Psience Quest

(2023-06-14, 05:37 PM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]Are you deliberately avoiding the real issue or do you not understand the point at all?  Our brains certainly process information but that does not imply consciousness as unconscious computers do that.  What we want from you is an explanation of how unconscious matter can be responsible for consciousness.  Comparing us to animals does not answer the question.

Merle's main issue is with Survival instead of how consciousness is created, which is why he is open to "immaterial brains" but not to survival due to brain damage affecting consciousness...

(2023-06-14, 12:54 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]Oh, I see. I still disagree: I think that the crucial element in such arguments is the (supposed) causal impotence of consciousness rather than epiphenomenalism as such, and so, any type of physicalism that doesn't in some way deny consciousness in the first place is subject to these arguments (that of Titus and that in the essay to which you linked and on which I commented).


We do know at least though that it places primary and sole causal powers in the physical, and thus denies all causal power to consciousness (where it even recognises the existence of consciousness), which is what makes the arguments in question successful (to the extent that they are, indeed, successful).

From what I gather the Mind-Identity Theories try to get around epiphenomenalism by saying when some material event happens that just is the mental even happening...As Feser says this seems to be nothing more than the illusion of plausibility as why would we think two things that are so different as mental events and physical events would be the same thing?

But I agree there does seem to be a huge gap when it comes to explaining behaviors. Pain and Pleasure, for example, seem to be necessary to influence the behavior of an agent and in that line of thinking it makes sense why they would be used in selection pressures...but the Materialist has to cash out all such talk in some comprehensible way. I don't think that can be done.

(2023-06-14, 05:37 PM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]Are you deliberately avoiding the real issue or do you not understand the point at all?  Our brains certainly process information but that does not imply consciousness as unconscious computers do that.  What we want from you is an explanation of how unconscious matter can be responsible for consciousness.  Comparing us to animals does not answer the question.

Glad you replied, thought I was on "Crazy Pills" for sec there!  

(2023-06-14, 05:53 PM)quirkybrainmeat Wrote: [ -> ]Merle's main issue is with Survival instead of how consciousness is created, which is why he is open to "immaterial brains" but not to survival due to brain damage affecting consciousness...

But that wasn't the point you were pretending to answer.  If you can't explain something, you seem to jump around it instead of giving a relevant answer.

(2023-06-14, 02:36 PM)quirkybrainmeat Wrote: [ -> ]Looking a bit at the discussion Merle linked and other threads on christianforums.net I would say the debate sections are pretty toxic, with militant atheists and christians often using personal attacks with insults against each other such as "woomonger" and arguments such as saying ID enables climate change denial. The atheists seem to be more agressive while christians "passive"

I find such stuff is tiresome, a growing sentiment IMO as it seems there's a more cordial atheist-theist discussion put forth by atheists like Emerson Green & Justin Chieber and the group at Capturing Christianity.



I'm not really in either camp, pretty agnostic on the God question but I probably fall somewhere in the "Limited God" (see Goff's Aeon essay) and "Nagel Zone*" landscape.

*Meaning there's no God but "Axiarchism" where things like consciousness, teleology, moral values have their place in reality.

(2023-06-14, 06:03 PM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]But that wasn't the point you were pretending to answer.  If you can't explain something, you seem to jump around it instead of giving a relevant answer.

Yeah it seems like a Catch-22:

- Talk about whether a material brain can create consciousness and you're told the real discussion is whether Souls Need Brains.

- Talk about why you think Souls Need Brains is false and you're asked why you believe in souls, how animals don't have souls, how you believe in "magic" (whatever that means). The problem being that if we're talking about Souls Need Brains we're all assuming souls exist for the sake of the argument.

In any case I would say Souls Need Brains is false because the stuff that makes a nail makes up a brain, and we've been told thinking a nail is conscious makes one "dumb as a nail".

Reading the writings of atheists Harris, Tallis, and Rosenberg I don't think the matter that makes up a nail, in greater volume with different arrangement, negates the reasons given why we don't think a nail has consciousness. Just as a nail doesn't have thoughts, subjective feels, rationality, or memory I don't think the brain can have those either.

That we or animals have any aspects of consciousness is a key indicator that there has to be something more than what can be explained by the descriptions provided by current physics. In fact Rosenberg's reasoning for thinking brains can't have thoughts is that nothing in current physics offers us a kind of matter than can point to / be about / signify anything else. As such I don't think positing the soul having cognitive faculties is believing in "magic", which in any case is an odd accusation to make as the Souls Need Brains claim requires accepting souls for the sake of the argument.

Thus I don't think the Souls Need Brains claim holds. This doesn't mean there has to be a soul, just that the assertion is weak because there is no good argument for it to hold.

For me to even consider the idea that Souls Need Brains, I would need a convincing explanation for why the stuff that makes up a nail can produce the varied aspects of consciousness when it's making up parts of a human or parts of some animal.

