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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: What exactly does atheism have to offer?
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
"The astonishing hypothesis is that you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules".
Why is that so astonishing?
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Sorry to post this separately; blame idiotic soft-ware, which has such a short time lag for editing.
Francis Crick:
"The astonishing hypothesis is that you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules".
Yet and nevertheless - that was the hypothesis Crick was presenting.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
"The astonishing hypothesis is that you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules".
Why is that so astonishing?
You'd better ask Francis Crick!
I suppose he is saying that it runs counter to the general belief system of Western culture, that things such as identity, free will, joys and sorrow, and so on, are in some sense, real.
It's often quoted as an example of eliminative materialism. One interesting aspect of it is, why all materialists are not eliminative? Are some of them dualists?
I remember that Prof Dawkins was challenged about this at a public meeting, when somebody got up, and said, 'did you write your books?', and I think Prof Dawkins could see where this was heading, and sort of stammered a bit.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
"The astonishing hypothesis is that you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules".
Why is that so astonishing?
You'd better ask Francis Crick!
I suppose he is saying that it runs counter to the general belief system of Western culture, that things such as identity, free will, joys and sorrow, and so on, are in some sense, real.
I don't think this is necessarily denying that these things are real "in some sense." What's unreal about the behavior of cells and molecules?
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
My impression is that the eliminative materialists are arguing that particles, neurons, cells, and so on, are the only things which are real. Thus, some of them speak of 'folk psychology' actually being wrong. This would fit with the idea that things such as identity and justice are illusions or errors.
However, I think it is possible to get round this by means of 'emergence' or 'supervenience', although they always look a bit of a dodge to me.
One of the interesting paradoxes which are generated here, is that presumably a belief in materialism is itself an illusion.
But you can also go down another route, which seems fairly sophisticated, and rather reminiscent of some types of Buddhism, that many things are illusions, but are necessary to human existence. This starts to get rather dizzy-making.
[ 04. October 2012, 11:58: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I remember that Prof Dawkins was challenged about this at a public meeting, when somebody got up, and said, 'did you write your books?', and I think Prof Dawkins could see where this was heading, and sort of stammered a bit.
Did he not respond "And who do you say I am?"
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I remember that Prof Dawkins was challenged about this at a public meeting, when somebody got up, and said, 'did you write your books?', and I think Prof Dawkins could see where this was heading, and sort of stammered a bit.
Did he not respond "And who do you say I am?"
Very Zen.
I can't find it at the moment, but it's quite a famous encounter, and I vaguely remember that the questioner was a philosopher.
I think he did say, 'but surely, you will argue that you are an assembly of cells and neurons and so on, and it is these things which created the book, and therefore there is no 'you' in the sense of a conscious agent, involved at all'.
As I say, I think Prof D stammered his way out of that one. I suppose he could have been clever, as you say, and replied, 'hello, another assembly of cells and neurons'.
But there are materialists who support free will, I think, sort of compatibilists.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Found it. He wasn't a philosopher, but an IDer! But in any case, it's still a very interesting question.
http://tinyurl.com/9gazn6j
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You think misogyny and homophobia are wrong? On what basis?
A Christian basis.
How do you know that?
Because it is Christianity that advocated the idea that everyone - absolutely everyone - has value in God's eyes.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You think misogyny and homophobia are wrong? On what basis?
A Christian basis.
Seems like you're just saying that all Good Morals come from Christianity. Is it not possible that someone works some out for themselves?
We were talking about the Golden Rule being useless unless you have a system of values to direct it. In itself it is valueless.
As to someone working out morals on their own, sure. But how effective they might be in community and if the Golden Rule is to apply in that community then no - you cannot work out your morals on your own.
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a theological scrapbook
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Because it is Christianity that advocated the idea that everyone - absolutely everyone - has value in God's eyes.
So..?
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
We were talking about the Golden Rule being useless unless you have a system of values to direct it. In itself it is valueless.
As to someone working out morals on their own, sure. But how effective they might be in community and if the Golden Rule is to apply in that community then no - you cannot work out your morals on your own.
