My argument against materialism

[The Norseman]

The very obvious fact that consciousness doesn't actually create anything. Dreams are not created by consciousness. They are observed by it. They are created by the brain, which also produces consciousness.

Your consciousness is only aware of your own decisions after said decisions have been made, so it doesn't really do anything except "being conscious". You were confusing "consciousness" with "The Norseman", I think.

It obviously was not a very obvious fact to me.

Other than that, thank you for the clarification.

 

[yy2bggggs]

The difference here is that Dennett is arguing that the thermostat is thinking on account of it's information processing being valued (by human language in particular) as thinking.

...

Second, it doesn't actually explain at all how labeling a thing as conscious causes it to actually be conscious (whether that's between a human being and a thermostat or two human beings).

Let me offer a perspective.

There is such a thing as an Irish Setter. I can point to a Labrador Retriever and say, "that is an Irish Setter", but in doing so, I'm not causing that dog to actually be an Irish Setter.

However, according to wikipedia, a collection of people calling themselves the Irish Red Setter Club, in Dublin, Ireland, set a breed standard for Irish Setters on 29 March, 1886. This group of people chose to call particular kinds of dogs Irish Setters, and in doing so, they made particular dogs "really be" Irish Setters.

The difference between my retriever and the Irish Red Setter Club's setters is the game being played. I'm pointing to a particular dog, and to a label. When I claim this dog is a setter, what I'm trying to do is to claim that the dog qualifies for the title. The requirements for the title were not determined by me, but they are sufficiently clear that we can judge whether or not my retriever meets the breed standard.

When the Irish Red Setter Club was calling dogs Irish Setters, they were not trying to change what dogs were; nor were they trying to change what particular dogs were. There was even a pre-existing vague notion of Irish Setters, and there may have been particular dogs everyone agreed were Irish Setters; there just wasn't a clear cut standard. There wasn't a way to determine which dogs "really were" Irish Setters, not because we couldn't figure out if a given dog "actually was" an Irish Setter, but rather because nobody had established the criteria precisely.

So I'm claiming that it's fair to call the thermostat conscious, and you get to make it conscious, if you're setting the breed standard for consciousness. A thermostat can only possibly not "really" be conscious in two ways:

• You're trying to establish a little bit more of a breed standard (in which case there is no "really conscious" a priori, but you're just establishing that you don't want to talk about thermostats)
• There already is a breed standard (in which case, you get to refer to it when you reject thermostats)

Does that make sense? Beyond this I won't say much, because I'm not quite sure if you're considering yourself as having the breed standard to reject the thermostat's conscious status. I simply want to raise the point that it only makes sense to ask the question if you have or are establishing the breed standard.

The other thing I would mention is that it helps, when establishing a breed standard, for you to study the things you wish to include in the breed, in order to figure out what traits you wish to include in the standard.

Now, the problem here is that, applied to non-conscious information processing systems like computers there is absolutely no reason why a computer couldn't apply a shorter run code for a series of functions non-consciously.... (e.g. routine 1, routine 2, routine 3, etc,).

This assumes a breed-standard for consciousness that excludes thermostats.

So, Dennett's theory has two glaring problems. First, it always requires a conscious observer in the first place

"Conscious observer" is more specific than "consciousness". The former implies an agency.

In short, his theory doesn't really explain consciousness at all.

That much I agree with, if you're referring specifically to "Consciousness Explained".

The theory could very well be put forward that, since everything is thought, everything from simple information processing systems (like a thermostat) all the way up to complex human brains are "conscious". Subsequently, a believer in this model might say that when our bodies cease to function, the thought of who we are returns to God and we as individuals (thermostats or computers) cease to exist as distinct individual entities.

True, but a believer in this model doesn't necessarily have to believe that there's a God. It might be that fitting the "breed standard" for thought isn't considered by that person as meeting the "breed standard" for a God. After all, there are a lot of people who profess quite loudly and strongly that they believe in God, and they have particular attributes one might want to include in the "breed standard", such as the ones you're mentioning in this reply:

Personally, I find this too fatalistic. Why bother to create other consciousnesess just to have them disintegrate in the end?

