The Plausibility of Atheism

dizerner

Re: The Plausibility of Atheism

Post by dizerner » Mon Oct 12, 2015 2:26 am

You realize how abstract it is when you say something "matters"? What does that even mean?

You say: "The shape of the thing matters. The process of the thing matters."

A coal or a diamond, burritos or poop, there is nothing "mattering" only the same things being rearranged. Yes they feel and look differently to our senses, but that is because they are arranged differently. When you add the word "matter" in you add something idea of value or meaning to you as a human being, I think? If I have a lump of clay, and I mold it into beautiful art, or I mold into something horribly disgusting, what does that "matter" to the cock roach that is crawling across it? It takes the metaphysical psyche of humanness to even add any meaning to the word "matter." So no amount of "mattering" adds any new matter or energy into the equation, it only rearranges what's already there. Whether "substance dualism" is true or false has no bearing on that statement, it's merely a red herring. regards.

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ApostateltsopA
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Re: The Plausibility of Atheism

Post by ApostateltsopA » Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:22 am

@dizerner

You are getting caught up in semantics. When I said it matters, I did not mean to imply that it had cosmic significance. I'm a bit surprised you decided to go there. What I meant was that function is contingent upon form. You are right a smashed brain has all the pieces of a not smashed brain. However it has little to none of the form of a not smashed brain. To equate them is to commit a category error.

So instead of wandering into metaphysical red herring land, please respond to my actual point.

You asked,
So how come when I smash a brain, all the "stuff" isn't still there?
The answer is because you destroyed the form. Just like smashed wings, hands, feet, and faces. They may have all the pieces, but they don't have all the capability.

What answer to your question would you have proposed?

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Re: The Plausibility of Atheism

Post by Jason » Wed Oct 14, 2015 9:21 am

ApostateltsopA,

I'd like to apologize for cutting into your leisure time, but hopefully you're gaining some measure of entertainment out of this discussion. Perhaps not on par with gaming, but still.

I'd like to comment on the issue of meaning and magic. You asked if I need to believe in magic (or even eternal qualities) in order to derive meaning. The answer is no. Even within Christian doctrine, my wife will not be my wife forever. So I'm inclined to cherish her while our partnership is contained to this life. Whatever lay beyond the horizon is somewhat unknown (Jesus was intentionally scant on details) but I can still cherish the temporal reality we inhabit.

However, I do not consider this to be comparable to the meaning one conjures within atheism. As a Christian, I take it on authority that life has value and meaning. So in that respect, my own inclination to find meaning is given objective confirmation. The eternal weight of that value bears little consequence to my way of thinking. If God had not offered us eternal life, I'd still be persuaded to treat life as precious because an authority greater than my own delusion has confirmed it. But a happy delusion is still a delusion, no matter how well you can articulate your love for your daughter. Now you said something a little disturbing, and I hope I'm simply misunderstanding you. You said that if your daughter had a brain injury, she would be somehow less than who she currently is. This idea perfectly illustrates the difference between our views. Do you find mentally retarded individuals to be less than human? Or do you just mean they have less cognitive function? The latter seems hardly worthy of mention.

While it's certainly true that our brains influence our thoughts and emotions, the reverse is also (bizarrely) true. I can decide, on a whim, to think about something rather horrible and my brain responds to my conjured-up image in order to produce stress hormones. Who is the one who decided to produce a horrific thought? Isn't it, in fact, the neuroscientists who tell us to be suspicious of anyone claiming they understand these functions of the brain? At best, we can postulate that the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are engaged in some kind of complex interplay. Which is science-speak for, "Yeah, it's magic." :-)

Now, on the subject of design I think you have misunderstood my argument from physicality. I'm making the point that you cannot merely appeal to a complex system as an argument for its existence. Of course we can infer design from complex systems since we have countless analogs. And your argument against my examples seems to be, "We know how those systems work, so no designer needed." That's why I'm pointing out that appeal to the system itself is not an argument against design, but an appeal to arranged complexity is a valid argument for design.

For example, we know that something cannot be derived from nothing. Matter does not come from non-matter and life does not come from non-life. That's what my silly Starbucks parable was meant to illustrate. We know this observationally and logically. So to claim that even a single molecule, much less a complex arrangement of molecules, came into existence all on its own strikes me as the magical claim here. Appeal to a designer, no matter how unlikely the sound of it, makes better sense of the data.