Rubbish. Asserting something doesn't make it true - and the Golden Rule isn't even a Christian construct anyway.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
"The astonishing hypothesis is that you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules".
Why is that so astonishing?
Because it is extremely irrational.
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a theological scrapbook
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Because it is Christianity that advocated the idea that everyone - absolutely everyone - has value in God's eyes.
So..?
So it is the foundational basis on which to argue against discrimination.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
We were talking about the Golden Rule being useless unless you have a system of values to direct it. In itself it is valueless.
As to someone working out morals on their own, sure. But how effective they might be in community and if the Golden Rule is to apply in that community then no - you cannot work out your morals on your own.
Rubbish. Asserting something doesn't make it true - and the Golden Rule isn't even a Christian construct anyway.
![[Confused]](confused.gif) What am I asserting that isn't true?
Agreed that the Golden Rule isn't a Christian construct. Apparently its quite common all over the world.
What makes the Christian construct different is the system of values it is based on.
The Corinthians had such a hard time understanding the Gospel because they were not schooled in the law - Jewish ethics.
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a theological scrapbook
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
So it is the foundational basis on which to argue against discrimination.
It is debatable if it is a useful way to argue against discrimination, but even if it is, it certainly is not foundational. Utter drivel.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
What am I asserting that isn't true?
Agreed that the Golden Rule isn't a Christian construct. Apparently its quite common all over the world.
What makes the Christian construct different is the system of values it is based on.
The Corinthians had such a hard time understanding the Gospel because they were not schooled in the law - Jewish ethics.
I'm sorry, you were the one who appeared to be arguing that the knowledge that the knowledge that misogyny and homophobia are wrong could only have come from Christianity. If you didn't mean that, what did you mean?
quote:
You said:
it didn't come out of a vacuum.
A most curious part of the God Delusion is Dawkin's discussion of why Pasal's wager is wrong.
His moral argument comes straight from his Church of England upbringing.
So any "morality" an atheist growing up in a Christian county professes will come from Christianity.
You think misogyny and homophobia are wrong? On what basis?
A Christian basis.
And I asked you how the hell you can possibly know that someone's atheistic morality originated from Christianity. You can't know that, can you?
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
"The astonishing hypothesis is that you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules".
Why is that so astonishing?
Because it is extremely irrational.
I don't know why you posted that link, because it's got nothing whatsoever to do with my post, nor the one to which I was replying.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
So it is the foundational basis on which to argue against discrimination.
It is debatable if it is a useful way to argue against discrimination, but even if it is, it certainly is not foundational. Utter drivel.
It is not utter drivel at all.
I can't think of any other foundation.
How would you explain the movement against slavery by a bunch of Christians in England?
Or the massive charitable works started in the first centuries of Christianity amongst the poor and worthless?
They were bored one day perhaps?
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
And I asked you how the hell you can possibly know that someone's atheistic morality originated from Christianity. You can't know that, can you?
It would originate from Christian morality if they lived in a predominantly Christian country.
If they lived in China it would probably originate from Confucianism or something.
Morality is not creation ex-nihilo.
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a theological scrapbook
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't know why you posted that link, because it's got nothing whatsoever to do with my post, nor the one to which I was replying.
Well my bad then. I thought you were discussing the stupidity of materialism as a philosophy.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I thought you were discussing the stupidity of materialism as a philosophy.
We were discussing the hypothesis "that you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules".
That in itself says nothing about how the universe was created, just about how it operates today.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
It is not utter drivel at all.
I can't think of any other foundation.
Then that is your lack of imagination not anyone else's problem.
quote:
How would you explain the movement against slavery by a bunch of Christians in England?
How would you explain the fact that for 17 centuries slavery wasn't considered a sin?
quote:
Or the massive charitable works started in the first centuries of Christianity amongst the poor and worthless?
They were bored one day perhaps?
No, come on you can do better than that. You're supposed to be arguing that it is not possible to oppose misogyny outwith of a Christian understanding, not just offering random Good Things that some Christians have done.
quote:
It would originate from Christian morality if they lived in a predominantly Christian country.
Why would it? If their only experience of Christianity was misogynist, bigoted and homophobic, why would a different morality have to have originated from Christianity?
quote:
If they lived in China it would probably originate from Confucianism or something.