"Why bother to create" implies cohesive agency and purpose. A consciousness with cohesive agency and purpose is a lot more specific than a consciousness per se. But this is, indeed, how many people who do believe in God conceive of him--basically, he's a clone of all of the complicated human social aspects of mind, except that he is purified. And there are a lot of such complicated aspects.

Some might even go so far as to say our individual counsciousnesses are just small pieces of God's mind that eventually return to the source.

Yes, some might say that. But if you're looking at things like thermostats and their behaviors, and you look at our brains in terms of producing conscious behavior, then it would be reasonable to model consciousness as composed of such "thermostats"--that is, functioning parts. In this aspect, once we die, our brains stop functioning--though the mass is still there, there are no more "working thermostats", so there's no return to at least the working thermostat layer.

If you look at the mass itself as conscious pieces, it doesn't quite fit this analysis either, because we are not actually composed of particular matter per se anyway; due to our metabolic nature, matter seems to have to flow through us to maintain our energy, which is required to survive. In this aspect, if there's a "return to God", it's being done constantly (and some forms of return have some not quite tasteful names).

Either way, as you can see, this is rather different from Dennett's model.

Dennett's not here to defend himself.

I, personally, don't think it's possible to know which theory is correct.

I'd like to offer that it might be worse than our not having an answer--that perhaps we need to work on the question. We need a breed standard before we can classify anything in outside groups with meaning. I don't take it for granted that breed standards exist completely independently of our determination of them, though I welcome a discussion of traits you may wish to add to the standard.

 

[tsig]

The theistic model predicts consciousness... like creating after it's own kind - just as an acorn can produce another oak tree. Consider Daniel Dennett's atheistic physicalist view that thermostat's think "too hot", "too cold" and "just right". I mean, just how full of holes is that?

First, it's a conscious valuation of information processing in order to label said IP "behaviour" as what consciousness "really is"! But.... if consciousness is only a valuation then where does the first material consciousness come from without any conscious valuation that it is conscious in the first place!

Second, as if that's not laughable enough, we can easily dismis claims of predictive power to metaphysical materialism due to the fact that if consciousness didn't already exist, no purely IP device would predict consciousness in any other IP system!

No non-conscious entity could ever value itself as conscious or conceive of consciousness.

~
HypnoPsi

So god's a little seed that grew into us? You seem to be saying that if consciousness didn't exist we wouldn't be conscious.

 

[Malerin]

So god's a little seed that grew into us? You seem to be saying that if consciousness didn't exist we wouldn't be conscious.

I don't think that came out as you intended.

ETA: Or maybe you're accusing Hypnopsy of making a tautologically true claim, but I don't read him as making that kind of claim.

 

[tsig]

And one of the things we can show very easily is that change can occur when we're not there to percieve it.

E.g. Put a working clock in an empty room, get on with your daily routine and forget about it, check up on it later and the hands will have moved!

Simple, noumenal reality is real.

Our brains take sensory information (such as a certain part of the light spectrum we call visible light) and provide us with the wonderful 3D phenomenal perceptual world that we each, individually perceive.

The point being that the noumenal/phenomenal distinction is an important one. (This is particularly true in medicine and psychology whereby a patient may be seeing or hearing something that their carers are not perceiving.)

Personally, I dont care if the folks in this forum refer to the noumenal and phenomenal realms as Disneyland and Graceland the point is that ignoring this distinction is not only illogical and unscientific it is completely unreasonable.

So if someone's atheism - or need need to believe in atheist conclusions about reality - forces them to be illogical, unscientific and unreasonable in their thinking then wouldn't it be wise to apply some critical thinking to atheism itself?

If theism is a step too far, what I'd like to see is people sincerely asking themselves why they are atheist rather than agnostic?

I mean, we don't (and it seems can't) declare conclusively whether or not neumenal reality is given being by some non-conscious substrate as required by metaphysical materialism and atheism ("without God") or whether it is a conscious mind that is "thinking up" the Universe!!

I think there is real logical value in accepting that atheism really does require belief in some non-conscious substrate to existence and, further, that even agnositicism is a much more logical and reasonable belief system.

Afterall, if someone is going to try and argue that theism is illogical because it requires belief in an unknown and unknowable thing then how can atheism be any less logical given it's need for a unknown and unknowable thing?

~
HypnoPsi

So not believing in something is the same as believing in something?

 

[tsig]

And one of the things we can show very easily is that change can occur when we're not there to percieve it.

