridiculous to apply scientific methods to falsify theological claims.

If theology is right you don't have authority over your own thoughts be rest assured as to what it can do.

[John Cuthber]

So theology is allowed to make any statement it likes, provided that the statement can never be tested.
Sounds like a total waste of time.

[immortal]

It might sound like a total waste of time to New Atheists but not for theologians, theology or any philosophy starts with dialectic and it is through dialectic we understand a philosophical doctrine, theology falsifies its statements through revelations and then through empiricism.

If New Atheists are allowed to make any assertions about God then even I should be allowed to make theological or metaphysical assertions about God. There are alternate schools of philosophical thought which claims to address metaphysical questions which science cannot answer and I want to investigate them and not conclude things fore hand.

[John Cuthber]

immortal, on 13 February 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

All atempts to formally connect those two concepts have failed. Hubert Yockey, especially, makes a distinction between themodynamic entropy and shanon entropy in his book Information theory and Molecular biology.

I'm quoting this part of an oldish post about entropy to see how it fits with newly published information.
http://www.nature.co...evealed-1.10186

There really is a link between information and statistical mechanics.

And, BTW re."If New Atheists are allowed to make any assertions about God then even I should be allowed to make theological or metaphysical assertions about God. ", the only assertion I make about God is that there is no reason to believe He exists. (And, BTW, I may be an atheist, but I'm not that new.)

This post has been edited by John Cuthber: 11 March 2012 - 09:12 PM

[immortal]

John Cuthber, on 11 March 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

I'm quoting this part of an oldish post about entropy to see how it fits with newly published information.
http://www.nature.co...evealed-1.10186

There really is a link between information and statistical mechanics.

The main objection of Hubert Yockey is the origin of meaningful prescriptive information which is a common attribute of a Genome through any known natural processes. This is the reason he thinks that the origin of Genome is an unsolvable problem for current science is concerned.

According to Landauer any information represented in a physical form (for example:- DNA in the Genome and Transistors in Computers) is constrained to the laws of statistical mechanics and hence any logical irreversible operations has to emit waste heat and there by account for increase in entropy. This is true.

In computer science erasure of information = = storage of information. There is no difference between the two processes, its just we place "Null" for erasure or deletion of information or we place a definite value for any new information. As you can see there is no violation of any law so as to why this process can't be done spontaneously in nature or by extracting free energy. This is also true but such a process cannot generate meaningful prescriptive information required in Genomes which couples with their specificity to generate stable functional proteins. Hence Hubert Yockey says a stochastic natural process which is not in any way concerned with the meaning of the information that it is erasing couldn't have led to the origin of Genome which contains meaningful information as its common attribute. The problem is with the origin of meaningful information and once Genome got originated there is nothing in physical law which prevents the genome from proliferating or losing its fidelity.

John Cuthber, on 11 March 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

And, BTW re."If New Atheists are allowed to make any assertions about God then even I should be allowed to make theological or metaphysical assertions about God. ", the only assertion I make about God is that there is no reason to believe He exists. (And, BTW, I may be an atheist, but I'm not that new.)

At this point of human history neither science nor religion has any authority to make any positive assertions about metaphysics, we need a new metaphysical and epistemological commitment along with new methods to address metaphysical statements, if ideas like "platonic values exist in their own realm" still exist from the time of Plato up until today in the 21st century and there are other metaphysical ideas much older than Plato I just don't see any point in arguing about metaphysics and metaphysical concepts like God. This was the whole point of Copenhagen interpretation that any statements about the nature of the physical system is at best a meaningless statement because such a physical or metaphysical system could be anything, it doesn't necessarily have to be God and just because our wavefunctions have a high predictive accuracy its wrong to conclude about such a physical system either.

This was definitely not the intention of Newton and Galileo when they first started the scientific endevour they thought that science could give a mechanical description of the universe but the aim of science seem to have reduced to a positivist approach and claims that ontology is irrelevant to science and therefore at this stage the aim of religious and philosophy forums should be to criticize those who misrepresent or strawman science and not make any positive assertions about metaphysics and metaphysical concepts like God.

This post has been edited by immortal: 12 March 2012 - 01:58 PM

[Arete]

immortal, on 12 March 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

The main objection of Hubert Yockey is the origin of meaningful prescriptive information which is a common attribute of a Genome through any known natural processes. This is the reason he thinks that the origin of Genome is an unsolvable problem for current science is concerned.

His basis was wild speculation to the point where his argument may as well be based on fiction, as previously discussed. This is why it's not accepted as a serious impediment to mainstream scientific theory. The reason being that we have no idea of the replication rate, generation time and effective population sizes of proto and early life forms, nor any idea of the selective pressure they underwent at the time. It is extremely difficult to evaluate these parameters for extant organisms for which we can directly measure them and inferring them for life forms we know essentially no details of is pretty much pulling them out of the air.