Morality is not creation ex-nihilo.
Yes you've said that before. Neither time have you offered any rational or sensible explanation of why that is true and why someone might not come up with a morality on their own which was against misogyny and homophobia. Given the prevailing attitude amongst Christians (which turned many into atheists in the first place), I'd say that the chances that this morality came from Christianity is highly doubtful.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
One of the interesting arguments hereabouts is about abstract objects, such as numbers, propositions, moral values, and so on.
Quite a common argument by theists towards non-theists is this: if you are a non-theist, you must be committed to materialism, yet here we have abstract objects, which are not material (or physical). Is this a contradiction?
However, one clever reply here is that abstract objects such as numbers are not derived from matter, but exist sui generis, or exist in a timeless zone.
The problem here, I would think, is that this involves a kind of dualism, and materialism is not dualistic.
But it also suggests that you can be a naturalist, and a non-theist, without being a materialist.
However, maybe there are some details here which I have got wrong.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That in itself says nothing about how the universe was created, just about how it operates today.
The post I refered to was creating the idea that we are not just products of our electrons and protons. It does refer to creation sometimes but more often to existence.
Whether you are discussing creation or today the principal still holds.
[ 04. October 2012, 14:49: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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a theological scrapbook
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
It is not utter drivel at all.
I can't think of any other foundation.
Then that is your lack of imagination not anyone else's problem.
Must be.
Maintaining this conversation certainly does seem to imply as much.
I think I'll go watch paint dry. It tends to insult you less and offers better alternatives to your ideas when it disagrees with you.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I think I'll go watch paint dry. It tends to insult you less and offers better alternatives to your ideas when it disagrees with you.
It is not insulting to ask you to explain yourself and to justify the things you say. That is the nature of debate.
Kant offers a belief system for atheists outside of Christianity. There you go, that's one.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Whether you are discussing creation or today the principal still holds.
Sadly not. I can easily affirm that we are merely* organic bags of physical and chemical reactions that all come together to form the beings that we are, without also having to prove how it was that we came to exist in the first place.
The article to which you linked merely** repeated the same tired old non-argument, viz. "How did the entire universe first come into existence? What, science doesn't know? Well then it must have been God! Ha! Proved it!" But all that argument proves is that science doesn't know what caused the Big Bang and that The God Of The Gaps is alive and well in modern theology.
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*= "Merely"? The word is hardly fair for such a wonderful, incredible, even miraculous set of interactions. The garden is incredibly beautiful whether there are fairies at the bottom of it or not.
**= here, on the other hand, the word is more than appropriate.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Suffice it to say, I have a very well developed moral code, I stick to it well, and it's better than any Christian's that suppresses women (using Paul's alleged writings and OT writings) or gays (using both the NT and OT versions of that bigotry).
Sure you do. But it didn't come out of a vacuum.
A most curious part of the God Delusion is Dawkin's discussion of why Pasal's wager is wrong.
His moral argument comes straight from his Church of England upbringing.
So any "morality" an atheist growing up in a Christian county professes will come from Christianity.
You think misogyny and homophobia are wrong? On what basis?
A Christian basis.
Actually, I grew up in a Christian religion that had misogyny and homophobia built into it's system. At every level. Period.
I learned that on an HUMANIST basis.
You may be incapable of understanding this (or maybe you are), but it is a simply a fact that Christianity doesn't have a corner on morality. There are ALL kinds of moral people the world over that have barely heard of Christianity, much less been one, living perfectly moral lives. Buddhists, Hindus, Animists, and yes, ATHEISTS. They did not grow up and yet treat their people as they would wish to be treated.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But surely misogyny and homophobia don't originate in the Abrahamic religions, but in patriarchal society itself.
Same thing. I once read a book called 'Born to be Gay' by an former priest who demonstrated conclusively that homophobia and patriarchy both go back to Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
You don;t find the same in Hinduism and Buddhism nor native religions except insofar as they have been influences by Western empires.
[ 04. October 2012, 19:36: Message edited by: leo ]
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
Is there no more to morality than having a right view towards mysogyny and homophobia?