E.g. Put a working clock in an empty room, get on with your daily routine and forget about it, check up on it later and the hands will have moved!

Simple, noumenal reality is real.

Our brains take sensory information (such as a certain part of the light spectrum we call visible light) and provide us with the wonderful 3D phenomenal perceptual world that we each, individually perceive.

The point being that the noumenal/phenomenal distinction is an important one. (This is particularly true in medicine and psychology whereby a patient may be seeing or hearing something that their carers are not perceiving.)

Personally, I dont care if the folks in this forum refer to the noumenal and phenomenal realms as Disneyland and Graceland the point is that ignoring this distinction is not only illogical and unscientific it is completely unreasonable.

So if someone's atheism - or need need to believe in atheist conclusions about reality - forces them to be illogical, unscientific and unreasonable in their thinking then wouldn't it be wise to apply some critical thinking to atheism itself?

If theism is a step too far, what I'd like to see is people sincerely asking themselves why they are atheist rather than agnostic?

I mean, we don't (and it seems can't) declare conclusively whether or not neumenal reality is given being by some non-conscious substrate as required by metaphysical materialism and atheism ("without God") or whether it is a conscious mind that is "thinking up" the Universe!!

I think there is real logical value in accepting that atheism really does require belief in some non-conscious substrate to existence and, further, that even agnositicism is a much more logical and reasonable belief system.

Afterall, if someone is going to try and argue that theism is illogical because it requires belief in an unknown and unknowable thing then how can atheism be any less logical given it's need for a unknown and unknowable thing?

~
HypnoPsi

Wow I didn't know about the unknown and unknowable thing sounds like godzilla.

 

[tsig]

And one of the things we can show very easily is that change can occur when we're not there to percieve it.

E.g. Put a working clock in an empty room, get on with your daily routine and forget about it, check up on it later and the hands will have moved!

Simple, noumenal reality is real.

Our brains take sensory information (such as a certain part of the light spectrum we call visible light) and provide us with the wonderful 3D phenomenal perceptual world that we each, individually perceive.

The point being that the noumenal/phenomenal distinction is an important one. (This is particularly true in medicine and psychology whereby a patient may be seeing or hearing something that their carers are not perceiving.)

Personally, I dont care if the folks in this forum refer to the noumenal and phenomenal realms as Disneyland and Graceland the point is that ignoring this distinction is not only illogical and unscientific it is completely unreasonable.

So if someone's atheism - or need need to believe in atheist conclusions about reality - forces them to be illogical, unscientific and unreasonable in their thinking then wouldn't it be wise to apply some critical thinking to atheism itself?

If theism is a step too far, what I'd like to see is people sincerely asking themselves why they are atheist rather than agnostic?

I mean, we don't (and it seems can't) declare conclusively whether or not neumenal reality is given being by some non-conscious substrate as required by metaphysical materialism and atheism ("without God") or whether it is a conscious mind that is "thinking up" the Universe!!

I think there is real logical value in accepting that atheism really does require belief in some non-conscious substrate to existence and, further, that even agnositicism is a much more logical and reasonable belief system.

Afterall, if someone is going to try and argue that theism is illogical because it requires belief in an unknown and unknowable thing then how can atheism be any less logical given it's need for a unknown and unknowable thing?

~
HypnoPsi

Reality is a known thing. It's what happens every morning when you get out of bed.

 

[tsig]

The difference here is that Dennett is arguing that the thermostat is thinking on account of it's information processing being valued (by human language in particular) as thinking.

I can't find the exact quote, but I believe he has also made the comparison that consciousness is to brains what strength is to muscles (i.e. "strength" is a convenient single word for a much more complicated process).
In brief, his theory is that consciousness is just like a big concept or idea that we imbue things with in the same way that we might talk about "plant behavior" (when we're really talking about stimulus-response).

Now, the problem here is that, applied to non-conscious information processing systems like computers there is absolutely no reason why a computer couldn't apply a shorter run code for a series of functions non-consciously.... (e.g. routine 1, routine 2, routine 3, etc,).

So, Dennett's theory has two glaring problems. First, it always requires a conscious observer in the first place and, Second, it doesn't actually explain at all how labeling a thing as conscious causes it to actually be conscious (whether that's between a human being and a thermostat or two human beings).