Ideally stating it this way leaves no more loopholes to exploit about "believing in magic" or "believing in animal souls". I've also tried to avoid the terms Materialism and Physicalism.

(2023-06-14, 04:42 PM)Merle Wrote: [ -> ]I disagree. Brains can and do have thoughts, memories, subjective feelings, and utilize logic.

Monkeys have thoughts, memories and utilize crude logic. They also appear to have subjective feelings.

Here we go again, the endlessly repeated use of the invalid argument by assertion, plus the irrelevant observation that animals apparently have consciousness. It's becoming tiresome.

(2023-06-14, 12:59 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]It is poorly framed because whether or not an entity has (or, as you put it, "needs") a soul depends^[1] on whether or not it is conscious (and because "do what they do" is a strange way of referring to that which is potentially experiential), so the better framing of the question is:

Which of the following are conscious?

That is a completely different question. I understand that it is hard to tell if an animal is conscious. That is not what I am asking.

Again, the problem is that I was reading here that not only consciousness, but all memory and mental activity could not happen without a soul. That is clearly wrong. I was trying to get the other person to see it was wrong by getting him to agree that toads or monkeys can do their mental functions without having souls. 

To my complete surprise, I cannot find one person to say they agree with me on that. What can possibly be wrong with saying that, though you disagree with me on a lot of things, you agree with me that monkeys can do their mental functions even if it is true that they don't have souls? Sadly, after multiple times of asking that question, I am still waiting for the first person here to say they agree with me on that.

Perhaps everybody just misunderstands what I am asking. If they understood the question, I think they would agree.

(2023-06-14, 05:37 PM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]Are you deliberately avoiding the real issue or do you not understand the point at all?  Our brains certainly process information but that does not imply consciousness as unconscious computers do that.  What we want from you is an explanation of how unconscious matter can be responsible for consciousness.  Comparing us to animals does not answer the question.

Actually both are issues. I was seeing somebody saying that not only consciousness, but all memory functions require a soul. I was trying to at least get one point of agreement, that toads or monkeys don't need souls to do their toad-business or monkey-business in their brains.

Sciborg,

The problem of consciousness is a hard problem. We don't know where it comes from.

So far you have given us no convincing reason that matter cannot produce consciousness. Yes, you quote a lot of authorities saying it is so, but they really aren't giving a convincing reason why this is so.

Some of your sources say minds can't have thoughts about things. I simply do not agree. When frogs jump, for instance, they have thoughts about jumping. When they plan to jump, they have thoughts about future jumping. And so on. So whether frogs do or do not have souls, they have thoughts about jumping.

I certainly don't know how consciousness happens. I know that the brain is certainly key to what happens. Is something else involved? I don't know. But as I said many times, if something else is involved, it could not continue my self-consciousness without my brain.

(2023-06-14, 07:01 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]- Talk about whether a material brain can create consciousness and you're told the real discussion is whether Souls Need Brains.

How many times must I explain this to you? I was saying if hypothetically souls exist, the evidence shows they would not be able to continue our existence as ourselves without our brains.

Quote:- Talk about why you think Souls Need Brains is false and you're asked why you believe in souls, how animals don't have souls, how you believe in "magic" (whatever that means).

Huh? Regarding animals, I am talking about whether they can have thoughts about things, not about whether they have souls.

Regarding the question of how your views of consciousness differ with magic, you have given no answer. If you have an answer, why don't you give it? Can you not tell the difference between your views and magic?

Quote:In any case I would say Souls Need Brains is false because the stuff that makes a nail makes up a brain, and we've been told thinking a nail is conscious makes one "dumb as a nail".

And would you say that computers cannot add numbers because nails cannot add numbers, or that televisions cannot display a screen because nails cannot display a screen?

Just because a nail cannot do something, does not prove nothing else can do it.

Quote:Reading the writings of atheists Harris, Tallis, and Rosenberg I don't think the matter that makes up a nail, in greater volume with different arrangement, negates the reasons given why we don't think a nail has consciousness. Just as a nail doesn't have thoughts, subjective feels, rationality, or memory I don't think the brain can have those either.

And just as a nail does not satisfy thirst, or power a light bulb, or make a comfortable seat, therefore nothing can?

I don't agree with the argument that, if a nail cannot do something, than nothing else can do it.

Quote:Thus I don't think the Souls Need Brains claim holds. This doesn't mean there has to be a soul, just that the assertion is weak because there is no good argument for it to hold.

How could a soul remember without a brain? We see that when the brain is damaged in certain spots, the conscious self can lose the ability to remember.

How could the soul communicate with language without a brain? We see that when the brain is damaged in certain spots, the conscious self loses the ability to form sentences.

Quote:For me to even consider the idea that Souls Need Brains, I would need a convincing explanation for why the stuff that makes up a nail can produce the varied aspects of consciousness when it's making up parts of a human or parts of some animal.

My brain is not made up of the stuff that makes up nails.