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But surely misogyny and homophobia don't originate in the Abrahamic religions, but in patriarchal society itself.
Same thing. I once read a book called 'Born to be Gay' by an former priest who demonstrated conclusively that homophobia and patriarchy both go back to Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
You don;t find the same in Hinduism and Buddhism nor native religions except insofar as they have been influences by Western empires.
No patriarchy in ancient Egypt or Babylon? Pre-Christian Greece or Rome? Lots of women in the Athenian senate were there? Xanthippe the great orator?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
My impression is that the eliminative materialists are arguing that particles, neurons, cells, and so on, are the only things which are real. Thus, some of them speak of 'folk psychology' actually being wrong. This would fit with the idea that things such as identity and justice are illusions or errors.
However, I think it is possible to get round this by means of 'emergence' or 'supervenience', although they always look a bit of a dodge to me.
In what way is it a dodge? If you look first in examples where there is no controversy, ie steer clear for the moment of issues of self and consciousness etc, it is, well, uncontroversial. We're are just looking at the most appropriate level of explanation. A modern physicist is interested in looking at quarks and electrons and the strong and weak forces and suchlike to try consider how things work at the atomic level and below and explain things in those terms.
The chemist says all right, that's all well and good, but to explain what I'm interested in, namely the behaviour of larger molecules and the properties they have and the interactions between them, I need to focus on the electrons in the outer shells of atoms.
And the biochemist says, yeah, okay, I see that, but I'm interested in what goes with much larger molecules made up mostly of carbon, of their interactions in cells and stuff.
Even at this higher level, everything is absolutely dependent on what goes on at the level of quarks, on how the wave/ particle duality of quantum physics plays out, but it would be a bonkers biochemist (actually there is a field of quantum biology, but hey ho) who considered the collapse of the wave function in his everyday work.
And so it goes on through biology, neuroscience, cognitive, psychology and even into the social sciences. And yes, there are gaps in knowledge between the levels, but there is as yet no need to fall into the seductive trap of assuming dualism because, well we are special and different from everything else in the universe just because we are us.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Grokesx
Well, I think the problems come up when you use emergence in relation to folk psychology. Thus, the eliminative materialist will say that there is no such thing as a person, since personhood is psychological, and is made up of patterns of neurons.
Surely here, we are hitting the 'hard problem', since no-one can demonstrate how you move from brain activity to things such as personhood as a concept, unless they posit abstract objects, which seems to lead to dualism.
[ 04. October 2012, 22:55: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Is there no more to morality than having a right view towards mysogyny and homophobia?
Of course. But that is a very easy measure of the morality of a religion or moral system. A way of separating the sheep from the goats.
It's surprising how many FAIL. Except, really is not.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I think the problems come up when you use emergence in relation to folk psychology. Thus, the eliminative materialist will say that there is no such thing as a person, since personhood is psychological, and is made up of patterns of neurons.
I don't think this is necessarily implied by the Crick quote you gave above, though. As I read it, he didn't say the concepts of personhood, joy, sorrow, etc. aren't real or don't exist - he just said they're the behavior of cells and molecules. (Perhaps Crick isn't an eliminative materialist, but some other kind?)
Analogously, we could say (and it seems that modern biology does say) that all of the activities of a living cell can be described (at least in principle) as behaviors of molecules, explicable in terms of the same sort of reactions that govern the molecules in non-living things - there's no special, extra "spark" which might once have been imagined (in a "folk biology," perhaps.) But I don't think that this position necessarily implies that there's no such thing as life.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
My impression is that the eliminative materialists are arguing that particles, neurons, cells, and so on, are the only things which are real. Thus, some of them speak of 'folk psychology' actually being wrong. This would fit with the idea that things such as identity and justice are illusions or errors.
However, I think it is possible to get round this by means of 'emergence' or 'supervenience', although they always look a bit of a dodge to me.
In what way is it a dodge? If you look first in examples where there is no controversy, ie steer clear for the moment of issues of self and consciousness etc, it is, well, uncontroversial. We're are just looking at the most appropriate level of explanation.