In short, his theory doesn't really explain consciousness at all. It doesn't even explain it away very well. It's basically just eliminativism or denying the Elephant in the room!




The theory could very well be put forward that, since everything is thought, everything from simple information processing systems (like a thermostat) all the way up to complex human brains are "conscious". Subsequently, a believer in this model might say that when our bodies cease to function, the thought of who we are returns to God and we as individuals (thermostats or computers) cease to exist as distinct individual entities.

Some might even go so far as to say our individual counsciousnesses are just small pieces of God's mind that eventually return to the source.

Personally, I find this too fatalistic. Why bother to create other consciousnesess just to have them disintegrate in the end?

Either way, as you can see, this is rather different from Dennett's model.

I, personally, don't think it's possible to know which theory is correct. I guess, when our bodies wear out, we'll either find out or we won't - in which case it won't matter to us.

~
HypnoPsi

delete

 

[AlBell]

Then how does your 'fundamental reality' differ from my 'fundamental reality'?

If they're no different then what does your first statement mean?

Other than based on our 'fundamental realities' neither you, I, nor anyone else knows what Reality is, you mean? Nothing else quickly comes to "mind".

 

[nescafe]

A mind created Universe is certainly more parsimonious than metaphysical materialsim - but parsimony does not guarantee accuracy of a theory only elegance.

Not really -- you take a strictly local phenomenon (us being able to imagine things), inflate that to the Basic Substance of The Universe (it is being imagined by a superbeing). How is that parsimonious or elegant?

Did you even read my post?

Yep.

And do you even understand the distinction between the phenomenal perceptual world and neumenal reality?

Yes. Any model that can account for reality appearing to be consistent from moment to moment and from observer to observer is a decent model of noumenal reality. That is its downfall as a concept, in fact, which is why it is not terribly useful except in mostly pointless philosophical discussions like this.

Our mind-brains construct our 3D world based upon sensory data.... but we don't see "things in themselves". Our eyes only pick up the light that either bounces off things or is emitted by them. But there clearly is a real world out there - the simple act of leaving a working clock in an empty room and forgetting about it for a while before returning to see the hands of the clock have moved demonstrates this.

Yep. You seem to be under the illusion that your statement of fact somehow falsifies the materialist stance. It does not.

We see matter and energy everywhere, in every direction we look, and we have rather rigorous and well tested models that describe how it should behave at multiple different levels of complexity.

As above, I don't deny that our 3D model of reality is absolutely and definitely based upon something real. But we do not see "things in themselves".

Of course.

When you write "we see matter and energy everywhere" you don't make any effort to define whether you are referring to your personal 3D cognitive model of the world or (a believed in) metaphysical materialism.

I don't subscribe to any particular ontology. When I speak of matter and energy, I speak of their commonly accepted descriptions from a physics perspective, not a philosophical one.

To me it reads like you are pointlessly trying to conflate the two.

No, I was trying to bring to light how absurd your position is, and you dodged my questions by retreating into pointless ontological hairsplitting.

However, since the theistic model also has better explanatory and predictive power than than the alternative atheistic model (which has no explanatory or predictive power at all with regards to consciousness) we can certainly be very confident in it's veracity.

Explanatory and predictive power are related to falsifiability -- how is your theistic model falsifiable? What could disprove it?

Both the theistic model and the metaphysical materialism model are in principle falsifiable by each other for the following reasons:

1) If we could prove there was a God that created everything then no non-conscious metaphysical prima materia could ever be said to be self-generating and self-perpetuating. It would be falsified.

2) If we could prove that there actually was some non-conscious metaphyscial prima materia that really was self-generating and self-perpetuating then any powerful consciousness we ever found wouldn't really be God since something existed that "God" hadn't actualy created.

You forgot the deist position, which is just as consistent as the materialist and idealist theist positions:

3)God created a non-conscious metaphysical prima materia that was self generating, self-perpetuating, and that, while non-conscious, could be arranged into arrangements that were conscious.

Oops, we managed to combine the theist and materialist positions, end up with something that it at least as consistent with known science.

That's fine in principle, but in practice I don't think that either can really be done.

Except that you sorta failed to actually specify what would be needed to falsify each ontological position with enough detail to actually do it. How, precisely, does one go about proving that there is a God that created everything?