So, again at the crux of it you seem to be arguing for a system of investigation which makes positive assertions, but has no obligation to offer any form of proof of those assertions... it just doesn't seem like such a system would be actually useful in gaining any knowledge of much at all.

immortal, on 12 March 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

the aim of religious and philosophy forums should be to criticize those who misrepresent or strawman science and not make any positive assertions about metaphysics and metaphysical concepts like God.

Again I disagree - if someone makes religious claims that are either at odds with the observed world (e.g. miracles) ascribe exclusive cause (e.g. claims of exclusive moral authority) or insist on supernatural explanations for phenomena accounted for by naturalistic explanations (e.g. so called "qualia") I see no reason for them not to be questioned.

[immortal]

Arete, on 12 March 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

His basis was wild speculation to the point where his argument may as well be based on fiction, as previously discussed. This is why it's not accepted as a serious impediment to mainstream scientific theory. The reason being that we have no idea of the replication rate, generation time and effective population sizes of proto and early life forms, nor any idea of the selective pressure they underwent at the time. It is extremely difficult to evaluate these parameters for extant organisms for which we can directly measure them and inferring them for life forms we know essentially no details of is pretty much pulling them out of the air.

Of course this is the reason why most of Biology is not an exact science, just because we cannot imagine what selection pressures were acting at the time of pre-biotic earth it doesn't mean that life couldn't have originated through natural processes, however Hubert Yockey is arguing from the point of physics and mathematics and I find his arguments quite compelling and its enough to look for alternative methods to exactly know how life originated rather than simply writing a story of speculation which looks similar to any other creation story in all evolution books written by evolutionary biologists.

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So, again at the crux of it you seem to be arguing for a system of investigation which makes positive assertions, but has no obligation to offer any form of proof of those assertions... it just doesn't seem like such a system would be actually useful in gaining any knowledge of much at all.

That's my personal endeavor, you can happily admit that the scientific method cannot answer some of the important philosophical questions, you might say its irrelevant and its not required but that doesn't satisfy my intellect, for example:- If you are a physicist you can not be in peace with out explaining how quantum entanglement works, i.e with out explaining how and why such correlations arise in nature, this was just a small example which I gave to you and this is what quantum physicists like Bernard d Espagnat criticize the positivism of science.

When western scholars like Max Muller and Griffith started investigating ancient eastern schools of philosophy they lacked revelations and the practical knowledge which is required to understand and interpret those ancient texts but local Brahmins both had revelations and the practical knowledge and if these local Indian scholars are right then we have a new school of philosophical thought with its own methodologies.

1. The epistemological commitment will be that one is able to observe his own mind and this would be the commitment to the beilief that what you are investigating is the noumenon of the world and not the world which appears to us through the sense organs which Kant calls the phenomenon.

2. The metaphysical commitment will be that there is an objective physical world which is the actual external world as it is really out there and scientific realism will reduce to a state of mind and turns out to be false.

So whether this is a waste of time or not depends on whether the ideas of these scholars are indeed true or not and that is something which needs to be investigated. I would be rather be happy if science could answer and comprehend nature in a complete and in a consistent way rather than wasting my time in some kind of new philosophical thought but at this point I think such an investigation is worth it.

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Again I disagree - if someone makes religious claims that are either at odds with the observed world (e.g. miracles) ascribe exclusive cause (e.g. claims of exclusive moral authority) or insist on supernatural explanations for phenomena accounted for by naturalistic explanations (e.g. so called "qualia") I see no reason for them not to be questioned.

Why don't you apply the same flow of logic that you applied for defending origin of life through natural processes, just because you cannot imagine the possibility of how miracles can happen it doesn't mean it cannot happen and reject it out right, of course with in a fore night I cannot start walking on water.

You can always criticize and question my beliefs, that's the whole point of a religious forum but you cannot ridicule and reject my beliefs with out allowing me to discuss about it because you need to understand that your arguments are based on belief too and its not a scientific fact. The examples which you have mentioned here requires explanations, that's why I brought it up, you can not pretend as though there is no problem at all. Real altruism, qualia, ontology, moment of origin, life, conscious thought are real genuine problems for any school of current philosophical thought.

