- Try this. Even if we assume determinism, the big bang had to start with exactly the right characteristics for both ME and Rainier. What is the likelihood of that? I'd say, virtually zero for both of us.
Jabba -
It's a beautiful day down in the NYC area. I hope you're having such pleasant weather up where you are. In addition to all the other points made, I'd like to focus on the above.
Do you have any information as to how many universes existed before (or, as some physicists suggest, alongside) ours? The universe we live in is wondrous in its balance of matter - allowing stars but not collapsing in on itself and such. Water gets lighter when you freeze it. Lighter! If ice didn't float on water, the seas would boil away and life on this planet would be impossible.
But there is no reason why our universe has to be the first and only one. There may have been five, twenty six, or eleventy bazillion others. Some may have been too small and collapsed in on themselves. Others may have suffered some fate where its matter refused to cohere into atoms. And there are an infinite number of other possibilities.
If you're trying to work out the odds that our universe would ever come to exist, we have to at least know how many chances we get. Otherwise, we might be just as right to say the chance of our universe coming into existence was nearly certain as we are to say it was nearly impossible.
- We have no reason for questioning the scientific explanation for my physical, emotional or cognitive characteristics, but we do have reason for questioning the scientific explanation for my seemingly immaterial self -- we have no idea how MY "who" was determined.
Do you ever have back pain. Nothing puts me in a worse mood than back pain. I snap at everyone, have no patience for my children, get frustrated even reading - isn't all of that "me"? Isn't my consciousness, my self, partially determined by how my back feels? My wife would think so. She's actually told me, "It's like you're a different person."
But then I take some medicine and in half an hour I'm happier, more patient and able to concentrate. Two pills weighing a couple of grams (and a lidocaine patch) change the way I perceive and interact with the world. And scientists can trace exactly how the compounds move through the body and the physical way they interact with the brain.
I think this is pretty strong evidence that at least some part of the "self" is material. And if some part of the self is provably material then what part is provably immaterial?
I'm really asking you. What part of your self can you show to be immaterial, i.e. not the work of specific material processes?
ETA: Seriously, folks, try the lidocaine patches: very useful for moderate muscle pain without the need for narcotics.