Nope - for the blindingly obvious reason that the Universe is populated by distinct self-aware entities....

No, as far as we know only a single insignificant speck of dust has been populated with self-aware entities for a single fleeting instant. Thinking otherwise is deluding yourself.

Believe how you will; either way solipsism doesn't come into it.

My belief has nothing to do it. There is no evidence that self-awareness exists anywhere but on our little ball of dirt.

 

[Halfcentaur]

Imagine a material universe that came about completely due to natural processes.

Imagine that this material universe eventually gives rise to social organisms like us that are able to build up a system of mental references so complex they are able to maintain a form of consciousness like ours.
Consciousness, a construct of references based around symbolic thought and concepts organized from sensory data.

I would fully expect these conscious material entities to invent religion and spiritualism exactly as we have in an effort to explain the world around them through primitive and emotional means rooted in psychological bias, especially given the absence of empirical reasoning and sophisticated organized observation.

I would completely expect theism to happen in nearly any mind lacking an evidence based reasoning system founded in a desire to occupy a favored and privaleged spot in the Universe which obviously offers comfort to an organism which craves and strives for connection to it's fellows and it's betters, especially it's dominants. Especially a mind striving to make sense of it's reality while prone to indulging the instinct and behavior of a social animal.

It seems completely obvious to me that the idea of a spiritual realm with a god or gods and a soul and an afterlife are nothing but wishful thinking that quell some of our most base and rudimentary desires.

The most primitive and rudimentary cultures have a simple mythology involving a God or Gods. Even the simplest and most unintelligent among us also seem to jump to a theistic conclusion before a material one when considering these matters.

Why is that?

When the most primitive and naive among us begins to question the unknown, this is one of the first answers the human ego in it's social family system and hierarchy will arrive at, we see it again and again, long before empirical observation and something approaching the scientific method or actual reasoning comes about through effort and standing on the shoulders of those who come before us. It's clearly an emotional and psychological concept in origin, which should be a giant flashing HINT staring you in the face.

We all know that people will seek out explanations that personify inanimate objects and give them human traits, it's one of our first mistakes. We have human tinted goggles, because we were wired to. It's spilling over now into our reason, and we have theists who seem like perfectly intelligent people that are just unable to look beyond this instinct to humanize the universe as a result.

We see this same logic applied again and again to things we now have dismissed as superstition. Things like fairies, and spirits for every rock and tree and doorway and hearth and house and storm and country and mountain. Gods of ale and wine, gods of food and gods of war.

The more we reason it out beyond what's obvious to a 5 year old child, the smaller an area this same emotional, human tinted, and psychological logic can be applied to. The gaps shrink.

This should be a hint as well. The only things that are left to this primitive reasoning where we are in any way favored and special are the most abstract and mysterious and seemingly complicated mysterious in our existence.

The only things science and reason have yet to dispel. The line of progress and it's footsteps should be a giant hint screaming in your face, if you could only step outside yourself and your desires to look at it.

We can see the road reason has left behind it and the things it's dismissed, and we can see what's left ahead of it.

Once I called myself agnostic, before I admitted to myself these things.

Regardless of what the most theistic of the agnostics will say, you are able to dismiss all gods as easily as you dismiss the Great Juju in the sea, and yes, as glib as it comes off to those arguing for a theistic universe, as easily as you really do dismiss Santa Claus.

And you can do it without being an arrogant atheist jumping to conclusions and deciding on what we can REALLY know barring that percentile of improbable things the theist is so insistent we do not dismiss.

Once one looks at animal and human behavior, and the formation and evolution of reason, it becomes absolutely clear that religion and spiritualism is founded completely in egocentric and emotional thinking.

It takes no faith or dismissal of possibility to see this. It takes no faith to surmise there is no God.

It's clear that theism is a part on the stairway of reason, the most basic foundations of a fresh mind with no way to separate superstition from observation. The beginning steps we take to try to make sense of reality.

Five year old children are prone to thinking a mattress is a thing, whole unto itself, with the spirit of a mattress and the essence of a pure mattress within it.

Reason shows us a mattress is merely a collection of materials assembled and organized, and there is no essence or spirit to the mattress. We ascribe meaning to this object and turn it into a concept. Meaning is an arbitrary thing based completely upon the importance we deem.