That's true, but the question of consciousness and self-awareness is in a completely different category. Emergence and supervenience both describe observed properties or patterns, not the ability to observe those properties or patterns. There is no way to extrapolate from what is observed to the ability to do the observing. It's like trying to arrive at imaginary numbers by extrapolating from real numbers.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Is there no more to morality than having a right view towards mysogyny and homophobia?
It is at least arguable that they are merely specific examples of the Golden Rule: don't treat women and homosexuals like crap, because you wouldn't want them to treat YOU like crap.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I think the problems come up when you use emergence in relation to folk psychology. Thus, the eliminative materialist will say that there is no such thing as a person, since personhood is psychological, and is made up of patterns of neurons.
I don't think this is necessarily implied by the Crick quote you gave above, though. As I read it, he didn't say the concepts of personhood, joy, sorrow, etc. aren't real or don't exist - he just said they're the behavior of cells and molecules. (Perhaps Crick isn't an eliminative materialist, but some other kind?)
Analogously, we could say (and it seems that modern biology does say) that all of the activities of a living cell can be described (at least in principle) as behaviors of molecules, explicable in terms of the same sort of reactions that govern the molecules in non-living things - there's no special, extra "spark" which might once have been imagined (in a "folk biology," perhaps.) But I don't think that this position necessarily implies that there's no such thing as life.
I'm pretty sure that Crick and the Churchlands quote each other approvingly, and they are (or were) the high priests of eliminative materialism.
But how can one be a materialist and not an eliminativist? If you accept that 'a person' exists at some level of psychological or conceptual abstraction, then you are a dualist.
As I said earlier, there is the dodge of emergence, but I think it is a dodge, since no-one has demonstrated that you can get from a pattern of neurons to 'person'. Of course, there is 'promissory neurology', which seems to be a kind of faith.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
My impression is that the eliminative materialists are arguing that particles, neurons, cells, and so on, are the only things which are real. Thus, some of them speak of 'folk psychology' actually being wrong. This would fit with the idea that things such as identity and justice are illusions or errors.
However, I think it is possible to get round this by means of 'emergence' or 'supervenience', although they always look a bit of a dodge to me.
In what way is it a dodge? If you look first in examples where there is no controversy, ie steer clear for the moment of issues of self and consciousness etc, it is, well, uncontroversial. We're are just looking at the most appropriate level of explanation.
That's true, but the question of consciousness and self-awareness is in a completely different category. Emergence and supervenience both describe observed properties or patterns, not the ability to observe those properties or patterns. There is no way to extrapolate from what is observed to the ability to do the observing. It's like trying to arrive at imaginary numbers by extrapolating from real numbers.
Yes, I sometimes say that you can't get from the third person to the first person. Thus, experience itself remains opaque to neurology, since the neurological description is perforce in the third person, as is the whole of science, at the moment.
There is talk of a first person science, so that would be very interesting. The big problem is, as you say, that one cannot observe one's own observing. You can get someone else to do it, but then we are back in the third person.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I think the problems come up when you use emergence in relation to folk psychology. Thus, the eliminative materialist will say that there is no such thing as a person, since personhood is psychological, and is made up of patterns of neurons.
I don't think this is necessarily implied by the Crick quote you gave above, though. As I read it, he didn't say the concepts of personhood, joy, sorrow, etc. aren't real or don't exist - he just said they're the behavior of cells and molecules. (Perhaps Crick isn't an eliminative materialist, but some other kind?)
Analogously, we could say (and it seems that modern biology does say) that all of the activities of a living cell can be described (at least in principle) as behaviors of molecules, explicable in terms of the same sort of reactions that govern the molecules in non-living things - there's no special, extra "spark" which might once have been imagined (in a "folk biology," perhaps.) But I don't think that this position necessarily implies that there's no such thing as life.
But how can one be a materialist and not an eliminativist? If you accept that 'a person' exists at some level of psychological or conceptual abstraction, then you are a dualist.
I can't pretend any real familiarity with the topic, but if all materialists are eliminativists, wouldn't that mean "eliminative materialism" is redundant? Philosophers seem to distinguish between different varieties of materialism, though; the Wikipedia article on EM constrasts it with "reductive materialism" and "revisionary materialism". That doesn't seem consistent with the idea that all materialists must be eliminativists.
