Victory Dance!?
Posted on 11/06/2003 7:34:45 PM PST by Heartlander
If by saying that logic "works" you mean that one proposition is closer to some truth standard than another proposition, then you introduce another topic - truth - that does not ultimately exist if it does not exist independently of humankind and in a conscious entity. Truth by any other definition would not truly be truth. Ponder it.Uh oh, now I feel like I'm taking The Final Exam. (See esp. "Epistemology".)
OK. Truth exists whether we're here to observe it or not. Sure, it would be kind of irrelevant if there were no thinking entities around to notice what's true vs. what's false, but truth & falsity just are. Just like light & dark just are regardless whether there are humans around to see them, or high & low, or...???
Me, I'm trying to understand why this seeming retreat into word games & goalpost-moving. Are you trying to avoid having to recant your argument in public, is your Morton's Demon working overtime to prevent an internal crisis of faith, or do you really think that shifting the argument is a valid way of finding the truth?
Either mindless atoms can in principle create a brain that produces a conscious mind or they can't. If they can't, then it can only be because "consciousness" is a quality that derives from the individual components themselves (like mass) and not from their higher-order arrangements (how the neurons are connected together into a working information processor). But I say these collections of atoms we call "each other" exhibit obviously conscious thought as part of our mundane reality because of how our brains are wired together. All the evidence points to this conclusion; there is no evidence you can point to that it isn't.
There is no logical problem whatsoever with conscious beings existing who are made up of non-conscious parts. Thus there is no need for a God in order to explain consciousness.
Our guest lecturer may not know that one. Morton's Demon.
Thus was born the realization that there is a dangerous demon on the loose. When I was a YEC, I had a demon that did similar things for me that Maxwell's demon did for thermodynamics. Morton's demon was a demon who sat at the gate of my sensory input apparatus and if and when he saw supportive evidence coming in, he opened the gate. But if he saw contradictory data coming in, he closed the gate. In this way, the demon allowed me to believe that I was right and to avoid any nasty contradictory data. Fortunately, I eventually realized that the demon was there and began to open the gate when he wasn't looking.
C'mon Vade, I thought you knew that Satan is the one flying around in those UFOs. Didn't you learn anything from Dr. Hovind?
Yes, we agree -- maybe. We agree only if you agree with my comments. You haven't addressed them, yet you say we agree. Perhaps we do agree. I won't know until you specifically retract this, copied from your post 379: "Insofar as science is founded on propositions with no verifiable evidence, I maintain that there is a fundamental misunderstanding in your presuppositions." I addressed that in 380.
And this, copied from your post 374: " If you believe in science at all, then you already believe in a number of things that have no scientific evidence, so why not this [the Creator]?" I addressed that (or at least dismissed it) in 376.
Gee, I must have missed something, what "moral truths" have ever been established at all?
"No phenomenon is phenomenon unless it is an observed phenomenon."
-Wheeler
Though we could play “cat in a box” – Schroedinger…
Oh, BTW, I like your analogy too! Next time I'm arguing with a creationist engineer...
OK, I take back my suspicions about goalpost-shifting. I reread your article & your, my, Vade's, & PH's discussion on this thread. Let me see if I have your argument in a nutshell:
You say that science depends on some unproveable, unmeasurable assumptions. We all agree that these are necessary axioms.
You then ask, why can't we accept another unproveable, unmeasurable assumption - that consciousness requires God? Isn't this a double standard?
We say there's no reason to - just because a statement is unproveable & its claims are unverifiable doesn't mean it's an axiom. You say it is axiomatic, because unconscious atoms cannot combine to create a conscious person, because Descartes once said that an effect cannot be "greater" in some undefined sense than its cause. (Which I assume is equivalent to saying "The amount of some quality of the whole cannot be greater than that of the sum of its parts.")
This is where I accused you of committing the fallacy of composition. After rereading the thread, I'm certain that's your fundamental error in thinking here.
So I must ask you again: From what or whom did water get its fire-suppressionness? Why is the amount of fire-suppressionness contained in a mole of water a high value, when 2 moles of hydrogen & a mole of oxygen both possess large negative amounts of fire-suppressionness? The whole is not equal to the sum of the parts here. How can that be?
I can read. Can you read? There is no higher authority on what Darwin said in his published works than what he actually said in his published works. This has been established. The links in this post are enough, but note also this one and this one. We're talking about what Darwin said. On most other subjects, Gould is a later authority and might be used to refute Darwin. On the subject of what Darwin said, whenever Gould disagrees with Darwin Gould is simply wrong. The same can be said for Heartlander, except Heartlander cannot be construed as a "later authority," just "later."
The rest of your screech discredits itself.
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