This is the nature of the universe, and the corner of the box that logic has pushed spiritualism and theism into will only escape the appetite for human reason for so long before we all see it for the purely anthropic concept it is.

The theistic mind condemns the atheist for not being absolutely certain beyond a fraction of a doubt, while seizing on any reason it can to maintain it's theism, holding up and championing one point while dismissing it's detractors for only having thirty.

Theism is a sinking ship in a sea of reason and animal behavior.

 

[PixyMisa]

The difference here is that Dennett is arguing that the thermostat is thinking on account of it's information processing being valued (by human language in particular) as thinking.

Just to clarify something here: Dennett uses thermostats as an example of something that is not conscious.

Now, the problem here is that, applied to non-conscious information processing systems like computers there is absolutely no reason why a computer couldn't apply a shorter run code for a series of functions non-consciously.... (e.g. routine 1, routine 2, routine 3, etc,).

I don't know what you're talking about, so this may be beside the point, but here goes:

Conscious systems display objectively and observably different behaviours from non-conscious systems of equivalent complexity. This is because conscious, self-referential thought is a vastly more efficient method for complex behavioural modification than any other available mechanism. (More efficient both computationally and biologically.)

 

[SusanB-M1]

HalfCentaur #391

Super post - every line of which I find clear and logical.

I am following all the posts here, and hoping some of the more difficult bits will sink in, It's all very interesting.

 

[tsig]

HalfCentaur #391

Super post - every line of which I find clear and logical.

I am following all the posts here, and hoping some of the more difficult bits will sink in, It's all very interesting.

It's seems odd to have to argue that what you you see is what you get.

 

[marplots]

Is my feeling of being conscious noumenal? And if so, why does it get that special place in the taxonomy? Couldn't it be that what's really going on is based on material bits, neurons and electric signals, and I only mistake that as a feeling I call consciousness-- the same sort of error I make when the sun appears yellow-white because I cannot see outside the visible spectrum?

I'm just wondering why consciousness itself is judged as authentic out of the box. I don't trust it.

 

[SusanB-M1]

That's odd - I clicked on 'Reply with quote' and a completely different post came up.

Anyway, I would be grateful if you could explain this a bit further; I'm not quite sure what you mean. Thank you.

It's seems odd to have to argue that what you you see is what you get.

 

[Dancing David]

Ignorance is bliss, right?

Being rude is helpful?

 

[Dancing David]

The theistic model predicts consciousness... like creating after it's own kind - just as an acorn can produce another oak tree.

~
HypnoPsi

It that phenomenal or noumenal?

So you are saying that 'mind' in this case the 'oak tree' exists in a pre-existing environement with air, soil, sunlight and rain and that it has a genetic code and the ability to reproduce through an agent that also depends upon air, soil, sunlight and rain.

And therefore that the 'mind' that allegedly reproduces is not a first cause but dependant upon some pre-existing substrate and contingent history?

 

[Dancing David]

Is my feeling of being conscious noumenal?

No that goes in the maigic box next to the magic box noumenal in the one labeled qualia.

 

[punshhh]

Imagine a material universe that came about completely due to natural processes.

Imagine that this material universe eventually gives rise to social organisms like us that are able to build up a system of mental references so complex they are able to maintain a form of consciousness like ours.
Consciousness, a construct of references based around symbolic thought and concepts organized from sensory data.

I would fully expect these conscious material entities to invent religion and spiritualism exactly as we have in an effort to explain the world around them through primitive and emotional means rooted in psychological bias, especially given the absence of empirical reasoning and sophisticated organized observation.

I would completely expect theism to happen in nearly any mind lacking an evidence based reasoning system founded in a desire to occupy a favored and privaleged spot in the Universe which obviously offers comfort to an organism which craves and strives for connection to it's fellows and it's betters, especially it's dominants. Especially a mind striving to make sense of it's reality while prone to indulging the instinct and behavior of a social animal.

It seems completely obvious to me that the idea of a spiritual realm with a god or gods and a soul and an afterlife are nothing but wishful thinking that quell some of our most base and rudimentary desires.

The most primitive and rudimentary cultures have a simple mythology involving a God or Gods. Even the simplest and most unintelligent among us also seem to jump to a theistic conclusion before a material one when considering these matters.

