Argument for God(s) Second Edition - please critique

[1137]

define "natural"

I ask because I fail to see how imagination is "non-natural"

What Mestemia said.

There's a correlation between mind and body? Who knew?! Oh wait, I did and rarely is it denied that the brain and mind interact.

 

[sayak83]

Lust in mind may correlate with a pattern in brain just as it may correlate with an aroused organ. That does not mean that the aroused organ produces lust.

Temporal precedence. I am pretty sure that , just as has been demonstrated for cognitive states, emotional states would also be found to arise "after" certain neural patterns emerge in the brain. The proposition that neural activity patterns are the emotional states is a simple claim that is so far supported by what evidence is available. The most telling evidence for this claim is the fact that when certain neural pathways are artificially activated by electro-cranial simulations by scientists, people feel those emotions.

 

[sayak83]

There's a correlation between mind and body? Who knew?! Oh wait, I did and rarely is it denied that the brain and mind interact.

I am stating neural activities and processes in the brain are the mind. Its a simple hypothesis that is supported by and fully in conformity with current neuroscientific evidence. This makes your proposition (2) unjustified. If you cannot show that (2) is true over my alternative, your argument fails. Simple.

 

[1137]

I am stating neural activities and processes in the brain are the mind. Its a simple hypothesis that is supported by and fully in conformity with current neuroscientific evidence. This makes your proposition (2) unjustified. If you cannot show that (2) is true over my alternative, your argument fails. Simple.

You've simply claimed the brain makes the mind, but haven't explained how. Please continue.

 

[sayak83]

You've simply claimed the brain makes the mind, but haven't explained how. Please continue.

I claimed that brain processes are the mind (more accurately mind is collective term for the dynamical states of neural interactions in the brain) . See evidence for this in post 22. Identity claim does not require a causal explanation, it requires evidence of 1 to 1 correspondence This, so far has been supported by the evidence.

You have not shown that mind etc. are not made of (or are properties of ) physical matter and are not bound by physical laws. Demonstrate your claim. You made a claim and asked us to critique it. Demonstrate that (2) is true and not my alternative.

 

[atanu]

He he. Does the brain know the brain?

 

[atanu]

Temporal precedence. I am pretty sure that , just as has been demonstrated for cognitive states, emotional states would also be found to arise "after" certain neural patterns emerge in the brain. The proposition that neural activity patterns are the emotional states is a simple claim that is so far supported by what evidence is available. The most telling evidence for this claim is the fact that when certain neural pathways are artificially activated by electro-cranial simulations by scientists, people feel those emotions.

A brain with all physicalities intact does not give rise to a mind in a dead body. A brain does not say "Let me live".

Does a brain know "I exist"? Does a brain exist in dream or sleep consciousness?

 

[Quintessence]

Things that are going to clash with particular worldviews:

• The presupposition that limits consciousness/mind to a very few beings doesn't work for animists.
• The dualism inherent to the argument in several places doesn't work for non-dualists, whether monists or pluralists.
• Limiting god(s) to supernaturalistic varieties doesn't work for many forms of theism.

So... as someone who is an animist, pluralist (polytheist) and whose theism doesn't gel with how you're defining gods, this doesn't work for me at all, really. But if you want to be a non-animist, non-pluralist, non-whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-my-theism, I guess it works?

 

[jeager106]

I can only say that my mind can whip your mind.
'Cause I said so.

I don't recall my I.Q. but it's somewhere around 125/130 ish or so.
Not Mensa material dang it!

Hey! I just looked Mensa I.Q. and it's around 130 and up.
Gee! Now I actually feel smart.

Sadly I suck at math. Always have but that isn't an I.Q. thing as much as it's
a right brain/left brain thing.
I excel at lit., history, creative writing, geometry, trig, but not at math.
Trig hasn't a lot of difficult math like advanced algebra and calculus.

 

[sayak83]

He he. Does the brain know the brain?

Correct. It makes a model of itself within itself in terms of its various functions.

 

[sayak83]

A brain with all physicalities intact does not give rise to a mind in a dead body. A brain does not say "Let me live".

Does a brain know "I exist"? Does a brain exist in dream or sleep consciousness?

The brain in a dead body is completely damaged (like a fried hardware). Just because a non-specialist cannot see the difference does not mean its not there. Neuroscientists can.
Rest is kind of rhetoric. Obviously the brain has strong inclinations to preserve itself at all costs. Your fear of death is the brain's fear of destruction.

 

[atanu]

He he. Does the brain know the brain?

A brain with all physicalities intact does not give rise to a mind in a dead body. A brain does not say "Let me live".
Does a brain know "I exist"? Does a brain exist in dream or sleep consciousness?

Correct. It makes a model of itself within itself in terms of its various functions.

The brain in a dead body is completely damaged (like a fried hardware). Just because a non-specialist cannot see the difference does not mean its not there. Neuroscientists can.
Rest is kind of rhetoric. Obviously the brain has strong inclinations to preserve itself at all costs. Your fear of death is the brain's fear of destruction.

I see. You require a neuroscientist to know that brain says "I exist".

A brain is an observed object. It is not the observer.

 

[sayak83]

I see. You require a neuroscientist to know that brain says "I exist".

A brain is an observed object. It is not the observer.

Yes. Especially for persons in coma, such decisions are often made by them.
An observer can also be observed by another observer.

 

[atanu]

Yes. Especially for persons in coma, such decisions are often made by them.
An observer can also be observed by another observer.

Yes. Investigate your own awareness and the objects that it perceives. No compounded object has a self or an intrinsic awareness of its own.