If you'd care to comment on my analogy, I'd be interested in knowing whether you think modern biology's treatment of "life" is eliminative.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Squibs
Shipmate
# 14408
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Posted
By way of adding more interesting quotes from atheists RE morality
quote:
The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation, no less than our hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory.
I appreciate that when someone says, "love thy neighbor as thyself," they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, and any deeper meaning is illusory.
Michael Ruse, Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics in The Darwinian Paradigm
[ 05. October 2012, 12:07: Message edited by: Squibs ]
Posts: 1124 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I think the problems come up when you use emergence in relation to folk psychology. Thus, the eliminative materialist will say that there is no such thing as a person, since personhood is psychological, and is made up of patterns of neurons.
I don't think this is necessarily implied by the Crick quote you gave above, though. As I read it, he didn't say the concepts of personhood, joy, sorrow, etc. aren't real or don't exist - he just said they're the behavior of cells and molecules. (Perhaps Crick isn't an eliminative materialist, but some other kind?)
Analogously, we could say (and it seems that modern biology does say) that all of the activities of a living cell can be described (at least in principle) as behaviors of molecules, explicable in terms of the same sort of reactions that govern the molecules in non-living things - there's no special, extra "spark" which might once have been imagined (in a "folk biology," perhaps.) But I don't think that this position necessarily implies that there's no such thing as life.
But how can one be a materialist and not an eliminativist? If you accept that 'a person' exists at some level of psychological or conceptual abstraction, then you are a dualist.
I can't pretend any real familiarity with the topic, but if all materialists are eliminativists, wouldn't that mean "eliminative materialism" is redundant? Philosophers seem to distinguish between different varieties of materialism, though; the Wikipedia article on EM constrasts it with "reductive materialism" and "revisionary materialism". That doesn't seem consistent with the idea that all materialists must be eliminativists.
If you'd care to comment on my analogy, I'd be interested in knowing whether you think modern biology's treatment of "life" is eliminative.
Well, I think that some materialists will argue that they are not eliminativists; I'm just not convinced how they can escape it, since either one is a 100% materialist, or one is not. If you are not, then you are not a materialist, really, you are some kind of dualist.
Admittedly, I don't know enough about them in detail, to really know if they are 'cheating' or not!
Of course, you can accept abstract objects, such as numbers, and still call yourself a materialist, I think, although it seems odd to me. There is also a kind of 'nominalist' position, that we can name certain experiences.
I'm not sure about 'life'. How about 'my life'? I think that that exists, but surely not in a material sense?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
A friend just reminded me of this amusing line of argument:
If you are a 100% materialist, then in that view, there are no persons, and you don't exist, and your belief in materialism is an illusion.
Of course, there are arguments against that, for example, the nominalist one, but they seem rather shaky to me.
Anyone who is interested in this stuff, should read Conor Cunningham's book, 'Darwin's Pious Idea', in which he goes through other arguments like this.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The article to which you linked merely** repeated the same tired old non-argument, viz. "How did the entire universe first come into existence? What, science doesn't know? Well then it must have been God! Ha! Proved it!"
Whatever.
I read it as the materialist position is untenable. And not purely from the point of creation.
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Actually, I grew up in a Christian religion that had misogyny and homophobia built into it's system. At every level. Period.
No wonder you're an atheist then.
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I learned that on an HUMANIST basis.
Learned that misogyny and homophobia are wrong on a humanist basis?
Humanism is just liberal Christianity without transcendence. Sorry mate, you can't escape it.
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
You may be incapable of understanding this (or maybe you are), but it is a simply a fact that Christianity doesn't have a corner on morality.
It does in the Western tradition, but not, not in other parts of the world.
But we weren't discussing that. We were discussing how the Golden Rule is value free and cannot be used as a basis for ethics.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Humanism is just liberal Christianity without transcendence. Sorry mate, you can't escape it.
Can you stop saying this, please.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Can you stop saying this, please.
Good argument.
--Tom Clune
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This space left blank intentionally.
Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Can you stop saying this, please.
Good argument.
