Materialism (championed by Darwinists) makes reason Impossible.

Aepervius said:
Do not worry they have an argument for that : animated living stuff (we) can eat and transform unliving stuff. But unliving stuff alone can't be ransformed into living stuff. A living entity iws necessary to do the transformation. Usually given as an argument against abiogenesis and the need to have gods to breath life into innanimate stuff.

It is all balderdash naturaly, not to use another B acronym in 2 letters.

But really it is the sam reasonning. And the same type of preacher using the argument.
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Sounds like transubstantiation.
 
DOC said:
Because they are programmed by reason. No reasoning computer programmers, no reasoning computer programs.

Reasoning In --- Reasoning Out.
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Why did you ignore the multiple other examples of properties of a part being less than the property of the ensemble?
Why did you ignore Tricky's statement of this type of logical fallacy?

This argument is just another bit of evidence suggesting that Geisler is either extremely dishonest or logically crippled.

DOC said:
W
Another way is through study of the Bible. One verse in the OT basically says God regretted making man because of man's sinning. This implies that God did not know that man would sin to the extent man did. Since we know the bible says God is perfect (able to do all things) , then God could have "chosen" not to know the future actions of man to give man the gift of free will (and not merely be a puppet programmed not to sin). All of this more suited to a "free will" thread though.
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The problem about going to the bible is that it can be used to justify all sorts of crazy interpretations. For instance, The bible has multiple passages condoning Slavery and even Jesus uses slavery as a moral example regarding our relationship with god.

However, most Christians today do not accept the practice of slavery even though the bible teaches that it is acceptable. What "Higher Authority" does this selective reading come from? Is this an instance of "cafeteria Christianity" and should all Christians support slavery? Or is it an example that we refer to some other moral precepts to guide our choice and that even modern Christians recognize that the bible is a poor source for truth, reason and morality?
 
Aepervius said:
We are also following a program. A very complicated one, massively parallel, self changing and self referential, but a program nonetheless.

The programmer were called : parent , teacher , environment, and most of it was programmed during school, home.

The issue is that you want to see us as special. We are not. We are just more complicated.
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We're seperate in that we experience things: pain, sense of self, conscious awareness.

DOC's struggling to make a point that's filled up many a thread in the past: how does consciousness/subjective experience/qualia arise from an electrically charged pile of neurons? Why does it arise?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
 
Malerin said:
We're seperate in that we experience things: pain, sense of self, conscious awareness.

DOC's struggling to make a point that's filled up many a thread in the past: how does consciousness/subjective experience/qualia arise from an electrically charged pile of neurons? Why does it arise?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
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Similarly, we have no way of explicitly modelling turbulent flows, or the boundaries between when turbulence begins. But that doesn't mean that turbulence is explicitly caused by god. It's an emergent behavior governed by the relative balance of viscous and convective forces.
 
joobz said:
Similarly, we have no way of explicitly modelling turbulent flows, or the boundaries between when turbulence begins. But that doesn't mean that turbulence is explicitly caused by god. It's an emergent behavior governed by the relative balance of viscous and convective forces.
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So there's a "hard problem of turbulent flows"?
 
Malerin said:
So there's a "hard problem of turbulent flows"?
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I guess you could say that.
The holy grail of turbulence modelling is a mathematical framework that is universal. There is no such model and none can be derived, because turbulence is not amenable to closure by a finite hierarchy of equations for correlations of higher and higher order. Even if such equations could be derived, their approximation would always entail errors, and their solution would be practically impossible.
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http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/tfms/turbulentflowmodelling
 
Malerin said:
We're seperate in that we experience things: pain, sense of self, conscious awareness.

DOC's struggling to make a point that's filled up many a thread in the past: how does consciousness/subjective experience/qualia arise from an electrically charged pile of neurons? Why does it arise?
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There isn't just a "pile" of neurons in our heads: There's a network of neurons, all busily sending messages to one another. Acting in concert, they form a computer. And consciousness is computational; any sufficiently powerful computer can produce consciousness.
 
Malerin said:
Seems qualiatatively differenent than the HPC.
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Yes.

The problem of turbulent flow is that we can't produce a complete and precise computational model. HPC, on the other hand, claims that no purely physical system can produce consciousness at all.