Else, a brain would be shouting from within a dead body "Do not take me away".

 

[sayak83]

Yes. Investigate your own awareness and the objects that it perceives. No compounded object has a self or an intrinsic awareness of its own.

Else, a brain would be shouting from within a dead body "Do not take me away".

I disagree. Only compounded and complex objects like brains (or future computers) can have sophisticated arrangement of its matter-energy to exhibit the property of awareness and self. There is no such thing as intrinsic awareness, just as there is no such thing as intrinsic capacity to perform logical or mathematical operations.
Again you are mistaken. It is necessarily the case that a body dies after a brain dies, because one of the brain's function is to keep the brain alive. (Here death is the destruction of the brain, like a computer getting fried.)

 

[atanu]

I disagree. Only compounded and complex objects like brains (or future computers) can have sophisticated arrangement of its matter-energy to exhibit the property of awareness and self. There is no such thing as intrinsic awareness, just as there is no such thing as intrinsic capacity to perform logical or mathematical operations.
Again you are mistaken. It is necessarily the case that a body dies after a brain dies, because one of the brain's function is to keep the brain alive. (Here death is the destruction of the brain, like a computer getting fried.)

If the complex structure of brain gave rise to "I awareness", then that awareness should persist in a dead body, since the physical structure of brain is intact.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

This was original presented as a 4 premise argument entitled the Argument for Set. I think you'll find this version much more flushed out.

1. The external universe (EU) is made of physical material and bound by physical laws.

2. The internal universe (IU), such as the mind, imagination, abstract thought, etc, is not made of physical matter and not bound to by physical laws of the EU.

Quite the premises. Even dualists and others who might support this view would certainly not be content to treat them as undefended assumptions.

You have assumed there is an external universe. The only access we have to this universe (assuming it exists) is via physical interactions with it (seeing, touching, etc.), and inferences from such interactions combined with internal conceptual frameworks, the mind, etc. Thus, for example, in cosmology one regularly finds physical descriptions of phenomena which have never (and in some cases can never) be observed in any sense other than by applying thought to the mathematical structures in physical theories. Physical "laws" are formed by generalizing the results of experiments and observations to form abstract descriptions. They are not external (which is why they have either all proven to be wrong, or to force us to realize that we cannot be treated as pure "observers", isolated from the cosmos we both seek to describe and participate in).

Also, and more simply, there exists no set of physical laws that can be said to describe everything we hold to be physical, even under the assumption that everything can be said to be physical in the sense used in modern physics and reducible to interactions among the most elementary components we can speak of (which depends upon the mathematical framework, problem, and scale concerned; composite particles can be and are taken to be elementary in theories which treat would-be more "elementary" fermions as the building blocks as topological features of the truly elementary bosons).

3. So, the properties of the EU and IU must be different.

By this kind of argument, software and programs more generally aren't physical, because they are also things we treat in the abstract, ignoring their physical realizations.

7. The EU shows no sign of conscious thought, as it is eternally bound to its laws.

Why eternal? Why can't these assumed laws, for which we have no evidence, evolve?

 

[atanu]

This was original presented as a 4 premise argument entitled the Argument for Set. I think you'll find this version much more flushed out.
1. The external universe (EU) is made of physical material and bound by physical laws.
2. The internal universe (IU), such as the mind, imagination, abstract thought, etc, is not made of physical matter and not bound to by physical laws of the EU.

Proposition (2) can easily be false. Thoughts could simply be group properties of firing neurons and hence could be as much a property of certain arrangements of matter-energy as wetness and solidity are.

No doubt, thoughts are products of sense interactions .. Pavlovian actually. But in what sense the seer/knower of thoughts is 'material' product of firing neurons?

1. If it is established knowledge that neuronal firing gives rise to self awareness, then a body-brain will never die .. just re-start the firing again. That is not the case. So, you actually do not know the "I" that is the seer of the body-brain complex that says "I am this body called Sayak".

2. If your awareness is an automated product of neuronal firing, then what is the validity of your 'Truth' claims? "I am Sayak. I know this' is an artefact of automated neuronal firing and can have no truth value.
...

 

[atanu]

Quite the premises. Even dualists and others who might support this view would certainly not be content to treat them as undefended assumptions.

You have assumed there is an external universe. ..

I think, he answered this (axiomatically) in response to the following.

How the IU (or its owner, if there is one) effects modifications in EU? IMO, this question remains.

 

[sayak83]

No doubt, thoughts are products of sense interactions .. Pavlovian actually. But in what sense the seer/knower of thoughts is 'material' product of firing neurons?

Conscious is a set of eletrochemical activity in the brain whose main function is to

1) interface with the electrical signals arising from different parts of the brain,

2) extract high level information patterns from these region specific activity

3) synthesize the extracted signals from various centers together

4) Feed the information back into the specialized centers so that each gets an input as to what is going on elsewhere and hence modulate their own activity accordingly.

Repeat.

1. If it is established knowledge that neuronal firing gives rise to self awareness, then a body-brain will never die .. just re-start the firing again.

What about fried elctronic board analogy did you not get? The neural cells responsible for the firing itself are destroyed at death. Are you aware of any process that reverses cell death? I am not.
.

2. If your awareness is an automated product of neuronal firing, then what is the validity of your 'Truth' claims. "I am sayak. I know this' is an artefact of automated neuronal firing.

It would be true just in case I indeed am an automated product of neural firing? This statement is simple a set of information bit stored in the neurons and accessed by the pattern during firing (see above). What of it?