--Tom Clune
I'm sorry Tom, I have asked her to explain and justify this every time she said it on this thread. She refuses and just keeps repeating it as if it is plainly obvious and true.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
By way of adding more interesting quotes from atheists RE morality
quote:
The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation, no less than our hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory.
I appreciate that when someone says, "love thy neighbor as thyself," they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, and any deeper meaning is illusory.
Michael Ruse, Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics in The Darwinian Paradigm
That may in fact be true, but I wonder if there is anything more to it than mere assertion, any basis in actual evidence.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think one way that you can approach this is via 'proto-morality' in animals, especially apes and other mammals.
I would think that you might be able to demonstrate certain kinds of relationship there, which seem like 'proto-guilt', 'proto-altruism', 'proto-gratitude', and so on.
I would think though that there will be a certain leap to be made from that to human morality. Is that leap justified? I don't know.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Actually, I grew up in a Christian religion that had misogyny and homophobia built into it's system. At every level. Period.
No wonder you're an atheist then.
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I learned that on an HUMANIST basis.
Learned that misogyny and homophobia are wrong on a humanist basis?
Humanism is just liberal Christianity without transcendence. Sorry mate, you can't escape it.
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
You may be incapable of understanding this (or maybe you are), but it is a simply a fact that Christianity doesn't have a corner on morality.
It does in the Western tradition, but not, not in other parts of the world.
But we weren't discussing that. We were discussing how the Golden Rule is value free and cannot be used as a basis for ethics.
Actually we were discussing What Atheism Has To Offer and you derailed.
That I was raised in that tradition only made me sensitive to all the other traditions lies and B.S. It's all a bunch of mythology, that you try to separate "yours" from "theirs" is absurd. Your version may be more moral, or may not. But it's all based on a book that is completely morally bankrupt to one degree or another.
"Humanism is just liberal Christianity without transcendence."
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
But it's all based on a book that is completely morally bankrupt to one degree or another.
Christianity is not "based on a book." It's based on a person. The church was up and running for decades before the NT even started to be written. And Jesus was a person, not "based on a book."
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong
Humanism is just liberal Christianity without transcendence.
I think there is something to be said for that idea.
Here are some quotes from the British Humanist Association website:
Richard Dawkins: "I care passionately about the truth because it's a beautiful thing and enables us to live a better life."
OK, so where did he get the concept of 'truth' from? From the philosophy of naturalism? Hardly, because what meaning does 'truth' have within an inherently mindless universe in which all ideas have their origin within the purposelessly and mindlessly constructed human brain, and which are therefore intrinsically subjective? (A point Dawkins would have to agree with in the light of his TED talk here.)
Also, what does "a better life" mean within a worldview which is objectively value-free?
Polly Toynbee: "The Humanist view of life is progressive and optimistic, in awe of human potential."
How does this make any sense within a philosophy in which human beings are merely machines, mindlessly constructed, in a universe bound up with decay, and with no ultimate meaningful and creative future? But it certainly makes a lot of sense within the Christian worldview, in which human beings possess intrinsic worth, value and meaning.
Philip Pullman: "I'm responsible, there is a meaning, and it is to make things better and to work for greater good and greater wisdom. That's my meaning."
Here he appeals to concepts of moral responsibility and the concept of "the good", assuming that people understand what he is talking about. But none of this makes any sense within an amoral naturalistic worldview. However, it makes perfect sense within a Christian worldview.
And then there was a quote on the website, which appears to have been removed, but which I quoted a few weeks ago on another blog:
Ariane Sherine: "All children should be free to grow up in a world where they are allowed to question, doubt, think freely and reach their own conclusions about what they believe."
So now the humanists are promoting freedom! But what exactly is freedom within a philosophy which affirms that the system which apparently created us is, by its very nature, deterministic? But Christianity affirms the reality of free will.
So, Evensong, I think you are basically right. Humanism has stolen a whole raft of ideas from the theistic (perhaps even the Christian) worldview, and deceitfully tries to pass them off as legitimate ideas within their own philosophy of naturalism. Thankfully some of us are not fooled!
[ 05. October 2012, 16:44: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
They are having their naturalistic cake, and eating their metaphysics as well.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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