I do want to sincerely apologize for lumping you into the Dawkins camp and assuming you came here to evangelize atheism. When atheists arrive at a forum like this, the unfortunate assumption is that they are not here to play nice. You're an exception to the rule and I'm glad to see you're not of that ilk.

dizerner

Re: The Plausibility of Atheism

Post by dizerner » Thu Oct 15, 2015 1:22 pm

ApostateltsopA wrote:@dizerner

You are getting caught up in semantics. When I said it matters, I did not mean to imply that it had cosmic significance. I'm a bit surprised you decided to go there. What I meant was that function is contingent upon form. You are right a smashed brain has all the pieces of a not smashed brain. However it has little to none of the form of a not smashed brain. To equate them is to commit a category error.

So instead of wandering into metaphysical red herring land, please respond to my actual point.

You asked,
So how come when I smash a brain, all the "stuff" isn't still there?
The answer is because you destroyed the form. Just like smashed wings, hands, feet, and faces. They may have all the pieces, but they don't have all the capability.

What answer to your question would you have proposed?
It's you being unclear, so don't be "surprised" I decided to go there.

Okay, so what you meant by "mattering" was that you think capability is "stuff." Capability is just describing interactions of matter and energy. A meteor has the "capability" to destroy life on earth, but most meteors just float around. A wing has the "capability" to fly because of how matter and energy interact. Certain arrangements change how it appears to us that matter and energy interacts, but they don't add any matter or energy. These are the regular laws and materials of the universe. But just because they rearrange themselves and affect each other differently, does not mean new things are added or destroyed. The word capability again has with it meanings of 'intent." We describe an action that can be accomplished, and then we attribute that ability to the thing doing the accomplishing. But none of that is really happening or has any meaning: all that is happening is matter and energy are interacting according to set and regular laws. There is no "intent." So yes, feet, faces and wings, when connected to neural networks, can change the relative locations of certain atoms just like an apple falling from a tree. Does the apple have the "capability" of falling? When it falls to the ground is it no longer "capable"? Well, yea, but there's nothing new added physically or taken away physically, except that energy has obeyed the laws of physics and changed a state from one to the other. If we describe mere states as new physical things, than the constantly changing universe is constantly creating and destroying new physical things every time one atom moves in relation to another. If an apple rolls across the floor, we are getting constantly changing states. At one point of the apple rolling can we freeze frame and say "Aha! The apple in this particular frame is so unique it creates something entirely new that doesn't exist at any other point the apple is rolling!" Because to me, that's how you are wanting to describe consciousness. We are just matter and energy in free fall, so why as the apple falls or rolls along, does a state suddenly add a new physical thing called "consciousness." That makes no sense to me.

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Re: The Plausibility of Atheism

Post by ApostateltsopA » Sat Oct 17, 2015 2:47 am

Jason wrote:ApostateltsopA,

I'd like to apologize for cutting into your leisure time, but hopefully you're gaining some measure of entertainment out of this discussion. Perhaps not on par with gaming, but still.
No worries, I enjoy this sort of thing too, however I've got a major time comittment elsewhere for the next 4 weeks or so and will be rare here until I can get that squared away.
Jason wrote: I'd like to comment on the issue of meaning and magic. You asked if I need to believe in magic (or even eternal qualities) in order to derive meaning. The answer is no. Even within Christian doctrine, my wife will not be my wife forever. So I'm inclined to cherish her while our partnership is contained to this life. Whatever lay beyond the horizon is somewhat unknown (Jesus was intentionally scant on details) but I can still cherish the temporal reality we inhabit.