Why is that?

When the most primitive and naive among us begins to question the unknown, this is one of the first answers the human ego in it's social family system and hierarchy will arrive at, we see it again and again, long before empirical observation and something approaching the scientific method or actual reasoning comes about through effort and standing on the shoulders of those who come before us. It's clearly an emotional and psychological concept in origin, which should be a giant flashing HINT staring you in the face.

We all know that people will seek out explanations that personify inanimate objects and give them human traits, it's one of our first mistakes. We have human tinted goggles, because we were wired to. It's spilling over now into our reason, and we have theists who seem like perfectly intelligent people that are just unable to look beyond this instinct to humanize the universe as a result.

We see this same logic applied again and again to things we now have dismissed as superstition. Things like fairies, and spirits for every rock and tree and doorway and hearth and house and storm and country and mountain. Gods of ale and wine, gods of food and gods of war.

The more we reason it out beyond what's obvious to a 5 year old child, the smaller an area this same emotional, human tinted, and psychological logic can be applied to. The gaps shrink.

This should be a hint as well. The only things that are left to this primitive reasoning where we are in any way favored and special are the most abstract and mysterious and seemingly complicated mysterious in our existence.

The only things science and reason have yet to dispel. The line of progress and it's footsteps should be a giant hint screaming in your face, if you could only step outside yourself and your desires to look at it.

We can see the road reason has left behind it and the things it's dismissed, and we can see what's left ahead of it.

Once I called myself agnostic, before I admitted to myself these things.

Regardless of what the most theistic of the agnostics will say, you are able to dismiss all gods as easily as you dismiss the Great Juju in the sea, and yes, as glib as it comes off to those arguing for a theistic universe, as easily as you really do dismiss Santa Claus.

And you can do it without being an arrogant atheist jumping to conclusions and deciding on what we can REALLY know barring that percentile of improbable things the theist is so insistent we do not dismiss.

Once one looks at animal and human behavior, and the formation and evolution of reason, it becomes absolutely clear that religion and spiritualism is founded completely in egocentric and emotional thinking.

It takes no faith or dismissal of possibility to see this. It takes no faith to surmise there is no God.

It's clear that theism is a part on the stairway of reason, the most basic foundations of a fresh mind with no way to separate superstition from observation. The beginning steps we take to try to make sense of reality.

Five year old children are prone to thinking a mattress is a thing, whole unto itself, with the spirit of a mattress and the essence of a pure mattress within it.

Reason shows us a mattress is merely a collection of materials assembled and organized, and there is no essence or spirit to the mattress. We ascribe meaning to this object and turn it into a concept. Meaning is an arbitrary thing based completely upon the importance we deem.

This is the nature of the universe, and the corner of the box that logic has pushed spiritualism and theism into will only escape the appetite for human reason for so long before we all see it for the purely anthropic concept it is.

The theistic mind condemns the atheist for not being absolutely certain beyond a fraction of a doubt, while seizing on any reason it can to maintain it's theism, holding up and championing one point while dismissing it's detractors for only having thirty.

Theism is a sinking ship in a sea of reason and animal behavior.

A most eloquent, summary of, I presume, a materialist position.
I have little to argue with here, in principle. However your conclusion that the existence of a creator and associated religious phenomena, are essentially a developmental/evolutionary 'by product', a primitive intellectual phase along the road to civilisation and clarity of understanding of reality.
Does not address what are to me the more pressing issues in a debate such as this.
My first thought was regarding "came about completely by natural processes"

I wonder where did it come from?
How did it arise?
Are the natural processes the laws of physics?
Where did the laws of physics come from?
Did they arise fully formed?
Maybe the laws of physics are 'universal'?
How could this be?
If so from whence did they come?
etc. (this can be a very long list).

Perhaps I could suggest one or two more pressing thoughts than these;

Maybe a creator has created a perfect natural universe?, in which all that humanity can conceive of and discuss is included. Why not?

Or perhaps such a universe might appear out of 'nowhere'?

Can we rely on our certainty through science, of our material universe ordered by the principles known as the laws of physics.
Laws which have been arrived at alongside the same human frailties as (apparently) the concept of God and religious life?

These are just a few thoughts on reading your post.

Nowhere do I see the existence or not of a 'creator' being addressed.