[Arete]

immortal, on 13 March 2012 - 02:22 PM, said:

Of course this is the reason why most of Biology is not an exact science, just because we cannot imagine what selection pressures were acting at the time of pre-biotic earth it doesn't mean that life couldn't have originated through natural processes, however Hubert Yockey is arguing from the point of physics and mathematics and I find his arguments quite compelling

It's a refutation based on non-evidence.
http://www.talkorigi...b/abioprob.html

immortal, on 13 March 2012 - 02:22 PM, said:

simply writing a story of speculation which looks similar to any other creation story in all evolution books written by evolutionary biologists.

Current mainstream scientific theories are not baseless "stories" and suggesting so is false: these theories are based on the best evidence at hand.
http://www.talkorigi...iginoflife.html
http://journalofcosm...mentary202.html
http://www.sciencema...987/52.abstract
http://www.wired.com...synthetic-life/
http://pandasthumb.o...enesis-how.html

immortal, on 13 March 2012 - 02:22 PM, said:

Why don't you apply the same flow of logic that you applied for defending origin of life through natural processes, just because you cannot imagine the possibility of how miracles can happen it doesn't mean it cannot happen and reject it out right, of course with in a fore night I cannot start walking on water.

There's is distinction between personal incredulity and there being simply no evidence for an assertion. I don't not reject the possibility of your ability to walk on water outright - but without evidence of it, I conclude it as unlikely and therefore - if you made an assertion that you could without evidence to support the assertion I would feel confident in maintaining a position of skepticism and rejecting the suggestion as not compelling.

immortal, on 13 March 2012 - 02:22 PM, said:

you need to understand that your arguments are based on belief too and its not a scientific fact.

This is simply untrue, given my position is the scientific position.

This post has been edited by Arete: 13 March 2012 - 03:44 PM

[immortal]

Arete, on 13 March 2012 - 03:43 PM, said:

It's a refutation based on non-evidence.
http://www.talkorigi...b/abioprob.html

Its disturbing that at one point they say that its incorrect to apply probabilistic models to the origin of life since we don't know all the factors and the various degrees of freedom and they themselves apply probability and say that the origin of life is not so improbable.

What Yockey's arguments indicates is that "If natural selection was not acting from the point of origin of life up until now then origin of life is unsolvable for current science because natural selection is one of the major natural force which can accumulate new information and for this nature needed a self-replicator in the first place.

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There's is distinction between personal incredulity and there being simply no evidence for an assertion. I don't not reject the possibility of your ability to walk on water outright - but without evidence of it, I conclude it as unlikely and therefore - if you made an assertion that you could without evidence to support the assertion I would feel confident in maintaining a position of skepticism and rejecting the suggestion as not compelling.

This was the whole point of the discussion in this thread, isn't it, there is a clear distinction between saying "First walk on water and then I will listen to your explanation" and saying "First walk on water and then I will give merit to your explanation". It seems most of the arguments of members here(including your arguments) are of former type and there is really no point in even to have a philosophical discussion with these members.

Conflicts do arises in such a case for example-

When someone asks in a religion forum about "What is Perfection? Has anyone had thoughts about this before?"

The answer to that question is Yes, there were great thinkers all along human history who had pondered over such questions and if I introduce how different philosophical schools thought about Perfection from the below set of categories.

Philosophical_schools_and_traditions

Category:Ancient_philosophical_schools_and_traditions


and then members like you conclude fore hand and put a constraint on such thoughts just because those thoughts doesn't fit with natural sciences, this is the scientific attitude and its appropriate to display such an attitude in the scientific speculation forums but its not appropriate to display the same attitude while discussing in philosophy and religion forums where one is arguing about metaphysical concepts which cannot be falsified through the scientific method and therefore any arguments against such metaphysical concepts will not be scientific arguments instead those arguments are personal opinions. If some members are not interested in philosophy and metaphysics and if members think it is just a waste of time and no useful knowledge comes out of metaphysics then its just fine, you can criticize such schools but you need to know that those are your personal opinions and beliefs and even your arguments have no merit what so ever while discussing metaphysical issues. This is my whole point.

Karl Popper said the metaphysics of this century might very well be the science of next century.

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This is simply untrue, given my position is the scientific position.

Its about Intellectual honesty, one should be honest about as to what science can answer and what it can not and how much it claims to explain nature.

[John Cuthber]

Immortal,
re. "At this point of human history neither science nor religion has any authority to make any positive assertions about metaphysics"

From a practical point of view, what is metaphysics?
What use is it?

[immortal]

John Cuthber, on 13 March 2012 - 07:33 PM, said:

From a practical point of view, what is metaphysics?

From a practical point of view Metaphysics is a place to dump your unfalsifiable notions, ideas, concepts and theories. It neither means those concepts are correct and real nor it means they are incorrect and unreal.

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What use is it?

Metaphysical concepts don't always remain unfalsifiable and as time passes they become falsifiable and useful.