However, I do not consider this to be comparable to the meaning one conjures within atheism. As a Christian, I take it on authority that life has value and meaning. So in that respect, my own inclination to find meaning is given objective confirmation. The eternal weight of that value bears little consequence to my way of thinking. If God had not offered us eternal life, I'd still be persuaded to treat life as precious because an authority greater than my own delusion has confirmed it. But a happy delusion is still a delusion, no matter how well you can articulate your love for your daughter. Now you said something a little disturbing, and I hope I'm simply misunderstanding you. You said that if your daughter had a brain injury, she would be somehow less than who she currently is. This idea perfectly illustrates the difference between our views. Do you find mentally retarded individuals to be less than human? Or do you just mean they have less cognitive function? The latter seems hardly worthy of mention.
There are three things in these two paragraphs I'm picking up on. In the first paragraph it seems you are capable of finding meaning and value in temporary things. The second is your use of the word delusion. Why did you choose that word? The final one is that I understand our personalities and personas to be a function of our bodies, particularly our brains and the hormones produced elsewhere. So if someone's brain is damaged they are diminished in capacity in the same way that someone who loses an arm can't lift weights or type in the same capacity. I don't devalue them as a person. I just recognize our selves as disturbingly frail.
Jason wrote: While it's certainly true that our brains influence our thoughts and emotions, the reverse is also (bizarrely) true. I can decide, on a whim, to think about something rather horrible and my brain responds to my conjured-up image in order to produce stress hormones. Who is the one who decided to produce a horrific thought? Isn't it, in fact, the neuroscientists who tell us to be suspicious of anyone claiming they understand these functions of the brain? At best, we can postulate that the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are engaged in some kind of complex interplay. Which is science-speak for, "Yeah, it's magic." :-)
I don't agree with your assessment of magic, but I'm more interested in your description of how you can think of something and then your brain does something. Where do you think you are thinking from? I read that as my brain thinks something and then my brain releases chemicals.
Jason wrote: Now, on the subject of design I think you have misunderstood my argument from physicality. I'm making the point that you cannot merely appeal to a complex system as an argument for its existence. Of course we can infer design from complex systems since we have countless analogs. And your argument against my examples seems to be, "We know how those systems work, so no designer needed." That's why I'm pointing out that appeal to the system itself is not an argument against design, but an appeal to arranged complexity is a valid argument for design.
I disagree that "arranged complexity" is an indicator of design. In your examples when you want to argue for the use of arranged complexity you contrast something designed by a human with a less complex item found naturally. What I tried to explain is that we recognize human design, not from the complexity, but from our knowledge of humanity, and human design. Remember the hallmark of good design is simplicity, not complexity. As an example, a crescent wrench is a very simple design but a highly useful one. A crowbar is similarly simple, but tremendously handy.

However, the argument from design has a greater flaw. If you posit a designer, than the word designed becomes synonymous with the word exists. Everything that exists would be a product of the universe designer. So everything shows the hallmarks of design, which is to say nothing is at all identifiable as designed because there is nothing to contrast it with.
Jason wrote: For example, we know that something cannot be derived from nothing. Matter does not come from non-matter and life does not come from non-life. That's what my silly Starbucks parable was meant to illustrate. We know this observationally and logically. So to claim that even a single molecule, much less a complex arrangement of molecules, came into existence all on its own strikes me as the magical claim here. Appeal to a designer, no matter how unlikely the sound of it, makes better sense of the data.
I see this claim often, but it is not something we know. We don't have an example of nothing. To have nothing we need to not just have no matter, but also no energy, and no space, and no time. What we know is that items do not seem to spontaneously generate in space and time when surrounded by matter, energy or in a vacuum. That isn't at all the same thing.

If you really want to see some brain bending on the concept of 'nothing' there is a You Tube video where several quantum physicists talk about what nothing is and what that may mean for the universe. It's interesting but not really needed here. All I need here is to point out that we don't have any nothing to observe, and observation of it would have to be done with mathmatics, since we can't go to a place without time, space, energy and matter.
Jason wrote: I do want to sincerely apologize for lumping you into the Dawkins camp and assuming you came here to evangelize atheism. When atheists arrive at a forum like this, the unfortunate assumption is that they are not here to play nice. You're an exception to the rule and I'm glad to see you're not of that ilk.
Thank you, I'm really interested in conversation. I'm trying to engage in that without being offensive. I am aware that in a lot of ways challenging some of these ideas feels like a personal attack, and I'm trying hard to keep it clear that it is the ideas, not the people I'm challenging.

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Re: The Plausibility of Atheism

Post by Jason » Tue Oct 20, 2015 8:44 am

No worries, I enjoy this sort of thing too, however I've got a major time comittment elsewhere for the next 4 weeks or so and will be rare here until I can get that squared away.
That's understandable. I hope you'll continue to participate in the forum when you find the time. I enjoy having you here.
There are three things in these two paragraphs I'm picking up on. In the first paragraph it seems you are capable of finding meaning and value in temporary things. The second is your use of the word delusion. Why did you choose that word? The final one is that I understand our personalities and personas to be a function of our bodies, particularly our brains and the hormones produced elsewhere. So if someone's brain is damaged they are diminished in capacity in the same way that someone who loses an arm can't lift weights or type in the same capacity. I don't devalue them as a person. I just recognize our selves as disturbingly frail.
Yes, I can find meaning in temporary things. But without an authority higher than my own mind to confirm that meaning, I am stuck with a pretty delusion. I use the word delusion because when you intentionally believe things you know aren't true (such as meaning within a meaningless universe), it's choosing to believe a lie. I'm persuaded that the only honest philosophy for the atheist is nihilism. Sam Harris, in particular, strongly objects to this and I've patiently listened to him explain how you can have true meaning in a meaningless world. He's just not convincing to me. You mentioned not aligning with Sam on many points, but you seem to agree here. If you want me to speak more on this idea of authority and meaning, I can do so. If not, we can move onto something you find more interesting.
I don't agree with your assessment of magic, but I'm more interested in your description of how you can think of something and then your brain does something. Where do you think you are thinking from? I read that as my brain thinks something and then my brain releases chemicals.
Brains are physical organs. Thoughts are immaterial things. There's obvious interplay between them, but they are not the same thing because they have completely different properties. If I'm thinking of a red apple, you can't cut open my brain and locate an apple inside, even though, in a sense, I can "see" the apple by imagining one. The reductionist says we are nothing more than our brains, but this position is difficult to defend since even neuroscientists claim we don't understand this interplay between the material and immaterial properties. On a brain scan, you might see no difference between my older brother and me. Yet we have very different personalities. When I speak of thoughts making the brain act, this takes no special effort to prove. Just decide to lucidly ponder some tragic event and then observe the cascade of chemicals produced by your amygdala as they change your mood. The thought (which you decided to think) produced the physical response. So, at least in that instance, the immaterial part preceded the material part.
I see this claim often, but it is not something we know. We don't have an example of nothing. To have nothing we need to not just have no matter, but also no energy, and no space, and no time. What we know is that items do not seem to spontaneously generate in space and time when surrounded by matter, energy or in a vacuum. That isn't at all the same thing.