The HPHPC is that there is no valid basis for this claim.
 
Malerin said:
Seems qualiatatively differenent than the HPC.
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every metaphor is qualitatively different. So that statement doesn't really mean much. the point is that this one is similar in key aspects. Both are emergent behaviors of the underlying fundamental physical systems. We know we can change consciousness through chemicals. we know we can change consciousness through physical trauma. These two observations alone put consciousnesses into the physical realm. Similarly, we know the relative physical states one may experience a turbulent flow and what this flow may have on larger processes. we can not describe the exact molecular motions required to observe the behavior. We can not claim to know when a flow exactly transitions from turbulent to laminar. but we can see the transition take place.

Similarly, we do not know the exact transition between no-consciousness and full consciousness. But we know what it means to be either and there doesn't need to be a magic ingredient to make the change. Just like there isn't a magic ingredient to make turbulence happen.
 
The difficulty of modelling turbulent flow is a good analogy for the difficulty of modelling consciousness.

It's not a good analogy for HPC, though, because HPC isn't real.
 
DOC said:
I don't run from any post. My time and energy is limited. In case you haven't noticed I am outnumbered by skeptics by a large margin. And some threads just run their course and I move onto something else.

And to prove it I invite you (and only you) to refer me to one post you want answered in any of my threads (that is already posted as of this time) and I will respond to it.
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Very well, I pointed out that your assertion that the Northridge earthquake in Southern California was an example of God's wrath, since the porn industry was centered in Sherman Oaks (near Northridge) was utter nonsense. Nobody in the porn industry was killed, and the industry didn't miss a beat. However, a number of destitute veterans at a VA facility were killed. I don't believe you ever answered that. Furthermore, you've abandoned that thread entirely.
 
PixyMisa said:
The difficulty of modelling turbulent flow is a good analogy for the difficulty of modelling consciousness.

It's not a good analogy for HPC, though, because HPC isn't real.
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Much of the support for the HPC takes the form of "since we don't have the exact ingredient for the origin of consciousness, we can't say it is organically derived." This allows for the dismissal of all evidence supporting the emergence argument. But my point is that even if we never know the exact 100% cause (model consciousness perfectly), we can still see it as an emergent behavior. This is the reason for the analogy, when you consider the transition between turbulent and laminar. As I said, there is no magical ingredient requiring the transition, even though we can't fully describe it. There is no reason to assume a magical ingredient is needed for consciousness to exist.
 
joobz said:
every metaphor is qualitatively different. So that statement doesn't really mean much. the point is that this one is similar in key aspects. Both are emergent behaviors of the underlying fundamental physical systems. We know we can change consciousness through chemicals. we know we can change consciousness through physical trauma. These two observations alone put consciousnesses into the physical realm. Similarly, we know the relative physical states one may experience a turbulent flow and what this flow may have on larger processes. we can not describe the exact molecular motions required to observe the behavior. We can not claim to know when a flow exactly transitions from turbulent to laminar. but we can see the transition take place.

Similarly, we do not know the exact transition between no-consciousness and full consciousness. But we know what it means to be either and there doesn't need to be a magic ingredient to make the change. Just like there isn't a magic ingredient to make turbulence happen.
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Subjectively, we do. You're either conscious or you're not. Objectively, you're right: we don't know, for example, the minimum number of neurons a conscious system requires.

What I mean by qualatatively different are questions like these:
Why does conscious experience exist at all? How does it arise?
How do I know others are conscious? What is their conscious experience like? Is such a thing, in principle, knowable?

So it's not just a question of What's the exact point at which the phenomena arises? That can be asked of a lot of things (at what exact point is someone "rich"?) and isn't really a "hard problem". Conciousness begs other metaphysical/epistemological questions, like the above.

DOC's task is to take the HPC and use it as evidence against materialism.
 
No seriously Doc, why if thoughts aren't the result of chemical reactions does altering brain chemistry impact mental function. If brain function weren't a chemical process why would a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor be useful in treating depression? Why is lithium useful in treating bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder? Why does stimulating the production of norepinephrine lessen the symptoms of hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder? All these treatments alter brain chemistry yet you suggest that thoughts aren't the result of a chemical process.
 
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