If you really want to see some brain bending on the concept of 'nothing' there is a You Tube video where several quantum physicists talk about what nothing is and what that may mean for the universe. It's interesting but not really needed here. All I need here is to point out that we don't have any nothing to observe, and observation of it would have to be done with mathmatics, since we can't go to a place without time, space, energy and matter.
When you say that we don't have an example of nothing, I'm beginning to understand where our methodologies diverge. When I make the claim that something cannot come from nothing, I'm making a philosophical argument, not a scientific argument (related but different). It's a shame that more scientists are not trained in this area, because you can't do good science without good philosophy. Try conducting an experiment without using sound logic and reason. If you did, you might arrive at the USDA Food Pyramid. :D

I like Aristotle's definition: "Nothing is what rocks dream about."

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Re: The Plausibility of Atheism

Post by ApostateltsopA » Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:24 pm

Hey Jason,

I'm able to interact with my phone a little. So no quotes and feel free to double back to anything you find interesring you feel I missed.

In terms of meaning what I see your statement as is an appeal to a necessary "absolute meaning" to give weight to any lesser meanings you feel you experience. I don't believe there is any accessable absolute meaning I've se3n no evidence of one. So from my perspective such a thing is delusional. I would call meaning the importance a person assigns to something percieved or thought of. That exists and can be demonstrated. The term delusional would then mean that I was incorrectly perciving the value I place, which is an unlikely occurance for most topics. I think you are undervaluing your own perceptions unfairly. Atheists would only need to be nihilists if we believed in absolute meanings. Since I believe in individual and gropu assigned meanings I'm not a nihlist.


On thoughts being immaterial I disagres with you. It is true that when I think of an apple there is not a physical apple in my brain. Just as when I write the word apple there is not a physical apple stuffed through my phone and into your computer. The letters are a symbol placeholder. Brains use electricity and chemical interactions to form these symbols. What you are talking about appears to be substance dualism. However the evid3nce does not support that position. We can show brain damage effecting people's thoughts but we have not demonstrated an immaterial interaction.

I know you th8nk uou did but what 8 see is an interaction between your conscious and unconscious brain parts. If you believe that thoughts are immaterial why do you think cutting the corpus collosium prevents the two halves of a brain from sharing thoughts?

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Re: The Plausibility of Atheism

Post by Jason » Tue Oct 20, 2015 4:00 pm

On meaning. . .

Your assessment of my view is correct. You say there is no evidence of absolute meaning, but what exactly do you mean by evidence here? Do you mean divine revelation? Some quantum law which dictates absolute meaning? An established rule of logic? I'd love to grapple with this a bit, but I need to know what you mean by evidence in this context. You, of course, know that I hold to divine revelation but if one is already sold on atheism, little can be said here that wouldn't be rejected prima facie.

On dualism. . .

Brains are physical organs so of course if you damage one, it will then impair cognition. Just like if you were to cut off my arm, it would impair my ability to carry heavy boxes. We all know what the organ of the brain does, but we have no idea what animates those chemical and electrical processes. Your claim is that the machine runs itself, but I wonder how you know that. How can machinery run itself? My computer only boots up when I press the button. If things like thoughts and poetry and equations are just recognized symbols created by the brain, then how would you even be able to weigh evidence? You are merely a personality created by electrical processes.

Of course, this is getting awfully close to navel-gazing and if you've read my opening remarks, you know where I stand on that. If we begin debating the meaning of the word "is" I'm going to take a long walk off a short cliff. Maybe you can steer us back into the realm of the practical. Perhaps a discussion on whether there's merit to supernatural claims? That sounds interesting.

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Re: The Plausibility of Atheism

Post by ApostateltsopA » Wed Oct 21, 2015 12:40 am

Jason,

I do not believe that the god hypothesis is falsifiable. That is to say it can not be proven or disproven. I also do not believe in divine revelation. I don't see how such revelation, if it actually happened, could be reliably distinguished from a false perception of divine revelation. So when I say there is no proof of absolute meaning, what I am getting at is we have no reliable means of perception for meaning on that scale. To me it looks more like a mental comfort to the fear of death, and of impermanence. If you want to examine divine revelation, we can do that, but it often gets personal. So I will simply say that I have never knowingly experienced any such thing. And that I reject the premise because those who report that they have offer highly conflicting testimony of what has been revealed to them. While nothing 'revealed' in such a fashion requires a supernatural explanation.

As an example, the Quran makes a big deal out of a very basic description of the life stages of a fetus during pregnancy. The earliest stage after insemination is referred to as "A spot of flesh" after translation. However the document is newer than farming and someone with access to slaughtered livestock, or humans, could make the observations the Koran is credited with divine inspiration on. Now had the Koran mentioned cell division at that time, then there would be much better evidence for a revelation beyond the means of the time.

On Brains,

Brains are not computers, they are organs. My point was that if thoughts had some immaterial component than one would expect material damage not to impede them. (But it does, patients with the corpus collosum surgery I spoke of have had information given to one side of the brain and hidden from the other, in a real and frightening way this surgery creates two people who now share a body.) The reason I reject immaterial thoughts is that I do not have evidence to support their existence. As a general rule I will reject anything asserted without evidence or argument, though some low value claims I may accept based on history between myself and the other person.

You are making the claim that there is more than physical processes going on in our brains. I'm simply stating that there is no evidence for such. You use language like "mere personality created by electrical processes". As opposed to what? Some spirit form animating a puppet body?

It is easy to use emotional language to set up an existential dilemma. To answer how I "know" we'd have to talk about what that word means in this context. Which is a whole separate conversation.

We can watch insects behave, do you think they have souls? What about robots designed to mimic insect behavior? We can look up and down the scale of sapience and see analogs in our behavior all through the animal kingdom. We can show that changes in body chemistry, or brain function have serious impacts on thinking and cognition. Where is evidence for an immaterial part? How would we even look for such evidence?

That segues neatly into the supernatural. Feel free to drop any of the above if you are tired of it. When I use the word supernatural, I often substitute a synonym of magic. Lately I've come to realize that supernatural might better be called unexplained. How would we identify supernatural events? If, for example, eye of newt were found to have the ability to manipulate weather when thrown into a cauldron and specific words were spoken, then it would seem that this latent property of frogs eyes would have a set of rules, and predictable behavior. That would be "magic" in the sense that it was a new and previously undiscovered technology, but it would still be part of the natural world. If the properties could not ever be explained with physical processes though, then what is it? We don't gain any explanatory power of the event calling it magic. It is just a substitution for "we don't know".

So I guess my answer is what do you mean by supernatural, and how do you think we could experience whatever it is you mean?

-The naturalistic fallacy
This is something I avoid. While I am willing to state I don't believe we could identify the supernatural with our available tools. I do not claim there is nothing supernatural. I don't have enough information. It could be there is working magic somewhere. If it exists its been very sneaky.

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Re: The Plausibility of Atheism

Post by Jason » Wed Oct 21, 2015 10:11 am

ApostateltsopA,

I read in your testimony that you grew up Lutheran and lost your faith in college when you discovered other worldviews. If you don't mind me asking, how long ago was that?

I've noticed a few common themes in what you've written so far and, in order to make some progress here, would like to take a stab at restating your main issues in my own words. It's pointless to argue details and subtleties when the whole enterprise is in question, you know? Please let me know if this sounds right to you:

1) If god exists and wants us to know he exists, then he's done a poor job of communicating that. Especially if so much rests on believing in him.

2) There are thousands of competing theistic worldviews, so it seems highly unlikely that one of them is correct. Especially if god is equitable and wants people to know him.

3) We have no way of knowing whether an event is supernatural because what we call magic might just be the result of natural forces we don't yet understand.

4) Scientific experiments have proven that the mind and the brain are the same.

5) Atheism feels like home.

I have incorporated your introductory post to round out the arguments. If this sounds like a good summary of your objections, I will grapple with these ideas and see what we can find out together. You let me know when to proceed.

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